The GOP is 'dissolving itself': Trump appears to set up McDaniel as fall guy for failures
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freaking deal. MSNBC Live Democracy 2024, Saturday, September 7th in Brooklyn, New York. Visit MSNBC.com slash Democracy 2024 to buy your tickets today. Really happy to have you here. Happy Monday. So in September, you might remember there was a big strike.

United Auto Workers went on strike. They called it a stand-up strike, which means they didn't strike every single factory, every single facility all at once. They strategically picked individual plants to strike and picket. And it was so they could basically keep up the pressure on the companies, but also be nimble about it while the negotiations were going on.

A strike is about what leverage you can use against the companies. This was a strategy that was about fine-tuning their leverage. So they did a stand-up strike. That said, it was not a small thing. It was a huge strike. It was the first time ever that the UAW went on strike against all three major U.S. car companies all at once. But they did it.

And in the end, it paid off hugely. The strike ultimately lasted about a month and a half. It lasted 46 days. And it worked. They got record contracts for their workers. The strike was so effective. The contracts they got were so good. Even car companies without union workers gave their employees raises and gave their employees better conditions to try to keep up, to try to prevent their employees from bolting and going to somewhere where they could be in the UAW.

And the public reaction to this was interesting. The public was overwhelmingly in support of the autoworkers while they were on this strike. Polls showed like 75% of the public supported the autoworkers in this strike. So this is a historic thing. This is a big deal.

But if you think back to September, right, when we were at the start of it, before we knew that it would work, before we knew it would be successful, before we knew how it would turn out, before we knew how much public opinion would be in support of these guys, when we were less than two weeks into that strike. Do you remember what President Biden did? You might remember President Biden went to Michigan.

and joined the autoworkers. From the White House, he had been supporting them vocally, he had been trying to help facilitate negotiations, but then once they indeed went on strike, he physically went to Michigan, to one of the plants that was being picketed, and he stood with UAW workers on the picket line. That was September, September 26th, first time a sitting American president had ever done anything like that.

Now, as I mentioned, what the UAW workers were doing here was wildly popular with the American people. I mean, look at the headlines from the time. Poll says Americans overwhelmingly side with autoworkers in ongoing union strike. Majority of Americans support the UAW strike.

Voters across party lines support the UAW strikes, and support is rising. A majority of Americans back the UAW strike as Republican union support grows. As support for this strike grows even among Republicans. Poll shows the proportion of Americans who support the car companies over the striking auto workers is only 9%.

So, so huge majorities of Americans side with the folks on the picket line. Basically, nobody sides against them. And there's President Biden, not only vocally supporting them, not only saying as president that they should get what they're asking for, but again, as president, physically joining them on the picket line to make the point, making history by doing so. Now, what are the Republicans going to do in response? I mean, you think about it, right? He's heading into his reelection.

If you're the Republicans, what do you do like the day after that? The day after the president comes across the country to do that. The day after the president does something that bold on an issue that popular to stand with people the whole country is united in rooting for. If you're the Republicans, what do you do? Well, lucky for a bunch of leading Republicans, the day after Joe Biden did that,

they were unavailable. They had to wash their hair. They were all booked at the Republican Party's presidential candidates debate that was previously scheduled for that next day after Biden walked the picket line.

And, forgive me, but because it was a Fox Business debate, the only question any of the candidates got asked about the strike was, would you fire them? That was literally the question that Fox Business asked them. Would you fire thousands of striking auto workers today? That was the one question they asked.

about this huge strike that was going on. 75% of Americans, Americans left, right, and center, even Republicans, are rooting for the autoworkers in this huge historic strike that's front page news all over the country. And Fox is like, hey, Republican candidates, let's get down to specifics on this. Would you punch him in the face or would you just kick him in the stomach? What would you do? Senator, how about you? I mean, read the room. That said, one of the Republican candidates,

decided that he would take a different approach than all the others, perhaps sensing that Joe Biden was sort of meeting the moment here in a way that Republicans and Fox News weren't. You know, recognizing that Biden was siding with these autoworkers and the country was with him and with them on this. One of the Republican candidates did try to do something different. The day after Biden ended up on the picket line in Michigan, this one Republican candidate decided not to go to that Republican presidential candidates debate.

He skipped it. And instead, he himself went to Michigan to go try to do basically what Biden did, to go show up and be seen with the union autoworkers in Michigan, kind of, whereupon he promptly stepped on a rake.

trying to make it look like he was supporting these union autoworkers who were out on strike, who the whole country was rallying in support of. He instead went to a non-union auto parts facility. And while his campaign tried to convince people to say that he was there speaking to striking autoworkers, or at least he was speaking to autoworkers, the problem was that real reporters actually went to the event. And they realized quickly that this was a facility that doesn't have anybody in a union.

And then the reporters did what reporters do. They talked to the people who were physically there. And so this was the Detroit News the next day. Quote, one individual in the crowd who held a sign that said union members for Trump acknowledged to a Detroit News reporter that she was not a union member.

Another person with a sign that read "Auto Workers for Trump" when asked for an interview said that he wasn't an auto worker. Neither person provided their names. This was very embarrassing, right? He's trying to look like he was supporting the union, but he's at a non-union facility that he filled with people who were given signs and effectively told to pretend to be union workers or even to pretend to be auto workers when they were no such thing.

He did a fake event. I mean, the whole thing was fake. And then it was in the Detroit press the next day that it was fake. This you skipped the debate for? It was so embarrassing at the time. And now, as of right now, there are receipts.

Literal receipts, the campaign finance filings that just came out for all the various campaigns. Reporter Jonathan Oosting at Bridge Michigan dug in and found that on that day in September, the Trump campaign indeed paid a $20,000 rental fee to pay to rent that auto parts plant.

which was not a union facility, so he could pretend it was full of union autoworkers who supported him when it was actually just full of randos holding signs that said that's who they were, even though that's not who they were. It's just an amazing thing. I mean, you think of things that ended previous presidential campaigns, right? Howard Dean was too close to a microphone when he shouted with excitement after doing pretty well in the Iowa caucuses. Your campaign must end. You were too close to the microphone.

Gerald Ford got lost in the middle of a sentence about Eastern Europe in a debate once. Poppy Bush said, "Read my lips" before he said, "No new taxes," which was like uncharacteristically memorable phrasing from him, and so people actually remembered it, which turned out to be really bad for him when the "no new taxes" thing didn't really work out. I mean, campaigns have been laid low by some dumb and small stuff. Here's a candidate

a union event with fake union members and fake auto workers who were given signs by the campaign to falsely identify themselves in the hopes that no one would check. And then they got caught and it's like, what else you got? Did he ever wear a tan suit? The UAW, as I said, wildly successful in that strike with the support of the American people.

And after that experience with the leading Democratic and leading Republican candidates for president in 2024, the UAW has since decided to give their endorsement to President Joe Biden, which is maybe not a surprise after that debacle with Trump and after what Joe Biden did for them. But it's still a big deal. It's an important endorsement.

Today, in another important swing state, today in Nevada, in Las Vegas, another very big, very influential union did not go on strike. The Culinary Workers Union and the Downtown Grand Hotel and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip came down to the wire today in trying to reach a new contract agreement. Before the agreement was reached, the White House put out word that with President Biden traveling to Las Vegas today,

If there was a strike, if a strike was called as of today, if those culinary workers were going to be out on the picket line today, then they might expect that President Joe Biden would join them on the picket line, which of course would be another huge, hairy deal, right? No other sitting president has ever done something like this before. Now, today in Las Vegas, at the last minute, the strike was averted and they did strike a deal. I don't know if the prospect of the president himself walking the picket line with the culinary workers...

Had an effect on those negotiations, but it had to have been looming out there, you have to think. On economic issues of all kinds, President Biden is in kind of an amazing position right now. Unemployment below 4% for 24 consecutive months now. We have added jobs in the economy every month for 37 consecutive months. That's a streak not seen since the 1960s.

Wages are up. Job market is fantastic. Economic growth is super healthy. Economic confidence is growing. Things are so good in the Biden economy right now that our friends at the Fox Business Channel are having a hard time taking it all in.

We're waiting on the jobs numbers where we're expecting 180,000 jobs created in the month of January and the unemployment rate to tick higher to 3.8%. We are watching the revisions, of course, and we're also looking at production. I got it. You got the numbers? Wow. Let's get right to Cheryl. This is something. 353,000 jobs.

Non-farm jobs. I had to seriously double check this, guys. The unemployment rate went down to 3.7%. That's the actual number. We were looking for 3.8%. Let me give you the, I don't even know what to say here. This is an incredibly resilient economy.

I mean, that job number today was mind-blowing, Ashley. No one expected the jobs number to come to 350,000 jobs, unemployment 3.7%, wages up year over year 4.4%. I've been calling this for a long time, but this is Goldilocks. This is as good as it gets. This is Goldilocks. This is as good as it gets. 353,000 jobs. I had to seriously double-check this, guys. What's the actual number? What? I don't even know what to say here. That jobs number today was mind-blowing.

This is as good as it gets. This is Goldilocks. That's the Biden economy, as covered by the news network that more than anything wants this not to be the Biden economy. But it is while he's running for reelection against a likely Republican nominee who wants to run a so-called populist campaign while he's getting caught purchasing fake stage sets filled with fake autoworkers to make it look like they like him. How's that going to work for you come election time?

We don't know. We don't know. In Nevada specifically, we really have no idea and that's in part for logistical reasons because the next elections are in Nevada, sort of. The reason President Biden was in Las Vegas today is because tomorrow is Nevada's presidential primary. The Democratic primary and the Republican primary are in Nevada tomorrow. Now on the Democratic side, on Joe Biden's side, that's going to be a fairly normal event. He is an incumbent president.

He's not really going to have any serious challenge getting his party's nomination. He has sort of token opposition opponents that got like 2% and less than 2% in the first primary this past weekend in South Carolina. So President Biden will compete in Nevada tomorrow and he will clean up. On the Republican side, though, the likely Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, he will not be on the ballot.

in the Nevada primary tomorrow. His opponent, Nikki Haley, will be, but Trump will not. Instead, Trump will be on the ballot later this week for a Nevada Republican Party caucus, which is going to take place on Thursday. And in that one, in the caucus on Thursday, Nikki Haley will not be on the ballot. Now, does this make any sense at all to the average Nevada Republican voter? No, it does not, because it can't make sense to anyone because it doesn't make sense objectively.

But the leadership of the Nevada Republican Party, frankly, is, you have a little empathy. They're distracted. They're under indictment.

The state Republican Party chairman goes on trial less than a month from now, along with five other leading Nevada Republicans, for having signed their names to fraudulent electoral vote certificates and putting themselves forward as fake Trump electors for the state of Nevada in 2020, even though Trump lost the state of Nevada to President Biden by a lot in 2020.

To try to make sure that no Republican candidate would have any chance of winning Nevada other than Trump, these same Nevada Republican officials, the Nevada Republican Party chairman who is under indictment, for example, he went to Mar-a-Lago and met with Trump.

And lo and behold, the Nevada Republican Party came up with this cockamamie plan to ignore the official primary run by the state and instead do this caucus thing instead two days later, basically as a favor to Trump because that's what he wanted. And with the state's Republican governor and the state party super pro-Trump, now what appears to be their Republican Party strategy this week in Nevada—

Follow along here. This appears to be their strategy is they are hoping that people don't vote too much in the official state primary election tomorrow. Or if they do vote, they're hoping that people don't vote for Nikki Haley, even though she's on the ballot. But instead, they vote for the line on the ballot that says none of these candidates.

That's the strategy. And then, oh, that's just the strategy for Tuesday. There's more strategy for later in the week. They then hope people might also vote on Thursday at this other thing, this caucus. But nobody really knows how that will go since lots of Republicans will have just voted in this other thing two days before. And besides, isn't it weird to have a state party chairman and at least one county party chairman administering these supposed elections while they're under felony criminal indictment for trying to steal the last one, allegedly?

So that's Nevada. When I say like, how will this work out at the ballot box? Well, which one? Pity the Nevada Republican voters you might know or who are members of your family. They're going to have an awkward week. But

But the Nevada Republican Party isn't even the worst of them right now. Yes, sure, they are about to hold two separate and incompatible elections for the same office, each with different names on the ballot, each in the same week, but on different days. And the Nevada State Republican Party reportedly has only one paid full-time staffer right now, and their state party chairman is under felony indictment and about to stand trial. Yeah.

pity the Nevada Republican Party right now, but they are better off than some of the others. At least they have a state party chair. An indicted one, yes, but he has a job in a nearby Arizona. Big swing state. The Republican state party chair there just resigned in a weird bribery and leaked tape scandal. In Florida, big important state, the Republican state party chair there was just fired against his will and

In Michigan, a big important swing state, the Republican Party chair was just removed, but she refuses to leave. Both she and the guy who might be her replacement showed up at the Republican Party's annual winter meeting this weekend, both claiming to be the chair of the Michigan Republican Party. The RNC has no idea what to do with this problem with two different people claiming to be the chair of the state party. For the purposes of the meeting this weekend, they officially listed the Michigan Republican Party chairman job as vacant.

And they decided when both of the people who claimed to be the chairman showed up, they decided they would give passes to the meeting to both of the people who claimed to be the chair of the Michigan State Party, but they only gave them guest passes, not like member passes or state party chair passes. So as guests, neither of them was able to vote on anything or participate in anything official. Then I mentioned that it's an election year and that that's one of the most important swing states in the country.

Heading into the big Republican Party meeting this weekend, it seemed like the national chair of the Republican Party might be thrown out of her job, too. And, you know, that makes sense just from a 30,000-foot perspective, even if you knew nothing about her, right? If you don't want to blame the party's electoral woes since Donald Trump first came on the scene in 2016, if you don't want to blame the party's electoral woes on him, then

Well, she would be the obvious other person to blame as the chair of the Republican Party during that time. I mean, Donald Trump became president in January 2017. He named her, Ronna McDaniel, to be the chair of the Republican Party in 2017. In her first election thereafter in 2018, the Republican Party lost 40 seats and lost the House. The Republicans that year lost the popular vote in those midterm elections by the largest margin since the 1980s.

Then in the next election, in 2020, the Republicans lost the White House and the Senate, as well as the House that they had previously lost. Trump and Ronna Romney McDaniel managed to lose both chambers of Congress and the presidency in a single term, which is the first time that had happened since Herbert Hoover.

Then next election, 2022, with Ronna Romney McDaniel still in charge at the RNC and Trump still effectively leading his party from the sidelines, the Republicans turned in a performance in the 2022 midterms that was the worst performance by a party not holding the White House in decades, arguably in a century.

Even in 2023, last year, off-year elections, Democrats did unexpectedly well in elections in Virginia and Kentucky and Ohio and every single darn place that held any sort of referendum on abortion rights after Trump-appointed judges overturned Roe v. Wade. And now it's 2024.

And Trump is very much still in charge. And three swing state Republican parties and counting are in total meltdown. But you're not allowed to blame Trump for any of that. And so...

Heading into the Republican Party's meeting, big annual winter meeting this weekend, these were the headlines about the Republican Party chair, Ronna Romney McDaniel. Quote, Ronna McDaniel hit with new wave of resignation calls. Ronna McDaniel faces mounting GOP criticism. Ronna McDaniel faces ambush at RNC meeting. MAGA Republicans rage at Ronna McDaniel over RNC failure. Gotta blame someone. Let's throw her out.

Ronna Romney McDaniel did seem to survive the RNC's weekend meeting. At least it seemed that way when things wrapped up at their big meeting on Saturday. But then on Sunday morning, Trump went back on Fox and said about Ronna Romney McDaniel, quote, I think she did okay initially in the RNC. I would say right now there will probably be some changes made. So he's saying he wants her out.

Now he's just done another interview with another right-wing network where he said that she should be out of her job. He was asked, quote, is it time for Ronna McDaniel to step aside? He responded, well, I think she knows that. I think she understands that. Trump now put out a statement this evening saying that he will make his pronouncement on her fate later this month after the Republican primary in South Carolina. Okay, sure. But listen, maybe you don't need a party.

Or you don't need much of one. Each of the two major political parties in our country has done okay in previous election years, even when the parties themselves were organizationally kind of a mess. What is different here, what's important for all of us here in this moment, is that the Republican Party now, in the age of Trump, appears to be not just a mess, they appear to be sort of dissolving themselves.

Whatever happens to Ronna Romney McDaniel and however her leadership at the Republican National Committee is going to come to an end, the thing that she will likely go down for in history is the moment in 2020 when, under her leadership, the party decided there would no longer be a Republican Party platform. They decided that officially and explicitly, the Republican Party would no longer stand for any particular thing.

other than generically saying that they supported Trump's overall agenda. We stand for nothing except whatever the leader wants. That was a signal moment.

And it's a moment right now to have all of this chaos in state Republican parties, including in some of the most important states in the country for the election. I mean, if you are a Republican voter in Nevada, when do you vote for your choice for a Republican Party presidential candidate this week? Do you vote tomorrow? Do you vote Thursday? You can vote in both? How is that possible that you can vote in both? Well, apparently that's because one's the official event run by the state, which doesn't count

And one's not an official state-run event, but it's the one that they're counting because that's what Trump wanted. Okay? Does that make sense? Do you know how you're spending your week? And let's hope this counting's done before the state party chairman is due in court to face his felony charges related to allegedly trying to falsify the results of the last election in that state. That's how Trump wants it. So that's his guy. So that's what Nevada Republicans are supposed to do this week.

And no, let's not have any real Republican primary debates this whole year, at least none that include the front-running candidate, because that's also how he wants it, so that's what we'll do. And no, let's not have general election debates this year either.

Because in 2020, Trump got the Republican Party, under Ronna McDaniel, to say that the Republican Party will no longer allow its candidates to participate in events sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates, which has overseen general election debates between presidential candidates for decades. He didn't want that. So we had the RNC pull out of that. So, to recap...

It's a political party with no party platform, no normal nominating process for its nominees, no primary debates, and no general election debates. They're just coming off the worst back-to-back electoral performance by any party since before FDR, and it's all because it's what Trump wants.

And of course, why would anything else matter? Because who could doubt the political instincts of a man with this kind of a track record, right? With this kind of an electoral track record. A man who handed out fake "I'm an auto worker" signs in Michigan at a fake union event and then filed the receipts for it publicly. Who could doubt a man with political instincts of that level of genius? Why have a political party when you can just follow wherever he's leading?

Political parties are not the most important institutions in a democracy, but they are part of it. And right now in our country, one of our two major political parties is dissolving itself. And just tonight, potentially preparing to oust yet another of its top leaders, all in the service of just doing stuff for their great leader instead of doing normal party stuff and normal democracy stuff anymore.

And I don't know how many of you watching this tonight are mourning the illness and potential demise of the Republican Party as an institution, I understand. But if we are going to stay a democracy with a two-party system, there do need to be two parties of some kind. Or we're not that kind of system anymore. We're going to have to develop into something else. I mean, right now, what we are very fast becoming is one party on one side and just a guy on the other.

A guy who, this week, is going before a United States Supreme Court that is going to decide if, maybe, he might be ineligible to ever hold federal office ever again. What do you call that kind of a system? What could possibly go wrong? Subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts to get new episodes of Morning Joe and the Rachel Maddow Show ad-free. Plus, ad-free listening to all of Rachel Maddow's original series, Ultra, Bagman, and Deja News.

And now, all MSNBC original podcasts are available ad-free and with bonus content, including How to Win 2024, Prosecuting Donald Trump, Why Is This Happening, and more. Subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts. So if you can change your schedule around this week, your school schedule, your work schedule, or childcare, whatever you need to do, if you can make time for it on Thursday morning this week...

you will have the opportunity to hear American history being made live and in real time.

It's this Thursday, 10 a.m. Eastern. The United States Supreme Court is going to hear oral arguments in the case that'll decide whether Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the results of the election in 2020, to stay in power, to stay at losing, whether his role in the violent attack on Congress on January 6, 2021, whether those things mean that states can keep Donald Trump off the ballot under the provisions of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which says,

effectively that insurrectionists are ineligible to hold federal office. Because this is a really big case, the court is going to provide live streaming audio of the oral arguments, which means all of us can tune in and hear this history as it happens on Thursday morning, including right here on MSNBC where we are going to broadcast it live. The arguments are expected, again, to start at 10 a.m. Eastern. They're expected to last about an hour and 20 minutes, so that's about the amount of time you need to block out of your schedule.

The first 40 minutes is reserved for the Trump lawyer in this case. His name is Jonathan Mitchell. If that name sounds at all familiar to you, you may remember that he was the lawyer who came up with the bounty hunter abortion ban in Texas that enlisted Texas citizens basically as vigilantes to go after their fellow citizens getting abortions.

He will get the first 40 minutes to argue Trump's side of the case. Then the court's going to hear for about 30 minutes from a lawyer named Jason Murray. Jason Murray represents the named plaintiff in this case, a woman named Norma Anderson, a 91-year-old lifelong Republican from Colorado who sued the state to have Trump's name taken off the ballot under the 14th Amendment.

After those 30 minutes, there will then be 10 minutes for the Colorado Solicitor General, whose name is Shannon Stevenson. She'll be representing the interests of Colorado Secretary of State who oversees Colorado elections and ballots. So that's how it's going to go, 40, 30, 10. If you've never heard an oral argument before the Supreme Court before, you should be prepared for the fact that the justices tend to interrupt a lot with their own questions. Sometimes they don't even let the lawyers get a word out.

So the timing and the order of voices you will hear could change a bit, but you can generally follow it. We don't know exactly how it will go.

But people who do know these things generally expect that the court on Thursday is going to focus on a handful of questions. Basically, three main ones to keep in mind. And they're all understandable even if you're not a lawyer. The first is, did Trump engage in something that can be considered an insurrection with what he did in trying to overturn the election and what he did on January 6th? Also, yes.

When they wrote the 14th Amendment with the Insurrection Clause, did they intend that Insurrection Clause to apply to the presidency? Did they mean it to apply to people who wanted to hold federal office, not just as a bureaucrat somewhere, but as the president? And third, if the 14th Amendment does apply to Trump trying to become president again,

How is it enforced? Does it just kick in automatically? Does the Constitution saying this in the 14th Amendment effectuate itself? Or does Congress have to pass some kind of law laying out the process for how that would work? Those are main questions that we think the court's going to be focused on on Thursday. But again, this is going to be a live thing. And these are nine live justices. So anything can happen. The whole country is going to be listening in Thursday morning.

Luckily for us, people who are experts at these things can help us get ready, can help us understand what we should be listening for.

Joining us now is our friend Barbara McQuaid. She's a former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. I should tell you, Barb also has a brand new book that is just about to come out. It's called Attack From Within, How Disinformation is Sabotaging America. It comes out later this month. You can pre-order it right now. Attack From Within by Barbara McQuaid. Barb, congratulations on the book. And thanks very much for being here with us tonight. Thanks very much for both.

Let me ask if it's right for me, particularly speaking with the non-lawyers among us, to focus on those three questions as likely what the lawyers and the justices will mostly be talking about on Thursday.

I agree with you, Rachel. I think those are the big questions. But if you read the brief submitted by Donald Trump, you can see that he is seeking to appeal to the textualists on the court with some of the arguments. For example, the one that says the president is not included as officers of the United States for purposes of this exclusion. I think from a common sense perspective, you would say, of course, the president should apply here. It was the most important office in the land. Of course, the president should apply here.

the drafters of the 14th Amendment would intend to include them. But they look at the text of the oath that the president takes, which is different from the language in the 14th Amendment, preserve, protect, or defend versus support. And the other textualist argument they make, I'll be very curious to see whether any of the justices bite on this, is that the 14th Amendment says that this person cannot

hold office. And what the Trump lawyers argue is it doesn't say I can't run or seek office, it just says I can't hold office. So until I'm elected, until I'm standing there on January 20th of 2025 about to be sworn in, this is all premature. It's a really absurd argument, but it's designed to appeal to the textuals who look just to the words in the Constitution.

But what would the practical impact of that mean? You can run for president, you can be elected president, but you can't serve as president? How would that help his case?

It's it's insane. I think the idea would be that there is a provision that says two thirds of the members of Congress can remove the disability. And so that is the argument. But the counter to that, of course, by the challengers in Colorado is it would be an absurd result because it would disenfranchise voters who cast their ballot.

poor Donald Trump, if he turns out to be a candidate who is not eligible. So I think this is an absurd argument, but again, it is the Trump lawyers trying to appeal to the textualists on the court. Barb, I explained about the logistics of the day. People can tune in and hear the live stream, which is amazing. I know that like Peacock had those huge numbers and it was like the biggest internet event ever when they had a playoff game and everybody had to get

Everybody had to watch it on Peacock rather than on regular news. I feel like, rather than on regular TV, I feel like this is going to be the legal equivalent of that. I hope they've got the bandwidth to be able to handle streaming it to this many people at once. I don't know that there's ever been a Supreme Court case with live arguments that have had this much hanging on them and this much interest.

But when people do tune in, they're going to hear 40 minutes from the Trump lawyer and then the other 40 minutes is divided between two different lawyers that are both sort of on the same side, on the other side of the case. Can you explain that, why there's a 30-minute, 10-minute split between the lawyer for the state of Colorado and the lawyer for the person who's suing to keep Trump off the ballot there?

Yeah. So the plaintiff in the case is a voter. And so the voters are the plaintiff in the case. And so they've got time. But the court also wants to hear from the solicitor general who is representing the interests of the secretary of state of Colorado, who says, I have a duty to determine whether someone is eligible to appear on the ballot. And so I have an interest here on behalf of the state and the people of Colorado to make my decision. And so they want to hear from a

that interest as well, because Colorado law is an issue here. And Colorado gets the last say on what Colorado law means and the Colorado Constitution. So they'll be hearing that issue as well. And of course, one of the arguments that the voters make is that it is the Constitution says that it is the legislature of the state that gets to decide who is eligible for the ballot. And so, you know, the idea that

um, the Supreme court can tell Colorado who gets to be on their ballot is, uh, one of the arguments that they're making here that Colorado gets to decide who's on their ballot. And interestingly enough, there is some text, uh, from justice Gorsuch himself stating that very thing from when he was a justice on the 10th circuit court of appeals.

Oh, wow. And that's like—that's the go-to move before the Supreme Court justices, to flatter the justices by reminding them of something else they've said that appears to be connected to the case at hand, that they should find it hard to—

to run from because it's in their own words. I'm really looking forward to this. Barb McQuaid, former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. Again, Barb's brand new book is coming out this month. It is called Attack From Within, How Disinformation is Sabotaging America. You can get online right now and pre-order it. McQuaid, M-C-Q-U-A-D-E, Attack From Within. Barb, thank you so much for your time tonight. It's great to see you. Thank you so much, Rachel. All right. We've got lots to come tonight. Stay with us.

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In 2019, in Oregon, Republicans in the state legislature walked out over a tax bill they didn't like. They left and they used their absence to deny the legislature a quorum, which brought the legislature to a halt for days.

Then a couple months later they did it again, this time it was a climate bill they objected to. Several of them in that case fled the state. When the governor of Oregon sent state police out to bring them back, one Republican senator said that the police had better quote, "send bachelors and come heavily armed." As in, don't send anyone with a wife because the wives will be sad when we kill the police officers you're sending.

There never was an armed showdown with state troopers, but the Republicans in Oregon did succeed in killing that climate bill by using that tactic. The next year, they did it again. They walked out as a group two weeks before the end of a legislative session, and they never came back. That killed the climate bill again. It killed 20 other pending bills that they decided just shouldn't be voted on at all. Then the following year, there were two more Republican walkouts, several days each.

Under the state constitution in Oregon, you need to have a quorum to have the legislature in session. Two-thirds of the lawmakers have to be present to do any business. So when the Republicans have done these repeated walkouts, it has stopped the legislature from functioning for any purpose, and it's happened year after year after year.

So Oregon voters decided they didn't want this to happen anymore. In 2022, Oregon voters voted to change the state constitution to try to fix this problem. By a very wide margin, Oregon voters enacted an amendment to the state constitution that says any legislator who has more than 10 unexcused absences is not allowed to run for reelection. So you don't get thrown out. You get to finish your turn, but you can't run again.

Voters approved that as an amendment to the Constitution in 2022. And then what do you think happened in 2023? Not only did the Republicans in the legislature walk out again, they staged the longest legislative walkout in modern U.S. history. Oregon Republicans left for six weeks. They staged a boycott over Democratic legislation on abortion and other issues, but they just skedaddled. They got out.

And if this tactic sounds familiar, it should. Both parties have done this in various states at various times. Wisconsin Democrats famously did this to try to save union rights. Texas Democrats famously did it to try to stop a huge power grab by Republicans in Texas. Other states have done it. Other parties have done it. The difference here is that there are now consequences for doing it. Oregon voters overwhelmed

overwhelmingly voted to change their state's constitution to say, okay, from here forward in our state, there will be consequences for you if you do this over and over again. You will not be allowed to run for office again. And even after voters changed the state constitution to say that, the Republicans in the legislature just kept doing it. And so now their actions inevitably have produced consequences, very predictable consequences.

But there's still shocking consequences. The Oregon Supreme Court has now ruled unanimously that, sure enough, these Republican senators—10 Republican senators—are no longer legally allowed to run for reelection. They plainly and deliberately violated the newly amended state constitution, so they can't run again.

And obviously this is a huge deal in that state. I mean, this is almost all the Republicans. This is fully a third of the state Senate that has just been ruled ineligible to run again. So it's a big deal there. But also, yes, this is kind of a microcosmic version of what we're about to see on the federal level at the Supreme Court Thursday of this week, when the country's top court decides whether Donald Trump himself can be blocked from the ballot for violating the U.S. Constitution.

in a small and microcosmic way, a very consequential way, they're doing it first in Oregon. Right now. So how's that going? Hold that thought. So as a headline, it's almost hard to believe, but it is a real thing, it is true. Oregon Supreme Court bars Republican senators who participated in walkout from re-election. The court's unanimous decision means one third of the Oregon Senate cannot run for re-election.

These are Republicans who refused to show up at the state legislature for six weeks, brought the legislature to a halt. Republicans repeatedly did this for years, and so the state's voters approved a constitutional amendment that says if you repeatedly do this, you can't run for re-election anymore. Now, under that provision, a third of the state Senate, 10 of the 12 Republicans in the Senate, are barred from running again. They have to give up their seats.

Joining us now is Julia Shumway. She's deputy editor at the Oregon Capital Chronicle. Ms. Shumway, I really appreciate you making time to be here. Thanks very much. Thank you. Let me just ask if I've explained this right or if there's anything important that I've missed out or gotten the wrong way around.

No, you got it right. 13 Republican senators chose to walk out, or 10 of them at least chose to walk out during the session last year for six weeks. They tried to challenge a constitutional amendment approved by voters last year, and they found out last week that they're barred from re-election. What's been the reaction to this unanimous state Supreme Court ruling that says they can't run again?

There's been I mean, it's generally been applauded by people who supported the amendment in the first place. The Republican state senators view this as a political act by the court. They noted that the court has been entire. The justices who ruled on this were entirely appointed by Governor Kate Brown, who was a Democrat.

In terms of the fight here, obviously, the state Supreme Court decision on a matter of state law and state constitutional authority, you would think that would be the end. But I understand there's probably at least a federal challenge that at least probably has some traction in terms of the way Republicans are going to try to advance their case. What's the status of their federal court challenge to this?

Yeah, there's a separate federal lawsuit that was filed under First Amendment claims, essentially, that these Republican senators have a right to protest and their right to protest was being curtailed. A judge denied a preliminary injunction in that case in December. We're waiting to see and waiting on a ruling from the Court of Appeals, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, on an appeal to that ahead of the March 12th filing deadline here.

While the country is considering this disqualification issue for President Trump at the Supreme Court, to have Oregon going through this exercise is really a remarkable confluence of events. Julia Shumway, Deputy Editor at the Oregon Capital Chronicle, thanks for helping us understand. I really appreciate it. Thank you. All right, we'll be right back. Stay with us.

Just a little note for your calendar before we go. This Thursday, 10 a.m. Eastern, Supreme Court is going to live stream the oral arguments on whether Donald Trump is disqualified from holding federal office in the United States. Here at MSNBC, we will have that audio live and in full from when the arguments start, live at 10 a.m. Eastern, Thursday morning. Then Thursday night, starting at 8 p.m. Eastern, I'll be here with all my beloved colleagues. We will have a primetime recap of those oral arguments. We'll see you then.

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