-Five conservative justices on the Supreme Court
are apparently poised to overturn Roe v. Wade
and erase women's constitutional right to bodily autonomy,
subverting the will of the vast majority of Americans
and defying a half century of legal precedent.
For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
[ Cheers and applause ]
As everyone undoubtedly knows by now,
five Republicans on the Supreme Court
appear poised to strike down Roe v. Wade
and erase abortion rights, in a ruling that would deprive
tens of millions of women their fundamental right
to make healthcare decisions for themselves.
We know that from a truly stunning leak
of a draft opinion.
And while there have been leaks before,
a leak of this magnitude seems virtually unprecedented
in the history of the court.
-It is cataclysmic, I think, for the reputation of the court
and even for the internal operations of the court.
This is how they do their work. They do it in secrecy.
I cannot think of another time where a full draft opinion
has leaked early in the process like this.
You cannot understate -- overstate how big a deal this is
for how the court operates.
The trust is shattered.
And I think it's going to take a long time
for the court to recover from this.
-Oh, I'm sorry to hear that their trust has been shattered.
How will they ever recover from this breach
of their personal privacy?
Maybe Samuel Alito can start wearing a shirt that says,
"My judicial body, my choice."
We never get -- we never get this sort of inside look.
We never get this sort of inside look
at the private machinations of the court.
It's a secretive institution
of unaccountable lifetime appointees.
They don't want you to know what they're up to behind the scenes,
especially in a case like this.
Seeing one of their draft opinions before it's published
is like seeing your gym teacher in a liquor store,
or like seeing a Taco Bell employee
lead a horse into the kitchen.
"Whoa, whoa!
Whoa! Steady, Chalupa! It's gonna be fine."
And you know what?
Maybe the institution deserves to be shattered a little bit.
You could argue it was already shattered
a long time ago by cynical Republicans
who spent decades turning it into a political weapon
by defiling the Constitution, stealing Supreme Court seats,
and forcing their nominees onto the bench
through the exercise of raw power.
Remember when Lindsey Graham
went on an unhinged partisan screed
to get the "I like beer" guy on the court?
I mean, look at his face.
Does this look like the face of a guy
who cares about the integrity of our institutions?
He looks like he's auditioning to play the villain
in a Tennessee Williams play.
[ As Graham ] Meemaw, I swear by God,
I'll get my revenge on you for telling me
I'll never make it out of this one-horse town --
No-horse town?!
What happened to Chalupa?
He made a run for the border?!
[ Normal voice ] And yet it won't surprise you to learn
that even as they appear poised
to shred the fundamental rights of tens of millions of women
and reap their biggest political victory in 50 years,
conservatives are still whining and casting themselves
as victims because of the leak.
-There has to be consequences, Harmeet,
for this individual, whoever it was.
The Chief Justice, it's incumbent upon him
to bring every law clerk before him --
"Give me your phones."
I'm sorry. Or the FBI.
"Give me your phone. We want all your accounts.
We got to do our own...
You know, we have to do our own...
look at every device that you've ever used
and find out who did this."
-I like that they just pan over the Supreme Court justices
like they're like, "It could be you!
It could be you. Was it you?"
"The privacy of the court has been violated,
and nothing is more sacred than privacy.
So give me your phone! We want all your accounts!
Your Uber, your Pinterest, your Seamless account.
I want to know if you've been ordering suspicious woke foods
like green juices or quinoa burgers."
And how do you know it's a liberal?
It could have just as easily been a conservative --
[ Coughs ]
Ginni Thomas -- [ Coughs ]
who leaked the opinion to freeze the majority in place
and stop the Chief Justice John Roberts,
from trying to convince one of the other court's conservatives
to soften their stance. I have no idea.
But the fact that they're all freaking out about the leak
instead of celebrating the victory is telling.
It underscores yet again
that even at the height of their powers,
these people always have to play the victim.
If they won a free car on "Wheel of Fortune,"
they'd immediately start whining,
"But I already have two cars in my garage!
I don't have space for a brand-new Stingray.
This is so unfair!"
And if that doesn't strike you as an insane reaction,
here's something even more unhinged --
Fox News personalities referring to a leak
of an unclassified document as an "insurrection."
-This is an insurrection against the court,
and it needs to be found who did it,
and whatever legal means
can be taken against them needs to be taken.
-I am so glad that Ari used the term insurrection.
That's exactly what it is.
But let's take it one step further.
This is an insurrection not by some guy from some state
who got hot under the collar and went to D.C.
and got overheated at a rally.
This is insurrection by a person who is paid for by the taxpayers
and who has a duty under his particular job
and employment to keep his mouth shut.
And he didn't do it.
So it's an egregious form, if you will, of insurrection.
And I hope that everyone will use that term,
because if what happened January 6th was an insurrection,
this absolutely is an insurrection.
-First of all, total side note here,
but what's with the beard, Mike Huckabee?
You look like a hillbilly Santa Claus.
"Ho, ho, ho! Merry Christmas.
Here's a pack of cigarettes and a Dr. Seuss book
with the racist stuff still in there."
Second, do you think you guys might be projecting a bit
with this insurrection nonsense?
Leaking a document is not an insurrection.
January 6th, when a mob of rioters
violently stormed the Capitol, that was an insurrection.
In this case, someone posted a piece of paper online.
Here, I'll prove which one is worse.
Do you think Mike Pence would rather be whisked
out of a building by Secret Service
while a mob chanted "Hang Mike Pence"
or read a leaked memo that said "Hang Mike Pence"?
Do all these pundits whining about the leak really think
this is what will shatter the integrity of the court?
Not the fact that Republicans stole a seat
from President Obama or the fact that several of their nominees
apparently lied to the Senate about their positions on Roe,
or the fact that one of them
called opposition to his nomination
based on credible sexual assault allegations
a smear campaign orchestrated by shadowy left-wing groups
and the Clintons?
I could go on, so I will.
The fact they rushed through another nominee
a little over a week before the election,
a nominee whose ceremony turned out to be a superspreader event
and who posed for a political photo op
with the president after her confirmation,
or the fact that another justice declined to recuse himself
from a case that potentially involved text messages
sent by his wife that would reveal her involvement
in attempts to overthrow a presidential election
and install Donald Trump as an unelected autocrat,
or the fact that one of them apparently got caught
flushing a toilet during an oral argument
conducted via telephone?
-And what the FCC has said
is that when... [ Toilet flushes ]
...the subject matter of a call ranges to such topics,
then the call is transformed.
-Can you imagine how jarring that must have been
for the lawyers in the middle of their arguments?
I mean, it would definitely throw me if out of nowhere
I heard a toilet flush off-camera.
[ Toilet flushes ]
Who was that?
-Sorry, Seth.
-Wally, did you go to the bathroom
during "A Closer Look"?
-Yeah. You were just on one of your rants.
-Alright, you know... [ Laughter ]
The point is, we don't know if this ruling
will change at all before it's published, or how.
But what we do know is that this is the culmination
of a decades-long effort by conservatives
to turn the court into a political weapon
and aim it straight at abortion rights.
They've been plotting this out in the open for decades.
As early as 1989,
there were four conservative justices on the court
who made it clear that they were ready to overturn Roe
and essentially invited anti-choice activists
to help them by proposing new restrictions on abortion.
-From almost day one after Roe was decided
by the Supreme Court, legislators who opposed abortion
came in and tried to pass restrictions.
-In 1989, a Supreme Court decision known as Webster
gave the pro-life movement a boost
when four justices indicated
they were ready to consider overturning Roe v. Wade.
-What Webster did is it emboldened
those who wanted to push the question.
And it said to them, "Okay. It's alright.
There's four votes here on this court to overrule Roe.
We can pass bans on abortion. Let's do that
and get the question directly before the court."
-That was 1989. You know how long ago that was?
Just to give you an idea, here's what I looked like in 1989.
[ Laughter ]
This is what the conservative movement,
a radical minority deeply at odds
with the vast majority of voters,
has been working towards for 50 years.
And that's why they made their Faustian bargain
with an obviously monstrous individual in Donald Trump,
so they could finally cement that majority.
To them, he was just the final piece,
the culmination of a scheme
that had been out in the open since at least the Reagan era.
It's why they stood with him
through all his many deprivations and indignities
and numbed themselves to his many crimes and abuses,
so they could finally achieve this outcome
they've been working toward for half a century.
In fact, Trump made the bargain explicit.
He repeatedly told Republicans they had to vote for him
even if they didn't like him
in order to get the judges they wanted.
-If you really like Donald Trump, that's great.
But if you don't, you have to vote for me anyway.
You know why? Supreme Court judges.
Supreme Court judges.
Have no choice. Sorry, sorry.
[ Chuckles ]
Sorry. You have no choice.
-He sounds like the only kid on your block who has a pool.
"Sorry, but if you want to use the pool,
you got to be friends with me. Sorry! Sorry.
And I'm hearing it's gonna be 88 and sunny all week long,
so..."
[ Laughter ]
Trump ripped the mask off the Republican Party
because there were times when Republicans and leaders
of the religious right tried to play coy, lying to us about
what they were actually up to and insisting ludicrously
that they weren't really going to outlaw abortion.
They know it's deeply unpopular
and far outside the mainstream of public opinion.
An NPR poll in 2019 found that only 13% of Americans
supported overturning Roe.
13%.
For context, the movie "Gigli"
has a 13% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
I love that movie.
It's not good, but anytime my wife and I hit a rough patch,
we lock eyes and say,
"If they can get over that..."
So, they knew this is a massively unpopular move,
which is why even as they plotted out in the open
for years to overturn Roe,
they also insisted to us that we were ridiculous
for thinking abortion rights were at stake.
It's why Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch lied to the Senate,
or why the co-chair of Trump's evangelical advisory board
said in 2018, "The left is going to try very hard
to say this is all about overturning Roe."
But Trump threw all that out the window,
when, in a craven bid to grovel
for the support of the religious right,
he just came out and said he would appoint pro-life judges
who would overturn Roe.
-Do you want to see the court overturn Roe v. Wade?
-Well, if we put another two or perhaps three justices on,
that's really what's going to be -- that will happen.
And that'll happen automatically, in my opinion,
because I am putting pro-life justices on the court.
Having to do with abortion, when it --
if it ever were overturned, it would go back to the states.
So, it would go back to the states.
-But then some women won't be able to get an abortion.
-No, it'll go back to the states.
-By state -- no, some...
-Well, they'll perhaps have to go to another --
they'll have to go to another state.
-And that's okay? -Well, we'll see what happens.
-He's so cavalier about a woman needing to cross state lines
for access to lifesaving healthcare.
It's maddening when someone who loses his [bleep]
over even the smallest slights
tells you the thing you're worried about is no big deal.
Remember, this is a guy who,
if a restaurant didn't have the right ketchup for his steak,
would bitch about it at rallies for the next year and a half.
[ As Trump ] They said, "We're sorry, Mr. Trump.
We don't have Heinz. We only have Hunt's."
And I said, "Hunt's? That's not a real ketchup."
We know that about Hunt's. I hate to say it, but it's not.
We love Heinz. Don't we love Heinz?
[ Normal voice] Trump ripped the mask off
the entire corrupt enterprise
and just laid out the devil's bargain
he made with the GOP, for all to see.
He even said explicitly the list of judges would be chosen
by the conservative Federalist Society.
I doubt he even read that list.
He probably just picked a name off it
the way your aunt orders a fun cocktail on vacation.
"Oh, a Horny Caterpillar. Don't mind if I do."
Which is why it's all the more grotesque
and absurd for Republicans who supported nominees
like Neil Gorsuch or Brett Kavanaugh
to suddenly claim now
that they're shocked by what's happening.
-Today, Senator Collins reacted to the news
with a brief statement saying in part, quote,
"If this leaked draft opinion is the final decision
and this reporting is accurate, it would be
completely inconsistent with what Justice Gorsuch
and Justice Kavanaugh said in their hearings
and in our meetings in my office," unquote.
Senator Murkowski today, too,
also suggested that Gorsuch and Kavanaugh
perhaps had not been fully honest about their positions.
-If it goes in the direction
that this leaked copy has indicated,
I will just tell you that it -- it...
it rocks my confidence in the court right now.
-I'm sorry, THIS rocks her confidence in the court?
And when you found out the tooth fairy wasn't real,
did that rock your confidence in dentistry?
"Wait a second,
then where the hell have all my teeth been going?!"
I for one don't believe they're this gullible.
I think they knew it would come to this
and now they want to feign surprise,
because for all their talk about snowflakes,
Republicans take the cake every time.
"You were mean to my friend
who was applying for a lifetime appointment."
"You leaked a document
that rolled back women's rights half a century."
"How were we supposed to know a thing that was going to happen
that everyone said was going to happen?"
"Why does it smell like guacamole in here?"
Republicans have been playing the long game
and plotting this for decades.
The only way to combat them is to take the fight head-on,
to enshrine a woman's right to choose in federal law,
stand up for the majority of Americans
who oppose this extremist ruling,
and make it an issue Republicans can't dodge.
We can't just sit around and hope
Alito will take his draft opinion and do this to it.
-...the subject matter of a call...
[ Toilet flushes ] ...ranges to such topics...
-This has been "A Closer Look."
♪♪
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