supreme court. for 27 years, justice stephen breyer, is retiring, paving way for president biden s first supreme court appointment. and it couldn t have come at a better moment. liberals have been pushing hard for breyer to retire before the mid terms, to ensure biden would have the democratic votes in the senate to get a more liberal nominee through the process. breyer said in an bur view, it was on his mind. it was clear he wanted a successor to continue his legacy on the court. the white house said it had nor mo details to share, but during the campaign, one of the biggest promises biden made on the trail was on this very topic. we talked about the supreme court. i m looking forward to making sure there s a black woman on the supreme court to make sure we, in fact get equal representation. it s not a joke. it s not a joke. i would push very hard for that. politically supreme court nomination fights can come with huge risks, but they also present big opportunities to un
the top name in speculation right now judge katanji brown jackson, joe biden recently appointed to the d.c. circuit court of appeals to replace merrick garland. jackson is a former clerk of justice breyer, confirmed in a 53-44 majority by the senate. joining me is nbc news justice correspondent pete williams, chief legal correspondent and host of the beat ari melber, kelly o donnell and slate legal correspondent dahlia lithwick. pete, you broke this news. justice breyer himself has not announced it or made it official but can you tell us anything about the decision-making process behind his decision to retire? well, our understanding is he came to this decision within the last several weeks. he s obviously in good health. he is 83. he s the court s oldest member but that apparently did not his age or health did not play a part in this. we re told he s well aware of the current political climate. in the past supreme sort justices did not time their decisions in terms o
Materials already assembled on potential nominees for the high court. one of the things, especially in this modern age, that makes this such a rigorous process is the intense exposure of every part of the life of the ultimate nominee who would be chosen so they need a lot of information. they typically don t start with a blank page and so it is really prudent for a white house to have that information so mike s reporting makes a lot of sense, that they would have names on the list and the supporting documentation to go with that. we ve also seen that presidents sometimes go beyond that. president biden has in fact boxed himself in publicly, saying he would like an african american woman, the first to be put on the high court, and so that may narrow the field and make the selection process a shorter search period because if you re looking for current federal judges, that s not a requirement of the court, that is certainly not the case but it certainly makes it an easier
Clinton appointee to a biden appointee is not expected to somehow swing the court, but the type of juis could be different in some ways, more progressive. biden s democratic party coalition is certainly in a different place than clinton was in the 90s era and a lot of other big picture issues defending democracy, civil rights, voting rights, the calls for police reform in america and against that backdrop, something you and others reported and it s important and a sitting fact of all this, which is 95% of every member, every supreme court in history, 95% of all justices have been white men. so having a president make this rather unprecedented vow also speaks to where the country is trying to potentially or part of the country trying to grow and change. dahlia, how quickly could we get the confirmation from justice breyer? the reporting i heard, and pete may know this better, is that he s going to make a statement tomorrow, so we will
They can slow inflation, that s going to be good for everyone. so while we re going to have this small raise in rates, which remember, we re coming from zero, the last time inflation was this high, rates were above 5%, so we can stand for rates to go up a little bit. this is all meant to start to even out the economy, and really have us standing on our own. the stock market and the economy should no longer have this giant safety net of the fed constantly hugging it. we got to stand on our own. stephanie ruehl, thanks so much for joining us. appreciate it. thank you. and still ahead, what are members of congress saying about justice breyer s retirement and will democrats have trouble getting president biden s pick confirmed? ahead, the u.s. urges its citizens in ukraine to leave now warning the situation there could deteriorate with little notice. breaking point, jacob soboroff takes an ambulance ride. you see any light at the end of the tunnel or this is how it s going to