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Interest groups. kavanaugh was added to the list late last year. what senator booker is saying, he is the one person on that list who is explicitly on the record talking about a presidents liability to criminal investigation and indictment. and saying, as senator booker said, that a president should not be subject to criminal investigation and cannot be indicted. if he is the one guy from that list of two dozen choices who has been explicit on that point, is that the signal element that we shoul...

Any number of the elements of his defense may end up before the u.s. supreme court. and potentially before the nominee he has named tonight. can the president be subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury? can a president be criminally indicted? can the president pardon himself? can he pardon others if the goal of the pardons is to weaken the case against himself or his family? can states bring prosecutions against people the president has pardoned if he pardons them for that reason? all of those...

Him. and i think that donald trump was making exactly the calculus you just identified. if i have to figure out who to mollify, i have all these groups angry about someone. i am going to protect myself. i am going to pick the guy who wrote most expansively over years what the scope of presidential power is. in that sense, you see trump not looking at the landscape of that. who do i need to satisfy for the upcoming midterms. instead, how do i protect myself? >> lets just quote directly judge kava...

Republican senators who are on the record as supporting roe v. wade, describing it as settled law. saying that it shouldnt be overturned and saying that may be a factor in their votes. do you expect that judge cavanaughs record on that subject should sway the votes of republican senators who arent diametrically opposed? >> his record should. but also the fact he has been appointed by a president with this unusual promise that hes only putting on justices who would overturn roe v. wade. what the ...

Center for reproductive rights. the front line of the league defense of roe v. wade. when states pass laws that deny women reproductive rights, it is their lawyers that file these cases. thanks for being with us tonight. i appreciate it on this busy night. >> thank you, rachel. >> what is your reaction to the nomination of brett kavanaugh? >> here is how i see the nomination. the president promised to appoint to the supreme court only justices who would overturn roe v. wade. and we need to assum...

Exempt from accountability on either criminal or civil law while in office as a way to ensure that hes able to focus entirely on the business of running the country. thats interesting given his history with the ken starr investigation. i believe he was the lead author of the ken starr report. this would seem to have implications for the presidents potential liability not just for the mueller investigation, but also for any liability that may attend to the trump foundation, or the zervos lawsuit,...

An aggressive view of certain parts of the constitution, especially executive power, what kind of things the president can and cant do. and -- and this is going to be hard for democrats to try to explain to the american people, but he wants to shrink the sort of administrative state, the alphabet soup of the epa, et cetera that have so much to do with peoples lives on the ground and that he thinks have had too much power basically since the new deal.

Absent something going really wrong, i think mcconnell is feeling pretty good continue. >> and mcconnell, criticizing the democrats with a straight face. a few of whom said, i dont care who the president puts up, im going to vote against them. mcconnell, famous for having blocked president obamas nominee, which could have been william rehnquist, he was going to block the nominee until the republican became president. >> youre right. he blocked merritt garland, said it was nothing personal. he ...

Mcconnell, of course, is not swayed by the logic. and there will be a vote, and very likely, a confirmation. >> the president faced a choice. had some rookies of the federal bench under consideration. the president and his staff are known to believe they may get another choice or two on the court, depending on the route of his presidency. he chose a young 53-year-old veteran of the federal bench. that means theres a paper trail. he has written 300-some-odd opinions that were free to pour through...

Have raised. what is your take? >> i think this is, from the presidents point of view, from the point of view of conservatives, is a smart choice. you saw a very graceful, gracious nominee. not nearly as stiff as neil gorsuch was. somebody who is used to washington. who has already been mauled by the senate judiciary committee at least once. and somebody who is likely to be able to handle it. on the other hand, if hes confirmed, one assumes that he will be an enormously influential member of the...