wade. that s the reason they are on that list. and i think the more people will be repulsed and all we need is one regular colleague, whether it s jeff flake or susan collins or lisa murkowski to say enough is enough, the supreme court is too sacrosanct. do you believe chief justice roberts, justice thomas, justice alito, justice gorsuch, are dangerous for the country? they are potentially dangerous if they allow donald trump to fulfill his potentially tyrannical and overreaching power of our fundamental rights. if they refuse to make the court that bulwark for our liberties, the check on the executive branch, that it must be now more than ever. they will be irresponsible and
what s missing so we really appreciate you coming together on this and talking to us this morning. congressman brian fitzpatrick and congressman thomas suossi, thank you both. thank you so much. keep up the great work. feel free to congratulate each other. great job. i didn t know we were still on. coming up next from the democratic leadership, senator dick durbin will be joining us. he ll weigh in on the president s planned meeting with vladimir putin. oh, good lord. we ll be right back.
gingrich. i still remember where i was when i heard ted kennedy s speech. and it was an offensive speech. it was so over the top. it was so hateful. and it did. it elevated supreme court picks on to a level they had never been elevated to before. and democrats followed up, then going after clarence thomas. and then we were off to the races. so kennedy of course was a deciding swing vote on the court when he voted with the four conservative justices, the court upheld the trump travel ban, gutted the voting rights act and allowed corporate money in politics. and he voted with progressives, also his 2015 decision striking down state bans against same-sex marriage. so, tom, what are the areas that we should expect to see the biggest shift?
when it comes it abortion, i think that judicial conservatives have been relatively savvy in saying we don t need to see roe versus wade overruled. but they can still cut it back a lot and send a signal to the states they can adopt longer waiting periods, more restrictions on the kind of facilities that can offer abortion services so as a practical matter, i would say the abortion right is going to get narrowed probably a lot. tom, let s talk about the chief justice john roberts, who shocked a lot of people when he, when he sided with the white house on the affordable care act, on obamacare, he did so, i think most observers believe, because he believed in this institution, he saw himself not only as a conservative jurist, but also as the protector of institutions. unlike justice thomas, who believes that you look at every case anew. you have john roberts looking at the institution. do you suspect that we will see a different justice roberts?
out of the bigs by 1980. so there you go. nina, let s go to you. i will not say i grew up listening to you on npr but what i will say is when i was in law school i was listening to you on npr talking about this. there seems to be that there are no rules when it comes to this. we can talk about bourque, thomas, miguel estrada, merrick garland. but it has devolved over time into such an ugly, ugly procedural mess that we re left at a point where there are no