"Face the Nation" transcript: April 1, 2012

JAN CRAWFORD (CBS News Chief Legal Correspondent): No, that's exactly right. And, of course, like you just said, I mean, Justice Kennedy, the key swing vote, the human jump ball, you know, who will go with the conservatives sometimes and the liberals sometimes looked like he was quite hostile to the requirement that all Americans buy health insurance and at times the entire law itself. But, again, you can never predict what the court is going to do because sometimes they do change their mind. That said, it does appear right now that there is a majority, a five to four majority, the four conservatives with Justice Kennedy to strike down that individual mandate and possibly the entire law. Now, we heard the Vice President in your interview say, he doesn't think that's going to happen. That he thinks that the court will still uphold the health care law, but people who are close to the President and some of my sources over the weekend I was talking to, said the President doesn't see it that way. He never thought this was a slam dunk. He thinks it's constitutional but he always knew going in there's a chance the court would strike this down, and if it does, and it's five-four, they will characterize it as an ideological partisan exercise.

BOB SCHIEFFER: What's your take, Gwen? I know you have spent a lot of time on this-- this week.

GWEN IFILL (PBS NewsHour/PBS Washington Week): I spent endless hours listening to the tapes. The nerd side of me really came out. The-- the thing that we know about this court, I-- I think Jan would agree is that Justice Roberts is always trying-- Chief Justice Roberts is always trying to find that middle ground. He's trying to rule as narrowly as possible. And so the idea of striking down the entire law would be judicial activism at its most extensive and that's something that I think Justice Kennedy worried about a little bit aloud. On the other hand, the-- the political side of it, I don't know anything, I've seen in President Obama which indicates he's the kind of person he wants to declare war on the Supreme Court and to run on that. I-- I know that-- that's-- that's one theory that's going around in the White House, but these are two men who like to find middle ground when it's possible.

BOB SCHIEFFER: You said, ooh.

JAN CRAWFORD: Well--

GWEN IFILL: Yeah.

JAN CRAWFORD: --let me think about--

GWEN IFILL: She did.

JAN CRAWFORD: --these days, day of the union--

GWEN IFILL: Yeah.

JAN CRAWFORD: --when for the first time the President with six justices sitting in that chamber, took on the Supreme Court with Justice Kennedy who wrote that campaign finance decision sitting there, that's when he really and many-- you could argue that he kind of kicked off this war, I think, working against the administration's interests by picking up fight with the Supreme Court, and now we're seeing it play out. I don't think the justices are going to base their decision based on a fight the Obama administration picked with them over campaign finance reform, but I do think that they have shown a willingness to stick it to the Supreme Court and based on what senior administration officials are telling me, that is how they will characterize this decision, if it's five-four against the administration's striking on this health care law.

BOB SCHIEFFER (voice overlapping): Gentlemen, I'll get to you in a minute, but--

GWEN IFILL: I just want to say one more thing.

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