A ranch in texas. He told his friends that he was not feeling well before he went to bed last night. He did not show up for breakfast this morning. He was found unresponsive in his room. Justice scalia was the leading conservative voice on the high court. He was its longest serving justice after Justice Stevenson and appointed to the court by former president Ronald Reagan in 1986. Reaction to his death coming in from across the political spectrum. The white house saying if president obama was informed today of Justice Scalias passing that the president and first lady extend their deepest condolences to the family. Were also told by the white house we will hear more from the president on this later tonight. Former george h. Bush said, the appointment of Antonin Scalia to the United StatesSupreme Court was one of Ronald Reagans many enduring moments and he was the sharpest constitutional intel elects to ever serve on the bench. Our heartbreaks today for our family and especially for his wife maureen and nine children and extended family. His death is a great loss for all of us. Earlier this evening, john roberts confirmed the death of Antonin Scalia in a statement reading, on behalf of the court and retired justices, im sad to report that Antonin Scalia has pass aid way. He was an extraordinary individual and admired and treasured by his colleagues. His passing is a great loss to the country that he so loyally served. We extend our deepest condolences to his wife maureen and his family. We have full coverage this evening. Chief washington correspondent joe johns first with a look back at the justices life and legacy. Reporter the first italianamerican to sit on the nations highest court. Justice scalia has a pugnatious personality and in his early days of court that came out where he was the most aggressive questioner and the memos that were called nino grams inside the court had a galvanized effect on the justices. Reporter he was able to light up or ignite a room with his often brash demeanor and wicked sense of humor. Grounded, say many colleagues, in a profound respect for americas law and constitution. Feisty. Hes very candid about how he feels about things. Loves to call it as he sees it. Completely not pc. In fact, prides himself in not being pc on the bench in court. Italian from queens. This is the top of the hill. Reporter a sharp mind combined with a sharpen allowed scalia to make his point both to the pleasure and disappointment of the colleagues and public. Hes very good, especially with audiences that are not predisposed to liking him. Hes disarming and kind of sharping in his own way. Reporter Antonin Scalia was the only child and his parents instilled a love of debate and words. I studied real hard. Reporter he was a top student at public and private schools in the city. Here hes leading his High School Band in the fifth aef parade in 1950. His interest in law began in college and so, too, in interest in maureen mccarthy, with whom he later married and had nine children. His embrace of conservativism attracted the attention of the republicans and he was appointed to the high court in 1986. There, he developed a reputation as a reliable conservative. In his own style, he helped liven the face of the high court. Some of the other justices, including the justices already on the court and had been on the court for a while were kind of like, well, if the new guy gets to ask all of these questions, im going to ask questions, too. Reporter on abortion, homosexual rights, scalia clashed early and often with more moderate or leftleaning bench men. At one extreme, he would alienate some of his colleagues if he was trying to get anybody to sign an opinion. It was harder when he would use more combative language. But, you know, as much as they would say id like to strangle nino, he was there. Reporter he set off a creative and some say cruel style in his writings. He once referred to the junior in a closely divided abortion case, he slammed sandra day oconnors view as perverse and irrational. There was admiration from Young Conservatives who created books and websites in tribute but controversy, too. A hunting trip with Vice President cheney over access to privileged documents. A scicilian gesture, he called it dismissive in nature. And this on the war on terror. War is war and it has never been the case that when you capture a combatant, you have to give the majority in your civil courts. Its a crazy idea to me. Reporter to thy ownself be true. Feared and celebrated personal levity. Certainly remembered as a larger than life figure, larger than bench figure, someone who embraced both the law and a life beyond the court. He will go down as one of the great justices in the history of the Supreme Court. I think that his clarity of thought with writing, you know, will be very difficult to match. Reporter a judge who had a well calculated conservative view of the law and its limits on society. Im not driven. I enjoy what im doing. As soon as i no longer enjoy it, i am out of there. And he enjoyed it the entire way. Hes died at the age of 79. Joining me now, former clerk for Justice Scalia, now general counsel of our company, time warner. Thank you so much for being with me, paul, im so sorry for your loss. I know you two remained close. Thank you very much, poppy. And let me start by offering my condolences to mrs. Scalia and his kids and grandkids. He loved his family so much and my heart goes out to them now. Can you tell us a little bit about him as a man, as a friend . Yeah. You know, he was a pure joy to work for. He cared intensely about getting the answer right. He cared nothing about who was a friend. Politics didnt matter to him. He cared so much about getting the answer right under the constitution or if he was interpreting a statute. I worked with him when i was 27 years old. He had locked himself in the office and it was no longer a Supreme Court justice and student just out of law school. It was whoever made the best argument prevailed. He loved that. He loved to mix it up. He often said to me that if he could change one thing, it was he struggled long and hard with what he thought the right answer was and joked to me, when he wrote the case, he wrote it with a great deal more certainty than he may have had while he was trying to figure it out. Let me ask you a question. Its jeff toobin here. So ive been talking about an originalism and trying to explain why thats such a significant idea for the Supreme Court. Whats original itch and why is it associated with Justice Scalia . Well, you know, the originalism is also texturalism. Whats important about that idea is that in a system of divided government the default rule is that we have a democracy and the people vote and the majority wins. And how he viewed the constitution is as an exception to that. But there were certain things, like the first amendment, freedom of speech that we wouldnt put up to a vote. But when you view Constitutional Rights in that manner as an exception to democracy, it leads to you, i think, a much narrower or stricter interpretation of the constitution because its a grave and serious thing to say that people cannot do decide for himself. So he adhered to the view that said, look, if were going to take certain things out of the political process, if were going to say that the people cant decide through their chosen representatives, we can only do that with a text of the document and the original intent of those who wrote the document is fairly clear. A defender of democracy when you view it that way. Sorry, poppy. Go ahead. No problem. Very few people have actually gotten this opportunity like you have to clerk with him, to see the inner workings of it and how his brilliant mind worked, whether you agreed with his decision or not. Can you take us into, a, the side of him that was so funny, the humor is what we hear so much about. And also into his unique friendship with Justice Ruth Bader ginsburg, his ideological contrast. Sure. Justice scalia was not only a very warm but kind man, he was a very engaging, a very interesting and broad and very witty and funny guy. And in a town like washington, d. C. , thats become increasingly partisan, hes a man who always had deep and enduring friendships on both sides of the political il political aisle. He could see the good and funny and interesting in everyone. You know, he was he had a tremendous wit. He just had a tremendous wit. And it many friends all over town. As you know, Justice Ginsburg and he would always say that they were sort of each others best friends. There were many other on the other side of the aisle. He was an engaging man. I have many other stories, none of which ill cover with you here, but the sharpness of his pen reflected also his wit and his fun. He was you know, people may not believe this, he was an absolute teddy bear to work for. He was just warm and kind and not demanding and funny and, you know, i used to describe being in his chambers and helping him decide cases as much akin to being around the dinner table with my mom and dad. It was a noholds bar a lot of fun. Sometimes saucy language. And all that mattered was that we got to the right answer. Talk about his influence in one specific area of the court, which is oral argument, because when we graduated from law school, oral arguments at the Supreme Court were pretty sleepy affairs. The lawyers talked for a long time. When Justice Scalia arrived, oral argument changed and it has remained changed. Youve argued before the court, youve watched the court. Talk about how he influenced how the court interacts with the lawyers. Well, as you know, jeff, you and i graduated from law school and it was an older court, a less active court and Justice Scalia was one of the new younger justices appointed. Beyond just his youth, you know, i think he neafelt that oral argument was a way to communicate with the other justices, to test the arguments of the applicants rather than to just listen to it. To force people to face the hard questions. You know, he very much believed that, you know, you could read the briefs and they both sound quite good. What you really needed to do was test the proposition in oral argument, see if the person could defend their position. Oftentimes, you know, against hard hypotheticals but it was also i think a way for him to communicate the right i dont know if communicate is the right word but in some ways to raise points with his colleagues, you know, who may not have been either seeing it the way that he was seeing it or considering what he thought they would consider. But, boy, it certainly made arguments more lively. Oh, yeah. I think it made it much better. And its really because of Justice Scalia that oral argument changed so much at the Supreme Court. I mean, the court now, it is rare for an advocate before the Supreme Court now to get three sentences out before the questions start. And thats completely different how it was before Justice Scalia joined the court. Of course, its only eight justices who are asking questions because Clarence Thomas doesnt speak, just as a parenthetical, february 22, a couple weeks from now, will mark ten times from now since Justice Thomas asked a question. But the other eight have followed Justice Scalias example and they are in the face of the lawyers all the time and that and those other questions we publicly hear about even though we dont have cameras in the court, we get drippings of. Absolutely. And Justice Scalia uses those questions not only to illicit information but more often, i think, and this is to the other justices that followed him, to use those arguments as opportunities to make his case to the other justices. Dont you think thats in part what is going on, paul . Yeah, i would agree. Pretty much everyone has followed suit. Justice ginsburg has become equally adept at it. Paul, before i let you go and thank you go ahead. No. Go ahead. I was just saying, before i let you go, i was very interested in how he changed you as an attorney, how he changed your legal mind, how he shaped you. Well, you know, first of all, i have to thank him every day for the opportunity he gave me to work for him and to work at the court, which certainly changed my career. But, you know, he also taught me two other things. One, he taught me how to care intensely about what the right answer was and to think logically through a problem. Kind of unclouded by either the politics or the some of the context and really get to the nub of the issue. He also taught the a great deal about how to write. He once when he hired me he looked at me and said, do not try to imitate me. We gave him the raw and then turned it into that pros of his. But you couldnt help but be seated at his knee and not learn a little bit about some special legal right. He was a very special man. He was an extremely warm man, jeff. You know that. Incredibly fun. Ill tell one of the stories a couple of years ago. I saw Justice Scalia and he said i think i have an interest in hunting and i looked at him and said, you know, your honor, i think its going to take more than that. He did. That was the thing. He did get ee llena kagan interested in hunting. What a defining parlts of your life to be able to clerk with him and remain close with him. My pleasure. And just a closing thank you to him for everything he did for our country, everything he did for those of us he touched. Thank you for having me on. No question. Paul cappuccio, general counsel for time warner, a very close friend of scalia, of the justice. Thank you so much, paul. I appreciate it. I want to bring some breaking news into you. We have just learned that president obama will nominate he will nominate someone to replace justice Antonin Scalia, according to sources telling cnn, this is major deal, as we remember the life, the legacy of this chief justice, there is also the politics and the fact that he was often a deciding vote on a court that now with eight justices is pretty evenly split between democrats and republicans. Weve already heard jeffrey toobin, a number a number of president ial candidates coming out, Senate Minority and majority leaders coming out on different sides of this. Should the president nominate someone or wait for the next president to take over . Were now learning that president obama will indeed bring a name to the court. You believe you know who that name will be . I think there is one candidate who is a very likely nominee to the Supreme Court. His is a young judge, a 48yearold judge on the d. C. Circuit, the second most Important Court in the country. Hes an indianamerican, a remarkable personal story. Grew up in kansas, Big High School basketball star, when to stanford law school, worked in the solicitor generals office, was confirmed by the senate in 2013 970. And thats an enormously important fact. Just 2 1 2 years ago. Just 2 1 2 years ago. For if the president were to nominate him, he could say, how could he be confirmed for a lifetime judgeship 970 and now you wont even give him a vote . Yeah. So that is you know, thats the political context. Mitch mcconnell, the majority leader, has said no nominee is going to get a vote. This is why control of the senate, which Party Controls the senate is enormously important because it is not just its the control of the agenda. Now, whether democrats could somehow force a vote, that seems unlikely, although it is certainly possible that there could be some procedural attempts. How president obama persuades someone to accept a nomination to the court when the senate has said they will not be confirmed under any circumstances, that becomes difficult. And stay with me because i want to bring in our chief Political Correspondent dana bash. Look, we already know the president says that he will nominate someone and this is after Mitch Mcconnell came out just about an hour ago and said, no, this should be left for the next president. Reporter thats right. And as you were talking, we got a statement from the Senate Judiciary chairman who would have to take this up and begin the proceedings for any kind of nomination process. Not surprisingly, he is totally with his leader, Mitch Mcconnell, on the idea that he does not want to move any kind of nominee, no matter who they are, saying that, from his perspective, this is chairman Chuck Grassley, its been Standard Practice over the last 80 years not to elect Supreme Court justices during an Election Year and criticizes president obama trying to push his agenda through the courts and its important to elect a new Supreme Court justice. You have the intensity from the statements, the democrats, harry reid and Chuck Grassleys democratic counterpart on the important Judiciary Committee saying, no, no, no, were going to advocate our constitutional responsibility in the senate if we dont take this up and with what is nearly a year and jeffrey can talk about the