Time thinking about this and figuring out how the Scientific Community can interact with the public to reassure them about vaccine about a vaccine. We are going to leave this program and go live to a role on to a discussion on the role of senate judges. Welcome to our today. Our even to our event today. In, let me make a couple of announcements and we will get right down to what we are here for. First, we have a pride for cle credit South Carolina. If you would like credit for attending this event, i ask you submit a record of your attendance. Use the q function and send a message that will be viewable only by me has your name and South Carolina bar number. Or halfway through, i will ask you to do it again to make sure you are still with us. I also want to very briefly preview couple of upcoming events. 2 00,eek on thursday at we will be having a virtual roundtable between three attorneys general. Its going to be a fun event and i would love to see you there. Three cap of that onset of her Kelly Shapiro will be like with us in columbia to preview the Upcoming Supreme Court term at his upcoming book. After that, we will be hosting. Eff judge jeff sutton nobody came today to hear me give announcements and i know you are excited to hear from senator graham. If we have ever had a speaker duction, it no intro is he. Lets jump right into it. Into the first question with a bit of a windup. Since its founding, the Federalist Society is been deeply concerned with the role of the federal judiciary. Founding principles is that in our constitutional system, it is emphatically the role of the judiciary to say not with the law is, but what it should be. One way we advance that principle is by selecting and elevating judges who share that. Originally under your leadership , the senate has passed 200 confirmations a President Trumps judicial nominee and for the first time and i believe more than 40 years, every vacant Circuit Court of appeals seat has been filled. What does this mean . Achievement mean for the future of the federal judiciary . Number one, think you very much for having me and honoring me. What you doreciate for judging, doing his input about nominees. To efforts of her hitting people from being a member of your society and still being a judge, i will stop that with all of my might. Member. Be a its ok to be a conservative and a lawyer. The bottom line is what does it mean . Trumpns that president has done more than anybody in my lifetime to reshape the federal judiciary to a centerright judiciary. Focusing on filling every judiciary, Chuck Grassley was the chairman for the first two years. We have 70 District Court vacancies and 49 nominations. Probably do hundred 20 on my watch. We have made it a priority. Mitch mcconnell deserves a lot of. For all ofyou that who campaign on our behalf and say that judges matter, trump heard you, Mitch Mcconnell heard you and we have delivered your four more years of this, for more years of taking Circuit Court judges. Four more years we can flip more districts. The bottom line is there will be lisa couple vacancies. Will have a chance to feel fill those. Think about that. Think about how satisfied you must be as a Federalist Society member with President Trump in the Republican Senate thank you for this acknowledgment. One thing for me is what kind of issues you will want to have and i think that will loom large on the ballot. Effortill be an express to expand the number of judges. N the spring court i just think this has been one of the great accomplishments for President Trump, myself and Mitch Mcconnell. At in 2020. Ke some of thened statistics, the numbers of judges. In the eight years of president obamas administration, total of 55 federal Appellate Court seats were filled. , 53 seats have been filled by the current administration, so nearly on pace. Us about thet tell priority, the amount of effort and emphasis that leader mcconnell and yourself and others have placed . Tells you everything you need to know. That in one term we have done as much as obama did into terms. That Mitch Mcconnell and myself see picking judges is one of the most important functions of the United States senate. Conventions and almost nothing was said about protest and disorder in the street. The Republican Convention focused heavily on line order supporting victims of crime. About shows us what your priorities are. I think we have done a good job approving through our action what we mean we talk about making the judiciary interpret the law rather than making it from the bench. Well aboutsk you as a particular moment in the past couple of years. 27, right in the middle of the contentious confirmation hearings for judge Brett Kavanaugh of course now a justice. Day, delivered remarks at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary committee that some observers have identified as crucial to his eventual that schapiro has identified your greatest moment. Bit aboutus a little that moment and the emotion and passion that was present in the room. Why did people listen to what i had to say . Nobody would have cared five got mad about the way they treated cap not if i had just been one more mad person but i had something that nobody else had. The ability to look the democrats in the eye and say what the hell are you doing . I would have never done this for sotomayor and cake. Kagan. You dont care how qualified he is. What got me going is i have known Brett Kavanaugh for almost 20 years. I know him to be one of the most capable people any republican president would nominate to the Supreme Court. Here is the one thing that united the party. He was the private secretary of president george w. Bush. He met his wife working for the bush administration. President bush was on the phone day in day out, patching for cap. Vouching for him. Group, thethe bush mccain group ann romney group. All of us believed that anybody on the republican side would have put Brett Kavanaugh on their short list. We saw thisened was as an attack on us, conservatism. We saw what they were doing to line of wanting power too much. It in terms of an offense betrayal friend and a of what i had tried to do. Thomas and alito through this every republican conservative is a racist, lovable law. Blah blah blah. Why is it always our people . What i said that day i meant, that i looked everyone in the eye and said i never would have done this to your nominees. I would not have picked soto meyer or kagan but they were qualified. Brett kavanaugh is as qualified as anyone nominate to the Supreme Court and what we were doing to him is unconscionable. And if they had succeeded in driving him away and he had withdrawn who would be next on our side smart what young conservative manner woman would want to throw their hat in the ring go through this . Gutter member, the accusations were five, three of them anonymous and two of the three proved to be absolute manufacturers. What happened to dr. Ford was real somewhere sometime, but im confident that Brett Kavanaugh had nothing to do with. You were talking about a party in high school that could validate where nobody could validate the claim. Talk about how may beers he had aile in high school, it was party, not a date and location and just a complete low point in my career in the senate. Nowoke up, as i am right the more i think about it the more pistol i get about it, the more pissed i get. If they had succeeded in doing this, they would have changed the people who would come forward to be a judge and anything they could do could wind up doing. So i think the best thing that happened here is that he made it onto the court and i think they thisbe less likely to do to the next nominee because it blew up in their face and i think it affected senate races in that cycle and when i voted sotomeyer and kagan, it did not make me more conservative. I followed the qualifications and not ideology, and now after kavanaugh everything has changed and thank god he is on the bench. And to the extent i have motivated people on our side to and frommore im glad my point of view the real hero here as much as anybody is susan collins, because she had the courage to evaluate Brett Kavanaugh as a judge at human being and found him to be highly qualified. Let me follow up on that. Mentioned Justice Thomas Justice Ginsburg and others. He said it seems like now all that has changed. So let me toss out a couple statistics and then get your reaction. Confirmed 1993g vote of 9630 and spoiler alert the margins are going to get narrower as we go. Sotomayor confirmed 6831. Gorsuch, 5445. Cavanaugh, 5048. The trend there, it doesnt take a statistician to show the increasingly narrow margins. Is the continuation of that trend inevitable or cannot be reversed . Or is it like a door that only swings in one direction. He showed it a bit as to how , but harry reid did more to unleash the sources than anybody in recent memory. Changing the rules to a majority vote and a Circuit Court of appeals. When they had power, they went away from the 60 vote requirement to 50 votes. Here is i think youre going to have more ideologically driven nominees because you dont need to reach across the aisle and pick up a vote like you used to. We had to change the rules for gorsuch to stop his filibuster twice and i would say after gorsuch, nobody can look you in the eye and say they are not qualified. So the point is that conservative nominees have been treated critically unfairly. It all christian. With cavanaugh n harry reid signed decided to change the rules that change the nomination process and what i fear over time is that if we dont turn it down a notch that good men and women will be more reluctant to be a judge. That cavanaugh having survived was a great thing because it shows that these tactics did not work. We want to be respectful of your time. Can i give you one last question . I got other things but we dont want to keep you from the. , heier in your remarks mentioned more than 300 special Interest Groups and a few of their colleagues have voiced support for the idea of expanding the number of justices on the Supreme Court. This would not be the first time it was ever discussed. A century ago during the new plan about the a switch in time that saved nine is the phrase. Has been a discussion once before but it has never been done. Do you sense that there is any . Ctual support look at chuck schumer. He is probably going to get challenged by aoc in the primary. Lets talk about some of the things democrats are openly talking about. Alexander was ceded to virginia so people in the d. C. Area could vote. There is a way to enfranchise people without making it a mistake. Theyre talking about making puerto rico estate, doing away with the electoral college. Will becomena, we far less relevant but one of the most egregious things is expanding the number of judges so they can dilute the centerright majority we have created over time. And from 20202024 theyll be one over two, maybe three vacancies, but they are trying to reshape the way our Founding Fathers shaped america to their advantage. Theyre trying to do away with the electoral college, to , thepe what judge does thatd states in a matter was just overwhelmingly partisan. If we lose the house and republicans lose the senate and theresns, i think still a chance of it coming through to do with the legislative requirement and filibuster. Schumer and all of leadership in the senate will be under enormous pressure on the left. So a lot is at stake. My upon all talk about where he is at versus where i am at. But today is about the Federalist Society. The day is about thanking me but i want to thank you for helping me make sure we have good information about judicial nominees and make it aware to South Carolina ands taking ans and for stand on conservative judicial philosophy. It is a great thing to be doing at any efforts to blackball your group will be met with fierce opposition by me and many others. So thanks. Thank you. I know we have already capped you a few minutes longer than i originally asked for your asked for. We appreciate your time and leadership in washington. Thank you again for joining us today. Thanks senator, graham. We will turn out to our panel. I introduce them in just a moment. And by the magic of technology, there they are. Popping back up on meeting their microphones and turning their cameras back on your backup. It is a distinguished panel. If you struggle with inferiority , you do not want to host a panel like this because i will tell you have accomplished anything were to. And i will pick things off. Started with mark schempp from bringing them young university, the valedictorian of his class. From harvard, he worked with that judge gorsuch. Previously was the principal at the doj office of legal policy, where among other things he personally prepared over 100 nominees for confirmation by the senate and in the process earned to the attorney generals distinguished service award. Brian fitzpatrick has a degree Chemical Engineering and looked up to his and worked up to his class, working in the ninth circuit and then justice scalia. He taught at nyu school of law and has received all kinds of awards and publish all kinds of books. Lastly, jd from notre dame with judge sykes on the seventh circuit and he served as subcommittee counsel and chief counsel. He served as Deputy Assistant ag and currently as chief nomination counsel for the Senate Judiciary committee. Ofthere ever was a group folks that knew a thing or two about our topic today, this is that, where them. Or them. Let me start with my first question. It is quite possible that a number of our viewers are not familiar with some of the procedural, mechanical steps that take place even before a nominee is announced. View ofgive us a 32nd what that process looks like . I would be happy to. It starts off when a vacancy is announced. So a judge sends his letter saying i plan to leave the bench for whatever reason. At that point, interviews happen, so names are selected by the white house by the department of justice, usually in consultation with home state senators and there are interviews at the white house. In the current administration, they are usually in the counsels office and department of justice. They dont have explicit litmus tests in terms of how you feel about roe v. Wade or heller, none of that something in the case of District Courts, there are a fair amount of mechanics in terms of what a district judge actually does. I think the jurisprudence is more important in interview when it comes to circuits. But for districts, theres a lot of concern. Kanas person do this job . Selectedt, somebody is , there is vetting by the department of justice and fbi. After that process, the person is nominated. After the nomination, there is anding on their review after that, a questionnaire gets sent to the senate usually while the vetting is going on in the department of justice. That is all the information about speeches they have given, articles they have written. Have litigated against and with. It is what sets the clock. There are also blue slips, once the nomination happens. If it is a Circuit Court, the practice is more varied in terms of whether or not a blue slip is necessary to have a hearing proceed. Then we have the hearing. People are familiar with those and then after that there is a Committee Process in terms of transferring the nominee from the committee to the floor, after which they have their vote. And if confirmed, they then appoint him or her. [indiscernible] we use the mall as your first login but check in right now at the halfway point. I will address this to the panel. Things we have seen inr the last couple of years the nominations context and in nearly every context, have relatively long past social or law school can come back to haunt a nominee. Talk to us a little bit about that. Is that a new phenomenon . Maybe it appears to be or maybe it is longer standing and what advice would you give to people currently in college or law school . Was one of the most disappointing i think, episodes during the Trump Administration, as we did lose one very good court of appeals nominee who was nominated to the ninth circuit to replace a judge because he had written some in the stanford newspaper when he was an undergraduate basically making fun of identity politics. Articles andese they turned them against him and sadly one of our senators from the great state of south is not willing to vote and had to withdraw his nomination. So my view is that has been going on for a long time and it is because i dont think the can beatc Party Republicans on judicial philosophy. We have that issue sewn up. When elena kagan during her confirmation hearing says we are all textual lists now, i think we now that we have won the battle of ideas. So the only way the left can bring down a nominee is to find something personal in their past. That is why they go to college writing, why they go after Brett Kavanaugh with the allegations they went after him for. In some ways, it is attributed the success we have had on substance that these issues are used instead, it has been going on for a long time. Conservatives have the upper hand on the upper issue for a long time. I generally agree with everything brian has said. I do think that is the is aating reason why there focus on a nominees pass writing and pass associations, also if they were a member of an organization they had looked on i doively for any reason think there will be an opportunity there. We saw in this administration who werearound the age writing often for College Newspapers during a very time during ative think the 1990s. There is more today with college campuses. There more that becoming available, and finally with social media, there are more opportunities for people who dont know. To Say Something dumb or not dumb. To behave appropriately or favorably by some people. It has led to this becoming a bigger issue and it is unfortunate because it does put the focus on things that probably shouldnt be that important. Certainly if the nominee has done something in their past that is by most peoples general repugnant,orally that is certainly relevant. But to the extent that people have just expressed opinions, they did it in a way when there were 19 or 20 years old they might not have done when there ite more grownup and mature is unfortunate for those people in Public Service by rejecting them. Let me ask about your comments in the beginning you mentioned the Bar Association as visibly pointed out something that i think could be an interesting factoid. Fact that the the aba review process has been post nomination. Expand on that. Roll has very pretty considerably. History as i understand it was eisenhower was the first president to sort of invite them into the Judicial Evaluation process and they had a pretty upndard role from eisenhower until george w. Bush. When they were thinking of nominating somebody to a court they would give that name to the american Bar Association. It was a problem apparently during the reagan administration. It got out the american bar ministration american Bar Association was feeding these names to prepare the Opposition Research ahead of time and certain conservative groups found out about this and started saying why cant we get that information ahead of time . They stopped sending it to the, that was sort of the background of it. I think what second president bush santa office, they cut it out of the frontend. So under president bush, they found out what everybody else did and they would be able to do their evaluation afterwards. President obama then put them back in the front and position and then when trump took over he went back to the george w. Bush plan, which they find out whenever video starts. The trick of that is that we move pretty quickly. At least early there was concern that they werent able to get ratings out by the time there were hearings. Our member commending chairman grassley for just moving ahead with the hearings before the aba rating. But i think there have been relatively few nominees who have not had ratings at aba does not find out about it until everybody else does. Let me direct a question to fitzpatrick. If i direct question, if you want to jump in, just raise your hand and dont let me cut you off. Somebodyaded toward please feel free to jump in. Fitzpatrick, let me use one wellknown example from recent years. Not to talk so much about that instant is question of this of if this is a recent phenomenon. Then professor, now judge was in her confirmation hearing, the aboutt that she was religious faith became a significant part of that hearing. It is a fact that a judicial nominees fate, which is somewhat distinct from whether they were treated fairly and their degree of devotion, has that ever been relevant in the judicial confirmation process and is this a new feature, a thing we see Going Forward . Of course, religion should not be relevant but the truth is this has been used against catholics for a very long time. Are you going to follow the pope or follow the law. This has been a question hangover catholics for a long time. I thought we had resolved it, but apparently we havent. Have probablyre been many more overt instances of certain biases in the past. I think there was a long skepticism towards jewish justices and so i dont think this is the first time we have ever seen anything of this nature but i think it is the first time we have seen something this overton a long time and im sorry that we have. This is something we are going to discuss today and i know that this is just a sign of just how polarized and partisan the judicial nomination process has become. The days when someone like justice scalia, just asked about a catholic as others can be confirmed 980 are long, long gone. I agree with all of that from professor fitzpatrick, but having seen it happen a few times now on the committee, i think one of the tougher parts is that i think both sides kind of talk past each other or dont understand where theyre coming from. I think at least some of the democrats dont think they are replying a religious test. Ofre are pretty of plenty prochoice catholics this is about determining their policy views, not religious views but republicans see that as just changing the concerns of the religious test, saying that certain kinds of catholics i approve of r. O. K. But others are bad. I think they are sort of talking past each other in terms of theological or sociological problems in different conceptions of what religion is but the result winds up being the longstanding problem of catholics need not apply. So there isnt a clear way i think theyre right that the overarching issues just increase polarization and the role the court places only hot button issues where religious adherents seen as a valid proxy for how you see feel about those issues. I want to get reactions to that. So we are talking about the number of filibusters for president ial nominees. These are historic numbers. [indiscernible] bush, 39. 75, aent obama, hundred significant uptick. President s, all of them combined, 244 present trump less than four years, 314. Obviously, there are some differences of zoo of viewpoint and some maneuvers being taken. What we take away from this and . Hat is the effect it is an interesting thing to talk about. Oftentimes, gets talked about today. Thetimes people talk about opinion of what side you are on when the rules are being changed. Filibuster, it is as you point out traditionally it wasnt something that was used for negative and judicial nominations. Toseven they use a playbook do away with the 60 vote threshold and filibuster for a Supreme Court nominee, theres just not a lot of historical. Eight one thing that explains the numbers is just the increased retaliation, the increased partisanship that has gone into judicial nominees and confirmation. Another thing that i think explains the numbers to a certain extent is what harry reid did. Filibuster fore filibuster nominees, was no longer a weapon that the minority could use to stop a nominee, but they could use it to delay or postpone. Once it is a different kind of weapon, i think that is in part why we have seen it deployed so much. Now i can help you better than i is basically a routine thing today that a filibuster is done on just about every nominee and you have to file cloture to get past it. Ithink it is unfortunate and thistion came up during the bush thatistration, the notion a majority of senators that wanted to vote for them and becausecouldnt do that a minority was presenting an effort to vote was really a new thing. The use of the filibuster in that circumstance is what led to of the coursetion of the bush, obama and no Trump Administrations. Until about one year ago, if you filibuster the nominee, you couldnt stop them, but there are 30hour supposed cloture time, so you could delay that nomination not getting voted on by 30 hours, which inset time is like todays. Think that is why you have those filibusters. 300 times 30 hours under the rules until we change them. Timejust clouds up all the and prevents us from moving on these votes. They move that about one year ago and that is part of why we have been able to confirm so many district judges. As mark was saying, the weapon did not go away just shifted in terms of how it was used. And this game is still being played, so next week hopefully we will vote on part of a bipartisan package of new York Nominees aired she was the democratic pick in that package and they still filibuster. Cloture,ll had to file we are still going to have to eat up two hours of floor time let me is a democrat direct this question to the panel. Somebody already mentioned that it is part of the vetting process, that it is not litmus test driven. You are not going to ask at the end of it are for or against qualified immunity. How would you vote on qualified immunity . What i gather is that it is to if somebody walks up the street, how do you determine his or her jurisprudential philosophy. It wont surprise you to know that everybody who walks into the Eisenhower Executive Office building to be a nominee for the Trump Administration will tell everyone happily that they have been committed to contextualism and thatnal as him sometimes it is a challenge sort of figure out what is behind the surface those kinds of answers. There are different kinds of questions you can ask to get asked to see what they mean by that. But sometimes, you can tell who just a week before decided to read the cliff notes version in a matter of interpretation by justice scalia. Therell of sudden found conversion to federalism. For some people who are very very smart they get it and understand it they can articulate it and it is harder to tell if they are really committed to it. In those instances, maybe you have a written record to go off of. Issues frankly may not ever come up even if they had been a judge. Challenge and a that is why sometimes you can get information from people who know that person and that is one of the reasons you make phone. Alls to people i am a bit of a dissenter on the point that we cant ask the nominee should about their views on their legal issues. Easy forat it is whatever administration has a rule that says we are not allowed to ask our nominees but what they are to do, but from the perspective of a good democracy, im not sure it makes a lot of sense for the American People to have no idea what these nominees are going to do with this tenure we are about to give them. And so i tend to think the American People have a right now. They have life tenure for a reason that is if they change their mind later on, they can still keep their job. Theyre not going to be under undue pressure to follow whatever they say during their confirmation hearings. And so i would like to have an honest discussion with nominees about what their views are set up just dancing around these issues. It is too important to leave to tea leaf reading. One of the things we have will a lot about, and i throw these numbers at you. We have heard a lot about is that under the Trump Administration, the age of judicial nominees has drastically been lowered. One, is that in fact the case . Here are the numbers. So there is this addict age of Circuit Courts under the past five administrations. Theeorgia chilly bush, average age was 50. 51 president h, obama 52, present from 48. The federal Circuit Court of appeals, present trump with an average of 48 years which is a couple of years younger. To the question, is the perception that all of these judges are just barely out of. Aw school arcuri or not is it a good thing or bad thing to tell us. I have views on this but i dont want to keep talking if mike or mark want to chime in. But i think there is too much of a premium placed on finding andg people for the bench the reason for the premium is life tenure. Tenure is theife source of many of the problems in our confirmation process. That is what led the process to become so polarized, so ugly. Parties are pretty ugly and it gets worse and worse every four years and it all goes back to life tenure. Be on the basically bench for 40 years if you find young enough nominees. Wonder, thee to founding generation, if they had known we would live as long as we do if they would have wanted question if we ought to consider a conservative to life tenure at some point. It would deescalate a lot of the acrimony we see and allow some more seasoned lawyers to get a nomination every once in a while. I think it is a fair question that we should be thinking some about. You anticipated my next question, but before we go to that, let me see what mark and mike cap to say. Necessarilydont seem to bear that out. There have been a handful of nominees that have been a little seen,r than we might have but if we are talking about a talent pool of lawyers in the. Ountry talent pool isnt so small that you will only find talented people once they reach the age of 55 or that the difference between 50 and 48 means you have some dropoff in quality. I think professor fitzpatrick is actually correct, that the desire to nominate when a little bit younger is because of the time they can spend on the bench and that if you nominate someone who is a little bit closer to retirement age, you are in some ways just turning that seat right over to your successor, or as if you nominate someone a little younger, there is some staying power. But i would certainly take on that a twoould argue year difference has led to a decline in quality of nominee. I think it is actually just the opposite. I cank the quality of tell you that from having sat withgh a lot of interviews experienced, distinguished understanding some of the talent pool, you can find some pretty terrible judges and terrible lawyers that have lots and lots of experience just as much as you could find terrible lawyers who are terrible because they dont have any experience. Let me say quickly, i apsley agree with mark. President trump has nominated the most talented people for judgeships in american history. Even better than ronald reagan, in my opinion that is a very high bar. See you are right, theres absolutely no correlation between the two. The average might not capture it. I suspect if you look at total distribution, theyre probably a little more bimodal than obama where they were more clustered around 51 or 52 wears trump you have a decent number in the lower 40s. Of that is frankly Coalition Politics where it to the aba. Of why they have a seat at the process is because the bar is part of the democratic coalition. Typicallything they need to placate in their judicial nomination process wears with republicans it is not really the case. So what im hearing you say is stephanie curry can and should be m. V. P. Respectively at a young age based on performance and not based on playing in the nba and nfl respectively. Sure. An acrosstheboard the board, they have been great. A lot of his young judges have been fantastic, and at the same time, some of his strongest judges have been his oldest touch columns and the ninth circuit is so impressive that the l. A. Times had a hatchet piece against him because callings were so annoyed at how good of a job he was doing. Probably been our oldest circuit judge, probably just an absolute dynamo. The administration has done a in not having to go young are all having to gold. I want to be respectful of our time. Let me make one last announcement. If you are looking for credit, this is your final check and. A record of your attendance. In the brief time that is left, i want to circle back to professor fitzpatrick to the ofcept that has been raised moving away from tenure to another system. How can that be done . The idea bank the idea is that it would deescalate the process. What are the chances of it happening . Anybody can chime in. The leading proposal which i would support is to give every justice one 18 year term. The terms would be staggered so every two years, another term what and. Every president would get to nominations every fouryear term. Even if you dont get this nominee of someone you want, the next nominee could be yours to your some now. Could it be done statutorily . There are theories that say yes. Theories that depend on making the justices coming up at the end of their term into senior justices. I dont know if i buy that. If we have to amend the constitution, and we have to amend the constitution. I think we are getting so bad with the acrimony that both sides might be willing to do something as drastic as that. Any thoughts . I havent really thought about it. It is fascinating. I certainly think that it can be helpful if smart people from both sides are trying to collaborate together and deescalate and ratchet something back. I dont think many people will argue that the neverending escalation of partisanship of judicial nomination is a good thing. I have more questions that i wish i could ask. I wish we had more time. All that means is that we should get together again some other time to discuss this further. I appreciate your time. Thank you to our viewers. We hope that you will have a safe and enjoyable long holiday weekend. Thank you and we hope to see you in a future event. Following a signing ceremony in the oval office, President Trump was asked about the atlantic article alleging the president made disparaging comments about fallen servicemembers. Todo you need to apologize servicemembers as veterans . No, it is a fake story written by a magazine that probably will not be around much longer. It was a totally fake story. That was confirmed by many people who were actually there. It was a terrible thing that somebody would say the kind of things especially to me because i have done more for the military than almost anybody else. If you look at how the v. A. Is doing, they are doing incredibly well. Donet also as of things from accountability to veterans choice. As of right now, it has the highest Approval Rating that it has ever had. 91 Approval Rating. It is never been close to that. Nobody has done what i have done, that includes salary increases. It includes the rebuilding of our military. When i came here, our military was totally depleted. Almost 2. 5 trillion. 2. 5 trillion all made in the usa f35, brand new jets and rockets and missiles. I hope to god we never have to use it, but our nuclear is now an extra ordinary shape. Including new weapons. I hope we never have to use that because that is a level of power that you dont want to talk about. You dont want to hear about it. It is a fake story and it is a disgrace they are allowed to do it. I hate to bring up his book, but ,ohn bolton, no friend of mine he didnt know too much about what he was doing. He didnt do a good job. He wrote a book and he talked about this incident and he doesnt mention it and friendly, a lot of reporters even some pretty bad ones they read that it was the end of the story. There is nobody that considers the military and especially people that have given their lives in the military, to me they are heroes. It is even hard to believe how they could do it. And to meof bravery they are absolute heroes. Thank you very much, everybody. President trump will hold a News Conference this afternoon. You can watch live coverage at 00 eastern here on cspan love coverage at 5 00 eastern. 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