Associate Justice Ruth Bader ginsburg of the Supreme Court of the United States. I have said that i will hold this office as long as i can do the job full steam. Rose and youre doing it. So i know this year im okay. At my age im 83 you have to take it year by year. Im hopeful that i have many years. Rose politics and ginsburg next. Rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by the following and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose we begin this evening with our continuing coverage of the president ial election. The Republican Party finds itself divided after House Speaker paul ryan backed away from donald trump on monday. Though he did not revoke his endorsement, speaker ryan said he would no longer campaign for the g. O. P. Nominee. The decision drew criticism from his caucus and trump called him weak and ineffective in a series of tweets. Monday wikileaks had a new round of hacked emails about Hillary Clinton and her campaign. Ed rollins, republican strategist and cochairman of protrump Great America super pac and jake sherman of politico. Jake, tell me where we are these days. Its tough to keep track. Donald trump spent much of the day attacking republicans for being weak kneed. What ryan and a lot of other people in the House Republican conference and on capitol hill are wondering is whether hes angered people, whether he will depress turnout by walking away from donald trump. Its difficult to see how this all ends up and with 28 days left donald trump said the shackles are off. Well see what that means. Rose what does it mean . What do people who have been covering donald trump think it means . I think hes going to be who he wants to be and hes not going to worry about paul ryan or the 246 members of the House Republican conference and the selfdozen members up for reelection in very difficult races across the country. From people i talk to at the highest levels of capitol hill, theyre seriously concerned about losing control of both chambers of congress for the first time, when, before Congress Left washington a few weeks ago for its election recess, they were hoping to keep their losses to single digits. Now in the house theyre talking about maybe 30 seats are because donald trump is still talking to and this is what they say donald trump is still talking to a very narrow slice of his base and will not and seems to refuse to want to broaden that message at all. Rose do you believe there is possibly within the trump campaign, and i mean by that the candidate mostly, a belief that, look, they all say theyre going down. So if theyre going down, they will be true to ourselves and lets show them who we are. Yes, i think he thinks that and thats certainly what it seems he thinks. He has some evidence. He did win a primary by ignoring Political Consultants and doing things his way. When he was told to go to New Hampshire and diners and shake hands, he didnt do all of that, he did some. But win ago general election where Hillary Clinton has a big early voter operation, i mean, there are fundamentals to winning a largescale election that donald trump has pointedly ignored and, again, he does think if hes going to go down, hes going to go down being himself, at least thats what it seems like. Rose are we looking at an historic defeat . If the election were today, it would be an historic defeat. The possibility is there and in four weeks a lot can happen, but if it was held today, he would be very defeated, similar to a goldwater or george h. W. Bush when he lost reelection. You also have the thirdparty candidates who may take eight or so percent of the vote away. You cant win this with 37 and this is where trump is in most of the polls today. Rose what do you think the impact is on the down vote in the senate and the house. First of all, its lack of enthusiasm. The vast majority of americans are so disgusted on both sides of the election in which there are alternatives. There is a die hard republican who loves what hes doing but its a small segment. The majority segment wants not to have Hillary Clinton as president. He has a tremendous opportunity of laying out his vision of the country, where will we go in the future, here are the experiences ive had in the past and heres what we need to do to get jobs back. Hs done that piecemeal, but hes tempted to fight somebody on our own side. If i was running a campaign, i would have a lobotomy and dont talk about any republican from here till november. Talk about Hillary Clinton and barack obama and where youre different and thats the campaign of the future. Rose what does it mean for the republican if in fact what looks like happening continues and there is a devastating i mean, there is an overwhelming election. What does it do to the Republican Party . The trump wins, he gets the task of brig it back together. Obviously he wont have success unless he has Republicans Holding the senate and the house which obviously may be in jeopardy today. If he doesnt win, which is what we would say today, then the various players that are in the game have to decide how to move forward and have an agenda with Hillary Clinton as president. Thats a big challenge. Either way, weve got a big challenge. Rose you know the conversation within the party. Are you seeing more people abandoning trump because to have the debate performance which was a little bit better than the first debate . I think most people today are going to run their own races, and whats unfortunately happened is we started out with a very uphill battle with the senate. Most of the senates in trouble basically did a good job of running campaigns, pennsylvania and elsewhere, ohio. But whats happened is you get knocked down by the wave, and thats the big fear today. Rose the wave election, it has the possibility. Everythings still a possibility. Normally an election is over by now. There is seldom a change attend of this campaign. I have been doing this 50 years. Ive never seen an election like this and i think there is a lot more to come. What worries me, if trump decides im going to take off the shackles and fight my own party the rest of the way, it will be a devastating election. Rose what is it about donald trump who wants him to do that, jake . I think hes played by his own rules for a long time. Characteristically on capitol hill, we see when people come up and get elected and owned a business and been successful in the other realm, they think the rules dont apply to him and thats how he comported himself. One other thing we havent mentioned is at the highest levels of the Republican Party in washington, people believe this is not the end of the Opposition Research on donald trump. People believe there are other videos, more audio coming out, and thats what is really scaring them, and tats why theyre beginning to put that distance there. I think, if that happens, well see a lot more many more republicans walk away from his candidacy. Rose women will vote overwhelmingly. Women, weve had a gender problem for a long period of time, but, you know, a good candidate can close that up somewhat and they targeted women today, obviously, potential through first woman candidate for president is going to be out in droves, they vote in higher numbers than men do, and trump basically needs to go play to that constituency, especially younger women. Hes not doing it. I think to a certain extent, may not be the intensity there was in the Africanamerican Community and other communities, turnout may not be quite as large as the obama election, but at the same time, today, its not about redneck, bluecollar guys, the reagan democrats, its about can you get women to buy into this candidacy for economic purposepurpose or the good of te country or national security, and thats what the message needs to be. In 27 days with one more big debate, you can still make a challenge to that constituency, but you cant do it by fighting your own side. Rose whats the biggest shift youve seen taking place in the last month of a campaign . I mean, has there been a dramatic shift so that you saw something change . Or is it simply a momentum that was there . Reagan, in 1980, people decided they didnt want jimmy carter and reagan had to prove he was a viable alternative and after the debate he did that and thats when the landslide came into play and that was the only time anybodys been in this kind of positioning come on to win. Every other election is very close. You pretty much know. There is so much polling today and its pretty accurate. When youre four or five points down, you talk about millions and millions of voters and youre really dealing in a small world today. Its not a 50state campaign, its an eight or ninestate campaign, so in my sense, its much harder to move numbers dramatically and i think most debates reinforce your own base. I dont think anybody moved off his better performance the other night but attend of the day if he had stumbled and not done as well as he did, you would have seen a real erosion again of more republicans. Rose who does he listen to, jake . Increasingly, himself, but Stephen Bannon who is basically running the campaign who started breitbart. One thing were seeing with the debate is its empirical, fur and fewer people are saying theyre persuade by these. A poll came out monday that showed 80 of voters show these debates are not factored into their vote in november. So thats exactly right. Rose what about the emails . Are they telling us anything about Hillary Clinton . Yeah, theyre showing us the inner workings of her campaign, theyre showing she was truly fearful of bernie sanders, she was truly i think the a great message for donald trump this week would have been that Hillary Clinton is telling wall street donors Something Different than shes saying publicly and that is a pretty plain thing youre finding in these emails. She said she was for open borders, basically for unlimited free trade, and thats a message that in this populist antitrade election could have been extraordinarily powerful. You need to have one message behind closed doors and one publicly. The ads right themselves. These are not difficult messages to get across especially in this political climate, but instead, donald trump is tweeting ability john mccain saying hes foulmouthed and saying he needs paul ryans support or else he cant win. So it does seem to be a wasted opportunity. Those emails are going to keep coming out over the next 20 or something days. Wikileaks say they have tens of thousands of these. So again, its not over but its getting there. Rose we look forward to the next debate. What else are you asking, jake . I think the fallout from people across the country who are running in these down ballot races, how the constituencies are looking for them if they run away from trump. Will the turnout be such that they dont get elected . The concern is the base drops off and you dont get any independents on the other side because donald trump is not doing as well with independents as he once was. So well travel across the country seeing the play out in district by district and senate race by senate race as we get closer. The third debate will be interesting because its Foreign Policy and donald trump has been shaky on some Foreign Policy topics in past debates during the primary, and Hillary Clinton, there is a lot of knocks on her from donald trump when it comes to Foreign Policy and things were seeing across the middle east and the globe. So again, far from completely settled, but its getting very close. Rose yak, thank you so much. Thank you. Rose ed, thank you. My pleasure. Thank you. Rose back with the great justice of the Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Stay with us. Rose in 1980, president jimmy carter appoints you judge of the Appeals Court of the district of columbia, a place which has been the breeding ground of justices of the Supreme Court, including anton scalia. And justices berger and thomas. Rose and would be justice bork and chief . Were you excited when you got to sit on the bench one step away from the Supreme Court . Was i excited . Rose yeah. I was excited when jimmy carter decided to change the complexion of the u. S. Judiciary. People ask, did you always want to be a judge . For a young woman studying law in the late 1950s, it was an impossible treernlings women were not judges. But then jimmy carter looked at the federal bench and said those judges, they all look like me, but thats not how the great United States looks. So i will choose judges from all of the people and not just some of them. He was determined to appoint members of minority groups in numbers and women in numbers, not just as one at a time curiosities. He had only four years in office, and he had no Supreme Court vacancy to fill. But he appointed about 25 women to the federal trial bench and 11 to courts of appeals, and i was one of the lucky rose do you think he might have appointed you to the Supreme Court if in fact he had a vacancy to fill . It was too soon. He would have appointed shirley hufstedler. Rose right. She was placed on the court of appeals by president johnson in 1968. She was a great judge. Carter made her the first ever secretary of education. Rose right. And when he made her secretary of education, then there were no women on any federal appellate bench. He determined to change that. If he had a vacancy, there is no doubt he would have appointed shirley hufstedler. Rose so you moved to d. C. Marty comes to d. C. Yes. Rose gets a job as professor at georgetown, is a tax lawyer. Describe i mean, he was a pretty good tax lawyer. I would say in my not totally unbiased opinion that he was the best tax lawyer in america. Rose other people have said that. I love his sense of humor. He described himself as having a professional life devoted to protecting the deservedly rich from the predations of the poor and downtrodden. laughter and ross perot wanted to endow a chair and he couldnt get him to the idea. So ross perot said, i think the story goes, im going to create a chair for him, i think it was maybe oral roberts, yes. We wouldnt tell. Ross said he wants to set up the Martin Ginsburg chair, wants us to pick the school. In the jewish religion, we dont name things after people until after theyre dead. He said dont tell me that. I have named the symphony in dallas and in the bronx and thats okay. So when we still hadnt identified a school, he said, i will set up the martin d. Ginsburg chair at oral roberts university. We said, ross, i dont think the founder of oral roberts would want to have him. He said, ive spoken to him personally, he said, we are all gods children, and he would be delighted to. So we named georgetown with the agreement that the chair would not be filled while matte whe marty was on the faculty but instead the income would be used for the deans discretionary account. Thats why the dean of georgetown was very fond of marty. Rose you made n. Y. U. Something thats become known as the madison lecture. You made the point nat you thought the decision in roe v. Wade was too broad because it gave a singular target for all those who oppose abortion. At the time of roe v. Wade, abortion law was in flux across the country. Rose different states have different laws . Yeah. So some states, including my own, new york, gave a woman access to an abortion in the first trimester, no questions asked. It was just her decision. Others had moved to grounds, like risk to the womans health, the pregnancy was a product of a rape, or rose incest. Incest, yes. Others had conditions that had to have the approval of two doctors. So the law was changing across the country. The people who wanted to keep the prohibition of abortion strong were fighting in states sometimes winning, sometimes losing. Rose so they were fighting a lot of wars in different places and then all of a sudden there is one target row rowe roe v. Wade if the court had done what it had in other cases, one step at a time always in the right direction, but no giant step, a progression that made it seem like the next step was natural. But roe v. Wade made every restrictive law in the country, even the most liberal law unconstitutional in one fell swoop, the court had done it all. So the people who favored a womans decision, they kind of retreated and the other side, as you said, had a target to rally around, and they could hit at that target and accuse the unelected justices of the Supreme Court of having made a major policy decision. Now, in truth, in 1973, when roe v. Wade was decided, it was uncontinue verse ail mong the justices, there were only two dissents, Justice White and rehnquist. The chief assigned to Justice Blackman but roe marked the point where the states began placing more and more restrictions and those cases came to the court and by and large it upheld the restriction. Rose might not have been that way if youd built i had no crystal ball. Hindsight, we can speculate what would have happened, but i thought it would have been a more secure way to go to take this one step at a time. Rose the other thing that interested me about when you think about what you have said in speeches and in writing and about the law is that you think that what the court says to be also a conversation. Yes. Rose with legislators. Yes. Rose and legislatures, state, federal, the congress, and, in fact, its happened that way in some cases in which a decision which may not go the way you want it will end up, because of a dissent, starting a conversation so that a congress who will either take a law and amend it could take away something they dont think is necessarily right, or add to it to strengthen something. My best example of that conversation is the Lilly Ledbetter case. Rose tell me about it. Lilly ledbetter was an area manager at a Goodyear Tire plant, one of very few women doing that kind of work. One day, she found in her mailbox a slip of paper with a series of numbers. The numbers were the compensation received by other area managers. Lillys pay was at the very bottom. A young man who had very recently come on board was earning more than she was. So she begin a lawsuit under title 7, which is our principal antiemployment discrimination law, and she did that well. She got a nice jury verdict. But her case came to this court, the majority, fivemember majority said she sued too late. How could that be . Rose a procedural question. Yes. Its the timing. What they relied on was a provision that said the person complaining of discrimination in employment must complain within 180 days of the discriminatory event. And lilly had been working at this job for over a decade, far too late, far longer than 180 days. My view of the case was every paycheck she receives renews the discrimination. So she had 180 days from the latest paycheck to complain. And then i tried to explain why Lilly Ledbetter didnt sue earlier, as a Woman Holding a position that traditionally has been held by men, she didnt want to rock the boat. She did not want to be seen as a troublemaker. Besides, they didnt give out pay figures. The employer didnt give out pay figures. But even if she knew that she was discriminated against from the beginning and she sued as soon as she possibly could, if she had sued early on, we know what the defense would have been, it would have been that it had nothing to do with lilly being a woman, its just she doesnt do the job as well as the men. But then, year after she gets good performance ratings, they no longer have the defense, no longer have the defense she doesnt do the job as well. They said she does the job as well or better. So now she has a winnable case, and the court said she sued too late. I explained that in my dissenting opinion, and the tag line was, the ball is now in Congress Court to correct the error into which my colleagues have fallen. Rose and thats exactly what they did. And connell passed the and Congress Passed the Lilly Ledbetter fair pay act, the first piece of legislation president obama signed when he became our president. Rose there was also in 1993 you were appointed to the court of appeals, and you were on the court of appeals and you were appointed by president clinton one year after he became president to be on the Supreme Court, and the associate justice of the spfnlgt Justice Rehnquist is the chief justice. You have a Good Relationship with him. I had a very Good Relationship with him. Rose you liked him. As i remember, he loved gilbert and sullivan. Yes. Rose and he appointed you to write the v. M. I. Case involving i cant explain the inner workings of the court on that particular point, but this i can say, it was a 7to1 decision that if the chief did not join my opinion, but he joined the judgment. Rose right. Scalia was the only dissenter. Justice thomas was recused, he couldnt sit on the case because his son, at the time, was a student at v. M. I. So it was a 71 decision, and Justice Scalias dissent aimed more at the chief than it did at me. I guess he expected what i would do, but he was surprised by the chief. Rose many consider that the most opinion youve ever written. Do you . It remains to be seen. laughter rose there may be one around the corner. First monday in october, not far off. Im very fond of some of my dissenting opinions. Rose you are, as much as some of the majority opinions as in the Lilly Ledbetter case. One in which congress yes, congress could still do something about it but it was the socalled Shelby County case where the court held, invalidated the key provision of the Civil Rights Act of 19 the Voting Rights act of 1965, even though that legislation had been renewed time and again by congress, every time with overwhelming majorities on both sides of the aisles, republicans, democrats, but the court said that the coverage formula the coverage formula was that a state that had been a discriminator in the bad old days when africanamericans were not allowed to vote could not adopt any law relating to elections unless they precleared it through either the department of justice, civil rights division, or a special threejudge court in the district of columbia. So things were working pretty well under that clearance system. The court says the formula of who belongs in the discriminatory camp was outdated and congress had to do it again. It would be a hard thing for congress to do again what senator or representative would get up and say, my state or my county is still discriminating, so better keep us under federal surveillance . Rose yeah. The law itself had a builtin meek nism for getting out if you were no longer discriminating. It was called the bailout provision. If you had shown for x number of years there had been no discrimination in voting, then you could come out from under the system, and i thought congress had identified a very good way to get out. Anyway, thats a dissension that i thought was rose important. Yes. Rose when you came to the court, Sandra Day Oconnor was your good friend. Yes. Rose and when she left, you said that was a turning moment. When sandra left, it was a very lonely place for me to be. The perception of the court, we come and sit on the bench, and there is the audience of spectators including the School Children that come in and out of the court at ten minutes a time. They looked at the bench and they saw eight rather wellfell men up wellfed men up there rose rather wellwefed men laughter it was the wrong perception. Rose the optics, they say now. Yes. I had been there over 23 years, so i sit, by seniority, close to the middle. Justice sotomayor is on now my left side, Justice Kagan on my right side. We are all over the bench. We look like we we are onethird of the court. Rose yeah. And my newest colleagues are not shrinking violets. They take a very active part in the colloquy that goes on in oral arguments. Rose you are a questioner. You love to ask questions. You love to lead the questioning. Youre also, as we know, previously a litigator. Yes. Rose but youre there and youre curious and youre no shrinking violet, you. Yes. Rose you may be 5foot4 a little less. Rose or less. But, i mean, your voice is strong and is heard by those advocates standing in front of you. Yes . Yes. Rose you love it. You love it. I do. What do you love . Is it the argument . Is it what . Its the constant thinking. The constant thinking, and to see if i can get counsel to help reduce the level of controversy by asking a question designed to elicit a yes response that will narrow the area of disagreement. Rose justice scalia. Yes. Rose many people, you know, have been fascinated by the fact that Ruth Bader Ginsburg and anton antonin scale good friends and you both loved opera. He was a good singer. Justice slyia had a very good tenor voice. When undergraduate at georg georgetown, he was in the glee club at georgetown, and i am a monotone. Wil laughter rose his death shocked you . Yes. Rose do you miss him on the court . Of course, i do. Its a paler place without him. Rose it doesnt have much color and vibrancy. Because he was a wonderful storyteller. He had an uncanny ability to make even the most somber judge smile. He told many jokes. He was very good humored. We shared a passion for opera, and we both genuinely cared about family. Rose they brought you back to Harvard Law School to honor you, and lots of people there in terms of clerks and lots of other people, and you talked about the balance, the importance of family and the balance that you had found between the law and family. And you think its important, the family for life . Rose yes. You spoke about it. Yes. When i was going to law school, my daughter was 14 months when i started. So i would take my classes, go to the library, study hard, but 4 00 was when the nanny went home, and that was janes time, my daughters time. We would go to the park, we would play games, i would read to her, and then, after she was bathed and fed and went to sleep, i went back to the law with renewed energy. I described it as the two parts of my life, each part was a respite from the other. By 4 00 in the afternoon, id had enough of it. Rose enough intense intellectual engagement. And then it was fun to be with jane. Rose and she turned out to be a lawyer as well. She is a distinguished law professor at columbia law school. Rose and one class above or below Justice Roberts at harvard. Yes. Rose when you look at what happened after scalia died and garland the president wanted to appoint garland, he couldnt get it to bring to a vote, so youre left with four and four. Yes, eight is not a good number for a collegial body that sometimes disagrees sometimes disagrees, i should stress, because the press doesnt explain it as it should. Rose explain it. We are unanimous, at least in the bottom line judgment, much more often than we divide 54. So i would say we are unanimous in about 40 of the cases, and the Sharp Division rose unanimous in about 40 of the cases. Yes, at least as to the bottomline judgment. Rose what the decision will be. Yes. And the divisions of the 5 to 4 or 5 to 3 were only eight, they would be maybe 20 . So we agree much more than we disagree. Even so, if we divide 54, we are unable to issue a binding judgment, what we do is we automatically affirm the decision of the court below. No opinion is written, no reasons are given, and the affirmens has no preferential value. So if we divide 54, its just as though we denied review. Rose as if you didnt do it. Thats right. Rose didnt look at it. Yes. Rose and thats not good because you want to Supreme Court to be the court of last resort. Yes. Rose and this way youre making the court of appeals the court of last resort. Thats right. Rose and thats not why we have the Supreme Court. And it could be worse than that, we took the case because courts disagreed. If were unable to decide the question, you can have one federal law in one area of the country, and the opposite federal law in another part of the country. So its important that the Supreme Court be able to resolve conflicts among other courts about what the federal law is. Thats why eight is not a good number. Rose so whoever becomes president will have when they arrive in the white house, an opportunity to appoint a new Supreme Court justice. Thats one scenario. The other possibility is the senate will act. Rose what would you like to see the senate do . I would like to see the court have a full house by the time this term ends. Rose you would like to see the court have a full house. Have nine members. Rose before this term ends. Yes. Rose which this term ends we stop hearing cases in april. Were still writing opinions in may and june, but the last sitting to ear oral argument is at the end of april. Rose some people say that if Hillary Clinton becomes president and its a very close race now you know, that you would likely see a democratic majority more than youve seen in a long time. Youve got four now four liberals, for lack of a better classification. I mean, you could see a very different court. You could, but i resist the notion that, if you are a democrat, then you are liberal. Rose i know. That was too easy but i just think of John Paul Stevens appointed by president ford, save david souter appoint. The great chief Justice Earl Warren appointed by brennan, a republican. Bill brennan was a registered republican when he was on the new jersey Supreme Court, he was also appointed by eisenhower. Rose yeah. Youve had successful battles with cancer, heart stent. You look and seem to me to be in good health. Yes, i rose good energy . Yes. Rose ive spent the last two hours with you. No thought of retiring . Ive said that i will hold this office as long as i can do the job full steam. So i know this year, im okay. At my age, im 83, you have to take it year by year. Im hopeful that i have many years i will have many years of good health and good thinking ahead. Rose and you point to the fact that lewis bran dice was appointed at 60 and you were appointed at 60 and he served till his early 80s. I cant use him anymore because ive served longer. Rose do you have another model . Of course, i can say my Dear Colleague justice John Paul Stevens who stepped down when he was 90. Rose when you look at the court, is it essentially you take pride in institutions. I mean, it is said about you, you feel the weight of the and maybe everybody does but you feel you love and feel the inns tuitional quality of the Supreme Court. I think the Supreme Court is the most respected high court in the world. It wasnt always that way. It may be a rumor or a legend, but president Andrew Jackson was repeated to have said, well, the Supreme Court said that about how the cherokee indians should be treated fairly. The the Supreme Court says now let them enforce it because we have no Purse Strings and we have no guns at our disposal. Yet, when the Supreme Court speakers people listen. Rose it can decide elections. I dont think, if you have in mind the one of a kind case, i dont think it decided the election. It decided it sooner but the outcome would have been the same because the election would have been thrown to the house of representatives which had a republican majority so it would have been a victory for bush anyway, but it would have come weeks and weeks later in a Supreme Court decision. Rose after the decision which was 90 in the watergate case, everybody understood the court had spoken and that was it. Yes. And the president turned over the tapes and resigned from office the next day. The first example, harry truman who seized the steel mills in the korean war, and when the court said you dont have that authority, mr. President , he immediately told the secretary of commerce, give the mills back to the owners, that, in many places in the world, the fact that a court speaks doesnt mean that the executive legislature will follow, will accept the decision. Rose one thing that you disagree with Antonin Scalia was that you should take a look at International Law, too. I have tried to clarify that International Law is not foreign law. What does it mean . International law is a law that governs relations among nations. We are a nation of the world. Therefore, we are governed by what our constitution calls the law of nations which is International Law. What we are not governed by is the law or the constitutional decision of some other court say in israel or in britain or south africa. So foreign law is not an authoritative source for us, but it can be something of persuasive value. There are good minds thinking about hard problems coming to huanity. There are good minds on courts all across the world. Rose you have been wonderful. One thing, televising the court, seeing justices write more books, speak out more about the conversation of america . Where do you come down on that . Televising the court . I am neutral on that question. Rose okay. I will say as long as any one of my colleagues is apprehensive about it, i would not push. Rose meaning it might effect the way they conduct themselves . Yes. I think the most weighty objection is the it gives the public a false picture of what an appellate case is. If you televise a trial, everything is happening right out in front of you before your eyes. You see the witnesses, you see the judge giving a charge to the jury, but in an appeal, much more important than the oral argument, is the written part. The first thing i do when i prepare for a hearing on a case, i read all of the decisions written before ours, so the trial court decision. Rose district court, Appeals Court. Then i turn to the lawyers briefs. Then maybely read what scholars have said about it. Rose or maybe an emekas brief. Yes, in important cases, we have dozens, sometimes over hundreds of friends of the court who tell us what they think about the hard question. So you come armed to the teeth by the time youre on the bench. After doing all that reading, you are inevitably leaning in one direction or the other. You dont come around the bench with an empty mind, not with a closed mind either, but you have thought about the case. We dont want the public to get the impression that an appellate argument is a debate that is the superior advocate will win. Its not at all what it is. The written component is ever so much important than the oral component. Rose this conversation has been about the past, not about the future, and obviously i wouldnt ask you about cases that are coming up because you wouldnt tell me anyway i know. But you do see more speeches, more appearances. Ive interviewed lots of judges, chief Justice Rehnquist, Justice Breyer and scalia and others, and i think its a good idea because we understand who these people are that have the power to impact our lives and to understand how they see their work and to understand now, obviously, you know, we dont we obviously dont want justices telling us how to vote, we dont want justices telling us whats right and wrong about everything, but we do like to know where their legal mind is, you know, and what shaped it. Your hero was lewis brandi. That says something about you. Your relationships on the court. All of that. Seems like it makes for a richer understanding of the court, and you contribute to that. Id like to mention one tremendous contributor is Justice Oconnor with her icivics program. School children nowadays dont learn about civics the way i did when we had a daily civics class. Now theyre concentrating on the math and reading scores. So civics tends to get cut, music, art. Thats too bad. But sandra started this icivics. Its pitched to middle School Children and it teaches them about government, about the court and why the court is different how the court is different from congress, and it does it in way that is fun for the children. So i thought that was at first, she spotted the need for that kind of education, and then she found a way to deliver it. Rose yes. That would be appealing. Rose she made it not only that clearly and part of that she made us, in lots of ways, understand a lot more about the judiciary, you know elected judges, all the different kinds of variations there are in the american judicial dim. Finally, this book is dead late to marty, dear partner in life and constant uplifter. Yes. Rose what do you mean by constant uplifter . Marty made me believe i was better than i thought i was. He was a most unusual man. He was the first boy i ever dated who really cared that i had a brain. Rose yeah. And we were best friends before we became very close. And marty was a man so secure in his own intelligence, his own competence, he never regarded me as any kind of a threat. On the contrary. He was always in my corner, always cheering me on because his notion was, if i decided i wanted to spend the rest of my life with this woman, she must be pretty special. laughter rose he left a letter. Yes. Rose tell me about that. When the hospital called me to tell me that he had taken a bad turn for the worst and there was nothing more they could do for him, so i went to the hospital i wanted him to die at home rather than in a hospital bed, and i was checking to make sure that we took all of his belongings. I pulled out a drawer, and on a legal pad, he had written a letter to me. It was the most beautiful love letter. I suspect he wanted me to find it. I keep it in my bedroom and, to this day, look at it now and then when i feel i need an extra shot of courage. Rose he said to you, you were the love of his life, more than anything, and he said he understood that he had to make hard questions, you know, that he knew he had terminal illness, you know, and he said he said, i hope you will agree with my rose decision. But i will love you none the less if you dont. Rose thank you for this time. Enjoyed it very much. I did, too. It was good to talk to you. Rose thank you. The book my own words Ruth Bader Ginsburg, with mary hart necessary and wendy w. Williams. Thank you for joining us. See you next time. For more about this program and earlier episodes, visit us online at pbs. Org and charlierose. Com. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. The following kqed production was produced in high definition. [ music ] yes, check, please people its all about licking your plate. The food is just fabulous. I should be in psychoanalysis for the amount of money i spend in restaurants. I had a horrible experience. I dont even think we were at the same restaurant. Leslie and everybody, im sure, saved room for those desserts