Over the course of nearly 10 minutes on Tuesday (nine minutes and 43 seconds, excluding a whopping five teases), CBS Mornings sat enthralled by Hillary Clinton as she seethed over the Dobbs Supreme Court case overturning Roe v. Wade, boasting of her “fascinating” and “powerful” sit-down and “stark warning” for the American people that “women will die” and our system of government’s in danger because of abortion opponents.
Co-host Nate Burleson teased the interview in the show’s Eye Opener: “And a stark warning from Hillary Clinton after the controversial decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.” Co-host and Democratic party donor Gayle King conducted the interview, boasting in the second tease of the “powerful” conversation that showed “she is not holding anything back” on abortion.
“Looking forward to that conversation,” Burleson replied.
In part one of the interview, King stacked the deck in the lead-in by using Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurring opinion as a vehicle to argue the right will angle toward “turning back the clock on civil rights”:
Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton says the Supreme Court’s monumental abortion ruling could lead to other decisions turning back the clock on civil rights. In her first on-camera interview about the ruling, we asked her about Justice Clarence Thomas’s written opinion. He said that the court should reconsider past rulings on contraception and same-sex marriage.
Speaking then to Clinton, King pulled the thread on Thomas and sat by as she launched into what our friends at Twitchy called a “not-so-thinly veiled racist rant” (click “expand”):
KING: Justice Thomas has sort of floated that out there about contraceptive rights —
CLINTON: Yes.
KING: — contraception and about same-sex marriages, but other justices pushed back to say no, he’s really sort of on his own with that.
CLINTON: Well —
KING: You don’t believe that?
CLINTON: — well, he may be on his own, but he’s signaling — as he often did. You know, people — I went to law school with him.
KING: Mmhmm.
CLINTON: He's been a person of grievance for as long as I’ve known him, resentment, grievance, anger, and he has signaled in the past to lower courts, to state legislatures, define cases, pass laws, get them up. I may not win the first, the second, or the third time, but we're going to keep at it.
KING: So, you're saying — people, pay attention to it.
CLINTON: Yes, the people he is speaking to, which are the right-wing, very conservative judges and justices and state legislatures, and the thing that is, well, there are so many things about it that are deeply distressing, but women are going to die, Gayle. Women will die.
Teasing the second part, King gushed at the start of the 8:00 a.m. Eastern hour: “More of our fascinating conversation with Hillary Clinton. Why she hopes the end of Roe v. Wade will be a wake-up call for America.”
Part two wasn’t any better. King said Clinton argued “the overturning of Roe v. Wade should be a wake up call for Americans” during an interview as part of her book tour for a novel that, as the hosts would nauseatingly chuckle about later, consists of a female secretary of state facing down an unstable President.
King lobbed another open-ended query about the ruling: “[E]ven though we had gotten a heads up, many thought it was unthinkable. A lot of people are processing, depending on your point of view. What did you think when you heard it?”
The Democratic donor refused to engage in fact-checking as Clinton proceeded to say the ruling came thanks to pro-lifers “packing the court” and would spell doom for “civil rights and gay rights and women's rights beyond abortion.”
This was as close as King came to an adversarial question: “And what do you say to supporters, though, who say listen, we are protecting the rights of unborn children? They have rights, too. What do you say to that? That seems to be the core argument.”
King’s other questions came from the left, including whether judicial confirmations need to be changed, if the Senate filibuster should be eliminated, and then whether Clinton would run again for president (click “expand”):
KING: You know, a couple of senators have said that they were misled by the justices. Does this — does this say to you that we need to change the confirmation hearing process?
(....)
KING: You think they knew that this was going to happen?
(....)
KING: Is this the time for the Democrats to take on the filibuster do you think?
(....)
KING: And last question. You’re a former first lady, former secretary of state, former senator, do you miss the day-to-day of politics? Is there any scenario in your brain that you would think I want to get back in?
CLINTON: No. But I — I miss it. I miss it.
KING: No scenario in 2024, even remotely consider?
CLINTON: You know, I can't imagine it. I really can't. I — but what I —
KING: That's not a no.
CLINTON: — well, but what I can imagine is staying as active and outspoken as I can because I think our country’s really on the precipice, Gayle. I think that we are looking at not only the erosion of these rights, the throwing the door open to unfettered, unregulated gun access, but we're also looking at dismantling the federal government, how it protects our air and our water and everything else that goes with it.
King’s final question took on a CNN and MSNBC-like tone by wondering “our democracy is at stake” and especially given what’s been revealed in the January 6 hearings.
Clinton obviously replied it is and, when King asked her to respond to Americans who are refusing to tune in, she hit back that “history pays attention.”
After the interview, co-host Tony Dokoupil nostalgically went back to 2016 and wondered about “all the what-ifs” if only more Americans had voted, there wouldn’t be three new Supreme Court justices and Roe would still be in tact.
“[S]he was spot on. She said we’re turning back the clock,” Burleson replied.
CBS’s tongue bath for Hillary Clinton was made possible thanks to advertisers such as AARP through The Hartford, Crest, and Nature’s Bounty. Follow the links to see their contact information at the MRC’s Conservatives Fight Back page.
To see the relevant CBS transcript from June 28, click here.
