Transcripts For CSPAN2 Ilya Shapiro Supreme Disorder 20240712

Needs to increase its population by 1 billion in order to compete in the global marketplace. Find more information on your Program Guide or apple tv. Org. Good morning everyone, good afternoon, wherever you are in this great nation and welcome, who could have imagined what a timely conversation this would be. Im jan crawford, chief Legal Correspondent for cbs news covering the Supreme Court and upcoming confirmation battle and im delighted to be moderating what is going to be, and incredibly timely conversation about our terrific book written by kato as elia schapiro supreme disorder honored to get a sneak peek of it i thought, this is just really an indispensable guide i have to keep on my desk for the next upcoming confirmation battle, professor Randy Barnett of Georgetown Law School Supreme Court expert scooped me on those words, thats how he described it an indispensable guide and Carrie Severino has also written a guide herself with judicial confirmation a book about the recent fight over Justice Kavanaughs nomination. We are going to have a conversation today about what is the news of the day, week, month, year Justice Ginsburg passing and now the upcoming fight over nomination and confirmation of her successor with the backdrop of three incredible experts wellversed in history and Current Affairs and analytical skills about what we can expect. To start with elia, but robert e leavy center for constitutional studies we go over those before we break the news of what those opinions and its always quick, astute, and sometimes even get some of the signature in their hes written a terrific book. It is supreme supreme disorder. It is something that i think now more than ever when you wrote this book ilya shapiro, you certainly didnt think this would be breaking at this moment obviously with aging justices anything can happen but i wouldve turned it over to you, take us through what made you decide to write this book and where are we right now . The world has changed since friday, probably kind of also knew this could be coming. Thank you january the publisher had to pay extra to get the timing as it is now, certainly was in the back of my mind, i think a lot of peoples minds that Something Like this could happen and indeed something a little and not too healthy about the morbid health watches of justices and the arbitrary nature of vacancies when they appear, is there a better way. Thats why i wrote the book in the wake of the kavanaugh hearings devcon 12 i thought to myself, has it always been this way . When did it start the role of politics . As i began to do my research i realized politics has been a part of the nomination and confirmation process from the very beginning. George washington had one of his nominees rejected. These sorts of controversies play out in different ways. The political machinations are different he had to have regional balance or concern over somebodys perceptions on the role of the court on slavery or Railroad Regulation what have you. In the modern day theres really a couple turning points. I wouldnt put it at kavanaugh or garland or abbut the courts own self corruption allowing the Roosevelt Administration fdr to implicitly amend the constitution expand federal power, change the way that rights are understood so you have this divergence of constitutional theories. What we have now, whats different now then 1962 when president kennedy nominated byron white who had an hour to have hearing, he was question for 15 minutes about his football career, probably the last time that a Supreme Court justice had played in the nfl while a student at yell law school but things have changed and the reason is we have the culmination of these trends where divergent interpretive theories map onto partisan preferences at a time when the parties are more ideologically sorted since at least the civil war if not ever. I talked about in my book supreme disorder, potential reform efforts, term limits, restructuring the port, expanding the court, procedures to change on the hearings or how the confirmation process itself works. At the end of the day this is rearranging deck chairs from titanic because the titanic since the court is so important deciding so Many Political controversies every year the only way to reduce the tensions to detoxify these fights is to rebalance our constitutional orders, send power back to the states and the people and within washington, its congress thats debating and deciding the remaining policy and values clashes rather than pushing everything into the administrative agencies, the executive branch, which can only be sued they cant be elected. Im afraid weather forabi cant dissipate the toxic cloud that envelops judicial nominations as much as the rest of our Public Discourse. It took decades to get where we are and its going to take decades to come out of it. It sounds like where we are, bitterly divided that weve seen most recent confirmation battle, which Carrie Severino had written her book about that how much uglier can it get . So your point, ilya, i think the process she said rearranging deck chairs on the titanic the court has injected itself into aband said its just inevitable outgrowth of that. Right. [multiple speakers] those seats are important. There is going to be fighting over that, thats the politicians response. Sorry about that. [multiple speakers] i actually thought that because the response to this since friday has skyrocketed. Thank you guys for getting us back on air. Let me recap where we were. Ilya just read a short part of his book supreme disorder talking about the nature of the Supreme Court and its involvement in these social issues by extension may the confirmation process what it is today. We of course are in the middle of now whats going to be a confirmation fight i think unlike any of us have ever seen, ive covered the court over 25 years, we can think back to Thurgood Marshall, ilya also said that politics and confirmation battles go way back even back to the days of the founders. Im going to kick it over to Carrie Severino, judicial confirmation network, you wrote a book about our last confirmation fight that doesnt seem that long ago, looking at ilyas book and seeing the backdrop of Justice Ginsburg passing and the president saying hes gonna have a nominee friday or saturday to replace her and what we know is going to be a battle ahead, have you looking at ilios book and think about your knowledge, is this unlike anything our country will have ever seen what we are going to see in the months to come . Yes, his book is the one i wish i had had when i was writing my own book because it does such a great job of giving a scope of history from George Washington on. Your book, what you didnt mention the supreme conflict was a book i was so grateful to have it looks at the alito and robert confirmation. It will be your turn next. [laughter] right. Lineup, start taking notes. One thing that ilya alluded to his politics unfortunately has always been there but another theme that he brought out and the type of confirmation process you get in many ways is contingent on mistakes of the confirmation process, thats unfortunate because so many gets decided at the court. If we could get the court out of deciding so many of these National Issues at that high level maybe we could dial down the politics. Of course the stakes of this confirmation are huge with Justice Ginsburg being more placed. Looks like likely by a woman. In some ways somewhat following in your footsteps but coming at it from a very different jurisprudential perspective. Its going to i think its interesting to see what happens because we are seeing things heating up, its hard to imagine the temperature getting any higher politically right now. People like Alexandra Ocasio cortez im not sure what that will mean, i dont think its gonna look exactly the same as the type of Smear Campaign launched against Justice Kavanaugh but you can see theres a lot of people who are going to want to do whatever it takes to get in the way of this confirmation process and block it. For all of the great i love the last few chapters of ilyas book of ideas of what we can do to change the temperature down on these things. Unfortunately now i feel like we are right in the middle of whats gonna be another very heated process. There is not time for constitutional amendment to try to involve term limits, i think at the end of the day the only option for trying to limit the political fallout in these things is trying to as a nation agree on an approach to the law and the constitution that takes the politics out and that is to look at the text in the original understanding of the documents rather than have interpretable lost that naturally bring in all the political influences. We can talk about some of those prescriptions and then maybe whats gonna happen who might be nominated and how its going to go down. Let me also remind everyone, we are also taking questions from the audience. Trying to develop most of the time to have a conversation with all of you. You can do the hashtag which i think you can see at the bottom of the screen. We are taking questions on twitter and facebook, all forms of social media. Submit your questions and we will get to those shortly. Obviously the battle as carrie just said is pitched based on mistakes. The stakes are pretty high right now that Republicancontrolled Senate and leading liberal stepping down from the Supreme Court, those are moments in history that dont happen often, weve also got an election in six weeks. Take us through what you see where we are right now and whats ahead and what we can learn from looking at some of those past battles that ilya has written about. Thank you jan, pleasure to be here. Im gonna do something i think is really important having had a book and having a cato book form for myself, i want to start with the first message, by this book. Everybody who is on the line here, everybody watching the show needs to buy this book, dont wait for the show to be over disco place your amazon order now, the reason why is that there is no book thats been published that is like this book. This is a comprehensive account of every judicial nominee from George Washington until today, who nominated, when they were nominated, how they were nominated, what the process look like, what it didnt look like. It is an irreplaceable resource and its a fascinating read. Im now in the process of revising my casebook my constitutional law casebook for the fourth edition and the casebook has taught in a narrative way, ive changed narrative ive added, ive enriched the narrative by relying on this book and deciding this book one of the lessons revealed by this is something that kerry has already alluded to and that is you learn from this history of Supreme Court nominations is that the Supreme Court nominating and confirmation process has always been political. Its always been political. If you think about it for two seconds you realize why it has to be political. That is because a politically elected president always chooses the Supreme Court nominee and they are then confirmed by a politically elected senate. Because its always political doesnt mean its always ideological. Whether its ideological or not depends on whether there is a consensus that exists amongst the political elites because thats the people doing nominating and confirmation about how the constitution should be interpreted. For a great periods of history there has been that consensus, whenever there is a what the proper role of the judiciary is in a Constitutional Republic then the only thing that judicial confirmation hearings are going to focus on is what we sometimes call qualifications, whats your judicial experience . Where did you go to law school . How smart are you . Those sorts of things. As soon as there is disagreement about how the constitution should be interpreted, then what we call judicial philosophy then becomes relevant. Ever since 1980 when Ronald Reagan was elected president there started to be a disagreement thats reflected in the Political Party system between republicans and democrats as to how the constitution should be interpreted and that disagreement is only intensified as the republican part of the two party system has developed to the point where they initially were originally talking about judicial restraint and now talk about original is him and whether a judge is faithfully committed to the original text of the constitution. When the two parties have sorted themselves out along you might say ideological lines but i would say judicial philosophical lines then you are going to have a battle between the two parties over every nominee because the nominees of the other party might be qualified in the sensibilities etc. But they are not going to share the judicial philosophy of the opposing party so when the presidency is held in the same hands as the senate then you are going to see a nominee that reflects those the fact that there is convergence but when the presidency is held in the hands of a president of one party and the senate is going to be held in the hands of the other party then you see compromise candidates put forward that are going to try to get past the confirmation hurdle of the other party and this is going to reflect judicial philosophy in a nation thats divided about how the constitution should be interpreted because our nation is divided now but we have at the moment unified government between senate and president. We can expect the nominee whos going to reflect the political, judicial philosophies of now being theres going to be opposition by the democrats on the same grounds. Im going to pick up there with some questions for the panel and then we will go to the audience questions. This raises a point where we are at this moment in time which is the same Party Controlling the senate and in the white house and weve seen senator mcconnell say this is why this is different than when president obama nominated merrick garland. Thats why they are saying this is not a democracy because you have this aband Republicancontrolled Senate and republican the white house. Im going to get your thoughts on all of the news of the day. Historically a [multiple speakers] as i detail in the book there have been 29 times where weve had vacancies in president ial Election Years. The president has made a nomination every one of those 29 times. Whether that nominee gets confirmed to depends on, as what randy described as whether we have united or divided government, overall not just in the Election Year rates and confirmation for United Government, the Senate White House and the same party is about 90 . For divided government extra short of 60 . That different is accentuated in president ial Election Years. Hardly ever when there is divided government is the nominee confirmed and hardly ever when theres United Government is the nominee not confirmed, one exception to that is fairly recent in 1968 back before Justice Scalia was in the vacancy and there was bipartisan opposition based on ethical concerns to the elevation of justice for this to be chief justice. Durning united period of government even during the lameduck even for example, the most notably John Marshall the great chief nominated by john adams after adams had lost his bid for reelection against Thomas Jefferson and the Senate Confirmed the then. Theres nothing new under the sun in our long path of american history. That answers a lot of questions. To summarize we are getting a lot of questions for our panel and many are along those lines that should we have learned should the replacement for Justice Ginsburg be left to the next president . Should a vote occur is it proper for a vote to occur before the election is it proper for a vote abits hard when we are not in the same panel in front of each other. I was just going to say i think anyone who wants to be able to fact check some of the numerous claims you are going to hear through the next few weeks going through this process this is the book to do it because its things like that cant ever have abi dont know that we will have a vote during the lameduck session but for people who say its all legitimate, nobody said justice John Marshall one of the most highly regarded chief justice as was illegitimate. Get the book if only so you can be the one whos doing the Fact Checking and say, actually, here it is on page 23. I should add, if you go to supreme disorder. Com, not only can you also buy the book there, which has randy said is important. But there is a statistical and historical appendix so you can see tables of all the confirmation sliced and diced every way politically, historically, timewise including some on Lower Court Judges toward the end. Supreme disorder. Com hopefully that can be a resource during this debate going forward. Im going to go to some more audience questions if thats okay. We are getting really good ones and submit your questions if you want to participate in the panel we got a question from robert ever renters, my apologies if thats not right. Real issue with Court Packing, how do we stop the legislature from destroying the third branch check and balance . We are seeing already now democrats saying, fine, President Trumps put the nominee on when biden wins we are going to add two or three more. Theres a really important distinction to keep in mind that applies to the Court Packing question also applies to the nomination and confirmation question that is the distinction between whats constitutional and what is normal or something to be accepted as a normal practice by tradition or whatever other standard you wish to apply. With respect to constitutionality, the president has a constitutional power to nominate, the senate has a constitutional power to confirm, there is no constitutional crisis, which is another term thats widely used, when the president uses his power to nominate any justice now and i senate would confirm the justice now or into the lameduck, its perfectly constitutional. By the same token, congress has the Perfect Power to change the composition of the Supreme Court. The number of justice is set by not by the constitution but the house and the senate override a president ial veto, the congress is free to expand the number of justices and even if motivated to do so by giving a political elected president power to appoint a number of justices and tipped the political balance are the ideological balance of the court. We have to distinguish between whats really constitutional and what clearly is a matter of tradition and norms because these two things get run together. 350 law professors in 2016 signed a letter which said that the constitution required the senate to give a nominee, they had a Constitutional Committee to give the nominee a hearing and a vote, the constitution creates no such constitutional duty, it was well within the constitutional power of the senate to advise consent by withholding consent to a nominee and not having any vote and ilya book demonstrates a lot of history of no votes that way please stop if you want to shift the conversation to what is normal practice, whats abnormal practice that you need Historical Context like the one this book provides but thats the point i think needs to be thats the most important take away from this conversation is that there is no constitutional problem with president nominating the Senate Confirming order of the congress deciding to change the number of the Supreme Court justices in order to do so called pack the court. What are some of the lessons we can take from the historical experience with Court Packing proposals and can you give us your sense of how that may unfold now in real time . Assured. Historically there is no magic to number nine we had 150 years of the nine Justice Court the constitution doesnt specify the number of justices. Each expansion was historically accompanied by some political mischief. They typically were added when new circuits were added but still no convenient political reasons. We talk about the nomination of John Marshall, that was part of the midnight judges act that actually expanded the number of judges that john adams had to appoint but it wouldve reduced the court to five members and its much vacancy to court the incoming president Thomas Jefferson. A year Later Congress restored the court to six seats which one of the justices proposed leading to his impeachment although he wasnt removed seven seat was added in 1807 in part because jeff is now in control wanted to temporarily resist chief justice marshalls federalist capital proclivities. Although that was unsuccessful because whomever jefferson appointed, they kept being under the sway of John Marshall. Then seats were added under Andrew Jackson to try to reshape the court which led to a bigger majority for dread scott, roger chief Justice Connie was appointed by jackson and that facilitated or at least failed the tenant abto give Abraham Lincoln more power although that was never filled and then Andrew Johnson succeeded lincoln and to prevent him from naming anyone he was kind of a political orphan by that point. Congress cut the court down to Seven Members so that the next three departing justices wouldnt be replaced and eventually that was stabilized at nine in 1869. Then of course we have franklin roosevelt, fdrs Court Packing scheme, hugely unpopular loss to the democrats an incredible number of seats in the 1938 midterms even though two years earlier fdr himself had been reelected overwhelmingly. The history of playing around with the numbers on the court there are definite negative consequences, maybe some shortterm gain if its successful the longterm loss book for the party that does it and certainly for the country as a whole. Even President Biden has suggest he would not be in favor of that. Is accurately enough to rein in any efforts to change the number of the court the historical look back or do you think this is going to be a real push for democrats if President Trump is able to get some unconfirmed to replace Justice Ginsburg . Having someone confirmed. I will just be quick and then abhaving President Trumps nominee be confirmed would certainly be felt as a publication by the democrats and even though joe biden and also Bernie Sanders for that matter and probably the only thing i agree with him on his against Court Packing, even though they were the finalists but pretty much the only two against Court Packing during the primaries with this further publication as it would be seen it will be tough of the democrats swept both the white house and the senate to then prevent them from doing so. Who knows. To ask in a different way, based on some of these questions we are getting coming in. Is that any reason then for this senate and this white house to take a pause . I think because most democrat activists have been calling for the expansion of the courts in order to pack the courts ever since the kavanaugh nomination if not before, they certainly told us that this is what contention was before it happened. The fact that they are not going to threaten the same thing they were threatening, they are now threatening to do what they promised to do before, its possible there might be more political momentum to doing it, even amongst their own base. That will unify the Democratic Base where some of them ab. And that therefore does not provide any reason whatsoever to either too or refrain either confirm or inconfirm whatever nominee we hear pout this week. Exactly. Carrie. Thats exactly right. Theyve been promising theyll do it. The only thing is hey havent had the opportunity pause they need the white house and senate and house to do it. If they get that its clear theyll move forward on a Court Packing scheme and i think thats going to heal real longterm negative consequences for court and country. Justice ginsburg in addition to Bernie Sanders were saying this is a bad idea. So its ironic to see the party to at the left beth of those two very liberal icons but i hot it doesnt come to that. Think particularly in todays environment the could just lead to each party adds to societies and you get 87 members of the court and that would be damaging as a whole. Weed in to pull back from the cliff. I think if theres an opportunity i dont see the democrats can do that single handed ily. We have heard a lot over the past we have heard a lot of the past few year outs norm. The norm of nine is a law, its a very well entrenched norm. And the norm of nine means each party vies for control the court within that nine justice setting. The idea is you would change the rules by adding justice once again it constitutional to do so but it will at the destroy the norm of nine and turn the number of Supreme Court justice interests a political football from now indefinitely and the destruction of that norm will have serious costs for the political and judicial stability. It would not be reflected in another one of the questions, how would that be undone . You just get in titfortat and go 11 back to nine or 13 and instead of a norm of nine which is something were all very thats what the public thinks, thats the court, nine, every four to eight years you go 9, 13, 15, and is that the and how does that get undone. Exactly. Its statute but to have a change requires the house and senate must be in the hands of the same party as the president and then it nowdays they would have to vote to eliminate the legislative fill buster to do a pure majority vote and since democrats have abolished abolise fill i dont think there will be mushes he addition to abolishing the filibuster on this issue. I actually thing democrats want to abolish the legislative filibuster and that is something that would happen regardless of this happening today or this week or not. How it gets undone by another situation in which the other party hots the senate and house and presidency and cant be undone before that happen but that is what it would take too be undone by statute. Even so they all serve life tenures so its challenging to limit the anybody. The keens would just ken on beening. Youre right. [overlapping speakers] if we were writing on blank slate we might want 19 justices. Fewer ten to nine decisions than five to four decisions and one representative per circuit. Several circuits are to big but were not writing an plank slate, even if everybody aggrade we want to have 19 or 22, an even number of justices for other reasons but how you get from their there, if you get the political 2012 agree on that, then the problem you are trying to solve is obviated at the front end. When i was covering some of the judicial confirmation battles going bag to the leaking 90s and the early 2000s, i remember talking then to senators and Mitchell Mitchell mump, memories are long in u. S. Senate. What goes around comes around, and so it feel leak the hat feels and the mccoys. The democrat does one thing and then the republicans try something else. I think we have seen that with the democratic use of the filibuster, the Nuclear Option and now of course, the Nuclear Option being employed by republicans for Supreme Court nominees. I guess when we think pout the just pitched battles were no much to. Looking back at your become its so valuable we can see episodes in history. What is this like i said to start the conversation, dont remember ever covering anything like this. I dont remember other point in our integrations history like this. Obviously there have been vacancies to fill the seats of pioneering justices, like Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas, different ideology. Whats to this remind you of . Anything that what is the closest parallel historically . Timingwise, you have Dwight Eisenhower in 1956, a recess appointing bill brennan in october of 1956 ahead of the election. The senate didnt want to come back into session. They were all out campaigning and stayed were not coming back he said okay ill just recess appoint. Brennan was known to be a liberal progressive jurist, had been on the Supreme Court of new jersey for a while and eisenhower made the political calculation, i need to shore up my northeastern court and, especially in metropolitan areas, heavily with catholics, and that worked for him politically, although he would come to regret the juris prudential outcome. Carrie, how do you predict this battle with good, covering the battle to replace justice kennedy. So the one you alluded to that strikes me as similar is the Thurgood Marshall to Clarence Thomas shift where you have one of the most liberal members of the court going to one over the most conservative members of the court, and over of. I work for Justice Thomas and im a huge fan of and is obviously have read and learn about the confirmation process as a resident of knowing him. Hively recommend his book in learning more but it was a huge goes back to point the stakes of the confirmation battle and what drives the insanity and that was a really wild confirm make process. This was the Brett Kavanaugh everybody is watching this live 24 7 at the same time, things getting leak to the media and is earlier before the allegations came out, was very hostile and very critical of him, and also i think could have parallelled with this where it kind of puts the lie to this idea theres interest groups. You know what you can have one black man replaced by another black ban but they can be diametrically opposed like marshal and thomas. Also interesting that with marshall, he had said, if i die just prop me up and keep on voting if. He cant want to leave during the tenure of a republican president but the ended up stepping down for Health Reasons and beginburg didnt want to leave right now but is replaced by someone who is going to bring in a judge who may have some parallels in their love story or things life store but will be a change on the court. This is the reminds me of michigan we have seen recently. A lot of kind of anguish among people on the left and democrats that she didnt retire when president obama was in the white house. If only she had retired then and why didnt she . But historically, ilya, justices tend to make decisions who is in the white house. The chief Justice William rhenquist, republicans wellhe had retired during president bushs first term. Sometimes they do sometimes they dont. I mentioned 1956, that was after a series of heart attacks and other illnesses of sher minton an otherwise forgettable justice. Not always able to do so and the trappings of power and press stick and being at the pinnacle of your Legal Profession thats a lot, and so, yeah, if she had retired in 2013 already at 80 year old, pretty old already, then we wouldnt be where we are now. Yeah. Let me gate couple more questions from the audience. We have pout 10 or 12 minutes left. This is kind of a more of a big picture question going back to some of the things you talk about earlier, ilya. From jay wright. Doesnt the philosophy of a living constitution guarantee a consensus hearing and theres disagreement over the acceptance of each nominees personal principles and my theres a phone ringing in the background that is distracting it but the question the live in of a living constitution guarantees a contentious confirmation process. Yes. Thats one half of it. The divergent issues, absolutely. If you like the living constitution or pragmatic or purpose idea of interpretation then you wont like the originalist or textualist methodology. Thats why were at loggerheads. I think in addition to that, i think is what the questioner is asking, if you view of judge is that judges get to amend the constitution, five justice, five justices go amend the constitution then obviously makes a huge bit of difference who he judges. You want judges who will amend the constitution your way. Of you think the constitution is fixed, any lawyer ought to be able to read it in good faith then it becomes less necessary to have your justices on. Thats one of two things that causes confirmation headquarters to hearings to be so contentious. Should judges be allow to amend the constitution to get tote raid the way you want. And the second reason is what ilya mentioned, more issuessocial or otherwise you make at the National Level, the more important you make the Supreme Court in adjudicating issues. Cob versely the more issues that underlie our original system of federalists which had the original meaning of the constitution pack we have more of this issues would be decided at the state levels levels and u would have 50 state luigss and that would deescalate and california would have one set of rules and new york would have a set of rules and florida would and texas would. If we deescalate the issues to the state level there would be less for at the Supreme Court to fight out. So you have both issues that are pushing everything up to the National Level and pushing then everything at the National Level to the court, and that is why we are where we are with erespecial to judicial nominations. Jan, youre muted. Sorry. I muted my phone because the this is to me this is an aside im in the most technological adapt person and the fact im trying moderate a panel on video is im trying so thank you. Was we learn from the telephonic oral arguments the justices just like us. The toilet flush and the forgetting to unmute. If it happens to them im okay it happening here. Thank you for your patience. But lets take this back out to the news of the day and Justice Ginsburg and now President Trump saying that he is going to have a nomination friday or saturday, he has a working short lift of five women, we know who pretty good idea who the leading contenders are including one he has already interviewed, amy coney barrett. Professor, you can you know some of the i guess you worked did you know her from working with her or eave any were you in notre dame with her . Aim remembering that wrong . No. Never mind, then. She is the presumptive front runner and then seen barbara from the 11th circuit withan incredibly compelling personal center a key swing state. A Columbia Law School graduate taping momentum now and then several others on the list, including court of Appeals Court justices. Were getting a question from anonymous, so its not really that controversial question so you could have finch your name. Do youve have an opinion on which would have a better chance for success, holding this confirmation vote now and we know its go to be a female justice, before the election or after the election . And im going to add on to this question, how does politics how do we think the politics of the selection is going to come into play who the president decided. Florida as key swing state and the president makes no lets look at where we are right now. We have potentially five women on the short list, the nomination on friday or saturday, its possible vote before the election or in the lame duck. Which would have more of a chance of success and does its matter . I think between trying to figure out what is going to happen its a mistake to try to expo late from where we for election day because Something Big is going to happen between now and election day state and Senate Judicial mom nation hearings will have. What happens at the hearings is going to affect the politics of the situation. What happened at the Justice Kavanaugh hearings affected the politics of that nomination could not have been foreseen at a nominee the white house thought would be relatively easily confirmable. We can anticipate one thing. The democratic Vice President ial nominee is a member of the Senate Judiciary committee so one thing between now and november is the democratic Vice President ial nominee questioning whichever we now can assume whichever woman has been nominated by the president to this post, how that exchange comes off. How senator harris comes off and the nominee comes off is going to dictate a lot about the politics what will happen and not going to know until we see it and that will change the politics of the nomination and confirm make and the likelihood of an Actual Senate vote before november or after november. Carrie, i covered the i was in room for the kavanaugh confirmation hearings, and i thought Kamala Harris in her questioning seemed to be trying to make a point and get some. I didnt think her questioning was that effective of Justice Kavanaugh. What are the stakes for her, then . I hadnt thought about that. Thats an excellent point. The stakes for her and them nomination and i you want to take a final word, we have five minutes left, but id like to let ilya have the last word. I agree, jan. I think Kamala Harris seemed to be using the kavanaugh nomination as an attempt to build her national there was a series of got gotcha questions where she talk but have you talked to anyone about the mueller investigation, this law firm and he is going this is a law firm of 300 people. She said i think we both know who youre talking about. Seems leak she has something on it and turned out by the next day when kavanaugh had a chance to review this 300 person list of people at the law firm, he could confirm on under oath i didnt think i had talked to nobody and now i can confirm i had not talked to anyone and she was like, okay, just wanted to know. And so it was thought what was this fishing expedition she was going on. Really fell flat. Didnt help here. She tide use that exchange and other exchanges to run literally thousands of facebook adds to so well see. I think randy is right. Going to be another angle on the Vice President ial debates. She gets a shot put i dont know if shell do herself anymore favors and harris has a rather of making anticatholic attacks on journal judicial nominee, one who was criticized for bag part of nighings columbus, a Charitable Organization and saying if he believes what the church teaches he is not fit for office. That is a she could go down with both amy coney barretten or bash la who he herself is catholic, alice you can see her going down and that would be a mistake. Well see how that turns out but going to be interesting to see once we have one of these women, they all have really compelling stories. That will change the tenor of this put letter mccain leader mcconnell knows how to count. Professor barnett, any final word before i lit ilya its only fair to let ilya have the last word. Absolutely. My last word is, buy ilyas book and buy carries book and janes become. The three books you need to have. Buy randys book. My book is less about thats then your books. These are the three musthave books to understand what were gout to go through. Youll know more than any constitutional law professor in the country who is not read this three books. Thanks for all the kind words [overlapping speakers] talk on television. Certainly more than most expertston except for ilya or carrie or on social media. So i just ilya, i want to just help us as you do so well wrap this up and draw all these threads we talked about today together, where we have been, where we and are what we should expect and thank you for the book. As carrie said and professor barnett said, its it is the book youd in right now and couldnt have come am at a better time so thank you. Thanks for those kind words jan and for blushing it and randy for blurbing it and carrie for writing you book. Couldnt have written the kavanaugh chapter so ease live without that to draw on. A a half or dozen or so weapons we can draw from the sweep of our political confirmations that are as applicable in the Current Situation as thats ever are. Politics has always been part of the process. You cant remove it, as randy discussed. Confirmation fights now are driven by political philosophy or judicial philosophy, rather, thats a little different than the way that politics has played a role in the past and modern confirmations are different because the political culture is different. Modern life, even if the rhetoric is just as dem googlic demagogic, modern porlarization works differently. Hearings have been kabuki theater. He come out against public confirmation herrings for Supreme Court nominees. Think they overall for Public Discourse add more heat than light. Theres a forgetter cost than been get. We can learn pet nominees writes examination browns and theres sensitive thing thursday fbi background is covered in the closed hearings. Every nomination can hey of significant impact. Certainly this one more than a lot of them. This would mark a big shift from the left to the right no matter who from the short list is picked, and the hardest confirmations come when there is a potential for that big shift. And finally, the reason why we have these big battles and why were all kind of in a frenzy right now is because the court rules on so many controversies making the political battles in the zero sum game unavoidable, and so again i dont have enough easy answers. Its taken a decade to get to where we are now and will take decades to unwinds. Thank you very much, everyone. Thank you. Ilya shapiro and thanks to cato for hosting this. Im sorry bet the technical difficulties. Carrie, randy, thanks as always for your incredible insights. I look forward to hearing what you have to say in the weeks and months ahead as this unfolds and how it all unfolds, but thank you all very much for joining us. And lets try to do this again. Welcome to this webinar from the middle east institute. Im process pleased to introduce two terrific authors who have done the impossible, unravel saudi arabia. Ben hubbard, mbs, which has come to stand for something much bigger than those three alerts. Want to say to the audience that i welcome you. Also, ill be taking audience questions. Ill read where you can put your questions. You can submit questions at any time tgh