‘He Has No Moral Integrity’: Steve Cohen Shreds McConnell’s Criticism Of SCOTUS Reform Proposals

4 months ago

President Joe Biden proposed multiple Supreme Court reforms, including ensuring no immunity for crimes committed by former presidents during their term, establishing term limits for justices and implementing a binding code of conduct. Rep. Steve Cohen (R-TN) joins "Forbes Newsroom" to discuss.

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Transcript

00:00Democrats, like yourself, have been largely supportive of these proposals, some Republicans

00:06not so much.

00:07One Republican in particular, Senator Mitch McConnell, did say this, quote, President

00:12Biden and his leftist allies don't like the current composition of the court, so they

00:16want to shred the Constitution to change it.

00:19What do you make of his response?

00:22Well, that's just hogwash, gibberish, political doublespeak.

00:27When you call your Democratic colleagues leftists, you should discount anything the

00:32man has to say.

00:34That is something Trump has put in the lexicon.

00:37We're left of him, we're left of most Republicans, but most of us are not leftists, and that's

00:44the kind of rhetoric that is wrong in America, and it's the kind of rhetoric that makes things

00:47wrong.

00:48And Mitch McConnell doctored the Constitution within the spirit of the Constitution by not

00:53allowing Barack Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland that came forth, I think, in February

00:58of this last year in office, saying it's too close to the election, but then when Justice

01:04Ginsburg died and he put Amy Coney Barrett through in less than a month before the election,

01:09I think she came in within weeks of the election, it showed he has no moral integrity, he has

01:13no moral compass, he's a pragmatic, transactional politician, and with the exception of saying

01:22Trump was wrong on January 6th, which he then took back and became a lapdog once again,

01:31he's lost all credibility.

01:32You know, what's going on right now, it's sad.

01:36We watched the Olympics, and one thing the Olympics ought to teach us is that we're all

01:41human beings all over the world, and whoever's competing competes with the black, white,

01:47tall, short, whatever.

01:49They compete, and the winner is crowned, and everybody accepts the winner.

01:55And we don't call them names, we compete against them, and then we treat everybody equally.

02:01The American team is largely made up of African-Americans in gymnastics, African-American people of

02:08Asian descent, that's the Asian women's gymnastics team, and I guess it's the male gymnastics

02:14team, too.

02:15To some extent, there's a couple of folks on there, but the track team is mostly African-American,

02:21the swimming team is mostly white, but we're all Americans, and we're proud of each of

02:26them, and we cheer for each other on the basketball court, we cheer for them.

02:29We're all black, soccer, we're mostly white, but not all, we cheer for them, and we don't

02:34do it in politics.

02:35In politics, it's a dog-eat-dog, it's name-calling, it's got worse and worse with Trump.

02:43I mean, to your point, the Olympics has been a beautiful sign in unity and patriotism.

02:48Politics, in today's world, maybe not so much, but back to Mitch McConnell's point about

02:54the Constitution, do you think that these proposals are, in your words, indoctrinating

03:02the Constitution?

03:03No, you don't shred it when you amend it.

03:06The Constitution has an amendment clause, there's a matter to amend it, and the founding

03:10fathers knew it needed to be amended, it's been amended 20-some-odd times, and what

03:15the proposal would be would be to amend the Constitution on the terms of office of the

03:19Supreme Court justices, and that would be, if you do it by legislation, you'd have to

03:24do it in a super-heartful way, and I don't think that could happen, and I think that

03:27would violate the Constitution, but you've got to, I hope it's still amended, and that's

03:31what we need to do, is to amend the Constitution.

03:33And that's a difficult process.

03:34I've amended our state Constitution for a state lottery, it took me 20 years to do it,

03:39so I know what long fights are.

03:42Do you, I guess you're anticipating this is going to be a long fight, because Senate

03:46Minority Leader McConnell also said that this is essentially going to be dead-on-arrival

03:50to Congress, so what do you anticipate this fight is going to be like, to ultimately,

03:57in your hopes, get it passed?

03:59Well, there'll be discussion in the Senate, where Senator Durbin and the Senate White

04:04House, there'll be others, of course, but that's the two leaders on these issues.

04:12We'll discuss it in the committee, it may have votes, in the House it won't get any,

04:17you understand that, but at least we'll get discussion and debate in the Senate.

‘He Has No Moral Integrity’: Steve Cohen Shreds McConnell’s Criticism Of SCOTUS Reform Proposals

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