Former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun on Amy Coney Barrett

AMY CONEY BARRETT, U.S. SUPREME COURT NOMINEE: I am standing before the committee today saying that I have of the integrity to act consistently with my oath and apply the law as the law, to approach the ACA and every other statute without bias, and I’ve not made any commitments or deals or anything like that. I’m not here on a mission to destroy the Affordable Care Act. I’m just here to apply the law and adhere to the rule of law.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: OK. So, you’ve been on these committees. You’ve asked questions before. What do you make of that answer and the fact that she hasn’t actually answered a lot of the direct questions that are being put to her?

CAROL MOSELEY BRAUN: She’s very clever and she’s not. She’s flipped around and refused to answer questions on important matters like stare decisis, the current — you know, the law that went before and she’s dodged them artfully. The problem, of course, is that these things — these are the kinds of things that the American people are very concerned about. If COVID becomes a pre-existing condition, and that’s something in the hands of the insurance companies, and there’s no — nothing in the statute frankly that specifically says that you can’t make COVID a pre-existing condition, then 110 — there are roughly — over 100,000 Americans will lose their health care coverage, and if you do that in the context of health care costs in this country, it’s so expensive here. I just had a minor health issue myself, and the bill for a procedure that I almost could have performed myself was $16,000. So, it’s a lot of money involved. And what you’re going to find is 100,000 people are now shaking in their boots that they might not be able to get health insurance for anything because they had a brush with COVID. And, again, this is — of the people who caught the disease in this country, 216,000 of them are no longer with us. So, they don’t have to worry about health care or anything else for that matter, but the fact that this judicial nominee won’t answer a straight question about it directly is to me inexcusable. But as you said in the beginning, at the top of this program, the Democrats have no way really at this point to stop it.