CNN likes to portray Jeffrey Toobin as the network's senior legal analyst, but a more accurate description would be just another Democratic hack paid by CNN. On Monday's CNN Newsroom, Toobin was on to talk about his Saturday column in the New Yorker where he called on Democrats to stack the Court, add states, and abolish the filibuster should Republicans confirm whomever President Trump appoints to the Supreme Court.
Host Poppy Harlow began by referencing his column and asking, "Okay Jeffrey, yours was the first piece I read over the weekend about making the case that Democrats are not powerless, but what power do they have to stop whomever the president chooses?"
Plotting strategy with Democrats is always the goal on CNN.
Toobin began by saying the quiet part out loud, that this is about changing the rules, because Democrats keep losing, "Well, it's really more a power of retribution than a power of stopping."
To put pressure on other senators to join Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, Toobin suggested:
The point I was making is that if Biden wins and if the Democrats retake the Senate, then there are real options for the Democrats. They can add two or more seats to the Supreme Court. They can abolish the filibuster, they can grant statehood to D.C. And Puerto Rico and they can add to the overall total of federal judges which hasn't changed in decades.
On TV, Toobin presented his idea as something Democrats could do, in his column he presented it as something Democrats should do, "If Republicans succeed in stealing two seats—the Scalia and Ginsburg vacancies—the Democrats could simply pass a law that creates two or three more seats on the Supreme Court. To do so would be to play hardball in a way that is foreign to the current Senate Democrats. But maybe, in light of all that’s happened, that’s a game they should learn to play."
"Stealing," as if Supreme Court seats belong to Democrats.
Back on CNN, Toobin claimed, "so, you know, there are hardball options but the Democrats need to win some elections before they can exercise them."
Or they could have won elections in 2014, 2016, or 2018 and they wouldn't be in this position of threatening to re-write the rules just because they lost. As former President Obama once said, "Elections have consequences."
This segment was sponsored by Bath Fitter.
Here is a transcript of the September 21 show:
CNN
CNN Newsroom with Poppy Harlow and Jim Sciutto
10:18 AM ET
POPPY HARLOW: Jeffrey Toobin is here, our legal analyst and Ariane de Vogue, our Supreme Court reporter. So very good to have you both, very much. Okay Jeffrey, yours was the first piece I read over the weekend about making the case that Democrats are not powerless, but what power do they have to stop whomever the president chooses?
JEFFREY TOOBIN: Well, it's really more a power of retribution than a power of stopping. It is true that since the filibuster has been abolished for Supreme Court nominations, it really just takes -- that with 53 Republicans in the Senate and Vice President Pence to break ties, this is really under the control of the Republicans, but there are political tools that the Democrats have to try to force two more Republicans to join with Collins and Murkowski. The point I was making is that if Biden wins and if the Democrats retake the Senate, then there are real options for the Democrats. They can add two or more seats to the Supreme Court. They can abolish the filibuster, they can grant statehood to D.C. And Puerto Rico and they can add to the overall total of federal judges which hasn't changed in decades, so, you know, there are hardball options but the Democrats need to win some elections before they can exercise them.
