The Daily Signal - #319: Jeff Sessions Discusses Direction of the Courts

Episode Date: October 15, 2018

Despite the rancor, President Donald Trump has been extremely effective at getting judges confirmed. Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh sit on the Supreme Court, and 29 of his nominees have been confirmed as circuit judges. In today’s episode, Rob Bluey sits down with Attorney General Jeff Sessions to discuss the direction of American courts. Plus: A new study shows Americans feel strong pressure to keep their mouths shut in public. We also cover these stories:--President Trump says "answers will be forthcoming shortly" on what happened to the journalist who covered Saudi Arabia and recently disappeared.--Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., isn't happy that the White House has picked new nominees for the 9th Circuit Court. --There’s a new migrant march winding its way toward the United States, with up to 3,000 participants.The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet, iTunes, SoundCloud, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at [e-mail]. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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available on Disney Plus in Canada. This is the Daily Signal podcast for Wednesday, October 17th, coming to you from Presidents' Club an annual gathering in Washington, D.C., hosted by the Heritage Foundation. I'm Kate Trinco. And I'm Daniel Davis. Well, despite the rancor, President Trump has been extremely effective at getting judges confirmed. Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh now sit on the Supreme Court, and 29 of Trump's nominees have confirmed as circuit judges.

In today's episode, Rob Blewey, our editor-in-chief, sits down with Attorney General Jeff Sessions to discuss the direction of American courts. Plus, a new study shows that Americans feel strong pressure to keep their mouths shut in public. We'll unpack the findings. But first, we'll cover a few of the top headlines. Well, Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo has been in Saudi Arabia amid strained relations in recent days as an international controversy continues to brew over the disappearance of a Saudi journalist. The Saudi crown prince agreed that there needs to be a thorough investigation into the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi, Washington Post columnists who had supported liberalizing reforms in his home country.

Keshogi vanished on October the 2nd after having entered the Saudi embassy in Istanbul, Turkey. The Saudis at first denied any wrongdoing, but more recently, CNN has reported that the Saudis are preparing to admit that he was accidentally killed in an interrogation gone wrong. Senator Lindsay Graham is furious at Saudi Arabia. In a Fox and Friends interview Tuesday, the South Carolina Republican, said of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman referring to the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi, this guy is a wrecking ball. He had this guy murdered in a consulate in Turkey, and to expect me to ignore it, I feel used and abused. And he said that the Crown Prince has,

quote, got to go. Graham also urged President Trump to place sanctions on Saudi Arabia. Later Tuesday, Trump tweeted, just spoke with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, who totally denied any knowledge of what took place of the Saudi Arabia. their Turkish consulate. He was with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during the call and told me that he has already started and will rapidly expand a full and complete investigation into this matter. Answers will be forthcoming shortly. Senator Elizabeth Warren raised eyebrows and got some laughs this week upon releasing the results of her DNA test. The verdict? She's less than one one-th Native American. The Cherokee Nation responded in an official

statement saying the DNA test she took could reveal lineage, but it was, quote, useless to determine tribal citizenship. President Trump was quick to blast the Massachusetts Democrat on Twitter, saying, quote, thank you to the Cherokee Nation for revealing that Elizabeth Warren sometimes referred to as Pocahontas is a complete and total fraud, end quote. And Senator Lindsay Graham seems to have been inspired by the whole ordeal. He announced that he'll take a DNA test, saying, quote, I think I can beat her. A lawsuit from porn star Stormy Daniels alleging that a tweet from President Trump was defamatory has been tossed out by a federal judge.

Trump tweeted, great, now I can go after horse face and her third-rate lawyer in the great state of Texas. Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, tweeted a sharp rejoinder in response to Trump. But since we aim to be a family-friendly podcast, I'm going to refer you to Twitter for that one. Well, President Trump succeeded in getting Brett Kavanaugh. on the Supreme Court, but he's not done with judicial nominations. The president recently announced that he'll submit three nominees to fill vacant slots on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, a notoriously liberal court based in California.

Senator Diane Feinstein, a Democrat from California, is chafing at the idea. She said, quote, I repeatedly told the White House, I wanted to reach an agreement on a package of Ninth Circuit nominees. The White House moved forward without consulting me, picking controversial candidates from initial list and another individual with no judicial experience who had not previously been suggested, end quote. And the other California Senator Kamala Harris accused the president of trying to pack the courts. But one thing is definitely for sure. The president doesn't waste any time.

There's a new migrant march winding its way towards the U.S. with up to 3,000 participants per Reuters, which also said that the march had doubled since Saturday. The march began in the Honduras and has then gone on. to Guatemala. This weekend, the U.S. Embassy in Honduras said in a statement, quote, we are seriously concerned about the caravan of migrants traveling north from Honduras, with false promises of entering the United States by those who seek to exploit their compatriots. Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft and owner of the Seattle Seahawks, died on Monday at the age of 65. He passed away from complications of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

He was a prominent leader in business and philanthropy in the Seattle area, having given billions of his wealth to science, education, wildlife conservation, the arts, and community services. Allen started Microsoft back in 1975 with his childhood friend Bill Gates. And on Monday, Gates said that he was heartbroken by the passing of one of his oldest and dearest friends. Fiscal year 2018, which is already over, was record-breaking for the federal government, with the most acquired in federal income taxes ever. 1.6 trillion per CNS News, which also reports that the government ran a deficit

of $778 billion during the same period. How typical. Well, up next, Rob Blewey sits down with the Attorney General, Jeff Sessions. I'm Rob Bluey, editor-in-chief of The Daily Signal. And I'm Jenny Malta Bono. Each weekday, the Daily Signal, delivers the Morning Bell email direct to your inbox.

We created the Morning Bell to be your one-stop. source for credible news reporting and insightful commentary on the issues that are shaping the agenda. You can subscribe today and get it delivered to your inbox each weekday morning. Sign up now at DailySignal.com. Just click on the connect button at the top of the page and subscribe today. Attorney General Sessions, thanks so much for speaking to the Daily Signal. Thank you. Good to be here. Now, you're at the Heritage Foundation's Presidents Club meeting to talk about the founder's vision for our government and the role of the judiciary. And I want to begin by asking you about one of President Trump's accomplishments, which is the appointment so far of 84 federal judges.

And of course, that includes two Supreme Court justices, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. What are the characteristics that these judges employ? Well, first, they're all, they're both men of high integrity and extraordinary intellect and legal skill with proven records on the bench of restraint, wisdom, and a lack of real controversy. in what they've done. They're traditional jurists who believe that judges serve under the Constitution, under the laws of the United States. They're not entitled to just redefine the meaning of the words of a Constitution to make it say what they want it to say today. If we head down that road, then the entire future of our country is weakened and darkened. We just cannot allow it to happen.

The courts have been so central, been a central struggle. for the country. And we'll have at least a modest majority, it looks like, who agree with former Attorney General Ed Meese on originalism that judges should normally and should always really try to interpret the meaning of a statute based on what the words meant when they were adopted. Otherwise, it becomes political. So I think it's a huge thing. We're feeling it in the circuit courts of appeals. I believe he's appointed 29 court of appeals judges who've been confirmed are on the bench. We can feel a difference in some of the circuits already. Well, now you say in your remarks that, quote, the founders did not

establish the federal judiciary to be the final arbiter of all things, all questions in our society, but that doesn't seem to be the case today. So what's happened? It is really astounding. And truthfully, if we could get the cases to the Supreme Court, we wouldn't have that much. But there are 600 federal district judges. Many of them were appointed by President Obama, for example, who said flat out, he wanted judges who would show empathy. Well, whatever empathy is, it's not law. It means he wants judges who don't follow the law, that they follow their emotions or some political vision that they might have. That is wrong.

And so the plaintiffs are picking these cases, taking them to districts where they have the greatest chance to get an activist judge. And if it's in the Ninth Circuit, as you know, it's a very liberal activist circuit. And you have to go all the way to the Supreme Court to reverse one of these rulings. And it takes a year or more sometimes to get the case that far. It's maddening to me. I got to tell you, it is entirely frustrating. I know it frustrates the president, but it frustrates me, and we are working every way possible to expedite these cases to overrule and get overturned to rulings that block the lawful execution of governmental functions. Well, now, one of the things that you also talk about in the speech is these nationwide injunctions.

I didn't know that for the first 175 years of our nation's history, we didn't have a single one of these federal district court judges issuing these. President Trump has had 27 just in his not even two years in office. What's happened? It's become a weapon almost. I hate to say it, but I think some judges have lost their discipline are hostile to the president's agenda and are going out of their way to frustrate it. We've had some success on appeal. We expect to have more. But this costs money. It delays. the effective actuation of a government policy that's important. For example, I don't think most people know that we got an emergency review by the Supreme Court of the so-called travel ban case that went up.

It had been constricted dramatically and ordered blocked by several district judges around the country. Well, the Supreme Court struck down almost all of that, and 90 percent of it, I guess is in effect now. Probably people think it's still being blocked and that somehow the president and the Department of Justice was wrong, but we've won, at least initially, at this point, on the travel ban type case. So, but boy, it's been frustrating, I got to tell you. You mentioned the term activist judge. I want to ask you, what makes a good judge, what makes an activist judge? How do you draw those lines? I think a good judge is the way judge,

Justice Roberts described it. He is a neutral umpire who calls balls and strikes and does not take sides in the game. A good judge whether a Republican or Democrat should consistently come out with the same conclusion on most cases. And that's what we want. It cannot be that we judge judges on their politics, their ideology, their religious ideas or whatever. You judge them on whether or not they're a good jurist who can read a law and dispassionately render a fair ruling. As a former senator, you, of course, bided by the Constitution and the advice and consent clause when the Senate obviously confirms judges.

Has that process become too political where you're looking at things that should not be really factors in the equation, but you should focus on them as a jurist? Well, I strongly believe that this personal attack, this honest attacks on good people like Judge Kavanaugh is out of bounds. When I was the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee and Justice Kagan and Sotomayor came up, we challenged them and we urged them and went after their legal philosophy. We never attacked them personally. this is completely excessive in my view the American people are upset about it

and they should be so that's out of bounds I would say that you have little to fear from a judge who's restrained who follows the Constitution what's dangerous is when you get a judge who thinks like an activist and there's an intellectual school for this

I mean people it's not something they hide particularly and when they redefine words to make it say what they want it, then that becomes dangerous. And I think if they are too untethered from the language of the Constitution, and they don't feel bound about it, they are disqualified for being a judge. You just simply have to believe in law, you have to believe in objectivity. And one of the nominees came forward,

and had a speech repeated it quite a number of times, the same speech saying that there is no objectivity, just a series of perspectives. Well, I question whether a judge who believes that could ever be a good judge. Well, you cite an example in your speech, which I want to ask you about, in which there was a DACA immigration case, and a judge told one of your Justice Department litigators, quote, you can't come into court to espouse a position that is heartless. Wow. And who defines what's heartless? I mean, the law says certain people are not entitled to come into the country. Our law officers, thousands of them on the border are out there struggling every day to follow the law and stop people. Are they supposed to say, well, you look sad today.

I can't enforce the law? I mean, what you have, what I would say that reflects is the logical extension of President Obama's theory that a judge should display empathy. Whatever empathy is, it's not law. It's dangerous. It's politics. It's something other than law.

America's founded on law. Empathy can, impact a person in so many ways, but a judge has to rule on the facts, honestly and objectively. Well, Mr. Attorney General, I know this is an issue that our daily signal listeners care passionately about. There are about 118 vacancies in federal courts right now, and we'll certainly be keeping a close eye on those judges as they come before the Senate for confirmation. It is so important, and one of the great things President Trump is doing, I got to tell you, is moving forward great judges.

And these judges, from the district courts to the circuit courts to the Supreme Court, are just so high quality. And I think good traditional legal thinkers are just declared no presence ever done a better job than he has in putting good people on the bench. Well, thanks for your work too. Thank you. Do conversations about the Supreme Court leave you scratching your head? Then subscribe to Scotus 101.

a podcast breaking down the cases, personalities, and gossip at the Supreme Court. Do you always feel comfortable speaking your truth? In today's America, 51% think they're expected to think a certain way about immigrants and immigration, but 73% think that when they're around like-minded people, it's okay to talk how they really feel. Two-thirds feel pressure to feel a certain way about Islam and Muslims, and about the same, feel pressure on race and racism. While 53% say they experience pressure over gay, lesbian and gender issues. This came to my attention via a column by the Washington Post, Charles

Lane, and is from a study released this month from an organization called More in Common. So, Daniel, what did you think about these findings? Well, to be honest, I think there's something good and not so good about the findings. Let's start with the not so good. The fact is that people feel the toxic pressure of political correctness, to keep their mouths shut when, you know, new and radical ideas are being advanced in the mainstream, and they might have other ideas that have roots in America in our history, but are being now pushed to the side. So, you know, you see this all the time on issues like the rule of law or on issues of gender and sexuality and that sort of thing.

You also see how to immigration. I think it's bad when people can't voice mainstream views, especially views that have been mainstream in American history. At the same time, I think in responding to political correctness, we don't want to go so far that we say, okay, well, anything that comes to your mind about anything is totally okay to say. That's also not true. So that's my take. Yeah, and I don't, I think there's very few people who are advocating for absolute free speech, but it does seem in general that there is a culture of fear in the United States,

particularly if you're on the right on some of these controversial issues. You know, I don't think there's a lot of places where I'd probably be comfortable saying that, you know, there's certain tenets of Islam which should maybe give us pause, you know, that perhaps lead to a mindset that has ramifications in the political sphere that is not the same as maybe the tenets of certain other face. I think on LGBT issues. We're seeing the transgender stuff move extremely rapidly. Like forget saying you're not a supporter of same-sex marriage.

Now if you even question whether Caitlin Jenner is a real woman, that could be seen as hate speech. And I think that, you know, I mean, long term, I think this is the overall study looks at polarization and the depth and stuff. And I don't see how if, I mean, there's so much that we can't even talk about anymore. And I think that the left does this on. purpose. And I think they feel that they, this is part of the reason they succeeded on LGBT, that they really slammed out a chance for debate. Like, it became so quickly hate speech,

or deemed hate speech, not legally necessarily hate speech, to say, you know, that you believed in the traditional Judeo-Christian understanding of marriage, that they almost won the argument by silencing everyone that way. I mean, how many people have ever been exposed to a reasonable argument against same-sex marriage and now increasingly on some of these other issues. And frankly, the Supreme Court rulings don't help on this. You know, when the Supreme Court decides to rule one way in the extreme, whether it's, you know, Roe v. Wade or Obergefell, you know, it does cut off democratic debate,

whereas if you actually settle this stuff in Congress, then everyone would be able to have input and you'd have a more moderate bill that gets pushed out, and that would allow for space for people to have dissenting agreement. views but you know so I think that's the problem with Supreme Court I really interesting part of this study I thought was that it said that two-thirds of the country falls into what they call the exhausted majority category which is not a right wing or a left-wing identified group it's just people who feel exhausted by the debate and that means you know if you're conservative that's like

well okay those people aren't necessarily conservatives but they're also not far-left people who are pushing this stuff. And, you know, I do think that part of Trump's appeal can be explained by this, that there's a huge portion of the country, the majority of the country that is very tired of political correctness. And, you know, they may not be on board with everything Trump says, but they do see him as pushing back on what really is ruled by the minority. No, and I can't remember the study, but I believe there was one a few months back that showed, like, the number one trait that correlated with support for Trump was frustration with political correctness. Yeah.

And yeah, I mean, I think I would certainly say that our president overcorrects a little bit in that area. But I think that does show the problem when you shut down so much. And, you know, even some of the stuff, you know, we of course covered at the time when it was discovered that Molly Tibbitts, the suspect in her murder, was an illegal immigrant. And, you know, you saw sites on the left promptly saying that, like, conservative coverage of this was racist and horrible. And it's like if you can't even discuss how a policy, now I'm not saying that all illegal immigrants commit crimes.

In fact, I believe statistically speaking, a smaller percentage of illegal immigrants commit crimes than American citizens. But that does, like they're not supposed to be here. So that seems like a reasonable thing to bring up and discuss and are we okay with this? And of course, you know, if they're not being vetted at all, they're not being vetted at all. So I just, yeah, I think that the left has in a really important, poisonous way tried to shut down discussion and I think this this study shows that it's working. You know, it's interesting you talked about folks who are not supposed to be here and even that kind of language gets like a sale by the left and they'll say, well, how can you dare say that

because everyone should have the right to come here, obviously, because, you know, nations aren't real and we shouldn't have borders because they're fake and they're oppressive and like everyone should be able to come here. Right. You can't say it illegally. Again, documented. Right. So like the, what's being pushed into the mainstream there is that radical view that. that our nation shouldn't have like territorial integrity and that we shouldn't have borders and that we shouldn't be able to control it immigration like that's now it's not only that that's a mainstream view it's that descending from that becomes uh becomes abominable right but of course we have to listen to people discuss why abortion is great all the time without getting upset well there's also that but all right well enough for for that uh but we'll leave it there for today thanks so much for listening to the daily signal podcast brought to you today from Presidents Club.

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