Nothing to do with his qualifications. They are opposed to donald trump pointing anyone to the Supreme Court. Kneneil gorsuch a good man. Its the democrats who are breaking the rules, what theyre doing is changing the 200 year status quo. The ironny is that you could have said the exact same things, regarding judge garland. That, of course, was president s garlands dom knee to fill the same vacancy who republicans refused to hold a single confirmation hearing, much less a vote. It was an unprecedented feet of obstruction. Which Mitch Mcconnell on the Campaign Trail later, one of my proudest moments. The Garland Affairs seem to have taught democrats a lesson about the up sides of obstructionism and now with engaged based marching the streets and turning up the town hall showing to posed any kind of cooperation whatsoever with this president ,
theres new in washington. Just four Democratic Senators came out against a gorsuch fill buster, facing tough reelection battles. Theyve vowed to confirm him when the Senate Adjourns for twoweek recess. Democrats now face a choice, either take the loss or change the rules to make it impossible to fill buster Supreme Court nominees. Its known as Nuclear Option and according to Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer, republicans dont have to go that far. They dont have to treat the Nuclear Option as if its their first and only option. Its a false choice. To my friends on the other side, the answer isnt to change the rules, the answer is to change the nominees. Joining me now, democratic senator of hawaii, a member of the Senate Judiciary committee. Senator, i want you to respond to this things your colleagues and committee said,
this is politicized you have no objections against him and this is unprecedent. Well, we have a lot of substantive objections against judge gorsuch, it has to do with, after reviewing his cases and how he approaches his judicial decision, hes very much in favor of corporations over individual rights. He will fit right in with Roberts Court and send this court further to the right in ways that will not protect minority rights. But, is there any i mean, the argument, i think, from republicans is that essentially there will be no republican nominee that would passer a threshold, is that a fair objection. No, its not. In fact there was a nominee that had not been hand selected by the Heritage Foundation and the conservative groups spent by the way over 10 million trying to get judge gorsuch to this point, i will be open to someone who is
or provision so that minority person is harmed. Let me ask you this when this started i felt like the folks i talked to on the hill. On the background chats, thought that this would go through. They didnt think the democrats would get enough votes to fill buster. Trace for me the trajectory here among you and your colleagues in terms of how you guys at this point. I certainly waited until after the hearings. Part of the whole process of the hearings, four days of it, was first to try to find out what his judicial philosophy was, of course, that makes the difference. Judicial fi lphilosophy that because our justice has come with Life Experiences and various perspectives. He would not give us an inkling as to how he would view laws. He just kept saying, he would follow precedent. Hes going to the one court that sets precedent. It was not reassuring at all a. We looked at his record and his decisions. Hobby lobby, where all of a sudden, very expanded rights for corporation to have religious rights over the rights of thousands of employees, female employees of hobby lobby who suddenly were not going to get this kind of insurance coverage. So respond to an alternate thee theory of what happened. This is a substantive decision ive come to and my colleagues have come ton the merits. Its about his judicial philosophynd another way of viewing this, hes tremendous organized pressure to put on democratic by the Activist Base that felt like any vote, its fundamentally ill i certainly didnt feel any pressure. I think thats kind of an argument that some people like to make. In fact, my colleagues from
texas, ted cruz said that the democrats of the committee were afraid of being primary. And i said, at the mark up. That that kind of statement doesnt even deserve any kind of response, its so ridiculous. You know, we ask serious questions of judge gorsuch. And he did not provide us with the kind of responses that would enable us to conclude that he would be a justice for all of us and not just some of us. All right, senator. All right. I could go on. Finish your thought. Well, whats going to be interesting, we may get a chance to talk more about depending on how this shakes out. Certainly. Thank you. Im joined now by brian, former communications director, former chief spokesperson to Senate Majority leader. Brian, theres one way of looking at this which is, god is dead all is permitted, are all the pretenses been stripped away and the strategy adopted in 2009, obstruction by in means it
was kind of learned from watching you dad moment. If you were able to pull off the garland gambit. Which was so amazingly audacious, why not cry obstruction by any means. Well, i mean, Mitch Mcconnell is does have the power to get this passed. You can thank harry reid for that. He set the table for this. He can also thank people like you, chris hayes, you as a progressive have been very vocal in your support for fill buster reform. You should be sheering Mitch Mcconnell for doing this. This is another step. The fill buster antidemocratic procedural mechanism that is nowhere in the constitution. I think of sort of selective thing its fine. Just to be clear on the Impeer Cal Skyrocketing which became de facto Super Majority one of the houses which is nowhere in the constitutional architecture and we all know how much you and everyone loves originalism. This is obama just in his first
four years, thats just the first term, 307 fill buster, theres just nothing like it. So if it becomes a de facto, you know, Super Majority, i mean, yeah i think they should kill it. Yeah, but senators are lazy. To be honest, the way that i think this should happen, i am not a fan of the Nuclear Option. I do not im not happy about the Senate Traditions being chipped away. I think this is a terrible thing. But i understand why its happening. Its happening because harry reid exempted everything accept for the Supreme Court with his strangling the rules to change the rules. I get why thats happening. I will see a real talking fill buster. I will rather, you want to block this nominee, lets see you guys get down to the senate floor to 24 or 48 hours. This was jim, you were in the square parts of these debates, you wrote it together saying you shouldnt fill buster, my understanding, jim, you have now come around to
think they should fill buster here. Thats a fact, correct. Ive come to the decision after long a lot of thought that this is absolute the right thing to go. For me with all do respect to the senator, it absolutely has everything, almost everything to do with how they treated merit garland. They refused to give this good man even the courtesy of a hearing and now for them to say, all these Crocodile Tears about what happened is absolutely ridiculous. You and i have been talking about this for years, chris. I have been very reluctant to change, but i think that this is absolutely the right thing to do by Senator Schumer and i applaud the caucus for holding together. What i want to talk about is how do these democrats get to this place where they felt comfortable voting and this nominee. Im jim, im actually shocked. I have to say, i think and obviously as senator says this was sort of substantive joining the merits. When you look at that whip count, whats your answer to
that having been inside the office. And i understand, agn, why the senator said that. Butheact of the matter is, if you look at the house, you look at what happened socalled trump care, no one, anyone who is afraid of getting on the wrong side of a trump tweet storm right now, needs to get a new job. Because at 36 approval rating, unable to move legislative agenda, obviously, a whole bunch of these democrats feel very comfortable in taking this stand at this point in time. And ive got to tell you, a couple of weeks ago like you, you know, i thought this was going to happen. And he was going to be confirmed. But, obviously, the handwriting is on the wall. Its not going to happen. Its laughable. It really is laughable when Chuck Schumer goes on the floor and says we need a new nominee. I thought it was laughable when Mitch Mcconnell said garland is not going to get any meetings. Not only was he not going to get
any meetings. When he said that, i thought, thats laughable. I also i think that was perfectly defensible. The constitution says if the senate has a right to advise and consent. Thats exactly what the democrats are doing right now. Theyre withdrawing their consent. I said this to senate to senator, i said, yes, means not giving our consent. Right. Democrats are not giving their consent to go forward to a vote. Thats part of advising consent. No, they dont have thats ridiculous. Thats definition. You cant even vote. They do not have enough votes. They do have votes to fill buster and every nomination but the Supreme Court. But its logical to understand that this was inevitably going to happen. This is the thing that drives me crazy, everybody just has to pretend all of these, like, everyone i mean i just watched in all of these folks, oh my gosh, the expressions,
sadness that weve come here. This is so upsetting and the plit sizization, i dont know what happened. They blocked garland for an entire year. They made up a rule about final year of president s term appears nowhere in the constitution, appears nowhere in tradition. Thats fine, they won that battle. Why should anyone pretend its anything of sheer Will To Power of what you could pull off, jim. Why should anyone pretend theres anything more than that . They shouldnt. I mean, the Crocodile Tears coming out of the Senate Republicans at this point in time, it takes a cake. I hope just democrats are realizing, these Guys Arent Playing by the same rules as democrats do. Its about time to try and Fight Fire With fire. Brian, here, ultimate, quickly on this, are they going to get the votes to pull off Nuclear Option. I think they will. I think they will because we saw
democrats hold the line. I think they only lost three democrats in that vote for harry reids use. I assume the republicans will stick together. Thank you, both. Coming up, reports of an attempted back channel connection between putin and President Trump as House Intel Committee gets back to work leaving the white house desperate for diversion. Well talk about it all after this twominute break. Hold on dad. Liberty did what . Yeah, Liberty Mutual 24hour Roadside Assistance helped him to fix his flat so he could get home safely. My dad says our insurance doesnt have that. Dont worry i know what a lug wrench is, dad. Is this a lug wrench . Maybe . You can leave worry behind when liberty stands with you™. Liberty stands with you™. Liberty mutual insurance. And youre about in to hit send all on some embarrassing gas. Hey,ou bought gasx®
unlike antacids, gasx ® relieves pressure and bloating fas huh, crisis averted. Ways wins. Especially in my business. With slow internet from the phone company, you cant keep up. Youre stuck, watching Spinning Wheels and Progress Bars until someone else scoops your story. Switch to comcast business. With highspeed internet up to 10 gigabits per second. You wouldnt pick a slow race car. Then why settle for slow internet . Comcast business. Built for speed. Built for business. Another day, detailed report of possible connections with Trump Associates in russia. Nbc news has confirmed the Washington Post report that the according to u. S. European and arab officials, the United Arab Emirates as part of Back Channel Line of communication between moscow and president elect donald trump. Prince is the brother of betsy devos, president s education
secretary. Right now the question of whether the president s associates have worked together inappropriately with russian officials to interfere in the 2016 election is being investigated by the fbi. Along with the senate and house intelligence committees. That committee met tonight for the First Time Since its republican chairman made his midnight run to the white house. The Trump Administration for its part has responded to these investigations with Counter Narrative, claiming the real scandal is a Trump Associate for the one secretly spied on by the obama administration. Today it became clear, that Counter Narrative will involve Obama National security adviser susan rice. It was first written up on the far right in the peace title sue a sanrice requested unmasking of incoming officials and turned up on fox and friend where they called the whole thing unprecedented. The president apparently live tweeting the entire view of the show, says fox news from multiple source there iss electronic surveillance and people close to trump. Short time after that, bloomberg suggesting that rice was the person who would request the identities of trump Transition Officials whose Phone Conversations of foreign officials were collected. Joining me now is Susan Hennessy of the National Security agency. All right, its very clear to me now youve got all of the parts of the lets say benghazi Industrial Complex working to send this idea that the real scandal here is the obama folks spying on the trump campaign, what do you make of it . Right. So,again, again, theyre sort of trying to advance this narrative that the real story is Something Else, leaks, the fact incidental collection. The issue is that theyre describing perfectly legal and what appears to be proper conduct of intelligence activity. The question becomes either their advocating for major intelligence reform, pretty
dramatic of the traditional republican tradition on these issues. Or theyre being offered to distract from the real story. Yeah, so i want to talk about it, i think its worth getting to it for a moment. Right, theres something called minimumization exist because you want to protect the privacy of american persons when you are surveilling foreign entities. With that foreign entity has conversation its minimized or masked. Senior intelligence officials, including the National Security adviser, who is the american on the other side of that conversation, if it is the case that susan rice did that in these context, that is that okay, is that not okay. What do you make of that. So this would be sort of within the ordinary activity of a National Security adviser. I typically would occur as a generic identifier. U. S. Person number one. In some cases it will even be title, especially in the case of a government official. So sometimes that information will be disseminated with that
generic identifier. The senior officials will say, hey, in order to understand the foreign intelligence value with the significance and meeting of this, i need more information. And in that case theyll make request of nsa and in order to provide that Additional Information it will be in the ordinary job of the National Security adviser. Also, nsa would be making a separate determination as to whether or not it met those requirements before actually performing lastly. I kept sort of running through the Thought Experiment here, im susan rice and i made some Intelligence Product that says foreign intelligence, someone that were spying on, had conversation with, you know, u. S. Person Campaign Official a and im thinking to myself, well i think i want to know who that was and it doesnt seem crazy. Right. So it certainly its not crazy, but you wouldnt be able to unmask information just as a matter of personal curiosity. Its about whether or not you need that information in order
to perform your