'No surprise' on Supreme Court's immunity ruling: Former AG Alberto Gonzalez

Bring in the former US Attorney General, the Honorable Alberto Gonzales, now of course, Dean and professor of Laura Belmont University. Thanks so much for for joining us. What, what is your immediate reaction? Immediate reaction is no surprise, quite frankly. A president has to make the most difficult decisions you can possibly imagine. That president has to have the flexibility, the power, the authority to make tough decisions. And so long as he's acting in an official capacity, he should be immune from prosecution that and I so I think that that's absolutely true. But if you're not acting in an official capacity, we don't have a situation where we have a king in this country. And so if you're acting in a personal capacity, non official capacity, you still remain criminal, potentially criminally liable for your actions and so. I know there will be disagreements about what constitution official act and obviously I think that's what's something that's that has vexed the court for these past few months and looking at this case. But, you know, I haven't been with the president, President Bush during making some difficult decisions on the War on Terror. I, I know that the president has to have confidence that he can, he can exercise his best judgment without fear of a criminal prosecution. And obviously you don't want a president to be reckless And, but, but we've never had that problem in this country by and large from my perspective. And so I, I, I think this is a right decision. Again, the most difficult aspect of this will be deciding what our official acts, what are not official acts. And, you know, that's something we'll have to wait and see what happens. When you say you have no surprise in this decision, Judge Gonzalez, why then do you think it wasn't a unanimous decision and do you think it is a worrying moment, a disappointing moment that it was split along, I guess, left and right lines that we may have possibly predicted 6, three, you know? I think there probably was a very serious, prolonged attempt to try to get unanimity on this issue that didn't happen. Obviously this is a very controversial issue. Over controversial events that happened at a very controversial time. So the fact that it wasn't unanimous in my judgment, you know, it's not surprising. But based on my experience, both as White House counsel during the early days of the War on Terror and then later on as attorney general, this is the right result. The president, with respect to official actions has to have total confidence that he can he can make those decisions without fear of prosecution in the future. From a president of a different party. And so, but but again, to respond to your question, the fact that it wasn't unanimous doesn't mean that that that the decision was wrong. It's just this was a very, very tough decision.