justice antonin scalia, the voter's most influential conservative, has died. >> when antonin scalia,his sleep, it's march of 2016. barack obama is going to be president until january 2017, and he nominates merrick garland, who is a federal circuit court judge to replace scalia. >> i simply ask republicans in the senate to give him a fair hearing. if you don't, it will indicate a process for nominating and confirming judges that is beyond repair. >> now if the gop doesn't give garland a hearing, it will be the first time since such proceedings became the norm 60 years ago that a nominee has been denied a hearing. >> mitch mcconnell, he is going to do something that no senate majority leader has ever done, deny a sitting president a vote on his supreme court nominee. >> the american people may well elect a president who decides to nominate judge garland. the next president may also nominate somebody very different. >> mitch mcconnell thought there was some chance the republicans would win the presidency, and therefore he wanted to not have president obama's nominee confirmed. he unders

several books, including biographies of supreme court justices john roberts, sandra day o'connor, antonin scalia, sonia sotomayor. and we've just talked about your illustrious history of writing autobiographies of supreme court justices. you just start by telling us why this one is a is more of a comprehensive group picture of the the supreme court. thanks, melissa. it's great to be with you. and with everyone else from the commonwealth club, it's such an exciting time for the supreme court and could at some point maybe within just like what's going on right here now in washington, d.c., involving court and issues percolating this way that i'm sure would be of interest to your audience. i had begun with justice o'connor back in 2005, very interested in her and then went to judge scalia, then a political history of sonia sotomayor. finally, in 2019, i wrote the chief, and i was as i was casting about for my next project, because clearly i addicted to writing about this court beyond just my daily journalism i thought, you know who but was no person that's struck me as someone who was far along in

and oftentimes that doesn't get disclosed that the late justice antonin scalia was famous for going to hunting lodges on vacations totally paid for by private people on the outside and never disclosingpe it. so with clarence thomas it's come to lights, from two decades harlan crow is a wealthy donor from republican party has been sponsoring justice thomas and his wifeee jenne vacations including private clubs and clarence thomas is never disclose disclosed those trips which haveen huge values. clarence thomas has taken personal jets to mr. crowe's home in the diet that flight would be half o million dollars. he has never disclosed it in gorsuch for years he owned a piece of land in colorado that he was trying to sell along with one or two of other investment partners and for well over a year they had to lower the price for couple of times and literally within nine days of the supreme court justice the property was purchased at a very nice sum by the head of a major law firm that support this supreme court quite frequent in terms of his disclosure form it just lifted a range of income h

son of the late antonin scalia joined us to talk about the impact.ey will find who did it, very bad day for the court, never had a leak like this before. i don't blame the supreme court for not wanting to call in the fbi to interview their personnel, they were not going to do that. i don't believe it would have been one of the justices, i think all of the justices we have are hard working, well meaning people who respect that institution. i think it is most likely a clerk who was seeking to intimidate the justices and bring threats upon them. >> ashley: last week supreme court justice samuel alito said, i have a good idea who is responsible, that is different from the level of proof needed to name somebody. and the hollywood eshg lite at the met gala, kim kardashian and pete davidson were seen chatting. it was dedicated to carl lagerfeld. in tennis, superstar sesdltrenawilliams announced she is expecting her second child. we will check in with janice dean, i see you ditched the umbrella. >> janice: i did, the skies are clearing up a bit. although we

that is a worry to my next guest, the national security institute antonin scalia law school, founder,meel, looking at this stuff, we feel it is not worth showing, it is a reminder how a.i. is changing the game, how a lot of people can be hoodwinked, fooled, people driven to take action against something totally fictitious. what do we do? >> absolutely, neil. there are challenges in this space. a.i. has the power to be hugely transformative for the situation. it can create huge benefits. there are downsize and challenges. we saw the "deepfake" images, pentagon being attacked. musicians being copied and. it is important to think about the security of the algorithms, think about the security that a.i. provides, including images. we spent time investing in the space since 2020, the security of a.i. images, protecting a.i. capabilities, gore algorithms and the like. there is lot to be done, neil. governments should look how they regulate it as well. neil: i worry about the tendency on the part of rushed society we live in now, especially on social media you're in a rush to get the news out

in february of 2016, less than two hours after the death of justice antonin scalia, nine months before the election, 11 months before the end of obama's term, mcconnell made it clear that he would not even confirm a replacement before a new president had taken office. the republican-controlled senate went further and even refused to have a hearing on merrick garland, obama's nominee, for that seat. >> one of my proudest moments is when i looked at barack obama in the eye and i said, "mr. president, you will not fill this supreme court vacancy." [ cheers and applause ] >> and in 2017, when democrats filibustered trump nominee neil gorsuch for that scalia seat, mcconnell went further and he ended the filibuster for supreme court nominees as well. so changing the rules and allowing now one party to muscle through its nominees on all levels of the judiciary and able to reshape all the justices into partisan actors. and, of course, paving the way for trump to put three justices on the supreme court, the most by any one-term president since herbert hoover. now, unhappy with the ideological m

. >> narrator: in those early years, thomas was overshadowed by another conservative justice, antonin scaliaalia cast a giant shadow because he was, you know, scalia. he's one of the most powerful intellects ever to sit on the united states supreme court. >> many people looked at thomas as kind of scalia light. you know? somebody that was not, did not have the heft and the intellectual firepower and the ability to debate. ♪ ♪ >> narrator: thomas told people he stopped reading mainstream news. >> ...garbage with anita hill... >> narrator: instead, he relied on two primary sources-- his wife and rush limbaugh. >> greetings and welcome back. rush limbaugh. i knew he didn't do it. i knew clarence thomas didn't do it. anita hill's stories about clarence thomas were not true. >> he would listen to rush limbaugh when he, as he was doing a long commute, and he would have court staff tape-record it, so he could listen to it when he was commuting. >> your attempt to assuage all of your white guilt by supporting obama is worthless, because you know he's not a real black. if any race of people should no

you know, just as antonin sclsc scalia, famously used to tell the public, get over it.ome of what he was writing to his colleagues about how angry he was. but even mild-mannered anthony kennedy was saying, you know, you liberal dissenters who are saying that the integrity of the court will be lost, you're just putting forward something that will be a self-fulfilling prophesy. >> it's fascinating, especially when you think of the stevens dissent in bush v. gore, even though we may never know with complete certainty the winner of this year's presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear, it is the nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law. that was then. we're 23 years past that now. >> you know, poppy, and it was bush v. gore seemed so unusual, so unprecedented. and that language that you just read from justice stevens seemed such a departure from how justices would speak at the time. now, it's almost like an everyday occurrence among outside critics of the supreme court, but also among some justices inside. the --