MSNBC Legal Analyst Tells Psaki ‘Insurrectionist’ Trump Has No Good Legal Arguments For Supreme Court Ballot Ban Case

MSNBC legal analyst Neal Katyal told MSNBC host Jen Psaki that President Donald Trump is an “insurrectionist” who has no “good legal arguments” for the Supreme Court case about banning him from the ballot.

The Supreme Court will hear arguments Thursday in a case that will determine whether states can ban Trump from the ballot on the grounds that he violated the 14th Amendment by engaging in insurrection on January 6.

On Sunday’s edition of MSNBC’s Inside With Jen Psaki, Psaki concluded a segment with her in-house “Law Firm” of Katyal and Andrew Weissman by asking Kayal about the 14A case.

Katyal ticked through Trump’s arguments and torpedoed them one at a time — especially Trump’s claim he never did an insurrection:

JEN PSAKI: We have left here. You’ve argued a lot of cases, to put it mildly, in front of the Supreme Court. The justices are hearing oral arguments about the 14th Amendment case later this week in Colorado. What are you going to be watching for?

NEAL KATYAL: Well, I think there have been phenomenal friend of the court briefs that are file that were filed in this case. I don’t think the party briefs were that good.

But if you make your way through these friend of the court briefs, there is a right legal answer, Jen. And it’s one offered by William Baude and Michael Paulsen, who are two conservative Federalist Society lawyers, and they say Trump is disqualified.

And yes, Trump has many defenses, but they all fail. Like, Trump says he’s not an insurrectionist. Yeah, right!

He says the president isn’t an officer under the United States Constitution, but the text says otherwise, as does the original intent.

He says you need a law of Congress, but that would blow a hole through the 14th amendment and its other clauses like equal protection.

He doesn’t actually have good legal arguments.

And so hopefully the advocates can really bring that about on Thursday and make that point clear and can speak truth to power and say, look, you, Supreme Court, you’ve talked all about the original intent of the founders. Here the original intent of the founders is very clear. Someone like Donald Trump has no business running for office in our constitutional democracy.

Watch above via MSNBC’s Inside With Jen Psaki.