President Donald Trump's partisan acquittal from impeachment, attacks on the Justice Department, and efforts to shield or pardon criminals and corrupt politicians is already taking its toll.
On MSNBC Tuesday, New York University Law professor Melissa Murray said that the president's behavior is coloring her own law students' view of the world, and of their future career.
"We often learn from you, the big picture of what you tell your students," said host Ari Melber. "For people watching this, if this evidence lines up this way, this looks like it is bad and getting worse. What do you say to them?"
"So I am teaching constitutional law right now at NYU," said Murray. "The other day, my students and I talked about a case, Nixon v. Fitzgerald, about the president's immunity from civil suits. One of the things the court says there is that, in immunizing the president from civil suits, you don't make him a king. He is still subject to these other checks — the impeachment process, the free press, the prospect of his legacy."
"When I said all these things in class, my students laughed," said Murray. "And I don't think I've ever been more disheartened as a lawyer and a teacher to be in front of 112 new lawyers, people who are learning to be lawyers, who are so jaded and cynical about the prospect of justice, and the powers of the president being vested in someone who does not use them for the public trust but clearly uses them for his own gains. And it's sad."
Watch below: