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Supreme Court Sidesteps Gerrymandering, Lets Map Stand; Republicans Threaten Action if DOJ Doesn't Turn Over Docs. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired June 18, 2018 - 12:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[12:30:00] DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: Next, the Supreme Court decides not to decide two major cases with huge political consequences. We'll talk about that next.

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BASH: The Supreme Court sidestepped two major Gerrymandering cases today, leaving disputed voting maps in place for the time being. In one case, Democrats in Wisconsin challenged districts drawn by Republicans. In the other, Maryland Republicans challenged districts drawn up by Democrats.

Today's ruling comes with just one week and 14 cases left on the docket. I want to go right now to CNN's Jessica Schneider joining us live from outside the Supreme Court.

So Jessica, what message in reading these opinions do they send on the question and issue of gerrymandering?

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well Dana, many people wanted a much broader ruling here. But, really, what this decision does is it leaves the door open to other challenges to these maps that could potentially be drawn with improper political purposes.

[12:35:08] So the Supreme Court today, not ruling on the major issue here, instead really relying on some procedural grounds to let these maps in Wisconsin and Maryland stand at least for now, they will be in place until maybe other court opinions or court rulings happen.

But the Supreme Court, interestingly, they didn't rule on this broader constitutional issue as to whether or not partisan gerrymandering is constitutional. They've left that question open. But this was a unanimous decision to let these maps stand, however, at least one justice really signaled here that this issue could, once again, come before the Supreme Court if the facts of the case are right.

And that was Justice Elena Kagan. She put it this way. She said that, "Partisan gerrymandering no doubt burdens individual votes, but it also causes other harms." Then she continue to say, "Courts and in particular, this court will again be called on to redress extreme partisan gerrymanders. I am hopeful, we will then step up to our responsibility to vindicate the Constitution against a contrary law."

But the Supreme Court's saying here, these facts involved Maryland and Wisconsin, they just ruled (ph) the right cases to decide on this broader constitutional issue. And, of course Dana, just a few months before the midterms, this has become a real flash point on the political spectrum.

President Obama has made this a case that he wants to fight. He's already pledged to have more equality in these legislative districts after the 2020 census. And we know President Trump has tweeted often about it as well. And one tweet saying, "Let's bring it to the Supreme Court," well today they did and the Supreme Court sidestepping this issue, dodging it, leaving that bigger issue and a bigger question for another day. Dana?

BASH: Jessica, thank you so much. And they certainly did dodge. You can use maybe more colorful language about what the Supreme Court didn't do today.

And look, this is an important political question. I think maybe one of the most important political questions that we've seen over the past few decades, because we see it every day and voters and Americans see it every day.

When they say, why isn't Congress getting anything done? Well, if you look at the House of Representatives, a big reason is the gerrymandering that has gone on. This is the way that each state draws their congressional districts and draws it -- draws them to protect either Democrats or Republicans.

And what that means is that, when Republican x or Democrat y is legislating, they are more concerned about a challenge from the right. If they're Republican, because it's a very Republican district or a challenge from the left if they're a Democrat. And that means that the incentive is to move to the extremes instead of to the middle. And the Supreme Court has the ability to do what Congress and state legislatures clearly can't do which is police themselves to make sure it doesn't happen.

MICHEAL SHEAR, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Right. But this is, at the end of the day, a tug-of-war between who should fix that problem, right? You stated the problem quite eloquently. I think there is a fair amount of recognition on both sides that that is the problem. But the question is who should fix that?

And the Supreme Court, you know, when the arguments were held, there was a lot of skepticism by the justices saying back to the lawyers that were arguing these cases why is that our problem? This is, at the end of the day, a political situation that the two parties in the state legislatures should be able to resolve. They should be able to fix this.

The argument back to the Supreme Court justices basically is, it's more frozen. The American political system cannot fix this and what's happening is partisans are taking control --

BASH: Yes.

SHEAR: -- of the, you know, setting up these boundaries and we need you, the Supreme Court to step in and stop us. And so far, the Supreme Court is enough.

BASH: And one could argue that is why there are three branches of government, for one to step in and to fix another, but they can't do it.

SHEAR: But the Supreme Courts always wary of stepping in into what's the political question and that's --

BASH: And that's understandable.

SHEAR: -- and that's the tension.

BASH: And that's understandable, as Jessica reported, maybe it will happen just not with these cases.

OLIVIER KNOX, CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, SIRIUS XM: But what this underlines too is that we always talk about "we".

BASH: The royal we.

KNOX: OK, royal we. We talk about the midterms chiefly in terms of control of the House, control of Congress. But actually one of the more important dynamics is control of the government shifts and the state legislatures. Because they're ultimately the ones who are called upon to either fix it or make it worse, right?

In terms of that fight, one of the most important dynamics in politics today is that way that under the Obama presidency, Democrats got routed, reliably. They lost thousands --

BASH: A thousand seats.

KNOX: Yes, they lost governorships, they lost state houses. And so, they're paying a really stiff price for that now and you hear it reflected in some of the democratic arguments on the trail both in terms of alleged voter suppression, in terms of things like voter I.D, some big lawsuits on that coming as well. But that's where the big fight is going to be and we should remember that we're talking about the midterms in general.

BASH: OK, we have a lot more -- I'm sorry, we have to go to break but we're going to catch more about this in a minute.

[12:40:04] Up next, we have one of the midterm candidates. We've been talking about the midterms, one of them is debuting his first campaign ad and it's a total dumpster fire.

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BASH: Topping our political radar, President Trump will sign legislation in the creating safer neighborhoods and reducing crime. The Safe Neighborhoods Grant Program targets gangs and organized crime groups and tries to foster and improve relations between federal state and local agencies.

And a new poll shows, satisfaction with the direction of the country is that a 12 year high. According Gallup, 38 percent of Americans say they're satisfied with how things are going, that's up nine points since last month and marks the highest satisfaction rate since 2005.

[12:45:14] And that matters because that number historically helps predict which party performs better in the elections.

And Minnesota Senate Candidate Richard Painter is releasing his first campaign ad. Painter, who served as White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush is running as a Democrat and says, someone needs to put out a fire raging in Washington.

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RICHARD PAINTER (D), MINNESOTA: Some people see a dumpster of fire and do nothing but watch the spectacle. Some are too scared to face the danger. There is an inferno raging in Washington. But here in Atlanta, 10,000 likes, we know how to put out a fire.

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BASH: That's definitely the most subtle ad we've seen. Painter has emerged as an out spoken critic, as you might have surmised. Critic of the President is hoping to unseat Senator Tina Smith who took over Senator Al Franken seat after he resigned following allegations of misconduct.

And up next, the new threat in a fight between Republican lawmakers and the Trump Justice Department. Stay with us.

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[12:50:33] BASH: Welcome back, today the President who is long called the special counsel's investigational a "witch hunt" is making a new charge. He said the following, "Comey gave Strzok his marching orders", that's according to a tweet from the President today. "Mueller is Comey's best friend, witch hunt." Now, that tweet is conspiracy theory catnip. But the evidence just isn't there, at least not yet. The President is connecting dots that aren't there.

The Justice Department watchdog could not prove that politics drove investigative decisions in the Clinton e-mail probe. The inspector general did, however, find apparent bias among some officials including this text message from Peter Strzok who the President was referring to.

Now the IG will soon release another report that will asses if bias like that impacted the Russia Investigation of President Trump. Now the Strzok text has some Republicans who have repeatedly said, you know, let Mueller do his job, they're worried among them Trey Gowdy.

Gowdy angered, you remember some on the right, many of them actually who were upset that he shut down the President's baseless accusations that the FBI implanted "spies" in the Trump campaign. Now he says Stzrok's enemies makes whatever Mueller finds a whole lot harder to take at face value.

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TREY GOWDY (R), OVERRIGHT COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: I don't know what Mueller has. I do know this, that bias is so pervasive and everyone who's ever stood in front of the jury and had to explain it away will tell you what is the most miserable feeling in the world and I have never seen this level of bias.

So, you have Peter Strzok who can't think of a single American who can vote for Donald Trump and you got Peter Strzok who says, we'll stop it. So how would you like if you're Bob Mueller to present that case to a jury?

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BASH: Now, what Senate might say that Trey Gowdy is trying to get right with Republicans who went nuts when he basically undermined their conspiracy theory, that there were spies in the Trump campaign. Having said that, Trey Gowdy is leaving Congress, he has historically then Benghazi aside, maybe a straight shooter. And so this means that there should be some credence to what he says, no?

CATHERINE LUCEY, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, ASSOCIATED PRESS: Well, what he's doing is what the President has been doing for a while now which is seeking to cast out the investigation. So, the President has been, with his tweets, with his public comments, trying to undermine the investigation, you know, sort of (ph) create a suspicion around any findings, the findings that come out and he sees it that it's working. And so they're continuing to do that. So I think this is part of that effort.

BASH: Is it part that has Trey Gowdy jumped on that bandwagon? Or is there a legitimate need for Congress to see these documents about what went down in these investigations, or in particular, Russia?

SHEAR: I think it can be both. I mean, I think there is, you know, there is a sense even Jim Comey in an Op-ed had said that he sort of welcome this look in this investigation into the FBI and into what they've done. I mean I think there's some legitimate oversight, but I also think Catherine's right.

This is -- There is a concerted effort led by the White House and involving the members of Congress and his allies to really try to undermine the Mueller probe. So that whatever he decides, whatever he announces is not legitimate.

And this is part of it. I mean, what struck me was when Gowdy said there's pervasive bias. I mean, you know, he's sort of, what's the definition of pervasive? You've got a, you know, a couple of these FBI officials who were fired, by the way, almost a year ago by Bob Mueller, taken off of the case. And so, you know, it's unclear what he's talking about pervasive bias, but they're going to try to make it sound that way to undermine the --

BASH: And we can't forget that this is a Republican group talking about a Republican now, at least a Republican-led Justice Department. And the person who has been most out front in this, of course, is the House Intel Chair Devin Nunes. Listen to how he describes it.

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REP. DEVIN NUNES (R), CHAIRMAN, INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: The FBI and DOJ know that they've been put on notice. Mr. Rosenstein, the Deputy Attorney General and directorate have to decide whether or not they want to be part of the clean-up crew or they want to be part of the cover-up crew.

So, if documents do not begin to be turned over tomorrow and in a clear way and path forward for everything else is not clear here in the next couple days, there's going to be hell to pay by Wednesday morning.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:55:06] SEUNG MIN KIM, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: So, clearly Devin Nunes has been one of the more aggressive Republican members out front against the Mueller investigation, but I think there was an interesting development in this whole issue last week that was kind of overlooked.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in an interview with the Washington examiner said it's time for this Mueller probe to wrap up. It's taking "seemingly forever". McConnell has been a guy who's kind of, you know, stepped aside and said the special counsel should do its work, but even he's getting a little impatient in which I thought was that pretty notable development.

BASH: Final word, 15 seconds.

KNOX: Just that, in the context of Congressional investigations and other investigations the Mueller probe has not, in fact, been going on seemingly forever. Anyone who's covered anything from Ken Starr, Robert Fiske into Ken Starr, or for the matter who followed the Benghazi stuff, no, it's not -- it does not been going on forever. And you made a good point which is that Mr. Mueller fired Peter Strzok for a reason.

BASH: That's very, very good point. It's always nice to end on a fact.

Thank you guys for such a great discussion, thank you for joining us in "Inside Politics", John King will be back tomorrow and Wolf starts right after a break.

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WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Wolf Blitzer, it's 1:00 p.m. here in Washington, wherever you're watching --