not only the e. jean carroll damages but also settle the more than $400 million that he owes stemming from the civil fraud trial. of course, his chief financial officer pleading guilty today on perjury charges. a lot on the line for donald trump. >> thank you so much. that wraps up the hour for me. you can always reach me on social media at jd balart and you can watch clips from our show on youtube. thank you for the privilege of your time. "andrea mitchell reports" starts right now. right now on "andrea mitchell reports," in a unanimous decision, the u.s. supreme court keeps donald trump on the ballot. not just in colorado, but across the entire nation. securing the republican front-runner's position ahead of super tuesday. the former president will respond from mar-a-lago in a moment. and is tomorrow the end for

nikki haley? what she needs to prove on super tuesday to stay in the race. and if she does not stay, will she abide by the rnc pledge to endorse the nominee? what she's signaling now. >> the rnc is now not the same rnc. >> you're no longer bound by that pledge. >> no, i think i'll make what decision i want to make. >> and what the u.s. is now saying about the war in gaza. could harsher words turn into a change in policy toward israel? good to be with you. i'm katy tur in for andrea mitchell. the supreme court just gave donald trump's candidacy a big win. in a unanimous 9-0 ruling, the justices declared stated have no authority over federal candidates, overruling colorado

supreme court's decision citing the constitution's insurrection clause to disqualify donald trump from the primary ballot. quote, congress rather than the states, are responsible for enforcing section three against federal office holders and candidates. colorado primary's tomorrow during super tuesday and this decision secures donald trump's place on that ballot. what the colorado secretary of state is saying in response. janet griswold who is still saying he's an oath breaking insurrectionist will join me in a moment. while colorado brought this case, the ruling sweeps across the nation, rendering moot similar chances for maine and illinois. in plain terms, the court said donald trump will stay on the ballot everywhere. trump himself will respond in a moment from mar-a-lago. joining me now is garrett haake who just got down to palm beach literally moments ago. and nbc news justice and intelligence correspondent, ken

dilanian. garrett, you just got there. this is obviously good news for donald trump and his candidacy. what's the former president likely to say today? >> reporter: yeah, an expected ruling today. not a particularly surprising one but one donald trump is likely to use as fuel for his campaign as i expect him to link it to all the other court cases. remember, the way he talks about these court issues is that they are all forls of what they call election interference. i think you'll see him declare victory today against one effort to keep him off the ballot and try to link it to the jack smith case in washington, d.c. perhaps even to the documents case here in florida. they hope that their supporters view all of this as efforts to stop him where voters won't. and i think that's what we're likely to hear from donald trump today. he talked about this being a big day for tomorrow. he tries to make these cases sound like they are much more

than about him. for example, the way he talks about presidential immunity, something the supreme court will also decide in a couple of months is that it's important for the presidency, not him specifically. so i expect him to try to project that out today. of course with trump, especially if he takes questions, this could go in any one of a number of directions. >> ken, the headline is that this is a unanimous ruling but if you scratch the surface just a little, there seems to be some conflict in the court regarding how far this ruling extended. talk to me about the dissent from not just amy coney barrett, but the other three. >> reporter: it was a concurring opinion and barrett said in her concurring opinion that the most important thing was the unanimous decision on the main issue, which is that the 14th amendment does not allow individual states to bar federal candidates from the ballot. the disagreement was over how far that went.

the majority in a 13-page unsigned opinion said congress would have to enact a law in order for that former provision to be enforced. and the concurring justices, four of them, thought that we want went too far and closed the door on other mechanisms of enforcement. i was thinking could someone file a federal lawsuit and get a federal judge to rule donald trump had committed insurrection. that's not possible. congress would have to enact a law. efforts to pass such a law have failed and that's not happening. the unanimous, resounding opinion of this court, conservatives and liberals, is that it would create chaos for individual states to knock federal candidates off the ballot. >> thank you for correcting me there.

appreciate it. stand by because i want to bring in lawrence tribe. i want to kind of linger on this, the concurring opinions and dissent within them for a moment. just pulling out quotes from the concurring opinion by the three liberal justices, they're pretty explicit. they say that by resolving these and other questions, by saying congress has the authority here not the states, the majority attempts to insulate all alleged insurrectionists from future challenges to their holding federal office. explain that concern from those judges. >> thanks, katy. i think it's a very important concern. after the civil war, the constitution was amended to make sure that anyone who was engaged in an insurrection against the constitution as it appears donald trump did, any such

person could not seek any public office again. certainly couldn't hold public office. the court says, well, that may be, but unless we can get a congressional statute, that is basically a dead letter. unlike other parts of the 14th amendment, which can be enforced in any number of ways, this central provision, which is designed to prevent people who try to overthrow the whole constitution from having another go at it, this crucial provision is a dead letter. the four justices who thought the court went too far in that respect, the four women on the court were all in agreement that the court went way further than it needed to go. and in particular, the three liberal justices poked a finger in the eye of the chief justice by quoting back at him what he had said when the court in the

infamous dodds ruling of not only government of roe v. wade, but essentially got rid of all protection for women's reproductive rights. in that case, chief justice roberts thought that the majority had gone too far and he said that when the court decides more than it needs to decide to resolve a case, then it is acting not like a court, but basically like a super legislature. that's what the court did in this case. and it left basically unenforced and for all practical purposes, unenforceable, the constitution's main protection for democracy when it is threatened by a would be dictator who tries to overthrow the constitution, stay in power beyond the end of his term, doesn't quite succeed, and then

tries again. >> you say -- >> right now, go ahead. >> so you say it's basically unenforceable. the court is saying the congress needs to pass a statute. can you explain the mechanism here? explain how that would work. >> well, in fact, we're going to see it in realtime. jamie raskin, adam schiff and others have worked on a possible law that congress could pass, and no one doubts that it has the power to pass it. under part of the 14th amendment that says congress has the power to enforce the provisions of this amendment by all appropriate legislation. so if we imagined, and it takes quite an imagination, a congress that was really functional with someone other than mike johnson as speaker of the house, who would allow a majority to work its will, if we imagine a congress that could act like a normal congress, then what it

would do is pass a law that would provide a mechanism, a mechanism very much like the one that colorado used except it would be one for the nation as a whole by which a would be federal official is challenged before the election, not after the election, which would cause chaos. challenged on the ground that that official, having taken an oath to uphold the constitution, tried to overturn it by not accepting a loss when there is a fair election that tells that person your time is up. you've got to go. that would not be a very hard statute to write except when you have a congress that is dysfunctional and unwilling to write about just about any law that does anything. what you're basically saying is the country is hostage to someone who engaged in

insurrection and notice nothing the court said today denied the claim that donald trump did just that. they leave that question open. we have someone who tried to overthrow the constitution by saying i may have lost the election but i'm going to figure out a way to stay in power any way. that person can try again. and the belief of the authors of the 14th amendment that allowing voters to get basically snookerred into giving that sort of person power is not at adequate remedy. you need to disqualify such a person. but if congress can't get its act together, then the person can just ride on the fake information that he or she may propound in order to get elected. >> can we talk about immunity and what this might signal?

we see in the concurrence from the three liberal judges is a line that reads like this. in this case, the court must decide whether colorado may keep a presidential candidate off the ballot on the ground he is an oath breaking insurrectionist and thus disqualified from holding federal office. should we read into anything at all that they're using an oath breaking insurrectionist in their concurrence? >> well, i think it would be a little much to say that they are definitely saying that that's true about donald trump. but what they are saying i think resonates with what the court did in the immunity case. they're saying that the court is leaning over backwards in support of someone by deciding more than it needs to decide. in the immunity case, all the court needed to pose as the question presented is whether someone charged with the crimes that jack smith has charged, that is the crime of trying to

steal the election, which is sort of a non lawyer's way of describing the many parts of the smith indictment in d.c. the question is whether someone charged with those things can plead oh, i was just doing my job as president. that's really all the case presents. instead, the supreme court is going to drag it out by transforming that into the broad question of whether and to what extent anything that a president does while in office can be permanently immunized from prosecution on the basis that it's alleged to fall within the scope of his duties. that's a very broad and general question and the court could well decide in the case we're going to hear argued in the week of april 22nd, it could well decide that that issue has to be

remanded to the d.c. circuit and then to judge chutkan before we can ever try donald trump for the things that he is charged with having done. so that even though in the end, we know that presidents can't possibly have the kind of absolute immunity that trump claims. we won't be able to put him on trial until after the election and if he should win that election, he will certainly make the whole case go away. >> let me ask you, hold on. when you say remanded back to judge chutkan, is that to decide the scope of presidential immunity before they decide whether donald trump violated the law with what he did on january 6th? >> exactly. it would basically require judge chutkan to decide something she has not yet decided and that is which of the precise acts that a president might commit that violate various criminal statutes are within the outer

perimeter of his presidential duties. that's not an easy question to decide and say that she basically has to lay out a roadmap for all of the issues of presidential immunity before donald trump can go to trial is like saying we'll wait to hell freezes over. that's not going to happen anytime soon. and so just as in this case by taking on more than the case actually required, the court was indirectly allowing the former president to drag things out so long that for all practical purposes, he gets immunity even though everybody might agree that what he did in trying to stay in office, even with violence if necessary, has no appropriate immunity under the constitution. >> so you're saying that's a possibility. if they were to remand it, they could also decide for themselves where the immunity lies.

they could make that definition themselves, correct? >> they certainly could but that would only happen if they were eager. if there were five justices that had any eagerness to get that case done before the election. and we know they're not because by postponing the argument until the week of april 22nd when it could have been argued much sooner just as the court had virtually argued things basically from one day to the next, by doing that, they made clear that they have no interest in getting that case resolved. so the court in these indirect ways is showing that it is tilting the playing field in support of the former president. >> always good to have you. as you can see, i could talk about this for the whole hour but i'm being told we've got a lot of other guests we've got to get to. thank you so much. >> thanks. >> we're keeping an eye on mar-a-lago. coming up, colorado's secretary of state joins me after the

supreme court decision overruling her state's decision to take donald trump off the primary ballot. what she says about the ruling in 60 seconds. don't go anywhere. in 60 seconds. don't go anywhere. you love your bike. we do, too. that's why we're america's number-one motorcycle insurer. but do you have to wedge it into everything? what? i don't do that. this reminds me of my bike. the wolf was about the size of my new motorcycle. have you seen it, by the way? happy birthday, grandma! really? look how the brushstrokes follow the line of the gas tank. -hey! -hey! brought my plus-one. jamie? some migraine attacks catch you off guard, but for me a stressful day can trigger migraine attacks too. that's why my go to is nurtec odt. it's the only migraine medication that can treat and prevent my attacks all in one. don't take if allergic to nurtec. allergic reactions can occur even days after using. most common side effects were nausea, indigestion and stomach pain.

now i'm in control. with nurtec odt i can treat a migraine attack and prevent one. talk to your doctor about nurtec today. my next guest says donald trump is still an oath breaking insurrectionist. she urged the supreme court to keep donald trump off her state's ballot. madam secretary, thank you for being with us. give me more of your reaction to today. >> thanks for having me on. first and foremost, i would say it's good the court issued the decision. americans have been voting all across the nation in early voting in those super tuesday states including here in colorado, in coloradons and americans deserve to know whether trump is a qualified candidate. my larger reaction is disappointment. i do believe that states should be able under our institution to

bar oath breaking insurrectionists. and ultimately, this decision leaves open the door for congress to act to pass authorizing legislation. but we know that congress is a merely non-functioning body. so ultimately, it will be up to the american voters to save our democracy in november. >> this was a unanimous decision and it seemed pretty clear where it was going after the oral arguments in front of the supreme court. is there anything within this decision that surprised you though? >> after oral argument, i'm not too surprised. i would have liked the decision a little sooner. as of thursday night, over 400,000 ballots were already cast in the republican primary for president. i think the larger picture is it's as clear as day what donald trump did. he incited that violent mob to

rush on to the capitol to try to stop the peaceful transfer of presidential power. and his attacks and his allies' attacks on our democracy have not stopped. their lies in this information have led to massive voter suppression efforts, attacks on our election infrastructure. and they're already laying the groundwork to undermine 2024. regardless of this decision, american democracy still remains very much under attack and that threat and this upcoming election will be crucial for democracy survival in the united states. >> given how you see this case, given how a number of independent and some republican voters in your state, the ones who brought this case, see donald trump as you said, oath breaking insurrectionist, what do you make of the voters in your state and across the country that he should be president and he's qualified to

be president? >> ultimately, that will be a voter's decision. i think there's a lot of reason for voters to look really hard at this upcoming election and what we have seen in swing states, swing districts, that in 2018, 2020, and 2022, american voters have stepped up to safeguard american democracy. look, this upcoming election has, will have a big impact on our fundamental freedoms. the idea that women should have control over our own bodies. the idea that our democracy should remain in tact. and some really basic agreement among americans will be effective in this upcoming election. what i hope for is that americans pay really close attention and i'm immensely hopeful and optimistic that again, democracy will remain intact and this country will have centuries ahead of us with

a strong representation. >> do you have confidence in the supreme court? >> i would say as an office holder, it is my job to uphold the decision of the united states supreme court and that's why i've always said from the beginning of this litigation that i'll follow what the united states supreme court decides, even if i disagree with them, which i do. i think the supreme court has issued bad decisions on democracy. i think what's happening in this country for american women is horrendous. the idea that the overturning of roe is leading women to not be able to access fertility treatment in the state of alabama. and overall, again, the united states supreme court decision will not be the make it or break it as to whether democracy survives. the make it or break it will be the american people. and that's who i have the utmost trust in. >> do you think this court is

partisan? >> i think this court has had obviously some pretty big issues. whether it has been, you know, clarence thomas' wife's role, gifts that have gone unreported, and there are some pretty big decisions that have come out of the the court that i highly disagree with and i think strip americans of our basic human rights and fundamental freedoms. with that said, we live in a country of rule of law. we have to respect the court's decisions while disagreeing with them. and honestly, i think that's something that maga republicans could take a lesson from. it's okay to disagree with decisions and one another and not turn into violent rhetoric and attempts to steal elections. you win cases. you lose cases. just like elections. and what we need donald trump to understand is that there are losers and winners in elections. and if you lose an election,

that does not mean it's stolen from you. and that does not give you the ability to have, incite an assault on the united states capitol and the country. >> thank you very much for joining us. >> thank you. up next, we're going to go back to florida where donald trump is going to speak regarding the supreme court decision. this is "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc. this is l reports" only on msnbc my frequent heartburn had me taking antacid after antacid all day long but with prilosec otc just one pill a day blocks heartburn for a full 24 hours. for one and done heartburn relief, prilosec otc. one pill a day, 24 hours, zero heartburn.

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donald trump will stay on the ballot across the country. we're waiting for him to speak at mar-a-lago. back with me is garrett haake in west palm beach. we also have nbc news justice correspondent, ken dilanian, outside of the supreme court and now, peter baker. peter, i'm going to begin with you. welcome. "the new york times" just had polling out that shows donald trump was ahead among voters and these court cases aren't a lage factor in their decision making. what is is the economy. can you help explain that? >> yeah, look, there's still a disconnect between the positive economic numbers that you can look at there and for the president who is presiding over the economy right now. more people are feeling the economy is doing better than had felt before but they haven't given biden credit. i think that's a fundamental weakness for him going into this

election. donald trump had an economy that was not that different than the economy we have now prior to the pandemic but he did a, you know, more vociferous job of claiming credit for it. calling it the best economy ever and convincing a lot of people that was the case. and biden has never been able to garner that kind of same political, you know, asset out of it. he wants to. he hopes that the time allows him now and the election will bring the reality closer to the perception, but it's a problem for him heading into the fall. >> are you saying this is largely because president trump, during his time, sold it better? >> i do think he's a sales man, right? that's one of donald trump's you know, political strengths is he repeats things over and over again. it doesn't bother him if they're not always the correct, factual statements. he doesn't deal with nuance. he'll say it's the best economy and people say, no, it's not. it manages to least create the impression that yeah, it's a

really, really good economy when in fact if you look at the numbers, it's not that different than the economy we have now. >> back to the colorado case. ken, looking ahead, the supreme court has another big case it will decide on immunity. larry tribe said it's entirely possible that the supreme court remands this case back down to judge chutkan to define the parameters of presidential immunity. what do you make of what this decision tells us about the future? >> reporter: what the supreme court has done here already is incredibly consequential to the presidential election. by first refusing jack smith's request to take the immunity case two months ago and move quickly on it and now sort of taking it under regular order where they're going to hear arguments and then maybe present a decision in april. and so that's going to, whatever they decide, that's making it less likely that this case could go to trial before november and if it does, it would be pretty

close to the election. but it seems by making the decision to take this immunity case, they have some kind of, they have some kind of problem with the appeals court ruling, which held there is no blanket immunity for presidents. they didn't go into the question of whether donald trump was committing official acts when he was trying to overthrow the election. that may be where the supreme court is going. they may decide there are some things that a president does that do merit some level of immunity and then they may send it back as larry tribe said. you could envision them sending it back to judge chutkan saying you tell us which were official agents and which weren't. obviously, jack smith would argue that nothing donald trump did in his effort to overturn the election constituted an official presidential agent because presidents don't have a role in state elections and donald trump was calling local officials and pressuring people. maybe the only thing he did that could be construed as an official act were his efforts to

get the justice departments to investigate fraud and even so after they said there was no fraud. most of what is in the indictment seems to have nothing to do with presidential acts. >> the criticism of the court is they're running interference. the tactic of donald trump and his team has been to delay, delay, delay and it's worked largely, garrett, especially in these federal criminal cases. >> reporter: yeah. the delay tactic has benefitted them up until now. it allows them to kind of stretch out any actual verdict or decision in these cases while continuing to keep the cases in the news to the degree it helps them. i think this is something people have misunderstood. these have never damaged him in

the way that they thought they would in this primary. they have served in the primary process only to make him stronger. i talked to hundreds of trump voters over this course of this primary and what they say is the idea that donald trump puts forward on the campaign trial and he's under attack by the department of justice, but liberal prosecutors, what have you, makes him stronger in their view. it makes them want to come out and defend him with their votes. he has totally harnessed. what happens if he gets convicted? it's a tricky thing. that some of that support starts to bleed away. all of that is untested and the ken's point, may never be tested if the delay tactic pushes all of these court cases past the primary into the fall, perhaps after the election. >> i certainly reported on the beginnings of this and the support he garnered after 2016.

i think people are surprised there is still so much support for donald trump and don't understand why. can you explain the trump voter and their devotion to trump? garrett? >> reporter: i think they feel like they're part of something with him. the idea that you know, he was fighting for them regardless of you know, the merits of that on a policy basis. there's a connection with people who have felt not represented by washington, not represented by the republican party specifically. that the idea of a republican party of mitt romney or paul ryan never really felt right to them. they see trump and it feels right to them. they feel like the way he is treated matches in some way the way they're treated in their lives and they feel a very personal connection to them. he talks to them directly through social media, at his rallies, in a way other politicians don't speak. it is offensive to the political elite in this country who are

used to things being done in a certain way and that is exciting often to the voters. particularly the rally attending trump voters, who are perhaps a different subset than the people who will vote for trump and not tell their friends about it. the rally attending, trump going voters, anything like this that attacks him, they see it as an attack on them and they going to stick with him thick and thin. >> the federal cases haven't managed to put a dent in donald trump, but the civil cases have financially speaking. they've been more successful than the federal cases so far. how much is the trump team worried about the finances? he owes half a billion dollars more to new york right now. >> yeah, interestingly enough, i think the civil cases have been the most damaging and have the potential to be the most damaging for a couple of reasons. not the least of which is he's

got to find that cash. as vaughn reported. he's still searching for someone to help bond him on this so that money isn't coming out of his pocket. he's a billionaire, but doesn't have $450 million in a checking account that he can just send to help pay the fine he owes in the civil fraud case or the money he owes in the e. jean carroll case. excuse the plane overhead. more to the point, these civil cases in a way the criminal cases haven't, sort of rattled donald trump. have distracted him a little bit. you look at what he talks about on social media. you look at the way he has sort of been focused on being in the courtroom for those cases even when he doesn't have to. as much i just said the idea these court cases make him stronger, that he can be under attack, this goes to the heart of his brand, even before he was a politician. the idea that he is this incredibly successful business man and developer. and when you have a judge, a ruling that says not only are you not, but that you built this

in a fraudulent basis, i think it cuts at his identity in a way that has distracted him to some degree personally. so both the coming up with the money, which is a problem for him and his legal team, and making sure that it doesn't damage the brand, which is arguably the most important thing to donald trump going back to the '80s, i think has put those cases at center stage politically in a way that i certainly didn't expect and i don't think anybody who really covered all of the legal issues that were facing trump broadly would have suspected six or eight months ago. >> financially in terms of politics and the campaign, in the past, he's raised money to pay off his legal bills or fine. is he trying to raise money right now to pay these things off? could it dampen his ability to raise money and to financially run for office? >> reporter: well, there are a couple of elements to that. even now. ten cents out of every dollar that support large or small gives to the campaign goes to

the save america pact. an organization specifically set up to help cover legal costs. that's been used to pay things like fees for his attorneys. not the penalties he might owe in these civil cases. that's a bit of a question of unsettled law. i'd defer to perhaps ken on that question. but the point of it is even if he started to use that money to pay his legal bills, the federal elections commission is as toothless of an enforcement body that exists in washington, d.c. the idea that he would be punished during an election for using money in that way is not tested. another novel -- >> hold on. let's listen to donald trump. >> a long way toward bringing our country together. which our country needs. and they worked long, hard, and very quickly on something that will be spoken about 100 years

from now and 200 years from now. extremely important. essentially, you cannot take somebody out of a race because an opponent would like to have it that way. and it has nothing to do with the fact that it's the leading candidate. whether it was the leading candidate or a candidate that was well down on the totem pole, you cannot take somebody out of the the race. the voters can take a person out of the race very quickly, but a court shouldn't be doing that and the supreme court saw that very well. and i really do believe that will be a unified factor because while most states were thrilled to have me, there were some that didn't and they didn't want that for political reasons. they didn't want that because of poll numbers. because the poll numbers are very good. we're beating president biden in almost every poll. "new york times" came out yesterday with a very big poll for us. so they, they didn't like that and you can't do that, you can't

do what they tried to do. hopefully colorado as an example will unify. i know there's tremendous important. it brought our support up in colorado. the people in colorado thought that was a terrible thing they did. while we're on the subject and another thing that will be coming up very soon will be immunity for a president. not for me, but for any president. if a president doesn't have full immunity, you really don't have a president because nobody that is serving in an office will have the courage to make in many cases, what would be the right decision or it could be the wrong decision. it could be in some cases, the wrong decision, but they have to make decisions and they have to make them free of all terror that can be reigned upon them when they leave office or even before they leave office. some decisions are very tough. i can tell you as a president, that some decisions to make are very tough. i took out isis and i took out

some very big people from the standpoint of a different part of the world. two of the leading terrorists. probably the two leading terrorists ever that we've ever seen in this world. those are big decisions. i don't want to be prosecuted for it. i know the president wouldn't want to be prosecuted for it. it had a tremendously positive impact. it stopped everything cold. and sometimes you have to make. they were tough decisions. sometimes you have to make decisions like that. when you make a decision, you don't want to have your opposing party or opponent or even somebody that just thinks you're wrong bring a criminal suit or any kind of a suit against you when you leave office. i have rogue prosecutors and i have rogue judges. i have judges that are out of control. and it's a very unfair thing for me but i'm serving perhaps as a

sample to others of what should not be happening when you make good decisions and in my case, the economy was great. we didn't go into wars. we totally defeated isis. we provided the largest tax cuts in history. we provided the largest regulation cuts in history, but think of it. no wars. we beat isis 100% of the calaphate. maybe i wouldn't have done that, defeating them was a very powerful. it was going to take four years. it took me four months but it was a very strong thing i gave. i said get them. defeat them. end it. we were fighting for 20 years against isis and we did it very quickly. i don't want to be prosecuted. in that case, it worked out very well. there will be some things that perhaps don't work out so well, but i don't want to be prosecuted because i decided to

do something that is very much for the good of the country. and actually for the good of the world. a president shouldn't have that on his mind and he has to have a free and clear mind when he makes very big decisions. or it's going to be nothing more than a ceremonial post. you'll be president. it will be a wonderful thing and you won't do anything because you don't want to be hit by your opponent or by somebody else because who wants to leave office and go through what i've gone through. i'm being prosecuted by biden, my opponent. every one of these things, whether it's fani willis or bragg, these are local and state, but they're in total coordination with the white house. you can't do that. it shouldn't be done. i mean, a thing like that, in the case of the d.a.'s office, they put one of the top people maybe the second person in the manhattan d.a.'s office to get

trump. they had a hillary clinton lawyer leave the law firm to go into the d.a.'s office to get trump. pomeranz. so he goes in to become a prosecutor. worked for the democrat party and hillary clinton. goes in to prosecute donald trump at a local level. in total coordination with the department of justice, meaning biden. then you have the fani willis or as she would say, fani. f-a-n-i, but fani. she hired somebody, the person long before this horrible prosecution took place and she went out and she paid him an unbelievable amount of money. more money that he had ever dreamt possible. much more money than other people that do that for a living. he never did it at all. had no experience at all. and they had obviously a conflict. we don't have to go into that, but they were able to get a lot

of money because it was a high profile person. me. i'm a very high profile person. so they were able to pay him close to a million dollars when he was not equipped to do the job and she's not equipped to do the job and that case should end immediately. that case is so conflicted, nobody's ever seen anything like it. then you have deranged jack smith who's a trump hater and he's going wild. he's been overturned unanimously by the supreme court. went over other people over the years. he's had great failure. he's mean, nasty, unfair. and the judges on these cases, they're all trump haters other than one or two that can be fair. look at new york what's happened. these people have tremendous hatred. you can't do this to a president. i'm not talking about me. i'm talking about in the future. a president has to be free. a president has to be if the president does a good job.

i did some people would say a great job. >> the white house has not had the coordination with the doj on prosecutions regarding donald trump. this is separate. it's special counsel. the special counsel decided to bring charges. in terms of the fani willis stuff, i believe nathan wade testified he was making more money before he started to work for willis down there. back to garrett haake in west palm beach and ken dilanian. also, peter baker. why did he come out with a prepared statement? why this, why going back to the battle days of trump where he just comes out with a word salad and whatever comes to mind and whatever allegation he can toss out? >> reporter: that's a great question. and one that i'll be trying to answer today. donald trump has displayed more discipline over the course of this campaign than some of his previous ones in these moments. not really what you saw here today. clearly, not a prepared statement. clearly not especially focused on the ruling today.

but i think goes to the point that he sort of looks at all of these cases holistically and tries to argue they're all related. he's trying to make the case this is all coordinated by the white house to go after him and taking advantage of the fact that he's going to have a lot of eyeballs on him because of the colorado ruling today. but this is it, right? i think you heard there one of the things i think was most clear. this idea that arguing that he shouldn't be prosecuted for things. he didn't mention any of the things related to january 6th. he was making the case he shouldn't be prosecuted for going after isis or the iranian general he killed while he was president. those are not the things that he is being prosecuted for. so trying to project out a little bit of protection for himself as these cases advance and trying to draw people into the idea that somehow these things are part of a massive conspiracy to keep him from being elected president. >> ken, jump in.

>> reporter: he's grasping at the legitimate argument that there are some cases where perhaps a president should be immune based on the decisions he or she makes. he's sort of trying to embrace that argument and use it as a shield. again, he's talking about drone strikes that he argued, targeted killings. when people talk about that, whether drone strikes being controversial, they talk about barack obama's decision to kill an american citizen. but there's nothing about taking out the leader of isis or an iranian general. i mean, yeah. nothing about his conduct in trying to overturn the election or with regard to classified documents and appears he's hoping that the supreme court will issue this blanket immunity get out of jail free card for presidents. remember, his lawyers in that appeals court argued that a

president could order an assassination of his political opponents and could not be prosecuted. that was their target. that's what they hope the supreme court holds. most legal experts don't think that's how it's going to come out. >> peter, let me ask you about what he continues to say, which is that president biden ordered this prosecution. this is a political hit job. explain again how this prosecution came to be. by the way, he's not even talking about colorado, which was the case that was decided today. he's now bringing this to the classified documents, the january 6th election interference case t fanicase, e. >> yeah. what garrett said. he conflates all of them into a single overarching deep state conspiracy to get him and that has some resonance at least among his base. but you're right, the white house has had nothing to do with any of the prosecutions against him according to any evidence that's been presented at all. there's been no reporting on that at all. first of all, the state prosecutors of course are not coordinating with the federal

government. they have their own cases to make. fani willis in georgia and alvin bragg in new york. and jack smith as you point out, katy, is a special appointed to have independence from the biden administration. of course he does report to merrick garland the attorney general and some people will always say fundamentally structurally that's a problem. but there's no evidence whatsoever that the white house or even merrick garland for that matter is determining what jack smith is doing in either of the two cases he's brought against the former president. so i think it's important to keep that in mind. he's going to say it over and over again and it will convince a lot of people but there's zero facts backing that up. >> what's the strategy of this trump team? is it just to let him say whatever he wants because it was so effective in 2016, peter? >> yeah, i mean, it's certainly his strategy. i think the team, as garrett said, would prefer a little more discipline, has tried to impose some discipline on him with some degree of success. but you know, he has this belief in his own ability to convince

people of anything just by speaking off the cuff the way he's doing now. it's one of the greatest hits of trump world. and i think you're never going to completely tame donald trump. that's just not in the cards. he may be more disciplined from time to time but he is never going to be the kind of read from a script, read from a teleprompter, do everything you're told to do, disciplined kind of candidate. >> when i've spoken to allies of the white house, they've said that let donald trump talk and voters will be reminded of the chaos. by the way, he's taking questions. we'll go if there's an interesting one. and voters will be reminded of the chaos. that's enough to put him front and center and let us -- allow us to win again just like in 2020. is that the strategy for this white house, for president biden's white house regarding donald trump? >> well, i think they think that donald trump is their best ally in effect in this race, right? that the more people hear what trump says the more they will be reminded of why they voted against him in 2020. biden's problem right now is not that he is necessarily losing a

lot of voters to trump. his problem is that he's just losing voters who were for him in 2020 but are kind of disappointed right now either because of inflation or the border or his age or what have you. some of them -- for the most part they're not voting or thinking about third party candidates. his path to victory is to win back that coalition he had in 2020. and the way to win them back is to remind them why they voted against former president trump and every time trump gets out there and says some of these things that are particularly, you know, radical or unfounded or wild sounding the biden people believe it helps them. >> are they confident those voters will come back to them in the last few weeks, maybe last couple months of this campaign, peter? >> that's the argument is most americans aren't really paying attention to this right now and that therefore they haven't really been forced to make that choice, to major that decision and realize that yeah, whatever they're upset about biden, in the end not voting for him or voting against him or vote forget a third-party candidate means that trump comes back. and they feel -- the biden feel

feel that come the fall when the votes actually come in, when people have to make the decision who are not paying attention now, they will remember what it was they didn't like about the four years of trump. remember, he was the most unpopular president before we got to this one. and will go back to biden however reluctantly. >> garrett, what about that strategy potentially from this white house, that donald trump is the best ally for democrats coming out and talking? does the campaign see him just coming out and talking, doing what he's doing right now, as a -- do they see it as a benefit? do they see it as a problem? >> yeah, look, there's not a lot these two campaigns would agree on except both of them like it when donald trump is out talking unfiltered to voters. the trump campaign understands that they can't stop donald trump from being donald trump and this iteration of the trump campaign led by susy wilds, who gave an interview to my colleague john allen, made the point that it's trump's campaign. if he wants to go out and say all of these things that we just aired it's his prerogative to do it.

they would argue in a primary context it's worked for them. the biden campaign looks at it much like peter just described. if trump wants to go out and say these things to people who have no -- no longer follow him on twitter, don't see him on facebook, don't see him on the news every day and have very comfortably moved on with the idea donald trump is no longer part of their lives, the biden campaign is perfectly happy to remind people that donald trump could very much be part of their lives again on an everyday basis as president of the united states if they don't vote for joe biden. there's a lot of consternation when trump makes these remarks unfiltered, when he is sort of platformed, as they say, when we kind of put him on the ash to talk through all of these things. but the biden campaign does very much believe that people have kind of looked at trump through rose-colored glasses since he left office and isn't front and center every day. this is the kind of stuff he's saying at every rally. this is the kind of stuff he's saying around the country. he's not campaigning today, by the way, a day before super tuesday, the single most important day on the primary calendar. this is his outreach to roerts

and that's what he's talking about. the biden campaign is perfectly happy for folks to see that. >> all former presidents enjoy quite a bit of bounceback in their approval numbers after they leave office. garrett haake, ken dilanian, peter baker, thank you very much. this does it for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports." andrea will be back tomorrow. i will be back at 3:00 p.m. eastern for "katy tur reports." "chris jansing reports," though, starts after a very quick break. don't go anywhere. starts after a very quick break. don't go anywhere. only shingrin over 90% effective. shingrix is a vaccine used to prevent shingles in adults 50 years and older. shingrix does not protect everyone and is not for those with severe allergic reactions to its ingredients or to a previous dose. an increased risk of guillain-barré syndrome was observed after getting shingrix. fainting can also happen. the most common side effects are pain, redness, and swelling at the injection site, muscle pain, tiredness, headache, shivering, fever, and upset stomach. ask your doctor or pharmacist about shingrix today. (avo) kate made progress with her mental health... shivering, fever, and upset stomach. ...but her medication caused unintentional movements in her face, hands, and feet called tardive dyskinesia, or td.

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