thank you so much for letting us into your homes during these truly extraordinary times. we are grateful. the beat starts right now. happy monday.

>> happy monday, nicole. thanks much. stomach welcome to the bee, everyone. i hope you had a great weekend and i hope you have a little bit of energy because we have a lot of news including legal news going both directions tonight. i'm going to give you our breakdown right now. defendant donald trump has gotten some good news from a legal perspective for him and some bad news and it's all happening today as he has so many cases and challenges going that sometimes it rains legal news. let's start with these two new york cases. trump was back in court in new york for hearing in the big hush money case. this is the bad news trump got today even if the court sketch artist caught him smiling or smirking or making whatever face you call that according to the sketch. no cameras, of course, allow to newer courtrooms. this is a criminal charges that the d.a., alvin bragg brought into new york dating back to what the d.a. argues is a kind of democracy election crime. when you stack it together with the secret hush money payments and assorted related allege lies about all of that that were made to stormy daniels baiting to -- dating back to

'16. here's what's new tonight. we didn't know this until late today. the trial is back on. he trumps delay tactics have failed. the judge ordering an april 15th trial date which is a rejection of the many ways that donald trump's lawyers argued it should've been much later. everyone is seen the delay tactics and in some courtrooms they have worked. they failed today. now, if you're thinking, wait, i did hear this was supposed to start earlier, that's true. if you keep track of this kind of thing, donald trump lawyers and other kind of people, the original trial was actually for today. it was delayed not because of donald trump's efforts but because of new documents on the government side came to light. as you may recall, the d.a. said in fairness were not going to try to stick the same date. the delay tactic was trying to seize on that small administrative matter and say they need months and months and months. that failed. trump is pledged to appeal any decision with the new start date. here's a brief look at how he sounded outside of court today. >> i don't know. we are going to be appealing right now. i'm going to tell you that.

>> that is the bottom line. we are not sharing a lot more of that. it is the client or defendants perspective that he does not want to rush to this trial. that is a certain posture paper --.. if you're innocent you might say bring it on to prove your innocence. well, any appeal process here is not expected to move the trial date. now, u.s. attorney joyce vance was allowed to experience noting there was simply no basis for a pretrial appeal on scheduling. i will tell you one other thing about this, if you want to get into the weeds, you may fret about the supreme court case that slow down jack smith. that is the kind of case where you do have, in that situation, the possibility of a pretrial appeal meaning there are big issues that depending on how

they are resolved could change the outcome of the trial. the supreme court decided to take that case, under the law, that happens. this is kind of the opposite. you could imagine the courts would never get anything done if every defendant could say i don't like the scheduling decision, i prefer we start in a different month or different year or later. so, there is no real reason legally to think this part would be delayed further. that is a big deal. today's decision also goes back to how you deal with donald trump's many delays. trumps team was arguing they needed extra time. they blamed the d.a. the judge took in those arguments and said there are no significant questions of fact to be resolved. in other words, this isn't even a close call. the judge rebuked some of these lawyers for the way they were approaching this and using this as a forum to push any unsubstantiated smears against the d.a. indeed, one account notes, and i told you we looked at the sketches and accounts because we don't have cameras in the new york courtrooms but one account noted that the judge seemed to be uncharacteristically comical,

furious with trumps team. that is one of our nbc reporters in the room. you don't have a case right now and it is disconcerting the judge told the lawyers adding your literally accusing the d.a.s office and the people assigned to this case of prosecutorial misconduct and trying to make me complicit in it. that is how the judge put it. that is strong for this pretrial scheduling hearing. it doesn't usually get that hot. the new york sites -- times said they tried to use an odd procedural twist. the fact that these documents came out late and turn it into a last ditch effort to attack the prosecution or delay the trial. now, those tactics, as i

mentioned, did not work and it is a sign of throwing everything at the wall which trump and his lawyers famously have done a lot or it could be the sign of a weak case. in other words, it is a far- fetched thing to claim that the prosecutors are the one committing the crimes. that's what a misconduct allegation is. judges do not look kindly at it if you do not have any edit -- evidence. the headline is this case in new york, three weeks from now is set to be donald trump's first criminal trial. after all the debate and the talk that you see here, it's back on. we've updated these charts. the defendant has so many cases that we have to mark them but we tried to give you a color coating that makes it clear. i mentioned there are legitimate questions before the supreme court. that is in red. that is pause and delay on appeal. tonight, for the first time, we've updated the hush money back to green with april 15th. that is a headline. let me tell you one more thing about this before i explain the other legal updates. that is this. donald trump is not someone who is running for office again under any normal circumstances. he knows that. his fans know that. they talk about the witchhunt, as they call, all the time.

the public knows that. whether or not this thing ever gets resolved under the log gets completed is a huge question. some people are tired. i get it. some people are fatigued. some people it takes too long. those are all feelings. this process is not about feelings or delay tactics. it's not supposed to be about railroading someone. it is very unprecedented, as you've heard, to have any presidential candidate facing a trial, let alone potentially four. so, the defendant here, whether people like it or not, under our system, does have rights. for example, i mentioned the kind of things you can appeal before trial and the kind of things you usually can't.

the fact that he is availing himself of his rights with his lawyers, it may frustrate the opposition but that is fine. that is allowed. that is the system we have. on the other hand, the news tonight is something we didn't have yesterday, we didn't have last week. this trial is back on and if this trial in new york occurs in april, begins in april which is now confirmed by the judge, that means in all likelihood, there will be a full criminal trial of donald trump, the first ever of a former president and there will be a result and, if there is a result, i could tell you, it would either be a verdict, guilty, not guilty, or hung jury, what they call a mistrial. those are the only three options. i can't predict which one will happen. there's only three into the system. donald trump was hoping to delay this because he is afraid of the result. he's afraid the verdict could be guilty whether or not that even result in prison time for his purposes, it might result in few people around the country deciding they don't want to vote for a convicted criminal for president. that's not a crazy reach. we certainly do not have any indications or polling that people prefer a convicted -- convicted candidate. donald trump knows that well and that's why he was trying to convince everyone that he was -- that hillary was under investigation. that's why he went after biden and tried to pretend there was

criminal investigations in ukraine and when there weren't he tried to abuse foreign power policy to create the appearance. donald trump knows very well that being convicted is bad politics. i'm not telling you what will happen and in the news division we are not rooting for one thing or another, we are following it. i could tell you tonight there is now a path for such a verdict well before the election. that is the new york case. then there is a civil case. that is the fraud case we have been covering and all the money problems. donald trump has been a sickly railing against the new trial date because he doesn't want to go to criminal trial and the very building he was standing at, we should know, 40 wall street, one of the buildings it could be seized in the civil fraud judgment. the attorney general, this is a whole different law enforcement officer than the d.a. new york, is saying that, you know, they will go forward and seize assets if trump doesn't post bond in that case. >> we are prepared to make sure that the judgment is paid to

new yorkers and, yes, i look at 40 wall street each and every day. >> that is tough talk, legally. the deadline is today. you've heard that. this was all coming up until today. here is a place where we are going to report what happens as it happens. donald trump's lawyers managed to achieve some progress. they did not reverse everything. they lost the fraud judgment. today, because of their efforts, they were basically making the argument that they have tried to get the ball and they talked all these people that there are reasons that it was too hard and too high and, while they found appeals court judges agreeing today. that is the usually final word on this kind of thing. the bond has been lowered from $450 million down to $175 million and they get 10 more days in the trump side to deal with the new number, 175 million. in a different surprise move,

also good news for trump, although it's temporary, the ruling still stands, he lost the fraud case and is trying to appeal it. during the appeal as the times put it in a surprise move, the court paused the original judges new restrictions. you may recall those restrictions were three years banning trump or obtaining a loan from a new york bank. as for the monitor, that keeps an eye in the family business. that part stays. this is a procedural step forward for trump and his legal team. if he doesn't overturn this case, overturn the fraud loss, none of this will matter. it just means those same restrictions kick in later. if he is able to overturn it, well, this pauses some of the harsh medicine. the attorney general responded the trump is facing accountability citing the total value of the $460 million judgment and interest and noting that still stands against trump and the

defendants. you have trump here staving off what would've been financial disaster because there were a lot of indications that he wasn't a liquid billionaire. while he may have pieces of pieces of property in various places with various debts and liens on it or whatever you want to call it, he did not have the liquid cash. his lawyers said that. they admitted it. to pay this off with cash for them was a practical impossibility. a smaller bond could prevent them from collecting while they do the appeal which could take months or longer to resolve. these are two unrelated cases. the fact that all of this is coming today is one of those coincidences. trump in court in one case and trump dealing with it in another case. what you see is a bit of pattern and practice. in the fraud case, trump has already been found liable for this kind of habitual live. the business model was built on lies. in the d.a. case which now he will face a

jury in a trial starting in april, the question is not whether he lied about stormy daniels, he did. and not whether the government should be digging into people's personal lives, that is not usually a chargeable crime. the question is whether he lied and used money in a way that amounted to crimes. crimes in the state of new york and election crimes. it certainly does not help that he is under this much pressure for other lies and it cost him half $1 billion. it's all piling up even as it is a reminder that our courts take challenges seriously. anyone crying witchhunt would have to sound bananas today or pause and stop saying that for a day when this new york judge, whatever their background, with everything new york lawyers are like and whether or not they voted for trump, this judge said well, let's be reasonable. let's reduce the bond. let's give it more time. that's only fair. that fairness is exactly the thing that worries donald trump about a potential conviction.

you need all of america to think this is fair. you just need one out of 20, when out of 15 independent voters to think that a fair system convicted him and that they don't want more of that kind of trump. we have a very special guest to get into this breakdown when we are back in 90 seconds. okay y'all we got ten orders coming in... big orders! starting a business is never easy, but starting it eight months pregnant... that's a different story. i couldn't slow down. we were starting a business from the ground up. people were showing up left and right. and so did our business needs the chase ink card made it easy. when you go for something big like this, your kids see that.

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people think. not that it matters, but i am much richer. >> it turned out much richer, much stronger. i would not be running unless i was really rich. i put in my financials that show that i much richer. the company is phenomenal. >> all that money talking, we are joined by legal evil neil. your thoughts on the developments today. >> well, i think the most significant thing is finally we have a trial date. against donald trump and new york with a case brought by district attorney alvin bragg. that's the first time in our nations history that a former president is facing a criminal trial and will be brought to a criminal trial. now, to be sure of these charges, they are not of the same gravity is the january 6th trials that are now on hold in both georgia and in washington, d.c. at the federal level.

they are significant charges. their campaign and finance related charges and we can talk about how serious they are but i don't think that these are minor. these are things that ordinarily carried jail time with them up to four years for each count of falsifying business records. it is a serious, significant event. other countries like france and south korea have faced this but the united states has not up until this point. >> yes. and the judge basically did not have a lot of patients for the lawyers trying to throw other stuff in the mix today. explain that to us. >> yes, so, the trump lawyers were trying to say, look, we got all of these new documents right before the trial. we need more time to look through them and so on. the judge said, well, honey --

how many of these documents are we talking about? the lawyer couldn't give them a straight answer getting the judge frustrated. it turned out also during the hearing that it was revealed that trump's lawyers were the ones who sat on the request for a long time and did not bring it up to the judge at the pretrial conference back in february. so, there was a lot of anger, i think, from reading these accounts. it was towards the trump team. the ultimate result of this is donald trump is going to trial on april 15th. there is a possibility, as you said, that maybe he will trial and file an appeal to stop it. that's going nowhere fast. joyce is right on that. >> really interesting on a big day here. i want to thank you and remind everyone, you can always go to msnbc.com/opening arguments to hear more from neil. as for doj day, i can tell you the former obama attorney general eric is here on the beat tonight. that is part of our summit series. we are very thrilled to have the attorney general here.

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that's amazing doc. mobile savings are calling. visit xfinitymobile.com to learn more. doc? let me tell you how house republicans are starting this week because it is, kind of, related to how they started this year and how they spend a lot of last year. they are in turmoil over their own leader, their speaker. this is unheard of in most of history. i mean, there are speaker fight sometimes and sometimes they're even dramatic things where you tell someone but we have never seen a group of politicians do this this often, especially with this thin on margin when they need to try to win back some seats in november and they are spending all of their time publicly fighting with each other. it is getting ugly. mtd is doubling down under threat to go after the new speaker.

>> this week, speaker johnson, who has barely been a speaker for six months, lead us to a complete catastrophe. we cannot have a republican speaker of the house that is willing to do the bidding of chuck schumer handing over the gavel to him and letting him pass. and not allowing any of us republicans to do our jobs. >> because the republican party did not figure out how to broker an actual agreement or understanding nor get more in line with the actual public it represents, they are repeating the same problems they had before. that is why it is also familiar. mccarthy was ousted for johnson under similar circumstances is now saying this. >> speaker johnson is doing the best job he can. it is a difficult situation but, look, the advice i would give to the conference and the

speaker is do not be fearful of the motion to vacate. i do not think they could do it again. >> now, honestly, what he is saying is it didn't work last time, i don't think it will work this time. what has changed, like any president you break, usually try to go the full two years, this has become more common. it might be easier to do this time. the margins are thinner and the hardliners have been rewarded for all of this. because the republican party could not stand up to these four, five, six minority members who call themselves mega but also just an anarchy caucus. they have this problem on a continuing basis. there used to be a longer amount of time between these things, gingrich, for example, did have this problem. paul ryan retired early after clashing with trump. kevin mccarthy, of course, the most recent. now, these doomed speaker ships led to a new york times headline asking that the most

powerful dream job has become cursed. we'll find out more when the house returns to recess. conservatives are reacting to this news by saying in public what they have been saying for years and you will note this has a similar echo of what happens with trump. they want to lie or gas light to the world and pretend everything's okay and this will work out well in private if you talked republicans off the record from staffers up to members of congress you are over and over how terrible it all is and they wish they could change gears of they had the numbers or the, i don't know, the strength? here is a former top republican congressman making it plain on fox. >> if you are wondering why you are trying to negotiate against chuck schumer and joe biden it is because republicans cannot pick the right candidate and they cannot win elections.

they have nobody to blame but themselves for picking the wrong candidates, running bad races and losing winnable elections. what person that can pass a competency test would want to be the speaker of the house? you had a speaker. remember? had kevin mccarthy and he wanted to get rid of him. >> oh, snap. the roasting is coming from inside the house. washington white house correspondent and playbook author eugene daniels from politico. good to see you. >> good to see you. thanks for having me. >> yes, so, things are so bad, you will put in your own words but what i think is things are so bad that republican leaders sometimes tell the press in private or at dinner, now they're just saying it out in public. >> yes, they are. and they're not going to stop. what they have been brewing on for years, really, is this frustration that people like marjorie taylor greene who in their eyes and in most people's eyes who have them, that they

weren't sent to congress to govern, right? they were sent to gum up the works. marjorie taylor greene talks about wanting to make sure that the bills that they put forth have more conservative values in them, she feels like johnson, the current speaker of the house is bending to the will of chuck schumer, hakeem jeffries or joe biden or whomever. at the end of the day, a lot of these folks came into congress and came to d.c. saying that now we want to work with even our own party to get things done. they're here to mess it up. government doesn't work at all, right? i think that the folks are on the front lines, you have those republicans in the house who won biden districts and are probably possibly not going to win them again, they are worried that looking chaotic is going to be to their detriment

in november. they're worried that at the end of the day that if they cut the head off another speaker in the same year, how could it possibly make an argument to the american people, to their own voters, that they deserve more power. it would be a credible argument. marjorie taylor greene is continuing that issue for them as they move forward. >> as you know, there is an old saying in d.c. that there's a big difference between enjoying the real housewives and running and appealing the general election campaign. the messiness and the drama that might be entertaining sometimes cannot be her closing argument in the fall. laura ingram is a very big supporter of not only the republican party but of the trump factions. here's what she said. >> this pains me to say this. thanks, mike. i hope the future speaker sent you a nice fruit basket today. i've never witnessed what i'm

witnessing now, a party with a narrow majority in the house of representatives, everything on the line in the country but committing a slow suicide, the party. this is why conservatives call the gop the stupid party, by the way. >> eugene, when you've lost laura ingram -- >> it's really something, right? part of the thing is, laura ingram has pushed a lot of the folks on different networks who are now saying what they were saying behind closed doors loudly. they've pushed these people into more prominence. we would not know who marlow -- marjorie taylor greene was. even kevin mccarthy who was just ousted said johnson should not be worried about it. he hugged marjorie taylor greene and elevated hurt to calm her down and keep her on his side. so, this hugging of far right folks in the republican party often backfires.

you don't think the line is going to eat your face, it just would eat everyone else's. we are seeing over and over again that that has not been true with people like marjorie taylor greene, i will say the way that she filed this motion to vacate for johnson did not trigger anything. it's convoluted but, essentially, it's basically a warning. it's sitting on a threat against his speakership. maybe it doesn't come through, however, it does continue to make everyone look chaotic and it looks like they don't know what they're doing. >> right. it's all on public, as you say, with that hang out there with the way it was done it also extends the amount of time that this is floating as a new cycle and the thing over mike johnson instead of whatever governing priorities or messaging they would have. wrap up, you make a fair point about laura ingram raging at everyone for a messy hangover when she was serving tequila shots all night.

you know, sometimes you have to look in the mirror too. eugene, always good to see you, sir. >> thank you so much. thanks for having me. buckle up. >> absolutely. appreciate it. we have a lot to cover. we look at women's rights before the supreme court and how it suggests another broken pledge. first, a special guest on the beat tonight. obama attorney general eric is here for summit series where we tried to go in depth. a lot of important stuff, redistricting, democracy justice, that is next. hat is n. postmenopausal osteoporosis and are at high risk for fracture, you can build new bone with evenity®. ask your doctor if you can do more than just slowing down bone loss with evenity®. want stronger bones? then build new bone; evenity® can help in just 12 months. evenity® is proven to reduce spine fracture risk by 73%.

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welcome to the summit series. we have a very special guest tonight. attorney general eric holder, a trailblazer in law. he served in government for three decades. he was a prosecutor fighting corruption by politicians in both parties pretty served as a judge. a putting by bill clinton to be the attorney. president obama tapped him to be the united states attorney general. at the time, he was the first black american to hold that position and has been a tireless advocate in and out of government for civil rights and equality under the law. he has been recognized in many different ways. we would just mention one tonight. time magazine named him one of the most influential people in the world dubbing him the justice seeker. the attorney general is our guest on the summit series. thank you for being here.

>> thank you for having me. >> i like to start back to the beginning. when you are about nine years old, you are watching this new president being sworn in. is that right? i read that you remember that even at the young age which means you might've been more cynically inclined then the most average guy, perhaps. let's take a look at the very inaugural that you watched as a kid. >> in your hands, my fellow citizens, more than mine, will rest the final success or failure of our course. since this country was founded, each generation of americans has been summoned to give testimony to its national loyalty.

>> what you remember about that speech at that young age? >> i remember a big, black and white tv in the basement of our house in queens and watching that speech and for some reason, being inspired. i didn't really have a good sense of who john fitzgerald kennedy was. i remember thinking fitzgerald is a weird name. it's something about the speech that moved me. the notion of a torched being passed to a new generation of americans, this notion of responsibility that each american has to make the nation better, to work with government, the notion of an alliance for progress that america would reach beyond its borders. there was a vitality to the speech and to him and i from that day forward have been a devotee, a lover, of all things john fitzgerald kennedy. >> you said there in new york. you make it to columbia which is a great school. i think we have the yearbook photo. tell me, this young man, is he committed to law at this point? >> i'm not sure what that young man was committed to but i can say that my father told me,

son, you'll look back at this picture and you look at the way you look right now and think you look like a fool. >> you brought it up. how do you feel about how you look? >> i would say the fro is excessive. i had the sideburns, those could hang a bit. i would cut down the afro more than a little. thank you so much for finding the picture. >> yes, so, does this young man know that he wants to go on to long justice yet or not? >> no. if you had told young eric both in college and in the immediate first few years in law school that i was going to be a federal prosecutor i would've said drug test them. i was born in the 50s, raised in the 60s. anti-establishment toast -- took over when i was a freshman in college and the notion that i would be working for the federal government as a prosecutor was something that i thought would never, ever happen. >> you went in and throughout

your career you did reform. for people looking at you going up that route, how much did you have to initially compromise, fit in, double prove your legitimacy even though it's unfortunate that that sometimes see the bar -- be the bar and was there a time when he started to push and shift more? >> it's interesting. i didn't going to the justice department as a newly hired lawyer and sam here to change everything. i had to earn my stripes and try some cases. i went into the public integrity section and prosecuted official corruption cases. over time, i got to develop a reputation as a person who moves around the courtroom. at that point i had the ability to start advocating for who are we charging? why are we charging? >> your credibility came first from doing and winning cases in the questioning the priorities to some degree? >> right. >> apps cam was a case you worked on, right?

>> i worked on and left. i didn't think the way that the government was conducting itself was being done appropriately and we said we are not going to do it and they took us off the case at our request. >> so, did you fear professional consequences for that? >> i then i was a pretty well- known commodity. i had a good relation to the person who is the chief of the section. although i'm sure he was mad at me, and i know he was mad at me, it didn't affect the trajectory of my career. >> the time president obama had you for the attorney general one thing in your favor was you seem to have his trust throughout. that meant that you could do the job. there's the independent doj job, you're not supposed to pre- clear things, you're not supposed to be butted up but you could also do criminal justice reform policy. it's a tricky dance for anyone, let alone the position you in the first black president were in. the first time we sat down was a decade ago. it might've looked a little different. that was one of the things we

focused on in that discussion. we were on the site of a drug diversion type court and i want to place what you said. your talk about how you wanted to be assessed and now we are in the position to look back on it. let's take a look. >> i would hope that one of the things that people look back on and say that we got right was to do things in a different way. as we use the phrase to be smart on crime. that means engaging in prevention activities, rehabilitation activities, re- entry activities ultimately, keep the nation safer. have a system, criminal justice system that is perceived as being fair and acts in proportionate ways. >> it would seem uncertain seeing and more in drugs there has been progress. on police brutality and the front line, first interactions with police and fbi it seems very little has changed.

that is my quick and dirty but you tell us yours. >> i would say we made progress when we came to making sure that we had more fairness in drug prosecutions. a greater focus on those people who pose the greatest danger to society. when it comes to the relationship between police and the communities that they are supposed to serve, i don't think we made as much progress as i would've liked. >> why is that? >> a lot of stuff is ingrained in both cultures. there are stereotypes that too many police have about communities that they serve. in particular, communities of color. within those communities there is an ingrained, may be legitimately ingrained fear of the system and the way in which people of color, black people in particular, have not been treated fairly. trying to bring those communities together with a modicum of success, we brought more cases against more police departments than ever had occurred before and have occurred since. i think that was a significant

step forward but we did not get to the place of the conclusion of my time where i wanted to be in that regard. >> let's look at the data. when you look at the police interactions, for example, and we have this graph, fatal police shootings here, over time, have not budged much and they are up basically over time. so, police are continuing to use force and deadly force at the same or higher levels as before and disproportionately in communities of color. >> yes, i mean, there is an emphasis on prevention that we need to focus on when it comes to police activity. police are just like any other people in this country who carry around with them stereotypes, implicit biases, they see people of color in a different way than they will see people who are whites, not all, but some police officers, too

many police officers. dealing with those biases and the actions upon those biases are things that i think we have to get out. a lot of the stuff is not popular in law enforcement circles. >> because? >> because it means changing the way the people do things. it means sing the way you have been doing things may not be appropriate. >> president obama seem to value your efforts. given that were here, let's take a look at that. >> eric has served at the justice department under six presidents of both parties. through it all, he is shown a deep and abiding fidelity. one of our most cherished ideals as a people and that is equal justice under the law. hundreds of terrorism convictions. the largest mafia takedown in history. billion-dollar financial fraud cases. long-overdue reforms to our criminal justice system.

with eric as its lawyer, america has become a better country. >> there's a summit question. what portion of that was the experience you had that you could apply and what portion was knowing you had the trust of your boss each many people don't have at any level of a job. >> i think there are three portions. one was the experience that i had. another portion was the backing that i had of this president. we share worldview when it comes to these issues. the third part is about who i am as a person, how i was raised in the era in which i was raised. i'm a kid of the 60s, you know? and i was growing up, the civil rights movement was in full bloom. african countries were getting their independence. my parents are from the west indies. barbados becomes independent. this notion of fairness, justice, equality, it's something that has infused me as an individual and has infused all parts of my professional career. that desire for justice and

equality with a great boss and with a good amount of experience is what allowed me, i think, to make some significant progress in the things i focused on. >> attorney general, thanks for joining us. >> thanks for having me. >> we appreciate the attorney general's time and we had so much to talk about. there's more that we will share tomorrow. tune in right here and that installment will air at 6:00 p.m. eastern tomorrow. we will be right back. back.

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turning to an important story on women's rights. we promised you we will keep on this avenue of reporting. the supreme court tomorrow hears a case that could further restrict health care decisions and abortion access nationwide. and this goes well beyond the last decision that overturned roe. this is actually part of a much broader right-wing push to basically crack down or even criminalize women's choices and doctors' medical decisions. that sounds extreme? remember, it's an extreme agenda that was once considered sort of off the table. and then around the time that donald trump came into view, he blurted out the very thing that pro-life and anti-abortion groups have claimed for years they're against. he blurted out what he thought in his first white house run should happen when there are abortions. >> should the woman be punished for having an abortion? >> look -- >> this is not something you can dodge.

if you say abortion is a crime or abortion is murder, you have to deal with it under the law. should abortion be punished? >> well, people in certain parts of the republican party and conservative republicans would say yes, they should be punished. >> how about you? >> i would say that it's a very serious problem, and it's a problem that we have to decide on. >> do you believe in punishment for abortion? yes or no as a principle? >> the answer is that there has to be some form of punishment. >> for woman? >> yeah. there has to be some form. >> there has to be some sort of punishment for the woman, then candidate trump claimed, basically arguing that the choice or action, then legal under law should be made illegal, and then on top of that, there should be punishment for women. remember, this is a democracy. you got to pay attention to what people say and take them seriously. that particular interview and comment drew so much backlash, was seen as such an obvious drag on trump's chances, that he tried to walk it back. but then again, look at the

actions, not just what they say, because he appointed justices who are going in that direction. there are three people in the supreme court from donald trump. they all were part of the new coalition that gutted roe and 50 years of precedent. and that's not all. i want to remind you tonight. justice alito wrote in that controversial decision that that would be the end of it. indeed, i'll just read it to you, quote, far from bringing out a national settlement of the abortion issue, roe enflamed debate, he argued. and this one, the one overturning roe would then, quote, heed the constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people's elected representatives. the claim there is that the courts would then stay out of it, leave it to the states and everything would be okay. alito was wrong. that ruling did not settle anything. and that's why very soon after, the very same court with alito on it has been forced to decide to get involved again. they're going to hear arguments

over a pill, sometimes referred to the abortion pill that actually accounts for the majority of abortions. last year over 60%. it is a way women choose to deal with early term termination of a pregnancy. now a group of doctors against abortion are saying that pill is dangerous and it should be further limited. the fda has not found that. and as always, you have to look past the claims, which are designed to confuse, trick, or lie. there is not evidence, according to the fda, a nonpartisan medical community research that this is an issue of safety. it's an issue of power and whether this supreme court will again use its power to further infringe on women's rights. we'll be watching that case tomorrow, and we'll be right back. , and we'll be right back held me back... now with skyrizi, i'm all in with clearer skin. ♪ things are getting clearer...♪ ( ♪♪ ) ♪ i feel free... ♪ ♪ to bear my skin, yeah that's all me. ♪ ♪ nothing is everything ♪

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thanks for spending time with us. you can always get me online at arimedical better.com or @ari melber. we showed you that eric holder interview. any other questions for him? sign up or use social media. we have more of that media on air new tomorrow. so i hope you come back and join us on tv tomorrow at 6:00 p.m. eastern. "the reidout" with joy reid starts now. tonight on "the reidout" -- >> are you ready? >> i'm absolutely ready. i've been ready. i'm hoping with all of my heart that they call me because as i showed on the stand against michael