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right now. hi, ari. >> hi, nicole, thanks so much. today marks a serious, even grim day for defendant donald trump, who of course, was indicted, booked, and had his mug shot taken very famously in an election case regarding possible crimes in the 2020 race in the georgia rico case. he was also indicted by federal prosecutor jack smith in two cases which carry serious charges but, like the georgia case, are actually not currently on track to go to trial by the election. but for trump, the only case where it now matters that he is a criminal defendant is in new york, where trump's trial reached its inflection point today as d.a. bragg's team has just told the judge today that the d.a.'s office has proven its case based on the evidence and ethus intoning the well known

phrase, quote, your honor, the people rest. that's today in the only case that looks to be going to trial by the eelection. that means the prosecutors literally rest their case and take the position they've supplied enough evidence to prove each and every element of this crime which they say donald trump committed is felony beyond a reasonable doubt. and that does something today. it hands control of the case, meaning the witnesses and requests to put in evidence and all of those things, back to the court which can hear the defense's case unless the defense were to decline to mount one. and i can tell you tonight we already know they are mounting one. so we are legally in the uncharted territory here. i told you about those other cases. they matter in vashs ways, and donald trump could clearly lose the election and go on to face trial in those cases, but in this unusual time, in this chapter of history that we're living through, the defense is

now up after the prosecution has rested its case in the only case defendant donald trump faces by november. so we're approaching jury deliberation. could start as soon as next week. i could get into what we're counting with you, but prosecutors have finished their case now. and they ended basically with key witness michael cohen, who spent a record four days on the stand, including today's cross examination by trump's team. >> the prosecution is quickly wrapping up its case in the first criminal trial of a former american president. >> it could be the homestretch in lower manhattan. michael cohen back on the stand. >> the defense wrapped up with michael cohen after three days of cross examination. >> it was a gruelling three days. the prosecution started its redirect by focussing on the stormy daniels payments. >> the prosecution has now rested its case. the defense has also just now called its first witness. >> there's also this outstanding question of whether the former president will testify or not. >> judge juan merchan saying

this morning that closing arguments will now happen after memorial day. >> cohen's time on the stand has proven pivotal, and it's clear both sides see it that way. they see him as pivotal and important. cohen's cross examination continued to raise doubts about whether or not he's a credible witness. there were admissions that he stole at least at one point from the trump organization. there's the way he's had to stress or admit that he has some kind of financial interest in this case and being under oath he confirmed, yes, he does, while also trying to show that a trump conviction himself not necessarily alter his current role or media activities as a when tater, arguing an acquittal would give him more to talk about in his various podcasts, media interviews, which include on this and other news channels. if the questioning of michael

cohen began with some big topics and clashes, i got to tell you, it wrapped up with a series of smaller lines of inquiry. and we just don't know if this will ultimately confuse the jury or just downright bore them. but you can think about it like this. did cohen recently lie about the core facts of this case? big question. did he possible misremember which phone call was about a given topic? that's a small question. possibly pointless. and there have been skirmishes about his calls from eight years ago. prosecutors tried to get back to the focus and the bottom line, asking, for example, was he too business i? 2016 to get trump's approval on the daniels payment, and cohen was able to confirm no. so the point there is of all the different things that have happened, this payment to stormy daniels mattered at the time, and cohen had enough wherewith

all to recall what happened, even if other points might be in dispute. trump's dense team also had made some progress raising doubts about whether cohen was truthful about recent testimony within the recent recollections he had, including about this call that he says proves up the case because he confirmed with trump on the phone in a certain call that he made the payment. so prosecutor es return to that topic today. they got a picture into evidence showing donald trump with the very same bodyguard that cohen identified on that call, which appears to back up cohen's version of events that he could have called that bodyguard about one topic and then also quickly talked to trump by phone about the hush money. and this is the date in question, and there is the bodyguard who was called. so this is an example of why we've said you have to take it all over time. it's why the jury has been told by the judge not to try to draw conclusions a day at a time. if you're watching us at home on the news, you can draw conclusions, but that's your

choice as a citizen watching. the jury has been told even if one day ends with a lot of kind of suspicious sounding questions, jury's been told you're hearing the attack, you'll hear the response, and don't form a conclusion until you start to deliberate. so what looked like, perhaps, a more questionable thing under questioning last week -- and cohen didn't, to be clear, have the best answers on it -- now has this extra evidence e, this photograph, and a little more pushback on the idea of, yes, maybe what cohen said is true. maybe he made a call, even if there was this other thing about this harassment and prankster, and that's what he was texting about. maybe he said, hey, hand the phone to the boss, i've got something for him. i made the payment. you can imagine neither of them wanted to spend much time talking about it. he said i made the thing, okay, done. inside courtroom, observers saw cohen near the end here look at trump, who did not look back, and then the d.a.

rested the case. you see that moment there according to the sketch artist. we've talked about all the different reporters and analysts and experts we rely on, including on our own team inside the courtroom. we've been talking turns. rachel maddow was one of the journalists inside of the courtroom today. she here's some of what she shared that she saw today. >> there are very few moments at which i think todd blanche and this defense is saying a thing that seems to mean a thing to this jury. he may do the world's greatest or the defense team may do the world's greatest summation that brings it together in some way that's unforeseeable from this point, but in this moment, it is discursive, sprawling, and uninteresting. >> discursive, sprawling, and uninteresting. you don't want that on the back of your biography, right, or any project you've done, or your play, or whatever. i think rachel makes a fair point i alluded to earlier, what

started big on day one and two ended small. the question is not whether that is a perfect ending or an interesting ending, the question is did they hold on to the jury and raise enough questions about cohen or did they bore and confuse the jury by the end. after 19 days and 20 different witnesses now the trump team gets to show the jury what it thinks the story is. they're not under a legal burden to provide a defense, and sometimes you have case where is the dense doesn't do anything, doesn't call any witnesses. here they are exercising that right. and again, it's not like they have to match. it's not like, oh, the other side got 20 witness, we have our own 20. you'd expect more prosecution witnesses because they have the burden of proof. the defense is just bringing on who they think can add the context or story they want to care. covering a case fairly means looking at both sides. this is the trump side. it doesn't mean pretending both sides are always equal. and i can just tell you, it was

not a very strong start for the defense. trump's lawyers called a paralegal to discuss calls in evidence and then called a lawyer linked to michael cohen who giuliani and trump have tried to use to discredit michael cohen. robert costello, he was also called before the grand jury. today this lawyer, costello, testified that michael cohen had told him trump didn't know about the payments back when they first discussed this. in other words, the trump defense then and now. but there are many problems with costello as a witness. he's publicly attacked cohen. he's been a quite obvious representative of trump's interests. he's used his role in all of this to discard whatever privileges might have attached between him, a lawyer, talking to then michael cohen, their client relationship was never all that clear, but he's gone out of his way to sort of show ewhere he stands. and that's not all. costello was rebuked by this

judge for antics on the stand, including interruptions and out-of-pocket arrogant behavior which at one point led the judge to clear the courtroom. now, this is unusual. it is a bad start for the major trump defense witness on the first day that they're calling witnesses. the judge had to respond to costello acting out because he was saying jeeze and sort of muttering on the side. and the judge said, quote, if you don't like my ruling, you don't say jeeze. you don't give me side eye, and you don't roll your eyes. do you understand that? costello said he understood. judge merchan then clearing the jury from the room to admonish costello so he wouldn't prejudice the jury further while also taking control of the courtroom. the judge also was heard saying to costello, are you staring me down right now? this is the most heated moment we've seen in this high stakes trial. certainly, the judge deciding there was a line that had been crossed, crossed by this trump side witness. and it speaks to the way this defense witness was composing

himself. he drew some tough headlines here on the first day of trump defense's team getting control. a heated exchange that could affect whether the jury views costello as credible. that combined with whatever else he says and how he acts. the jury will be weighing whether they believe his version of events in the context of all of this, including how he comes across in court. so what do we have? well, michael cohen is the central figure here. note that when it all is said and done, all the strategy and all the second guessing, michael cohen was the d.a.'s final witness. and probably the witness who spent the longest time on the stand that we can count at this point in the trial, and now michael cohen is the focus of this testimony by one of the defense's first witnesses. so what do we take from that? if they could prove this case without michael cohen, the d.a., they probably wouldn't have called him at all. they didn't bring up karen mcdougal, the other person who

was a party to these hush money payments. there were people at the national enquirer they didn't bring up. they had the top guy, they didn't think the others mattered when you have the guy at the top. there are all sorts of places where they said they had enough. with the underlying transaction and michael cohen's knowledge of what he says was donald trump's intent at the time, which is clearly stated, clear campaign crime, according to cohen, they needed cohen to prove that case. and here what we see is the defense is worried about that. it's not enough that they cross examined cohen and felt their scored enough blows. they brought up mr. costello who is -- and i think it's fairly proven -- a weaker witness than mr. cohen. whatever his problems are that i've told you about. but they braukt up a weaker witness here who caused more antics today, why? because the defense is worried they're going to believe michael cohen. even if they believe he's a crook, a tax cheat, or a some

time lawyer, even if they think those things, they might believe him on the core question. and that is why mr. costello, warts and all, antics and all, admonishments and all, was hauled into court today to say in one more way, don't believe what michael cohen says donald trump did in that sordid election scandal of 2016. now we have two special guests here to break down what is a momentous day. the d.a. resting its case, the defense beginning. we're back together in 90 seconds. nning. we're back together in 9 seconds. you've been waiting for. now there's an easier-to-use at home skin tag remover, clinically proven to remove skin tags safely in as little as one treatment. our biggest challenge? uncertainty. hidden fees, surcharges... who knows what to expect! turn shipping to your advantage. keep it simple...with clear, upfront pricing. with usps ground advantage®. ♪♪

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well, he's got to listen to his attorneys. it's not as much what he wants to do. we know he wants to testify. he is willing. he's able. he is nothing -- nothing to hide at all. he's absolutely ready to tell the truth. >> trump's spokesperson there laying the groundwork for what's expected. the likely scenario that defendant trump does not testify. i'm joined by two msnbc legal analysts, neal katyal and melissa marie. neal, i mentioned in the reporting there setting up our conversation that michael cohen's not perfect, hasn't claimed to be, but he is central. and you can see that not only in the way the d.a.'s case ended but how the defense is beginning. your thoughts? >> yeah, i think the prosecution, ari, from the very start knew that this case was michael cohen plus, not just

michael cohen, and so they built their case methodically by really explaining the plus first. as you mentioned, having the head of the national enquirer come and testify, all sorts of documentary evidence and the like. certain through defense scored some points with michael cohen and his credibility, but i don't think it's enough. and i think part of it -- and this is pure allusion to rachel maddow before saying that the defense was really discursive and uninteresting, and i think that's absolutely right. and i see people in court do that, people in court, opponents or whatever, and you usually do that when you don't have a case, when you're just trying to throw up a lot of spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks. and we know this, i think, maybe most tellingly in this question of is donald trump going to testify, they basically signalled, the trump team, that he's not going to. and then they send out their spokesperson to say, oh, this isn't trump's choice, this is his attorney's choice.

that's ridiculous. indeed, tomorrow if donald trump decides not to testify, the judge is going to move the jury out of the room, and he's going to ask him, look, you have the right to testify, do you understand that right, and is this your own choice or is anyone pressuring you. and finally, the judge is going to say, if you do this and don't testify, you can't blame anyone but yourself later on. he's going to have to answer all of that later -- all that tomorrow. so the choice not to testify is, i suspect, because they don't have a case. and so all they're doing is taking potshots at the prosecution's case. >> professor murray, same line of questioning here. with costello, this certain character, you know, i've been inside the trial a bunch of days as well. judge merchan is very measured. if you were to come up with a criticism of him in the trial, i would say it's that he's overly patient and overly fair, not a bad thing far judge. i've seen his interactions sometimes with defense counsel when they were definitely late

in returning. it is complicated because he has security et cetera. this is before they bring the jury in the room. he would say, listen, i'm working with you guys. i don't want to go into this every day, but i said ten minutes, it's been 17. more accommodating than for other defendants. it's complicated. i wasn't in the room today. apparently he'd had it because costello was so over the line. what, if anything, does that tell us? >> well, i mean, this has been a long slog for judge merchan. and again, you're right. he's been incredibly accommodating. i think the place where he's been excessively accommodating is in regards to the gag order. he's been very clear that he is loathe to put this particular defendant in jail for being in contempt of court. and i think that bleeds over into other leeway he give this is defendant. again, to make clear he is being fair and impartial here. he did seem to lose it a little with costello. and again, most individual who is testify before court, anyone

who is before court recognizes that the judge is the central authority figure. you don't mess around with the judge. so the idea that a witness is in the witness box saying jeeze or rolling his eyes at the judge, that's not done. it's completely untoward and not what judge merchan is expecting. and it's certainly not something he has to tolerate. i think we saw that today. >> yeah, i want to play one of the recordings that was referenced again in court today when you look at what cohen's done. this is him talking to a lawyer who represented these women at the time. take a listen, neal. >> i can't even tell you how many time he is said to me, you know, i hate the fact that we did it. and my comment to him was but every person that you've spoken to told you it was the right move. >> these recordings add a lot of ball last, neal, to the story

because they're real, admitted to evidence, and they prop up various points. where the prosecution's trying to rehab whatever punches were landed, they kept it very simple. at one point saying are you actually on trial in this case, they asked cohen. question put this up. he says, no. and it's a simple reminder that part of what todd blanche did over several days was question cohen every which way. and as i reported, at times it seemed like it might have been effective, but on redirect they're trying to remind everyone todd blanche it's questionable to make these tapes is fine as an opinion or an op-ed, but the tapes now exist, and they actually add receipts. what did you think about the effort here to bring back some of those points for the jury's mind? >> yeah, that's 100% right. i think the prosecution did a good job of rehabilitating with the tapes but also with the photograph that was introduced

today, ari. there's a key day, october 24, 2016, where michael cohen claims he called keith schiller and that led to the so-called perry mason moment last week where trump's lawyer goes, you lied about that call, you were talking to the bodyguard, not donald trump. the photograph taken within, i think, seconds of that phone call shows trump and shiller together. and that's, of course, the prosecution's theory all along, which is that cohen called shiller in order to talk to trump and spoke to both of them so. i think that documentary evidence is quite helpful. the other thing i just want to say about your question to melissa about costello and the judge erupting and all of that, i think melissa's absolutely right. this judge has bent over backwards all throughout. but i think today is a circumstance in which trump might have actually shot himself in the foot if for whatever reason there is one juror, or more, who decides not to convict, i do think that the decision today by the judge to

let costello testify without much notice to the prosecution and to testify in such a way -- it's not grounds for a mistrial, but it certainly gives the prosecution a good argument for why there should be a retrial in the case of a hung jury, that you had this judge who time and again bent over backwards for trump, including to the point of letting costello poison the jury with his remarks. >> hmm. melissa, just running over on time, but as we look ahead, we got scheduling news, so we know the jury's going to get its sort of long weekend and come back to hear closing and then deliberate, does that sound prudent to you, again, in other lesser trials the judge might have said, hey, we're going to start and see where it goes. >> i think, again, i've known a lot of jury trials, and i think the judges recognize that the jurors have live, they have other things going on, a long weekend, you may have family plans. it is a high profile trial, but nobody wants 12 angry men, literally, going back to the

deliberation room, to decide this case. you want to have an opportunity for the jurors to be well rested and to be in a good frame of mind. but again, we cannot -- we're speculating here as to what the defense, the prosecution did, and how it landed. this is a unique organism of 12 individuals. we can't predict what's going on in this jury. i think neal is exactly right. you know, what happened today with costello probably made ejudge merchan angry because that admits the possibility that he makes a mistake that is appealable. he's probably thinking about how this lands with the jury, all of it. so we're going to have to see how all of this shakes out. all you need is one person to stonewall here, and there you have it. >> yeah. melissa, neal, thanks to both of you. let me tell folk what's coming up. an insider who's worked with michael cohen and can speak to the weird ways and the money that changes hands with this team. that's next. nges han wdsith this team that's next. so, what are you thinking? i'm thinking... (speaking to self) about our honeymoon. what about africa? safari?

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i worry about michael. donald trump, the personal guy, he screws everyone. michael cohen got screwed out. got screwed the most i saw by anyone by donald trump. >> former trump aide sam speaking to us in 2018. he faced the mueller probe and was then worried about michael cohen, who, like him, faced this type of legal heat but then faced a heck of a lot more and ultimately went to prison pursuant to one of those investigations. and today cohen is wrapping up his testimony on this long saga after going to prison that was the overhead shot. there he is as the witness. we are joined by sam, who worked for trump all the way back in 2011, worked on the 2016 # campaign as one of the first aides. had a bit of a falling out with trump and worked with cohen. he's now our special guest. welcome. >> hi, ari, nice to see you. >> good to have you. we showed you all the way back

then, because it's been a long odyssey. and so before we get into all the little details, i'm curious, since you know trump and cohen, what you think of michael cohen's long evolution and what he's given up, what he's faced, and what he's saying on the stand. >> well, i certainly think in the scheme of things michael was overall a victim for his longtime support and at least loyalty that i thought that he had to donald. but what i would say, ari, is that when i gave that interview, i was unaware that he was taping -- taping donald in person, and i was unaware that he was overbilling for certain vendors to trump org. michael certainly wanted to portray himself as the most loyal confidant of donald and in the scheme of in trump org it was always a competition for donald's attention. but with that said, michael cohen says if this is david versus goliath, i almost see it

as somebody who's very scorned and is willing to give some testimony that i just didn't believe, you know, certain comments that michael claimed that donald made. >> you're sort of backing up the defense that the trump team has made here. they've had some rather outlandish claims that nothing ever happened or maybe it wasn't business fraud. the fraud part, i think most factual people can see on tape. it's all written down. weisselberg wrote it down. he's in rikers. you're saying the other parts where cohen is describing trump's motivation, et cetera, you think he's been untruthful recently? >> yes, i do. i don't believe donald ever said i don't worry about me lania, i won't be on the market for long. i can tell you, as i previously said on your show, it was a long concern in the campaign that if issues like stormy daniels or others came out, he was very

worried about melania. it was never an issue about whether or not he wanted to win the campaign. he had frequently told me, you know -- i'm par phrasing here, these aren't the exact words, but i do not want to go through another divorce. he would often complain about divorces during that time of his life. so something along those lines that this was solely for tlex i don't believe. i also, by the way, don't believe donald would have paid stormy daniels ever. i don't think he ever would have paid her. i think at the end of the day the idea that the d.a. is bringing here that this was a conspiracy. they're not saying the overarching crime is a federal election donation expense, they're saying this was some kind of conspiracy to defraud the united states electorate because we didn't get to find out before stormy daniels before we went to vote, i just don't buy it. and that's why i think michael then made his comments, you

know, he's saying -- >> but when you say -- yeah -- but when you say would have paid, he did, in fact, pay michael back knowing what he was paying back for, so what are you saying? >> what i'm saying is is that as michael did talk about, i don't believe -- this is all hypothetical, and this happened because donald overall was not loyal to michael. i don't believe that -- and michael got in some position in the administration some offer he was willing to take he ever would have got repaid, for instance. i think once he said he didn't want to work in the white house counsel office and complained about other issue, such as his bonus that year, ari, i think then they came to some kind of arrangement where donald would finally have paid him back that money, that money to stormy daniels. i don't think that michael would have been able to -- >> yeah. >> -- accepted some kind of

position. >> as you say, it's a bit hypothetical. let me ask you this, sam, stepping away from the law itself, we've seen so many people go through these eodysseys around trump. i was sitting in the courtroom watching these politicians come in who want to be in his orbit, these lawyers working this hard thinking about how many of these people are asking for jobs that could make them witnesses, defendants, or worse, as you and others know. and it's a strange thing to see that continue, and i'm curious why can don't you think him and cohen were unable to work out something with the white house? was it, in your view, that trump was now president, no one could talk to him, even though this was his loyal fixer who even had dirt, if you rework this as a shakespeare yan tale, you would say the king was too harsh on this particular member of the

court. maybe it wouldn't have been the star witness in the first place. do you have any insight on that and did trump mishandle that? why did these two men have this type of falling out? >> i saw that with myself and cory lewandowski. donald just went through people throughout that election. when you were before donald when he ran for president, it was a small group of people. when it had to expand, it was in with the new, out with the old. as you were talking about shakespeare, it was a king's court. that was often said to me in comment. and donald, people would fall out of favor. people like jared kushner to the trump sons didn't want michael in the white house for whatever reason -- >> because? >> because they were sick of him. they were sick of him. michael -- look, the one thing hope hicks said that was true besides the damning testimony

about the comment donald made in the white house, the one thing she said was the reason michael was the fixer was because he broke it a lot. i would say when i spoke to donald, and this was a lot of my testimony to the mueller people, by the way, i was given over to the sdny, we had to figure out a way, donald and i, to have michael in the fold, have him involved, have him -- but have him not cause problems with the politics of the primary states. this was what we said he would do. and the way he handled it, the way he handled it, i bet -- i don't know this -- but i bet just the people who understand the color, donald had no attention of ever paying back the national enquirer either. donald would have said, you know how much money you people have made off me, you're welcome. >> that's not -- i got to wrap it up, that's not an out of bounds point, which again, could end up mattering legally, depending on how the jury view what is the intent was at the time and was the intent, i'm

buying something or i'm buying it off the books or i'm buying -- it was a campaign crime. your more benign effort to cast it as i'm making deal, maybe i don't pay it back. sometimes it makes him look cheap or worse. other time, it would be helpful. wanted to go to the source, sam, thank you. we ve a very important piece about the heat on justice samuel alito. a new scandal for him and some of the republican appointees on the supreme court when we come back. e supreme court when we come back in 99% of people over 50. it's lying dormant, waiting... and could reactivate. shingles strikes as a painful, blistering rash that can last for weeks. and it could wake at any time. think you're not at risk for shingles? it's time to wake up. because shingles could wake up in you. if you're over 50, talk to your doctor or pharmacist about shingles prevention.

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there's new heat on supreme court justice samuel alito. revelations that the symbol of this, quote, stop the steal movement upside down flag was flown outside his house for days in the key period after the insurrection. just as many people now convicted of crimes flew it that way at the capitol on january 6th itself. now, it's a grave scandal if justice alito witnessed the violence of january 6th and then sought to associate with that side or the underlying lies and conspiracy theorys that fed those grievances, suggesting that trump's legal loss, he did any fact lose, was actually some kind of conspiracy theory steal. that's a scandal for a justice who also has to oversee and rule in related cases, including of those very defendants and convicts. and it's a scandal even if he stormed short of officially supporting criminal violence. "the new york times" broke this

story, which raises questions about whether justice alito can even rule on these cases and whether his possible public support, you see the flag there on the right, of these crimes against the united states also make him unfit to serve on the court at all. justice alito now can see this is at a minimum a bad look. he's responding by distancing himself from the flying of the flag of the lying movement at the heart of january 6th. before i show you his new statement, i want to be clear. he's not claiming that he can just fly the flag as a matter of free speech. he's not elaborating on where he stands on the lies associated with flying the flag that way claiming a steal. he is instead suggesting that the flag flew over his own home for days as a kind of separate family decision that was made without him. he now asserts -- and he didn't say this under oath, but he said it -- that his story is that his wife independently flew the flag

over his home and that while he lives there, he was not in any way involved in that decision. the statement said i had no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag. it was briefly placed by mrs. alito in response to a neighbor's use of oxable and personally insulting language on yard signs, end quote. this is, and i say this respectfully, an unacceptable, silly, and possibly misleading statement by a sitting member of the supreme court. it is not, for example, what the court accepts when defendants and lawyers submit material to the court. the idea that a random civilian saying something somewhere would then justify an otherwise questionable or unacceptable association with the january 6th violence in that key week is an explanation so thin that it's hard to follow, or worse, it sounds misleading. the inverted flag does not fly anymore over alito's home.

the court is presiding over two related cases, and the court has this ethics code that was recently -- over these kind of problems. the court was pushed into that ethics code because of justice alito, along with justice thomas, who had been taking huge benefits, sums of money, transferred to them through sometimes secret uber rich vacations from people who have business on the court and who they met because of their lobbying for the court. in other words, it is worse than it even looks. we're joined by msnbc analyst and professor jason johnson. welcome, jason. >> good to be here, ari. >> i asked you to be here. i can't hear jason yet, so if you're muted, unmute. try again. >> i'm not muted to my knowledge. i'm on. >> we're going to work on it.

>> i can hear you. >> all right -- control room, can the audience hear him or are we out of luck? >> i am here. >> we've got jason johnson on justice alito. try again, sir. >> yes, i'm here, ari. >> so i may have lost audio. jason, i can't hear you, and i can't hear anyone at msnbc. try talking with your answer if you can hear me, and then we'll figure out whether the audience can hear you. that's my best plan. >> no problem. no problem. yes, you know, the story itself is shameful, ari. it's absolutely shameful. and frankly, we have to look at the overall logic of what alito is trying to say here. all of this supposedly stems from a neighbor putting up a sign that says f donald trump. of the thousands of responses you could have to f donald trump, you could -- as a judge cow could ignore it. you could call the police and

say, that's offensive, take it down. you could say nipsey deserved it. but to associate yourself with january 6th of all the responses that you could have is indicative of somebody who was already aligned with a violent insur reshgs, and that is absolutely inexcusable for someone who is on the supreme court. and that's why this is so dangerous and speaks to a larger problem about how our court has been operating with impunity for years. okay. rating with impunity for years. okay a once—daily pill. when symptoms tried to take control, i got rapid relief... and reduced fatigue with rinvoq. check. when flares kept trying to slow me down... i got lasting steroid—free remission... with rinvoq. check. and when my doctor saw damage,... rinvoq helped visibly reduce damage of the intestinal lining. check. for both uc and crohn's: rapid symptom relief... lasting steroid—free remission... and visibly reduced damage. check. check. and check.

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supreme court justice samuel alito under pressure here over reports that he was seen flying this flag, stop the steal, over his house. jason johnson is with us. we fixed our technical difficulties. your thoughts as you were explaining this issue. >> yeah, ari, the larger issue here is not that you have another supreme court justice who appears to be compromised. we had these issues all last summer with the propublica articles about clarence thomas. it's not just about the lying by alito. the idea there was a flag flown upside down outside his house and he didn't know. it's the fact that dick durbin, the president of the united states, democratics and even minded republicans are nomscreaming about the absolute need for legislation to require

and rein in the supreme court. this is a problem. these people are not just nonpartisan. they're active partisans in a movement to violently overthrow the government. this isn't just a difference of opinion. if somebody had put up a sign that said f the police, your response could be, i support the blue. your response could be i believe in law enforcement. your response shouldn't be george floyd and breonna taylor deserved it. that's essentially what's being said here. we have to be in a situation where our justices can adleast present the patina that they're objective. if they can't do that, they shouldn't sit on the supreme court, and other legislators should call for them to be kicked off. >> a huge revelation. we have the imagery up. this is a very public, angry, and i use this word literally, disloyal display against the united states, the peaceful transfer of power, the rule of law. and at the time, the majority of

the justices, including i should mention, some republican appointees, had rejected taking the conspiracy theory cases. they rejected them for good reason. there wasn't close evidence. it wasn't bush v. gore. it was a blowout, and there hadn't been any evidence. i want to read here from "the new york times," while that flag was up, the court was contending with whether to hear a final 2020 election case. justice alito on the losing end of the decision to not hear those cases. should he be viewed as someone who publicly affiliated with the stop the steal movement and thus is minimizing or softly supporting the premise of the violent effort to overthrow the government. if so, is he fit to be on the court, jason? >> no, he isn't. he isn't. and this -- ari, i'll be more specific here. this is supporting terrorism. it's not just an idealogical

opinion. this is not roe v. wade. you're supporting terrorism. he's supporting the violent overthrow of the government. it's ridiculous, if we can hold justices accountable for the financial dealings of their spouses, it's ridiculous for us to assume they're not aware of and in tacit support of changing the decorations outside of their own homes. it's insane to think that. the president of united states and democrats and like-minded republicans need to call this out before this hearing occurs so should someone like alito scuttle justice, the nation is prepared for the dishonesty. >> yeah, i think it's very clear legally he has to explain this further. it's a question for him and the chief justice. alito has to go under oath, explain what was being done at his house in the wake of the violence with the police officers and others being attacked, some of them dying. he has to explain why there's so much intrigue around whether he or someone he knows leaked his draft opinion to the supreme court.

that was a justice alito draft. these are open questions. they didn't put the justice under oath in that investigation. it's a question of whether we have people who self-identify as enemies of democracy on the court. his family flag, it's his house, this isn't someone else putting it up. jason, i went to you. i want to mention for clarity, we didn't want a legal ethicist because these questions are bigger than checking the footnotes of their own ethics code. thank you, and we'll be right back. back thankfully, tide's thr to almost all of them. why do we even buy napkins? use tide. can cold water clean white socks? it can with tide. do i need to pretreat guacamole? not with tide. this is chocolate, right? -just use... -tide...yeah. no matter who's doing it, on what cycle, or in what temperature, tide works. so i can focus on all the other questions. do crabs have eyebrows? ahh... for all of life's laundry questions, it's got to be tide. power e*trade's easy-to-use tools, like dynamic charting and risk-reward analysis,

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that does it for us. "the reidout" with joy reid starts now. tonight on "the reidout" -- >> he's got to listen to his attorneys. it's not as much what he wants to do. we know he wants to testify. he's willing. it's pretty quick and it would be a pretty short testimony as far as the questions that would need to be asked because he had