Politics

Watch: Elizabeth Warren blasts Lindsey Graham, Supreme Court hearings on ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’

“This is an illegitimate process.”

October 14, 2020

2 minutes to read

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUrfclw8vqA

Elizabeth Warren condemned the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Judge Amy Coney Barrett during a Monday appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” taking aim at both her senate colleague Lindsey Graham and President Donald Trump for pushing forward the process.

“These hearings should not be taking place,” Warren told Kimmel. “This is an illegitimate process. This is the Republicans trying to steal a second Supreme Court seat, and they are doing this for a very specific reason.”

That reason is to overturn the Affordable Care Act, which would result in millions of Americans losing their health insurance coverage in the middle of a pandemic, she said.

“[Trump] can’t do that through Congress, so he wants to do it through the courts, and he’s already told us that,” she said. “And Amy Coney Barrett has already said that she doesn’t believe that the Affordable Care Act is constitutional. We’re done — we know what this is about. And that’s why right now we need to stay focused on doing everything we can to stop this confirmation from going through. It’s going to cost people.”

Warren said she did not expect Graham to reverse his position on whether vacancies on the Supreme Court should be filled in the run-up to a presidential election. In 2016, Graham repeatedly said confirmation hearings should wait until after the election, but, since the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in September, the South Carolina senator has flipped his position.

Warren said the election on Nov. 3 is about holding both Trump and senators, like Graham, “accountable.”

“Lindsey Graham stood up last time around when there was a Supreme Court nominee and said, ‘Nope,’ and he would not if we were just before an election, he would not go forward with a nomination,” the Massachusetts senator said. “And now he just does a 180-degree turn. And that’s not just dishonest, it breaks faith with the people who voted for you. People who want to keep their health insurance. But people who also want to feel like whether or not you agree with them or not, that a senator’s word — a president’s word — should mean something. And Lindsey Graham has just taken that away.”