in a church. among those killed the church s pastor and state senator reverend clement pinckney. my point of view back then was no, it s not his job to give a beautiful speech and absolve the country of our collective sin. to his credit, he was the one saying you can t let the country slip back into its old pattern. thursday morning, 10:00 a.m., breaking news, supreme court uphold the affordable care act. the affordable care act will remain the law of the land. friday morning, the supreme court upholds the right to marriage equality into this is what gay rights advocates have been hoping for for daks. we were not expecting it and didn t think we would have back-to-back huge decisions. i remember i call the president and he was upstairs working on his eulogy for reverend pinckney and i was so excited and i said marriage equality came down today 5-4. there was a pause. and he said who won. i said we did. we won.
sound the interesting thing about the presidency is there aren t a lot of things that are spontaneous. a lot of things end up being scripted by necessity, you have to be careful because anything you say can move markets or start wars. but you do look for moments of human connection and in some ways those end up being the moments that are the most meaningful. did you feel pretty free at that moment? you were second-term president. i think no. i think i was looking at the two daughters of reverend pinckney
pastor clemt pinckney were two of them. the youngest daughter in the office, hidden under the desk. they heard it all. they heard it and then the intruder left. and it was locked. it was locked the honorable reverend pinckney, a state senator, church pastor, husband, father, was killed. if you did a movie of a distinguished pastor, you know, you would have cast clemente pinckney. he had a voice that was like from god. because we believe all lives in south carolina matter. a strong, powerful voice, but he carried it so gently. then charleston mayor joseph riley knew many who lost their lives that night. this awful man took the finest people. every time i come in this church, i oh, boy.
see what he s done. those of us that agreed with his politics and those of us that worked with him will be looking at what he s been able to achieve walking back a lot of economic problems that he inherited and other things. and those that oppose will be looking at that. i think, those he ll set a tone. he ll interpret what happened in these last seven years plus. he will also talk about where the country needs to go. i think it will be challenging. then governor haley, i thought it was an interesting choice, when the charleston nine massacre happened and i went to south carolina, i knew reverend pinckney who was killed. i spoke at one of the funerals and spoke i hadn t met her. she got up behind me and said if you come inside i ll hug pup this is a different kind of republican. here s a woman, a minority and she tries to be moderate. i m not too sure that tonight
people were gunned down in south carolina by an alleged white supremist. the killer could not see the grace of reverend pinckney and the bible group. reporter: and he showed the confederate flag prompting discussion if it was time to rid the flag, and there was debate and then the flag was removed. already president obama agreed to take in 10,000 refugees from syria. the companies who can should do more to the countries who can, should do more to help the refuge refugees. but when 31 u.s. governors vowed to shut the doors. embed many in the group are people out to destroi us. reporter: and then donald trump said that the all muslims should be ban ned from entering the u.s., prompting a a fierce backlash. and the black lives matter