Conservative attorney George Conway said the Supreme Court’s decision in former President Trump’s Colorado ballot case doesn’t come as “good news” but argued that he would rather see Trump defeated at the ballot box than be disqualified ahead of the election.
“It’s hard for me to think of what the good news is,” Conway told MSNBC’s Katie Phang about the ruling. “I will say this. I mean, I understand how people feel about it. I would rather see Donald Trump beaten at the ballot box — and I think he will be — than him being kicked off the ballot.”
The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Colorado can’t disqualify Trump from the ballot under the 14th Amendment’s insurrection ban. The amendment prevents individuals who took an oath to support the Constitution and then engaged in an insurrection from returning to office.
It was originally designed to keep former Confederates from returning to office after the Civil War but fell dormant until anti-Trump voters began filing dozens of lawsuits against Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
Conway argued that all nine Supreme Court justices understood that if they disqualified the former president “there would be a backlash against the court and backlash against the ruling.”
In an interview with CNN, Conway said he thinks the justices had a “very difficult” time with the decision because the three opinions released don’t “make any sense whatsoever.”
The Trump critic continued, saying the silver lining in the situation was that Colorado’s Supreme Court, and other courts across the country, have “made unrebutted findings that Donald Trump is an insurrectionist.”
“But I don’t find any, you know, I don’t find any solace in the court’s opinion, refusing to apply the law,” he said.
Following the justices’ decision, Trump celebrated, calling it a “Big win for America!!!” He said that since the decision was unanimous among the justices, it was both “unifying and inspirational.”