Join us today as we discuss the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, and the controversy surrounding her confirmation. We will be taking your chats only on The Blaze TV's Change My Mind on the topic of the hearings.
00:01:08.000All right, so yeah, so we will be taking your chats today only on the Blaze.
00:01:12.000So we do have, we know that there are Facebook chats.
00:01:15.000We're not going to take any from YouTube, anything like that, because again, they don't pay us nothing, I think is the way Stephen describes it.
00:01:39.000Yeah, he's sitting over there in the car.
00:01:40.000So you are headed now to... Who told you you could sit in my ex-chair and by the looks of your nerves here, leave a little O. Henry bar on there when I get back?
00:01:51.000I thought you were going to be doing it from your booth, your audio booth.
00:01:54.000Oh, well maybe... I guess I just made a bad assumption.
00:02:04.000So we're sitting here in the studio, the B Team, I guess, but you are headed to a Change My Mind on the topic of Amy Coney Barrett, big story in the news right now.
00:02:13.000Confirmation hearings, I guess, are going on right now.
00:02:21.000Well, first off, yeah, everyone who's in the chat, of course, is a member of Mug Club, please do send what you want to see discussed most or what you expect people to discuss most.
00:02:30.000And one of the, we'll be doing a couple of different locations today.
00:02:33.000So I know this is the first time we've done this.
00:02:51.000This is one of those things where I just don't see, and often this is when it comes up when a change of mind sort of comes, it stems from exhaustion sometimes, I just don't see any valid argument as to why we don't confirm this state.
00:03:07.000Like, constitutionally, as far as precedent, decorum, there's nothing to say that we shouldn't other than some people don't like her opinions.
00:03:36.000A lot of them probably don't know that this has happened 29 times in American history.
00:03:41.000A lot of them probably don't know that this is right in line with both precedents and precedent.
00:03:46.000Um, and I bet you a lot of them don't know a whole lot about Amy Coney Barrett outside of what the media has told them.
00:03:53.000So I'm hoping this will coincide nicely with The grilling and the anti-Christian, anti-Catholic sentiment that will be taking place today during the hearings, and hopefully simultaneously be able to be broadcast and inform some people.
00:04:06.000And listen, people need to know too, if we get enough, and this always depends because with Change My Mind, you know, sometimes we'll have people sit down and they go, well, I don't know, I think she's a bitch.
00:04:14.000We're like, okay, thank you for sitting down.
00:04:17.000Pretty much everyone always sees every Change My Mind that we record, unless it's someone who Seems like they might be challenged, or we'll have sometimes people just show up to promote their own stuff, like, hey, I'm running for the 42nd Congressional District.
00:04:30.000Now, provided that those don't happen, if we get enough, we're going to be running Change My Mind on Amy Coney Barrett for two whole days.
00:04:38.000So we'll be running it tomorrow morning, and then Wednesday morning, and of course, live fact-checking the Biden town hall on Thursday.
00:05:52.000And I tell you what, If we're going to be talking about honoring Ruth Bader Ginsburg's dying wishes, which no one can confirm and her granddaughter just says it's true, how about honoring her actually written on-the-record opinions?
00:06:05.000And she was vehemently against court packing for the same reason that Joe Biden was vehemently against court packing up until literally three weeks ago.
00:06:14.000Yeah, it is crazy how quickly that's changed.
00:06:52.000These are the three branches of government that we have, and the judiciary is meant to be the most separate and apart.
00:06:57.000So, for someone to be confirmed, right, to the judiciary, that's that third branch, It has to go through the Executive, the President has to nominate, and then it has to go through the Legislative, where you then have the Senate who has to confirm, and then we have a new Justice on the Judiciary!
00:07:16.000Merrick Garland, we had Executive Barack Obama nominated just as 29 times with Presidents who have come before him, and we had a Senate who rejected.
00:07:27.000And in this case, we have a Republican Senate, so they'll likely confirm.
00:07:29.000Barack Obama was well in his authority to nominate, Just as the Senate was well in their authority to deny.
00:07:36.000Donald Trump is well within his authority to nominate just as Barack Obama was.
00:07:41.000And the Senate is well within its authority to deny or accept.
00:08:22.000So then people take the weakest argument, right?
00:08:23.000And they go, oh, all he said was it was the election year.
00:08:27.000He was very clear in what he was expressing.
00:08:29.000Conservatives who knew what they were talking about knew I was an issue.
00:08:32.000Now, my concern here, and this is why we did the change of mind, is I do see, unfortunately, a lot of people on the right who were reductive, who simplified it to, ah, it's an election year!
00:08:50.000Because it wasn't just about it being an election year.
00:08:53.000It was about it being a divided government.
00:08:54.000And by the way, In midterms, Republicans have only added seats to the Senate.
00:08:59.000So when people say, oh, it's a vote of no confidence... Well, no, in this case, it's a vote of supreme confidence when you're talking about the Senate.
00:09:44.000I've never had my mind changed entirely on an issue or fundamentally on an issue at a Change My Mind.
00:09:50.000But I have had my mind opened on certain thoughts, and I will say this, in trying to change my mind, often people change their own mind.
00:09:56.000Often people end up finding common ground.
00:09:58.000So, to Stephen with a PH, hopefully you've watched Change My Mind before, and if you have, you've seen dozens of examples of other people changing their minds, simply through the attempt to change my mind.
00:10:09.000And that also can happen, by the way, when there's a debate.
00:10:12.000When it's just a debate where you're trying to score points, which is what we have on television, which is what the cable news system is designed to encourage, you've got an eight minute segment and you've got to use up as much time as possible to score points, right?
00:10:25.000Because your only job at that point is to try and show the audience, right?
00:10:29.000The dwindling audience with cable news, how your arguments are supreme.
00:10:33.000When it changed my mind, it's almost like, you know, you've been doing jujitsu more now and you've sort of grown to understand the difference That simply having rounds makes, right?
00:11:58.000We've done it in Vermont, not always at schools.
00:12:00.000But what is most remarkable to me is when we do these kinds of events at schools is you'll have people
00:12:06.000who come up who are studying philosophy or humanities Yeah, I think probably a lot of what you'll encounter today is going to be, you know, maybe some of the anti-Christian or anti-Catholic kind of sentiment.
00:12:20.000We have a question here from Mark, who says, so why is ACB being crucified for being Catholic, but Joe Biden isn't?
00:12:29.000That's because Joe Biden isn't Catholic.
00:12:58.000I know we have plenty of brothers and sisters in the Catholic denomination where we disagree on theology, but I think we find, of course, a lot of common ground.
00:13:07.000And one of them that really seems to be undeniable should be the idea of life.
00:13:15.000And Joe Biden, at every turn, if you can look at what he's espoused and what he's believed, It runs in diametric opposition to the Catholic Church.
00:13:24.000Now, it's something that... I can't say he's not a Catholic.
00:13:29.000I can say he's not an observant Catholic.
00:13:32.000For the same reason that Ben Shapiro is Jewish.
00:13:43.000And so, the only way to really determine it would be to ask Joe Biden.
00:13:46.000Not, well, how does your Catholic faith inform your... It would be like, Do you believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins and is the one and only way to get through heaven?
00:13:55.000And if he says no, he's not a Catholic.
00:13:58.000She's answered very clearly, unequivocally.
00:14:01.000I've never heard Joe Biden answer that way.
00:14:02.000Right, yeah, and for some reason it isn't seen as an impediment to Joe Biden being able to make decisions, but it is seen as an impediment for ACB to be able to make decisions.
00:14:10.000It's seen as an impediment because people don't believe that his Catholicism means anything.
00:14:15.000If they believed that he was actually Catholic, they know that Joe Biden would be pro-life and he would not be the Democratic nominee.
00:14:21.000If they believed that he was actually Catholic, he would have a deep sympathy for the Founding Fathers and the Constitution and the reasons that we have the framing for this country that we do.
00:14:31.000And he would be out there espousing his Catholic views.
00:14:33.000And he would be praising ACB for Catholicism and for her faith, for her adoption of children from crap hole countries.
00:14:42.000And I say that because it's a good thing that they were rescued.
00:14:44.000They're not concerned with it for the same reason that they weren't concerned with Barack Obama's Christianity, for the same reason that Barack Obama never seated, he was never seated in a church throughout his entire presidency.
00:14:55.000Because they know that they don't mean it.
00:15:21.000And certainly not as they're discussing packing courts.
00:15:24.000I think we need to deal with Amy Coney Barrett and then we need to deal with this idea of packing courts and the election before we get to the idea of lifetime appointments.
00:15:31.000Do I see a valid argument to be against it long term?
00:15:36.000For the same reason that I see a valid argument against serious term limits for local representatives.
00:15:46.000Right now, that's not a discussion that I think needs to be on the table.
00:15:49.000What needs to be on the table is getting this distinguished lady confirmed and making sure that everyone knows court packing is straight from the pit of hell.
00:16:01.000Yeah, so one of the things that—I guess the right has been able to laugh off, but I guess it's a serious argument on the left.
00:16:08.000Somebody said here, so I would like to see—Amber says, I would like to see you discuss how racist ACB is for stealing those poor Haitian children and then erasing their real parents.
00:16:17.000You mentioned that, I guess, sort of offhand, but do you expect that to come up?
00:16:21.000Is anybody actually arguing that, or is that just something that the right is able to make fun of?
00:16:29.000She says, I would like to see you discuss it.
00:16:31.000I'm not going to discuss it unless someone brings it up.
00:16:41.000I think the conservatives, unfortunately, and Amber, I appreciate it, but I think that a lot of people who maybe come from Uh, there was a sort of new wave of people who came from, not that they were alt-right, but that's where a lot of people sort of came in this trolling idea.
00:16:53.000It doesn't mean that it's the best thing to do.
00:16:54.000It may be fun on Twitter to make fun of people, but if you're actually having a discussion here, and the idea is to change people's minds, I certainly won't veer the conversation into, what do you think?
00:17:03.000You know, like baiting that hook, kind of like a bait when you reach for my foot and I put you in a crucifix when we're doing jiu-jitsu.
00:17:10.000I'm like, oh, what's this foot doing here?
00:17:29.000You think it's horrible that she adopted children and brought them into a loving home from a horrible You think it's wrong because you see everything through the prism of race.
00:17:48.000I think it's wonderful because I see it through the prism of love.
00:17:52.000And that is defined by my Christian faith, which will piss people off because you know it matters to me.
00:17:58.000Well, you've talked about how there is a difference between someone that you can change their mind and someone that you might just use as, like, an example to say, like, okay, well, we just have fundamentally different views of the world, and I guess that that's sort of what changed my mind, is able to sort those different people out.
00:18:14.000Yeah, with the abortion, you know, when we brought out the fetal chart, that was actually Reg's wonderful idea, because sometimes I'll get lost in the weeds, and he said, you know, bring this out, because if someone says Sure.
00:19:34.000You see everything through the prism of race.
00:19:37.000I see it through the prism of, of right and wrong and love.
00:19:40.000And I can't think of anything more beautiful than a privileged, Cis white female uh and likely cis white male when you're dealing with your husband right because two people are adopting here uh in the United States taking a child from a scenario like that
00:19:56.000And truly being colorblind, I'm sorry.
00:19:58.000The fact that there's even a pretzel that people are attempting to twist themselves into to argue that that is problematic, shows how far around the bend many of them have gone.
00:20:11.000And that's what changed my mind is, is hopefully we find some, you know, we find some reasonable ones who are willing to sit down.
00:20:16.000And I gotta say, I'm a little nervous with this one because they're just, there really is not much of a leg to stand on for people arguing against ACB.
00:20:23.000I think they'll probably try and pivot right away to Roe v. Wade.
00:21:11.000Ruth Bader Ginsburg said that she thought it was very heavy handed and she was afraid did more harm
00:21:15.000than good because Roe v. Wade is not about banning. If you overturn Roe v. Wade, you don't ban abortion.
00:21:20.000Roe v. Wade is based on the 14th Amendment and this loose sort of interpretation of privacy rights.
00:21:24.000And I don't want to, I won't get into it too much because we'll get into it to the,
00:21:27.000in the change my mind, but I think that of all the justices who have been nominated recently,
00:21:32.000I do believe that ACB, there's a strong chance that she would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade.
00:21:41.000I don't know that it's something that she'll be spearheading, but if it is something that comes to the floor, I think she would vote for it.
00:21:50.000Well, hey, I know you do have to get going here in a few minutes to get to the Change My Mind, but maybe this might be a good note to end on from Scott here.
00:21:58.000He says, what do you think is the number one reason why people change their mind politically?
00:22:03.000Obviously, the goal is to see if we can change somebody's mind, see if they're the type of person who can take that.
00:22:09.000But what do you think is the number one reason people do it?
00:22:32.000But if you look at all the actual change of minds that have taken place, where people have changed their mind, or we found common ground, it comes through speaking truth.
00:24:02.000And I went through the list of everything that she had told me.
00:24:06.000And I said, I think that you are supremely qualified and deserve to be here.
00:24:12.000And it's really sad to me that you don't believe you are here at UT Austin, that you've merited this seat off of anything other than your race.
00:24:22.000And I want to tell you, that's not true.
00:24:54.000That means you have to have truth first and foremost and being empathetic.
00:24:57.000Now being empathetic doesn't mean that you agree with all actions that are taken from someone.
00:25:02.000In other words, you can be empathetic to someone who is living a life of sin without necessarily praising or even condoning the sin.
00:25:11.000You can be empathetic because And this is how Christians, how we all believe, we can be empathetic because we understand that sin is bondage, that sin destroys people.
00:25:18.000And so when I hear someone talking about abortions and how much it means to her and how she, if she couldn't have an abortion, that she wouldn't have been able to pay for that child, I do have empathy, but it's not because I think that abortion is a brave and beautiful thing.
00:25:29.000I have empathy because that woman doesn't yet know that she has just changed herself.
00:25:35.000placed herself in bondage until she frees herself from those chains through truth.
00:25:39.000So it would be truth and empathy when those two can capably intersect. They can't always,
00:25:46.000but that's our job as Christians, and that's our job as critical thinkers,
00:25:51.000as people who are to the right of center. Yeah. Good stuff.
00:25:56.000Yeah, so we've got the Change Our Mind coming out tomorrow.
00:25:58.000So you're doing it today, coming out tomorrow, and then another one on Wednesday, then a big Biden town hall stream on Thursday.