he went on to point out chief justice john roberts sided with the court s liberal justices to preserve obamacare. now all eyes turn to the u.s. senate and the expected political confrontation over whomever the president chooses. phil rucker reports tonight that both democrats and republicans will use the supreme court vacancy as a rallying cry. quote, the already ferocious nomination battle is likely to clarify the choices for voters in senate races across the country, strategists said. and impact other contests down the ballot. and even if republicans install a replacement for kennedy before the november election, the debate is still likely to thrust to the forefront, issues that have largely been overlooked on the campaign trail until now. senate democrats are gearing up for a battle, but earlier today, the senate majority leader gave this crystal clear message on the senate floor. we will vote to confirm
gay rights. and that vote now will go a step to the right. and so the big barrier to making a big leap to the right in american constitutional law and other issues is now going to be gone. and you re going to get somebody who s much more like a neil gorsuch who we got this term. so it s a pivot point, and it s one that we won t get to come back through again for at least another quarter century, given how long people stay on the court. phil rucker, the president s remarks were closely watched tonight in fargo. tell us about the donald trump you saw on display and that part we just aired about how kennedy did this now because of his confidence in donald trump to do the right thing. well, brian, there was a lot of chest thumping from president trump. that s to be expected. this has been an extraordinarily positive couple of days for him. the travel ban decision, the court upholding his travel ban on some majority muslim
and this, according to our friend the historian john meachem was the day the amg of ronald reagan officially ended. it was the day supreme court justice anthony kennedy announced his retirement. and before we go on here, just a few things about anthony kennedy. he s been on the court for 30 years. he was reagan s third choice after the first two failed. in the end, reagan went with a northern caliifornian, a conservative, to be sure, but with a libertarian streak. classically trained at stanford, london school of economics and harvard law, kennedy employed an effortless intellect and a respect for liberty. he was never shocking. he was sometimes surprising, but he was mostly a highly reliable conservative. it should not be forgotten that during the supreme court term that just ended today, 14 cases were decided by a 5-4 vote. kennedy voted with the conservatives every time. and now comes the fight over
in 2013 he did that. the supreme court ruled in 1982 that the senate had within its power to do except that any motion like that itself could be filibustered. harry reid is the guy who changed the filibuster that his been used since 1837. it s the senators reason for being, it s what distinguishes him from being more than house members. but he did that and now we are at this point and now the stakes are so high both for neil gorsuch and president trump and for the republicans that there is no option if the democrats insist on going down the strategy, to blow it up. paul: does he get confirmed, gorsuch? i think he absolutely gets confirmed. there s no way that three republicans could go along with chuck schumer and survive. paul: what do you think? how many votes? i think it s going to be close. i m not going to make the vote call but i think he s going to get confirmed. paul: kim, do you agree? yeah, he will probably get
breaking a filibuster for supreme court nominee that we want to cut some kind of a deal that either blocks gorsuch or will confirm gorsuch but any future nominees will have to meet that 60 vote threshold. is this likely are the republicans thinking about this? well, if they did, it would be the dumbest thing that they have ever considered. look, right now republicans are totally position today get neil gorsuch on the court without having to do any deals with the democrats. there s a talk of which mcconnell invoking the nuclear option which means that they would change the rules so that they could not have have a filibuster for supreme court nominees anymore and all they need to do as republicans stick together, 52 of them, that s what you need to change the rules. now, there may be a temptation for a few moderates but there s a lot of pressure on folks like susan collins and others to to move with mitch mcconnell and