00:15:10.880Each has been used as a weapon against black people.
00:15:13.200I asked Judge Jackson, what do you think about Dr. King's I Have a Dream speech, and in particular that he dreams of a nation where we can be judged not by the color of our skin, but by the content of our character.
00:15:28.720And she said at the outset she agreed with that.
00:16:03.560I didn't read this at the hearing, so this is – I just ran out of time.
00:16:07.420From the beginning, racist ideas have been stamped into the United States, into the Constitution, laws, policies, practices, and beliefs of segregationists and assimilationists.
00:16:23.100And he calls assimilationists anyone who believes in integrations that white people and black people should work together.
00:16:29.000They are assimilationists, they are assimilationists, which in his view are at almost as bad if not as bad.
00:16:34.020Anti-racists continue their work in helping us become tied to anti-racist ideas and to use them to lift people up, turning potential into power.
00:16:48.180And here are the last two sentences of the book.
00:16:49.780People like Angela Davis and Patrice Cullors and perhaps like me and you.
00:16:59.880So the book ends with a call for children to stand with two communists as the only way to defeat racism.
00:17:09.180You know, the left's response to your pointing out all of these books, right?
00:17:23.560But the simple fact is, she has embraced and exalted and publicly admired the very ideologies that are expressed in all of these books.
00:17:35.220Repeatedly, not only that, her college roommate, Professor Fairfax, who introduced her yesterday, so came to the Judiciary Committee to introduce her.
00:17:45.720She's the chairman of the board of the trustees of this school.
00:17:48.320So she and her college roommate are both on the board together.
00:17:52.720And look, afterwards, I had a lot of reporters rushing up and saying, why is this relevant?
00:18:01.240And I made clear, listen, we're not going to in this confirmation process.
00:18:05.220We're not going to go into the gutter.
00:18:06.640We're not going to engage in the kind of political circus that Democrats did with Brett Kavanaugh.
00:18:11.340We're not going to slander her character personally.
00:18:15.200But we have a responsibility to examine her actual record and what her views are, as the record demonstrates, insofar as it is relevant to the job she would do as a Supreme Court justice.
00:18:27.360And if Judge Jackson believes in the vicious racist divisiveness of critical race theory, that, I believe, would be a serious impediment to carrying out the responsibility of a Supreme Court justice.
00:18:44.100Because it is the opposite of a colorblind constitution.
00:18:47.440It is an explicitly racial divide constitution that embraces racial discrimination.
00:18:54.580That's right at the heart of CRT is that we have to discriminate.
00:18:59.900And she didn't want to answer any of those questions.
00:19:02.460Well, it's actually much more relevant than any of the attacks on Brett Kavanaugh.
00:19:07.520You know, the Democrats, as you pointed out, I think, quite well during these hearings, the Democrats dragged a bunch of people who were not credible before the Senate, including a man who's now a felon.
00:19:40.100We were at a party and he drank too many beers.
00:19:42.180The allegations here are this woman believes the Constitution is fundamentally broken, flawed, unjust.
00:19:50.140This is an evil country founded on upholding white supremacy and attacking black people.
00:19:56.140That is much more relevant and much more radical when we're talking about someone who's going to be interpreting the Constitution on the Supreme Court bench.
00:20:04.900And the basis for my questioning was based on her public speeches and her public record, which she has advocated, praising the 1619 Project, celebrating CRT, saying it is part of what one does in sentencing.
00:20:17.180And the second half of my question got very into sentencing, and I got to tell you that Judge Jackson has a troubling pattern that extends for three decades of advocating for lighter and more lenient sentences for sex offenders, for those who commit violent sexual crimes, for those who sexually assault children, and for those who possess child porn.
00:20:43.720And when she was in law school, her law review note, so when you're on the law review, you write a note, which is sort of your big academic piece that you publish.
00:20:54.020Her law review note was examining the laws the states have passed to deal with sexual predators.
00:21:00.700And she examined, number one, sex predator registries, which all 50 states require.
00:21:06.000If you're convicted of a sexual offense, you have to register.
00:21:08.080She examined DNA databases, which many states require that if you have a sex offense, you put your DNA in, so if there's a subsequent crime, you can be caught.
00:21:19.080She examined public notification statutes, which say if a sexual predator move into your neighborhood, you have a right to be notified.
00:21:26.400And then she examined civil commitment statutes, that is for people who are sexually violent predators, who have behavioral abnormalities, who have a psychological condition.
00:21:38.020Many of the states have civil commitment for them after their sentence is over.
00:21:42.740And her note, and this is a little academic and a little wonky, but I tried to walk through it in my questioning.
00:21:50.400There are two ways the courts have analyzed these types of laws as either punitive or regulatory.
00:21:57.640And the sort of short answer is if they're regulatory, they're permissible.
00:22:02.760And if they're punitive, they're unconstitutional.
00:22:04.960So the divide is really consequential.
00:22:08.200Her note argues that they should all be viewed based on their effects, and most, if not all of them, are punitive and therefore unconstitutional.
00:22:18.420Now, she says it in some legal gobbledygook, but that's what she argues.
00:22:23.740And so I walked her through that, and she insists that's not what she argued.
00:22:28.420But I'll tell you, Michael, I've got some experience in this because Texas has a law, the Texas Sexually Violent Predator Civil Commitment Law,
00:22:37.680that a Texas Court of Appeals in Corpus Christi struck down as unconstitutional.
00:22:43.440And the reason it did so is it concluded, just like Judge Jackson's note suggests, although it didn't cite her note,
00:22:50.140but it concluded that the statute was punitive and therefore it was unconstitutional.
00:22:54.000And I was the Solicitor General of Texas, so I argued the appeal myself in the Texas Supreme Court and ended up winning unanimously.
00:23:02.420It was a case called Enri Fisher, where the Texas Supreme Court unanimously reversed the Court of Appeals and upheld the statute.
00:23:09.800And so I feel very strongly about the importance of protecting people and particularly children from sexually violent predators.
00:23:18.400And it wasn't just her law school note.
00:23:20.980She has a consistent pattern going forward to today of advocating leniency for sexual predators.
00:24:46.520You know, like you might collect art or stamps, like, like, are they collectors or maybe they like technology and they're just into computers.
00:24:56.020Now, look, you may like computers, but but kiddie porn, like it is a bizarre question.
00:25:02.760And the White House's talking point that they put out is, well, people are cherry picking what she said.
00:25:09.760So I put up a chart with the entire quote and I read the entire quote of what she said.
00:25:13.920And her response was, well, I was just asking a question.
00:25:19.140Yeah, you were asking if people with kiddie porn are not into kiddie porn, like it's a like it's a weird question.
00:25:30.680So I put up a chart at the hearing of the child porn cases she's had.
00:25:38.920And there have been a couple where she had no discretion in sentencing.
00:25:42.620Either there was a mandatory minimum that she had to sentence or there was a plea agreement that both the prosecution and defense agreed to.
00:25:56.120She had discretion and where the prosecution made a recommendation.
00:26:00.440Every single one, she sentenced the defendant to way, way, way below the sentencing guidelines and way, way, way below what the prosecutor asked for.
00:26:12.280So I walk through United States versus Chazin.
00:26:17.560The sentencing guidelines were 78 to 97 months.
00:26:21.600The prosecutor asked for 78 to 97 months.
00:30:19.540Why she provides such light sentences.
00:30:21.820And even to this point of I'm so sorry this is happening to you, there are people, there are plenty of people who argue this is a victimless crime.
00:30:30.580If the if the person who's consuming it is not actively producing the pornography, then, you know, it's just another digital image.
00:30:43.080The point is, there's a market for this.
00:30:45.320And so if you are feeding the demand for child pornography, then you are incentivizing the producers to, in some cases, kidnap, to violate children.
00:31:28.160But secondly, this is their talking point.
00:31:32.460They say the guidelines are too high, and there are many federal judges across the country who depart downward from the guidelines.
00:31:41.060So what I did in my questioning is I didn't focus on the guidelines.
00:31:45.540I focused on what did the prosecutor ask for.
00:31:48.900And this is in D.C. where you've got liberal prosecutors.
00:31:51.020And her defense is, well, in sentencing, I have to apply all the factors and balance them, and I'm just following the law.
00:32:00.840Well, if that were the case, presumably there would be some cases where she would sentence the defendant to more than the prosecutor asked,
00:32:06.900some cases where she'd sentence him to less, some cases where she'd sentence him to the same.
00:32:10.340In 100% of the cases where she had discretion, she sentences him to less, on average, 48% less than the prosecutor asked for.
00:32:21.840And that is a clear, demonstrable pattern that is consistent with what she's been advocating for for 30 years.
00:32:30.080Okay, so I've got two questions then that come from this.
00:32:32.540One, on the scope of radicalism, qualifications, threat to the Constitution and the Republic, compared to other Supreme Court nominees from Democrats, where does Judge Jackson rank?
00:32:45.940And two, do you think that these concerns that you raised today that seem to be really significant concerns, will they affect the nomination?
00:32:55.940So, I think on the question of criminal law, it is likely that if she's confirmed, Judge Jackson will be the furthest to the left of any of the nine justices.
00:33:06.280In other words, the most likely to strike down the death penalty, the most likely to vote to release criminals.
00:33:14.420And, you know, one of the cases that I talked about is a case that came out of Kansas, where the Supreme Court upheld Kansas' sexually violent predator civil commitment law.
00:33:24.760And so, you have to assume she would vote consistent with what she's advocated for, which, if she were able to get four other justices to agree with her, would result in thousands of sexually violent predators who are currently in civil commitment being released.
00:33:40.720And it could potentially result in striking down DNA databases, in striking down sex registries.
00:33:47.480I mean, the consequences are breathtaking.
00:33:50.220And I'll tell you one indication of how concerned Democrats are about this.
00:33:58.400So, most of their questioning has been trying to rebut or pre-but these.
00:34:04.100So, among other things, they focused on other cases.
00:34:06.560So, there are cases where someone actually sexually assaulted a child where she did impose tough sentences.
00:34:16.800But child porn cases where there's not the direct assault of a child by the defendant, she has a very clear pattern here.
00:34:25.100But this evening, Maisie Hirono, who's a very liberal Democrat from Hawaii, she was talking about these cases.
00:34:36.840She was trying to rehabilitate Judge Jackson.
00:34:39.220And she says, you know, well, in five of the cases, if you look at the probation report, what she did was consistent with the probation report.
00:34:47.900Now, I'm sitting there listening to this questioning.
00:34:50.680And at the end of Maisie's questioning, I ask of the chairman of the committee, Dick Durbin, I said, Chairman Durbin, Senator Hirono, just referred to the probation reports.
00:35:03.020There are no probation reports in this record.
00:36:38.520Your staff told us the Biden White House gave it to you earlier today.
00:36:47.900Why is it that Republicans are just getting it now?
00:36:52.340And what else do Democrats have for the Biden White House about Judge Jackson's record that Republicans don't have access to?
00:36:59.640And I said, and Chairman Durbin, let me ask you, if the shoe were on the other foot, if this were, say, Justice Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing,
00:37:07.580how would you have reacted if the Trump White House had given elements of Judge Kavanaugh's judicial record to Republicans and not to Democrats?
00:37:16.000You would have lost your mind, and you would have been right to do so.
00:37:21.060Durbin said, well, we got it earlier today, and it was available to everyone.
00:37:26.860You just had to ask for it, at which point John Kennedy jumps in and says, now, wait a second.
00:38:02.360It's a detailed report on the defendant.
00:38:05.040We don't have the PSRs, the pre-sentence reports.
00:38:07.420I said, we should get them because Judge Jackson, in defending her pattern of light sentences, said, well, I was following the recommendations of probation.
00:38:16.980We need to see what those pre-sentence reports are.
00:38:19.860I said, for example, the Hawkins case, the one we talked about a minute ago, I just found out that the pre-sentence report recommended 18 months, and she sentenced him to three.
00:38:34.480We need to read, this is centrally an issue, and I said, you know, Mr. Chairman, if these pre-sentence reports were good for Judge Jackson, if they exonerated her, you'd have made them public already.
00:38:46.340The fact that you don't want us to see them, that leads to a very strong inference.
00:38:51.040As of now, we don't have the pre-sentence reports because I don't think they want the American people to know what's in them.
00:38:56.060So what you're saying is, Judge Jackson, we don't know what she did at some parties at Georgetown Prep in the 80s with PJ and Squee.
00:39:05.400You know, there are no personal real questions here, no questions about her credentials.
00:39:09.900She even went to that school, I can't even name it, up in Cambridge that you went to.
00:39:14.540But she has a record of radicalism, and now we know the Democrats have a record of covering up that radicalism in the confirmation hearings.
00:39:24.340Well, they certainly don't want anyone focused on the facts, and they're doing all they can to try to distract people.
00:39:31.660I got to say, watching her explain why with these people with child pornography, she gives them a slap on the wrist, to me, it was very concerning.
00:39:44.400And we have not heard remotely a sufficient answer to it.
00:39:47.840All right, well, that doesn't make me feel great about the future of the Supreme Court, but I am glad at least that the truth is starting to come to light.
00:39:55.540We're running late as usual, but before I let you go, we've got to get to at least a couple of mailbag questions.
00:40:01.280There's a question on tactics from Count de Monet who says, why don't Republicans fight as dirty as the Democrats?
00:40:08.640They already call us every bad name in the book anyways, so why not?
00:40:13.360Look, it's a good question, and I don't think fighting dirty is the right way to go.
00:40:18.000So let's take Brett Kavanaugh, for example.
00:40:20.380I mean, they went nasty with personal aspersions, with claims that were obviously bogus, that were ridiculous.
00:40:42.540All the questions I had for Judge Jackson were about her record, her beliefs, her substantive suitability to be a Supreme Court justice.
00:40:52.240And look, the underlying sentiment, Democrats fight tooth and nail.
00:40:57.260They crawl through broken glass with a marine dagger in their teeth.
00:41:00.980Republicans treat a lot of these fights like we're playing croquet in the backyard, and we need to actually behave like we believe what we're saying, and a lot of times Republicans don't do that.
00:41:15.180We don't stand for injustice, so we don't want to do that.
00:41:18.360But frankly, I think the line of attack on Judge Jackson, where you're actually going after her record, to me, is much more persuasive than anything they ever thought they had on the summer of 82 with Brett Kavanaugh.
00:41:47.500I'm going to have to punt to our resident Yaley because I'll confess I don't understand the question, and I'm quite certain that seems very navel-gazing.
00:41:56.080So, Michael, how do you answer that question?
00:41:59.760Well, Senator, clearly you have not been studying up on your Kamala Harris.
00:42:05.120I think it speaks to your intellect and character that you were not able to answer that question.
00:42:10.340But I, having recently listened to the speech from our esteemed vice president, I know exactly what he's talking about, and I have no idea what she's talking about, as I usually don't.
00:42:20.660So I guess we'll have to punt it to her.
00:42:22.720So my follow-up question that's intimately related is how much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
00:42:29.040More coherent than the vice president, actually, Senator.
00:42:32.060So you will be in these confirmation hearings.
00:42:34.200We look forward to hearing much more about it.
00:42:36.640In the meantime, though, you will be on The Cloak Room, the series for Verdict Plus members, with our friend Liz Wheeler.
00:42:44.060Liz, what are you going to be talking about?
00:42:46.780I have to admit, standing here in the wings while you guys were talking, I did chuckle when you said how much wood would chuck chuck.
00:42:52.980We have a good topic to talk about tonight.
00:42:54.920We are going to talk about the Babylon Bee.
00:42:56.460The Babylon Bee was suspended by Twitter this week for a tweet about the transgender individual that serves in the Biden administration, Rachel Levine.
00:43:06.600This is a comedy group, and they were kicked off of Twitter for making a joke about a transgender individual.
00:43:11.640We're also going to talk about Leah Thomas, the transgender who, born a biological male, competing in the women's category, won the NCAA championship.
00:43:19.440We're going to talk about the cultural implications of this and what can be done at a policy level to protect women, to protect women's sports.
00:43:48.740This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is being brought to you by Jobs Freedom and Security Pack, a political action committee dedicated to supporting conservative causes, organizations and candidates across the country.
00:44:09.660In 2022, Jobs Freedom and Security Pack plans to donate to conservative candidates running for Congress and help the Republican Party across the nation.