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scotusblog founder and reporter amy howe discusses supreme court decisions from this term. "washington journal" starts now. ♪ host: this is "washington journal" for sunday, june 30th. tomorrow, the supreme court is expected to issue the final opinions of its term, including whether president trump has immunity from prosecution. the court has already released dozens of rulings on cases involving hot button issues, like abortion, guns, and the amendment. 7% of u.s. adults believe the supreme court puts ideology over impartiality. we want your thoughts on the results of the whole. if you agree, your line is (202) 748-8000. if you disagree, your line is (202) 748-8001. if you're unsure, (202) 748-8002 . if you would like to text us, you can do so at (202) 748-8003.

be sure to include your name and city. you can also post a question or comment on facebook at facebook.com/cspan or on x at @cspanwj. we will get to your calls and comments in just a moment. first, more about that ap poll. it came out last week from the associated press. a solid majority of americans set say supreme court justices are more likely to be guided by their own ideology rather than serving as neutral arbitrators as government authority. a new poll finds the high court is poised to rule on major cases including former president donald trump and other divisive issues. the survey from the associated press and the -- 7 in 10 americans think the high court justices are more influenced by ideology while only about 3 in 10 u.s. adults

think the justices are more like the two provide an independent check on other ranges of government by being fair and impartial. there is a breakdown of how those people who were polled breaks down. this orange line are people who believe the justices are more likely to shape the law to fit their own ideologies. again, 70% of all u.s. adults. for people who identify as democrats, 84% thought that was true, republicans, 50%. 2 of the justices, earlier this year, p or together at an event with the meeting of the national governors association, and during that event, it was justice sotomayor who was asked

about the perceived partisanship of the court. here is her,. [video clip] >> in his most recent book, justice breyer argues the justices are not partisans in robes, that their disagreements do not reflect partisan politics or which policy they favorite the outcome, but they were affect raffling with the law. has that been your experience? >> pretty much, yes. i think the worst thing that has happened to the judiciary is political parties. at a certain point, political parties decided to take conversations that were occurring between and among judges and academics about how best to approach interpretation of the constitution and statutes. they began to adopt, as buzz

words, some of the discussions we were having, like originalism and checks and things like that, but instead of discussing those terms with respect to approaches that made sense, with all the nonsense that those approaches contain, they just began to label people according to the buzzwords. and that doesn't do justice to the fact -- justice barrett was describing the cases we disagreed. she should also be discussing cases in which we agree, in which there are many. not just between her and me but me and clarence thomas, me and neil gorsuch, including me and

scalia. the nuances of how we talk about legal theories is missing from the fancy words that politicians have given to judges, and i think that is what justice roberts and justice breyer are talking about. we don't come into this work as a republican or democrat. we don't even come into it as an originalist or plain text. well, i'm speaking for you. i come into it as a justice who believes we should find the best answer. i think that a secret to almost all of us. remember, thankfully, for us, presidents don't last that long, right? there's 8 years. [laughter]

so for us to be the holding to one is crazy. seriously. there is built into the system a protection, which is lifetime appointments. that should give us the freedom to grow as we grow in the job as well. host: this morning, we are asking your opinion about the results of a recent ap poll that found 70% of u.s. adults say the supreme court justices put ideology over impartiality. again, the lines, if you agree, your line (202) 748-8000. if you disagree, (202) 748-8001. if you're unsure, the line is (202) 748-8002. we will hear it first from arthur in florida, calling on the disagree line. good morning. caller: yes, ma'am. as i can understand it, i believe our laws need to be

interpreted as close as possible to what they originally meant, not come up with "this is what the law says, but we have a different understanding." wen yu ca sign on a fence post tell you "dog, keep out," that is what it means. host: arthur, so you disagree and believe that they have ruled based on impartiality? caller: i would like to think it is impartiality. but then again, what is going to be fairness to one person someone else may not interpret as fairness. host: that was arthur in florida.

more from that associated press poll, the poll reflects the continued erosion of confidence in the supreme court, which enjoyed router trust as recently as a decade ago. it underscores the challenges faced by the nine justices, 6 appointed by republican presidents, 3 by democrats, as seen as something other than washington hyper partisanship. the justices are expected to decide soon whether trump is immune from criminal charges his efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat, but the poll suggests many americans are already uneasy about the justices' ability to rule impartially. let's hear from rose in staten island. she is calling on the agreed line. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i appreciate it. i agree that there is definitely

some bias going on between justice clarence thomas and justice alito. it is just so obvious. we have to take that or care of our democracy -- we have to take better care of our democracy. these guys were obviously paid off, but they could be paid off by putin. it is much easier for him to pay a bunch of cronies, like justice alito, and simply take over our country this way, without having to do other things. look at alexei navalny, he was poisoned. you going to try to tell me they're not going to try that with biden? they are under so much threat. all our systems of government are.

we have senator whitehouse, if you pay attention to what he says, to have our whole system of government ruled by just a few people, it is scary. but something has got to be done about alito and justice clarence thomas. we can impeach these guys, but lindsey graham won't let us. we are going to let one senator, cruz, put our whole system of government at risk? and something has to be said about the debate thursday, because i don't think biden would have done the debate. i do not think it was just his hp he was not well. what was in that can of water that had his name on it? host: let's go to linda in florida, calling on the disagree line. good morning. caller: i would just like to say that we have a very fine supreme court, with a lot of frank personalities on it.

a lot of people do not really understand the workings of our government. they really do not understand our constitution. they really do not understand our country's history, from the founding. there are a lot of people here from a fairly short time, and they think they know everything just based on what they hear. they don't even watch a lot a factual programs to of a watch a lot of national network programs that are pretty opinionated now. so i applaud the supreme system that we have -- supreme court system that we have. i applaud the people who have been appointed to the court. i have listened to many of their discussions, when they are trying to decide issues. we have people who do not understand america trying to tell them what to do, and --

i think ignorance is a very severe problem our nation, and that is when our nation falls, when you have a lot of people who really do not take the time to learn about a lot of things that are important in our government. i like the fact that the supreme court is already separate, that they are not under pressure to decide issues one way or the other, and a lot of people who have opinions, they really have not done a lot of true assessments themselves to really find out what issues are involved. i am not an attorney, but i did study one course in law in college, and that helped me understand how difficult it is. i just admire the supreme

court's, and i think people should not be picking out one judge or another does not agree with their ideology and thinking that they can bump them up. it is not a good idea. they need to accept them and accep their -- accept their authority, because they are there to keep our country straight and be as fair to all people as much as they can. if they make a mistake, they correct it later, as should be, so anyhow, thank you very much for all you do on c-span. hope your buddy has a good lord's day today. host: that was linda in florida. this tweet coming in on x says, "who ran this poll? how many people and what was their demographics?" from the poll, it says a poll of

1080 eight adults was conducted june 24, 2024, using a sample drawn from norc's probability-based amerispeaks panel, designed to be representative of the u.s. population. the margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points pay let's turn next to ted on the agree line. caller: good morning. as far as the supreme court goes, in the early 1990's, with the adding of clans comments -- clarence thomas, i think in those days, idea hill -- anita hill was absolutely right. clarence thomas does not need to be in that court. i do wonder why the united states, of all the supreme court s in the land, both in the

states in the world, this one is the only one that does not have term limits. you have christine lazy ford, she was right. kavanaugh, why he's there is puzzling to me. i think there's none of them up to the task. you have sotomayor traveling with a nurse because she is in such ill health. these people are not up to the task. clarence thomas needs to go, alito needs to go. if they've got crazy old ladies, that is their problem, not the country's. please, let them go. they need to go, especially thomas and kavanaugh and alito, and even sotomayor. she travels with a nurse -- host: alright, got your point.

we will go to henry on the not sure line. good morning. henry, are you there? we will try one more time for henry, woodruff, south carolina? all right, give us a call that kb will go to kathy on iowa on the agree line. caller: good morning k thank you for taking my call. the poll you have is shocking in a way. 7 out of 10 americans do not believe the supreme court can put their ideology aside for impartiality? and yet we are looking at 50% of our country or more is going to vote for someone who simply is a dictator? that is certainly not impartiality. i feel like we lost something in this country, where we could agree to disagree, and we could respect the supreme court

decision, because we did feel like they were impartial. it is just really a sad part of what is happening in our country right now. i feel like the supreme court -- i guess not the supreme court, congress needs to set up some ethics for the supreme court that they need to live by, including when they need to recuse themselves from cases and not letting themselves police themselves. it obviously is not working and is eroding the confidence our country has in the supreme court . one side is gone, we have lost a lot. it's sad. i really hope things can turn around. thank you. host: lance in fort lauderdale, florida, on the disagree line. good morning. caller: good morning. i hardly disagree. i agree with my fellow floridian , linda, who called earlier. people do not understand how the court works. it is obvious, when you listen

to the news shows, and they talk about this justice is a democrat or this justice is a republican. the clip you should at the beginning shows the way they think about it. there is another clip of amy coney barrett, where she said, if you are a justice and you agree with every decision you make, you're doing it wrong. my uncle was a judge, and there were many times i had spoken with him, and i was in law school, getting my paralegal certificates, that you do not make the agreements. you do not make your vision -- decisions on how you feel. you have to do it on the law. that will clear the situation that sometimes you walk off that bench and you're not happy about what you have done at all, but that is what the law says. your job as a judge is to decide on the lobby of that is what it is so scary to me when you hear people talking about stacking the court.

the show last week was talking about making 20 justices. you have to ask yourself, who is going to pick these justices? the reason the founding fathers gave them lifetime tenure is so they are free from corruption. they cannot be bought, like sotomayor said. presidents last 4 or 8 years, they last a lifetime. if we lose respect to the supreme court, we have lost the country. there's nothing left at that point. you watch the way the news media talks about them, the way both sides of the aisle talk about them, that they are partisan, that they are wrong and they are just people, and we need to stack the court -- that is madness. it amazes me how people who have not studied law, who have not studied the constitution, think that they know more than the people who wrote it. i suggest that people go to a

court in their hometown and sit for a while and watch criminals, civil judges handle cases and decide for yourself if these people, these men and women, who have sworn to uphold the law, are doing a good job or not. when they put on that robe, any personal preferences they have though out the door. i'm not a fan that they overturned roe v. wade, but i understand that that was a process that took 51 years. i fought for roe v. wade. it took us 50 years to get roe v. wade. that we had it, but the scaredy-cat congressman would not codify it into law, because i thought, my god, maybe i will not get elected time. this all crab and. even justice ginsburg said the trouble with roe said it could

be overturned, because it was based on the fourth amendment, not the 14th. these are honorable people doing the best they can. if we let ourselves be swayed by partisan bickering and partisan ignorance, we will destroy this country. charles dickens said it best in "a christmas carol," with two children hiding under the ghost of christmas present's robe. he said, this is ignorance and this is want, and most of all, fear ignorance. if we let ourselves turn against each other and turn against some of the most honorable people in the country, we are lost. host: that was lance. an earlier call from iowa, she mentioned that the court should adopt a code of ethics. they did adopt a code of conduct

late last year. the new code of conduct contains five ethical canons. one, a justice should uphold the integrity and independence of the judiciary. two, a justice should avoid impropriety and appearance of propriety in all activities. three, a justice should perform the duties of office fairly and diligently. four, a justice may engage in extrajudicial activities consistent with the obligations of the judicial office. five, a justice should refrain from political activity. let's hear from thomas in hawaii on the unsure line. good morning. caller: yes, good morning. thank you. i am calling on this line. i agree with the premise, i agree the current court is politicized, too much so. but having said that, i told the

gentleman who answered my call that i wanted to call on the undecided line to give credit to linda from florida and even more so to the judge woman who just spoke in front of me at length and very eloquently about his understanding of the way the court should work. i agree with them up to a point. the problem is that justices, whether you think they are not overly politicized, and alito and thomas clearly are, the fact remains the process of choosing supreme court justices is screwed up, to put it mildly. you saw what mitch mcconnell did. they did not give obama a chance to appoint a new justice, and as soon as trump's in, he gets three. that is the problem. that is why the court is politicized. i do not care if the judges are saints as personal individuals. that is the problem. so you end up with a politicized

court, the worst i've seen in my personal lifetime -- i am 71 years old and i greatly respect linda's thoughts, but her thinking is not quite deep enough. the gentleman who called in who had some legal training, i respect that as well. but i have an undergraduate degree in journalism, two graduate degrees in political science, and i've thought about this a lot more deeply and broadly than most of your callers, including the two i just mentioned -- who i once again want to thank for your very reasonable comments about this. i wish c-span discussions are like this most of the time. unfortunately, most of the time it is people calling in who have no idea how much they do not know and express all of their half-baked opinions as if they are self-evident facts. i hope c-span, between now and november, continues to make a point once a week to come in and have experts analyze each call and fact-check each call, and

not just let people go off on crazy tangents. so i will calm down. i appreciate the opportunity to say this and the timing to follow those two fine people from florida. i appreciate it very much. host: that was thomas in honolulu. a couple messages coming in from x. this says most only listens to what their talking head told of them. most do not know what is in the constitution. most do not understand the decisions hand wn for most only listen to the opinion they are sond. another, there is no doubt scotus is legislating from t bench. already, they are catering to billionaires and makin everything else less safe for consumers and the general public. it looks like a power grab to me. and one re from- says are

they chosebased on their ideology -- in line they are chosen based on their ideology, so why would this surprise anyone? we will go back to the phones and hear from milton in philadelphia, calling on the agree line. caller: thank you for taking my call. i would like to make this point. i totally agree with that. to me, the court has become really ideological. they put ideology more than the law. let's take this is alito and thomas. thomas and alito are accepting gifts and trips from people who have business before the court. that is unethical and wrong and corrupts the whole system here then you have thomas' case, he has cases involving the january 6 insurrection, and his wife was present at the very rally on january 6, but every case comes before that court -- because his

wife took part in that. he will not even recuse himself. like i said, it makes the court look bad when they do things like that. then i believe barrett and kavanaugh should be tried for perjury, because when they went before the judiciary committee for their nominations, they said they respect precedent, long-standing precedent, and they consider that to be settled law. when roe came before the court, they voted to overturn it. and this was a 50 year precedent . i used have a lotta spec for the supreme court my really did, but when 2000 came, and the gore decision, after that, i lost all respect in the supreme court. i think they need serious ethics reform. federal judges cannot accept gifts and vacations. that should apply to the supreme court as well. host: from the most recent

gallup poll, looking at the view of the supreme court, of the highlights show that 41% approved of the supreme court's job performance, close to 40% a record low. 49% have trust and confidence in the supreme court. near 47% historical low. 39% says the high court is too conservative. 42% says about right. 17% says it is too liberal. let's hear next from arthur in grand forks, north dakota on the disagree line. good morning. caller: good morning. -- the framers of the constitution, that if we understood more about how they

structured it and what their thoughts were in building the constitution, we would be a lot better off. one of the things is a letter between abigail adams and thomas jefferson in 1787. and if they -- people would read that, they might get a better understanding of why -- something about january 6, and it might be better served for the country to do. thank you. host: that was arthur in north dakota. he mentioned the january 6 decision. it came down last week. from the washington post this morning, the article says that the high court ruled 6-3 that prosecutors could broadly apply

a federal statute that makes it a crime to corruptly object or intervene in -- the court ruled the law applied only to tampering with or destruction of evidence, such as records or documents. the article goes on about how it may impact people. as many as 250 defendants who have been convicted or are awaiting charges on upshur acting a professional -- an official proceeding could be affected. they could seek to vacate their convictions, sentences, or plea deals, but most may not benefit much, because they are convicted of other felonies. sentences greatly vary on their individual circumstances.

prosecutors maintained even if the high court stopped the use and generally six cases, only 27 defendants are likely to immediately see an immediate reduction in present time here that applies to those not accused or convicted of other felonies, such as assaulting police officers and those who have not completed their sentences. an additional 110 defendants await trial or sentencing. former president donald trump, during an event earlier this week, spoke about the supreme court's decision. here are some of his remarks. [video clip] >> this just happened a few hours ago. the supreme court ruled that biden's department of justice wrongly prosecuted hundreds of americans for peacefully protesting on january 6. [cheers]

>> usa!usa! usa! usa! usa! usa! usa! usa! usa! usa! >> those people have been treated so badly, especially when you compare them with people that ripped apart and killed people in portland and seattle and in other places. they have been treated so badly. so we are asking, based on the decision, they should immediately be released, immediately, the january 6 hostages. host: we are getting your response this morning from a recent associated press poll showing that 70% of americans inc. supreme court justices think -- 70% of americans think supreme court justices put ideology over

impartiality. let's hear from deborah on the unsure line. caller: good morning. thank you for having me. first of all, i think it is unfortunate i have follow all of trump's lies. the caller before us talk about the january 6 decision, and the january 6 decision, i found it interesting that coney barrett, she joined a what is known as the liberal justices, where brown joint what is known as the conservative justices. that is an interesting point, when you talk about which way the court is shifting. i noticed gorsuch, as well as the other one -- i forgot his name that trump appointed -- also had some, when i watched the court decisions, i have been surprised at which way they have gone sometimes. i think what has happened most recently to all of us has to do more with alito and has to do

more with what we have seen with roe v. wade and also what we have seen when it comes to the other justice that we always talk about all the time, that was appointed, and his wife was up there for the january 6. i think we are all concerned about the fact that, when we see so much coming from -- i am losing my train of thought and getting kind of nervous being on line here. the unsure the is the fact we would -- the unsurity is the fact we would like to believe people do the right thing, but when people are on the work forever, they get corrupt. we need to have term limits. we need to have rotating justices, so they are not on there for a lifetime care that goes for all federal courts. you are bound to get corrupt as you age. you are bound to not be as

independent as you used to be. you are bound to not really read the court law as carefully as you used to be. when you read in the opinion of roe v. wade, it was a sad opinion. it was not a well-written opinion. it was not a thoughtful, legal opinion. to me, it sounded more like a bitter old man's opinion, that is what alito started sounding like. i think that is where most of us are at. also, the constitution framework does allow for the addition of more supreme court justices. it is a flexible constitution. what we have done is added population to our country. the supreme court justices, each one of them is given a role to have a certain segment of the country that they have to rule over -- i am not sure how it works exactly. i think they have too much of a burden. each part of the country, each

part of the law -- i think the law has become too complex, technology has become too complex. they do not understand it as well as they did in the past. so i think we can certainly add more supreme court justices, so that certainly is something that can be considered. i do want to agree with one of the other callers when it came to what mitch mcconnell did, because of that, to me, was extremely political. i think, by not allowing obama to pick the supreme court justice, that, to me, is where so much of this started. thank you. host: robert in north carolina on the agree line. good morning. caller: morning. i would like to say, first of all, most sitting or future -- no sitting or future president of the united states should ever be allowed to pick a supreme court justice. they should be put in a basket,

any judge that qualifies to be a judge, and let it picked out by a little child. because anytime a president can pick a person to be a justice, we can end up with the mess we have right now, and that is these people are nothing but a bunch of clinical idiots. because you are talking about a person that lied to three wives and a committee -- a person like that could end up being a president of the united states. what the people should do is -- i agree with the person that said mitch mcconnell had no business doing that. any person has to be paid by the

taxpayer, no individual person should be allowed to appoint that person to a lifetime position in anything. we paid these people, we pay mcconnell come all the people in the congress and the senate, we pay them. we pay these justices. and you get 1% going to pick someone, and these people are human beings. they are apt to be partial, and we have a situation right now, and when that happens, you forget about the law of the land . what about the law of the world? that nobody should have any authority over the constitution, except the constitution, but then you have god almighty over of that. this particular justices have lost their way.

somehow or another, these people should start all over, and there should definitely be a term limit. anybody who has been a justice for 10 years, time for those people to go, and we appoint someone else, because these people are human beings, and they cannot help from accepting bribes and gifts and things that are not required. we should have policies that you can impeach these people without going through the senate or the congress, because you have partiality there. what donald trump did, in talking about the people there in the january 6 -- when donald trump took the oath of office, he swore, in office, to uphold and protect the citizens of the united states,

whether foreign or domestic. he should have been impeached for failing to do his duty. he sat and watched television while the clowns took down the entire congress, the house there, and he just sat there and watched television -- host: got your point. we will go to tad in rhode island on the agree line. good morning. caller: good morning and thank you for taking my call. i'm going to be quite brief. the way we appoint judges i think is absolutely wrong. political appointments. in germany, what they do is you have to be a lawyer before you can become a judge. and then, to win a job as a judge, you have to take a civil service test. if there is an opening, one opening for a judge, and 20 people apply, the person that

scores the highest debts the job. there's no politics involved whatsoever. i also believe that won't take all the politics out of it. they can go straight down the middle and decide which way it is going to go by their wisdom, not by their political leanings. i also believe that they should have a mandatory 35 year, 875 retirement. thank you for your time. host: let's hear from kyle in new mexico on the not sure line. caller: thanks so much. 70% say supreme court justices put ideology over impartiality? i -- i just don't know.

i know that the supreme court ruled that corporations were people, and that was 20 years ago, when i was a teenager, and that was painful. and now, the supreme court has ruled that the whatever administration is in place can influence social media companies to suppress free speech. i just don't know. so i'm not sure. if you got o the movie "idio cracy," i'd be not sure. host: let's go to gilbert in alabama on the agree line.

good morning. caller: good morning. it is quite ironic that this subject is the topic of the day. i woke up this morning thinking about the decision the supreme court made. on the issue concerning the fact that local municipalities can make ordinances to ticket homeless people in a manner of cruel and inhumane treatment. just imagine, theoretically, a person could lose it humbly because of a natural disaster, they're going to ticket them, too. when the supreme court took the standinga way from the securities exchange committee and the epa and not stand to prosecute these people messing up the environment, we see what's going on. there's a song that said "it's

too long, too gone." this has been the track record of the supreme court for over 400 years. i'm telling you, ticketing in inhumane treatment for homeless people. it's a bad day for america. thank you. host: earlier this year, at that same national governors event, where justice sotomayor spoke, sorted justice amy coney barrett. she was asked about critics of the court and the decisions that come out of it. here are part of her remarks. [video clip] >> you have responded to critics of the court by challenging them to read the court's opinions. that is what you said, i believe. if you think we are just partisan hacks, i think was the

phrase you used, read our opinions. expand on that. what did you mean by that? >> i actually was reading a book recently. chief justice earl warren said the same thing. i'm not the only justice to have said this. i know my colleagues agree. i think it is because things that the court or the way we make decisions -- the nature of our business is different. we are trying to say what the law means. we are not the policymakers. that is your job. so i think, one -- we speak publicly in these kind of settings, but we do not have press conferences and that sort of thing. so really, the products of our work is the opinion. i don't go out and talk to the press or talk to people in between oral argument and the issuance of an opinion about what i think should happen in the case. so it is very different from the

political process and that respect. so i think, if you want to know what the court's reasoning is, you have to look at the opinion, because it explains the decision. justice sotomayor and i've been on opposite sides of difficult issues. last year, there was the student loan case, and i joined the chief justice's opinion -- the opinion did not mirror the debate. it was not about whether loan forgiveness is a good thing or a bad thing or a desirable thing or not, it was about the scope of the statute. so i think there are many reasons to criticize the court's work in any number of cases, and justice kagan and the chief justice and that case had an oppressive back-and-forth, with both making excellent argument. but you cannot know if you agree or disagree with what the court did, because it is not based on what is online without seeing the reason for why the court did

what it did. i tell my law clerks and used to tell my students when i talked constitution law, i wanted them, by the end of the semester, to identify several decisions that they liked the result but disagreed with that reasoning, and vice versa. justice scalia used to say, and i wholeheartedly agree, if you like yourself liking the results of every decision you make, you're in the wrong job. you should sometimes be reaching results that you really dislike, because it is not your job just to be deciding cases in the way you like to be seen, and it is only when you read opinions that you can see the rationale with the court having reached the judgment it did. host: we have a little over 10 minutes left. this person asking you about your response to a poll that found 7 in 10 americans think supreme court justices put ideology over impartiality. some comments coming in on facebook. from jim, we are nation of

laws, not emotions. even if i do t ree with all of the rulings, we now have a supreme courthafor all americans. the founding fathers got it right when it comes to the supreme court, and the rules of the court should not be changed. evelyn, the last supreme court justice that was impartial was the late thurgood marshall. after hiretirement, it has been a corporateha of appointments. one more from matthew, that's absurd, many want e preme court to degree fro the bench rather than legislators passing legislation or amending t constitution. there are many casesthmost recent being the january 6 case, where the justices crossed ideological lines. we will go back to the phones anhear from mark in florida on the disagree line. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. i just got to say, most of these people calling in, especially

the democrats, they do not understand the federal government was not supposed to be this big. you can go back to roe v. wade, you had obama, you had rbg -- if the democrats know who rgb is, i am sure they do -- they said roe v. wade was bad law. the supreme court pushed it back to the states. just read the 10th amendment. our not delegated to the united states, nor prohibited by the states, are reserved for the states. you can move to any state you want to, but the states are supposed to have the power of it i wish the governors of these states would start taking it back from the federal government. i lived in d.c. there is a ton of money that flows in there. it is everyday because amount. it is too powerful up there. i think the supreme court is doing their job. you have a supreme court justice who cannot say what a woman was.

this modest people that have gone to college -- the country has gone to a point where someone cannot say what a woman is. it is ridiculous, a lot of these democrats who want the supreme court to be their god. host: james on the agree line. good morning. caller: how are you? host: doing well. caller: i agree a little bit with everybody so far, so this is a great conversation. the issues i have is we are supposed to put the supreme court up on the top, that these are the people, but i believe they are the ones that created slavery, like, legalized it. they are also the people responsible for allowing japanese americans to be put -- and turned -- interned. we have laws --

i don't get it. if you go to see if you are breaking the law, should operably start at the top and say federal, to see if this is allowed, but then they go to the states. but that is not the way the they want us to do it. they want us to spend all of our way in the states and then work our way up to the supreme court. and then i say i know this is about pistols or rifles or speech, but we see what they wrote, but we do not see whether that is good for america. essentially, a computer could do their job, if we all believe the computer was fair. you just read the rules. i read the interview of the last supreme court justice who was going around, and he is flagrantly talking about it is a living document, you know, it is how we feel. by that does not help the people at all.

i mean we fought a war, we set up these rights to make sure they do not get infringed, that we have a good place in this society. but it is not happening that way. it's not hard to check the math. if they say something, go look at what they were reeling about, well, this is wrong, this is against the rules. si i don't know -- so i don't know. i know my vcr instructions have not changed. you have to press the power at first. but if we have a court that says i do not know about the power being something you got to hit, maybe they just that way, but this is a better way -- you know what i mean? who knows, but i am glad the people all agree. host: frank in connecticut on the not sure line, good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call.

i just want to make a comment about the concerns that people have with the term lims d maybe there should be changes with rarto the supreme court . weave to be careful what we ask for, because, in my opinion, they're supposed to be the defendants of the constitution. if we are going to go about making changes, we have to be careful what we ask for, because we will subject ourselves to impartiality -- we could get very political on the chief justice's side. if we are going to start changing chief justices based on politics, for all practical purposes, we have lost our constitution and maybe our country. with regard to term limits to the nancy pelosis and all the people there, i agree. but as far as the chief justices are concerned, we are to be very careful we are not changing the

constitution, or else we have lost our nation. host: we have just a few minutes left in this conversation, but wanted to point out this programming note. tomorrow, lawyers and legal scholars will review the supreme court's 2023-2024 term and rulings two years after the dobbs decision overturned roe v. wade, that event hosted by georgetown university law center is an annual event. that live coverage will be tomorrow, beginning at 12:15 eastern on c-span. you can also find it on the free c-span now video app and online at c-span.org. jim in buffalo, new york on the agree line. good morning. caller: first of all, i want to give -- excuse me. first of all, milton from

philadelphia, he named four supreme court assesses in one sentence. and everybody else is very smart -- this is the best show you have had on in a long time. so impartiality, not so much. i think that the supreme court justices definitely are chosen by the senate -- they are nominated by the president, chosen by the senate, so they definitely have their choice, they have their opinions. all righty, they are opinionated. so i would say definitely they are not impartial. that's all i have to say. host: that was jim in new york pay let's go to greg in champaign, illinois. caller: good morning.

i just want to point out that three of the justices, roberts, kavanaugh, and barrett, all worked on the legal team, the republican legal team, on bush v. gore. now i have to guess that the medical odds of that -- math ematical odds of that, out of a million lawyers in america, that three of them worked on the same case and probably the most political case the supreme court has ever decided, the odds of that are almost infinitely small. so these are not constitutional scholars. i don't care what law school they went to. these are political operatives. they are republican politicians. that does not even include thomas and alito who, in one

case, his wife participated in the attempt to overthrow the government, and the other's wife openly expressed empathy for that. so, yes, of course it is a political supreme court. i could go on and on, but you don't have time, and i'd lose my train of thought the way biden did the other night. so thank you. host: bob in virginia on the disagree line. good morning. caller: good morning. host: bob, can you turn your tv down? caller: yes, ok. hello? host: we hear you, bob. bob, go ahead. caller: oh, ok.

i've been waiting for you to tell me to go ahead. thank you. yes, i agree with that statement. i think this is unfortunate. i don't know whose poll, the supreme court is being attacked this time, obviously for political reasons. the packing the court is a political idea, and apparently, some of our politicians are going to run on that as one of the reasons they should be elected, so they can impact the supreme court. as far as the matter of ideology come of course ideology is involved. people appointed to the supreme court are educated. they have strong opinions on what they have studied.

anybody comes out of law school knows you can have different opinions on cases. the question is whether or not this -- these ideas, whether or not they do their best to ensure we continue to have the same constitution. because they are not changing the constitution. they are interpreting the law to be consistent with the constitution. there's too much of this in the press here about attacking the court in ways that have to do with how somebody interprets what a decision is going to mean to some particular group. that is not the important thing. the important thing is whether or not

the court ruled impartially in terms of the law and the constitution that we have now. and if we do that and in the long run we are better off. if you can't have people on the court who are going to make decisions based upon ideology because the court was packed in order to be sure they have a certain ideology in the long run, you are not going to have the best results. you might have the results in the short run that some people once but you are not going to have the best results in the long gun don't like brown, for example, or you think you have a living constitution. you are the person who can say what the constitution is. but rather by some know it all

like liar or other justices like that, you think they are the ones who decide what the constitution should be, not the letter of the constitution itself. host: we believe that there for this hour. -- we will leave it there for this hour. more still ahead. next we are going to be joined by polter, author, and municationtrategist frank luntz, we are going to talk about campaign 2024 and other political news of the day and later, scotusblog co-founder and reporter amy howe is going to discuss key supreme court decisions this term. we will be right back. ♪ announcer: tonight on q&a, new york times opinion columnist frank bruni, author of " the age

of grievance"" argues that we are living in a cultural and political era defined by victimhood and perceived injustice. >> we can't talk about our grievances run amok without talking about social media have its great prominence and connectedness came a great curtis is connectedness. we can't talk about freedom without the phenomenon of negative partisanship and how that lawson ted intensified into something that in the book i call apocalyptic partisanship. we can talk about it without talking about the failures of political leadership in the political climate right now in which any candidate would tell you not why you should vote for them, but why you should vote against their opponent and how they represent this sort of gone with against total ruin. >> frank bruni, tonight on

c-span's q&a. you can listen to q&a and all of our podcasts on our free c-span now app. >> on january 16 of this year after nearly 30 years, david 10 of retired from the district of columbia. on the cover of his new memoir as it auto of the judge in his black robe with his dog standing on his left side. the book is titled vision: a memoir of blindness and justice. he says that he wrote the book together with his wife. "day in and day out we sat at our lawn desk overlooking an immense oaktree and the health beyond. edie on the left with her laptop, me on the right with my braille computer. we wrote, we debated, we argue, we laugh we deleted words, paragraphs and pages.

slowly but surely, a book emerged." >> retired judge david tail and his new memoir on this episode of footnotes+. >> washington journal continues. host: welcome back. we are joined now by franklins, pollster and communications -- frank luntz, pulse rate indications strategist to discuss campaign 2024 and if you are watching last week, there with the first presidential debate of the 2024 campaign. frank, welcome to the program. we are going to talk about that debate. on thursday while that was happening, you had a focus group. tell us who participated in how they were selected. >> it was actually a very typical effort because trying to find truly undecided voters is just about impossible. and what i mean by that is somebody will say i don't know who i'm voting for but when you ask them, i would never vote for donald trump, but i'm still not

sure about joe biden or vice versa. and that is not an undecided vote because they already written off one of the candidates. so we've been finding people who truly would be willing to vote for either trump or biden and in some cases, their preference was bobby kennedy jr. and they had to be willing to go back and forth. second, they had to be genuine swing voters which means they had to vote for democrats and republicans over the last 10 years. third is what we saw in most of our people who either voted for hillary clinton and donald trump for donald trump and joe biden. they had actually voted opposite in 2016 and 2020 and lastly they were only from the key swing states. pennsylvania, michigan, wisconsin, north carolina, georgia, nevada or arizona.

we included minnesota because that state has narrowed so much in the last month for six weeks. so these are genuine swing voters from genuine swing voter states, and it was a fascinating experience. by the way, i apologize for going on, but the methodology is so important. we started for about 30 minutes asking them why the heck can you still be a swing voter between trump and biden? they are so different in demeanor and policy, in attitude, in record. in the answer is that they truly don't like either of the candidates. that these are double negatives. they really don't believe that either candidate is preferable and they are trying to choose the lesser of two evils. there was a fascinating experience. host: so once you found those

people in a haystack, explain what happens during a focus group like that. what is happening throughout the evening? guest: so the person needs to get everybody suited up, which means they have to look good in their boxes. the most part we stopped we live focus groups to that is just one city or one community, and i want to show the american people the entire country. and i also want to make sure they are truly undecided so i left them a few actions before we start. if i want to be able to stand behind this research, if we are going to make a conclusion, i want to be absolutely sure that conclusion. i used to be a pollster back in the 1990's probably up to about maybe 10 years ago. and i decided that that is not why wanted to be and it is not what the american public needed most. you have all these pundits to come on the air after the debate

, you know exactly what they are going to say. but this time one of the candidates was so ineffective that we had some surprising commentary. when i'm talking to my participants, frankly i give them a little bit of a hard time. i push them because i want to know what they really. not what they reject. then they wants to debate and in the commercial breaks i get them back into give me conclusions which are the tweets that you saw going all through the night. i want voters at home to be able to know how these on the -- undecided voters are reacting. i don't have? the to show it to them, although this time i invited some reporters to watch all the way through, because i wanted them to get a genuine feel of who these people are, what makes them undecided in what is causing them to shift. then the debate ends, we talked for about 45 minutes afterwards and it got to tell you, i

started doing this in 1992. i forgot about this. this is an op-ed that i wrote to the new york times published about a bigo. my actual first focus group is 1992. and in all that time, in all the presidential debates that we've done which is 32 out of 34, i've never had a focus group break as sharply as this one did. i've never had a reaction flight that have this time. it was -- just as we are in uncharted political territory right now, frankly, i was amazed, i was startled, and i was just glued to their commentary. i didn't want to hang up with them because they were so articulate and so clear and frankly, so disappointed with what they saw. but basically if you are watching me right now, no matter what side you're on, republican,

democrat, independent line, you are going to be unhappy with what you hear because our focus group was really unhappy with what they saw thursday night. host: we are going to get into some of the reaction from your focus group, but we want to invite the scholars he just mentioned to join in on the conversation. republicans, you can call in at (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independent, (202) 748-8002. and frank referenced the tweets that he was putting out thursday night during the debate. you can find him on x @fran kluntz. we are going to take a look at some of them including this first one. undecided voters will be put to the test tonight. are they more worried about saving our economy or saving our democracy? what was the result? guest: the result was neither.

it was actually a decision between donald trump's personality, which they do not like, and joe biden's presentation, which made them very afraid. i want to emphasize, donald trump did not win that debate. joe biden lost it. they did not like trump, his criticisms, his personal attacks on the president. but they were even more afraid that joe biden had so much trouble articulating his point of view, discussing his record and then several times he did but i just did right there, which as he did not complete a sentence. so it actually became trump's persona vs. bidens performance and biden's performance was seen as coming up short. host: and to tt point, another

tweet from you. i focus group of undecided voters wants joe biden to step aside. they like and respect and, most voted for him, but they want him to go. tonight with a political earthquake, we see mo bause like that post-debate. it's unliky happen, so where do undecided voters go from here? guest: hopefully the chandeliers are close to the ground and hopefully they don't live in small condos like i do here in new york. i don't expect much movement in the polls. when donald trump was found guilty of 34 felonies, the polls moved less than two points. if he clearly be buying in this debate, i would expect the polls to move back toward him. here is the key. it is in those swing states and

particularly three of them, pennsylvania, michigan and wisconsin. i recommend c-span to a show with voters just from pennsylvania, michigan and wisconsin. the other states trump has enough of a lead. if he doesn't get any of them, he gets 268 electoral votes. you need 270. so trump must win either pennsylvania, michigan or wisconsin. if i didn't takes all three, biden is still president. i believe you're going to see $1 billion of advertising, of campaigning, of just negativity dumped on people over the next four point 5, 5 months. and where do they go? so begrudgingly and so hesitantly towards trump unless

there is another debate that puts them back into play. and the reason for that is simple. they saw them side-by-side, trump and biden. the public saw them side-by-side. saw the comparison. heard the responses. joe biden gave a great speech on friday. it was very impressive. it was a joe biden goal. that was only seen by a few million people. this debate was watched by 51 million people who saw the two candidates died by side. i don't know how you recover from that and i will tell you that the political class is concerned as heck with bidens performance. governors, senators, congressmen . there asking me what do we do? the big impact is among democratic donors who are absolutely apoplectic about what happened on thursday night and

are scared to death that this is going to reelect donald trump and they are at a loss for what they are going to do. host: let's hear from our audience. paul in new york city, independent line. caller: good morning. i wonder whether or not the focus on messaging over the last several decades, it's not what you say, it's what they hear were something like that. maybe part of the problem is that there is so little effort to actually deliver for voters as opposed to simply trying to message or trying to communicate as opposed to actually accomplishing things. we are at a point now where it seems the majority of people are

against either candidate, and i'm wondering whether that is because for decades now, so much hasn't been done for average people and more has been done for the donor class because -- guest: i'm going to ask if the host, i want to respond to as many questions as possible. i teach my cadets you don't ask the same question twice. you are correct. that's one of the things-working on over the last 10 years, it's one of the reasons i've tried to be much more straightforward and much less partisan. number one, candidates need to say what they mean, they need to mean what they say, and then they need to do what they say. but here's the issue. it's really critical that they kept going back to what they had done, what they had accomplished rather than telling voters what they are going to do, what is their agenda?

yes, i was a player in it and in some ways i regret that. i really want the focus to be on policies. that is not something that we can change. that is something that the media focuses on, something that the strategist focuses on and they focus on it because that is what voters want to know. but i agree with you, you are correct that there are two personalities. the only way that you change that is by demanding policy rather than politics, and it's one of the reasons why i think we should stop doing so much focus on the polling and do a lot more focus on policy and the

future so we know what these candidates are going to do when they are elected. >> frank, a question for you. once your focus group was over, what with the result of the focus group? did anyone land on a candidate? guest: yes, they did. i don't know if you are asking because you want to know or because you do know and you want me to say it. 12 of the 14 moved toward donald trump one of the 14 moved toward joe biden and one state undecided. i've never had such an overwhelming result to a presidential debate, to a general election debate. it was absolutely incredible and person after person talked about how much they regretted it or talked about how they like joe biden at one point or how they disliked how trump behaved and then they said but i can't get

away from what joe biden, his performance. i can't get away for how much trouble he had articulating words. i did not see it until yesterday evening. after the debate was over we went right to the focus group. i did not see joe biden coming off the stage and i've had a couple of strokes over the last few years, so i know what it is to walk downstairs and have some difficulty. if voters have seen that, if voters had seen fine coming off the stage i think it would have added to a very bad night for him. but i don't want the trump people to do this rah rah thing because he wasn't so great either. and in the end if you want to get away from this ugliness and this divisiveness, get away from the republican line and the democratic line and the

independent line, and instead listed a call from the northeast, the midwest, from california or florida. if we want to get away from that, we have to look the american people straight in the eye and tell the truth. this is what i teach, this is how i try to win, and that debate response was so overwhelming and it showed up in the polls. that last paul had trump leading biden by 2-1 and we know that there were a lot of biden voters watching. it is going to have an impact, but not a big one on his poll numbers when he starts to release them over the next 24 to 48 hours. host: barbara in eastpointe michigan on the democrats line, good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. i am a democrat and i am really

a joe biden supporter. i think he has wisdom and intelligence, he just doesn't have the old body for it anymore. but i went back on cnn and i watched it. and i change my mind. i was crushed at the end of the debate. until i watched it again last night, and i definitely changed my mind. i am in joe camp 100%. my solution to this is let him get his delegates to kamala and then she can choose him as her vice president. i think it would be a winning ticket still. but the thing i want to know, i can't see us electing trump. i have never been able to see it. guest: can i ask you a question? caller: i'm still with him.

host: barbara, frank wants to ask you a question. guest: i'm going to ask. when you watch a second time, was your evaluation of fighting better than the first time you saw him on thursday night, or was her second watch of the debate, review more disappointed in him? caller: it was better. i know, i was probably looking forward to the debate the first time. he looked pretty bad physically. not a real good start mentally until i watched at the second time. the second time he answered the questions, he was able to recall everything that they had done, and he does slip up every now and then on an answer, but trump

didn't answer a single thing. guest: people may come to reevaluate. this happened in 1994. ronald reagan had a very bad first debate. in fact it happened again in 2000 forward george w. bush. it happened in 2008 -- sorry, 2000 12 with barack obama and mitt romney. there have been cases where the incumbent does a really poor job and people are shocked and they move away from him. and they have a second debate and they perform much better. so the challenge for the biden campaign is to put him up against donald trump in september as they promised to do, and whether or not there will be a second debate. i take your point and that makes me want to ask my focus group again in a week or so and have

them re-examine what they saw and see if there has been any change. barbara, you are from a state that really matters. you are a voter that really matters and i appreciate your perspective. post: tommy from georgia on the republican line. caller: i'm a black republican, believe in republican principles. but donald trump is not a real republican. when i watch the debate, biden couldn't really articulate his stances on different policies, but trump, he every time. he didn't answer any questions. it was integration, he would talk about immigration. it was injustice, that is what he talked about.

the main things in the fall that he was winning, that is what he was talking about. never answer the questions, just went straight to the polls. i listened to joe biden a second time and i listened more closely, i feel a lot better like a lady before me. maybe he didn't do as bad as i thought. and then after seeing him in public afterwards, he looked like he was back to his old self again, so i don't know what happened on the debate stage but i will definitely be tuning in on september 10 or 11th because if he has the same performance, and somebody else will have to step in. guest: let me add two things to that because i can provide perspective. trump is getting about 30% of the young african-american males, which has never happened before.

and so he's making some inroads among the african-american community. that is unprecedented. they may go back to the democrats, but where the campaign stands right now, he is pulling votes that republicans normally don't get. in terms of that second performance, how you analyze that, you don't have a teleprompter in a debate. you don't have anyone whispering in your ear, it is just you alone up on stage. and here's the other issue which is that biden's campaign said that he had a cold. he didn't say anything about his health until the debate was already on and said that he was already having trouble. they were trying to explain why his voice was so weak. i'm not sure i believe that. if your candidate isn't healthy, why don't you tell people that the day of the event to lower expectations?

why don't you explain it at the beginning? why didn't biden himself say look, i wish i was not debating with a 99 degree fever or having a cold, but this is what you have to do. you explain it to the american people, you don't use it as next is, use it as i formation, and they didn't do that. so that suggests to me that i don't know if it is the truth. i don't want to call anyone dishonest, but his voice was not strong. his presentation was not strong. and it was exactly the opposite the next day when he spoke. so maybe there are two joe biden's, the one we saw debate night and the one the day after. but in the end, the public is going to make a decision based on the debate night because 50 million people were watching that evening. that is a good comment. host: bruce, lexington, kentucky on the independent line.

caller: hello. i want to know what they could do to save his candidacy. let me tell you who live. the spokesman for trump that does the daily news updates or whatever. saying biden is sharp as a tack. come on, guys, we know that's not true. the news reporters saying i speak with him every day, he is sharp as a tack. it is obvious the sky is not sharp as a tack. the democrats, forget who is going to get elected. he is our president now and our country is in peril. this man is not up to the task. talking about different types of

campaign strategies at this point, i think you're missing the point. this anybody care about the security of our country right now? guest: i get it, and that is an interesting comment. i will tell you i met with president biden just before his graduation speech at west point, and he was absolutely on. so i saw with my own eyes, the only time i've seen him in years was just before that speech, only time i've talked to him. and your point is well taken and it is one of the reasons why voters did move towards trump and were so frustrated with that debate. in the end, and i've been trying to measure this specifically, there is greater concern about foreign policy in this election than in any time since 2004. there is concern about the middle east, specifically the israeli conflict. there's more concerned about

ukraine and russia. there's more concerned about china and taiwan. so when they talk about foreign policy, the question then is if the president up to it and is this the kind of image we want to project to the world? became a topic, but only briefly. it was used as a reason why swap -- some voters had switched from undecided to trump. they may not have agreed with his foreign were like his bluster but they felt that he would better represent america and he would be a stronger leader than joe biden. so your point is very well taken and in fact, across the country in these discussions, every single week i hold a focus group. i am hearing more and more concerned about what is america show the world based on the situation with joe biden right

now? >> lets hear from edward in michigan on the democrats line. good morning. caller: yes, good morning. i'm stunned at this comment by frank luntz, absolutely stunned. let me ask about foreign policy. do you think under a trump presidency we would pull out of nato -- maybe you can answer these questions because trump doesn't seem to want to answer them. when we pull out of nato, would we withdraw aid to ukraine? ukraine collapse? would the russians occupy and consolidate and control ukraine? would russia continue to advance in eastern europe? what would trump do? what he called up his friend vladimir putin, woody call up his friend and set vlad, i don't know if this is such a good idea but this eastern european stuff?

guest: my response -- can i respond? first off, i love the fact that you are pulling michigan voters because the state matters. second, i'm going to do something i never do which is on a personal level, i agree with the caller. i absolutely do. i don't know why we are talking about pulling out of nato, i don't know why we are not providing the age. now let me go back to my pollster basis. it's not the policy in this case. it is, and the support unfortunately for ukraine has dropped a little bit, it is the presentation. why didn't biden say this? why didn't biden communicate this? in that 90 minute debate there were discussions on foreign policy and joe biden didn't do it as well.

so i think if biden had been as articulate as you are, maybe trump would have been hurt by that. but he wasn't. and that's the issue. you can only evaluate someone based on what they say and don't say and how they say it. so i get your passion. i get your point of view. it is shared. but as a pollster, that is not how joe biden communicated on debate night, and i'm sorry that he didn't. host: frank, after president biden's performance, two headlined the new york times today. a case for herself, and from the opinion pages, the headline harris 2024 sounds pretty good right now. how does vice president harris factor into what we saw on

thursday and potential election outcomes? guest: suddenly this is a great show. the colors are asking the right questions, making the right statements and you are doing the same thing right now. because based on biden's performance, the single best one that i got from the focus group was a person who articulated with a now vote for joe biden for the next four years? i'm not so sure about joe biden over the next four months. so vice president harris is capable of actually coming into play. just as donald trump's choice for vice president matters more now than it ever has. and that is something he probably doesn't want to think about because he thinks it is all about him, and it's not. for the american people, i think this is going to be the most important vice presidential choice since john mccain chose sarah palin in 2008.

the numbers are not good. her polling is not good. she's making the case for herself right now, she should have done this a year ago, two years ago. she was specifically given the immigration issue and immigration is gaining and gaining all across the country. not just in border states. getting higher and higher as a priority and right now, the issues that matter most to the most number of people are the two i's. inflation and immigration. and she was nowhere to be seen. i don't want to do politics, i want to do what the public thinks, and her numbers are really poor and there are other democrats that i believe would be stronger and if i may, you have governor wes moore from maryland, you have a chief

spokesman, former mayor of new orleans. you have gavin newsom, the governor of california. gretchen whitmer, the governor of michigan. cory booker, the center of new jersey. pete buttigieg, secretary of transportation. all of these democrats to be stronger candidates against donald trump and the vice president would be. so i'm sure that is going to elicit a whole lot of other calls into your show. but there are democrats who donald trump should be afraid of. and i don't believe it is going to become an issue, but i do believe that biden has decided to stay and that he is going to wait it out. but you have the atlanta journal-constitution. i believe that if the newspaper, and definitely the new york times: on biden to drop out. individual colonists from across the spectrum have done the same thing. i don't think it will be the vice president to replace joe biden. i think there are other

candidates who will make a stronger claim that they are more electable. host: let's hear from jerry in virginia on the republican line. good morning. >> first off, i'd like to say on thursday night joe biden said he would be happy to take a cognitive test, and he should do that tomorrow and it should be witnessed. and another thing, all the state news media outlets saying all the things about trump lying through the debate. they were not lies. the national guard response, numerous senate and house hearings have proved that trump did in fact authorized 10,000 national guard to the capitol

and january 6 and said no, they do not want them. i'm not saying that about the points that you raised, but on other issues. these undecided voters still don't like his persona. can you tell people about yourself rather than condemning your opponent? can you tell people about what the next term will bring rather than condemning the last four years? that's what reporters are asking for. if you want to write us down to know that there are trump

strategist watching and biden strategist watching, number one, ronald reagan's are you better off now than you were four years ago, asking rhetorical question. give three specific examples of how things have changed, for better or for worse. talking about inflation and immigration. joe biden would talk about investment in infrastructure, he would talk about focusing on new technology. third is to give people three different priorities for the future, what you want to do on day one. voters did not hear any of that and for some sort of audacious, really visionary look toward the future in some special way.

on all sides, democrat, independent, republican, neither candidate did that. so let's not say that donald trump didn't mislead people because they've got the video. and let's not say that joe biden is perfectly ready to serve another four years, because we saw with our own eyes and we heard. and i just wish there was some way that we could actually agree to disagree, and i applaud the callers up to this point for being reasonable, sensible and responsible in their approach, and we have to accept that we don't agree. there is something called the dignity index that tim shriver has been pushing. and it's really beautiful because it says that -- and also, the national governors are people who say they come

from different perspectives, we have different ideas but we have to find a way to be better and we have to give people their dignity, which is exactly what has happened so far this morning. host: robert f. kennedy, jr. didn't make the debate stage for thursday's presidential debate, but he did hold an event where he answered the question, the same question live in front of an audience. in your focus group, was anyone considering an alternative candidate, not biden or trump, and what other thoughts? guest: i think four of the 14 were actually leaning toward robert kennedy jr.. for a third-party candidate to be viable as ross perot was, he

has to be able to participate. and the reason why robert kennedy was not invited is because he is not on enough states to potentially win the election. you have to be on the ballot of states they could give you 270 electoral votes. i believe that he will qualify for that by september. kennedy's average just before the debate was about 10%. some a little above, some a little below. this campaign to get on more state ballads and to push that percentage of the 15%. but yes, he will be a factor if you make the debate stage in september. if we even have a debate. host: what are the factors that are pulling voters toward a candidate like robert f. kennedy, jr.? is it anti-biden or trump, or are they truly interested in

just having somebody else as an option? guest: one third cannot vote for either trump or biden so they will be voting third party. one third truly want a new voice. i think that is probably the biggest disappointment of 2024. that they are choosing deliberately a third-party to send a message to the rest of the country. and about one third are supporting robert kennedy to get they simply like his agenda. host: let's hear from denny from missouri on the democrats line. caller: thanks for taking my call. i'm just really concerned about that people are not thinking down the road and they are thinking about this right now this minute. i know president biden didn't sound the best and i do truthfully believe he had a head

cold, you could just tell that he was not himself, and i know there's a certain amount of just shock that trump will get out and he is going to just say the same things repetitively. not about what he is going to do for the country, the greatest it's ever been, and i did it all perfectly and blah blah. i've never read the 2025 plan that he has, but i'm going to have to dig into that because i know the american people are never going to stand for the plan he has for us. guest: i'm just curious. i don't mean to be personal, but i'm asking personal question. do you have children? caller: do i have children? yes, i have children.

seven. guest: how old is the oldest and how old is the youngest? caller: my oldest is 42 and my youngest is 35. i oldest grandson is 23. guest: so your grandchild gets to vote. this is something i do every time i get to do so, don't vote for this election, both for the next generation. it's not about 2024, it's about 20 44 and 2054. you and i are on the same page and i think it's important to save this democracy, to return to where we once were as a country, where we were at least more unified, where we respected election results, where we respected each other. we would still disagree, but we appreciated the other point of view.

i'm asking people not to vote for what you want right now, but if think of your children and in your case, your grandchildren, and what is best for them. so again i've got a safer c-span, we are on the same page. and notice how respectful everyone has been this morning. i love this and i love the give-and-take and i apologize for asking you want questions but you are teaching me as a poster and i will make an offer to c-span that we should do a focus group. we could actually put undecided voters and voters who care about it, we could do a live focus group and you could see all of america in of you. you could put someone from every state in the country up there because in the end, your voice matters. your commitment matters. your vote matters. and it has never mattered more than it does right now. host: let's hear from bobby in st. paul, minnesota on the independent line.

caller: good morning, thank you for taking my call. there is one thing to the side and that is the truth and that is what we saw thursday night. behind all of the spins coming in about how sharp he is and his cognitive ability, and the justice department about his synopsis of president biden as an older man, something to that effect, my god. what is he saying? i think the wall street journal came out and said people are saying that donald is kind of slipping a little bit. and then we saw you don't have a

second chance to make a first impression. guest: can i jump in? i want to pick up my phone but i don't want to do it on camera because i want to write both of those down. i can tell you right now, caller, if you are still on, i want to call you by your first name. caller: it was bobby when i was a kid. i'm 78 years old. guest: i will give you credit for being a kid. i want you to know that what you just said is going to open up my class in the fall. why is only one side the truth, and you don't get a second chance to make a first impression. you have so impacted me with those comments and i really appreciate it. i like your hockey team.

you are correct. and in the end, the democrats believe that the republicans are liars. the republicans believe the democrats are lying. most americans believe most politicians don't tell the truth, and that is a sad state of affairs we are in. i'm going to give you one statistic right now. 83% of americans believe this is the most divided we have ever been as a country and among those, over a 65 which are realized as a fair number of people who watch c-span in the morning, it's 92%. you live through the assassination of bobby kennedy and martin luther king. you live through cities burning down with the destruction of the economy. double-digit inflation. he lived to the vietnam war protest in chicago 1968. and yet you say we are more divided now.

if we could teach that to every young person, the truth only has one side and you only have one chance to make a good first impression. i think that is the beginning of getting back on the right track as a country and as a society. of all the calls, this one is my favorite so far. caller: thanks. host: jeff in north carolina, republican line. caller: your state actually trump now has a five-point advantage. north carolina seems to be moving toward trump right now, which is a real concern for the biden campaign. caller: those were just a bunch of little students -- anyhow,

the debate just exposed how joe biden and the whole democratic party and the mainstream media especially cnn have been lying to the american people the past four years. safe and proper him out and hiding him, saying how great he is, and we've all been lied to. guest: ok, hold on. hold on. each one communicates through the audience. 50 watch msnbc, you get one view. fox, you get another. i think that is one of the top in the country. and i will give you the conclusion. we watch news to affirm us rather than inform us. so what item republicans is to please at least for 10, 15 minutes a day, watch, symbion -- msnbc. i say to democrats, watch fox

news. you need to know what your opposition -- and they are not your enemy, i want to emphasize that. they are not your enemy. we may disagree with perspective, we may even disagree with outcome, but it is not about dividing a country. at least it shouldn't be. we need to know the truth. at the previous caller said, there is only one truth. so i get your anger and i get your frustration. msnbc is going to continue to report their way, fox will report their way. c-span makes sure they have a democrat, republican, and independent voice, but in the end i hope that other time this election is over, we have an american voice. it is what we deserve, it is what we want, what we need and what we deserve. american voice. host: frank talking about north

carolina, the headline in the wall street journal. biden is pouring millions into a state democrats haven't won since 2008. the democratic incumbent faces the challenges in north carolina but six alternative paths to 70 electoral college votes. let's hear from anthony in kentucky on the democrats line. good morning, anthony. caller: good morning, thanks for taking my call. host: go ahead. caller: i just wanted fact about biden supposedly having a cold ring the debate. i think consistently about 25% of respiratory symptoms probably from covid. it is something both presidents have downplayed and ignored. they have tried to push it aside. trump said it would go away.

you can now only find it in the wastewater, that people are shedding into the wastewater. that is the only data we have uncoated stuff right now while it is still hugely dangerous and we don't know enough about it. guest: i want us to be careful here because a lot of people do tune in and i want to be with the careful not to push theory is that we have no evidence and no facts behind. the second is that joe biden if he had covid auntie, recklessly better the next day, his performance on friday was really, really sharp. and you don't go from having a bad form thursday night to being totally healthy and totally back.

so i don't think this was covid. i think he simply had a really bad night on thursday and a really good day on friday. i think it helped save his campaign. but you do raise a legitimate point. that we have to take these situations like covid seriously. we have lost our faith in science, we've lost our faith in medicine, and i'm nervous that the next time that we have some kind of outbreak, we won't do the right thing. and they wish it had been more of a conversation because the policy differences between biden and trump on covid were significant and there was only a tiny, tiny fraction, maybe a few seconds of the debate. but again, the issue is the american people want to look forward, they don't want to look back. they want to know what you're going to do next year, not what

you did five years ago and they are not getting that. so i accept your concern and i just want to refocus it on ensuring that we still prioritize science and we still prioritize education, that we still prioritize what is important, the truth. another caller from st. paul. you're going to have an effect on the entire day which matters and we have to focus on what the truth is and then promoting it. host: we have time for one last call. idaho, independent line. caller: hi, thank you for having me. i think what i've been seeing through all this is so much anger and it started way back when trump was elected.

guest: hold on. the anger actually started in 2000 when we had a tight election between al gore and gorged w bush. further, the anger started with ross perot in 1992, which is why he got 19% of the vote as an independent back then. so we've been a pretty angry country now for 30 years. caller: ok, but the thing is, the news media has been putting a lot of their personal feelings into an election that has caused even more anger among people because we don't have any place to go. we depend on the media to give us facts and the truth. and it has been shown on both ends of the news media the

personal things that they say toward something that happens. and i think that the news media is the one that controls the volume of anger of people and of course when covid hit, it was even more so because people didn't have any place to go. host: let's get a response, we are running short on time. guest: the answer is change the channel. if you don't like what a correspondence saying, if you don't agree with the tone of what you are watching, change the channel. we have some rain do sources now. not just msnbc and fox and cnn. we have cnbc, we have the bbc. we have more ability, i'm talking online to you all right now across the country. you can get your news from any one of 100 different sources. so if you don't like what you are watching, you think it is problematic, change the channel. that is why we are so lucky to

live in this country. i can't believe i'm about to do this, but i'm going to end on a positive note. my students know how negative i can get. we are so lucky to live in america at this point where they are an infinite number of people in places where we can get news and information and we have the right to challenge it just as you've done over the last hour. c-span viewers, you did fantastic this morning. i'm glad that you participate. you always say thank you for taking my call. i thank you for putting in the time to make that phone call. putting in the time to make that phone call. thank you for watching the debate. thank you for teaching your children and your grandchildren that democracy is worth fighting for. thank you for disagreeing respectfully, and thank you for bringing america to america. host: frank luntz is a pollster

and communication strategist. frank, thank you so much for being with us this morning. we really appreciate your time. guest: thank you. it has been an honor. host: next on "washington journal," we will be joined by scotusblog co-founder and reporter amy howe, discussing the supreme court this term. we will be right back. ♪ >> c-span has been delivering unfiltered congressional coverage for 45 years. here are highlights from key moments. >> we a solemn boy from abilene, kansas, he led the army is 20 nations to victory in

the greatest war in history. a sun of america, he liberated europe. he will forever be revered among those nations with his comrades in arms and remembered with abiding gratitude by those nations which deliberated -- which were liberated under his commander from the most monstrous scourge that ever defiled this earth. thus will eisenhower be remembered. [applause] >> c-span, powered by cable. >> friday night, watched c-span's 2024 campaign trail. a weekly round up of c-span's campaign coverage, a one-stop shop to cover what candidates are saying to voters across the country, friday, july 5, we give you a sneak peek of this year's

democratic national committee and in chicago. we will speak with an executive about the democrats' intended methods. christie george with a preview of the convention and her organization's efforts to raise funding. and eric kincaid of chicago's visitor bureau and its efforts to connect local businesses to the convention. you can watch the campaign preview on our website. watch c-span's 2024 campaign trail online at c-span.org or download as a podcast on c-span now, our free mobile app. c-span, your unfiltered view of politics. >> you are welcome to the great stage, the next american president. >> for peace.

>> taxes will go up. anyone who says they won't is not telling the truth. >> we are in the midst of a springtime of hope for america. >> because we are the party that believes in the american dream. >> read my lips, no new taxes. >> i still believe in a place called hope. >> here's the question for the american people, who do you trust in this election? >> our future come of the bridge to the past. >> i have unlimited confidence in the wisdom of our people and the future of our country. >> i stand here tonight is my own man, and i want you to know me for who i truly am. >> they had their chance. they have not led. we will. >> i'm reporting for duty!

>> these are moments i could not foresee and will not forget. >> it is time for us to save america! >> i was not my own man anymore. i was my country. >> i do not believe rolling by the regulations on wall street will help the small business woman expand or they laid off construction worker keep his home. we've been there. we've tried that, and we are not going back. we are moving forward, america. >> under my administration come our friends will see more loyalty, and mr. putin, we will see more flexibility and more backbone. >> he wants to make america great again him a welcome offer star,t actually make things -- great again, well, to start come he could actually make things great in america. >> we will make america great again. >> i give you my word come if you trust me with the presidency, i will draw on the best of us, not the worst.

>> this towering american spirit has prevailed over every challenge and lifted us to the summit of human endeavor. >> c-span, your unfiltered view of the conventions, powered by cable. ♪ >> "washington journal" continues. host: joining us now to discuss key supreme court decisions this term is amy howe, cofounder and reporter for scotusblog. guest: thanks for having me. host: we will jump right in, still to come, but why don't we start by talking about a ruling that came out late last week, and that is making headlines from npr, making it harder for federal agencies to regulate. tell us about the case. guest: this is a pair of cases

challenging a ruling by fishery services, that require fishing boats to bear the cost of having an observer on board to monitor their compliance with fishing rules, costing like $710. the fishing boats went to court to challenge the agency's interpretation of the federal law, and the federal courts that upheld the agency's rule, it's known as the chevron doctrine, and this is a 1984 case called chevron v. national resources defense council, that that if a law is ambiguous, courts should generally defer to the agency's interpretation of the law that they administer. this is a doctrine that has been in the crosshairs for conservative lawyers and legal scholars for a while now. the supreme court had actually turned down several requests to

overturn that doctrine, but in this pair of cases, what out of the d.c. circuit judge are in washington, and one out of the first circuit, which is in new england, the supreme court decided to take up the question of whether or not to overturn the chevron doctrine. they said they were not going to weigh in on whether this rule is a proper will. by a vote of 6-3, overturn the chevron doctrine. host: what about in terms of the opinion? guest: it was really an ideological division among the justices, and one of the things that really stuck out is one of the justifications for the chevron doctrine was the idea that federal agencies like the epa, like the food and drug administration, have technical and scientific expertise, so the idea that congress is drafting a law that is ambiguous either because congress cannot anticipate everything that the law might cover or it might not know as much about this

particular area, so it is leading the experts to interpret the law and make the rules. the supreme court by a vote of 6-3 set actually, federal courts can do that. we can determine what the law means and in fact it is our job to do that, not the technical expert in the agency. host: you mentioned that the case was originally brought by those in the fishing industry, but talk about the impact it is going to have beyond that. guest: this is something that will apply to obviously all federal agencies. they talked about some of the decisions that federal courts will now have to make about environmental issues come about food and drug issues, about whether or not the fda should have approved a particular drug. so really it's going to have potentially really wide-ranging implications, that they tried to

downplay the potential effects of the ruling, saying no, we, the supreme court, have not relied on this chevron doctrine since 2016, but thousands of lower court decisions have relied on that. we may not see it play out in our sort of day-to-day lives, but we might see other decisions about something like abortion or affirmative action play out. it is something that elena kagan said to have a seismic impact on the legal system. host: you said the doctor went back to 1984. the supreme court had previously denied picking up cases. why now? guest: it is hard to know exactly why they do or don't do something, you know, they don't provide explanations. one possibility if they just felt that they now had at least five justices, six justices who were willing to take up this question and overrule the

chevron doctrine. they perhaps found better cases in which they felt comfortable doing it. both cases were argued by lawyers who practice regularly before the court, so it was very sort of well argued on both sides by the lawyers representing the challenges and the federal government, but there's really no way to know exactly why now. host: another decision that came down last week was the justice department's january 6 obstruction charges. remind us what was at issues. guest: this is a law under which hundreds of january 6 defendants were charged, a charge against a former pennsylvania police officer who entered the capital on january 6, and he was charged under the law that was originally enacted in the wake of the enron scandal back in the 2000's, and it was intended to plug a loophole, because before the law was enacted, someone

actually shredded the document should not be charged under the law, but someone who directed someone to shred the documents could be. there were two parts to this law. one made it a crime to tamper with evidence, to alter or destroy the documents for use in an official proceeding, and the second part of the law makes it a crime to otherwise obstruct an official proceeding. and the january 6 defendants, including this man, joseph fischer, work charged under the second part of this law, obstructing an official proceeding. they argued that this was evidence tampering, that what they were doing to not fall under the scope of this law. in the supreme court, by a vote of 6-3, though not divided on party lines, justice tonja

ketanji brown jackson was with the assent and justice amy coney barrett with with the dissent. the second part of the log is not refer specifically to documents. host: the case was first brought forward by one individual, but there are a couple hundreds that could be impacted by it. how could it impact them? guest: so, their cases will be reviewed to see whether or not this -- this man's case will certainly be the example -- whether or not the standards will apply under the supreme court's new interpretations of the law. merrick garland issued a

statement in which he emphasized that no one has been charged in the january 6 attack had only been charged with this provision. there were other charges against joseph fischer and other six defendants -- and the other january 6 defendants. when the supreme court announced earlier this year it was going to take up this case, federal judges who had been said for january 6 defendants had also been taking the possibility that the scope of this statute could be narrowed when they have been sentencing january 6 defendants as well. it may not have a widespread impact in the sense that the january 6 defendants are suddenly going to go free, though it will certainly cause many courts to have to take a look at some charges. host: what impact could have on the special counsel's election interference case? guest: we are waiting to see how

the court rules on the presidential immunity case, something we will hear tomorrow. if the charges against the former president do go charges, certainly they will be an argument that this statute, that is at the center of two of the charges against the former president, i believe that the special counsel has different arguments than joseph fischer about why the statute was still apply to be former president, but again, even if the supreme court were to rule that the charges against the former president, that he is not immune, this will make it a little bit more complicated. host: we are talking with amy howe, reporter and cofounder of scotusblog, about the supreme court this term. you can join the conversation. republicans, your line, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. and independents, (202) 748-8002 .

another case that came down last week has to do with homelessness laws. the justices heard arguments in a case about the legality of local laws used against people who camp on public streets and parks. what were the effects of that case, and what was the decision? guest: this is an oregon city law that made it a crime to sleep in public with a blanket or anything -- to sleep in public. it was passed really to deter homelessness. the argument that the challengers made, a couple of people who were unhoused in the city, was that it effectively made it a crime to be homeless in that city, and best that it violates the eighth amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

they pointed to an old case by the supreme court, in 1962 case, called robinson v. california, in which the supreme court has said that the state of california could not make it a crime just to be a drug addict. the supreme court said no, that these cases are different, because the city is not making it a crime to be homeless, they are making it a crime to sleep in public. so justice sotomayor dissented, and that dissent was joined by justices elana kagan and justice ketanji brown jackson. she said sleeping is a necessity. she said come in her view, this was really criminalizing homelessness. host: the case it originated in one oregon city, but a lot of cities across the country are dealing with this issue of homelessness. how could it impact other cities

across the country? and also people who are homeless? guest: so, you know, this is a case out of the ninth circuit court of appeals, which had issued a decision a couple of years ago that said that cities cannot pass these kinds of laws. they cannot impose criminal penalties for sleeping in public when people do not have access to shelter. and so several cities have come to the supreme court, supporting the city in this case, saying these decisions make it really hard for us to deal with the problems of homelessness, which is a real problem, particularly out west, where housing costs are very high. we need to be able to have tools in our arsenal to deal with this. so the supreme court said essentially this is a policy choice. this is not something that the eighth amendment bans. it remains to be seen exactly how the cities will deal with

this, but it certainly says that ordinances like the ones the cities have in this case are something that are fair game. host: let's hear from our audience. we will start with rachel in texas, calling on independent line. good morning, rachel. caller: good morning. the january dissent, i think our supreme court justices are corrupt. gina thomas, clarence thomas' wife, was involved. we know about her emails. and we are going to expose them. also, another said he was not going to certify false electoral votes, but trump did this just to keep him in power. we have people who will back him because he is such a liar.

he showed that in the debate. everyone keeps saying he won the debate. considering all the lies? no. i just don't understand. and i believe the woman who will not rule on his certify -- i'm so mad -- the documents trump had is she is hoping to get a job as a supreme court justice herself. guest: you are correct, you are not the only person who put calls for justice thomas to recuse himself from cases related to january 6, because of his wife's involvement in politics surrounding that case, but he did not. host: john in memphis, tennessee on the democrats' line. good morning, john. caller: thank you for accepting my call.

my thing is, i think we need to have a supreme court that is for the people and by the people. but what has happened is the supreme court is for -- for me come i have no faith, no confidence in it, because it is rigged. i'm like trump, the supreme court is rick, it is rigged in favor of republicans. by a being rigged like that, no fair decisions are going to come down. what is happening, the supreme court justices seized an unfair amount of finance for the personal use, and they are always going to dictate and look for what is going to happen in their favor, for their candidate. when you pay $200,000, $300,000 for a bus for one company and then give another man a 2, 3

weeks ride on a big city ship, i think that is wrong. we need to cut that out and pass some term limits on these guys. get them out right away. guest: you've got a couple of different things going on there. i've been covering the supreme court for a while. when i started covering the court, what we referred to as the swing justices, justices like sandra day o'connor and kennedy, who were appointed by republicans but cast liberal votes at times, less and less these days. he also talked about justices and some of the financial disclosures, excellent reporting shared by pro-public about some of the travel and gifts that the

justices, justice clarence thomas and samuel alito, did not disclose on their financial disclosure forms that they file every year. if you folks have not read that, i would highly encourage them to read that. host: anita on the republican line. good morning, anita. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. guest: good morning. host: go ahead, anita. caller: i was talking to some friends. i lived in north carolina, outside of a hospitality area, the county of asheville. we have a ton of homeless people here. we have state, city, the local government, the county, the christian organizations trying to help people who are homeless. in the problem is, it is not the laws. we try to help, but it all

starts with the individual, the mental health caller, and, you know, they don't want to follow the rules of the shelter, so they stay on the street. i just don't understand the supreme court justice is just focusing mainly on homelessness and people who are drug addicts. guest: yeah. to sort of unpack a little bit about what you said, one of the arguments that the city in this case may, that some of the cities and other local governments made, they argued that the lower court's decisions barring them from enforcing these kinds of ordinances made it harder for them to help people, because people have the option to not going into the shelter. that is a little bit the point you were making. on the other hand, justice

sotomayor's dissent said this is a complicated situation. host: another case out of idaho, remind us of that case and the outcome. guest: this is the case about the relationship between a federal law and a state law. there is a federal law, a 1986 law, the emergency treatment and labor act. to summarize it, as it is relevant here, it requires hospitals that receive medicare funding to provide necessary medical treatment to the patients who arrive in the emergency medical decision. idaho has a pretty strict abortion ban. it has only a narrow handful of exceptions, including one to save the life of a mother. so in the wake of the supreme

court's decision in 2022, in the dobbs case, overturning the constitutional right to an abortion, they went to the federal court in idaho and it that essentially there is a gap between those two laws, because pregnant women will come to an emergency room in idaho, in an emergency state, and it may not be that they need an abortion to save their lives, but they do need one to prevent serious health problems. , for example, so, for example, they don't have an abortion, they are hoping to deteriorate to the point where they may not be able to have children in the future. in this case, the biden administration said in power trump, idaho's abortion ban. the ninth circuit court of appeals temporarily barred idaho from enforcing its bands on

abortions to the extent there was a problem with emtala. the supreme court said yes, we will put the orders on hold and will hear arguments, we heard it in april, then this week, they issued an order that that actually, we made a mistake in deciding to take this case right now, so we are going to dismiss it without weighing in on the american and we are going to lift our order, so idaho can no longer enforce its abortion ban. they justices were divided. they had several different opinions that i am happy to go into if you want a into the justices' thinking. host: what was the majority opinion? guest: there was no majority opinion. that is part of what stood out. a majority of the justices

agreed that they should not have taken this case in the first place, and that they should not allow idaho to enforce a ban in the meantime, but they did not agree on the thinking. so they were divided in a couple different ways. justice elena kagan wrote an opinion for herself, justice sotomayor, and in part for justice jackson, and she said we never should have gotten involved in this case at this early stage. but, she said, to the extent that there is a conflict between emtala and idaho law, if there is a conflict, emtala should win. just as amy coney barrett wrote for herself, chief justice john roberts, and brett kavanaugh, in essence, she wrote we agree that we should send the case back, to dismiss it, that idaho should not be able to enforce this ban , for now, but the reason we are

saying that is as far as we are concerned, the case has changed. it is not the case we agreed to take up. idaho has said that abortions would be available in more circumstances than it had originally set. the united states had said abortion should be necessary in fewer circumstances than argued, this is not what we originally agreed to decide. and then justice samuel alito dissented the decision not to decide the case right now. he said i don't know why we would not decide this case right now. idaho's law should win. host: do you see it making its way back to the supreme court? guest: i think the question could make its way back to the supreme court, either in this case or in a similar case out of texas, in which the biden administration lost in the u.s. court of appeals to the sixth circuit.

the other question is this is a case about enforcement of emtala , potential in a case that could take a while to bubble back up to the supreme court in a potential second trump administration, the trump administration might decide that it does not want to enforce emtala in this way and decide not to pursue this litigation. host: and any abortion cases going to get a lot of attention, but this one may be more attention because the decision or draft was posted early on the court's website. do we know what happened, and this has been connected to the dobbs decision leak. is that fair? guest: i don't think it is fair, not to take anything away from the reporters at bloomberg, who broke the story. because it said it was an inadvertent leak, rather than someone reaching out at reporters -- reaching out to

reporters at politico. it does not seem like an intent to leak the draft, it said it was probably accidental. even after all these years, there's a lot about the supreme court's inner workings that we don't know, and this is one of them. one of my colleagues on the supreme court press, one of his theories is that maybe, perhaps, they originally intended to release the opinion the day before, and they decided at the last minute not to come and somebody accidentally press that button, but honestly we do not know what happens. that happened. but hats off to both of them. host: alexis in north carolina on the independent line. good morning, alexis. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i have not been here for most of the discussion this morning, because i've been dialing income and i'm on a phone.

you either dial or you listen. nevertheless, i find it very hard to understand how people can ignore what is going on. the future of our america, and i'm not just talking about democracy, but the supreme court we've seen being packed with not just conservative people but people that are soliciting their ideologies over the practicality of the constitution. and we've got to get that straightened out. there is so much that is being

done to the detriment of our constitution that we've got to face that. going forward, we need to think about what another trump era is going to bring us. emtala, i think i'm right, it is basically federal law, trump supersedes state law. and for any of the justices to side with the state, when it is a federal issue at hand, says we are not playing with, you know, an honest deck. guest: i think i want to elaborate, not to argue with you, but i want to argue little bit on justice alito, what he said in his dissent on emtala.

in his view, emtala was to protect both the pregnant mother and the unborn child. to address your other point, this is the time of year in which the supreme court is sort of foremost in people's minds. they are issuing a lot of high-profile decisions. i've been covering the supreme court for a long time, and, you know, where i often have seen in the past is that, and people get very interested and worked up about the supreme court decisions, and the supreme court fades away, goes away for a temporary recess, people get worked up about other things. i think republican's have always been interested in the supreme court, and, you know, and a lot of republican strategist would tell you that is why many people work, christian voters were willing to vote for donald trump in 2016 and precisely because they wanted someone who was going to appoint conservative

justices to the supreme court with a potential to overturn roe v. wade. he took the step of releasing a list of potential candidates to the supreme court if he were elected, and indeed he did. the democrats were a little bit late to the party in terms of focusing on the supreme court. i think that they have now done that, and the problem, from their perspective, is that there is now a 6-3 majority on the supreme court that could potentially be there for some time. host: erin in south hills, virginia, on the democrats line. good morning, aaron. caller: good morning. how are you doing? every supreme court justice that donald trump approved should

recuse themselves from anything having to do with roe v. wade, plus they all should have term limits. and the supreme court justices should be elected by the people. they should be put on a ballot, not selected by one person. and they should not hold president biden so crucial about this debate. the man is an older gentleman. he does not only run this country by himself. he is going to confer with other people also. but for those who say he should not continue to run, i think that is very unfair to the man. thank you very much. guest: the topic of term limits is one that i hear a lot, talking about changes to the supreme court. it is sort of interesting to me, because the constitution does not set a number of justices for the supreme court, so that is something that theoretically congress could change. it seems unlikely that is

something this congress is going to change anytime soon. i think most people think that establishing term limits for the supreme court would require an amendment to the constitution, which obviously would be much harder. there are arguments about how one could do it without a constitutional amendment, but that would also require congress to step in, which seems unlikely at this point. host: and tomorrow is going to be expected to be the last decision day. it is unusual for the court to work in early july, but is not unprecedented. can you talk about how decisions come together, the process, and who is involved and why it has been pushed out a little bit longer? guest: sure. as you noted, it is a little bit unusual for the justices to go into july. they went to july in 2020, but that was a covert situation, so it was not -- covid situation,

so it was not that surprising. we were all sitting at home with nothing else to do anyway. so the process, and they have cases that are still waiting on three or possibly four decisions, depending on how they play out, but really the thing we are all waiting on his presidential immunity. that was not argued until the very end of the turn, the end of their argument session, at the end of april. so it has only been a little bit over two months. with the process, to put it in a nutshell, is pretty soon after the oral argument, the justices meet in their conference, just a night of in, and they vote on the outcome of the decision. and there's the majority and then there's the dissent. the senior justice in the majority gets to assign the opinion, the writing of the opinion, to one of the justices in the majority, and the senior justice in the dissent gets to assign the writing of the

dissent to one of the dissenters. but they start writing those drafts. justices may also choose to write their own opinion, it might eliminate some particular aspect of their thinking or of the core's opinion. and at some point, they exchange drafts, the justice who writes the majority opinion, will send the opinion out to everyone and say, this is my opinion. my draft opinion. the justices can look at it and say, i agree with that, and they will send a note back. it is a little bit antiquated, but they will say please join me. that means i agree, i'm signing on, or they may suggest changes that they like to see may come and then they will join it. the same goes with the dissent. and they will add changes to

respond to what the others are saying. and that goes back and forth until everybody is finished. they release the opinion, the chief justice will say, that the opinion in trump the united states, someone will read a summary of that opinion from the bench tomorrow roughly at 10:00 a.m. host: ann, you mentioned it, but the presidential immunity case is something we are waiting to hear, how they rule on that. remind us what is the issue. guest: yes, this is a case that rises from the charge a special counsel jack smith brought against the former president in washington, d.c. related to his role in the january 6 attack on the capital. he brought them last year, and the former president filed a motion to dismiss the charges in the federal district court, that

he is immune, the prosecution of a former president. eight u.s. district judge rejected that claim and said no, but he appealed to the u.s. district court for the district of colombia which said, no, former president student do not have criminal immunity for official acts as president. at some point along, the d.c. circuit judge issued that opinion in february. in december, jack smith had come to the supreme court and asked the justice to get an answer quickly, drastically prosecution quickly, and said no, trump is not immune. the supreme court waited for the d.c. circuit court to decide the question, then the supreme court agreed to take up

the case in february, heard in april, it's now june. we are still waiting on an answer. we do not know what the supreme court is going to say. even if the supreme court says that trump does not have immunity from criminal prosecution, he has, to a certain extent, one day because of the delay. the pretrial proceedings are on hold. once pretrial proceedings are allowed to resume, she's going to need roughly eight days before a trial could go forward. and so, you know, we are watching the clock as well to see whether or not a trial could start before the november election. host: and whatever the decision is, it is very likely that not everyone is going to agree with the ruling, and that is something that the supreme court deals with very often. we are going to play a clip of justice amy coney barrett from

earlier this year because she was at a national governors association meeting, and she was asked how she responds to critics. here it is. [video clip] >> you have responded to critics of the cord by challenging them to read the court's opinion, such as you said, you criticized the court, saying we are just partisan hats, i believe is the phrase you used. "read our opinions." why did you mean by that. justice barrett: i was reading a book, i'm not the only justice to have said this, and i know my colleagues agree. i think it is because things that the court or the way we make decisions, i mean, the nature of our business is different. we are trying to say with the law means. we are not the policy makers that is your job. so i think, one, we speak

publicly, but we don't have press conferences and that sort of things. so really the product of our work is the opinion, and it shows, you know, i don't go out and talk to the press or talk to people in between oral argument and the issuance of an opinion about what i think should happen in a case. so it is very different from the political process in that respect. so i think if you want to know what the court's reasoning is, you have to look at the decision, because it explains the decisions. justice sotomayor and i have been on opposite sides of issues. last year was the student loan case, and i joined the chief majority's decision, and justice sotomayor joined the dissent. there has been vigorous debate in the country about the student loan program. but the opinion did not mirror that debate. it was about the scope of the statute. and so i think there are many reasons to criticize the court

on any number of cases, and, you know, justice kagan and the chief justice in that case had an impressive back and forth, with both making excellent arguments, but you cannot knowingly agree or disagree with what the court that, because it is not just based on the policy, bottom line, without seeing the reason why the court reached the decision it did. i tell my students when i taught constitutional law, i wanted them by the end of the semester to be able to identify several decisions that they like to be results but disagreed with the reasoning and vice versa. justice gilliam used to say, and i wholeheartedly agree, if you find yourself liking the result of every decision you make, you are in the wrong job, not doing the right thing. it is not your job to decide cases in a way you would like them to be seen, and it is not

about what you like to see now. host: for somebody who does not have a legal background but they do want to read opinions and better understand why the court came to the decision that they did, what advice or tips do you have? guest: justice barrett's and justice kagan's opinions are very clear. they are excellent writers, and you can usually read their opinions, the beginnings and the conclusions of their opinion, and get a pretty good idea of what exactly is going on in the cases. and then, it is really a great place to start. host: let's hear from dennis in rancho cordova, california, calling on the republican line. good morning, dennis. caller: if you believe that you are not understanding why these people make the decisions the way they do, either you are

stupid or you are too afraid to even say it. host: dennis, let's be respectful of our guest. i don't think that is the point she was making. guest: yeah. i don't think that is the point i was making. i was talking about why they made some procedural steps, but we can agree to disagree, certainly. host: you have been on the line for a while, dennis. do you have any other question or comment? caller: yeah. i would say ignorant of what is going on. you people are fascist, you people are bureaucratic. there decisions are based on that. they are not based on the law and wrong. there decisions are based on power. host: any additional response? guest: i've been covering the supreme court for more than 20 years, so i would dispute

ignorant, certainly. host: let's hear from william in new york on the democrats line. good morning, william. caller: good morning. i would like to make a comment that i heard the former president make. i heard him myself saying that his military personnel are losers and stuff like that, he called john mccain not a hero, stuff like that. i was stationed july 20 from a 1967, we had a fire, we lost 134 men that morning. there was not a loser aboard that ship. the only losers i can speak to are the ones that were not there and did not participant. what you are doing now, i mean,

i watched the debate thursday. i did not hear much of a true comment from him, and i can say i don't see a loser in the military. it takes a certain type of people to do that, and you take more aboard that ship, you have 95,000 men, and most of them were under 30 years old. there was not a loser there. host: we will go to branding in kentucky on the republican line. good morning, randy. caller: good morning. thank you. the colorado case where they wanted to keep trump off the ballot, draghi wrong in thinking we were so close to a civil war, where we would have two presidents? but also, on trump's immunity

and also presidential powers, how do you limit a president's powers, just like the ceo of a company? i think the presidential powers work in the constitution very well, for 250 years now. i would not want to dare or attempt to change that, because he has, you know, as we already know, several checks on his power, congress, the voters, the news media, so many other ways. and with customers of a business, the ceo, they have boards, they have customers, they have so many other things. once your feelings on those two subjects, if you would? guest: to address your first

one, keeping the two different presidents off the ballot, that is exactly what the decision in the colorado ballot case was concerned about. they were worried about what would happen if you had different states making different decisions, and you get this sort of patchwork of ballots across the country. so it was not even just about the former president but about the presidential candidates more broadly. thank you. host: some of the other cases we are waiting to hear the decision on have to do with social media. remind us what those are and what the potential outcome could be. guest: these are cases that are challenges to a pair of laws in texas and florida that are somewhat controversial social media laws that try to regulate how social media platforms, like facebook and x, control the content that is posted on their

sites. these were laws that were passed in the wake of the 2020 elections and the january 6 attack on the capital, in response to a concern that these large social media sites were censoring their users come in particular their conservative users. so it is just by letting those users -- violating those users' first amendment rights. the response is this violates our first amendment rights, because we have the right to control the content posted on our site, in the same way the "new york times" has the same way to decide what is posted on its pages in the same way fox news decides decides to add interviews. we are waiting to see what the supreme court decides. host: who could be most impacted by the ruling? guest: these are large social media companies, like facebook and twitter, and they are obviously the ones with the most at stake.

how the court decides, what the social media companies are doing, there's also a federal law called section 230 about liability of these social media companies and area platforms for the content that is posted on this site. depending on what the court does, it could create an interesting push and pull, a dynamic. host: jen in erie, pennsylvania on the democrats line. good morning, jim. caller: good morning. i wanted to ask your guest, it seems to me, and i'm really afraid that biden is going to -- but after watching what happened on that debate, i'm hoping that the democrat establishment steps in and lets us get a different candidate, because there is no way i think that joe biden will be able to beat trump.

but i think this proves what we saw an i debate proves that this is the reason why they did not want to show us the audios from the herr investigation. i want to ask your guest, do you think that will be on the supreme court, whether we in america deserve to hear that tape? it could give us another opinion. if that tape exonerated joe's performance in the debate, i think they would let it out there, but for some reason, everyone is trying to hide that audio from the hur investigation. do you think it will eventually go to the supreme court, and the public will be able to hear it? guest: i have not been following that issue as closely as i should. there is so much happening at the supreme court that i'm not always able to follow some

things not going on there. i apologize. host: it has been a busy time, and we are almost to the end. looking forward to next time, went there we know about cases that are already on the docket were what we might see pop up in the upcoming months? guest: cases already on the docket, it seems like it was pretty slow to phyllis docket for next term. they only have 16 cases on their docket, which is behind where they usually would be. they usually try to fill their whole docket for october, november, december before they go away for their summer recess. and they did add a new case just this week involving a challenge by the biden administration to a tennessee law that would ban hormone therapy and puberty blockers for transgender minors. that is one of the biggest cases on the docket so far for next term. we do expect them to add a couple more cases before they leave for their summer

recess. they have several cases involving the second amendment that could reach the core's docket for next term. they decided on a gun case a couple of weeks ago, and there are some cases they probably had been holding for that case. the biden administration has asked them to take up some cases now, one of them involving an illinois ban on assault rifles and semiautomatic, high-capacity magazines. then there's another case involving the ban on the possession of guns by felons that could make its way. host: the end of the term is also when we find out if anybody is going to be retiring. have we heard any rumblings? guest: we have not heard any rumblings expect any of the

court's republicans to be retiring. justice sotomayor is the oldest of the liberal justices. she just turned 70 this past week, maybe middle-age by supreme court standards. i would not expect a retirement announcement, but you never know. host: let's hear from yvonne in carson city, nevada on the democrats line. good morning, yvonne. caller: good morning. i wanted to say that i'm disappointed in the supreme court. they have an opportunity to help women who are pregnant and having a medical emergency, and they are basically abandoning care of women. the procedure of an abortion is standard of care and incomplete, end of a pregnancy. i just can't express how disappointed i am in them.

thanks. host: thanks for calling. one last call, leticia from palm springs, california, calling on a republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. i just want to say i think amy is doing a wonderful job, and also, telling about homelessness and the decision made on homelessness, i understand that all cities have ordinances and non-loitering, you know, like, why is it that those are not enforced, first of all? and, also, there is no -- any -- how do i say, help for all of these people on drugs that china is bringing to our country, and

these are affecting our young people. i'm tired of people saying, i used to be independent, then i turned republican. republicans have heart, but we also need to help these people on the homelessness, because it is our responsibility as a country. host: could there be other potential challenges, similar to what we saw, looking at different statute? guest: i think potentially. i guess we will see what happens when this case sort of lands in the lower courts and its other ordinances are applied come after the supreme court decision, it takes sometimes a little bit of time to see how they play out. host: amy howe, the cofounder and a reporter for scotusblog. thank you so much for being with us. guest: thanks for having me. host: that is it for today's program. thank you to everyone who called

in and to our guests. we will be back tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern and 4:00 p.m. pacific with another "washington journal -- 4:00 a.m. pacific with another "washington journal." enjoy the rest of your day. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2024]