Al Franken Pounces On CNN’s Alice Stewart Over What ‘Destroyed’ Legitimacy of SCOTUS: ‘I’m Surprised You’re Claiming This!’

 

Democrat and former Sen. Al Franken got into an on-air spat with Republican CNN political commentator Alice Stewart on Saturday over remarks from both Chief Justice John Roberts and Vice President Kamala Harris about the legitimacy of the Supreme Court.

Justice Roberts on Friday expressed his disappointment in the atmosphere surrounding the court and decried the loud Democrat messaging that it is no longer legitimate based on the party’s disagreement with the court’s decisions.

“Simply because people disagree with an opinion is not a basis for questioning the legitimacy of the court,” he said at a legal conference on Friday.

Vice President Harris, in a preview clip of her interview with Chuck Todd airing Sunday, questioned both the legitimacy and the “integrity” of the court, and by extension the justices, over the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade.

Acosta played clips from both and then introduced Franken and Stewart to discuss.

“Confidence in the Supreme Court is at an all-time low. I suppose the Chief Justice can say what he want. He doesn’t – he seems to be bristling at this criticism in a sort of, I guess, mild way,” said Acosta to Franken. “But nominees are now confirmed pretty much by party-line votes now, and there does appear to be – based on what Vice President Kamala Harris was saying a few moments ago, there does appear to be some wind at the backs of Democrats heading into these fall midterms because of this decision that was overturned. Your thoughts?”

Franken disagreed with Roberts that it was the Dobbs decision that undermined the court’s legitimacy but rather that congress did not take up the nomination of current Attorney General Merrick Garland, under reasons given by Sens. Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham.

“The legitimacy of the court was undermined when they wouldn’t take up Merrick Garland. And you’ll remember that McConnell said it was because it was during an election year. And you remember Lindsey Graham pledging that if a vacancy came open during an election year in 20, that he wouldn’t vote for — they wouldn’t take up a nominee,” Frankebn said. “They’ve stolen two seats: The one that Merrick Garland wasn’t given a hearing for and the one that [Amy Coney Barrett] was, where she was seated a week before the election.”

“That destroyed the legitimacy of the court,” he said.

Acosta then said to Stewart that Roberts “ignored” the reasons given by Franken for considering the court not legitimate, and characterized the court as “far-right” for reasons the viewer is supposed to assume are self-evident.

“There is a tremendous amount of controversy as to how this court got tilted in the direction of the far right,” Acosta insisted.

At that point, Stewart said she would throw “a little accuracy” in about Franken’s comments, and claimed that Garland’s nomination was held up simply because it as a “divided government.”

“That’s the way historically this has been. When you’re in close to an election year and you have divided government –” she started to argue, when Franken interrupted.

“No, that’s not the way it’s been historically done,” he said.

“Yes. And when you have divided government, there typically is an inclination to–” Stewart started to say.

“Tell me when this happened before,” said Franken.

As Stewart dithered Franken continued to press for even one example other than Merrick Garland, which Stewart was unable to produce.

“You know why you can’t?” said Franken after a good deal of back and forth. “Because it hadn’t happened before.”

He gave examples of the claims made by Republicans about it and said, “This is total hypocrisy.”

“And you — actually, I’m surprised that you’re claiming this,” he said. “And you can’t come up with an example because there is none.”

When Stewart said she was getting back to “the point of the conversation” Franken interjected with exasperation, “this is the point!”

“We’re talking about Kamala Harris and her calling the current Supreme Court Justices, ‘activist justices’ because she doesn’t like the outcome of their ruling,” said Stewart, circling back around to the topic of the segment. “And when they made their decision on Roe v. Wade, they looked at the precedent and they looked at Roe v Wade and said it was egregiously wrong from the start.”

Stewart wrapped up her response by saying that the court’s decision put the issue back into the hands of elected representatives rather than “nine unelected justices.”

“The only reason that Kamala Harris says they’re activist is because she doesn’t like the outcome of the ruling,” she concluded.

Watch the clip above, via CNN.

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Caleb Howe is an editor and writer focusing on politics and media. Former managing editor at RedState. Published at USA Today, Blaze, National Review, Daily Wire, American Spectator, AOL News, Asylum, fortune cookies, manifestos, napkins, fridge drawings...