Elie Mystal, a guest on MSNBC who is also serving as the justice correspondent at The Nation, claimed that the most difficult part of the upcoming Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson’s hearings will be forcing herself to no go and punch Republicans in the mouth.
Host Tiffany Cross of “The Cross Connection” was joined by Mystal who argued that the credentials from Jackson were entirely impeccable and the only things any Republicans had against her were “racism and disgusting innuendo.”
As reported by Mediaite, Cross started the segment by questioning Mystal about what they expected to happen as a result of the hearing, slated to start this Monday, and seemed to try and suggest that what Republicans were attempting to get was a “viral moment” that they could utilize to try and ruin the court of public opinion in regard to Judge Jackson.
“I’m curious, Elie, what do you anticipate to come out of these hearings? Because you know, they’re going to be vying for a viral moment on the Republican side,” stated Cross. “And what would you say is the biggest challenge to Judge Jackson’s confirmation, if any, given that Democrats have the majority?”
“The biggest challenge is her not getting out of her chair and punching one of these fools in the mouth,” Mystal claimed of any Republicans who were probably going to try and challenge her. “Like, that’s the hardest thing, because all they have for her right now is racism and disgusting innuendo. Like, they don’t have… They don’t have anything on her record.”
Mystal also highlighted that Judge Jackson had been seated as a judge of the court for well over nine years, making the argument that Republicans were not going against her choices in “hundreds and hundreds of cases” and were not making “substantive legal arguments about her actual decision-making process.”
“All they’ve got is the racism, they want to know about the LSAT scores. Some of them are going to call her an affirmative action nominee,” stated Mystal, seemingly in reference to various criticisms directed at President Joe Biden, for the most part, almost to the total exclusion of all other demographics. “Some of them are going to ask her why she’s not sad that good white people weren’t considered for the job. That’s literally what they have.”
Mystal then changed topics to talk about Senator Josh Hawley, who brought forth questions earlier this week about Jackson’s record in dealing with sex offender cases and child pornography cases.
“But like, that’s, the challenge will just be keeping her cool because if she keeps her cool, which I’m sure she will do,” concluded Mystal. “We’re talking about a high school debate champion and, you know, a person who has prepared her whole life for these four days. As long as she keeps her cool, she should do fine because she’s so eminently qualified and impeccably credentialed that they don’t really have anything on her.”
There has been a response from the White House in regard to the accusations from Hawley, stating that they amounted to “toxic and weakly-presented misinformation that relies on taking cherry-picked elements of her record out of context.”