Barrett Archives - Mediarabe

Dems frame Barrett as threat to ObamaCare at confirmation hearing

October 14, 2020

This is a rush transcript from “Special Report” October 12, 2020. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

Good evening, welcome to Washington. I’m Bret Baier.

Breaking tonight, we are following three big stories at this hour. Just a short time ago, President Trump’s physician said the commander-in-chief has tested negative for the coronavirus on consecutive days. This as the president’s on his way to a rally in Florida as he restarts his campaign travel while his opponent, you see on screen there, Joe Biden holding a rally in another swing state Ohio.

Back here in Washington, the confirmation hearings for Judge Amy Coney Barrett began on Capitol Hill today with opening statements and plenty of political rhetoric setting the table for hours of questioning which starts Tuesday morning. Republicans on the Committee touted Judge Barrett’s status as a law professor and legal scholar.

Barrett bats away tough Democratic confirmation probing

October 14, 2020

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WASHINGTON — Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett batted away Democrats’ skeptical questions Tuesday on abortion, health care and a possible disputed-election fight over transferring presidential power, insisting in a long and lively confirmation hearing she would bring no personal agenda to the court but decide cases “as they come.”

The 48-year-old appellate court judge declared her conservative views with often colloquial language, but refused many specifics. She declined to say whether she would recuse herself from any election-related cases involving President Donald Trump, who nominated her to fill the seat of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and is pressing to have her confirmed before the the Nov. 3 election.

“Judges can’t just wake up one day and say I have an agenda — I like guns, I hate guns, I like abortion, I hate abortion — and walk in like a royal queen and impose their will on

The Health 202: A court with Amy Coney Barrett is more likely to reinterpret Roe than reverse it

October 14, 2020

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That’s the trajectory those on both sides of the abortion debate expect if Barrett joins the court.

“The point is she could rid of the right for millions without actually overturning Roe,” Leila Abolfazli, director of federal reproductive rights at the National Women’s Law Center, told me. “It’s like bit by bit narrowing the procedure until there is no procedure left.”

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the antiabortion group Susan B. Anthony List, put it this way: “Reinterpreting Roe, that is how I think about it.”

Barrett, who will sit again before the Senate Judiciary Committee for a third day of confirmation hearings, is expected to tilt the court further to the right, potentially giving it a five- or even six-vote majority on cases involving abortion restrictions passed by the states.

She has a lengthy public record that underscores her personal opposition to abortion. But through hours of hearings

Amy Coney Barrett isn’t nominee for health care czar

October 14, 2020

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Amy Coney Barrett has accomplished many things in her career. Becoming an authority or a policy maker on health care isn’t one of them.

At Notre Dame, she was a professor at the law school, not at the Eck Institute for Global Health. She’s written for the Cornell Law Review, not The New England Journal of Medicine. She’s up to replace the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg at the Supreme Court, not Dr. Anthony Fauci at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

No one would have guessed it, though, from listening to Democratic senators on the first day of her much-anticipated confirmation hearings. They acted as if Barrett has been nominated to become the nation’s health care czar, responsible for everything from the fate of Obamacare to the country’s coronavirus response.

This tack underlined political themes that Democrats are hammering home in the final weeks of the election, but

Wife of Trump’s labor secretary, who was at Barrett Rose Garden event, tests positive for Covid-19

October 14, 2020

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Trish Scalia, the wife of President Donald Trump’s Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia, has tested positive for Covid-19, the Labor Department said Tuesday night.

The agency said in a statement that doctors performed the test Tuesday afternoon. She has “mild symptoms but [is] doing well,” the statement said.

Eugene Scalia, the son of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, tested negative Friday night, according to the Labor Department. He has experienced no symptoms.

“The Secretary and Mrs. Scalia will follow the advice of health professionals for Trish’s recovery and the health of those around them. For the time being, the Secretary will work from home while continuing to carry out the mission of the Department and the President’s agenda,” the agency said in the statement.

The secretary and his wife attended the Rose Garden ceremony last month where Trump officially nominated Judge Amy Coney Barrett to fill the seat of

AP FACT CHECK: Sen. Graham and Biden on Obamacare, Barrett

October 14, 2020

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WASHINGTON — The senator leading Supreme Court confirmation hearings Tuesday launched into revisionist history on “Obamacare,” implying it was designed to help Democratic states like California, New York and Massachusetts while doling out less to states like his, South Carolina.

In doing so, Sen. Lindsey Graham skipped over the fact that health insurance is generally more expensive in places with a high cost of living. Also, South Carolina is among 12 conservative states that have not adopted the law’s Medicaid expansion, a big source of federal subsidies.

For their part, Democrats pressed concerns that their presidential candidate also voiced at the start of the hearings — particularly that Amy Coney Barrett on the court would be a sure vote to kill “Obamacare.” That’s not at all certain based on her words in the past. She declared Tuesday: “I’m not here on a mission to destroy the Affordable Care Act.”

A

Supreme Court nominee Barrett says personal views will not impact her decisions on abortion, health care

October 14, 2020

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President Trump’s third nominee to the Supreme Court declined to answer some questions that seemed steeped in basic facts, such as whether a president has the power under the Constitution to unilaterally delay an election. Barrett also declined to say whether she would recuse herself from a potential 2020 election case as Senate Democrats demanded, saying she would not be “used as a pawn to decide the election for the American people.”

Like high court nominees who preceded her, Barrett repeatedly avoided weighing in on her personal views of landmark decisions and declined to say whether she endorsed opinions from her mentor, former Justice Antonin Scalia, on abortion and same-sex marriage. At the same time, under hours of questioning from members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, she reinforced perceptions that she would help solidify a 6-to-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court.

On the Affordable Care Act, whose constitutionality will

Sen. Graham and Biden on Obamacare, Barrett

October 13, 2020

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The senator leading Supreme Court confirmation hearings Tuesday launched into revisionist history on “Obamacare,” implying it was designed to help Democratic states like California, New York and Massachusetts while doling out less to states like his, South Carolina.

In doing so, Sen. Lindsey Graham skipped over the fact that health insurance is generally more expensive in places with a high cost of living. Also, South Carolina is among 12 conservative states that have not adopted the law’s Medicaid expansion, a big source of federal subsidies.

For their part, Democrats pressed concerns that their presidential candidate also voiced at the start of the hearings — particularly that Amy Coney Barrett on the court would be a sure vote to kill “Obamacare.” That’s not at all certain based on her words in the past. She declared Tuesday: “I’m not here on a mission to destroy the Affordable Care Act.”

Takeaways: Barrett Is Reticent as Dems Focus on Health Care | Political News

October 13, 2020

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By MARY CLARE JALONICK, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett faced her first day’s worth of questions Tuesday from Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and it was a calmer affair than other recent confirmation hearings.

With public attendance limited by the coronavirus pandemic and Democrats staying focused on a health care message just three weeks ahead of the Nov. 3 presidential election, the back and forth was serious, disciplined and mostly uninterrupted — save a few technical glitches from those participating virtually.

But similar to past hearings, Barrett avoided taking positions on a variety of subjects and rulings, saying it would be inappropriate to do so.

Takeaways from day two of the confirmation hearing:

PROHIBITED FROM EXPRESSING VIEWS

Barrett repeatedly declined to give her personal views, or to preview how she might rule, on key issues that could become before the court.

Democrats say Barrett is a threat to health care, election rulings

October 13, 2020

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Washington

Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett will face senators’ questions over her approach to health care, legal precedent, and even the presidential election during a second day of confirmation hearings on track to lock in a conservative court majority for years to come.

The mood is likely to shift to a more confrontational tone as Judge Barrett, an appellate court judge with very little trial court experience, is grilled in 30-minute segments Tuesday by Democrats gravely opposed to President Donald Trump’s nominee, yet virtually powerless to stop her rise. Republicans are rushing her to confirmation before Election Day.

“This should not be President Trump’s judge,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Democrats say the winner of the presidential election should choose the nominee.

“This should be your judge,” she said.

Judge Barrett presented her approach to the law as conservative and fair on

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