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Inside Politics
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Dies Of Cancer At 87; McConnell Vows Vote On Trump's Pick; Supreme Court Vacancy Transforms Final Weeks Of Campaign; Interview With Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL); Ominous Trends In Latest COVID Case Data; Legacy Of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Aired 8-9a ET
Aired September 20, 2020 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[08:00:21]
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN KING, CNN HOST (voice-over): America mourns a legal legend.
JUSTICE RUTH BADER GINSBURG, SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES: I love the work I do. I think I have the best job in the world for a lawyer.
KING: Plus, the president pushes to fill the vacancy ASAP. Joe Biden says voters should decide who makes that pick.
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Voters should pick a president, and the president should pick the justice.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Fill that seat. This is the seat. That's what we're going to do. We're going to fill the seat.
BIDEN: And six weeks to Election Day, the coronavirus case count is trending up again.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can't relax with this thing. It is relentless.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If you give the virus an opportunity to spread, it will.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KING: Welcome to INSIDE POLITICS. I'm John King. To our viewers in the United States and around the world, thank you for sharing this consequential Sunday.
The nation mourning the passing of a beloved Supreme Court justice, and bracing now for a bruising fight over her replacement in the final six weeks of a presidential election already unprecedented because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg died Friday, after a long and heroic battle with cancer. She was 87, a trailblazer in the fight for women's rights, and a member of the nation's highest court for 27 impactful years.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: So final question, help me finish this sentence, OK? There will be enough female justices on the Supreme Court when there are --
GINSBURG: We know what the answer is. When there are nine, of course.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: The tributes outside the court this weekend, a reminder this tiny soft spoken justice will somehow also a pop culture icon, Notorious RBG, a tribute both to her pointed legal dissents and her remarkable resilience.
It is difficult to exaggerate the enormity of this moment. A Trump nominee to replace the liberal Ginsburg would dramatically tilt the balance of the nation's highest court to the right with major implications for issues ranging from Obamacare, abortion rights, climate change, business regulation, marriage equality.
The president promises to nominate a woman and wants swift confirmation. Before the election is his hope and as part of that push, the president could announce his third Supreme Court nominee as early as this week.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Both the White House and the Senate majority have a moral duty to fulfill the promises they made to the voters and that is exactly what we're going to do. And, by the way, we have plenty of time. There is a lot of time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: The Biden campaign just announcing the Democratic nominee Joe Biden will speak on this issue later today, in Philadelphia. He says Senate Republicans should honor the position they took back in 2016, when they refused to consider an Obama court nominee in a presidential election year.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: The voters should pick the president and the president should pick the justice for the Senate to consider. This was the position of the Republican Senate took in 2016 when there were almost 10 months to go before the election. That's the position the United States Senate must take today.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: The Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, though, vows action on a Trump nominee this year. And McConnell is pressuring Republicans who believe it is a bad idea or simply bad politics for them to toe the party line. Just this fight is viewed by many Republicans as a political plus, as
they try to keep the White House and try to keep their Senate majority, a chance Republicans believe to energize their conservative base and to change the subject from the president's coronavirus mismanagement.
With us this Sunday to kick off the conversation, and share the reporting and their insights, CNN's Kaitlan Collins, Julie Hirschfeld Davis of "The New York Times", and NPR's Asma Khalid.
Kaitlan, I want to start with you. The president promised at his rally last night, it would be a woman. We know there are several women on the list, but two he mentioned in a phone call with Mitch McConnell Friday night, he mentioned Judge Amy Coney Barrett, who is a favorite of Catholics, favorite of Christian conservatives, she is viewed as a solid pick and likely as the front-runner here. He also mentioned the woman in the middle, Judge Barbara Lagoa, who is a Cuban-American, Florida justice, obviously, a key state in presidential politics.
The president says quickly, how quickly?
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, the president said it could be by this week. You see the timeline. This is something that people should know they were already working on before Ruth Bader Ginsburg sadly passed away. They had been doing interviews, talking about who would be on the short list should a vacancy arise in the coming months.
[08:05:02]
And now, of course, that time has come. So, this is really sped things up here at the White House.
And that was evident by the fact that the president already had a call with the Senate majority leader to talk about these candidates they could be picking for his next Supreme Court pick. And those were the two women that he singled out by name.
And yesterday, when he was asked by reporters about those two potential picks, you know, he didn't really shared a lot of information about whether or not he's actually going -- what direction he's going to go in he did talk about Barbara Lagoa, and the fact that she is Hispanic and she is from Florida.
So, those are things they're considering. When the president is picking a woman, they're hoping that will help make up for the deficiency of support he has with suburban women voters as we have seen that play out. And so, the question is, which woman is to going to be? We'll likely know by this week.
But, of course, that still has an open question over what the confirmation battle is actually going to look like, when that would start and whether or not they would have votes before or after the election. So, that's something that has not been determined yet by the White House, but we could get a name as soon as this week, which gives you an indication of how quickly they want to move despite the president saying yesterday he felt like they had a lot of time, they really don't, John.
KING: And the question, Julie Hirschfeld Davis, is can Mitch McConnell get the votes in the sense that he can only afford to lose three of his Republicans to bring this to the floor. Some Republicans say do it before the election, some say just start the hearings and then do it after the election. Even if Republicans lose control of the senate, ram a vote through in the lame duck session.
Susan Collins yesterday on the ballot this year says no, that the president should nominate somebody that's fine, he has that right, but there should not be a vote until after the election. Let's see what the American people think about this. We're watching her.
Lisa Murkowski said Friday before the death of Justice Ginsburg she thought it was a bad idea. She has not reiterated that since the Death of Ginsburg.
And you see these other key senators, Lamar Alexander is retiring. Cory Gardner is in a tough race in Colorado. Chuck Grassley, an institutionalist who's on the record saying shouldn't do this in on a presidential election year, but a lot of Republicans are changing their mind already and Mitt Romney.
What is the calculation? Can Mitch McConnell keep, Collins is already a no, at least before the election, can he keep the others in line?
JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, CONGRESSIONAL EDITOR, NEW YORK TIMES: Well, I mean, as you said, he's already had some success at keeping some of them in line. Lindsey Graham said -- the chairman of the Judiciary Committee -- they shouldn't do this in an election year and he's already changed his tune and is going full steam ahead, he's indicated.
The question is whether Mitch McConnell has the votes. It is also when he should hold the vote. It is not just a question of can he hold 53 senators or 51 senators, it is also a question of if he pushes forward with the election, does that potentially cost them this Senate majority and would they be better off -- have an easier time with his already very tight races that there are a lot of Republicans trying to hang on to their seats if they held this vote after the election. That, of course, will affect the count.
You mentioned Cory Gardner. He is in this very difficult race in Colorado, looking at a potential loss, would it help for him to have this issue out there to not have to weigh one way or the other before the election, would he have an easier time voting in favor of President Trump's nominee afterwards?
So, those are all the calculations that Mitch McConnell is trying to make. It is why he asked senators late Friday night, please try to keep their powder dry and not lock themselves into any positions. Susan Collins in her race felt she needed to come out and be pretty absolute about what she would and would not accept. But you're not hearing a lot from other Republican senators who are very much in going to determine the outcome here. KING: And, Asma, as we wait for the president's pick, and as we try to
count the votes in the Senate, that's Washington parlor game to a degree. But I said at the beginning, it is almost impossible to exaggerate the significance of this when you look at the potential issues that now that -- the issues we know will come before a court that could potentially now go from a narrow 5-4 conservative majority to a clear 6-3 conservative majority.
They include the fate of Obamacare, whether insurance companies can deny you coverage for existing conditions, religious liberty versus gay rights, abortion rights questions, environmental regulations. There could even a post-election legal fight over the counts in the election because of the fights over mail-in balloting, marriage equality issues, you could go on and on and on.
The issues before this current court now 4-4 waiting to see who that other justice will be are remarkable.
ASMA KHALID, NPR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. And you can anticipate the Biden campaign does see that there are, you know, potential policies that they feel very much are at stake that could benefit them -- the fate of Obamacare being really at the top of that list. As you mentioned, that's expected to come up, back to the Supreme Court the week after the election. And Democrats feel confident that healthcare was a motivating issue for them in the 2018 midterms and that this could be potentially a motivating issue for them in this election cycle.
The other key issue I would say is abortion rights. We know from polling that Joe Biden has had somewhat soft support among some younger voters.
[08:10:00]
This is a really galvanizing issue for a number of young women voters in particular. And you look, look, I know fund-raising doesn't always -- it is not a clear equivalent with enthusiasm, but we look at the numbers from Act Blue, which is an online Democratic donor site, and they recorded record fund-raising yesterday, over $70 million. They told us over $90 million just since 8:00 p.m. Friday when the news broke of Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death.
So I mean I look at that, I look at the massive crowds of people gathering around the Supreme Court, and it certainly looks like this could be a potentially a galvanizing issue for Democrats. Of course, the question is whether or not President Trump moves so quickly, though, on nominating somebody that we are at a point where this remains an issue before election day.
KING: And, Kaitlan Collins, that is the question we can't answer, traditionally Republicans think this helps them. Christian conservatives, evangelicals, even pro-business conservatives who might not like President Trump's behavior, because of certain things, think this has been our legacy of Trump, let's get another judge, especially on the Supreme Court. You look at the headlines and some battleground states today, the
death of Justice Ginsburg getting a lot of attention around the country. The president's bet is that in places like Wisconsin, in places like Pennsylvania, in places like Michigan and Florida, this energizes his base.
But some of that is rear view mirror. As Dan Balz writes smartly in "The Washington Post" today, we have seen in the past the big year of the women elections that often this benefits Republicans but when? Abortion rights are hanging in the balance, healthcare is hanging in the balance, you sometimes see the opposite.
COLLINS: Right, and so that is what the White House is counting on this is actually going to work in their favor. Of course, you saw the president say he believes part of the reason he got elected in 2016 was because there was a vacancy. So people who did not like him held their nose and voted for him anyway they knew about that vacancy. The question is it the opposite this time? Does it drive up Democratic turnout so much?
And, of course, the thing you have to consider is healthcare. This has been an issue that even the attorney general said was not going to be -- they did not think a good argument to completely and fully invalidate Obamacare and now this put this issue of the White House having in replacement healthcare plan back in the top of the list because that became a whole lot more serious now that the president could have one of his picks on the Supreme Court, the ACA could be toast and they have no replacement that they have introduced yet, no comprehensive replacement is even on the horizon.
So, that is another big issue that could help Democrats. But as you noted, it is a bet, it is a risk and we do not know how it is going to turn out yet.
KING: In the early days of this.
Kaitlan Collins at the White House, Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Asma Khalid, grateful for the reporting and the insights and we will continue this conversation in the days ahead, and we will continue up next as well, have a Supreme Court fight to an already combustible year.
First, though, Justice Ginsburg and her constant mission.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GINSBURG: I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:17:03]
KING: Election Day is 45 days away. That's six weeks from Tuesday.
And there are still, believe it or not, 102 days left in an already consequential and controversial 2020.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LESTER HOLT, NBC NEWS ANCHOR: Breaking news tonight, President Trump acquitted. The historic verdict in the impeachment trial.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: A dire day on Wall Street, where stocks had their worst day since the stock market crash of 1987.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: The coronavirus pandemic has altered our lives. A million kids out of school, the NBA season halted, cases rising and rising.
ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There are several protests going on across D.C. Thousands of people coming out in support of this movement.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Breaking overnight, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passes away after a long battle with cancer.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: With us this Sunday, the former Republican Congresswoman Mia Love of Utah, and presidential historian Douglas Brinkley.
Congresswoman, let me start with you. We were talking with our reporters in the last segment. Many Republicans believe a fight about judges helps them in an election year. The president obviously is trailing whether you look at national polls or battleground state polls, the coronavirus pandemic has been dragging him down and dragging down Republicans in the key Senate races across the country.
Do you believe this is automatically a benefit for Republicans or is that a question mark?
MIA LOVE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think we can -- for most part anticipate this is going to be a good thing for Republicans. Although I just want to just put it out there, that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was just a trailblazer and we can't forget the things she has done for women in this country, and for America society at large.
I just want to put that out there because there is so much chatter I hear on social media. But getting back to the Supreme Court justice, you have to -- you have to imagine that this is something that if the president starts the nomination process, he can say, look, you need me for another four years, because they may mess this up, we have it try and push this through.
This is something that church leaders want when it comes to the -- when it comes to pro-life versus pro-choice. This is something when you've got -- it is going to affect the healthcare, it is going to affect Obamacare, when it goes back to the Supreme Court justice -- Supreme Court.
So, this is something that I think by and large Republicans and even middle of the road Republicans are going to see this as a motivator to get them to the polls.
KING: This has been, Doug Brinkley, without a doubt, no matter how this particular fight turns out, already if you look at the federal courts, it is a major Trump legacy, like it or not, people watching at home, this has been dramatic. He already has confirmed two justices to the United States Supreme Court, 53 court of appeals judges, 161 U.S. district court judges.
Our grandchildren will be living in America where Trump judges are having a dramatic effect. Now, he gets the potential for a third and not just a third, Doug Brinkley, this would shift the balance of the court. It is a very narrow 5-4 conservative majority now with John Roberts trying to play middleman and power broker if you will.
[08:20:02]
A 6-3 conservative majority would do what for America at this moment?
DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Well, this is a big moment for Donald Trump. I mean, the one thing he had to brag about is what you're suggesting his judiciary record. I mean, the fact that he already has two Supreme Court justices in with Kavanaugh and Gorsuch, and now a third, this is suddenly becomes what Trump can say is my legacy.
So the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg has created a massive opening for Donald Trump and he will seize it. I mean, it's a game changer in the sense that as the clock ticks to election day, Trump can talk about this record now, sort of buried under COVID-19 and impeachment this year, but now he can say this is beyond the economy, pre-COVID, this is what I did for you, Republicans.
It is not only good for the base for Donald Trump, but he now is going to be able to I think just go on a tear, go on an offensive tear with momentum and put the Democrats in a defensive crouch.
I think Joe Biden better come up with a strategy to confront this because this is not good news for the Democrats right now.
KING: You say in the good news for the Democrats. Congressman love, for the president, as Doug notes and as you note at the top, he wants to talk about this now, he wants to talk about putting someone on the court, he's going to say he was elected in 2016, the president gets this pick, later in the program we're going to talk about you can call it changing the position, you can call it hypocrisy, a lot of Republicans who in 2016 would not give Obama's nominee a vote with nearly 300 days before the election now say Trump should get a vote even though this is happening 40 days before the election.
But this is what the president hopes this does, change the subject from what we learned, we've known it anyway, the pain. We're about to hit 200,000 deaths in America, millions of coronavirus cases in America. There is no question the president slept through February and early March when he should have been doing more to deal with it and then we have the Bob Woodward book and these audiotapes.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
TRUMP: It goes -- it goes through air, Bob. That's always tougher than touch. It is also more deadly than your, you know, your -- even your strenuous flus.
Not just older people, plenty of young people. I wanted to always play it down.
This thing is a killer if it gets you. If you're the wrong person, you don't have a chance.
It is the plague.
It's so easily transmissible, you wouldn't even believe it.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
KING: So, if you're a Republican or independent moderate voter who thought I can't do this, I voted for the president 2016, I can't do it again because of the coronavirus, do you believe that a fight over the court would supersede that, would essentially have people say, all right, I'll set coronavirus aside this is about judges now or is it more complicated than that?
LOVE: Which is the exact question you should be asking. It depends on how important pro-life versus pro-choice to you, abortion rights. It depends on how the healthcare, whether it is affected you negatively or positively.
Those issues can absolutely supersede because now we're looking at -- people are motivated by fear. They're thinking to themselves, OK, if I have an opportunity to change this, and I can change healthcare, this all of a sudden becomes COVID, if you don't have it or if you don't have somebody that is close to you affected by it. It could be on the back burner, in their mind. So this could potentially change things, absolutely.
KING: And, Doug Brinkley, help me here, this is presidential election number nine for me. Many of them have been consequential, I can't think of one why you have a pandemic and economy that is cratering, now a Supreme Court nomination, I could go on and on with the list of this dramatic year.
Is there -- is there a parallel?
BRINKLEY: You know, 1968 in the sense that the Tet offensive, going on with the Vietnam War and the deaths of Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy, mayhem in Chicago, George Wallace's third party, the rise of Nixon during that tumultuous year.
But this seems to me to make 1968 look quaint. I mean, 2020 seems to be really about what direction our country is going, what are we made of? It has become the cliche of the year, but this is a battle for the soul of America, and, you know, some -- the Democrats I think have a problem that they're playing a firewall strategy.
It is based on fear, fear of Donald Trump, vote for anybody but Trump, a fear of losing Obamacare, fear of losing Roe v. Wade.
You have to win elections on getting people excited to come out for what you're going to do, your vision. And the way Trump's been able to stomp on the news cycle, controlling it one way or another, day after day as it were -- we are getting close to the election, I think it is problematic for the Democrats.
So I think Biden needs to come out swinging, not just do a dialed-in, mild-mannered "I'm a decent guy" performance, and we got to get rid of Donald Trump.
[08:25:01]
I think he has to shine on September 29th for that first debate because while Biden's up in the polls, momentum seems to be with Trump right now.
KING: We will get the first sense of whether Joe Biden sees a need for a shift a bit later today, speaking at 2:00 p.m. this afternoon in Philadelphia on the Supreme Court process.
Douglas Brinkley, Congresswoman Mia Love, appreciate your insights. Very important on this Sunday. Thank you, both.
Up next for us, Senate Democrats say a quick court confirmation process is another Republican outrage. But can those Democrats get enough Republicans to agree?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:29:59]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: So Article 2 of our constitution says the president shall nominate justices of the Supreme Court. I don't think it can be any more clear, can it? I don't think so.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: So here are two critical questions Senate Democrats are debating this Sunday. Can they find four Republicans to help them block President Trump from filling the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Supreme Court vacancy this year? And will a court fight in these final weeks of the 2020 election help or upend Democratic hopes of winning enough seats in November to retake the Senate majority?
Well, math is a big part of Dick Durbin's job as the Senate Democratic Whip. The Illinois Democrat also serves on the Judiciary Committee. Senator, grateful for your time on this very important Sunday morning. You have maybe Susan Collins who says she is ok with the process starting, but she doesn't want to vote before the election. Can you get three more Republicans or is the president going to get his way here and get a vote on the floor of the United States Senate this year for a new justice that would tilt the Supreme Court into a clear 6-3 majority?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. DICK DURBIN (D-IL): John, it is not clear. And I will tell you that senators like Lindsey Graham who was very clear four years ago that he bought into the McConnell strategy, that strategy said to President Obama, even though there was an Article 2 in the constitution in his time as well, that President Obama could not suggest the nominee to fill the Scalia vacancy until after the American people had chosen a new president. And now Lindsey Graham, of course yesterday, reversed his position completely.
The question is how many other Republican senators who made these statements of principle a few years ago will stand by them today?
KING: I don't think we know that math yet, but we do know Ted Cruz was one of those Republicans four years ago. And now he wants to vote before the election. He says it is critical because there could be post election fights.
So one of the issues here is how does Joe Biden react and your leader Chuck Schumer said yesterday on a conference call with your fellow Senate Democrats that all options are on the table.
Let's start there, what does that include? Does that include a threat to do away with the filibuster? Does that include a threat to expand the court if Democrats retake the majority next year. Does it include a threat to say we will push for statehood for D.C. And Puerto Rico to try to change the dynamics, the numbers, the math of the United States Senate -- all of the above?
DURBIN: I can tell you precisely, John, that we are not discussing a bill of particulars when it comes to the future. But we do know the past and in the past in 1993 when there was a rule requiring 60 votes for a Supreme Court nominee to go forward, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was approved by the Senate on a vote of 96-3. 96-3, for a very outspoken woman when it came to the issues that we know her for -- standing up for the rights of women.
The point I'm getting to is the rules have been corrupted in the brief period of time in our history and they need to be reassessed as to what is fair to make sure that we have balance on our courts and we have a moderate approach to governing this country in a nation that's very divided.
KING: Well, do you need Joe Biden to shift to help you in this fight? In the sense that as you know, he's your former Senate colleague. Obviously he was the vice president for eight years. He says he will keep the filibuster question on the table. He would prefer not to do it. But he'll keep it on the table to see what the political dynamics are right now.
But on the issue of expanding the Supreme Court, many Democrats, especially progressives are pushing, add one justice, add two justices, add even more.
Joe Biden said this last July in Iowa. "No, I'm not prepared to go on and try to pack the court because we will live to rue that day." Is Joe Biden wrong?
DURBIN: John, I will tell you there is a lot of speculation about the possibilities in the future. Certainly the one that has been discussed for months among Democratic senators is our rule book and what it will look like in the future. No decision has been made. None.
There is a lot of communication going on among the senators. So all of the speculation about the future of the court, and the rules is just that.
What we hope to do is to ask Mitch McConnell to stand up to this very principles they argued for four years ago. And equally important, John, and I want to get to this point when it comes to Joe Biden and I'm sure he agrees. Let the American people know what is at stake with filling this vacancy in the Supreme Court. The future of the Affordable Care Act and the protection of all American families having someone under the roof with a pre-existing condition.
We live in the midst of a pandemic. Millions of Americans, more than six million have tested positive. Does that mean in the future, under Republican control, the end of Obamacare that their health insurance policies will discriminate against them just because they tested positive?
And secondly, of course, let's get to the bottom line, Ruth Bader Ginsburg's life was committed to the equality of women in America. And the question before us is whether this Supreme Court with the new nominee is going to stand up for those same principles.
These are the fundamentals in this fight. Far more than the rules fight, far more than speculation of our constitution.
[08:35:01]
KING: Right. But it's just that it's because of the calendar, we should be spending more time talking about the legacy of this justice, because of the calendar we're talking about the campaign ahead of us.
You do the math as well as anybody in this town. Republicans are betting, including Lindsey Graham -- who, you're right, has flipflopped completely on his position 2016 to 2020. Guess what, he's in a tight race in South Carolina. He thinks this will gin up the Republican base. Thom Tillis, the president was with him in North Carolina last night, he's trailing in the polls right now. The president's calculation is this will get evangelicals and even Republicans who maybe have soured on Trump because of coronavirus or something else to say, oh, judges, I'm coming back to the fold. We could go through the states. Yesterday, or Thursday, I would have said Democrats are favored to retake the Senate. Do you believe with this court fight on the table those dynamics change?
DURBIN: Well, let me say, I'm glad you said at the outset, instead of all this speculation about the future fight for the vacancy of the court, we ought to spend a few moments reflecting on the life of a great woman, who literally changed America for the better. I wish we'd spend more time on that.
But of course, we're in the political business and we look at this possibility. Here is what it boils down to is this. In the states where Republican senators feel that they have a close race, they have to measure whether or not they can reverse their position on the decision of the Senate to take up this vacancy and get by with it.
They have to decide whether or not they can say we're going to put someone on the Supreme Court who will eliminate Obamacare and the protection when it comes to pre-existing conditions. They have to ask the question whether or not the women in the state that they want to represent in the United States Senate will stand still for reversing all of the life's work of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
It is an important calculation. And I think it is naive to say it is just going to be an automatic kneejerk partisan reaction.
KING: I think it is going to take all of us time to sort this out. And I think what you say, what Joe Biden says, how the president behaves, a long way to go. Six weeks to the election, a lot of calculations in between.
Senator Dick Durbin, grateful for your time this morning, sir.
DURBIN: Thanks, John.
KING: Thank you.
Up next for us, the president says we have turned the final coronavirus corner. A turn for the worse in the case count though tells us something very different.
[08:37:09]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: President Trump again last night at his rally in North Carolina says we are turning the final corner in the coronavirus fight. The numbers though tell us it is nowhere near that simple.
Let's just go through and take a look.
Number one, today or tomorrow we will hit a very sad milestone in the United States of America. 200,000 Americans killed by the coronavirus -- 200,000. We will hit that number today or tomorrow. And all the projections tell us we will go higher and higher and higher through the end of this year. You see how sad in April 50,000 deaths, by July 28th 150,000. We're 199,000 plus today. A sad milestone just ahead.
That is because of the case curve here and there are some troubling signs in the data in recent days. Go back before the summer, we had the new infections down to about 20,000 a day. Then this horrible post Memorial Day, post July Fourth it surged up to nearly 70,000 cases a day in the middle of July. A slow drop down and we thought we were going to stay below 40,000 -- perhaps pushing the baseline down below 40,000 new infections a day.
But look, back up in recent days here, a troubling sign. Post Labor Day, into the cooler weather, troubling sign in the case count starting to head up there. And this tells you all you need to know. 31 states -- 31 states reporting more new infections this week compared to a week ago. 31 states heading in the wrong direction when the president says we have turned the final corner. 15 states holding steady, four states trending down.
And you look at this and the map here, 25 states are reporting more positive tests this week than last week. 25 states reporting higher positivity in the coronavirus testing this week than last week.
Let's stop there and bring into the conversation Dr. Ashish Jha. He is the dean of the Brown School of Public Health.
And Dr. Jha, I ask this question every Sunday, where are we?
When the president says we have turned a final corner, when you look at several days again back at or above 40,000, and when you look at 25 states saying the positivity rate higher this week than last week, which tells you inevitably there are more cases coming in those states because when so many people are positive, more people get infected. Where are we?
DR. ASHISH JHA, DEAN, BROWN SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: Yes. Good morning, John. And thank you for having me on.
You know, a couple of weeks ago as we went into Labor Day we were talking about exactly this. And our worry that coming out of Labor Day as we have seen out of Memorial Day and July 4th we'd see an increase. And I was hoping that the third time was going to be the charm we were going to learn and not do this.
And yet it does look like cases are starting to rise again. And unfortunately we're walking into the fall where weather gets colder. We're going to spend more time indoors. So this is not where we want to be as a country right now.
KING: Not where we want to be. And I just want to put up the testing trend in the sense that you and I talked for months now about your concern the United States is not testing enough, number one. And then there's the confusion over the guidelines, number two.
Testing has been pretty level at about 800,000 tests for a long time; above that, a couple of days above that in recent days. I know you think it should go even higher than that. But is testing adequate, number one? And then this last week we had the politics of all this played out right before our very eyes.
A few weeks back, we talked about the mystery, why was the CDC suddenly suggesting asymptomatic people who believe they had been in contact with somebody with COVID should not be tested.
Then we learned it was political influence from the president's deputies at the Department of Health and Human Services. And then they flipped it again and essentially went back to the original guidance. There's still confusion when it comes to testing.
DR. JHA: There is a lot of confusion. And it's unfortunate because if you listen to the scientists, including the scientists of the CDC, we have all been pretty clear that people who have been exposed even if they're asymptomatic need to be tested.
But to your question of do we have adequate testing, the question is adequate for what? Do we have enough testing so we can get kids back to school safely? No. Do we have enough testing so we can get college students back to campus safely? We don't. Do we have enough testing for first responders, for nursing homes, for prisons, for workers in factories? The answer to each of those questions is we don't.
And yet we keep hearing from the administration we have plenty of testing. As long as you don't want to test and protect those groups, I suppose you could argue we do. But we clearly don't. Everybody knows it. And we have got to keep pushing on trying to drive testing up.
KING: And as you know the president he can't change these numbers. He has tried with tweets and with false statements and the like, but we're about to hit 200,000 Americans dead and when you look at the case trends, coming up, 31 states now reporting more new infections this week than last week.
The president in the briefing room the other day suddenly said that, yes, there will be a vaccine soon and yes it will be mass distributed by April. Listen.
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TRUMP: As soon as a vaccine is approved, the administration will deliver it to the American people immediately. Distribution will begin within 24 hours after notice. Hundreds of millions of doses will be available every month and we expect to have enough vaccines for every American by April.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: The president told us months ago the vaccine -- the virus would be gone by last April. Is it realistic to believe people will be able to get, on a big level, vaccines by next April?
DR. JHA: So I do think that we're going to see large numbers of Americans getting vaccinated by kind of late spring, summer. So April, May, June is not -- I think is not out of the possibility.
But the first thing we got to do is make sure that the vaccine is safe and effective. We haven't seen those data and I remain concerned about political interference in that process.
But assuming that the scientists get to drive that process and we have a vaccine, I think very few people will get vaccinated in 2020, it will start ramping up early '21 and sometime in late spring, summer -- a majority of Americans will have access to a vaccine.
KING: I hope that works out that way. Dr. Ashish Jha, the dean of the Brown School of Public Health. Sir, thanks again, for your important insights this Sunday.
DR. JHA: Thank you, John.
KING: Thank you.
And up next for us. The legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, legal trailblazer and celebrity role model.
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JUSTICE RUTH BADER GINSBURG, SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES: I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.
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KING: A comparison to the great Thurgood Marshall is one thing you find in the obituaries details the remarkable life of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Marshall, of course, helped lay the legal groundwork for civil rights before becoming a judge and a justice.
Justice Ginsburg was a legal trailblazer for women's rights before she was a judge and justice. Her most noteworthy majority opinion was a 1996 case in which the court told the Virginia Military Institute's all-male admissions policy was unconstitutional. Justice Ginsburg would gain more notoriety though for her pointed dissent taking issue with the court's conservative majority.
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GINSBURG: In our view, the court does not comprehend, or is indifferent to the insidious way in which women can be victims of pay discrimination.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Notorious RBG was a nickname she loved and the many t-shirts, tattoos, and murals around America are proof of her unlikely celebrity. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JUSTICE GINSBURG: People ask me, don't you feel uncomfortable being with a name like the Notorious BIG? And why should I feel uncomfortable? We have a lot in common.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Here is one of the countless tributes on Twitter.
"I became a lawyer because my family had been plaintiffs in a groundbreaking school desegregation case. But I became a woman's rights lawyer because of justice Ginsburg."
Fatima Goss Graves joins us this morning (ph). She is the president of the National Women's Law Center. Grateful for your time on this Sunday.
Put into context, Justice Ginsburg changed America and she changed you.
FATIMA GOSS GRAVES, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL WOMEN'S LAW CENTER: That's right. I mean this is a truly sad day in our movement. Justice Ginsburg was a giant in American history. She was a giant in the law and really a trailblazer for so many women like me. And the architect of so many of our foundational rights.
So we are feeling it deeply. And it's actually why I think women in this country will fight to preserve her awesome legacy.
KING: Well, you mentioned women's fight to preserve that legacy. I just want to show you a picture of the current court obviously Justice Ginsburg has passed. If you look at the court right now, you see the Chief Justice in the center here. Justice Ginsburg appropriately seated to his left. This is a 5-4 very narrowly carefully-balanced court.
If Mr. Trump, President Trump gets to replace Justice Ginsburg, you will have a 6-3 conservative majority. And even John Roberts, who has gone back and forth between the conservatives and the liberals would lose some of his sway as well. What do you see at stake if President Trump gets to fill this vacancy?
GRAVES: Well, the first thing I should say is I think it's unthinkable that the idea that President Trump would fill this vacancy during an election where people have already voted. It would sully the legitimacy of this court and our democracy and her legacy.
But there is so much at stake. Whether it is access to health care or the unrelenting attacks that we are facing across this country from anti-abortion extremists, or whether this administration can radically restructure federal benefits or harassment, assault in schools or taxpayer dollars, whether organizations can take them. And then on the other hand turn away LGBTQ people.
Our democracy really is (INAUDIBLE). you know, Justice Ginsburg's legacy was deep around (INAUDIBLE) but it was dep on so many things. Her scathing dissent in the Shelby County decision was part of the reason that she was known as Notorious RBG. And the Ledbetter decision here she really demonstrated her ability to put the reality of the lives for everyday people, the reality of women's lives front and center. That is a huge loss in this moment.
KING: And so if you look back at the last 30 years, we have seen the shift of the court. You can go back to when Clarence Thomas replaced Thurgood Marshall on the court. And if you look at this graph that I have up there, the shift that you see in yellow, that's essentially a liberal replacing a liberal, a moderate replacing a moderate.
But the ones in white, Thomas for Marshall, Alito replacing the more moderate Sandra Day O'Connor and most recently, of course, Justice Kavanaugh replacing the moderate Anthony Kennedy. This court would shift quite dramatically. The conventional wisdom, Fatima is that this energizes Republicans. This energizes evangelicals. This helps Republicans. In these early hours since we lost Justice Ginsburg, do you see evidence to the contrary?
GRAVES: You know, we are hearing constantly from women in this country who are asking us what can they do. Many of them are still shaken from the nomination of Justice Kavanaugh and the way that that process went down. And I actually think what is at stake is our ability to actually have our foundational protections clear.
But it really is the legitimacy of the court. I think people will rise. People who are out at the courts across the country last night, they are wondering what they can do, and they will show up.
[08:54:43]
GRAVES: And the reason is, is to go back to my first point, is that it is truly unthinkable the conversation that is happening right now. We should just be in this period marking and celebrating her legacy.
And the fact that's looming over us right now is the idea that we can make an illegitimate appointment to a lifetime (INAUDIBLE) on the highest court in this country after people have already started voting. The hypocrisy is just outrageous and it is disturbing.
KING: Fatima Goss Graves is president of the National Women's Law Center. We will keep in touch as we watch this remarkable fight unfold and as we mourn the passing of this legendary justice.
Fatima, thank you so much for your time on this Sunday.
And that's it for us on Inside Politics. Hope you can catch us weekdays as well. We're here at 11:00 a.m. Eastern and noon as well.
Up next, "STATE OF THE UNION WITH JAKE TAPPER" and a very busy "STATE OF THE UNION". His guests include the president who nominated Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Bill Clinton, Senator Amy Klobuchar, the Vice President's chief of staff, Marc Short, and administration's coronavirus testing czar, Admiral Brett Giroir.
Thanks again for sharing your Sunday. Have a good day. Stay safe.
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