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Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Dies at 87; Congress Gearing Up for Fight for Supreme Court Replacement; President Trump Makes Claims about Vaccine Timeline. Aired 2-2:45a ET
Aired September 19, 2020 - 02:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[02:00:00]
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.
MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello, everyone, I'm Michael Holmes, you are watching CNN NEWSROOM, as we continue our coverage of the breaking news from the U.S., the death of the economic Supreme Court justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Expressions of respect and mourning have been pouring in all night in America, from the crowd that gathered outside of the Supreme Court on Friday, to the flags of the White House, in the U.S. Capitol, flying at half-staff.
A short time ago, President Trump ordered the show of respect at all public buildings in the U.S. and its embassies and facilities overseas.
Ginsburg was known for her progressive votes on divisive issues like abortion rights and same sex marriage and affirmative action. She was also renowned for her toughness in her many battles with cancer.
Her death adds a layer of drama to American politics as well less than 2 months before the election. Many Republicans now want President Trump to nominate her replacement, as soon as possible and swing the court to the Right. Democrats want to wait until after the election.
Ginsburg, reportedly, said that she did not want to be replaced until a new president is installed. More now on Justice Ginsburg's extraordinary life from CNN's Jessica Schneider.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
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JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ruth Bader Ginsburg's rise from a humble Brooklyn neighborhood to the nation's highest court was a classic American story.
RUTH BADER GINSBURG, U.S. SUPREME COURT JUSTICE: What is the difference between a bookkeeper in New York's garment district and a Supreme Court justice?
Just one generation, my mother's life and mine, bear witness. Where else but in America, could that happen?
SCHNEIDER (voice-over): She was smart, tied for first in her class at Columbia Law School. But in the late '50s and early '60s, the glass ceiling stood firm.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There were 3 strikes against her, first she was a woman, second she was Jewish, third she had a young child.
SCHNEIDER (voice-over): She turned to teaching law and fighting gender discrimination, for the ACLU.
MARGO SCHLANGER, FORMER GINSBURG CLERK: Very much with the model of the NAACP's local defense fund led by Thurgood Marshall, she had this idea that you have to build precedent step by step.
SCHNEIDER (voice-over): In 1980, Ginsburg came a federal appellate court judge.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So help me God.
GINSBURG: So help me God.
SCHNEIDER (voice-over): Thirteen years later, she was named to the Supreme Court by President Clinton, the second woman on the bench; the first, Sandra Day O'Connor, was glad to see her.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR, U.S. SUPREME COURT JUSTICE: The minute Justice Ginsburg came to the court, we were nine justices. It was not seven and then the women. And it was a great relief to me.
SCHNEIDER (voice-over): As a justice, Ginsburg consistently voted in favor of abortion access and civil rights. Perhaps her best-known work on the court, writing the 1996 landmark decision to strike down the Virginia Military Institute's ban on admitting women.
She was also known for her bold dissents, like the one she wrote when the court stopped the 2000 Florida ballot recount struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act and ended the contraception mandate for some businesses under the Affordable Care Act.
GINSBURG: In our view, the court does not comprehend or is indifferent to the insidious way in which women can be victims of pay discrimination.
SCHNEIDER (voice-over): In 2007, the high court ruled against Lilly Ledbetter, a factory supervisor at a tire plant, in a high profile pay discrimination case. Ginsburg urged Congress to take up the issue in her dissent. Twenty months later, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was the first bill that President Obama signed into law.
After Justice John Paul Stevens retired in 2010, Ginsburg became the most senior of her liberal colleagues. But she didn't slow down. Stephen Colbert discovered that the hard way, trying to keep up with RBG's famously tough workouts.
STEPHEN COLBERT, CBS HOST: I'm cramping and I'm working out with an 85-year-old woman.
SCHNEIDER (voice-over): Ginsburg hired a trainer after treatment for colorectal cancer in the late '90s. In 2018, doctors treating the justice for broken ribs discovered cancerous growth on her lung. The surgery was successful but the recovery caused Ginsburg to miss oral arguments of the Supreme Court for the first time in her career.
She was also treated several times for pancreatic cancer but always stayed up on her court work. Even after losing her husband of 56 years to cancer Ginsburg was back on the bench the next morning.
GINSBURG: I love the work I do. I think I have the best job in the world for a lawyer. I respect all of my colleagues and genuinely like most of them.
[02:05:00]
SCHNEIDER (voice-over): Her best friend on the bench was the late justice Antonin Scalia, her ideological opposite.
ANTONIN SCALIA, FORMER U.S. SUPREME COURT JUSTICE: What's not to like?
Except her views of the law, of course.
SCHNEIDER (voice-over): They shared a laugh about Ginsburg drinking wine before nodding off at the State of the Union.
GINSBURG: I was 100 percent sober because, before we went to the State of the Union, we had dinner together and Justice Kennedy brought in --
SCALIA: Well, that's the first intelligent thing you've done.
(LAUGHTER)
SCHNEIDER (voice-over): In her later years, she gained rock star status with Millennials thanks to social media.
GINSBURG: It was beyond my wildest imagination that I would, one day, become The Notorious RBG.
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SCHNEIDER (voice-over): The nickname was a play on the name of the late rapper, The Notorious B.I.G. There were books, clothing, tattoos, even a species of praying mantis in her honor, along with a recurring "SNL" sketch.
KATE MCKINNON, COMEDIAN, "RUTH BADER GINSBURG": Oh, you just got Ginsburned.
SCHNEIDER (voice-over): There was a feature film, "On The Basis of Sex," and a documentary produced by CNN. "RBG" was an unexpected box office hit and gave the justice an even larger platform to share her lifelong mission of gender equality.
GINSBURG: People ask me, sometimes, when will there be enough women on the court?
And my answer is, when there are nine.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: The White House has released a statement, calling Ruth Bader Ginsburg "a titan of the law" and remarking on her brilliant mind and powerful dissents. But president Trump actually made his first comments about her death after a rally in Minnesota on Friday night. Apparently, hearing about it first, from reporters there.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: She just died?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
TRUMP: Wow. I didn't know that. I just -- you're telling me now for the first time. She led an amazing life. What else can you say. She was an amazing woman whether you agree or not. She was an amazing woman who led an amazing life. I'm actually sad to hear that. I am sad to hear that. Thank you very much.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: Democratic rival, Joe Biden, says that the people should focus on the loss of Ginsburg and on her legacy right now and that replacing her should wait until after the November presidential election.
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JOE BIDEN (D-DE), FORMER U.S. VICE PRESIDENT AND PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We learned of the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg who is not only a giant in the legal profession but a beloved figure.
And my heart goes out to all those who cared for her and care about her. She practiced the highest American ideals as a justice, equality and justice under the law. And Ruth Bader Ginsburg stood, stood for all of us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: Joining me now is former Michigan governor, Jennifer Granholm. She is also a CNN senior political commentator.
Governor, thank you for speaking to us. On this historic evening, in many ways, speak to the imprint that Justice Ginsburg leaves on the court.
JENNIFER GRANHOLM, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: First of all, to be, real she was the second woman appointed to serve on the Supreme Court. Just the second. Appointed in '93. Progress in this country, always hard, won and hard-fought. There were fewer people in our nation's history to advance our ideals better than Justice Ginsburg.
The recency of this historic tenure should make us realize the darker days of our past are closer than we think. One thing about her that was so amazing, she was so smart about when she was a lawyer, when she was a professor at Columbia, and she headed the ACLU's project for women's advancements, women's rights project, she decided that she wanted to make sure that the law gave women equal rights.
So instead of finding a woman to bring a case that would eventually go to the Supreme Court, she was worried that this all-male group of justices would not be in her favor and would not be sympathetic. So she found a man.
The man she found was a guy, who was an 18-year old, who couldn't buy beer in Oklahoma but his girlfriend, who was 18, could. So men were not allowed to buy beer until they were 21 but women could buy at 18.
[02:10:00]
GRANHOLM: So this case went all the way up to the Supreme Court, using a man as the plaintiff and when Craig v. Boren was decided, it said that men and women or that gender could not be -- you couldn't discriminate against somebody based upon their gender. But that was the genius of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
HOLMES: An extraordinary life, extraordinary career. It may see unseemly but we have to talk politics. Mitch McConnell argued at the end of Barack Obama's term that it was wrong to appoint a justice in an election year.
In fact, we can put up his exact words.
He said, quote, "The American people will choose the next president who will in turn, nominate the next Supreme Court justice. #LetThePeopleDecide."
Of course, now, politics being politics, he says the opposite.
What can Democrats do to stop him?
GRANHOLM: This war will break out if Mitch McConnell tries to ram through a justice of the Supreme Court. First of all, it's too close of a time, 46 days until the election, to get someone confirmed before the election.
But he could try to do it in lame duck or before he leaves. If Democrats -- this means that this election will certainly, certainly, impact the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court will impact the election.
So if they try to do this between November and January, then all hell will break loose, I can just tell you. Democrats, already feel like their justice was stolen from them when he refused to put a vote up for Merrick Garland in the last year of President Obama's tenure.
He let it sit open for a year and if he now jams this through, Democrats will feel, rightly, that, they, when they win, if they win the Senate and the presidency, that they will seek to expand the number of justices on the court because they will have felt so wronged. HOLMES: That seems -- I've been hearing that a lot tonight, that they
could do that.
It's interesting, though, to do it in the lame duck session, there are already some senators on the record. Senator Murkowski said it would be a double standard to fill a position before 2021.
Senator Lindsey Graham, back on October 28, said if an opening comes in the last year of Trump's term and the primary process has started, we'll wait until the next election.
Democrats, I think they need four Republicans to not go ahead.
What are the odds of that?
GRANHOLM: Of Lindsey Graham of not voting with Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump?
Zero
HOLMES: No chance.
GRANHOLM: However, I will say that some of these senators are up for election right now in tough reelections. So for example, Susan Collins, who may be persuaded to back off, for her, this is a big deal because, in Maine, there was a poll that came out from "The New York Times" this morning.
And the question was asked, who do you trust more on appointing Supreme Court justices?
And in Maine, Biden is trusted by 22 points over Trump. So at her peril she would say, yes, I'm going to vote to allow this to happen in lame duck.
Similarly, in Arizona there is a big Senate race. The incumbent is a Republican, Martha McSally. This same poll says Biden is trusted by 10 points more.
Do I think that politics are going to play and that hypocrisy is going to be rampant?
Yes, and I think the Republicans will want to jam this through. But they do so, I think, at their peril.
HOLMES: Yes, mourning for the justice Ginsburg but the politics have already begun. Governor Granholm, thank you so much, I really appreciate it.
GRANHOLM: You bet. Thanks so much.
HOLMES: Congress, already gearing up for the fight over Ginsburg's replacement. I was talking about that with our guest there, the governor. The Senate majority leader says there is time for a vote on a Trump nominee but Democrats say the seat should not be filled until the new president takes office. CNN's Manu Raju with more on what could be an explosive conflict.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, he is in charge of the Senate calendar, he determines what comes to the floor for votes and for consideration.
He is making it clear that the replacement for Ruth Bader Ginsburg will get a vote before the end of the year. And that is very significant. That means, no matter what happens in November, if President Trump wins or loses to Joe Biden, whether or not the Republicans keep control of the Senate or Democrats win a majority, that McConnell will still push for a vote before the end of the year. And the Republicans will have this current majority until year's end.
So that gives them few months to get someone confirmed. The big question here, the timing, and the votes. One, the timing.
Will it happen before November?
[02:15:00]
RAJU: At the moment it appears unlikely. It typically takes 2 to 3 months for a nominee to be confirmed. Right now, there simply, is not enough time. But there is a push among some Republicans to get someone confirmed before November, arguing that they need nine justices on the Supreme Court to help break any dispute, election year legal dispute that could occur from the November 3rd election.
So expect the argument to continue to play out. The bigger question for Republicans is do they have the votes to confirm someone?
Can they maintain three senators from defecting?
If there are more than three senators who defect, that means that no president Trump nominee will be confirmed.
Also a question, whether or not a special election in Arizona, where Martha McSally, the current appointed senator, is up against a Democrat, Mark Kelly, if Kelly wins that race on November 3rd, he could be sworn into that seat potentially by the end of November.
So that would make also the Republican majority 52 to 48 as well. So that would narrow the Republican majority. All of these calculations are started to be considered at the highest levels of Senate Republican leadership.
They're trying to make sure they have the votes. They're trying to see whether or not how their conference will react. So a lot of discussions will happen behind the, scenes. Members will talk more when they come back next week.
But no doubt about it. Republican leadership is ready to move forward and vote for a nominee setting up a historic fight over a nominee who could change the lives of Americans for years to come -- Manu Raju, CNN, Capitol Hill.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: And the former president, Barack Obama, asking Republican senators to honor Ginsburg's legacy and decency by not nominating a new justice until after the election.
He says, "Republicans set that standard back in 2016 when they refused to hold even a hearing," on Mr. Obama's Supreme Court nominee.
He says, "It would be unfair and unjust to push someone through before the country has a chance to vote on who should be making that decision."
CNN NEWSROOM will continue in just a moment. We will be right back.
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HOLMES: Welcome back.
President Donald Trump, laying out a new coronavirus vaccine timeline as the nation quickly nears 200,000 deaths. He now claims, all Americans will be able to get a vaccine by April.
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TRUMP: We'll have manufactured at least 100 million vaccine, doses before the end of the year and likely much more than that. Hundreds of millions of doses will be available every month and we expect to have enough vaccines for every American by April.
[02:20:00]
HOLMES: The thing is, that does not match the timeline of the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He says a vaccine will not be widely available until late spring or summer, of next year.
Meanwhile, two studies have been released that show how COVID could spread on planes, suggesting, spacing people out may not fully protect them. In one case, a symptomatic passenger infected 15 others on a flight from London to Vietnam in early March. This was before flights required face masks.
More than 6.7 million people in the U.S. have been infected by the coronavirus. That's accordance to Johns Hopkins University. And as multiple states continue to see an upward trend in cases, CNN's Erica Hill repots guidance from top health officials is still changing.
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ERICA HILL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Get tested: that's the latest guidance from the CDC for anyone who's been in contact with an infected person, revised again, after it was revealed changes last month that focused on testing those with coronavirus symptoms did not come from CDC scientists.
DR. ROSHINI RAJ, NYU LANGONE HEALTH: All of this conflicting information and questions of political motivation are really hampering the efforts to take control of this virus and get back to our normal way of living.
HILL (voice-over): The virus is not under control.
DR. LEANA WEN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: We're trending in the wrong direction.
HILL (voice-over): A blunt assessment, as the country adds more than 44,000 new cases and is about to pass 200,000 COVID-related deaths.
DR. LARRY BRILLIANT, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: We've grown numb to the numbers, 200,000 deaths from this virus. Most or many of those deaths were avoidable.
HILL (voice-over): Cases are up in 30 states in the past week, just four posting a decline.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is concerning. Like I said before, we've watched this like a hawk.
HILL (voice-over): Georgia has now topped 300,000 total cases, the fifth state to do so. Wisconsin, where the president held a rally last night with few masks and little social distancing, reported more than 1,600 new cases yesterday, the most in a single day since the pandemic began.
Two entire dorms at the University of Wisconsin now under their second week of quarantine.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's been crazy.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm hoping this is the worst-case scenario, but I'm glad they're taking steps even though everything escalated very quickly.
HILL (voice-over): Providence College urging students to stay home after more than 80 students tested positive in just two days.
As schools at every level work to keep students and staff safe, a new study finds as many as 51 percent of school employees may be at an increased risk for COVID-19 because of underlying conditions, like obesity, diabetes, heart disease and age.
Low-skilled support staff face the highest risk. And concern is growing about younger people passing the virus to more vulnerable populations.
MARIA VAN KERKHOVE, WHO: Our societies have opened up, we are seeing outbreaks in younger populations. Part of that has to do with the way people are socializing and people going out and about and living their lives and trying to get back what is this new normal.
HILL (voice-over): A "new normal" that increasingly includes a lot of the old normal, bars in Nashville expanded to 50 percent capacity today.
The Tennessee Titans announcing plans to welcome limited fans.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've had months to prepare for this day and feel extremely confident in the safe stadium plan.
HILL (voice-over): As we learn 10 people who attended last week's Kansas City Chiefs game have been told to quarantine because a fan near them tested positive -- Erica Hill, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: Now TikTok and WeChat, face a ticking clock from the U.S. government. Starting Sunday, Americans will not be able to download or update those apps. TikTok calling on Facebook and Instagram to join a lawsuit against the Trump administration in response to these moves. The restrictions on WeChat, even harsher. The U.S. Commerce Department pending all online traffic associated with the app.
We will take a quick break on the program. When we come back, more on the death of the U.S. Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. We'll be right back.
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HOLMES: More now on the passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. NPR reporting, just days before her death, she dictated this statement to her granddaughter.
Quote, "My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed."
University of Michigan law school professor Marco Schlanger spoke with CNN's Don Lemon about that and what Justice Ginsburg was really like.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARGO SCHLANGER, FORMER GINSBURG CLERK: Justice Ginsburg stood for the paramount importance of equality. And in doing that work on the court, she wrote some really important majorities but she also ended up in dissent in a bunch of cases.
And I think it's really -- it was really important to her that her successor care about equality and care about civil rights in the way that she did. And I think she was hopeful that that would happen.
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Take us behind closed doors, Margo.
What was she like?
What was she like, to work for her, to be around her?
SCHLANGER: Yes, so anybody who has heard Justice Ginsburg speak knows that she speaks very slowly. And so the biggest part of being around her was remembering that, you know, slow speech didn't mean slow mind. And you had to -- you had to kind of count to three before you bumped it a conversation.
So and then she'd come out with whatever it was that she had to say and it was insightful and to the point and kind of dead on with whatever.
If you had just made an argument to her, dead on with what the problem with what your argument was. So but speaking very slowly. And so that made for some humorous situations.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: University of Michigan law school professor, Margo Schlanger there, remembering Justice Ginsburg.
We will have more on Justice Ginsburg, when we come back, the humorous side of the woman who changed the Supreme Court and what is at stake in naming her replacement. We'll have that when we come back.
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[02:30:00]
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HOLMES: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has passed away the age of 87. Flags, at the White House and at the Capitol, flying half staff. Ginsburg, known especially for her work on gender equality, her death, now could change the balance of power on the highest court in the land.
She was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Bill Clinton and sworn in August 10th, 1993. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, died, surrounded by her family, at her, home in Washington.
Joining me now, with more, CNN legal analyst, Joan Biskupic. She's covered this for 25 years.
And it is fantastic to have you on. You know so much just about Justice Ginsburg. Speak to your Justice Ginsburg the woman, first.
JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Thanks Michael. Good to be with you. She has been on the court for 27 degrees now. But she had quite a career before she became a justice. She is a pioneer in women's rights litigation here in America.
Back in the '70s when the women's movement was gaining traction politically, she was at the Supreme Court, arguing six cases to expand women's legal rights, winning five of those.
Then, after she became a justice, she started out as a centrist. Not the liberal we see today. She had quite a transformation that means so much to Americans right now, because of what an iconic figure she became, the voice of women's rights on the Supreme Court as well as civil rights on the Supreme Court.
You can probably tell from her pictures, she was a small woman. I used to kid she was probably the only person living who would lie about her weight in the opposite direction. She was smaller than 5 feet, barely 100 pounds.
But when you spoke to her, she had such a clear, deliberate, steady way. She would leave a lot of pauses between her words. She was quite serious although she had a fabulous wry sense on the side.
She was many things including being a mother of two and a loving wife to Martin Ginsburg who helped her get on the Supreme Court in 1993. So a lot I can say about the human being and the personal side of Ruth Bader Ginsburg but to American law, she was so monumental.
And her death will set off a momentous fight for the future of the Supreme Court.
HOLMES: I was going to ask you that but I also want to ask you, she was the second woman appointed to the court.
How did she change the Supreme Court?
BISKUPIC: Ruth Bader Ginsburg came on in 1993. More than a decade after Sandra Day O'Connor and they were two completely different women. She was a Republican from Arizona, Ginsburg a Democrat from Brooklyn.
She broadened the idea of the kinds of women who would be on the Supreme Court and, famously, she used to answer, when people asked how many women should be on the Supreme Court, she would say, nine. as in, 9 seats.
She gave the court a new perspective, since the first woman on it, was, as I said before, was a conservative Republican. She then, as we, know paved the way for 2 more women to be named in 2009, Sonia Sotomayor, and 2010, Elena Kagan, and she was quite close to Elena Kagan.
[02:35:00]
BISKUPIC: In some ways she had already passed the baton to her, some of the legal negotiations on the court.
HOLMES: You touched on this earlier and let's revisit before we go. That is, what this sets up. In a political sense, certainly for the Democrats, the timing of her passing could not be worse; for the Republicans, could not be better.
The Republicans, back when Merrin Garlick (sic) was Barack Obama's, Mitch McConnell said you cannot do this in an election near. So on, so forth. They will do it this time.
How do you see that fight unfolding?
There is a lot at stake.
BISKUPIC: There is Michael, I can't overstate what's at stake. I remember so vividly that February 13th, 2016, evening, when we all found out that Justice Scalia had passed away and Mitch McConnell put out a statement, then, saying it will be the next POTUS who chooses the successor to Antonin Scalia.
As you say ,Mitch McConnell made sure the Senate, locked the nomination of Merrick Garland. The reverse could happen right now. He has already vowed to have a vote on an appointee, of President Trump. This year, He is one fierce presence and he's going to try everything possible to push through a third Trump appointee, which would so, tip the, balance on the Supreme Court for the right wing.
So his message, back in 2016, is the opposite of today. He wants to have a nominee confirmed.
We're on the eve of an election, this might energize more Republicans toward Donald Trump and then not only change the makeup of the Supreme Court but ensure a second term for Trump. The stakes could not be higher for two branches of government, the judiciary and the executive.
HOLMES: Thank you so much, Joan Biskupic, joining us.
BISKUPIC: Thank you, Michael.
HOLMES: People began gathering at the Supreme Court when the news broke that Ruth Bader Ginsburg had passed away. Many said they considered her a hero and wanted to pay tribute to her life, some lighting candles, many left flowers.
But emotions are running high over the political divide in this country. There were moments of tension, with a few Trump supporters yelling at the mourners.
Joining me now, CNN presidential historian, Doug Brinkley.
Good to see you, speak to the historic nature of not just Justice Ginsburg's time on the Supreme Court but her career as a female jurist in the historical sense.
DOUG BRINKLEY, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: She's an A-lister for the history books. So you won't be able to talk about feminism or the women's movement in 20th and 21st centuries without Ruth Bader Ginsburg being one of the first things uttered.
She was beloved by Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton is who chose her for the Supreme Court. She has a special place in the hearts of Jewish Americans, for a woman growing up in Brooklyn in the middle of the Great Depression in a hardscrabble situation, working all the way up to the Supreme Court.
People don't realize that it's really Ginsburg who put the word "gender" into our lives. She thought that you did not have to talk about the word, sex. Instead of checking off sex she talked about gender.
There is so much she did that we're living with right now. Her dissents, her writings, her Supreme Court, cases, she won 5 of the 6 Supreme Court cases in the 1970s.
She was a young woman. So she was a phenom when it came to the (INAUDIBLE) profession.
HOLMES: And when you put in the context of the, time it makes it that much more extraordinary. It didn't take long for remembrance to turn to politics and to that end, Mitch McConnell argued at the end of Barack Obama's term that it was wrong to appointment a justice in an election year.
His words wee the American people will choose the next president,, who in turn will nominate the next Supreme Court justice.
Now he says the opposite.
I'm curious, in historical terms, are there precedents for what should be done in these situations?
BRINKLEY: The Democrats do not play hardball enough. And it has happened a couple of times.
[02:40:00]
BRINKLEY: Back in 1968, Lyndon Johnson was president and he chose Abe Fortas to be on the Supreme Court and the Republicans screwed around with it and waited until after the election. Nixon Republican won and it was absolutely no role at that point. After that occurred, for a Democrat to get on the court. We saw with Merrick Garland again.
Mitch McConnell is the ultimate powerbroker of the Senate. People used to call Lyndon Johnson that. Mitch will move fast on this, so it is, now, front and center of the 2020 presidential election and it's about the economy, the novel coronavirus and perhaps the future the future of the Supreme Court. The battle for the soul of America really is upon us right now.
HOLMES: One thing, already being discussed, by Democrats is if a nominee is rammed through, and Republicans lose the White House and the, Senate Democrats can move to increase the number of justices, payback if you like.
Is there history of that happening before?
It's not a number set in stone.
BRINKLEY: It is not set in stone. It is not part of the U.S. Constitution. but Roosevelt, after he won a big election in 1936 didn't like the fact that the Supreme Court was holding up some of his New Deal measures, tried to so-called pack the court, went to name an additional six justices.
FDR tried that stunt and he got burned trying it because members of his own party said the public can't stomach that.
So it is a threat that Senator Schumer, probably, will make right now. But I think Biden, from a debate stage on September 29th, has to be careful saying if I don't get my way, add justices willy-nilly to the Supreme Court.
HOLMES: We are running out of time but I wanted to squeeze this in.
If Donald Trump wins, as a potential, at the end of a second term, he may have appointed 5 or even 6 of the 9 justices.
Is anything like that ever happening before?
BRINKLEY: You are getting into Franklin D. Roosevelt territory. FDR was a four-term president. Already, I tell people, the greatest accomplishment of Trump is getting Gorsuch and Kavanaugh on the court. If he gets a third, a fourth, a fifth we'll be living in the age of Trump for decades to come.
HOLMES: Wow. Doug Brinkley, always great to get you on. Thank you so much.
BRINKLEY: Thank you.
HOLMES: The former first lady, Hillary Clinton, played a pivotal role in getting her husband to nominate Justice Ginsburg to the U.S. Supreme Court, back in 1993. Here is what she tweeted, a few hours ago.
Quote, "Justice Ginsburg paved the way for so many women, including me. There will never be another like her. Thank you, RBG."
Thanks for watching everyone, I am Michael Holmes, appreciate your company, stay tuned for "MARKETPLACE AFRICA." I will see you again in 20 minutes or so.
