to be clear roe v. wade is not a decision invented by advocate judges. as part of a centuries worth of jurisprudence that protects an entire constellation of rights, rights relating to family, marriage, their haircut, contrn and personal autonomy and intimate life. i vote against roe is whether to overrule it as a formal matter or get it to incremental cuts put all of those rights in jeopardy. and make no mistake about it, about for judge kavanaugh is a vote against roe. thank you for having me. >> thank you. now professor amar. >> thank you, chairman grassley, ranking member feinstein, distinguished senators. my name is iq them are, i'm a sterling professor of law and political science at yale university why specialized in constitutional law. i testified before this committee on seven occasions and always a solemn responsibility to appear here. here are my top ten points. one, but capital is the best candidate on the horizon. supreme court's biggest job is to interpret and apply the constitution. he has studied the constitution with more care, consisten

because both he's anti-roe v.o-executive power meaning the president being above the law. i don't think there's any doubt about that yes, it's precedent. yes, it is settled law but five justice cans overturn any settled law and he would be a fifth vote. >> near a, speak to bill's analysis that this is a type of fancy dissembling that is designed to create space to do and claims what he won't do, undercut roe. >> i think the way to judge that is from brett kavanaugh's own words. what was fascinating about last week is that the judiciary committee majority, the republican majority, is working overtime to hide documents, including documents that brett kavanaugh had when he was in the bush white house in which he clearly said that roe is not settled press dent and i think we should take that as his -- i think the we he speaks freely in the bush white house is his view which is roe is not precedent and it was an interesting track -- or an interesting moment because his actual words in private which everyone was trying

roe ends. then he gets on the standard says, i'm not going to do anything to roe. we have had to accept that. if you think about the visuals of those confirmation hearings, of women dressed up as the handmaid's tale, women being dragged -- 200 woman being dragged screaming from the senate. you can say, oh, this is not polite, but this is life and death for women. and to say, oh, i have an open mind with a history that he has, that is the central issue that we're losing a little bit now in conversations about whether he told the truth or even this conversation. there is no doubt what will happen to women's reproductive health care. you can call it what you want to call it, you can call it reversing roe, but we know where he stands. and the notion this is going to be a hard question for collins and murkowski who claim to be for reproductive rights, this just got a lot easier for them. now they just have to say "we should hear this woman out." amy: and we will see what happens, whether dr. christine blasey ford is able to testify before the senate judiciary committee

wade. >> obviously, i'd like to see the supreme court revisit roe. i'm hopeful that if roe is potentially overturned, i hope that the decisiomaking can come back to the states, so each state can make their own decision. >> states started limiting access to abortion as soon as the k was dry on roe. >> nawaz: elizabeth nash says that while she's worried roe o might one day rturned, her bigger concern is that abortion access is already being restricted aggressively in many states across the nation. >> since january 2011, we've seen 423 abortion restrictions enacted in 33 states. from, you know, virginia to arizona to south dakota to georgia. it's everywhere. >> nawaz: soutdakota is one of

tonight, reversing roe. brett kavanaugh's nomination to the supreme court leaving the future of "roe v. wade" uncertain. >> abortion is illegal! >> activists on both sides of the abortion battle bracing for a fight. >> we are certainly dangerously close to the cliff in which access becomes completely unavailable. >> how the confirmation of kavanaugh could impact a woman's right to choose for decades to come. >> i think the pro-life movement is advancing quickly. we see this battle as victory on its way. >> plus, cosby behind bars. >> the i dreamt for this day for 32 years. >> once beloved tv dad bill cosby spends hits first night in prison. iconic comedian in happened cuffs, now labeled a sexually violent predator. they reaction from the women who spoke out cosby's wife says he was denied a fair trial. "nightline" will be right back. >>> good evening. thank you for joining us. supreme court nominee brett kavanaugh in the public now just two days away from hearing from the woman who accuses him of sexual assa

whether you agree with roe v. wade or not, just think what could happen down the road if five people determined the word liberty means "x." the only real check and balance is a constitutional amendment to change the ruling. do you agree with that? >> senator, i'm not going to comment on potential constitutional amendments or what -- >> okay. how -- if we pass add statute tomorrow in congress saying that the congress can regulate abortions before medical liability, wouldn't that fly in the face of roe v. wade? >> so the supreme court has said a woman has -- >> doesn't that trump a statute? >> the supreme court precedent -- >> all of us could vote, these five people have said liberty means right -- the state has no interest here, compelling interest before medical viability, that we could pass all the laws we want. doesn't matter because they fall. only way to change that is a constitutional amendment process that requires two

and he won't say that roe was correctly decided.e will say that brown versus board of education is correctly decided and he'll say other cases are correctly decided. but he leaves himself that window to overrule roe and he's been slick about dodging around that. >> let's be direct. these things can get rather convoluted. senator, are you saying that he is avoiding committing to upholding roe because that would ultimately be performing perjury on the senate? >> he's more trying to avoid it in order to give senator collins and murkowski some room. >> do you think he has assured senator collins in any meaningful way that he is pro-choice? the balance of what's happened this week, and you just went through some of it, seems to suggest more that he is pro-life, which would make sense, because the president committed to only appointing pro-life justices. >> yeah, well, the question whether he's pro-choice and whether he's pro-life kind of runs beside the question of how he will treat roe v. wade as precedent. he has gone as far as to say

let's overrule roe versus wade. it doesn't work that way. >> i see what you are asking, senator, right. the way cases come up to us in that context or another context would be -- >> can i give you an example to do it quicker? >> yes. >> some state somewhere or some town somewhere passes a law that runs into the face of roe. somebody will object, they'll go to lower courts and eventually it might come up to the supreme court challenging the foundations roe versus wade. it would take some legislative enactment for that to happen, is that correct? >> that's correct. >> if there was such an action by a state or local government challenging roe and it came before the supreme court, would you listen to both sides? >> i listen to both sides in every case, senator, i have for 12 years, yes. >> when it comes to overruling a longstanding precedent of the court is there a formula that you use? >> first of all, you start with the notion of precedent and as i've said to senator feinstein in this context, this is a precedent that

now this e-mail says actually he didn't think roe was settled law and if you can say that about roe, you can actually say this about any case yesterday on affirmative action, on same-sex marriage, on environmental regulations, he kept saying precedent, here's the precedent. as jill was saying, he kept saying precedent, precedent. now this e-mail says actually he doesn't necessarily have that same view of precedent and if you can say that about roe, you can say that about anything because the supreme court said that's almost a super precedent, roe v. wade, the hardest type of thing to overrule. >> it would seem to the casual observer kavanaugh's position on roe v. wade is a bit ambiguous. >> trump campaigned on this. promising he would appoint justices that would overturn roe v. wade. until all the sudden the vacancy, now all of states, sudden everyone is silent. >> when kavanaugh was asked directly about precedent, he turned to casey, planned parenthood versus casey. this is the 1992 opinion in which the supreme court essentially upheld roe v. wade but then said states can restrict a

should roe versus wade be overturned? right now highest proportion of americans ever recorded said it should not be overturned. that we should keep abortion legal in this country. 71% of americans. 71% say roe versus wade should not be overturned. that even includes a majority of republicans. the highest ever result on that question. with a penaltying nomination of a judge who would be the decisive vote to overturn roe. if trump succeeds in getting him on the court. and that kind of thing has consequences. a week after brett kavanaugh's nomination to the supreme court was announced, the nonpartisan pugh research center released a national poll that found more americans oppose the confirmation of judge kavanaugh to the supreme court than any other nominee in recent history. opposition to kavanaugh was even greater, the polls showed, than the opposition against harriet meyers. do you remember harriet meyers? the nomination was considered to be one of the worst botched supreme court nomination attempts, one of the worst nomi

this has been viewed, as you saying you don't think roe is settled. amy: judge bretttt kavanaugh dismissed the significance of hihis 2003 email. >> the broader point was simply that i think it was overstating something about legal scholars. i am always concerned with accuracy. i thought that was not quite accurate description of legal -- all legal scholars. in ago during thursday's hearing, judge kavanaugh also alarmed any rude productive rights activists by describing contraception as abortion-inducing drugs. he made the comment and a question about his 2015 dissent in the priests for life versus hhshs case. >> t that was a group being ford to provide certain kind of health coverage over the religious objection to their employees. under the religious freedom restoration act, the question was the e first, was this a substantial burden on the religious exercise? and it seemed to me quite clearly it was. it was a technical matter of filling out a form in that case. they said filling out the form would make them complplicit in e provision of the abortion

abortion, roe v.their major issues that this court is about to change with judge kavanaugh, and it reminds me of the luckier era, and i do not want to go back to that time time. it sure feels like that is where we are heading. if the federalist society wants another supreme court judge to be on and change the lay of the land. >> i would like two or three more of this after this justice, but in her conversation with the senator sasse, shannon, were talking with the accusation that judge kavanaugh perjured himself on that website above the law. the former editor of that website went on twitter today and systematically, meticulously debunked that ridiculous claim with context and fair-minded analysis. the democrats on the left have nothing on brett kavanaugh, which is why we saw the showboating and the shrieking from the protesters, because there is no substance to get him on peers >> shannon: speaking of the shrieking protesters, we have watch as dozens are carted off every single day. i want to know, d

ere's been a lot of conversation about whether or not roe v.e could be overturned.. >> y >> nawaz: what do you think about that? is that something you worry about? >> yes, i truly worry about women living in a world witht roe. my fear, if roe were to be ever overturned, is that women would turn to unsafe places to accomplish that. n az: dr. traxler says that's why she'll continue making this trip for along as she is legally allowed.s for the pbwshour, i'm amna nawaz in sioux falls, south dakota. >> woodruff: we return now to former president obama's remarks noday to the students at the university of il. from pointed criticism on the current state of polito calling for more common ground, one message was consistent: urging people to vot >> i'm he today because this is one of those pivotal moments when every onef us, as citizens of the united states, need to determine just who it is that we are. just what it is that we stand for. and as a fellow citizen, not as an ex-president, but as a fellow citizen, i'm here to deliver a simple message. and th

woodruff: this week, kavanaugh called "roe v.e"-- the landmark supreme court abortion rights case-- an "important precedent." but melissa murray-- a new york university law professor-- saida naugh did not follow precedent in the "jane doe" case, or in another case denying birth control coverage because of an employer's religious r liefs. >> i think it's clom judge kavanaugh's judicial records, senators, that he is not a jurist in the mold of justice w kenned frequently upheld these precedents. judge kavanaugh, in these a decisions, harrow understanding of the right to liberty. >>oodruff: disability righ advocates also criticized vanaugh for limiting the legal autonomy in a previous ruling, and refusing to say if he wou protect the affordable care act. >> i speak for every person with a disability who will never able to live independently. most importantly, i speak for every american whose life could change tomorrow with a new diagnosis. >> woodruff: witnesses supporting kavanaugh pushed back, defending him as a fair- minded and i

roe v. wade, if i might. my office wrote the assault weapons legislation in 1993. it was law from '94 to 2004. it essentially prohibited the transfer, sale, and manufacture of assault weapons. it did not, at the time, affect possession. i happen to believe that it did work and that it was important. i have watched case after case, and i think i mentioned earlier, school shootings, which i never thought this would happen in our country, that someone would bring a semi-automatic assault weapon into a school and just mow down children and staff. so i've been very interested in your thinking on assault weapons. you specifically argued that the d.c. assault weapons p s ban wa unconstitutional. i think because you said these weapons were in common use. what did you base your conclusion, that assault weapons are in common use? what evidence or study did you use to do that? >> thank you, senator feinstein, for the question. i understand, of course, your role on that issue, and your long leadership o

save roe! save democracy! save roe! >> reporter: but then democratic senators joining the resistance, drowning out the protesters with their own dramatic stand. senator cory booker, apparently flouting senate rules by releasing confidential e-mails from judge kavanaugh's years inside the george w. bush white house, one dealing with the issue of racial profiling post-9/11. >> i openly invite and accept the consequences of my team releasing that e-mail right now. >> reporter: booker's fellow democrats vowing to stand with him. >> count me in. i want to be part of this process. >> count me in, too. >> reporter: the democrats facing possible expulsion for breaking senate rules. but republicans later claiming it was all just a show. those documents had been released overnight. so, democrats turned to confronting kavanaugh on abortion, and a 2003 e-mail about roe v. wade, where he wrote, "i am not sure that all legal scholars refer to roe as the settled law of the land at the supreme court level, sin

so roe v. wade held and reaffirmed in planned parenthood versus casey that a woman has a constitutional right to obtain an abortion before viability subject to reasonable regulation by the state up to the point where that regulation constitutes an undue burden on the woman's right to obtain an abortion. and one of the reasons for that holding as explained by the court in roe and also in planned parenthood versus casey more fully is along the lines of what you said, senator feinstein, about the quote from justice o'connor. so that is one of tfof the ratis that undergirds roe v. wade. >> let immediate give you another rationale. in the 1950s and '60s before roe, deaths from illegal abortions in this country ran between 200,000 and 1.2 million. that is according to the gutmacher institute. a lot of women died in that period. so the question comes, and you have said today -- not today, b but it's been reported that you have said that roe is now settled law. the first question i have, what do you me

>> senator, roe v.ade is an important precedent in the supreme court. >> don't you have to have a case? you can't just, hey, what are you doing for lunch? let's overrule roe v. wade. it doesn't work that way? >> i see what you're asking, senator. right. there's -- the way cases come up to us in that context or in other context would be -- >> can i give you an example because i can do this quicker? >> yes. >> so some states somewhere or some town somewhere passes a law that runs into the face of roe. somebody will object. they'll go to lower courts and eventually it might come up to the supreme court challenging the foundations of roe v. wade. it would take some legislative enactment for that to happen, is that correct? >> that's correct. >> if there was such an action by a state or a local government challenging roe, and it came before the supreme court, would you listen to both sides? >> i listen to both sides in every case, senator. i have for 12 years, yes. >> when it comes to overruling our longstan

tilted the balance on the vote for roe v wade and many other very very important.votes which include the power of the president the power of the executive to to make decisions and to receive impunity in certain criminal. situations and investigations also cavanagh has a history of having the very very pro corporate and anti regulation ideology and perspective so all of this is coming to play this is not just objective neutral situation here where everybody. is taking the allegations by doctor for seriously are just the only ones being political this is a this is a field of deceit are you mentioned that the legal status in america or all of them in america is actually contingent on political ideologies but in fact actually at the code of judicial conduct itself which all judges and all legal process people are supposed to adhere to a code of judicial conduct makes it illegal to vote based on political guidelines it makes it illegal for i'm judges to be politically active and so it's actually there are laws set in place that say that it can't be said of course you ca

>> senator, roe v.ade's an important precedent in the supreme court that we affirmed. >> don't you have to have a case? >> yeah. >> what are you doing for lunch? let's overrule roe v. wade. it doesn't work that way, right? >> i see what you're asking, senator. right. there's -- there's -- the way cases come up to us in that context or another context. this is a precedent that has been reaffirmed many times over 45 years, including in planned parenthood versus casey where they specifically considered whether to overrule and reaffirm and apply to all the stare decisis factors that became important many this context. but you look at -- there are factors that you look at when you're considering any process. >> so there is a process in place that the court has followed for a very long time? >> that is correct, senator. >> joining us jeffrey toobin, anne milgram. >> carrie cordero and former congressman charlie dent. jeff, you said abortion would be legal in main states. >> i think i'm right. that statement i

if there's a case before him that challenges roe v. wade that he would listen to both sides of the story, apply a test to overturn precedent. precedent is important, but it's not invalid. i'm dying to see if he believes that citizens versus united can be overturned. the bottom line here is there's a process to overturn a precedent. i think he understands that process. he will apply it. if it were up to me, states would make these decisions, not the supreme court, but it is a long-held precedent of the court. it will be challenged over time, and i hope he'll give it a fair hearing. >> reporter: now, fred, the reason roe versus wade continues to be a main issue for brett kavanaugh's confirmation process is because the trump administration time and time again has promised to overturn it and allow that decision to go back to the states. the confirmation hearings actually begin on tuesday. so far president trump has not weighed in via twitter this weekend. though, he has been active, i should say, on a number of other issues. >> during the

he said i will appoint justices to overturn roe.so much about these hearings that are highly irregular. you had the president say he intended to appoint pro-life judges. we've already seen judge gorsuch on the bench and now we have judge kavanaugh who has an opinion where he denies a young woman who has completed all the requirements by the state of toexs get an abortion and he blocks her from doing it. it is clear. fryman the south. they tell you, believe someone when they show you who you are. i believe him. he's shown us. >> so senator, there will be a week. what is happening behind the scenes? >> well, right now, i can tell you that staff to staff, the staff of the democratic members who are pro-choice all of them, they're sitting down with them. they're showing them the record. his comments in the garza case had are cold. they are cold. i would say to my friends in the senate. my two republican colleagues that i proudly serve with. read his words. the way he talks about an unlawful immigrant minor. he doesn't even give her a pe

he said i'm going to choose someone who will repeal roe. i will choose someone who will overturn much of the health care protections that we have, as in the a.c.a. so he had this special obligation, and when i interviewed him in my office, he ducked. i asked him if he believed planned v. parenthood which affirmed roe was correctly decided, not whether it's precedent. that doesn't matter. precedence changes. supreme court justices do it. whether it was correctly decided. he refused to say. he refused to say whether any restriction on a woman's reproductive freedom constituted an undue burden. there was nothing, nothing that i heard from judge kavanaugh in our interview to dispel the presumption created by president trump's litmus test that a justice kavanaugh would vote to overturn roe and protections for americans with preexisting conditions. judge kavanaugh will no doubt refuse to answer these important questions in the committee hearings as well. we're not going to get clear answers. that's what judge nominees have been taught to do. but

as mike pence has said for decades, i want to put roe v. wade on the ash heap of history.his is something think kavanaugh will do. >> you bring up mike pence, subject of your new book. call him shadow president. vice president of the united states. how deeply important is his presence on the ticket for trump's continued presidency or his presidency from the beginning? >> it was everything. funny story, i was on cnn the morning that pence was selected. there was a great deal of mystery about who will he choose. for some reason i had the instinct that it was pence because pence balances out trump almost perfectly. as pious as donald trump is profane, serious and measured as trump is chaotic. balanced trump temperamentally and also in the culture war in the united states. until he ran for president, i would guess most evangelicals thought trump was on the left side, liberal side of the culture war because he was a creature of television, had been a democrat and independent and really out there. not their kind of man. >> i wonder why you decided to focus on the vice president.

since he wrote that, there's now another vote to overturn roe versus wade.nk it is certain that a justice kavanaugh would look at the issue very differently than a judge kavanaugh because once you're on that supreme court, you get to make the call. >> i want to play a clip. this is the ranking democrat, are the top democrat on the judiciary committee, senator diane feinstein, who said this on this sensitive issue of roe v. wade and kavanaugh. listen to this. >> so thank you, senator feinstein. in that draft letter, it was referring to the views of legal scholars. i think my comment in the e-mail is that might be overstating the position of legal scholars. so it wasn't a technically accurate description in the letter of what legal scholars thought at that time. >> i've actually read these memos that were confidential but now are out. they've been released by some of these democratic senators. the question is on the sensitive issue of abortion rights for women in the united states, you think any of this is going to have an impact on two moderate republican sen

i put it together, roe v. wade plus the parental consent statutes and i said different people disagree about this from different directions, but we have to follow it as faithfully as possible, and the parental consent was the model -- not the model, the precedent. can i say abortion on demand, i'm not familiar with the code word. what i'm familiar with is chief justice berger in his concurrence in roe v. wade itself. he joined the majority. he wrote a concurrence that specifically said that the court today does not uphold abortion on demand. that's his phrase and he joined the majority in roe v. wade. what that meant in practice over the years, over the last 45 years, is that reasonable regulations are permissible so long as they don't constitute an undue burden. and that's then the parental consent, informed consent, 24-hour waiting period, parental innocence notice laws. that's what i was recognizing when i used that term. >> well, it also was a signal. let's be very blunt here. it was a signal to the federa

do you hope kavanaugh overturns roe v. wade? >> if there is a case before him that challenges roe v. wade, i hope he'd listen to both sides of the story, apply a test to overturn precedent. precedent is important but it is not invalue -- invalid. >> geoff, as you pointed out, what happens in the proceedings during this hearing will undoubtedly be talked about on the campaign trail for democrats and republicans. >> reporter: absolutely. pete spoke to this, too, but i was on the hill the day kavanaugh was making the rounds, doing his meet and greets with senators. he met with maine senator susan collins. after her meeting with him, he told me and some other reporters that in their conversation, kavanaugh agreed with chief justice john roberts, who in his own confirmation a decade ago, said he viewed roe v. wade being settled law. to reproductive rights advocates, it is hardly reassuring. the supreme court settles resettled law all the time. it's what it does. that's why it is the supreme court. democrats are certainly worried abou

also on roe. they believe i had private comments to senators that roe versus wade is settled law is not enough. they plan to poke holes in that to suggest he would not be a reliable vote and could very well overturn the landmark ruling. >> you mentioned one of the things democrats are going to look for is his truthfulness. it's a reminder that kavanaugh obviously is a sitting federal judge. back when he was nominated for that, it was a very, very intense fight. we have a flashback for you from 2004. senator dick durbin, who was on judiciary then, will now be questioning him. watch what happened then. >> as i like through all of the different issues that you have been involved in as an attorney in public service and private sector, it seems that you are the forest gump of republican politic. you show up at every scene of the crime. >> my background hasn't been in party politics. i've been a lawyer for clients, working for judges and justice kennedy, working in the justice department. >> he has been

democrats demanded, was that a hint he'd overrule roe? >> it was referring to the views of legal scholars, and i think my comment in the e-mail was that might be overstating the position of legal scholars. >> reporter: it's a subject democrats hammered away on. last night, senator kamala harris -- >> can you think of any laws that give government the power to make decisions about the male body? >> reporter: harris also asking a cryptic question about the russia investigation. >> have you discussed mueller or his investigation with anyone at kasowitz, benson and torres, the law firm founded by marc kasowitz, president trump's personal lawyer? it's a really specific question. >> i would like to know the person you're thinking of, because, what -- >> i think you're thinking of someone and you don't want to tell us. >> reporter: today, kavanaugh trying to clarify. >> i haven't had any inappropriate conversations about that investigation with anyone. i've never given anyone any hints, forecasts, previews, >> terry moran back with us tonight. a

so for him to say roe versus wade, even worthy to say that roe v. wade is settled law is little comfort to those of us who support women's reproductive choice. thank you. >> professor amar. >> professor amar, welcome back to the committee. my colleague here, senator tunes and i were talking about how much we enjoyed your insights in spite of the fact that you hate our special counsel bill and also agree not going to allow you to talk about it because we have to extend the hearing for two hours. maybe because of senator tunes commentary. i want to ask a question about judge kavanaugh and his body of work, some 307 opinions. if you study them, i assume you have, you give me an insight into the ones that you think best reflect his thought process in arriving at an opinion? >> in the appendix to my testimony, i offered a snippet from the washington post that i wrote about the phh case that made, i think it's the same one that ted olson discussed involving the consumer financial protection bureau and its structure. and what, what senator chloe which are

so roe v. wade held of course, and reaffirmed in planned parenthood versus casey, that a woman has a constitutional right to obtain an abortion before viability. subject to reasonable regulation by the state, up to the point where that regulation constitutes an undue burden on the woman's right to obtain an abortion. and one of the reasons for that holding, as explained by the court, in roe and also in planned parenthood versus casey more fully, is i long the lines of what you said, senator feinstein, about the quote from justice o'connor. so that's one of the rationales that undergirds roe v. wade, that's one of the rationales that undergirds planned parrothood versus casey. >> let me give you another rationale, in the 1950s and '60s, the two decades before roe, deaths from illegal abortions in this country ran between 200,000 and 1.2 million. that's according to the guttmacher institute. so a lot of women died in that period. so the question comes -- as you have said today, not today, but in,

>> senator, roe v. wade is an important precedent of the supreme court. >> don't you have to have a case? you just can't -- >> yes. not just, what are you doing for lunch, let's override roe v. wade. >> i see what you're asking, senator. the way cases come up to us in that context or another context would be a laws -- >> can i give an example to do this quicker? >> yes. >> so some state somewhere or some town somewhere pass as law that runs into the face of roe. somebody will object. they'll go to lower courts and eventually it might come up to the supreme court challenging the foundations of roe v. wade. it would take a legislative enactment for that to happen. is that correct? >> that's correct f. there was such action by a local state or government challenging roe and it came before the supreme court, would you listen to both sides? >> i listen to both sides in every case, senator. i have for 12 years, yes. >> when it comes to overruling a long-standing precedent of the court is there a formula that

heather: a lot of discussion about the role of precedent, roe v wade keeps coming up. you asked about that as well. it is possible to get things long, presidents don't last forever. here's what he said. >> the factors the supreme court looks at, whether the decisions are wrong or grievously wrong, inconsistent with the law around it, what the consequences are including workability and alliance. heather: what about writing a judicial wrong? >> can the supreme court make a mistake? he said absolutely. let's start with plessy versus ferguson and the supreme court comes out with a ridiculously racist decision with only one distance, 50 years since brown the board. we went precedent because judges shouldn't make up rules as they go along and we want different circuit courts to know how to meet out justice but that doesn't mean every precedent is sacrosanct. lots are wrong. whether you call that super precedent there are precedents that are wrong. brett kavanaugh didn't go near this but i believe one of the grievous wrongs of the supreme court is roe v wade. i serve in a pol

roe v.ade? and what is your view of later decisions asserting the government may not place an undue board and -- burden on a woman's right to abortion. there are plenty of other editorials about today's hearings, who is brett kavanaugh? that is the question asked in a piece for the new york times today and the editorial board of the wall street journal, their headline on their lead editorial, calling it the kavanaugh hazing. democrats fear the high court will no longer be a liberal legislature. if you want to read those pieces in those various papers, we want to hear from you this morning. democrats, 202-748-8000. republican, 202-748-8001. independents, 202-748-8002 beverly here in. d.c., a democrat. go ahead. caller: i would like to know why is it that 12 judges have been unable and incapable of granting a person judgment for possession of property when the property owner really should have had the -- duey, but 12 judges to the fact of the false information from the lawyers and -- caused th

you want to see them overturn roe v. wade? pres.mp: we put another two or perhaps three justices on, that is really what is going to be does this will happen. that will happen automatically, in my opinion because i'm putting pro-life justices on the court. i will say this, it will go back to the statates and the statess will then make a determination. amy: that was president trump, at the time candidate from, being questioned by chris wallace in a debatee with hillay clinton. juan: kristen clarke, going back to the discussion you started earlier about the racial policies, in 1999, brett kavanaugh wrote an op-ed piece in "the wall street journal" having to do with the situation in a wife. this was jenna clinton administration and there was an office of one affairs and the clinton administration tried to redress the theft of the land of the native hawaiians when the hawaiian kingdom was annexed. kavanaugh called the agency an unconstitutional "naked racial-spoils system." "any racialthat group with creative reasoning qualify as an ind

wade -- who are not saying roe v. wade will be overturned those who dedicated their lives to overturning roe v. wade. they suddenly discovered, wow, this is a great big mystery. donald trump outsourced the selection -- remember he has this big list of people, 20 people, 15 people, it's very -- to the federalist society. the federalist society is built on the idea of overturning roe v. wade, of declaring affirmative action unconstitutional, of saying that religious people can keep gay people out of their bakeries, out of their hotels, out of their restaurants. this is a platform of issues that that is what matters to them. that's why brett kavanaugh was picked. of course he's going to say i'm keeping an open mind. susan collins is free to delude herself into thinking that brett kavanaugh has no opinion about the future of roe v. wade and thinks it's set of law. come on. let's at least be honest. you know what, a lot of people think roe v. wade should be overturned. they want a supreme court justice. let's be honest abo

it is like ly that roe v.tright decision basically throwing it out. quite frankly, for advocates of choice, it might be better to have a frontal attack, and instead, they might have roe v. wade lingering on in the sort of the half dead type of the state. where the states wouldn't have entirely the authority, but the federal government is offering little protection. >> robert mueller's probe is also going to come up, and you mentioned executive privilege, and presidential subpoenas and indictments and kavanaugh has offered thoughts on the past n. a 1995 memo, he argued that the president would have to testify before a grand jury if subpoenaed quoting that the president is not above the law, but yet on the issue of indictment in 1998 he said that the indictment should not be pursued when the president is in office, and then in 1999 he wrote for the minnesota law review that the indictment of a sitting president moreover would cripple the federal government. does he need to clarify where he stands? >> well, he sh

versus wade as settled law. >> we talked about whether he considered roe to be settled law. he said that he agreed with what justice roberts said at his nomination hearing, in which he said that it was settled law. we had a very good, thorough discussion about that issue and many others. >> senator susan collins of maine. the other one is hees murkowski of alaska apparently indicating some satisfaction that brett kavanaugh told her that he considered roe versus wade settled law. that by her admission is something that matters to her in terms of her nomination. well today somebody leaked to the new york times and then to nbc news this e-mail written by brett kavanaugh he wrote in 2003 in which he argued that roe versus wade is not recognized to be settled law because the supreme court could very well overturn it. quote, i am not sure that all legal scholars refer to it the as settled law since the court can always overrule its press denial and three current justices on the court would do so. at the time he was writing in it 2003 he was probably right that three justices would

i put it together, roe v. wade plus the parental consent statutes and i said different people disagree about this from different directions, but we have to follow it as faithfully as possible, and the parental consent was the model -- not the model, the precedent. can i say abortion on demand, i'm not familiar with the code word. what i'm familiar with is chief justice berger in his concurrence in roe v. wade itself. he joined the majority. he wrote a concurrence that specifically said that the court today does not uphold abortion on demand. that's his phrase and he joined the majority in roe v. wade. what that meant in practice over the years, over the last 45 years, is that reasonable regulations are permissible so long as they don't constitute an undue burden. and that's then the parental consent, informed consent, 24-hour waiting period, parental innocence notice laws. that's what i was recognizing when i used that term. >> well, it also was a signal. let's be very blunt here. it was a signal to the federa

that's roe versus wade. because anthony kennedy was the guy who on various cases before him made sure that roe v. wade and parts of it, some of it, entirety, not overturned. a key senator on the republican side susan collins said she thought kavanaugh respected the decision because he told her in private it was, quote, settled law. yesterday i asked lindsey graham a republican openly anti-abortion on his take on roe v. wade. >> do you hope kavanaugh does overturn roe v. wade? >> if there's a case before him that challenges roe v. wade to listen to both sides of the story, apply a test to overturn precedent. precedent is important because it's not invalid. i'm dying to see if he sees if citizens versus united can be overturned. there's a process to overturn a precedent. >> and senator graham is correct. precedent can be changed. if you look at the decision of same-sex marriage they revoked a previous case law. so it could happen. that's a concern for democrats then it's a valid concern. but i think the point

so roe v. wade held of course, and reaffirmed in planned parenthood versus casey, that a woman has a constitutional right to obtain an abortion before viability. subject to reasonable regulation by the state, up to the point where that regulation constitutes an undue burden on the woman's right to obtain an abortion. and one of the reasons for that holding, as explained by the court, in roe and also in planned parenthood versus casey more fully, is i long the lines of what you said, senator feinstein, about the quote from justice o'connor. so that's one of the rationales that undergirds roe v. wade, that's one of the rationales that undergirds planned parrothood versus casey. >> let me give you another rationale, in the 1950s and '60s, the two decades before roe, deaths from illegal abortions in this country ran between 200,000 and 1.2 million. that's according to the guttmacher institute. so a lot of women died in that period. so the question comes -- as you have said today, not today, but in,

roe v wade and every other president.chris: to make it clear, your thank you don't view his statement to senator collins, that it is settled law means that therefore it can't be re-examined and conceivably overturned? >> he would be disqualified if you would not listen to both sides of the story and decide accordingly. this idea that roe v wade will be challenged at the state level. there are all kinds of laws. some may work their way to the supreme court. he will give great deference to roe v wade.but it can be overturned like every other decision but that will be up to the facts in the record. >>chris: senator lindsay graham, thank you. thank you for your time during a tough week in our deepest sympathies on the loss of a dear friend. joining me now from illinois, another member of the committee that will be questioning brett kavanaugh, dick durbin. the number two democrat. democrats have tried a variety of efforts to upended the confirmation of brett kavanaugh but the argument that there's a midterm and that president

he said i will appoint justices to overturn roe. hearings that are highly irregular. you had the president say he intended to appoint pro-life judges. we've already seen judge gorsuch on the bench and now we have judge kavanaugh who has an opinion where he denies a young woman who has completed all the requirements by the state of texas to get an abortion and he blocks her from doing it. it is clear. i'm from the south. they tell you, believe someone when they show you who you are. i believe him. he's shown us. >> so senator, there will be a week. what is happening behind the scenes? >> well, right now, i can tell you that staff to staff, the staff of the democratic members who are pro-choice all of them, they're sitting down with them. they're showing them the record. his comments in the garza case had are cold. they are cold. i would say to my friends in the senate. my two republican colleagues that i proudly serve with. read his words. the way he talks about an unlawful immigrant minor. he doesn't even give her a persona. >> all

let's overrule roe v wade. it doesn't work that way. >> and his evolution whether a sitting president should be subjected to committal and civil investigations while in office. is a member of kenneth starr's team he advocated aggressively questioning then-president bill clinton and helped write the star report outlining the grounds for impeachment. years later he wrote an article questioning the wisdom of suggesting sitting president to invest of investigations while noting congress was the ultimate remedy, impeachment. >> what changed in september 11th. that is what changed, president bush said this will not happen again and he was of single-minded focus every morning for the next 7 years, september 12, 2001. >> this sparks numerous questions about whether he was involved in crafting warrantless surveillance programs or enhanced interrogation policies and legal memos used to justify them. >> i was not involved in crafting that program nor crafting the legal justifications for that program. >> reporter: the sam