Bari Weiss has been relatively quiet since she canceled herself from The New York Times earlier this year. But with Meghan McCain on maternity leave, there is an opening at The View for a relentlessly contrarian voice and Weiss stepped right into it as guest host on Tuesday.
The show opened with a discussion about Amy Coney Barrett’s swift confirmation to the Supreme Court, and legal analyst Sunny Hostin was quick to attack the Republican Party for stealing seats from the Democrats and pushing through right-wing judges in their place.
“We all know the Republican Party has been packing the Supreme Court for decades,” Hostin said. “They’ve been packing the judiciary for decades. Trump has put now three justices on the Supreme Court and just dozens and dozens of judges on the federal judiciary. So I think what we’re going to see is perhaps the Democrats unpacking the Supreme Court so that there’s more of a balance.”
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“Because right now the Supreme Court does not reflect the values of America,” she continued. “The Supreme Court now reflects the minority of the values of America. That is important because it’s supposed to really reflect what is a balance of American values, with a swing justice deciding what the law is. And that is not what we are seeing now. So this is going to lead, I think, to an unpacking of Court which may lead to 13 justices which would reflect the federal appeals courts around the country.”
This idea did not sit well with Weiss, who said, “I’m confused about what Sunny’s saying about packing and unpacking the Court. Packing the Court is about adding more justices to the bench, which is something that people like AOC and Ilhan Omar are advocating for. Packing the court doesn’t mean appointing justices that some people don’t like.” From there, she attacked Joe Biden for not adequately answering questions from reporters about whether his administration would “pack the court.”
Whoopi Goldberg tried to jump in and explain that Hostin was talking about the lower courts, but Sunny interrupted her to ask, “Can I correct Bari on something?” and then, “I was talking about the Supreme Court, you’re wrong.”
“I was in particular talking about the Supreme Court being packed and I used those words very specifically,” Hostin continued. She then added, “In order to unpack the Supreme Court, meaning unpack the culture, unpack the values that are on the Supreme Court—in order to do that you would have to add either term limits, age limits, or you would have to add justices, which would then balance the Supreme Court, which would lead to an unpacking.”
When Hostin noted that Biden has now answered those questions by saying he would create a commission to study the issue further, Weiss shot back, “That’s not answering the question, it’s a dodge!”
“He’s answering the question in a bipartisan way because he wants this country not to be as divided as it has been,” Hostin replied “He wants to bring the country together. And a way to do that is to study the issue in a bipartisan way. I think that’s the best answer anyone has really provided for this issue.”
Goldberg ultimately ended the segment by saying she’s “happy” Biden didn’t give a straight answer to the question. “I don’t think that the American people are used now to getting answers to the questions that they ask,” she said, “because we have an administration that doesn’t ever answer a question.”
