No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Republicans put interracial marriage, birth control on the chopping block

Episode Date: March 27, 2022

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson deals with a slew of Republicans' lies at her confirmation hearing, and Republicans make chilling suggestions when it comes to overturning court cases. Brian interviews Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut about Ukraine’s performance in their war with Russia, the likelihood of the Senate acting on legislation against oil companies, and whether this will be a catalyst for a transition to renewables. And former US Senator from Alabama Doug Jones joins to discuss Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s hearing and to debunk some of the disinformation being peddled by Republicans.Donate to the "Don't Be A Mitch" fund: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/dontbeamitchShop merch: https://briantylercohen.com/shopYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/briantylercohenTwitter: https://twitter.com/briantylercohenFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/briantylercohenInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/briantylercohenPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/briantylercohenNewsletter: https://www.briantylercohen.com/sign-upWritten by Brian Tyler CohenProduced by Sam GraberRecorded in Los Angeles, CASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today we're going to talk about the lies that Judge Katanji Brown Jackson dealt with at a confirmation hearing and the chilling suggestions made by Republicans when it comes to overturning court cases. I interview Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut about Ukraine's performance in their war with Russia, the likelihood of the Senate acting on legislation against oil companies, and whether this will be a catalyst for a transition in renewables. And I'm joined by former U.S. senator from Alabama, Doug Jones, to discuss Judge Katanji Brown Jackson's hearing and to debunk some of the disinformation being peddled by Republicans. Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie.

So this past week was Judge Katanji Brown Jackson's confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. And that was a hearing in which arguably the most qualified Supreme Court nominee of our lifetimes was subjected to a number of Republican senators desperate to turn her into a boogeyman. We heard baseless accusations that she's soft on child sex offenders, that she's trying to incorporate critical race theory into our legal system. that gem came from Marsha Blackburn. Now, you'll hear Doug Jones shortly, who does a pretty stellar job debunking those talking points. But what underscores all of this is that there's actually nothing Republicans can do

to block her confirmation. Like, Democrats are all united, including with support from Joe Manchin. And on top of that, her confirmation won't even change the ideological balance of the court, meaning that these smears by Republicans are just smears for the sake of smearing her. Like, they're not changing anything.

It's just that they want the unfortunate, They want the opportunity to be able to showcase that when a black woman is testifying, they can accuse her of ushering in critical race theory onto a court like a Trojan horse. Again, nothing will change. The outcome isn't in question. It's just that this is what they chose. This is what they made the conscious decision to fill that space with. Rather than recognize that Katanji Brun Jackson is imminently qualified, you know, she'd be

the only justice who was a Supreme Court clerk, a public defender who sat on the sentencing commission, who is a district judge and an appeal. judge, the only one, rather than just show some grace in a hearing where the outcome was assured, and the candidate has sterling credentials, they opted to flood the zone with shit. But, like, look, at the end of the day, you know, that reflects on who they are, not her. Judge Katanji Brown Jackson will sit on the Supreme Court, and Republicans will be the ones who will have launched a bunch of clumsy, conspiratorial, and racist attacks. If Republicans want to broadcast that their conspiracy theorists and racist all to accomplish nothing,

then fine. That's not necessarily the part that I'm most concerned about. The part that concerns me are the comments made by other Republicans about cases that they believe were wrongly decided. Here is Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn. Constitutionally unsound rulings like Griswold v. Connecticut. Kilo v. City of New London and NFIB versus Sebelius confused Tennesseans and left Congress wondering who gave the court permission to bypass. our system of checks and balances. It is the 11th hour and where Judge Jackson stands on the Constitution remains a secret.

Yeah, Griswold v. Connecticut legalized contraception between couples in the privacy of their own home. She thinks that was wrongly decided. Here's Republican Senator John Cornyn. Do you see that when the Supreme Court makes a dramatic pronouncement about the invalidity of state marriage laws, that it will inevitably set in conflict between those who ascribed to the Supreme Court's edict and those who have a firmly held religious belief that marriage is between a man and a woman. That's Cornyn railing against Obergefell, which legalized gay marriage.

And here's Republican Senator Mike Braun from Indiana. So you would be okay with the Supreme Court leaving the question of interracial marriage to the states. Yes, I think that that's something that if you're not wanting the Supreme Court to weigh in on issues like that, you're not going to be able to have your cake and eat it too. I think that's hypocritical. That's Braun saying that the Supreme Court was wrong to legalize interracial marriage in Loving v. Virginia in 1967, and that state should be allowed to ban interracial marriage if they want to. You know, at some point, Democrats have to recognize that pretending that what Republicans are saying, you know, what they are shouting from the rooftops,

is somehow not what they mean. They mean it. They said they were going to go after abortion. Democrats said, don't worry, it'll never happen. It's settled law. It's too unpopular. And now abortion is effectively illegal in Texas. Like just this past week,

the Oklahoma House passed a near total ban on abortion. The only exception being if a pregnant person's life is in danger. It would be the most restrictive abortion ban in the United States of its past. And it probably will. So now, when Republicans come out and put gay marriage on the chopping block, when they put interracial marriage on the chopping block, when they put married couples being able to use contraception on the chopping block, at what point do we stop pretending that the things that keep happening

couldn't possibly happen? I'm saying it now because people refuse to hear it, for some reason. If Republicans take power, they will move to continue banning abortion. They will move to overturn court cases legalizing gay marriage and interracial marriage, and if they're crazy enough, because literally nothing says they're not, allowing the use of contraception. I know that because they are telling us. They are broadcasting it.

We don't have to guess what's going to happen next because they're literally going on camera and just saying it. Like what's the saying when someone shows you who they are, believe them? And look, I get it. I understand that Democrats haven't been able to deliver to the extent that we wanted thus far. And I'm not going to pretend that that hasn't been disappointing. We have a 50-50 Senate and Joe Manchin is a conservative and Kirsten Sinema just sucks.

And I get that even me pointing to Manchin, in cinema as an excuse still isn't a satisfying answer. I get all of that. But I hope people recognize what's on the other side of this, because it's a party whose priorities are overturning a court case that says white people and black people can't marry each other. That's what's on the other side. That's what's at risk if Democrats don't hold on to power. Do we need Democrats to render the voices of Mansion Cinema invalid? Of course. And, you know, a lot of us are working our asses off to elect those senators in places like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Ohio and Florida, but I just want to make clear

that being upset the Democrats aren't yet delivering on enough progressive legislation, the solution to that is not staying at home and letting the people take over who think contraception should be illegal. So we shouldn't stop pushing our elected officials on the left to be more progressive and to stop coddling corporate interests, but that is still a hell of a lot easier than fixing the damage that would come from Republicans holding power.

Next step is my interview with Chris Murphy. Today we have the U.S. Senator from Connecticut, Chris Murphy. Thanks so much for coming back on. Yeah, thanks for having me. First off, your explainers have been monumentally effective in navigating the background of this conflict between Ukraine and Russia. So if anyone watching or listening hasn't yet seen them, I would definitely recommend following the senator at Chris Murphy's CT.

With that said, by the time this airs, we will be more than a month away from when Putin was supposed to take Kiev in 72 hours. Would you say that Ukraine is winning or given the sheer size of Russia's military that this is just, you know, a war of attrition wherein Russia would actually have the upper hand? Yeah. Increasingly, it's impossible to come to any conclusion other than Ukraine is winning. You're right. All of the smart military people in this country and in Europe believe that Russia was going to roll through Kiev in a matter of days, if not a week or two. that has not happened. It hasn't happened because it's tough to understand the psychology of war when you're sitting at a think tank. And in this case, the Russian army didn't really want to fight. They didn't really understand why they were there. They were much less capable than

estimates held. And the Ukrainians, of course, are fighting for their lives. We're fighting for the families. They're fighting for global democracy. They are fighting effectively. Russia is bearing just an unthinkably large cost for this invasion. At some point, we'll have to think about off-ramps for Vladimir Putin, but for the time being, it doesn't seem like he's looking for one. And so our job right now has to be to beat him everywhere and anywhere that we can in Ukraine. Now, the Biden administration has, you know, thus far shied away from facilitating the delivery of MIG fighter jets to Ukraine via Poland. And they've cited the desire. not to escalate this conflict and ultimately get embroiled into a war between two nuclear powers,

basically World War III. What's your stance on this? And hasn't Russia already escalated by virtue of bombing children's hospitals and maternity wards? I mean, a few days ago, Secretary Blinken himself came out and announced that Russian troops were guilty of committing war crimes. Well, first of all, I think it's important to understand that the commitment that we've made to the Ukrainians is absolutely extraordinary. Just in the last week, the Biden administration has authorized the transfer of a billion dollars worth of, excuse me, a hundred million dollars worth of equipment,

another $900 million worth of additional equipment. This is an extraordinary commitment that the Biden administration has made. And I'm sort of intrigued as to why there's this fascination over these very narrow categories of equipment, like the big fighters that the administration does not think is as useful to the fight in Ukraine as these other transfers are, the reality is the Ukrainians, frankly,

aren't flying a lot of their own planes in the air right now because of A, the threat posed to them by Russian missile systems, but B, the relative lack of utility those planes have. It's the ground-based missile systems that Ukraine has and that we are trying to get more of to Ukraine that are actually the most effective at taking out Russian missiles, Russian helicopters, and Russian airplanes. So I think that we continue to be the best partners of the Ukrainians could imagine. And I do get frustrated that oftentimes all of the focus tends to be on the 1% of requests that we don't think are sort of necessary to defend Ukraine compared to the 99% of requests

that are granted. Yeah, I think that was perfectly put. Now, we have Republicans like Marjorie Taylor Green, like Madison Cothor, and who've come out against Zelensky, which even for the far right is a fringe position. Now, if the tables were turned, we would hear about it all day and all night, from Brian Kilme to Tucker Carlson. This should be a career killer, you know, it would be for anyone on the left and rightfully. So why does it seem like this isn't sticking for those people?

I think it's in part because of the good faith of the Biden administration, who frankly isn't trying to accentuate for the world that we have a group of Americans that are rooting for Russia. Yeah. I mean, I understand there's political benefit in sort of drawing out the statements of Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Green and Tucker Carlson. But though that might help Democrats electorally, the reason why I'm a Democrat is because we care about policy first and politics second. I know that's maddening sometimes, but we don't want to highlight for the world the sort of odd Russiafile element of the Republican Party right now. I guess to me what the broader and I think actually more consequential problem is, is that you have Republicans in Congress

who aren't actually willing to vote for aid to Ukraine. That's the sort of more immediate practical problem, is that so-called mainstream Republicans, not the ones that are criticizing President Zelensky publicly, are actually voting against Ukraine aid. And that will become a problem at some point because it's going to be hard to win additional amounts of money to get to Ukraine if we can only rely on a small handful of Republican

to vote with us in Congress. Right. And by the way, I should mention, too, that those same Republicans who are refusing to vote for aid for Ukraine are the same ones that are coming on Twitter and TV and publicly attacking the Biden administration for not doing enough. You know, we have tweets from everyone from Marsha Blackburn to Ted Cruz. And yet, you know, when it comes time to actually put their money where their mouth is and vote for that, you know, $13.6 billion for Ukraine, like what happened a couple weeks ago,

well, they were no votes. Yeah. You know, and I had an argument with one Republican senator on the floor last week in which he said, well, you know, that Ukraine aid is only a small portion of the budget. And I voted against the budget because I had other objections to sections that were not the Ukraine aid section. The problem with that argument is that this is a life or death moment for Ukraine. This is a hinge moment in world history. I had objections to other parts of that budget as well. I came to the conclusion that the aid for Ukraine was so important that it overcame my objections

to other things in the budget that I didn't like. And so it is true that the Republicans have voted against the budget might have voted against it for reasons other than the Ukraine aid. I would just argue that right now that fight is so important that you should get over your other objections to the budget. And you should just make the decision to support Ukraine. Yeah. Now, I want to move over to the issue of gas prices.

that's obviously been a major issue that we've contended with in the last few weeks and months. I want to kind of do a lightning round where I throw just some of the claims that we've heard from Republicans at you, and if I can get a response from you on those, first, this claim that Biden owns high gas prices because he stopped the Keystone XL pipeline. The Keystone XL pipeline wasn't going to be built for years, and it was going to take American gas outside of the United States. The reason that it was being built to end up on the Gulf was because the majority of that product

was going to be end up shipped outside of the United States. So whether or not the Houston Pipe Line was built, it would have no impact on the price of gasoline today. Biden owns high gas prices because he stopped issuing leases on public lands. So 90% of drilling in the United States happens on private lands, not public lands. And all Biden did was put a temporary pause on leases on 10 percent of drillable land. Even if he hadn't paused, the new leasing, those new leases that would have been written in 2021 wouldn't have been operational today. So once again, zero impact on gas prices. Biden's

decision to just put a temporary pause on leases on public lands. And here's the last one is that Biden owns high gas prices because of the Green New Deal. Yeah, I mean, the Green New Deal is still only a resolution that was not passed by either the United States Senate or the United States Congress. But frankly, our inability, our decision not to invest in domestic clean energy is part of the reason that gas prices are so high today. If we had made a decision 20 years ago to transfer our transportation fleet away from gasoline and fossil fuel-reliant vehicles and onto electric vehicles. We simply wouldn't be in a

position today where so many families are being hurt by high gas prices. Let's imagine a world 10 years from now in which everybody gets in their car and drives right by the gas station. Never has to stop at the gas station. We could have made that decision 10 years ago. That could be the reality today, but we've made a choice to stay reliant on Russian gas, on Saudi gas, we should learn our lesson. On that exact point, you know, there's some legislation in the Senate right now. I spoke with Senator Duckworth last week, and she's working on a bill prohibiting price gouging by oil companies.

There's legislation imposing a windfall tax in oil companies. I spoke with Missouri Senate candidate Lucas Coons, too, and he had the idea to cap profits of oil companies at 5 percent. Given our partisan breakdown in the Senate, are any of these pieces of legislation possible? Would Joe Manchin be on board? Would any Republicans be on board? Is anybody looking at this and seeing that there is a problem that needs to be fixed? Right.

So you have this irreconcilability right now between the price of a barrel of oil and the price of a gallon of gasoline. The price of a barrel of oil is coming down, but the price of a gallon of gasoline is not by the same measure. And so inevitably, that is leading to huge profit taking by the oil industry, an industry that is already grossly. profitable. I went down this weird rabbit hole, Brian, last week, in which I was looking at Chevron's 2021 profits, which I forget the number, but it's $7 billion or $14 billion. It's some enormous number. And I started looking at the total revenue and expenditures of every country in the world and came to the conclusion that Chevron's profits last year are greater than more than half the country's entire budget on the globe, it's just kind of hard to get your head wrapped around

how much profit is coming into these oil companies and how that's all coming out of our pockets. So yes, absolutely. We should either be raising taxes on these oil companies and gas companies. We should be taxing them at higher rates when they are not passing long savings to consumers. The current state of play here is just not acceptable. Does it seem like there's any buy-in from either, you know, the mansions of the party who are, well, just Joe Manchin, but Joe Manchin and any Republicans or any Republicans seeing this and thinking that it's a problem, I know that, I know that oil companies donate at an exponentially higher rate to those on the right, but is there anyone who thinks that this is an issue that would be willing to actually

support any of this pending legislation? I have not done a headcount in the United States Senate on, you know, something like a windfall profits tax. But in a 50-50 Senate, I think it's probably difficult to find the votes for that measure. That's why we need to get to a functional majority in the Senate where we have 51 or 52 or 53 Democratic senators because 95% of us, you know, believe in coming after the oil companies. None of the Republicans believe in it. We just have to get to a point where we've got a little bit of wiggle room in the United States Democratic Senate caucus. And just as a side note, is this something because it does have to do with taxes? Is this something that would be able to be?

be included in any type of reconciliation bill? As far as I know, yeah, you could put a windfall profits tax or gouging legislation in a reconciliation bill. Now, according to polling from data for progress, Americans support the government investing in domestic clean energy production by a 46 point margin. And that includes majorities across every political party, including Republicans. How do we make this a reality? you know, the people who benefit from the system as it stands, they make a shit ton of money

and they will fight until they're dying breath to keep it that way. I don't think that everyone else who is not them is currently fighting that hard. We're not fighting hard enough to overcome someone's best fight. So how do we have that? My hope is that this moment is an awakening for the American public. And the poll that you cite shows that we have the biggest bipartisan majority for investments in clean energy ever in this country because a lot of Republicans who maybe believed some of this BS about the climate not being a crisis now do see domestic clean energy as a route to energy security. And so I think we've got to make the argument for why we need to invest in renewables, both from a climate

perspective, but increasingly as a national security measure, when we drill for oil in the United States, nearly half of that oil gets exported to the rest of the world. And dirty little secret, a lot of that oil gets exported to China. So for all the Republicans who are so tough on China in their speeches on the Senate floor, they don't tell you that the oil that's being drilled in their state is often going to power the Chinese economy. But when we turn on a wind turbine in Iowa or we have solar panels running in California. None of that energy gets exported. All of that energy stays right here on the American grid. And so if you really believe in energy security, as I think that poll shows the majority of Republicans and undergrads do, the only true path to energy

security is renewables. Let's finish off with this totally different topic here. Marsh Madness is in full swing right now. You've been heavily involved in college sports reform. Now, you and Senator Sanders introduced the college athlete right to organize act, and that would provide collective bargaining rights for college athletes. You also wrote the College Athlete Economic Freedom Act, which grants unrestricted rights to college athletes over the use of their name, image, and likeness. What is the status of this legislation, and where's the pushback been from? Yeah. So I'm a huge sports fan, big Yukon fan, heartbroken that the men got bounced in the tournament again in the first round. But I just see this as one of the great civil rights

issues of our time, the fact that the college sports industry has gone in a short period of time, about a decade from a $4 billion industry to a $14 billion industry. And what is happening is that the labor of largely black athletes in basketball and football is making gross profits for almost exclusively white coaches and white CEOs of the big athletic companies. That has to stop. And so I'm glad that we've made some incremental process that the NCAA finally is allowing athletes to do endorsement deals. But, you know, that gives them a sort of one or two percent increase in the share of the profits that are being made. What I believe we need to do is to have revenue sharing in college sports to guarantee a section of the profits for the kids. And there's a variety of ways you could do that.

You could give that money to them immediately. You could also put it in a trust fund that's made available to them after that. their college days are done. But what you have today in which all of this free labor is going to make huge profits for white adults is just unsustainable. And Senator Sanders and I, you know, have a bill to try to give some collective bargaining rights to these athletes. I think it is probably in the short term unlikely that Congress will force the issue here. I think it'll be the courts. I think the courts are going to come to the conclusion that the NCAA is an illegal monopoly and they are going to force the NCAA to act like what it is a business

and treat these kids like what they are, which is very highly profitable employees. Yeah. I'm still flying high off of Lehigh University's 15 seed defeat of a number two seed, I think it was Duke 10 years ago. I was going to say, I don't even remember that. That's a long, that's a long, long time ago in a galaxy far far away. Yukon's won like 10 national championships. Yeah, yeah, well, you know, take what you can get small school.

So Senator Murphy, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today. I appreciate it. Great. Thanks, Brian. Thanks again, Senator Murphy. Now we have the former U.S. Senator from Alabama, Doug Jones. Thank you so much for coming on. My pleasure, Brian.

Thank you for having me. So first off, I want to start with this issue that we're hearing constantly from the right. You know, it is beyond clear that Republicans are desperately, desperately trying to will this narrative into existence that Judge Katanji Brown Jackson is soft on child sex offenders. Can you respond to that? Like, what are the facts surrounding this issue? Well, first of all, it was pretty clear in the hearing that the senators that were asking her about this have really no clue about how federal judges go about sentencing.

That's number one. they kept conflating enhancements and sentencing guidelines with the actual sentence themselves. I think Judge Jackson, if they had actually listened to her, which I'm not sure that those asking the questions really did, if they had actually listened to her, they would have heard the way and the reasons why she sentenced in individual cases the way she did. And that is taking into all of the factors, not just the sentencing guidelines, not just the prosecution's request, but also the defense request, the probation office recommendations. the manner and characteristics of the defendant, as well as imposing a sentence that's not greater than necessary to achieve justice. Those are factors that Congress requires her to do. Importantly, all of these cases across the country are being sentenced similarly in the same manner

that Judge Jackson has been sentencing these cases. The sentencing guidelines are kind of outdated. They were done in a way, and the technology has changed things. And so if you look at the sentences that she's imposed, she's really in the mainstream of all United States district judges across the country, both Republican and Democratic judges. And in fact, these same senators voted for some district court judges who had imposed very similar sentences, but yet they voted to elevate them to the Court of Appeals when Donald Trump made it. So we're really talking about a political issue here for these folks. They knew that there were no answers that would satisfy them or the base they were trying to play. So it was more about the questions than the answers. And we feel very good.

Judge Jackson is in the mainstream of this and she is, look, here's the other thing, Brian, here's the deal. Does anybody really think that the Fraternal Order of Police, the International Association of Police Chiefs, a law enforcement from both sides of the aisle would endorse her, conservative judges that she served with, retired judges now, would they really endorse her if they thought that she was soft on crime, as they say? It's really more of a political talking point that has no merit whatsoever. And just to add to that, there were nine organizations that deal with sexual assault, survivors, that also came out and supported her nomination as well. That's right. This past week, we've also heard from a number of Republicans, you know, beyond the whole soft-on-crime narrative, that, in fact, the Supreme Court has wrongly decided a number of cases, including ones involving abortion, gay marriage, and interracial marriage. These are cases that have been settled law for years and decades. Do you think that if Republicans took power at any point in 2022 or beyond that they'd try to enact these ideas into law, that these would be political priorities for them?

Well, you know, I think that clearly that is some priorities from a political standpoint for Republicans. It has been that way for some time. That's nothing new. What you heard this week was nothing new than what you have heard. from a number of folks on that side of the aisle for a long, long time. So it seems that with the courts and various state legislatures, you know, they want to enact the culture wars and they want to make sure that they win the culture wars however means possible.

But again, I want to make sure that everyone understands that those were political talking points. They knew that Judge Jackson was not going to opine on any issue. that could come before the court. That is a longstanding precedent in history that nominees do. And so we'll let that play out in the political sphere. Right now, we're focused on making sure we can get votes to confirm Judge Jackson as the first African-American female to the U.S. Supreme Court. Well, now, their attacks aside, you know, we have spent all of this time hearing from Judge Jackson herself. How do her qualifications hold up now that we know who she is?

Oh, I think they've shown through loud and clear. I mean, there is, I would put her qualifications up against any one person, a hundred and 15 or so people that have gone before her, the 107 white men that have been elevated to the Supreme Court, I would put those qualifications against anyone. And I will guarantee you they exceed those. Remember, this is a jurist, a judge who's been a judge for 10 years now. She has served in private practice. She clerked on all three levels of the federal government, a Democratic district court judge she clerked for, a Republican Court of Appeals judge she clerked for, a Democratic Supreme Court justice she clerked for. She has been a judge on the two lowest levels, the district court and the court of appeals. This will be the third. She has got the most broad range of experience, both academically and professionally.

is anybody that's ever been there. Plus, she's actually represented people, not just corporations and others. She's represented individuals before in her years as a public defender in private practice. All of that forms her as a judge and gives her that ability to look at cases fairly and partially, as she says, without fear of favor. Now, this was a pretty bruising hearing, not because she had to defend her, record, but because she had to defend herself from what wasn't her record, you know, and this is as Republicans built her up to be this caricature that they created of her as opposed to who she actually is. How do you think that she held up under that pressure? I think she was amazing. She held up exactly the way we anticipated. She is an absolutely amazing jurist and amazing woman.

She was prepared for the line of attacks. Not quite, I don't think anybody was quite prepared for the craziness it got on occasion. But she, it was long and we were getting, we were ready for that. We knew the schedule was created such with 22 members of the committee and the schedule that they had set, that we would have two long days on Tuesday and Wednesday. So she was prepared for that. She was looking forward to it. And I think, I think that the terms that I keep hearing and that we've talked about,

was just grace under pressure. And I think that that's what she demonstrated. Yeah, I think that's perfectly put. Now, you yourself prosecuted two KKK members for the 1963 Birmingham church bombing that killed four black girls. And now you're involved in the nomination of the first black woman to the Supreme Court. What kind of significance does Katanji Brown Jackson's nomination and her impending confirmation have for you and also for the court and the country? we could talk for a long time about that one, Brian. You know, for me personally, it is just the, I won't say the culmination, but damn close to it.

With all that we did here to try to bring justice to those families, to our community for the deaths of those four little girls, I told the judge, I told others that two days before she was nominated, I was at the church. on a panel discussing not only the church bombing, but a lawyer, a white lawyer from Birmingham named Charles Morgan, very brave lawyer that spoke out after the bombing, the day after the bombing, and he literally got run out of Birmingham. And we talked about that it was always a time to speak, a time to stand up, to speak out against injustice, and for equality and fairness. And to be there on a Wednesday night at the church and talking about those girls who died and then seeing Judge Jackson, two days later, at the White House being introduced, and you cannot help but think what would have happened with one or all of those four young girls who died at the hands of

the clan back in 1963. Could they have been there? Could they have done those things? What did we miss out by losing those kids? And the promise that we have now. And so there's two things about this that I have felt over the last, you know, a month or so since I've been involved. One is the historic nature of the confirmation and what it says to so, so many people across this country, particularly young black girls, but also young men who still always don't grasp that they can make it in America today. And to see her elevate really provides that inspiration. But the second thing, and I think this is really important, too, it's just not the nomination of a black woman. It's the nomination of this black woman. She is an inspiration. She has demonstrated

the kind of background and experience that can succeed in this country. And she has demonstrated the principles and faith that she has, not only in herself and her family, but in the Constitution and this country. And so in addition to the historic nature of the nomination, this one individual has become an inspiration because of who she is as well. And that is just, it's just an honor for me to be a part of it. That was really well said. Senator Jones, would you ever run for office in Alabama again? Oh, gosh. You know, I get asked that a good bit. and I usually try to, you know, I usually do a pretty good job of dodging and weaving that question, right? And because of my current position at the White House and working with a

judicial nomination, it's a hell of a lot easier to dodge the question. So that's exactly what I'm going to do. All right. Well, I'll figure out some way to get an answer to me at some point, but I guess that dodge works for right now. So Senator Jones, thank you so much for taking the time. appreciate it. It's my pleasure, Brian. Thanks for doing this. Appreciate all you do. Thanks again to Doug Jones. That's it for this episode. Talk to you next week. You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen. Produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellsey, interviews captured and edited for YouTube and Facebook by Nicholas Nicotera, and recorded in Los Angeles, California. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe on your preferred podcast app.

Feel free to leave a five-star rating and a review, and check out Briantylercoen.com for links to all of my other channels.