Kris Kobach looked positively amateurish when attempting to debate Jeffrey Toobin on Anderson Cooper's show. They addressed President Pussygrabber's insane notion that it's within his power to eliminate birthright citizenship (guaranteed in the 14th Amendement), and Toobin rightly pointed out how conservatives (hello, Ghost of Scalia!) are so fond of interpreting the Constitution strictly — sticking as close to the text as possible.
Kobach said, Yeah, but what about what conversations the framers had while they were drafting the amendment? Huh? What about that? He pulled some Lyman Trumbull quote out of his @ss, asserting that to Trumbull, the part of the 14th amendment that read "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" meant "owing no allegiance to any foreign power." This, for some reason according to Kobach, means people who are here illegally are not entitled to birthright citizenship.
Except that back when Trumbull was helping to craft the 14th amendment, there WAS NO SUCH THING as people being here illegally. We had no laws seriously restricting immigration until the 1880s. So, in reality, Kobach is (surprise!) hypocritically interpreting the Constitution just the way he wants to, so that it fits his political agenda, which is just the opposite of Conservative ideology: sticking as close to the Constitution's text as possible.
Cooper went for the jugular then, saying, (and I'm paraphrasing a wee bit,) "Didn't a Judge basically send you back to law school? Aren't the voting laws you passed in your state unconstitutional? How on god's green earth did you get into Yale?" (I said I was was paraphrasing.)
Wounded, Kobach said, (again, with the paraphrasing) "Well, if you must know, I taught Constitutional law, blah blah blah, and that unconstitutional ruling thing, well, it's still being appealed. Voters should have to show ID to vote, and some judge on the 9th Circuit agreed with me ten years ago about that."
Toobin just could not wait to rebut that nonsense. I'll dispense with the paraphrasing, here, because the his wording is just too good to mess with.
TOOBIN: Kris, just the notion — Kris has devoted his career to stopping Black people and poor people from voting. I mean that's been your goal for decades.
KOBACH: That's an outrageous accusation.
TOOBIN: It's completely true.
KOBACH: An absolutely outrageous accusation. So if you like photo ID, you're trying to stop people of color from voting? That is outrageous.
TOOBIN: Absolutely. Absolutely.
KOBACH: By the way, when this question is polled, the vast majority of African-Americans approve of photo ID, so apparently they're trying to do what you're saying I'm trying to do. That is outrageous and a horrible accusation.
TOOBIN: It is a completely true accusation because, Kris, your whole career — that's why you had this phony voter suppression commission that was such a preposterous joke, established by the president that it disbanded because it couldn't prove your claim that voter fraud is a problem in this country. Your problem is that some people vote for Democrats, and you want to stop that by establishing voter requirements.
Kobach practically called for the vapors at this point. He was so personally insulted that Toobin would suggest such things about him - that he was racist and out to suppress the Black vote in his state and the rest of the nation. Methinks the Kobach doth protest too much. In North Carolina, the legislature admitted that the reason they enacted voter ID laws was to suppress the Black vote.
And as for his BS assertion that Black voters were in favor of voter ID laws? We can again look to North Carolina where 85% of African-Americans polled believed "a photo ID requirement would pose a threat of discrimination against minority voters." I haven't seen the polling numbers for Kansas, but I'm gonna bet they're not that different there.
Kobach can save his shocked gasps and wide-eyed, self-righteous outrage. Toobin read him just right. Racists gonna racist.
