Special: Antonin Scalia: American Original, a Sacrificial SCOTUS Nominee and Behind-the-Scenes at the GOP Debate

ANNOUNCER : This is the Washington Week Webcast Extra .

MS. IFILL : Hello, I’m Gwen Ifill I’m joined around the table by Peter Baker of The New York Times , John Dickerson of CBS News, Manu Raju of CNN, and Joan Biskupic of Reuters.

Joan has spent more time than any of us in the company of Antonin Scalia while writing her book “American Original.” He made a martini for me once, but it’s not the same. (Laughter.) And although it was not an authorized biography, Scalia – you too – (laughter) – Scalia still spent a lot of time talking to you about this book, for an unauthorized biography. What, did he just like to talk?

MS. BISKUPIC : No. At first he said no to me, and then he decided that I was learning so much about his family, why not? In fact, the story I tell is that I went to him and I said, Justice Scalia, do you know what I’ve just found out about your father in various ways, his naturalization after he came through Ellis Island and the fact that he had gotten a very prestigious fellowship from Columbia in 1935 when he was studying for a Ph.D. to go over to Rome and Florence? And Justice Scalia said, yes, but did you know I was conceived on that fellowship? (Laughter.) So he was constantly trying to one-up me. And then he started having me in, and I sat with him for a dozen interviews, and have been sitting with him since, until the end.

MS. IFILL : Did his reputation as the, you know, kind of smart, difficult, challenging member of the Court, did it hold up? That was just what those of us on the outside saw.

MS. BISKUPIC : Oh, completely. He was all of those things. Even one-on-one he would be all those things, too. You know, we’d often be sparring, and I was always so happy when I would get a heads-up about what kind of mood he was in. And I would always try to see him, frankly, after lunch, because he was – (laughter) – he was in a little bit better mood. He was not good in the morning. So I had to start going with those – you know, his own rhythms.

And he got into it. As you say, he did like to talk about himself, but it was – so it was his personal history, but it was a nice conversation. And he would always tot up his wins and losses at the end of the term. And I would go to see him, and this most recent term – you know, when he lost in gay marriage, really big, and liberals had a really –

MS. IFILL : Field day.

MS. BISKUPIC : Yes, they really had a much better term than they’d had in many years. He was so despondent. He even said, I don’t think I’m going to get over this one. And I reminded him of 2008, when he had won in Heller and he had had good years, and he’d continue to have good years. And he had said that year, he said, the wins – the wins, damn few. (Laughter.) So he – this mattered to him. Well, first of all, everything mattered to him, but the law really mattered to him.

MS. IFILL : Well, he was a fascinating guy to have a conversation with, I gather.

MS. BISKUPIC : Definitely.

MS. IFILL : Manu, let’s talk about what’s supposed to happen next and the names which are floating out there in the wind. But specifically, there’s one theory about a sacrificial lamb appointment or nomination. Walk me through that.

MR. RAJU : Yeah, I mean, this is the idea that this person’s probably not going to get confirmed, knowing full well that the Republicans are laying down the gauntlet already before there’s even a nominee. And the idea being that someone who would put Republicans in a very difficult spot, would galvanize the Democratic base, and this person wouldn’t mind going through a really intensive, brutal process when all of us will be looking in their background, looking at everything about them, their family life, everything, to endure this for the good of the party. Now, the president has been saying that sort of – Vice President Joe Biden, I should say, has been coming out and suggesting that the president’s going to not necessarily go the route of someone just simply to rile up the Democratic base, instead get someone who presumably had Republican support, someone who’s more moderate. And still, that would put Republicans in a tough spot, particularly if it’s a lower court judge who has gotten confirmation from the Senate before. Some of the people on the shortlist have actually been confirmed unanimously by the Senate. So that would put Republicans on the spot, and maybe that could actually lead to this person’s confirmation if the stars aligned, but it may not rev up the Democratic base the way that some progressives –

MS. IFILL : Name some names.

MR. RAJU : Well, there are lots of names that are floating around. Sri Srinivasan is one person who is seen as on the top of the shortlist. He’s an appellate court judge, someone who was confirmed, I think, in 2013. And –

MS. IFILL : So the assumption would be a lot of the people currently in the Senate have already voted for him.

MS. BISKUPIC : Unanimously.

MR. RAJU : Right, and he was confirmed unanimously at that time. But you know, in addition, there’s – there are all sorts of names that are floating around. Sometimes people are talking about possible politicians who have not been members of – who have not been judges in the past, people’s names – like we’re talking about Amy Klobuchar. Cory Booker’s name has come up. I know that Senate Democrats have floated his name to the Court. They’ve had discussions with the White House and Booker’s office. I don’t know if that’s very serious. I don’t think it’s very serious.

MS. IFILL : Loretta Lynch’s name.

MR. RAJU : Loretta Lynch’s name has come up as well. Even some Republicans, like Brian Sandoval, the Nevada governor. It’s hard to tell because so many times, you know, we hear different things and people push their own names for their own political reasons, or their allies do. But the White House said on Friday – said today that there’s a list of names the president is going through this weekend. We probably can expect to see something in the next few weeks.

MS. IFILL : OK, John, I’m going to take – you had a big debate last Saturday night in – where were you, Greenville, South Carolina?

MR. DICKERSON : I was in Greenville, South Carolina.

MS. IFILL : Yes you were. I hope there was barbecue eaten. Now, here’s the thing: we all get to see what happens in front. It was quite a lively debate. But I’m wondering if there’s anything you can share with us that we didn’t see that you had to keep all those balls in the air while trying to elicit actual information?

MR. DICKERSON : Well, there was all the behind-the-scenes prep for it in Room 1100 of the Greenville Westin. (Laughter.) On one day – I guess, was it Thursday? – we were there from about 10 a.m. till the end of your debate, so about 11:30.

MS. IFILL : We were at The Pfister in Milwaukee, yes. (Laughs.)

MR. DICKERSON : Yeah, yeah. So we watched you from the room, but we didn’t get out of the room for that whole period of time. That was our last pass through the questions.

Well, you know, of course the news of Scalia’s passing happened a couple of hours before, so we were scrambling to change the questions around. It was a pretty – it’s a very carefully orchestrated roadmap of the questions, the possible responses, the follow-ups, the time – making sure everybody gets an equal amount of time, making sure the order is correct. And so that takes a lot of thinking. Everything gets fact-checked. And then you have to throw that up in the air –

MS. IFILL : Exactly.

MR. DICKERSON : – because you have to change the top of the debate, move things around. So there was a lot of frantic activity right before it happened.

The crowd was clearly – as the debate was going on, you know, we talked to the crowd and said, hey, can you –

MS. IFILL : But don’t they suck up a lot of your time, too? I mean, you’ve got this thing timed out a certain way, and you don’t get to everything you want to get to because the crowd is another character.

MR. DICKERSON : Well, the crowd – that’s right, and that kills you. And the reason it’s so frustrating is that you start this process – I learned something from doing it on the Democratic debate, but you start with 180 questions, and then you keep losing them. And then you realize, in the end, that you really don’t have that many questions. And if you lose a question, it’s not only you’ve lost a chance to get an answer about something that you think is important for people to know about, but it throws off the whole balance of the whole thing. And so, when there’s that noise, not only are people not getting the actual information – and there were a lot of substantive answers to questions on both foreign policy, domestic policy, about ISIS, about immigration, about taxes that you worried weren’t getting through.

MS. IFILL : What didn’t you get to?

MR. BAKER : Uh-oh. (Laughs.)

MR. DICKERSON : Oh, well – (laughter) –

MS. IFILL : I’ll tell you one if you tell me one. (Laughter.)

MR. DICKERSON : Well, you know, actually, I won’t give you the full answer because I have a – on Sundays I may resuscitate some of the old ones. But there was that question that I asked just to Marco Rubio about question asking. Since presidents can’t know everything, you need to – you need to know how to ask questions, and so show me that skill. The problem is, when you ask it to just one of them, we – I wanted to ask it to all of them. If you ask it to one Republican, they’re going to talk about – so the question was, ask a question of a previous president. What would you want to know about the job?

MS. IFILL : That’s an interesting question.

MS. BISKUPIC : Yeah.

MR. DICKERSON : Well, except that you know one of them’s going to spend all their time on Reagan, fine.

MS. IFILL : Reagan. (Laughter.)

MR. DICKERSON : But then five through – the next five can’t do the same Ronald Reagan song, so they would have to actually maybe answer the question. But we were only – we only have time to ask one of them.

MS. IFILL : Or, worse, maybe they would all do the same one. (Laughter.)

MR. DICKERSON : Well, that’s true, that’s true. As you know, the real challenge is that the questions don’t come with a sidecar of sodium pentothal, and so – (laughter) – you know that. You know that they’re not going to answer. So you try and craft it to say, you know. And that’s – you know, that would be a great question to actually finally get the answer to from these – from these candidates, because –

MS. IFILL : Ah, the questions you wish you could get the answers to.

MR. RAJU : What was yours?

MS. IFILL : I’m not going to tell. (Laughter.) I may still save it up. (Laughter.) It was a good one.

OK, Peter, we’re going to take you a little bit behind your life because you’re about to get a big new assignment. And I want you to tell us a little bit about it because when our viewers see you again you’ll be covering different things. And you’re also working on a book in the meantime.

MR. BAKER : (Laughs.) Well, that’s right. I –

MS. IFILL : Not too many things going on with you.

MR. BAKER : Not too many things going on, no, right. Spending the next six months on book leave writing a biography of James Baker, the former secretary of state, who oddly has never been treated to a big biography before. And he’s a fascinating character because not only was he secretary of state during the most fascinating moment of our recent times – the end of the Cold War and reunification of Germany and the Gulf War – he also ran, basically, five presidential campaigns. I mean, he’s sort of like Kissinger and Karl Rove rolled into one, right? And how many people have touched so many important moments in our recent times? And he’s an archetype of Washington that doesn’t exist anymore. So that’s a fun project.

And then, if that weren’t enough – (laughter) – in August I will be moving to Jerusalem to be the bureau chief there for The Times .

MS. IFILL : Because not much is going on there.

MR. BAKER : Not much is going on – I figured, after all this time in Washington covering divisiveness and polarization, it would be nice to go someplace where everybody gets along so well. (Laughter.)

MR. DICKERSON : You know, somebody who had had your job at another paper once said, you know, covering this – between the Republicans and Democrats in Washington – is basically like covering the Palestinians and the Israelis.

MR. BAKER : Well, you know, there’s something to that. I think it’s – obviously, the consequences are even greater, in some ways – at least more immediate, urgent and violent, obviously, in Jerusalem. You don’t want to make fun of it. We were there last weekend to just visit, and we talked – we were walking around with a friend, and he said let’s go get some hummus, and he says there’s great hummus next to the Damascus Gate but there’s someplace else that’s a little safer that’s not as good. So we chose the not-quite-as-good hummus that was safer, which was good. And the same –

MS. IFILL : But this is one of the things you think about.

MR. BAKER : Well, you – and the very same day that we chose not to go have hummus at the Damascus Gate, there was a shooting – you know, an incident with a terrorist attack and a shooting by the Israelis. And so these are real issues, and they’re huge issues, and they’re ancient. And I’m looking forward to exploring and understanding them in a way that we don’t really fully in Washington.

MS. IFILL : Well, we look forward to reading your coverage. I just think it’s going to be amazing. We’re just very sad that you’re not going to be with us as often, but we – there’s a satellite thing we can make work.

MR. BAKER : You know, from time to time.

MS. IFILL : Thank you. Thanks, everybody else, as well, and thank you all for watching.

While you’re online, check out everything else our panelists are covering in News You Need To Know, every day at PBS.org/WashingtonWeek. And we’ll see you the next time on the Washington Week Webcast Extra .