During a Friday appearance on MSNBC, “The Nation” justice correspondent Elie Mystal attacked the U.S. Supreme Court for daring to push back against the far-left’s attempt to disqualify former president and current GOP primary frontrunner Donald Trump from the Colorado ballot.
Speaking with MSNBC host Joy Reid, Mystal claimed that the Supreme Court was racist for pushing back against arguments from Jason Murray, the lawyer representing six Colorado voters attempting to prevent their fellow Coloradans from being able to vote for Trump.
The majority of the court, including leftist Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, cast doubts on Murray’s arguments claiming that Section Three of the 14th Amendment applied to presidents — while also pointing out the concerning implications of disqualifying a presidential candidate from holding office, especially without actually convicting them of a crime.
BREAKING: Journalist Mollie Hemingway (@MZHemingway), who just left the Supreme Court, concludes that, based on legal observers, Colorado failed woefully to prove their case, and the result could be a 9-0 ruling.
She writes, "Just left oral arguments over Colorado’s partisan… pic.twitter.com/PveQB4Sca4
— Simon Ateba (@simonateba) February 8, 2024
Despite the fact that Black justices like Jackson appeared to also oppose the lawyer’s arguments, Mystal and Reid insisted that disagreeing with the effort to remove Trump is racist.
Reid claimed that it was “ironic” that conservative justices agree with the states’ rights argument on issues like abortion and redistricting, but are against it when it comes to a state unilaterally declaring Trump guilty of insurrection and removing him from the ballot.
“Do you find that stuff ironic too, Elie?” the MSNBC host asked.
“It’s almost like the states’ rights argument was invented by white supremacist patriarchs to allow the states to keep black people and women under control and that’s the only thing the argument is good for, because when we try to use it for something else, apparently it doesn’t matter. It’s almost like that’s what we’re seeing, isn’t it, Joy?” Mystal responded.
“Let us not forget that it is the conservative justices who consistently tell us that the states have the right to restrict voting access, restrict early voting access, keep felons off the ballot, that every state has the right to keep people from accessing the ballot, but now, yesterday, they turned around and said that the states don’t have the right to decide who is on their own ballot,” he continued.
Mystal continued his false framing of the arguments by claiming that Chief Justice “John Roberts literally acted like it couldn’t possibly be his job to know, because if he might have to make one ruling for Colorado and a whole different ruling for Texas, how could he limit it when he’s literally the same guy who says that Texas gets to gerrymander however it wants and Colorado gets to gerrymander however it wants and New Jersey gets to gerrymander however it wants.”
Joy Reid and Elie Mystal are quite unhappy their Colorado Ballot Access dreams aren't coming through. Mystal: "It's almost like the states’ rights argument was invented by white supremacist patriarchs to allow the states to keep black people and women under control." pic.twitter.com/vpIKISyhFZ
— Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) February 10, 2024
It was clear that the pair had little to no knowledge of the actual arguments being presented before the Supreme Court — or chose to purposely obfuscate the points to misinform their viewers. The crime of “insurrection” against the United States is by definition a federal crime, and the requirements for presidential eligibility are listed in the U.S. Constitution, not the states — meaning that this case is not a “states’ rights” issue.
Beyond that, Trump has not been charged with or convicted of taking part in an insurrection, and thus removing him from the ballot for this supposed crime would be a violation of his due process rights. All of these points were made by various Supreme Court justices during the hearing.
