How bad would a Kamala Harris presidency be? Even great believers in the genius of our Constitution—and it is a work of genius and as amended has given Americans a citizenship that is the envy of the world—have to lose sleep over the prospect of four years of President Harris. 

That would be a very bad run for the country. A very, very bad run. 

How bad depends of course on whether the House remains Republican and the Senate flips to GOP control. But assume the worst case for a Constitutionalist: Somehow the ongoing makeover of the Vice President cons the electorate and, like President Biden and President Obama, Harris has majorities in both houses. 

On Wednesday, Axios relayed from the Harris campaign that ‘A big part of the Harris plan is to unapologetically change some of her more liberal positions, and claim her White House experience helped change her mind. Yes, when she was running for president in 2019, she was against fracking, for decriminalizing illegal border crossings, and for single-payer health care (Medicare for All).’

Given that all of these positions and many more hard left policy views defined her presidential campaign in 2019, they define her still.  (Her campaign collapsed on the same year it launched, before 2020 primary and caucus voting began.) Harris ran as the authentic San Francisco Democrat that she has always been: a hard left Democrat. The Democratic Party electorate in 2019 wouldn’t even let Harris get to the starting line in 2020 in Iowa and we all know why: She’s a terrible candidate with views on public policy that were baked into her cake from a life in the Bay Area. 

What would the United States look like after four years of President Harris and Democrats in control of the Hill? Look at San Francisco and Oakland. There’s your answer. 

On the three issues critical to this election—inflation, immigration, and Israel/Iran— Harris is far to the left of the American mainstream. Former President Trump has an actual record of legislative objectives and achievements. He stood by Israel, rebuilt an hollowed out Pentagon budget and made our enemies in the world fear the wrath of the United States.

Trump cut taxes and enacted criminal justice reform, and he also appointed scores and scores of justices and judges to the federal bench. He was the best president we have had, including President Reagan, when it came to deregulation and the cabining of federal power. We know Trump. We know all of his positives and all of his drawbacks. The overdose of Trump venom that most in the Commentariat took before, during and after his first term have blinded them to the essential fact that Trump is a very moderate Republican on policy. He’s very conservative on defense and on judges, but he’s open to innovation, like the Right to Try Act. ‘I’m actually very moderate,’ he has said to the shock of people who mistake his often blunt brawls with opponents to his actual policies, but he governed from the center-right and will do so again. Only this time Trump will know from the night of his re-election how to staff the behemoth that is the Executive Branch. 

We have no such record on which to rely with Harris. All we know about Vice President Harris is what she promised to do in 2019 if elected in 2020. (We also know she was tapped in March of 2021 to lead the Biden Administration on all border and immigration issues. 40 months later we know how spectacularly she failed doing that job.)

So Harris is getting a rushed policy makeover during her ‘blackout campaign.’ Because of the ‘relief rally’ among Democrats that an infirm Joe Biden stepped finally aside, her polling numbers have improved and the race is a virtual tie as the Democrats gather in Chicago. 

The ‘Harris Honeymoon’ will continue through the entirety of the Democratic Convention, with the legacy media’s soft focus lens used every day and night to try and erase her 2019 campaign and her voting record in the Senate while sprinting away from the Biden record on, well, everything. It’s as though she and her team watched ‘Men in Black’ and ordered up the deployment of a giant neuralyzer. And it’s worked on most of the Manhattan-Beltway media elite, because they want her to win. 

When we elect a president we also elect 3,000 or so appointees to populate the executive branch and scores of federal judges with lifetime tenure. If she wins, the already left-leaning cast of characters that make up Team Biden will collectively shift to the left. Very, very far to the left. A Harris presidency would stun everyone even at MSNBC, she is that far to the left on the American political spectrum. The U.S. will quickly become the land of no borders at all and a ruined healthcare system coupled with the rising energy costs that accompany a ‘true believer’ on climate hysteria because, while her campaign team says she’s changed on her stated desire to ban all fracking, why would we believe that?

Harris will do what San Francisco has done for three decades: Go left, left left and use taxpayer money to do so. But it won’t bring about ‘Swedish style socialism’ or some vague notion about expanded prescription drug benefits. Not even close. To vote for Harris is to vote to follow San Francisco’s lead. 

And when everyone at the Democratic National Convention next week tells you differently, remember her record. Remember how she voted in the Senate and how she campaigned for the presidency. What she has always believed and now purports to repudiate cannot be defended as wise or even marginally acceptable to a significant majority of Americans. 

So the Big Con is on. The only question is how many independents and traditional Democrats will buy what she is selling, which is a whole body political makeover. I don’t think they will. I cannot believe Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin will because those folks are grounded in reality and they chose to live in states that went though tough transitions and recovered. Those voters are not going to be fooled by this act, and not just because Harris and Governor Walz are terrible actors (though they are.)

‘Trust the people’ Winston Churchill said again and again. I do. Even the Steelers fans. 

Hugh Hewitt is host of ‘The Hugh Hewitt Show,’ heard weekday mornings 6am to 9am ET on the Salem Radio Network, and simulcast on Salem News Channel. Hugh wakes up America on over 400 affiliates nationwide, and on all the streaming platforms where SNC can be seen. He is a frequent guest on the Fox News Channel’s news roundtable hosted by Bret Baier weekdays at 6pm ET. A son of Ohio and a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School, Hewitt has been a Professor of Law at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law since 1996 where he teaches Constitutional Law. Hewitt launched his eponymous radio show from Los Angeles in 1990.  Hewitt has frequently appeared on every major national news television network, hosted television shows for PBS and MSNBC, written for every major American paper, has authored a dozen books and moderated a score of Republican candidate debates, most recently the November 2023 Republican presidential debate in Miami and four Republican presidential debates in the 2015-16 cycle. Hewitt focuses his radio show and his column on the Constitution, national security, American politics and the Cleveland Browns and Guardians. Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump over his 40 years in broadcast, and this column previews the lead story that will drive his radio/ TV show today.

A new report by an American energy advocacy group is sounding the alarm on a legal training program that it says is ‘corruptly influencing the courts and destroying the rule of law to promote climate cult alarmism.’ 

The new report released by the American Energy Institute (AEI) alleges that the Environmental Law Institute’s Climate Judiciary Project (CJP) is ‘falsely portraying itself as a neutral entity teaching judges about questionable climate science.’ 

The report also alleges that CJP is a partner to more than two dozen public plaintiffs suing energy providers to hold them liable for damages resulting from climate change effects. To date, CJP has trained more than 2,000 state and federal judges, the report says. 

Jason Isaac, CEO of the American Energy Institute, says the training program is ‘really like interfering with the referees before a match and before a game.’

‘You’re getting access to them and sharing your opinions and steering them down a certain path,’ Isaac said in an interview with Fox News Digital. 

Nick Collins, a spokesperson for the Environmental Law Institute (ELI) said the report ‘is full of misinformation.’

‘The Climate Judiciary Project is a non-partisan, educational initiative that provides judges with a mainstream, evidence-based scientific curriculum. CJP does not take stances on individual cases, advocate for specific outcomes, participate in litigation, support for or coordinate with parties in litigation, or advise judges on how they should rule. ELI’s funders include individuals, foundations, and organizations, ranging from energy companies to government agencies to private philanthropies, and none of them dictate our work,’ Collins said. 

In recent years, several lawsuits have percolated through the courts targeting Big Oil companies, leveraging mechanisms like public nuisance laws to incur liability for climate change damage. 

One such case is pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2020, the city of Honolulu sued several major fossil fuel companies, including Exxon and Chevron, alleging the companies’ products cause greenhouse gas emissions and global warming without warning consumers about the risks.

The energy companies appealed to the Hawaii Supreme Court, arguing that federal law prevents individual states from effectively shaping energy policies for all states. 

But the court ruled against the companies, advancing the case to trial. The companies appealed again, this time to the Supreme Court, which signaled interest in June in taking up the case.

Hawaii Supreme Court Justice Mark E. Recktenwald quietly disclosed in May that he presented for a course in the Climate Judiciary Project. According to the ELI, the Climate Judiciary Project is designed to educate judges across the country on how to handle climate change litigation that comes before them.

‘As the body of climate litigation grows, judges must consider complex scientific and legal questions, many of which are developing rapidly,’ CJP states on its website. ‘To address these issues, the Climate Judiciary Project of the Environmental Law Institute is collaborating with leading national judicial education institutions to meet judges’ need for basic familiarity with climate science methods and concepts.’

But the AEI says the program ‘is a partner in this anti-democratic social engineering’ through its influence of judges involved in the types of cases, like the Hawaii case, and through its funding by ‘the same leftwing (sic) moneymen bankrolling the climate change cases.’ 

The ‘educational materials’ are, the report states, ‘prepared by activist academics who are advising the plaintiffs or supporting their claims with legal briefs. And the materials are full of pro-plaintiff messaging, including rigged made-for-litigation ‘studies.’’

The report also alleges that ‘CJP conceals its ties to the plaintiffs, such that judges seeking information in good faith may not know that CJP is an untrustworthy source’ and calls on ‘relevant state authorities [to] ensure that public resources are not being used toward a campaign that is corrosive to the rule of law and trust in the courts.’

According to AEI’s report, CJP has received ‘millions in funding from the same activist groups who are providing grants to the Collective Action Fund through which money is flowing to Sher Edling LLP,’ the law firm spearheading the Hawaii case, to help cover the legal fees required to bring the climate cases. Sher Edling is counsel for two dozen climate plaintiffs, according to its website.

The U.S. Judicial Conference, which governs U.S. court systems, has warned judges of seminars where they may be ‘influenced inappropriately.’

‘That influence, it is argued, may be exerted through program content, contact between judges and those who litigate before them, and prerequisites provided to program attendees,’ the U.S. Judicial Conference states. 

AEI’s report alleges that CJP ‘hides its partnership with the plaintiffs because they know these ties create judicial ethics problems.’

AEI says that the ELI vice president and director of judicial education, Sandra Nichols Thiam, acknowledged as much in a 2023 press statement, saying, ‘If we even appeared biased or if there was a whiff of bias, we wouldn’t be able to do what we’re doing.’

‘Taken together, it appears CJP made the thinnest possible disclosures to create the appearance of rectitude,’ AEI states. ‘But their admissions confirm that CJP exists to facilitate informal, ex parte contacts between judges and climate activists under the guise of judicial education. And secrecy remains essential to their operation, whose goal, as Thiam has said, is to develop ‘a body of law that supports climate action.” 

AEI, a group self-described as ‘dedicated to promoting policies that ensure America’s energy security and economic prosperity,’ says CJP’s work is ‘an attack on the rule of law.’

‘In America, the powerful aren’t allowed to coax and manipulate judges before their cases are heard,’ the report reads.