'Meet the Press' transcript for May 31, 2009

MR. GREGORY:  The White House says, Senator Sessions, that in more than 80 percent of the cases Judge Sotomayor has rejected race claims.  Are you troubled by this decision?

SEN. SESSIONS:  I'm, I'm a little bit troubled.  It was a divided court, pretty strongly divided.  Hispanic judge criticized Judge Sotomayor pretty aggressively for not dealing with the serious constitutional questions that arise when you take a person who made the best score on the test and then invalidate it for basically a racial concern.  And so that requires a careful analysis by the court.  He criticized her and her panel for not carefully analyzing it.  That was his criticism, and I think she'll need to explain that.

MR. GREGORY:  Let, let me move on to the broader question of a judge's ideology, and whether senators should weigh that in taking on a vote like this.  President Obama said in his weekly radio address this weekend that the Senate should really move on from such considerations.  This is what he said.

(Videotape, Saturday)

PRES. OBAMA:  But what I hope is that we avoid the political posturing and ideological brinksmanship that has bogged down this process and Congress in the past.

(End videotape)

MR. GREGORY:  And yet, Senator Leahy, back in 2006 it was Senator Obama who supported a filibuster against Judge Alito, who made it very clear that ideology should be a factor in determining a judge's record and said this back in 2006.

(Audiotape, January 31, 2006)

PRES. OBAMA:  There are some who believe that the president, having won the election, should have complete authority to appoint his nominee, and that the Senate should only examine whether or not the justice is intellectually capable and is nice to his wife, or she is nice to her husband; that once you get beyond issues of intellect and personal character, then there shouldn't be further question as to whether the judge should be confirmed.  I disagree with this view.

(End audiotape)

SEN. LEAHY:  Well...

MR. GREGORY:  Is he trying to have it both ways?

SEN. LEAHY:  Well, I, I don't know...

MR. GREGORY:  I mean, either you give deference to the president or you don't.

SEN. LEAHY:  Well, he looks at it one view, of course, as a senator, and a different view as a president.  I've only had the opportunity and only will ever have the opportunity to look at it as a, as a senator.  I've voted on every single member of the current Supreme Court.  I'm aware of the ideology of each of them.  I voted for a number of Republican nominees on the Court. But--and I, I have a rule, I will not meet with special interest groups of either the right or the left.  I remember some of the liberal groups picketing my office, complaining I was going to vote for Justice Souter and that he would be against women's rights.  Well, he's turned out to be, of course, a strong supporter of women's rights.  I look at the justice themselves.  We'll have a full hearing.  Every one of these issues will be brought up.  I'm disturbed when I see a Republican group saying, even an hour before she was actually nominated, "Oh, you must reject her"; others going on TV, leaders of the Republican Party, like Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich, saying you, you must reject her.  We haven't even had the hearing.  To their credit, no Republican senator has stepped up and made statements like that.  They've all said let's have the hearing.  We'll have a hearing, ask her the questions, make up your mind.  This is--you know, there's only 101 people who get to choose on the Supreme Court justice:  the president and the 100 members of the Senate.

MR. GREGORY:  OK, let me ask you this.  When will these hearings start?  Will you have her in place, if she's confirmed, by the August recess, Senator?

SEN. SESSIONS:  I think that's rushing it.  I believe that she has over 3,000, maybe 4,000-plus opinions that need to be examined.  And I think there's no need for us to do that.  We do need to do it by October.  That's when Justice Souter will be stepping down.

MR. GREGORY:  Right.  President Obama wants it sooner than that.

SEN. LEAHY:  The--some of the White House probably like it next month, which would be June.

MR. GREGORY:  Right.

SEN. LEAHY:  That may be, and I think that probably would be too soon.  Most of these cases we've talked about are pro forma cases.  It's, it's not going to take a lawyer much time to, to figure out that.  Our staff's had all those cases, they've done that.  Senator Sessions and I have worked closely together, we agreed on the questionnaire for her.  She--that--those answers should be here this week, then I'll decide when we're going to set it.  But I'll tell you one thing that, that is going to influence the timing of when I will set this hearing is all these attacks are going out against her, she can't answer them.

MR. GREGORY:  Mm-hmm.

SEN. LEAHY:  As a judge, she has to sit back there; some of the most vicious attacks, being called bigoted...

MR. GREGORY:  Right.

SEN. LEAHY:  ...calling her racist, saying that no Republican should be allowed to vote for her.  I intend to give her an opportunity as soon as possible to answer those...

MR. GREGORY:  Will you--as you sit here now, do you meet the president's timetable?

SEN. LEAHY:  I will meet my timetable.

MR. GREGORY:  And that could be different.

SEN. LEAHY:  It could be different.

MR. GREGORY:  Senator Sessions, are you prepared to say now that a filibuster will not happen?

SEN. SESSIONS:  I don't think that's appropriate for me to say.  I think it's unlikely, but we'll have to see how this hearing plays out.  President Obama filibustered Alito.  So it's...

MR. GREGORY:  Right.  But you don't see it here?  You think it's unlikely here.

SEN. SESSIONS:  But I, I feel like a filibuster should not be used readily and ought to be for extraordinary circumstances.

MR. GREGORY:  Final point:  Is there political peril for Republicans opposing the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice?

SEN. SESSIONS:  I think it's important that this nominee be given a fair hearing, that the American people, all the American people feel like this was fairly discussed.  But these are important issues, and if she evidences a philosophy that would justify her setting policy on the bench, going beyond what the case called for her to go on, promoting her own personal agenda in, in the guise of making decisions, then that could be a basis to vote no.

SEN. LEAHY:  (Unintelligible)...could I add, add just one thing...

MR. GREGORY:  Very quickly.

SEN. LEAHY:  ...on the timing.  I certainly understand why the president wants her in there soon.  In the Senate, we have to determine what the time's going to be.  I, I, I agree with the president, he's made a good choice.  I agree with him, we should have it soon.  But I'm going to have to make that decision of when, when the hearing will be, in consultation with Senator Sessions.

SEN. SESSIONS:  Mm-hmm.

MR. GREGORY:  All right, we'll leave it there for now.  Thank you both for joining us this morning.

SEN. SESSIONS:  Thank you.

SEN. LEAHY:  Thank you.

MR. GREGORY:  And coming next, the economy.  Are we seeing real signs of a recovery?  And what will be the impact of a General Motors bankruptcy?  Our conversation from Friday evening from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange with three key CEOs:  Anne Mulcahy of Xerox, Google's Eric Schmidt and Caterpillar's Jim Owens.  Plus, our political roundtable weighs in next on MEET THE PRESS.

(Announcements)

MR. GREGORY:  Our discussion on the economy with three top CEOs from the floor of the New York Stock exchange; it's after this brief commercial break.

(Announcements)

MR. GREGORY:  We're back.  On Friday evening, just after the closing bell, I sat down to talk about the troubled economy with the CEOs of three major companies:  Jim Owens of Caterpillar, Anne Mulcahy of Xerox and Eric Schmidt of Google.

And welcome all of you.  Here we are on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, one of the nerve centers of the American economy, and yet the grim news that surrounds this floor is about General Motors.  General Motors is about to enter bankruptcy, it is likely to no longer be part of the Dow.

Jim Owens, what is the significance to this economy of GM going into bankruptcy?

MR. JIM OWENS:  That's a--you know, the auto industry in general globally, I think, is a--has got significant excess capacity.  And in the case of the U.S. auto industry, they had a, a problem in terms that they were cost competitive in the global economy.  So the bankruptcy and the chance to reorganize and to re-establish an industry that is competitive with the products they build in the domestic economy and hopefully internationally is one that GM should take. I think they've made significant improvements operationally the last few years, but with their labor costs and with the excess number of dealers they had, they just weren't in a position to compete without restructuring.

MR. GREGORY:  But, Anne Mulcahy, this is also a brand issue.

MS. ANNE MULCAHY:  Yes.

MR. GREGORY:  This is the great American brand of General Motors.  How do they emerge out of bankruptcy to the point where people are actually going to buy their cars again?  At Xerox, at the height of the problem for your company, you said, "Unh-unh, we're not going into bankruptcy."

MS. MULCAHY:  Right.

MR. GREGORY:  "It's a bad idea."

MS. MULCAHY:  Yeah.

MR. GREGORY:  Do you think it's a bad idea here?

MS. MULCAHY:  Well, I think it's the only idea here, so I think we're at a point where it is the right path.  And, you know, as Jim said, it, it requires a dramatic restructuring of the industry.  And that can either happen outside of or, or inside of bankruptcy, and in this case there is no other path at this point.  I do think that, you know, the American people want an American car industry, and if things are done correctly there will be an appetite to continue to support it.  But it's going to have to be one that demonstrates that it's sustainable in the long term.

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