The Democrats are unloading some impressive cognitive dissonance in touting themselves as the defenders of the rule of law while Biden boasts of ignoring the courts (and Congress) in single-handedly forgiving $167 billion in student-loan debt. On CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, CNN analyst Scott Jennings went after young Rep. Louis Auchincloss (D-Mass.) on which part of the judicial system we “have to respect” after the Trump trial.
Auchincloss claimed “What Joe Biden said was we have to respect the integrity of the judicial system. When you contrast that with what Speaker Mike Johnson said, which was I’m basically going to lean on my Supreme Court friends to overturn this — a gross abuse of the separation of powers — I think that law and order contrast is actually quite sharp for the American public.”
Biden knows something about “gross abuse of the separation of powers”! Jennings went to work:
AUCHINCLOSS: It’s 5 percent have to see this wedge now of one party upholds law and order, and one party is out there voting against border security legislation and trying to defund the FBI.
JENNINGS: I’m a little surprised to hear you invoke the respect for the justice system, because, within a 24-hour period, Joe Biden says we have to respect the judicial system, absolute respect. And yet he tweets in the centerpiece of all of his speeches right now is, the Supreme Court tried to stop me, but I did it anyway on student loans.
So I’m just wondering which part of the judicial system do we have to respect? Which ones are good and which ones are bad?
AUCHINCLOSS: So, just as a point of law here, the Supreme Court ruled that his use of the HEROES Act in 2003 was illegal. He did not use the HEROES Act of 2003.
BAKARI SELLERS: Correct.
AUCHINCLOSS: He used a different legal mechanism…
JENNINGS: He just kept going.
AUCHINCLOSS: … because he upheld the Supreme Court’s ruling and found another legal manner.
JENNINGS: You’re a member of Congress. Does it not offend you that the president of the United States is usurping your authority?
Sellers jumped in to say “I would argue that the offense here probably is Donald Trump.”
A little later, Auchincloss offered a KJP-style answer to Jennings as host Kasie Hunt touted the “progressives” thinking Biden hasn’t been rough enough on Trump:
HUNT: But on this — on this thing, on this convicted felon thing, there are — there are progressives in your party saying he’s not going far enough, he’s not hitting it hard enough. What do you think?
AUCHINCLOSS: Because the president has a sense of responsibility to the integrity of the judicial system to say, first and foremost, right out of the gate, we must uphold the rule of law. And that contrast, the actions are going to resonate louder than the words.