- And joining us now, Carrie Severino,

president of the Judicial Crisis Network.

Carrie, it's great to haveyou with us this evening.

So Speaker Pelosi says

she won't bring this bill to the floor.

But it doesn't end there becauseshe wants to wait and see

what the commission brings forward.

Carrie, where does this go from here?

- Yeah, well, the commissionthat Biden has proposed

is really just a fig leaf, effectively,

to cover what seems to bethe direction he wants to go,

even though Biden himselfacknowledged decades ago

that the idea of packing thecourt was a boneheaded idea,

as he put it.

What it showed that,when FDR tried to do it,

it was because he was corrupted by power.

Now, because there's such amajor pressure campaign and push

from the deepest pocketson the dark money left,

they're moving in that direction.

The commission is really just designed

to give cover, to give an academic veneer

to this project that really is conceived

out of the most extremegroups on the left.

And out of the several dozenmembers of the committee,

it's overwhelmingly liberal.

There's just a handfulof moderate Republicans

for kind of window dressing.

But I think we know what thecommission's going to say.

It's gonna say, "Weneed to go fast-forward

toward getting more Democrat appointees

on the courts as possible."

- You said before shedied, Justice Ginsburg said

that she was against court-packing.

Just a few weeks ago,

we also heard JusticeBreyer warn against it.

Carrie, you talk about thecommission and its makeup,

but do you think thereis actually any chance

it would recommend expanding the court?

What do you foresee?

- Oh, I think it's a foregone conclusion,

given the membership of the commission.

It includes radicals like Larry Tribe,

who is the person who invented the idea

of borking Robert Bork andblocking Supreme Court nominees

through that dishonest campaign,

who invented the idea offilibustering appellate judges.

So there's no question

that the commission willgive the recommendation

that they believe is the most liberal one,

possibly politically feasible at the time.

And unfortunately, we're seeing people

really pushing the envelope

for what is politically feasible.

So if they think they can get it done,

there's actually gonna bepressure to get that court packed,

and I think that thathandful of Republican members

is going to be no obstacle tothat kind of extreme proposal.

- So if the commission doesdo what you're saying it does,

does that put more pressureon President Biden then

to actually support this?

In the past, he hasn't, as you mentioned.

- Well, in the past,decades ago, he hasn't,

and frankly, one yearago, he didn't support it.

But we've seen a huge seachange over that year.

I think the real secret to the change

isn't pressure from a commission;

it's pressure from the peoplewho helped put him in office.

We know that there were historic levels

of donations to Biden's campaign,

over $145 million fromliberal dark money groups.

And it was these same groups

that, even before Biden was the nominee,

were putting pressure onall Democratic nominees

to support the notion of court-packing.

So this is something that goes,

the pressure that's been goingfor over a year now on him.

And I think he's not, thusfar, what we've seen is

he is not doing a very good job

of standing up to this pressure

when you have the big, darkmoney that put him in office

that is asking for paybackfor those kinds of donations

to his campaign.

- So House Democrats,you know, they were out

making their case today, Carrie.

Among other things,

they said the far right hijacked the court

thanks to norm-breakingmoves by Mitch McConnell,

and that expanding the court is necessary

to restore balance and integrity.

Is there any merit to this argument?

- I understand theDemocrats are frustrated

that President Trump had fouryears of him nominating judges

and a GOP-led Senate thatwas confirming nominees.

I understand that they're frustrated

that the American peopleallowed Trump to take office

and to then fill Scalia's seat

rather than having MerrickGarland fill that seat.

However, that is no excuse

for trashing the institution of the court.

This would be such a radical move

and trigger such dangerouspolitical tit for tat

that even people like JusticeRuth Bader Ginsburg herself,

like Justice Breyer, likeBernie Sanders, of all people,

have acknowledged court-packingwould would trigger

a very dangerous, one-way ratchet

of making the court bigger and bigger

each time power changed in Washington.

So, it's a horrible idea.

It's a bonehead idea, as Biden had said,

and always has been.

- All right, well, Carrie Severino

with the Judicial Crisis Network,we have to leave it there,

but we always love having you on.

Thank you, Carrie.