Sparks Fly As Ted Cruz Interrupts Amy Klobuchar As She Defends Injunctions Against Trump Administration

4/7/2025

During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last week, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) asked Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) about injunctions against the Trump Administration.

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Transcript

00:00Okay, that was a lot.

00:03Let me start with a few things.

00:05Number one, we love the democracy, and I believe what we should be having is a civil debate

00:12about how we can best, if Donald Trump wants to make changes to the government, we should

00:17be doing it in a legal way, not how he's doing it.

00:20And the only reason there's all these injunctions that are accrued is because he's violating

00:24the Constitution.

00:25Why would Trump-appointed judges-

00:28Why don't you file them in red districts?

00:30Senator Cruz.

00:31Why?

00:32What did you just say?

00:33Why don't you file them in red districts?

00:34Why are the Democrat Attorney General seeking out left-wing, blue-seated politicians?

00:38Senator Cruz.

00:39My esteemed colleague.

00:40One second.

00:41Quite patient with Senator Cruz's activities in this building.

00:43Senator Whitehouse.

00:44He's entitled to-

00:45I'm just going to ask for a point of order.

00:47Madam Klobuchar, Senator Klobuchar.

00:49Senator Moody, we have debates on this committee.

00:51They occur regularly.

00:52Let's let her have her time, and then we'll get back to that if you want to weigh in.

00:56We'll get back to Senator Cruz.

00:57She's welcome to answer the question or not.

00:58Go ahead.

00:59It's her choice.

01:00Go ahead.

01:01And I would encourage you to answer.

01:02I'm so excited to be following Senator Cruz once again.

01:03Excuse me?

01:04But I will say that-

01:05Excuse me?

01:06I didn't hear you.

01:07What did you say?

01:08To be following him.

01:09He and I have a long standing-

01:10I was permitting you your time to continue.

01:11Oh, to be following him in order.

01:12Excuse me.

01:13Go ahead.

01:14Senator Klobuchar.

01:15And I have a long standing debate during hearings.

01:16Go ahead.

01:17Senator Klobuchar.

01:18That's what I'm referring to.

01:19Go ahead.

01:20And I will take more than my time, since he's taken more than his time to yell at me.

01:22Go ahead.

01:23I've marked the time.

01:24So what I will say is that-

01:25I'm not yelling.

01:26I asked a question.

01:27Senator Cruz, please.

01:28I'll give you time.

01:29Senator Klobuchar, I've got the time and you're-

01:30I am making the strong case that the reason all these cases have been filed and the reason

01:36that these judges who have been appointed by Ronald Reagan, yes, they still exist, and

01:41the Bushes and Donald Trump, judges appointed by Donald Trump, have been making these decisions

01:48is because this is not legal.

01:50Donald Trump himself has used his social media account, the White House account, to post

01:55an image of himself wearing a crown saying, long live the king.

02:01The issue is that we do not live in a kingdom and Elon Musk is not his court jester.

02:08Ours is a nation of laws in which no one is above the law.

02:12That is why 39 different judges from vastly different backgrounds appointed by five different

02:18presidents have made clear that these are illegal actions.

02:23And these judges have rightly blocked these actions.

02:27And it is important that we not lose sight of the underlying cause of these injunctions.

02:32It is not that these judges are crooked or lunatics or evil.

02:37Those are words used by the president and his allies.

02:41It is because the administration is violating the Constitution.

02:47What happens when they use these kinds of words?

02:50You see more and more threats against judges.

02:54And that is what we're seeing.

02:56That is why federal judges and the U.S. marshals who are responsible for protecting them are

03:01sounding the alarm about a spike in threats against judges.

03:07This is serious.

03:09And unlike what Senator Cruz said, I'm remembering when the threat was made, the horrific threats

03:15and the man was in Justice Kavanaugh's, on his neighborhood, on his street.

03:21On a bipartisan basis, we came together and got more funding for the judges and changed

03:27things so that they had more protection.

03:30So what he said was completely untrue in terms of Democrats and Republicans decrying violence.

03:38We didn't just decry the violence.

03:40We actually did something about it in response to a court that is run by Justice Roberts,

03:46who is a Republican appointee.

03:49So I think that kind of language actually makes a situation worse when it's not even

03:54true.

03:55But unfortunately, Senator Cruz left, so he did not hear my response to what was a lie.

04:02President Trump's attacks on these judges has made for some major, major risks for these

04:09judges.

04:10I would ask you, Mr. Panuccio, and not in a partisan way, just normal, as a partner

04:17in a law firm, would you ever, have you ever taken to social media to personally attack

04:22a judge who ruled against you?

04:27That's all my question is.

04:28Senator, thanks for the question.

04:29I think that attacking judges personally and not their reasoning, well, let me just

04:36give you a quote.

04:37I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind

04:40and you will pay the price.

04:42You won't know what hit you if you go forward with those awful decisions.

04:46That was something that Senator Schumer said and I thought it was awful and it unleashed

04:51a wave of violent threats against Supreme Court justices.

04:54I do think that's problematic, that kind of language.

04:57I have no doubt the language is a problem on their left or right.

05:01I was just asking you if you have ever personally attacked a judge after you disagreed with

05:07a ruling.

05:08I'm asking you if you did.

05:09I have not.

05:11And you believe that the proper recourse is to appeal when you disagree with a ruling?

05:16When I disagree with a ruling on behalf of a client, I appeal.

05:20That was all I wanted.

05:21I was not going to criticize you.

05:22I believed that you would not have done this.

05:24And so, that is my point.

05:26When people do this and right now, we have not just a random person on social media doing

05:31it.

05:32We have the President of the United States doing it.

05:35And I would just ask you, Professor Vladek, in your opinion, are the judges who ruled

05:41against the President radical and rogue judges?

05:45No.

05:46And just if I might, even though he has also left the room, Senator Schmidt suggested it

05:50was statistically impossible that Chief Judge Boasberg has been assigned to multiple cases

05:54in the D.C. District Court.

05:56I think that rhetoric is highly inflammatory in addition to being just mathematically incorrect.

06:01There are 31 different cases in the D.C. District Court alone in which D.C. District judges

06:07have ruled against the administration.

06:09There are 11 or 12 active district judges.

06:12The notion that one of those judges would have multiple of those cases is not statistically

06:16impossible.

06:17It's statistically certain.

06:19And if the President does not want to have judge rule against him, isn't the answer that

06:25he just follows the law?

06:27One would think.

06:28But, you know, I think we live in a bit of an upside-down world at the moment.

06:31Okay.

06:32So this hearing was titled in a very academic fashion, Universal Injunctions.

06:37And we can make it all academic if we want.

06:39Clearly we haven't with Senator Cruz's remarks.

06:44But I just want to make the point that this has a real consequence of these cases that

06:48are coming before these judges.

06:50This is outside of their decision, which is based on the law and the facts.

06:54Sometimes they've ruled with the President.

06:56Sometimes they've ruled against the President.

06:59But just to get it so people understand this isn't just some academic exercise about injunctions

07:04and if they're a good thing to have legally.

07:06Last month, a federal judge blocked the administration's plan to slash NIH funding for medical research.

07:12Could you talk about the impact if the judge had not been able to issue a nationwide injunction?

07:17Sure.

07:18I mean, so Senator, briefly, because I know our time is limited, NIH hands out thousands

07:22and thousands and thousands of grants.

07:24If you require the recipients of each grant to litigate the rescission of each of those

07:28grants on a retail basis, you would have gaps in cancer research.

07:32You'd have gaps in all kinds of, you know, work by the National Institutes of Health

07:36because there's just, it's not possible that those thousands of grant, the mass action

07:41by the government could be challenged on a retail basis in federal courts.

07:44Thank you so much.

07:45Could I get a second round of questions?

07:46Senator, oh, I allowed you to go way over your time in order to make up and I wrote

07:50it down.

07:51Are we having a second round?

Sparks Fly As Ted Cruz Interrupts Amy Klobuchar As She Defends Injunctions Against Trump Administration

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