WATCH: Stacey Abrams and Fox News Sunday’s Shannon Bream in Tense Smackdown Over Voter Suppression

Fox News Sunday anchor Shannon Bream and Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams got into it over a judge’s decision against a voter suppression suit brought by Abrams’ organization Fair Fight Action.

On this week’s edition of Fox News Sunday, Abrams sat for an extensive interview with the Fox anchor, who began by challenging the candidate about a passage from Obama-appointed U.S. District Court Judge Steven Jones’s ruling against her organization.

Abrams cited the balance of the 288-page decision to respond to Bream in a lengthy back-and-forth, arguing Judge Jones was saying that the organization only failed because the Voting Rights Act has been weakened:

SHANNON BREAM: You are a successful author and attorney. You’ve said that words are very careful. You choose them carefully. They’re important. You’ve used the words rigged and stolen about the 2018 gubernatorial election. You said it was proper because you can back it up. But a federal judge has now said the voter protocols that you challenged in Georgia, by his estimation, didn’t violate the Constitution or the Voting Rights Act.

New York Times adds this: “The judge who was nominated by President Barack Obama added that verified action did not provide direct evidence of a voter who was unable to vote, experienced longer wait times, was confused about voter registration status.” Do you take issue with Judge Jones’ findings in this case?

STACEY ABRAMS: I take issue with the characterization that you’ve read. What the judge said in the 288-page decision was that repeatedly under the Greenville Standard, Georgia violated Section two of the Voting Rights Act. Under the Brnovich standard, which existed as of 2021. The Greenville existed in 2020.

And when we filed the lawsuit Brnovich, which was the weakening of the Voting Rights Act that happened out of Arizona in 2021. And under the new standard, he did not have the authority to find that we proved our case under violations of Section two. But he said that it was a racially discriminatory system. He spent copious amounts of time explaining how Brian Kemp oversaw a racist system that disproportionately affected Brown voters.

He said that while he was deeply concerned about what happened, he could not, under the Brnovich categorization, actually hold him accountable. That is very different than saying nothing happened and what we were able to prove and what took four months. What was the longest, the longest trial on a voting rights case in Georgia in decades. What the court said is that he was not able to find that we could meet the standard under the new weakened Voting Rights Act.

And that’s the reason that I’m pushing so hard for the Voting Rights Act to be restored and expanded. But it’s also why I’m running for governor. We need a governor who actually cannot be credibly accused of having overseen a racist system. And Brian Kemp, according to Judge Jones, oversaw and helped architect a racist voter suppression system in the state of Georgia.

SHANNON BREAM: Well, I’ve read the opinion as well, and I would say the characterization is a bit different. But he does ultimately, Judge Jones say no violation of Voting Rights Act. And you mentioned there are different standards in case law that’s evolved through the Supreme Court on that front. But the direct quote from his ruling says, “No evidence that a voter couldn’t vote, experienced wait times or confused about voter registration status.”

And I know the issue here for you is voter suppression. So let’s look at the numbers. In Georgia, the last gubernatorial primary versus now, there was a net increase of 763,380 voters. That sounds like the opposite of voter suppression.

STACEY ABRAMS: Voter suppression is not about turnout. It’s about the barriers and obstacles to access. And that’s one of the other conflations I think it’s very important that we distinguish. Voter suppression exist when there is difficulty registering, staying on the rolls, being able to cast a ballot and having that ballot counted.

Abrams and Bream also went over the well-trod remarks Abrams made following her defeat in 2018, to which Abrams offered the emphatic defense she has consistently given.

Watch the full exchange above via Fox News Sunday.

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