Religious decision, with his decision in smith and oregon. That decision came down my term. Smith versus employment decision. What smith did most held whereally is you have a generally applicable criminal law, that is in that case of law prohibiting the peyote as a listing controlled substance without an exception for religious use, there is not a need for the court to create a religious exception. That was essentially the holding of smith. It was perceived as being contrary to at least some precedents where it seemed as though there was an exception that Administrative Agency doling out Unemployment Benefits would have to take into account orther the person was fired otherwise was not performing their duties because of a religious obligation. We grew up thinking that was an exception. The court held otherwise with smith. That was a very controversial decision. I remember the petition for rehearing. You are quite right, you can say, how was that protecting religion . Really smokes that anyway . It is a small minority of people. The logic would allow a state to prohibit say drinking alcohol, as at least one state said that. Kansas, is that still a dry state . , to pick aeption for topic near Justice Scalias heart, the catholic mass where you are celebrating with wine. T ok would say, that is no and under smith, that would be fine. The protection against that lies in the political process. In the legislative process. He says this in smith. Subsequently, the Congress Passed a law called the religious freedom restoration act that attempted to revive the doctrine. The court struck it down. Justice scalia took on the historical case. Protectionsaying the is with the people. The people are the ones that are making religious exemptions to otherwise generally applicable criminal laws. Toont see it as contrary any personal belief of Justice Scalia. He was fully aware when smith came down its logic would apply used to could be prohibit core religious activities. Be thee it, it could subject. It, it to get filing dont to get was contrary to a view he had otherwise expressed if thereeeded was a law that was directed to religious activity such as no wine should be used in religious ceremonies, that would be prohibited. Ive got a distinctly different view. My litigation head is the claremont institute, probably the leading proponent that the Natural Rights Foundation and the declaration of independence has to inform our understanding of the constitution. This is one of those cases where the tension comes out most forcefully. When you peel the onion layers away, it disagrees with other principles that Justice Scalia argued. Strong proponent that political process was sufficient to protect the federalism provisions. He opposed that. Adoptedsmith, he political process accommodation. If you want an accommodation against the law, your remedy is through the political process. The turns the notion of bill of rights upside down. They are there precisely to protect individuals, particularly minority individual groups against the majority harry and political process. If the only people that can get a process accommodation are those with support of the do anyy, it is no longer right. It seemsing paragraph, that as the cost of democracy. I think it is a just law. It will be interesting to see, now that Justice Scalia is not there, whether there will be an attempt to revisit that question in a way that was not going to happen when he was there. My view is different than my fellow panelists. Although i was skeptical of the smith case when it came down, on further casection, the historical for the Opposing Side is somewhat a week. Make big picture arguments. Identify ofo which granted these kinds of exemptions. There were some evidence for it. It is not overwhelming. If you have a view, which i think Justice Scalia did, notwithstanding his view of the importance of enforcing the constitution, that the courts should not enter mean intervene unless it was confident it had the history behind it, there is a strong ambiguity. The opinion rest on that. The case for the other side is not proven. But this is on your list of cases where he comes out differently from where you think he would tend to come out. , of course he knew the applications of this. It igave him some positive wasnt there at the time but i have heard discussions of the case later. I think he did have some pause but he nonetheless thought that is where the constitution led us and therefore that is where he had to go. Relate anint, i will anecdote. We were doing a panel. When someone asked him about the smith case, what would happen if Congress Passed a law that prohibited consumption of alcohol and didnt have an exception for catholic mass . Scalia said, according to what i heard, they would burn in hell but it would still be constitutional. It is one of the hardest questions in constitutional law because the text does not give a clear answer whether the freedom of religious practice requires exemptions. It creates absolute language. Congress shall make no law. There is no exception for compelling interests or anything like that. I can understand what Justice Scalia was comfortable with, the formalistic approach. Phrased in absolute terms. It is a way of being respectful to the fact that it is phased as a command rather than a but it raises difficult questions. What about antidiscrimination laws and so forth . This concludes not just our the chapter, until fall, 2016. Thank you all for your generosity and support. Please join me in thanking our panelists. [applause] washington journal, live every day with news and policy issues. Coming up saturday morning, political proeducation reporter hows us by phone to discuss congress is dealing with student loan defaults. And then, neil irwin will examine job numbers released today and their impact on the health of the economy. Also, coral devonport will story on a federal grant awarded to relocate a community. It is the first such grant of its kind. At the High School Advanced Placement government exam. Adlaieachers from Stevenson High School in illinois. They will discuss the cram for the exam preparation test and answer questions on the content and structure of the exam. Be sure to watch washington at 7 00 a. M. Join the discussion. The cspan cities to her tour takes you to San Bernardino, california, to explore the history and literary culture. Killed, 14 people were and more injured in a terrorist attack. A congressmanith about the attack and recovery efforts. His district includes the regional center. When we talk about the fight against terror, it is not in the abstract. It is something across this country means mean something. City that wasbig attacked. This could happen anywhere. We will also speak with a city councilman about establishing a permanent memorial to the victims. It provides a sense of remembrance. It highlights their lives and what they contributed to our local community. It will be a near and dear place to provide a place of consolation. We are thinking a serenity garden, a Prayer Chapel in and around this area. We will learn about the family of white herb. His book talks about the wyatt erp. Tothe connection dates back 1852 when the father of w yatt, he basically left his theyy temporarily to read were living in illinois. He heard about the gold rush in northern california. He he went back to the midwest, entered to southern california. He passed through the San BernardinoValley Committee vowed one day he would come back. We will visit the san are you know history San Bernardino history and railroad museum. And talk about the importance of the railroad. The 1918 santa fe depot. The museum contains objects related to the railroad history. Inconstruction was completed 1918. Built larger than needed, they decided to house the Division Headquarters at this location at that time. Watch this on cspan2 and cspan3. Ur, cspan cities to visiting cities across the country. Previous ins priebus talked about the political season and donald trump. This is over just under one hour. [laughter] [applause] out sok you for coming early. This morning, we appreciate. We have Reince Priebus with us, looking forward to a great conversation with him talking about tuesday. Looking ahead, talking about the convention and about november. I would like to thank bank of america for continuing to support these great conversations. Bank of america is here. Convers. We appreciate our partnership with bank of america that is has taken us all over to talk about the most important issues. Thanks to the bank of america for being a great partner for me years. We appreciate your support. We willall of you and be taking your questions. He has the twitter we have the twitter machine appear so just your questions and they will pop up for me. Without further a do, chairman prebus. S rights lets start with a gift to the guests which we have never done before. Was doneile which before tuesday the asked you how you are feeling about how the primaries were going and you pouringm not exactly baileys in my cereal. There are two glasses. One person who has a harder job than you . Reince maybe my chief of staff. Your job is to elect donald trump president of the United States. That makes you feel how . Reince we have said all along that whoever the nominee is we are here to support the nominee. Prepared as weas have been. Today four years ago mitt romney would be president. Data, field staff, we have gone from a committee that was in disarray to a committee that has raised over 75 million more dollars just the cycle. Hundreds of thousands of people out in the field. 5000 people going through six a 100f training and million makeover. We are prepared to keep the senate, keep the house and when the white house. I would rather take a few elbows being thrown then the director of the fbi interviewing your top aides and potentially the democrat nominee. In milwaukee. Tell us what happened when you tweeted that donald trump was the presumptive nominee. And kasichwould be was still in the race. You still need to be at 1237 to be the presumptive nominee. No one else is running. I think it is safe to say that at some point he is going to be the presumptive nominee. Let me tell you where we were. We had planned a fundraiser in milwaukee and those are family members to me who have been helping me ever since i have in chairman of the wisconsin party. We had gone into 5th street. I thought i had heard some rumors about the potential of ted cruz dropping out in the afternoon. I did not go out of my way to confirm any of it or make any phone calls. Times you do not want to be in the information loop on things like that because once you are in the loop if something leaks you are one of the people in the loop. Did call Chitty Katie Walsh and said what about if ted cruz drops out, what do you think of that and we talked, i do not ticket is going to happen. We went to the fundraiser and sure enough, the cell phone starts using, a few buzzes is one thing that when you get 15 in a row and you do not want to look down at your phone but you i would realize back to the house in kenosha which i had not been to in a long time. That was it. I made some phone calls and talk to donald trump a couple of times. I think he did a nice job and very gracious in his speech. We need obviously more of that. I think he did a nice job and was very gracious in his speech that night. I think we need more of that. Being president ial, 30,000 feet, gracious. Im hoping we will see more of that. Mr. Allen does crooked hillary count as president ial . Mr. Priebus i think he has done an effective job of labeling. I think she does have a history of being crooked. She has a lot to answer for. She has families of dead heroes in benghazi to answer for. She has a tenure as secretary of state to answer for. I think she has a lot of material for us to cling on to and use. Mr. Allen what is he like behind the scenes . Mr. Priebus far more gracious and personable than i think you see at rallies. I have never had a problem behind the scenes. I have never had a situation where something was said by him that was not followed through. All of my interaction has been extremely positive, which made the system rigged stuff so out of place for me compared to what was being said personally behind the scenes. Mr. Allen does that bother you that there is one donald trump behind the scenes and one different on camera . Mr. Priebus i think he said it himself. There is going to be a time to shift to general election mode. I think that is the way he sees it. I think that is the way he feels about it. Now the general election is starting. And what you saw on tuesday night i think is going to be more of what you see in the future. And really, the person you saw on tuesday night was the person i got used to dealing with on the telephone and inperson. So that general election approach is the type of approach i had been dealing with for six years. Mr. Allen the recidivism issue, the next morning he is on television mr. Priebus im sure it is going to take some time to get into general election mode and out of primary mode. Mr. Allen is there anyway in cleveland, the rules could be used to nominate someone other than donald trump . Mr. Priebus i see we have some rules experts in the crowd. My personal view is it is highly, highly doubtful. As i said before, the rules committee of 2016 writes the rules for the convention. I dont write the rules. The r. N. C. s role at the convention is fairly limited. The r. N. C. Is basically a caretaker, an administrator of the convention. Mr. Allen you are saying is unlikely but not impossible . Mr. Priebus nothing is impossible. Like i said, i have said this many times. Highly and i will add another one highly unlikely. Mr. Allen ben sasse had a Facebook Post a few nights ago calling for a draft of an adult conservative challenger to trump. He predated it with hashtags we can do better and give us more choices. Mr. Priebus i think the amount of time, energy, money, and also it is a guarantee to elect Hillary Clinton. I think when people start to take a breath and let some of this stuff calm down people will understand the Supreme Court is too important to let differences of opinions and choices in the primary get in the way. Mr. Allen republicans say there is no way to guarantee donald trump will nominate conservatives to the court. Mr. Priebus i think the smart thing for donald trump to do would be to release five to 10 names of people he would say here are 10 folks i think would make great Supreme Court justices and work with people to come up with that list. I think things like that would be helpful in kind of recalibrating some peoples minds as far as, what is this about, why do we need to support the republican nominee . I think we are going to get there. I dont think maybe some of you did. But i dont think too many people thought that tuesday and wednesday would be the end of ted cruz and john kasich. And so, for some people, and i would say in paul ryans case, he thought he had 30 more days. There was this meeting planned next week, by the way, something the media is not really talking about. There was a plan to start having meetings on capitol hill. Paul ryan and leadership were planning that meeting with donald trump. In their minds, they are thinking we have another month to talk about this, to get comfortable. And all of a sudden, you have cameras in your face saying, what do you think . I think paul is just being honest with how he feels. I think hes going to get there. He wants to get there. He just wants some time to go through it. Mr. Allen politico is reporting this morning the meeting on capitol hill next week is expected to go ahead. Do you expect speaker ryan to be there . Mr. Priebus i do. I talked to him multiple times yesterday. He wants it to go forward. He was being honest. He says he is not there yet, but he wants to get there. So yes, he will meet. Mr. Allen after speaker ryan made his comments he was not ready to jake tapper, how quickly did donald trump call you . Mr. Priebus well, i had talked to him already once that day. But i talked to donald trump and paul ryan multiple times yesterday afternoon. Mr. Allen donald trump called you within minutes. Mr. Priebus uh [laughter] mr. Priebus you are pretty good. [laughter] mr. Priebus i cant lie. I would not lie anyway. He was not furious or anything. He was just like, what do i need to do . And so, i said listen. My view is just relax and be gracious. I will talk to paul, and we will try to work on this. I kind of like dont get overly hot either quickly. I know paul really well. I know hes being honest. I know how he feels. I am comfortable with the idea it is going to take some time in some cases for people to work through differences. And so, we talked about it. We talked about it multiple times. They are very comfortable with sitting down with donald trump. It may be at my office. It may be somewhere else, but we are going to have that meeting and start the process of unifying. Mr. Allen Jake Scarborough said yesterday for him to vote for donald trump, trump would have to change some of his positions or emphasis including the idea of restricting the entry of muslims or forced deportation. Do you sense with speaker ryan that it also will take some change in position . Mr. Priebus first of all, i am in agreement on the ban coming in. I put a statement out on that already. It is not something i believe in or our party believes in. I believe our party is the open door. Our party is the party of freedom and equality and will remain such. Mr. Allen are you going to be able to convince donald trump . Mr. Priebus it has been like three days, so not quite there yet. When we get the speaker on board, we both get into some of those details later. Mr. Allen do you hope to persuade donald trump that the Republican Party should be the party of the open door . Mr. Priebus yeah, and i think he believes that. Im going to work very hard on making sure some of these issues are discussed and talked about and understood. And i am confident giv