EPIC RANT: Ted Cruz Unleashes On Biden Nominees Who Can't Even Answer Basic Constitutional Questions

Mr chairman this committee is in the process of considering 29 judicial nominees in a single morning now it's not uncommon when a new Congress comes in to take up nominees that didn't pass in the previous Congress but typically there's a reason that nominees don't pass in the previous Congress which is they are often the most extreme and most problematic nominees in this instance that is emphatically the case and many of these nominees are quite literally the most extreme judicial nominees I've seen in 10 years on the Senate part of the reason the Democrat majority is trying to move 29 nominees in one morning is to flood the Zone with so many bad nominees that nobody can focus on how utterly unqualified these nominees are to be judges the nominee being considered right now Nancy abood who Senator Lee did a good job of walking through her extreme record she was the deputy legal director at the Southern Poverty Law Center an organization that has a long and shameful history of labeling mainstream conservative groups as quote hate groups and the splc's history is so egregious that it prompted a violent hate crime in 2010 the splc designated the family research Council as a hate group and two years later a man targeted the the family research Council using the splc's hate map and came in and shot and critically wounded the council's business manager and attempted to murder several council members before being heroically stopped by the building security guard the splc in 2019 authored an article that accused Republicans including three members of this Committee of holding quote open white supremacist views Mr chairman that's ridiculous you know that's ridiculous political rhetoric is one thing but when you have extreme leftists falsely claiming white supremacy it illustrates that you are dealing with radicals and partisan zealots Nancy abodo isn't the only nominee that this committee is trying to move forward this committee also has before it Nusrat Chowdhury who is another extreme zealot Miss Chowdhury believes that America is through and through an evil and racist place and she's not been shy about explaining that she has stated that quote the structure of racial discrimination in America quote is so deep so pernicious that you have to quote use the law as a tool of social justice does anyone think she's going to stop quote using the law as a tool of social justice if she ascends to the bench most concerning thing Miss Chowdhury said she participated in the panel that my alma mater Princeton University the panel was entitled how activism informs policy and one of the panelists there suggested that police officers kill unarmed black men every day now there's a technical term for that statement that's called a lie it's not even kind of sort of right it is wildly totally false during her nomination hearing she was asked about a tweet that came from that event which said that she had agreed with the statement that police officers kill unarmed black men every single day At first she claimed she couldn't remember making the statement then later in the same hearing she claimed she did make the statement but she did so quote as an advocate she said so three separate times well I just you know did it as an advocate now most of the members of this committee have practiced law the last I checked as an advocate you have an obligation not to lie and that is a Brazen lie that is dangerous now subsequently she sent a follow-up letter after her hearing saying oh never mind I didn't say it the thing that she had Justified as oh I said it as an advocate afterwards she sent a letter said no actually I didn't say it Republicans on this committee asked for a follow-up hearing to to ask about her miraculous new memory post hearing that she didn't say such a harmful thing to police officers across the country sadly the chairman wouldn't give us a new hearing another of the judges being considered today Kenya Ken Lake Kia Cato at her hearing I asked her a very simple question is racial discrimination wrong she was utterly unable to answer it today's Democrat Party Embraces racial discrimination believes that discriminating based on race the reason Mr chairman and your you are smirking but the reason she she couldn't answer it is because in law school she had written an article advocating racial discrimination against Asian Americans now miss Cato is Asian American and she said and I'm paraphrasing here and I don't have the article in front of me but she essentially said that Asian Americans who didn't support explicit racial discrimination against rate Asian Americans weren't sufficiently woke they weren't sufficiently enlightened now I think that's a noxious position but that's of course why she couldn't answer that racial discrimination was wrong because she is an advocate for racial discrimination another one of the nominees being considered this morning is Dale ho Dale hoe is a self-described quote wild-eyed sort of leftists now let me be clear that's not my terminology that's how he describes himself he says I am a quote wild eyed sort of leftist he wrote about how he's motivated each day by his hate for conservatives that's the word he used hate now I want you to pause for a second and imagine I'm going to ask the Democrat members of this committee to do something which is Imagine you're in somebody else's shoes engage in empathy there are actually conservatives in the state of New York now the Democrat Governor of New York said to Republicans in New York you're not New Yorkers get the hell out go to Florida where you belong there's an arrogance to telling your voters that but it's one thing when you're an elected official if you want to demonstrate that kind of arrogance but one would think that a federal judge has a different obligation so I would ask the members of this committee imagine for a second you were a republican imagine for a second you were a conservative who happened to live in New York and you look up in New York City on the federal bench and you see a judge who's described himself as a wild-eyed sort of leftist his own words who is motivated every day who gets up every day and what gets him going is his hatred for you you know this kind of fellow that should have worked at the Southern Poverty Law Center that's the kind of radicals who this Administration is nominating and yet that is not the kind of person that should be a federal judge and I'm going to talk about one final nominee that isn't before us today but that will be soon which is Charnel beckelgren now the members of this committee are aware of just how wildly unqualified this nominee was she's been nominated to be a federal district judge and our colleague Senator Kennedy whose cross-examinations on this committee have now become legendary he asked her what article 5 of The Constitution was and she responded saying well she couldn't remember she wasn't familiar with that he then asked her what Article 2 of The Constitution was and she said well that's not coming to mind either it was a stunning display of her lack of qualifications to be a federal judge now to be clear asking someone what Article 2 of The Constitution is is not some obscure legal gotcha there are questions you can ask about bizarre you know hidden legal theories that would be a gotcha that wouldn't be fair not knowing what Article 2 of The Constitution is which is what establishes the president and the executive branch any first-year law student who didn't know what Article 2 of The Constitution was would flunk con law and I will say chairman Durbin subsequently said publicly she was likely to get confirmed and he went on to say that he thought there were members of this committee who couldn't answer the question Senator Kennedy asked as well I hope and pray that's not the case I'm going to ask I'm confident that on the Republican side of the aisle the members of this committee know what Article 2 is are there any members of this committee who care to volunteer on the Democrat side of the aisle that you don't know what Article 2 is if you didn't you or I or anyone who didn't know what Article 2 was would not be qualified to serve on this committee and I will say I want to encourage the Democrats on the committee to follow chairman Durbin's lead chairman Durbin during the Trump Administration explained on a nominee he said he invoked what he called The Senator John Kennedy test and chairman Durbin said quote I think it's a legitimate test to be applied to all those who want to be trial judges and I hope others on both sides of the table will join me in saying it's it's not enough to Aspire you have to bring to this aspiration some practical experience and knowledge that suggests you can meet the standard required and I just want to close by this which is urging my colleagues to be willing to stand up to the White House I'm confident that many if not most of you actually care about having a qualified judiciary one of the things I cannot understand over the last two years is every Democrat member of this committee has voted for every single Biden judicial nominee 100 without failing and I will say on the senate floor every Democrat has voted for every Biden judicial nominee not a single Democrat in the United States Senate has mustered the courage to vote no on a single nominee and to be clear it wasn't that long ago we had a Republican president and a republican majority in this body and there were many of us who said on particular nominees this is not a good nominee we're not going to support this nominee in fact the John Kennedy test that Senate that chairman Durbin referred to came from a trump nominee who John Kennedy eviscerated at a hearing in a video that I still likened to watching a car wreck in slow motion it was painful but what happened when it became clear that this individual was not qualified for the position for which he had been nominated the White House withdrew the nomination and it did so after a number of us made clear we're not going to support putting an unqualified person on the bench pull the nomination back so I would ask members of this committee is there anyone if the White House nominates a ham sandwich are Democrats prepared to rubber stab judge ham sandwich and this also connects to the discussion on the blue slip look I understand politics sometimes we put on team colors and you're a Democrat or Republican and you vote with your party and that for a number of issues is fine but to any Democrat members of this committee truly care about defending the institution of the Senate and your Authority as a senator to represent your state because the blue slip fundamentally it's not even a partisan issue it is fundamentally about Article 1 versus article 2. now Biden's judicial nominees have no idea what I just said but the blue slip is all about are Judges going to be picked solely by the president or by the home state senators and let's be clear this is not just when the opposing party is in the White House When Donald Trump was president there were some I think 22 judicial vacancies on the district court in Texas when Trump was President Senator John cornyn and I we have a bipartisan Federal Judicial evaluation committee that puts out a notice a call for application that interviews that selects very qualified nominees recommends them to us I can tell you during the Trump presidency Senator Corden and I we met together we agreed and for each vacancy we forwarded to the Trump White House one name one name and for every single one the Trump White House nominated the one name we forwarded if the Democrats in this committee a seed to the partisans who are saying get rid of the blue slip temporarily you'll do some harm to Republicans on on this committee by ramming through some terrible judges but what you're really doing is giving away your prerogative every senator who's not even looking up right now is giving away your ability I suspect Senator Booker cares about who's a judge in New Jersey but if the blue slip goes away or is weakened by the Democrat chairman you know what Senator Booker's not going to have much of a say in who a judge in New Jersey is and that's going to be true with the Democrat president or Republican president now Senator Booker and I may not agree on who the best candidate for a judge is but I do think if you care about being a senator putting partisan politics above the prerogatives above protecting this institution I still remember the day the Senate under Harry Reid used the nuclear option to end the filibuster for judges and I remember standing on the senate floor next to Senator Klobuchar and I turned to Senator Klobuchar on that day and I said y'all are going to regret this you're going to regret this you're going to regret weakening the institution of the Senate and I said the results of this you are going to get more Supreme Court Justices like justice Scalia and Justice Thomas now I said I'm happy with that outcome but you're not and I will say if you look at the justices that came through that prediction proved exactly right Democrats were willing like Lemmings to jump off the cliff because partisan politics were that high and so my call and sadly I say this call with absolute certainty it will be unheeded is for one Democrat senator to muster the gumption to say for one of these radical nominees no we're not going to vote to confirm a ham sandwich no we're not going to can vote to confirm a judge who tells people he's motivated by hate we're not going to vote to confirm a judge who doesn't even know what Article 2 of The Constitution is we have a responsibility on this committee to ensure that article 3 judges have the right temperament the right character and will follow the law these judges that are nominated are not going to do that and the only thing that will stop it will be if any Democrat senators are willing to insist on the barest modicum of standards and to do our jobs and I hope and pray we do that

Channel: Forbes Breaking News

Views: 1,784,000

Keywords: Sen. Ted Cruz, President Biden, Senate

Id: g6oafHRmE2o

Length: 18min 5sec (1085 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 09 2023