clyburn has said his endorsement was him pivotal on saying he would nominate a black woman to the supreme court and this goes back even further than when joe biden was in office and he and clyburn had the meeting with vice president harris. so very much a priority, i think, for a huge part of the democratic constituency. so what you ve seen i think so far is a lot of disappointment in joe biden s presidency so far in terms of the deliverables, whether it s voting rights, whether it s criminal justice reform, whether it s some of what s happened with covid as well. and so going into a midterm this could be a real jolt, i think, to rank and file voters, african american voters in particular, who you look at the polling, they re about 70% in terms of seeing joe biden s approval
kennedy. let s get some perspective from a law professor at american university. it will be a bruising confirmation battle without a doubt. we ll spend some time on the legacy of justice prior. when you look ahead to a biden getting a supreme court pick, we have lived through some remarkably bruising battles in years past similar or different within the biden presidency with a biden nominee? john, i think wolf is right that there s a chance that one will look a little bit different. compared to the last two confirmation battles where you had brett kavanaugh, amy coney barrett replacing ruth bader ginsburg, i think everyone will understand that from the perspective of the court as an institution a biden appointee might move the dissenters slightly to the left. whoever replaces justice biden justice breyer might be more progressive. it rests with kavanaugh and amy coney barrett that will not
everything for a white house. we ve seen how it has played out before, the last three justice that is were confirmed to the court. john, we are getting the first reaction from the white house now, from press secretary jen psaki who has tweeted it has always been the decision of any supreme court justice if and when they decide to retire and how to announce it. that remains the case today. we have no additional details or information to share from the white house. though, of course, typically these announcements are something that are done in conjunction with the white house, they typically communicate beforehand this is something that a justice wants to do. we re still waiting on the details of how justice breyer has decided to do this. of course he is someone who has close ties to this white house. some of his former clerks are top aides here inside the west wing in the biden administration. and so, of course, this is a significant moment for this white house and for this president to
paula, joan goes through some of the potential choices and raises a key question about the process which is how quickly will the biden white house be ready to move. and, again, a giant decision for justice breyer to resign. the asterisk it s unlikely to change the ideological balance of the court because the conservatives have such a clear majority. still this is a giant choice for the president and a giant change in american legal life. absolutely this is one of the biggest decisions that a president can make, a justice can serve for decades. their decision can last for generations. we saw with former president trump he was able to appoint three conservative justices, really change the balance of the court. he said himself multiple times it s one of his biggest legacies. as you said, time is of the essence here. we know several republicans have made it clear if they retake the majority in november that they will try to block any of biden s selections, so this is likely going to be a
jessica schneider. huge news. reporter: this has just been confirmed by our wolf blitzer that at 83 years old justice stephen breyer, the leading liberal on the court, he will retire. we re still not exactly sure of the time line, but presumably not until the end of this term which ends usually at the end of june. this retirement announcement comes after what has been a persistent drumbeat of calls from progressives to retire from the court dating back to about a year. it was about a year ago when the progressive group demand justice actually hired a mobile billboard that drove around capitol hill in front of the supreme court urging breyer to retire. now we know he will retire presumably at the end of this term. justice stephen breyer spoke with us last year, and he talked about what would prompt him to retire. he said it would ultimately be