Al Franken Calls Supreme Court ‘Illegitimate’ Says Justice Roberts Is ‘A Villain’

Former United States Senator Al Franken blasted the Supreme Court as “illegitimate” during a recent interview.

The exchange took place on the Saturday edition of his podcast, The Al Franken Podcast with the Washington Post’s Chief Correspondent Dan Balz as a guest.

The conversation began with Franken blaming gerrymandering on the Supreme Court.

“You know, this gerrymandering is a product partly of the Supreme Court, the United States Supreme Court basically saying, we are not gonna touch this. We’re not gonna touch partisan gerrymandering,” Franken said. “They will touch racial gerrymandering, they say, and then in Alabama, they kind of let it slide, right, in the last election. The court is a very divisive entity now — institution right now.”

“The Supreme Court, to me is illegitimate the way they didn’t take up [Merrick] Garland and on saying, ‘It’s an election year,’ and then they of course put in [Amy] Coney Barrett like eight days before the election. Then of course Dobbs and abortion, you know… but it’s more than that,” Franken added.

Balz noted how the court is being viewed as “one more partisan institution.”

“They’ve lost credibility and I don’t know how they begin to get that back very easily, given the current makeup of the court. The one institution that was kind of held above others when we were heading into this spiral of polarization is caught up in it too,” Balz said. “It’s just reflective of the overall nature of political debate and dialogue and hostility and animosity that exists.”

Franken said Chief Justice John G. Roberts was “culpable” for the “division.”

“I think the Chief Justice is actually much more culpable for this division than people think,” Franken said before breaking down some of Justice Roberts previous votes. “I think Roberts is much more the villain in this than people give him credit for. So that’s just my opinion.”

Listen above via The Al Franken Podcast.