The liberal media has gone into a frenzy over the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Nonetheless, "never let a crisis go to waste" is still the prevailing dogma, and the panel of CNN's New Day on Monday morning took comfort in the delusion that the Supreme Court decision will push the Republican Party into political irrelevance.
The panel began — with a somber “what now” tone reserved for major U.S. military defeats, terrorist attacks, and Republicans winning court cases — with Brianna Keilar asking, “How different, Laura, are women's rights in America this morning?”
Laura Jarrett focused on the upcoming legal challenges over abortion pills, “I think the real fight that you’re going to see play out is what happens with medicated abortion, the two pills that induce abortion — I mean, over half of women in this country who get an abortion are actually doing it through these two pills right now.”
John Berman then turned the discussion to politics, asking CNN political commentator S.E. Cupp, “What are — now that anti-abortion activists got what they wanted, right, which is to overturn Roe vs. Wade, what happens now politically, do you think?”
Cupp indulged in some wishful thinking, “It's hard to imagine the Republican Party surviving this. Um — between anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ, book banning, anti-democracy — I mean, add all of the regressive bullshit — uh, garbage, sorry, to this — I don't take that back — um, add it all together and I don't know who is left in the future — in future generations to be drawn to this party.”
The radical Left has given the GOP a pretty simple platform to run on which Cupp inadvertently summed up: don’t kill babies, don’t have children attend sexually explicit pride parades and drag shows, stop school-age kids from reading literal pornography, and maintain election integrity. All of these are defensive measures against an increasingly radical progressive movement, but in Cupp’s mind the Republican Party is the one pushing “regressive bullshit?”
Let it be noted that Cupp did not apologize for her profanity. So stunning. So brave.
But this wasn’t the end for Cupp’s bad takes. Later on in the panel, Keilar asked her about the economic repercussions of the decision for lower-income women, “I mean, there's a nonpartisan study two years old out of NBER, and the initial finding said that when women have access to abortion — uh, and when it's taken away, when that access is taken away, there is a large increase in financial distress that is sustained for years.”
Cupp responded with this absolute headscratcher, “Listen, I'm — I’m pro-life, I sympathize with the pro-life position, but I'm a modern gal. I understand the necessity for this. For — for many women, I don't judge that. And I've always accepted Roe as the law of the land because it's older than me. It always has been.”
As a general rule, whenever someone says something and follows it with “but,” whatever they say before the “but” is — to use one of Cupp’s favorite words — “bullshit” (and yes, “I don't take that back.”).
Flippant observations aside, it is truly frightening that much of the professional pundit class thinks “I’m a modern gal” and “it’s older than me” are good reasons for legalizing child murder.
This media group therapy session was made possible by Marcum and Safelite. Their contact information is linked.
Click “Expand” to see the relevant transcript.
CNN’s New Day
06/27/22
7:08:01 AM ETBRIANNA KEILAR: Let's discuss this with CNN Anchors Laura Jarrett and Poppy Harlow, CNN Political Commentator S.E. Cupp, and Irin Carmon, Senior Correspondent at New York Magazine. She's also the co-author of Notorious RBG: the Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Let's just start broadly here. How different, Laura, are women's rights in America this morning?
LAURA JARRETT: Dramatically. Uh, dramatically right away. Dramatically even before. I mean, think about the fact that Texas effectively banned abortion months ago — um, and we're here right now. Life as — as women know it — um, has been dramatically changed from what we knew for the past 50 years. I think the question now is really all the questions that you outlined with Jeffrey Toobin is what comes next.
And I think the real fight that you’re going to see play out is what happens with medicated abortion, the two pills that induce abortion — I mean, over half of women in this country who get an abortion are actually doing it through these two pills right now. The FDA has said that they're safe, has said that they're effective, safer than Viagra. The Attorney General has said, states, you cannot ban these two pills. And yet states are going to try to ban them. So then what happens?
JOHN BERMAN: Um — I think the FDA said you can't ban them for safety reasons.
JARRETT: Yes.
BERMAN: Which may end up being where the legal crux of this issue is.
JARRETT: But it’s an —
BERMAN: They can say, we're not banning it for safety reasons, we're banning them for other reasons.
JARRETT: It's an enormous loophole, though. If, in fact, Merrick Garland's side on this, which he — he believes he has the argument here, that the federal government has the last say, it preempts state law, as Poppy knows —
POPPY HARLOW: A big question.
JARRETT: So it’s a really big question. But if you can get an abortion through two medicated pills up to ten weeks, that is fundamentally different than what states are doing right now, which is trying to ban abortion at the moment of fertilization.
BERMAN: S.E., again, the question that Brianna is asking is the right one, the sort of now what. What are — now that anti-abortion activists got what they wanted, right, which is to overturn Roe vs. Wade, what happens now politically, do you think?
S.E. CUPP: It's hard to imagine the Republican Party surviving this. Um — between anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ, book banning, anti-democracy — I mean, add all of the regressive bullshit — uh, garbage, sorry, to this — I don't take that back — um, add it all together and I don't know who is left in the future — in future generations to be drawn to this party.
If you look back at 2016, I think people voted for Trump for a wide array of reasons, some of them garbage, but some of them legitimately economic or even foreign policy. I think the people voting for more Trump, more MAGA now are really motivated by very few reasons, and so there are fewer of them. And when you imagine that I think for the first time, maybe we should ask Jeff Toobin, a generation will be able to say my parents had a right that I don't have today. For the first time a right was taken back. Um — I can't imagine how Republicans message to new voters and don't just keep shrinking and condensing.
IRIN CARMON: May I jump in? I mean, I — I hear you on that but I think that we are — we cannot take for granted that a younger generation isn't actually cheering a backlash to the kind of progress that we saw. All you have to do is go on the internet and go into the manosphere, go into men's rights — uh, like —
CUPP: Sure.
CARMON: — there is a profound dislocation because of the progress that certain groups have made, and this is seen — wrongly, I think — as a zero-sum game, whether it's progress for LGBTQ individuals, women and other people who can become pregnant, controlling their reproduction, Black Lives Matter, Trump was elected on that backlash and I don't think that backlash has gone away, even as they've accomplished some goals. There is still this feeling, if you control someone's reproduction you control their life.
CUPP: Absolutely. But that view —
CARMON: And I mean there are some people who are on board with that.
CUPP: — in the minority, if you look at the spectrum of where people are on abortion, eight percent of this country wants a full ban. Eight percent, that is an extreme minority. Most people want legal abortion — I count myself in this category — legal abortion with restrictions. And then you’ve got folks who want no restrictions, they are also a minority. So, absolutely they’re there — believe me, I hear from them —
CARMON: Yeah.
CUPP — but it's an increasingly minority position.
CARMON: But it's a minority that's insulated from political accountability because of the system we have.
CUPP: Yeah.
(...)
7:15:59 AM ET
BERMAN: You know, again, I’m — eh, it’s, it’s — we're waking up on a Monday morning here with a different country than we woke up with on Friday and everyone I think is trying to figure out how to navigate it now.
And, Poppy, you know, you cover business and business angles. So many different companies are doing so many different things here.
HARLOW: Yes, so many. I mean, you guys probably have a graph. Like there is a litany. Most — most I would say — most of the really big — uh, companies right now are coming out from Starbucks, Goldman Sachs, Meta, Facebook, Disney, and saying they will help employees travel if they need to, fund this, help protect that. Some companies are not.
But I think even beyond the companies, the impact is mostly on poor women, women without means, who many won't be employed by these companies. So — so then what? Which was also a warning from Justice Ginsburg. So, then what?
I mean, there's a nonpartisan study two years old out of NBER, and the initial finding said that when women have access to abortion — uh, and when it's taken away, when that access is taken away, there is a large increase in financial distress that is sustained for years.
KEILAR: So then, S.E., what is the responsibility of those who support this?
CUPP: Yeah.
KEILAR: Right? If you’re in Texas and there are 40,000 — I mean, there — there's probably not going to be 40,000 babies born in the next year that would not have been born. I imagine some women will go elsewhere and find a place to have an abortion, but there may be tens of thousands of babies that there wouldn't have been before this. What is the responsibility of, say, Republican senators who normally don't want to vote for spending on social safety net — uh, items that would protect the families and the babies that may need it?
CUPP: Well, in many ways, it's too late. That should have been, you know, part of the plan here, to have that in place. Um — the idea that we're going to have an army of police and prosecutors going out to round up women and doctors and Uber drivers and whomever else is tangentially connected to this is medieval and draconian. And it's the responsibility of our legislators both at the federal and state and local levels to figure this out for us and not just allow this kind of chaos and draconian — um, you know, experience to happen to us.
And Poppy is right, this is mostly going to affect poor and rural women who have limited access to all kinds of health care to begin with. Um — so it's really irresponsible of legislators — um, it's not the Supreme Court's job to do this, but it is the job of legislators to put in place some protections for what's about to happen. Like you said, I mean, there are more people alive today who never lived in America without Roe. It's older than I am. More people have never known it without it. So, we've got to provide for the reality of this.
Listen, I'm — I’m pro-life, I sympathize with the pro-life position, but I'm a modern gal. I understand the necessity for this. For — for many women, I don't judge that. And I've always accepted Roe as the law of the land because it's older than me. It always has been. To make this monumental a shift in American cultural life and experience, it is our duty to then explain how life goes on today, tomorrow, and the next year.
