And kathleen parker, c cumnist for the Washington Post. Welcome to sunday. Its meet the press. From nbc ws in washington, this is meet the press with chuck todd. Good sunday morning. Hasnt happened since 1968. A vacancy battle on the Supreme Court at this stage of an Election Year. L lrned late yesterday of the sudden and tragic death ofof suprememcourttustice Antonin Scalia. An intellectual and conservative thought leader, a a man president obama last nigg called one of the moo consequential judges and thinkers to serve on the Supreme Court. Scalias death of course is a personal tragedy for his family and colleagues, but it isis also bursting witit Major Political implications. What will his loss due to the balance of power on the court . Will the Republican Senate even consider someone nominated by resident obama . How long will this vacancy paralale the court, and perhaps the u. S. Senate . And at last nights republican clclar where they stand on this issue. I do not believe the presidee should appoint someone. And itit not unprecedented. Theres no doubt in my mind that barack obama will not have a consensus pick. The senene needs to stand strong and say were not going to give up the u. S. Supreme court for a generatioio i t tnk its up to Mitch Mcconnell and everybody else to stop it. Its called delay, delay, delay. Were going to hear from four of the leading republican president ial candidates this morning, donald trump, ted cruz, marco rubio and john kasich. The democctic candidates meanwhile were alsoso quick to respond t tthe vacancy. Supreme court of the United States has nine members, not eight. We need thatt ninth member. Elections have cononquences. The president has a responsibility nominate a new justice. And the senate has a responsibility to vote. Look at the democratic race and how Hillary Clintons tete is working overtime tototry to turn this contest from being a referendum on her to a referendum on Bernie Sanders. A lot to get to, but we start with the impact and the implications of scalias death on the Supreme Court. Nobody better to joinme on this than our justice correspondent pete willllms. Pete, welcome back, sir. Let me ask very quickly, were in the middle of some contentious cases on the Supreme Court now. What happens right now . The mososone with political implications is the immigration decision. Right. When you have eight justices it creates the possibility of a 44 tie. When theres a tie its as though the Supreme Court decision doesnn count, the wer court ruling stands and the Supreme Court decision has no president ial vvue. So for the immigration policy it would be a defeat for the administration because it would leave standing the Lower Court Rulings that blocked it. For such abortion question which is ming, it wwld leaea the tough texas restriction on migig encourage other states to tt the sameme thing. For Public Sector unions though it might be a victory because they won in the lower courts, defeating an effort to try to restrict their ability to raise union dues. All right. We are headed for the potential of if the president wants to nominate somebody, hes madad that clear. The Republican Controlled Senate doesnt want to consider it. Its possible terms of the Supreme Court begininn october and end in june. Right. So at this poioi under this scenario we might go ann entire term, octcter of 16 thrhrgh june of17 without a Supreme Court justice because even if the next president appoints it takes time to get through the process. Two haugt ethoughts, majority decisions are not close votes. The court will continue functioning and do a lot of its business. It does raise the possibility that you wont get what only the Supreme Court can provide, and that is the final answer. Only the Supremem Court can solve these things fornce and forever. So a lot offhese thihis will just have to keep coming back until the supreme urt gets the decision. Scalia, the way cases are heard, once theyre heard, theres an immediate vote that takes place among the nine justice. Thats right. Does scalias vote count posthumously . No, not unless thehe decision was handed down. The rule is votes can shift and opinioio can change, you have to be present for your vote to count. Want you to talk about one candidate i think we may see nominated. Its a judgee by the name of merrick ggland. If theres a Republican Senate, is is a guy they think they can get through the Republican Senate. Hes considered more moderatat than other liberal justices, why . Because of his record, experience in the justice department, widely respected. I mean, the thing is now president s tend to w wnt younger nomineeses if you look at the e st recent trend, theyre nominatingeople in their 50s. Thats not merrick garland, but hes the right kind o o ideology. All right. Busy 1 1 months for you onn this indeed. Joining me now is t t first of fourur republican president ial candidates who are on with us this momoing. Its donald trump. Mr. Trump, welcome back to meet e press. Good morning. Let me ask you firston the Supreme Court opening. Do you have a litmus test . Do you have a litmus test on row v. Wade . Citizens united when it comes to who you might appoint to the Supreme Court should you become president . Well, i think w w wve some great people out there. Diane sikes from wisconsin from outstanding. Need a conservative person. Some great people. We lost one of the greats. Id like to have the person tailored to be just like Justice Scalia, Justice Scalia was truly a great judge. And respected by all. Both sides. Thats what i mean, how willll you determine ththt . How will you determine whether you got somebody well, i mean, look, you never know what happens, chuck. You look at where a guy like ted cruz pushed very hard for everyone thought that was wonderful. And justiceceoberts let everybody down by approving obamacare, twice. I mean, he really did let us down. Thaas largely cruzs fault and the bush fault because they put the wrong guy in there. That was a shockiki decision. So, you know, you never really know. But at the time he looked okay. But hess that was a ted cruz mistake because he pushed him very hard. Look, we needreat intellecec we need i say absolutely conservativiv but i think the real plan for it would be somebodydy just like Justice Scalia. All right. I want t t move on to thth debate last night. By the way which is hard to find. Yeah, i think a loloof con terve sieve servetives will agree with you. I want to o to the debate lastst ght. Your 2008 comments about george w. Bush were brought up and this idea that you were surprised att the time that thenspeaker pelosi had ruled out impeachmhmt. Did y y believe that and i just want to clarify this, did enough there to bring up impeachment proceceings against george w. Bush in 2008 over iraqaq no. I was ininhe private sector, so i didnt think about it too much. But certainly the war in iraq was a disaster. No, not to be impeached, but the war in iraq it was a stake. He just made a mistake. We went into iraq, we lost thousands of lives but you dont believe its an Impeachable Offense now . You were implying it might be in 2008. Well, thats for other people to say. Look, thatts for other people to say. I cannay thihi it may not have been impeachable because it was a mistake. I think it was a mimitake. But it was a horrible mistake. Number one, thehe were no weapons of mass destruction. So did they know there werent or not . That would tell you something right there. But thererwere weapons of mass destruction. Chuck, the war in iraq was a disaster. We end up with abblutely nothing. Iran is taking over iraq as we sit hehe right now. Is doing pretty well worldwide. They take 150 billion, we get nothing. Theyre taking over iraq. Theyre getting the oil. It was a disasterous decision the war in iraq and unfortunately bush happened to be president. You were saying president bush lied. How do you know he lied about wmd . I ink that people knew that there were no weapons of mass destruction. I think they wanted to go in there. I think they thought it would have been easieie they didnt prosecute the war well. It wasnt well prosecuted and they enened up getting i ean, leleing. Now, i have to say he made a mistake getting in. And im the only one on the stage that said we should not go into iraq. That the war in iraq is a mistake. Everyoneelse said, oh, you know, all the other people on stage i should get points for vision. Because everybybdy let me pause you therere uck, it took right. Let me pause youou it took jeb bush five days wait a minute. Say that the iraq war was a mistake. He went back a a forth, back and forth. Then fifilly his pollster told him what he had to say. Ut jeb bush then he admitted it was a mistake. I an, look, hes gotot no chance anyway, but it almost st him the election before he even started. Well, i want to for what its worth politifact that has never been able to ffd, none of usus have been able to find any instance where before the invasion you came out against this war. Why is that . Well, i did it in 2003. I said it before dont forget, i wasnt a a politicici. So people didntt write evevything i said. I was a business person. I was as they y world class business person. N. I built a great company. I employ thousands of people. So im not a politician, but if you look at2003 there are articles, if you look at 2004, there are articles in fact i saw somebody commentiti on it last night that trump really was against the war. I was against it look, im the most militaristic person, im going to build the military bigger, better, ronger, use it, but nobodys goioi mess with us. But i will say this,he war in iraq,q,it was a mistake. Anybody would have realized iran andraq thth used to fight. Theyd go o ck, forth. Chuck, you destabilize the middle east, im the only one that calald. I was the only onene that called it. You m me it clear that you wanted to remind people that 9 11 happened, i believe you used the phrase, during george bushs reign. Do o u believe that george bush kept america safe . No. Because the worlrltrade center was knocked down. Look, thats another myth. I wish he did. I have nothing agagast him. I donnknow him. I dont know that i dont think i ever even met him. I d dt think i did meet him. I have nothing against george sh. Im j jst saying whehe jeb bush gets up and says my brothth kept us safe. How did heeep us safe when the world trade d dring his time in office, i lost many, many friends that was the worst worse than pearl harbor because they attacked civilians. They attacked people inin office buildings. And you think george w. Busus could have prevented this . Well, accccding to if you go back, you will see thth cia and other agencies had information that bad things were going to happen. And, s, the answer iss he should have known. They were not talking to each other. There was total disassociation. They didnt likeach other, all the different agencies were a mess. They were fighting with each other. Abssutely they shouldldave known. They s suld have known something. Osama bin laden heyey look, i wrote about Osama Bin Laden in 00 in a book. I was talking about Osama Bin Laden. If i know about Osama Bin Laden just by seeing press and seeing, you know, whats going on, why wouldnt thehe president of the United States know about Osama Bin Laden . Well, let me ask you this. In South Carolina asas you ow, george w. Bush is popular among publicans. You are this is a risky stralt strategy. You called him a liar last night about wmd and you essentially i didnt call him a liar. Iiidnt call anybodydy a liar. Well, you called ted cruz a iar. Chuck, i said maybe there were lies because, look, the weapons of mass destruction they said they e eisised and they didnt exist. Now, it was his group thataid there are weapons of mass destruction. Thats why we went in. Thats why so many people got hoodwinked into going into iraq. En they go in there, they seseched high and dry. They looked all over. There were no weapons ofass destruction. Turned ouou that there wewe absolutely not no weapons ofof mass destruction. Now, was it a a lie . I dont know. If you lose South Carolina, do you think the game change moment peopp will point to is what happened l lst night and what you saiai about george w. Bush . But if you win, does this prove that the Republican Party is rejectingngbush . No, i dont think so. I t tnk theyre rejecting the war in irir. The war in iraq is a disister. Have a great relationship with South Carolina and the people. Ive been there many times. Ththe. Theyre very smart people. They understand that the war in iraq iss a disaster and was a disster. It totally destabilized the middle east. When you look at the migration, when you look at all of the things that are h hppening right in iraq. And you know what, we got nothing. We have absolutely nothing. Iran is getting the whole deal. There. Little short on time this morning. I look forward to speaking with you again soon, i hope. Thanks foror congresswoman iming on and stay safe on the trail. Thank you very much. Moments ago i spoke to senator ted cruz of texas. And i began asking him about how he might go a aut replacing justice antonncalia on the court. Let me go to litmus tests, do you have them for potential ssreme Court Justices . Well, my litmus test for any Supreme Court justice isis whether he or s s will faithfully apply the constitution the law. It is rather a jurs prudential approach. The only way to detetmine that is if they have a proven record, if they have spent years demonstrating theyll be faithful to the law. Thats the job of a justice. Its what liberal activists dont do. Liberal activists want to instead legislate fromomhe bench. A perfect example of that is Justice Scalia. Justice scalia was a lion of the Supreme Court. He was one of the greatest supreme c crt justices in history. Spent three decades on the urt. But before he was on the court many years. He was a acourt of appeals judge. He had a long proven record so you knew exactly what you were getting with justiti scalia. Yearsrs is this the mistake you think was made with john roberts . Of course is. You were a big supporter of nono is that because yououhink that he didnt haa a track record . He didnt have a track and i would not have nominated john roberts. Ce george bush nominated him, republicanannominee, but i would have nominated my former boss, a court of appeals judge, Justice Scaliass very first law clerk and had a l lng proven track record. And, chuck, just as Ronald Reagan was to the presidency, so Antonin Scalia was to the Supreme Court. He had that big an impact. And i think his passing yesterday really underscores the stakes of this election. We are facing our fundamental rights in a balance. Let me ask you, does the United States senene have an ooigation to at least consider a nomination that president obama puts forward . I understand thatatou guys dont want it. D you would prefer to let the but esest the United States have an obligation to at least go through the process and have an up or downvote . Not remotely. Why . Y . It has been 80 years since a Supreme Court vacancy was nominated andonfirmed in an Election Year. There is a long tradition that and what this means, chuck, is we ought to makehe 2016 election a referendum on the Supreme Court. Iannototait to stand on that debate stage witHillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders and talk about what the susueme court will look like depending on who wins. If Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders wins, or for thatat matter if donald trump wins whose record is indistinguishable from them on a great many issues, then we willl see the Second Amendment itten out of the constitution. Another thing well e, and this is very relevevt, for cocoervativv in South Carolina, if donald trump is the nominee, or if hillarylinton is the president , we will see unlimited abortionnnn demand througugut this country. Partial birth abortion, taxpayer funding, no parental notification. And wewel also see our religious libertrttorn down, basic rights. I want to go back to the united s stes senate here. So you belieie the presidency is only three years long in each term . I mean, if we go down this road, were cutting off a presidency and more importantly,y, senator cruz, he risk here for conservatives is that if you have all these 44 ties in the court, then the more liberal leaning circuits will then have,e, you know, their rulings will take prececent. Look, the consequence of a 44 tie is that