c-span.org/impeachment, follow the inquiry live honorably -- on c-span 3 or listen on the free c-span radio apps. >> the question will be in order. >> c-span has been providing america unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court and public policy events in washington dc and around the country so you can make up your mind created by cable in 1979. c-span is brought to you by your local cable or satellite provider. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. >> the council on foreign relations held a discussion on the cases before the supreme court this turn. appellate attorneys argue before the court frequently and

two journalists who cover the court. and chief justice john roberts presides over the senate impeachment trial of donald trump. >> and we're going to look ahead, probably ahead. and for national public radio, you don't know who these people are in detail, look it up. we have 25 minutes and going to talk. you were the acting solicitor general but he acted for a long time, of the united states. and chief legal correspondent

for cbs news. and paul clement who was solicitor general of the united states. and before that the deputy. both of these guys are there often, they are both very good advocates. i'm going to start by talking about news. there are two cases before the supreme court pending, waiting for the justices to say what, if anything they are going to do with them. one is on the dc circuit and the dc circuit ruled when congress asked for information from, in this case, donald trump's accounting firm related to whether they will pass ethics legislation that would require the disclosure of a

president's taxes. the dc circuit says you have the right to do that. there is a second case from new york, state case where -- in the city case, the district attorney for manhattan has issued a grand jury subpoena with the same kind of material but this time it is related to hush money payments, perhaps one other person, not really sure. the second circuit upheld for criminal investigation, they are both getting up to the supreme court, trump lawyers have asked the court to stop those subpoenas from being in court. the question is will they grant a stay preventing those things

from going into effect, there is a short temporary stay but will they grant -- will be agreed to hear the case or cases? let me go straight down the line and ask each of you what they are going to do. >> great to be here, that long application scares the heck out of me so to the back door today. the supreme court takes requests when the president says here my case, they generally hear the case. this is a case to either predict -- they are pretty happy with careful reasoning by the two lower court opinions. the trump briefs are extreme in their legal views. might be better for the court to stay out altogether.

>> which means trump has to put this -- we will -- >> i am inclined to agree with neil. last term and first term, brett kavanaugh was on the court, it was extremely quiet. the justices punted on a lot of high profile, controversial issues. whether that was designed to take the court out of the conversation, this time it is very different. and we in tv. the ones that make the headlines, which paul has the will they be about abortion or those flash point social

issues, they are all on the plate and that is a real concern for the justices this term already including the chief justice that the court may not be such a conversation in 2020, there's concern by some of the justice including the chief justice that court packing is on the minds of a lot of democratic president contenders. there is an effort, the flash point, to resolve cases narrowly where they can, no big swing for the fence's, opinion for these hot button cases. be that as it may, there is one to take a pass on. i agree with neil on that and let the second circuit decision span. i'm inclined to agree with neil but my final point is predicting the supreme court

right now is really folly. you can't tell -- too soon and to predict them based on argument, we can't do that anymore. >> i will echo neil and say what it is like to be with you. >> i forgot to say that too. i am happy to be here. >> 1980 graduate of the georgetown school foreign service. i've long been a fan of the organization. i took a long way around, it is a delight to be here. i will take a different tact, not necessarily think it but make it more interesting. a decent chance, the dc circuit case that arises in a federal proctor. carrying the circuit case with

it, for the federal case. because there is something of - >> it raised the issues about which for the president and his administration. the court has taken -- >> if you go to the famous clinton versus jones case. and arose out of the incident at the excelsior hotel, the court took that case, the court took it, got excited about the

prospect, creating some immunity that affected president clinton but they decided 9-0 against the president and this is the context where the court out of deference to the institution of the presidency might take this case but if they did, it would be a mistake, the fact they took the case as a precursor to them ruling in favor of donald trump. in that respect the clinton versus jones case may be - >> i agree about the presidency but in this chief justice's concerns, seems to me the institution of the supreme court and the judiciary, unlike the 1990s where you had a fairly regular president who didn't attack the courts every time a decision didn't come out

in his favor, a president who is very comfortable doing exactly that including the chief justice. i would think a better chess move is to stay out of it altogether and not invite that. >> i can make the counterargument that since in the normal course the court may grant in a case like this the best way to reassert normalcy if you will is if you take the case because that is what you would otherwise do and rule the way you might otherwise rule and if you look at the court's president, the way to do that -- if you did all that in the end you might send what is ultimately the message you want to send which is we are going to behave the way we handle this tight of issue at any

other point but we will see. >> in order to do that, we all serve in the context of an election year which is more dicey, supreme court's by tradition if they can like to avoid doing that. i am not sure that still exists but certainly brown versus board, they postponed the part where there was an election coming up, so at this term they have to expedite it to do that. i am not one of these people who follows how many days are left with various briefs to get in this term. but they could do it easily. to layout a proposed schedule

with a ruling in june. and a term where there are already a number of controversial social issues. >> if they are going to do it. and in 2021, there is precedent for that, went on a fast schedule with the first filing of the district in april, the supreme court heard the case and decided 15 days after that, start to finish after three months. >> other than that, mrs. lincoln, let me start with you. you have at least two and maybe more cases that -- what is the gun rights case, right after thanksgiving, the monday after

thanksgiving but there is also the very unsexy but incredibly important case involving the consumer financial protection board. the board that was created under president obama and enacted by congress but unlike other agencies, only one head and although -- brett kavanaugh as a lower court judge wrote very clearly he thought that was unconstitutional. paul is in an unusual position because the trump administration has abandoned defending the structure of the board, there is nobody to defend him.

the supreme court appoints somebody to defend it. could you talk for a minute about why this is an important case and how different it is? i don't believe you ever appeared before the supreme court without a client? >> i would be happy to. in a sense i feel very empowered. this happens from time to time usually lower profile cases and in circumstance where government decides it can't defend the judgment to appoint a lawyer as an amicus to defend the judgment. essentially what has happened here, a more high-profile case. for the more typical case, a relatively recent alert to defend -- i thought my moment

had passed to get appointed, it is empowering, i literally have no clients. we have to open up a new client matter, the answer is no. i don't have a client. i am a court appointed amicus. i told this the other day it is like i was thinking about the process of putting my brief together and in every other case i ever had i had to build a week to let the client review the brief and it occurred to me i can finish this brief up 30 seconds before i file it. it is empowering. why i think this is such an important case. it is such an important case because the specific question

in the case is whether or not the removal provision or the head of the cfp v which is a four cause removal provision is constitutional. that is one of these things, the issue in this case is like the thread on the sweater. if you start tugging on it potentially the whole sweater comes undone and the sweater here, the entirety of the independent agency, the sec, and the alphabet soup of agencies that all have four cause protections and they typically alluded to multimember, and all six members of the sec that have protection and the like. a lot of institutions in the town that are very familiar to the operation of government that have these protections.

it is a great place to have a discussion. if i knew where we were at a certain point, the federal reserve, either here or here, has this kind of for cause protections and the federal reserve is a great example of why congress imposes these restrictions, certain issues we deal with at the national level where it is nice to have a degree of insulation discharging a particular duty or particular responsibility where it is not going to just change with whoever is president. for a fairly long time now we thought for example monetary policy as being something that shouldn't just change in a way with each administration in a way that would be more consistent with having every member of the federal reserve board serve at the will of the

president so the court obviously could decide this case in a way that this particular thing is unconstitutional but nothing else is called into question. that wouldn't be that easy to decide in that way. if anything, the ultimate question is how much control does the president need to have over an agency, it seems a little weird to draw the distinction that it is okay to have six people that serve with for cost protection instead of one. if the president was going to remove someone for cause it is easier to do that to one person then to recompose the body of the federal reserve. the constitutional value is you can't insulate these agencies too much from the executive branch, seems if anything the this thinking would go the other way.

it is a case worth watching, not just about this agency. and the agencies that are more insulated from the president. conservative justices think, you see this with brett kavanaugh's opinion, it is more like that. >> you argued essentially that your position in the big religion case of last year which you can talk about for one minute. looking forward there is something policy is involved in. what we are seeing, undeniably is a shift on the court in an era that began in the late 40s, early 50s and accelerated in

the 60s and 70s. the value of separation between church and state in the constitution, that was the lodestar everybody was aiming for. today it is more an accommodation between church and state and if we talk lawyer talk you talk separation of church and state, you don't establish a religion, anything you do you try to prevent anything that helps the establishment of religion and on the other side much more accentuated is the free exercise, handed over to you. >> our society has moved in a direction much more accommodating to religion, there was a case in 1970, almost set up a wall between very strong robust law between church and state and that led to a bunch of precedents in lower courts over the last year that i thought were pretty indefensible so the court

circuit which sits right here ordered the tearing down of the peace cross in fiji county, a 32 foot cross erected in 19252, more rate soldiers who had fallen in world war i and i thought that was ridiculous. by 7-2 decision the supreme court agreed the cross should stay. you can have religious symbolism but they can acquire other meanings. the meeting was to cooperate the fallen soldiers. the court is moving 5-4 better decisions in this area to something that is closer to 7-2. justices breyer and kagan have a more accommodating view toward religion with respect to the case -- i will let you take that. >> very quickly, it is the

latest in a long line of cases involving school vouchers, a broad rubric for these cases. it involves the structure of more of a tax credit. it doesn't matter at the end of the day. the state sets up a program to allow this, are they forced by the federal constitution to include religious schools in the program or can they limit it by the terms of their own state constitution to just private nonsectarian schools and exclude the religious private schools or does that constitute discrimination on the basis of religion. this illustrates the fact that this is appear in this posture, illustrates how the court has moved over time. with a lemon cases, and in the

intervening decisions of parents, and and states, if they want to can include religious schools within their voucher program and not violate the clause. we have moved all the way to asking the question if they have a voucher program at all do they have to include the religious schools to avoid this, nation on the basis of religion and free exercise. this illustrates how this has moved in and accommodationist direction and at the same time the locus of the activity has moved the establishment clause prohibits favoring religion to the free exercise clause, essentially mandate that you not discriminate.

>> as you discussed, we have not only daca but other immigration cases, you have abortion this year, gun rights, heard about the religion clause cases. we have lgbt q rights in the title vii case. what am i leaving out? the point is we have a lot of stuff here. why do you think the court has tried for so long to keep the cap on the bottle and just overflowing or what? >> in so many cases, the last term was a quiet term in the supreme court and the first term brett kavanaugh is on. if you look back, we have blockbuster terms before where there are 5 or 6 controversial issues. that is unusual.

what is interesting about this year at the supreme court and this court in particular is it is a court in transition. if the supreme court, obviously we have a new justice and a relatively new justice that donald trump put on the supreme court. there is hope on the part of conservatives brett kavanaugh will be a more reliable conservative vote than justice kennedy was. there is great hope on conservatives that neil gorsuch will be a solidly conservative voice and there is great fear on the part of liberals that both of those things are going to happen and that donald trump might get another nomination which justice ginsburg is back at work, she hasn't missed a beat.

as activist ever during oral arguments and anything that suggests otherwise -- she is even thinner but other than that her voice is strong, she seems, three or four weeks of every day radiation this summer and 11 public events in september. when i say 11 most of those were multiple events she goes somewhere. >> not locally. >> i did one with her where i interviewed her in little rock, arkansas in the verizon center, 15,000 people and awaiting 16,000 and you see this little person in the middle and i

warned them that they -- you could really -- you could have heard a pin drop. it was an amazing problem i can't explain. i have known her for a very long time but i can't explain this except to say people and maybe young women in particular want to have a living hero. it is so relatively rare, and if anyone else has any

theories, and certainly justice ginsburg seems to be in good health and fine now. when i talk to philosophers, and sometimes kids don't know about that. it is a little plenary. what kind of justice is brett kavanaugh going to be. and it is more william rehnquist. that has changed quite a bit, one of the most liberal justices on the court. i don't think that will happen with these two justices but it is a mistake now when people try to predict what the supreme

court is going to do. we may get more clues this term but argument has changed now. the oral argument used to be a time when justices would ask questions like these two guys solely to get justice kennedy's vote. you could really tell where the justices are going or what with a thought based on their questions and their questions are important because they are trying to sway justice kennedy. that has changed now. without justice kennedy, the whole composition of the oral argument is different. >> you get to talk in the beginning now. the chief justice and other members of the court, the council simply couldn't have a moment to make a comprehensive argument so they have two minutes at the beginning of a

30 minute argument and which counsel was allowed to speak uninterrupted. there have been a couple interruptions because they forgot. three minutes is longer than you think. >> especially when you are used to covering the courts, and when you get up there to start arguing, justice o'connor used to be the one that was right out of the gate. >> the biggest change is you spend a lot of time thinking about what your first 3 sentences were because that is all you were going to get out. now think about what you're going to get out and 2 minutes doesn't sound like a lot, this

is an exponential stanchion. i had one argument under the new regime and it was an argument but lent itself to this because i had a couple different theories. i could win little or win big. two minutes allow me to lay out a venue and having laid out the venue, direct the questions back to the original menu in a way that is more effective than what got interrupted because classically a supreme court argument starts with a lawyer at the beginning of his or her argument i have 3 points, you never discover what points this everywhere and this allows you to lay out the thesis of your case. >> to give you a little data oral arguments, 60.8 questions in a 30 minute argument.

every 30 seconds. i think the new rules give us a little -- i will in a couple weeks. jan is right to say with kennedy gone the tenor of argument has changed. in particular the chief justice loves playing devils advocate and observers to the court will watch what he is saying and think he is leaning this way or that way. and the other side of the advocate. and the old arguments kennedy was on, wasn't just the justices trying to pitch their questions together, it was the advocates, so focused in this one spot on the court and now it is more of up your intellectual exercise, trying to make the best arguments for

your side and not tailor it toward that one vote. >> i'm supposed to turn this over to the members. you are all invited to join this conversation. a reminder, this is on the record, wait for the microphone to come around, then you can stand and state your name and your affiliation and let her rip. who has a question? i said we only have 25 minutes. >> larry meyer. it seems to me the cases are more predictable than you have suggested. whereas the chief justice said they are justices, not

republican and democratic justices doesn't seem the way it is. it seems this is very challenging because of the composition of the court changes and a lot of these things will be overturned and the nature of the supreme court will object. >> sometimes i think that is right. something that are predictable, some more predictable than others but that hot button focus, two years ago they were unanimous at 60%, 66% of cases. and a similar rate of unanimity. sometimes real hot button ones, i had citizens united 2, sec versus at&t and the question the year after the controversial citizens united decision was do corporations have privacy rights and newspaper headlines, a more

predictable decision, the law has an exception for personal privacy so the lawyers of the company stood up and said there is an exception for personal privacy, corporations are persons. the first code in our statute, companies have privacy rights. the chief justice immediately interrupted and said the word is personal, not person. the lawyer said that makes a difference, she said what about squirrel, squirrely, craft, crafty. the lawyer for the company didn't have an answer to that so the chief justice wrote an opinion for the court unanimously siding against the company that they don't have privacy rights and the last line of the opinion is, quote, at&t will not take it personally.

[laughter] >> just to say, i don't think you are right, somebody who spend all their time, too much of it thinking about the court, i don't think the way you described it is quite right. the justices care more about 7 or 8 of them than the question suggests. i do think there's less predictable than the questions but to give the premises of the question, they actually highlight a real challenge right there which is they have nine justices, five appointed by the president of one party, four appointed by presidents of another party and presidents that appointed them in the justices themselves have some differences, fundamental differences how you go about interpreting the constitution,

that end up dividing in the highest profile hot button issues along the lines of the president that appointed them. it is very easy for the public that is used to processing everything else in political terms to say the five conservatives that did x before liberals did why and i honestly believe justices are not processing the cases that way but they are processing the cases through their judicial philosophies that happened at this moment in time to dovetail 100% with political affiliation of the president who appointed them. it hasn't been that way before. jan alluded to justice souter, justice stevens to republican appointees who ended up voting much more like liberal justices if you can use that term and it

sort of shows why were they doing that, justice stevens in a certain country club chicago kind of way is still a republican but he had a judicial philosophy that is very different than what the current republican president is looking for. if you have a court that is divided along judicial philosophy lines that are 100% correlated with partisan affiliation of the president to appoint them you have a problem you have to manage. the chief justice who has very little tools in terms of managing the court, only one vote and the assignment power but has a challenge with the institution that legitimately is not deciding all the cases that way but in an environment where 99.9% of the people will

see it that way. >> the other thing, the democratic party until this election, find out who the standardbearer is, pretty much the same party it was when people were appointed in the 70s and 80s but that is not true for the republican party. gerald ford who appointed justice stevens said not long before he died he wrote something that said if i had one act to be most proud of it would be the appointment of justice stevens, gerald ford's brand of republican barely exists anymore and that is reflected in the appointments you see and therefore the

differences between the justices. >> we fuel that narrative because we shorthand the liberal justices, conservative justices, people who are casual observers whose knowledge of the court, what they might see on television, those are the republican justices and democratic justices. the way we cover the court sometimes fuels that and it is more that they are judicial conservatives, judicial liberals which means you're interpreting the constitution. that is a concern and the groups also fuel it. the interest groups on the left

and the right at times, their rhetoric is irresponsible. >> and wrong. >> it is contributing to misleading news of the court which is nine very smart people trying to engage in the struggle over how to interpret the constitution, genuinely wanting to get the right answer that they believe is the right answer. not like i will move the latest case. it is not like that. i covered the court for 25 years, lost a lot of respect for a lot of institutions in this town, the supreme court is not one of them. >> if you haven't gone to see the argument of the court, every time i am up there and watching, the only branch of government that still works. it is really remarkable. it is almost a crime that all-americans can't see it.

>> there is good news which is an easy solution for the court that can just grant more cases for me and neil and decide them unanimously hence showing politics doesn't matter at all and they can agree on things. there is a solution. >> i think this is a concern for the court and the justices. you will see try to rule on a lot of cases quite narrowly this term, very difficult to predict, it is certain they are going to rule that daca must come to a end, i won't go out on that limb. knock yourself out -- they are too hard to predict. they are concerned about that. public opinion polls have the court, public confidence in the court as an institution is dramatically higher, twice what congress is, three times the white house. >> way more than journalist and lawyers. >> the public confidence in the court as an institution is still high, but that is crucial

that it stay high. >> it has come down a lot. >> they don't have armies to enforce their decisions. >> we have other questions over here. >> i want to turn to this question, the pejorative word of expanding the supreme court some of the democratic candidates have been talking about. last time i read being tried in a serious fashion back in the 1930s, it got shot down pretty quickly even though president roosevelt had huge majorities in both houses of congress. what do you think is behind it this time and how do you think the supreme court reacts or do they react at all to this talk about expansion of the court?

>> i for one think these are politicians. what do you expect? as long as there was a clear center of the court it could go either way. i think liberals thought they would trust in the court, but for the first time they had no input at all in the selection or confirmation of either of the two justices and there was a lot of hanky-panky about holding scalia's seat open and all of that was great for mitch mcconnell and republicans and they maximized their affect with that but the bad side of

that, people who are liberal or even sometimes moderate think the system is a little rigged. and that leads to what i would call cockamamie ideas like court packing again which every justice as far as i know, liberal and conservative -- >> it is a shame we are in this position and it is more than a little bit of hanky-panky. a republican senator didn't even give merrick garland a hearing when justice scalia's untimely passing on february 13th, and that was putting the court in this political -- entirely predictable you have caused to court pack now. how can you not when that is what they did, and destroyed the process. i feel terribly that the court

is in this position. and i know where the court lies. >> i will broaden the lens a little further because i think what you see when you see kind of dysfunctional confirmation hearings, when you see political candidates talking about expanding the court, court packing and the like means to me that gets back to the idea that the court is deciding so many important issues, so many politically charged issues and congress by contrast is kicking a lot of the issues i think the framers thought it would decide and wrestle with to either the courts or the executive branch. ..

of course when the political process gets a bit of an opportunity to influence that institution, either by delaying a vote on one nominee or by trying to derail another nominee or saying look, the constitution doesn't specify the membership of the supreme court, how numerous it is, like if the court is going to have that much power and decide all of these issues, you have to expect that the political process where it can touch it is going to try to touch it. >> yes, over there. >> thank you all so much. i teach at university of miami law school. there are a handful of us in the room to work on international trade which is not in a that intersects much with you work

except it might in the future in the area of nondelegation doctrine. you may know there's a case in the federal circuit to look at one of the delegations for the president to put on national security terrace. we started learning about the nondelegation doctrine quickly and following the last term. as hard it may be to predict this particular court i walk a expert views on what we might be headed if not this term but further down the line on the nondelegation doctrine. thank you. >> if you started learning about the nondelegation doctrine you figured out quickly there's not that much to learn. somebody famously said that the nondelegation doctrine had one very good day in like 1931 and it's been all downhill sets. since. the supreme court struck down two statute on nondelegation theories and it really has struggled with how you apply that doctrine. >> explain what it is for people who are not -- >> the nondelegation doctrine

for those of you who didn't wake up this morning thinking about the nondelegation doctrine -- [laughing] -- is the idea that congress can delegate essentially too much legislative authority to the executive branch or impermissibly delegates too much legislative power to the executive branch if they did the executive branch assignments without providing any meaningful constraining direction. part of the reason that doctrine hasn't done particularly well since 1931 is there's a lot of federal agencies that are supposed to regulate the public airwaves in the public interest and the supreme court said that's good enough. it's in the public interest is good enough, what wouldn't be? also there's nothing in the constitution that speaks to this directly so even the justice who would like to have more robust nondelegation doctrine, they

tend to be the more textualist oriented justices and there is a lot of text to .2. i think i case about -- i'm not going to bother the acronym but close to it by but if you read between the line that are five justices on the court now at least that sympathies for the idea that the congress is delegating too much to the executive branch.

>> i think there is, most of you and agrees with. constitution says congress shall declare war. congress can give that authority over to members of cfr. that would give a flat out violation. the trade cases are interesting because they come pretty close to that hypothetical unlike those sworn in other stuff around the court. those are the ones to watch and see.

>> i am curious as to what your views are about the chief justice going over to the senate in january sometime early next year. how he's feeling about that and the twitter universe coming after him. >> i have a book coming out and check about this. >> holidays are right around the corner. [laughing] >> i couldn't help to plug the book. >> the chief justice, this chief justice court for the last chief justice who presided over the clinton impeachment. went over every day and presided in such a neutral way at the end he said i basically did nothing and i did it very well. [laughing] i think this chief justice would use that as the model. impeachment is weird. the sin is weird in that chief justice to make any sort of rolling but he can be overruled.

>> but he wasn't. part of the reason for that is a sort talk about everything before hand. rehnquist had the parliamentarian sitting on the shoulder basically and daschle e and lot probably got along better than schumer and mcconnell but still the leaders of these parties do tend when push comes to shove to get come to understand they have an object here, and the object is to complete a trial and reach a result, then relatively quick order, if they have different objectives and one wants to drag it out and the other doesn't, then it gets hairy. but in the last impeachment that did not end up being a problem. i would greatly suspect that this chief justice does not want to be making rulings that will get overruled by a majority and you will see him looking very regal but not much else.

he may be doing stuff behind the scenes making sure he understand what everybody wants but but it think we'll get to see at. >> you unlimited to looking regal here to meet interesting question is strikes are no strikes. rehnquist famously out of nowhere, came from gilbert and sullivan or something but showed up in court white stripes on his robes. [inaudible] >> i cannot think it would be neat if he did. >> no way. >> i think if justice ginsburg can have sort of the dissenting collar, , he should have special impeachment robe that he wears only for an patent. >> read? >> whatever. something to shake it up. >> but it does go to show what were talking about this term, and kind of the court being the center of attention in election-year, the minds and all the democratic candidates.

i'm sure not were john roberts would like to be in january or february. >> however, by tradition they start at 12 or 1230 thymic so he so he can do everything and object will be to do it well and the question is whether he will be drafting it, and opinion what he listens to some boring debate on the floor of the senate. anybody else? >> jeremy young, i'm a journalist with al-jazeera. the question, as when it you can share with us a personal story about your interactions with the notorious rbg, maybe something feels a little bit about her sense of humor, her character? >> she is quite funny, at least publicly. she really is a shy person and she is a quiet person.

unless she -- the secret of ruth bader ginsburg is that she's a performer. it's how she got to be good at what she did as a lawyer and it's how she got her job on the supreme court. because she was not as she would tell you, president clinton's first choice by any means. he tried cuomo. he tried george mitchell and there were some other people before. finally she gets, he gets persuaded to talk to her and he just falls for her hook, line and sinker. but you know, she gives a good speech and sometimes she's very funny on the bench, but that is not the person i've known for more than -- years. when we are both very young. but the only story i will tell you which is really quite amusing about me really more

than her is that what i started to cover the supreme court i didn't know anything. i'm not a lawyer. i really knew nothing, and may be the second year of force year, i don't remember, i opened this in a case called reid versus rate which was the first sex discrimination case before the four where they ruled against sex discrimination, ultimate. and it says women are covered by the 14th amendment. and i go, how are women covered by the 14th amendment? its post-civil war amendment to the constitution about african-americans, and i flipped to the front of the breaches he wrote it and it was written by a professor rutgers named ruth bader ginsburg. in those days we had little phone booths in the supreme court pressroom that were about the size of my chair here, and i go in one of these booths and i called her up and i get an

hour-long lecture. and i suddenly knew a lot, and that's how i met ruth bader ginsburg and over the years how i have known her more and more overtime. so it's not a funny story but it's -- she's a fascinating person. >> thanks for revealing that. she took in mind to educate you for an hour. >> answered her own phone. >> that's revealing. >> yes. >> andrew schapiro. this is a question, there's been speculation online that one of the reasons why democrats don't need to subpoena mulvaney and others now is because once impeachment happens, they can call them as witnesses during the actual impeachment trial and that chief justice would rule then whether they could bring it

rather than go through supreme court process where he's deciding vote anyway. why not wait until he gets to the senate floor and try to give those witnesses then. i was wondering what you thought of that legal theory that is announcing around at the net? >> i'm not going to predict how he will rule on any of that. i think those witnesses can be called then, and that's a faster route than now but i think really the reluctance to call these folks has a lot more to do with the fact they feel the cases 100% rock solid on the facts as they are already. they don't need to garner more fax, to go ahead and take the vote in house. i think that's really what's going on. >> let me ask you a question. if in the impeachment proceeding the senate were to call, let's say, i don't know, john bolton, and the president were to object and go to court at the same

time, could he do that? i mean, i know that we all have always thought that impeachment is at least, if -- some people think it's the only remedy. some people think it's not the only remedy but that it is at least the remedy. >> there's a case called nixon versus the united states and us that actually president nixon. there was a judge nixon was impeached and how he had the same name is beyond me, but in anything, no relation. >> walter nixon. >> the supreme court said basically the federal courts had no business and impeachment. i suspect that's what would happen even if the president tried to do that. i think it would be a terrible legal argument but he's known for making terrible arguments. [laughing] >> we've reached the witching hour, which is 1:30 and they tell me you are extremely prompt here at the council on foreign relations and that if i even let

this go over like two minutes, i will probably be impeached. [laughing] so thank you all for having us. [applause] thanks to my panelists. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> thanks for your comets. we go to david next in tulsa, oklahoma, on the democrat's line. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. i think the big winner in this whole process is c-span. it is the one network that president trump did not criticize. it is the one network -- to the speaker who was just before me and then to myself. and i'm in a state as a democrat where all 77 counties in 2016

voted for president trump. i think there's been enough evidence in what i've seen, which is unfiltered on c-span, and without commentary from millionaire anchors that there needs to be a trial in the senate. let the process work its way out. if trump is not guilty, let the process worked its way out. >> live coverage of the impeachment inquiry and the administration's response on c-span, , c-span, your unfilterd view of the impeachment inquiry. >> house impeachment inquiry hearings continue next week as the house judiciary committee talks with constitutional scholars. they will take recommendations from members of the intelligence committee and that what you're about constitutional grounds for presidential impeachment. the committee has invited president trump and his legal counsel to attend and ask questions. watch live on c-span3 wednesday

morning starting at ten eastern. it will be live on c-span.org or listen live with every c-span radio app. >> former massachusetts governor deval patrick entered the 2020 presidential campaign on november 14 and wasn't fired to new hampshire to speak at the politics and eggs breakfast hosted by the united states and the neptune institute of politics. a traditional stop for presidential candidates. he talked about why he was running for the democratic nomination so late into the process and how blind his policy position. first he greeted many of the attendees. [inaudible conversations]

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