In one of those moments that one might have missed live because it was so out-of-left-field, CNN host Laura Coates made a comment Wednesday during Kasie Hunt’s new show The Arena linking President Donald Trump’s latest back-and-forth with the judiciary over illegal immigrant deportation flights to President Andrew Jackson’s displacement of Native Americans starting in the 1830s that became known as the Trail of Tears.
Coates chimed in prior to a commercial break that “it’s not totally unprecedented at all for a president to disagree with an opinion of a judge,” adding “we saw that with Andrew Jackson, who didn’t like the ruling about the Cherokee Nation, when he ignored the ruling and said something like, you know what, so here’s your order. Now you come and enforce it.”
“We had the Trail of Tears. We have a history of what happens when you totally ignore a judicial hearing,” she added before addressing calls for judges to be impeached, which she argued is only for “a high crime or misdemeanor or bribery or treason...not because you hate the ruling.”
Earlier in the segment, Coates and Hunt denounced Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s comments hours earlier criticizing U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg. Hunt went first noting “we have seen kind of explode, these threats against judges’ lives in — in cases, swatting attacks in some cases that have happened against, you know, colleagues of Judge Boasberg, et cetera.”
Coates suggested violence was becoming a near-certainty:
It’s happened to the Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, remember, in front of his home, he had someone who had to be removed from this. You have the tragic event of a New Jersey judge who somebody tried to take her life and ended up killing her son. I mean, the idea of homeland security even addressing that, you know, people’s political division and viewpoints are having as much fuel to the fire as anything else right now. Really horrible. You think about the timing of it, though. Even if the President of the United States were to prevail on something like this, following the procedural respect that says, your honor, you can decide the issue is what we have these checks and balances for. And what’s really disheartening, I think, for the judges, let alone those who are in it, is this idea of the attempt to forum shop.
To see the relevant CNN transcript from March 19, click “expand.”
CNN’s The Arena with Kasie Hunt
March 20, 2025
4:10 p.m. EasternKASIE HUNT: [T]his is something that we have seen kind of explode, these threats against judges’ lives in — in cases, swatting attacks in some cases that have happened against, you know, colleagues of Judge Boasberg, et cetera. What — what impact does that have, especially when it comes from the podium?
COATES: It’s happened to the Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, remember, in front of his home, he had someone who had to be removed from this. You have the tragic event of a New Jersey judge who somebody tried to take her life and ended up killing her son. I mean, the idea of homeland security even addressing that, you know, people’s political division and viewpoints are having as much fuel to the fire as anything else right now. Really horrible. You think about the timing of it, though. Even if the President of the United States were to prevail on something like this, following the procedural respect that says, your honor, you can decide the issue is what we have these checks and balances for. And what’s really disheartening, I think, for the judges, let alone those who are in it, is this idea of the attempt to forum shop. You mentioned this idea of saying, well, you want to find it. He knows full well that Justice Gorsuch and Justice Thomas have already taken issue with the idea of one judge being able to have a nationwide injunction against the president’s actions. That’s part of their plan.
ALEX THOMPSON: Well, and the rhetoric is getting hotter, not colder. You saw Matt Gaetz and even the president of El Salvador say that this is a judicial coup in the country, and that that’s going to just get angrier.
(....)
4:14 p.m. Eastern
COATES: You know, two quick points. One, it’s not totally unprecedented at all for a president to disagree with an opinion of a judge. I mean, we saw that with Andrew Jackson, who didn’t like the ruling about the Cherokee Nation, when he ignored the ruling and said something like, you know what, so here’s your order. Now you come and enforce it. We had the Trail of Tears. We have a history of what happens when you totally ignore a judicial hearing. The other aspect of it, though, is there is a mechanism. It’s called impeachment. If there is a judge who truly is wrong, who’s committed a high crime or misdemeanor or bribery or treason, you can follow the same protocol that were very familiar with now. But it’s not because you hate the ruling. It’s because of what their conduct actually is.
HUNT: Right? The conduct is really what’s at issue.
