0 his campaign promise to nominate a black woman? the short list circulating in washington signals history's about to be made. and you've got to hear this. podcaster joe rogan thinks he has the definition of what makes a black person. >> unless you're talking to someone who is like 100% african from the darkest place where they're not wearing any clothes all day and they've developed all that melanin to protect themselves from the sun, even the term black is weird. >> okay. professor michael eric dyson's name coming up as part of this uninformed rant. he joins me just ahead on that. and the country might be sick of covid but the cdc is predicting more than 62,000 deaths over the next month. warnings from an expert straight ahead this hour. but i want to start now with cnn's supreme court analyst steve vladeck and global affairs analyst susan glass here to talk about what is going on with breyer's official retirement has not happened but that's the word that it's going to happen soon. good evening to both of you. susan, president biden gets a supreme court pick, a chance to turn a new page in his presidency, a way to shore up the base and fulfill a big campaign promise. but still, it probably won't be an easy road, will it? in these divided times that we're living in right now. >> you know, nothing is easy, don, anymore in our politics. i mean, for president biden it's really full circle. as the chairman of the judiciary committee he was around three decades ago helping to preside over the confirmation hearings of justice breyer. now he'll get to pick his replacement. i'm struck by the initial tone from conservatives which has not been fire-breathing, you know, this will be the fight to end all fights. and it really reflects actually their success of the last few years in reorienting the court and now having what appears to be a 6-3 conservative majority. >> steve, why are you shaking your head in agreement? >> i mean, i think susan hit the nail on the head, don. this is not as nearly high stakes a confirmation process as, you know, amy coney barrett replacing ruth bader ginsburg, as brett kavanaugh replacing anthony kennedy, merrick garland replacing anthony v antonin scalia. that's why i think this process is not going to be quite as divisive and contentious as the last few we've seen. you know, from the republicans' perspective, what's the point? you know, if president biden is able to successfully confirm, say, the first black woman in the supreme court's history, they still have a 6-3 majority on the supreme court. they still have what they think is a very strong agenda to use against president biden in the midterms. and so i think this is going to look very different, don, from the last couple of supreme court confirmation fights that we've been through. >> hey, steve, you've been going through this list, president biden's potential short list of picks. who stands out to you? >> yeah, don, i think any conversation's going to start with the same two names. there's judge ketanji brown jackson who's currently on the d.c. circuit. very important appeals court in washington. she spent eight years on the district court bench in d.c. don, as you know, she was confirmed just last year by this same senate. 53-44. with three republican senators, senators collins, graham and murkowski joining all 50 democrats including senators manchin and sinema in voting for her. so she's going to be i think very high on the list. 51-year-old. highly regarded federal judge. also a bit younger, i think a bit more progressive of a pick, a name folks may not know is justice leondra kruger, who sits on the california supreme court. the difference there, don, is she hasn't recently gone through the gauntlet of senate confirmation. possible that she's a bit more of a fight for president biden. i think that's going to be a big chunk of at least the political calculus in the white house in the coming days and weeks. >> one more for you, steve. what kind of cases will the new justice be considering? we know affirmative action in universities, that's coming up. >> yeah, i mean, don, i think it's remarkable that we have this coming right on the heels of monday's news that the supreme court's going to take up race-based affirmative action in higher education as early as next term. could be the very first case that this new justice hears. and so you know, we're going to have, don, a very busy summer not just with this confirmation process but with major decisions from the supreme court on abortion, on guns, on environmental regulation, on administrative law, on religion in our schools that i think it's going to just set the tables for the new justice to come in to a very divided court and, don, a court that has handed down rulings that are going to further i think polarize our view of the court as an institution and its role in our system. >> speaking of which, susan, the supreme court is central to the gop's strategy of turning the country to the right, giving them favorable rulings on issues even if the majority of americans don't support them. how much of an advantage does that give republicans politically? is the court essentially a gop backstop? >> well, you know, that is sort of an unknowable question. but i do think what we do know is that the politics of this are shifting, don, and that it's very likely that it's now democrats who may become more focused not only this election year but in the coming years in organizing around a campaign for a long-term effort to retake the supreme court to restock the federal judiciary with progressive-type judges. and i think you've seen that conservatives basically are now in the victory lap and with the spoils of their really long-term plan to retake the supreme court. so what will be interesting to me is how much is president biden and are democrats this year able to use organizing around not only this open seat on the court but the major rulings that we're expecting in things like abortion and affirmative action to rally the democratic base and to convince them that this ought to be a voting issue. for years the conventional wisdom has been that it was for republicans a motivational factor to get out there and to make sure that conservative supreme court justices were appointed. are we seeing sort of the pivot point at which it's now a rallying cry for democratic voters in this midterm election and beyond? >> thank you both. i appreciate your time. i want to bring in now cnn political analyst natasha alford and political commentator scott jennings and bakari sellers. hello. there you guys are. good to see you. bakari, by the way, is the author of a new book, "who are your people?" natasha, i'm going to start with you. black women deserve a lot of credit for delivering biden the white house as well as the georgia senate runoff races. those victories are -- that's what's going to elevate a black woman to the highest court in the land. what does it mean to have that kind of representation? >> i think it means everything. i think that there are so many black women who have been fighting for this for a long time. it's important for people to understand that this is not something that started with the biden administration. it went back to the obama administration and beyond. black women have showed up in record numbers at the polls. they've registered millions of voters. they've run for office. and so no one is really doing us a favor here. this is a reflection of what democracy is supposed to be. democracy is about representation. but i do think that this moment means something special for so many black women who have shown up, and it's important to remember that these are black women who have worked very hard to be ready for this moment. they are qualified. and it's important that their voices are represented on that court. >> bakari, congressman jim clyburn telling cnn political analyst laura broom lopez that he thinks this supreme court pick could really reinvigorate the democratic base. do you agree? will this pick help biden with a much-needed reset, so to speak? >> yeah, i think this pick is about the politics of now but i also think to natasha's point it's something larger than that. for a long period of time, i mean, even going back to rahm emanuel simply blurting out that they didn't have time to deal with the courts, i think one of the most valid criticisms of the obama years was that they did not take the judiciary serious enough. and democrats have not put the judiciary on the ballot enough, although hillary clinton tried to tell us that and tried to talk to us about the importance and the urgency of the courts. but the fact is, don, we've had 115 supreme court justices in the history of this country and all but seven i believe have been white men. so this is larger than the politics of the day. this is a time where we have to have that fierce urgency of now because it's necessary. >> 115 justices so far. there have been 108 white men. two black men. five women. four of them white. and one latina. and those are the potential nominees up on your screen now. there's a lot of talk about d.c. circuit judge ketanji brown jackson. bakari, who served as a clerk for justice breyer. but clyburn is talking up michelle childs. could that give childs a boost here? how much impact could -- would clyburn wants impact this? >> i mean, i think it matters. but i think that judge childs' record matters as well. you have supreme court justice kruger from california. but the difference between a michelle childs and many of the other justices on the court, say for amy coney barrett is that she doesn't have that harvard, yale pedigree. what she does, though, is bring that diversity from another perspective. university of south florida. university of south carolina school of law. simply saying that someone checked the box because they went to ivy league does not necessarily qualify them for the supreme court. we're looking for an entire plethora of experience. and judge childs brings all of that including her full self to the court. i will not knock any of these women. they all deserve to be on the court. however, there is something that needs to be said about that level of diversity by having someone who didn't just have that yale, harvard experience but actually had a maybe more full, diverse experience with their background and upbringing. >> scott, there's now going to be a huge political battle ahead of the midterms. how will republicans try to use this pick to their advantage? is there a way that they can do that? >> well, they can't stop the democrats. obviously, the democrats will be able to confirm whoever they want. and by the way, the president should get to nominate whoever he wants and the senate should be able to handle it however they see fit. i support that. i supported it during the republican years. and so i think it's important to say that for the democrats as well. i do think what republicans should do here is point out that joe biden campaigned as a moderate and he's going to wind up appointing someone who is from the far more liberal or progressive end of the political spectrum. that's number one. and number two, i think ultimately if this goes quickly then republicans will eventually just want to get back to talking about the core economic and societal issues that are driving the political environment overall. so i think they ought to put up a vigorous set of questioning for whoever comes up. i think they ought to point out the differences in values. i think they ought to ask this person hard questions. but ultimately, i think as a political matter the best thing republicans could do this year is keep the focus on joe biden, keep the focus on inflation, the economy, schools and crime, and by election day i suspect this will be a distant memory. >> you think -- natasha, you want to respond to that? someone who is on the far left. because these women have very substantial records when it comes to the court. i'm not sure if their records indicate that they are far left. >> well, i try to consider myself neutral in terms of these issues. i mean, i think what's interesting is that manchin previously voted for judge brown jackson when she was nominated for a lower court and he also voted for folks who were on the right as well. so i think that, you know, there are people who have appeal across the board. and so yeah, i can't really say what is going to happen. one thing i do want to say is that with this story often people wonder why we focus on black women. right? why does being black matter? and it's important to remember that representation actually benefits everyone. right? it's not just about scoring political points but it's about a viewpoint and a perspective that as bakari pointed out for years and years has been left out of these important rooms where lifelong decisions are being made. very important to remember that. >> well, listen, i think the main reason we're having this is because candidate biden promised on the campaign trail that he would nominate a black woman. and so we'll see if he keeps that promise. and that's the reason we're having this conversation. >> don -- >> yeah, bakari, i wanted to respond to -- go ahead, quickly what do you want to say? >> i was just going to say to natasha's point i think one of the worst and most perverse phrases we have in our political lexicon is that of color blindness. we want you to see the full value of who we are. and i think not having a black woman on the supreme court for 223 years is more than a travesty because you do not get that diverse thought on issues such as abortion, voting rights, et cetera. >> and look, that's -- every single woman that we put up on the screen earlier have immense qualifications. so that should not even be an issue. maybe politically the right will try to make it an issue. but these women are very qualified. bakari, i just want to ask you about the white house press secretary because they were talking about kamala harris. jen psaki asked if kamala harris would be considered as a scotus pick. this is how she ultimately responded. >> the president has every intention, as he said before, of running for re-election. and for running for re-election with vice president harris on the ticket as his partner. >> what does it say about the vice president or about, i don't know, anything, the press corps or us, that the vice president is even a question here? >> i mean, it's b.s. that's what it is. i mean, this is not a real question. people need to stop wasting time and -- >> scott disagrees with you. >> ain't nobody putting the vice president of the united states on the supreme court. he is up with heart beat away from being president of the united states. she's going to run for vice president in the future. this is just -- you have judge childs, judge kruger. you have sherrilyn ifill. ketanji brown jackson -- >> bakari, i get that. but i think the implication is that her polling numbers and she's not seen as effective or people don't see her -- scott, is that -- go ahead. and then i'll let scott -- >> yeah, i -- >> hold on, scott. let bakari finish and then i'll let you respond. what were you going to say, bakari? >> look, people want to find any way that they can take a dig at this vice president. and she's withstood it. and they've only been in office for 13 months. she'll be just fine. but she ain't going to be on the supreme court. >> go ahead, scott. >> i agree with bakari, they're not going to put her on. but i did marvel today at the fact there were more than a handful of democrats and more than a handful of reporters who were begging for the idea that kamala harris would be appointed or put on the list. and i assumed it was because they believe she's a political liability to biden and they want him to choose someone else. so i agree with bakari, she's not going on, but make no mistake, this whole theory was floated today by people who think biden would be better off if he had a different running mate. >> all right. thank you all. i appreciate it. he's got the most popular podcast in the world. but when the conversation turned to race the other day, well, what was said on joe rogan's podcast about prominent black professor michael eric dyson was jaw-dropping. >> neither of us are white. >> well, i'm italian mostly. >> and he was brown, not black. >> well, isn't that weird? 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