Republicans Continue to Criticize President's Remarks on Supreme Court
O'BRIEN: The Senate's top Republican is telling the president to back off. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says President Obama crossed a dangerous line when he commented on the Supreme Court's deliberations over health care reform. Here's what he said.</s>MCCONNELL: Regardless of how the justices decide this case, they're answerable above all to the constitution that they swore to uphold. The fact that this president does not appear to feel similarly constrained to respect their independence doesn't change that one bit. So I would respectfully suggest the president needs to back off.</s>FUGELSANG: I'm sorry you had to see him that enraged. He to the loafer tassels right off after that speech.</s>O'BRIEN: He said "respectfully I would like to say." The Department of Justice is dialing back on the president's comments, Attorney General Eric Holder was asked for a three-page single-spaced memo.</s>FUGELSANG: He defied the court and wrote only two and a half pages.</s>O'BRIEN: Maybe he had no more to say, clarifying the president's comments and then outlining whether the Obama administration indeed believes the court has the right to judicial review. The attorney general Holder wrote this, "The power of the courts to review the constitutionality of legislation is beyond dispute." CNN's senior legal analyst Jeff Toobin has been following this case closely.</s>JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: This phony, ridiculous controversy marches on.</s>O'BRIEN: I was about to say you were not super quotable because you were sort of saying these over the hissy fit and train wreck and yesterday was kind of --</s>CAIN: He has to meet his own bar.</s>O'BRIEN: And it's been met. This is about politics ultimately.</s>TOOBIN: It is and this started with the president saying this shocking thing that he thinks this law is constitutional and hopes the Supreme Court upholds it, which is a perfectly routine and ordinary sentiment for a president who, after all, signed the legislation.</s>O'BRIEN: But he said more than that. What he said was if they did not, that would be the Supreme Court intervening. Really it wasn't --</s>CAIN: That would be unprecedented.</s>TOOBIN: It would be unprecedented given these circumstances, that's what he said. The argument that others have made is if you parse his words very carefully he was saying that it would not be -- it would be unprecedented for the Supreme Court to overturn legislation, which is of course ridiculous because he knows the supreme contract can overturn legislation. His own administration is asking the courts to overturn the defense of marriage act, DOMA. So it is hardly foreign to the president for overturning legislation.</s>CAIN: His exact it would be unprecedented and extraordinary for an unelected of men and women in black robes to overturn a majority decision in Congress, he said like an overwhelming majority. I don't have to parse his words and suggest he's questioning the legitimacy of the courts to overturn his favorite law.</s>TOOBIN: This is a rematch. We did this yesterday.</s>VELSHI: But I wasn't here for it.</s>O'BRIEN: Will Cain, how can he be questioning something at the same time he's asking the Supreme Court to do.</s>CAIN: That's not a question for me. That's a question for president Obama. He seems to like to apply the law the way he sees fit. We don't have a red phone.</s>TOOBIN: It's just theater. You have the outrage machine everything Obama says.</s>O'BRIEN: Will is very outraged this morning.</s>TOOBIN: Which is fine. When Bush was president there was a Democratic outrage machine. But this is not a real controversy.</s>O'BRIEN: But is it a strategy for reelection? Now it's been posited that a lot of this on the reaction from McConnell on the right is a political strategy but also the entire thing is a re-election strategy for Obama.</s>TOOBIN: There is a paradox here. Republican voters, especially Republican voters in the base of the party, feel very strongly about the courts, about issues like abortion, about same-sex marriage. Democratic voters do not seem as motivated by the Supreme Court as an issue. Perhaps that will change this year. I doubt it. It is something that the people who are most motivated by the Supreme Court in issue are the people who are going to vote for that party no matter what. Swing voters, the people who decide the outcome of elections, don't seem to care that much about the Supreme Court. It's very important substantively. I don't know how important politically it is.</s>O'BRIEN: Jeff Toobin, it's always nice to have you.</s>TOOBIN: Good to be here.</s>O'BRIEN: We've gotten a chance to chat with Jeff three times this week.</s>TOOBIN: Lucky for both of us.</s>O'BRIEN: Yes it is. Still ahead this morning on STARTING POINT, new audio released at the center of the NFL bounty scandal. On tape you can hear him calling for the bounty on opposing players. And in our get real this morning, out of lockup and onto the links, we'll tell you how an inmate ended up doing time at a golf resort in Catalina Island. It sounds like something we might all want to do. that's ahead on STARTING POINT.