Americans need to be concerned President Donald Trump's eventual pick to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy will be a choice that will affect many of their rights, Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., said Thursday.
"Clearly, the president is looking at a list prepared by an extreme group that has an agenda that wants to ratify the president's policies," Cardin told MSNBC's "Morning Joe," while commenting about the conservative Federalist Society.
"I think what the American people need to be concerned about is that we're talking about changing the balance on the Supreme Court that will affect their rights, women's right of choice, worker rights, consumer rights."
Instead, the United States needs an independent Supreme Court that "will protect your constitutional rights from the abuses of the president or Congress or corporate America, and that is on the line with this nominee," Cardin continued.
Democrats will "absolutely" have reason to fight against Trump's Supreme Court pick, expected to be announced this coming Monday, Cardin said.
"We're talking about changing the balance, giving corporate America more power over consumers," Cardin said.
"We're talking about the rights of workers being compromised, we're talking about a Supreme Court that will not follow precedent. The list that has been prepared for the president comes from a group with an agenda. It is more than just one issue. It is the whole direction of the court to follow what the president wants rather than what the American people need."
That list has been prepared with a particular objective, and "we want to make sure that we use every opportunity, so the American people know exactly what is at stake," Cardin said.
Cardin also spoke out about calls from other Democrats to abolish the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, saying it is Trump's policies that are the problem, not ICE itself.
"We need an agency that will deal with our border policies on migration and commerce," Cardin said. "What we don't want is the policy that Donald Trump has announced. We don't want to separate families at the border. We want to allow people at the border to be able to seek asylum. So, the policy in the way it is being implemented by ICE is not sustainable."
However, an agency is needed at the border, "but I'm against the policies that are being implemented by this administration and the way ICE is doing it," Cardin said.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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