BUCK: We have been talking in recent days, last couple of weeks, a lot about the debate around Roe v. Wade and abortion — the impending Supreme Court decision — which I still think should have already been released but it seems like they’re not gonna do that. There also could be any day now, Clay, and we’ll be talking about it a lot, a big Second Amendment Supreme Court decision could be coming down that has to do with permitting processes in places like New York.

We were talking before about New York state law. That would affect permitting in the whole country. We’ll talk about that case when it comes down. Some thought it might be today, might be this week. But on the abortion issue, the protest, Clay… I was, as we know, in Chicago over the weekend, and I’m just trying to do the tourist thing. And, sure enough, I end up walking through some pro-abortion protesters.

You can tell because you hear the shrieking and the cursing and the screaming and the profanity, and you know what side of the issue the people doing this are on right away when they’re yelling at the top of their lungs. If they’re handing you cookies and asking if they can give you a pamphlet, they’re the pro-life side, and I’m actually being probably too generous on the pro-abortion side of this. Here was over the weekend. This was at one of these protests. This is one of the arguments that was being made at some of the protests.

PHX: Pro Abortion protesters scream “MASTURBATION IS MURDER!” at the Planned Parenthood Protest at the AZ State Capitol pic.twitter.com/sbd9VdldOx

— Drew Hernandez (@DrewHLive) May 15, 2022

BUCK: Sooo that woman’s obviously even in a debate with a lot of stupid people —

CLAY: I’m just gonna say, Buck, I know a lot of serial killers based on her standard that she’s applying there. (laughing)

BUCK: So she’s… (laughing) She’s clearly not a very bright person, but there are a lot of very, very bad arguments being made on this issue. And just so that we’re all clear on this, I like to remind everybody of what is really being said and what is being claimed. Eric Adams, the mayor of New York, who should be focused on protecting all life, not only the preborn but also just the people who are walking around the streets of New York which is not quite as dangerous as Chicago when it comes to gun violence but it’s not that far behind, either.

Here is Eric Adams who just keeps getting worse I think with every passing month saying that, until the moment of birth abortion is what should happen.

Q: “Do you think there should be any limitation on abortions?”

NYC Mayor Adams: “No, I do not.”pic.twitter.com/EFrjGrhpVN

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) May 16, 2022

BUCK: Notice the stupid talking-point fallback there of “Women should know how to treat their bodies,” as if that answers any of the primary debates here, which is about this is another human life that is in the womb. But I just want to be clear, he said, Clay, and we heard him, that the reporter — and credit to the reporter who asked the question — do you think that abortion up until the moment of birth is legal and legitimate? And he said absolutely yes, he’s in favor of this. This is murderous, this is infanticide, and the Democrat Party is out of its mind.

CLAY: I agree on that front, and to me I think the way to crystallize this — and this is why I would say Justice Alito’s opinion, if it actually ends up being released in some form similar to what we saw the draft opinion leaked, the conversation moves from, “Should the Supreme Court…?” I think this is significant and I’m not sure that a lot of people have processed this yet. The conversation moved from should the Supreme Court allow abortion to occur nationwide, the nine justices of the Supreme Court, or should it go back to the states?

And when it goes back to the states, the conversation shifts from what the Supreme Court believes to what should abortion policy be in 50 different American states. And what you will find… I’ve been talking about this a lot ’cause I’ve been asking people. Sometimes it’s an awkward conversation to have, right, because a lot of people don’t want to talk about the specifics of it but inning it’s an important one. Where are the standards? And when you are talking about even guys that are claiming to be moderate…

We’ll ask JD Vance about this in about 20 minutes ’cause he’s going up against Tim Ryan in the Senate race in Ohio. Tim Ryan went on with Bret Baier on Fox News and said that he’s a hundred percent in favor of abortion up to nine months. That’s murder. And what I do is take — in my opinion. And the opinion of the vast majority of the American public. And what I always do here is take it away from abortion.

If someone is shot, a mom, when she is nine months pregnant and that baby dies too, not be able to delivered, that’s a double murder. We are saying that the shooter took the life of the mother and the baby, and for anybody out there that is — and I’ve been through it three times — the process of having a child, one of the worst things that you can think of to happen when your wife, when you’ve got a baby coming, is for someone to do violence to her.

It’s always awful to have violence occur, but to have it occur when she is pregnant I think is a visceral reaction to almost everyone out there listening to us right now. It makes you feel sick to think about a pregnant woman being attacked and being attacked so severely that not only does she lose her life but the baby loses its life. And yet you’re gonna have people like Eric Adams and Tim Ryan and Joe Biden and virtually now every Democrat now saying:

“Hey, nine-month abortions are okay.” That’s not something that the vast majority of the American public supports — and it forces the conversation, Buck, to move from, “Hey, what should the Supreme Court do?” to, “Let’s put politicians on the record and hold them accountable is democracy is intended to do for the beliefs that they have that may not comport with the beliefs of the larger American public.” I think that is the biggest, most consequential aspect of what it means for our political process for these debates to be taking place.

BUCK: Merrick Garland is the attorney general, as we all know, and he was asked about the legal realities here of the pressure being brought to bear on Supreme Court justices at their homes by mobs, Democrat mobs. We know who’s doing this. It’s not pro-life protesters out there handing out cookies, being nice to people. It’s shrill lunatics screaming about how a constitutional right that never was a right in the first place should be theirs forever or else. Here is Merrick Garland dodging.

REPORTER: Are you open to prosecuting some of the protesters at the homes of the justices?

GARLAND: Sorry.

BUCK: Just says, “Sorry,” and walks away. So he won’t even address it. But I bring it up because Bill Maher, one of Clay’s favorites —

CLAY: Hey, I’m telling you, he’s joined Team Sanity in many respects.

BUCK: Bill Maher, on this issue at least… You know, I think it’s funny because he’s still very much, as I’ve said a Democrat, and there are issues where Clay and I would disagree with him pretty strenuously, very strenuously. But he’s kind of a 19… He’s almost like a time machine Democrat. It’s almost like he’s a Democrat from 1995 or something, you know, or maybe a Democrat from the early 2000s.

‘Cause he still holds to some liberal, free speech principles, right? He still believes in civil rights at some level, and he also thinks that laws that are clearly written should be considered the law. So here he is. Merrick Garland, of course, doing nothing and saying nothing about the very obvious federal law that has to do with judicial intimidation that is being violated, has been violated by Democrat pro-Roe protesters. Here is Bill Maher.

BUCK: It is a violation of law, and just because Democrats have real sadness feelings about things doesn’t mean it’s not a violation of law, and Merrick Garland at some level knows that, Clay.

CLAY: Yeah, and Merrick Garland is — and this is maybe saying something — I think, the biggest disappointment I have of anybody who has been appointed to the cabinet.

BUCK: You thought he was actually gonna be moderate? Come on.

CLAY: I didn’t think he was gonna be moderate, but I thought that he was going to be competent and somewhat reasonable. And when you look at the other people — when you look at Mayorkas, when you look at Mayor Pete, certainly when you consider Kamala at VP, Xavier Becerra, all these different people you start running through, it is a… What did they have, the Team of Rivals, I think Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote that great book?

BUCK: Talked about it a lot when Obama made Hillary the secretary of state. Yeah.

CLAY: And look. Having an incredibly talented group around you is a testament to your own intelligence and your ability to handle other talented people as Lincoln did when he was the surprise elected president in 1860. Joe Biden’s done the exact opposite. I don’t know what the opposite of Team of Rivals is, but it’s the largest collection of idiots in the history of American government.

BUCK: They would not allow a person who was not essentially inclined or willing to go along with left-wing activism. They wouldn’t. You can’t. This is why when everyone’s saying, “Oh, my gosh.” This Nina Jankowicz person, the disinformation czar —

CLAY: She’s an imbecile.

BUCK: — Soviet Mary Poppins, they’re saying, “But clearly she’s unqualified!” Exactly. You have to understand from a Democrat perspective, she’s perfectly qualified because the whole purpose of having her there is to have a partisan zealot who believed Russia collusion and believes all the talking points about they’re just gonna get rid of the disinformation about elections. They need someone who’s a true believer in that stuff.

You could not get a job in this Biden administration unless you are a Russia collusion truther wacko, and that is true across the board. You better be all about, you know, diversity and inclusion and CRT and transgender ideology for 5-year-olds — and you better be a Russia collusion truther and go down the list of things — otherwise you can’t actually work for the Biden administration. That’s where we are.

CLAY: I legitimately can’t even name someone who I would say, “You know what? These people policy differentials but I respect the fact that they’re somewhat intelligent and coming from a decent place.” Merrick Garland was the only one, because I was — and I think what’s so sad about this, Buck, is I think guys like Merrick Garland and Joe Biden, they’ve risen to the top of their jobs, right? They’re attorney general, president of the United States. They’re old white guys.

I think they are now so desperately afraid of being called racist that they don’t even feel comfortable saying what they truly believe. Joe Biden in 1994. Maybe the only thing he’s ever gotten right was putting way more cops on the streets to drive down the rate of crime. That’s probably his best legacy if you’re going to point to one. Merrick Garland was not an insane ignoramus on the bench.

But as soon as they got drawn into this political process — I really do believe this — I think they’re so afraid of being targeted by the progressive wing of their parties that they don’t even say what they actually believe. And Joe Biden might not know what he actually believes anymore ’cause I think he’s unfortunately in the grips of dementia. But Merrick Garland should, and he should understand the importance of Bill Barr standing on principle when you’ve got a long history of understanding the Constitution, and he’s failed utterly.

BUCK: I also think that you never really see anymore the resignation on principle.

CLAY: Yeah.

BUCK: I mean, this is something… This is maybe a broader conversation, the same with term limits, which people on the right talk about a lot, and members of Congress on the right will even give some lip service to it, but it never happens because they don’t want term limits. Term limits would be a good idea, I think. We have them in other contexts, obviously. We should have them going forward, for members of Congress, Senate, you name it.

I think also just the public expectation that you don’t ride out doing things for an administration. I mean, I have zero respect on either side of the aisle. The people who did this to Trump, I think it’s gross, and I’m not gonna respect it, either, when people — well, but they don’t really do it with Democrats. That’s a different thing. They don’t really do this. When you ride out the administration until you get the book deal and then you resign and get all huffy about it —

CLAY: Tell your opinion. Tell your full opinion.

BUCK: Yeah. Resign when it matters. Merrick Garland, when people are pushing him to treat parents like terrorists at school board meetings, he should have been like, “You knock this crap off or I’m out, full stop.” That would be a principled position. You think that even crossed Marek’s mind? I don’t think so.

CLAY: No, of course not. And, by the way, I do want to give credit to Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos because what I’ve been waiting for is if you have FU money and you aren’t willing to say what you actually think when you see things burning around us and recognize how everything is falling apart, what’s the point of having the money? There are so many people who are incredibly wealthy and incredibly powerful and cringe at the thought of anybody saying anything mean about them.

Well, sometimes if you’re honest, people are going to attack you. That’s life. Sack up and say what you really believe, and I’m hopeful that maybe people are starting to get brave enough to do so. And I think Elon buying Twitter would be significant, but even now Elon Musk, I think, has inspired in some way Jeff Bezos being able to stand up to the Biden administration over inflation.