-President Biden and Senate Democrats say
they'll move quickly to appoint and confirm a successor
to retiring Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer,
which they absolutely must
because if Republicans had their way,
they'd almost certainly keep the seat vacant
until they could fill it themselves.
For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
[ Cheers and applause ]
Well, guys, it is not often
I get to report good news on this show,
but things are finally looking up for Democrats
because they'll have a chance to choose a new
Supreme Court justice.
After 27 years on the Supreme Court today,
we learned that Justice Stephen Breyer,
who's 83 years old, is retiring.
Justice Breyer is one of the three remaining liberal justices
in the six-three court.
-I was proud and grateful to be there at the start
of his distinguished career in the Supreme Court,
and I'm very proud to be here today
on his announcement of his retirement.
-The overall, sort of, ideological split on the court
will not change one iota. It is a, generally speaking,
a six-to-three conservative majority court.
-That's right, everyone, liberals get to maintain
a three-six minority. Whoo!
Round of tap waters for everyone!
Who wants tap? We got tap from the sink.
Wally, breakout an appropriate number of balloons.
Okay. You know what? You know what,
I think we can go ahead and drop a single "confettum."
Try to keep an eye on it.
[ Cheers and applause ]
We also called up DJ Khaled
and asked if we could borrow his celebratory air horn.
And he asked what for, and I explained the good news
about maintaining a three to six minority on the court.
And then he told me that I played myself.
And I said, "Can I have the air horn or not?"
He said, "You can have a horn appropriate to the news,
so this is what we got."
-[ Horn blares ] -Free horn!
Who played whose self now?
That being said, this will still be a historic appointment
because today Biden reaffirmed his commitment
to putting the first Black woman on the court,
which is obviously a momentous and long overdue step,
but otherwise Biden has been pretty tight-lipped
about his choice.
Yesterday, for example, he demurred when asked about it
by reporters at a White House event
and jokingly asked someone on a panel with him
if they wanted to join the Supreme Court.
-There has been no announcement from Justice Breyer.
Let him make whatever statement he's going to make,
and I'll be happy to talk about it later.
-We're going to start by asking Tom --
Tom Linebarger -- to -- to offer your thoughts.
Please, sir.
-Thank you, Mr. President. It's an honor to be here.
-Want to go to the Supreme Court, Tom?
-I'm just going to demure on that one.
-Hey, man, don't joke around like that,
because that's absolutely how Trump picked Kavanaugh.
[As Trump] We need a Supreme Court justice.
Hey, you. You, with the beer bong.
You want to be on the Supreme Court?
[As Kavanaugh] Who, me or my buddy Squee?!
[Normal voice] And I'm just joking.
He wasn't chosen randomly.
Trump was given a list by The Federalist Society,
which is a shadowy group of conservatives
who secretly control the levers of power in this country
when Republicans are in office.
You know what, Wally? Get rid of that one balloon.
[ Air screeches out of balloon ]
[ Laughter ]
Did you strangle it?
[ Laughter ]
And then today, Biden appeared at the White House
alongside Breyer to officially announce Breyer's retirement
but made clear to reporters he would not take questions.
-I'm not going to take any questions
because I think it's inappropriate
to take questions with the Justice here.
He's still sitting on the bench,
but you'll have plenty of opportunities
to get me later today
and for the rest of the week, next week, too.
So thank you very much. Thank you.
[ Reporters shouting questions ]
-And thank goodness this time
President Biden made sure to walk away from the microphone
because we all know what happens when he doesn't.
Here, though. Here --
Here's my question about that.
Did he really think no one would hear him?
I mean, even if the mic wasn't there,
you're still in a room full of people.
You're surrounded by report-- You're on camera!
Even if Biden just mouthed the words,
I'm pretty sure we could've read his lips.
Like, watch my mouth.
I think you can tell what I just said. Even without the words,
his expression says, "You stupid son of a bitch."
[ Laughter ]
Forget the hot mic, Biden's got a hot face.
So before today's official announcement,
Biden and his aides were walking on eggshells
and trying to be respectful of Breyer
because in our dumb system,
there was nothing stopping Breyer
from just changing his mind and sticking around.
And we all have to just nod and pretend
that having a forever job this important
isn't totally [bleep] crazy.
I mean, what about an employee review every decade?
Is that too much to ask?
Whoever came up with the idea of lifetime appointments
must have been a -- -Stupid son of a bitch.
-But regardless of Biden playing coy,
he and Senate Democrats have made clear
that they plan to move fast to confirm Breyer's successor.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer
said the Senate would move with "all deliberate speed."
Although forgive me if I don't trust
Senate Democrats to move quickly.
No one who wears their glasses like this
is known for their urgency.
In ophthalmology, they call that glasses position
the "hold your horses."
[ Laughter ]
Schumer looks like he's sampling
every flavor at a Baskin-Robbins before ordering.
[As Schumer] And now let me try a little of the Rocky Road.
This is getting harder, not easier.
I hope the people behind me haven't been waiting too long.
Oh, dear!
[Normal voice] Still, Democrats --
Still, Democrats seem aware of the urgency
and the need to move quickly
because Republicans have repeatedly implied
or said outright that if they had their way,
they would hold the seat hostage
and keep it empty until a Republican can fill it.
That's their position now and was their position in 2016,
when Republicans, including Ted Cruz and Donald Trump,
infamously said they would never confirm a Democratic nominee,
no matter what year it was.
-You've said that the president shouldn't nominate anyone
in the rest of his term to replace Justice Scalia.
-I think it's up to Mitch McConnell
and everybody else to stop it. It's called delay, delay, delay.
-Sounds like the one guy at a soccer match
who doesn't quite know how to do the chant.
"Olé, olé, olé, oh -- -Delay delay.
[ Laughter ]
That was in 2016,
but it won't surprise you to learn that nothing has changed.
Mitch McConnell has already said he likely wouldn't confirm
a Biden nominee in 2024,
if Republicans win back the Senate,
and left the door open to stonewalling a nominee
in 2023, as well, saying, "Cross those bridges
when I get there, we're focusing on '22."
I don't rule anything in or out about how to handle nominations
if I'm in the majority position.
You can't even bring yourself to say
that you'd consider a president's Supreme Court pick
in a non-election year.
So what's your position then?
Only Republicans are allowed to govern?
Oh, that is their position? [ Laughter ]
But then that wouldn't be a democracy, right?
Well, what would it be? Oh, well, that's not good.
If McConnell got his way, Biden's only job
would be grilling hot dogs, eating ice cream,
and giving people finger guns at the State of the Union.
And that right there -- that right there is the difference
between being vice president and being president.
Vice president, it's like riding shotgun on a road trip,
just messing with the radio,
winking at the girls in other cars,
doing that hand thing with the wind.
But now that he's the one driving, he's all,
"Everybody shut up! I'm trying to concentrate!
Can I get over there?! Our exit's coming up!"
Several GOP senators went even further than McConnell,
telling CNN they would oppose any Biden nominee,
no matter what year it is.
Iowa senator Chuck Grassley,
the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee,
even went so far as to make up
another totally nonexistent rule, telling CNN...
First of all, don't tell us to go back to 1886
just because you go back to 1886.
I'm not saying Grassley's old,
but his first campaign was for president of Pangaea.
"Only I can keep us together!"
Second, there's no such rule.
As CNN noted...
Do you think we can't just look this stuff up,
or have you just not heard about Google
and think we have to go to the library to find it?
"Have fun going through microfiche, ya losers!"
And that's not a joke about Chuck Grassley
being too old to know about Google.
That's a joke about Grassley being bad at technology,
like the time he tweeted out of nowhere
with no additional context...
[ Laughter ]
I'm so relieved we found that tweet.
One of our interns spent all day looking through the stacks
at the Twitter Library in Long Island City.
They found that and the deer carcass.
So clearly these guys just make [bleep] up as they go.
You know, the same way your mom does
which she has too much gin during a game of Monopoly.
"Mom, you can't put a hotel on a railroad!"
[Slurring] "Well, where are the people supposed to stay?
You know, while they wait for their train.
I'll bet there's a nice bar in that little hotel."
"You have a problem, Mother!"
"Well, that, I better call Dr. Hendrick's."
There's no reason to ever take seriously
anything these guys say ever again.
They blocked President Obama's Supreme Court nominee
eight months before an election
and then rushed to confirm Amy Coney Barrett
eight days before an election.
Now they're saying, even when it's not an election year,
they won't confirm a Democratic nominee.
Next, McConnell is going to claim the Constitution says...
This is why Breyer had to retire now --
so Democrats could replace him
before Republicans potentially win back the Senate in November.
And to help nudge Breyer toward retirement,
there's been a sustained pressure campaign
from progressives.
-It is clear that the court's future
is really his main reason for leaving
after almost three decades on the court.
He has spoken extensively, particularly over the past year.
He even wrote a book that was released
in September.
And in those speeches, in his book,
he expressed concern that the public views
the court as political
and he talks about how that perception
could really erode faith in the court.
He understands this relentless, over the past year,
progressive pressure on him to step down.
In fact, the progressive group Demand Justice just last spring,
they paraded a mobile billboard past the Supreme Court
with the simple words "Breyer, retire,"
trying to get their message out there.
-I have to say I enjoy the idea of paying
for a mobile billboard that targets one guy.
It's like seeing an ad on the side of a bus that says...
Also, can we please dispense with this ridiculous fiction
that the court somehow isn't political?
That's all it is.
They want all of us to act like it's the Jedi Council
soberly deliberating over what's best for the galaxy
when it's really just a group of Republicans and Democrats
nominated by Republicans and Democrats who do the things
Republicans and Democrats want them to do.
Pretending the court isn't political
is like pretending reality-show casts are assembled
for the purposes of having drama-free interactions.
"I don't know where we went wrong
with this season of 'Real Housewives,'
but some of these ladies do not get along!"
This is an opportunity for Biden and Democrats
to make a historic impact on the court
by confirming the first Black woman in U.S. history,
a move that is both momentous and long overdue.
But it says a lot about our current politics
that if Breyer hadn't retired now, there's a good chance
Republicans would have held the seat hostage
and never let Biden nominate anyone,
which, if you ask me, is pretty...
-Stupid.
-This has been "A Closer Look."
♪♪
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