James Carville told Democrats to pack the Supreme Court and then told them not to admit it.
Now Pete Buttigieg is running for president on exactly that promise.
And Jonathan Turley just went on Fox News and explained what Buttigieg is really offering the radical left – and it should scare every American who still believes in the Constitution.
Buttigieg Calls the Supreme Court Rogue and Backs Democrat Court Packing Plan
Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg appeared at the Rainbow PUSH Coalition convention in Chicago last week and called the current Supreme Court "rogue" before pitching an expansion from nine justices to 13.
Buttigieg claimed expanding the Supreme Court would match the number of circuit courts.
George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley dismantled that pitch on Fox News.
"He went before an audience and had to offer them something, so he offered them up the United States Supreme Court, perhaps the single most important institution in this country's constitutional system. He's wrong, this wouldn't reflect the district court system. I think he's referring to the circuit courts, the fact that there are 13 of them, but that's the extent of that analysis."
Then Turley named what Buttigieg was actually doing.
Turley called it "pandering to the mob" – a candidate with nothing to offer handing over the country's highest court to keep a crowd happy.
The Real Agenda Is About Guaranteeing Democrats Never Lose Again
Turley then spelled out exactly what four new liberal justices would mean, and it has nothing to do with fairness or efficiency.
"There's a difference between expanding the court gradually, and what these Democrats are talking about, which is packing the court, adding four liberal justices to flip the result of cases so that they can re-institute, for example, racial gerrymandering – where the courts literally group people by race – something that the Supreme Court finally said is blatantly unconstitutional.
“Or to get through the federal wealth tax, which is also unconstitutional in my view. This whole list of items that the Democrats want to do to guarantee power require them to take this hostile move against the court.”
“And these are people who are showing that they are politicians who can't think beyond the next election, let alone the next generation. And it is dangerous."
Buttigieg is not alone.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries declared the Supreme Court "illegitimate" last month after it struck down racial gerrymandering schemes in Louisiana and Virginia.
Former Attorney General Eric Holder made the goal explicit while rallying Democrats: the court packing push is about "the acquisition and the use of power, if there is a Democratic trifecta in 2028."
James Carville Carville went further, declaring on a national podcast that if Democrats win the presidency and both chambers of Congress they should expand the court to 13 on day one – and added: "Don't run on it. Don't talk about it. Just do it."
Buttigieg is running on it anyway.
The Last Time Democrats Tried Court Packing It Destroyed the President Who Pushed It
Democrats pushing this scheme should remember what happened the last time a president tried it.
Franklin Roosevelt – fresh off a landslide 1936 reelection and riding the highest approval of his presidency – proposed expanding the Supreme Court from nine to as many as fifteen justices in February 1937.
His own party killed it.
Senate Democrats revolted. Roosevelt's Senate Majority Leader, Joe Robinson, worked himself to death lobbying for the bill and died of a heart attack before it passed. By July 1937, the Senate tabled the plan permanently.
FDR's court-packing failure became the defining wound of his second term – a self-inflicted disaster that cost him the congressional coalition he needed for the rest of his agenda.
Roosevelt had more political capital than Buttigieg will ever see, and his own party told him no.
Turley invoked that history without softening it.
"At our 250th anniversary, pundits and professors are calling to trash the Constitution or make radical changes," he said, noting that Harvard and Yale law professors have published columns openly calling for the Court to be abolished and replaced.
His book Rage and the Republic documents these voices in detail.
His conclusion was direct: Democrats demanding court packing "are people who are showing that they are politicians who can't think beyond the next election, let alone the next generation."
Buttigieg is currently polling at 18 percent in early 2028 Democrat primary surveys – near the top of a fractured field with no clear front-runner.
He has calculated that calling the Supreme Court rogue and promising to pack it wins a Democrat primary – and he is probably right.
What he is not saying out loud: with the Court neutralized, every item blocked as unconstitutional – racial gerrymandering, federal wealth taxes, the entire agenda the Court has been stopping – clears the way overnight.
The Court that has protected your rights for 235 years becomes a rubber stamp.
Carville already told them not to mention that part until after they win.
Sources:
- Isaac Schorr, "Trash the Constitution! Fox's Jonathan Turley Blasts 2028 Dems for Embracing Court-Packing," Mediaite, June 15, 2026.
- David Gilmour, "Pete Buttigieg Floats Overhaul of 'Rogue' Supreme Court," Mediaite, June 12, 2026.
- Jonathan Turley, "Drinking the Court-Packing Kool-Aid: Buttigieg Joins the Calls to Take Over the Supreme Court," JonathanTurley.org, June 14, 2026.
- Jonathan Turley, "Calling the Court Illegitimate Is the Left's Latest Assault on the Constitution," Fox News, May 1, 2026.
- "FDR Announces Court-Packing Plan," Fox News, February 5, 2024.
- "Pete Buttigieg Tops New 2028 Democratic Presidential Primary Poll," The Hill, June 2026.
- Kevin McCullough, "Why Dems Ignore Rules," Townhall, May 11, 2026.
