CNSNews, by Susan Jones: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said he’s honored and humbled to be included among President Donald Trump’s potential nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court.
But he said he doesn’t want the job.
Instead, he’s written a book, “One Vote Away,” warning that our basic freedoms are in jeopardy if four liberal justices become five or even six in a Biden administration.
The book’s title refers to the current 5-4 conservative/liberal split on the court:
“If you care about free speech, if you care about religious liberty, if you care about any of our rights, then this book is designed to explain where they stand right now, and just how much jeopardy they’re in,” Cruz told “Sunday Morning Futures” with Maria Bartiromo.
He noted that on all those issues and more, “there’s a four-justice radical left majority on the court.”
“If Joe Biden wins, the odds are very high, depending on what appointments he gets, that that four votes will become five votes, and the Second Amendment will be erased from the Bill of Rights. That’s the stakes of this election. And it’s true on issue after issue.”
President Trump last week added more names to his previously released list of potential Supreme Court nominees. Sens. Cruz, Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) were among the new names, but Hawley, like Cruz, said he is not interested in serving on the court.
“It is deeply honoring,” Cruz said on Sunday. “It’s humbling to be included in the list” of potential Supreme Court nominees. “I’m grateful that the president has that confidence in me. But it’s not the desire of my heart.
“I want to be in the political fight. I want to be fighting to nominate and confirm three, four, five principled constitutionalist justices. But that’s not where I want to serve. I want to stay fighting right where I am, in the U.S. Senate.”
Cruz, a former Supreme Court litigator who clerked for former Chief Justice William Rehnquist, said the Supreme Court is one of the most important issues in the upcoming election:
“Well, I think nothing matters more long term than preserving the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, preserving our fundamental liberties that all of us enjoy as Americans. That’s why I wrote this book,” he said, referring to “One Vote Away,” which is due out in three weeks.
“And what the book does is, it walks through — each chapter is a different constitutional liberty. And each chapter, it talks about free speech, it talks about religious liberty, it talks about the Second Amendment, it talks about U.S. sovereignty.
“And the way the book is written, each chapter is telling war stories about landmark cases, many of which I litigated. So, it’s telling the inside story of what went on.”
Election concerns
Cruz said he’s “very concerned” about the upcoming election:
I think it is exceptionally volatile. And I think it depends on what happens over the next two months.
I think, if we see people starting to go back to work, I think, if we see a renewed sense of hope and optimism, we could have a phenomenally good election. We could see the president reelected by an even bigger margin than last time. We could see Republicans growing our majority in the Senate. We could even see Republicans re taking the House of Representatives.
And I’m fighting hard for all of those to happen.
But, on the other hand, if, in the next two months, we see more people losing their jobs, more shutdowns, we see COVID numbers going up, if people are depressed and demoralized, if they are giving up hope, we could see a terrible election.
We could see an absolute bloodbath, where Biden wins the presidency, and we wake up and Chuck Schumer is the majority leader and Nancy Pelosi is the speaker of the House.
And I have got to tell you, Maria, the damage that a Biden-Schumer-Pelosi government would do, I think, in two years would exceed the damage that Barack Obama and Joe Biden did in eight years.
And I don’t recall an election in my lifetime where there was so much delta, so much volatility between a very, a very good election and a Watergate-level catastrophic election. I don’t know which one it’s going to be, which means the stakes right now are enormously high.
Cruz said the final chapter of his book traces the history of judicial nominations, starting with President Dwight D. Eisenhower:
“And Democrats, they get this right almost every time. Their nominees bat close to .1000. They vote almost exactly how Democrats would want them to vote on every issue.
“Republicans, at best, Republican nominees maybe bat .500. We need to get it right. And the book lays out, here is how you get it right. Here is what you look for, so that we stop screwing this up and stop rolling the dice with our constitutional liberties.”
Prophetic Link:
“When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near.” Testimonies to the Church Vol. 5, page 451.1.