>> i am donny deutsch. >> i mark halperin. with all the staff members leaving donald trump's campaign, are you sick of winning already? dance show tonight, swing

and a special performance by donny deutsch. did attorney general loretta lynch change key or was she singing off pitch to begin with? the new york times published a agdline sorry saying the will accept whatever recommendation prosecutors and if you investigators make about any chance of indictment. the story suggests that lynch would essentially remove herself from the case that set off a firestorm on morning tv news. news talkinging tv about this story and i was contacted by a justice department official who suggested that the times story was incorrect in one critical respect. this official said that lynch would be reserving the right to overrule what you you and prosecutors recommended, i was told the probability of that happening was very low. >> to make things a little bit more confusing, lynch appeared on stage in colorado where she expressed some regret about her chat with the former president,

but also seemed to send mixed messages about her ongoing role in the investigation. here she is suggesting that this investigation is like any other case and that her role has not changed. >> the matter is being handled by career agent and investigators with the department of justice. it has since the beginning. they are acting independently. i follow the facts. they'll make recommendations for how to resolve what those facts lead to. that will be followed by her supervisors and by the fbi director. and as a common process, they presented to me and i fully expect to accept their recommendation. oflynch muddied the waters bit more by suggesting she would defer to prosecutors and fbi investigators. >> while i don't have a role in coming up with those findings or the recommendations in how to go

forward, i will be briefed and i will be accepting their recommendations. will be informed of those findings, as opposed to never reading or never seeing them, but i will be accepting the recommendations and plans going forward. >> i was sitting next you when they reported it and she was laissez-faire. they said, maybe there is wiggle room? no one will room. i am wiggle-confused. >> the proper way for her to -- defer to the prosecutors, if in her judgment , it's iney general their judgment to change it. i believe that is what she would like to do. her cover story how this is a special plan, i think what she is doing is caving to the pressure and trying to have it both ways to say i will accept

their recommendation. >> she clearly made a mistake and he made a mistake. happened in that meeting was purely social, my role as attorney general is a have final say. the overwhelming amount of times i will go with my people but this like any other change because of a 20 minute meeting with bill clinton. >> the attorney general herself -- if you listen to her literally, she is acting like she will rubberstamp this. that is not her position and the way it is being reported is ridiculous. she is trying to have it both ways. it's only undermining the situation. if she gets the recommendation to indict, i assume she will let it through. gets the recommendation not to indict i assume that she will rubberstamp that as well.

but at this point she says there is no one in charge but the career people who are not being named. it is a problem. x we will talk later in the show about clinton and his friend that he seems to go off the rails a bit but the fact that she was in such an easy position . you say it is not appropriate. is astoundingly bad. >> if he showed up at her office and said i want to come in for a meeting and say high, i assume they would say no. it won't surprise you to hear that donald j trump billionaire is jumping all over this story. while speaking in denver this afternoon, the republican presented presidential nominee said there was more to the conversation with lynch than mere social matters. mr. trump: he just happened to the at the airport? when i first heard the story i

said, you don't believe it, i thought some but he was joking. it is not a joke. i think he really opened it up. he opened up the pandora's box. it shows what is going on and it shows what is happening with our laws and with our government. talking about golf and grandchildren. i love my grandchildren so much, but if i talk about them for more than 10 seconds -- i love that one, i love that one. i love these kids. after that, what are you going to say? donny, it is friday on a holiday weekend so there are not many people around from either party to interact but after the meeting between bill clinton and loretta lynch, after what loretta lynch has done, how much worse off is hillary clinton politically whether there is an indictment are not?

>> let me answer this two ways. first, in terms that there are 100-some-odd days left in the election. one more day to frame her as untrustworthy, as clinton is playing footsie, above the law. it still is not going to affect her. there's no news today about hillary other than, you know what? one more time that clinton is not trust or trustworthy. if she's indicted, it's game over. but at the end of the day, people are going to still vote, what is better for my pocketbook, the same way if donald trump said one more stupid mexican comment, that the mexican are attacking us. >> i think it's a little worse than you do, because if there's no indictment -- i think both of us expect that. the thing is undermined now. the credibility. she does not get the same kind of clean bill of health now, because people are going to say there's something messed up about that.

>> they would have said that anyway. >> but now there's something to point to, which is very specific. the meeting. no one is going to be able to prove -- if you think there's a way to -- it plays into trump's themes, that the clintons are corrupt, the barack obama administration is corrupt. there's now a big thing to point to. there's now an event that point to that's tangible where they can say this thing was cooked. >> i'm going to go back and say one more thing. i don't think one vote is changed either way. if you think hillary clinton is untrustworthy, one more support point. if you -- >> what if she's indicted? >> completely different story. >> why? >> because that's a felony at that point. very different discussion. >> here's the thing. at a minimum, it can rev up the republican base and that's not nothing. >> once again, i think it was one day of loss and beyond that, not that much. >> what does the story tell us about bill clinton's ability to

help and hurt mrs. clinton in this campaign? >> it shows he still has enormous capacity to hurt her. he's mostly stayed below the radar. i have heard from so many democrats, baffled, yes, the attorney general probably should have barred him from the plane. it's hard to say no to a former president who wants to get on your plane to say hi. you can psychobabble and try to come up with an explanation. at a minimum it shows he has lost more than a step in terms of his political judgment. >> i think he's lost a bunch of steps. when you see him, everybody he's talked at -- he doesn't look as strong. he looks elderly, frail. he does not have that kind of mischief in his eye anymore. there's something that trump has, the very thing that you don't like about him. you don't know what's coming next. he's a little devilish. >> he's vibrant.

>> that gives him testosterone, power. right now, clinton, it's just gone from the eyes. and once again, we're seeing his behavior. and i hate to make age a statement -- agous statements but he's seeming like a bit of your wacky uncle bill. her surrogate is not going to be bill clinton. it's going to be barack obama. >> my strong view was that bill wasn't going on this to try to influence the case. he's a social guy. you know how many times he's been on a private plane? i'm almost certain that's what it's about. but it points to two things. one, we already mentioned, he's lost a step. the other, it's been true for a long time. he doesn't travel with david axelrod or somebody who is going to be thinking every step of the way, what are the politics of what we're about to do? can we eat in this non-union restaurant? he's under a microscope now and you can bet that they're going to think again about fever minute of his -- think again about every minute of his schedule. this guy can create a lot of

negative news if he does the wrong thing. >> the greatest politician theoretically over the last 30, 40 years and a guy who is going through his own legal battles. >> he hurt her. it is an unforced error. >> it's astounding that -- of course, hillary was a part of it. you know hillary was pulling her hair. what is he doing! >> got on the plane. shouldn't have done it. more after this, on the political and legal implications of what the attorney general has done in the last 24 hours. we'll break it down, just ahead. ♪

>> the issue is, how does it impact the work that the department of justice does?

i wouldn't do it again. [laughter] because i think it has cast a shadow over what it should not, over what it will not touch. >> that was the attorney general of the united states, loretta lynch, speaking at the aspen ideas festival earlier today about that meeting with former president bill clinton. joining us now from washington, d.c. to talk more about this, nbc news chief foreign affairs correspondent and one of the best political reporters in the history of north america. >> the universe! >> of course. thank you. >> andrea mitchell, do you agree with me that the attorney general is trying to have it both ways, act as if she's leaving this solely up to career people and the f.b.i., but at the same time reserving the right, if she wants to, to overrule it? >> actually, i am told, according to all of my reporting, that she is saying she will not overrule them. she's taking herself out of it, and that she has to really because there is the appearance of impropriety here. there's the appearance that the case will be influenced improperly, even though everyone who knows her and has watched her over two terms as the prosecutor in brooklyn says that she is absolutely impeccable in her integrity. but unfortunately, what happened on that plane has cast a shadow over it. and the people i've talked to,

who are, you know, law professors and ethics experts say it was highly inappropriate and really audacious of the president to have gotten on that plane. >> all right. i know that there are people at the justice department saying that. and i know she suggested today, at times, she was fully out of it. but she also said today, i fully expect to accept their recommendation. and a senior justice department official said to me today she reserves the right, with a very low probability, to overrule it. >> they're saying that, i think, to give her a little bit of an out. i'm told definitively that she is not going to take part in this case. and that in fact, even though she says she can take part in decisions leading up to the final decision, that the final decision is the whole ball game. it's whether or not you're going to indict. and that that will be left to the career prosecutors, that she she now knows no no uncertain terms she cannot recommend, if

they overrecall indictment. that was already going to be a very high threshold, because the appropriate rule of thumb is you don't indict anyone if you don't think you can convict. and it would be a real stretch to get a jury in d.c. to convict hillary clinton on a case if if she's indicted, given how vigorous the argument would be in her defense that she didn't know or that it was not mishandling. they have to establish that they mishandled classified information, not intent, by the way. simply that they mishandled classified information. >> even if this -- if airplane-gate did not happen, this is not a petraeus situation. this is someone who is running for president. if the department of justice comes forward and says we are indicting her, she's not even in a position to overturn it, because by definition, she's indicted at that point. >> first of all, if there is a recommendation to indict, and she were to overrule it, you

think that would be a secret for one minute? james comey would have resigned as fbi director. and he is held in such high regard. our colleague, joe scarborough, has been saying that for a while and he's absolutely right. i don't think she had any real option. and the unfortunate part, according to the legal experts, is that this is a career prosecutor herself, until, you know, she took this job. she was known as one of the best prosecutors in the business. whatever wisdom or that she has cannot be used in this case. >> she's not formally recusing herself. she's just accepting reality. one is this is standard procedure. and two, as you just said, she couldn't possibly overrule a decision not to indict or it would leak and he'd quit. i will say again the standard

thing would be for her to have not done anything. her hand was forced by bill clinton, right? >> exactly. >> otherwise, this wouldn't be happening. we'd love you to address what we were talking about, which is, what is up with bill clinton? >> well... that's not whole story. i think that, look, he is the smoozer in chief. this is a man who went up to ted cruz on the tarmac who months ago, because he saw the secret service details all talk amongst themselves obviously. they're going to be notified when someone else is arriving at the same location, people with guns, and that there's another detail arriving. they work together. you know what these private strips are like. you know what the plane looked like. it was probably one of a blue and white gulf streams, so it was clearly identifiable as someone of cabinet rank. and so he said, oh, she's coming. the detail. so he waited for her.

and then got on board the plane in. >> what do you think the clinton campaign thinks about what happened this week? >> oh, my god. look at the facts. monday, she's in cincinnati. i was there. incredible event. she's got elizabeth warren literally embracing her. next tuesday she's going to be possibly riding on air force one, i'm told. that's not quite decided but riding with the president of the united states possibly and then going to a rally and then whatever events they do, in the critical state of north carolina. then on friday, the man who wanted to run and has always been her sibling rival is going to be embracing her in scranton, his birth place. in pennsylvania, which we have just put on the battleground map at nbc into the toss-up now.

it's no longer leaning democratic. pennsylvania is so important that scranton is the heart of the gun-toting, you know, trump trade deal hating constituency. it's not philadelphia. and so that is the best place that joe biden could be with her. and that's the place where her dad was born and where they had had a family cabin on a lake when she was a child. it's the perfect week, if they could deal with bernie sanders, it might be completely perfect. but the warren thing kind of obviates that problem to a certain degree. now she's got this. and the f.b.i. hanging over her head. >> andrea, i talked this morning and you were disagreeing with me -- my feeling is this is more of the same. as long as she's not indicted, this is part of the bigger narrative here. by next week, this is old news, a complete nonevent. but you disagree with that? >> i do think that -- what i was trying to say is that there still is the character issue, the trust issue. she wouldn't have been addressing it in chicago last monday, saying i know some people don't trust me, if she wasn't anticipating another round on the e-mail. and the deposition this week, the person closer to her than anyone, other than the immediate family. and so there's a lot out there. there's a lot of uncertainty.

and she has to deal with that and donald trump, at some point, is going to focus and we expect -- he's going to do some damage. >> andrea, in the end, loretta lynch, again, i think is struggling with the sort of mentality of a career prosecutor. but dealing with the highest profile political moment i think she's ever dealt with. >> absolutely. >> do you have any sense of the pace of the investigation? there's all sorts of talk about when her interview is, about what they have left to do. seems to me we're getting close enough to the convention and debates, if they don't do something quick, they're going to have to hold this over until after the election, which is obviously controversy in and of itself. >> absolutely. you should know there is some reporting that that f.b.i. interview is this weekend. at her home. >> right. >> and that they're being very cagey about it.

>> but are we past the deadline where -- or when is the deadline where they can't do anything because it's too close to election day? i feel like we're there. >> well, i think that there's another argument for getting it out of the way. if it's not to indict, even though it's going to cause a storm among those who think, you know, guilty, guilty, guilty, said donald trump today. i think in august, they can do something. if it gets into september and october, it's too close. remember what happened back with weinberger and that whole issue in 1992, when, on the weekend before the election, the special prosecutor went after weinberger on iran contra, all of that? >> yes. andrea, have a great holiday! >> have a great weekend, guys. >> up next, trump is in the homestretch of his search. we're talk about where that stands and more, right after this. ♪

>> "washington post" is reporting that newt gingrich and governor chris christie are among the top prospects for donald trump. others are under consideration. nbc news reported that the governor of india, mike pence, reportedly meeting with trump this weekend, is also, quote, in in play. so donny, if it's true and my reporting matches this, that while some people in trump world, including trump, are drawn towards christie and gingrich, that others are strongly urging other options, including pence. what does that say about the state of the search? >> i think at the very least, trump wants to throw a little nugget out there for the conservative base and say we're talking to him. this is cruz's number two guy. i still think it comes back to christie. the more i think about it, a, you double down -- instead of doing a brand extension, which a pence would be, go core brand and say, you know what? we're pugnacious, outsiders, in

your face. it's the equivalent of clinton-gore, two good-looking southern guys. so you have one face of the brand. gingrich would be a devastating mistake. christie gets to be good cop. he got an attack dog. now trump does not have to be in the mud all the time and act more presidential. the more i think about it, the more time goes by, i think christie is the choice. >> i thought christie for a while. but this has got the feel of mccain's search in 2008 in the following sense. the post reported that maybe they'd move the timetable up and announce it soon, next week, rather than the week after. they're just now asking mike pence to be vetted and just now meeting with mike pence. this stuff should all be done by now. if they're expanding the search -- the dynamic that is big is that trump was fine with

the small list. people were saying to him, there's nobody on this list who you should pick. he was getting recommendations from rice and haley and other people who were not being closely looked at. he needs someone who ask is fully vetted, who actually is qualified to be president. i think mike pence is a good choice but he's just meeting with the guy? >> yeah. >> i think there's never been a less important choice for vice president. you're either voting for donald trump or you're not. >> all right. >> up next, we're going to do some more veep takes. also, stat changes there that are kind of interesting. we're going to talk to reporters on the donald trump beat right after this.

>> from d.c. bloomberg, our political reporter, michael,

we're talking about the veepstakes, from inside the trump camp. there you are. how are you doing? from inside the trump camp, word coming that maybe the person that trump really, really wants is kasich. of course, he thinks he can deliver ohio. what are you hearing? >> yes. that's exactly what we've been hearing for a while now. you mentioned pence a little bit earlier. and it just doesn't -- it just doesn't ring right with what we've been hearing from the people around trump, now for a couple of weeks. as you know, there's one person who is gonna ultimately make that decision, and until he does, it's a lot of speculation. but from the folks that trump has been talking to about this, he's had stars in his eyes over kasich, which sort of sounds odd, given their combative relationship on the trail and particularly kasich's reluctance

to give any indication that he'd even consider the position. but kasich has the experience in washington, which trump has told us specifically is a quality that is the top quality he's looking for in a vice presidential candidate and also high on trump's list is kasich's ability to bring votes in ohio, a state that you know well, no republicans won without. so until we hear differently, kasich has been at the top of the list, from what we're hearing. >> mike, it's funny, because the earliest person i ever talk to people in trump word about, early, well before he won the nomination, was kasich. trump was said to be very attracted to the notion, for all the reasons you said. given that, we've come full circle now. is there any indication that trump himself or any emissary has reached out to try to make the relationship solid enough to even put it in play? >> well, we understand that he's tried to go around and tried to get into kasich's world. but he's been shut down at every turn. and kasich himself, as recently as about a week ago, is just

refusing to even consider this publicly. now, maybe that's something that even, you know -- trump positions himself as such a key negotiator. maybe trump is even more attracted to that as a negotiating tactic. but by all accounts, the kasich people haven't given an inch yet. >> i want to shift gears to the convention. you and i could probably fill up every night with who we think the democrats are going to put up. who are we going to see on stage there? >> that is going to be a very good question. we know some of the entertainment around the trump campaign or the trump convention now, bands like journey we reported are being brought in. one of the interesting things with that is those bands, this entertainment, is being used to draw donors, to try to bring donors into cleveland. maybe folks reluctant to come to the convention are being dangled backstage passes to gin up interest in the convention.

>> you've got to get journey to gin up the convention, you've got problems. >> journey in cleveland. that should draw a lot of people. some staff departures today, not super senior level people but people who the trump campaign just hired. what's the dynamic where people are coming for a cup of coffee, then going in the campaign? growing pains or a systemic problem? >> well, it depends on what your view of the trump campaign is. if it's something that's only going to begin after the convention, i'd call it a growing pain. but given that we're a year into this now, it seems systemic. you mentioned earlier, your question about only being interested in pence now. i mean, i think that aligns with some of the problems they're having on staff, some of the folks who have left recently and some of the folks who are there, we understand, have had trouble

getting paid. some lower-level staffers, similar to the positions that were let go today, haven't heard from their superiors or who they believe are their direct reports in weeks, if not months. this is not good news for the trump campaign, whether you believe this is a growing pain or not. >> mike, really appreciate it. thank you, man. >> when we come back, more reporters on the veep stakes and the supreme court's big month. and of course, if you're watching the nation's capitol, you can now listen to us on radio at bloomberg 99.1 f.m.

>> joining us now from washington, kelly o'donnell, and from denver, traveling with donald trump and covering his speech from earlier today, nbc news correspondent katie. we'll start with kelly. qualified on paper, worked on capitol hill. governor of the state. strong with conservatives. why turn to pence this late in the process, do you think? >> well, from what i have learned, that pence was interested in having this conversation at a time when his own race to be re-elected as governor is tight, that this could be something that also boosts him in the state of indiana, because we know donald trump clinched the nomination in indiana. i've learned that pence will be traveling to meet with donald trump. this will be a private meeting, a conversation. and pence was very careful to say only yesterday, thursday, that he had not spoken to the candidate since the primary had happened. so now that's going to change. his campaign does acknowledge that he accepted this invitation. they qualified it, saying this is one of those conversations with national leaders, but it certainly goes more deeply than

that. i think pence does offer donald trump the keys to a few key constituencies. social conservatives, he speaks their language, has credibility there. he knows his way around capitol hill. and he could be that kind of a liaison if he were to be the running mate and they were to win. it's those kind of things that help. he's also pretty good on camera, pretty comfortable in his message. and he could probably play the role of look strong, reassuring but not get in the way, in a very contentious campaign. >> i agree with everything you said, but katie, i don't know how much time you spent with mike pence, but i know you know him well enough, which is he doesn't seem to me like donald trump's kind of guy. doesn't seem they're going to have a lot of chemistry. what do you think about that? >> well, he adds what he needs, which is -- he adds factors that would have people take him seriously in washington. i'm sorry. they're doing a mic check behind me. it's getting in my ear. but he doesn't have the panache that newt gingrich or chris

christie has. those are personalities that donald trump tends to move closer towards. and that's why they have been so close to him so far on the campaign trail. so mike pence, while he has legislative experience, he's got an ease on camera, a discipline that donald trump desperately needs and that he would give him credibility in washington, he's not necessarily the type of character that normally gels with donald trump. we're going to see how their meeting goes over the weekend and whether they find some common ground and are able to move forward together. but pence right now is certainly not high on the donald trump likability list, i guess. is that a donald trump -- >> i'm going to predict that they both come away from the meeting incredulous. >> katie, what can we expect from our good friend, mr. trump today? are we going to see the very

disciplined, prompter-reading presidential trump or are we going to see him going off the rails on bill clinton's journey on the airplane? >> well, we already saw him speak. he finished about a couple of hours ago, an hour and a half or so ago here at the western conservative summit. there were teleprompters there. he walked out, he did not use teleprompters. he was reading from notes and he tends to ramble. you can see he wasn't quite as disciplined or concise as he has been. he did go off a little bit on bill clinton meeting with loretta lynch. this is something that totally plays into donald trump's narrative, that the clintons are only in it for themselves and that they are doing a shady back room dealings, they are not

doing it for the american people. when talking about the lynch meeting, they said they were talking about golf and their grandkids. then donald trump went on a bit of a tangent about how he loved his grandkids but could only talk about them for 10 seconds, trying to sow the seeds of doubt in voters' minds that that is all that the two were actually talking about. >> kelly -- in the scheme of things, and you've covered some of these before, is it safe for trump to be casting a ballot for new options this close to the convention? >> well, i think one of the perhaps pluses for a figure like mike pence is maybe this is a signal to the social and christian conservatives that donald trump understands that there is a gap there and that he needs to be attentive to the things they want to see happen. part of what we've got to expect is that trump is trying to bring people together and quiet some of that delegate soul-searching

before the convention. and so ultimately, the pick will have to be someone he's comfortable with. and some of these names really aren't that new to us. i think there's a new urgency inside the campaign. days are dwindling. and there are big steps, as you know. there's a vetting process that is behind the scenes private. but intrusive and really time consuming in terms of the legal team and those who willingly allow themselves to be vetted. and there's the chance for trump to build these personal relationships that he needs to build on that, with someone like mike pence, who he has met with privately before but you've got to think that trump wanted that endorsement before the indiana primary and he didn't get it. are there some hard feelings lingering from that? maybe that's something we'll be able to measure out of this. >> in fact, my reporting from that meeting was that trump left

the meeting with an expectation that perhaps things wouldn't go the way they did. kelly is a frequent guest on this program. she has just announced today as an advisor to donald trump. she is a longtime advisor to mike pence. so to the extent that the trump command is now discussing the relative merits of pence, there's someone around the table who is a big supporter of mike pence. i think trump would trust kelly's advice on that. katie, i want you to weigh in on the personnel stuff. the departures today. is the massive hiring they're doing, is this just what happens when you try to hire in a hurry, or is there some dysfunction there that is potentially a bigger problem? >> one quick note. kevin mccallum who resigned was a former staffer of gingrich's. there is some crossover. there's questions about whether he might be going back to gingrich. but sources tell us, nbc news, that there was more disagreement internally about how things were going. many believed that once lewandowski left that things would sort of even out in the campaign. that totally has -- that hasn't entirely happened so far.

there does seem to be a missing element in the chain of command, and a missing element in terms of clear directives on a day-to-day basis. that's why you saw these resignations. mccallum only came on to this campaign officially about a week and a half ago. so this is a very quick departure. the campaign is trying to staff up. and they made those announcements today. i've spoken to the r.n.c. and the r.n.c. says they are working to expand their staff and they have been somewhat successful with it. but the trump campaign is not like any other campaign. and it's not one that has an ease of leadership that you would see in what would be a traditional presidential campaign, somebody like mitt romney or president obama or even hillary clinton's campaign. there is a certain element of unpredictability because the candidate himself is often very unpredictable, going against his advisers wishes. it is not entirely clear what the day-to-day can be inside the campaign. and that's what we are hearing

led to the resignation of kevin callum. it's embarrassing for the campaign for somebody to quit a week and a half after they started. >> we keep hearing that kushner has a bigger and bigger role. is a realared kushner estate developer's son and has not run a campaign before. one would expect that we will see a lot more of this chaos. is that fair to say? >> i think that's fair to say. kushner is trusted because he's very close to ivanka's husband. the kids are advisors and they're trying to get their opinions in and their influence as much as they can, but they're not seasoned politicians. there are others who know more about the day-to-day process of campaigning. paul menard fort -- paul manifort is one of those people, but we have seen that donald trump is not entirely comfortable with him. , we haveconferences seen him throw him under the bus

saying that he was misquoted when paul says things that are contrary to what donald trump would say. this is what lewandowski was so good at, very adamant about not contradicting his boss. whereas paul will give interviews and say he believes donald trump will be backing off of the muslim ban or says if they picked a female vice presidential candidate, then it would be pandering. these are things that have gotten him in trouble behind the scenes. that is part of the reason why there is such dysfunction behind the scenes -- in front of the scenes. >> katie and kelly, down in washington. thank you both. talk to you soon, we hope. turning now to the supreme court. big opinions this week on some big cases. involving such issues as abortion, affirmative action, gun rights, public corruption and immigration, all just in the last few weeks. here with us now to talk about the court's sweeping overviews, our supreme court reporter. so, greg, what are the big lessons about this current 4-4 divide, 5-3 divide that we see on this court missing a member?

>> one of the lessons is that anthony kennedy is still in charge, at least in a significant portion of cases. he made the difference in the abortion case. he made the difference in the affirmative action case. in both of those, there were signals that he might go the other way, based on what he had done in the past, particularly on affirmative action. he voted to uphold the university of texas's admission policy. he had never before voted to uphold a race-based program. he frankly contradicted things he had said before. a significant win. it shows for now that he is still a very important member of this court. >> greg in the cases that are , lining up for next session, if we don't see a justice confirmed anytime soon, what are the ones where there are going to be implications of that?

>> they are trying to avoid cases like that. if i told you the cases for the next term, you might jan. it is not very exciting. very often they add their best cases later in the term. the court could take up the clean power plant. there are certainly plenty of voting issues that the court could take up. you could see a divided court. it could make a huge difference as to whether merrick garland is confirmed as the next justice or whether some alleles joins the court. >> are you surprised that neither candidate has made more of an issue, look, the real legacy is three supreme court justices and for a generation, we can either have a liberal court or conservative court. to me, to galvanize either base, hillary clinton or donald trump i'm hitting that. , that does not seem to be in a major way as you would think. >> they talk about it. trump did himself a world of good with that list of model nominees. i thought it was interesting how

little they both talked about the abortion case. but the fact of the matter is, although it's easy to think voters will latch on to this, for the most part voters who care about the court already care about it, and most voters, it's a little bit too abstract. greg, thank you as always. we appreciate it! have a great weekend. coming up, all due reflects. donny and i look back on the week that was in politics, after this. ♪

>> at the end of every week, john and i like to give our takes on the biggest political events. this week, john is not here, so donny is joining me to give our two takes on the big events of the week. we're going to start on monday. when elizabeth warren, the senator from massachusetts, joined hillary clinton on the

campaign trail. it was a big boost for clinton and for warren. a lot of veep talk came up. there was a lot of speculation that clinton could use warren to help bring in the populous left wing of the democrat party. donny? >> sounds great, but fox news actually got this right. >> did you see the matching pants suits? >> mrs. clinton, in matching blue, stands right next to her. >> they look ludicrous! >> it's a pants suit extravaganza! >> on tuesday, house republicans released their long-awaited investigation into events surrounding the horrible attack on an american compound in benghazi, libya. that was a report that republicans had been wanting to use to try to make a dent in hillary clinton's presidential campaign and against the obama administration. in the end, there was more damage about the administration at large than about hillary clinton. donny? >> look, this benghazi stuff is confusing enough, but trey could not get off one word. >> read the report.

read the report. and if you do read the report, read the report. if you, at the end of reading that report -- if you read the report, i don't think you'll see any of that in the report. your takeaway from the report? i stand on the report. how you read the report? what story do you do on the report? you read the report. you will not see any of those quotes in the report. >> dude, i got it. there's a report. it's a report. we got it. i got report cards. i know what the word report means. >> thanks, donny. on wednesday, the big event was a leader summit in canada. the heads of governments of canada, mexico and the united states all joined together. it was a big symbolic event. and a time when donald trump and others are talking about erecting walls and tightening borders, these three leaders talk about the importance of countries getting together. donny? >> i mean, that's all fine and good. did you see the three stooges hand shake thing? look, guys, just plan a hand shake.

you go high, i'll go low. i mean, this is embarrassing. >> on thursday, the big event was donald trump in new hampshire talking about manufacturing. he gave a major speech that a lot of people thought was one of the first times the trump campaign acted like a real presidential company, trump using a prepared text, with press releases, trying to put democrats on the defensive on things like manufacturing, jobs and wages. this is an issue that a lot of republicans hope trump can drive effectively against hillary clinton in the fall. donny? >> this one kind of gave me the heeby jeebies. >> get rid of all these "heebie-jabbies" they wear. we need the veterans back. they fought for this country. they'll still do it. thank you. >> you know, and we are looking at that. >> donald, to become president, you have to call people out when they say stupid stuff. even yourself. >> great analysis as usual, donny. >> that's what i think. everything goes better with captain crunch. >> that's our analysis of the

week that was. and we'll be right back. ♪

>> you can check out john mccormick's great piece on where hillary clinton's campaign is spending the bulk of its tv ad dollars. coming up here on bloomberg t.v., -- happy 4th of july! thanks to donny for filling in. until next week. we'll see you next tuesday!

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