zirin to speak with us previously authored two books and a nice book "supremely partisan" how raw politics tips the scales in the united states supreme court. as many of you know he's the host and producer rep pop their talkshow conversations in the digital age which is seen weekly throughout the metropolitan area and guests on the show are a range of personalities for the world of politics, foreign relations theater and lifestyle. jim is a leading litigator having served as an assistant united states attorney for the southern district of new york and the criminal division under our former speaker robert morgenthau. with that, jim. [applause] >> thank you for that overly and excessive generous introduction and as you again describe what you thought my competition is where i kept looking behind me wondering who you are talking about. i am honored to be here at the downtown association and i'm always happy to talk about my favorite subject the supreme court of united states but it's particularly fitting to talk about the supreme court in the shadow of the grave of alexander hamilton was one of the authors of our constitution. the book, and and we will get into the book a little more later comments about the politicization of the judiciary and as i've gone around the country talking about the book i find lawyers and nonlawyers alike are keenly interested in the constitution and keenly interested in the supreme court, always beset with questions such as what's going to happen to our constitutional freedoms in the era of trump, questions like has the rule of law than undermined? is the independence of the judiciary undermined or how can it read that a court can tell the president that he can do something in the interest of national security or why can't the president banned muslims from the united states. muslims are responsible for terrorism so they can be banned from united states as if the president is not going to do with who is going to do it? i tried to answer these questions in the context of the cited cases and the history of the supreme court and some of them there are dancers. there can perhaps will they be educated guesses. the court of course has become increasingly politicized in recent years. i'm often asked the question hasn't always been politicized and the answer is it has been politicized from time to time but never to the extent that we have seen in recent 5-4 decisions and 6-3 decisions on certain issues. they are not politicized on every issue that comes before them. they decide tax cases and regulatory cases and business cases that have nothing to do really with the constitution or nothing to do with some of the ideological issues which we hear about so much. when it comes to core ideological issues like guns, god and a portion you find that they seem seem to break out 5-4 liberals and conservatives and it's almost predictable and indeed it's predictable how they are going to vote before the briefs or even filed because of their positions on these issues are quite well-known and have been well-known. so we have a politicized court in that sense now. what is a liberal pics what is a conservative? it's a definition that almost alludes sensible collaboration so i use a convenient one. the liberals are all appointed by democratic presidents and the conservatives are all appointed by republican presidents. it easy and the fact that ruth bader ginsburg was appointed by bill clinton does not mean that she asks herself before she writes an opinion how would bill clinton like me to vote on this but it's always interesting that she has certain preferred policy preferences and those are preferred policy preferences which are by far in large in-line with the agenda of the democratic party and when you have clarence thomas and scalia writing opinions they don't ask themselves what would ronald reagan have done and what would george h.w. bush have done this issue? maybe they know what they would have done but by and large they vote for outcomes that are consistent with the ideological bent of those presidents. the people i've been talking to and not only in this country but also in london where they are very much interested in the politicization of the judiciary to people i've been talking who are adjusted in outcomes, lawyers who like to get well into the weeds and discuss originalism and textualism and doctrine as to how they get to those outcomes and scalia was in ritualist and made an enormous contribution to the court by saying number one look at the text of the constitution. that's what lawyers do. the look of this text of statutes in the text of documents and secondly you look at the original understanding of the people or the society at the time of the enactment of the constitution, 1789. the main constitution had seven articles and for the first 10 amendments the bill of rights 1791. so he would have looked at the understanding of the society and you get some extraordinary interpretations. for example on the issue of capital punishment very dear to scalia's hard. he was strongly in favor of capital punishment. he said it was informed by his catholicism because it says in the new testament vengeance is mine sayeth the lord. and who is the lord in the context of capital punishment? capital punishment is on its face authorized by the constitution and the fifth amendment that talks of no one shall answer to a capital crime unless by indictment and no one should be deprived of the rights without due process of law. you know well that the state in the minds of the office of those words could deprive people of life but at the time of the constitution we thank people for stealing horses. at the time of the constitution we hang people for other crimes short of murder. we don't do that anymore. what is in the constitution that might prevent back? there's a cruel and unusual punishment clause and there arises a very interesting question. in 1791 leaf people in the stocks and the man for kissing his wife. today we would consider that perhaps cruel but at the time it was certainly the understanding of society. if there were ever a lot now but said that scalia would say it's stupid but constitutional. i think most judges would say it's unconstitutional and would not enforce the punishment. so that's an example of how constitutional interpretation might depend on and ritualist of view of the constitution versus a more enlightened view of the constitution because earl warren said the meaning of the eighth amendment to cruel and unusual punishments clause must be drawn from the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society and scalia really bought that. he said i don't know what that is neither want to know. that was his view of the living constitution which he detested because he was afraid that if you allowed it to be interpreted in accordance with the evolving standards of decency by a judge we might get outcomes even to radical outcomes that none of us would like so you said really the rights we have should be anchored in the language of the constitution. the constitution does not evolve. that is a doctrinal but what's so interesting is that originalism more often than not leads to a result that might be endorsed by the agenda of the republican party and the evolving standards of decency approach would lead you to a result that's more in line with the agenda of the democratic party. so you see a politicization arising in how these things are determined. now in days gone by you had notable dissents on the court with holmes and brandeis in dissent. palms was appointed by teddy roosevelt and brandeis was appointed by woodrow wilson and yet they voted together quite often. most often in dissent on issues involving basic political rights for example. maybe alexander hamilton is coming to get me. in the period of the new deal, the period of the new deal franklin roosevelt, a liberal didn't like what the supreme court was doing and he had a period which is an infamous perry in the history of the court called the lochner era because of the 1905 case where they struck down new york's social legislation that prohibited great thinkers from working a certain number of hours every day or every week. the supreme court said that interferes with freedom of contract and that interferes with this substantial process but you can't tell an employer and worker what kind of contract to make for themselves and later that was discredited by get a whole series of cases which were largely 5-4 franklin roosevelt said these were decisions not under the constitution that over the constitution where they struck down new deal legislation always roosevelt solution packs his solution was to pack the court. his solution was to attack the independence of the judiciary. he introduced a bill and sent it which his opponents referred to as the court-packing bill. his supporters called it the court reorganization bill where he said too many justices of the supreme court over the age of 70 and remember they all had lifetime tenure and he said for every justice over the age of 70 and congress can do this, he would have the right to appoint up to six justices and for every justice over the age of 77 civically there could be of quarter of 16 justices. remember we started with six justices not even an odd number that was increased to nine. the court-packing bill was dead on arrival answered my the better view was it was a terrible attack on the independence of the judiciary. what happened was one justice owen roberts who had always voted with the conservative switch sides and in an important hotel case voted with the liberals. it was called the switch in time to save nine so it's no longer necessary to pack the court and a number of them eventually retired because age caught up with them and got to appoint nine justices so the problem disappeared in new deal legislation started to be approved in the supreme court. they come down to the next issue which we saw played out very recently which is how do these judges get their? who are they and how did they get there? i was struck with a painting in jacob lawrence's migration series which i saw the museum of modern art where you have a black descendent, two black defendants reminiscent of scottsboro before a white judge and the illustrations really asks several questions. who are these judges and how did they get there and can they minister equal justice under the law? we have -- we look to the composition of the court and when scalia was around that consisted of six catholics and three jewish. no white anglo saxon protestants represent the majority through remember at that point we had 116 justices. 89 of them were white anglo-saxon protestant males. they largely gave us brown v. port of education many the pope decisions. so interesting that you look at rove g. wade perhaps the defining abortion case the defining political issue of our lifetime. that was made possible by the votes of three nixon appointees berger, blackmun and powell. the opinion was written by black and so these are judges who were appointed by nixon. berger made the statements and you know i don't like abortion. i really hate abortion. i would never allow anyone in my family to have an abortion but i felt this is what the constitution required and we have seen a number of instances, there's only one instance where republican and a democratically appointed judge went the other way but in a number of instances where republican appointed lake stephens, like suter prann and anwr and voted with the liberals and even kennedy who was a so-called swing vote on the court was the majority 90% of the time have switched because would have their view of what the constitution requires. we had a time when they were sick exceed and not many people know that. we have the dred scott case decided by rogers tony who was the first catholic chief justice and who swore on abraham lincoln but who rules african-americans were not citizens of the united states come in extraordinary miscarriage of justice. there was a catholic seat for many years and there was a jewish seat we know for 53 are starting with brandeis and ending with fortis in 1969. in 1969 when fortis had to resign because typical improprieties the white house showed that attorney general mitchell came to nixon and he said fortis has resigned and nixon said good. he said well we have to appoint a jewish seat and nixon said i'm not going to appoint a jewish i'm going to appoint harry blackmun. you can't do that mr. president when you're going to appoint a and nixon said when i'm dead -- after i'm dead. the presence of unconscious of identity politics. they pointed thurgood marshall so the personalities and backgrounds of these justices are very much in play in terms of their decision-making. originalism, textualism work well for scully on most issues but then when you get to the gun caused a the right to keep and bear arms of course there's a preamble. the textualists are supposed to give effect to every word in the statute and there is a preamble, a well-regulated militia being necessary to a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. he absolutely swept aside the preamble and ignored it which is anti-textualists and anti-originalist and said there was a personal right to keep and bear arms. that apply to a handgun in your home in the district of columbia. on the weather would apply having a bazooka or a howitzer in your home. i guess the right to bear arms would not include the howitzer because you can't carry it. you do have the constitutional and clarence thomas as the fundamental right to have a bazooka in your home, military weapon. the court is not extended the protection of the 2nd amendment to military protection but it remains to be seen if the states can regulate assault weapons and also we will see shortly whether they can regulate the carrying of guns either openly or concealed handguns on the street that's the state of play at the moment but i think i will leave it at that. you must have many questions and are probably a lot i've left out but i don't want to keep you too long. your questions are more important than what i have to say. [inaudible] >> its interesting citizens united was decided time and the republicans are out of power and light to raise campaign financing and that's when again a departure from originalism because certainly none of the framers of the constitution ever fought in a million years the campaign financing was a form of political speech and the corporations give $100,000 to aipac or even a million dollars to aipac congress doesn't have the power to regulate that. but the 5-4 case, they decided. every indication that gorsuch's feels exactly the same way since he has taken scalia spot so i think there will be an open season on political finance for years to come. we didn't talk about, when corsets were placed scalia in a way it really wasn't such a big set back for people who are in just did and liberal values because number one it didn't change the voting composition of the court and number two you weren't getting a justice is of scalia's intellectual heft that was so persuasive however gorsuch's is not even 50 years old so there is every prospect that is going to be there for another 30 years or more and if you have other retirement and i don't think ruth ginsburg is going to retire until she's on life support, but i think there may be other retirements. kennedy will retire and trump up another nomination and there's every prospect of that nominee confirmed by the senate. >> or the least politicized members of the court today? >> i think it may vary from issue to issue because it said here was kennedy appointed by ronald reagan and he was the decisive vote in the marriage case but he has been a consistent upward growth so that is a political issue of its own just as scalia was a consistent opponent of. if you have any doubt about that i don't know what you are smoking because in the argument of the marriage case a man stood up in the courtroom and he said you are all going to roast in hell for this and he was dragged out of the courtroom and as they dragged him out of the courtroom scalia leaned over the bench and said i find that rather refreshing. [laughter] scalia believed in the devil he said. >> are there any justice is that you believe don't belong there? >> these are all highly qualified highly intelligent people, highly experienced people which is perhaps the most important factor but you have office qualifications in merrick garland so why was he blocked? he was blocked for political reasons and why did the corsets get in? because of political reasons. >> do you believe they are all of that intellectual stature? >> well i think some more, some less but i think they all would qualified owner andy -- under any standard of intellect and integrity piano there was a big flap about clarence thomas to is the furthest right of all the justices and says he believes the natural law and natural law means a lot of things but to a lawyer means you find a basis for decisions other than what's in the constitution. for example the right to bear arms was a fundamental right which was given to citizens before the constitution in the decoration of independents and part of the roof right if life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. there's no one else on the court like corsets because he studied natural law when he was at oxford on a marshall scholarship under a man named john fettus who believed in natural law. i think there's that question question about clarence thomas that he is undoubtedly a very bright jurist. it's just that i don't know what motivates him to come to the conclusions that he does. >> burgers characterization of himself with originalist with no religious backdrop. that's my first thought. is that a false equivalency of scalia saying this date is god so therefore i justify my views better place like. >> he never said that judicially as i understand your question there something between scalia's originalism which may be based on his religious belief and berger's originalism. i don't know the berger was an originalist but he certainly wasn't conservative which is not based in religious belief. >> one is justified as religion and the other justified through the original interpretation of the constitution. >> it was never justified in terms other than the constitution and anyone's opinions on capital punishment. in speeches and in law review articles and in comments to a for he justified on the basis of religion and the saying you can't separate me from my catholicism because two i am. i think he did say if there ever came a time when of course if his oath of office conflicted with his religion he would resign but he never saw complex. >> john robertson is self proclaimed federal as him, can you talk a little bit about that in the context of his constitutional interpretation? >> john roberts is a conservative. they think he's an institutional list. i think this feelings about the court and its placement in our constitutional system. while the satellite during his confirmation hearings that was nonsense about his being a partial umpire and he would call balls and strikes and no one goes to the stadium to see the umpire they go to see the players but john roberts said he deplores which is a terrible word these days interestingly that thought it was unconstitutional of the new obama administration. he did want in and confidence in the being partisan that's a dirty word and then they say there's no confidence in the if changing just as changes to call the question was aligning why? seven years they overruled the prior decision. yes sir. >> this is nothing new. when he wrote the first decision was he did it in such a way because he knew if he tried to order something jefferson who is a republican would refuse to do it so this is something that has happened from the very beginning of the supreme court. >> yes there were instances you can cite in history and what is fascinating is there were many issues that the framers of the constitution could not agree on. one of them is slavery. they were all slaveowners and they couldn't agree on that so they just left that for another day. the other issue was what the supreme court was supposed to be doing. nowhere in the constitution does it say they have the power of judicial review. nowhere in the constitution doesn't say they have the power to declare an act of congress unconstitutional or the act of the president constitutional. hamilton was killed in a dual -- duel in a two to four but before that he had a pal andy wrote this opinion receives the power of judicial review and of course this is what was meant for the power to clear with allies. it was a starting .. and that's when it all started. hamilton said the judiciary is the weakest branch of government because they have no army and he knew a lot about armies. they had no money and he knew a lot about money the first secretary of the treasury. where does the power come from? it comes from the fact that they have lifetime tenure and they are independent. from matt john marshall said in the federalist papers you have madison are giving the power of judicial review. they didn't put it in the constitution because it wouldn't have gotten past. he was often france having a good time but the power of the judicial review became established and then you have a succession of cases. the court of last resort the inevitably there was a political component because they are deciding for the future and justice jackson said years later we are not final because we are infallible. we are infallible because we are final. i probably did not answer your question. if i did and it was deliberate. >> how a will president trump's travel restrictions play out? >> i don't think they will take the case. in the first place the 9th circuit on executive order to the 9th circuit did not base it on the constitution. they pasted on the immigration act and they said under the immigration act he did not have the power to stand people based on their nationality and didn't have the power to discriminate based on nationality and what was interesting was they were willing to use his tweets as evidence of what the policy was. however they did not go so far as to say that he can find animus against muslims and what he said during a campaign or what he said after the campaign. i don't think it would take the case. there's no split in the circuit. it doesn't involve a constitutional question and i just don't see they are going to get into it and get into a question of separation of powers and national security and all the rest. if they ever did they could clearly find and they should find there was the intent to discriminate against muslims based on religion. i think they could find that there is no overarching national security interests. after all we have never had a domestic attack from nationals of any of the six or seven countries and he left off saudi arabia and russia where we have had terrorist attacks. what is the rational basis with the guantánamo cases in other cases? they have shown lately a willingness to look behind the assertions of the executive as to what is national security and and the japanese internment cases in world war ii where the court was plainly lied to. there was this canard that japanese-americans were receiving radio signals from japan directing them as to what to do to establish and affidavits presented to the supreme court by the military. so i think the skeptical of the national security claim could easily see through the claims under the second order which the white house said was an extension of the policy of the first-order and i don't think, think they would strike it down if they ever got into the constitutional question which i don't think they would get it think the 9th circuit would. >> you brought up a clearcut case and maybe we'll touch on whether you think i will be heard again. but that actually takes the health of the mother out of the picture and it's quite a viable issue but why would trump stand the plus sized? why didn't they go after obama which would arguably be this exact same thing? >> i'm not clear what your question is. maybe i didn't hear it. abortion to excluding iraqi's. >> i'm happy if touched on the abortion issue. there were very similar cases and because the health of the mother very relevant to roe v. wade do you think it will come up again in the future text you've had two cases. you think we will see that again the classic case of politicization of the court. he made that point it's a good point but i'm not sure sure sure if you will think that come up again in the future and part two to follow up on his case up as they think obama did have a travel ban on iraqi citizens for six months and how is it that was never challenged in the court? >> well i think it only related to iraqi citizens. yet the military involvement in iraq and it didn't seem to have the implications, the broad implications of trumps muslim ban which was plainly the preference particularly giving preference to christians from those countries so was totally infected with religious preference which obama's ban was not. >> in the first place it wasn't challenged. i i don't know why it wasn't challenged. labor sits up there and decides cases that seem to be timely. someone has to bring up the case and it wasn't. to think the abortion issue is going to come up again. there is pending in congress a national ban on abortion i think after 16 weeks and in all cases. if that is enacted then of course there will be a constitutional attack on the issue of whether roe v. wade law would be in play. i think there are all sorts of cases coming up from the states where there are serious restrictions on a woman's right to abortion. has to be done in a clinic and meet certain standards and be performed by a doctor who practically needs a nobel prize and everything they can dream up for anyone seeking this form of women's health care. others may differ. >> previously touched on the 9th circuit. there's also been talk lately from the trump of mistress to potentially reforming breaking up the 9th circuit. would that be a lower bar for the congress to clear than packing the court? to you think it's possible to change the boundaries of the 9th circuit? >> i have no idea what this congress is likely to do. it would take an act of congress to do it and i don't know you only need two or three defected republicans to prevent that from happening. obviously it would be an attack on the independence of the judiciary and the whole idea of lifetime appointments is you have a democrat in power appoints justices or judges and the judges of the lower courts mostly appointed by democrats, democratic presidents, clinton and obama and they are deciding cases and to try to dilute their power by breaking up circuit and appointing the judges his court-packing under another guise. what he was doing was he put all the present judges in one division of the 9th circuit and then he would want to appoint his own judges to another division of the 9th circuit. how do you decide which cases go into which division? i don't know but certainly the aim of the legislation would be to undermine the independence of the judiciary and undermine the constitutional system. that itself might be unconstitutional. there could be a lot of litigation. what's so interesting about this whole era of trump is the pushback against him seems to be coming from the free press, from the resilient society, from the resilient economy that seems to ignore some of the worst aspects of what he he says is his policy and particularly from the courts the litigation challenging these various things he wants to accomplish. yes, sir. >> you think there will be a drafting of a new constitution? >> there won't a sufficient agreement. we are deeply polarized country. we live in a polarized country and that's why the supreme court ironically enough before they go to conference every day that justice shakes hands with all the other justices so there are a total of 36 shakes from nine justices and this is supposed to symbolize a sense of shared purpose and a commitment to the constitution but the fact is they are deeply divided and the country is deeply divided. things tanks are deeply divided and our congress are deeply divided and our people are deeply divided. the media are deeply divided between fake news and all the other news so i think given that it's impossible to get the consensus on almost anything that would be necessary for new constitution. >> in the past how have we gone from extreme politicization to less politicization? >> i think it rows out of the doctrine of stare decisis which means it's a lawyers term that means that judges should stand by their decisions. course should -- corsets that the environment in which they operate so it's true you look at the text and its true you look at what the original understanding was that you must also look at the decided cases. if clarence thomas says he will overrule any case that in his view is contrary to the constitution so the politicization continues but if you have judges like scalia actually you may not necessarily agree with the outcome and he said he would overrule roe v. wade and overrule z. that were malicious but in most cases he would follow the decided cases because it's easier and it's correct to do it. you have some reliability in the whole judicial process and some safety and deciding in the accordance with the law. as long as they continue to do that you have a court of law more or less knowing there will always be areas of majestic ambiguity where there on views of creep then and then it goes on. >> the politicization has been rather subtle i think with the exception of some of the clips of scalia in the past. course which didn't say i'm going to side with republicans on ideological issues but what is preventing the justices from doing so? if it became overt what is the mechanism to in favor of ideological perspective? >> it's interesting only one justice in the history of the supreme court has been impeached and his name is samuel chase. he was appointed by george washington. he was acquitted in the senate even though he was in peach to. what was the charge against him? a charge against him was he was too partisan. since then they have talked about impeaching justice douglas but no justice has ever been impeached. i don't know what he's likely to do. i think he is a good enough lawyer to find as much legal support for his positions as they possibly can and i don't think he would be a republican ideologue although he has tremendous basis on what the democrats did to his mother and what the democrats did to him as a very partisan justice. they take an extraordinary human being who will ignores those. yes, sir. >> justice i would like to find out your thoughts about justice thomas. he one-on-one he is very open and outgoing and very personal and very well-liked but he's unusual in until recently the position asking no questions whatsoever. could you speculate because it's hard to know why he was doing it. >> i have met him and i've talked with him and i've heard him speak and i totally agree with you. he is personable and he's outgoing. he's a very interesting man and in the book my grandfather's son which he describes up until he was appoint to the court he calls himself an ordinary man to home extraordinary things happen. he came from a dirt poor terribly disadvantaged background. he was discriminated against unquestionably. he hated law school. he thought law school was awful because he denied he was the product of affirmative action. he couldn't get a job when he graduated from the a law school. he was a friend of jack danforth had became attorney general of missouri who gave him a job. he has always been angry. he has always been resentful and i think even more so after the anita hill episode so much so that it was only two years ago which was i don't know 15 years after the anita hill episode that his wife called and left a message saying would you please apologize to my husband for what you did. why should they bear so much anger in so much hurt after all this time? at all episode was unfortunate and i don't fault them for any of that. what the default them for cases like chapman v. georgia which was a black defendant in a capital case. an unusual thing happened. they had access to the file of the prosecutor and they found the prosecutor challenged black jurors off the panel. he was sentenced to death in the supreme court when they reversed 8-1. the soul dissenter was clarence thomas and i think the job of being a judge and that frozen truck or case were to go into but the job of a judge is to look at the outcome whatever his overarching philosophy is and wherever that leads us or to save this outcome is harsh or unfair. in that case the outcome that he advocated was totally against the constitution. chief justice roberts wrote the majority to challenges faced onto more than the constitution allows. >> yes, maam. >> i'd like to first say partisanship is going to increase the election of members of the court. what kind of environment would prevent that or have that at least decrease? >> i think there is a chance, not a great one that the composition of the senate had changed in two years and there is perhaps a greater chance that it could change in four years but, so that's really the only possibility we could have some pushback against the conservatives who will be in the appointing authority. even if trump goes before that timeframe and he well might i would think that pence and whoever succeeds him will continue to seek to appoint judges who have conservative political views. after all pence wanted when he was governor of indiana wanted to hold a christian burial for every imported fetus -- aborted fetus. he wanted to rename ie 69 the antonin scalia expressway so he is a lawyer and i think he is very influential in the appointment of these judges because trump does not have a legal background. i think that he will want to continue to appoint hard right judges. >> there were a couple of things that were surprising in which side they were on. scalia voted with the liberals and is not well-known in 15% of the cases. my friend david dorsett giorda book called scalia's unexpected opinions. the very thin book. [laughter] he did particularly in the search and seizure area vote with the liberals and he voted with the liberals and the flag burning case. he found flagburning was a form of symbolic speech and protected by the first amendment even though trump wanted to deport anyone who burned the flag. i think that's an example of some decisions that were unexpected. i think robert's decision on obamacare was did. i think kennedy's positions which are normally quite conservative on was good because in lawrence v. texas and other cases based on his personal experiences he had some empathy with aspirations and. kennedy unexpectedly voted consistently against reproductive rights in the last couple of cases and is voted with the liberals and gone the other way. after all kennedy is in the majority and 90% of the cases. he's a swing vote on the court and this is why he may not retire sometime soon. those are the ones i can think of off the top of my head but i'm sure there are others. the other justices like ginsburg kagan and breyer and even though breyer was much more predictable yes, sir. >> do you think it would be possible sometime in the future as an executive to ignore supreme court decision and vote would be the implications because the president has executive function but policing state department homeland security a lot of things in their control. what if they would direct them to do something that contravenes the judicial precedent? one president tried to do that in alessandra jackson. and he said john marshall has made the decision and now let them try to enforce it but eventually, that was in one of the cherokee indian cases but i think eventually they came around, jackson came around and he enforced the decision. we have had a respect, deep respect for the rule of law in this country which demands certain things of the president, demand things of all of us and gorsuch's said this many times no one including the president no one is above the law. the courts decide when something is unconstitutional and the courts decide if something needs to be done if they issue an order or injunction. the executive branch is compelled by law to carry it out consistent with the president's oath to preserve and protect the constitution. you will see this government and a lower court cases on the travel ban for which esther specht at the injunction and hence may be slow down the process and drag its feet but certainly there would be a constitutional crisis if the president defied the supreme court and if the court did something else. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. thank you. [applause] authors like to sell books and their looks in the backwoods of that lay. >> which i will be happy to sign if anybody wants me to. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]