Gail Evans (left) and Justice Stephen Breyer. (Photo: Heidi Morton)

Just after Justice Stephen Breyer sat down to discuss his book about the U.S. Supreme Court and the influence of world issues, his interviewer asked about ”the elephant in the room.”

What did he have to say about President Donald Trump's Nov. 1 statement that the U.S. justice system was “a laughingstock,” asked Gail Evans, a former CNN executive vice president.

“Obviously, I have a self-interest,” Breyer said to laughs from the 1,000 spectators at an Atlanta Jewish book festival Saturday night. But he added, “I think we do pretty well.”

Addressing the Halloween truck attack on a Manhattan bike path that killed eight people and injured nearly a dozen others, Trump had complained that terrorists were punished too lightly after years in court.

“We need quick justice and we need strong justice—much quicker and much stronger than we have right now. Because what we have right now is a joke and it's a laughingstock. And no wonder so much of this stuff takes place. And I think I can speak for plenty of other countries, too, that are in the same situation,” Trump added, according to a White House transcript.

Breyer told Evans she'd have to ask people in other countries what they thought of the U.S. justice system, but he lauded places where citizens are “willing to resolve their differences under the law.”

He used Bush v. Gore as an example. Half the country hated the decision that effectively made George W. Bush the winner of the 2000 presidential election, but “in any case, they followed it,” he said.

Despite being one of the four justices who dissented from the ruling, he urged anyone who thought the ruling should not have been accepted to look at how countries have fared when people don't accept rule of law.

As for the U.S. system, he said, “It's always a work in progress.”

The event was focused on Breyer's 2015 book, “The Court and the World: American Law and the New Global Realities.”

Breyer said there has been a sharp increase in high court cases where the justices have to reconcile U.S. law with those from other countries. He noted that the U.S. is party to more than 850 treaties, monitored by organizations that bind more than one nation to its rules. Working with other countries and their laws is the only way international airlines and a host of other industries can operate, he added.

Foreign law and customs are important in understanding cases involving antitrust and copyright issues and how countries balance national security and civil liberties. But he emphasized that foreign law doesn't control what the Supreme Court decides.

He pointed to his dissent in a 2015 case upholding a death sentence in which he concluded it was “highly likely that the death penalty violates the Eighth Amendment” and called on the court to ask for a full briefing on the question.

Breyer said that, in only two of the 45 pages he wrote in the dissent, he addressed how other countries handled the death penalty. “I didn't think that was determinative,” he added, pointing readers to the other 43 pages concerning U.S. law.

Breyer remarked on the court's collegiality even when the justices disagree, saying, “I've never heard a voice raised in anger” in the court's conference meetings. Debates, he said, are calm and professional.

He also credited retired Justice David Souter's memory for “inoffensive jokes”—and shared one: At 5 p.m. one winter day a man runs from the Boston Common to a dentist's office. The office is closing, the receptionist said, but the man insists he must see the doctor. “It's an emergency,” he pleads.

The dentist agrees to see the man and asks what the emergency is.

“I think I am a moth,” the man says.

“I'm a dentist. You need to see a psychiatrist. Why'd you come here?”

The man replies, “The light was on.”

Gail Evans (left) and Justice Stephen Breyer. (Photo: Heidi Morton)

Just after Justice Stephen Breyer sat down to discuss his book about the U.S. Supreme Court and the influence of world issues, his interviewer asked about ”the elephant in the room.”

What did he have to say about President Donald Trump's Nov. 1 statement that the U.S. justice system was “a laughingstock,” asked Gail Evans, a former CNN executive vice president.

“Obviously, I have a self-interest,” Breyer said to laughs from the 1,000 spectators at an Atlanta Jewish book festival Saturday night. But he added, “I think we do pretty well.”

Addressing the Halloween truck attack on a Manhattan bike path that killed eight people and injured nearly a dozen others, Trump had complained that terrorists were punished too lightly after years in court.

“We need quick justice and we need strong justice—much quicker and much stronger than we have right now. Because what we have right now is a joke and it's a laughingstock. And no wonder so much of this stuff takes place. And I think I can speak for plenty of other countries, too, that are in the same situation,” Trump added, according to a White House transcript.

Breyer told Evans she'd have to ask people in other countries what they thought of the U.S. justice system, but he lauded places where citizens are “willing to resolve their differences under the law.”

He used Bush v. Gore as an example. Half the country hated the decision that effectively made George W. Bush the winner of the 2000 presidential election, but “in any case, they followed it,” he said.

Despite being one of the four justices who dissented from the ruling, he urged anyone who thought the ruling should not have been accepted to look at how countries have fared when people don't accept rule of law.

As for the U.S. system, he said, “It's always a work in progress.”

The event was focused on Breyer's 2015 book, “The Court and the World: American Law and the New Global Realities.”

Breyer said there has been a sharp increase in high court cases where the justices have to reconcile U.S. law with those from other countries. He noted that the U.S. is party to more than 850 treaties, monitored by organizations that bind more than one nation to its rules. Working with other countries and their laws is the only way international airlines and a host of other industries can operate, he added.

Foreign law and customs are important in understanding cases involving antitrust and copyright issues and how countries balance national security and civil liberties. But he emphasized that foreign law doesn't control what the Supreme Court decides.

He pointed to his dissent in a 2015 case upholding a death sentence in which he concluded it was “highly likely that the death penalty violates the Eighth Amendment” and called on the court to ask for a full briefing on the question.

Breyer said that, in only two of the 45 pages he wrote in the dissent, he addressed how other countries handled the death penalty. “I didn't think that was determinative,” he added, pointing readers to the other 43 pages concerning U.S. law.

Breyer remarked on the court's collegiality even when the justices disagree, saying, “I've never heard a voice raised in anger” in the court's conference meetings. Debates, he said, are calm and professional.

He also credited retired Justice David Souter's memory for “inoffensive jokes”—and shared one: At 5 p.m. one winter day a man runs from the Boston Common to a dentist's office. The office is closing, the receptionist said, but the man insists he must see the doctor. “It's an emergency,” he pleads.

The dentist agrees to see the man and asks what the emergency is.

“I think I am a moth,” the man says.

“I'm a dentist. You need to see a psychiatrist. Why'd you come here?”

The man replies, “The light was on.”