Bill Clinton worries the ‘courts won't hold until the midterm election' in terms of checking Trump
Appearing on the daytime ABC talk show alongside novelist James Patterson to promote their upcoming thrillerThe First Gentleman, the 42nd president was first asked to weigh in on Donald Trump's first few months back in office.
The former commander-in-chief, whose wife lost the 2016 presidential election to Trump, laid out a fairly dark vision of the current state of the country.
'I agree with you that we need to talk about the future and beyond President Trump's 'Big, Beautiful Bill,'' co-host Sunny Hostin noted. 'He is working to dismantle, in my view, our foundational institutions, right?'
She continued: 'He's intimidating law firms and universities. He's stifling media. He's illegally disappearing people and deporting people. And he's now threatening to impeach judges. So are you confident that the courts will hold, and what concerns you most about what he's doing now?'
Reacting to Hostin's question, which referenced the administration's complaints about a 'judicial coup' amid a spate of unfavorable court decisions over Trump's executive orders and policies, the former president wondered what would happen if the White House just outright defied the judicial branch.
'That the courts won't hold until we have the midterm elections,' he replied to the View host. 'Because they've made – the Supreme Court has made some good decisions which so far have been ignored.'
Clinton then brought up the case surrounding Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador's notorious CECOT mega-prison despite a 2019 court order barring his deportation. The Supreme Court affirmed a ruling in April that the administration must 'facilitate' Abrego Garcia's return to the United States, but he is yet to be sent back. The federal judge in the case ruled this week that Abrego Garcia's lawyers can seek sanctions against the government.
'They sent him away, then manufactured a picture that made it look like he had MS-13 on his hands, which he didn't, and the guy is still there in jail,' the former president declared. 'And so I'm worried about that. And you should be worried about that, whatever your politics.'
Still, as Clinton expressed fear that the judicial branch may be eradicated within the next year, he did offer up a glimmer of hope that a Trump exit from the White House will eventually bring about strengthened checks and balances.
'I have a sinking suspicion if we – if our party wins the White House in the next election, there will be a hallelujah moment and the Supreme Court will rediscover the Constitution,' he said to applause.
'I'll be happy if that happens, because all of us should operate under guardrails,' Clinton concluded. 'The whole purpose of the Constitution was to repeal royal governments, unaccountable governments that no Democrat or Republican can be without accountability. That's what I think, so we'll see what happens. But I'm pretty upbeat about it.'
With the White House increasingly attempting to undermine the courts and casting the federal judges as corrupt and impeachable, legal experts told The Independent that 'Trump could be on a path to contempt of court or his own impeachment,' but that 'nobody knows where a 'dangerous moment for democracy' is headed.'
Additionally, the administration's relentless attacks on the courts for not rubber-stamping the president's agenda ignore 'the fact that Trump's unprecedented usage of executive actions could itself be responsible for his sky-high rate of failure in court,' The Independent's John Bowden notes.
Clinton's fears about what the Trump administration will unleash in the coming months echo his warnings just ahead of last year's election.
Campaigning for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris at the time, Clinton told CNN, 'What has surprised so many people – although I'm sure this happened in the '30s throughout Europe, when they were considering things with fascism – a lot of people just can't believe how many voters in America agree that he doesn't make sense, agree that he's advocating things that would be bad, but somehow think that if the experience was good for them back then, it was magically his doing and everything was fine.'
He added, 'So, I don't know what's going to happen.'
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