find out how american express cards and services can help prepare you for growth at open.com. i consider the united states senate the greatest deliberative body in the world and i respect the important role the constitution affords it in the confirmation of our judges. >> i only hope that both democrats and republicans can come together for once for the good of the country. >> donald trump's plan to reshape the supreme court is hours away from its first test. his nominee, neil gorsuch, facing the toughest job interview of his life because this job is for life. will republicans be rewarded for their unprecedented move to block any vote on obama's court pick and will democrats fight or fold? it's the eve of confirmation hearings that could tip the balance on the court for a

generation. no higher stakes in washington than supreme court hearings which can break promising careers. >> when a judge goes beyond this and reads new values into the constitutions, he deprives the people of their liberty. >> or turn obscure lawyers into household names. >> i am not going on to the court with a list of things that i want to do. my only agenda is to be a good judge. >> and no matter how scripted they can go off the rails. >> as a black american, as far as i'm concerned, it high tech. >> special coverage of the confirmation clash begins now. we're joined by senators who are prepping for tomorrow's hearings, civil rights leader, a former clerk to judge gorsuch. do you have the independence to stand up to a president bwho openly attacks judges and is

demanding the supreme court approves his immigration ban. >> we're going to take our case as far as it needs to go, including all the way up to the supreme court. i'm ari melber. welcome to our two-hour special on one of the most consequential issues, how he could reshape a currently deadlocked supreme court. as you know, trump picked federal judge neil gorsuch for the judge saying he will follow in scalia's footsteps. the high-stake hearings start tomorrow. abortion to civil rights to whether president trump's immigration plan is a legal security measure or an illegal muslim ban. to dismantling what steve bannon calls the sprawling administrative state. joining me is senior editor for slate and sheriff eifel, law

professors and author of a book on citizens united and michael waldman and former chief speechwriter for bill clinton. shari lynn, as you look at this battle squaring off tomorrow, what do you see as the key issues? >> there's a lot of key issues. there's the roaming reality that this nominee could only be coming before the committee because of the refusal of republicans last year to give an up or down vote to judge merrick garland and the shameful way that he was treated. that's looming over this entire proceeding. for my purposes at this point, there are really serious questions about the record of judge gorsuch who really, in many ways, has been kind of given the all clear by people on both sides of the aisle. we released a report last week and looked deeply into his record, read over 900 opinions. we oppose his confirmation to the supreme court because we're

deeply concerned about the direction in which he would take the court. >> specifically on civil rights grounds or because of the larger context you mentioned about the obama nominee who didn't get a vote? >> our opposition is based entirely on his record, not on the larger content. we're careful to state that at the beginning of the report. we went in looking really at the record of this candidate. when you look at the record of this candidate and look at the 2013 decision in which judge gorsuch ruled for immunity for a police officer who shot and killed an unarmed man growing marijuana and was fleeing and shot in the head by a police officer or approved immunely in the case the subsequent year for a police officer who broke the collarbone of a 9-year-old accused of stealing an ipad from their school. when you look at the way that judge gorsuch has ruled in employment discrimination cases and the way in which he has been able to see the facts through the eyes of the employer but not

through the eyes of the employee who believes that they have been discriminated against, his willingness to cut off the claims of people who before they ever get to trial or in some instances, before they get to discovery. >> let me bring in dalia on that point. it may be controversial as of yet, on the eve of the hearings, they haven't gotten much attention. >> frankly, nothing has gotten much attention and that's because there's so many other things going on even tomorrow that it's really, really hard to focus on the gorsuch hearings, much less his extensive record. but i agree, i think this is somebody who has had a hef three thumb on the scale for employers and a hef three thumb on the scale for civil rights plaintiffs, against folks in the workplace claiming "hardball"ment and discrimination. and i think this is somebody who

has been dominated by a president who has contempt for the rule of law and it's going to be problematic. >> ton, that the context of thi president. >> will he stand up to an abusive president? there will be judicial independence or party line towing the line? of course, these nominees are coached on how to not say anything. given what we've seen from this president and given judge gorsuch's desire to really curb what they can do, this question of presidential power and where it stands in our democracy, that's going to be at the heart of this. >> any president has some level of tension with a judge once they're on the court because they oversee but can you think of any president in the past who has been this aggressive in challenging the independence and

legitimacy of the court and even as president who ran on a campaign who said the judge's skin color was relevant to how they did the job? >> i think we're talking about the rule of law at stake. that means the rule of law, not men and not individual whims and trump in his actions and ongoing violations of the constitution himself and dismissive, disdainful approach has suggested he wants to rule of men, not of law. that has to be addressed here. >> president trump making the case specifically on something that will matter in tomorrow's hear hearings which is how many senators gorsuch backed. >> he was confirmed by the senate unanimously. also, unanimous, nowadays with what is going on.

>> dahlia, how does that play in? it's an important point that the senate didn't have a huge problem with his confirmation but who else the senate really liked, merrick garland who is not getting a hearing tomorrow and that's really relevant. more to the point, we have ten years worth of judicial record that delved deeply in tomorrow and there is a big difference between how cabinet constrained your authority is as a judge on an appeals court and what you can do on the appeals court and everyone in the senate is well aware that they have to think in those terms. >> one of the things that you see in his decisions where, you know, he's following precedent and in some areas he'll go out of his way to say what he thinks separately. in both anti-trust cases and in money and politic cases, he's giving these really strong hints that he's a really top-down, sort of favors the oligarch

powers in our society. those are the cases that we have to get into. what do you think is the role of anti-trust in our society? what does democracy look like? what is the big role in democracy? these core philosophical questions. >> one of ways that he's seen especially conservative is his lavish praise of the juris prudence and pretend to ask what the guys in the wigs meant back in the day. for scalia, that was not always with a political decision he happened to agree with. if he's a true originalist, james mattis is worried that voters would find themselves tools of opulence and ambition. >> tools of opulence and ambition. >> and they were worried about a president like president trump who could abuse the law. >> trump ran on making america

great again. a lot of scholars say this judge might make the court originalist agai again. from a civil rights perspective, what would that mean? >> when people talk about originalism, they talk about the original framers. there are three amendments ratified, the 14th, 15th, and 16th amendments and they have framers. when you look at judge gorsuch's juris prudence and the leaps he's willing to make, especially in a case in the city of albuquerque where he wrote the majority but then he talked about the way that he thinks federal courts should not enter these cases in which individuals are suing and in this case a police department for actions under color of state law. he wrote a concurrence to his own opinion where he thought the law should go. and yet he didn't talk about the framers of the 14th amendment from the section in 1983. he didn't talk about why they

were deeply suspicious of states and why they wanted to give a federal forum to those individuals, racial minorities and others who might be suspicious of bringing state claims in court. his willingness to write a concurrence to his own majority opinion not only in that case but a case in which he talks about agency power and deference, unlike justice scalia, whi think neil gorsuch y have a list of things. i think he puts them in his majority opinions where he says he wants the law to go and i hope they probe about that. >> and that's a big one that we'll get in to further. dahlia, thank you. 20 members of the judiciary committee will get the chance to directly question this nominee and we have one of them live coming up next, connect democrat richard blumenthal.

if he wants pointers on how you might handle yourself, here is a young senator biden talking to sandra o'connor 30 years ago about nonanswers on the abortion issue. >> i know you know that and i know you know it's difficult to respond to that because as soon as you respond to me, you'll have 14 other guys jumping on you to say something else. so i won't even ask you to answer it but i hope you know that i know you know. are your allergies holding you back or is it your allergy pills? break through your allergies. introducing flonase sensimist. more complete allergy relief in a gentle mist you may not even notice. using unique mistpro technology, new flonase sensimist delivers a gentle mist to help block six key inflammatory substances that cause your symptoms. most allergy pills only block one.

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do you know who this is? >> i think that's neil gorsuch but i'm not sure. >> that is judge neil gorsuch and he's up for the supreme court confirmation hearings on monday. do you think the senate should confirm? yes, no or maybe? >> absolutely yes. >> and why? >> well, trump promised to nominate someone in the mold of scalia and he fits the bill. >> welcome back to our supreme court special. confirmation clash. trump supporters, like that one i just spoke with in times

square, says they want another scalia on the court. trump's largest legal controversy about flexing executive power on immigration. an independent scalia-style judge may block trump there. consider that when president bush claimed he had authority to maintain american citizens at gitmo, scalia went farther than any other justice to reject that argument saying the idea that liberty gives away to security has no place in the constitution. there's a similar clash on trump's travel a ban. courts blocking it this week as an abuse of executive power. the last time a big immigration se hit the sup court, it deadlocked 4-4. gorsuch's use on this issue could be the deciding vote in the travel ban. we're about to hear from a senator who will question gorsuch tomorrow. first, for context, we have yale law professor and back with us

slate's dahlia lithwick. >> if he's confirmed, he'll be in a position to rule on everything. he's one of nine. when it's 4-4, it would come down to him, of course. >> when you look at these issues and think about originalism and what scalia is known to follow, how would that play out on this issue? >> well, i want to echo what was he had earlier. the utterly principled theorists have to pay attention to not just the founding but the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments and one of those is actually especially about the rights, for example, of aliens. if you read carefully, section 1 of the 14th amendment, there's a sharp distinction between the rights of citizens who are entitled to certain rights and immunities and the rest of that section 1 talks about person who is are entitled to equal protection and due process and

that's because they were thinking about aliens. only citizens have constitutional rights and the frame is the 14th amendment thought otherwise. for a serious originalist, there's not founding material to examine but serious reconstruction evidence to ponder. >> dahlia, originalists or not, most jurdges say you cannot discriminate on religion. >> right. ar as you know, because you've been reporting on it, one of the things that is so fascinating is not just that trump keeps attacking the judicial branch after the rulings come down but in some way it's emboldening judges to say it's a muslim ban. i'm going to tag it to things you saw on the campaign trail. we saw out of this week in hawaii where a district court judge was willing to put a temporary restraining order into effect on the sort of cleansed,

cleaned up 2.0 ban and specifically tag it to things donald trump was saying. so in a weird way, these religion clause cases are getting very, very conflated with trump's conduct on the trail and i actually think his conduct now as president where he keeps going after the judicial branch makes judges who may be on the fence much more eager to say, yeah, it's still a muslim ban because you keep talking. >> right. because of what you're saying and what you've said about it. stay with me. i want to bring in, as promised, a senator who will be questioning this nominee tomorrow, richard blumenthal from connecticut. thank you for joining me on an evening that is a night of prep for you. what do you want to learn tomorrow? >> i want to see independence. independence of donald trump and i want to see a forthright and very clear defense of judicial independence against the kind of

attacks that are indeed unprecedented that we've seen from donald trump calling a jurist, a so-called judge, potentially claiming a judge for violence that may occur. i want to see that this nominee disavows and in fact discards the litmus test that donald trump has set. >> right. >> including tt he overturned roe v. wade, that he be pro gun anti-violence measures and he be conservative. and let's recognize that he has outsourced this selection. >> you talk about delegating it. >> right. >> here's what you said. memo to trump, don't attack the courts. it's the constitution blocking your muslim ban. do you want to hear judge gorsuch on that tomorrow? is there any way around the fact that he can't comment on a pending case? >> he has to demonstrate for me and i think a lot of my

colleagues an independence that will show that le nohe will not that litmus test and he will discard it. even if he can't comment on the immigration case, he has to show that he respects the principle that the government can't discriminate on the basis of religion that a muslim ban would violate the constitution. >> which honestly shouldn't be too hard to say. but i guess you never know. dahlia had a question. >> i'm wondering if, given that trump has expressly pledged that he seems to know that judge gorsuch is in it to win it, and reversing roe v. wade, does that change the protocol that allows nominees to say i can't comment? once the president says i know he's going to overturn roe, is it incumbent on gorsuch to imply

whether the president knows something that we don't know? >> if any of these groups know something we should know, then judge gorsuch has a responsibility to tell us. there's a history here, and it's almost unique, that donald trump has in fact established a litmus test absolutely promising that he would nominate someone who will overturn roe v. wade. if he fails to be very specific and forthcoming in disavowing that claim, we have to assume that he's met the litmus test. on that issue, on other issues where donald trump has said what his nominee would do. and so this nominee is really unique and has a unique responsibility to be forthcoming. >> if he does fail, are you prepared to potentially filibuster?

>> not only filibuster but use every tool that we have if he's out of the mainstream. remember, we're talking about respect for a well-established, long-accepted precedent. roe v. wade certainly fits that description and that kind of the mainstream fiction will cause media to filibuster. >> senator richard blumenthal breaking a little news there on your approach and spending some time with us, which we appreciate before the hearing. dahlia, i'll speak to you again into the big political question is whether democrats should focus on the trump pick or on the oems. up next, a special report on the plan that some democrats have for stopping trump's nominee in his tracks.

mr. president, it's a great privilege to be nominated by a fellow chicagoan. i'm honored for the words that

you have bestowed upon me. >> we have a special scotus addition of normal or not, looking at the first person nominated for the vacancy to the supreme court, merrick garland, a moderate judge whom obama picked after justice scalia died in the heat of the presidential primaries. republicans made it clear they didn't care about garland's qualifications, they opposed him even before he was selected. literally. i asked ted cruz about the vacancy back in february. you serve on the judicial committee. do you have any view of whether that committee should review any nominee that the president should put forth, a fellow republican, would you in your role want to give that person a hearing, senator? >> i do not believe the senate should take up any nomination in this election year. >> cruz was on the party's right edge but everyone else hit the same note.

>> i think it's up to mitch mcconnell and everybody else to stop it. it's called delay, delay, delay. >> i believe the president should not move forward and i think we ought the let the next president of the decide. >> i do not believe the president should nominate anyone. >> the data polls out of the last ten picks, garland was the only one denied a vote. mitch mcconnell defended that approach stresses republicans could be a check on obama by blocking his nominee. >> well, of course, of course, the american people should have a say in the court's direction it is a president's constitutional right to nominate a supreme court justice and it's the senate's right to act as a check on a president and withhold his consent.

>> these three women are being denied an ability to serve because of politics. they deserve an up or down vote on the floor. >> but republicans blocked that vote from garland there on the senate floor. the question facing the senate now after all of this is will the us unprecedented gop strategy, it's about politics. have democrats learned anything from mitch mcconnell's obstruction or trump's aggression? that if you're not on offense, you're probably losing. if you participate in your own p uchpunking. donald rumsfeld said, "weakness is provocative." that's the argument some

liberals are pushing on republicans right now. "the senate should refuse to confirm anyone president trump nominates to the supreme court until trump renominates merrick garland." here's another plea to democrats about all of this. "as a criminal defense attorney i know in criminal law the defendant who knowingly receives stolen property is as guilty as the defendant who stole it and democrats filibuster this choice and fight with every fiber of their being or guilty of letting the republicans get away with stealing a supreme court seat." so are the dems listening? chuck schumer is not calling to block to confirm gorsuch. some democrat senators are not waiting. jeff merkley said, this is a

stolen seat. and he will use every lever in his ability to stop it. republicans publicly divided about obamacare, wiretapping, russia, right now they are clearly political united behind trump's scotus pick and united hind the new president. >> this was the single most important issue to them when they voted for me for president. i am a man of my word. i will do as i say. >> a man of his word. trump is saying his word is bond. for democrats, the question is clear. are they shook or ready to battle? up next, what are the key issues facing the supreme court? we have a special panel weighing in, tackling the worst nightmare for any nominee when passwords can come back to haunt you. >> both the judiciary committees explaining what she meant in

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how does he look to you? >> i mean, i don't know him but he seems like a nice guy. i had to do my research. he's a good person. give him the benefit of the doubt. >> the hearings start monday. do you think the senate should confirm him? yes, no or maybe? >> i'm a democrat so i could careless but he looks like a cool guy. sure, why not? >> many people don't know what trump's supreme court nominee stands for yet. senator also try to pin that

down tomorrow at tomorrow's hearings. is he pro life? does he a i agree with citizens united? what about civil rights issues, so tt don't even make it to the supreme court, like all of the concerns we've heard about police brutality from the black lives matter movement. joining me are three people on my panel. including that landmark gay rights case, lawrence v. sectte. paul is the biggest baller in this segment. i don't think anyone can deny that. ilya, i'm going to start with you. you've written positively about judge gorsuch. what do you like about him? >> i think he has the good parts of justice scalia, the dedication to the text and original meaning of the constitution, the interpreting statutes for what they mean,

even if the results may not please him or someone else without the flourishes that put some people off of justice scalia. i think he's intellectually scholarly, has a ph.d. from oxford but very collegial. i think he'll be a breath of fresh air. >> i've been reading a lot of his opinions and it's funny, there's so many comparisons to scalia. as mr. t would say, you brought that on yourself and we'll have more of that in the show. he doesn't write like scalia. he writes very carefully. >> he's clear and careful and tries not to insult anybody. even in those forgettable affirm man affirmances, he takes care to name and describe the claims rather than just issuing some broiler plate because everyone before him deserves respect. >> paul? >> i certainly agree that he is

a very nice guy, he's put together an admiral body of work and many great things to be said about judge gorsuch. concerns about giving him the ninth vote on the supreme court and one is the originalism and what is means for lgbt rights, like the rights to choose, and the other is what happens to our democracy, voting suppression and those things. i think there's real reason to push very hard on him and see whether or not he really cares, for example, about using the constitution and understanding the constitution the way that would promote democracy rather than to continue to dismantle billionaires from dominating the system. we're going to be facing a number of cases about voter i.d. laws. is he going to say those are good or bad. and then the originalism that he

espouses, rigid scaliaism. griswald with the right to choose and then continuing through lawrence and gay marriage case, those are the casesha a scalia originalist is saying that he hates when he says that's what he . and those cases are hanging in the balance. >> right. you're talking about the effort to, in some ways, use a certain philosophy, call it originalism or whatever you want, to roll back decades. i want to bring in deray and the other thing that the supreme court does is talk about things that doesn't get to be dealt with. a lot of things i don't have to tell you don't have a hearing in the first place. do you know where the issues that you've been dealing with fit into all of this? >> there's the national review article where he says liberals have been addicted to the court

instead of the agenda on people. we know it's true that the court have been the bastians of enforcing civil rights. second is wilson versus city of lafayette where he was in favor of granting an immunity for takesing a young man in the head even though the police didn't follow their own headlines. >> when you say immunity, what you're referring to is the idea of the judge basically saying, we're not going to get into this and hear -- whether or not the police officer acted lawfully, we're not going to have that trial. >> correct. the third is when he was at the doj and the georgia i.d. laws. he wouldn't allow the attorneys to contest it. it was deemed unconstitutional but his record is in the context of trump and bannon, we could see the judiciary rolling back regutions that would hav huge civil rights community, lgbt rights, and the voting rights.

>> when we talk about the federal power. deray arguing that this is concerning from his civil rights perspective. what else do you say about what else you have heard? >> criminal justice, criminal procedure and the qualified immunity issues, i think there's a lot of good stuff in judge gorsuch's background. he's skeptical about the use of federal power, including in the law enforcement context, including in some very recent immigration cases. that's obviously in the news now. >> let me push you on that. he seems very skeptical of the abuse of search and warrantless search. what about the police stuff that deray brought up? >> he's following what the supreme court says and the supreme court wholesale, we're not talking about 5-4 has not been as good on the fourth

amendment stuff. i'm hoping he can side more with a justice thomas or justice scalia was then, say, a justice alito who is more about prosecution. >> you can pick and choose different issues. the bottom line is, there's a lot to be asked of this candidate for the court that has not been asked and we're looking forward to the hearings to see what the senators can find out about it. >> paul smith, ilya, deray, thank you for joining us. neil gorsuch about to undergo the toughest grilling of his life. how will he hold up? we'll talk to one of his clerks, next. >> do you know who this is? >> a republican. >> yes. >> okay. >> i would say the same thing. i don't know. >> is it the dude that -- that, like -- what's his name, spicer? healthy, free, the world before me, the long brown path before me leading wherever i choose.

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donald trump is shaking up washington in many ways but his supreme court pick is traditional. it's worth charting his impressive and conventional rise as the senate considers neil gorsuch tomorrow. he went to harvard law and is a second generation federal employee. his mother resigned over executive power from the epa. >> i did submit my resignation to the president of the united states with regret last night about 5:00. >> in her memoir "are you tough enough?" she recounted how her son urged her to fight. "you didn't do anything wrong. you raised me not to be a quitter." and no one denies gorsuch doesn't quit. working at dodge and nabbing a

supreme court pick from president bush, he's known as an avid outdoorsman and avid skier. he was on the slopes when he got a phone alert that scalia died. "i was taking a breather in the middle of a ski run with little on my mind but the next mogul field. i couldn't see the rest of the way down from the mountain from my tears." descended against police power to enter private property without a warrant and even joked that the police were making a mockery of the homeowners' rights. "she might as well add a wall or immediate evil style moat." gorsuch says it's the constitution that requires those prection >> standing here in a house of history and acutely aware of my

own imperfections, i pledge that if i have confirmed, i will do all my powers permit to be a faithful servant of the constitution. >> he says the constitution informs criticisms of police that arrested an unruly teenager he found illegal and "arresting a now compliant class counslown burping was going too far." some hey his power could hobble federal agencies. steve bannon says he wants to dismantle the administrative state and some of gorsuch's stronge strongest dissents argue that it should be stripped away. then there's obamacare and religion, probably the most high-profile case he's ruled on. conservatives cheered when gorsuch wrote, "even if obamacare provides contraceptive coverage and even if the supreme court said that is lawful,

corporations could still deny women contraception." he said it could be like assisting others in evil. he wrote that religion helps people decide the degree to which those who assist others in committing wrongful conduct themselves bear moral culpability. that obamacare case may be gorsuch's most well-known decision on anything touching politics. and then finally, there are decisions you'll rarely hear about on tv but they've cut to the heart of our economic angst in the country right now, like this story of a man who was stuckn a broke down truck in subzero weather waiting for his employer's repairman to show up. after two hours with no help, losing feeling in his limbs, he left the truck to get help. the company fired him for abandoning the property and he sued. he wrote that the law does not give employees the right to

operate the vehicles the way their employers forbid. that employee's whole point was that the employer's vehicle wasn't operating at all and he didn't want his job or freezing death. joining me now for much more, caroline frederickson, president of the american constitution society for law and policy, also my former boss, and as well as burt newborn, nyu law professor and former clerk to justice gorsuch, tim myer now a vanderbilt law professor. caroli caroline, your view of those cases and what they tell us? >> well, they certainly raise a number of troubling questions, and it is my fervent hope that the hearings will be a place for the senators to really press hard on judge gorsuch. i think, you know, the case you mentioned, the hobby lobby case dealing with women's access to contraceptive care is of particular concern and his statements about the fact that

people with religious beliefs can't be expected to be so complicit in a sense with wrongdoing, and it really raises questions about what the outer limit of that religious conscience is, can religious people disregard all sorts of laws and there are are cases coming up that put that question directly about issues involving gays and lesbians, what about religion and race? i think these are very, very troubling and the senators are going to have to push him hard to say how far can you go with saying your religion alouz ylow to object to my personal well-being? >> you mention the chevron case and the transamerican trucking case. in both of those cases what you see is judge gorsuch does have a belief that congress should be the ones writing the laws and it is the job of the courts to faithfully interpret the laws as they're written by congress.

some people say that his views on chevron deference, on deference to executive agencies, is conservative, but that totally depends on who the executive branch is. if the executive branch -- >> what about caroline's point, that the exception would be someone being able to rewrite the law to deny women something they would lawfully get because of their own personal religious beliefs? >> i don't think that's what judge gorsuch did. you have federal protections in first amendment and the religious freedom and restoration act that the judge was enforcing and in that opinion. so i don't think that you are in a situation where you have a judgrow wriewriting the constitn or the statutes. >> you're telling us that you know him, you don't think that was a reflection of any personal idea one way or the other, but a fair reading of the federal exceptions? >> that's right. i don't think -- i have never seen judge gorsuch take any sort of personal view into a case with him.

i have never seen that, i don't think we will ever see that, should he be confirmed on the supreme court. >> burt and caroline. >> well, i think it takes a super human justice not to have a personal view. i think all of them have personal views. the question is, to what degree does a personal view dm nature t dominate the analysis? one thing we don't know about judge gorsuch and justice gorsuch is if his personal views will dominate the analysis. it is clear his personal views are deeply respective of religion. he also has personal views that are deeply, deeply respective of libertarian philosophy. he believes the government should leave us alone. how he's going to emerge those views with ideas that the government also has a duty to see to it that we are equal and that the constitution guarantees both equality and liberty, and how he puts those two together are going to be the great puzzle and i don't think anyone knows for sure because this is a very smart man, with a relatively

thin record, and a very, very careful background in which he doesn't tell you what he thinks and he's not -- anybody who thinks that he's going to tell the senators anything is having a pipe dream. these hearings -- >> cancel the special. cancel the special. >> these supreme court hearings all follow the same pattern. we all get excited about the chance to talk to the nominee, the nominee then tells us that he's not allowed to discuss anything thais goingo come befo the court. >> two things, i love you, rt, you know the law better than i do, you've been doing it a long time and before the supreme court. i will say you're right except when you're wrong, it goes to script and sometimes it doesn't. we have a special report in the next hour about all of the nominations that went off the rails. so i take your point, nine out of ten times, you don't know which one is the one out of ten. caroline, i want to get you back

in. >> absolutely. i want to go back to a point that sheryl made in the prior segment, which i think does indicate the strength of judge gorsuch's convictions and how he brings them into his cases. the number of concurrences and strong dissents he's written that pull out issues that hadn't been discussed in the majority opinion, and i think back to the issue of complicit, in the idea that religious people have the right to object to participating in laws that are generally applicable to the american population because of their religious beliefs is very troubling and he calls the religious freedom restoration act a super statute. and, you know, i want the senators to ask him, what does that mean, a super statute, it trumps everything else, so my ability to control my body is trumped by your religion as well as people's right to get married or the right to -- when african-americans or other people want to be served in a

restaurant? does your regious belief a you not to do that? that merel needs to be pushed on. >> right. you're raising such important points, especially in the context of the debate over the muslim ban, which religions are we talking about or does this favor certain ones? that's one the constitution has barred. let me go, though, to tim, for a final word. what do you think is something people might not know about your old boss that you want them to know? >> i think this week everybody is going to see this is a man who does not bring his convictions into the courtroom, that this is somebody who takes very seriously the job of enforcing the laws as written. the super statute is not one that trumps constitutional protects, one that prevails over other statutes. and i think that's what judge gorsuch meant in that case. i think that this week we're really going to see what a fine man he is, and what a fine justice he'll make. >> tim, caroline, burt, thank you for joining me on this special. if the supreme court nomination can be compared to a super bowl, please consider this your pregame show.

we are just getting started. up next, something special, planned parenthood president ce cecil richards with a one on one interview with how gorsuch could have the right to choose. made it through many market swings. sure we could travel, take it easy... but we've never been the type to just sit back... not when we've got so much more to give when you have the right financial advisor, life can be brilliant. ameriprise i've been fortunate enough to win on golf's biggest stages. but when joint pain and stiffness from psoriatic arthritis hit... even the smallest things became difficult. so i talked to my rheumatologist... and he prescribed enbrel... to help relieve joint pain and help stop further joint damage. enbrel may lower your ability to fight infections.

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a lot of people are very worried that if i got in, if i got in, i would put in the wrong judge. i'm going to put in the right judges. i'm going to put in great conservative judges, great intellects, the people you want. >> president trump's supreme court nominee facing his first hearings tomorrow, also the one year anniversary of trump making that very promise. welcome back to our msnbc special coverage, supreme confirmation clash. trump pledged a litmus test on abortion for his judges. >> do you want to see the court overturn roe v. wade? >> if we put another two or perhaps three justices on, that's really what's going to be -- that will happen. and that will happen automatically in my opinion because i am putting pro-life justices on the court. i will say this,