Visit booktv. Org for the full schedule. Now we kick off the weekend with New York Times chief washington correspondent carl hulse on filling Antonin Scalias Supreme Court seat. Good evening, everyone. Can everybody hear me okay q it is not on. How about now . That is better. Okay. Thank you for coming. I am Laurie Gillman and im happy to welcome everyone here tonight. Anyone in this crowd here for the first time . One person . Welcome. We are very glad you are here. Normally we have half the crowd here for the first time but this is very much a hometown crowd this evening so i hope everybody behaves for you. We are always happy to have all our repeat customers back and some of you we see in here often and i want to say a heartfelt thank you to everybody for supporting the bookstore. Before we get started if you logistics. Please silence your cell phones. When i forget to say that i always rejected it so please do that. Books are for sale upstairs for anyone who missed that. If you havent purchased the budget and you would like to you will have time after the talk to purchase and come back down for signing. We will take a couple minutes to set up the table right here and do the signing right here. Final important detail, restrooms are upstairs, to the left and passed the registers in the back of the shop. Moving on to tonights event. I think the majority of you know carl so im going to stick with a short and sweet bio. Carlos chief washington correspondent for the New York Times, he also served as washington editor of the times and chief congressional correspondent. He has reported in washington for three decades and is still somewhat sane, right . Carl has been a resident of capitol hill for 30 years and devoted to our neighborhood. He asked me to say that. His book confirmation bias leads us to the machinations in the senate that brought us to the present system for judicial confirmation and we have time for audience questions after the talk so take advantage of this opportunity for inside information. Please join me in welcoming carl hulse. [applause] i have to say this is an odd experience to look out and now almost everybody here quite well. Sort of a very hometown crowd so it is great. Im sure many of you are surprised i have actually the book, lots of familiar faces as i want to note that cspan is recording and will air this show so if youre a fugitive from justice or other problems, stay away from the camera. I am a huge cspan supporter and do a lot with them, they are great. Lets talk about the book called confirmation bias and people have asked me about the title. It was proposed by one of my agents, matt latimer, who is a very good writer himself and when we were brainstorming titles we had a bunch of them, some were terrible and we settled on this one. I thought it was perfect for a couple reasons, it is snappy, people look at it, what does that actually mean but it actually sums up what i think is one of the complicated aspects of this whole fight that i talk about in the book, both parties, democrats and republicans feel that they are grieved in these confirmation fights that have been going on since the late 60s. And to some degree they are right, both parties have been treated badly by the other in confirmation processes and in doing so they have inflicted a lot of damage on each other, the nomination process, the senate and the government of the United States. A big problem Going Forward. I will talk about that a little later. But what happened here, everyone sees this on capitol hill from their own point of view. Everyone thinks theyve been taken advantage of, treated badly, what happens . When they get the chance to do this to the other side they do it and that is what has happened here. It has become a corrupt process. What has happened since february 13, 2016, has only heightened that buys the minister and a set of circumstances what i say in the book and i said several times, a snap decision on february 13, 2016, changed the course of history im not exaggerating. February 13th was a very eventful day, saturday before valentines day during a congressional recess. I was at band practice and that was as we know now that david Antonin Scalia died or was found dead in his luxury Hunting Lodge in west texas under kind of strange circumstances. I will say people always ask me about scalia, was he murdered, was there some Conspiracy Theory related to this and i talk to people at the highest levels of the Us Government at the time, none of them suspected any foul play, you can find us on the internet but he was an older guy, he liked to smoke and drink and wasnt very healthy, no one suspected any foul play. He is found dead in his room, the president ial suite at this resort and that set off a lot of activity. I was at band practice, we finished, my phone. Up. What happened . Mitch mcconnell, the Kentucky Republican and majority leader of the senate at the time was in the caribbean on what turned out to be his annual beach visit but i was surprised that he had an annual beach visit. I think his wife liked the beach. Mitch isnt a guy you see hanging out at the resort and around the pool. But at the beach he was. He got early word as i described in the book the justice had died. Normally in these cases with such a big figure on the National Stage there is a morning period and Everyone Wants to talk about justice scalia, and leave the politics out of it but of course people have worked in congress and know about this, that is on the outside. On the inside everyone is talking about the politics and that is the way it goes and it is like good taste to hold back and not immediately Start Talking about politics and even the media we do it. Im sitting at home trying to digest this and its like can we Start Talking about filling the vacancy now or do we have to wait a day . As it turns out it was not one of those cases where anyone was willing to wait. You can read little bit about this. Mitch is down in the caribbean. As he sat in his hotel room transfixed by reports of scalias are death of the luxury Hunting Lodge in texas the collapse first thoughts were of his own dealings with nino scalia beginning with his days as a lowly staffer in the shadow of 3 impressive officials in the department of justice, the other ones were Lauren Silverman and robert bork. He says i remembered being intimidated by the intelligence and weight of these guys interacting with each other every morning. Mcconnell told me this in an interview about a year and a half ago, he was the first person i interviewed for the book. I knew i had to have Mitch Mcconnell at story to tell the story correctly. 10 years later mcconnell was in the senate and able to enthusiastically support scalias nomination to the Supreme Court by ronald reagan. The two developed a warm personal relationship and dined together occasionally. From a the death of scalia represented a huge loss, quote, the Oliver Wendell holmes John Marshall class, he said, a big, big deal, this being Mitch Mcconnell, a Political Animal through and through he quickly put aside personal emotion so he could pragmatically 0 in on what really mattered, who and what would come next. A Second Thought was to immediately turn to the politics of the situation, the first and became to my mind was that i knew if the shoe was on the other foot they wouldnt fill this vacancy. I knew it for sure. They, the democrats. Mitch is sitting there with his caribbean sweet thinking if this happened, republican president , Democratic Senate 11 months left in the president s term the democrats would obviously not go along with it. I get asked this question a lot. What do i think the democrats would have done in the same situation . As we know, it came up, schumer had earlier talked, kind of suggested they wouldnt do it which became a big talking point of the republicans during this whole fight and my experience is the democrats would have totally caved because thats what democrats do. They would not have been able to sustain this blockade, just wouldnt have done it. Democrats are progovernment and we will never know what would have happened, maybe im wrong about this but barney frank said that putting the republicans in charge of the government is like putting me in charge of the miss america contest. I will do it but i really wont be into it. I dont know what would have happened. Mitch mcconnell is thoroughly convinced it would have been the same result. I dont think so but he has set in motion a really extraordinary chain of eventss so a lot going on that night. So much going on. This is why things happen. I am sitting there right before 6 00, this now famous email from the majority leaders office, Antonin Scalia died, we need to appreciate his service. We also need to recognize the democrats are not going to be able to focus a seat. So close to the election we need to let the people decide who will fill the Supreme Court seat. It is february, obama is leaving january 20th the next year. It is not like the moving vans are in the circle of the white house. This night is extraordinary. Everything that went on explains how this played out. Mcconnell is down there, there is a republican primary debate that night in South Carolina and this is a huge thing that drove everyones decisionmaking. As hes weighing his choices on how to do this mcconnell talks to josh holmes, his chief of staff, super sharp political operative runs a private strategy so he is on the phone with mcconnell and says if you are going to do this strategy and totally prevent them from Going Forward you need to do it really fast because there is a president ial primary debate that night, degrees president , ted cruz a former Supreme Court court, has a lot of experience in this area and if this becomes ted cruzs idea to block the nominee the republicans are not going to want to do it because nobody wants to do 10 cruzs bidding so that is why mcconnell acted so quickly. He needed to get in front of this so everybody is looking at scalias death knowing it will be a big thing at this debate and trying to strategize around it. Another person who is strategizing around this is donald trump. Don mcgann, a major character in the book, very interesting guy, don mcgann, Trumps Campaign attorney, had been appointed to the fec, by george w. Bush and put on with Mitch Mcconnells help because don mcgann i have known a long time. I call him a radical libertarian, don is antibureaucratic person and when he got on the fec, became the chairman, he basically shut down the federal Election Commission and stopped them from doing some of the regulation. To don mcgann that is what he wanted to do and exactly what Mitch Mcconnell wanted him to do so he is trumps attorney but he knows a lot about the nomination process having been through it himself and he knows a lot about conservative jurisprudence and he is talking to trump but john is also in a band by the way and a very good one and he had a weekend gig so heres what happened between trump and don mcgann. Don mcgann, Trumps Campaign lawyer was driving to ocean city, maryland, his car packed with band gear for a weekend gig in a group called scotts new band. Scotts new band, big beach bar, really good. He glanced at an incoming text from his wife, shannon, scalia died, she wrote, mcgann pulled off the highway into the parking lot of a gas station and convenience store, shocked, shaken and saddened by the news, then, like mcconnell immediate return to the political implications. Mcgann knew that his candidate might be at a disadvantage against senators who had more experience with judicial politics, he was particularly worried about ted cruz who served on the Judiciary Committee and clerked on the court for chief Justice William rehnquist, ted cruz was still hanging on as a rival, a potential alternative to trump and would inevitably try to capitalize on the political implications of scalias death. Began called trump to warn them not to be the first to politicize scalias passing. What about putting out some names, trump asked, instinctively recognizing that specific prospective nominees might go over well with the conservatives he was courting. Mcgann agreed that was a good idea and ran through some possibilities. Brett kavanaugh was the 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 Appeals Court judges William Pryor junior of alabama and diane sykes of wisconsin, two favorites of hardline conservatives. As they weighed the pros and cons the candidate and his lawyer concluded perhaps it wasnt the best time for trump to embrace brett kavanaugh. Washington insider and george w. Bush appointee to the court who had also produced chief justice roberts, another w appointed currently in republican disfavor for upholding the new healthcare law. The moderator John Dickerson of cbs news opened with a moment of silence for scalia but the silence didnt last long. Dickerson asked trump if with 11 months to go and in his hypothetical president ial term he would bow to democratic demands that he not put forward a nominee to the vacancy. If i were president i would certainly want to nominated justice, he acknowledged. Im sure that frankly im absolutely sure that president obama would try to do it. I hope our senate is going to be able, mitch and the entire group, is going to be able to do something about it and by doing something about it trump meant doing nothing about it. Right from the getgo with brett kavanaugh. Mcgann when he was sworn in was sworn in in Brett Kavanaughs chamber and walking out, he turned to her and said that guy will be on the Supreme Court sunday but didnt know he would be the guy to put him on the Supreme Court. This was the beginning of the famous list for trump. The idea of putting forward some names to reassure conservatives. Conservatives were worried about trump at this point. He had been a democrat in new york, contributed to planned parenthood, his sister was a federal judge in the new jersey pennsylvania district and had pulled on abortion rights issues so ted cruz was running around spreading the idea that trump would appoint his sister who is proabortion rights or somebody like his sister and using this pretty well, so they are trying to figure out a way to stop it and one way to stop it was to start throwing out names of conservatives. Trump because of his sister being there got the federal judiciary and a little more than he got in other parts of the government. He didnt understand it perfectly, talking about bills his sister signed as judge so that didnt happen. The book makes the case that this vacancy, trumps ability to use the list to do some other things was crucial and instrumental in his election. Thats what i mean by making history. I think of this happened happened there is a very good chance trump had not been elected and i will talk more about that and you would have a completely different situation on the Supreme Court, obama would have gotten his pick, maybe hillary would have won, complete opposite, some other dimensions somewhere this is happening. Now the Obama Administration. Heres this vacancy and theyve got to figure out a way to get there guy in there and the debate and the news cycle is affecting obama. He is out there playing golf on a holiday weekend. They are getting the news out there and are astonished mcconnell has come out so quickly and said we are not going to let you fill this vacancy. They also had to scramble around and get him decent clothes because he was playing golf. There is a debate whether they should just issue a statement or he should go on video because this is quickly getting out of control. Chuck schumer called dennis mcdonough, the chief of staff of the time, at his kids soccer game, i would ask everybody where they were when they got the news scalia died because everyone was scattered. He was at his kids soccer game and his phone rings and Chuck Schumer says watch out, the republicans are going to say you cant fill this vacancy, what are you talking about . Of course we are going to nominate somebody to fill this vacancy. They were having a hard time accepting how radical the republicans were going to be on this one. Important part of the book, a meeting the wednesday after scalia dies at the white house where they brought in some people with real experience in doing judicial nominations including ron who worked on a lot of nominations and also the guy in charge of the recount for outdoor. Really experienced person. They have a meeting, lets go through the motions, we are going to go through the interviews, interview the people, we have done this twice before, we know what we are doing, we have a big book that tells us how to do this and we are going to go by that book and the meeting is ending and he goes to dennis and goes dennis, we have to we know president obama is going to nominate Merrick Garland to the seat. Merrick garland has been kept specifically for this situation, has republican support, you need to have the president go out to the rose garden t