confirmed by a vote of 87-9. he was known as a consensus seeker with a pragmatic vision of kwcompromise. justin breyer has spoke of his respect for his fellow justices no matter their point of view, but his decision to step down, the timing, he surely knows comes with a nation deeply divided. the president had campaigned on a promise to nominate a black woman to the supreme court. tonight, the names on the potential short list right here. and how quickly could all of this move? we begin tonight with abc s terry moran who has covered the supreme court for years, he leads us off from the court tonight. reporter: justice stephen breyer surprise decision to leave the supreme court at the end of this term, according to several sources familiar with his decision, marks the end of an era. and his departure will give president biden his first chance to nominate a justice to the high court, though biden s pick likely won t change the supreme court s solid conservative majority. president bide
at this moment they do not have to worry about mcconnell s threat. marie is a professor of constitutional law she has worked for a judge sonia sotomayor who was a judge at the u.s. court of appeals. she is a cohost of and brian fallon is the executive director of the pro demand justice, former aide to senator chuck schumer, a former director of public affairs in the doj under president obama. it is great to have you both. melissa, let me start with you. do you feel i feel like the relief was palpable across many circles, precisely because of the trauma of what happened with the last democratically nominated justice to exit the bench. i think that is exactly right, chris. i think lots of people have been watching justin breyer. a lot of people have been hoping he will retire for sometime now. but he has always claimed that he is not interested in doing
that even those on the schedule, president biden and justice stephen breyer are due to appear tomorrow together at the white house. this will be presumably the formal announcement of justin breyer s retirement. again, breyer and the president appearing together, so, not just meeting together, but doing some kind of event at the white house tomorrow. we just learned that from nbc news. joining us now, is our friend dahlia lithwick at slate. com. her article today about stephen breyer s were tire meant is titled, the deep irony of stephen breyer s bare knuckled exit from the supreme court. i think about stephen breyer in a lot of different way. i never, ever think about his knuckles, bear or otherwise. dahlia, it s great to see you. thank you for being here. it s good to be here on a day, rachel, when everyone is a little bit giddy. it s so rare, i feel, to have good news. it s also history. i get like this about state of the union and stuff.
deserve full body autonomy. the 17 and that means that we have filed range from removing the ban, to adding more exceptions, doing whatever we can to not only amplify how dangerous this bill is but hopefully, of course, make it less harmful if it does become law. we wish to set this up from litigation, because we do know this is unconstitutional. we ll do everything we can for the american people to know that. florida state representative, unasked money, thank you for time tonight. last night, we reported that president biden and narratives choices to replace justin breyer on the supreme court down to just four people. now nbc news that there are three of those names. we ll tell you who they are next. who they ar next
and i m so glad to see senators romney, murkowski, and collin stand up to this. i say this as someone who did what romney, murkowski, and collins did. i supported much to the dismay of yours. but i knew that he was qualified. so he wasn t moving the court far in one direction. if anything, you might have made a little more illiberal. with, hear justice jackson replaces justin breyer. very hard to see much difference between the two. the idea that ted cruz and others have painted her as extreme, i guess the ancient legal doctrine reverse to such claims as cuckoo. that s ridiculous. they claim that she s soft on crime. she is guarded by every major cops organization in the country. they say that she is soft on charles pornography. something that s been the calm via fox news analysts. by fox news analysts under mccarthy on the lake. it s ridiculous.