monday night at not cot p.m. eastern. we'll have live coverage of the president's remarks and we will get viewer reaction. we'll take a look at the nominee. now a portion of today's "washington journal" and a look at president trump's second supreme court nomination and the impact it could have on the court. the president is expected to make that announcement monday night. > he is their senior columnist to talk about the supreme court nomination and the process. good morning. guest: good morning. host: i'll show you the headline, trump will get his supreme court picks, and democrats will get their revenge. why are you so certain? guest: obviously republicans control the senate and the presidency, it's hard to stop a president from getting his pick. i also think the underrated aspect is that there are some

democrats running for reelection in the u.s. senate in places like north dakota, missouri, montana, and places were donald trump is very popular. they are going to be hesitant i think, to oppose a donald trump nominee who is going to be highly qualified. there are five to seven names that president trump has talked about, i guess the federal society is put that was together. this is the one area where donald trump is in very good if you're a mainstream reagan conservative. i think that the odds are pretty good that president trump will get his nominee. and if he does not there will be a price to pay, ultimately trump will get the nominee. but i mentioned in that title, revenge is coming. host: what about that? are at a steroid our

winning is losing and losing his winning and every action has an equal and opposite reaction. actioninning, and every has an equal and opposite reaction. from the standpoint of republicans you have had this long history of democrats obamang norms. senator tried to filibuster samuel alito , you had the barking of robert bork, the clarence thomas hearing, the judgment of miguel estrada blocked by a lower coin to portman if your republican use a democrat started this -- by a lower court of treatment. if you're a plug-in use a democrat started this. but if you're democrat you go back to mitch mcconnell by not allowing merits garlic -- merrick garland to get a shot. garland isrick

certainly a qualified and pretty moderate judge by most accounts. it's not like he was some radical. republicans stopped him from getting confirmed and did not even give him the opportunity to prove himself. a situation where democrats feel that they won the popular vote this time, but lost the electoral college. now donald trump is about to it if amyyear-old, coney barrett were picked, would be on the supreme court for decades. you can understand why democrats feel like look, you have to fight this. ust: matt lewis will be with , if you want to asking questions about this process of choosing the next supreme court justice. for democrats (202) 748-8000, for republicans (202) 748-8001, and for independents (202) 748-8002.

host: you mention justice barrett, talk about the other two, robert cavanaugh and mr. tch?au lait --kefli question, is the huge i would think anyone who thinks that they can get inside donald trumphad an think of -- 's head and think about what he is going to do is probably a fool. guessf us do not try to or second-guess what the president is going to do. if i were betting i think i would have to bet on amy coney barrett, partly because she is 46, slightly younger than the other two on the short list. a couple of interesting things, everyone on the shortlist has clerked for a supreme court justice. she clerked for justice scalia.

the other clerked for justice kennedy. you could argue that that is in their benefit because he is the one retiring. maybe one of his former clerks could be a successor. obviously amy coney barrett is the only female on the list. i think a lot of conservatives sort of think it might be nice for a republican president to now pick a female justice. sandra day o'connor was the first woman on the supreme court nominated by ronald reagan, since then there has only ever been one other nominated woman, andiet miers who blew up -- that obviously blew up. if roe v. wade is overturned, it would be nice to have a female justice be on the side of overturning it. other two are more qualified

in the sense of they have had longer time on the bench. be a judge or to a lawyer to be support -- appointed to the supreme court. but judge barrett has only been .n for seven or eight months she was a law professor before that. your of these other two, you mentioned brett kavanaugh, highly qualified. i think a lot of it comes down to how do you feel about them? gut instincts. i think brett kavanaugh is the only non-catholic on the list. evangelicalthe only if he were to be confirmed to the supreme court. i think everyone of these potential nominees are something you could be happy with. host: one of the criticisms of kene kavanagh comes from cuccinelli, the former attorney general.

looks, walks, and quacks like john t roberts jr.. peoplewas reminding about his decision when it comes to obamacare, adding the bush lives loudly in cavanaugh --kavanah. host: i think it -- guest: i think if you're conservative you could be happy with all of these, but brett kavanaugh is clearly the establishment favorite. if you are an establishment republican, he might be more your guy. this is how it is breaking down. barrett is theey outsidernservative candidate. the movement conservative candidate. -- the judge is the establishment republican.

and ken cuccinelli being a grassroots conservative is not fond of him. host: let's take some calls, this is michael on the democrats line. caller: i love your show. i just wanted to say, if donald trump had any kind of angling of bringing this country together he would bring merrick garland onto an opportunity to be the next the bream justice. he would bring the democrats together, it would unify the country that i, at 63 years old, have never seen the divisions like this, even in 1968 when i was catching permits but -- bar mitzvahed. like president trump to think about unifying the country instead of dividing. guest: i actually agree with the sentiment about bringing people together, and i do think donald trump could have done something like a cabinet position might

have been able to bring in some prominent democrats and build bridges. i think with the supreme court it's different. this is a lifetime appointment. donald trump is trying to find a doesn't only have to worry about bringing in democrats, he doesn't worry about bringing in democrats at all. in addition to being concerned about uniting americans he does have to keep what i would call mainstream reagan conservatives happy. we have recently seen a spat of prominent intellectuals who has said that they actually want democrats to win in november. one of the few areas were donald trump has delivered and cap to mainstream reagan -- and kept mainstream reagan conservatives on board as with the supreme court pick. one of the reasons that a lot of them held at their nose and supported donald trump in 2016 was that he put out this list,

this promise to conservatives that he would appoint judges to the supreme court from this list . you have to realize this is a conservativeare a this is a long list of the trails over the years that conservatives feel like they have suffered -- of the trails -- of the trails cash -- the -- conservatives feel like they have suffered. this is part of why the list exists, i think if donald trump were to betray that promise that he made to conservatives and nominate even someone who he thinks is qualified like merrick garland, it would be a huge betrayal and i would not advise him.

there are certainly other, better ways to build bridges. this, iviewer says would be surprised if the president nominates a woman and follow its -- and runs the risk of her not following through on roe v. wade. guest: you actually never know how someone is going to roll once they get on the bench. rarely does anyone become more conservative on the bench. but we have had a lot of experience where republicans nominate someone and they become much more liberal overtime. never know, i would say with amy coney barrett, to understand her i think it's important to understand her devout catholic faith. i think it's unlikely that she issue.volve on the life i think it is possible that she factorule as abetter opinion 't into it, that she would make a

decision there would either overturn roe based solely on her interpretation of the constitutionality of the law. president has reason to uphold it or she may say that the law was a conceived to overturn it. i think at some point, our personalities and values and worldviews do enter into something, even if it's subconscious. a column of the daily beast, everyone is talking about roe, but what about other issues? oudge merrick has adopted tw haitian children and she has one special needs child makes me wonder about how she might come down another issues, including family separation, should that make it to the high court in the unlikely event that it does, however personal worldview factor into decision on that. -- this isce robert robert from brooklyn.

caller: i consider what happened in the case of gorsuch and garland to be a form of court packing. from andikelihood that the republicans are going to put somebody on the high court who is utterly unacceptable to the democrats, what do you think of the idea that if in 2020, they get a democratic president and a democratic senate that president should make an attempt to pack the court? caller: pedro mentioned earlier -- guest: pedro mentioned earlier the donald trump will get his pick and democrats will get revenge. as is within the realm of possibility. what we have had for a long time now is a game of one-upsmanship where each side tests the bounds of the breaking of norms. i think when barack obama participated in a filibuster to

try to stop samuel alito, that was the breaking of the norm, it used to be that you would vote for a qualified nominee from the other side of the aisle and i think when mitch mcconnell refused to have hearings for mayor garland, that was the breaking of the norm, and you can mind, there is nothing written in stone or even in the constitution is that is that you have to have hearings or that -- it says that a president will make a nomination and the senate can either confirm or reject it. these aren't breaking the law, but they are breaking norms. and i think it's within the dems of possibility that to try that again. this respect roosevelt in the 1937 court packing scheme of ended up ailing because of the backlash. would the public, assuming democrats have the presidency and how the senate, what with the public do?

there's nothing written in stone that says there has to be nine justices. there could be any number. what we are talking about is not the breaking of law, but the breaking of norms. i think unfortunately, we have had a lot of norms being broken in recent years. the unfortunate thing would be if we get to a point where nobody respects any sort of tradition but whoever has power doesn't exercise forbearance, just tries to run up the score. from ohio, democrat line, gail. caller: good morning. how are you? host: fine, thanks. go ahead. caller: i have a question. who would allow a sitting president under criminal investigation to make a lifetime appointments to the supreme court? our corrupt house and senate.

it's a disgrace. where's the outrage? where's the outrage from the dems? i hear crickets from them. trump and his supporters, stop attending your racism is patriotism. host: thank you. mr. lewis. guest: i think democrats are in a really tough spot because i think that the house leadership, nancy pelosi and senate leadership, chuck schumer, they want to have an election where they feel the wind is at their back. they believe that the midterms are automatically skewing in their direction, partly because their base is energized. and the only thing that could mess that up as if the republican base was also energized. how can the republican base become energized? when we would be if you want to try to deny the president's supreme court pick, that would spark a fight that might

energize both sides and could prevent democrats from taking the house. islso think impeachment talk actually damaging to democrats hopes for the same reason. the problem of course is that the democratic base are agenda and they want to have these fights and they want to try to impeach the president and so this is going to be the tension that democrats are going to have to deal with is how you keep your base energized and not disappoint them without actually having them energize the republican base. that's going to be the game from now until november. host: from new jersey, this is pat. caller: the justices seemed to be getting a point to the supreme court at a younger and younger age. why can't we have some kind of compact between the executive and congress that maybe the supreme court should be limited

to appointees who have reached the age of 60 with a lifetime of experience for us to judge. thanks. guest: that's an argument. i think maybe the better have someould be to sort of term limits where judges can only serve for maybe 20 anrs or instead of having age you have to be 60 before you can be appointed to go the other direction and say if you reach 90, maybe you should retire. either way, i think we should be open-minded about possible reforms to the court. that, it would have to be limited in a way that is done fairly, where you grandfather people in and where are you essentially have the reform taken without giving the benefit to one side of the other. right now, republicans feel like they could be on the verge of dominating the courts for

generations. and they're not going to be excited about suddenly relinquishing that because i would say it is funny that all of a sudden i'm hearing from liberals more and more about the need to do something about this. they weren't so concerned about it 10 or 15 or 20 years ago. i think we probably should do something, you just have to find a way to do it that both sides can agree to. host: you talked about democrat senators from states where the president won. , senatort the senators collins remain in senator murkowski from alaska, what is their role going to be all of this? guest: i think both of them would oppose a nominee became out that a nominee ever said that they were -- that roe v. wade is going to be overturned, i can't wait to overturn it, if

someone implicitly or overly said that, i think it would probably be a dealbreaker for those two senators. thatde of that, i think they would probably vote for republican nominee, everybody on this list as far as i can tell has been vetted, is qualified part of come over the viewers out there is important to understand that in the wake of what happened with zsa zsa or, the one area conservatives will deliver structures in the courts in the federalist society primarily help to do that. and propel young conservative and legalal intellectuals and i wonder if the conservative movement has this parallel organization in other areas. one of their was a federalist society for health care policy wonks who are center-right.

effort --ffort the might the effort to reform health care might have gone smoother? he hasn't wavered and hasn't waffled hasn't gone back and forth on this. so far, knock on wood, things have gone well from a conservative perspective because of those institutions. one of the things i think conservatives learn is not to be out there speculating on how they may or may not judge someday. i think it would be unlikely to find anyone on that list who has really go out of their way to say i'm going to rule this way. without that, i think all the republican senators are probably inclined to vote for a drop nominee. -- a trump nominee. host: in the case of roe, does anything suggest for many of these three how they might vote aside from religious belief that your legal backbone or opinions? guest: i think in the case of

amy coney barrett, she's only been on the bench for eight or nine months. at notre law professor dame and she has written some things, people tried to go in and decipher what she may mean now she actually was questioned back in november during her confirmation to the circuit court about this by senator judge merricksaid essentially said my personal view, my faith, will not factor in just how i judge. a look at the law and interpret that. i don't think you are going to find any smoking gun on any of these and that goes back to the history of this. i think conservatives have been beingned by the idea of borked. they are loath to be too

transparent in terms of how they may role. more likely what they do is talk about their judicial philosophy and most of them are originalists or textual lists. that is something that is broader and i would say harder for someone to criticize then speculating on how you might vote on a certain case that might come before you. host: this is matt smith this is what's wrong with robert bork's nomination failure. their behavior seems routine and procedural, the republican's decision to steal a scotus seat is wrong. he had been confirmed unanimously by the senate for a lower court appointment and then they really went after him, you can fact check me on that. i could be wrong, it's happened before.

i think most conservatives would argue that judge bork, who was a reagan appointee, was highly qualified and that had been the standard. republicans, orrin hatch, for example, supported the ruth bader ginsburg, he actually was helpful with president clinton and the ruth bader ginsburg appointment. was i don't agree with her, but she is highly qualified, she's a good finger, she's a good judge. that had been the standard i think there's a sense among conservatives at what happened to justice bork had nothing to do with whether or not he was qualified or how the right temperament already huge scandal that might make him drivable or something. it was about his philosophy and that's the difference. host: matt lewis with the daily beast. how often do you publish and what are you writing on? guest: 203 times a week at the daily beast. -- two or three times a week at

the daily beast. life's moving very fast right now i try to bring some historical context and some additional wisdom to really whatever is happening at the moment. my last two pieces have been about the supreme court. carolyn from washington, d.c., democrats line. a little know this is water into the bridge, but could you explain a little more about judge kennedy's son and relationship to president trump and some of that murkiness there? guest: this is interesting. i have heard that there is some business relationship or business dealings, and not to up on that. i think people tried to question why is justice kennedy stepping down now? there may be is a conspiracy theory were some insinuation that he is somehow being pressured or bride and then there is any evidence that suggests that.

he has been on the court for a no, 30 some years and you certainly at an age well past the retirement age, so i guess there is some sort of business relationship with his son and the trumps. but it was were to see something much more concrete than anything i have seen, i would say that this is just a case of a guy who is, remember, justice kennedy was appointed by a republican, he probably wants to retire and be replaced by a republican president and maybe that's an argument for brett kavanaugh or ayman catlett, who were kennedy clerks. i also think justice neil gorsuch clerked for justice kennedy. surprisehink it's a that there may be some enticements. maybe even subtle, to get them to retire.

but democrats, there were liberals who were encouraging justice ginsburg to step down when president obama was president and i think if you are liberal, you probably think she should have. this is business insider, the headline, trumps business career is more corrected disconnected to the supreme court justice kennedy than we ever knew. deutsche bank loan president trump over $1 billion for his practice, while led a realnedy's son estate division. that was the new york times. guest: that will fuel some speculation. host: barbara. caller: my question is this. i heard bush say that we had too much money and so security and that we need to take it out and spend it. and i'd like to know what he , when weon and why paid into social security that

they consider it a a social thing like welfare? guest: i think that -- is barbara there? did she say who said? host: george bush. not too sure. george w. bush did try to do so security reform and look, i think that we probably do need to do some sort of such security reform including raising the retirement age. , would say it's the opposite social security is probably going to go bankrupt if we don't do something. the amount of money that we pay for it does not compensate the amount of money we pay out of that primarily because life expectancy has risen so much sense of security was first enacted. areald say this is an where i'm critical of president

trump, a lot of conservatives have wanted to do entitlement reforms including speaker paul ryan, the civic action item in order to preserve these systems. love them to go bankrupt and donald trump doesn't want to do that i think for political reasons. and sooner or later, we are to have to address this issue or we are not going to have it as a safety net. host: on the republican line from pensacola, florida, richard is next. caller: good morning. i would like to make a couple quick points and the one question. the other democrat callers speak about trump emails or criminal investigation why is he allowed to make an appointment. first of all, the office of special counsel that said repeatedly he is not under criminal investigation and it wouldn't matter even if he was. there's no prohibition against him nominating a supreme court

justice. second point is, why doesn't , youe talk about sotomayor talk about packing the court, these were doctrinaire liberals that were allowed to get on the court and they didn't even recuse themselves when they had the hearing over gay marriage. both of them participated in gay weddings. her animus was clear and they never should have participated in that case. in the third thing is why doesn't anyone, including your guest, talk about the prohibition against the religious test, feinstein did that in her confirmation to the senate second court of appeal. article six clause three prohibits the religious test amazon understand why no one is even talking about that when feinstein clearly violated that. host: ok. guest: one, i think democrats are clearly going to try to come

up with some arguments for why this pic is a legitimate. one of the are you as i've heard bandied about is that if you nine pick merrick garland months before election or 10 months before election, how can you pick -- how can donald trump pick a supreme court pick just a few months before an election. and of course the difference there is we are talking about midterm and out of residential election, but that's what everyone talking point the democrats bring up and another is the thing about how should a investigationinal be allowed to make a pick. i'm not saying the democratic leadership are going to say this but you are going to hear this for the next year or so probably from some liberals and they are going to say that i don't think it's going to work. i don't think it's going to have

much -- i don't it's wonderfully that well. it's going to be an argument they are going to make. in terms of the religious test, feinsteinat senator did in my opinion cross the line there with when she was during that hearing what she was questioning judge merrick and talking about her dogma but i think the judge merrick responded pretty well by saying she is going to be guided by as a judge, by interpreting the law , not by her personal views. and in fact i think there was some pushback against senator feinstein, some people saw it as anti-catholic bigotry. and it may well be that that experience helps judge merrick this time around if she is nominated. we could be that the democrats are little bit chastened about taking on her catholic faith

this time around because of the backlash that happened last time. additionally, i think it's good for judge merrick that she is on when itrd stating that comes to row, is not a personal opinion that matters, it's whether or not it's a good law. you could argue that that experience, though i'm sure quite unpleasant for judge merrick might end up helping her. robert in greenville, texas on the independent line. you are next. caller: a kind of got a view on this that just seems to kind of not me. there's been so much politicking involved in this third branch of government that is supposed to be the check and balance system. and like everything else in washington, everything is so politically divided. and it seems to me that we've got no point in this country in this country where the only

reasonable way to try to level out this whole thing and get people back to just doing what they are hired to do is a third-party system this country that equally rewards all three parties in the electoral process and it could even be four or five parties, more of a divided out segment where rational decisions are built by consensus and not just simply divided issues,an and democrat but more consensus. what's good for america? this whole thing about the supreme court, it seems like all we're hearing even from the guest speaker today is will the democrats go for this, what do republicans want to do on this? and armts should not he

of the political parties. host: thank you. guest: you had bill golson and talking about reforms are congress and i do think we are to moment now where people are more open to some reforms and so for example, was all right with voting in maine recently and in idea but think probably would not have been as receptive to in the past. i dig it is something you may eventually see a big push for in congress. and maybe even in nominating -- how you nominated president instead of having primaries where is the first path to the example, if we had ranked choice voting and the republican primary, you might have gotten marco rubio or scott walker who had a much more broad consensus emerge as the nominee and so donald trump, who had about 30% of the primary vote but they were very intensely for him. think american democracy, we

obviously have to go by the tend to moveand we slowly. and that's probably a feature, not a bug. but if there are some ideas being bandied about the reforms that could be positive and actually might help address the concerns that we are having in recent years. a column in the "washington post," democrats can't block trump and he highlights some of these things causing the first mistake was the launch on president starting with the 2001 nomination of miguel estrada on court of appeals in the second big mistake was using the nuclear option to back the federal circuit courts with liberal judges. guest: i think he makes a valid point. i forgot to get fair to blame democrats, because i think this has been both sides, but we have

had decades now of both sides breaking norms and ultimately getting us to where we are today. and one thing that mark brought up that i didn't bring up earlier was harry reid deciding to go nuclear. when harry reid did that, it actually did not apply to the supreme court but it was for most residential and judicial appointments. and mitch mcconnell, then the senate minority leader warned him you're going to regret this and maybe sooner than later. and i think that harry reid deserves a lot of blame for breaking norms that have been around for a long time and ultimately getting us to where we are today. host: from pennsylvania, democrats line. bill, good morning. thanks for taking my call. what it wanted to ask your guest is this. i'm 70 years old and i have been in the democratic party all my life and i wake up one morning i

realized holy cow, republicans have got the white house, the senate, and the house, and 33 out of 50 governorships and across america, they took back over the last eight years i guess, 10 years, 1200 positions in state governments and now i'm ifed with the reality that this clown donald trump sticks around for another seven years leaves,ears, when he the supreme court could be a and i'm thinking what do people in washington think happened over the last 10 years of this all can become reality, because we keep hearing that nancy pelosi and schumer have got the reins and they are going to straighten all this out, and i'm just thinking wait a minute, i just heard about a

28-year-old lady that won in new york and pushed that guy out, he was here that for 10 terms. this party needs some new blood ballotling to cast my for the young people in this party, because the people who have been running this party for the last 30 years, this is where we've come. when trump leaves office in six years, that court is going to be 7-2 and there's not a damn thing i can do about it. guest: one thing i would say is that sometimes parties win and that's not necessarily evidence of a failure, of the system. democrats controlled congress for like 40 years after fdr at least the house, and that just happens sometimes. that doesn't mean that anything is a legitimate. in the case of republicans ultimately, you end up getting newt gingrich and the revolution

and things changed. both sides oft the political aisle right now are very restless and very anti-establishment and republicans went through this for many years during the obama administration until donald trump got elected and i think democrats are now going through their time in the wilderness, where they don't trust their leadership, they don't trust the court" establishment, they feel like they're being stabbed in the back in the system is rigged. basically what republicans went through for a long time. the last thing i would say to this point is that i think it's an interesting time because we haven't had dastardly what happens is there is one party that becomes dominant and when they become dominant, the other side becomes more submissive and just accept their role as the quote unquote moon to the sun party. that hasn't happened for the last 20 some years. thinkides simultaneously they are about to win and about to lose forever.

it's really weird. of republicans, they feel on one hand they feel very happy and very positive and they control everything, then the other hand they say demographics are changing, not in our favor. the liberals control academia, the culture, entertainment, it's only a matter of time. we have to run up the score wally can because pretty soon, we're not revealed elected dogcatcher with the changing electorate. democrats like se i think are torn, on one hand they feel like let's just keep biding her time and waiting for the demographics to change. waiting for people to come to their senses. on the other hand, you have people like the caller who feel like what just happened. we don't control anything and we need to radically shake things up. one more call, jean from st. pete's florida. caller: thank you for taking my call. hello. host: go ahead. woman or ading a

man's religion against him getting a job just doesn't make sense. not in this day and age. we already had a catholic president where i heard norman vincent pale say if we elected that kennedy, the vatican would be running the u.s., he was so wrong. he was so wrong. the supreme court, their decision in my mind is that that. that's it. it, justrned it's not re andother bunch in thei they overturn the decision. they are not the great supreme court that we felt we had. on one hand, conservatives do feel very defensive about this. you would argue that wouldn't see the u.s. senator

questioning somebody and asking about your muslim faith or about your hindu beliefs and that would be considered politically incorrect and beyond the pale. i think in the case of a christian somehow it's ok. they see that is a double standard. on the other hand, i think you can say look, i think people everything about you could impact your world view and how you might end up making rulings. isn't that fair game? i think it's pretty interesting question. host: announcer: justice anthony kennedy's retirement brings a significant change to the supreme court. follow events on c-span.

president trump will announce his choice for the supreme court monday night at 9:00 p.m. eastern. we will have live coverage of the president's remarks, and afterward, we will get your reaction and take a look at the nominee. next, law professors talk about the legacy of supreme court justice thurgood marshall and review noteworthy cases from the court's most recent term. was held at the federal judicial conference of the fourth circuit court.