After expressing his disappointment earlier in the day that Democrats had been unable to “lay a glove” on Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch during Tuesday’s Senate confirmation hearing, in MSNBC's 3 p.m. ET hour, anchor Brian Williams tried to assuage his fellow liberals by speculating that the conservative judge might shift left while on the high court.
Talking to George Washington University Law School professor Jeffrey Rosen, Williams, known for his active fantasy life, imagined this left-wing dream scenario: “...a question we keep asking, perhaps just to keep things interesting, what is the chance that this nominee could be a surprise to the president who nominated him, along the lines of a [John] Brennan or a [David] Souter?”
Rosen lamented that Gorsuch would not emulate the liberal justices: “I don't think that he will evolve to a Brennan or a Souter...” However, he did eagerly predict that the nominee may take on the Trump administration: “...but it is possible that Judge Gorsuch could check President Trump in a serious way. Whether it's on the executive order and travel ban or some other form of executive overreach, Judge Gorsuch has made clear that he thinks the job of the judge is to enforce the Constitution regardless of the politics.”
Apparently, Williams really had Souter on the brain, because moments later he asked: “Do you see any reason, Jeffrey, in what we've seen and heard so far from Neil Gorsuch, that this won’t be a – not to diminish it in a any way – but this won't be a net-net, basically no change on the Court from Souter to Gorsuch?” He corrected himself: “I mean, Scalia. Forgive me.”
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During an earlier interview with left-wing NPR host Nina Totenberg, Williams similarly evoked Souter and Brennan to advance his hope that Gorsuch would be a “non-ideologue” (translation: liberal):
Nina, going back, looking at the modern era of the Court, let's go as far back as say Souter or Brennan or even Justice White, whose name was already invoked this morning, there have been ideologues. There have been. There have been non-ideologues, people who really have changed before our eyes organically. Famously, Justice Brennan was Eisenhower's greatest regret as president. Where do you put Judge Gorsuch of ideologues, people who have a fixed north star before arriving on the Court?
If Democrats can’t defeat Gorsuch with partisan hit jobs against him throughout the hearing, Williams and his liberal media colleagues are going to demand the future Justice “evolve” to their way of thinking.
Here is a transcript of Williams’s March 21 exchange with Rosen:
3:31 PM ET
(...)
BRIAN WILLIAMS: And Jeffrey, because you have studied the Court and written about it for so many years and in so many different venues, a question we keep asking, perhaps just to keep things interesting, what is the chance that this nominee could be a surprise to the president who nominated him, along the lines of a Brennan or a Souter?
JEFFREY ROSEN [GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL]: I don't think that he will evolve to a Brennan or a Souter, but it is possible that Judge Gorsuch could check President Trump in a serious way. Whether it's on the executive order and travel ban or some other form of executive overreach, Judge Gorsuch has made clear that he thinks the job of the judge is to enforce the Constitution regardless of the politics. And just as the guy he’s being appointed to replace, Justice Robert Jackson voted to check President Harry Truman in the steel seizure case. So I think in these hearings, Judge Gorsuch is making it clear, “I believe in judicial independence and I am willing to check the president who appointed me.”
WILLIAMS: This may get a little text-booky, but what Senator Klobuchar was talking about among her last points before the break was a kind of “selective originalism.” This is the kind of thing that can bedevil a justice or a nominee who is very proud to call themselves an originalist, it's tough to apply in 2017.
ROSEN: Absolutely. And the Democrats are right to note a series of cases where Justice Scalia, the noted originalist, seemed to betray constitutional text and history, most notable, Brown vs. Board of Education, the case that struck down segregation, but is hard to reconcile with original understanding. Judge Gorsuch responded, “I want to translate the original understanding into a world of new technologies.” And he keep citing the global positioning system surveillance case, suggesting that he is not fixed in the 18th century horse and buggy age. But the Democrats are really going to press him on this and say, “Do you agree with the cases where Justice Scalia was, as Senator Klobuchar so powerfully said, ‘a faithless originalist.’”
WILLIAMS: Do you see any reason, Jeffrey, in what we've seen and heard so far from Neil Gorsuch, that this won’t be a – not to diminish it in a any way – but this won't be a net-net, basically no change on the Court from Souter to Gorsuch?
ROSEN: I think could be a change on the Court. There really –
WILLIAMS: I mean, Scalia. Forgive me.
ROSEN: From Scalia to Gorsuch. No, not at all.
(...)
