♪ rose: we begin with two supreme court justices in conversation at the new york bar association. we talked to ruth bader ginsburg .nd soanya sotomayor >> i thought of myself in those days as a teacher. my parents that the teaching would be a good occupation for me because women were welcome there they were not welcome as doctors, lawyers, or engineers.

i realized that i was facing an audience that didn't know what i was talking about and understood race discrimination, but most men at that time thought that, yes, the law was riddled with gender-based distinctions but were in women's favor. a woman didn't have to serve on a jury if they didn't want to. >> the eavesdropping reflected curiosity and that's what drove me as a lawyer. charlie: a rare conversation with two supreme court justices. the supreme court kicked off until october after the death of justice scalia. we hear about the court and love of law from two justices. let me begin and take note of the fact that they have written

books. "my beloved world. " and just ties ginsburg's book, "in my own words." looking back on your life and even though it was incorporated in speeches, what was that like for you to put your own life in focus and how was that? >> my -- "my own words" is a collection of speeches, tributes to colleagues. it's not a biography of me and my life is told in the

introductory as my official authors have written. that will come out in the distant future. [laughter] charlie: but your book "my beloved world" you said i am my mother. what did you mean? >> as i tell her, good and bad. i am my mother's drive. she aspired to be more than her circumstances. she wanted to go desperately to go to college, and she lived in the poorest circumstances in her home community and she would watch the college girls walk by her house going to the post office, because that the town's social life at the time and all she talked about was someday going to college and getting my brother and i into college was her living her dream.

she wanted me to be a journalist. i don't think she was ever convinced there was much value in law. perhaps when i got on the supreme court, she might have changed her mind. [laughter] >> but i lived that dream for her and i lived all of her dreams because she set the capital for me of striving a way to do better, of trying to be the best person that i could humanly could be. that's how my mother did that. i tried to emulate all of those things in my mother that are best. when i do things bad, i said that's being the problem. charlie: you once said that watching charles scanning and listening in on their conversations was an important aspect of growing up.

>> sure. who doesn't like to eavesdrop. but i think the eavesdropping reflected curiosity and that's what drove me as a lawyer. and i always tell people, but being a lawyer is like being a voyeur in other peoples' lives. you participate more, but you get to, in every case, you get to learn about how people or an industry or a government entity interacts in the world, what they do and what's important to them and to be able to enjoy that, you have to have curiosity. listening to others and their conversation was a way teaching myself things that i would not have otherwise learned. charlie: justice ginsburg, when

did you fall in love with the law? >> people ask me, did you always want to be a judge or a supreme court justice? [laughter] >> when i think what life is like in this city in the 1940's, no girl is aspiring to be a judge, because there weren't any. and franklin roosevelt appointed the first woman to the first federal appellate court in 1936. she stepped down the year i graduated from law school and then there were none. and johnson appointed hufstettler and became the first secretary of education and then there were none again.

so i didn't think about being a judge until until clinton became president. and looked around at the federal bench and said, you know, they all look like me, but that's not how the great united states works. he was determined to appoint members of minority groups and women in numbers, not as one of the time curiosity. he appointed over 25 member to the federal district court and the trial bench and 11 to courts of appeals and i was one of those lucky 11. no president, by the way, ever went back to the way it was.

president reagan didn't want to be outdone, so he made a nationwide search for the first woman. charlie: sandra day o'connor. when she left the court and alito came on, it marked a change in the court, because she was gone. >> i have said more than once that the term that she left, whenever the court divided 5-4 and i was one of the four, i would have been one of the five if she remained with us. there was that enormous difference. charlie: my question has been influenced by people, your husband. your late husband had a huge influence. you have said to me that you would not have made it to the supreme court without him. >> no question about it.

people who observed at the time said, well ruth might have been on the list, maybe 22 and 2, but marty made her number one. charlie: how did he do that? >> he had a little book of people he contacted. [laughter] >> and mainly my academic colleagues and those days -- ell well, this is before my first big job in d.c. and got in touch with academic colleagues and lawyers that knew me from the lawyering work i had done and he had many letters sent to the president. and i think the most important

thing of all -- and this was almost out of the blue, my rabbi, my guide, was senator moynihan and how did that will come about? well, it was a connection that marty was very pleased to, but it didn't come to me then. the president was on a plane with senator moynihan going to some democratic functions in the city and said, pat, please tell me, who would you pick for the supreme court? and senator moynihan said, well, mr. president, i'm not a lawyer so you shouldn't be asking me that question. the president said, i value your judgment, who would you pick and senator moynihan said ruth bader ginsburg.

>> and he said why. i think she's very good. i could not have a harvard law degree. so many things occur and you don't know if they are going to turn out to be good or bad and it was good. there was a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the building. so the building was completed in 1935 and this was 1985. griswold was solicitor germ. he was to make a speech of great advocates before the court. by 1985, he realizes that he can't have a list that's all men. after he finishes with thurgood marshal and the next person he

mentions is ruth bader ginsburg. >> when i went through my nomination process, i was told that everyone should have a marty ginsburg. [laughter] >> he came into the preparation session with followeders, including ruth's speeches, her entire schedule for her entire life and binders filled with tax information. >> that was the press reported inaccurately and the reason they had no problem was because marty was a tax lawyer. [laughter] >> in our home, in our personal life, i did all the taxes. [laughter]

[cheers and applause] charlie: and guess who did all the cooking. marty. >> all the presidents' men descended on my apartment and to go through my papers, marty made a delicious lunch. [laughter] charlie: it was at one point, he would do all the special occasions and you would do dinners for the kids during weekdays and your daughter said maybe you should give that up, too. >> in fact, my daughter, who is an excellent cook herself, she learned from the master, i wasn't the every day cook, so i had things that i made and they all came out of the "60-minute chef" no month more than 60 minutes.

marty never allowed me to cook for company and he was the weekend cook. my daughter realized that daddy's cooking was better than mommy and mommy should be taken out of the kitchen. [laughter] >> the result of that, my wonderful daughter comes once a month and cooks for me and fills the freezer for individual dinners and feels responsible for getting me out of the kitchen and does president feel i should go back into it. >> the supreme court refrigerator is filled with some of the leftovers. [laughter] charlie: what's the best experience for a supreme court justice.

>> interesting question. charlie: tell me. >> i'm biased, i think being on the district court was and since all of my colleagues have only had court of appeals experience with the exception of justice kagan who has never been a judge and only three supreme court justices with thrm experience. i find it hard to understand how you can really appreciate the life of a case if you haven't really sat in a courtroom toll see that case develop and to understand the dynamics that create a record, that create the discussions thatnd up coming before the court on a.m. ate review. in my judgment, if i was ever privileged to be asked as a president what should he or she

should look look, i would say prior court experience. charlie: you get to see not only the case and the stories and the people who make up the stories. >> it helps to be a lawyer, as someone said, who knows the story and knows about more cases than the district judge. [laughter] >> being a lawyer isn't critical, but there a is difference between trial and a.m. at lawyer.

>> do you seek appellate practice as being the same as acceptingt this, even your premise being a lawyer is critical, but there is a difference between being a trial and appellate lawyer. >> and the important difference is to build a reputation. >> and to know how difficult that can be. >> yes. ♪

rose: when you decide cases, are you looking and saying we have to do with the law tells us, looking at president and looking at the constitution, but do you yourself, what's going to be the impact on people ? ginsburg: i think the two harmonious. the constitution tells us to andk about the individual the rights that the individual has. rose: but it's not an abstract. -- s a reality in terms of

justice sotomayor: it is inescapable for us to be aware of the impact of our decisions. in virtually any case of any social impact, we are receiving from virtually every contacted segment of society, so we are -- we cannot decide a big issue case without hearing from all of the people who believe they will be impacted positively or negatively, whatever our -- .ased on what our ruling may be that is an inescapable part of our work, but i think you is ,alking more fundamentally which is obviously, you cannot rule -- i don't think -- without at least understanding what the consequences will be of your ruling, not just in terms of the law, but since the law is

developments human , you have to know what is going to happen more broadly to be able to understand the choices you are making. : there are some cases where the law is clear and certain. you have to be a certain age to run for office. but that is not the kind of case that we get. the special thing about the supreme court is for the most part, we do not take cases where everybody agrees. ,e wait for what we call splits other judges disagreeing about ,hat the federal law is constitutional provision, what it means in a particular context, or a dense statute passed by congress. the wonderful input that we have is by the time the case gets to

us, we have the benefit of what benches,d mines on state and federal, have said. rose: it interests me, too, at the district court level and appellate court, there is a higher place that it can go, but if you are on the supreme court, the buck stops here. you, then, are making the decision that is the final decision. justice ginsburg: not used. rose: the court is. ginsburg: the district are the real powers in the system. they sit alone, you cannot get out. you are stuck with that judge. then you go up to the court of appeals. soanya lost the little power when she went to the second circuit -- justice sotomayor: lost a lot of

our. justice ginsburg: you were not the lady of the manner anymore. you had to carry at least one other mind to prevail. i have often said when i write for the court, it is never as if . were queen i do take into account the views of my colleagues and reflect those in the opinion. rose: how much do you think your life as a legitimator has -- litigator has influenced your sense as a supreme court justice? >> well, for one thing -- charlie: historic role you have played. >> i'm sensitive to be what it is like to be on the receiving end of questions. and i had a fantastic fortune in that i was a lawyer when the

women's movement was revived in this country. what we saying in the 1970's, it's the case, the same thing that abigail adams said before but society wasn't prepared to listen in the 1970's. society had already moved from the changes in the law to catching up to the changes that had already occurred in people's lives. so to be able to advocate for that cause, to see results that could not have been achieved even in the 19 0's, was a fantastic opportunity, currently ex hill rating.

charlie: those briefs that you wrote and those decisions that you have influenced, the proudest achievement of your life? >> yes. i would say yes. and i thought of myself in those days as a teacher. my parents thought that teaching would be a good occupation for me because they would be welcomed there and weren't welcomed as lawyers, doctors and engineers. i realize that my facing an an audience, if they were facing race discriminations that was odious, but most men thought it was riddled with gender distinctions.

a woman didn't have to serve on a jury if she didn't want to and that was a benefit. that says something as a woman as a citizen. the citizen has rights and obligation, obligations as rights. men know they are part of the citizenry, because they can't escape. but women, they are expendable, they really don't need them. to get across that message, such a pedestal. many men thought they were spared to earn a living. that is a myth. and to get them to see what they

regarded as favors and the wonderful expression that justin brennan used, the pedestal turned out to be a cage and confined women. to get the court to understand that there really was gender-based discrimination, that was a challenging job. >> i was just going to say as groundbreaking as your work as a litigator was and notorious r.b.g. will live on a lot longer. [cheers and applause] [laughter] >> what do you think of that? >> it is a absolutely amazing.

and for an 83-year-old woman should be notorious. [laughter] >> i understand where it comes from, that's the one thing. rapper, -- the famous the notorious b.i.g., he and i were both lord in the same place in brooklyn. the nyun that, i think theents dreamed up notoriousrpg -- the r.b.g. it started with my dissent in the shelby county case and and that was the beginning laugh laugh

charlie: you are a role model for many people, how do you see that? and you have spoken about supreme court might be very, very beneficial to have to see a latino wome be in this will world. >> earlier, we were in conversation with your editor, your book editor, and we were talking about when i embarked upon writing my book, i asked my editor what makes a great memoir and your editor and mine have said the identical same thing,

that leaders can lead and feel when truth is being spoken or when it's sort of a put-on not to be believed or accepted. to the extent that i continue to try to live my life as a normal person and within an honesty that i define as valuable, trying to be both human and a justice, not that you're not -- \[laughter] >> then i think i give people hope about being able to achieve the things they want to achieve, eastbound even though they might perceive in themselves limitations that the society society is otherwise imposing on them.

charlie: you two can dream your dreams? >> and don't have to let the limitations that others impose on you or the once you put on yourself will potential. that's what i perceive my role to be. to be continuing to be as much as i can be and those others who live lives can also hope. charlie: be a part of the american frab rick life. >> they can be, too! [applause] >> there was a line i used in the introduction to the book about the five jewish justices

and the question is, what is the difference tweb between a book cheaper in the garment district and the supreme court justice and i said one generation, the opportunities opened to my mother and those opened to me. charlie: one generation? >> one generation. it was an important generation. >> i once asked you because you are often called the thurgood marshal of the women's movement and you have said to me that's a comparison you reject because -- >> thurgood marshal went into the town in the south and didn't know he would be alive at the end of the day. i recommend to book ap you will get that sense of what those warriors were up against. in fact, didn't know whether

they would live to see another day. that was something i never ever encountered. my life was never in danger. and that was an enormous difference. yes, i copied thurgood marshal'' -- and he led the court step by step. he argued cases when he told the court and not before the court today. >> and when they couldn't bear it anymore, signed her son's baseball bat and picked it up and put it over her head and the

beginning of the murder prosecution. that's why they didn't put women on juries in those days. the supreme court said, we don't understand what the complaint is about. considering where we were, considering that in 1961, the told thearren court woman we would today call

battered, who had been humiliated to the breaking point by her philandering, abusive husband, she one day could not bear it anymore. signed her son's baseball bat and picked it up and put it over her head and the beginning of the murder prosecution. florida didn't put women on juries in those days. the supreme court said, we don't understand what the complaint is about. any woman who wants to serve can go to the clerk's office and sign up. if she doesn't sign up, she's not going to be called. the thinking was, if there were women on my jury, perhaps they wouldn't aquit me. but there is a good chance they would have convicted me of the lesser offense of manslaughter and not murder unless convicted by an all-man jury and that was

ok. that was 19 1. the change didn't come until the court that had the reputation to be conservative. and yet, that court struck down one federal law after another, one state law after another on the ground that they discriminated ash temporarily on the basis of gender. charlie: what does that say about the way the court works? >> there was a great constitutional law professor who said, the court should never be influenced by the weather of the day, but inevitably, it will be influenced by the climate of the era.

and that's what the court of the 1970's was influenced by. charlie: is that what the court of the 21st century has been with respect to marriage equality and same-sex marriage, influenced by what is happening in the larger community? the climate. >> i'm wondering whether i should answer at all. [laughter] charlie: why are you wondering? >> she gets more cover than i do. charlie: that's an interesting question. meaning she has given more, what, latitude? >> i think so. and rightfully so, she has earned it. she has rightfully earned it.

>> i'm old enough to be her mother. [laughter] ♪

justice ginsburg: i will say something about what happened. when i was growing up, people who were not heterosexual were

in the closet. they did not reveal who they were. i remember the first time -- it -- thereis very space was a program in the new york city bar about the problems gay and lesbian people encountered. things like renting a house or finding a dentist. i was on the post admission legal education committee, and one member of the committee or another would sponsor every program. no one volunteered to sponsor a program that the gay advocates alliance asked to have at the city bar just to explain the problems they encountered. so i volunteered. i was the only woman on the

committee, and it made them sort of giggle. . asked what was so funny ruth, do you think you are comfortable with dealing with a woman? i said what makes you think the gay activist alliance is composed only of men? and the truth was, they sent the excellent vice president, who happened to be a woman, as one of the people to speak. what happened as people came out of the closet, people stood up and said, this is who i am and i'm proud of it and we looked around and who were they, our next-door neighbor, our child's best friend. maybe even our child. when that happened, there was no longer the same we/they difference. they were part of we.

these were people we loved, that we work with. something i think they give evidence to the gay rights movement that was much harder with racial discrimination because people tended to live in neighborhoods that were either all white or all african-american. a we/they since about that. once people stood up and said this is who i am, that made it an enormous difference. >> if you count the decades from plessy versus ferguson accepting segregation as compatible with the 14th amendment to brown versus board of education, it was over 50 years and it took us that long to live the societal expectations of what true equality had to mean.

i think ruth is pointing to the fact that we have a society that begins to think about -- notions differently with experience, and those experiences teach both the society and yes, justices at times. charlie: is there a special bond twin the three justices that are women on this court? >> i would say there is a special pride that i have with my newest colleagues. you know the old nursery rhyme? little girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice. little boys, nails and snails tails.py dog

all of you who have visited that my newest colleagues are not shrinking violets. \[laughter] >> and take an active part in the colloquy that goes on in our oral arguments. >> if i may take the liberty of relaying this story. charlie: all right. >> justice kagan was sworn and came in to greet all of the justices and she got to justice ginsburg and said, justice ginsburg are you happy with the two sisters i've brought you? ruth paused and looked at him and said, i'm very happy, but i'll be happier when there's five. [laughter] [cheers and applause]

>> so the answer i give to the question, when will there be enough and you're nine. [laughter] charlie: there are only eight now. tell us what it has done? >> it's not a good number for the court. charlie: ap you hope after the election and there will be a consideration by the senate before the new president takes office? >> i think we'll hope it will be done as quickly as possible. charlie: because -- >> we function as nine. >> what we did remarkably well last term, three cases that couldn't be decided because there was an even division but they were important cases.

charlie: you have said to me you miss justice scalia. justice breyer was here last week and he said i miss the debates with justice scalia. i'm sure you feel the same way. >> he made us laugh. >> and he made us think. he challenged us to think. and those are the ingredients for interesting conversation and for lifle -- lively discussion. charlie: you said you both love

opera and he could sing better than you. they are writing lines for you in the opera that you will perform in, when, when's it coming up? >> it's a speaking part. there is an opera "scalia-opera," a comic opera, of course, that the composer who wrote it, tried to say in a nutshell, the difference between the two of us. and opens with scalia's rage and it is this. musicians know that is typical andel.dle -- h the justices are blind. how can they possibly talk about

this. the constitution says absolutely nothing about this. and he is searching for solutions to problems that don't have answers. but the great thing about our constitution is like our society, it can evolve. so that sets up -- \[laughter]. different in the way we approach the interpretation of legal text, but one in our reference to the constitution and the court. charlie: one thing that justice scalia said, probably wasn't the best idea of how many supreme court justices that came from harvard or yale and wasn't a great deal for the supreme court and most of them didn't have trm -- i may be wrong. >> i actually thought he didn't

know that -- didn't think that. charlie: i may be wrong, but whether he said it or not, i'll say it. >> i'll give you that. >> since i'm from yale and ruth spent time of her time at harvard. charlie: you got your degree from columbia. when you switched to -- from harvard at two years to columbia, harvard would not give you a degree. >> i had to stay. charlie: your husband was moving to new york, correct? >> yes. >> i didn't want to be a single mom. marty had been diagnosed with a very severe cancer and didn't know how he was going to live and didn't want to be apart that year and didn't want to be a

single mom to my then two-year-old daughter. and i asked if i could complete my education at columbia where i would get a harvard agree. absolutely not. you have to spend the third year here. i have the perfect rebuttal argument. a classmate of mine at cornell had taken her first year of law school and. she transferred into our second year. i said to the dean, is this a battle we will have in year two or three. and the first year is by far the most important. i have one or two. >> come back to the point. charlie: what is lovely about this story, they wanted to give you a degree to the law school.

>> that's when my elena kagan and every year, she said, ruth, we would love to have you a harvard law degree and my husband said hold out. charlie: and they give it to you. and there is a picture of you in your chambers of you receiving it and one of your heroes singing. >> i was being sung to plaacido oom inch nmp g omp. >> in the part because we are a pointed for life and that means -- has had recently there is no way the supreme court can ever be reflective of the society in terms of experiences.

in part because we are appointed for life, and that means that a change, fundamental changes in the court take a very, very long time to occur. and so, we're never going to be completely on an even keel with the sort of experiences of a society. we are going to be offkeel a little bit. but i do worry a little bit, a lot, not about diversity in its sense but i worry about it in terms of the lack of professional and life experience diversity that our court has. and i say that despite being a

little different in my colleagues and life experiences, both justice thomas came backgrounds but we don't have the important experiences to the law. for example, we have no criminal defense lawyers on our court. we have one civil rights lawyer , ruth right now. , there are so many other incredibly important civil rights issues right there continuing to be the civil rights movement for ethnic minorities and also for handicapped people. we have very few practitioners with small or medium-sized practice experience and few people from gee graphical differences in the united states and as you noted, very little in terms of religious differences and even less. in terms of educational experiences. that is a lot of areas where we

don't reflect the general society. do i think it does harm to our judging? not necessarily, but it does harm to the courts' reflection of attempting to be broader in its outreach to people. and so it's like everything else, if we are being asked to judge so much of what goes on in our society, i think what the court does will be received better if we're a little wider in what we represent. charlie: great to have two new yorkers back home. ♪

mark: i'm mark crumpton. you're watching "bloomberg technology." let's begin with a check of first word news. a senior adviser to donald trump tells bloomberg businessweek the campaign has three voter suppression operations aimed at lowering the turnout for hillary clinton. the campaign targets liberals, young women, and black voters, three groups critical to clinton's path to the white house. the latest hacked e-mails from hillary clinton's campaign reveals her staff's anger after news broke that she used a private server. the e-mails were among those released today by wikileaks. the group has released thousands of stolen e-mails from clinton campaign chairman john podesta. the united nations will make another attempt to evacuate 200 wounded people and to deliver food and medical supplies into the syrian city of aleppo.