SCOTUS - Trump Vs Colorado - 02-09-2024
Episode Summary:
The Supreme Court case centered around the state of Colorado's attempt to remove Donald Trump from the 2024 election ballot, citing his alleged involvement in an insurrection. Justice Clarence Thomas questioned the Colorado removal team for historical precedents of states removing federal candidates, highlighting the lack of examples and the unprecedented nature of Colorado's actions. The case delved into the interpretation of the 14th Amendment and whether it applied to presidential candidates, with justices and legal teams discussing historical contexts, the amendment's wording, and its implications for state and federal powers in election processes.
Throughout the oral arguments, justices expressed skepticism towards the arguments presented by Colorado's legal team, questioning the logical and historical basis of disqualifying a presidential candidate based on state-level decisions. The case brought to light concerns about federalism, state rights, and the potential for a single state to influence national electoral outcomes. MSNBC's coverage of the case suggested a consensus among justices that the ambiguity in the law should favor allowing candidates to run, thereby preserving the democratic process.
Donald Trump's reaction to the proceedings was positive, viewing the day in court as favorable to his case. He criticized the current administration's handling of various national and international issues, positioning himself as a strong candidate for the 2024 election. The case's outcome holds significant implications for the balance of state and federal powers in electoral matters, the interpretation of the 14th Amendment, and the broader context of American democracy and its resilience against divisive legal challenges.
Key Takeaways:
- The case examines Colorado's attempt to disqualify Trump from the 2024 ballot over insurrection claims.
- Justice Thomas highlighted the lack of precedent for a state removing a federal candidate.
- Discussions focused on the interpretation of the 14th Amendment and the balance between state and federal electoral powers.
- Justices showed skepticism toward Colorado's arguments, suggesting a preference for maintaining electoral inclusivity.
- The outcome of this case could significantly impact the legal foundations of American democracy and the balance of power between state and federal authorities in electoral matters.
Predictions:
- The Supreme Court may rule in favor of allowing Trump on the ballot, emphasizing electoral inclusivity.
- A ruling against Colorado could set a precedent limiting states' powers in federal elections.
Key Players:
- President Donald Trump
- Secretary of State Jenna Griswold
- Justice Clarence Thomas
- Justice Kagan
- Justice Sotomayor
- Justice Gorsuch
- Justice Kavanaugh
- Justice Kitanji Jackson
- Justice Amy Coney Barrett
- Justice John Roberts
SCOTUS - Trump Vs Colorado - 02-09-2024
Could that be incoming? It was a very good day for Donald Trump. After all, in the Supreme Court oral arguments on the Colorado ballot removal case, we've got the highlights. We covered the full thing when it was live here on our channel.
And so if you want to watch the full thing in total, be sure to watch that full video. But we got the highlights condensed and consolidated. And a lot of what we heard today is a lot of what we've been saying here. Exactly. In fact, I thought Kitanji was asked the explicit question about why was the word president not included in the sentence if it applied to the president.
We're all scratching our heads going, wow. So if Ketanji is on board, if Judge Kagan is skeptical, if Soto mayor maybe is on board, are we going to have a 90 opinion? We're going to see? But even MSNBC, their reaction is saying, yeah, this is pretty bad for the Colorado ballot removal litigants, because what they're asking the court to do is insane. And we're going to hear what happened.
I've got a bunch of the highlights, some very good clips before we get into the reaction. And of course, Donald Trump also had some reaction to this as well. Jenna Griswold was also on scene. We'll see what she looked like after she was leaving. Looked like she may have been a little unhappy with the status of the oral arguments, but starting the day off, was Judge Clarence Thomas one of the best of all time?
He was asking Jason Murray about his position on examples of when a state removed a federal candidate from the ballot. Remember, this is about removing Trump off of the 2024 election ballots. Colorado said that he is allowed to be removed. The lower level court said that Trump committed an insurrection, but the 14th amendment didn't apply. Then the Supreme Court in Colorado reversed that and said that it does.
Trump cannot be on the ballot. So what Clarence Thomas is asking, he's asking the Colorado removal team, what examples do you have of other states that have removed federal presidential candidates from the list? Give me some examples, please. States have created under their article one and article two powers to run elections. But it would seem that particularly after Reconstruction, after the compromise of 1877, and during the period of redeemers, that you would have that kind of conflict.
There were a plethora of Confederates still around. There were any number of people who would continue to either run for state offices or national offices. So that would suggest that there would at least be a few examples of national candidates being disqualified, if your reading is correct. Well, there were certainly national candidates who were disqualified by Congress, refusing to seat them. I understand that, but that's not this case.
Did states disqualify them? That's what we're talking about here. I understand Congress would not seat them. Other than the example I gave, no. But again, your honor, that's not surprising, because there wouldn't have been.
States certainly wouldn't have the authority to remove a citizen. So what's the purpose of the section three states were sending people? The concern was that the former confederate states would continue being bad actors, and the effort was to prevent them from doing this. And you're saying that. Well, this also authorized states to disqualify candidates.
So what I'm asking you for, if you are right, what are the examples? Well, your honor, the examples are states excluded many candidates for state office, individuals holding state offices. We have a number of published cases of states. I understand that the states controlling state elections and state positions. What we are talking about here are national candidates.
I understand you look at phoner or foot, Shelby, foot or McPherson. They all talk about, of course, the conflict after the civil war. And there were people who felt very strongly about retaliating against the south, the radical Republicans, but they did not think about authorizing the south to disqualify national candidates. And that's the argument you're making. And what I would like to know is, do you have any examples of this?
Many of those historians have filed briefs in our support in this case, making the point that the idea of the 14th Amendment was that both states and the federal government would ensure rights, and that if states failed to do so, the federal government certainly would also step in. But I think the reason why there aren't examples of states doing this is an idiosyncratic one of the fact that elections worked differently back then. States have a background power under Article two and the 10th amendment to run presidential elections. They didn't use that power to police ballot access until about the 1890s. And by the 1890s, everyone had received amnesty, and these issues had become moot.
So I don't think the history tells us, sort of look at Justice Thomas's questions sort of from the 30,000 foot level. I mean, the whole point of the 14th amendment was to restrict state power, right? States shall not bridge privileges, immunity. They won't deprive people of property without due process. They won't deny equal protection.
And on the other hand, it augmented federal power under section five. Congress has the power to enforce it. So wouldn't that be the last place that you'd look for authorization for the states, including confederate states, to enforce, implicitly authorized to enforce the presidential election process. That seems to be a position that is at war with the whole thrust of the 14th Amendment and very ahistorical indeed. John Roberts, so nice exchange between those two.
We're always concerned about John Roberts because he's a little bit squishy on some issues. But the breakdown is, what was the basis of all of this? What were we trying to do? We didn't want the states to have more unruly power. Right.
Like, we just got done with a civil war. We kind of wanted to give the feds a little bit more authority, make sure the 14th Amendment, the Reconstruction amendments, all kind of synced up all the states. And so you're saying that as a result of that, which gave the feds a lot more power and kind of mandated that we're all under these reconstruction rules now. Like, game's over. This is the new set.
This is the. Know mom's back home. This is the new game. You're saying that in that framework, you also gave one single state the right to disqualify, again, a federal president. Okay, you say that.
Okay. And did anybody do it? No. Okay. So it just feels like it's out of alignment.
Roberts is pulling that in, and Clarence Thomas, of course, hit that mark as well. Now, Gorsuch asked a very good question that basically stumped the other side. And this is the Colorado litigant who is trying to make this argument. But the question is about whether or not the 14th amendment is self executing. So when something happens, does Congress have to pass legislation?
Do you have to have a trial to find someone's an insurrectionist? Or does it just happen? Because what they're arguing in Colorado is that it just happened. It's self executing, because they need that to be the argument, because Congress didn't do anything else. They actually acquitted Trump of insurrection in the Senate.
Right. So there was no legislation that was passed to enable all of this to happen. They just said, after January 6, Trump is now an insurrection. And he. I guess the question is, what happens then?
If he's an insurrectionist and he's now disqualified from office, what happens to the people who are under the president? So does he still have any power? I mean, if it's automatic and he's disqualified on January 7, does he have any power at all to say anything to anybody? Here's Judge Gorsuch. Three speaks about disqualification from holding office.
You say he is disqualified from holding office from the moment it happens. Correct. But nevertheless, it operates. You say that there's no legislation necessary. I thought that was the whole theory of your case.
And no procedure happens automatically. Well, certainly you need a procedure in order to have any remedy to enforce the disqualification, which is. That's a whole separate question. That's. The de facto doctrine doesn't work here.
Okay, put that aside. He's disqualified from the moment self executing done. And I would think that a person who would receive a direction from that person, the president, former president, in your view, would be free to act as he or she wishes without regard to that, he's disqualified. I don't think so. Because I think, again, the de facto officer doctrine would nevertheless come into play to say, this is no de facto.
That doesn't work, Mr. Murray, because de facto officer is to ratify the conduct that's done afterward and insulate it from judicial review. Put that aside. I'm not going to say it again. Put it aside.
Okay. I think Justice Lee is asking a very different question, a more pointed one, a more difficult one for you. I understand, but I think it deserves an answer. On your theory, would anything compel a lower official to obey an order from, in your view, the former president? I'm imagining a situation where, for example, a former president was.
A president was elected, and they were 25, and they were ineligible to office. But nevertheless, they were. No, we're talking about section three. Please don't change the hypothetical. Okay?
Please don't change the hypothetical. I know. I like doing it, too, but please don't do it. The point I'm trying to make is he's disqualified from the moment he committed an insurrection. Whoever it is, whichever party that happens, boom, it happened.
What would compel. And I'm not going to say it again, so just try and answer the question. If you don't have an answer, fair enough. We'll move on. What would compel a lower official to obey an order from that individual?
Because ultimately, we have statutes and rules. No. So he's going to go out. Right? And Gorsuch left it alone after that.
He said, well, okay, so you just say it's automatic. So, like, the country doesn't have a president. Like, on January 7, it's all done because it's self executing. Right? It's obviously logically insane.
And Gorsuch calls him out appropriately. We got a quick one from Kavanaugh. He says, you know, you guys keep saying that the state should be free to remove him because he's been charged with an insurrection. And if there's no mechanism to remove him. Country's going to be subsumed in Trump's tyranical know, utopia.
But can't we just charge him with insurrection? Can't we just indict him if you think that he actually was an insurrectionist? Or do we have to have these little fake hearings where you just incorporate Liz Cheney's January 6 report into the trial record? What is the point of having the insurrection statute if we don't actually use it? He had the opportunity to call witnesses remotely.
He didn't use all of his time at trial. There was ample process here. And this is how ballot access determinations in election cases are decided all the time. Okay, second question. Some of the rhetoric of your position.
I don't think it is your position, but some of the rhetoric of your position seems to suggest, unless the states can do this, no one can prevent insurrectionists from holding federal office. But obviously, Congress has enacted statutes, including ones still in effect. Section 23 80 of title 18 prohibits insurrection. It's a federal criminal statute. And if you're convicted of that, you are shall be disqualified from holding any office.
There you go. And so there is a federal statute on the books, but President Trump has not been charged with that. So what are we to make of that? Two things, your honor. Section 23 80 was initially enacted about sick.
He had the opportunity to call. Great question. Right? He wasn't prosecuted. Nobody charged him with anything.
And he goes on to say, essentially, that the states have other power the states can delegate to themselves. His main argument was, the states have plenary power to regulate their elections. And the judges did not buy into that at all. In fact, if the states do have all of the power to regulate those elections and just say who's on the bench or not, isn't that going to open the floodgates for this type of domino effect? Right?
This is the same thing we've been talking about here. One state will do it. It'll be a domino effect. It'll go down all over the country, and it will bedlam and madness and chaos. And again, they don't really care about that, because the left controls the trial lawyers, right, and the courts, many of them, and the secretaries of states, like they are in the infrastructure.
So if the states can regulate the elections and just disqualify Trump, they're going to win that battle. Right? That is a game that they can play. And if they have to have the american people actually vote for something, that is not a game they can win. So they're very unhappy about that, which is why they have to change the rules.
Fortunately, John Roberts seems like he gets it. If Colorado's position is upheld, surely there will be disqualification proceedings on the other side, and some of those will succeed. Some of them will have different standards of proof. Some of them will have different rules about evidence. Maybe the Senate report won't be accepted and others because it's hearsay.
Maybe it's beyond a reasonable doubt, whatever. In very quick order, I would expect, although my predictions have never been correct, I would expect that goodly number of states will say, whoever the democratic candidate is, you're off the ballot, and others for the republican candidate, you're off the ballot. And it'll come down to just a handful of states that are going to decide the presidential election. That's a pretty daunting consequence, certainly, your honor, the fact that there are potential frivolous applications of a constitutional provision isn't a reason. Well, no, hold on.
I mean, you might think they're frivolous, but probably the people who are bringing them may not think they're frivolous. Insurrection is a broad term, and if there's some debate about it, I suppose that will go into the decision. And then eventually what we would be deciding whether there was an insurrection when one president did something as opposed to when somebody else did something else. Yep, you nailed it, John Roberts. That's exactly what they're asking you to do.
They want the courts to handle all this stuff, and every state becomes its own, I guess, like little country where they just get to decide who's on the ballot and who's not. And the courts don't want to dig into that. Right. And I think this was a mistake that their side made when they were going through these arguments, they kept going back to the trial. They kept saying, well, in this case, Trump had ample opportunity, he had ample process and insurrection.
And it's not going to, we don't really care about that man. We care about the 14th amendment and about what this is going to do to the entire process throughout the country moving forward. Like, the court has to deal with the rest of the country. And they kept bringing it back to just Trump, right? They're so deluded and fixated on the man that they can't even think about the next consequences.
They can't see three inches in front of their face. It's going to cause the country to fall apart. And thank God we got the Supreme Court apparently has some sense now. Kitanji was also asking some amazing questions. So was Judge Kagan.
We're like, whoa, what the heck, the only one was Soto mayor, who is kind of a little bit waffly. We'll see if she comes around. But here's Keitanji. She says, you know, we are arguing about whether the 14th amendment applies to the president in the first place. Remember that Judge Sarah B.
Wallace in Colorado said that? It did not said, yes, Trump technically committed an insurrection. There was an insurrection. He engaged in. It said stuff, blah, blah, blah.
But the 14th amendment didn't apply to him because it says senators, representatives, other people, and it skips over president or vice president, and then it says all other civil offices. And they say that the president is included in the other civil offices, but it doesn't make sense because it feels like it's leaving, like, the biggest position out. And that's what we've been saying here for months. Read it. Look.
Felt like a broken record, for crying out loud. So about jumped out of our seat when we heard this one from rising again in the context of these sort of local elections as opposed to focusing on the presidency. Two points on that, Justice Jackson. First is that, as I discussed earlier, there isn't the same history of states regulating ballot access at this time. So ballot access rules to restrict presidential candidates wouldn't have existed.
They wouldn't have been raised one way or another. Right, but I'm not making a distinction between ballot access and anything else. Understood. But the more broad point I want to make is that what is very clear from the history is that the framers were concerned about charismatic rebels who might rise through the ranks up to and including the presidency of the United States. But then why didn't they put the word president in the very enumerated list in section three?
The thing that really is troubling to me is I totally understand your argument, but they were listing people that were barred and president is not there. And so I guess that just makes me worry that maybe they weren't focusing on the president. And, for example, the fact that electors of vice president and president are there suggests that really what they thought was, if we're worried about the charismatic person, we're going to bar insurrectionist electors, and therefore, that person is never going to rise. Bingo. Bingo.
That is exactly right from Judge Kitanji. Wow. Nailed it. Right? And that's exactly the proper analysis of that thing.
Yes, it's the electors. And you can see it in the text. Just follow the sequence of the writing. And she's a left judge, much right. And so we're going, okay, this is looking pretty good here.
Pretty nice. Because it's exactly right. And remember, she's a criminal defense attorney and we kind of live and die by those statues. Like, what does that say? Okay, he was not there.
This is here, this, he was not there. He was not doing that thing. So she's really combing through that. And if she joins in the majority in reversing this and she brings Kagan over, we'll see. Kagan's coming up next.
Let's see, came up in the debates in Congress over section three where reverty Johnson said, why haven't you included president and vice president in the language? And Senator Morrell responds, we have. Look at the language. Any office under the United States. Yes, but doesn't that at least suggest ambiguity?
And this sort of ties into Justice Kavanaugh's point. In other words, we had a person right there at the time saying what I'm saying. The language here doesn't seem to include president. Why is that? And so if there's an ambiguity, why would we construe it to, as Justice Kavanaugh pointed out, against democracy?
Well, Robert D. Johnson came back and agreed with that. Reading any office is clear. The constitution says about 20 times. No, I'm not going to that.
Let me just say. So your point is that there's no ambiguity with having a list and not having president in it, with having a history that suggests that they were really focused on local concerns in the south with this. All right. So good exchange there. If it meant president, it should say president.
It's pretty obvious. And it's not really debatable. It's about senators. They were thinking about presidents because they talked about the electors of the president and the vice president, but they didn't mention the president specifically. And even Judge Kagan is in on this.
Okay. Judge Kagan, also on the left, very on the left, says the question is about why should one state be allowed to dictate how the entire country goes because they disqualify somebody. And the idea is, remember, this is already happening. Colorado disqualified Trump. Chenna bellows from Maine use this legal concept called collateral estoppel issue preclusion to say that that is essentially binding on Maine because they don't want to relitigate everything, full faith and credit between the courts and all that stuff.
And so it transfers over to Maine and she just enters it, doesn't even need a hearing. So one state causes the domino effect and eventually the whole country now splits apart because of these people just trying to keep Trump off the ballot. Here's Judge Kagan, most boldly I think that the question that you have to confront is why a single state should decide who gets to be president of the United States. In other words, this question of whether a former president is disqualified for insurrection. To be president, again, is, just say it.
It sounds awfully national to me. So whatever means there are to enforce it would suggest that they have to be federal national. Know, if you weren't from Colorado and you were from Wisconsin or you were from Michigan, and know, what the Michigan secretary of state did is going to make the difference between whether candidate a is elected or candidate b is mean. That seems quite extraordinary, doesn't it? Yes.
No, your honor, because ultimately, it's this court that's going to decide that question of federal constitutional eligibility and settle the issue for the nation. And certainly, it's not unusual that questions of national importance come up. Well, I suppose this court would be saying something along the lines of that a state has the power to do it, but I guess I was asking you to go a little bit further and saying, why should that be the right rule? Why should a single state have the ability to make this determination not only for their own citizens, but for the rest of the nation? Yeah, because article two gives them the power to appoint their own electors as they see fit.
But if they're going to use a federal constitutional qualification as a ballot access determinant, then it's creating a federal constitutional question that then this court decides. And other courts, other states, if this court affirms the decision below determining that President Trump is ineligible to be president, other states would still have to determine what effect that would have on their own state's law and state. I mean, if we affirmed and we said he was ineligible to be president, yes, maybe some states would, you know, we're going to keep him on the ballot anyway. But I mean, really, it's going to have, as Justice Kagan said, the effect of Colorado deciding. And it's true.
I just want to push back a little bit on, well, it's a national thing because this court will decide it. You say that we have to review Colorado's factual record with clear error as the standard of review. So we would be stuck. The first mover state here, Colorado, we're stuck with that record. Okay, so she's talking about what can the court do to the lower court's ruling?
You've heard of the phrase de novo, meaning the court can just look at the whole thing brand new, like with a fresh pair of glasses, like it's all fresh, or is that not the right standard. He's saying, oh, no, you can't. Like, we don't want you to reconsider. And look at the Colorado lower level court. You have to only review the record for clear error, meaning you can't change it unless you see something that was clearly erroneous, that was done by the court.
Otherwise, you got to let it stand. And so Amy Coney Barrett's saying, hey, if that's the case, then you say, we can decide this, but we can't decide it because you're saying the constitutional standard is clear error because the states can do whatever they want. So you just said we could fix it, but now we can't fix it. So what is it? And I don't want to get into the record.
I mean, maybe the record is great, but what if the record wasn't, I mean, what if it wasn't a fulsome record? What if the hearsay rules are one offs? Or what if this is just made by the secretary of state without much process at all? How do we review those factual findings? Why should clear error review apply?
And doesn't that just kind of buckle back into this point that Justice Kagan was know that we made with Mr. Mitchell, too, that it just doesn't seem like a state call? Three points, your honor. The first is that ordinarily, of course, this court reviews factual findings for clear error. But President Trump made the point in his reply brief that sometimes on constitutional questions that require a uniform resolution, this court can do something more like a Bose corp.
Style independent review of the factual record. And we would have no objection to that, given that the record here really, the facts that are disputed here are incredibly narrow. The essence of our case is President Trump's own statements that he made in public view for all to see. But then that's saying that in this context, which is very high stakes, if we review the facts essentially de novo, you want us all to just watch the video of the ellipse and then make a decision without any deference to or guidance from lower court fact finding? That's unusual.
Ultimately, President Trump himself urges this court to decide the merits of his eligibility on the factual record here at page two of his brief. He's never, at any point in this proceeding, suggested there was something else that needed to be in the factual record, any other witnesses that he wanted to call to present his case. And again, the essence of our case is his own statements, and in particular, his own videotaped statements on the ellipse. A lot of this was, I think, a mistake because the court is not going to want to do this for every case that lands on their desk. And they're going to want to try to figure out a framework to let the lower level courts.
Okay, if they're saying, okay, yeah, actually states can remove people from the ballot, what are the rules? How does it all work? Like, we know, age 35, you're not on there. Not a natural. Okay, not on there.
Got it. Third term, not on there. But how does it work for insurrection? And he's saying, well, kind of the courts can decide. And then he goes back to Trump's case.
But they're not asking about Trump's case. They're asking about the rules to decide whether or not they should even do something like this in the first place. And he just goes right back to Trump. Mr. Murray, just to circle back to, I'm sorry to interrupt, but yeah, Gordon cut him off.
He cut him off. Left it. Wanted to circle back to where Justice Kagan was. Do you agree that the state's powers here, over its ballot for a federal officer election, have to come from some constitutional authority? Members of this court have disagreed about that.
I'm asking you, the majority of this court has said that those powers come from article two, but we think that the result is the same whether the court locates it in article two or in a reserve power under the 10th amendment. But you accept that this court has held, you're not contesting this or asking us to revisit that decision in Thornton or term limits or whatever you want to call it, that it has to come from some federal constitutional authority. All right, so digging it back into, he says the state has plenary power to just basically run however they want, right, and qualify people or disqualify people. So it was not good for their side. It was good for America, because this was logical and reasonable from the very beginning.
This idea that a single state could just declare an insurrection with a five day trial with no process, really at all, and then throw them off the ballot and that would stand was insane. But a lot of people were saying that this was a great way to save american democracy. A lot of history professors, a lot of MSNBC contributors, all these people all over the mainstream media, all saying this is a historic case of importance to save America, democracy and all stuff, and they got obliterated, right. Their arguments are bad. Their logic is bad.
They are blinded by their demented tds. And here is what they sounded like on MSNBC. Andrew, let me ask you first, because it seemed to us, in listening to this so closely for the last 2 hours, 19 minutes or so that there was broad agreement across the usual political division lines, that there was a lot of ambiguity in this process, and that ambiguity would favor keeping the candidate, Donald Trump, on the ballot. I agree with you. My takeaway from this is you were counting the votes.
Remember, Justice O'Connor famously said when she was asked, what's it like to be on the Supreme Court? It's about counting to five here. There is clearly, I think, five, definitely five, not nine votes that are going to reverse this case. Point that you made about ambiguity was raised by various justices, meaning that if it's not clear, isn't it shouldn't sort of favor having somebody being allowed to run and thus our ability to vote for that person. There was a lot of concern about having a state have the power to interfere with a federal election.
It's not a state interfering with a state election. Should they really be able to weigh in on this? And then there was an interesting across, as your point, across different justices, Katanji Jackson, Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Thomas, who is very active in this oral argument, talking about the history of this amendment, talking about how it really dealt with the confederacy and the concern about Confederates burrowing in to confederate states and sort of influencing federal elections. All right, so they're all pretty muted these days. Yeah, a lot of the know, they're actually calling it accurately on the reaction there.
But here is another bad reaction from MSNBC. This was a short one from Neil cat, y'all. And here is what that looks like from MSNBC. Here's a short one. He says, yeah, it's pretty bad.
I've watched over 400 Supreme Court arguments. I've done 50 myself. I would tell you this argument did not go well for the Trump challengers, and that's to put it mildly. I probably have some other adjectives that I won't say on. Oh, he mad, isn't he?
He mad. So, yeah, he probably has some other adjectives that he doesn't want to split in there. So we know what you're feeling, man. We know. I mean, I don't empathize with you, but it looks like you're pretty upset.
We can see that. So not happy with what happened there. Other adjectives for how it worked. Here's Jenna Griswold, who was walking out of court. This came over from Laura Loomer on X at Laura Loomer.
She says that somebody was there. They were asking Jenna Griswold about her funding from George Soros, secretary of State Griswold how much did Soros pay you to kick Trump off the ballot? Oh, it's crazy eyes. Why do you take Soros donations? How much did Soros pay you?
She didn't look like that. That was the look of death right there. Did you see that look of death right there? I'm going to have you murdered and your whole family. Look at those eyes, man.
She will do it. She'll do it. If Trump wins, someone better keep an eye on her. Okay? When Trump wins, someone better keep a tab on.
Ugh. I can feel her, like, putting the face paint on, you know what I'm saying? Like the Rambo hat on, like the face paint. Listening to something like, in a cabin in the woods. Know, that could go bad like that.
I can just envision it now. Here's Donald Trump. Trump came out, he had some reaction to this. He spoke immediately after the Supreme Court had their oral arguments. He said he listened in.
Let's listen to the former president. Had a good day in court. Let's see. I don't even know if we have anymore. I'm not sure that we even have a republican candidate, somebody running, but not making any impact.
So, as you know, we won Iowa, we won New Hampshire in records, each one a record. We think we're going to do very well. I'm heading out right now to Nevada for the caucus and the caucuses, and I think we're going to do very well there. All polls indicate we're in the 90s, maybe more than the 90s. We certainly did well in a primary that didn't matter.
They voted very nicely, and we have tremendous support from the people of our country. They hate what's happening at the border. They hate what's happening just generally. We're not a respected country anymore. We're laughed at all over the world.
They're laughing at it and they hate what's happening. They hate seeing it. They love our country. They want it to come back, and we're going to do that. If you think about it, there's an airplane now.
Could there be anything else? I wonder if there's like a boat horn that's going to be coming up in this audio. Had the results of the election different, you wouldn't have the ukrainian situation with Russia. You would not have had an attack on Israel, which was so horrible. You would not have had inflation.
You wouldn't have China talking about Taiwan. You wouldn't have any of the problems that we have today. Iran was broke when I left. They had no money to give to Hamas they had no money to give to Hezbollah. They have 200 billion plus, as you probably know, people don't like to admit it.
They certainly control Iraq. And Iraq has another 300 billion, a very rich group of countries. And, you know, Iraq should have never happened. It was a balance against Iran and we blew out the balance. And now Iran has essentially Iraq.
And Iraq doesn't like saying that, but that's the way it is. It's a shame. The world is in tremendous danger. We're in danger of possibly a world war three. And we have a man who's absolutely every day the worst president in the history of our country, can't put two sentences together.
He's not going to be able to negotiate with Putin or Xi, Kim Jong un, North Korea, not going to be able to negotiate with anybody. All he knows how to do is drop bombs all over the place, meaningless bombs, except they kill a lot of people, cost a lot of money. Every time you see a bomb, it's another million dollars, and it actually sets us back. We have peace through strength. This should not be happening.
The Middle east is blowing up. A lot of people are being killed, and it's so unnecessary. All right, Mr. President, thank you for that. So a good day in the Supreme Court for Donald Trump, for America.
As the justices were calling out the other side for their insanity, I mean, there's absolutely a real possibility that we have a nine to zero opinion coming out, and that would be the right call. That is something that I think would show uniformity amongst the court. It would show that this type of election litigation is totally inappropriate. And I think that there might be some good carryover on this, honestly, for the immunity case. Now, you can read this both ways.
This morning on our locals at watchingthewatchers locals.com, a great question came up, which was about what happens if the Supreme Court is trying to split the baby, right? Trying to say, we're going to give Trump a 90 on this one, but we're going to then rule against him on immunity or something else. Right. To allow those prosecutions to go forward, say we'll put him on the ballot, but the criminal prosecutions can go forward. And there is some politics in the Supreme Court, obviously, because a lot of the Supreme Court's power, as we talked about this morning, comes from its legitimacy, from its credibility.
And if it doesn't have any of that, it doesn't have any power. So if they do that, if they make that decision to split that, maybe that's a political decision, that is something that can happen. But the alternative is that what the court is doing is anchoring in drawing a line in the sand to say that there is no appropriate way to allow the states to attack the executive. Right. The states don't get to just decide that a president can be shackled.
It's a federalism issue. Right. A state's rights versus a federalism issue. And so if the states can't unilaterally remove themselves, can the states unilaterally prosecute a president, which might ultimately lead to consequences that might jeopardize the national election. Right.
In other words, prosecutions are being used as swords to go attack your political opponents. And that is a key reason why we have immunity in the first place to prevent all of that. Right? So if the judges are inclined to say, we want to protect the power of the presidency against the state attacks, if they're inclined to do that here, there might be some basis that they do that in the immunity case. Right.
Kind of bodes well that they're thinking this way now. It's Donald Trump. We know that they're all going to be insurrection fever there. And Trump introduces a whole new set of variables. So we'll see how the immunity case goes.
But I think this, especially if it's a 90 opinion, as it sounds like it might be, I think this is voting well for the power of the presidency, which is really what we're talking about. Can states disqualify either the candidate for that office or essentially the person in that office by charging them with crimes that they just decide on their own are criminal without any real federal oversight of know, can RICO, Fanny or Alvin Bragg just decide to do those things? And then similarly, can Jack Smith do that? So we're going to be here and continuing to cover all of this. This was a historic day, my friends.
You don't often hear election cases like this that are going to be this consequential for the whole country. And so we're grateful that we got to spend that time together with you here today. And there's going to be a lot more on this, right? There's going to be a ruling. We'll read it here, cover it here.
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