A former judicial nominee from Donald Trump was forced to withdraw his nomination after it was revealed that he was sympathetic to the KKK and that’s not even the weirdest part of this story. Ring of Fire’s Mike Papantonio and Farron Cousins discuss this.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: A former judicial nominee from Donald Trump was forced to withdraw his nomination after it was revealed that he was sympathetic to the KKK and that’s not even the weirdest part of this story. Good God. This story, I read it twice and I said, was it really this bad. Yeah, it is. Go ahead and pick it up.
Farron Cousins: Well, Brett Talley, this was the guy we have talked about him several times.
Mike Papantonio: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Farron Cousins: He’s the one who, he never tried a case. He was only a lawyer for a little under three years.
Mike Papantonio: Alabama.
Farron Cousins: Alabama. So he gets nominated to this federal lifetime appointment. He’s in his early thirties, I think.
Mike Papantonio: 32, 33, yeah something.
Farron Cousins: So he would’ve been, he would’ve been, you know, on there for probably, God, 50 years maybe, depending. But anyway, once he made it out of committee with his nomination, they decided, oh, let’s, let’s look at his background maybe. He’s on this message board for tidefans.com for Alabama Crimson tide fans where he’s talking about all kinds of racist things, disparaging Muslims, jokes about rape. Talking about how he’s sympathetic to Nathan Bedford, the first grand wizard of the KKK and how, you know, they were actually doing some good things.
Mike Papantonio: Trying to say the KKK, they’re getting a bad rap. You go back and look at the KKK, they’ve done, you know, they’ve done some great things besides hanging, mutilating and torturing minorities. They’ve done some really good things.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: You know what amazed me, this guy’s never tried a case in his life. Has never even been a, never been, been to trial. He graduates from Harvard, well, we know how that happens. Harvard operates, they know somebody. Yeah, he’s not, it’s not that this guy’s a genius. I can promise you this guy is not a genius.
Farron Cousins: No.
Mike Papantonio: Although he is a, he’s a prolific conservative writer. He writes, he writes constantly. I mean, you can, any day you could, you could have gone and found out something that this character wrote. But here’s the real ugly thing. He’s with the department of justice now. Making decisions, his role in the department of justice is, who should be the next judge?
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: That he is, he’s taking a look at judges determining who should be the next judge. This guy’s never been to trial. We’ve got this, as you pointed out, this background of writing about statutory rape as if it’s no big deal. The grand wizard, the right, you know, no right to abortion, disparaging Muslims, on and on. This guy’s now with the department of justice.
Farron Cousins: Well, you know what, I, I’m actually gonna go out on a limb here. This may shock some people. I don’t fault Trump for this guy at all. Trump has not picked a single one of his judicial nominees. People need to understand that.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah, federalist society.
Farron Cousins: He, he sucks at everything, but he’s not the one who’s picking these. This is, as you said, it’s coming from the federalist society. Mitch McConnell is feeding these.
Mike Papantonio: Yes, yes.
Farron Cousins: The US chamber and this is all documented.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: They’re giving him the names and he doesn’t know any better. Just says, okay. Yeah, sure, Brett Talley. There you go. Roll tide buddy.
Mike Papantonio: The judiciary is in an abyss right now.
Farron Cousins: It is.
Mike Papantonio: And it’s not, it’s not just Trump, it’s the people advising Trump on this.
