Conservative podcaster, author, and attorney Hugh Hewitt went off on liberal Fox News co-host Jessica Tarlov during a segment on “Special Report with Bret Baier” Wednesday evening after she tried to justify the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to boot former President Donald Trump off the state’s 2024 ballot under the “insurrection” clause of the 14th Amendment.
“Well, the legal impact, Bret, I have never been more ashamed of a court in the United States history. I think this will go down in infamy as maybe one of the most ridiculous decisions by a state Supreme Court rendered in the course of American history,” Hewitt began.
“It truly is worthy of scorn. I’m at a loss for words… It should be overturned by the Supreme Court. It is interfering with the election, and the people who are most angry ought to be Governor DeSantis, Ambassador Haley, and Governor Christie because the Colorado Supreme Court is stepping on their campaigns and interfering with their election,” he added.
Then it was Tarlov’s turn.
“I have taken in a lot of the commentary on both sides of the decision. And I think that, in particular, we’re all going to be watching Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, who has actually already ruled on this issue when he was on the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit,” she began.
“So the case was Hassan v. Colorado. He wrote, and it is quoted in the majority opinion in the Colorado case, that the state does have a right to kick someone who is ineligible to run off of the ballot. And it is interesting in the dissent, and Hugh didn’t mention this, that the three dissenting justices did not refute the idea that Donald Trump played a part in this insurrection which under Section 3 of Article 14 should rule him ineligible to be running for office,” she continued. “They talked about lack of due process, but they didn’t engage with any of the evidence that was presented in a five-day bench trial. They just said he didn’t get his due process.”
Baier then jumped in: “Jessica, the other point — he hasn’t been charged officially with that.”
Hugh Hewitt, a former practicing attorney, schools Fox News contributor Jessica Tarlov, a non-attorney, over her ridiculous take regarding the Colorado high court's ruling to remove Trump from the 2024 ballot. pic.twitter.com/pmNDptmm1Y
— USA Features Media (@UsaFeatures) December 21, 2023
“No. That’s also not stipulated in Section 3 that you have to be charged. It’s not there. I understand that’s the case they will make. But it will be very difficult for Neil Gorsuch to go back on something that he has essentially already ruled on, and especially if the dissenting justices aren’t making it seem that solid of a case,” she responded.
“Really quickly. Two points on that,” she went on. “One, this case was brought by a group of Republicans. It was not brought by Democrats. This doesn’t have to do with leftist politics. And Donald Trump is the only person running for president who challenged our constitution. The one who said this election should not stand and asked Mike Pence to quote, ‘do the right thing.'”
That explanation set Hewitt off.
“Stop! Stop!” he interjected.
“That is not something that a Democrat ever did,” Tarlov fired back.
“Jessica, this is the worst legal take I have ever heard. It’s absurd,” Hewitt said. “It is absolutely absurd for a non-lawyer to sit here and say that minus a confrontation with someone who has not been charged, much less convicted, that the Court can take them off the ballot.
“It is a shameful moment in American jurisprudence. It is like watching a bad high school musical. Is a cringe-inducing moment for anyone who has ever taught the law, practiced the law, and Colorado will be scorned for decades because of this and will be reversed by the [U.S. Supreme] Court very quickly,” he added, predicting the high court’s ruling would be unanimous, with all nine justices voting to overturn.
