MSNBC "The Beat with Ari Melber" - Transcript: Supreme Court

Interview

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MELBER: Are you demanding that standard tonight?

SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D), CONNECTICUT: I agree with Dick Durbin. The American people should have a voice. My Republican colleagues should
respect their own precedent. A decision on confirmation should take place after the new Congress is seated.

MELBER: And what are you prepared to do if Mitch McConnell goes forward with what he said is he`s not going to follow his precedent. He I basically publicly admitted is hypocrisy that only applies to Presidents he doesn`t like.

BLUMENTHAL: Let`s remember first, Ari. The American people should and will understand the momentous importance of this choice for all the reasons you discussed earlier. This justice will have a decisive vote. Call it a swing vote or a majority maker. But we are in an unparalleled moment of assault on the rule of law when our fundamental liberties are in danger. And we are going to use every tool available and we will possibly be creative about some new ones in seeking to give the American people a voice. A decision of this historic magnitude requires more deliberate consideration than is possible in the few politically charged months between now and the election.

MELBER: As you know, sir, there are many people, including within the Democratic Party who feel the Democrats are always late and soft to these fights. Can you say tonight what you or your colleagues are prepared to do on the judiciary committee or in the Senate to enforce that? Because McConnell is being clear about what he is going to do. Are you prepared to shut down the entire Senate, shut down other business to prevent a vote until after the midterms or are you not repaired to go there tonight?

BLUMENTHAL: If the President nominates a right wing fringe ideologue, I believe there are colleagues on both sides of the aisle who will stand up to be counted. We will galvanize them and we will galvanize the American people and we will use tools, every one available, to make the public aware of what`s at stake here. It`s not only reproductive rights and privacy rights and voting rights and clean air and water right, but also the fundamental rule of law that`s at stake and the American people will understand it and will use every potential tool we have.

MELBER: Well, you know, that picks up on point that Maya Wiley, an attorney and an analyst of ours, was making these moments before you joined us. She was arguing that what we are seeing in a way that is so significant and that is bigger than some of the other controversies of the Trump era, the rhetoric and the tweet as we are seeing actually the fruits of the strategy to try to capture the court as a rear guard action to make up in the judicial process what wasn`t always able to be won by conservatives in electoral process and to try to roll back the rights of women and minorities. Do you agree with that analysis? Do you think that is over stated?

BLUMENTHAL: The agenda of all the potential nominees on some of the list I have seen is in fact to roll back Roe v. Wade and other deeply established, long accepted decisions of this court in defiance of one of the jurisprudential principles you are all well aware of it, that courts should respect long established precedents. The President has also said that he would nominate justices who would, and I`m quoting him I think directly,
automatically overrule Roe v. Wade.

MELBER: Right.

BLUMENTHAL: That`s unacceptable.

MELBER: Stay with me. Maya, did you want to respond or have a question for the senator?
WILEY: Well, senator, you said something, I think two important things. One is if it`s a really ideological appointee, what`s ideological and what`s too ideological? And the second is what are some of the rule tools that you might identify that would actually potentially change the outcome and enable more voice for the American people?

BLUMENTHAL: Maya, I served as a law clerk for a Supreme Court justice, Justice Blackman, who by the way was the author of Roe v. Wade, the year before I clerked for him. And I also argued cases before the Supreme Court, four of them.

My basic philosophy is that I want a fair and open minded judge or justice who will consider the arguments that I make carefully but will adhere to the rule of law established precedent, principles and values of freedom and democracy that are at the core of our constitution. My philosophy is that a person of that intellect and integrity is an absolute requirement. And so, we will mobilize the American public and I`m confident that colleagues on both sides of the aisle will stand up and be counted because overruling for Roe v. Wade, decimating women`s health care or privacy rights or marriage equality or any of the other critical progress made over the last decade is really a definite threshold for me.

MELBER: And finally, I`ll say briefly we are over time. But as I ask you to respond in some of what our experts have said, Jeffrey Rosen, a longtime court watchers, you know, he went on record tonight on THE BEAT and said Roe v. Wade could be overturned based on this vacancy. Is that overstated or do you agree that Roe hangs in the balance as well tonight?

BLUMENTHAL: I think even more than Roe hangs in the balance and Roes does. Our fundamental rights and liberties are threatened now as never before. When the history of this era is written, Ari, I believe that the courts and our free press will be the heroes that preserve democracy because they stood strong. They disclosed what was happening. They prevented, for example, family separation and other abuses. And I am very, very hopeful that we can fight any right wing ideologue who chooses to roll back those basic protections. And yes, Roe v. Wade is at risk.

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