State of the Union: Interview With Rep. Alexandria Ocasio- Cortez (D-NY)

Interview

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Well, while I commend the Biden administration for appealing the decision. And I believe that Secretary Becerra has been doing a phenomenal job in his role.

I do think that, when it comes to gaming out what the very real possibilities are in the coming days, weeks and months, this is not just about speculation, but this is about preparation. And the reality of our courts right now is very disturbing. This ruling is an extreme abuse of power.

It is an extraordinary example of judicial overreach. The grounds of the ruling are completely -- are just completely discredited and without grounds. And what we also learned this week is that a Supreme Court justice of this court has been receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of gifts and expenses and having lifestyle subsidies by a billionaire who has been funding the same types of judicial organizations that appointed this judge in a partisan ruling in the first place.

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Well, I want to take a step back and dig into the grounds around ignoring this preliminary ruling as well.

There is an extraordinary amount of precedent for this. There is a term known as agency nonacquiescence, and this has been used in -- and for folks saying this is a first, that this is precedent-setting, it is not.

The Trump administration also did this very thing, but, also, it has happened before. The idea of consistency in governance until there is a higher court ruling is not an unprecedented thing to happen. In fact, when the Trump administration did it, it was arguably through a much -- a very grave issue when it came to DACA.

The Trump administration was ordered to fully reinstate DACA, the DACA program, and they, in a complete defiance, did not do that. They rely on -- the courts rely on the legitimacy of their rulings.

And when they make a mockery of our system, a mockery of our democracy, and a mockery of our law, as -- as what we just saw happen in this mifepristone ruling, then I believe that the executive branch and we know that the executive branch has an enforcement discretion, especially in light of a contradicting ruling coming out of Washington.

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I think one of the things that -- I think one of the things that we need to examine is the grounds of that ruling.

But I do not believe that the courts have the authority to have the authority over the FDA that they just asserted. And I do believe that it creates a crisis. Should the Supreme Court do that, it would essentially institute a national abortion ban, because you have an extraordinary amount of states who have implemented surgicals -- surgical bans or bans after very early time periods.

And then, if you pair that with a mifepristone ban, then we will essentially have a ban on abortion with -- there are certain work- around. I will admit there would be certain work-arounds. But we would have taken very significant step towards a national abortion ban. Once you ban medication abortion, which represents -- or start banning

medication abortion, which represents the overwhelming number of abortions in the United States, then we are in extremely dangerous territory. And I would urge the Supreme Court, in its lawlessness that they are exhibiting right now already, their extraordinary conflict of interest, I mean, my hope would be that we do not get to that point.

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But once -- if we do, I do believe that we must start to -- start to push back on our system of checks and balances, which is designed to push back, should there be an example of judicial tyranny and judicial overreach.

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I think that his own statement contradicts -- contradicts many of the facts on the ground and also raises in other ways even more serious questions.

Later on in his statement, he stated that the reason and the rationale for this exemption was personal hospitality from an old friend. And he said himself in his statement a friend of 25 years. Justice Thomas has been on the court for 30 years. And so to say what he is admitting in his statement in an attempt to defend himself is that he began this relationship with a billionaire and receiving these sorts of gifts as -- after he was appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States.

I think that that, in and of itself, indicates a very, very serious problem. And then, on top of that, he is now implicating his colleagues. And I do believe that Chief Justice John Roberts must now come forward and state if he allows and is allowing this kind of very serious corruption to happen on this court.

I think, when it comes to Justice Thomas' statement, when he's talking about his colleagues, and when he's talking about who advised him to break the law, I think we need to know who those people are.

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I mean, I believe what we are seeing right now is a breaking of the law, and we have to examine what institutions. I know that there are calls for -- I know that there are calls for Chief Justice to -- for Chief Justice John Roberts to initiate an investigation. I do not think that this court any longer has the legitimacy, especially after the Supreme Court leak last year, which never came to a conclusion, because the investigation itself that Chief John Roberts started back then, I believe is very discredited by naming a position that has an inherent conflict of interest, because it is employed by those justices, to pursue that investigation.

I believe that the -- and it is the House's responsibility to pursue that investigation in the form of impeachment.

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I think it's a -- it's a -- there is the question of the politics of what we are doing, and there's the question of the course and the accountability and the structures of what we are doing.

I admit it is very difficult to see a path in a Republican Party that refuses to hold itself accountable and, in fact, breaches the law itself. For all of their talk of a crime wave and Democrats -- Republicans talking about crime waves across the country, the crime wave is within the Republican Party.

It is within all of the -- what we are seeing. We have seen -- we are seeing breaking of the law by conservative members of the court. We are seeing a former president of the United States just indicted in recent days. I mean, we need to hold our systems accountable. And I do not believe that we should be refusing to do that for political reasons.

I believe that we should pursue the course. And if it is Republicans that decide to protect those who are breaking the law, then they are the ones who then are responsible for that decision. But we should not be complicit in that.

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Thank you.

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