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Supreme Court Hands Down Ruling In Blockbuster Trump Ballot Fight; Supreme Court Keeps Trump On Colorado Ballot, Rejecting 14th Amendment Push. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired March 04, 2024 - 10:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[10:00:01]

JIM ACOSTA, CNN HOST: Good morning. You are live in the CNN Newsroom. I'm Jim Acosta in Washington.

And at any moment, the Supreme Court may release a major decision with major implications for the 2024 presidential election, less than 24 hours before the Colorado primary, the nation's highest court, could decide whether former President Donald Trump is eligible for the state's ballot and whether he can run in the general election.

Some state election officials have objected to Trump appearing on primary ballots because of his actions on January 6 and are accusing the former president of being in violation of the Constitution's 14th Amendment, which bars any person who engaged in a rebellion or insurrection from holding public office.

Let's bring in CNN Chief Anchor and Chief Political Correspondent Dana Bash and CNN Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig.

Guys, as we're waiting to see what the Supreme Court decides here, let's do a little bit of a pregame because we don't want to presuppose what the Supreme Court is going to do.

But, Elie, all weekend long, we were anticipating this could happen before the Colorado primary as part of Super Tuesday. And then yesterday, there was this indication from the Supreme Court that something is coming down, something is cooking.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yes. So, we don't know for sure that this is going to be Colorado, but all indications are that it will be because the primary is tomorrow. Colorado is voting tomorrow, and it would make sense for the Supreme Court to decide. This needs to be resolved.

ACOSTA: I got to interrupt because we have been just told, they just told me in my ear, the Supreme Court has handed down a ruling in the Colorado ballot issue.

Elie, let me go back to you. So, I hate to make you do this, but as we're all refreshing, and Joan Biskupic is on set with us as well, and we have other folks over in the Supreme Court right now, Laura Coates, Paula Reid, we're all refreshing. We're going to read through this just to make sure, Dana Bash, that we don't, you know, add 2 and 2 and get 22. But, Elie, you were just saying a few moments ago.

HONIG: So, this is -- excuse me, this is the 14th Amendment ruling out of Colorado, Trump versus Anderson. One of the big things that we're looking for, of course, first of all, how do they rule. Now, if we listen to the oral argument, it sounds likely they're going to side with Donald Trump. It sounded like they were going to rule that he's not disqualified.

So, number one, how do they actually rule? And, number two, how narrowly or broadly do they rule? Do they rule in a way that will be narrowly confined to Colorado or will they rule in a way that's broad enough that will settle this issue across the entire country?

ACOSTA: Yes. All right, and I want to go to Laura Coates, who is over at the Supreme Court. This is moving fairly quickly. Laura, what do we know right now?

LAURA COATES, CNN ANCHOR: A really consequential decision has just been handed down. Paula Reid, the court has made a decision.

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: This is a win for former President Trump here. The Supreme Court has reversed a ruling from the Colorado Supreme Court that would have removed former President Trump from the ballot under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, the so-called insurrectionist ban.

Now, this is very much what we expected based on what we saw about a month ago during oral argument. Justices on both sides of the aisle appeared skeptical of Colorado's argument that Trump could be removed by the state under the 14th Amendment.

So, this is a huge win. It means that former President Trump will appear on the primary ballot. And this applies not only to Colorado, but also to states across the country, because as we've seen, many states have tried this way of removing Trump from the ballot. It was considered a novel, long-shot way to bump Trump out of -- you know, out of eligibility for the White House. But we've only seen Colorado, Maine and Illinois actually remove him.

But here, the Supreme Court, as you know, the final word on constitutional questions saying, no, it is up to Congress, not the states to do this. So, an enormous win for former President Trump.

COATES: This is so significant, Paula. We knew in the two-and-a-half hour argument that was had that they were they were leaning in this direction. They asked the question if you remember the moment in time of why should Colorado be the one to decide for the rest of the nation a matter of such consequence?

And there was some pushback on whether a state could actually do this. It seems like they want Congress to actually make the decision because of ambiguity, maybe a little bit of vagueness. But this is very important because he was already still on the ballot, as you know. But the idea of them saying this is for Congress to look at, not us, means they don't want politics in the Supreme Court right now.

REID: That's exactly right. And even though I'm sure they'd love to avoid all of these Trump-related cases, this is the first of at least, at least two big Trump related cases they're taking down.

COATES: because immunity is still on the horizon.

REID: Exactly. In a month-and-a-half, we'll be back on April 22nd. They're going to hear oral arguments about whether former President Trump has immunity to protect him from the special counsel's federal election subversion case.

But let's look at the timing here, right? It was almost a month ago that we were here for oral arguments. This was a case that they were considering on an expedited basis. I don't know about you, but I was a little surprised that it took them a month to unanimously do what we expected them to do.

COATES: Especially because they took the case up very quickly, right? It wasn't that they were in the case of immunity.

[10:05:02]

They said, seven weeks from now, we'll hear something. In this case, they said we're going to hear it pretty quickly. They had a pretty easy turnaround, but this is the day before Super Tuesday as well. He's already on the ballot. As you mentioned, other states are wanting to see if they have a leg to stand on here.

But, Paula, the idea this Supreme Court was going to make this decision was not so shocking, but they took the case up in the first instance or some was surprising.

REID: It was surprising because so many people thought this was such a novel legal theory that you weren't really going to successfully be able to remove Trump based on this obscure provision of the 14th Amendment that was enacted after the Civil War.

But then we saw in the state of Colorado, even the courts within that state were split on whether this applied to presidents. But once you got that Supreme Court, a Colorado ruling, that removed him, it really seemed inevitable that the Supreme Court would have to take this up. Because even in states that had tried this and they didn't remove him, they left the door open. And without the Supreme Court clarifying this question, we would likely see litigation and arguably a lot of chaos and confusion throughout the presidential contest.

So, this also, of course, applies to the general election. And for anyone that's confused, former President Trump will appear on primary ballots and assuming he is the nominee, as we expect him to be on the general election ballot. Very much expected, but an enormous win for the former president.

COATES: It really is. And remember to go back, it was a trial court in Colorado who made a finding surrounding insurrection without having an actual jury trial. He has not been charged with insurrection, not been convicted of insurrection in a criminal proceeding.

The Colorado Supreme Court was the one that said, yes, actually, he did. He should be removed from insurrection from the actual ballot. Now, Paula, though, this is going to suggest that because there's been no finding, there's been no ruling or conviction, this might stand across the nation.

REID: Yes, that's what we expect that this will be the final word, because, again, when you saw it even within the state of Colorado, the courts didn't agree, but the highest court did remove him. We also saw in Maine, they removed him and Illinois as well.

But one of the many arguments that Trump's lawyers made when they were here at the Supreme Court is that they insist that he didn't engage in an insurrection. And as you remember, the justices kind of stayed away from, A, mentioning the former president's name, but also this larger question of insurrection. Instead, it appears that they focused more on whose role is it to determine who gets removed from a ballot. And here, not surprisingly, they determined that it is Congress, not the states that can remove potential candidates from the ballot.

COATES: Jim, a really consequential moment today. The Supreme Court finding that he should still be on the ballot, will still be on the ballot, not been disqualified, and, again, they found the exit ramp that many thought they were looking for. It was apparent.

ACOSTA: Yes, absolutely, Laura and Paula, and they're doing this on the eve of Super Tuesday, which makes sense. And I guess it gives us some sense that the Supreme Court is looking at the political calendar, not just the legal calendar.

All right, Laura and Paula, thank you.

Let me go to Joan Biskupic is on set with us as well as Dana Bash and Elie Honig. Joan, your sense of this?

JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN SENIOR SUPREME COURT ANALYST: Well, first of all, it's 9-0 to reverse the Colorado Supreme Court, so former President Donald Trump will remain on the ballot and other state ballots. But the justices actually split on how far to go.

The majority decision, written as a per curiam, likely by the chief justice of the United States because it's unsigned, gives much more authority to Congress about when someone should be disqualified, and Justices Barrett, Justice -- and then the three liberals write separately.

And what's key here is justices -- I'm listening to two different things, excuse me for a second. I was listening to two different conversations. But I'll listen to ours first.

ACOSTA: Please.

BISKUPIC: Okay. This is the important part, that even though they came out and gave us something unanimous that's very useful in the political scheme, especially for tomorrow, for Super Tuesday, it shows how divided this Supreme Court still is, because the three liberals broke off and said, you majority are going too far in terms of how you would dictate the rules for future disqualifications.

And, again, it was the three liberals specifically writing on this, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and our newest justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Now Justice Barrett, one of Donald Trump's appointees, the third one, in fact, split off a bit also, but not joining the liberals.

ACOSTA: Interesting. And, Elie I'm just going to read, it looks like, page 13 of this, it says for the reasons given responsibility for enforcing Section 3 against federal office orders and candidates rest with Congress and not the states, the judgment of the Colorado Supreme Court therefore cannot stand. So, they're saying essentially that Congress has to make this decision whether there are insurrectionists who need to be kept off of ballots, is that essentially what they're saying?

HONIG: Essentially what they're saying is it's up to Congress to tell us how this works. So, if Congress had -- let's say, 50 years ago, Congress had passed a law saying, we're going to let the states do it, so long as they abide by due process, then what Colorado did would have been fine. But Congress has done essentially nothing in the 150 years since the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868.

[10:10:03]

Now, I want to make sure people understand this. It's a very important feature of this decision. There is no substantive discussion in here by the Supreme Court of whether Donald Trump did or did not engage in insurrection. There is no conversation about what the meaning of his words at the rally were, or what happened inside the Capitol, or any of Donald Trump's actions. That's not what the Supreme Court has done here. That's not what the Supreme Court typically does. This is a procedural, legalistic decision. And, essentially, if I had to boil it down to one sentence, it would be it's up to Congress, not the individual states.

ACOSTA: They didn't want a big, messy situation where all the states go here and there and that sort of thing.

HONIG: So, the word I circled in this decision is, quote, patchwork. They said we don't want to patchwork where one state's doing one thing and another state's doing another.

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: But you know Donald Trump better than most, covered him for many, many years, many years as a reporter covering him, as a politician, and as a figure who takes things and will turn them the way that he wants America and the world to see them.

I will be shocked if Donald Trump doesn't, as soon as he can, get out there and argue not only that the Supreme Court is behind him, but he's probably going to argue, even though there's nothing in here that specifically says, as Elie so importantly pointed out, anything about what happened on January 6th, it's just procedural about whether the states or Congress have a right, he will claim victory and I'm guessing he will do it in a more broad way than this decision actually says.

ACOSTA: Yes. And, Joan, I mean, there are -- I mean, there are countless Americans out there who believe that the Supreme Court just bailed out Donald Trump here, and that they're going to bail him, they might bail him out again on the immunity issue, which I know a lot of folks feel like that's not going to happen. But the fact that that can got kicked down the road means that the January 6 trial may not happen in federal court.

BISKUPIC: And what you're referring to there is the fact that the justices have scheduled an oral argument for the week of April 22nd on whether Donald Trump should be immune from criminal prosecution for election subversion.

But let me just tell you what concerned the three liberals about this ruling and how far the majority went. I'm just reading it now. Their concern was that the majority went further than they needed for this particular case and essentially is overfavoring Donald Trump.

Ultimately, under the guise of providing a more, quote, complete explanation for the judgment, the majority resolves many unsettled questions about Section 3. That's Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, the anti-insurrectionist ban. It forecloses judicial enforcement of that provision, such as might occur when a party is prosecuted by an insurrectionist and raises the defense on that score. I mean, it's the language hints of what's happening with Donald Trump right now. So, I think that's their concern, is that the fuller majority has gone further.

Now this is a concurrence, just so you know, so all nine have signed on to the basic principle, reversing the Colorado Supreme Court and keeping them on the ballot, it's just about what happens down the road.

BASH: Can I just add one thing about this, kind of to bring it up a few thousand feet? Politically, this was considered by a lot of Democrats as too big of a swing to be taken by the groups that filed these suits in these states.

Remember, a lot of states, even those who are run by Democrats, where the secretaries of state are Democrats, they said to the people in their states who were trying to get Donald Trump off the ballot, like Michigan, for example, we're not going to do that. This is not something -- I mean, some of them said it's because of the state law, but others just said that this is not the right way to go. That was not the case in Colorado and in Maine, and then just recently in Illinois.

And even though there are some constitutional scholars, Jamie Raskin is one of them, the congressman from Maryland, who said that this is an appropriate avenue, others said, no, this is, never mind the legal part of it, just politically denying voters the right to vote for the person who their party says is their nominee is just bad politics, never mind the legal side of it.

ACOSTA: And, Elie, you want to --

HONIG: Yes, just a quick point. The scope of this ruling will essentially end all the 14th Amendment challenges, the ones in Maine, the one we heard about just last week in Illinois, they are all done at this point because of the way the Supreme Court put this decision together.

And when we step back and look at the national landscape on this, here we have a 9-0 ruling from the Supreme Court, slightly different bases, as Joan pointed out, but a 9-0 ruling reversing what Colorado did. And even before that, there were dozens of these challenges, somewhere between 20 and 30, depending on which you count or don't count, and the success rate was very low for these 14th Amendment challengers.

[10:15:04]

They really only ever got any traction in those three states, but this has been rejected by state courts, by federal courts, by trial courts, as Dana mentioned, by state level secretaries of state, Brad Raffensperger, the guy on the other end of that phone call from Trump, I need you to find 11,700 votes, he rejected it.

So, there is a very broad consensus on again, not on whether Trump committed insurrection or not, but on the legal grounds for these 14th Amendment challenges.

ACOSTA: And I wanted to go out to Laura Coates, who's out standing in front of the Supreme Court. And, you know, I mean, putting to the side that there are a lot of Americans out there, their blood is boiling over what Donald Trump did on January 6, what he did leading up to January 6. And they just think that he's just getting let off the hook, scot-free, left and right.

But, I mean, let's dive into the legal part of this because you have to put those emotions to the side and talk about what's in this ruling and what the Supreme Court has done here on page six of the opinion where it says this, we conclude that states may disqualify persons holding or attempting to hold state office, but states have no power under the Constitution to enforce Section 3 with respect to federal offices, especially the presidency.

It sounds like, Laura, what the Supreme Court is saying here is that Colorado can't decide what Hawaii and Oregon and Virginia, I mean, that they can't just do it and have that be sort of a blanket way of doing things across the country, that they can't force the hands of all of these other states.

It sounds like what we were talking about in anticipation of this decision, that they were going to find an off ramp to not deal with the prickly question as to whether or not Trump committed insurrection and should be kicked off the ballot because of that.

COATES: Well, it is prickly and you're right, emotions don't run very, very high on this matter. It's also a reason people are wondering whether these Supreme Court cases or cases involving the president of the United States are supposed to be really the panacea for everyone's woes. They are not. The Supreme Court is deciding a specific question that is given to the actual court.

Paula, when you heard that comment about states staying in their lanes, it's what it really means, right?

REID: Exactly.

COATES: Yes. If there is an issue in your particular state, you can go ahead and decide it. As it relates to others, I think it was Justice Thomas during the oral argument who made the comment of, well, hold on a second, should you be in charge of making decisions for every other state in the -- even Justice Kagan had a comment on this as well.

And so we saw this coming, but a state deciding a state issue sounds right, but they can't do it for federal government.

REID: Exactly. And in the opinion, they talked about what would happen if you allowed each state to decide this on their own. You have what they describe as a patchwork. And they said that doesn't give the appropriate deference to the national consequences of a presidential election.

And that's why we needed the Supreme Court to step in here. They will settle constitutional questions and also resolve disputes between states. This has been litigated at least two dozen times. We only have three states that haven't removed the former president, but we knew other states that opted not to remove him left the door open to re- litigate this.

And without answering this question, this would have prompted a lot of chaos and confusion throughout the election, particularly if you had different outcomes would be very confusing for people.

But I also want to get to Jim's comment about the insurrection. We saw in the oral argument, the justices didn't want to touch that question. They didn't even mention the former president's name. They did not want to get into the issue of what happened on January 6th, though in a month-and-a-half we will be back here dealing with Special Counsel Jack Smith's case against the former president, the efforts to interfere in the 2020 election. They will then have to look a little more closely at that issue as they contemplate whether former President Trump has immunity that would shield him from that question.

So, anyone who's frustrated or feels like, in your words, Trump got away with engaging in an insurrection, it was clear the justices didn't view that as being the issue here. But when we come back in late April for the special counsel's litigation over questions of immunity, they may have to revisit some of that, some things around a little closer to that issue, though, again, he hasn't been charged with insurrection, though he has been charged connected with his efforts to subvert the election.

COATES: Well, that's because, in that case, we're talking about what constitutes an official act. REID: Exactly.

COATES: His commentary, his actions leading up to and including January 6th will be all on display. But here, they go on even more about the state-specific aspect. But that was really fascinating here at the Supreme Court, because they are saying, look, every other state doesn't have the same rules. It may be in Colorado. Secretary of state is the one that you would sue to try to get a result you'd like. Other states may say, you know what, an allegation is enough. Others may say, I've got to have a criminal prosecution. And still, others may not have any way to decide this issue. And so the patchwork you talked about is really important here.

The Supreme Court wants to have no confusion among the states, right? So, as long as you have different states that could have arguably different results, there is confusion. And that means that the electorate cannot rely on a single guidepost, and they don't want that to happen.

REID: And they said that you know if Congress wants to offer some legislation to clarify this, they can do that. Now, I think we all know it's unlikely that's actually going to happen or --

[10:20:00]

COATES: Not before November.

REID: Certainly not before November, we're not going to help you out with this election. But it does appear that if you look at the law, there's a lot of ambiguity, we need the Supreme Court to weigh in. And you really can't have an election where different states have different people on the ballot when it comes for the presidency.

So, again, not a big surprise in terms of this decision, but it is notable that this was one of their really big concerns, was this, quote, patchwork.

COATES: It really is. You think about electoral votes and how every state's decision will impact the electability to have accumulation and beyond. It's important and tomorrow, of course, Jim, is Super Tuesday. And so we know Trump will be on that ballot. He will remain on other ballots. He obviously could not be taken off because it had already been printed anyway. But the Supreme Court is now saying that was the right call.

ACOSTA: All right. Laura and Paula, thank you very much.

And we should note, Trump has responded as only he can on Truth Social. There it is right there, as Dana Batch predicted a few moments ago, victory lap from the former president being taken right now. He says, big win for America.

With me now is former Trump White House Lawyer and CNN Legal Commentator Jim Schultz. Jim, your reaction to all of this, and I guess, I mean, it seems as though Trump, whatever you want to say about him, has sort of played the legal system like a fiddle over the last couple of years. He's thrown the kitchen sink into the gears of America's judicial system, and it's panned out for him just about every step of the way. Do you agree with the Supreme Court decision, and what's your take on it?

JIM SCHULTZ, CNN LEGAL COMMENTATOR: Well, sure, this Supreme Court decision was, quite frankly, an easy one across the board, right? You don't want states making these determinations as, it goes far beyond Donald Trump, who is an insurrectionist, what constitutes insurrection, have they been charged with a crime? The patchwork that they talk about is the important issue here, right?

So, you have Maine, for instance, where you have someone that sits in the post that makes that determination who's elected by the state legislature, not by the people, not by the people of Maine, but by the state legislature, which is overwhelmingly Democratic. So, you have that issue.

So, who's appointing these folks? How are they being -- who's governing these issues? Is the court of law really going to decide these things? Will a person be able to face their charges? This is the patchwork that concerned the court and should concern everyone. And what the court did was say, look, this is really up to Congress. They need to set forth the guidelines. This is not something we should just leave up to the states to willy-nilly decide.

ACOSTA: Jim, but there is no mention in this decision of whether Trump qualifies as an insurrectionist. A lot of Americans feel that he is an insurrectionist, that he betrayed the country on January 6th. He did not accept a legitimate election in this country of President Biden. Is he an insurrectionist?

SCHULTZ: But he's been charged with defrauding the United States government. There has not been one prosecutor in the United States important to this decision has made a charge of insurrection, including Jack Smith.

I think Jack Smith put together a pretty darn good case against the former president on defrauding the United States government, overturning the outcome of a valid election. It was a valid election. He attempted to -- the allegations of the attempts to overturn it. He's got strong evidence to show it from what we've seen from the testimony through the January 6th hearings and likely through the grand jury testimony that we're going to -- that will become front and center in this upcoming trial.

We're not going to see that trial for some time, at least until this immunity defense is straightened out from the Supreme Court. I think the Supreme Court goes handedly against Trump on the immunity issue and rightfully so, but I think the Supreme Court got it right in this instance.

ACOSTA: But, I mean, Jim, you bring up the immunity question, and that hearing apparently is going to be coming up in late April. That also, isn't that kind of a win for Trump in that it really pushes back the January 6th, the Jack Smith January 6th case here in Washington to a point where it may not even happen in time before the general election? And so all of these issues that you're talking about, you're saying, well, you know, Jack Smith built a good case and so on, and there's some fair questions in there, but we may never get to that.

SCHULTZ: Well, we may never get to it if Donald Trump is elected president and the case does not move forward prior to the election, right? And that's the risk associated with the Supreme Court taking up the last, the immunity case, and just -- instead of just doing nothing on it and letting that circuit course case stand, that's going to have the impact of perhaps pushing the trial out. I believe the earliest we're going to see it is August.

And then you get into this, you know, does the Department of Justice want to take up this case that's going to potentially impact the outcome of an election?

[10:25:05]

My sense is they're going to try to force forward with that.

And I'm not sure that Tanya Chutkan is going to -- Judge Chutkan is going to give a care about the upcoming election. She's going to want to administer justice in this case one way or the other.

So, I do believe that we see this prior to the election but it's going to be darn close and there's going to be a whole lot of controversy surrounding it whichever decision Judge Chutkan makes in terms of when this thing is heard.

ACOSTA: And, Jim, what do you say to all those Americans out there who are watching this who are frustrated and say, Trump is getting away with breaking the law, that he files appeal after appeal, he tries to delay every proceeding that's brought against him in a way that just goes against what our judicial system should be about? I mean, isn't he treated differently than just about everybody else in this country? I mean, just about anybody else would not have the ability to appeal things until kingdom come.

SCHULTZ: Well, actually, they do have the ability to do that. That's part of our justice system.

ACOSTA: Well, for all practical purposes, that doesn't happen. I mean, the vast majority of defendants out there don't have the resources to drag everything out and umpteen different cases across the country.

SCHULTZ: Fair enough. If you're talking about resources, yes, the average person can't take a case beginning to end through the United States Supreme Court. Donald Trump does, right? And he can avail himself of those rights.

But also, I think, Jim, the important thing here is these cases took a long time to break, right? So, this comes right back. Jack Smith's case didn't happen overnight. We went through an entire month of the Jan. 6 hearings, grand jury testimony, and then finally an indictment pretty late in the game.

So, they knew when they brought this indictment that they were going to be up against it on a timeline and that there were going to be appeals, both interlocutory appeals, which are intermediate appeals that could be immediately taken up to the Supreme Court, and then appeals after the fact, after judgments rendered.

So, that's part of the process. The justice system doesn't spin fast. This one in particular, though, given where Jack Smith's case was, when it was filed, is probably moving along faster than most other federal cases.

Heck, in Philadelphia, we have a number of criminal trials that have been going on for four or five -- criminal cases that have been going on for four or five years in the political corruption realm.

ACOSTA: All right. Jim Schultz, thank you very much.

I want to get back to Joan, who's on set with us. Joan, you wanted to weigh in on something.

BISKUPIC: I did. You know, I had mentioned earlier about how the three liberals broke off in a concurrence and Justice Barrett responded to them. These opinions by the majority sweeps so broadly against federal officeholders in the future and any presidential candidate that it effectively makes sure that Donald Trump would never be held accountable under this provision and probably no one else down the line.

But what happened because of how broadly they swept is that the three liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, wrote about an oath-breaking insurrectionist. They incited that kind of a phrase, not specifically naming Trump as one, but certainly the tone is there. And it's strident enough that Justice Barrett, when she wrote separately, even though she didn't agree with how far the majority was going, she said, this is not the time to amplify disagreement with stridency. We should be taking the temperature down rather than bringing it up.

But you can see why the liberals do this.

ACOSTA: Donald Trump, by the way, does not believe in that.

BISKUPIC: No. And I --

ACOSTA: He raises the temperature.

BISKUPIC: I think the liberal justices wanted to send the message that this ruling was inevitable. The Colorado Supreme Court was really an outlier with what it did, that, under any scenario, the liberals did not want to go this far and give states this kind of power, but they did not want to have a really open-ended invitation for down the road.

BASH: Can I just add to that? Elie and I were just looking the first sentence of what Justices Sotomayor Kagan and Jackson says it's a quote, basically throwing the Dobbs decision in the face of their fellow justices.

ACOSTA: Yes. Why do you think that -- BASH: Quote, if it is not necessary to decide more to dispose of a case, then it is necessary not to decide more, meaning, I mean, my translation of that is, okay, so you can do it narrowly in Dobbs, but not in this, right?

BISKUPIC: That's right. I mean, it's bringing up all the old wounds right in this one.

HONIG: They also cite Bush versus Gore. I mean that's pretty loaded. But it's important for people to understand. This is a 9-0 ruling, okay? So, all nine justices agreed Colorado cannot do it the way they did it, the states cannot do it.

[10:30:01]

The point of disagreement, and, Joan, correct me if I'm getting this wrong, this is a fast read, is the majority, the six justices.