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President Obama Picks Merrick Garland as Supreme Court Nominee; Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired March 16, 2016 - 10:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

[10:00:23] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning, everyone. I'm Carol Costello. We do begin with breaking news. I told you in the last hour that President Obama was going to announce his nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court.

Well, Manu Raju has done some digging. And he's already found out who that person will be. Take it away, Manu.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey there. It sounds like it's going to be Merrick Garland. He's the D.C. -- he's the chief judge for the D.C. Appeals Court. He was nominated for that position by President Bill Clinton in 1997, was overwhelmingly confirmed by the Senate back then.

The White House is starting to put out word to its allies that they will go ahead -- the president will go ahead and nominate Merrick Garland.

Now this comes as a little bit of a surprise. Garland certainly was on the short list, was viewed as one of the last couple of candidates. But Sri Srinivasan, who was the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals judge who was confirmed by a 97-0 vote in 2013 seemed to be the leading candidate in the last couple of days. He would also have been a pretty historic pick, the first Indian American selected for the court. But clearly, the White House decided to go another direction. It will be interesting to see why they decided to do that.

Now I spoke to a number of Democratic senators who are very happy about this because they believe that Garland is eminently qualified for the post and also has a liberal, more progressive bend in his background, something that could potentially fire up the Democratic base in this election year.

Now this is -- the president is going to make this official at 11:00 but they're beginning to put out word that Merrick Garland will get the nomination for the Supreme Court. His chances for confirmation appear to be slim right now because Republicans say they won't even consider hearings, they won't even meet with the nominee. But Democrats believe because he is such a -- a qualified individual, the pressure will intensify and they will eventually buckle in this election year.

But this fight is only just beginning now that Merrick Garland we've heard will get the nomination to the Supreme Court.

COSTELLO: All right. Manu Raju breaking the news that Merrick Garland will be President Obama's pick to fill the seat of Justice Antonin Scalia.

I want to go to Washington and Pamela Brown. I also have Jeffrey Toobin sitting beside me.

But, first to you, Pamela, because Manu Raju said this was a surprise pick. I just can't imagine being Merrick Garland at this moment and going through this process.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. It is a surprise to some because everyone kind of thought Sri Srinivasan would be the frontrunner here. He's someone who is younger obviously than Merrick Garland. 49 years old. Merrick Garland is 63. And nominating someone to the high court who's in their 60s is pretty rare, Carol. And so that was one reason why people thought it would be Sri Srinivasan. Also the diversity factor.

But the bottom line, I mentioned this last hour, this is a unique time. This is a time Republicans are vowing not to hold a hearing and so it seems like the calculus for the president was to pick someone who could be palatable to the Republicans in this time. And given his age and given the fact that he's widely respected across the aisle, Senator Hatch has come out and thrown his support behind him in the past.

So given all of these factors, Carol, and the fact that he's somewhat of a moderate, he's someone who is pretty conservative when it comes to criminal law, a lot of different cases he's voted in favor of law enforcement and against the criminal defendant. And so he is someone who is viewed as a moderate. And so perhaps the president thought that if anyone's going to have a chance, it's Garland.

And also, this is his last shot realistically. I've spoken to people who are close to Merrick Garland. He knew, Carol, this would be his last time to get on the high court. So really, he has nothing to lose in many ways if a hearing isn't held versus a Sri Srinivasan who has clearly a very bright future ahead of him.

COSTELLO: All right. Pamela Brown, stand by. I want to go to Jeffrey Toobin.

So Senate Republicans at 10:15 Eastern this morning are going to take to the Senate floor to actively campaign against this nominee before he's even announced.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, that's right. But how are they going to say Merrick Garland is not qualified to be on the Supreme Court.

COSTELLO: I don't think being qualified has anything to do with it at this moment.

TOOBIN: No, it doesn't. But -- from the Republican perspective, but Democrats will be able to say, look, this guy has been a federal appeals court judge for almost 20 years. He is the chief judge of the second most important court in the country. He has a long judicial record, impeccable credentials. But the political calculation here is I think quite clear is that President Obama is saying to the Senate Republicans, look, you can take my 63-year-old now or wait for President Hillary Clinton to bring up a 45-year-old in 10 months.

[10:05:10] COSTELLO: Yes, but --

TOOBIN: That's a -- that's a political box that the Republicans are going to be in.

COSTELLO: True. But Republicans will still control the Senate if Hillary Clinton is elected president. So --

TOOBIN: Maybe yes, maybe no. But -- well, the -- but the question that Republicans are going to have to answer is, how is Merrick Garland unqualified in a way that he can't even get a hearing? And it's just an implausible argument. The only argument they have to make is we just don't confirm people in the last year of a president's term. Vice President Biden gave a speech when he was a senator that suggested a similar kind of attitude. But the argument has to shift for Republicans simply to the presidential election. They can't -- they can't want to talk about Merrick Garland's qualifications because they are unchallengeable.

COSTELLO: So, Manu Raju, what's going to happen in the Senate?

(LAUGHTER)

RAJU: Yes. That's a great question. You know, it's interesting because Senate Republicans are not going to actually dispute Merrick Garland's qualifications. Now I've been told that that's really not going to be the source of their argument because of what Jeffrey was just saying. He is, without a doubt, qualified for this position given his long tenure serving in -- as a judge, as a federal judge, but what they are going to say is that process argument. They're going to -- they've made the case since Antonin Scalia's death that this vacancy should be filled by the next president.

They've said that we don't care who it is. They have been saying and they are going to continue to say, it's not about the name, it's about the principle. That's their talking point and they are going to increasingly argue that because they say voters have already gone to the polls and they should actually take this to voters and say, who do you want to make the next Supreme Court choice? Do you want a Republican nominee and a Republican Senate? Or a Democratic nominee?

Now Democrats believe politically this is going to be suicide for those blue state Republicans in really tough races because the pressure will be unrelenting. But Republicans that I talked to think that Democrats are really miscalculating on this. They believe politically this is awash. They believe this brings out the Republican base to the polls, this brings out the Democratic base to the polls and independent voters are about evenly divided. They don't think this is going to be a defining issue. If anything, it gives them an issue to run on so they can tell their base we will be a firewall against a justice, whether it's a Hillary Clinton or maybe even Donald Trump in the White House that a conservative Republican Senate majority can ensure that there will be a more moderate or conservative justice on the Supreme Court. That's the debate that's going to move forward here.

COSTELLO: All right. Pamela Brown, I understand you've got some new information for us. So pass it along.

BROWN: Right. I'm just speaking to people on the Hill, Republicans and so forth. And I feel like the thinking is that Merrick Garland is the most likely person that Republicans would actually confirm in a lame duck. So come November, if Hillary Clinton is elected, he is someone that Republicans would want to confirm, just from talking to folks, rather than let Clinton nominate someone else.

And I asked, what about Sri Srinivasan? Because he's also looked at as a moderate and someone who has garnered wide respect on both sides of the aisle, but I'm told that they wouldn't be as apt to confirm a Sri Srinivasan during a lame duck as they would with a Merrick Garland.

And also I'm told that, as we know, the president have a meeting with these -- potential nominees and that the meeting between Merrick Garland and the president went very well. It also went well with Sri Srinivasan. No doubt, this was a tough decision for the president. But as we're learning today, Carol, Merrick Garland, the chief judge of the D.C. Circuit Court, is the president's pick.

COSTELLO: OK. So do you know why Sri Srinivasan wouldn't be the president's pick? I mean, is there any reason? Because he seems the more likely choice because the Senate confirmed him with a vote of 97- 0 for the U.S. Court of Appeals.

TOOBIN: Well, this is why I was wrong in my prediction.

(LAUGHTER)

TOOBIN: Because I thought it was going to be Sri Srinivasan.

COSTELLO: It's hard to predict anything in our world of politics now.

TOOBIN: Well, no, no, but I -- you know, I want to stick to predicting the past. I think that's going to be a safer bet for me in the future. You know, just -- because I'm usually right. No. I really -- I thought it was going to be Srinivasan. I think the argument will be -- you know, to the Senate Republicans, convict -- no, it's not convict. It's confirm, confirm Merrick Garland now or get someone you like a lot less from Hillary Clinton next January.

COSTELLO: Got you. So, Pam, you wanted to add something?

BROWN: Yes. I was just going to say, you know, we could talk about Sri Srinivasan was unanimously confirmed three years ago. Merrick Garland in 1997 was confirmed -- he was re-nominated by President Clinton. It was 76-23 which is still pretty good. And at the time it was less about him and more about the fact that Republicans didn't want the president sort of stacking the bench.

[10:10:05] This is his ongoing argument we hear about. And so I think that that's also worth mentioning as well that, although he didn't get a unanimous confirmation, it's still pretty good and that it wasn't really -- it was less about him.

COSTELLO: All right. I have to leave it there. Pamela Brown, Manu Raju, Jeffrey Toobin, thanks to all of you.

I want to take a quick break. We will be back with analysis, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: All right. Breaking news to tell you about. You see a picture of the Rose Garden, it's beautiful in Washington this time of year, isn't it? It's also exciting. In just about 45 minutes, President Barack Obama will be behind that podium, you just saw, and announce his pick for the U.S. Supreme Court. That man will be Merrick Garland, 63 years old. He is now chief judge of the D.C. Court of Appeals. He was nominated, by the way, by President Bill Clinton.

[10:15:01] He's thought of as a moderate and he served as a law clerk to the U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, Jr.

Now Senate Republicans are already fighting against this pick. They're going to take -- actually, the Senate opened up for business at 10:00 Eastern Time. It's 10:15 right now. You can see inside the Senate chambers. They're already getting ready for business and we understand that Senate Republicans are going to start speaking out against this nominee right now as we speak.

We're going to continue to monitor that. Well, they are going to have a prayer first. Let's break away from that so we don't interrupt. And let's head out to the White House and Athena Jones.

The president spent I guess a couple of weeks going over many, many names. Why did he settle on Merrick Garland?

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, we know that the president had said that he wanted to pick a so-called consensus candidate, someone that he believed could get the support of Republicans in the Senate. Now we know that Republicans in the Senate have vowed to block any nominees, saying they won't hold hearings. Many saying they won't even meet with the nominee. But the idea from the White House's standpoint was that president was always going to fulfill what he called his constitutional duty to name a successor or a replacement for -- Justice Scalia. And so he's doing that. He wants to see the Senate do its job and so they wanted to pick a nominee that would be difficult for Republicans to argue with.

As we've heard over the last several minutes, Merrick Garland was appointed by President Bill Clinton but he got bipartisan support back in 1997 in the Senate. Senator Orrin Hatch, a Republican from Utah, praised Garland as highly qualified during that process. Hatch is still on the Senate Judiciary Committee. So this all plays into the argument that a nominee should not only get a hearing but also a vote and that the Senate should do its duty of providing advice and consent.

I should tell you, Carol, that already there is a whole process and a whole campaign being put together to push this nominee, to keep the pressure on the Senate. There's a new Twitter handle, scotusnom set up. It already had over 3,000 followers just a little while ago. Probably has more by now. And we're beginning to see some of the White House's argument being put forward on that Twitter handle. One of them is about precedent. They say -- they have been arguing that since 1875, every Supreme Court nominee has gotten a hearing and/or a vote.

They see no reason why that shouldn't happen now. So we can expect the White House to argue that this sort of obstruction by the Senate is unprecedented. And they believe that now that this fight is not so theoretical, now that there's a real name, it could change the dynamics somewhat from Republicans. We'll have to see if that happens certainly in a few minutes on the Senate floor -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Athena Jones, stand by.

I want to go to Dana Bash now because Donald Trump has already spoken out about this. He said that the Senate should block this nominee.

This is sure to become a campaign issue, right, Dana?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. And the fact that the White House decided to -- say that there was no time and that it wouldn't --

COSTELLO: Dana, Mitch McConnell -- Mitch McConnell, the Senate leader, is talking about this. Let's listen in.