About now . That is better. Thank you for coming i am told coowner of the city book stop im happy to have everyone here tonight is anybody here for the first time . One person. Welcome. We are very glad youre here normally we have half the crowd but this is very much a hometown crowd this evening. And i just want to say a heartfelt thank you for supporting so a few logistics first of all please silence your cell phone when i forget to say that i always regret it. Books are for sale upstairs if you have it purchased a book if you havent youll have time after the talk we will just do the sighting right here. So moving on to tonights event majority of you here know car also a very short and sweet bio. From the New York Times serving as a washington editor at the time his chief Congressional Correspondent for judicial confirmation and we will have time for audience questions after the talks to take advantage of this opportunity for all the inside information that you would like to get. Please join me in welcoming karl. [applause] i have to say this is kind of an odd experience and know almost everybody in here quite well, so very hometown crowd. Its great. Im sure many of you arent supposed ive actually written a book. Lots of familiar faces and i also want to note cspan is recording and will air the show. Thank you cspan. I am a huge cspan supporter and doing off with them. They are great people. Lets talk about the book called confirmation bias and a lot of people have been asking me about the title. It was actually proposed by one of my agents whose a very good writer himself and when we were brainstorming title ideas. I thought it was perfect for a couple of reasons. People look at it and what does that actually mean, its also one of the complicated aspects of this whole fight i talk about in the book. Both parties, democrats and republicans feel that they are aggrieved in the confirmation fights that have been going on since basically the late 60s. To some degree they are right parties have been treated badly by the other in the confirmation process. And in doing so theyve inflicted a lot of damage on each other, the nomination process, the senate and government of the united states. It is a big problem going forward. She mentioned fraud and that is a good way of thinking about it i will talk about that going forward. What happened to come and in and everybody sees this on capitol hill, everybody thinks theyve been taken advantage of, treated badly so what happens is when they get the chance to do this to the other side, they do it, and thats whats happened here is it has just become a corrupt process. February, 2016an 2016and the e through an extraordinary set of circumstances and what i say in the book and i say this several times, a snap decision changed the course of history, im not exaggerating and im going to prove that to you here tonight. February was a very eventful day for a lot of reasons it i was te saturday before valentines day during the congressional recess i was at band practice, and that is as we know now the day that Antonin Scalia died or was found dead in a luxury Hunting Lodge in texas under kind of strange circumstances. I will say people always ask me about scalia, was there a murder or some conspirac conspiracy ths related to this and i talk to people at the highest levels of the government of th at the timd none of them suspect any foul play. You will find this on the internet, but he was an older guy, hed like to smoke and drink and wasnt very healthy and no one suspected any foul play. So, hes found dead in his room, the president ial suite at this resort, and that set off a lot of activity as i said i was at band practice, we finished and my phone blew up like what happened. Mitch mcconnell, the Kentucky Republican and majority leader r of the senate at the time was in the caribbean on what turned out to be his annual beach visit. I was surprised to hear that he had an annual beach visit. I think that his wife liked the beach, the secretary. As i say end of in the become a key isnt the kind of guy resort around the pool, but at the beach, he was that he got the word as i described in the book being of a scalia family but the justice had died and so normally in these cases, you know, it is such a big figure on the National Stage there is a morning ma period everybody wans to talk about his life and they leave the politics out of it, but of course a lot of people here that have worked in congress and know about this. On the inside, everybody is talking about the politics and that is just the way that it does but its like good taste to hold back and not immediately Start Talking about politics. Even in the media we do it. Im sitting at home trying to digest this. Can we really Start Talking about filling the vacancy now would we have to wait again. As it turns out, this wasnt one of those cases where anyone was willing to wait. Im going to read a little bit about this. As i said he sat in his hotel room transfixed by reports that the Hunting Lodge in texas and the first thoughts were his own dealings beginning with his days as a lonely staffer in the shadow of three impressive officials of the department of justice and the other one for Lawrence Silverman and robert bork. I remember being intimidated by the intelligence of these guys interacting with each other every morning and then he told me this in an interview, about a year and a half ago he was the first person i interviewed for the buck because i knew i had to have Mitch Mcconnells story to tell the story correctly. Ten years later he was in the senate able to enthusiastically support the nomination to the Supreme Court by Ronald Reagan. The two developed a warm personal relationship entity with dying together occasionally. The death represented a huge loss and clearly this was somebody of the Oliver Wendell holmes john marshal class. A big, big deal. This being Mitch Mcconnell a Political Animal through and through, he put aside political emotion to zero in on what really mattered, who and what would come next. His Second Thought was to immediately turn to the politics of the situation he said the first thing that came into my mind is that i knew if the shoe was on the other foot, they wouldnt fill the vacancy coming and i knew it for sure. Sitting there on the caribbean suite thinking if this happened and republican president Democratic Senate 11 months left in the president s term, the democrats would obviously not go out there. I get asked this question a lot what do i think the democrats would have done in the same situation because we know that it came up biden, schumer in earlier talks suggested they wouldnt do it which became a big talking point. My experience that they caved because that is what they do they wouldnt have been able to sustain this blockade. They just wouldnt have done it. The democrats are progovernment and we will never know what happened. Barney frank gave a great quote one time putting the republicans in charge of the government is like putting me in charge of the ms. America contest. I will do it, but i really wont be into it. [laughter] i dont know what would have happened. Mitch mcconnell is thoroughly convinced that it would have been the same result. He set in motion an extraordinary chain of events, so a lot is going on tonight. Saturday night a lot going on for this is why things happen. I am sitting there right before six and i get this now famous email from the majoritys office says scalia died, we need to appreciate his service. We also need to recognize that they are not going to be able to fill the seat. Its so close to the election, we need to let people decide whe who will fill the Supreme Court seats. Obama is leaving january 20 the next year. Its not like the moving van is in a circle of the white house for the lack of matter. This night is extraordinary. Everything that went on and explains how this all played out. So, mcconnell is down there and theres a republican primary debate that night in South Carolina coming into this is a huge thing that drove everyones decisionmaking that night. As he is weighing up the traces of how to do this, mcconnell talks to josh holmes who was his chief of staff operative and now runs a private strategy firm. Hes on the phone with mcconnell and says if you were going to do this strategy and we prevent them from going forward, you need to do it fast because there is a president ial primary debate that night. Ted cruz is in it and is a former Supreme Court clerk has a lot on the Judiciary Committee and a lot of experience in the a and ithearea and if this becomes idea to block the nominee, the republicans arent going to let him do it because nobody wants to do his bidding for him, so thats why mcconnell acted so quickly. He needed to get out in front of this. This. Sosuccumb everybodys looking at his death and they know that its going to be a big thing in the debate to try to strategize around it. So another person who is strategizing around the debate is donald trump. So, don mcgann is a major character in the book, very interesting guy, of course he was a Trump Campaign attorney, just to be on the fec, had been appointed by george w. Bush and on this Mitch Mcconnells help. I called him a radical libertarian. He was a sort of antibureaucratic person and when he got on the fec and became the chairman. That is what he wanted to do and that is what such mcconnell wanted them to do. He knows a lot about the nomination process having been through it himself and he knows a lot about conservative jurisprudence that he is talking to trump so heres what happened between donald trump and don mcgann. The Campaign Lawyer was driving along route 50 with a weekend gig at a. He glanced at eight from his wife and he died, she wrote. Shocked, she came an, shaken any the news began knew that his candidate might be the disadvantaged by the senators that had more experience with judicial politics. He was particularly worried about cruz who served on the Judiciary Committee and also clerked on the court for the chief Justice William rehnquist. He was still hanging on as a rival and potential conservative alternative to trump and would inevitably try to capitalize on the political implications of selenas death. He called him to warn them not to be the first to politicize his passing. What about putting out some names, he asked, instinctively recognizing that the prospective nominees might go over well with the audience that he was courting. He agreed that was a good idea and ran through some possibilities. Brett kavanaugh, he offered as a first name that came to his mind, promoting the judge recognized in washington as a rising conservative star of the federal bench. He and trump kicked around a few others including the Appeals Court judges of alabama and diane sykes of wisconsin, two of the hardline conservatives. As they wait out the pros and cons, the candidate and lawyer concluded that it wasnt the best time for trump to embrace kavanagh a washington insider and george w. Bush appointee to the court court but have also pd the chief Justice John Roberts and other currently in the republican disfavor for upholding the new health care law. The moderator of cbs news opened the debate at with a moment of silence for scalia to the silence didnt last long. He asked trump if with 11 months to go in his hypothetical president ial term he would bow to the democratic demands that he not fourth a nominee for the vacancy from trump. If i were president now id certainly want to try to nominate a justice, he acknowledged. Im sure president obama will try to do it. I hope that our senate is going to be able in the entire group is going to be able to do something about it and by doing something about it, he meant doing nothing about it so this was from the getgo and right from the getg get go brett kavh isnt it interesting. When he was sworn in, he was in the chamber by kavanaugh in 2006 and is walking out with shannon and his wife that ive known for a long time as well. Turned to her and said hes going to be on the Supreme Court someday but didnt know he would be to be debate goes o going toe Supreme Court. This is the beginning of the famous list for trump. The idea of putting forward some names to reassure conservatives that were worried about trump at this point. Hed been a democrat in new york and contributed to planned parenthood. His sister was a federal judge in the new jersey pennsylvania district and ruled on some abortion rights issues he would either support his sister or somebody like his sister and was using this pretty well. One way to stop this was to start throwing out names of conservatives. Because of his sister being there, he kind of got the federal judiciarys got a little more than he got other parts of the government, trust me, at that point. She didnt understand it perfectly though where hes talking about the bills that his sister signed as the judge, so that didnt happen. But this was. The book makes the case that this vacancy in his ability to use the listin list into some or things was crucial and probably instrumental. Thats what i mean by making history. I think that if this hadnt happened, there is a good chance he wouldnt have been elected and people tal we will talk aboe about that. He would have gotten his pick we are talking about the complete opposite another dimension somewhere. Heres this vacancy and they have to figure out a way to get them in there. He is getting the rise playing golf and everybody is out. So they are getting the news out there and they are astonished that mcconnell has come out so quickly and said we are not going to let you fill this vacancy. There is a debate on whether they should issue a statement or go on video because this is quickly getting out of control. Chuck schumer called dennis, the chief of staff achief of staff o is in dc at his kids soccer game and i would ask everybody what they were whewherethey were whes because it is pretty interesting hesees that his kids soccer gae they said you wont be so this vacancy anthoughthis vacancy and thats what we are going to talk about. They were going to have a hard time accepting how radical the republicans are going to beat this. The important part of the book is a meeting that wednesday after selena dies at the white house where they brought in some people with experience doing the judicial nomination including ron and also the guy in tallahassee who was in charge of the recount, really experienced person so they have a meeting and he says okay lets go through the motions we are going to go through these interviews, weve done this twice before successfully. He goes to dennis and says we know that he isnt going to nominate him for the seat. He had been kept specifically for this situation he go got the republican supporting orrin hatch already said he would vote for them and republican support. You need to have the president of out to the rose garden. Here we are in the bookstore with literary stuff. He is a huge fan of the harry potter books. His daughter had some reading issues and they read the books to her and then she read back to him. You will see many references he uses in the speeches and around the white house he became known in a positive way this the way they sort of characterize them to themselves. Ive got to keep an eye on the time. Here was this guy an outstanding individual. I dont think that anybody would dispute that. They had given so much and so they throw him out there because they dont want to the other younger ones they think they could put forth that they are afraid that they would be ruined. This is his last chance to be on the Supreme Court. Hes a model for the democrats, many democrats. Hes a model for the Supreme Court this pushback because hes older and sort of moderate so there are people in the party thinking obama should pick much younger maybe minority, a woman to exercise the debate. They are not going to get a person for that will help drive the democratic voting in november. The Obama Administration what happens if they just ran into a stone wall mcconnell, Chuck Grassley not getting anywhere. Used to be bipartisan and became much more conservative and led by the evangelicals. He didnt want to move ahead with this either and they came up with a woman has always crafty, came up with an opponent for grassley named patty judge who then the tag commissioner statewide was on the 70s. Every time her name is mentioned people are going to remember that they are blocking a judge. The money just wasnt there and the reason it was and there was because most democrats assume hillary was going to win either she will get to appoint somebody or they will go with garland. There was a lo was a lot of pree and things on the hill but it ran out of steam. They go to the convention in philadelphia and the republicans had made a thing about the Supreme Courts. His name wasnt mentioned at one time, not one time. It was a conscious decision they were playing by the rules. So then theres a meeting at the white house. They come back and Valerie Jarrett gets in on the interest of the people from the judiciary progressives. How are we going to sell merrick garland. What are you doing for me to get him through and one of the oldest Democratic Leaders in this area is are we going to do, you just had a convention and didnt mention his name once and now we have to do that . I interview both grassley and orrin hatch for the buck and they didnt think that it was the pick o big of a deal becausy thought they are both going to lose its a postponement. The they thought they were going to lose the senate for sure and it just didnt happen. Mitch mccon