Jen Psaki schools MSNBC guest downplaying Trump-SCOTUS hearing
Former White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Thursday schooled an MSNBC panelist who tried to argue too much attention is being paid to the Supreme Court hearing on Donald Trump's court battle to appear on the 2024 general election ballots.
Writer Anand Giridharadas suggested voters pinning their hopes on Trump's eligibility being denied under 14th Amendment's insurrectionist ban would be better off focusing on campaign efforts outside the courtroom.
"I think there has been, since 2015, a fantasy of getting rid of Trump through kind of investigations and inquests and criminal proceedings and this and that," Giridharadas said. "It is now nine years on and none of those have actually shown the ability to protect American democracy from him."
Giridharadas argued that voters should stop waiting for institutions "to save us" from another Trump presidency and warned his various court cases could serve as a distraction.
"We turn on the news and we're always talking about these investigations," Giridharadas said. "What we're not talking about is organizing that's happening in communities to actually try to build a coalition to defeat American fascism and the Big Lie. I think we are lulled into being like passive consumers of legal cases winding on, over which we have no control, instead of doing the thing over which we have immense control."
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Given a chance to respond, Psaki argued that the Supreme Court arguments served as more than a distraction to Americans whose voices have historically been suppressed.
"It's important to remember the origin of the 14th Amendment; and Sherrilyn Ifill [president of NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund] wrote a brief where they outlined this as a reminder that it was to protect the voices of those who are often suppressed, including the African-American community," said Psaki.
"It's important to talk about these cases, because it's important to remind voters out there in the country what Donald Trump tried to do which was to suppress exactly those kinds of voters."
Psaki concluded that the judicial system should rise above the politics Giridharadas would have Americans focus on, and ultimately ignore it.
"So the job of any legal system, the judicial system, is actually not to contemplate the politics, not that anyone here is suggesting that, it's to ignore that and apply the law," she said. "If you look at Donald Trump's argument, what they're arguing is that the insurrection didn't even happen, that he didn't participate in it, that it was three hours long and not that many people were armed and, therefore, it didn't happen. That's ludicrous on its face."
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