The president [Barak Obama] had been asked some questions by George Stephanopoulos on a news show about whether it was a tax. And he had given an answer that you might read as him saying it wasn't a tax. I think what he said was, "It isn't a tax increase on all Americans."
Donald Verrilli Jr.I do think that the instant nature of the reaction now, I do think it has an effect, that people's instant reactions to things are valid and valuable. But they're not always right, and they're not always capturing the full reality.
Donald Verrilli Jr.The cases involving the question of whether U.S. courts should be open to claims of international human rights violations brought by foreign persons against foreign government officials. And the State Department on the one side has got a very consistent and powerful view that U.S. courts should be open to those claims because there needs to be a place in the world where they can be brought. And those human rights norms ought to be real and enforceable, and we ought to be a beacon to the world.
Donald Verrilli Jr.The part that the public sees is the arguments up at the podium and the briefs that we file. But a significant part of the job - in fact, I'd say I spend more of my time on this part of the job, which is deciding what the position of the United States will be in the cases that we're going to be participating in before the court.
Donald Verrilli Jr.If you've ever been in the West Wing, it's like a little rabbit warren. Everybody's crammed in there on top of each other, and you're eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the mess with people. And so you really get to know each other very well. So, I think they just weren't worried.
Donald Verrilli Jr.I'm representing the United States. And I'm representing the United States, and my office is representing the United States day after day in front of the court. And I think it's the right thing to do, to carry that out with some dignity and some respect for the process and respect for the institution. And so that led me to just, you know, move the dial a little bit in the direction of calmness.
Donald Verrilli Jr.