>> rose: welcome to the program. we begin this evening with the political coverage in this presidential election and talk about the civil war within the republican party. we talked to jake sherman of politico and ed rollins, a republican strategist. >> people had decided they didn't want jimmy carter and reagan had to prove he was a viable alternative and after the debate he did that and that's when the landslide came into play and that was the only time anybody's been in this kind of positioning to win. every other election is very close and you pretty much know. there is so much polling today, an it's pretty accurate. when you're four or five points down, you talk about meeting the needs of voters and you're really dealing in a small world today, it's not a 50-state campaign, it's an eight or nine-state campaign. so my sense today is it's much hard tore move numbers dramatically. >> rose: we continue with part two of our conversation with

associate justice ruth bader ginsburg of the supreme court of the united states. >> i have said that i will hold this office as long as i can do the job full steam. >> rose: and you're doing it. so i know this year i'm okay. at my age -- i'm 83 -- you have to take it year by year. i'm hopeful that i have many years. >> rose: politics and ginsburg next. >> rose: funding for "charlie rose" has been provided by the following: >> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide.

captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: we begin this evening with our continuing coverage of the presidential election. the republican party finds itself divided after house speaker paul ryan backed away from donald trump on monday. though he did not revoke his endorsement, speaker ryan said he would no longer campaign for the g.o.p. nominee. the decision drew criticism from his caucus and trump called him weak and ineffective in a series of tweets. monday wikileaks had a new round of hacked e-mails about hillary clinton and her campaign. ed rollins, republican strategist and co-chairman of pro-trump great america super pac and jake sherman of politico. jake, tell me where we are these days. >> it's tough to keep track.

donald trump spent much of the day attacking republicans for being weak- kneed. what ryan and a lot of other people in the house republican conference and on capitol hill are wondering is whether he's angered people, whether he will depress turnout by walking away from donald trump. it's difficult to see how this all ends up and with 28 days left donald trump said the shackles are off. we'll see what that means. >> rose: what does it mean? what do people who have been covering donald trump think it means? >> i think he's going to be who he wants to be and he's not going to worry about paul ryan or the 246 members of the house republican conference and the

self-dozen members up for reelection in very difficult races across the country. from people i talk to at the highest levels of capitol hill, they're seriously concerned about losing control of both chambers of congress for the first time, when, before congress left washington a few weeks ago for its election recess, they were hoping to keep their losses to single digits. now in the house they're talking about maybe 30 seats are because donald trump is still talking to -- and this is what they say -- donald trump is still talking to a very narrow slice of his base and will not -- and seems to refuse to want to broaden that message at all. >> rose: do you believe there is possibly within the trump campaign, and i mean by that the candidate mostly, a belief that, look, they all say they're going down. so if they're going down, they will be true to ourselves and let's show them who we are. >> yes, i think he thinks that and that's certainly what it seems he thinks. he has some evidence. he did

win a primary by ignoring political consultants and doing things his way. when he was told to go to new hampshire and diners and shake hands, he didn't do all of that, he did some. but win ago general election where hillary clinton has a big early voter operation, i mean, there are fundamentals to winning a large-scale election that donald trump has pointedly ignored and, again, he does think if he's going to go down, he's going to go down being himself, at least that's what it seems like. >> rose: are we looking at an historic defeat? >> if the election were today, it would be an historic defeat. the possibility is there and in four weeks a lot can happen, but if it was held today, he would be very defeated, similar to a goldwater or george h.w. bush when he lost reelection. you also have the third-party candidates who may take eight or

so percent of the vote away. you can't win this with 37% and this is where trump is in most of the polls today. >> rose: what do you think the impact is on the down vote in the senate and the house. >> first of all, it's lack of enthusiasm. the vast majority of americans are so disgusted on both sides of the election in which there are alternatives. there is a die hard republican who loves what he's doing but it's a small segment. the majority segment wants not to have hillary clinton as president. he has a tremendous opportunity of laying out his vision of the country, where will we go in the future, here are the experiences i've had in the past and here's what we need to do to get jobs back. h's done that piecemeal, but he's tempted to fight somebody on our own side. if i was running a campaign, i would have a lobotomy and don't talk about any republican from here till november. talk about hillary clinton and barack obama and where you're different and that's the campaign of the future.

>> rose: what does it mean for the republican if in fact what looks like happening continues and there is a devastating -- i mean, there is an overwhelming election. what does it do to the republican party? >> the trump wins, he gets the task of brig it back together. obviously he won't have success unless he has republicans holding the senate and the house which obviously may be in jeopardy today. if he doesn't win, which is what we would say today, then the various players that are in the game have to decide how to move forward and have an agenda with hillary clinton as president. that's a big challenge. either way, we've got a big challenge. >> rose: you know the conversation within the party. are you seeing more people abandoning trump because to have the debate performance which was a little bit better than the first debate? >> i think most people today are going to run their own races, and what's unfortunately happened is we started out with a very uphill battle with the senate.

most of the senates in trouble basically did a good job of running campaigns, pennsylvania and elsewhere, ohio. but what's happened is you get knocked down by the wave, and that's the big fear today. >> rose: the wave election, it has the possibility. >> everything's still a possibility. normally an election is over by now. there is seldom a change attend of this campaign. i have been doing this 50 years. i've never seen an election like this and i think there is a lot more to come. what worries me, if trump decides i'm going to take off the shackles and fight my own party the rest of the way, it will be a devastating election. >> rose: what is it about donald trump who wants him to do that, jake? >> i think he's played by his own rules for a long time. characteristically on capitol hill, we see when people come up and get elected and owned a business and been successful in the other realm, they think the rules don't apply to him and that's how he comported himself. one other thing we haven't mentioned is at the highest levels of the republican party

in washington, people believe this is not the end of the opposition research on donald trump. people believe there are other videos, more audio coming out, and that's what is really scaring them, and tats why they're beginning to put that distance there. i think, if that happens, we'll see a lot more -- many more republicans walk away from his candidacy. >> rose: women will vote overwhelmingly. >> women, we've had a gender problem for a long period of time, but, you know, a good candidate can close that up somewhat and they targeted women today, obviously, potential through first woman candidate for president is going to be out in droves, they vote in higher numbers than men do, and trump basically needs to go play to that constituency, especially younger women. he's not doing it. i think to a certain extent, may not be the intensity there was in the african-american community and other communities, turnout may not be quite as large as the obama election, but at the same time, today, it's not about redneck, blue-collar

guys, the reagan democrats, it's about can you get women to buy into this candidacy for economic purposepurpose or the good of te country or national security, and that's what the message needs to be. in 27 days with one more big debate, you can still make a challenge to that constituency, but you can't do it by fighting your own side. >> rose: what's the biggest shift you've seen taking place in the last month of a campaign? i mean, has there been a dramatic shift so that you saw something change? or is it simply a momentum that was there? >> reagan, in 1980, people decided they didn't want jimmy carter and reagan had to prove he was a viable alternative and after the debate he did that and that's when the landslide came into play and that was the only time anybody's been in this kind of positioning come on to win. every other election is very close. you pretty much know. there is so much polling today and it's pretty accurate. when you're four or five points down, you talk about millions

and millions of voters and you're really dealing in a small world today. it's not a 50-state campaign, it's an eight or nine-state campaign, so in my sense, it's much harder to move numbers dramatically and i think most debates reinforce your own base. i don't think anybody moved off his better performance the other night but attend of the day if he had stumbled and not done as well as he did, you would have seen a real erosion again of more republicans. >> rose: who does he listen to, jake? >> increasingly, himself, but stephen bannon who is basically running the campaign who started breitbart. one thing we're seeing with the debate is it's empirical, fur and fewer people are saying they're persuade by these. a poll came out monday that showed 80% of voters show these debates are not factored into their vote in november. so that's exactly right. >> rose: what about the

e-mails? are they telling us anything about hillary clinton? >> yeah, they're showing us the inner workings of her campaign, they're showing she was truly fearful of bernie sanders, she was truly -- i think the -- a great message for donald trump this week would have been that hillary clinton is telling wall street donors something different than she's saying publicly and that is a pretty plain thing you're finding in these e-mails. she said she was for open borders, basically for unlimited free trade, and that's a message that in this populist anti-trade election could have been extraordinarily powerful. you need to have one message behind closed doors and one publicly. the ads right themselves. these are not difficult messages to get across especially in this political climate, but instead, donald trump is tweeting ability john mccain saying he's foul-mouthed and saying he needs paul ryan's support or else he can't win. so it does seem to be a wasted opportunity. those e-mails are going to keep

coming out over the next 20 or something days. wikileaks say they have tens of thousands of these. so again, it's not over but it's getting there. >> rose: we look forward to the next debate. what else are you asking, jake? >> i think the fallout from people across the country who are running in these down ballot races, how the constituencies are looking for them if they run away from trump. will the turnout be such that they don't get elected? the concern is the base drops off and you don't get any independents on the other side because donald trump is not doing as well with independents as he once was. so we'll travel across the country seeing the play out in district by district and senate race by senate race as we get closer. the third debate will be interesting because it's foreign policy and donald trump has been shaky on some foreign policy topics in past debates during the primary, and hillary clinton, there is a lot of knocks on her from donald trump when it comes to foreign policy

and things we're seeing across the middle east and the globe. so again, far from completely settled, but it's getting very close. >> rose: yak, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> rose: ed, thank you. my pleasure. thank you. >> rose: back with the great justice of the supreme court, ruth bader ginsburg. stay with us. rose: in 1980, president jimmy carter appoints you judge of the appeals court of the district of columbia, a place which has been the breeding ground of justices of the supreme court, including anton scalia. >> and justices berger and thomas. >> rose: and would be justice bork and chief? were you excited when you got to sit on the bench one step away from the supreme court?

>> was i excited? >> rose: yeah. i was excited when jimmy carter decided to change the complexion of the u.s. judiciary. people ask, did you always want to be a judge? for a young woman studying law in the late 1950s, it was an impossible treernlings women were not judges. but then jimmy carter looked at the federal bench and said those judges, they all look like me, but that's not how the great united states looks. so i will choose judges from all of the people and not just some of them. he was determined to appoint members of minority groups in numbers and women in numbers, not just as one at a time

curiosities. he had only four years in office, and he had no supreme court vacancy to fill. but he appointed about 25 women to the federal trial bench and 11 to courts of appeals, and i was one of the lucky -- >> rose: do you think he might have appointed you to the supreme court if in fact he had a vacancy to fill? >> it was too soon. he would have appointed shirley hufstedler. >> rose: right. she was placed on the court of appeals by president johnson in 1968. she was a great judge. carter made her the first ever secretary of education. >> rose: right. and when he made her secretary of education, then there were no women on any federal appellate bench. he determined to change that. if he had a vacancy, there is no doubt he would have appointed

shirley hufstedler. >> rose: so you moved to d.c. marty comes to d.c. >> yes. >> rose: gets a job as professor at georgetown, is a tax lawyer. describe -- i mean, he was a pretty good tax lawyer. >> i would say in my not totally unbiased opinion that he was the best tax lawyer in america. >> rose: other people have said that. i love his sense of humor. he described himself as having a professional life devoted to protecting the deservedly rich from the predations of the poor and downtrodden. ( laughter ) and ross perot wanted to endow a chair and he couldn't get him to the idea. so ross perot said, i think the story goes, i'm going to create a chair for him, i think it was maybe -- >> oral roberts, yes. we wouldn't tell.

ross said he wants to set up the martin ginsburg chair, wants us to pick the school. in the jewish religion, we don't name things after people until after they're dead. he said don't tell me that. i have named the symphony in dallas and in the bronx and that's okay. so when we still hadn't identified a school, he said, i will set up the martin d. ginsburg chair at oral roberts university. we said, ross, i don't think the founder of oral roberts would want to have him. he said, i've spoken to him personally, he said, we are all god's children, and he would be delighted to. so we named georgetown with the agreement that the chair would not be filled while matte -- whe marty was on the faculty but

instead the income would be used for the dean's discretionary account. that's why the dean of georgetown was very fond of marty. >> rose: you made n.y.u. something that's become known as the madison lecture. you made the point nat you thought the decision in roe v. wade was too broad because it gave a singular target for all those who oppose abortion. >> at the time of roe v. wade, abortion law was in flux across the country. >> rose: different states have different laws? >> yeah. so some states, including my own, new york, gave a woman access to an abortion in the first trimester, no questions asked. it was just her decision. others had moved to grounds, like risk to the woman's health, the pregnancy was a product of a

rape, or -- >> rose: incest. -- incest, yes. others had conditions that had to have the approval of two doctors. so the law was changing across the country. the people who wanted to keep the prohibition of abortion strong were fighting in states sometimes winning, sometimes losing. >> rose: so they were fighting a lot of wars in different places and then all of a sudden there is one target row rowe roe v. wade -- >> if the court had done what it had in other cases, one step at a time always in the right direction, but no giant step, a

progression that made it seem like the next step was natural. but roe v. wade made every restrictive law in the country, even the most liberal law unconstitutional in one fell swoop, the court had done it all. so the people who favored a woman's decision, they kind of retreated and the other side, as you said, had a target to rally around, and they could hit at that target and accuse the unelected justices of the supreme court of having made a major policy decision. now, in truth, in 1973, when roe v. wade was decided, it was uncontinue verse ail mong

the justices, there were only two dissents, justice white and rehnquist. the chief assigned to justice blackman but roe marked the point where the states began placing more and more restrictions and those cases came to the court and by and large it upheld the restriction. >> rose: might not have been that way if you'd built -- >> i had no crystal ball. hindsight, we can speculate what would have happened, but i thought it would have been a more secure way to go to take this one step at a time. >> rose: the other thing that interested me about when you think about what you have said in speeches and in writing and about the law is that you think that what the court says to be

also a conversation. >> yes. >> rose: -- with legislators. yes. >> rose: and legislatures, state, federal, the congress, and, in fact, it's happened that way in some cases in which a decision which may not go the way you want it will end up, because of a dissent, starting a conversation so that a congress who will either take a law and amend it could take away something they don't think is necessarily right, or add to it to strengthen something. >> my best example of that conversation is the lilly ledbetter case. >> rose: tell me about it. lilly ledbetter was an area manager at a goodyear tire plant, one of very few women doing that kind of work. one day, she found in her mailbox a slip of paper with a

series of numbers. the numbers were the compensation received by other area managers. lilly's pay was at the very bottom. a young man who had very recently come on board was earning more than she was. so she begin a lawsuit under title 7, which is our principal anti-employment discrimination law, and she did that well. she got a nice jury verdict. but her case came to this court, the majority, five-member majority said she sued too late. how could that be? >> rose: a procedural question. >> yes. it's the timing. what they relied on was a provision that said the person complaining of discrimination in

employment must complain within 180 days of the discriminatory event. and lilly had been working at this job for over a decade, far too late, far longer than 180 days. my view of the case was every paycheck she receives renews the discrimination. so she had 180 days from the latest paycheck to complain. and then i tried to explain why lilly ledbetter didn't sue earlier, as a woman holding a position that traditionally has been held by men, she didn't want to rock the boat. she did not want to be seen as a troublemaker. besides, they didn't give out pay figures. the employer didn't give out pay figures. but even if she knew that she

was discriminated against from the beginning and she sued as soon as she possibly could, if she had sued early on, we know what the defense would have been, it would have been that it had nothing to do with lilly being a woman, it's just she doesn't do the job as well as the men. but then, year after she gets good performance ratings, they no longer have the defense, no longer have the defense she doesn't do the job as well. they said she does the job as well or better. so now she has a winnable case, and the court said she sued too late. i explained that in my dissenting opinion, and the tag line was, "the ball is now in congress' court to correct the error into which my colleagues have fallen." >> rose: and that's exactly what they did. >> and connell passed the -- and congress passed the lilly ledbetter fair pay act, the

first piece of legislation president obama signed when he became our president. >> rose: there was also in 1993 you were appointed to the court of appeals, and you were on the court of appeals and you were appointed by president clinton one year after he became president to be on the supreme court, and the associate justice of the spfnlgt justice rehnquist is the chief justice. you have a good relationship with him. >> i had a very good relationship with him. >> rose: you liked him. as i remember, he loved gilbert and sullivan. >> yes. >> rose: and he appointed you to write the v.m.i. case involving -- >> i can't explain the inner workings of the court on that particular point, but this i can say, it was a 7-to-1 decision

that if the chief did not join my opinion, but he joined the judgment. >> rose: right. scalia was the only dissenter. justice thomas was recused, he couldn't sit on the case because his son, at the time, was a student at v.m.i. so it was a 7-1 decision, and justice scalia's dissent aimed more at the chief than it did at me. i guess he expected what i would do, but he was surprised by the chief. >> rose: many consider that the most opinion you've ever written. do you? >> it remains to be seen. ( laughter ) >> rose: there may be one around the corner. first monday in october, not far off. >> i'm very fond of some of my dissenting opinions. >> rose: you are, as much as some of the majority opinions as

in the lilly ledbetter case. >> one in which congress -- yes, congress could still do something about it but it was the so-called shelby county case where the court held, invalidated the key provision of the civil rights act of 19 -- the voting rights act of 1965, even though that legislation had been renewed time and again by congress, every time with overwhelming majorities on both sides of the aisles, republicans, democrats, but the court said that the coverage formula -- the coverage formula was that a state that had been a discriminator in the bad old days when african-americans were not allowed to vote could not adopt any law relating to elections unless they pre-cleared it through either the department of justice, civil rights division, or a special

three-judge court in the district of columbia. so things were working pretty well under that clearance system. the court says the formula of who belongs in the discriminatory camp was outdated and congress had to do it again. it would be a hard thing for congress to do again what senator or representative would get up and say, my state or my county is still discriminating, so better keep us under federal surveillance? >> rose: yeah. the law itself had a built-in meek nism for getting out if you were no longer discriminating. it was called the bailout provision. if you had shown for x number of years there had been no discrimination in voting, then you could come out from under the system, and i thought

congress had identified a very good way to get out. anyway, that's a dissension that i thought was -- >> rose: important. yes. >> rose: when you came to the court, sandra day o'connor was your good friend. >> yes. >> rose: and when she left, you said that was a turning moment. >> when sandra left, it was a very lonely place for me to be. the perception of the court, we come and sit on the bench, and there is the audience of spectators including the school children that come in and out of the court at ten minutes a time. they looked at the bench and they saw eight rather well-fell men up -- well-fed men up

there -- >> rose: rather well-wefed men ( laughter ) >> it was the wrong perception. >> rose: the optics, they say now. >> yes. i had been there over 23 years, so i sit, by seniority, close to the middle. justice sotomayor is on now my left side, justice kagan on my right side. we are all over the bench. we look like we -- we are one-third of the court. >> rose: yeah. and my newest colleagues are not shrinking violets. they take a very active part in the colloquy that goes on in oral arguments. >> rose: you are a questioner. you love to ask questions. you love to lead the questioning. you're also, as we know, previously a litigator. >> yes. >> rose: but you're there and you're curious and you're no shrinking violet, you.

>> yes. >> rose: you may be 5-foot-4 -- >> a little less. >> rose: or less. but, i mean, your voice is strong and is heard by those advocates standing in front of you. yes? >> yes. >> rose: you love it. you love it. >> i do. what do you love? is it the argument? is it what? >> it's the constant thinking. the constant thinking, and to see if i can get counsel to help reduce the level of controversy by asking a question designed to elicit a yes response that will narrow the area of disagreement. >> rose: justice scalia. yes. >> rose: many people, you

know, have been fascinated by the fact that ruth bader ginsburg and anton antonin scale good friends and you both loved opera. he was a good singer. >> justice slyia had a very good tenor voice. when undergraduate at georg georgetown, he was in the glee club at georgetown, and i am a monotone. wil( laughter ) >> rose: his death shocked you? >> yes. >> rose: do you miss him on the court? >> of course, i do. it's a paler place without him. >> rose: it doesn't have much

color and vibrancy. >> because he was a wonderful storyteller. he had an uncanny ability to make even the most somber judge smile. he told many jokes. he was very good humored. we shared a passion for opera, and we both genuinely cared about family. >> rose: they brought you back to harvard law school to honor you, and lots of people there in terms of clerks and lots of other people, and you talked about the balance, the importance of family and the balance that you had found between the law and family.

and you think it's important, the family -- >> for life? >> rose: yes. you spoke about it. >> yes. when i was going to law school, my daughter was 14 months when i started. so i would take my classes, go to the library, study hard, but 4:00 was when the nanny went home, and that was jane's time, my daughter's time. we would go to the park, we would play games, i would read to her, and then, after she was bathed and fed and went to sleep, i went back to the law with renewed energy. i described it as the two parts of my life, each part was a respite from the other. by 4:00 in the afternoon, i'd had enough of it.

>> rose: enough intense intellectual engagement. >> and then it was fun to be with jane. >> rose: and she turned out to be a lawyer as well. >> she is a distinguished law professor at columbia law school. >> rose: and one class above or below justice roberts at harvard. >> yes. >> rose: when you look at what happened after scalia died and garland -- the president wanted to appoint garland, he couldn't get it to bring to a vote, so you're left with four and four. >> yes, eight is not a good number for a collegial body that sometimes disagrees -- sometimes disagrees, i should stress, because the press doesn't explain it as it should. >> rose: explain it. we are unanimous, at least in the bottom line judgment, much more often than we divide 5-4.

so i would say we are unanimous in about 40% of the cases, and the sharp division -- >> rose: unanimous in about 40% of the cases. >> yes, at least as to the bottom-line judgment. >> rose: what the decision will be. >> yes. and the divisions of the 5 to 4 or 5 to 3 were only eight, they would be maybe 20%. so we agree much more than we disagree. even so, if we divide 5-4, we are unable to issue a binding judgment, what we do is we automatically affirm the decision of the court below. no opinion is written, no reasons are given, and the

affirmens has no preferential value. so if we divide 5-4, it's just as though we denied review. >> rose: as if you didn't do it. >> that's right. >> rose: didn't look at it. yes. >> rose: and that's not good because you want to supreme court to be the court of last resort. >> yes. >> rose: and this way you're making the court of appeals the court of last resort. >> that's right. >> rose: and that's not why we have the supreme court. >> and it could be worse than that, we took the case because courts disagreed. if we're unable to decide the question, you can have one federal law in one area of the country, and the opposite federal law in another part of the country. so it's important that the supreme court be able to resolve conflicts among other courts about what the federal law is.

that's why eight is not a good number. >> rose: so whoever becomes president will have -- when they arrive in the white house, an opportunity to appoint a new supreme court justice. >> that's one scenario. the other possibility is the senate will act. >> rose: what would you like to see the senate do? >> i would like to see the court have a full house by the time this term ends. >> rose: you would like to see the court have a full house. >> have nine members. >> rose: before this term ends. >> yes. >> rose: which this term ends -- >> we stop hearing cases in april. we're still writing opinions in may and june, but the last sitting to ear oral argument is at the end of april. >> rose: some people say that if hillary clinton becomes president -- and it's a very close race now -- you know, that you would likely see a

democratic majority more than you've seen in a long time. you've got four now -- four liberals, for lack of a better classification. i mean, you could see a very different court. >> you could, but i resist the notion that, if you are a democrat, then you are "liberal." >> rose: i know. that was too easy but i -- >> just think of john paul stevens appointed by president ford, save david souter appoint. the great chief justice earl warren appointed by brennan, a republican. bill brennan was a registered

republican when he was on the new jersey supreme court, he was also appointed by eisenhower. >> rose: yeah. you've had successful battles with cancer, heart stent. you look and seem to me to be in good health. >> yes, i -- >> rose: good energy? yes. >> rose: i've spent the last two hours with you. no thought of retiring? >> i've said that i will hold this office as long as i can do the job full steam. so i know this year, i'm okay. at my age, i'm 83, you have to take it year by year. i'm hopeful that i have many years -- i will have many years of good health and good thinking ahead. >> rose: and you point to the

fact that lewis bran dice was appointed at 60 and you were appointed at 60 and he served till his early '80s. >> i can't use him anymore because i've served longer. >> rose: do you have another model? >> of course, i can say my dear colleague justice john paul stevens who stepped down when he was 90. >> rose: when you look at the court, is it essentially -- you take pride in institutions. i mean, it is said about you, you feel the weight of the -- and maybe everybody does -- but you feel -- you love and feel the inns tuitional quality of the supreme court. >> i think the supreme court is the most respected high court in

the world. it wasn't always that way. it may be a rumor or a legend, but president andrew jackson was repeated to have said, well, the supreme court said that about how the cherokee indians should be treated fairly. the the supreme court says now let them enforce it because we have no purse strings and we have no guns at our disposal. yet, when the supreme court speakers people listen. >> rose: it can decide elections. >> i don't think, if you have in mind the one of a kind case, i

don't think it decided the election. it decided it sooner but the outcome would have been the same because the election would have been thrown to the house of representatives which had a republican majority so it would have been a victory for bush anyway, but it would have come weeks and weeks later in a supreme court decision. >> rose: after the decision which was 9-0 in the watergate case, everybody understood the court had spoken and that was it. >> yes. and the president turned over the tapes and resigned from office the next day. the first example, harry truman who seized the steel mills in the korean war, and when the court said you don't have that authority, mr. president, he immediately told the secretary of commerce, give the mills back

to the owners, that, in many places in the world, the fact that a court speaks doesn't mean that the executive legislature will follow, will accept the decision. >> rose: one thing that you disagree with antonin scalia was that you should take a look at international law, too. >> i have tried to clarify that international law is not foreign law. what does it mean? international law is a law that governs relations among nations. we are a nation of the world. therefore, we are governed by what our constitution calls the law of nations which is international law. what we are not governed by is the law or the constitutional decision of some other court -- say in israel or in britain or

south africa. so foreign law is not an authoritative source for us, but it can be something of persuasive value. there are good minds thinking about hard problems coming to huanity. there are good minds on courts all across the world. >> rose: you have been wonderful. one thing, televising the court, seeing justices write more books, speak out more about the conversation of america? where do you come down on that? televising the court? >> i am neutral on that question. >> rose: okay. i will say as long as any one of my colleagues is apprehensive about it, i would not push.

>> rose: meaning it might effect the way they conduct themselves? >> yes. i think the most weighty objection is the it gives the public a false picture of what an appellate case is. if you televise a trial, everything is happening right out in front of you before your eyes. you see the witnesses, you see the judge giving a charge to the jury, but in an appeal, much more important than the oral argument, is the written part. the first thing i do when i prepare for a hearing on a case, i read all of the decisions written before ours, so the trial court decision. >> rose: district court, appeals court. >> then i turn to the lawyers' briefs. then maybely read what scholars have said about it. >> rose: or maybe an emeka's

brief. >> yes, in important cases, we have dozens, sometimes over hundreds of friends of the court who tell us what they think about the hard question. so you come armed to the teeth by the time you're on the bench. after doing all that reading, you are inevitably leaning in one direction or the other. you don't come around the bench with an empty mind, not with a closed mind either, but you have thought about the case. we don't want the public to get the impression that an appellate argument is a debate that is the superior advocate will win. it's not at all what it is. the written component is ever so much important than the oral component. >> rose: this conversation has been about the past, not about the future, and obviously i wouldn't ask you about cases that are coming up because you

wouldn't tell me anyway -- i know. but you do see more speeches, more appearances. i've interviewed lots of judges, chief justice rehnquist, justice breyer and scalia and others, and i think it's a good idea because we understand who these people are that have the power to impact our lives and to understand how they see their work and to understand -- now, obviously, you know, we don't -- we obviously don't want justices telling us how to vote, we don't want justices telling us what's right and wrong about everything, but we do like to know where their legal mind is, you know, and what shaped it. your hero was lewis brandi. that says something about you. your relationships on the court. all of that. seems like it makes for a richer understanding of the court, and you contribute to that. >> i'd like to mention one tremendous contributor is

justice o'connor with her icivics program. school children nowadays don't learn about civics the way i did when we had a daily civics class. now they're concentrating on the math and reading scores. so civics tends to get cut, music, art. that's too bad. but sandra started this icivics. it's pitched to middle school children and it teaches them about government, about the court and why the court is different -- how the court is different from congress, and it does it in way that is fun for the children. so i thought that was -- at first, she spotted the need for that kind of education, and then she found a way to deliver it. >> rose: yes. that would be appealing. >> rose: she made it not only

that clearly and part of that she made us, in lots of ways, understand a lot more about the judiciary, you know -- elected judges, all the different kinds of variations there are in the american judicial dim. finally, this book is dead late to marty, dear partner in life and constant uplifter. >> yes. >> rose: what do you mean by constant uplifter? >> marty made me believe i was better than i thought i was. he was a most unusual man. he was the first boy i ever dated who really cared that i had a brain. >> rose: yeah. and we were best friends before we became very close.

and marty was a man so secure in his own intelligence, his own competence, he never regarded me as any kind of a threat. on the contrary. he was always in my corner, always cheering me on because his notion was, if i decided i wanted to spend the rest of my life with this woman, she must be pretty special. ( laughter ) >> rose: he left a letter. yes. >> rose: tell me about that. when the hospital called me to tell me that he had taken a bad turn for the worst and there was nothing more they could do for him, so i went to the hospital -- i wanted him to die at home rather than in a hospital bed, and i was checking

to make sure that we took all of his belongings. i pulled out a drawer, and on a legal pad, he had written a letter to me. it was the most beautiful love letter. i suspect he wanted me to find it. i keep it in my bedroom and, to this day, look at it now and then when i feel i need an extra shot of courage. >> rose: he said to you, you were the love of his life, more than anything, and he said he understood that he had to make hard questions, you know, that he knew he had terminal illness, you know, and he said --

>> he said, i hope you will agree with my -- >> rose: decision. -- but i will love you none the less if you don't. >> rose: thank you for this time. enjoyed it very much. >> i did, too. it was good to talk to you. >> rose: thank you. the book "my own words" ruth bader ginsburg, with mary hart necessary and wendy w. williams. thank you for joining us. see you next time. for more about this program and earlier episodes, visit us online at pbs.org and charlierose.com. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

>> rose: funding for "charlie rose" has been provided by: >> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide.

>> the following kqed production was produced in high definition. [ ♪music ] >> yes, check, please! people! >> it's all about licking your plate. >> the food is just fabulous. >> i should be in psychoanalysis for the amount of money i spend in restaurants. >> i had a horrible experience. >> i don't even think we were at the same restaurant. >> leslie: and everybody, i'm sure, saved room for those desserts.