Speaker 1: Democrats are attempting to turn the Supreme Court into a
Speaker 1: campaign issue. After decades of seeing Republican candidates rally voters
Speaker 1: to reshape the court with Conservatives, some Democratic presidential candidates
Speaker 1: are making promises. Here's Ramont Senator Bernie Sanders. I will
Speaker 1: not appoint anyone to the United States Supreme Court unless
Speaker 1: that man or woman is prepared to defend roll the Wade.
Speaker 1: Joining me is sa Hill Kapoor Bloomberg News national political correspondent.
Speaker 1: So Hill, what's driving this focus on the Supreme Court? Well,
Speaker 1: a number of things. Democratic candidates are more and more
Speaker 1: focused on the Supreme Court as a result of what
Speaker 1: I would call a perfect storm of events. Now, roversus
Speaker 1: Wade is basically that ruling, that holding is at stake
Speaker 1: at this point of almost half a century after it
Speaker 1: was decided in three I think with the new Conservative
Speaker 1: Supreme Court, many for wrests as are worried that that's
Speaker 1: going to dissipate. There's a lot of anger that remains
Speaker 1: from Republican leader Mitch McConnell's refusal to let President Obama
Speaker 1: phill a Supreme Court seat in for the last ten
Speaker 1: months of his presidency. So there are a number of
Speaker 1: things that are waking up Democratic voters to the importance
Speaker 1: of the Supreme Court in ways that we haven't seen
Speaker 1: in frankly decades. You mentioned Senator Mitch McConnell, who helped
Speaker 1: transform the Supreme Court with President Trump, but with a
Speaker 1: sent if the Senate is still controlled by McConnell, how
Speaker 1: can a Democratic president get liberal justices on the Court
Speaker 1: when he might do the same thing. Again, Well, they're
Speaker 1: not conceding that they won't win the Senate uh majority
Speaker 1: in the election. Democrats are not conceding that. But of course,
Speaker 1: if McConnell remains majority leader, then that's going to have
Speaker 1: a big impact on what the potential next Democratic president
Speaker 1: can do in terms of appointing justices. There may be
Speaker 1: some moderate figures that you know, allowed a vote in
Speaker 1: a McConnell led Senate, but some of the more progressive
Speaker 1: types that UM advocates want will have a very hard
Speaker 1: time getting through. Are any of the candidates going as
Speaker 1: far as to support packing the court, which you know,
Speaker 1: adding new adding a number of justices, or limiting the
Speaker 1: terms of the justices. Yes, well, there are several candidates
Speaker 1: who have expressed openness to that. Idea, most recently Senator
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris of California, who is one of the one
Speaker 1: of the high polling contenders in this massive field. There
Speaker 1: are others like Mayor Pete Buddha Judge and Better Rourke
Speaker 1: that suggested some openness, some willingness to expand the size
Speaker 1: of the Supreme Court. And again this is being pushed
Speaker 1: by progressive activists who believe that the Neil Gorset seat
Speaker 1: was basically stolen from Democrats from President Obama by Mitch
Speaker 1: McConnell's refusal to allow a vote on any nominee. So hell,
Speaker 1: so the Conservatives basically got what they've been looking for
Speaker 1: for so many years, and more conservative Supreme Court. So
Speaker 1: is that issue going to be as important to them
Speaker 1: come this presidential election as it was in past elections?
Speaker 1: Do you issue of abortion? You mean the issue of
Speaker 1: changing the court? Ah? Well, the anger is increasingly on
Speaker 1: the left end of the spectrum, more so than the
Speaker 1: conservative end. I think ever since Row, specifically since the
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties, when Republicans decided to you know, reach out
Speaker 1: to evangelicals with a very anti abortion platform, um it,
Speaker 1: conservatives have been more tuned to the Supreme Court and
Speaker 1: the importance of it at the ballot box. That may
Speaker 1: be changing, I stress, may be changing. We don't know yet,
Speaker 1: but we are seeing signs that Democrats are more tuned
Speaker 1: to the importance of the importance of the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: and the courts at large this election than any other
Speaker 1: election probably in any of our lifetimes. It's true, I
Speaker 1: don't I don't remember the last time a Democratic presidential
Speaker 1: can it really stressed the court. Now, Republicans, as you write,
Speaker 1: also use the courts to motivate voters in Senate races.
Speaker 1: Explain what they're doing there, well, they draw a line,
Speaker 1: as one source put it to me, between electing Republican
Speaker 1: senators and electing Republican or appointing Republican appointed judges. You know,
Speaker 1: they make the accurate point that if you want conservative
Speaker 1: judges up and down the judiciary, you need a Republican
Speaker 1: led Senate. And they're correct about that. And this is
Speaker 1: a level of, uh, you know, communication to voters that
Speaker 1: Democrats don't really engage in. Democrats, for the most part,
Speaker 1: as you kind of alluded to, you know, have talked
Speaker 1: about the courts as much more of an a political
Speaker 1: institution than Republicans have and the lower courts are not
Speaker 1: as visible as the Supreme Court, but Trump and McConnell
Speaker 1: and the Judiciary Chairman have succeeded in making them more
Speaker 1: conservative as well. Is there any indication that Democrats are
Speaker 1: paying attention to that? There is a lot of indication
Speaker 1: of that. I mean, starting with the two Supreme Court
Speaker 1: justices that President Trump is appointed. Um, there are a
Speaker 1: hundred and five other federal judges that this president and
Speaker 1: Republican led Senate have installed just in you know, two
Speaker 1: and a half years of as presidency. It's an extraordinary pace.
Speaker 1: Most of these are young conservatives in their forties and fifties,
Speaker 1: picked with the help of the Federalist Society, which is
Speaker 1: a group of judicial advocates that wants to dramatically curtail
Speaker 1: federal power. Some of them don't believe there should be
Speaker 1: things like federal minimum wage or child labor laws, um,
Speaker 1: and that those things should be sent back to state.
Speaker 1: So what they're looking for, what they're trying to do
Speaker 1: is um incubate a massive change in the way the
Speaker 1: courts approached law and sharply curtail what the federal government
Speaker 1: can do as a matter of legislating. Yeah, they're close
Speaker 1: to flipping some circuits, so, um say, hell, the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court could rule on some really controversial cases this upcoming term,
Speaker 1: right in the mid love presidential electioning electioneering. Correct Now,
Speaker 1: the cases that could come up. The issues that could
Speaker 1: come up are the Affordable Care Act, the constitutionality of that.
Speaker 1: It would be a major, major case if it lands
Speaker 1: and on the docket in the midst of election. There
Speaker 1: is a case that could come up on immigration and
Speaker 1: uh the validity of the president's decision to end the
Speaker 1: doctor program for young undocumented people. Um also a case
Speaker 1: on LGBT rights that could make it up. There potentially
Speaker 1: a case on gun rights. Even so, as one Democratic
Speaker 1: activist put it to me, next year is going to
Speaker 1: be an apocalyptic term. That is a little bit scary.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much to Hill. That's a hill coup
Speaker 1: for Bloomberg News national political correspondent