with the new supreme court battle. by all accounts, the justice will likely become the next supreme court justice. that s not going to stop democrats from fighting for this tooth and nail. what will that look like, ron? will democrats just scream and shout and in the end he ll be confirmed and big deal? well, i think there are a couple of different dynamics. i think it s interesting on the cabinet dynamics that obviously the core opposition is democrats, and it does reflect as errol and jackie said, the intensity, the visceral reaction, but also the broader reality that donald trump is facing more opposition and public opinion particularly voters from the opposite party than any president in history. he s reached 50% disapproval in dollahl gallop polling. you do have a reaction that they have to respond to. i think on these cabinet
who knows how judges will react until they re on the bench and sit down with fellow justices and hash things out. that s certainly right, carol. i think the two john roberts obamacare votes don t undue him. in judge gorsuch s case, what i think makes him a little different from john roberts, justice suit tore, we do have over a decade of tenure on the circuit, the federal appeals court in colorado where we have a number of opinions that give us insights into how he thinks as a judge. carol, what s especially interesting about judge gorsuch s record is these are not just majority opinions where he s applying supreme court precedence. judge gorsuch often wrote separate concurrences and discents where he d go out of his way to suggest that it didn t make sense and, for example, deferring to the executive branch. in this case we have a far more substantial record for better or for worse than we ve had for some of the folks we think of as
trump administration. this is not something they can afford to walk away from. ron, it s interesting to me, democrats, not long ago were it s political hostility. as we said, it is extremely rare for cabinet officers to be rejected, cabinet nominees to be rejected, especially when the president s party controls the senate. i believe only 13 cases in american history, not since john tower in 1989, although others have withdrawn nomination. there are several cases with betsy devos, treasury secretary, tom price at hhs where you re pushing the absolute boundaries of what the president s party will accept. there are serious questions, in the case of steve mnuchin and tom price about the accuracy of their disclosures to the committee, betsy devos case, about her understanding and
more shadow or stealth nominees like a john roberts or a david suitor. i guess my final question is, is this the right fight for the democrats? why not wait till the next time around which may come, right, considering the age of the justices on the court? i think they really are going to wait for the next time around. however, judge gorsuch will get hit on questions such as environmental protection, about women s rights, about views in general about what is government. they re trying to get bad media moments for the judge, ding him up a little bit. at the end of the day, just like all of donald trump s picks for his cabinet, they re getting through, and this will be a new supreme court justice i m pretty confident unless something goes amiss that we can t foresee. i have to leave it there.
through with attorney general holder and attorney general lynch. i will say the country, at least half of it, maybe a little moth more than half, people are quite anxious about everything this president is doing because it s moving so fast. why hurry, why not allow the democrats to ask their questions, so it settles down that half of the country which is adamantly opposed everything president trump is doing? no one is opposed to debate. yes, they are. because the republicans pushed it through without any debate, right? just to get jeff sessions confirmed. only after the democrats wouldn t even show up to committee to even have the debate, have the vote. my understanding is the confirmations for these nominees are taking a lot longer than normally takes place when you have a new president come in and he sends his nominations up to the senate for confirmation. we ve only got a handful, five