“The View” co-hosts unexpectedly said the Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of former President Donald Trump was “the right decision.”
The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Trump must remain on the state ballot in Colorado after the state Supreme Court disqualified him under the “insurrectionist” ban of the 14th Amendment. Two other states, Maine and Illinois, followed suit with Colorado in removing the former president from their ballots.
“I actually think it was the right decision to make because it would’ve, you know, if Colorado had been allowed to do that we’d have this chaotic sort of process where you have 50 states, and some are choosing to put him on the ballot and some are choosing not to put him on the ballot,” co-host Sunny Hostin said. “So that’s why this decision was unanimous in judgment.”
Hostin complained that the court politically overstepped by allegedly allowing Trump to remain in office unchallenged, and said the court should have simply answered the question on whether a state can make this sort of decision. She said she had “far too much hope” that the justices would not “overstep in favor of Donald Trump,” but said some of the justices acted in “a partisan manner.”
“Instead, what they did was insulated — all alleged insurrectionists from future challenges to their holding federal office. And it is a tenant of Supreme Court law … it says what it does today the court should’ve left undone and we always learn that in law school. The Supreme Court should just answer the question before it, and I had far too much hope that the court would be united in this and not overstep in favor of Donald Trump. And I think what we saw was a court that behaved in a partisan manner, and that disappoints me.”
The court ruled Congress, rather than the states, has the power to enforce Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which bars insurrectionists from holding office. The decision further stated that Colorado’s decision could cause chaos in future elections, writing that an “evolving electoral map could dramatically change the behavior of voters, parties, and States across the country, in different ways and at different times.” (RELATED: ‘Purely Partisan Ploy’: Alan Dershowitz Picks Apart Colorado Ruling Removing Trump From Ballot)
“Because the Constitution makes Congress, rather than the States, responsible for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates, we reverse,” the decision stated.
Co-host Sara Haines said the case in Colorado would open the doors for conservative states to act in a similar manner. Co-host Ana Navarro said Colorado’s case opened up a “Pandora’s box,” and argued the voters should decide who is on the ballot.
Co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin said the decision protects the nation from future consequences for years to come.
“I think it was the right decision, not a welcome one — it can sometimes be the right thing precedentially but also maybe you worry about it for the country. But the justices were always gonna look at what could this mean ten, twenty years down the road,” Griffin said. “And to Ana’s point, there was also a Missouri secretary of state, a Republican Secretary of State, who threatened to keep Biden off the ballot under the same decision, so it does open a bit of a slippery slope.”
“But I think the takeaway from today is this: the only place to beat Donald Trump is at the ballot box and the way to do that — yes, you have to litigate his anti-constitutional stances — but we also have to pay attention to the issues that the voters that are still with him care about,” Griffin continued.
Hostin complained that the court went further than the state’s rights question by allowing Trump to become president even if he is found to be an insurrectionist. She criticized the Founders for supposedly allowing insurrectionists to be president, despite the 14th Amendment’s ratification not occurring until 1868.
“Yes, they didn’t find that he was an insurrectionist,” Hostin said. “They didn’t reach that issue. But what they did do when you read that entire opinion is, even if he were an insurrectionist, they have somehow insulated him from becoming the president. So, even if he is found to be an insurrectionist, the way I read this, he can still be the President of the United States, and I thought the 14th Amendment, and our Framers, knew better.”
Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft threatened to remove President Joe Biden from the ballot if the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Colorado’s decision to “ensure the new legal standard” equally applied to both Biden and Trump.