On Tuesday, Deadline: White House host Nicolle Wallace and former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance accused conservatives on the Supreme Court of waging a culture war on abortion and with their recent ruling striking down President Biden's vaccine mandate. However, as she tried to provide evidence for her claim, Vance revealed that it was they who where the ones looking for pre-determined results.
Wallace found it "amazing" that conservatives on the Court do not seem to care about the opinion of MSNBC hosts: "What's amazing, Joyce, is that we know from their public utterances and the little reporting that there is on the Court, that they're acutely aware of their perception and, and I don't know they all view it as a problem."
Accusing the conservatives of waging a culture war, Wallace quoted The Atlantic and struggled with the concept of mandates versus personal choice:
...the conservative wing of the court wants to have it both ways on its vaccine mandate decision. Insisting they are not questioning the safety or efficacy of vaccination while issuing decisions that are entirely premised on the right's newfound and quasi-religious conception of them as traumatic and metaphysically significant—a necessity for the mandates to be seen as oppressive. This is little more than culture war dressed up in the language of constitutionalism.
Wallace then asked Vance if that was a fair assessment. Vance agreed and alleged: "I think this is what drove Justice Sotomayor to make this very strident statement about the stench and whether or not the Court could recover from it in oral argument recently."
Vance ignored Sotomayor's recent misinformation to claim that it is the conservatives who are taking a "results-oriented approach towards making decisions and of course when you contrast the decision making that's apparently going on, on abortion, we don't have a final decision on that Mississippi case yet, but there, there's a willingness to for instance force baby -- to force women to carry babies to term where the vaccination case takes an entirely different approach."
Immediately undermining her own argument, Vance acknowledged: "Of course that’s more grounded in administrative law and as Brian points out, what Joe Biden has the authority to do under the law."
Vance concluded her own hypocritical response by hoping and predicting Chief Justice John Roberts will take public opinion into account in the Court's upcoming rulings: "...increasingly, this sort of semi-hypocritical approach to rule making is going to diminish the Court's integrity in the eyes of the public and I think we'll see the chief justice step in and try to impose some order on the Court that will be named for him in the history books. The real question here is whether Chief Justice Roberts will take these stories that are now becoming public and use those to convince his colleagues that the time has come for the Court to do an about face."
In reality, there was more hypocrisy coming from Wallace and Vance then there was coming out of conservative justices.
This segment was sponsored by T-Mobile.
Here is a transcript of the January 18 show:
MSNBC
Deadline: White House4:35 PM ET
NICOLLE WALLACE: What's amazing, Joyce, is that we know from their public utterances and the little reporting that there is on the Court, that they're acutely aware of their perception and, and I don't know they all view it as a problem. I mean, to Brian Fallon’s point, it's clear the chief justice does and that it’s clear the liberal justices do, but I want to read this, which builds on some of the points Brian's making. It's in The Atlantic today. Quote, “the conservative wing of the court wants to have it both ways on its vaccine mandate decision. Insisting they are not questioning the safety or efficacy of vaccination while issuing decisions that are entirely premised on the right's
newfound and quasi-religious conception of them as traumatic and metaphysically significant—a necessity for the mandates to be seen as oppressive. This is little more than culture war dressed up in the language of constitutionalism.” Is that fair?JOYCE VANCE: It's fair and it is a culture war. I think this is what drove Justice Sotomayor to make this very strident statement about the stench and whether or not the court Could recover from it in oral argument recently. Because increasingly on the right in this newly conservative Court, there appears to be a results oriented approach towards making decisions and of course when you contrast the decision making that's apparently going on, on abortion, we don't have a final decision on that Mississippi case yet, but there, there's a willingness to for instance force baby, to force women to carry babies to term where the vaccination case takes an entirely different approach. Of course that’s more grounded in administrative law and as Brian points out, what Joe Biden has the authority to do under the law, but increasingly, this sort of semi-hypocritical approach to rule making is going to diminish the Court's integrity in the eyes of the public and I think we'll see the chief justice step in and try to impose some order on the Court that will be named for him in the history books. The real question here is whether Chief Justice Roberts will take these stories that are now becoming public and use those to convince his colleagues that the time has come for the Court to do an about face.
