unveiling his first round of judicial
nominees a racially diverse and mostly
female group that includes candidates
one of whom would become the first
muslim federal judge in u.s history
and three african-american women
nominated to federal courts of appeal
let's talk about this first batch of
federal bench biden nominees with
judicial crisis network president kerry
severino and cal berkeley law professor
john
yu welcome back to both of you hey
shannon
thanks shannon so
senator mazie hirono was allotting the
diversity of this group it says this
over his four years in office donald
trump nominated a series of extreme
unqualified and ideologically driven
judges to lifetime appointments
that will have an enduring impact on
issues such as a woman's right to choose
voting rights and civil rights
but carrie she is a fan of the newest
named
list
of course she is um you know i have to
say i i am a fan of what dr martin
luther king jr said which is that people
should be chosen
not based on the con the color of their
skin but on the content of their
character i think that's what
donald trump looked at he ended up with
with a group of nominees who actually
was diverse and reflected
uh the diversity present in the legal
community
uh but i have to say it's really galling
to hear people trumpeting
uh the diversity of these nominees
coming from the same party that
engaged in the high-tech lynching
against clarence thomas who
filibustered uh judge janice rogers
brown an outstanding african-american
uh judge now retired from the d.c
circuit who attacked naomi rao and moved
the par some trump nominees
who were path-breaking indian-americans
in the court
they really don't want diversity of any
kind they really just want judges who
are going to be
the ideological uh basis that they agree
with and want on the courts
the new york times today and under the
headline biden names diverse nominees
for the federal
bench says this mr biden's first round
of nominations also sought to make
good on his campaign promise to draw
from a more diverse pool than either
party has in the past and to redefine
what it means to be qualified
for the federal bench john what does
that mean to you or what does that
telegraph to you
redefining what it means to be qualified
well biden is keeping his campaign
promise you may recall on the campaign
trail he said
he would only pick an african-american
woman to go the supreme court as you
mentioned he's already
getting some practice in he's picked
three african-american women to join the
circuit
courts which are the second most level
important level federal courts in our
country
but is it really uh is diversity really
anything more than skin-deep for mr
biden does
does mr biden actually think that a
brown
judge a black judge a white judge said
decide cases differently because of
their skin color
i hope not and if you look at the
qualifications of some of these nominees
are they really all that different
so yes on the basis of skin color they
may be diverse
but they all went to really good law
schools a lot of them clerked for the
same federal judges that
of the same courts that the trump judges
did a lot of them worked in big law
firms a lot of them represented
corporations
some of them were prosecutors some are
public defenders i mean yes they're
racially diverse
but they seem to be from the same legal
elites
that president trump was picking from or
that president bush picked them or obama
and clinton
want to read something from judge james
c ho fifth circuit judge
and his testimony before the house
judiciary committee said this
equality of opportunity is fundamental
to who we are and to who we aspire to be
as a nation
to my mind that means two things it
means we must do everything we can to
ensure that everyone truly
has the opportunity to succeed and it
means that we must never bend the rules
to favor anyone
dr king had it right choose people based
on who they are
not what they look like carrie that
echoes what you were saying earlier
yeah i think that's exactly the right
approach and really the
fundamental thing we should be looking
at in a judge is how they approach the
law we want judges
on any side of the aisle they're being
nominated by
people on any side of the aisle to be
looking at what the law says that's what
we should be focusing on not someone
who's going to have an ideological basis
and aside from just trying to check uh
diversity boxes
we're also i'm concerned that we're
seeing people being picked
to satisfy a dark money interest that
helped biden get into office millions
and millions of dollars spent on that
and those seem to be the people
who are dictating uh which interests
get put on the court i think in terms of
trying to get a political outcome
rather than looking at someone who just
is going to even-handedly interpret the
law
and john very quickly um a lot of folks
who are supportive of this say listen
there are
the vast majority of nominees over the
years have been white men and it would
be helpful to have different
perspectives on these courts
it that's undeniably true but why does
the difference in
perspective have to mean skin color i
mean if you were being sentenced by a
judge do you want their sentence to be
different do you want to go to jail for
a different length of time
just because of the skin color they
judge that's totally different than
whether they're a public defender
or prosecutor or corporation went to a
different law school what region they're
from
that's what i think is so nefarious
about this is to equate skin color
with the way someone thinks of their
ideology and beliefs and i think that
contravenes what dr martin luther king
was talking about
john and carrie thank you both see you
soon