okay it's safe to say and I'm sure
you're tracking this that there was a
lot of legal news this week in a
courtroom in downtown Manhattan there
were hours of testimony about Donald
Trump and the national inquire and how
they worked together to kill stories
that might hurt his chances in 2016
learned a lot about that here in
Washington inside the Supreme Court
Trump's lawyers were making the argument
that sure killing your political rival
would be completely fine for a president
that was their argument I mean it's been
a lot to take in but what happened this
week matters it should matter to you all
of us and it's important to talk about
why especially during these moments when
it feels like we're all drinking from a
news fire hose so we're going to start
on Thursday at the Supreme Court because
when you listen to these argument it's
and it's cool that we could you may have
thought to yourself I mean this can't
possibly be
serious if the president
decides that his rival is is a corrupt
person and he orders the military or
orders someone to assassinate him is
that within His official acts that for
which he can get immunity it would
depend on the hypothetical but we can
see that could well be an official
act I mean you heard that correctly he
said it could be an official act so
basically I'm pause here the lawyers for
the former president of the United
States and likely Republican nominee are
arguing that sure if he or any other
president for that matter just has a
feeling that their opponent is corrupt
they can take care of that by killing
them but wait there's more at one point
Justice Kagan asked if a president can
sell nuclear secrets to a foreign
adversary what did Trump's lawyer say
basically yep and what about ordering
the military to carry out a coup can he
get away with that according to Trump's
lawyer maybe so basically if a president
does it if he kills if he coups if he
sells National Security Secrets it's not
illegal and look it may have sounded
like the justices when you listen to
this we preparing this for this hearing
by coming up with the absolute craziest
possible scenarios things so far outside
the realm of possibility that whatever
shocking thing Trump's lawyer said in
response didn't really matter because no
it's not something that would actually
happen here but the thing is none of
this is that much of a hypothetical when
it comes to Donald Trump I mean in 2020
he was reportedly involved in efforts to
direct the defense secretary to seize
voting machines that's sure sounds like
trying to use the military to carry out
a coup and just a few months ago he
mused about executing former Joint
Chiefs chairman Mark milley Trump RS
repeatedly said a staffer who leaked the
story about him should be executed too
and in an interview on Friday night just
two days ago former Attorney General
Bill bar said he used to say that kind
of thing all the time so when it com
comes to Donald Trump no those
hypotheticals that got tossed around in
the Supreme Court this week aren't
really hypotheticals are they I mean
this is stuff he talked about stuff that
was clearly rattling around in his head
still is and this is stuff his lawyers
are now saying should be a okay for a
president to do and here's the other
really important thing to understand
about all of this I mean the view of the
presidency that Donald Trump has very
clearly this absolute power Above the
Law mindset is literally his plan for a
second term I mean the plan there is a
plan right now the far right think tank
the Heritage Foundation is hard at work
drafting plans to convert Trump's calls
for revenge and lawlessness into action
it's called project 2025 it's nearly a
thousand pages long it's online you can
read it if you want it's probably not a
be read but you can you can take a look
in the meantime I'm going to give you
kind of like a cliffnotes version of all
of this their goal in this plan is to
quote assemble an army of aligned vetted
trained and prepared conserv atives to
go to work on day one to deconstruct the
administrative State one big area under
attack no surprise the justice
department which project 2025 says has
lost its way and as the New York Times
writes to find its way back it must
become subservient to the White House in
plain English that all basically means
they want to remake the structure and
the Staffing of the justice department
so that an independent branch of
government looks the other way well
Trump basically does whatever the Tech
he wants now as the New York Times put
it according to the project 2025 plan
the law must submit to the president's
priorities if not the lawyers are doing
it wrong so yeah I mean I'll admit it
oral arguments in the Supreme Court
aren't exactly appointment television
all the time they're confusing they're
definitely long-winded at times but they
matter clearly in the context of the
specific case but also because the
responses from the Trump legal team
tells a whole lot about how he sees the
Power of the presidency and how he looks
at a potential SE second term