Transcripts For MSNBCW The 11th Hour With Brian Williams 20200919

And i think thats what were seeing as much as anything. But before Justice Ginsburg passed last night, the last justice to die while he was still a member of the court was Justice Ginsburgs friend, the deeply conservative scalia. Justice scalia died unexpectedly in february 2016 on a hunting trip. On a ranch in texas. Of course because he died in february 2016, that means that barack obama was president. The republicans had control of the senate, but the democratic president held the white house. Within one hour of the announcement of Justice Scalias passing in february 2016, the republican leader in the senate, the majority leader, senator mcconnell, issued this statement. He said, quote, the American People should have a voice in the selection of their next supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president. Now, in february 2016 there wasnt even a republican nominee for president. There was no democratic nominee either. The president ial campaign hadnt gotten nearly that far. But ten months before the 2016 election, 11 months i mean, 10 months before that election was going to happen, before we had nominees of either party, senator Mitch Mcconnell decided that president obama would not be allowed to perform his constitutional duty and responsibility to replace Justice Scalia on the Supreme Court simply because the calendar year was 2016 and that was an Election Year somewhere way down the road and he decided that was reason enough to hold that seat. President obama nominated a replacement anyway. In march of the year. The month after scalia died. He nominated the chief of the u. S. Circuit court of appeals in the district of columbia, Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court. Merrick garland was a well liked, well respected, noncontroversial pick for the bench. He might have been seen as too conservative by some democrats in the democratic base. Merrick garland was a moderate jurist, well liked by even republican lawmakers. In fact, some republicans in the senate had held him up as the kind of example of a moderate sen tryst justice who they could get behind, but they were sure that a democratic president would never nominate him. Well, president obama did. 63yearold sen tryst jurist Merrick Garland who had been hardly and unanimously approved by the senate in the past. Nevertheless, Mitch Mcconnell vowed that Merrick Garland would never see the inside of the Supreme Court, that his nomination would never be considered. President obama would not be allowed to fill that open seat, not if he nominated jesus himself. The republicans on the Senate Committee that consider Supreme Court appointments, the judiciary committee, all 11 members not only agreed with Mitch Mcconnell on this, they all put their names to it in writing. They signed a letter saying they would not consent to any nominee put forward by barack obama because it was 2016, and thats an Election Year. So for the first time in the modern era, for the First Time Since reconstruction immediately after the civil war in the 1860s, the Controlling Party in the u. S. Senate in 2016, they refused to hold any hearings at all. They refused to fill an open seat on the Supreme Court. Merrick garland never got a hearing. October of 2016, the Supreme Court reconvened with just eight justices on the bench. They held that seat open for 400 plus days. And you know how the rest of the story goes. That november an upset win by donald trump. Hes elected president. The january the following year, the Previous Congress came to a close. That meant the expiration of the Merrick Garland nomination. New congress was sworn in, President Trump nominated conservative judge neil gorsuch. Republicans were happy to hold confirmation hearings then and gorsuch was on the bench by april. He described that as the proudest moment in his career. Mitch mcconnell has turned it into a sort of rallying cry, a matter of inspiration. The absence of bedrock principal as his political calling card and war cry. The American People may well elect a president who decides to nominate judge garland for senate consideration. The next president may also nominate somebody very different. Either way, our view is this. Give the people a voice in filling this vacancy. Mcconnell said the next president should get to fill that seat, not obama, not that close to a president ial election. When president obama nominated Merrick Garland, it was 237 days before the 2016 election. Were now 46 days, 46 days from this election. But leader mcconnell says tonight President Trumps nominee will receive a vote on the floor of the United States senate. And we can say that. That doesnt make it true, but thats his plan. Joining us now is the Legal Correspondent and Senior Editor at slate. Always a pleasure to have you here under these circumstances. These are sad circumstances tonight. It is. It is. I never thought that day would come. I didnt think it would ever come. Part of the reason i wanted to talk to you is because Justice Ginsburg liked you a lot. You covered her very closely for years on the Supreme Court. You talk to people like me on the Supreme Court. But she liked you. She not only called you very good at one point. She called you spicy, which i have to imagine became a touch stone for your life that Justice Ginsburg called you spicy and she meant it in a good way. Can you talk about covering her and what you knew of her and what your interactions were like with her . I mean, i was so lucky, rachel. I got to sit down with her in january for a really long interview. We did a special project where we interviewed all of the women that started harvard with her. And she was supposed to give us a half hour. She gave us more than an hour, and she was so ginsburgy. You know, she fact checked us. We lost a woman somehow who didnt graduate. She made us track her down. She was so precise and so meticulous. And right after that the court shut down for covid, and so we were incredibly lucky to get the time with her. But im really struck by something, rachel, that nina said, which is that she was the least likely superhero because she was very precise, very conservative in every way. She almost didnt get the Supreme Court nomination because the womens Rights Movement thought she was way, way too conservative. She was an incrementalist. She was old school and she torqued into this larger than life radical feminist icon. She completely changed in a lot of ways. I think its a function of being the only woman on the court after Sandra Day Oconnor left. In terms of that role and that transformation, what do given that, given that ark that you just described and given what you knew about her in person, how do you think that we should think about her role as, you know, notorious rbg, this pop culture presence that she sad, the way that she became a living icon even as she still served on the court. Should we see that as ironic, as a sideshow to her importance as a jurist, or is that is that central to our legacy . Does that end up changing her in history because she had such a huge profile . I mean, you can compare her now to Justice Sotomayor and justice kagan, and they are beloved. Justice soto minor wrote a book that was well received. They have followings. Nothing like the cult of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. No. Ive got the earrings. Ive got the hat. Ive got the mug. It is just a whole different she loved the hero worship. She loved that everybody knew her workout routine. And i think she gloried in it. But i dont think she gloried in it because she necessarily wanted to be a rock star. I think she was trying incredibly hard, especially in the last few decades, to talk to young women, to talk to millennials, to talk to High Schoolers and college students. She really felt, i think, particularly as the fortunes changed at the court and she started writing the sense, she felt that she had to pitch herself at home because they were the generation that was going to effectuate change. And i think whats really important is i never heard her talk before taking time to say i stand on the shoulders of giants. She would cite chapter and verse anybody who helped her in her career, everybody who helped her get a clerk ship, every professor who reached out and gave her a chance. So i think she was both really mindful of who came before and blazed the trail and also really mindful of who came after. And i think in some ways that iconic status kind of hits the middle distance right between where she happily, joyfully accepts that we all have the earrings and the mug. But i think she has a much deeper message, which is im not coming to save you. I stand on the shoulder of giants, and you are going to some day stand on my shoulders and change the world. There is two other things that are immediately upon us, which we have to think about, even though tonight is a night to mourn the passing of Justice Ginsburg. We do have to think about what comes next. Im going to pose these both to you at once. You can pick which one you want to answer first. The first is that i have to ask you to weigh in on what is likely to happen or what you think will happen when it comes to the process around filling this seat given what happened with Justice Scalias seat in 2016 and the Republicans Holding that open for more than a year and not allowing president obama to fill that and saying they invented some principle that meant they couldnt allow a confirmation process to go forward until after the election. The other thing i want to ask you, and i havent put this to anybody tonight yet, is the prospect that the republicans do find a way to fill this seat with another gorsuch or brett kavanaugh, somebody that President Trump has put forward as recently as last week. If the court does become a 63 sort of hard right solid majority, what do you think we should prepare ourselves for in terms of what we lose or what happens through the court that could significantly change American Life . Well, ill do your first question quickly, which i think that, and i think nina made this point as well. I was astonished that there was almost no blowback to Mitch Mcconnell and republican senators taking the position they took. Not only did they not give Merrick Garland a confirmation hearing, some of them didnt give him courtesy meetings. They didnt say come into my office and well talk. I was really shocked. You may remember, rachel, in the fall of 2016 ted cruz, john mccain, Chuck Grassley were all saying things like even if Hillary Clinton wins, were going to hold that seat open for four years. Well hold it open for eight years. So they were unequivocal that this was about power and who controlled the senate. And they won. They just flatout won. There was no consequence. And as we know, i think donald trump by about a 21 margin voters who said they cared about the Supreme Court broke for him. So this was a winning issue for him and for republicans in the senate. And i think the question is whether that changes now, whether in the wake of brett kavanaugh, in the wake of really seeing the Abortion Case this year come down to a thread whether people who are democrats are going to say, you know what, im bumping the court up on the list. It is now my priority, too. And polls suggest that is happening post brett kavanaugh, post this term. But well see. On the merits, rachel, it is terrifying to see what could happen if this seat goes to somebody who on the record wants to overturn roe, on the record people who are on this short list will not even say whether brown v board was correctly decided. With massive water shed, turning back the clock. We will turn back the clock on not just Voting Rights, civil rights, worker rights, environmental rights, women rights, you name it, we have seen the beginning of a juggernaut these past two terms and i think it will only continue. I think if democrats want any of the outcomes they say they want, the quickest door way to that is getting the Supreme Court. That means voting. It means voting even in covid, and it means taking back the senate. Legal correspondent, Senior Editor at slate, somebody once described by Justice Ginsburg as, quote, spicy. It is great to have you here tonight. It is very sad circumstances. But thanks for making time to be with us. Thank you, rachel. I want to reiterate what we heard a few moments ago from Vice President joe biden. He gave remarks from wilmington, delaware. He had been on a plane and had heard about the passing of Justice Ginsburg. He closed his remarks with this. He said, quote, the voters should pick a president and that president should select a successor to Justice Ginsburg. This has been reiterated in a written statement. This was the position that the Republican Senate took in 2016 when there were nearly nine months before the election. Thats the position the u. S. Senate must take now. We are talking about the constitution and the Supreme Court. The institution should not be subject to politics. Right now the institution of the Supreme Court is represented by the building that you see on the left side of your screen there. That is the courts building in washington, d. C. And of course just like every other institution of life, the courts proceedings have been disrupted and carried out under strange new Remote Access rules because of the pandemic. But tonight people are there. It seems like everybody that we can see is wearing a mask, which at least is good and it is of course outdoors. But this crowd is growing increasingly large at the Supreme Court tonight. People are spontaneously convening there in recognition of how important this political moment this, the political fight that will happen over her seat, what it suggests in terms of americas institutional norms and how much they have survived not just the Trump Presidency but what led up to it in terms of the Merrick Garland nomination being ignored by the Republican Controlled Senate even while president obama was president. It is a big night. The headline of Justice Ruth Bader ginsburgs obituary in the New York Times tonight calls her, quote, feminist icon. Described as powerful and describing her powerful and pointed dissenting reasons earning her, quote, late life rock star some. That obituary was just posted tonight in the New York Times, and it of course you dont have to look at the buy line to know that it was written by her next guest, the great Linda Greenhouse. Reporter and analyst for the New York Times. I cannot think about the Supreme Court for very long without thinking about you. Thank you for being here on such a sad and pivotal night. Im delighted to be on your show, rachel. But these are tough circumstances. Yeah. Can you talk to me a little bit about the way that Justice Ginsburg is perceived. Obviously the ginsburg vacancy on the court will become a whole other thing in terms of politics and the institution of the court. But with her passing tonight, the loss of her as a human being among us, can you tell us about what she means in u. S. History and what she meant to you covering her for all these years . Yeah. I heard your very interesting conversation with my friend dahlia. One thing that occurred to me, however, is her rock star status really said as much about us as it said about her. Maybe it said more about us than it said about her in the sense that i think we needed her voice. She in her powerful dissenting opinions in lets say the second half of her tenure on the court, she channelled feelings of discomfort that so many of us had with the way things were evolving on the court, and she was able to speak to law but also speak to reality, you know, in her great dissent in the Shelby County case that cut the heart out of the Voting Rights action. Chef Justice Roberts said, well, things have changed in the south. We dont need this kind of things anymore. She said, thats like saying you dont need an umbrella just because it stopped raining. She was able to take these deep constitutional principals and explain to ordinary people and tell us what it really meant. We needed her. And ill also say she had been at this so long her really to use a ginsburg word, path making litigation strategies in her early career as a young lawyer established new norms of constitutional thinking about sex discrimination, about equality, the nature of equality that we now kind of take for granted, but they were radical which she stood up before that all male court and talked about the true meaning of the 14th amendment which the Supreme Court never thought had anything to do with women or discrimination on the basis of sex. She made that happen. She could talk to them in ways that they could understand. And its really a life of remarkable achievement. Talking about her framing issues and her clarity of thought in the way that she brings things down to a human level, it makes he wonder about her role on the court. It has been im talking to Linda Greenhouse. Ill probably get this wrong and you will correct me, but it seems to me there has been a generation since there was a democrating appointed, liberal led court in a long time. But in what way was Justice Ginsburg a leader of the liberal wing of the court . And does the liberal wing of the Court Function that way . How do you expect it to change with the absence of her voice and her role . Well, a couple of things. She was the senior associate justice of the liberal wing once Justice Stevens retired in 2010. He was the republican appointee, but he retired as really just about the most liberal member of the court that he was serving on. And i think the others on her side of the street gave her a good deal of deference. And so in these important opinions, they deferred to her in dissent. And so she spoke for the four in these big 54 cases. And so the voice of dissent wasnt dissipated by every dissenter saying what they thought. It just they all spoke through her, and that really amplified her voice. And, you know, one thing about todays court, when you said a long time since there had been a democratic appointed majority, what was notable about the court that she joined in the early 1990s was that there was a fair amount of crossover. So, you know, Justice David sutter, republican appointee, became a liberal justice. Justice john paul stevens, as i said. Now we dont have that. We have a court where the liberals are all the democratic appointees and the conservatives are all the republican appointees, and thats a perilous thing for the court. It makes it very hard for people to look at the court and not see justices who are projecting a political agenda, even though they dont think thats what theyre doing, and i think thats not what theyre always doing, but it is very hard to look at them and not think, hm, what are they doing . Linda, if we do see just senator mcconnell succeed, he put out a statement saying there will be a vote on the floor for President Trump to replace Justice Ginsburg, and thats not at all a certainty and a lot of politics will go into whether or not that is decided, a lot of pressure and that will put a lot of spin on whats going on in the election fight for the next 46 days, but if mcconnell succeeds here and he is able to get another justice on the court who is along the lines idealogically of a Justice Brett kavanaugh or neil gorsuch, what do you think that we should know . I asked this of dahlia as well. What important cases would go the other way . What existing rulings would be over turned and what might change in america with a court that right winged . Well, one very troubling straw in the wind was i think a decision that came down from the 11th Circuit Court of appeals the other day involving Voting Rights for former felons in florida. And the court split 64, i think. I believe all the judges, five of the six appellate judges in the majority were trump appointees. And, so, you know, there is a template there for certainly a lack of regard for the right to vote. Voter suppression being the name of the game today. So thats very worrisome. We had a palate argument this week in the case involving harvard and harvard admissions and a phony claim which was rejected by the district judge that harvard is using racially discriminatory tactics in building a diverse class of students. And i think the ability of universities to take place at all into account in building their student body is certainly in jeopardy. Its been in jeopardy for a long time. But it was justice kennedy, you know, who retired two years ago that kind of kept that alive. So, you know, when dahlia mentioned abortion, thats obvious. The right to abortion really is hanging by a thread. So you kind of, you know, pick your case. And to the extent that things have happened only incrementally in recent years instead of sweeping decisions, thats because the conservative side couldnt always quite count on five votes and if they get one to replace Justice Ginsburg, i think a lot of this would be a foregone conclusion. Linda greenhouse, Supreme Court reporter and analyst for the New York Times. It is an honor to have you with us tonight, linda. Thank you for making time on such an important and difficult night. The obituary you just posted for Justice Ginsburg is a beautiful thing. Thanks. Thank you, rachel. All right. I think that we have been able to just turn this around. While i was speaking with Linda Greenhouse from the New York Times, we have been showing you these images tonight, these live images outside the Supreme Court. Just a few moments ago, this happened. And Amazing Grace people singing Amazing Grace outside the United States Supreme Court building tonight. We have been watching these crowds build all evening tonight in washington, d. C. Joining us now live is senator corey booker, member of the senator judiciary committee. Sir, it is great to have you here tonight. Thanks for making time. It is a difficult night. Very difficult night. And that was very, very beautiful. Yeah. I have been remarking on the air about how there arent very many things that happen in u. S. Politics where there is a physical place where people go to be together because of a political moment. I mean, there are rallies and there are events and there are planned things and conventions and all those sorts of things. But this is a spontaneous outpouring tonight. Its got my civics my civic soul sort of inflamed here looking at it. Its actually a very inspiring thing to see. It really is. And i think that a lot of americans get it at their core, that we were have been a country where by force of law, whether you are gay or black or a woman, the laws of this country were against you. And that building there, i could go through many of the awful, horrible cases, but its been champions in that building that helped this nation recognize the humanity and the dignity, the equality of us all. And her leaving, her death, not only in a year that we lost ct bivian, john lewis, so many of our heroes and champions falling by the side. But it is an era of people that advanced our rights and our liberty and our equality. But now there is a looming worry. We saw this with Ruth Bader Ginsburgs famous dissent as john lewis gaining the Voting Rights act but seeing it pushed back. We have seen this along so many different fronts that a lot of the gains that gave us the equality, the ability to control our bodies, so many of these things now, we are again at a cross road of or almost to the point where people want to pull us back. This is a night both to recognize the champion that she was in advancing human dignity, human rights and equality, but also that reaffirms the jeopardy that we are in. We are to let a lot of our hard earned rights potentially slip away and turn back the clock on a lot of the things that i think generations like mine and ones that have come since have taken for granted. Senator, can you tell us to the best of your estimation whats going to happen on your committee on the Senate Judiciary committee over these next few weeks . I am assuming that we will get President Trump announcing a nominee very quickly. We know the list that he says he will choose from. Those nominees hes made public lists of the people he said he will consider. What can you think will then happen . It is a republicancontrolled committee. Senator graham is the chairman. He said in the past that if an opening came up in the last year of President Trumps term, quote, we will wait until the next election. Do you believe he will keep his word about that . Do you have expectations in terms of how this is going to play out . Well, i dont have many expectations right now. There is obviously, as you can imagine, among me and my colleagues a lot of conversations and talk and i think thats going to continue through the hours into the weekend. But i want to just pause for a second about what you say about Lindsey Graham. There are a lot of senators that went to the floor during the Merrick Garland, ill call it a controversy because it really was, and the very firm statements about the timing of the election. And they were unequivocal, and they were very plain. And i think that this is going to be one of the great integrity checks of whether peoples word, honor and integrity is going to be steadfast. Im not so starry eyed not to believe that this is a rough world of politics. But i do believe that many of my republican colleagues should they go against what they should four years ago, they will not damage their own sense of honor, but i think they will do further damage to the institution in and of itself. So i dont know how this is going to roll, but we cross that hurdle first with people like Lindsey Graham going against what they said four years ago and others who came to the floor and made plain statements. I think that we are going to go into unfortunately another dark road, and i cant be sure how it all be play out. One of the reasons i wanted to speak with you, senator booker, is because i feel like you have you have a curiosity and interest and devotion to making sure that moral considerations are not only part of what everybody keeps to themselves about their political consideration but moral considerations are disgust and moral considerations are put forward and kept in the argument so that we know were talking about things that have value and things that arent just about power. Senator mcconnell had said gleefully before the passing of Justice Ginsburg that of course if there was a vacancy while President Trump was in office, even if it was five minutes before the election, of course he would fill it. Hes been publically gleeful and has actually raised funds on the basis of the fact that he would be rankly hypocritical in his approach to a Supreme Court vacancy with a republican president in Office Versus a democratic president in office. And that sort of excitement about it, that sort of glee in putting forward that it is about power and nothing else, that there is no principal at work, that i will do what is necessary to maximize me and my partys power no matter what and anybody who falls for any idea of a principal position of these things is a sucker who i will gleefully take advantage of, that performative power politics and the rule of what makes right is something i feel like were living through in republican politics and in the trump era. It is also something i dont feel like i have very much clarity at all as to whats the tactical way to find against ate. And the moral way to fight against it. Do democrats such as yourself on the judiciary committee, you know, stick to your principles and do whats right and be institutionalists and think about the country and get taken advantage of because of it when theyre playing with pure power on the other side . How do you defend against the kind of politics youre up against if it really just about seizing control. Well, i think you started the right way. Ive had a difficult time struggling with the degree to which Donald Trumps presidency has been a moral violation after moral violation, things that my republican leagues, even when i had conversations in private that they have been disgusted about the things this president has done to institutions, his attacks on Law Enforcement and his attacks on the fbi, his attacks on the intelligence community. This is a big, immoral moment from its very beginning. I know people might have used rank, power to try to win sort of their interests and stay loyal to the president all in the guise of that. But we are in a moral moment in america. And i think that this is a moment where were going to all be tested in how we choose to respond. So i know there will be a lot of attention rightfully on Senate Democrats. There will be people talking about what are the tactics or levers we have at all. I heard Hillary Clinton rightfully talk at the beginning of the show about what whatever procedural techniques we have, tactics we have. But i also want to tell you when they wanted to pull away the Affordable Care act, it wasnt just Senate Democrats trying to figure out ways to protect health care for millions of americans, it was america that showed up in a way that was so significant. And im hoping that this is a moment where america shows up. Regardless of what your political persuasion is, there is a clear way to go to honor of how we set up the traditions of Merrick Garland that they are violated now with all thats at stake, im hoping that people will speak out. Thats why the Supreme Court like you are showing with so Many Americans spontaneously coming out giving me hope that this will be one of those times that even if republicans want to do the wrong right that there will be enough people that have a sense of shame, enough people that have a sense of honor that they will stand up and speak up and prevent them from thrusting the senate further into a sort of an era of delegitization but from yanking and pulling the Supreme Court down further in the eyes of Many Americans in terms of being a delegit matt institution. It has been over come by power toll picks. Politic. Based on the sacrosanct ideals of this nation, ideals of human rights and civil rights. And im hoping at this time of her passing, we all can rise to her level of honor and stand upon those principles and show our commitment to them. Senator corey booker, a member of the Senate Judiciary committee. Thanks for being here tonight, senator. I know its friday night. It is a late night. And this is a difficult time, but it is an honor to have you here. Thank you. Thank you, rachel. Always. All right. Were going to take a quick break as we look again at these live images. Im glad theyre panning this so you can see. The pillars here and the within this moves like a movie set is because this is one of the most iconic places in washington, d. C. In a Downtown Washington that is meant to inspire awe for the constitution and the bedrock principles of our republic, the Supreme Court stands alone in terms of its architectural gravitas on capitol hill. To see people convened there tonight, not in protest or support of any one decision and not as overflow as one sort of protest or gathering happening nearby, see them turned out for the justice who passed tonight is a remarkable thing. Well take a quick break. Well be right back. The big events are back. Xfinity is your home for the return of live sports. Its good to have you with us tonight as we continue to cover the National Reaction to the death of supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg who died tonight from complications of pancreatic cancer at the age of 87. Cannot be seen to be a surprised that she has died given all the Health Problems she had and given her advanced age, but it is a shockwave across this country for many Different Reasons that she is gone tonight. Joining us now is president of the naacp, Legal Defense and education fund. I have been looking forward to talking to you all night. Thank you so much for making time. Thank you for having me, rachel. It strikes me that Justice Ginsburg is a different kind of justice that everybody else on the court that it is not just where you are on the ideological number line and what part of the math you make up in terms of how various 54 majorities and minorities were put together on this court. She came to this position on the court after a lifetimes work. A lifetimes worth of work as a pioneering civil rights attorney. There is nobody else like that left on the court now. No. And i think its, first of all, just want to say how difficult it is tonight to kind of accept this passing, even though, you know, i think many of us believed and knew that it was coming. And that is a hole thats left on the court. You know, Justice Ginsburg herself had been a civil rights lawyer at the aclu. She basically pioneered the field of womens right law. She had been a law professor. But she understood things that civil rights lawyers understand, which is how injustice actually unfolds. We saw this in the famous Lily Ledbetter case, the case of the woman that didnt realize she was being paid considerably less than a male counter part in the same job. And a majority of the court didnt understand how she didnt know. She was cutoff from her claim because they said it was too late. Her dissent talking about why a woman would not know she was being paid less was so powerful and important and later became the basis of the Lily Ledbetter equal pay act signed by president obama. And same in that strip search case involving the 13yearold girl that you may remember where at oral argument a number of the male justices seemed not to be able to understand why a 13yearold girl would feel so humiliated to being strip searched at school. As officials looked for drugs. And Justice Ginsburg talked about, they were never 13yearold girls. She had a way to have bringing into the work not only her brilliant intellect and her knowledge of the case law but she understood the lives of ordinary people because she had had clients who had been in those situations. I feel like a lot of people right now are despairing specifically about the prospect of civil rights and Voting Rights. If leader mcconnell succeeds in what he says hes going to do tonight which is getting a Trump Nominee voted on in the United States Senate Despite the fact were only 46 days away from an election and despite the fact he held a seat open for 400 days when Justice Scalia died and president obama was there. I think people are despondent about a judge being on the court and instituting what will be a generation of hard right majority that no that that no Voting Rights or civil rights case will survive. How dire are your worries about that prospect . Well, i havent quite gotten there yet, rachel, because i dont think we are there yet. I think this is a moment of reckoning for this country. And my eyes are darting away from the camera because im seeing all these people standing outside the United States Supreme Court. This year 2020 has been so difficult, but it has really been a reckoning. We are being called to confront the deep flaws in our democracy and the flaws in our political leadership. This is one of those moments where we will see what we need to see. We will see whether there are enough United States senators who have the decency and courage to stand for whats right. This is a president ial election starting now. Early voting started. People are trying to pick the people who will lead the country. I think this would be a grave blow to the democracy. Frankly this is a moment in which i dont feel challenged. This democracy has been challenged. We are expecting and i hope you will be compelling United States senators to stand up and answer the appropriate questions and finally at the end stand for decency. It is indecent to imagine running over the will of the people who are voting in the election. The election is 47 days away. On average it takes 163 days from vacancy to confirmation for a supreme Court Justice. This is about raw pow. We have to ask ourselves the question. Is this america. Were at the moment we have to confront ourselves. We have lost iconic letters this year. Now Justice Ruth Bader ginsburg. Those elders have left us and its left for us to determine who we are going to be. Yes, i worry about what could happen. I think we have a long way to go before we get there. You have talked about some of the senators like graham and grassly and others said they wouldnt proceed with the vote. If it was during the final year of the first term. Especially if primaries started. 40 days from the general election. Have we no decency left . I will be looking to see. The American People preparing to vote. They are waiting to see who we are going to be. I will push and trust and fight for the right thing to happen. And if it doesnt happen we will keep fighting. Sherrilyn ifill, the president and director counsel at the naacp Legal Defense fund, it is an honor to have you here tonight on this sad and pivotal night. Thank you so much. Thank you, rachel. I want to bring into the conversation now somebody who will herself be in a pivotal role as this moves forward. Senator mazie hirono is a democratic senator from the great state of hawaii. She is a member of the Senate Judiciary committee. Senator hirono, thank you for being with us tonight on short notice and on a sad occasion. Thank you. First let me just ask your reaction to the passing of Justice Ginsburg tonight. It just struck me like a bolt of lightning and just so much sadness and regret for all the battles that she fought for so many of us. And she meant a lot to millions of us. And so it was just very shocking, but of course it didnt give mitch it didnt take long for Mitch Mcconnell to come right out of the box to say that he will fill this position. So the word hypocrisy means absolutely nothing to him. It is certainly up to the rest of us, and im glad that my friend and republican colleague Lisa Murkowski came on and said it would be a double standard to try and push somebody through in only 46 days. So i hope that there are other republicans who have the courage of the words that they said when they stepped forward when Mitch Mcconnell said, were not going to deal with Merrick Garland nine months before the election, and people like cory gardner and thom tillis and Lindsey Graham all stepped up to support him, saying, we shouldnt do that. So here we are. Theyre all facing tough reelections. I think this should become an issue of principle that they should be asked. You say one thing in that instance. Are you going to apply that to what you said last time . So lets see what they do. So far they havent particularly proven themselves to be profiles in courage. Senator hirono, while were talking, were looking at live images of the United States Supreme Court with people gathered tonight on the steps of the court to honor Justice Ginsburg and i think to be around other american whos are having the same reaction a lot of us are to this same news and with worry about whats going to happen next. Is there anything what can you tell us about what options you and your fellow Democratic Senators have in terms of influencing what happens over these next 46 days and what happens in the senate and what happens specifically in your committee. Obviously any nomination would have to go through your committee before it went to the floor. We dont yet know what senator graham is going to do given he says he would not allow a nomination to go forward before the election in a circumstance like this. What options do you have if any decide to be hypocritical and go back on their word and treat this differently than they did four years ago . First of all, i think we should hold their feet to the fire and expect them to live up to the words they said. But beyond that, we democrats are going to do everything we can. We havent determined what all of that might be, but we will fight back. Were not going to just take this lying down. And then going forward, there will be probably more calls for Supreme Court reform if Mitch Mcconnell and his ruthless ways pushes somebody through and that somebody will be a very conservative, ideologically driven person to carry out the trump agenda. That would be very bad for womens right to choose, bad for unions, bad for working people, lgbtq rights, bad for the Affordable Care act act, you name it, the Voting Rights act. So you will have a Supreme Court that will be even more leaning toward corporate interests over individual rights. And i was thinking about the time that i had dinner with Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I was sitting next to her. We talked about all these 54 decisions that are coming out of the Supreme Court, and she expressed her concern that we will see more of it because it is a divided court, and that is really bad for the Supreme Court to have these kinds of divided opinions because then you are not giving the direction to the circuit and District Courts across the country as to what the state of the law is. So i shared that discussion with her, and i was just as concerned as she was. Senator mazie hirono, member of the Senate Judiciary committee, thank you so much for your time tonight. Its an honor to have you with us. Thanks. I want to bring into the conversation now the president of the center for reproductive rights. We have been talking about the elephant in the room tonight, which is the prospect of a very quickly, much more deeply conservative court and what that would mean specifically for reproductive rights. Thanks for making time to be with us. I know its a tough night. Well, thank you. Its a devastating night. I mean Justice Ginsburg was a legal leader and was the force, i would say, behind the understanding in this country that women are deserving of equal rights under law. She fought that as an advocate before the court, and she was that advocate on the court and really understood the way that womens ability to control their reproductive lives, their fertility, and also to be treated fairly in pregnancy is just essential to our equality. And it is such a loss that shes gone, and were mourning at the center for reproductive rights, and its a hard moment tonight. I know that youre also gearing up for the fight ahead as you always are. If the republicans do find a way to escape their most recent history on Supreme Court nominees and they put a Trump Nominee on the floor, given what you know of the shortlist that President Trump has or the long list that President Trump has put forward and who hes likely to nominate, who you expect the core right to have access to an abortion as well as other core reproductive rights to be at risk immediately . Well, i mean absolutely. The president s made clear that he only wants to nominate justices to the Supreme Court who would overturn roe v. Wade. That was the pledge in 2016. So its going to be really critically important that the nation make clear that we are going to replace who Justice Scalia called the Thurgood Marshall of womens rights, that were going to make sure that a replacement has that commitment to fundamental equality under law, and scrutinize the record and make clear what that record is of anyone who the president nominates for the Supreme Court. There are hundreds and hundreds of antiabortion laws that have been passed in the last decade, and there are dozens of laws going through the court right now and Court Challenges on abortion rights. So this is such a pivotal moment. We just won a case in june, winning the same issue that wed won four years ago in whole womens health. I mean the time is really, really a tough one to be facing this loss on the court. Nancy north up, president of the center for reproductive rights. I have a feeling im going to be seeing a lot of you in coming days and weeks talking about the fights that are newly upon us with the passing of Justice Ginsburg. Thank you for being with us tonight, the night that shes passed. Thank you, rachel. All right. Our continuing coverage of the death of Justice Ruth Bader ginsburg at the age of 87. The National Response to her passing. Our continuing coverage continues now with Brian Williams and Nicolle Wallace. Thanks for being with us tonight. Well, good evening. Im Brian Williams, and tonight we have asked Nicolle Wallace to join us for this entire hour of coverage as we continue now our eveninglong special coverage of the news you no doubt have heard by this hour, the death tonight of supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. This happens to be day 1,338 of the trump administration, leaving 46 days to go until the president ial election. A hugely consequential day for our country as history would have it. And tonight a crowd has gathered indeed at the steps of the u. S. Supreme court. The Court Announced her death earlier this evening, said it was due to complications from cancer. Ginsburg, who was 87 years old, was the second woman to serve on the Supreme Court. She was an iconic figure whose legacy only grew into her ninth decade on earth. She had changed american law and left her mark on american law before she ever served a day on the Supreme Court, where she went on to further cement her legacy. Her health has been tenuous for some time. She has battled any number of ailments, including multiple rigorous cancer treatments. She said more than once she would no longer serve on the court if she were unable to do the work, and it turns out only in death was she unable to