Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson's Hearings - Behind the Theatrics

John Heilemann talks with legal experts Neal Katyal and Robin Lenhardt about the political theater on display at Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation hearings to the U.S. Supreme Court. Between Senator Marsha Blackburn asking Jackson to define the word “woman” and Senator Ted Cruz asking her whether babies are racist, Republicans used the hearings in pursuit of their political ambitions and culture wars. Democrats, Katyal suggests, also failed to take advantage of the hearings and missed an opportunity to alert the American public to the High Court’s dramatic decisions – from striking down key parts of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to potentially overturning the constitutional right to abortion in the near future. All this could serve to further undermine public confidence in the court’s distance from petty partisanship and naked ideological warfare. Tune in to the full episode to hear more about Jackson’s historic status as the first Black woman ever chosen to sit on the high court and whether she will take up Justice Breyer’s mantle as a consensus-builder on a sharply divided court.