Grassley's Message to Supreme Court Justices: "Retire Yesterday"
WHITFIELD: Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley sending a blunt message to any U.S. Supreme Court justice thinking about retirement. The Republican Senator from Iowa urging them to step down immediately.</s>HUGH HEWITT, RADIO SHOW HOST: Are you prepping for a Supreme Court vacancy this summer, Chairman Grassley?</s>SEN. CHUCK GRASSLEY, (R-IA), CHAIRMAN, SENATE JUDICARY COMMITTEE: I hope it's now or within two or three weeks because we've got to get this done before the election. So my message to any one of the nine Supreme Court justices, if you're thinking about quitting this year, do it yesterday.</s>WHITFIELD: Wow. A lot of focus has been on the court's swing vote justice, Anthony Kennedy, and whether he'll retire when the current term expires next month. A Kennedy departure would give President Trump the opportunity to craft a more conservative Supreme Court perhaps. But with midterms six months away, the Republicans fear they could lose their majority in November, making it more difficult to confirm a conservative justice. Joining me is Steve Vladeck, a CNN legal analyst, professor of law and constitutional law. Good to see you.</s>STEVE VLADECK, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Good to see you.</s>WHITFIELD: OK, so if Justice Kennedy were to retire, what kind of battle would ensue in your view?</s>VLADECK: Oh, a cataclysmic one. I think everybody understands that Justice Anthony Kennedy, who has been the swing vote on the Supreme Court since 2006, replacing him would tilt the scales of the Supreme Court -- certainly if it's Trump doing the replacing -- in a very conservative direction. I think we would see a fight unlike any we've seen certainly in a generation and perhaps in modern times over any possible replacement for Justice Kennedy.</s>WHITFIELD: It's to be presumed, right, that Justice Kennedy is thinking about that, too? I mean, being mindful of if you were to step down and now, versus later, who would likely succeed him?</s>VLADECK: This is the irony of Chairman Grassley's comments. The Supreme Court justices are quite aware, not just of the timing of the confirmation process but really of their own legacies. When a justice thinks about the timing and circumstances of their departure from the court, they're thinking about personal reasons, family reasons, health reasons, but also what it's going to say about them 10, 15, 20 years on, when scholars, commentators, are assessing their legacy. What we know about Justice Kennedy is he is deeply, deeply sensitive to how he's perceived, and I think that's going to be a big part of his very personal choice with regard to when he's going to step down.</s>WHITFIELD: Talk to me about the awareness of the political climate a justice would have. You mentioned all those things they take into consideration, but it almost seems like all of those things come last and, you know, political climate, legacy are at the top.</s>VLADECK: I think that's right. Obviously, every justice is different. Every case is different. Plenty of examples of justices who were, you know, forced basically to leave court because of personal or medical issues perhaps during a presidency or when there was a Senate controlled by a party that they didn't want picking their successor. So, you know, I think for Justice Kennedy, the question is, does he want to step down. Is he still enjoying his job, which, you know, frankly, he's got a lot of power. And if he does want to step down, does he really think that now's the time to do it, not just given the upcoming midterms but given the broader political division and divisiveness in our American political system now.</s>WHITFIELD: Hasn't it been the tradition that most of these justices, when they, you know, feel like if, you know, it's an issue of retiring, they do it on their own terms, not because everybody else is at -- you know, urging them to do so?</s>VLADECK: Yes. I know, the thing that struck me that's the most discordant about Chairman Grassley's remarks is he knows as well as anybody that these nine people are not about to be bullied by the Senate Judiciary Committee. They're not about to feel like the timing is up to the Senate as opposed to whatever their personal predilections and preferences are.</s>WHITFIELD: During the last justice opening, when Obama was president, the majority leader, Mitch McConnel, kept that position vacant. Sighting an election year, there wasn't enough time and consideration, et cetera. Might that now come back to haunt the GOP if there were an opening soon?</s>VLADECK: Maybe. Although I think, you know, no one will be surprised to hear that Senate Majority Leader McConnell, Chairman Grassley, have both said, hey, if it just so happens that President Trump has a vacancy to fill while we're still in charge of the Senate that, you know, rule we evoked in 2016 to deny seat to President Obama, all of a sudden, is not going to bind us. As with everything, I think it's very circumstance specific. And I think, you know, if a justice resigned in the next couple of weeks or, you know, some time before the end of the summer, I think they'll be a lot of pressure on Trump, on Senate Republicans, to get a confirmation done before the midterms, lest the midterms themselves become a referendum on the future of court and who's going to be able to fill that seat.</s>WHITFIELD: Back to Grassley, how unusual is it for a Senator, especially one heading up a Judiciary Committee, to talk like that?</s>VLADECK: I mean, you know, I think it's unusual for a random Senator. I think Chairman Grassley is not exactly someone who's, you know, shy. I think I mean, realistically, I don't think he's talking to the court when he's talking about the timing of nominations. I think in many ways he's actually talking more to the White House, basically, saying, if this going to happen, you guys are going to have to move fast.</s>WHITFIELD: Really, because I felt like he was talking to a justice, like, if you're going to do it, yesterday.</s>VLADECK: I think that's how it's perceived. But, you know, Chairman Grassley knows that, you know, Anthony Kennedy is not sitting by the phone waiting for permission from Chairman Grassley to announce his resignation. So, you know, I don't think this is about what Justice Kennedy is going to do. Only Justice Kennedy, at the end of the day, knows that and is going to be the decider of that. I think this is Grassley signaling to everybody else, if we do get a retirement announcement from Justice Kennedy, which he hopes is soon, people are going to want to move and need to move fast, lest the midterms become a referendum on the conservative balance on the Supreme Court.</s>WHITFIELD: All right, Steve Vladeck, thanks so much.</s>VLADECK: Thank you.</s>WHITFIELD: All right, still ahead, the families of those who lost their frozen embryos when a freezer malfunctioned at an Ohio fertility clinic are speaking out about their heartbreak as we learn new details of how the legal cases may or may not go forward.