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Battle Ignites Over Trump's Next Supreme Court Pick. Aired 6- 6:30a ET

Aired June 28, 2018 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We have to pick one that's going to be there for 40 years, 45 years.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: It could determine the direction of the Supreme Court for generations.

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R), KENTUCKY, SENATE MAJORITY LEADER: We will vote to confirm Just Kennedy's successor this fall.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I), VERMONT: Mitch McConnell, remember what you said when Obama was president?

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D), NEW YORK, SENATE MINORITY LEADER: Americans should make their voices heard.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everything is on the line here. Everything is on the line.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. It's Thursday, June 28, 6 a.m. here in New York. Alisyn is off. Erica Hill joins me. John Avlon here, as well. NEW DAY. And woo, big day, as well. Yes?

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: A little bit of movement.

BERMAN: Bear with me. This is our starting line.

A glaring political lesson as true today as it was 2,500 years ago when the Greek historian Thucydides first wrote it: "The strong do as they will, and the weak suffer as they must."

The strong do as they will.

HILL: Wow.

BERMAN: The weak suffer as they must.

JOHN AVLON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: -- knowledge. BERMAN: Republicans gamed the Supreme Court nominating process for the last two years. They gamed it because they could. And now in the short-term, there really isn't a damn thing the Democrats can do to change it.

There are not enough superlatives to describe the magnitude of the retirement of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. America will change because of the decisions that will come. Abortion, the death penalty, affirmative action, all in play now. Some will say for the better, others for the worse, but they are in play.

And the politics of this all white-hot for the next several months, at least. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wants a vote on a nominee to happen before the midterm elections. Democrats say this is hypocritical, given that McConnell blocked a nominee from President Obama during an election year, albeit a presidential election year.

But remember, the strong do as they will. This will absolutely play into the battle for control of the Senate, as well.

HILL: Meantime, lest we forget, more than 2,000 immigrant children are still separated from their parents. The Department of Homeland Security now requesting help from the Pentagon to house up to 12,000 migrants, and all of this as the Republican leadership-backed immigration bill goes down in flames. The bill had far less GOP support than a more conservative bill that also failed last week.

Plus, embattled FBI agent Peter Strzok meeting with lawmakers for 11 hours to talk about his controversial anti-Trump text messages with an FBI lawyer. Republicans and Democrats both walking away with dueling assessments of that interview.

We begin our coverage with CNN's Abby Phillip, who is live this morning at the White House.

Abby, good morning.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning, Erica.

I think John put it pretty well. This is going to be a bitter confirmation battle for the successor to Justice Anthony Kennedy. It's already shaping up on the Hill. And President Trump is now facing the prospect of filling his second Supreme Court of his seat of his term. And that decision is one that could change this country for an entire generation.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TRUMP: We have to pick a great one. We have to pick one that's going to be there for 40 years, 45 years.

PHILLIP (voice-over): President Trump celebrating the chance to appoint another Supreme Court justice after Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement. TRUMP: Great man. And I'm very honored that he chose to do it during

my term in office because he felt confident in me to make the right choice.

PHILLIP: Kennedy was the key swing vote on a number of landmark cases, including Roe v. Wade and the legalization of same-sex marriage, where the mostly conservative justice sided with the liberal wing of the court.

ANTHONY KENNEDY, RETIRING SUPREME COURT JUSTICE: They asked for equal dignity within the eyes of the law, and the Constitution grants them that right.

PHILLIP: His retirement gives conservatives a major opportunity to tip the ideological balance of the court more strongly in their favor, potentially reshaping life in the U.S. for years to come.

SANDERS: This is obviously an enormously, enormously important issue. Everything to do with women's rights, having to do with gay rights, having to do with solidifying the pro-corporate, anti-worker wing of the Supreme Court.

PHILLIP: President Trump vowing to select a nominee to replace Kennedy as soon as possible, referencing a list of 25 staunchly conservative candidates, six of whom are said to be on the short list.

TRUMP: We have a very excellent list of great, talented, highly- educated, highly-intelligent, hopefully tremendous people.

PHILLIP: Senate Majority Leader McConnell vowing to confirm Kennedy's replacement this fall, with the next court term starting one month before the midterm elections.

MCCONNELL: The Senate stands ready to fulfill its constitutional role by offering advice and consent on President Trump's nominee to fill this vacancy.

PHILLIP: Democrats calling for a vote to be postponed until after the midterms and accusing McConnell of hypocrisy.

SCHUMER: Our Republican colleagues in the Senate should follow the rule they set in 2016 not to consider a Supreme Court justice in an election year.

PHILLIP: Ahead of the 2016 election, McConnell stonewalled President Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, for over eight months.

MCCONNELL: This decision ought to be made by the next president, whoever is elected.

PHILLIP: But blocking the appointment will be nearly impossible for Democrats. The Senate only needs 50 votes to confirm a Supreme Court nominee, meaning that, if all but one Republican vote along party lines, they will not need any Democratic support.

Three red-state Democrats who are up for reelection in November also voted in favor of President Trump's first nominee, Neil Gorsuch.

SEN. JOE MANCHIN (D), WEST VIRGINIA: We should go through this process. I was very disappointed the process wasn't adhered to the last time. And two wrongs don't make a right.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[06:05:05] PHILLIP: President Trump is waking up this morning in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he has a political fund-raiser this morning, followed by the ground breaking for a manufacturing plant in the state that's caused a little bit of controversy there.

But there are also immigration protests planned outside of the private fundraiser, just a sign of how big this issue still is weeks after the family separation crisis really erupted here -- John and Erica.

BERMAN: All right. Abby Phillip at the White House. Abby, thanks so much.

I want to bring in CNN chief legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin and CNN political director David Chalian. And generally speaking, I want to shift to the politics of this all, because I think that's where we are today. But before we get there, Jeffrey, you know, it was just 24 hours ago you predicted to me that Anthony Kennedy would retire. You said you knew for sure he was going to retire yesterday.

HILL: Do we want to play that tape?

BERMAN: No, but Jeffrey, I want you to explain to us the magnitude of this, just so we understand why there will be this political debate. The magnitude of this retirement, what it means for the country going forward.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: The only reason why abortion is a constitutional right in the United States is because Anthony Kennedy serves on the Supreme Court. Without Anthony Kennedy, and with one of the 25 justice, half a dozen to a dozen states will ban abortion in the next year or so. They will pass laws saying no abortion in the state of Texas, Mississippi, South Dakota, states that have passed laws like that before. Those laws will now be upheld. Abortion will be illegal in quite a significant part of the United States soon. That's just one practical aspect.

If you are a gay couple who wants to be served in a business that is owned by religiously conservative people, you will not be able to buy a hotel room, be served in a restaurant, buy a wedding cake. These are aspects of American life that are going to change.

BERMAN: You know, FOX News is playing clips of you saying this type of stuff. Let's just establish. They're saying you're being alarmist here.

TOOBIN: Why am I being alarmist? I'm just listening to what conservatives have been saying. Why are they afraid of -- of winning? They've been trying to do this for 45 years on Roe v. Wade. Why aren't they celebrating? Why aren't they pretending -- why are they pretending that that are suddenly moderates?

I mean, you know, the -- the silliness is that why don't they just celebrate what they won? Because they've won. You know, I mean, I just don't understand why that -- this is something they don't want to embrace.

I didn't actually -- am I on FOX News? Wow. Some of -- some of my dreams have come true.

BERMAN: They like some of the things you've been saying. Is Jeffrey right, John? I mean, have they won?

JOHN AVLON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: They have won. I think, Jeff, saying -- saying these things are a fait accompli, and we're going to a dystopian "Handmaid's Tale" type of America, I think is going too far. The possibility that those things could happen certainly exist. It matters who the nominee is.

I think it's worth remembering that, you know, Reagan, who nominated Justice Kennedy, in an election year I might add, had three nominees. One of whom was Justice O'Connor, Kennedy and Scalia. Two of those were really centrists. They were median judges. That tradition seems to have lost in the modern GOP. And that's the danger.

If you get another ideologue, then Jeffrey's scenario could be correct. If he wants to make sure that they cobble together all the possible votes, you know, is there going to be a libertarian streak senator, in a justice like this?

TOOBIN: John -- John, you're talking about -- you call it a dystopia. This is what they want. This is not dystopia to them. This is -- they want a world.

AVLON: You just laid out a vision where gay couples can't get hotel rooms. I think that's dystopian. And some folks may, indeed, want that. I just don't think we should treat it as a fait accompli. Those are the stakes, perhaps, but I don't think it's a fait accompli that that's the America we're going to be living in in five years.

TOOBIN: But -- but you have an entire political party that says religious people don't have to violate their principles by doing business with -- with gay people. That's a principle of the modern Republican Party. That principle has won.

BERMAN: David Chalian -- David Chalian, I want to bring you in here. The other thing here is there are no Sandra Day O'Connors or David Souters on this list. There is a list of judges, an agreed-upon list that the president says he will pick from. And their views are very well-known. There are not surprises.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: And we should go to why that list creates. This is what is different than the Reagan era. Is that Donald Trump, which was a shrewd political move for him in the midst of his battle for the Republican nomination, wanted to prove to conservatives that he was trustworthy on judges, that he was not going to just appoint folks from his New York days that may be more liberal or people he knows.

AVLON: Right.

CHALIAN: He put together a list so that evangelicals and conservatives who make this their die-hard issue when looking for a presidential candidate, that -- that they had a list of vetted conservatives so that they were assured that the court, should he get the opportunity to make appointments, would move further to the right.

[06:10:12] TOOBIN: And by the way, I think that was a great thing that Donald Trump did. I hope the Democrat does it in 2020, because it, you know -- it really just makes the stakes very clear.

AVLON: Also what he did, he farmed that list out to the Federalist Society. Let's not pretend that Donald Trump has deeply-informed views about justice. He basically outsourced that to appease special interests on the right.

TOOBIN: Absolutely. And --

HILL: And he did that for a reason, and it worked. And we know now from that list. And he also reiterated, obviously, several times exactly what he wanted in a justice. And when Roe v. Wade came up. This is an incredibly important part of that for him and for the base that he was cultivating at that time, David.

CHALIAN: Exactly. Which as Jeffrey lays out the stakes, that that's issue No. 1. And by the way, the issue of abortion and choice, this is always the top motivating issue when a Supreme Court vacancy arrives for both political bases, for both political pardons.

BERMAN: And the president has been -- this president has been incredibly, explicit about what he wanted in a justice and what he thought would happen to Roe. So let's listen to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Heidi will vote --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: The other one.

BERMAN: OK, we don't have that sound bite. But he made clear -- oh, now we have it. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LESLIE STAHL, "60 MINUTES": Do you support marriage equality?

TRUMP: It's irrelevant, because it was already settled. It's law. It was settled in the Supreme Court. It's done.

STAHL: So even if you appointed a judge that --

TRUMP: It's done. You have -- these cases have gone to the Supreme Court. They have been settled. And -- and I'm fine with that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: All right. That was on marriage equality, obviously. It wasn't on Roe. On Roe he basically -- what did he say?

HILL: You know what? I have my reading glasses.

BERMAN: Play the sound. Play the sound. Play the sound.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STAHL: Will you appoint -- are you looking to appoint a justice who wants to overturn Roe v. Wade?

TRUMP: So, look, here's what's going to happen. I'm pro-life. The judges will be pro-life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: The judges will be pro-life.

TOOBIN: Why -- why does FOX News make fun of me for saying that?

BERMAN: No.

TOOBIN: I'm just repeating what he's saying. I mean, it's just -- they wanted pro-life, and they'll be five of them.

AVLON: Don't take it too personally.

BERMAN: And I do think the other thing here, people, that you realize, Jeff. And I've heard you talk about this, and others write about it, as well. There have been states that have been hesitant to do things because they knew Kennedy was there. Right. It would be futile to do something because Kennedy was there.

Kennedy is gone. So there will be laws. States will pass laws. They will pass laws with the expectation that they will get through, correct?

TOOBIN: Of course. And they'll do it, you know, this summer. I mean, you know, it's not like, you know, people in conservative states, they actually watch the news. They know who's on the Supreme Court. And they know who's going to be on the court. So they are going to start the process whereby these case will go to a district court, circuit court, and they'll go up to the Supreme Court, and -- and the law is going to change.

AVLON: It may -- while there will be efforts, there have been efforts before, and yes, O'Connor and Kennedy were real blocks on that. You know, we've had -- since that decision was done, and you know, whatever you think about the decision by Harry Blackmun, there have been -- you know, third-trimester abortions have been outlawed. There have been mediating effects. Now, I heard Donald Trump actually say things slightly different. We all know that he was not anti-choice before he ran for president and got political. "I'm pro-life; I'm appointing pro-life judges." He doesn't address the question of overturning Roe. My guess is, among other things, Ivanka Trump would be deeply opposed to that to the extent --

TOOBIN: Oh, who cares?

AVLON: No, no, no, no, no. Culturally, Donald Trump comes from a situation that there is not a great appetite for overturning Roe. And that Roe may be at risk. But don't get me wrong. But -- but I think you've got to actually see whether stare decisis has any impact on decisions. We know this isn't an issue that Roberts has been involved in. But let's see who he nominates and how ideological and activist they are on the issue of choice. Because that could make it the slightly more difficult to cobble together coalition, even if it's a simple majority.

TOOBIN: At this late date, do we really -- at this late date, does anyone really think Ivanka Trump is pushing her father to the center? I mean, come on.

AVLON: I'm just saying that there are going to be more pushback on this issue than we've seen. As we've seen with previous Republican presidents. Frequently, their families feel strongly on this issue behind the scenes.

CHALIAN: -- approval among Republicans, right? And the thing that is keeping Donald Trump alive physically in this moment is a totally unified Republican Party. If he were to back away from --

AVLON: He's not going to nominate a pro-choice judge, to be clear.

CHALIAN: That would just --

AVLON: But I think there's a difference between a pro-life judge and someone whose ideological mission in life is overturning Roe.

HILL: There's also how this is going to play out over the next several months. Right? And this is what we're looking at. We are looking at a very busy summer, where you are going to see both parties trying to use this to their advantage to galvanize voters.

[06:15:04] We know that conservative voters come out, and they vote when it comes to -- they know that this is going to be an issue. The question is to see whether or not Democrats will come out in the same force.

CHALIAN: Right. So this energizes both parties. But here's why I think this is an important psychological boost for Republicans this fall.

You've got a situation right now where Democratic enthusiasm is overriding Republican enthusiasm. We've seen it time and again. All of a sudden, there's a psychological boost for Republicans. Now, it will energize Democrats, too. But Republicans have something to sink their teeth into in a way that they have been craving this election season, because it really hasn't been there.

AVLON: And Democrats, obviously, will be doubly energized, as well. And we'll see how McConnell wants to get this done before the election to stave off the prospect or possibility of a Democratic Senate.

But what really is, I think, that's frustrating Democrats, and with good reason, is if you look up nominations to the Supreme Court over the last 40 years, beginning with Jimmy Carter, who had zero in his two terms, it's lopsided in favor of Republicans.

You've had four Republican presidents, eight Supreme Court appointments. Three Democrats, only four. Half as many. And it's worth pointing out, as many Democrats are today, that Republicans have only won the popular vote once since 1988. That's a really disproportionate impact on the most consequential decision, arguably, a president makes.

BERMAN: Clinton had two justices. Obama had two and would have had three. So they would have a majority if Mitch McConnell didn't get in the way.

In terms of the election, when we talk about the energy here, we talk about the fact Mitch McConnell wants a vote in the fall. Mitch McConnell, among other reasons he wants to rush this through is to put vulnerable Democrats running in red states on the spot. And they will be on the spot. Heidi Heitkamp, who voted for Neil Gorsuch. Joe Manchin, who voted for Neil Gorsuch. Joe Donnelly in Indiana, who voted for Neil Gorsuch, Jeffrey.

And it's hard for me to imagine that those three, let along some of the others in red states, will necessarily vote against a pick that the president puts forward.

TOOBIN: I completely agree. That's why I think the president has a completely free hand in picking someone as conservative as -- as possible.

I mean, you know, the Democratic scenario is somehow persuading Susan Collins of Maine or Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who are nominally pro- choice, to vote against Donald Trump's nominees, with John McCain unlikely to be voting, because he's ill. That's the math that they have to work with.

But I agree that the Democratic -- you know, there are Democratic senators who are likely to vote for this nominee. So I just think the numbers very much favor confirmation.

AVLON: The standard -- the standard's going to be higher. We know from Trump's comments he's going to go young. He wants an impact on the court for decades. He gets that.

But I mean, the standard that's been used by a lot of the judicial nominees they've put forth in the past, which has been sort of rubber stamped by ideological activist groups, where you've got nominees not saying whether they think Brown v. Board is correctly decided. There's going to be a high bar for this nominee.

If they put forward a really ideological warrior who --

BERMAN: With whom? There's going to be a higher bar with whom? There's no way there will be a higher bar.

BERMAN: Absolutely, there will be, because they're not going to want to --

BERMAN: With whom? With whom? Which senators? Which senators?

BERMAN: Collins, Murkowski, the people you just mentioned.

BERMAN: Gorsuch? What if you pick Gorsuch? Gorsuch, too.

AVLON: Gorsuch was nowhere near as extreme as the example of not saying whether Board -- Brown v. Board was properly decided, as nominees to the courts have said.

BERMAN: On the issues of Roe and on the issues of gay rights that Jeffrey was talking about here, on the issues of affirmative action, Neil Gorsuch, I think, is the perfect template to look at going forward.

And again, we don't have to guess here. There's a list of judges --

AVLON: Yes.

BERMAN: -- that the president will pick from. In those lists of judges, you can read their opinions. You can read their writings before. There is an enormous amount of clarity among all of these people where they're going. And there's an enormous amount of clarity, among the 99 senators who are voting going forward right now about where they stand.

Some will be more activist. However conservative they are calling balls and strikes. That's the key question to look for.

HILL: What do you expect, David, to hear from in this process just in terms of questioning? Because there isn't really a lot that a Democrat can do.

CHALIAN: No. As John said at the top of the show, there really is nothing. Everyone will make their case on their issue.

HILL: Right.

CHALIAN: There will be some theater as Supreme Court hearings are.

HILL: Is there anything in that theater that would get through?

CHALIAN: Obviously we will see who the nominee is, all the information coming out about them. It is a known universe. These are vetted candidates already. So the fact -- to expect some big surprise is probably unrealistic.

BERMAN: Hurry.

CHALIAN: I just want to make, John, the point that you just said, though, about the red-state Democrats.

The Republican running in Indiana, Mike Braun, already issued a press release yesterday anticipating Donnelly's vote for nominee and said. "Don't think he is with Trump just because he votes yes.

BERMAN: And in some ways, it could give Joe Donnelly a pass. If they do it early enough in the election, he can say, "Look, I voted with the president on this. That's not the issue. There are other issues here."

[06:20:03] But just to go back to this list, Jeffrey Toobin, and the history here, you know, we talk about the possibility of a Souter or -- you know, or a Kennedy. This list was created to eliminate that possibility.

AVLON: Correct. This --

BERMAN: The Federalists had been --

TOOBIN: Right. I wrote a piece in "The New Yorker" about Leonard Leo, who is the executive vice president of the Federalist Society, who compiled this list. And, you know, Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society, you know, it's not just abortion. It's eliminating affirmative action. It's eliminating even the possibility of any sort of gun control.

I mean, you think -- we talk about bump stocks, for example. The current view in the conservative legal world is that you cannot regulate anything relating -- related to guns. You know, the religion -- allowing greater use of the death penalty. Allowing religious people to exempt themselves for from the more and more government requirements. This is the agenda that these 25 judges were picked to advance.

AVLON: And this is the problem with Trump outsourcing this to an ideological activist organization. The problem is the drift in the court, as Jeff of course, well knows. And the Heller decision actually did explicitly say there was room for reasonable gun restrictions.

And the problem is even over just a period of the last 40 years, you had a centrist, center right Republican tradition. They were conservative. But like Kennedy, they weren't necessarily dogmatic. And the court -- and the national unity in the court that the court can reflect depends on swing justices. And there used to be a lot of them that came from Republican presidents from Nixon on. That tradition seems to have been decimated, and it's because activist groups have effectively hijacked or outsourced the process.

BERMAN: And I want to be clear about one thing here. I'm so sorry. It's that -- you know, the argument about whether this is a good or bad thing, that's a separate thing. This just is. I'm just trying to lay out the case for what is right now. This is the situation. This is the situation that Republicans have seized upon. They did it because they could over the last few years. And this is the situation that Democrats face right now.

And it will be very interesting to see. We talked about the red-state Democrats. You know, I'm very curious to see where the energy in the Democratic Party will go and how they will play on this issue. David Chalian, maybe you've heard, over the next several months.

CHALIAN: Well, you saw the first thing out of the gate from every Democrat in your inbox yesterday was this should happen after the election. That just seems like a futile argument. I don't understand.

But that's their initial organizing point. And they will make other ideological points to try and make the stakes, play clips of Jeffrey Toobin describing his vision of what may happen and try to create some energy among their base. But again, to what end? To Donald Trump getting his nominee on the United States Supreme Court.

HILL: It's also fascinating to look at, you know, as you go through that list and now you're looking at who's left and the attention focusing more and more on John Roberts. And Jeffrey, I'll throw this to you. And how he does not want to see the Supreme Court as we know become more and more political. And yet, with this nominee, that's a tough thing to avoid.

TOOBIN: Well, you know, I don't -- I mean, I acknowledge that John Roberts does not like this kind of role for the Supreme Court.

But he also has a vote. And, you know, there is going to be a statute that comes before -- you know, from the state of Mississippi that says abortion is illegal in the state of Mississippi. And John Roberts is going to have to vote on whether that's -- whether that is constitutional or not. And I don't think there's any doubt about how he's going to come out on that.

So, you know, yes, John Roberts would prefer that the court sort of go about its business in a quieter way. But, you know, too bad. That's not how-- that's not the cases that come before the Supreme Court. And -- and you know, the activists who bring these cases, are going to bring these cases. And the Supreme Court can only duck so many of them.

BERMAN: David, Mitch McConnell. Cocaine Mitch, as he was referred to in West Virginia, is really Champagne Mitch this morning. He won. He won, and there's not even big enough three letters, W-O-N, to describe what he did here.

CHALIAN: I couldn't agree with you more. And I think it was also very shrew on McConnell's part. So not only did he win at the holding of the Garland thing, which enrages Democrats.

AVLON: And it should.

CHALIAN: That may be. Again, what is, it does enrage Democrats. But the other thing that I think Mitch McConnell did that was really

politically shrewd, he went nuclear, making it that you only need the 51 votes to get somebody onto the Supreme Court for the easier lower states, Gorsuch substitute for Scalia pick. Right? A solid conservative for a solid conservative.

If Mitch McConnell was trying to change Senate rules now over the replacement of Kennedy, there would be a much bigger fight. He would still be able to do it. Don't get me wrong.

HILL;: Right.

CHALIAN: But there would be more backlash on that. He did it in the lower states. And now it's poised to get somebody through with just Republican votes.

[06:25:13] AVLON: So much for being, you know, the institutionalist that McConnell pretends to be here. I mean, let's just call the hypocrisy out. This is Cocaine and Champagne Mitch. I mean, he's on a bender. The institutionalists' argument's done. He gutted it the last time around, and that's what's going to make this next nominee possible.

BERMAN: The strong do as they will, and the weak suffer as they must.

Jeffrey, you're not -- I want to give you the last word here just to make you feel better.

TOOBIN: I feel fine. You know, I'm just -- you're rocking the Thucydides.

AVLON: I know.

HILL: He is.

TOOBIN: Chris Cuomo didn't do any Thucydides.

BERMAN: Well, an example of the weak suffering as they must. All right.

HILL: I think that should be the last word.

BERMAN: Cuomo is still asleep.

HILL: He's got a DVR. Look out.

BERMAN: He doesn't know how to use it, though.

HILL: He may already be at the gym.

Just ahead, we are also following developments. This summit between President Trump and Vladimir Putin. We're expecting an announcement this morning. All those details ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BERMAN: All right. Big news developing this morning. The summit between President Trump and Vladimir Putin is set. A time and place will be announced in just hours by both the White House and the Kremlin. This meeting is expected to happen after next month's NATO summit in Brussels.

Our Frederik Pleitgen live in Moscow with the very latest -- Fred.

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, John.

We literally just got some information a couple of minutes ago.