attorney general john ashcroft who served under president george w. bush.reat to have you on the program, thank you. >> welcome i'm pleased to be with you again. >> jenna: you see the nominee, neil gorsuch, would be on national tragedy, i believe it is your term, if he does not get confirmed as part of the supreme court, why do you believe that? >> welcome a look at his qualifications, look at his credentials, look at his experience. a person who has the top level legal education, a person who not only has the qualifications to be a member of the bar, but has international training, so he is a graduate of oxford as well as harvard law school, and columbia. a person who is spectacularly clear writer. clarity and the lies important, so when a person writes an opinion people should be able to know what is legal and illegal, and he has that capacity for clarity. he is about as good as we could ever hope to get in a nominee for the united states supreme court, and it would be tragic if we were to repudiate that kind of quality. let me just say that he will repai

attorney general john ashcroft, welcome. >> my delight to be with you. maria: let me kick it off with latest, we're understanding that the trump administration will do a new executive order. you say? >> i think that there are two main concerns here. first is national security. and to address those concerns, a new order could achieve all that president wanted to achieve with the firstic -- the court on west coast has impaired that by refusing to lift it. i think one thing that has to be developed in terms of strategy is making sure that we don't sacrifice the president's authority in this situation. it may be that they will want to continue to litigate the old executive order and they may be able to craft a new one. but clear that president has this authority. when i was attorney general, the 9th circuit court of appeals sought to look behind my motives when i was doing a job which was clearly within the legal responsibilities i had. and the 9th circuit vote the again me, but the u.s. supreme court said, you can't consider motives if the person doing what

you have the attorney general, john ashcroft, who is the most staunch antiabortionists in the cabinete land. that's john ashcroft. i'm not him. i am a woman. you seriously think you have a chance? i do. i talked you seriously think you have a chance? i do. italked to you seriously think you have a chance? i do. i talked to post- abortion women on a daily basis. 15, 16,18 abortion women on a daily basis. 15, 16, 18 years after their abortions. they're still feeling guilty about taking the life of their child. do you really want to return to the situation where somewhere between up toa situation where somewhere between up to a million illegal abortions are carried out in the united states every year? tim, you know as well as ido every year? tim, you know as well as i do that is a lot of pro— abortion lobbyists hype. but it's true. before roe the wade, there were between 200,001.2 million illegal abortions carried out in the united states. thousands died from illegal abortions. that is not hype. thousands have died from legalised abortion. but she would return these women to that kind of

attorney general john ashcroft talks about this when it comes to justice and national security. overnor, and attorney general from his home state of missouri, and he now heads the ashcroft group. he joins us today from for jenny of each. good to have you here. gen. ashcroft: good morning. it is a delight to be with you. let's start with judge gore such. it looks like he came into the justice department for george w. bush after you left. year wasroft: his 10 2005, 2006, and i ended my time in february of 2005. i know him i reputation and by his credentials. everyone has an opportunity to know him by record as a judge of the circuit court of appeals. he is a very interesting and person,family qualified great intellect and capacity. david: you have had the opportunity to observe these confirmation meetings from both ends of pennsylvania avenue, both as senator and attorney general. we are hearing that democrats are expressing some reservations, but some say they have an open mind. there is even talk of filibustered what do you expect to come out during this process? gen. ashcroft: i

bush named a very conservative senator to be attorney general, john ashcroft. there was some controversy over ashcroft, but nothing like this, and i think it illustrates how much more poisonous our politics have become. >> it's interesting, senator graham who's not an apologist for donald trump said it was long overdue for the senate to take action against senator warren saying she's just posturing for a 2020 run. >> it would be more credible, senator graham, if he had stood up when tom cotton, conservative republican senator from arkansas attacked harry reid personally, attacked his cancerous leadership. or when ted cruz called mcconnell a liar. they did not shut him up. >> how much of this is about angling for a run in 2020? >> that may well be. i would caution mitch mcconnell. he wants to promote who he thinks is the easiest to beat. he needs watch tapes of me. i made an ass of myself last year going on television saying bring me donald trump, we'll kill, you know what happened? he's the stinkin' president. watch what you ask for. >> it's clear that elizabet

bush's first tomorrow, his attorney general was john ashcroft. john ashcroft looked at that post-watergate rule that said only four people in the white house could talk with the justice department about pending cases and john ashcroft decided he would expand the number of white house officials who had permission to contact justice. he would expand that number of people who had that permission from four people to 417 people. under john ashcroft they went from four to 100 times that number. 417 officials could call the justice department, call the fbi, get information on, communicate to investigators about specific criminal investigations. then in the w. second term, he expanded it further. he increased the number of people from 417 to 895. basically everybody up to and including the white house pastry chef was not cleared to get read in on ongoing criminal cases and pending criminal investigations, to get involved in those investigations, to get their mitts in there. there were a lot of bad things about the george w. bush administration but this,

most of the things he has done and is doing, that is interesting, we have former attorney general john ashcroftsal. we have chairman of committee we're expecting that steven mnuchin gets confirmed tomorrow night. >> all right maria. >> thank you. >> some bellini for you. >> cheers. >> brown noser. >> fabulous. >> see you next show. >> unarm or crow -- under armor ceo called out for praising the president. >> he is highly passionate, a pro-business president is great for the country. >> of course, many stream media is quick to defend nordstrom. if you have moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis like me, and you're talking to your rheumatologist about a medication... ...this is humira. this is humira helping to relieve my pain... ...and protect my joints from further damage. humira has been clinically studied for over 18 years. humira works by targeting and helping to... ...block a specific source... ...of inflammation that contributes to ra symptoms. it's proven to help relieve pain and... ...stop further joint damage in many adults. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including