Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry called on the governor of his state to condemn House Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s “dangerous and divisive” remarks made Wednesday.
Landry called on pro-life Democratic Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards to condemn remarks that Schumer made outside the Supreme Court at a rally, where Schumer said that Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh “released the whirlwind,” and would “pay the price.” The New York Democrat also said the pair “won’t know what hit you” if they side in a way that hurts abortion access in a case before the court Wednesday.
“Senator Schumer should immediately apologize to Justice Gorsuch, Justice Kavanaugh, and the entire Supreme Court,” Landry said in a statement provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation. (RELATED: Supreme Court To Hear First Major Abortion Case Since Kavanaugh’s Confirmation. Here’s What To Know)
“Schumer’s threats were dangerous and divisive, something all reasonable people can agree upon,” he added. “Governor John Bel Edwards should put politics aside and join me in calling for the Senator to apologize.”
Anti-abortion protesters and pro-choice activists supporting legal access to abortion protest alongside each other during a demonstration outside the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC, March 4, 2020, as the Court hears oral arguments regarding a Louisiana law about abortion access in the first major abortion case in years. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts also responded to Schumer’s remarks Wednesday evening in a rare move.
“Justices know that criticism comes with the territory, but threatening statements of this sort from the highest levels of government are not only inappropriate, they are dangerous,” he said.
“All members of the Court will continue to do their job, without fear or favor, from whatever quarter,” Roberts added. (RELATED: Schumer Warns Gorsuch And Kavanaugh: ‘You Have Released The Whirlwind And You Will Pay The Price’)
Following Roberts’s response, Schumer spokesman Justin Goodman told the Daily Caller News Foundation: “Women’s health care rights are at stake and Americans from every corner of the country are in anguish about what the court might do to them,”
“For Justice Roberts to follow the right wing’s deliberate misinterpretation of what Sen. Schumer said, while remaining silent when President Trump attacked Justices Sotomayor and Ginsberg last week, shows Justice Roberts does not just call balls and strikes,” he continued.
Schumer’s hotly disputed remarks came Wednesday at a rally in front of the Supreme Court, where justices heard June Medical Services v. Russo, a case in which an abortion provider is challenging a 2014 Louisiana state law that requires abortion providers to have admitting privileges in a hospital within 30 miles of the abortion facility.
“I want to tell you Gorsuch and I want to tell you Kavanaugh,” Schumer said, video from the event shows. “You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price.”
“You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions,” he added.
Following those remarks, Goodman told the DCNF that Schumer was referencing the political price Republicans “will pay for putting them on the court,” and that his remarks were a “warning that the justices will unleash major grassroots movement on the issue of reproductive rights against the decision.”
Neither Edwards’s nor Schumer’s office responded to requests for comment from the DCNF regarding Landry’s remarks.
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