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Trump to Nominate Woman to Supreme Court: Trump Holds Rally Despite Uptick in COVID-19 Cases; Trump Says He Approved TikTok Purchase Deal; Respects and Tributes Pour In for Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Aired 1-2a ET

Aired September 20, 2020 - 01:00   ET

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

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DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I will be putting forth a nominee next week. It will be a woman.

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MICHAEL HOLMES` ANCHOR (voice-over): Just 24 hours after Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death, President Trump promises to defy her wish and appoint someone to the seat.

More than half U.S. states are headed in the wrong direction, cases on the rise.

Well, TikTok, you don't have to stop after all. A last-minute deal could keep Americans dancing but the devil might be in the details.

Hello, everyone. Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. I'm Michael Holmes and this is CNN NEWSROOM.

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HOLMES: The United States has barely had time to mourn the passing of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg but Donald Trump already says he's going to name her replacement.

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TRUMP: I will be putting forth a nominee next week. It will be a woman. It will be a woman.

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HOLMES: U.S. Senate Republicans already trying to line up votes in anticipation they can get confirmation hearings and a final vote perhaps before the end of the year. With the U.S. election now barely six weeks away, it is shaping up to be a bitter political battle.

But not all Republicans are on board with Mitch McConnell. At least one, Senator Susan Collins, says any nomination should wait until after the election. But no guarantee in what she said. And Joe Biden summed it up this way.

"The Supreme Court is on the ballot and the outcome will impact everything from health care to civil rights, affecting generations to come."

Now the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the push by Republicans to replace her quickly now threatens to overshadow the November election. CNN's Manu Raju explains exactly what's at stake.

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SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY), SENATE MAJORITY LEADER: This decision ought to be made by the next president.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): That was Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell then when Barack Obama was president in 2016 with a vacancy on the Supreme Court. But times have changed and so has the president.

MCCONNELL: We'd fill it.

RAJU (voice-over): Republican leaders applauding a full throated effort to fill justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's seat with the election just 45 days away, trying to make the argument, it's different now because Republicans control both the White House and the Senate.

Privately, McConnell and Trump speaking about potential nominees on Friday night. And the GOP leader, in a message to his colleagues, urging them to "keep your powder dry" and not take a position on whether the winner of the November election should be the one filling the vacancy left by the death of Ginsburg.

On Saturday senator Susan Collins of Maine, facing the toughest re- election of her career, breaking ranks, saying the decision of lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court should be made by the president who was elected on November 3rd.

But with a 53-47 majority Democrats need a total of four Republicans to vote no and stop the nomination. GOP senator Lisa Murkowski, before Ginsburg's death, made clear she did not want to move ahead on any vacancy before November.

And it's unclear if two other Republicans will agree. Privately, top Republicans are arguing that a Supreme Court fight will only boost their chances at holding the Senate majority in November.

And several Republicans in difficult races are indicating they'll vote to confirm Trump's nominee this year, even though some endangered Republicans, like North Carolina senator Thom Tillis, took the opposite position in 2016.

SEN. THOM TILLIS (R-NC): We're going to let the American people speak. RAJU (voice-over): Yet moving ahead before November could squeeze

Republicans like Cory Gardner, running for re-election in Democratic leaning Colorado. Gardner's office did not respond to questions about whether the winner of November's elections should make the hugely consequential pick.

It typically takes between 2 to 3 months to confirm a Supreme Court nominee, meaning it would be much faster than usual to approve a replacement before November.

Yet if a vote slips there's another complication if Arizona's appointed senator Martha McSally loses in November.

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RAJU (voice-over): That means the Democrat Mark Kelly could be sworn in by the end of that month, bringing the GOP majority down from 52- 48. So McConnell has little margin for error and several senators are uncommitted, like Utah's Mitt Romney.

And some senators in the past have been wary about an election year confirmation, like senator Chuck Grassley, who as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, refused to hold hearings for Obama's nominee in 2016.

He told CNN in July:

SEN. CHUCK GRASSLEY (R-IA): If I were chairman of the committee, I couldn't move forward with it.

RAJU (voice-over): On Saturday his office declined to say if that is still his position.

Others have clearly shifted theirs, including Lindsey Graham, who now chairs the Judiciary Committee and said this in 2016.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): Let's let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination and you could use my words against me.

RAJU: Now Lindsey Graham explains himself this way. He basically says that things have changed since 2018 in the aftermath of that vicious Supreme Court fight that got Brett Kavanaugh confirmed to the court. He says he views all this differently now.

But if the Republicans do move ahead, Senate Democrats have their own plans. They're talking about that right now. They had a conference call on Saturday afternoon in which Chuck Schumer told his caucus that all options are on the table if the Republicans do advance a nomination this fall.

And one of those options that Democrats are discussing, potentially expanding the Supreme Court, maybe going from nine justices to 11 justices or even more than that. They would need legislation to do that. And to pass legislation it would have to change the Senate filibuster rules. And, to do that, they need to win the Senate majority first in the

fall. So so much is on the line in this fall's election but Democrats have indicated they're not going to take this fight lying down -- Manu Raju, CNN, Capitol Hill.

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HOLMES: And joining me now is Joan Biskupic, CNN's Supreme Court analyst and has spent some 25 years covering the court.

Great to have you back on, Joan. I mean it's not like Republicans are being caught off guard by the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

So who are the top candidate or two for the nomination?

Trump doing badly among woman voters, it looks like he's going to pick a woman. He says he is.

JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, Michael. They've been planning for this. You know, no one knew for sure when Ruth Bader Ginsburg would pass and she might have lasted another couple of years.

But because her health was in jeopardy, they've been planning and they wanted it. Two Supreme Court appointments and hoping for a third. Here's what they have. I'll give you the three names that seem to be most in contention right now.

But we're only, you know, 24 hours since her death. One woman by the name of Amy Coney Barrett, she's been in the running for a while. President Trump looked at her in 2017 when he ended up with first Neil Gorsuch and then the following year with Brett Kavanaugh.

She's a judge already on a U.S. appeals court based in Chicago. She taught at Notre Dame. All these people have very strong conservative credentials. She's a former law clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia.

They're all smart people; as I said, very conservative ideologically. And also a man by the name of Amul Thapar, who's a friend of Mitch ,McConnell who controls the Senate and what gets done. He was a U.S. attorney in Kentucky and he's now in appeals court in the middle of the country.

And then finally a woman who's just recently been elevated to another appeals court here in the U.S., the southeastern U.S. appeals court for the 11th Circuit, a woman by the name of Barbara Lagoa, who had been on the floor of the Supreme Court. She was the first Cuban American woman appointed to that Supreme Court.

And she recently was named by President Bush to one of our federal appeals courts. So, as I said, you know, things could be in flux. But these are the people who, right now, the smart money seems to be circulating around.

HOLMES: And as you say conservative all and perhaps not surprisingly. The thing is, you know, what are some of the major decisions in play for the court if the GOP does go through?

What sort of decisions are you talking about?

Roe versus Wade, abortion, religious liberty, immigration, health care of course.

BISKUPIC: Michael, you name it really. There's such a full slate of the most hot button cases before the justices this year and coming up soon. Already they've scheduled for mid-November a case testing the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as ObamaCare.

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BISKUPIC: President Barack Obama's signature domestic achievement that Republicans have been trying to kill ever since it was signed into law in 2010.

The Supreme Court narrowly upheld it in 2012, then again in 2015. One person who was crucial to a majority vote was Ruth Bader Ginsburg and she's now gone. So when that test comes back in November, it is going to be quite shaky.

We also have several tests of religious liberties coming, affirmative action. There's a major case still in the appellate court right now, testing Harvard's affirmative action policies, challenged by Asian Americans that I was covering last week at the appeals court level.

And that's marching its way toward the Supreme Court, which already was very much leaning toward finally getting rid of -- pardon me -- finally getting rid of affirmative action.

And I think with another conservative justice, that could happen. And then finally you mentioned Roe versus Wade, the 1973 landmark, that made abortion legal nationwide in America.

That's one that's been hanging by a thread in recent years. And if President Trump is able to name a third conservative to the courts, that case could be overturned or gutted.

HOLMES: So essentially, what we've seen with President Trump getting three picks on the Supreme Court, we're talking about a fundamental change in Americans' lives for maybe a generation.

BISKUPIC: Oh, yes, a generation and more. What I've been saying to people, it will affect the law that your children and your grandchildren live under.

I'll use an example I've been thinking about because, in 1991, another civil rights icon in America, Thurgood Marshall, retired and Clarence Thomas was named by George H.W. Bush to replace him. Marshall was a liberal icon and he was the opposite of Clarence Thomas, his successor, who was only 43 at the time in 1991. And Clarence Thomas is still on the Supreme Court nearly 30 years later.

HOLMES: Unlike 2016, when a conservative replaced a conservative, what you're seeing here is a conservative replacing a liberal and it has long-term impacts. Joan, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

BISKUPIC: Thanks, Michael.

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HOLMES: Well, President Trump said earlier he plans to nominate a woman, as we heard, and he'll do that in the coming days to fill Ginsburg's seat. He also said he expects the confirmation process in the Senate to move quickly. Some Republican senators are already on board.

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SEN. KELLY LOEFFLER (R-IL): As a Senate conference, we understand the importance of making sure that we uphold the constitution, that we do our jobs as senators, to make sure that our country has in place the Supreme Court justices that we rely on to make sure the rule of law is protected in this country.

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HOLMES: A new poll revealing how many Americans feel on the subject, it was taken just days before Justice Ginsburg died. And two-thirds of the respondents said, if there was a vacancy on Supreme Court this year, a hearing and vote should be held on President Trump's nominee. That was fairly even, actually, across party lines.

The Democratic nominee four years ago was Hillary Clinton, whose husband appointed Ginsburg. She weighed in on how the vacancy could play in the election.

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HILLARY CLINTON (D), FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: I think the Democratic candidates led by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris can make this a voting issue, because it is such a clear choice.

And the comparison with what McConnell did, how he disrupted, really demeaned, held in contempt the Constitution and the, you know, the principles and practices of the Senate, should give everybody some great talking points and the energy to deliver them in a, you know, urgent, fierce way.

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HOLMES: Now Democrats are indeed already using this as a talking point and they're coming up with their strategy, developing it as we speak. CNN talked with Democratic Senators Chris Van Hollen and Richard Blumenthal about their strategy moving forward.

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SEN. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN (D-MD): I think it's absolutely indecent that Mitch McConnell did not even take a respectful pause to honor the life and legacy of Justice Ginsburg before he plunged into this power grab. What we're saying is that we will use everything available to us to stop this abuse of power.

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VAN HOLLEN: Starting with really rallying the American people and we really want Mitch McConnell to abuse his power, violate his own rules in order to stack the court with radical right-wing justices, who will start by taking away people's access to affordable care, destroying the Affordable Care Act. Because that's what this is all about.

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SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-CT), MEMBER, SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: I think part of our strategy here is to take the case to the American people.

I, speaking for myself, I'm going to fight like hell, because I believe the American people ought to have a say in the appointment of a justice who will have such a real impact on real people, not only health care but women's reproductive rights, voting rights, civil rights and civil liberties, gun violence prevention and marriage equality.

All of them causes championed by Justice Ginsburg and that's part of her legacy.

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HOLMES: And joining me now is CNN global affairs analyst Max Boot.

Good to see you, Max. Trump's comment was, we won; we have an obligation to voters to pick the new nominee.

That couldn't be more directly opposite to the Republican position in 2016, when they blocked Obama's pick, of course. And it was interesting, because you wrote in "The Washington Post" that what's unfolding could, quote, "further delegitimize our already fragile political institutions."

Explain what you meant by that.

MAX BOOT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: I think we're in very dangerous territory here because what we've seen going back a number of years now is greater polarization in our society, with Democrats and Republicans having less and less in common.

And we've seen greater delegitimization of our political institutions, which is certainly something that President Trump has been engaged in, talking about a deep state and claiming that Democrats are traitors and basically suggesting that he's only the president of red state America. He's not really the leader of the blue states.

These are very dangerous trends. And we're seeing now political violence, massive protests. social unrest. These are the kind of conditions that social scientists warn about, can lead to greater political violence and greater instability.

And the Supreme Court has been one of the few institutions in America that has tried to rise above politics, to uphold the Constitution and to enforce the kind of neutral rules of the game.

But now what you're seeing is that Trump and Senator McConnell, the Senate majority leader, are just trying to strong-arm another justice onto the Supreme Court right before an election or perhaps right after an election; in other words, doing exactly what they said in 2016 was improper.

And this kind of naked use of political power to change the course of legal history and political history, I think, will blow up in their faces but, more significantly, will lead to greater damage to the credibility of our political institutions.

HOLMES: Yes, when you say history, too, social history as well because what's happening -- and you point this out in the article, too. You've got a president who didn't win the popular vote, putting three Supreme Court justices, potentially, on the bench, who are approved by a Senate of Republicans, who don't represent the majority of Americans as well.

And then they make decisions on abortion and health care.

How, what is the potential for, you know, people out there, the voters, to say no, we're not going to take it?

And, as you say, some nasty things happen.

BOOT: This is a formula for undermining trust and faith in our democratic system. As you pointed out, President Trump lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes. The Republican Senate majority represents 15 million fewer people than the Democratic colleagues.

And in spite of not having a popular mandate, they've already put two justices on the court and now are threatening to put another one on, even though it's shortly before an election, again, something they said was improper in 2016.

That is going to create tremendous cynicism about Supreme Court decisions and it's going to lead to a backlash from Democrats if they take power in November. They may very well enlarge the court, creating extra seats just so they can appoint extra Democratic justices. And this will further politicize the court.

And that is where we are headed unless Mitch McConnell has some second thoughts now and starts to think about the future and what's good for the republic, not just for the Republican Party. But I feel that, at the moment, everybody is looking for short-term political advantage.

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BOOT: And the result of that, the upshot of that, is going to be long-term damage to our political system, to our democracy.

HOLMES: When you look at the landscape now, the political rhetoric, the division sown by President Trump -- and he was doing it at a rally just a few hours ago and even accusing Joe Biden of using drugs in order to be able to function.

And, as you mention, political scientists have been warning, they have gamed this out and warned of literal violence post election, perhaps preelection.

When you look at the landscape, do you think it could happen?

BOOT: Absolutely. You're already seeing violence. You're seeing some people on the far left but even more people on the far right who are engaging in actual battles in the streets and, in some cases, shooting people. And I fear this is going to get worse.

Even if you didn't have the Supreme Court nomination, I've been concerned for a while that you could have a very volatile situation after the election, because, remember, President Trump is saying that he will not accept the legitimacy of any outcome where he does not win.

And so, if Joe Biden wins, you can imagine that President Trump is going to call it a hoax, say that he was cheated and try to somehow stay in office, despite the will of the voters. And of course, if he does that, you would see a massive backlash from Democrats, from the anti-Trump forces in this country.

And so that's, that's a very dangerous situation and that's even before you have the Supreme Court battle. And that even adds to the stakes, because, you know, you could have this one justice pushed through by a lame duck Senate right before or right after the election.

And that one justice could decide the fate of abortion rights, the fate of health care and crucially could decide the outcome of the presidential election, assuming that it's a contested and close election, which winds up in the Supreme Court, much as it did in the year 2000.

This is really a recipe for a very dangerous destabilization of our political system.

HOLMES: Yes, worrying times. Max Boot, always a pleasure. Thank you.

BOOT: Thank you, Michael.

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HOLMES: We'll take a quick break. Whether we come back, dangerous mixed messages and another sad milestone in the coronavirus pandemic. We'll have the latest after the break.

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HOLMES: The U.S. is fast approaching the 200,000 mark, think about that, 200,000 when it comes to lives lost to COVID-19. Several states seeing a rise in cases, suggesting a post-Labor Day spike.

In fact, Johns Hopkins now reporting more than 6.7 million cases. Medical experts say they're worried, also, about the flu season and how coronavirus might make that even more dangerous.

Even then, U.S. president Donald Trump continuing to hold rallies, as you can see there, big crowds, few people wearing masks. He's now encouraging his supporters in North Carolina to do this.

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TRUMP: Your governor has got you shut down. I don't know. You're not breaking a law by being here.

If you are, we'll have to do something about that, because, it's a hell of a shutdown. I think your governor has to let this state open up.

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HOLMES: Now we asked Anne Rimoin about a potential coronavirus vaccine and the growing skepticism there is around it. And here's what she said about how this could affect the goal of finally defeating the virus.

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ANNE RIMOIN, EPIDEMIOLOGY PROFESSOR, UCLA FIELDING SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: We are losing faith in all of our institutions that dictate public health care. We've lost a lot of confidence in the FDA with politicization.

Now CDC has also fallen prey to politics. And so it's not surprising that people who previously were not vaccinate hesitant or worried about vaccines are feeling worried. The polls are showing this very, very clearly.

You know, taking vaccines normally, under normal circumstances, we do have a do a lot of work at getting public confidence. We've had to do more and more over the years. But with all of the politicization and mixed messaging, we're going to have a tough time here.

Even if a vaccine is very effective, if less than half the population actually take it, we're not going to reach any kind of immunity and we're still going to run into problems. I should also mention that a vaccine is not a silver bullet.

So with the vaccine hesitancy, with a vaccine that is likely not going to be 100 percent effective, we're not going to see major protection here.

HOLMES: Just quickly, how much has the president played into this, his own rosy pronouncements, confidence despite the caution of experts?

How much does that impact people's choices?

RIMOIN: I think the president has to be somebody that you -- the president, in principle, should be somebody you trust. And we're seeing the complete erosion of trust. He's not been relying on his scientific advisers. You see all sorts of mixed messaging.

Dr. Redfield says one thing; Dr. Fauci says another and then Trump comes out and says the opposite. So this kind of mixed messaging is very dangerous. It's very dangerous not only for the coronavirus but for all public health.

And so we need to have our political leaders be on the same page with our scientific leaders and coming forth and giving statements that make sense, that are based on science and that the rest of the public health community, the scientific community, can get behind.

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HOLMES: We'll take a quick break on the program. When we come back here on CNN NEWSROOM, justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death instantly reshaping the U.S. presidential race and giving President Trump and his new supporters a new rallying cry.

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HOLMES: And welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM, everyone. I'm Michael Holmes.

Just one day after the death of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and barely six weeks until the November election, U.S. president Donald Trump says he will nominate a woman next week to replace Ginsburg.

U.S. Senate Republicans are already looking to line up votes in anticipation they can get confirmation hearings and a final vote before the end of the year.

Now if they do, it would be among the speediest Supreme Court confirmations in recent U.S. history. As you can see there on your screen, an appointment to the nation's highest court so important that nominees often face months of intense grilling before given an up and down vote in the Senate.

Democrats now plotting strategies to stall the process if they can. The U.S. Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, articulating the issue 28 years ago when he was chairman of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. Here's what he said in 1992.

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JOE BIDEN (D-DE), FORMER U.S. VICE PRESIDENT AND PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It would be our pragmatic conclusion that, once the political season is underway -- and it is -- action on a Supreme Court nomination should be put off until after the election campaign is over.

That is what is fair to the nominee and is central to the process. Otherwise, it seems to me, Mr. President, we will be in deep trouble as an institution.

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HOLMES: 1992.

President Trump has already seized on the vacant Supreme Court seat for his reelection campaign. CNN Ryan Nobles reports.

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RYAN NOBLES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: President Trump making it clear to his supporters in Fayetteville, North Carolina, on Saturday night that he's not going to waste any time in picking a replacement for Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court.

Trump did have a lot of kind things to say about the former Supreme Court justice, calling her an inspiration. But he quickly pivoted to his plans to picking a replacement. The crowd responded, telling him to fill the seat and do it as soon as possible.

And Trump saying for the first time on Saturday night that he plans to pick a woman. Take a listen.

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TRUMP: So we will uphold equal justice under the law for citizens of every race, color, religion and creed. I will be putting forth a nominee next week. It will be a woman.

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NOBLES: Trump also revealing his timing for making that announcement, saying it should happen sometime next week. And sources telling CNN that the president plans to wait until Ginsburg has been officially laid to rest before making the official announcement.

Now in the Jewish tradition that could happen very quickly, meaning the president could be able to make the announcement sometime midweek or towards the end of the week. The goal, though, for Republicans is to get this process moving as soon as possible, even with the hope of getting confirmation before Election Day.

Now that would be difficult. Normally it takes several months to nominate and confirm a Supreme Court justice. But the president and Republicans seizing an opportunity here. And they're hoping to have it done quickly -- Ryan Nobles, CNN, Fayetteville, North Carolina.

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HOLMES: For more let's discuss this with CNN senior political analyst Ron Brownstein, joining me from Los Angeles.

I wanted to pick your brains, politically, when it comes to the election itself, whose base is likely to be most energized to vote because of this issue?

Republicans hoped the Kavanaugh hearings would energize their base in 2018 and there was a blue wave.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: Historically, as you know, Republican voters have been more energized and motivated by the Supreme Court than Democratic voters. I think that's not true. I think this is likely to further the cultural separation of the parties we've been living through over the last couple of decades but enormously accelerated under Trump.

I think this is going to further hurt Republicans in white collar suburbs, so in states where there are a large number of those voters, I think this is a clear headwind for Republican Senate and House candidates as well as for Trump himself.

And on the other hand in places where there are a lot of conservative Christians, particularly evangelical Christians, it's going to motivate them. On balance, most Americans believe abortion should remain legal and a big majority believe the protections for pre- existing conditions in the Affordable Care Act should remain in place.

In that sense if Democrats can make this more specific as opposed to a broader culture war, they are playing to the majority of public opinion.

HOLMES: Yes, on abortion and health care, I think it's 70-78 percent of Americans want abortion to remain legal. Some key issues -- you touched on this -- coming up before the court. We're talking about abortion, health care, immigration policy and the like. These things are going to be decided with this new justice if it all goes through.

How much will those important issues play into how people may vote in the election with the Supreme Court in mind?

Will they look at what the court might do and vote accordingly?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, look, as you know -- as I wrote this week, this is a very deeply engraved election at this point. You know, Joe Biden leading by about 7 points in the national polling averages. He led by about 7 points last October before there were a few intervening events, including the worst pandemic in American history, since at least a century of American history, in which 200,000 people are now dead.

So we're probably talking about any movement even on this only at the margin. I think, though, that the bigger issue to me is that you now have the potential for rising tension over the role of the Supreme Court through the 2020s because the Supreme Court, you know, if you have six justices that were appointed by Republican presidents and Republican senators, in most cases, the presidents appointing them did not win the popular vote.

The Republican senators who confirmed them, in most cases, do not represent a majority of the country if you assign half of each Senate -- a state's population to each senator.

So I think if this majority increasingly over the course of the next decade is striking down what the Democratic coalition that wins the election wants to do on climate, on civil rights, on racial justice, on voting rights. I think there's going to be a lot of pressure to change the structure of the Supreme Court in the coming years.

HOLMES: Yes, you make a good point on the Senate. I mean, I think Republican senators represent 15 million fewer people than Democratic senators.

Speak to the scenario of Republicans; theoretically, they lose the White House, they also lose the Senate. But then voting in the lame duck session on a Supreme Court justice.

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HOLMES: What would be -- I hesitate to use the word -- the morality of voting for a pick of a president who was just kicked out?

BROWNSTEIN: Look, we are seeing a escalation of political tactics on both sides. But there's no question that Republicans are moving toward on any means necessary mentality to try to maintain power in a country that, in many ways, is demographically evolving away from them.

We saw every Republican senator but one vote not to sanction the president for overtly extorting a foreign government to try to get dirt on his opponent. We've not heard a peep from Republicans in Congress as the president, really for the first time in American history, is overtly trying to tilt the census to benefit one political party.

And, of course, we saw in 2016 Mitch McConnell and the unprecedented step of holding open a Supreme Court seat for an entire year to prevent President Obama from filling it.

So if after all of that, Republicans come back from an election where they lost and push this through, which they may do. I think Democrats, I think it's pretty easy for them to find three Republicans who may say no. But getting a fourth one is not going to be easy. If they do that and Democrats win the House and Senate, it'll be hard

for Democrats to throw away the niceties, add D.C. as a state for example and kind of really move aggressively in this cycle of action and reaction to implement the agenda over the objections of the Republican minority at that point.

HOLMES: I tweeted out a list of 23 senators and their comments from 2016 last night. It took off because everybody was like, when they see it written like that, I think they call it situational ethics because they're all going to flip basically.

You said something that just resonates, though. You've had the economy, you've had the virus, all the things you just outlined there. Joe Biden's lead has not moved much.

Why?

And could it cost him?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, you know, sure. He is not so far ahead that a small improvement for President Trump would not put Trump in a position where he could conceivably win the electoral college even if he loses the popular vote.

But that would not happen today. President Trump is too far behind. And he's driven away too many of the college educated white voters that used to vote Republican and now are voting for Biden really in unprecedented numbers, numbers we've never seen in a history of polling in a presidential election.

You know, if you ask me -- like I said, this is probably going to affect things at the margin. But to the extent it does affect things, it's going to reinforce those lines, I think. Because the prospect of criminalizing abortion or at least ending the legal protection for abortion is something that is very attractive to aspects of Trump's culturally conservative base, evangelical voters, culturally conservative Catholics, people in rural areas.

But it is a terrifying prospect to an awful lot of white suburban voters already moving away from the Republican Party. So this will push us further into a political system where the parties are divided more by culture than by class.

If you look at the Senate, by the way, this could help Democrats get right to the brink of a majority; it doesn't necessarily help them get over it. Colorado, Arizona and Maine, states where Republicans are in trouble, a lot of white collar suburbanites, a clear majority in those states to maintain abortion to be legal.

So I think this is going to hurt Republicans in those states. But beyond that, Democrats have to win one more and that's either North Carolina, Iowa, South Carolina, Georgia, you know, Montana.

And in those places the politics, I think, are much more equivocal and we don't really know how it'll play out. A closer split, closer to 50- 50 on whether abortion should remain legal in these states. And I think it really is an open question how this actually unfolds in that last state Democrats need to win, although I think it does help them get closer off the bat.

HOLMES: When the law becomes political. Always a pleasure. Good to see you, Ron.

BROWNSTEIN: Thanks for having me.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HOLMES: Coming up on the program, the promise of a deal that could keep TikTok available in U.S. app stores.

But would this deal allay any of the national security concerns that President Trump says he's worried about?

We'll discuss.

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[01:45:00]

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HOLMES: Now the U.S. president says he's approved a deal for the purchase of part of TikTok, the Chinese-owned social media app.

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TRUMP: We have a deal worked out, I think, with Walmart is going to buy it along with Oracle, Larry Ellison. It's going to be an incredible combination.

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HOLMES: Oracle and Walmart will have no more than 20 percent of the company, in fact. They're not buying it all. Mr. Trump's blessing, though, coming out before the U.S. Commerce Department was set to remove the TikTok from U.S. app stores.

Now the ban will be delayed by a week until the deal is finished or falls through. Now Walmart does say it tentatively agreed to purchase 7.5 percent of TikTok Global and would provide some services.

But a person familiar with the deal says Byte Dance will still be the app's majority owner. Earlier, I asked about the fact that Byte Dance will keep its algorithm to decide what people see and whether that perhaps is a bigger danger to national security than data.

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DIPAYAN GHOSH, HARVARD KENNEDY SCHOOL: I think it very well may be. We saw in 2016 and in the leadup to this election that Russia has been taking advantage of social media to try to push certain kinds of messaging, to push conspiracy, misinformation, political lies, to push the -- push one candidate in the U.S. election, President Trump, over his Democratic counterpart, in the first case, Hillary Clinton and now Joe Biden.

And it, I wouldn't want to necessarily imply that China will try to do the same or whether the government may try to do the same through TikTok. But that risk certainly is there, that, if you have content moderation algorithms, if you have these kinds of algorithms that determine what we see in the media landscape today, there's definitely some bias that can happen.

And we have seen in fact China, perhaps, telling TikTok what to censor.

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HOLMES: Dipayan Ghosh, the co-director of the Digital Platforms and Democracy Project at the Harvard Kennedy School, speaking with me earlier.

Residents along the U.S. Gulf Coast have already been battered by Hurricanes Hannah and Laura but now tropical storm Beta is heading that way, the latest in a record-breaking storm season.

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HOLMES: And we will take a quick break. When we come back, an outpouring of respect for the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg proves that for many Americans she was much more than just a jurist. We'll be right back.

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HOLMES: Washington, D.C., congress woman Eleanor Holmes Norton worked with Ruth Bader Ginsburg as a lawyer when Ginsberg was nominated for the Supreme Court back in 1993. Norton introduced her at the Senate hearing. Norton tells Chris Cuomo about her friend's legacy.

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REP. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON (D-DC): The Notorious RBG should be remembered as much for her work as a lawyer when I first knew her as a judge. And as a judge, remember, she has been in a 5-4 minority. As a lawyer she was a half-breaker.

She argued six women's rights cases before the Supreme Court when I was at the ACLU as assistant legal director. And she headed something called The Women's Rights Project.

Now she did not work for the ACLU. She just did this as her work. And she took these cases, won five out of the six cases and is more responsible for establishing the equality of women under the law than any single lawyer or a judge.

Indeed, I bet most people don't even remember that, not until Justice Ginsburg argued as a lawyer that the 14th Amendment applied to women, did it apply to women.

[01:55:00]

NORTON: It applied to Blacks but it did not apply to women until she made it so in her argument before the Supreme Court. That's just how path breaking she was.

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HOLMES: Flowers and signs piling up, meanwhile, in memory of Ginsburg. She was a passionate advocate, of course, for equal rights and earned that hip nickname in her golden years, the Notorious RBG. It was a title she seemed to enjoy.

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GINSBURG: It was beyond my wildest imagination that I would one day become the Notorious RBG.

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HOLMES: The response from across the U.S. shows just how much of an iconic figure Justice Ginsburg was. More now from Jessica Schneider.

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JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: All of the singing and the celebration lasted into Saturday night. Everyone here to pay tribute to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

There were streams of people who came here to the Supreme Court after hearing about her passing on Friday night. And it lasted throughout the day on Saturday. People came here to lay flowers, to light candles, to sing.

There were also many renditions of "Amazing Grace." Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg served at the Supreme Court for more than 27 years and the vigils stretched all over the country, from Denver to San Francisco to tributes in New York City as well.

The morning, on Saturday morning, the vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris also came here in a nonchalant manner with her husband. They wore masks and they stayed silent as they looked to the Supreme Court to pay their own tribute.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was referred to as a tireless champion of justice by the chief justice here, John Roberts. And that's exactly what the people have been remembering all weekend -- Jessica Schneider, CNN, Washington.

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HOLMES: I'm Michael Holmes. Thanks for spending part of your day with me. The news does continue here on CNN.