Prenomination Process News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

They will figure it out. >> and it's hard for paul ryan without thinking he is going to have the 216 -- >> the way these things work, paul ryan will never allow this to lose. if they think they will lose, they won't bring it up. it's never going to be -- >> yeah, but even if they cancel the vote, that's a setback. >> it's certainly a setback but allows them to keep pushing on it. seems to me based on how these things work, there will not be a negative vote. >> it's fascinating, and i agree, the speaker can do the math and the president will go and say we cannot fail, and they will get somethin...

There's a new list and you're on it. i don't know about that. i don't think -- you didn't know. i don't think -- we were all surprised. anyway, we are where we are. >> okay. tell me about the process that led to your nomination. did anyone ask you to make any promises or assurances at all about your view on certain legal issues or the way that you'd rule in certain cases? >> senator, i think you'd be reassured by the process that unfolded. i try to live under a shell during the campaign season. watch baseball and football. go about my business. but i did hear lots of talk of litmus tests from ...

There's also prong two and three, and what this actually looks like if it's passed, will it be a political liability once its passed, if it's even passed. >> rick santorum you served in the senate from pennsylvania, and what do you think? >> the house members are mad and they have every right to be mad, because paul ryan is doing something differently, and that is when the house introduces the bill you put the most conser conservative thing that could pass, and ryan didn't do that, and he thought he could short cut the process and put through a bill he thought could pass in the senate, and con...

Ago. i wasn't about to become party to such a thing. and i am here to report you should be reassured because no one in the process, by the time i was contacted, was an expression for interest for a potential interview, no one in that process asked me for any commitments or promises about how i'd rule in any kind of case. >> and that's the way it should be. so we've just discussed your independence from the president, but there's also independence from the legislative branch. it's odd that some of the same folks who will claim that you're not independent from the president will turn around and ...

Go ahead. >> that's right. this book was put out by the national academy of public administration that i formerly led and it's a blueprint for nominees as they go through the process, and it covers the prenomination process, and the post nomination process and the confirmation process. it can be very intimidating -- >> he's arriving there now, and meeting with the senators, judge gorsuch, but go ahead. >> it could be intimidating and it could help familiarize them with how the process works. >> he met with all the u.s. senators privately, and even the democrats have come out impressed. >> that...