Face the Nation Transcript June 28, 2015: Gowdy, Ryan, Cummings
(CBS News) -- A transcript from the June 28, 2015 edition of Face the Nation. Guests included Chad Griffin, Russell Moore, Rep. Paul Ryan, Rep. Elijah Cummings, Rep. Trey Gowdy, Gov. John Kaich, Peggy Noonan, David Ignatius, April Ryan and Reihan Salam.
JOHN DICKERSON, HOST: Today on FACE THE NATION: historic rulings from the Supreme Court and a lesson in grace from the president.
In a landmark civil rights decision, the Supreme Court rules that same-sex marriage is legal across the country.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Today we can say, in no uncertain terms, that we have made our union a little more perfect.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DICKERSON: And, in another big ruling, the court upholds a crucial part of Obamacare.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: The Affordable Care Act is here to stay.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DICKERSON: We will take a look at what this means for the country and what's next for both issues with key players on either side.
And, as South Carolina mourns the victims of last week's shooting, the president caps the week...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA (singing): Amazing grace.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DICKERSON: ... with an impassioned sermon on race in America.
It's all ahead on FACE THE NATION.
Welcome to FACE THE NATION. I'm John Dickerson.
It's been a big week for news, and we're going to try and get through all of it.
We start with the Supreme Court's ruling on same-sex marriage.
And Chad Griffin, the head of the Human Rights Campaign, is with us.
Chad, this was a big win for gays in America, for supporters of same-sex marriage. So, is the work done?
CHAD GRIFFIN, PRESIDENT, HUMAN RIGHTS CAMPAIGN: No question the work is not done.
And while this was a monumental leap forward in this country, we still have a long ways to go. You know, in a majority of states in the country still today, after this ruling, you can be married at 10:00 a.m., fired from your job by noon, and evicted from your home by 2:00 simply for posting that wedding photo on Facebook.
And so, as you look at the battles ahead, we have got to bring full and comprehensive nondiscrimination protections to everyone living in every state in this country. And that's the next battle in Congress.
DICKERSON: What about implementation of the ruling itself? In Louisiana and in Mississippi, there's some slow-walking going on there. What's the latest on that?
GRIFFIN: Well, look, this really was very clear. The ruling that was written by Justice Kennedy made very clear that every state has to move forward and all of the marriage bans must fall.
And I expect that that's going to happen quickly. I think what you're seeing is some folks trying to play a political game, as Bobby Jindal is doing in Louisiana. But I do expect that across this country very quickly every state, every city and every county will move swiftly to implement this historic ruling.
DICKERSON: Let me ask you about something the president said in his remarks in the Rose Garden. He said that those who have come so far on their journey to equality have a responsibility to reach back and help others.
What obligation do you have to help others who may find this ruling troubling?
GRIFFIN: Well, look, I think there's no question that we have been on the journey in this country, a long journey, to move towards that more perfect union, as the president said.
And, look, our laws have to treat everyone equally, and that's what this ruling grants LGBT Americans. But we also have to acknowledge there are still folks who are coming along. But that is truly the lesson of this movement. As LGBT people have lived their lives openly and out at home, at work, at school and church, it has changed folks' minds.
Everyday Americans realize we're the people next door. We're the fellow congregant seated next to you on the church pew on a Sunday morning. We're the police officer. We're the CEO. And when folks have come to know us, they have evolved and believed that we should all have equal rights, not special rights, but equal rights. That's the lesson of this country, and that's the journey that will continue.
DICKERSON: All right, Chad Griffin, thanks so much for being with us.
GRIFFIN: Thank you. DICKERSON: On the other side of the issue, we turn to Russell Moore of the Southern Baptist Convention.
I want to start with this question of -- on this ruling, what can be done now for people who hold your view?
RUSSELL MOORE, PRESIDENT, ETHICS AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY COMMISSION, SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION: Well, I think that people have to understand that people who hold my view based on deeply held religious convictions aren't going to simply surrender those things. We can't.
For us to change our views on marriage and sexuality would mean repudiating what we believe has been handed to us by Jesus and his apostles. We can't simply -- we didn't make up our views on marriage and sexuality, and we can't unmake them.
And so evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox and others are going to continue to hold their views on marriage and sexuality. We believe it's in the common good. We understand that, short-term, things are very stacked against us here.
But we ought to have the sort of pluralistic American environment where we can agree to disagree and where we can make our case without having our consciences paved over by those who would seek to do so.
DICKERSON: So, you can hold your view, but what about in a legal sense? I mean, what -- can anything be done?
MOORE: Well, I think it's -- we're going to have to take a page from the pro-life movement and see this as a long-term strategy.
I don't think that an infinitely elastic view of marriage is sustainable. And I think that we have to be the people who keep the light lit to the old ways when it comes to marriage and family. And that's going to be a generation-long skirmish. It's not going to be something that's going to be resolved in a presidential election or two.
DICKERSON: You say infinitely elastic, but we're not really -- it's not really infinite.
MOORE: Well, it seems to be -- seems to be increasingly elastic.
And so we keep moving with various rates of rapidity toward tossing aside things that just a few years ago were seen to be slippery slopes.
DICKERSON: You mentioned the pro-life, the Roe vs. Wade analogy you have made before.
But, in this case, it seems that there are -- that it's a little bit different, that, in Roe vs. Wade, there was a kind of constant push against it. In this, a lot of reason that the culture has changed is because people know people in same-sex relationships, and the opposition to that has diminished. MOORE: Well, but I don't think that's the case.
If you look at what happened in Roe vs. Wade, you have had at least my wing of Christianity, evangelicals, who weren't concerned at all. We saw it as a Roman Catholic issue. You had a very lonely Roman Catholic witness against the abortion culture. And, as time went on, as people saw the implications of this, the more that they stood by what the Scriptures teach on these things and by what their deepest convictions say. I think the same thing will be true here.
DICKERSON: There will be a lot more people that you know who will have family members now as a result of this who will now be married through same-sex marriages.
MOORE: Yes. Yes.
DICKERSON: What do you -- what would you counsel them? What would your guidance be to a person of faith about someone in their family or friend who goes on and gets married now?
MOORE: Well, we don't hate anybody. We don't have hostility toward anyone. We believe in loving all people and respecting all people, including our gay and lesbian neighbors.
And so holding to our convictions doesn't mean that we dispense with human kindness and actually with gospel, spirit-driven kindness. It means that those two things go together. We have to be people of both truth and grace, of conviction and kindness. And I think that's what most Christians are doing now and have been doing for quite some time.
DICKERSON: And last question. In terms of protections for people of faith, is there a specific protection that you would like to see in the wake of this ruling?
MOORE: Well, it's really going to depend on what the victors in this ruling attempt to assert. Are they going to take a French Revolutionary approach to the sexual revolution or not? And I think we have to hold by our First Amendment protections for people of faith and for religious institutions, because we're not going to be able to simply put our convictions in a blind trust.
DICKERSON: Russell Moore, thank you so much for being with us.
MOORE: Thank you, John.
DICKERSON: And in another major ruling this -- last week, the court upheld Obamacare.
Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan has been a consistent critic of the Affordable Care Act. And he joins us now from Janesville, Wisconsin.
Mr. Ryan, is the president right? He says Obamacare is now the law of the land, and that's that.
REP. PAUL RYAN (R), WISCONSIN: I don't agree with that, John. I think this law is going to collapse under its own weight.
I'm as motivated as ever before to repeal and replace this law, and that's what we're working on. What I really worry about, John, with this ruling is the grave injustice it does to the rule of law. I mean, so much for calling balls and strikes. I think Justice Roberts is now counting foul balls as home runs.
And, look, I think that they have done a great disservice to the country, because they're rewriting laws at the bench. We had three constructionists on the court, when we should have had five. And, so, yes, I'm very shocked at this ruling, but it does not deter us from actually delivering on what we really want, which is affordable care for everybody, and let people choose what they want to buy. And that's not what this law does.
DICKERSON: But, as a practical matter, you're going to work against it, but what can you do now?
RYAN: Well, as a practical matter, it means we need to win the 2016 election, and with a Republican president in 2017 replace this law with one that actually works, one that people actually like.
DICKERSON: You know, I want to talk to you about what the replacement is going to be and read you a line from Peter Suderman, who's writing in Politico about the politics of health care.
He writes -- quote -- "Republicans have already lost, because, when it comes to larger health care -- health policy goals, the party effectively doesn't have any, beyond the repeal of Obamacare."
Now, this author is not a fan of Obamacare. His argument is, there's no real alternative and you couldn't, as Republicans, agree on one.
RYAN: Well, I take issue with that narrative.
Look, when we were debating Obamacare, Senator Tom Coburn, Richard Burr and Congressman Devin Nunes and I had a very comprehensive alternative. There are a number of alternative Obamacare bills out there right now in Congress.
So, I just disagree with that notion. But, to your point, I do believe that, in 2016, we need to show the country what exactly we would replace this law with, so that when we win the election in 2016, we have the ability do it in 2017.
So, yes, that's what we're going to go with now, is go back to working on coming up with a comprehensive replacement bill, showing the country what that looks like, how we can fix this mess, and then implement the fix in 2017.
DICKERSON: I know that 2016 candidates come to you and seek your counsel. Would you advise them then not just to say Obamacare bad, but to say here is A, B, C, and D, what I would replace it with? Would that be your advice?
RYAN: I -- yes, I would say both.
Yes, say, I don't like this law, because I don't think anybody running for president on our side of the aisle does, and say what they would replace it with. And that's a healthy thing. And you already have people running for president who have already put out replacement ideas and plans.
I think we will see more of those now. We were working on responding to King-Burwell, should the court stick with the Constitution and the rule of law as written. Since the ruling didn't go the right way, from our perspective, I think we're now going to work on a comprehensive replacement plan.
And I think that's a healthy conversation that we're going to have to have in this country.
DICKERSON: The president says he would like to work with you on some areas of common ground in fixing the law. Any chance that's going to happen?
RYAN: Look, I just don't think this law is fixable. It's born on such a fundamentally flawed premise.
It makes people buy what the government lets you -- only lets you buy. It's going to lead to massive consolidation, virtual monopolies of insurance companies, government-run corporations, effectively. And it denies people choice. It gives the states no rights to craft markets for themselves that work for them.
So, I just think it's so fundamentally flawed. I think the law is going to collapse under its own weight. The rationing it will do to Medicare, the denial of choice, the double-digit increases in premiums we seem to see every year is something that I just don't think the country's going to stand for.
DICKERSON: We will switch from a position of disagreement with the president to one where you agreed with him. It looks like trade is going to go forward. What was the key to getting that passed, something both you and the president wanted?
RYAN: Well, I think this is one of those glimmers of hope where we had some common ground on a bipartisan basis.
And the reason this happened, the reason we had 191 Republicans in the House voting for it, with 28 Democrats, is because we want American leadership. We realize that trade is what you need to have to increase jobs and economic opportunity, national security.
But, really, John, I think it was a question of, if we do not do TPA, then we are on a bipartisan basis saying that the country is retreating from the world and we're going to let other countries write the global rule book on the global economy. And we don't want to do that. Now that we have TPA, America can be at the front of the line writing the rules of the global economy, which is in our interests.
DICKERSON: OK. RYAN: And I think that's what we got out of this.
DICKERSON: All right, Congressman Paul Ryan, thanks so much for being with us.
We turn now to race relations in the aftermath of the Charleston shootings.
Maryland Congressman Elijah Cummings spoke with us earlier.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DICKERSON: Congressman Cummings, thank you very much for joining us.
REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS (D), MARYLAND: Good to be here.
DICKERSON: I want to talk to you about the Confederate Flag in South Carolina. It looks like it's just a matter of time before it comes down. What will that do in terms of improving race relations?
CUMMINGS: I think it's a major thing that has to happen, and it will happen. I agree.
And I applaud the folks in South Carolina for doing that. I also applaud the governor of Alabama for doing what he's done in taking down the flag. But that's simply not enough. That is simply a symbol of bigotry, a symbol of racial hatred, a symbol of inequality for me and for so many others.
Now we must begin to address racial disparities and inequalities themselves, and I think that's the most important thing. Again, it's good to take the flag down, but now we have to move beyond that.
DICKERSON: Well, I want to pick up on that.
President Obama, when he spoke at Reverend Pinckney funeral, said something. And I want to play it and get your reaction to it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It would be a betrayal of everything Reverend Pinckney stood for, I believe, if we allowed ourselves to slip into a comfortable silence again.
(APPLAUSE)
OBAMA: Once the eulogies have been delivered, once the TV cameras move on, to go back to business as usual.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DICKERSON: I want to ask you about that idea of business as usual. You're from Baltimore. It was your -- in your district where just a few months ago, there was rioting in the streets over the question of the murder of Freddie Gray. What's the situation like in Baltimore? Got a lot of attention for a short period, but have things slipped back to business as usual? Or what's being done there now?
CUMMINGS: No, they have not slipped back as business as usual.
I think the mayor has worked very hard to pull us together. And we have a program now called OneBaltimore. What we saw after the disturbances is a lot of people of goodwill came forward, opened their eyes and said, you know what? We can do something about it.
So we had philanthropic organizations, nonprofits, state government, President Obama and his administration all coming together to try to begin to address things like joblessness and the criminal justice system, and trying to make sure that police were respecting the people who they have pledged to serve and protect, but also making sure that the community respects the police.
And so there's a lot happening in Baltimore. We have a long way to go. But I don't think Baltimore will ever be the same. Is it going to be easy? No, it's not going to be easy. Dealing with problems that have been systemic for so long, it's going to be very difficult.
We have to, for example, address our education system. So many of our children feel that they are not getting the education they need to be functional in our society. So we're looking at all of those things and giving it everything we have got. But I have a lot of hope for Baltimore.
DICKERSON: When you think about what's happened in Baltimore, and then you were there at the service on Friday, you talk about hope. The president tried to talk about that too. What do you think -- what did you take from his remarks in terms of trying to address some of these longstanding problems about race in America, both in Baltimore, but also in Charleston?
CUMMINGS: Well, I think what the president was saying is that we need to pull the blinders from over our eyes, and that we don't have the right to remain silent about what we see.
In the past, we have put Band-Aids on the symptoms, said, OK, we got a problem here, so we will do something there and here. But the fact still remains that what the president was trying to say, I think, was that we have got to look at things like health care. I mean, think about South Carolina.
We have got 136,000 people who could be getting health care under Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. They are not because the governor and the legislature won't sign on.
And there are other states that are doing the same things. I mean, those are the kinds of things that go to the quality of life of African-Americans and other people. We have got to look at joblessness. We also have to look at the criminal justice system. And I think that's what the president's saying. Let's begin to act. It's nice to talk, but, at some point, the talk has to turn into deeds, to actually affect people's lives from day to day.
DICKERSON: All right, Congressman Cummings, thanks so much for being with us.
CUMMINGS: Thank you.
DICKERSON: We will be back in one minute.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) DICKERSON: We turn now to the controversy over Hillary Clinton's e-mails.
This week, the State Department told a congressional committee investigating the Benghazi attacks that the secretary had not turned over all of her e-mails related to the investigation.
The chairman of that committee, Congressman Trey Gowdy, is with us now from Clemson, South Carolina.
Mr. Chairman, I want to ask you, what's the significance of this latest revelation?
REP. TREY GOWDY (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: Well, the significance, John, is it undercuts the three main points that Secretary Clinton made. She said that the public record was complete. You will remember in her single press conference she said that she had turned over everything related to work to the Department of State. We know that that is false.
She said the e-mails from Sidney Blumenthal were unsolicited. We know that that was false. So, so far, she also said that she had a single device for convenience. We now know that she had more than a single device. So every explanation she's offered so far is demonstrably false.
DICKERSON: On the question of completeness, the State Department said, well, but she turned over 55,000 e-mails. This is just 15. So how big a deal is that?
GOWDY: Well, we don't know, in fairness to her, because I don't have anything to compare it with, because she had this unprecedented e-mail arrangement with herself.
Only she and her attorneys know whether or not she turned over everything. What we now know is just within the small area of Libya and Benghazi, not her entire tenure of secretary of state, just Libya and Benghazi, we found 15 e-mails that she did not produce to the Department of State, despite the fact that she claimed she produced everything.
So we know that her seminal point, don't mind my unique e-mail arrangement, you have everything you're supposed to have, we know that that is patently false. What we don't know is whether or not that is also true or false with respect to other areas outside of Libya and Benghazi.
DICKERSON: So is this going to change the way you're pursuing your investigation at all? GOWDY: Well, I was -- yes, I'm a former prosecutor, so I was somewhat suspicious and skeptical beforehand.
I think what it confirms is, number one, the public record is not complete. Number two, we very much need to talk to Secretary Clinton, but we cannot do that until the Department of State produces to us the e-mails and other documents that we're legitimately entitled to.
And the other point that I would make, because I hear it all the time from your previous guest and others, is that seven or eight previous congressional committees looked into Benghazi. There's nothing here. Look somewhere else.
Well, none of those other committees looked at a single one of her e-mails. And none of those other committees found out that she had her own server and her own private e-mail. So our committee has done things that none of those seven other committees were able to do.
DICKERSON: Speaking of the conduct of your committee, the Clinton campaign heard you were coming, and so they decided to get busy with their own e-mails and sent us one in which John Podesta, the chairman of the campaign says that you are -- and I'm quoting from him -- "clinging to an invented scandal," and that the one question -- he says, "One question that prominently remains, what if anything does all this have to do with Benghazi?"
Your response.
GOWDY: Well, the murder of four of my fellow Americans is not an invented scandal. And what it has to do with our investigation is this.
We were asked by our colleagues in the House to look at all policies, all activities, all decisions that led up to the attacks in Benghazi, the pendency of the attacks themselves, the administration's response in the aftermath and then the administration's compliance with a legitimate congressional oversight.
So, if you look at just the first tranche, what led to the attacks, John, what does our government now say led to the attacks? What is our government's official position on the motive behind these attacks? Anti-Western sentiment. So you don't look at anti-Western sentiment in a 24-hour vacuum prior to the attacks.
You have to look at what may have spurred or spawned that anti- Western sentiment. I have no interest in looking at Northern Africa. I have no interest in looking at Bolivia or Peru. But I am going to look at what the House asked me to look at, which is what led to the attacks and, importantly, with respect to Sidney Blumenthal, this coordinated effort to mislead the American people in the aftermath of the attacks and the Department of State's total recalcitrance at allowing Congress to investigate.
They haven't given us e-mails for nine of the 10 senior aides that she had. It's been over a year and we don't have a single scrap of paper from nine of the 10. So I am happy to include this investigation just as soon as John Kerry decides that he's going to give us the documents we're entitled to.
DICKERSON: Are you going to call anyone in from the State Department?
GOWDY: Pardon me?
DICKERSON: Are you going to call anybody in from the State Department and talk to them about this?
GOWDY: Well, we have called them in privately before, because I have tried do this the right way, not with theater, not with theatrics. I have tried to do it without the drama, just the documents.
But that has not proven to be successful. So I have met with Secretary Kerry's chief of staff privately. We talked on the phone last week. Our next interaction will be public.
And, John, if I don't get satisfaction from that public interaction with his chief of staff, the next person to come explain to Congress why he has been so recalcitrant in turning over documents will be the secretary himself. I get that he has other things going on. I get that he's got a big portfolio. But I want to get this investigation over with, and he is the only thing standing between me and a completed investigation.
DICKERSON: And, quickly, what about Hillary Clinton? When is she going to testify?
GOWDY: Just as soon as the Department of State decides to give me the documents that I need to have a constructive conversation with her.
DICKERSON: All right. All right.
Chairman Gowdy, we thank you so much for your time.
Back in a moment.
GOWDY: Yes, sir.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DICKERSON: We have got a lot more ahead in this busy week of news. And that includes John Kasich, the Republican governor of Ohio. He will be joining us as soon as we get back from our break.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) DICKERSON: Some of our stations are leaving us now, but for most of you, we will be right back with a lot more FACE THE NATION, including Governor John Kasich and our panel.
Stay with us. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DICKERSON: Welcome back to Face the Nation." I'm John Dickerson.
We're back with John Kasich, the Republican governor of Ohio.
Governor, I want to start with the Affordable Care Act. You've worked with portions of it, particularly the Medicaid portion. Now that the Supreme Court has ruled, is this it? Is it over? Should Republicans just accept it?
KASICH: No, I don't think so, John. I mean, the problem with Obamacare is it drives up insurance costs. It messed with our insurance bands out here. It doesn't make any sense. And it's a top- down, it doesn't control costs. So there are alternatives to Obamacare.
We're driving one here in Ohio called quality health care where we incentivize both the early physicians with the insurance companies and the providers to practice quality medicine so that you don't have to have ten tests when you only need two.
With incentives built in the system to keep us healthy and also control the cost of healthcare.
In regard to Medicaid, you know, I think there we ought to be block-granting money back to the states so states can be empowered to treat the poor. And we're going to ask for some waivers in that program.
But what's most important there is I brought Ohio money back to treat the mentally ill, the drug addicted, and to help the working poor so they're not in the emergency rooms. And so our mentally ill and drug addicted are not in prison. That's not only a question of arithmetic, but it's also a question of morality and so that's working pretty well.
By the way, we will have a balanced budget. We're going to have a structural balance. We have a $2 billion in our surplus, and we've cut taxes by $5 billion, the most in the country with strong credit. We've been managing things appropriately and we've grown jobs by 360,000 here in Ohio.
And there's a lot of lessons for people to learn about that nationally.
DICKERSON: Lessons nationally, you mentioned the arithmetic. I want to go back to your point about the moral part. You talked when you got a little pushback from conservatives about that Medicaid money that you took, you said when you go to meet St. Peter at the Pearly Gates he's -- your quote is, he's probably not going to ask you much about what you did about keeping government small, but he's going to ask you about what you did for the poor. That didn't strike everyone in the conservative ranks as a kind thing to say.
KASICH: You know, I get it, John.
Look, first of all, you have to have economic growth because that's the most important thing for our country, for the world for that matter, because it takes people out of poverty and gives them an opportunity to live their god-given purpose.
But I have to tell you, as a big fan of that handbook that the lord's handed us, the Old and New Testament, there's a lot in there, John, about our need to take care of the widowed, the poor, the disadvantaged, and I feel very good about it, and at the end of the day, all these people are giving a lift and an opportunity. That's one thing in the country, John, is we talk about a lot of issues that divide us, but there are many things that we should -- that should unite us, and that's what America needs, we need to be united.
There are divisions between rich and poor and black and white, and we can fix these things if everybody feels they have an opportunity to rise. And that's kind of my philosophy.
DICKERSON: You mentioned in another context, you said the Republican Party needs more empathy. Is that what you're talking about?
KASICH: Well, I think the whole country needs more empathy. I think it's been a disappearing value, John. I mean, you know, if you're developmentally disabled, we want you to be mainstreamed as much as possible. If you're mentally ill, we want you to get your medication so you can stand and lead a good life.
The same is true with rehabbing prisoners. We've been able to help people who are drug addicted to come out of prison and have only a 10 percent recidivism rate. That's what unifies the country, John.
And you know, where people are losing here is a little bit of an erosion of the spirit. Does the American dream work? Do I have an opportunity to become something special? And I think that, if we in fact can convince people that everyone's included, that everybody has an opportunity to rise, based on a growing economy, America's stronger and not divided.
DICKERSON: I want to ask you about the ruling from the Supreme Court on same-sex marriage. In various states, there have been laws passed to protect the religious freedom of people. Where -- are you going to do that in Ohio?
KASICH: I think we need to take a deep breath.
Look, I believe in traditional marriage, but the Supreme Court has ruled, and it's the law of the land, and we'll abide by it. And I think everybody needs to take a deep breath to see how this evolves.
But I know this, I mean, religious institutions, religious entities, you know, like the Catholic Church, they need to be honored as well. And I think there's an ability to strike a balance.
Look, as job as governor, you learn to strike a balance. Sometimes you get into an argument, you get in a fight, and that's OK. But overall, what you want to do as a public official and as a leader is you want to kind of look for solutions where you can create more win-wins.
And let's see how this thing develops, everybody take a deep breath at this point.
DICKERSON: Do you think that this ruling, though, some conservatives have said it's a real threat to the culture in America. Do you see it that way?
KASICH: Look, I've said what I said about my view on it. But I think there's so many other things now that we have so focus on.
You know, it's going to be job growth, defeating poverty, healing the division between races, coming up with an immigration solution that's going to be fair and is going to help people, rebuilding our national defense. That's where the energy ought to be focused on the things that we know are vital to strengthen our country, John.
I'm trying to avoid your question but, frankly, my head is now moving in the direction of what we can do to solve problems here together.
DICKERSON: You're trying to avoid the question which sounds like you're already a presidential candidate.
When are you going to announce?
KASICH: Well, first of all, I'm not avoiding it. I do believe in traditional marriage, but the court has ruled. And it's time to move on. Be clear about that.
In terms of announcing, we're getting awfully close to being able to make a decision, and, look, I just want to do it if I think I have a path to win.
People say I have low poll numbers. And you know, I do, and I'll tell you why, because I came into this office to take care of our beloved Ohio. I didn't travel outside the state. I didn't go out in politic. What I wanted to do was fix Ohio.
So we went from $8 billion in the hole to a $2 billion surplus to a balanced budget, the largest tax cuts in the country and growing 360,000 jobs with everyone having a chance. Now I can go out and tell my story. And hopefully, the polls will rise. We'll see.
I'll do my best. That's all I can do, John.
DICKERSON: That's right. That's all any of us can do.
Governor, we appreciate your time.
We'll look forward to talking to you when you're a candidate. And we'll be right back.
DICKERSON: And to talk about all the week's news, our panel. Peggy Noonan is a Wall Street Journal columnist and a CBS News contributor. David Ignatius is a columnist for The Washington Post. April Ryan is the Washington bureau chief for National Urban Radio. And we welcome to the broadcast executive editor of National Review Reihan Salam.
And Peggy -- well, Reihan, I'll start with you.
So, we've had the same-sex decision. Is there anything Republicans should, can do about this?
REIHAN SALAM, NATIONAL REVIEW: Well, I think that you're already seeing a cleavage with two candidates, Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio saying that, you know, they object to the decision, but they also do not favor, let's say, a constitutional amendment that would essentially overturn the decision.
Whereas you have a number of other Republicans doing precisely the opposite.
So, this is continuing to be an issue.
Some have argued that, hey, now the Supreme Court has decided, this is no longer going to be something dividing Republicans. And I think and I don't think that's quite true.
DICKERSON: Peggy, should Republicans be talking about this at length on the stump as they run for president?
PEGGY NOONAN, NEW YORK TIMES: They will be talking about it because they will be asked about it so certainly in the next few weeks, that is true.
I think they're also going to have to address the question of there is a cleavage between those who say, all right, this is settled or appears to be settled and those who say, no, a constitutional amendment is possible.
Look, is it possible? We know where public opinion is and where it is going. It is not possible. So are Republicans going to go off chasing a rabbit they'll never be able to catch?
More fruitfully, I think, Republicans can look at the real issue mentioned in all the dissents of SCOTUS, the real issue of religious liberty, whether or not it is going to be under siege and whether those who disagree with the court's ruling on same-sex marriage are going to come under great pressure to get with the program. That will be important.
DICKERSON: April, just thinking about the pace of change here, President Obama, when he came into office, was opposed to same-sex marriage.
RYAN: Yes.
DICKERSON: Then after this ruling and we'll show a picture of it, the White House bathed in rainbow colors.
RYAN: How about that?
DICKERSON: Talk about that. Talk about that evolution.
RYAN: Well, first of all, when President Obama came into the White House, there were only two states that allowed for same-sex marriages. So -- and how many years later and now with the Supreme Court decision, you have 50 states.
But -- and I'm going to take you to Friday. President Obama was writing his eulogy Friday morning when he received a call and the person who called him said there is a decision from the Supreme Court, and he said, well, what's the number?
And they said 5-4. And they played with him. And he didn't know what side.
And he said, well, who won?
And he said, this has been a good week when he found out.
So they embraced it. This is a president who said, you know, I believe that I have to be a president for all America. He's the one who really, a couple years ago, about two years ago, really started the ball rolling even more.
So this White House is embracing that, particularly the first African American president. You know, we were a nation at one time who did not allow for couples of different races to be married. So we are moving and this White House is embracing it.
DICKERSON: And the executive branch there teasing the president on the telephone.
David, I want to talk about the judicial branch. The dissents in the same-sex marriage case, Justice Scalia said that I would hide my head in a bag if he had written the opinion supporting this. Real cleavage in the Supreme Court.
IGNATIUS: There are sharp divisions. They were clearer on both the equality of marriage issue and on the Affordable Care Act in that dissent; Justice Scalia called the majority opinion "pure applesauce" and used a phrase "jiggery pokery". We're still not sure what that --
(LAUGHTER)
DICKERSON: Right. I think it's a children's game.
IGNATIUS: At the same time this is obviously a divided court, it has a chief justice in John Roberts, who we are seeing, we saw clearly this week, is trying to steer a middle course. He was referred to by my colleague, Ruth Marcus (ph), in a column this morning as "our national umpire."
It's clear that he does see a role in leading the court, finding a center line, being true to his principles, but still thinking about the court as an institution that shapes the country.
And, clearly, on these two decisions, you could feel America turn a little bit on its axis. It will be a different country for these decisions. And you have a chief justice who obviously wants to make sure that that doesn't do damage to the way the country works.
DICKERSON: Peggy, conservatives think Roberts has left them, abandoned them. He was supposed to be one of them.
NOONAN: Well, if you read his dissent in the same-sex marriage case, boy, was that a conservative dissent. I have never seen dissents in my lifetime as sharp and in a way as accusatory and full of warnings as those dissents were. These were justices of the U.S. Supreme Court saying to other justices, you are essentially usurping democracy. You're acting as legislators, not as judges. And you're a bunch of elitist from the edges of America. You all went to Yale and Harvard. You know nothing about America. There isn't a single evangelical on this court.
Whoa. That is sharp stuff.
SALAM: (INAUDIBLE) about Chief Justice Roberts, the first is that the health care decision, it's worth noting that, though conservatives were very exercised, were very disappointed in the decision, he also introduced an interesting possibility.
He did not say we are deferring to the executive branch on what the Affordable Care Act means. Rather, he said, we look to the purpose of the law. We look to the intentions behind the law, and this is what the law means.
That introduces a fascinating possibility that conservatives will be able to challenge a wide range of regulatory decisions by executive branch agencies where there's a tension between what an administrative agency has said and the intention of the law.
That is going to be a very powerful weapon potentially for people who want to restrain government in the future.
RYAN: On same-sex marriage, we're going to see litigation for many, many years, particularly when it comes to the religious community and the Religious Right. You still have that issue. If I believe in my faith that says there's Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve, and if I am a cake baker and I don't want to bake a cake for your wedding ceremony if I'm a -- if I'd had any part in the ceremony that you want to pay me to do something for, that is going to go into a litigation.
And the problem is is that we as a nation, we have moved forward -- I mean, I remember during the Bush years, the second -- the second -- time the President Bush tried to run for office, and one of the reasons why he received a large number of the black vote then, 11 percent versus 9 percent the first time, he said -- he basically put Jesus and God on the ballot, you know, same-sex marriage.
So we've come a long way as a nation. We're more majority now believing that there should be same-sex marriage but you still have that minority in the church that you know, we're not going to do this.
DICKERSON: Reihan, I want to switch to the Affordable Care Act quickly. I talked to Paul Ryan and said, you know, one of the things people said is there really wasn't a Republican alternative.
What do you think about that?
A Republican alternative to ObamaCare.
Did they have one ready to go if the Supreme Court had gone the other way?
SALAM: This is a real struggle because this is a case that Republican lawmakers saw coming down the pike a long way off. Paul Ryan was trying to build a coalition as he did on Medicare reform earlier. He's managed to wrangle Republicans together on many different issues, but this is one where he's been working for years, since 2009 he has had his own vision for an alternative to ObamaCare.
And yet he has failed to build that consensus because you still have some people who believe, look, you can only beat ObamaCare, you can only replace it if you have another plan for access to coverage and there are others who are saying, no, we can go back to the status quo and, even if it means that many people are going to lose their coverage, that's OK. We need to stand up for principle.
And I think that Ryan is in a very tough position, and he needs more allies if he's going to advance that vision. But he failed to do that this time around. And it was very consequential.
DICKERSON: Peggy, I want to switch here now to you, on the question of presidential temperament.
So the president had a lot of the things happen this week. He was in the Rose Garden twice. He gave a powerful eulogy at the end of the week. But he was also on a podcast, which is new for presidents. And he said --
(CROSSTALK)
DICKERSON: -- we're going from the fireside to the podcast.
He said in the podcast, "I know what I'm doing and I'm fearless. I've screwed up. I've been in the barrel tumbling down Niagara Falls and I've emerged and I've lived and that's such a liberating feeling." NOONAN: You know what?
I think what he said is true of him. I think he -- he's 6.5 years into a rock 'em, sock 'em presidency. I think he just had one of the great weeks that a modern president could have. Part of it luck, part of it chance, part of it fortune, but what the heck?
What it is is what it is. You can tell some part of him has made a turn, and he is coming out of some doldrums. I saw it at the church when he spoke. That was not a defeated person. That was a guy who was thinking, I am in good shape, and I am happy.
And it was about as comfortable as I've seen him and as moving as I have seen -- as moving an event as I've seen a president involved in.
IGNATIUS: As moving and as real. We live in an age of scripted politics. You cannot script a president singing "Amazing Grace" a capella in the way that he did. I don't think anybody who watched it will ever forget it.
RYAN: He felt it. He was really in the moment there. He is from the black church. He was -- we were joking on Twitter and many people were saying the congregation, Reverend President instead of Mr. President. But on Twitter I kept saying president in chief.
I mean, he wrote this from the depths of his soul. He wrote the majority of his speech. And he may have had a couple of pieces added in from -- help from some people that he knew, but he really felt this moment because it's a time that we are a nation that's pregnant for change. Again, this week, we saw the N word. We saw him bring out the N word in that garage podcast because he wanted the nation to see, after what happened in Charleston, we are still a nation that's hypersensitive on the issue of race, from any spectrum that you were on -- on the spectrum in.
And then also, the issue of the Confederate flag. Reince Priebus -- I talked to hi earlier this week, the head of the Republican National Committee. He said we are more united than we are divided. We are a nation that is pregnant with change right now when it comes to issues of race. And he spoke to it and sang to it, "Amazing Grace."
DICKERSON: And you think a lot about how conservatives can meet the modern moment.
Is there a way in which the conservative voice has a way to play in this conversation, to answer what the president's talking about?
SALAM: Well, I think that there are ways for conservatives to connect with minority voters and with this larger change that April is referring to. But I want to caution everyone in this one small way. There is what you might call a North-South discourse of race relations in our country that is very black-white. And that's something that we are wrestling with right now. But I remind everyone at home, in 2016, about 18 percent of the population will be Latino. Only in 2028 will 18 percent of the electorate be Latino. And my question is, a lot of that Latino population of this country is still very young. They're not voting yet. But we do not know what those politics will look like when we go from this north-south discussion to an east-west discussion.
Because in the west we've been a multiracial country in a long time and that's becoming more of a reality in more places, and I think that to imagine that, well, Latinos and Blacks will have exactly the same kind of demands, they're all minorities after all or that -- we do not know what this is going to look like. And I think that actually that is the subtext of the immigration debate.
Now, we talk about this purely through immigration but in fact this Latino population, this rising generation, has a lot of distinctive challenges that it faces, and I think that it will have a lot of distinctive demands that it will make, and that is really the thing that conservatives ought to look to.
RYAN: Very great points, I believe.
But at the same time I'm going to back to Bill Clinton. I covered him 18 years ago. And when he start talking about the issue of race in America, bringing the nation together, he talked about it as a heart issue. He looked at it both in two fronts -- heart and legislative, but it's mostly from the heart. As a man thinketh, so are we. You know, you think about it, and you come from the heart and then you legislate.
But when he was dealing with the issue of race, he started with the young people because young people were different. They didn't have that -- the -- the remembrance and the history of a segregated south. They didn't remember that.
So I understand the east vs. the west, but the south vs. the north but I think as a nation, we have minorities, African-Americans and Hispanics who are two totally different groups but at the same time our young people are coming together more than our older people.
And I go back to what President Obama said Friday, Jamal vs. Jimmy, who is going to get the job? And I think the younger people are into both Jimmy and Jamal.
DICKERSON: Final question, David, to you.
There have been a lot of talk about threats in advance of July 4th. What can you tell us?
IGNATIUS: After Friday's attacks that killed more than 60 people on three continents abroad, U.S. officials are worried. There are FBI investigations in more than 50 states. There is concern that the motivation of lone wolves is happening.
As of Friday, I was told there are no specific threats...
DICKERSON: OK. We're going to have to leave it there. Thank you, David. We'll be right back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DICKERSON: When President Obama traveled to Charleston Friday, it was the 19th funeral, or memorial service, he's attended as president. But there was something different about this one. His eulogy for the Reverend Clementa Pinckney, it not just a remembrance, it was a sermon about the power of grace.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: According to the Christian tradition, grace is not earned, grace is not merited, it's not something we deserve, rather, grace is the free and benevolent favor of god.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DICKERSON: He used preacher's cadence to talk about god's love, but he was making a lawyer's argument.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: As a nation out of this terrible tragedy, god has visited grace upon us. For he has allowed us to see where we have been blind.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DICKERSON: Grace was not just a comfort to the families and community, it was a spur to political action.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: By taking down that flag, we express god's grace.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DICKERSON: And it could be more than that, the president argued, giving purpose to a nation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: He has once more given us grace. But it is up to us now to make the most of it, to receive it with gratitude and to prove ourselves worthy of this gift.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DICKERSON: By taking up the worthy fights against racism, gun violence, poverty, a nation could keep faith with the grace displayed in Charleston and be compelled under that grace to join together.
(SINGING) DICKERSON: The way they are when a single voice starts to sing the line of a familiar hymn.
(SINGING)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DICKERSON: That's it for us today. Until next week, for Face the Nation, I'm John Dickerson.