'MAGA Loyalists Dressed Up As Jurists': Chuck Schumer Lights Into Trump's Judicial Nominees

During remarks on the Senate floor Wednesday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) spoke about President Trump's judicial nominees.

Transcript

00:00And on judges. Today Senate Republicans are holding their first hearing on

00:06judicial nominees under Donald Trump's second term. The last time Donald Trump

00:11was in the White House and Republicans held the Senate majority, this chamber

00:16mutated into a conveyor belt for hard-right judges who sided with special

00:21interests and not the American people. Most were radically out of step with

00:25mainstream America. Others were barely out of law school and many were hand

00:29picked from the ranks of the Federalist Society, not for their fairness but for

00:34their ideological fealty to a hard-right philosophy that hurts average Americans

00:43every day. When it comes to judges, Donald Trump cares about one thing only. Will

00:49they bow before the king? Will they break precedent and overturn rule of law just

00:56to appease Donald Trump? That's what he wants. Senate Republicans must reject

01:01nominees like this. But unfortunately, Senate Republicans are off to a dismal

01:07start. Among the five nominees testifying today is Joshua Devine of Missouri.

01:13Devine is a political operative with no judicial experience who's made a career

01:18of attacking everything from voting rights to common-sense gun safety to defending

01:23government overreach into people's lives, private lives. He hasn't been at a law school

01:28for ten years and spent less than half of that time practicing as an attorney.

01:32Well, Senators were not sent here to rubber stamp Donald Trump loyalists in

01:36black robes and put Donald Trump loyalists in black robes. Our duty, our sacred

01:43duty, is to the Constitution and to provide advice and consent, not blind obedience.

01:49You'd think this would be obvious, but Republicans spent their last majority

01:54packing our courts with people who had no business being judges. At least ten

01:59nominees were rated not qualified by the American Bar Association, an unprecedented

02:03number. One nominee had never even tried a case. Of course, none of this, none of this

02:10matters to Donald Trump. He's not in the business of creating an independent

02:14judiciary. He's not in the business of following what the Founding Fathers

02:18constructed as the third branch of government. He's cooking up a loyalist bench who

02:24will do what he wants instead of what the law says. Recent reports detail how

02:29Donald Trump has been fuming lately over judges who haven't been, in his eyes, loyal

02:33enough to him. This kind of thinking should frighten anyone who cares about

02:38judicial independence. Confirming judges is one of the most consequential things

02:44the Senate ever does. It shapes the future of our democracy. Getting it wrong has

02:50disastrous consequences. When hard-right judges take over, Roe v. Wade is overturned. Voting

02:57rights are gutted. And now the Supreme Court has gone so far as declared Donald Trump immune

03:02from prosecution, as if he wears a crown and sits as a king above the law. This is not democracy.

03:13This is not balance. This is not justice. So as Republicans begin marching more nominees

03:19through the chamber, they face the choice. They can be the stewards of the Constitution

03:25and protect our democracy. Or they can be foot soldiers in Trump's crusade to remake

03:29judiciary into his MAGA loyalist bench. They must reject MAGA loyalists dressed up as jurists,

03:37because once the robes go on, the damage lasts for generations.