Florida Governor Ron DeSantis appeared on Fox & Friends Monday morning and labeled the potential “blockade” of the Supreme Court by pro-choice groups as an “insurrection.”
DeSantis was referring to the publicized plans of ShutDownDC, a left-wing group which announced it was hosting a “shut down SCOTUS” protest on June 13, with plans to “blockade” the streets surrounding the Supreme Court in light of a potential decision that could overturn Roe v. Wade.
The group announced the protest plans on its website. “On June 13, one of the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision days, we plan to blockade the streets around the Supreme Court to rise up for the transformative change that our communities need,” the website states. “Right now our political system is in crisis. Times of crisis can either be opportunities to break through the inertia and win transformational change or they can be opportunities for the establishment to further entrench the status quo.”
There were reports later in the afternoon of rolling street closures that occurred Monday morning around the Supreme Court. There were no arrests, said a D.C. police spokeswoman.
DeSantis said on Fox & Friends that group is “trying to change the outcome of decisions that they are concerned that they don’t like and that is totally antithetical to the rule of law … . That would be considered an insurrection – to stop a court from functioning – and yet they seem to be able to get away with a lot more than if the shoe were on the other foot.”
“I think that we have a rule of law in this country and you don’t just get to have a mob descend on a Supreme Court justice’s house or try to impede the operations of government because there may be a decision you don’t like,” DeSantis added.
DeSantis also addressed the arrest last week of an armed California man who was caught near the Maryland home of Justice Brett Kavanaugh. The suspect, Nicholas John Roske, was carrying a gun and knife, and admitted to intending to kill Kavanaugh, authorities said.
“You had someone travel from … halfway around the country to come and murder Justice Kavanaugh,” DeSantis said. “And that was like not even significant news in a lot of the mainstream media.”
Last month, speaking to reporters in Fort Myers Beach, DeSantis called the leaked draft opinion that suggested the U.S. Supreme Court would overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade case a bullying tactic and a “breach of trust.”
“I think it was an intentional thing to whip up the public, make it political, and bully [the justices] into changing their opinion,” he said. “That’s not something that’s appropriate for the judicial branch … They need to figure out who did that and they need to hold them accountable because that’s a real significant breach of trust,” DeSantis said.
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Steve Stewart is a senior contributor at The Florida Capital Star.
Photo “Ron DeSantis” by Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 2.0. Background Photo “United States Supreme Court” by Sunira Moses. CC BY-SA 3.0.
