This is a rush transcript of “The Ingraham Angle” on January 26, 2022. This copy may not be in its final form and may be …
This is a rush transcript of “The Ingraham Angle” on January 26, 2022. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated. LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST: I am Laura Ingraham. This is THE INGRAHAM ANGLE on a very busy Wednesday night. Now, as Joe Biden announces he wants to fast track more Afghan refugees and we predicted this. We’re now learning about a horrific attack on a Virginia Military base involving some already here. A full report later on in the show. And Raymond Arroyo is back. He’s going to tell us about Biden’s big day out on the town. Plus, we’ll attempt to cancel Snow White. What? That can’t be happening. Seen and Unseen has answers. But first, rubber stamp justice. That’s the focus of tonight’s ‘Angle’. Now, I want all of you out there to understand that there is no point wasting any time debating the philosophy of any of Biden’s potential Supreme Court picks. It really doesn’t matter whom he chooses to replace Justice Stephen Breyer, because we already know how he’ll vote in any important case. Oh, wait, did I say he? Oops. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I committed to it. If I’m elected president have an opportunity to appoint someone to the courts will be – I’ll appoint the first black woman to the courts. It’s required that they have representation now. It’s long overdue. (END VIDEO CLIP) INGRAHAM: Now, the Democrats media proxy suffering through, let’s face it, what has been a very rough first year of Biden are giddily prattling on in anticipation of another first. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It’s going to have to be a black woman. Joe Biden has said it’s going to be a black woman. He has lots of amazingly qualified choices. LAURA COATES, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: –had the luxury of leaving any part of my identity at the door before I walked into a courtroom. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For a multiracial democracy, we can keep it. (END VIDEO CLIP) INGRAHAM: Of course, for them, diversity only matters if and when the prospective justice subscribes to the views of the new woke legal world. So Justice Thomas doesn’t count; Amy Coney Barrett, she doesn’t count. No minority who rises to the top of his or her profession counts as diverse, unless he or she checks all the progressive boxes. Look at what they said about the race that elected Virginia’s new Lieutenant Governor Winsome Sears, or its first Hispanic Attorney General, Jason Miyares. The left didn’t celebrate those firsts. Instead, they were outraged and they claimed their entire election was racist. For them, selecting this court pick, it’s really no different than, let’s say, hiring a new DNC chief. The only measure that matters for them is a political measure. In other words, will this person stick with the left’s ever-evolving political priorities? If the answer is yes, that’s all the qualification they need. All that matters is that person replacing Breyer is a rock solid, reliable vote for their cause du jour. Not even CNN is pretending like this is about judicial pedigree. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Justice Breyer wouldn’t have said in January that he is going to retire at the end of the term if he didn’t feel confident that he – that President Biden will get a replacement through a Democratic-led Senate. Who elected them? A lot of people of color, especially black women. So this is all connected on a political level. (END VIDEO CLIP) INGRAHAM: Unless they try to foist Kamala Harris on the court, which won’t happen. It really just doesn’t matter who Biden picks. I’m going to say this over and over. We already know that she’s going to vote with Kagan and Sotomayor on any case as a real consequence to the left. She’ll be reliable rubber stamp for Biden’s policies and for all policies of all Liberal Democrats in the future. Hence, why all the potential nominees get slobbering praise from the press poodles. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MAYA WILEY, MSNBC LEGAL ANALYST: Every single one of these attorneys that we’re seeing on this list are highly qualified, not just qualified, but highly qualified. ELIE MYSTAL, JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT, THE NATION: You don’t get more qualified than a Brown Jackson, or Leondra Kruger, or Justice Childs. You don’t get more qualified. COATES: These are phenomenally talented, capable, intellectual, revered advocates of the court. There is almost an embarrassment of riches in the bevy of choices that are available. (END VIDEO CLIP) INGRAHAM: Now, from my own experience as a law clerk on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, and then on the Supreme Court. I know that when lawyers and petitioners go before the highest court of the land, they don’t bother using their time, not now, trying to sway justices Breyer, Kagan or Sotomayor. Everyone already knows how they’re going to vote. Attorneys are trying to sway the other six justices, especially Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Kavanaugh, and Justice Gorsuch. All nominated by Republicans, but all with slightly different judicial outlooks. It’s anyone’s guess how Roberts is going to vote in the Roe challenge, or how Kavanaugh is going to vote on some of these other challenges to the COVID mandates coming up. Liberals will often say that they believe in something called the living constitution. Well, that’s not a philosophy. That just means that they treat the constitution like silly putty, so they can stretch its words to mean anything, or nothing at all. The interpretation isn’t dependent on what the founders intended, what the language says. But what the progressives of the day demand, then it becomes that. On our side, we actually have arguments about what the constitution means, how its words should be applied to the case at hand. But their side believes the constitution is meaningless at best, and racist at worst. Our side respects the judiciary and the constitutional role it has. The left just sees it as a tool to give them more power. And when the court doesn’t give them what they want, they threaten to destroy it. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The President is being pushed by progressives and Democrats to expand the Supreme Court. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Add more justices to the Supreme Court, put 15, put 16, put 20 justices on the court. MYSTAL: I say, add 10 justices to the Supreme Court right now that makes it a 19-member body. (END VIDEO CLIP) INGRAHAM: Wow! Now, the dark money bullies who pushed Breyer to retire this year did so, because they know that they’re going to lose the Senate. Let’s face it. This may be their last chance in many years to get the most radical nominee possible confirmed. For them, it’s go time. The only real interesting question on the table right now is how the so- called moderate senators in the Democrat Party will vote on whichever radical nominee Biden puts forward. Think of all the Dems elected in red states, states that voted for Trump, at least once or where Biden is cratering in popularity now. I mean, does anyone in his or her right mind believe that the voters in any of these states, who supported Trump, recently elected a GOP governor want the Supreme Court to be dominated by hard left partisans? People will care more about the views of the New York Times and the views of the framers, of course, not. In West Virginia, Ohio and Montana, they just voted in 2020 to have Donald Trump pick the justices. Obviously, if you’re a senator from one of those states, and you rubber stamp a justice, who will simply be a rubber stamp for the hard left, you’re working against the interests and the beliefs, the core beliefs of your own voters. Now, as a man who has some semblance of common sense, Joe Manchin should never go along with Biden’s court charade. Now, what are the odds that the state of West Virginia would ever win a case in front of a hard left court voting for one of these picks would end Manchin’s political career in West Virginia. It should, a state that is in an open rebellion now against Biden’s policies. If any of these so-called moderate Dems were living up to their campaign pledges to work with Republicans, they’d demand that Biden’s nominee be someone who could actually win real support, not just a couple of votes from the Republicans, so both sides. Someone who could be trusted to look at the cases through an unbiased lens. With a 50-50 Senate, the only way Biden’s nominee gets through is if every single one of these senators votes for her confirmation; every senator named above has enormous leverage. They weren’t elected to represent MSNBC. They were elected to represent their constituents and their constituents do not want a hard left judiciary. So if you’re represented in the Senate by one of those so-called moderates, let your voice be heard now. Call their offices, always be respectful, demand, urge them, tell them you want them to oppose any hard left nominee. Remember, the left, they started this fight. A court opening shouldn’t mean open ideological warfare. Look back on Justice Scalia’s confirmation. I think it was, what was it unanimous, or near unanimous? In a democracy, unelected official should not have this much power. We’re in this mess, because thanks to judicial activist, the court has become a far too powerful tool to invalidate the will of the people. Decisions that should have been left to the people and their elected representatives are instead heavy footed by nine unelected justices. As we saw with Roe, that didn’t settle anything for the country. Instead, it just spread rancor and bitterness. So today, the court has lost much of its legitimacy, much of its respect because of its overtly political nature. At least that’s the perception. So chalk this up as another example of the collateral damage the left leaves in its wake, whenever they attack our history, denigrate our founders, and ignore the plain language of the constitution. So let’s hold Senate Democrats to account. If they do the right thing, they’ll prevent Biden from putting a rubber stamp for the New York Times editorial page on the court. If they don’t do the right thing, then they’ll come up for reelection and we’ll have the chance to teach them the folly of putting the interests of MSNBC ahead of their own voters. In fact, tonight, Axios is reporting that the GOP is already planning smartly to target vulnerable Democrats who vote for a far left nominee. Those Democratic senators work for the people. And it’s time to remind them of that fact. And that’s the ‘Angle’. Joining me now is Robert Dunn, former law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas; and Carrie Severino, another former clerk to Justice Thomas and president of the Judicial Crisis Network. Carrie, we got three former law clerks at Justice Thomas in this discussion right now. But let’s start fist with the odd – yes, I know, a good company – with the odd timing of this retirement. What do you make of the forces behind this? CARRIE SEVERINO, FORMER JUSTICE THOMAS CLERK: Yes. You know, I was even saying earlier in the day, this is a really strange time of the year to announce it. Normally we get these announcements at or near the end of the term. And then later today, we saw Shannon Bream reporting and it seems like from qualified sources that this is not actually the day that Justice Breyer intended to retire. He may have given the White House heads up, but somehow that was leaked. I think most justices want to do that on their own terms, make their own announcement, tell their colleagues first. And so, he was as surprised as we were today. I think that might have been forces in the White House may be corroborating with some of those dark money forces, who have been trying to kick him off the court already. Maybe trying to make sure he went through with it and did retire, or to bring it on their own terms. This has been an awful few weeks for the President. Maybe he wants a change in the storyline. INGRAHAM: And, Robert, does it really matter of the nominees that the names are being bandied about. Most Americans don’t know anything about them. But is there any doubt in your mind that whomever Biden selects, if that’s the group he’s selecting from? I mean, they might be perfectly great people personally, but as talking about a judicial outlook that they will be a rubber stamp for whatever the hard left wants. ROBERT DUNN, FORMER JUSTICE THOMAS CLERK: I think that’s highly likely. I was looking back through Breyer’s opinions, and the interesting thing to me is, I’m not sure it’s actually going to make that much difference in the voting patterns. Maybe in the framework or the tone of the opinion, but on really every single issue down the line, abortion, affirmative action, free exercise of religion, the power of the administrative state. Breyer has been on the other side from Scalia, Thomas, Alito, in every single one of those down the line. And it’s interesting that he’s going out right now, when the court just granted the Harvard affirmative action case, because that’s been one of the sort of biggest sources of difference between him and Thomas in their outlook. I was looking back at the parents involved case, and he is still of the view. He’s like an old style liberal in this view, that the state can do good racial discrimination, that there is such a thing as good race balancing by the state, and presumably by universities as well.
