conservatives in the court. i doubt justice, i doubt president biden will make the same type of a moderate pick. sandra: as we take this in, taking notes from what we heard from mike davis, advisor to justice gorsuch, he feels confidently that justice breyer made the decision on his own and was not forced out. but also that he feels that this is a leak from the white house, trying to clarify exactly what he knows or what he, how he s coming to that conclusion, if justice breyer were to let the white house know a week ago. what we just heard from the president there in that meeting when asked about it, wait for the statement to come out and then share his thoughts on this matter. just adding to the situation as we are all taking in this breaking news together as to how this would have happened before a formal statement actually came from the justice. yeah, you know, the timing is really odd.
off the court. i think that he definitely wanted to guaranteed that his seat would be filled with another liberal jurist. you know, it s interesting when ruth bader ginsburg decided not to retire during president obama s term, i wrote a column saying you are taking quite the risk. but that was considered no one really felt comfortable telling this icon you should leave the court. not the case with brian. the liberal commentators went after him and demanded he leave the court. i think that he reached this conclusion because he felt it was time, but he also reached this conclusion with a real sense of timing. you know, if he leaves the court in june or july, that will give just enough time to replace him, even if there are glitches and delays. and so he is really timing this we ll from that perspective.
a long time to keep the lid on something like this. are you now even more surprised that this was inevitably going to get out, are you surprised the white house did not move the whole ceremony up a bit? yeah, i don t know what the white house is thinking here. i just think it is very bad form to get out in front of a supreme court justice on their announcement for their retirement, especially a supreme court justice who has been on the court for 26 years and has been a solid justice for the liberals. sandra: one last final question to you on possible replacements, you were talking about judge brown jackson. what about justice leondra kruger, what can you tell us from the california supreme court, 45 years old, former obama justice department, argued 12 cases before the supreme court. she also is seen as a top contender, mike. solid pick for the democrats. clerked for justice john paul
it kind of makes one wonder if this is something that maybe not biden himself, someone in the white house could have leaked prematurely, because that gives them a chance to rev groups like the rest of the liberal dark money network prior to the election, could be why we are not seeing the preparation. normally you have a justice, think of justice kennedy, great lengths to make sure he announced on his own terms, normally that s how a supreme court justice would work. and if that s the case, i think that might be something, justice breyer was so adamant trying to keep politics out of the court, you know, a whole speaking tour following his book about trying to depoliticize the court and so i m sure he does not want his retirement to be viewed or maybe even leaked in a partisan way. trace: 40 seconds left, looking at op-eds about the retirement of justice breyer and
following, she says always the decision of any supreme court justice if and when they decide to retire and how they want to announce it and that remains the case today. we have no additional details or information to share at the white house but there has been a lot of pressure, andy, on justice breyer to retire. you talk about this group demand justice launching the campaign, breyer retire, what do you think about that? the last guest says no, you don t really pressure a supreme court justice to step down. do you buy into that, andy? well, you do pressure them, but i agree, trace, with what garrett ventry told sandra, which is there s a big difference between pressure and force, right? the way our system is designed, nobody can force a supreme justice to do nothing. basically they are, you know, they are life tenured, once they are appointed and on the court they can t be forced. now, being i think with respect to justice breyer he is a person