Pro-life, pro-choice demonstrators clash in D.C. after President Trump names Barrett as SCOTUS nominee

FILE – In this May 3, 2020 photo, the setting sun shines on the Supreme Court building on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 1:20 PM PT – Sunday, September 27, 2020

The controversial issue of abortion is now at the forefront of the conversation surrounding who will fill the open seat on the Supreme Court.

After President Trump nominated Judge Amy Coney Barrett to fill the vacancy on Saturday, demonstrators took to the streets of Washington, D.C. to voice both support and opposition to the President’s high-profile decision.

Judge Amy Coney Barrett stands as President Donald Trump announces her as his nominee to the Supreme Court, in the Rose Garden at the White House, Saturday, Sept. 26, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Some pro-life advocates appeared optimistic about the President’s pick. They are hoping Barrett will defend Christian values while serving on the high court.

“We are here supporting pro-life, and we are excited to see what she will do,” stated pro-life advocate Emily Harrison. “It’s definitely a change from having a liberal in the Supreme Court to having a more conservative Catholic, who is able to speak out about our beliefs, in the Supreme Court.”

Demonstrators expressed they are specifically interested to see a potential reversal of the landmark abortion decision in the Roe v. Wade case.

“We are having another woman in the Supreme Court to go against Roe v. Wade and to give more options to states,” added Harrison. “I’m excited to see what’s about to happen in the world, a lot is about to change with this new nominee.”

Meanwhile, pro-choice supporters attacked the President’s decision by contrasting Barrett with the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

“As someone of color, as a female, I hope this doesn’t get through,” stated pro-choice advocate Olivia Riesen. “I’d really like to see some real justice and someone to uphold RBG’s legacy.”

With Barrett’s record on abortion decisions now in the spotlight, the decision to fill the open seat on the Supreme Court is set to take its next step in the Senate.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham recently announced the confirmation hearings to consider the President’s nominee will begin on October 12th. They are expected to last about four days.

 

Corey Lewandowski on Barrett attacks: 'We should see more women' supporting her

 

The senior adviser with the Trump campaign said Sunday that there should be more support among women for the president's Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett.

Corey Lewandowski made the comment on “Media Buzz,” reacting to criticism of President Trump’s nomination to succeed the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the U.S. Supreme Court.

“We’re already seeing the double standard,” Lewandowski said on Sunday. “She is being criticized for being the first Supreme Court nominee who has school-age children and they’re using that against her.”

“Why wouldn’t the media come out and say this should be commended?” he asked.

The conservative Barrett, 48, currently serves as a judge on the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. She is a devout Catholic and a working mother to seven children, including two adopted from Haiti. She previously clerked for the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016, and is devoted to the literal interpretation of the Constitution known as originalism.

Many claim her nomination could mean overturning the Affordable Care Act or ObamaCare, or Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark Supreme Court decision that guarantees a woman’s right to an abortion.

“We have a woman who may be one of the greatest legal minds of her generation,” Lewandowski said on Sunday, adding that she “obviously has a difficult work/family balance.”

“This should be praised, a woman of this magnitude who has seven children, who has the opportunity to sit on the high court,” he continued. “We should see more women coming out and supporting her.”

Host Howard Kurtz noted that, “Republicans have the votes” and “Judge Barrett is going to be confirmed.”

He then asked Lewandowski, “Will you acknowledge that this is basically raw politics pushed by [Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell in the Senate who wouldn’t give Merrick Garland a vote with nine months to go and is going to push through this nomination probably with about two weeks before the election?”

“McConell is a master on how to get things done,” Lewandowski said in response, citing his experience in the Senate. “It’s not unprecedented to move a nominee through this quickly."

“We saw it with Justice John Paul Stevens, we saw it with Ruth Bader Ginsburg and I believe it’s the obligation of United States senators to work right up until Election Day and not take a pass on tough votes.”

Fox News’ Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.

Trump takes press to task for skipping over Hunter Biden scandals

 

President Trump on Sunday may have shown a preview of this week’s upcoming presidential debate when he asked reporters at the White House why -- in his opinion --  they have been reluctant to look into Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden’s business involvement in Russia, Ukraine, and China while his father was vice president.

“If we had a media that was fair -- even just reasonable -- this would be the biggest story for years and years,” Trump said. “Then you’d be entitled to real Pulitzer Prizes, not the fake committee that gives away these fake awards.”

Trump's comment was made after the New York Times released a report that he avoided paying taxes for 10 of the past 15 years. Trump called the Times' report another example of fake news.

Trump has brought up Hunter Biden in the past and two Republican-led Senate committees issued a report last week alleging that the work Hunter Biden did in Ukraine constituted a conflict of interest for the Obama administration. His father had taken the lead on some initiatives dealing with Keiv.

The report did not implicate Joe Biden in wrongdoing, focusing instead on his son, who it said “cashed in” on his father’s position by joining the board of a Ukrainian gas company.

Donald Trump Jr. on Sunday took to Twitter to call out a wire transfer to Hunter Biden for $3.5 million from the billionaire widow of the former mayor of Moscow. He also called out the media.

“Hunter Biden received $3.5 million wire transfer from Elena Baturina, the billionaire widow of Yury Luzhkov, the former mayor of Moscow a known associate of Vladimir Putin. Where are our fearless “journalists” now that there’s a real Russia connection?” Trump Jr. tweeted.

Trump Jr. linked his tweet to a story from the New York Post that said the revelation was made in an 87-page report from Senate Republicans last week.

The president asked reporters, "Why did he get $3.5 million? I’ll tell you why: Because Joe Biden was in on it. Joe was in on it. There’s no way that he wasn’t."

Elena Baturina, the richest woman in Russia, "became Russia’s only female billionaire when her plastics company, Inteko, received a series of Moscow municipal contracts while her husband was mayor," the GOP report said.

The Biden campaign did not immediately respond to an email from Fox News seeking comment.

Mediaite reported that Trump is planning to attack Joe Biden over his son. The website pointed to a recent report in the Washington Post that said the president "has told associates he wants to talk specifically about his opponent’s son Hunter Biden and mused that the debates are when ‘people will finally realize Biden is just not there."

Chris Wallace says he hopes to be ‘as invisible as possible’ during first Trump-Biden debate

 

Chris Wallace, the host of “Fox News Sunday” and moderator of the first presidential debate between President Trump and Joe Biden, said that he hopes to remain as “invisible as possible” during their faceoff on Tuesday in Cleveland, Ohio.

“I’m trying to get them to engage…to focus on the key issues…to give people at home a sense of why they want to vote for one versus the other,” he said. “If I’ve done my job right, at the end of the night, people will say, ‘That was a great debate, who was the moderator?’”

The debate will focus on some of the key topics of the day, including the coronavirus pandemic, the economy and the violent protests that have erupted across the country.

“Everything is different about 2020,” Wallace said. “We’ve got the coronavirus, we’ve got this huge economic dislocation, now something of a recovery, we’ve got this racial tension in this country…the violence on the streets…you know,  it’s just, it’s a different year. It makes it particularly tough because 90 minutes—the length of this debate—is a lot of time, but there is an awful lot to ask these two men about,” he said.

In an exclusive interview with “Fox & Friends,” which aired earlier Sunday, Trump said he was preparing every day for the upcoming debate against Biden.

"When you're president, you sort of see everything that they're going to be asking. And they may disagree with you, but we've done a great job. We created the greatest economy in history," Trump said in an interview with Fox News after nominating Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.

Trump has decided to skip formal preparation, though he said Sunday that former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and his former 2016 primary rival, Chris Christie, are helping him.

Biden’s team believes the significance of the debate may be exaggerated, but the Democratic nominee has been aggressively preparing to take on the president.

Biden’s campaign has been holding mock debate sessions featuring Bob Bauer, a senior Biden adviser and former White House general counsel, playing the role of Trump, according to a person with direct knowledge of the preparations who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal strategy. Bauer has not actually donned a Trump costume in line with Trump stand-ins from previous years, but he is representing his style and expected strategy.

Wallace said that “one of these two people is going to be the next president of the United States, and my job is to be as invisible as possible.”

Fox News' Danielle Wallace and the Associated Press contributed to this repport

Hirono, Blumenthal Cartoons

 

Trump plans visit to Minnesota on Wednesday

 

President Trump plans to visit Minnesota next week, a state he lost in 2016 to then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Trump is expected to hold a rally at Duluth International Airport at 5 p.m. Wednesday CT, according to the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

The president has stepped up his campaign efforts in Minnesota, which has voted Democrat for nearly 50 years. He is making his second trip to the state this month with Nov. 3 only six weeks away.

President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Bemidji Regional Airport, Sept. 18, in Bemidji, Minn. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Minnesota's early voting period began Sept. 18, when 2020 Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden visited Duluth and Trump made an appearance at Bemidji Regional Airport.

Trump attempted to appeal to working and middle-class voters in the Midwest with promises of bringing manufacturing jobs back to the U.S., selling more American-made goods and protecting suburban communities.

Biden has made similar appeals to blue-collar voters in Minnesota, saying in a speech to union workers during his trip to Duluth of his plans to boost U.S. manufacturing, sell U.S. goods and make sure no American worker making less than $400,000 per year pays "a single penny more in taxes."

Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden greets firefighters as he makes a stop in Duluth, Minn., Friday, Sept. 18, 2020. Second from left is the Mayor of Duluth Emily Larson. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

"Like a lot of you, I spent a lot of my life with guys like Donald Trump looking down on me, looking down on the people who make a living with their hands," Biden told the crowd on Sept. 18.

The president argued during his Bemidji Airport visit that Biden would "overwhelm" Minnesota's schools and hospitals by accepting more refugees into the country. Trump added that he would work to make the U.S. the "manufacturing superpower of the world" and end the nation's reliance on China.

He also attacked the former vice president's stance on crime as Minneapolis sees a spike in homicides amid civil unrest.

White House adviser Ivanka Trump and Vice President Mike Pence visited Minneapolis on Wednesday to attend a listening session with a pro-Trump police group and residents who say crime in the city is affecting the president's reelection campaign.

Hirono, Blumenthal say they won’t meet with Amy Coney Barrett

No Class Trash.

More No Class Trash.

Amy Coney Barrett

Two Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee said they will not meet with Amy Coney Barrett -- President Trump’s pick to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court.

Trump announced on Saturday evening that he intends to nominate Barrett to fill the vacancy on the nation’s highest court after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg last week.

Democrats indicated that they will oppose Barrett’s nomination, citing her conservative credentials which they see as a threat to health care and abortion rights, while also arguing that it is too close to Election Day for Trump to nominate a justice.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee and will  play a role in confirmation hearings, said he would oppose her confirmation “as I would any nominee proposed as part of this illegitimate sham process, barely one month before an election as Americans are already casting their votes.”

"If Judge Barrett’s views become law, hundreds of millions of Americans living w/pre-existing conditions would lose access to their health care. In the middle of a pandemic, rushing confirmation of an extreme jurist who will decimate health care is unconscionable," he said on Twitter.

“I will refuse to treat this process as legitimate & will not meet with Judge Amy Coney Barrett,” he tweeted.

Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, also said that she would not meet with Barrett when asked on CNN, although she said she would question her at the hearing.

“I will not be meeting with her, I will take the opportunity to question her when she is under oath,” she said.

Republicans are unlikely to be too concerned by Democrats not meeting with Barrett, having indicated they have the votes, both in the Senate Judiciary Committee and in the Senate chamber, to confirm Barrett along party lines before the election.

So far, only Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Susan Collins, R-Maine, have indicated they oppose moving forward with a confirmation before the election. Murkowski has since suggested she still may vote for the nominee.

With 53 votes in the Senate, there would need to be three Republican defections for there to be a tie, which would be broken then by Vice President Mike Pence.

 

Portland unrest prompts arrests; objects thrown at officers, flag burned: reports

 

More than a dozen rioters were arrested late Saturday in Portland, Ore., as crowd members threw cans, bottles and other objects at law enforcement officers, authorities said.

The rioting was underway in the downtown area, with the state’s largest city now seeing more than four months of daily and nightly protests, vandalism and violence.

Crowd members became “hostile to officers trying to clear the street” for vehicular traffic, prompting the arrests, the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office wrote in Twitter messages.

At one point in the evening, rioters were seen setting an American flag on fire.

At another point, a detainee escaped from a police van and ran off, according to a KOIN-TV reporter’s video on Twitter.

A protester burns an American flag while rallying at the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse on Saturday, Sept. 26, 2020, in Portland, Ore. (Associated Press)

Around 7 p.m. local time, Portland police posted on Twitter their account of confiscating firearms, paintball guns, baseball bats and shields from a vehicle leaving Delta Park.

“At least one criminal citation was issued,” the tweet said.

Saturday’s unrest began hours earlier, around noon, with a planned event by the conservative Proud Boys, but an expected crowd of thousands for that rally failed to materialize, with only several hundred showing up, FOX 12 of Oregon reported.

A female protester is loaded into a van after being arrested while rallying at the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse on Saturday, Sept. 26, 2020, in Portland, Ore. (Associated Press)<br>

A day earlier, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown had warned anyone attending the Proud Boys event – whether supporters of the groups or the left-wing counter-protesters who often appear at their events – that they would be “held accountable” if caught “stoking the flames of violence.”

When the Proud Boys gathered, chairman Enrique Tarrio claimed the group had helped prompt action by Brown and Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler to help discourage violence.

“I’m actually really happy we forced Kate Brown and Ted Wheeler’s hand into actually doing their job. They haven’t been doing their job for 120 days,” Tarrio says, according to FOX 12. “We’ve seen destruction, mayhem.”

About 50 Portland police officers had been deputized as federal officers in anticipation of trouble at the Proud Boys event, OregonLive.com reported.

About 50 Oregon State Police members were federally deputized in July, the report said.

The designations, in part, would help federal authorities bring federal charges – with potential harsher prison terms -- against any suspects accused of assaulting the officers, according to the report.