Addon advantage. Discounted hotel rates when you add on to your trip. Only when you book with expedia. Welcome to kasie d. C. Im kasie hunt. We are live every sunday from washington from 7 00 to 9 00 p. M. Eastern. Tonight, critical mass. Thought our politics were explosive before . Try replacing the swing vote on the Supreme Court. Well talk about the wild conjecture and whats actually about to happen. At the same time, democrats take stock after a top member of leadership is upset in new york. Rising stars ben jealous and jason candor join me live to talk about what their party should do next. And later i travel to utah
to talk with mitt romney on the campaign trail. Hes set to become the republican senator in the age of trump. Plus, do not congratulate. Russia stuns spain at the world cup. But first the interviews, the Lobbying Effort and even the ads are underway to replace Justice Anthony kennedy on the Supreme Court. The president is back home after spending the weekend at Bedminster Conferring with white House Counsel don mcgahn. A handful of names are floating around from the president s list of 25. Democrats are pushing to postpone the confirmation until after the midterms. My colleagues on both sides of the aisle know that this vote could be one of the key votes of their entire career. If they vote for somebody who is going to change precedent, it could be a careerending move. You dont need a degree in Applied Physics to understand the forces that democrats are up against. So for the white house, its striking the right balance. Convince republicans to hang
together and change the court for decades to come. I think its going to go very quickly. I think were going to have a lot of support. I think were going to have support from democrats. Frankly, i think if its the right person. Im going to pick the right person. Im going to pick somebody thats outstanding and everybody on that list is outstanding. A lot of people think its going to be a very its probably going to be vicious because the other side, all they can do is obstruct and resist, you know the whole thing is resist. Id like to welcome in my outstanding panel, two of the best reporters in the country on the Supreme CourtLegal Affairs from npr, anyone a totenberg and justice correspondent pete williams. In new york former federal prosecutor Georgetown University prosecutor and msnbc legal analyst paul butler. Pete and anyonnina, id like tot the conversation off with you. As we were going on the air, i thought i should step back and let the two of you tell our viewers what is about to unfold. Pete, just to start out, the context of this, everybody has
cast this retirement as one that is unlike any other, at least in the last generation. Do you think that is a fair characterization . The last 50 years or so, ever since the Nixon Administration and earl warren stepped off the court and Warren Berger took his place. Id say every time i hear a reporter say the Trump Nominee could change the Supreme Court, i think whats this could stuff . Of course its going to change the Supreme Court because Anthony Kennedy really, after Sandra Day Oconnor stepped down in 2006, he has been the key vote. Really, for most of the cases we Pay Attention to, you cant win without Anthony Kennedy. If he votes with the liberals, you get a liberal outcome. If he votes with the conservatives, you get a conservative outcome. That vote is about to be replace bid a conservative. The conservatives will have a solid majority and thats going to make a huge difference. Nina, lets step back a minute. For those of us who have not watched the court as long as youve had the privilege to, there is some sense of question as to how somebody like Anthony Kennedy got on the court in the first place. These debates are so polarized now. He got on the court actually because president reagan nominated robert bork who was a hard core conservative to the core, and Bank Of New York was soundly defeated. He then put up another nominee who had to withdraw because it turned out that he had been Smoking Marijuana. You can do that nowadays. You can do that nowadays. At the time, though, the Reagan Administration wouldnt hire anybody in the Justice Department who had admitted to Smoking Marijuana and they never asked him that question apparently when he went to work at the reagan Justice Department. So, he went by the wayside, but stayed a distinguished federal judge. That left they really they needed to pick somebody and it
was, you know, it was time. And Justice Kennedy got the nod and he was a pretty conservative guy. And they looked at all of his writings and they were concerned about his some footnote that he wrote about respect for privacy, but they decided to overlook it and there were people in the Administration Later who didnt like the fact that they had overlooked it. I mean, they thought that was a bad thing. And just i would add two things to that. Number one, remember that Justice Kennedy we talk about today is not the one that came onto the court back in 1988. Secondly, you had this sort of more moderate push. Once Bank Of New York gork got next nominee was conservative. The democrats controlled the senate. Its not like you go from
conservative to more moderate. Theyre all pretty mainstream conservative. Even if something happened to this nominee, whoever its going to be, its not like the next one up would be very different. To Rain On The Parade A little im sorry, paul, go ahead. I want to rain on the parade regarding Justice Kennedy swing. He did swing, but mainly to the right, and so he wrote the Majority Opinion in citizens united, that case that said corporations are like people. He also voted for bush in bush versus gore. So on certain issues like lgbt issues, he got it in the way most conservatives dont. But in other kinds of civil rights issues not so much. And the Voting Rights act, of course. Voting rights act, exactly. Pete, quickly, you have a short list of based on your reporting of that kind of list, the 25 that the president had compiled. And to this point about conservative to conservative, one thing thats been raised in my reporting is the idea if they were to select a woman the
woman on this list, Amy Conan Barrett of indiana is that something where you have a sense that on questions of precedent, questions of roe v. Wade she could have an easier time getting through the senate or be somebody who could make them feel better about the issues . Not necessarily. She had said roe was erroneously decided is the term she used. To be fair, Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the same thing. It came to the court too fast and the court shouldnt have decided it. But nonetheless, remember she just got on the Court Of Appeals by President Trump, so shes been there for about a year. Shes already survived the senate confirmation. She was a Law Professor at notre dame. Now shes a federal judge. I heard the president say or someone say the president was going to talk to perhaps two women, and for the life of me im not sure who the second woman is. Im not either. Let me Say Something about the list of the president s. The list as much as a political
document, the people who compiled it didnt think it was a political document, the folks at the society and heritage foundation. They dont think theyre mainstream conservatives. They think theyre movement conservatives. Those 25 folks are movement conservatives. Theyre people who have been waiting a long time to look at vast quantities of the law, very, very differently. And the president the first list was 12, i think. President was so thrilled that it reassured the evangelicals, got such great press in the conservative press about it, he said lets do it again. And that then they added a couple more people. But thats the list. And the list is not what we used to call a mainstream conservative. It may be some day mainstream, but today, even on this court i would say the people on this list would be on the farright of the court. Paul, can i get you to weigh in . Its a good point. This is something that was compiled as President Trump was trying to demonstrate his bona
fides in the primary. It doesnt matter that the president wont ask how they feel about roe v. Wade or lgbt rights. He already knows. President trump said something unusually sage and learned on friday. He said, apart from war, this is the most important decision a president makes, and maybe thats why hes outsourced this process to this farright federalist society. Again, i think he thinks that the Gorsuch Nomination was one of the highlights of his presidency, so he wants to do it all over again. Again, you cant overstate how Conservative Gorsuch is. Hes more conservative than scalia who he replaced. Hes about level with Justice Clarence thomas, one of the most conservative people ever to sit on the Supreme Court. Yeah, i actually want to forgive me for my Control Room Loop here. I want to read part of this piece part of your piece. You say that after 30 years on the court, he believes that once rights are recognized they will
not be taken away. That includes the right to abortion that he helped to preserve and rights for gay people he helped to establish, the right to marry and be treated equally. Time will tell, but every indication is President Trump in a little over a week is someone who does not think those rights are fully protected by the constitution. I think we have the sound. One of the concepts that really means a lot in america is you dont overturn precedent unless there is a good reason. And i would tell my prolife friends, you can be pro life and conservative, but you can also believe in Story Decisis. Roe v. Wade has been affirmed many years. I hope the justice that sits on the court, all of them, would listen to the arguments on both sides before they decide it. The Story Decisis is a well known concept in our law. Nina, for people who are watching this unfold and who are worried, for whatever reason, but lets take people who are
worried because they believe that they want roe v. Wade upheld, whats the real likelihood that this is going to be a major confrontation down the line . Are there cases wanting their way through the system now . What i always said was its not going to be overturned as long as kennedy is there. Kennedy is gone. I think the odds are not bad that it might be overturned. And what if there is yet another i mean, we have two other members of the court, steve briar, 77, Ruth Ginsburg is 85. I think there are two ways to go here. You can expect that it will be whittled away so that you can have a lot make abortion pretty just about inaccessible in the 20 or so states that have tried to do that. Sometimes it already is. Or it will be overturned outright. I dont foresee another one of
these coalitions coming together that says, look, this has been the law for 50, 40 some odd years and were going to respect it. Thats what Story Decisis is, respecting precedent. To us, the people who want to overturn it, is like racial segregation. They want to overturn it because it was wrong in their view. Pete williams, whats your reporting on this and how realistic is it that there are cases that will wind their way through that would ultimately lead to an overturning of roe v. Wade . There is no shortage of cases in the states that have tried repeat lid to overturn roe. The more recent trend with ken dip on the court has been to say, well, thats a lost cause. So the action has been in the states to, as nina say, restrict access. Instructive example. Texas passed a law that said a clinic that provides Abortion Services has to be built to the same standards as an Ambulatory Care Center and the doctors who
perform the abortions have to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. No hospital would give them admitting privileges. It was a sort of, in essence, a ban on abortion. The Supreme Court shot that down with Justice Kennedy voting with the liberals. So, without him there its more likely, as nina said, these restrictions on abortion, age, consent, time of pregnancy when its available, types of services, restrictions on medication abortions, theyre much more likely to be upheld even if roe survives. Very interesting. Much more to come when kasie d. C. Continues. Rod rosenstein faces down congress as the Mueller Probe quietly presses on. Plus, demonstrations break out across the country as the Immigration Debate Stalls yet again. And later im joined by former Communications DirectorAnthony Scaramucci amid rumors of new white house shake ups. As we go to break, we dug deep into our vaults for a news reel on how we got to this moment for the Supreme Court. When republicans blocked even a hearing for merit garland. The sproupreme court, the highest court in all the land, where are the justices now . In their black robes and the yes, their appointments last for life. And when one dies or retires, we go helterskelter, crazier than a soup sandwich. And today our seat sits open on the high courts bench. Heres president barack obama pleading to accept his nominee. I ask that they confirm Merritt Garland to the Supreme Court. Merritt garland, mr. Moderate. Democrats say hes an ideal choice, but not so fast. The grand old party has their game faces on and are ready to play hardball. It is clear president obama has made his nomination to politicize it for purposes of the election. Thats right, leadership marks precedent vowing not to
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