Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 07022019 20240714

For roll call talks about campaign 2020. As always, we will take your calls and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter as well. Washington journal is next. Host good morning. Welcome to washington journal. Likely coincidental, the first democratic debate occurred as the Supreme Court was winding down with notable decisions. They became part of the discussion at the debates. We will spend the first hour asking you, how important is the Supreme Court in your 2020 both . 202 7488000 for democrats, 202 7488001 for republicans, 202 7488002 for independents. We will look for your tweets cspanwj also on facebook, facebook. Com cspan. Bloomberg focuses the Supreme Court as a Campaign Issue for democrats. Democrats are attempting to turn the Supreme Court into a Campaign Issue in front of donald trump success, reshaping the federal judiciary with young, conservative justice, with abortionrights close to being a laminated. It is a shift eliminated. It is a shift. The dynamic lasted through the 2016 election. President trump won over by promisingoters. O appoint Supreme Court judges activists are still furious about Mitch Mcconnells refusal to let barack obama fill an open seat after the death of Antonin Scalia, enabling trump to solidify a 54 conservative majority. The president commented on what may be ahead for a 2020 term, in an exclusive interview with the hill last week. I would fill the Supreme Court vacancy, he said he told reporters, what i do that . Of course. Is a reversal for the president , who as a candidate in 2016, back to mr. Mcconnells backed Mitch Mcconnells nomination of eric garland to the high court. President trump has been speaking of his success with the judiciary, talking about successes on the Supreme Court. [video clip] new Supreme Court justices, neil gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. [applause] today, 54 year ago decision, Supreme Court upheld the First Amendment rights of pregnancy care centers. [applause] just last week, Supreme Court cross72 that the peace wasnt that nice . There is one that would have come down. A beautiful memorial in maryland, which honors our heroes of world war i, in the form of a cross, and they said it can stand on public land for all to see. [applause] it is so beautiful. It takes up such an important place in that area, in that whole state, and they wanted to rip it down, they wanted to take it down because it was across. Days agon that one two in the Supreme Court, isnt that great . Morning, question this how important is the Supreme Court in your 2020 vote . 202 7488000 for democrats, 202 7488001 for republicans, 202 7488002 for independents. From the New York Times. Talking about one of the last rulings the court made last week. Had no power to stop gerrymandering, it brought to an end the courts willingness or ability to reign in voting maps drawn to blatantly benefit one party. The ruling, after years of battles over voter identification laws, gerrymanders and voter purchases left advocates bitterly disappointed. Helped lead who has the fight against republican john district said that the at the decision tears fabric of our democracy and puts the interests of the established few above the many. History will not be kind to the ways in which this court has undermined Voting Rights and core democratic principles in america. Read more online. Your thoughts on the importance of the Supreme Court, 2020. Linda, eureka, california. Caller good morning. Court andthe supreme the fact that where there will perhaps be vacancies has a key role in the elections. The 2016 elections also. I would say, key. Host youre calling in on our republican line, i think. It does not indicate if it is key for you, tell us, if it is key for you, you would like President Trump to continue on the successful path he has had in terms of appointing judges to the federal judiciary . Caller indeed, yes. 2016, important to me in when i was still a democrat, and became a republican in february, 2016. There an issue before the Supreme Court at that time or ahead of that time that made you think, i want to vote for President Trump, become a republican or support a republican . Cruz it was ted filibuster. I stayed up and watched him. He pointed out the dissatisfaction, that no one was listening to us. I felt, you are right. No one listens to us. They get into office and forget what they told us they would do. So i couldpublican do a primary for ted cruz because in our state you cannot vote primary unless it is for your own party. Line,alan, republican scottsdale, arizona. Caller good morning. Vote with the roberts Supreme Court, in regards to the census to me as discreetly discussing extremely disgusting. The Supreme Court should not be interfering with america knowing who is who, living here. With the vote with obamacare, i dont know who this guy is. He was appointed by bush. He is unamerican as far as im concerned. Know, as far as the court itself, i dont know when ginsberg is going to step down. She has to be totally senile at this point. Someone ought to do a psychological test on her, if she can add up one plus one is two. Host margaret, democrat line, joliet, illinois. Caller i believe gerrymandering is wrong. Is way i am going to vote the way i think most americans is. Religion is fine. Everyone has a right to choose who they want to be with. Everyone has a right to choose. I do not think the Supreme Court should be overruling. I hear a lot of republicans whining and crying. When was all that going congress did what they did . It is just wrong. I love jesus too. But in my house, i am not forcing him into your house. Host thanks. Pete buttigieg speaking about the courts and decisions they have made at a Campaign Event recently, planned parenthood action fund, recent appearance in the washington area. [video clip] ok, so shortterm and longterm. Both of them have to do with the idea of freedom. I am sick of conservatives speaking as though freedom a property of their side, right . Then they turn around, when it comes to freedom as intimate, i think about it a lot, an important freedom in my life is the freedom to marry the person i chose. [applause] health and Reproductive Health freedom, it shows you there is maybe not quite as much commitment to freedom as we think. What you can count on is that when i am appointing justices and judges, i will appoint those who understand that freedom includes access to Reproductive Health and rights for women in this country. [applause] that is the beginning. As we talked about, we also need to reform what is going on. Before the Supreme Court comes to be viewed as a nakedly political institution. That trajectory is accelerating. They have changed the structure of the courts several times in American History. The Republican Senate changed the number of justices on the Supreme Court. They changed it to eight, until they took power, then they changed it back to nine. We should be willing to undertake sensible reforms by statute or amendment to ensure the judiciary is there to protect all americans. Buttigieg at a recent appearance. Numbers from the debates last week. Biden slides after first democratic debate. Joe biden changed, down 10 . Kamala harris up 9 , Elizabeth Warren up 8 , Pete Buttigieg down 1 , but fundraising is up and Bernie Sanders is up 4 . We are talking about the Supreme Court this morning. Does it factor into your decision in the 2020 vote . 202 7488000 for democrats, 202 7488001 for republicans, 202 7488002 for independents. Texas, hello to linda. Caller good morning. It is extremely important. Right isthe religious trying to take over our courts. It is not just conservatives. That is people who i do not believe can separate their religious values from their Court Decisions. As a gay person, this is extremely important to me. This has been an Ongoing Movement since the mid1980s. I have been watching it on the 700 club, on the history channel, so on, and their move was first started at the local level of School Boards and so on, through the state levels and then onto the federal level. They have succeeded. Now they have a Vice President in place who is the mouthpiece for our president , to pick these nominees for the court. I think it is dangerous. I dont want to live in a nation that is ruled by religious theocracy. I do not to do that. Want to do that. Host do you donate to candidates, organizations, that promote democratic or certainly, liberal or more moderate justices . Caller i do. Important that justices be moderate, all of them. Not just extreme to the right or to the left. Host thank you. New bedford, massachusetts, robert, independent line. Caller good morning. [indiscernible] this is one of the most important questions to my voting choices. I am a former democrat. I left the Democratic Party when it moved away from the mainstream. I think it should be rebranded the communist party. It is not progressive. It is not leftist. When iull out communism, see the pronouncements of the candidates running, i dont see a single moderate, with the possible objection abided of joe biden. If we dont have a constitution to constrain the government, we break the pledge our ancestors made and paid for with their blood, that there should be limits on government. The democrats find it inconvenient. To modernit dated revisionism. I think that is a terrible mistake. We risk losing our country. Host what is your read on how the court currently is deciding cases . Sure the mosti am recent nominee is probably a disappointment to the man who nominated him, for being a moderate. That suits me fine. Every case should be decided by every justice based on the case, theyn any political cant had when they came to office. Host Brett Kavanaugh . Caller yes. Host a piece from the New York Times on sunday, thanks robert, from massachusetts, on judge Brett Kavanaugh. Charting how often he agreed with other justices, the newest member of the Supreme Court, rounding out the ninth seat. 53 of the time he agreed with justice gorsuch. Look at the amount he agreed with Justice Roberts. Nearly 90 of the time. In terms of democrats, he agreed with them half the time. Breyer, as well. We will be talking about that more in depth with a recent session. Robert, jones beach, howard beach, new york, independent line. It is important in 2020. I like the way it is going. These liberals are trying to change the way our country is. I was a democrat years ago. I changed to republican because these leftists are becoming more communistic. I believe the Supreme Court should rule as the constitution stated. Sotomayor said at one point the Supreme Court is a place to make policy. It is not. It is a place to have a constitutional idea behind what the cases are about. I think we are going right. Trump is doing a great job. It is unfortunately people we have people like nancy pelosi, Chuck Schumer and aoc who do not understand the constitution. Host democrats line, marilyn. Caller hello. Host go ahead. Caller as far as justices are concerned, i believe the supreme they willering have us in a fascist country before too long. It is going too far to the right, it has been for so long. Bernie sanders was talking about rotating the judges as opposed, and by that, i assume he meant judges, federal judges from different states. Exactly he was talking about there, seemed to me to make sense because the republicans have had a grip on Supreme Court for too long. I think the country is in danger if we dont figure out how to balance this out. Too crucialcourt is that one party should have such a tight grip on it. Host does it feel like the republicans have had a tight grip on it more so than in previous decades when the democrats were in power and the court was more favorable certainly in terms of decisions to democratic ideals . Caller hello . Host you are on the air. Caller i dont think so. Ever since reagan it has gone drastically to the right. Lifetime, mymy adult life anyway, i do not remember the Supreme Court being anything but a tool for the right wing. Host talking about Bernie Sanders and his approach to Supreme Court. He mentioned this in the debate last week in miami. [video clip] let me make a promise. My litmus test as i will never appoint any, nominate any justice to the Supreme Court unless that justice is 100 clear that he or she will defend roe v. Wade. [applause] i do not believe in packing the court. We have a terrible 54 majority conservative court right now but i believe constitutionally, we have the power to rotate judges through other courts. That brings in new blood into the Supreme Court and a majority, i hope, that will understand that a woman has the right to control her own body and the corporations cannot senator host Bernie Sanders take on the Supreme Court. We would like to hear your take. 202 7488000 for democrats, 202 7488001 for republicans, 202 7488002 for independents. Lets check facebook and twitter. cspanwj acourt that proceeds with partisan split decision to allow partisan gerrymandering, knowing it primarily benefits parties is corrupt. The rationale used that no metrics exist for existing partisanship is distracting, is absurd. Greg says i will be voting for a balanced Supreme Court, congress. The current president has clearly demonstrated checks and balances on executive power are crucial. Very important in terms of the 2020 vote, especially for middleclass americans. Michael says, more important than it should be or was ever intended to be. Alabama, republican line. Caller good morning, sir. I am sitting here trying to figure this out. Thought the Supreme Court interpreted the constitution. Host yes. Are you there . Caller yes, sir. Host what about that . You thought they interpreted the constitution. Caller right. I didnt think the Supreme Court should be biased toward one party or the other. Host do you feel like a Supreme Court does that pretty fairly . Do you think they interpret the constitution evenhandedly . Caller no i do not. I take that back. Yeah. I just cant follow this. Of the issues that come before the court . Exactly. [indiscernible] youre going in and out but thank you for calling. Jack, independent line, hamilton, ohio. Caller thank you. Callers,due respect to why would i not vote for someone who holds my political views for the Supreme Court or my views on morality . That comments about one lady said she could not live under a christian Supreme Court versus to me, a liberal view, is view. Henistic your other caller talked about the Supreme Court being controlled by republicans since reagan. Obama put in. Sotomayor and elena kagan. They espouse liberal views. They can put in who they want and vice versa. The conservatives controls the house and senate, they can put in a conservative. That is my comment. Host jack, here is an article on liberal efforts to change things, should they regain the presidency in 2020. Washington times. To beial picklist, meant a resource for democrats after years of complaining about President Trumps process of picking justices, a key liberal Advocacy Group has figured if they cannot beat him, they might as well join him. The alliance for justice is creating a board to vet nominees for future democratic president s. A potential fix in place for the new white house occupant, 2021. It is similar to the president s use of the Federalist Society and Heritage Foundation which in 2016 helped candidate donald trump craft a list of picks, which he has used to inform decisions he has made in office. Mr. Trump urged voters to see who he would pick, the alliance of justice has made no such commitment. Candidates frequently get asked about which pix they would make, mr. Trump took the bold step of identifying a type, and releasing a list of 11 names from which he said he would fill the vacancy left by the death of Antonin Scalia a. He added 10 more names that september. The move was popular with conservatives who liked what they saw on the list. The lists were written with the assistance of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, and the Federalist Society, a group of republican and libertarian scholars. Felix is next, democratic line, welcome. Caller good morning. Host good morning. Timer please allow me like you did these other people who attacked democrats for no reason. I left the Republican Party in 1968. As far as the Supreme Court, america, the president dont even have to listen to it, ok . Tears,rokees trail of that decision that the Supreme Court just made, the jewish people, muslims, and all other religions should put their same symbols on that spot. As far as gerrymandering, it is constitutionally offensive what scotus did because it says our leaders are not supposed to pick the leaders. Our citizens are supposed to pick the leaders. For them calling democrats communist, i left georgia tech and 71, majoring in chemistry to go to vietnam to kill communist. So why dont you get off of it . I believe in america. Lynn, democrat line, texas. Caller hello. I am in my late 70s. Abortions in my 20s. I would like to know what would be done if all those children who are being aborted are not being killed, how many of those children are you going to adopt . Some of them are going to be crackheads. I was not. I was not on drugs. I was just careless. I would like to know what would happen to all those children . Important whovery court and the supreme i am very unhappy with mcconnell trying tong obamas put someone else on the court. That was totally andnstitutional and illegal i am afraid i will not be ever be happy with much of anything that is the way i feel about it. Thank you. Tennessee,anooga, greg, independent line. Caller how are you . Host fine, thank you. Caller bless your heart. The last caller ripped my heart out, to think there is still people thinking that way. That is just said. Liberalism is definitely a disease. The Supreme Court judges, right . Host yes, sir. Caller ok. Yeah. I dont know how anybody could think they are rightleaning when it is obvious, 4 very and leftleaning think the court can ever reach a place where both outcomee happy with the with the case . For a case to be decided, there has to be a majority decision with nine judges. Caller i see what youre saying. I dont think it will ever come to a happy spot because politics are one thing, but morals are another. If you cannot see anything wrong with aborting up to 8, 9 months old, there is something morally wrong with you, in my opinion. Opinion. Y host greg, thank you for weighing in. The caller mentioned mitch. Cconnell the court Mitch Mcconnell built. The chief correspondent for the New York Times in washington Mitch Mcconnell openly celebrated on thursday as the court had no power to interfere in excessively partisan gerrymandering. He has earned his victory lap. Mr. Mcmonagle, the kentucky republican, created the Current Court to deliver that outcome. His audacious decision, february, 2016 to prevent barack obama from filling the vacancy of Antonin Scalia a contributed to the election of donald trump as president , allowing mr. Mcconnell to oversee the nominations of neil gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. Good morning. Caller good morning. As far as the Supreme Court, that is an important issue to me. It was in 2016 and it will be in 2020. I wonder what would happen if Hillary Clinton won. If there was more Ruth Bader Ginsburgs on the court anyway, as far as teaching the number when they were getting to liberal decisions on the court, i dont think the court right now means that much, republican or conservative, because Justice Roberts, he is a snake in the grass. , along withe votes cavanaugh 86 , is because roberts votes conservatives on all the issues except the one that count, like the one about the census on the ballot and the other one, of course, obamacare. When the chips are really down, that is when roberts becomes a yellow belly and goes with the liberals. I dont think there is any need to change the number of justices. Trumps pix have been excellent. Roberts is a real disappointment. Abortion may be in five years or so, overturned, roe v. Wade, overturned. Host you think it will happen in the next couple years . Caller im sorry. Host you think roe v. Wade will be overturned in the next few years . Caller late in trumps second term. Host thank you. Howtsville, virginia, jay, important is the makeup of the Supreme Court to your vote in 2020 . Caller i view myself as a true ourpendent who, in societal tribalized conditions, remind myself that 1976, when theto factions, democrat, republican and aclu sued the federal Election Commission to convert a document, the american constitution, that was a document that promoted domestic [indiscernible] in order to maintain and protect the rights of each individual to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, as long as they would elect representation that would provide every other individual with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Toy converted that document an animalistic political, competitive document so that each individual had to join a faction in order to speak politically. Host by this, you mean a party . Caller yes, a party. So rather, out of many varied individual human brains, we began forming taking one strong country and making many varied factions warring against each other. Host we are talking about the Supreme Court, the term just wrapped up last week. We are asking you how important is the court in your vote in 2020 . 202 7488000 for democrats, 202 7488001 for republicans, 202 7488002 for independents. President trump last week, the Freedom Coalition conference boasted about the judges he has gotten appointed through the senate and talked about democratic efforts and who they would appoint if they were to 2020. E presidency in [video clip] we have taken historic action to protect rights enshrined in the constitution. Democrats are determined to pack the courts with radical left judges who will impose their own views on the American People. That is why i will soon appoint to interpret the constitution. [applause] calls,ack to your democrat line, west palm beach, florida. Caller it is bonnie. Obamas choice being overturned, totally wrong. Have the right of freedom in the u. S. Religion is a freedom. Of theould not be a part Supreme Court. That is tearing down exactly what we are built from. Feel thatie, you religious views are an influence on Supreme Court justices more than before . Caller yes, absolutely. The overturning roe v. Wade that religiouse people say they should not be able to have the choice. We are the u. S. It is absolutely our choice. God gave us the right to choose. Is anyone to say god is wrong . He gave us a choice. We will pay that price when we go to the next place. Courts federal decision on abortion, the potential decision on roe v. Wade, this on twitter unborn children are very important. The children at the border not so much. Leslie saying, the makeup of the Supreme Court has no influence on my vote. Gerrymandering was never an issue when republicans controlled majority of legislatures. Democrats decided gerrymandering was wrong and the rules had to be changed. Front page of the wall street journal. Protests boil over in hong kong, demonstrators occupying the citys legislature, breaking windows and defacing the chambers, protesters smashing windows and storm the legislature on monday, unprecedented show of course that ratcheted up the worst social turmoil to rock hong kong since it was returned to chinese rule 22 years ago. A picture in the wall street journal shows some of that demonstration as demonstrators break into the Hong Kong City legislature. The front page this morning of the washington journal, excuse me of the washington times, iran breaks limit and blames trump. Europeans urge diplomacy as tehran vows to go further. Iran has broken through the international limit on the stockpile of uranium in the 2015 nuclear deal and is poised to ramp up enrichment. Officials blame President Trump for kickstarting a crisis and put the burden on the u. S. And europe to find a way out. Politico this morning. Story, the the lead fox news general spooked trump out of attacking iran. President trump may have tired of the men he called generals, but one retired military leader still has the ear on key foreign policies. We look into this this morning. Politico. Com, they are writing about jack keane as President Donald Trump wrestled on the evening of june 20 on how to respond of iran downing a u. S. Drone, jack keane was making his second appearance of the day on fox news general. The retired general said trump, who had speculated earlier in the day that iranian action may ourn a fluke viewers have forgotten, but in the late 1980s, when reagan took action, we made a mistake. Shootdownss worship and iranian airliner in iranian airspace. 290 people killed, 66 of them children. We took that for a tomahawk f14, clearly a mistake by the crew. We acknowledged we made a horrific mistake. The president was spooked, when he learned of the incident, according to sources briefed on his reaction. Read more at politico. Com. Back to our question. The Supreme Court and its influence and how important it is to you for the 2020 vote. Louisville, kentucky, patrick, republican line. Caller yes. I have a different west on what we are talking about this morning twist on what we are talking about this morning. I would like to emphasize my freedom of speech and association guaranteed by the bill of rights. If we consider other countries, even other continents, like america,rica, south it is called the organization of south america, the same thing the United States in south america, it includes all of the countries in south america, including mexico and Central America and the caribbean. I am sure they have a Supreme Court in all those countries. I am sure they have an idea of what freedom of speech and freedom of association is. I think we compare ourselves with other countries. We already compare ourselves with the organization of south america, or the United States of south america. Host we lost our caller. Louisiana, reggie, independent line. Caller good morning. Thank you. You guys are great. This is really all about manifest destiny in about the original people who appeared in this continent, have devised a system to sustain the power. Article three, courts are designed to be arbiters of conflict between the executive branch and the legislative branch of government, that is the political branches, separation of power is political. Federal judges and Supreme Court and theirre political decisions are based on their political ideologies, without regard to any oath they may swear. Mitch mcconnells decisions with respect to neil gorsuch and holding up president obamas example thatclear the article three branch of government is political in nature. It is by design. The Republican Party has made it ,lear they will do anything Mitch Mcconnell has decided to do anything in order to stack thecourt with people of republican ideology. It doesnt matter whether these people swear an oath to the constitution. Promote theed to notion of manifest destiny. Advance thetakes to cause of the european people who came here to conquer the Indigenous People and using slavery as an institution. To promote that. You, the courts are a political body can you whereee the situation politics are out of the federal judiciary . If it is by design a political body, appointed by political leaders, obviously the president in this case, can you ever get to a sense of balance in your view on the Supreme Court in terms of fairness and decisions . Caller in the abstract, yes. Theoretically, yes, that is the design. Men and women are political in nature. The ultimate notion being, politics is a process of deciding who gets what, when, where and how. The people of both parties, the representatives duly elected, are quite aware of this. Therefore, the goal is to stack many peoplelect as in the house of representatives, keep the majority, in the , each, keep the majority ande having two senators, nominating federal judges. If you have a majority of your ilk voting, thinking, you control the article three , that is the federal judiciary. Host we will move onto portland, oregon, marie, democrats line. Caller good morning. How are you . Host i am fine. Caller a judge should be able to hang up their Political Party best and put on their robe. From a nonbiased place. Otherwise it is judgment, judgment, judgment, that is all it is, based on political leanings. That does not seem right. There is no fairness there on either side. Debbie, troy, ohio, independent line. Caller good morning. I think it is important. It shouldnt be that hard. All they have to do is uphold the constitution instead of trying to change and have an ideal. The law is the law. I would like to see the judgests list of their and i would like to see ruth be out inshe needs to public, if she is alive or not. On from obama,ed being blackmailed, because he adopted a little boy and girl from ireland. That is why he runs to the liberals. They dont uphold the law. Read the constitution as written. Roberts is blackmailed. Uth is too old to be on there host 10 more minutes of your comments and questions on the importance of the Supreme Court to your 2020 vote. 202 7488000 for democrats, 202 7488001 for republicans, 202 7488002 for independents. Two days away from july 4. Clarity on plans in the capital. New york times. Tanks will join spectacle. The pentagon would put military tanks on display on thursday in washington to turn the annual celebration into a salute to the countries military prowess. The tanks would join an airborne display, including a flight of air force one over washington and a performance by the blue angel jets. Mr. Trump is to speak at the celebration, and has requested that chiefs of the military offices stand next to him as their services fly overhead and their respective hymns play on loudspeakers. It will be like no other. I hope a lot of people come, mr. Trump told reporters at the oval office. Other views from the daily caller. Salute tons patriotic america parade for fourth of july. From the daily beast. Trump gets ready to ruin the fourth of july. The decision to take control of the annual celebration in washington dc, immediately politicized the event. Tom, independent, west plains, missouri. Caller hello. I have a comment about some of the people calling in. None of them have read the constitution. If you look at the preamble, which states, why we are who we decisions dont rely upon the very foundings of our country, which are, that we protected in our pursuit of happiness, in our inalienable rights. Those of the words they used. The decision should be made upon that. Not upon political affiliations or preconceived notions of how their religious beliefs are to be implement it into implemented, into our government. That is not the way it is supposed to be. In fact, they are supposed to be above that. That is all i have to say. People can vote the way they want on that. Host tony, texas, republican line. Caller good morning. Court to say, the supreme is the most important decision in my vote. I think that is why donald trump is the president today. I remember in one of his rallies, he said, let me say two words as to why you should vote for me. Supreme court. If im not mistaken, he got 80 of the evangelical vote. To the evangelicals, the Supreme Court is very important. Bonnie mentioned she did not think religious people should be on the Supreme Court, bonnie from florida, who called in, i would like to remind bonnie that religious people have the right to choice also. We choose to protect innocent babies. One final thing. All these liberals and democrats keep talking about how horrible it is that children are being ripped from their mothers arms at the border. I wish these liberals and democrats were half as horrified at the children who are being ripped from their mothers wombs at the abortion clinic. Host twitter and facebook. Com cspan, where you post your thoughts, this one from cynthia. I believe trump will win again in 2020. The founders knew politics exist. We were promised a union. If you want perfection, heaven awaits. Mike says, the usa has been burned by placing appointments which tilted the court far to the right. Workers, consumers, victims, those trod upon by authority have lost its way when it is very much needed. And onk. Com cspan twitter, cspanwj. Memphis, tennessee. Caller i was thinking about the Supreme Court and all the liberals, i mean all the conservatives, think that the Supreme Court is so important. Why are they letting the president run over the Supreme Court and the laws of the United States . Rights, equalens rights, equal pay. [indiscernible] these people talking about religion. Evangelicals, i feel sorry for them. Most of them are going the other way. They are not going to heaven. Something wrong. Anyone saying a democrat is as the Republican Party what they done and what they are doing now. Host robert, mississippi, republican line. Caller good morning. I want to comment on how important the Supreme Court is. Roe v. Wade decision was one of the worst ever made. Abouted to say one thing justice Antonin Scalia. He died under suspicious circumstances. Very suspicious. They wouldnt even do a blood test to see if he was positive or not. Something was suspicious. It just goes to show you how the Democrat Party has gone so far down the hill toward the wrong way. The Democrat Party is the party of the devil these days. Host a number of democratic legislatures, members of the house i should say, took a trip to the u. S. Mexico border in texas. Here is a story out of that from the new york post. Forced togrants drink toilet water. She claims Border Patrol agents are forcing migrants to drink out of toilets and living under other extreme conditions while officers sit back and laugh. Being why officers were sexually threatening toward me, the congresswoman tweeted on monday. Women inwere keeping cells with no water and had told them to drink out of toilets. Aoc. On judd fires back at the president of the national Border Patrol council fired back at the congresswoman on monday after she made the claims about her visit earlier that day, two the headsing migrants, of the council, the union for Border Patrol officers rejected those claims. Also, a story out of pro public a and their investigation of this allegedly secret facebook cpbp being created by some officers. Publica, thereo is an investigation into vulgar facebookropriate posts. On monday, u. S. Customs was made aware of disturbing social media activity hosted on a private Facebook Group that may include. Number of employees they immediately informed investigators with the department of Homeland Security office of Inspector General and fish and ended and initiated an inquiry. You can read that at propubli ca. Org. We hear from ernest in maryland on the democrat line. Caller good morning. I am ernest johnson. I live in maryland. I am a retired air force vet. Host good to have you here. Say aboutl i want to the constitution and the Supreme Court is the Supreme Court is supposed to make rulings on the constitution and protect the rights of every citizen in the u. S. Since mr. Trump been in there, and mr. Mcconnell, it seems we are going backwards in this country. There are a lot of laws that got past two protect the rights of everybody to protect the rights of everybody, gaze, black people, white people. Court, go back to what youre supposed to be doing and protect the rights of everyone, not of the few. That is my only comment. Maryland, ashton, republican line. Mr. Trudeau good morning good morning. People say that a woman that has a right to choose, should finish the sentence. Choose why . What . Killing a baby . Anyone that consents to sex, should bear the responsibility of a possibility of a child. If they are able to enjoy , andelves and have sex killing the baby is we will continue the conversation about the Supreme Court taking a look at the key decisions of the last term and looking ahead, what might be ahead in the upcoming term in the fall of next year. Briannejoined by malcolm as well zales joins us later here on washington journal. Of mine emailed me and said why do you want to tackle this issue, marriage and family . You are jumping into the culture war. You really want to do this . Announcer author and College Professor paul kengor will be a our guest on indepth. His latest book is the divine plan. Ther titles include dupes, takedown, and the crusader. Join our live conversation with your phone calls, tweets, and facebook questions. Paul indepth with to 2 00 p. M. Oon eastern on book tv on sunday. And be sure to watch it next month with author lee edwards. Watch book tv every weekend on cspan two. Weekend, this holiday on American History tv, saturday at 10 00 p. M. On real america reel america, the july 4 celebration at the National Mall featured bob hope and billy graham. We have never hidden our problems with our freedom of the prussian communication system. We dont sweep our sins under the rug. Tension exists and riots occur, the whole world knows about it. Instead of an iron curtain, we have a window. Announcer an sunday, on american artifacts, the thing history hobbyist craig hall betrays a soviet cavalry officer and discusses the soviet unions role in world war ii. One month before dday, we had been occupying 65 of the best german troops fighting us. If we hadnt done that, if they hadnt failed if we had failed at moscow or stalingrad, all of those troops could well have been under normandy beaches and it could have been a different outcome. The story that has to be told is that is a significant contribution to winning the war. Announcer watch, on American History tv, on cspan3. Announcer washington journal continues. Amb. Brownback the Supreme Court just wrapped up host we have briand goron and john malcolm here. Thank you for being in this morning. Brianne andt with ask you what is your take on the decisions that came down in the recent term . Guest i think this was a deeply different disappointing decision from the court because the chief justice threw up their hands and acknowledged that extreme partisan gerrymanders are inconsistent with what quit to do anything about them. Justice kagan got it right in her decision when she recognized , when do the courts can do things when can the courts do things . Otherwhat was the decision last week you thought was important . Case, it the sentence challenged the Trump Administrations decision to add a Citizenship Question to the 2020 census. The chief justice got right on this one. I agree with some of his legal reasoning, but he was right to reject the effort to add this question to the census. As he said, the secretary of was contextualon and this would undermine the accuracy of the census count. This is an important count that we take every 10 years to determine how represented are dust representatives are allocated in congress and how funding is allocates is allocated. Thisthe census recognizes would undermines the accuracy of the count. Host john malcolm, your take on the recently completed term . Guest as is the case with all terms, there were some opinions that pleased and disappointed me. In the last week, the agency case, the kaiser case, where i thought it was a step in the right direction of raining in the deference courts are supposed to give agencies interpreting their own regulations, but it didnt go as far as i would have as far as i would have liked. I will comment on those two cases. With respect to the part of his and desh partisan gerrymandering case, the court partisan gerrymandering case, the court said gerrymandering has been around for our entire history. Around in the late 1900s and they drew a district that looked like salamander. Thats where gerrymandering came from. The majority in the router case case didnt rucho say they like gerrymandering. They said the framers in the constitution didnt give judges a role. They said this was checked by congress in order to do anything if they wanted to do anything about partisan gerrymandering. Any constitutional challenge speaks to the need for proportional representation. Theres nothing in the constitution about proportional representation. And there is no measurable, ro liable criteria that one can come up with to measure how much reliable criteria that one can come up to measure how much gerrymandering there is. With respect to the senses, we had a Citizenship Question on our senses, in one form or the sus, we had a Citizenship Question on the census, and one form or the other. There were all kinds of questions about race, gender, and all preferences on the census. The court said this wasnt a violation of the constitution. The enumerations clause says theres supposed to be a census conducted every 10 years. It doesnt say congress how. It doesnt Tell Congress how. t think the court got they got a fractured opinion. Before the liberal justices reasonsecretary rosss for joining this, intentional. He kicked the case back to the lower courts and gave commerce an opportunity to come forward with a more fulsome explanation. Whether they have time to get it done, host we will focus on more than just the census and gerrymandering, but watching these last courts, the market cases and final decisions, both of those felt like unfinished work. Citizenship in the case, it is still an active case. Guest thats right. Maryland,ct court in a number of courts around the country, and one of those cases was the maryland. The District Court judge there was considering the addition of this question was motivated by discriminatory purposes. That could well proceed if the administration indicates it would continue to try to put this question on the census. The question is timing. They needed to have the census questionnaire finalized by june 20. Theres a serious question about whether there is time to go back to the bureau and try to come up with another reason to put this question on the census. Host are there other potential gerrymandering cases that could come for the next term . Guest rachel gerrymandering cases, the start has died of those. They have another one of those this term, too. Unless there is change in the composition of the court, the issue of political gerrymandering is decided. Undecidedother issues, but i dont think that is one of them. Host i want to get our washington journal viewers and listeners in on the conversation. 202 7488000 free democrats. 202 7488001 for republicans. Independents and others, 202 7488002. , an the conversation and couple of the key decisions came down in announcements from the court as the term concluded. They temporarily blocked the 2020 census Citizenship Question. They ruled federal judges have no authority to correct artisan gerrymandering. They allowed for the jailing of certain immigrants eligible for deportation. They allowed a person to be charged and tried for the state offense same offense in state and federal courts. They also decided on the case of the peace cross, allowing the cross in maryland to stand. Brianne, your take on that decision in terms of what it means for potential of religious freedom cases to come before the case . Guest it was interesting, the way that the justice who wrote for the majority in that case wrote the opinion. It was not as broad an opinion as you might have expected from the conservative court. What he said was that this is a memorial that has been out for a long time and was not put up to promote christianity. He distinguished this cross and the question of keeping the cross up from putting up a new cross in the future. Justice breyer also suggested Courts Holding in this case was pretty narrow. I dont think it tells us that much about other similar cases in the future. Host john, where do you does that open the door for potential other religious liberty cases . Guest religious liberty cases are always on the court bar stockett. I agree and slightly disagree. I agree with that the court the court did not go as far as they could have. One thing i found very significant, in the early 1970s, this of bring court had a case in which it established a threepart test where the court was going to use for establishment because whenever it was looking at establishment establishment clause, whenever it was looking at establishment clause cases. Courts is all over the map. In that case, not a single justice has a kind thing to say about the lemon test. Even the two dissenters. They didnt even mention lemon in their dissent. I think it is possible that lemon is on life support, but also possible the pathologist has not arrived to declare it dead. I thought that was significant. We will see if lemon truly is dead. Host more cases that talk about. Here with the heritage found age on dacians institute for congressional government Vice President , john malcolm, and Brianne Gorod, tell us about your view on the court. Publicthe center is a law firm tank dedicated to the progressive premise of the constitutions history. When you look at the constitution, when you look at the whole constitution amended over time to be made more democratic and i terrien, it is a progressive document. We make the originalist arguments, but we make arguments branded grounded in the constitution. The Heritage Foundation is a very prominent conservative think tank. The institute for Constitutional Government where we discuss all legal issues, we discuss it at the constitution on a conservative perspective and originalist perspective. We engage in robust and civil debates with organizations like sometimes find common ground, but often dont. Some otherll get to cases, but we have colors waiting period hear from bill in virginia beach. Bill, republican, go ahead. Caller real quick. Looks like we have one conservative and one progressive liberal on our show today. I wanted to ask a quick question. Understanding,l to both your guests, does a person have to be a u. S. Citizen in order to vote in a president ial election . In any state in the country . I will get off the phone and listen for your answers. Guest i think the answer to that is, yes, the states can allow noncitizens to vote in state races, but citizens cannot vote in a federal election. Caller the Court Announced host the Court Announced that they are taking up the dhaka term,ecision in the next these children that came in as young immigrants. Set the scene on that. What is the issue at stake . Guest this was a challenge set up a program set up under the obama administration. Not to grant citizenship, but to allow individuals brought here as children to have deportation deferred, be able to get work permits. It has been an incredibly successful program. The Trump Administration decided to terminated because they said it was unlawful. There were a number of challenges brought, and what we have consistently seen from the lower courts is the decision that the program is not unlawful. Towas a lawful exercise determine where to focus Immigration Reform and resources. So the order to terminated cant stand. Host they are taking this up with a decision likely from a year likely in a year from now. Guest im not surprised by it. To fill out a little bit about what she said, the deferred action for child Arrival Program was put in by president obama. He said he was going to do this by executive action, uses phone and pen, the Trump Administration, and authorize this on prosecutorial discretion. One thing a president can do with their phone and pen can undo it pen, another can undo it with their phone and pen. A number of challenges have been asserted and a number of lower courts have frustrated the administration trying to wind down dhaka saying it is arbitrary action. The court has decided to take up whether in fact the Trump Administration can unwind daca the way they have. Even if the issue has been exercised in project or prosecutorial discretion. I was not surprised to see the court taken up. Host logistically, when they announced the case this far in advance, they could take it up. Are they likely to take it up early in the term . They can certainly decide earlier than june 2020. Guest given when it was granted, it will probably be heard at the end of this year. Often the cases that are the most contentious, where there are likely to be multiple opinions, those are the ones that often being decided in june. Host lets get back to calls. Republican line, phoenix. Good morning. Caller good morning. Thank you very much. I have been watching for a little bit, maybe half an hour. I did see the previous section. It seems like everything is being kicked down the road. They can is being kicked down the road, and it seems the , Justice Roberts, is doing one of the same things, some of the same things, kicking the can down the road. There will come a time when people face and confront responsibility. That the senses question is nothing. Theres nothing that can be said about it, except it is illegal legal and very fair to ask about citizenship. This is the responsibility of govern the, to in thethat are legally continental United States, and also the other territories, of course. I will hang up and listen. Thank you and have a great day. Host thank you. I was going to go back to first principles. We talked earlier about the constitutional question in the case. Thats where i disagree with john and the chief justices opinion. The opinion mandates the count of all people in the country, no matter if their citizens were not oro no matter where theyre from. If you look at the history of the constitution, there is evidence throughout the base that this was important to the framers. Just to put a finer point on something john noted earlier, the Citizenship Question has been asked in some form, but not asked in the short form of all respondents for decades. Int is important Context Understanding what a significant change the Trump Administration is proposing, and why experts within the census era thought it could undermine the accuracy of the count. Guest it wasnt a short form and asked of every house up until 1950. Between 1950 and 2010, it was 12, 13, or 15 of households. It does do a count of everybody and asks whether the person is a citizen. It doesnt ask whether they are here illegally. There are lots of people that are lawful permanent residents that live in the country who are not citizens. Answers to census questions are, by law, to be kept confidential. There are reasons on why you would want to know about citizenship. The reason it was offered by sec. Wilbur ross, was that the department of Justice Needs the information to litigate Voting Rights act cases and cases challenging whether there are enough majority minority dish makes districts. There are lots of programs were the beneficiaries have to be United States citizens. The court didnt buy the reason that was offered by secretary ross, but those are the policy reasons in support. Host correct me if im wrong, but the question is out of their hands come out of the court part chains. It is back to the Commerce Department and state cases proceeding in maryland. Guest its a federal case, but we are back to the District Court. Guest i feel fairly confident in a matter of days, it will be back. Here is sydney in alexandria, louisiana on the independent line. Caller i would like one of them to explain to us how the Supreme Court has all this authority to rule laws unconstitutional or constitutional when judged , just took it. They write laws that are so scrambled up that you have a republican read it and think it means one thing, and a democrat means it another. Gobbledygookt this and write a law in plain english . Thank you. Host john malcolm, do you want to tackle the short history of judicial review . Guest there are three branches within the rogue government. The judiciary is meant to provide a check on the congress branch. What Justice Scalia was saying is that, in his view, mine too, the Court Extends itself to reach issues that they deem to be constitutional issues. Justice scalias opinion should have been left for the process. C courts are not supposed to rewrite laws. In reality, they occasionally do. Judges take an oath to defend the constitution and are there to provide impartial justice to all people who appear before them, regardless of political affiliations. Inevitably, ones Life Experiences and approach to the bench, and predilections, sneak into opinions. Its regrettable, but reality. Guest judicial review goes back to the early days of the republic. If you look at the role of the federal courts, the framers created a federal judicial system to serve as a check on illegal action. That is important to understand the gerrymandering case and why the chief justice and the courts majority got it wrong. Tois the role of the courts step in and address unconstitutional actions and extreme partisan gerrymandering, like the one in this case, is an example of that. Host the chief justice and direction of the court, this is among the wrapup pieces, the wall street journal said he moves to the right, and they write even a chief justice who holds the courts ideological center and his formal leadership cannot always retain the reins. In dissent inlf 10 cases which upheld including one that upheld a ban in uranium mining. Also, a lower courts ruling in racial gerrymandering. There were various judges joining judge ruth bader ginsburg. The role of the chief justice in this, is past term. Guest for years we talk about court referring to tony kennedy. I think it is fair to say it is now chief Justice Roberts court. Its worth remembering he is at the center of the court and conservative. He has a conservative record on court, but he has some of theys and other conservatives in the court. In part because of the chief justice caring deeply about the reputation of the court and its legitimacy. He doesnt want judges to be seen at sibley politicians and roads. Watching him this term and in the future will be interesting to see what extent he seems driven by his conservative ideological views or is willing to put those aside and follow the law in the interest of preserving legitimacy of the court. Host john, do you think the with a full convention contention is making more decisions in previous terms. Is chief Justice Roberts steering it in that direction . Guest im not sure he is steering it in that direction. If there were going to be a change, it would be a change in personnel. Is right in the chief justice is right in the center of where the court is. More majority than any other justins in the court other justice in the court in terms of the major ones. He provided the vote in the census case and is the person who kept hour and seminal rock deference. In a case. T live those were two significant cases. In terms of the change from personnel from Justice Kennedy did cavanaugh, it is early days. To justice cavanaugh, it is early days. I would say the following, anaugh has talked about being an originalist and textual list textualist. I dont think they could have set Anthony Kennedy was either of those. Billy wanted me to difference, the one you can only point to was the partisan gerrymandering case. Its a case a number of years ago in which the majority rejected a partisan gerrymandering case. It was Justice Kennedy that was prepared to revisit that if the challengers came up with a formula he thought made sense. That was rejected. I think you could say Justice Kavanaugh made a difference in that case and with respect to the rest, it is early. Host did the newest justice surprise you with any of his decisions or comments and questions from the bench . Guest i dont think this was a surprising year from him. The replacement of Justice Kennedy with he marked a significant change in the court. Justice kennedy was the deciding bunch of whole issues. It is early still. We didnt have most of those issues two for the court this year. There was a case that involved a stay where there was a challenge to a louisiana abortion law that was identical to a texas law that had been struck down a couple of use go of years ago. When the challengers went to the court to ask them to put it on hold, chief Justice Roberts sided with the more liberal members to put it on hold. Justice cavanaugh was on the other side. You can see, even in this term, there was some splintering vanaugh. Cavanaugh ka host we show this chart earlier, how often he agreed h the other justices, justices. From california, we hear from priscilla on our republican line. Caller hi. Im 73 years old, and for many , thees now ive heard United States, had over 320 million citizens in the United States. Ive heard china has 1. 2 billion people there. I think it is my right as an american citizen. I should have a right to know how many citizens are here in the United States. Its one thing to say i am a citizen on the forum, but there is another thing that should say im other or im a noncitizen. I think we have a right to know, as americans, how many citizens are in our country. I see nothing wrong with that. We should know. Like ir countries no say, this has gone back to when i was in college, i always heard it was 320 million. Does either of the guests know approximately how Many American citizens are in the United States . Host we talked a bit about the Citizenship Question. Any further thoughts . Guest i have no idea how many citizens there are in this country. Ive heard estimates that we have 11 to 12 million unlawful aliens here. Aheard that is also dramatically low figure or the figure is much higher, but i have no idea. Guest i dont know the answer either. That there is is information and data the government has about citizens and doesnt necessarily need does not need to use the census to get the information. That was one of the issues in the case, whether the Census Bureau could have used administrative records in order to get the information needed. One of the arguments made by those challenging the addition of this question was that, again, the point of the sentence is not to get to the citizenship data. The part of point of the census is to count all the people in the country. The Census Bureaus own experts reporting this to the will provide less status less accurate data. Host our guests are Brianne Gorod and john malcolm with the Heritage Foundations Institutional Foundation for. Overnment ,emocrats call 202 7488000 republicans call 202 7488001 and all others call 202 7488002. Our next color is from the democrats line. Go ahead. Caller thank you for taking my call. I have a couple of quick comments. One is in reference to accounted made by Justice Roberts. I believe we are taught that Supreme Court should be nonbiased, whether it is republican or democrat. Nobody seems to remember that when they evaluate the particular ruling. Resident of alabama, i heard a lot of comments about abortion and the concerns about the life of the fetus, but nobody seems to be concerned about the fact that every day 22 or current people serving in the military commit suicide. Concerned about the fetus but not the people already living. I want to say one other thing. He law passed in alabama on abortion is ridiculous, given the fact that they are still trying to put a pedophile in office. We in alabama got work to do. Thank you. Host Brianne Gorod, any thoughts . You mentioned the stay against the louisiana abortion law. What might be coming up in the fall . Guest theres a petition for to hear thear th case. It is an issue the court didnt take up in its first issue of composition, but it is likely the court will see some Abortion Case in the near future. One theme of this term has been the court upon street of its existing decisions. You saw this come up in the number of cases that had nothing to do with abortion, but some suggestions it is on all of the justices minds minds. A majority of the court overruled long serving president. Decision said the john malcolm, your thoughts on many themes you picked up . Guest i agree with everything she said. There were several decisions in dissent would in talk about precedent. One concurring opinion in the double jeopardy case, one justice came out and said he thinks it is important to get the constitution right. An intervening court has gotten the constitution wrong, and it is their job to say with the constitution isnt. There were a lot of impassioned views and opinions expressed on how important or not important this is. I agree that the element in the room is roe v. Wade. Host tell us about the role of the Heritage Foundation in terms of their providing input to the president for potential judicial the federal we note society and Heritage Foundation was an important part. They continue to offer the advice to the president . Guest lets step back a little bit. What happened in february of 2016, Justice Scalia died. President trump was one of 17 republicang for nominee had a meeting in washington and the former president of heritage was there and asked whether someone would help him prepare a list of Supreme Court justices, and a senator raised his hands. It came back to heritage and it felt to me to prepare that list, which i did in a blog. I was not furnished to donald trump. It was published by the Heritage Foundation available to bernie ers as it was to donald trump. I had a very short list, 78 names. Was made it to the list, Justice Kavanaugh, and the president was very kind to credit the Justice Department, mainly me, for that decision. I have my own set of contacts, and if there is a vacancy, and if i think somebody would do a good job as a potential nominee, either to the judiciary or executive branch decision, i would forward the name and get an email back thinking me. Sometimes they go along with suggestions and sometimes they dont. Host once the court goes on vacation, and the term ends, any indication of retirements in the upcoming months . Guest i think we wouldve heard by now. When they announce, they announced at the end of the term. I think we have the court for the next year at least. Host lets get back to calls. Fred, a republican call. Caller i disagree with the young ladys statements here because roberts opinion is somewhat puzzling. I wanted to quote the supreme specifically that these questions are a linchpin of the. Ederal system these questions are not unconstitutional. Roberts to me that stepped into the arena and he is trying to anticipate what a question would do and what it might cause. That is not the role of the court according to my studies in the way i was educated. To otherontrast this cases, there is a long record of facts that lead to a conclusion that this is not right as a decision. It wasnt right for decision. There was no record of misuse of this, no record of that. There were problems with skewed resolve. He was anticipating these things and i think his decision was incorrect. I will hold for comment. Host Brianne Gorod . Guest a couple of things. I dont think this was the chief justice trying to anticipate what the effect of the Citizenship Question will be. The Census Bureaus own experts and lysed this question and analyzed there would be a Significant Impact on the accuracy of the count of this question was added. The other thing i would say is that the basis of the chief justices opinion was the conclusion that the rational ,iven to secretary wilbur ross and the secretary is located the rationale he gave was wellsettled and Administrative Law that court can only uphol d administrative actions based on reasons they give. If the reason wasnt true in the chief justice concluded there was a disconnect between the reason given and what the evidence showed, it couldnt stand. To go back quickly to appoint john made earlier, the reason the secretary gave was enforcement of the Voting Rights act. That theh noting Citizenship Question was not on the short form since the Voting Rights act was passed. No one, before now, has thought the inclusion of this question was necessary to fully enforce the Voting Rights act. Guest i would like to respond to that. It was a fractured opinion in the census case. The chief justice, along with the conservative, said it did not violate the constitution to include the question. He also said it was perfectly reasonable and not arbitrary to persist or secretary ross to choose inclusion of that question over the other potential options suggested to him. No one knows how significant it would be, but they estimated there would be a slight undercount. I would disagree with the last thing she said, which is the department of justice does go into Court Cases Involving challenges to districts, and what is something that is constantly handcuffing the Justice Department is that they do not have any sense or an accurate sense of how many citizens are in individual cases. Are if you are trying to district, given the fact only eligible citizens can vote, if you dont know how many eligible citizens are within a particular district, its difficult to craft an accurate majority and minority district. Host heres michael in arkansas on the independent line. Caller good morning. I am a single male household. 2013, my Health Insurance policy was canceled because of the fact that i did not have maternity coverage or pediatric dental or vision. None of which apply to me. Thisd to 5. 6 happen to 5. 6 Million People. When the marketplace went into effect, which in effect, the 5. 6 Million People had to go to, it was swimmingly successful in its First Six Months of operation. Hi felt like the federal government put their boot right on my neck and a lot of other peoples. How are they able to do that . Its the biggest disappointment ive ever had about john roberts. Host going back to the aca decision, how do you want to take that . Guest michael, im sorry you are having these difficulties, and i hope things get better for you. The Obamacare Decision was highly controversial. I think there will be many conservatives as a result who will not forgive chief Justice Roberts in either of the Obamacare Decisions. There are new challenges in light of changes in the tax provision dealing with the individual mandate that undercut the rationale for chief Justice Roberts decision. The constitutionality of obamacare is being litigated again. It is before the fifth Circuit Court of appeals. A federal court in texas struck down obamacare, but stayed his ruling. I think that issue, certainly if obamacare if that Lower Court Decision is upheld by the fifth Circuit Court of appeals, i think the Supreme Court will have to take that case. Talking about the fifth circuit case pending, i agreed john that this is a case that could end up in the court depending on what the fifth circuit does. The fifthgood chance circuit will disagree with the District Court judge. Fervente of the most opponents of the Affordable Care act, individuals part of the initial challenges that made it through the court agreed that the District Court decisions in the case was totally at odds with the law. His decision to strike down the Affordable Care act in its entirety, based on his view of the constitutionality of one provision, the individual mandate. It was at odds without the Supreme Court said courtship engages. That is a question of what courts do and when they can decide a laws unconstitutional. They are supposed to leave the rest intact if they thought that is what congress have done. Here, congress zeroed out the penalty, the shared responsibility tax, but left the mandate and the rest of law standing. Host we talked about the citizenship decision about on the program so far. A question here from one of our viewer cools tweets this. There are other ways to determine the number of citizens we have in the country. Who says we have a right to know how when the citizens we have . Lets hear from robert in atlanta on our democrats line. Good morning. Caller thank you. I wanted to focus on the gerrymandering decision, but put it in the context of what i think is a larger, very troubling issue. Is that concerned about there seems to be a confluence of events leading to a distinct minority controlling the levers of government. You have gerrymandering, voter suppression, Electoral College. If i recall correctly, four of the current Supreme Court on thes, currently court, were nominated by president s who did not get a majority of the votes in the election. I think that is bad for the country when a distinct vocal andrity, represented typified by you, mr. Malcolm, a controls the levers and asserts authority. I wonder where this is going. It cannot be good for our republic when a minority gets the controls of power and subjects the majority to a lot of the stuff that is going on. I would like to hear your comments on that. I see you smirking at my commentary, that is fine. That is sort of the aggressive minority approach that i find very troubling, sort of a smugness about what youre doing. Host we will let john malcolm respond. Guest thank you for your opinion. I was smiling, not smirking, and i respect your views. I disagree with them. I offered my views on partisan gerrymandering, what you call voter suppression. Other people call it voter integrity issues. We could have an hourlong debate about it. I think the Electoral College is very important in terms of making a broadbased making sure a broad base across the country decides the National Elections and not the views of people in new york and los angeles, and in my old stomping grounds of atlanta, where you happen to live. The one thing i will assure you is that i was smirking and enjoy having a civil dialogue. If you want to consider me part shanty con oshenty, theres nothing i can do about that. Guest the courts prior decisions on Voting Rights and democratic issues, i think they do indicate this court has something of a constitutional blind spot when it comes to democracy and in terms of protecting the constitution and recognizing constitution robust protection democracy. This invalidated a key provision of the Voting Rights act. It is blessed, purging individuals from the voting rolls. Again, against the backdrop we have, the decision on gerrymandering. This is something that is important to our democracy and something we should all be paying attention to as the courts move forward. Host some political reaction to the gerrymandering case from joe biden who tweeted on that decision. Today, the Supreme Court refused to stop pollution politicians by election by writing election rules for their own decisions. Lets go to the republican line and hear from ruby in texas. Welcome. Caller good morning. Host good morning. Caller how are you . Host doing just fine. Go ahead. Caller i have something to say. The American People better wake up and get rid of these lowlight democrats. They dont have enough sense to pull piss out of a boot with directions on the side. All they are doing is taking our money and making us a third world country. Wes is gods country and have the constitution, rule of law, and it was made before you was ever born. You have no authority to come to america from another country and break our laws and expect us to put up with your damn krapp crap. Some key rulings by the Supreme Court, we have touched on a bunch. The scandalous trademarks ruling, the ruling the court said the First Amendment for bids for the patent and Trademark Office from denying trademarks it deems immoral or scandalous. We cant say the name of the product on air without getting some amount of pushback from certain agencies in the government, but the product name was fuct. We will go from there. Guest this follows up on a couple of cases years ago in which a rock group called the slants filed for a trademark. They struck down certain provisions for offensive trademarks on First Amendment grounds. Here, this clothing designer, whichhe spelling of fuct, stands for phrases you can trust. You can pronounce it and figure out other ways to do it. Was awas in there challenge to another provision that had to do with immoral and scandalous trademarks, and the Supreme Court, as they did in lee versus camps, said there was a First Amendment right to this and suggested various ways in which Congress Might be able to clearlye laws for vulgar or obscene trademarks. The problem with these laws, which is not really of the courts making, is that they are very difficult to enforce. This is the government enforcing them. Any challenges to the cases come up with all sorts of examples where they will Say Something that appears to be picking sides on various political issues, with respect to trademarks. Challengers can come up with examples similar to this fuct trademark that somehow passed muster. The courts said the way the laws currently written is too broad and enforced to generally. Host i was a pretty broad opinion for what i recall. Most of the court agreed this was a majority decision. Guest its a good reminder that we often talk about two to three cases the court is hearing, the real blockbusters, but the Court Decides 70 to 80 really important cases each year that have important implications for people around the country. Its a reminder of how important the Supreme Court is and how important the lower courts are as well. All of these cases in the Supreme Court start in lower courts. Host if you look at the recently completed term and do a scoresheet in your head, you think about who came out on top of federal regulations versus state interests, what would you say . Guest given the Court Decision in gundy, the case about the nondelegation doctrine where a number of members support reconsidering longstanding Supreme Court precedent allowing congress to confer authority on federal agencies as long as they have an intelligible principle to guide these. When you disses her when you consider that decision and the decision john talked about, there is real reason to be worried about what a majority of the court is willing to do in terms of federal regulation. I think that is critically important, because the federal government, federal agencies play a Critical Role in enforcing laws that ensure we have clean air to breathe and water to drink, to ensure consumers are protected, ensure that we are safe and healthy in our work isis. What we have seen over the past several years as a concerted attack on the administer state. Theres a sign from the court that many justices might be willing to take up that mantle. Guest i would recharacterize as she refers to those cases and say there is signs of hope that the Supreme Court will force congress to not pass the buck the unaccountable federal agencies. Also, theres a sign of hope, eventually, courts will get back into the business of having the court determine what the law is in not allowing one of the litigants before them, federal agencies, to put a thumb on the scale in terms of determining what that law is. In terms of federalism, there were two other significant cases, one of which you talked about in which he Supreme Court, three cases, one in which they overruled the precedent and said that a state has sovereign immunities, even if a citizen of another state files a claim against, say mississippi and its city of alabama. They say they would be able to prevent that case from proceeding. The Property Rights case talked ut overruling you go right to federal court to litigate that claim. You dont have to work your way through the state court system and find yourself shutout of a federal court review. Another case had to do with federalist issues with the double jeopardy case brianna talked about. Nne talked about. The dual solvents g dual sovereignty principle said that the state and federal are different sovereigns and they can both assert. Host we have a couple of more calls. We hear from kate next on the independent lined in maryland in maryland. Caller i wanted to discuss the to have theality Supreme Court have limited terms , have the justices have limited terms. I feel like you would get rid of a lot of the partisanship that we are seeing in washington, and would benefit the American People a lot more than what we have in place right now. It would bring little more quality a little more to the decisions being undertaken by the Supreme Court. Thank you. Host she may be referring to comments Bernie Sanders made at the debate about how he would approach in terms of the justices. Any thoughts . Guest theres a lot of discussion about Supreme Court reform. A lot of that grows out of understandable anger and disappointment at what happened in 2016 when president obama nominated mayor garland to the Supreme Court. The republicans in the senate fused to do their job and give him a hearing and hold a vote on his confirmation. Continuedere will be discussion about these proposals, and there should be a lot of focus, in general, on what kind of judges and justices we want. Do we want justices who are going to apply the whole constitution and look to the history of the whole constitution to understand its meaning . Thats what i would hope all of the president ial candidates disseminatebout and who they will elect into this room cream court. Host do you think the president should go ahead and nominate . Guest he is going to end Mitch Mcconnell said the senate would consider it. Anger on bothut sides of the political aisle. There are fans of term limits for Supreme Court Adjustment Court justices. It would require a constitutional amendment because federal judges are confirmed and have life tenure subject host all federal judges have that . Guest thats correct. They cannot have their compensation reduced. It is designed to give them breathing room so they can be impartial, and they serve for good behavior. They can retire voluntarily and the grim reaper comes to all of us. You cant have a president that says arbitrarily without amending the constitution, your term is done. Host mike is on the democrats line. Caller mr. Malcolm, i have a quick question for you. If the current occupant for the white house loses the next election and refuses to leave because of various excuses he made up, what would be the position, the public position . Guest i cant speak for the Heritage Foundation, but i think it is disrespectful. I can speak for most americans that if it was recognized president legitimately lost the election and he was just saying im not leaving, we are not a third world country and that would not be tolerated. , we talked wrap up about the daca case. Guest that will be one of the most significant cases next term. Term. The court will also be hearing very early a case about whether prohibits discrimination on the basis of Sexual Orientation and gender. Host anything youre looking forward to . Guest both of those. There is a Second Amendment case aca challenge and the court also just added a case amendmentsed blaine where states refused to provide public funds to religious institutions for any reasons. And there interesting cases like the bridge gate case that the court decided to hear that decide the scope of our fraud laws. Host we will have to have you both back for a preview in october. John malcolm with the Heritage Foundation institute, Brianne Gorod, thank you for taking a look at the term with us. We have more ahead. We will be joined by inside elections editor and publisher Nathan Gonzales. Joining us for a look at not just the president ial elections and democratic nominees for president but also look into senate and house races for 2020 here on washington journal. There has been discussion about an appearance before congress. Any testimony from this office would not go beyond our report. It contains our findings and analysis and the reason for the decisions we made. Carefullyhose words and the work speaks for itself. And poor is my testimony. I would not provide information and the report is my testimony. I would not provide information beyond that. Is set tomueller appear before congress on wednesday, july 17 at 9 00 a. M. Eastern. He will testify in open session about his report into russian interference in the 2016 election. Watch live coverage on cspan3, online at cspan. Org or with the cspan radio app. Im a cold war historian, historian of communism, different ideologies and so forth. Friends of mine emailed me and said why do you want to tackle this issue . Marriage and family. You are jumping into the culture war. Do you really want to do this . Author Paul Ken Gore will be our guest onto indepth on indepth. He has written books about the spiritual lives of ronald reagan, george w. Bush and Hillary Clinton. Join our live conversation with your phone calls, tweets and facebook questions. Watch indepth with author Paul Ken Gore on book tv. And be sure to watch indepth next month with author lee edwards. Weekend ontv every cspan2. Washington journal continues. Host Nathan Gonzales is editor and publisher of inside elections. Hes an election analyst with a roll call. We will spend the final hour of the program looking ahead to 2020. Look at the president ial candidates and some key senate races. Nathan gonzales, thanks for being here. A couple days after the debates. A pole in a at second about who is ahead. Just your take on those nights. Who came out on top and who did not perform as well . We need to define winning in a couple different ways. You can talk about who captured the conversation. I think senator Kamala Harris really captured the conversation. In some way i think she was one of the key winners. Winning is to define who moves the most in the polls. What do the democratic primary voters think about those debates. We are just at the beginning edge of finding out what voters thought. There was at least one National Poll that has been out. I would like to see some polls out of iowa and New Hampshire because they are going to be very influential in this process. Over the next few days that picture will become clear. And harris and warren rise biden slides after the first democratic debate had surprisingly. After the debate nights jodey and joe biden dropping 10 . Kamala harris is up 9 . Pete buttigieg is down a percent although we understand that his fundraising is actually. 24 million in a quarter. Not bad. Host what are the guidelines for the next round of debates . At athink they are looking 2 threshold to get in which there are some republican stories about republicans trying to donate to Marianne Williamson to make sure she gets in the second debate that i think she might struggle to reach the polling threshold to get there. I think the field will shake up a little bit. I believe Steve Bullock is going to qualify for the second debate. See ak we will still crowd of folks and hopefully two more interesting nights. Host Nathan Gonzales is our guest. We welcome your comments. 202 7488000 free democrats. For republicans. 202 7488002 independents and others. Again what democrats have to do. What they have to overcome to defeat President Trump in 2020. Picturenk from a big perspective we always get into this debate about is at the base or the middle. I think a Winning Party in this country is you need both. The Democratic Base is going to be united and excited behind defeating President Trump for a second term and then i think its about voters in the middle. Voters that are balancing a couple of different things. They may live not like the tweets the president sets out but they believe the economy is headed in the right direction and i expect democrats to talk a lot about health care. Int was key to their gains 2018. I think their ability to balance talking about issues versus just prosecuting a certain case against the president is going to be the task ahead of them. Host fair to say the president likely wont lose any of his core support from 2016. Who are the people the democrats have to reach to beat him . Try to reach those obama voters who flipped to President Trump particularly in the upper midwest and into pennsylvania. To boostd also try their own turnout among democrats who may have taken the 2016 election for granted. They may have just assumed Hillary Clinton was going to win. Now i think those democrats are on alert in a way that they werent three years ago and thats why i expect democratic turnout to be high. Host seven independent and democratic senators. At least for now. Host lets look at the 2020 races where senators are up for reelections. Lets look at the ones that are in the tossup category. Has announced challengers already in her party. State speaker sarah gideon Just Announced last week. Shes kind of the preferred candidate of the democratic establishment. There is another candidate who is running who announced earlier who finished third in the gubernatorial race. I expect gideon to be the democratic nominee. Susan collins has proven herself as she can win tough races. We are in an era of increased polarization. I dont think she can take her race for granted. The only two senators up for reelection in a state for that Hillary Clinton carried in 2016. That was the First Time Since we have been popularly electing our senators that the Senate Result in the president ial result matched in every state. Holds that map should be concerning to senator collins and senator gardner. Host was it senator gardners voted that alvin eyes to or . Nergized opposition in maine were 7. 8 million once gideon gets the nomination she will be the beneficiary of almost 4 million that came on the heels of the cavanagh vote. Host thom tillis of North Carolina up for reelection. He has been very influential with the president. Why the challenge . Race14 the closest senate and i expect North Carolina to continue to be competitive and close. He does have a primary challenge from a wealthy candidate named garland tucker. Democrats are still sorting through their field. It looks like a former is stillr and veteran the front runner. That race is still evolving. At its core North Carolina is a competitive place. Our phoneill start calls in North Carolina. Jim is on the republican line in wilmington, North Carolina. I watched both of the democrat debates and i just have to tell you it reminded me of Macarthur Park melting in the dark. It might have been a beautiful cake at some point in time, by the time they put it was a hot wet mess. By the time we got to four hours it was a long slog. I think republicans were ecstatic about the issues that were coming up. The positions to the left that democrats were taking. They are going to use some of that footage in the general election depending on who the nominees are. I think it comes down to this 2020 election, what is the frame of the 2020 election. If this is about do you like the president or not i dont think the president is going to win. If the election is about is it between capitalism and socialism or do you want to keep your private Health Insurance, thats a very different type of election and i think republicans have a much better chance if thats the frame voters are looking at. Host do you think thom tillis wins reelection next year . I have a lovehate relationship with thom tillis. He was right up to the edge of voting wrong on the Emergency Declaration and came around. Hes always right in the middle and thats a good place to get hit by a car. From frank onar the democrat line. You are on with Nathan Gonzales. Go ahead. Caller hello. Im a Democrat Voter calling from tucson, arizona. I watched all the debates. Ive been watching politics for a few years now. The one year that i decided to leave and not vote for the Democrat Party was when president and im not blaming president obama is a good man, when he told me that its a crime for me not to have health care and they decided to find me for not having health care. Since then the Democrat Party is all about dictatorship, youre going to do what the government tells you to do and now they are adding a bigger magnet for the Illegal Immigrants to come to our country and its unfair for the Democrat Party to try and help them people to make this treacherous trek across that border from their countries to hours and weve been helping them for years and their government has not changed their countries. Think thedo you immigration issue will play for democrats . Toi think its too early tell. Partially it depends on who the nominee ends up being. Example, Bette Orourke of texas has said there shouldnt be any wall. Shouldnt be even some of the barriers that are there. I think that could be problematic. I think the white house and the president are emboldened a little bit by the immigration issue. The president believes that his hard line on immigration before was whitelections republicans were able to gain a couple of seats. I think thats driving some of the accuracy out of the white house. Democrats would prefer to talk about health care than immigration. I think republicans are going to bring that into the conversation. Host are there places you think the president or his campaign think they can make inroads with . Certainly people who didnt vote for trump last time. The president s Campaign Manager has talked about expanding the map. Going into places like new mexico. I guess its possible. Looking at the most recent Election Results there, republicans havent done well except for having the governor. They dont have it anymore. Its possible to expand the map but i think the president and his job Approval Ratings have been pretty static. Im not sure whats going to move it dramatically in one way or the other which gives them a narrow path to reelection. From plano, matt texas. Cspan. Thank you for i wanted to comment on the dynamic thats happening in texas because senator cornyn is a republican but depending on what happens between beddoe , thatke and Julian Castro could easily become a tossup because republicans in the state are rightfully worried that they might lose texas. Won it bytrump only nine points in 2016 and depending on, theres a lot of interest to see what happens between bento and julian because if one of them does not continue theres a president talk in that senate seat. I just want to see what nathan thinks about that. I do believe texas is becoming more competitive. We moved senator cornyn out of our solid republican category to a likely republican category which is a more vulnerable place. I think it could get more competitive as it goes on. I have a little bit different opinion on congressman overwork or castro. There is a democratic race. Housear ran a competitive race in 2018 and lost. In a staterds senator named royce wester are also looking at the race. I think someone like mj hagar might be a better contrast to senator cornyn. Someone who is a political outsider and a veteran. I know that she has to build a network that can raise the money necessary to compete and congressman orourke has that established network. He also is now may be more of a political figure and less of a onshface then when he took senator cruz. I would like to see where this race ends up a year from now. Host market is on our independent line in fort lauderdale. You for cspan. I appreciate hearing all the varying viewpoints. Guest, we havent really discussed the probability of outside election interference from foreign agents and foreign sources and such and this current administrations reaction to that. And in fact cspan is oferiencing and is a victim that right now. I dont know if you guys are aware of it or not. You just had a few calls ago from a used to be a democrat, i was a democrat all my life but now i changed to republican to vote for trump. Patter downhe exactly that was republican patter and it wasnt the Democratic Party. It was the Democrat Party. That sort of thing. In my zeal to hear opposite sides of the story, im calling on the independent line. I am a very leftleaning independent mainly because i think the democrats are pretty weak and standing up to republican hijinks. I frequent rightwing sites and it is going around on these sites, call cspan. Call in on the republican line and say you are a former democrat and then say whatever you want because it doesnt cost them anything to call on the republican line. You the truth, we have been getting calls like that for 20 to 25 years from opposite parties. There is little we can do about it other than take the call and ask people to call on the line that most appropriately picks their political point of view. The website is inside elections. Com. You have the doug jones race in alabama. Hes the one that took over Jeff Sessions seat and this is the reelection for the full term in alabama. Whats going on there . Part of doug jones dreams are coming true with roy moore entering the race. I think doug jones has an extremely difficult path to reelection. Andst all of the baggage the stories surrounding roy moore he still almost won that race and we are going to have an entirely different level of in the 2017020 then special election. I think there will be at least 800,000 more voters in the 20 center race 2020 senate race. Going tos is probably win alabama by 20 points. Roy moore, there is going to be a crowded republican primary. Roy moore is probably going to at least make the runoff. We will see if republicans in d. C. Can prevent him from being the nominee. I guess i would encourage cspan viewers to be openminded whether its frightening or encouraging that even if he is the republican nominee he could win the senate race. Host the president last time was very mixed in his support. Could roy moore win without the president s support in 2020 . It would be helpful. The president has a way of giving endorsements that are kind of have handed. We will see. Just the president winning alabama will be helpful. Bigill see whether the republican outside groups turn away from roy moore. They are using that kind of language but if the majority is on the line, if Mitch Mcconnell as majority leader is on the line are republicans going to turn away from the senate race . Im skeptical. Host the neighboring georgia, david purdue. Whats the uncertainty . Democrats are still sorting out the field. I dont think the recruitment has come as quickly and other opportunities. I think georgia is emerging as a competitive state. Im not sure they have the candidate yet in the race that they would need to defeat senator purdue. There is still time. Is in blackstone, maine on the democrats line. Caller thats massachusetts. Host blackstone, massachusetts. Sorry about that. Go ahead. Caller im calling because i think theres a bigger issue voting time. T simply because we have a man in office now who is slowly tearing our constitution apart. If you give this man for more years, he will try to be a dictator. Attacks, he uses the dictator playbook. He attacks our free press. Its fake news. Now he controls the judicial system as much as he can. And he demonizes the people. The migrants. He has no concern for their welfare as human beings. President andthis i really fear for our country. One man is even talking about him having three terms. This is not what our constitution says. Disses the constitution every chance he gets. And that is a danger. So i hope people think about that when they vote. Host thanks susan. Ofi think susan is the voice millions of democrats around the country and thats why i expect there to be, there was higher democratic turnout in the 2018 midterms then what we have seen in previous cycles. I think that 2020 because of oute stakes that you laid is going to be high. But also an increased focus on the u. S. Senate. The house is a check to the presidency also winning at the state level. Where so many laws are made and enacted and enforced and so susan isnt alone and thats why a lot of people see that the stakes are high in this election. Int carol is shepherdsville, kentucky on the independent line. Caller yes. Hello. Host good morning. Caller good morning. How are you . Host fine thank you. Caller im a descendent of james madison, zachary taylor. Wasreatgrandmother Catherine Mary taylor. So naturally i have a few things to say. Wondering about why anybody would want to vote socialism, you know, all these giveaways. They might as well give away the whole country if they are going to give away 1000 a month. That was mr. Yang i believe. Kamala harris. Shes all for everything including reparations. And i really have a lot to say about all that. Host all right. Appreciate your comment. Four guaranteed predictions for 2020. Number one, record turnout. With people love trump or hate him. In and on highed alert. More people than normal are more likely to vote in 2020. A couple of other predictions for the next year. Republicans have a new star. Alexandria ocasiocortez for they love to tweet about and talk about. And bernie is not going away quietly. Bernie sanders and then the postdebate. What does he do next . Senator sanders is getting squeezed a bit. One of the advantages he had in 2016 against their clinton was that it was a oneonone battle. He was a stark contrast to clinton. Antiestablishment contrast. Now there are 10 or more democrats using the same language and the same message but they are different vehicles. They are not elderly white men that are trying to deliver the same message that he is. I think that is squeezing him a bit. The reason why i think looking at that prediction is even in 2016 i remember being at the convention on tuesday when they were trying to wrap up the delegate counts. The nomination was all but over. Holding onto those delegates and we are waiting to see when is he going to release them. Now even if hes not on the cusp of winning the nomination he will still have some delegates that he has one throughout the process and depending on how the rest of the field checks out we could be waiting for him to ultimately decide what he wants to do with his democrats delegates and where he wants to point them. Host have you had a chance to get out to the any any of the democrat Campaign Events . No is the short answer. Im conflicted sometimes on those events. You go to rallies and everyone loves the candidate is that is there but is that a true picture of whats going on . Thingses it can make murkier rather than clearer. Talking 2020 elections. We hear from the nice next in North Carolina. Them calling because of earlier conversation that you had about North Carolina. Thom tillis will probably win because President Trump did tweet out some support for him. The changing face of North Carolina that is becoming more competitive as far as leaning more left, and thats true unfortunately its true because of the exodus and i would like to hear his analysis on this. The exodus of if you come to North Carolina, you see a lot of d. C. ,rk license plates, new jersey, pennsylvania. These people are fleeing and i dont understand why because they voted for these incredibly, they voted for raising their taxes and everything. And now they dont want to live with what they voted for. So now they are running to places like virginia and North Carolina, south carolina. Host changing demographics in North Carolina. Thats part of it. The growing suburban areas in North Carolina are impacting the composition and how the state votes. Im glad you brought up the president s endorsement about senator tillis because i think that could end up cutting both ways. I think that will help the senator in the primary. Im not sure the primary is going to amount to very much. Election,eral assuming the president wins North Carolina again that endorsement could be positive. If the election takes a little bit of a turn in the president isnt looking strong in North Carolina than being that closely connected to the president could end up coming back to hurt him. The president tweeted positively about the republican from arizona and the president one arizona in 2016 but theres no guarantee hes going to win in 2020. Those endorsements might be good in the short term. Longer term they might be more difficult to deal with. Host Martha Mcsally is on your inside elections tossup list for arizona. In novemberlost 2018 and the other seat she was appointed to senator mccains seat. Im not sure why we should give her an advantage in this one when she just lost the race and the other. Host who is her opponent . Mark kelly, a retired astronaut. Husband to gabby giffords. I think this is going to be the Marquee Senate race of the cycle. An emerging swing state. I think the candidates are going to be present there and you have met sally and kelly and everything they bring to the table. Like choosing between my children. There are lots of Interesting Senate Races but i think arizona is going to get a lot of focus. The hears oscar on democrat line in juncker valley, california. Democrats know the can win the majority of the votes. Its the Electoral College that takes the presidency in 2020. What states can swing that trump won to give a victory to democrats . Secondly what states can swing to give the senate a majority in 2020 . Nate for we are only five or six states between winning and losing as democrats. What are those five or six states that can swing to replace trump with the democrat and to give a majority in the senate . Thank you. Lets start with the president ial. We have the hypothetical democratic nominee at 269 electoral votes. Of theuld be one short 270 necessary. That includes michigan and pennsylvania which the president one in 2016. Won in 2016. They would need one of florida and North Carolina or wisconsin. Those are three that i think are going to be very competitive. Weres other states that have as an initial advantage in arizona and iowa. Those could be in play for the democrats at the president ial level as well. Is a pass there and i think until we know who the democratic nominee is its kind of difficult to ultimately lay it down. Those are the number of states the president won that i think are in play this time. Democrats need a net gain of three or four seats for control. With the white house and the Vice President being the tiebreaker. Three would be enough for control. Four would be a majority. If we calculate in alabama as a loss that means democrats probably need to win at least four and maybe five. That would make colorado, arizona, maine, North Carolina and lets put iowa up there would also georgia and texas. They would need four or five out of that combination of states in order to get control. Host you mentioned in one of your predictions for 2020 that the democrats would remain united. I want you to reconcile and explain what you mean with this reporting front page of the Washington Post this morning. Democrats face growing pressure on racial issues. They write that an impassioned argument on has boiled to the surface in an increasingly muddled primary triggered by an electrifying debate encounter that has reverberated across the campaign for days. They are talking about the discussion between Kamala Harris and joe biden on that debate stage. I think the democratic president ial primary is going to get more bitter and more divisive before it gets united. I think because democrats realize the stakes are high that nomination is incredibly valuable because of the precarious political situation the president is in so they are going to do everything they can to win that nomination. I thinkres a nominee the Democratic Party is going to be united in making sure the president doesnt win a second term. They may not be in love with the democratic nominee but that Common Mission against the president is going to smooth over some of the things the Democratic Party is starting to go through. Host more united than going into 2016 . Points. Few percentage democrats were more united in 2018. Mid90sit to be Coalition Support from the democrats for the democratic nominee. Host karen joins us from weatherford, texas on the republican line. You for having me. You are having a very interesting conversation this morning. I was raised democrat. My dad used to go lobby. He worked at bell. Theres nohe told me such thing as an honest politician so really listen and Pay Attention to who you vote for. And i really dont see any democratic candidate right now that i would want to vote for. Left or either too far unable to be strong enough. I think President Trump has done mouth job he has a bad and keeps putting his foot in his mouth. If he would just hush once in a while. But he has done a good job and he does have my vote again. As far as beto orourke, i happen to know an instance where he misled ted cruz when they were running opposite each other for governor. Cruz was in washington but he couldnt leave because that was during the time that they the government shut down. Havehey were supposed to a1 sick called, where they ask each other questions and stuff. Anyway, beto orourke made other to have a rally in a town not far from me and they called me by phone to invite me to this rally. Well, it was not that important of a rally and when cruz was able to come back and keep the prior apartment, beto orourke wouldnt. I dont trust orourke. What issues he was standing on or what he believed inother than let everybody and tell him and ted cruz had their debate. Will get a response. That was a criticism of his campaign, that it wasnt deep into the issues. He did kind of create movement. He created a campaign that people wanted to be a part of. To support anted democrat for quite some time but didnt have that vehicle. He lost by about three points which is the best a democrat has done in texas in a long time. When you were talking about the president i was reminded of a piece from Scott Jennings who is a cnn political commentator, republican commentator. He wrote a piece about the president s support and how sometimes it oils down to attitude and gratitude and that there are republicans who do like the president s attitude and how he treats democrats and how he treats the media but there are some republicans who dont like that part of the president but there is gratitude for two Supreme Court justices, a bevy of Lower Court Judges that are in place now. That coalition together, President Trump is the most popular republican among Republican Voters and its not even close. Thats not going to be enough to get him a second term. He has to get some independence along the way. Host if beto orourke drops out early how likely is it that he would run against john cornyn . Its tough to be inside a politicians head particularly after a second loss. If he doesnt win the nomination. I guess im doubtful that he would run for the senate again. Hes young enough he could try to run for something down the line. Im skeptical that he would switch. Host hears andrew in New Hampshire on the independent line. Caller im kind of wondering about, i know that President Trump has a person running against him in the form of bill weld. I havent heard anything about him in about a month or so. Im wondering given from what i see on the television and what ive read most times when somebody runs against the president in their own party they tend to not succeed that they also damage the president s chances at succeeding at their campaign. Im just kind of curious where that all sits right now. I believe governor weld is still in the race. Right now he will get crushed. As i was saying with the previous caller, the president s job Approval Rating among republicans is consistently between 88 and 91 which is just astronomical. Whether it is weld or governor kasich or Governor Hogan of maryland who must be looking at the same numbers because the president , republicans like the president right now. For Different Reasons that a primary is just not going to go anywhere. Campaignxpect welds to reach the level or gain the traction that would potentially damage the president enough to make it a factor in the general election. Things can change. If the president makes a decision. But right now republicans are united hind their president. Host Nathan Gonzales is editor of inside elections. The currently safe seats, 190 five for democrats. 174 republicans. The number of seats and play on the democratic side, 40. Ready for republicans. Compare this to the dynamic going into 2018. Republicans are on offense. They need a net gain of 18 or 19 this redonding on how election in North Carolina goes. Stage i expect democrats to maintain control of the house. Enough competitive seats that theres a path for republicans. Inre are now 31 democrats the house who represent that President Trump carried in 2016. Its a little bit easier on paper than in reality. Some of the democratic members of Congress Already have, Josh Gottheimer of new jersey represents a district. We are waiting to see what kind of recruits do republicans get. Host is an early in the game to tell that . They are starting to jump into races. Win 18 or 19 seats republicans probably need 70 quality challengers and people who get through primaries. That was one of the thing that helped democrats in 2018 was having a good fresh crop of candidates. Veteran businessmen and businesswomen who were outsiders and able to capitalize on a need for change. On paper have a few good candidates. But how many can they get and do they really resonate with the voters. Host who is leading the republican candidate pursuit . The chairman of the nrc see in leading. Is it got complicated when brooks and indiana announced she wasnt going to seek reelection. To have someone who is trying to get people to put their life on hold, their job on hold, their family on hold to come to washington when shes not sticking on washington is a little awkward. Host when she leaves that leaves a dozen female republicans in the house. It depends on who you ask in the Republican Party. Republicans just want the best candidate first. I think if the candidate is a woman then thats fantastic focused on groups finding qualified women and helping them get through this electoral process. For the nrc see its about who is the best candidate first and then trying to find some diversity beyond that. Host about 15 more minutes with Nathan Gonzales. William is on the independent line. Caller good morning. I have been a democrat all my after the switched 2016 election. Im now an independent. I have to be an independent because i cant be republican. So here we are. I voted for obama twice. The first time i was happy with him. The second time not so. Hillary running and had all those fbi agents checking her out and stuff and i read about trump. I bought a bunch of his books. So i know alld about trump. Man and allm a con these different things. Maybe hes all of those things. I dont know. I have lived on the west coast all my life and never been to new york. Now,i dont understand they say joe biden is a front runner. Well i think hes just not in with whats going on. All these young people seem to be running the show. Heres one thing that doesnt make sense to me. Righthand man or lefthand man ever because he was Vice President. Well obama hasnt endorsed him. So i think theres another person thats going to run and guess who that is . Michelle obama. That would be an amazing episode of this 2020 president ial election. Point she has not indicated that shes interested in public office. She has been floated as a candidate for senate in illinois. You are not the only one to bring up this hypothetical. Be ich fun as it would dont think its going to happen. Host we talked about the cnn poll earlier. Harris and warren rise and biden harrissfter kamala strong debate performance last week launched her into the top tier of the democratic primary race as joe biden took a major hit and saw his lead almost entirely evaporate. That came out yesterday. Jamie is next in mount vernon, washington. Caller thanks so much cspan. Ive got the 2019 u. S. Congressional directory from cspan that i received yesterday. Host excellent. They are invaluable. Glad you got it. You can find those on our website. Go ahead. Out to thether shout womens soccer team. Im very happy for the little girls doing u. S. Soccer. Im 60 years old. I grew up right around here in the same town. I was born four blocks away from where im living right now. I have lived in australia. I have lived in hawaii. In the 80s i thought of myself as a republican. Mork in theway to morning into honolulu in the 1980s thinking im a republican. My dad was republican. My mom was democrat and grew up in the same house and just strongly went through the kennedy assassination and he had a challenge and i wanted to see jay inslee ring out a challenge that wenited states andd be a Renewable Energy i would like to see jay inslee get a lot more support. Hes a great governor. Hes done well for our state. Some feedbackget from Nathan Gonzales on jay inslee. I think hes an interesting candidate in this race. Hes clearly making Climate Change the number one priority. Theres a lot of support for changes to be made from the Democratic Party. Im just not sure there are enough distinctions between the candidates for him to gain traction when he hasnt gained a lot of traction so far. I think being a middleaged white guy in a party that is becoming increasingly diverse and embracing and empowering women i think is a challenge for the governor. We will see. People can have their moments. We are going to have more debates at the end of july but im hoping that in this era of divisiveness that jamie is on the right page and we can all get behind the womens soccer team. Tweeting president this morning about the economy. Saying the economy is at its best. Is the best it has ever been. Even much of the fake news is giving the credit for that. Againd them a kratz run assuming the economy stays strong, how do they run against that record or do they even try . Probably able to knowledge the positive feelings people have toward the economy but then i think they are going to talk about other issues going back to health care. I think democrats realize if this is an election based on feelings of the economy that footing. T their best maybe some republicans get a little bit overconfident because the same polls that show people feeling the economy is headed in the right direction, the president s overall job Approval Rating is still in the low 40s. There are particularly democrats and some independents who believe that the economy is doing well in spite of the president and not because of the president. And so Economic Indicators are not the only thing going on in this election. Rose ints hear from nashville. Caller good morning. How are you gentlemen . I have a couple of things i would like to say. The lady from North Carolina brought up the changing demographics and i agree with her. The liberals have escaped. They voted for all these liberal policies up north in new jersey, new york and these other places and i cant live with them so they come down here to tennessee, North Carolina, south carolina. And they bring all their liberal policies with them and they are changing the landscape here. Say iser thing i want to im almost 70 years old. 2008, i used to love president ial elections. It was an exciting time. In 2008, everything changed. When we drive through neighborhoods all we see are obama signs. And the general feeling atmosphere was that if you didnt vote for obama than you were considered to be a racist. Ofts the start of the path division in america. Im tired of people blaming it on trump. Said, im almost 70 years old and for the first time in my obama was president , i heard a president of the United States of america called republicans his enemies. And this is quoted and documented. He said if they bring a knife to the fight we will bring a gun. They cling to their bibles and their guns. And and then Hillary Clinton called us deplorables. That we the emails said were smelly walmart shoppers. Well, i happen to be a smelly walmart shopper that clings to my bible and guns. Ints where the division this country started. It didnt start with donald trump. Donald trump tapped into all of us people out here who didnt have a voice and hes been a wonderful president and he really loves to troll the leftists, the liberals and the press and they really believe that hes going to be a dictator and hes going to stay in office and its just crazy because hes not going to do that. Host she talked about the president tapping into feelings of Many Americans. That being the key to his success. Obama asses president a constant foil. Most like he continues to run against him. And Hillary Clinton. Rose, respectfully, you have seen even more president ial elections than i have. I guess i would argue that the partisanship started even before 2008 and president obama. Hearing you and hearing your voice, i think that problem is its so personal. I actually dont think that everyone in America Needs to agree with each other and we all have to agree on every issue. I think when we disagree, how are we disagreeing. Its the namecalling that gets us. One of the reasons the politicians do the namecalling is because they get support from americans. People want their politician to call others names and they like that and i think that rewards that behavior from the politicians and we get into that vicious cycle. Had mentioned earlier in article in cnn that says buttigieg seasons on top steer status by raising 24 point 8 million in second quarter. Whats behind his fundraising success . Is one of the fresher faces, the newer voices. He came into the race is one of the lesserknown candidates of the mayor of south bend. I think some democrats that are looking for a stark contrast to the president , he provided that. Hes younger. One debate moment that might have been missed in the coverage as an lgbtq candidate on a National Stage in one of his first answers he mentioned his husband. I think that was a moment that some in the Democratic Party were really looking for. We have to remember hes not starting from the same place as these other candidates. Havingtting momentum and energy can really carry a candidate along way. Host for perspective, an article on cbs, trump and Republican National committee raised 100,000 in 2019. Wringing their total cash to a combined 100 million as the race for the white house heats up. We will go to joe in texas on the democrat line. Caller yes. Can you hear me . Host we can go ahead. Im 82yearold. I was in the marine corps. The only thing about this president that i disliked, theres sony things that i could say about him. Thatnly thing i dislike is he is replacing the word United America instead of putting united, you want to put divided america. That is the only problem i have with him. Because he has divided us so bad that im afraid that we are going to have a lot of problems in the world because of that. Thank you. Lets hear from charles in bristol, tennessee. Republican line. Go ahead. To say what i would like is this thing going on on the border. These people arent getting the help and so on that they need is because the administration, they want to deter anybody else from coming. Down there on the border. And i think before its over those people will think its more humanitarian to go ahead and shoot them instead of going to the heart of the problem and doing something about it. Want it this way. It will deter anyone from coming back. And thats a fact. Host let me ask you on immigration. Major Democratic Candidates raised their hand and the question about the Free Health Care for Illegal Immigrants. The headline who wants to lose the election. How much residents will a moment like that have . I think it has the potential to be a general election issue. It depends on what voters are focused on. The whole focus of the election is on what rights to people who are in this country illegally, what rights or privileges should they get, thats not the best ending i think for democrats to have in part based on the answer to that question. This is going to be much more complex election about the job the president is doing, the economy, the tweets, our standing in the world. National security. I think that could be a piece of it but not the whole election. Host we will go to hendersonville, North Carolina. James, hello there. Guest i had a quick question. In this election, favored republicans, but down the line, it could go towards democrats. What is the purpose of keeping the Electoral College around when it could go swing vote and not just go into an individual voting for who their candidate is . Caller well, guest well, the purpose of the Electoral College just to make sure that even smaller populations are represented and have a voice and not just the larger states, but im not sure if i understood the question precisely. Host what is the margin of President Trump in terms of the thees where he won Electoral College in wisconsin and pennsylvania . Have i think democrats over 46,000 votes of states that could have swung the other way, but Hillary Clinton won New Hampshire by less than half of 1 , so it is that kind of there were close states that she won, as well, not just the president. Him at nathanfind gonzalez on twitter and also insideelections and insideelections. Com. Thank you. That will do it this mornings washington journal. We are back tomorrow morning at 7 00 a. M. Eastern, and we hope you are, too. Have a good day. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2019] a look now at Live Programming coming up on the cspan networks. Join us later today when the United Nations representative discusses the findings of her report on the death of jamal khashoggi. The Brookings Institution in washington, d. C. Is the host and you can watch it like today at 12 15 eastern on cspan. Later this afternoon, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader ginsburg will discuss her work on gender equality with two former law clerks. That will be followed by a Panel Discussion on justice jens for jurisprudence. Watch live coverage at 5 30 eastern on cspan2. Later tonight, 2020 president ial rourke will beo in ames, iowa. You can watch it live at 7 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Thursday, President Trump will speak at the fourth of July Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial in washington. E onh the remarks liv july 4, or listen live with the cspan free radio app at 6 15 p. M. Eastern. There has been discussion before congress, any testimony from this office would not beyond our report. It contains our findings and analysis and the reasons for the decisions we made. We chose those words carefully and the work speaks for itself. And the report is my testimony. I would not provide information beyond that which is already public in any appearance before congress. Announcer former special Counsel Robert Mueller is set to appear before two committees of congress, the House Judiciary Committee and the House Intelligence Committee on and stay, july 17 at 9 a. M. Eastern. He will testify in open session into his report on russian interference in the 26 election. Watch live coverage on cspan3, online at www. Cspan. Org, or listen with the free cspan radio app. Current and former federal and state judges, including charles breyer, the brother of Stephen Breyer caulk talk about the human side of their jobs. The 90 minute event took place at the university of california berkeley law school. It was cohosted i the National Constitution center. Jeremy, theire is director of the berkeley judicial institute. I have been here a little less than a year. Before that, i was the director of the federal Judicial Center and a member of the bench of the Northern District of california. Thatprogram is something jeff rosen and i have been thinking about and dreaming about for some time