Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson took to the couch on "The View" this week to wave away Republican concerns about her attendance at the 68th Grammy Awards — an evening that doubled as a political rally against the Trump administration's immigration enforcement.
Jackson, who attended the January 29 ceremony in Los Angeles, sat through performances and speeches in which Bad Bunny used his Best Música Urbana Album acceptance to denounce deportation efforts and Billie Eilish declared "F--- ICE" while claiming the United States sits on "stolen land." As reported by Fox News, Sen. Marsha Blackburn responded by writing to Chief Justice John Roberts and calling for an investigation into Jackson's impartiality.
Jackson's defense? She was already in town.
"I was actually in LA because of a moot court that I was doing at around the same time. And it just so happened that I got nominated for this Grammy, and I was already going to be there, and I thought, 'This is a great opportunity to highlight my work in this way and to see what's happening at the Grammys.'"
Jackson received a Grammy nomination for the audiobook of her memoir, "Lovely One." Whether that nomination merited her presence at a ceremony saturated with left-wing political messaging is exactly the question her critics are asking — and one she never quite answered.
Co-host Joy Behar framed the question gently, noting that Blackburn had called for an investigation and that "some Republicans" objected to Jackson's presence. Jackson treated the whole affair as routine occupational friction:
"Well, I mean, when you are in public life, criticism, you know, is part of the job. I'm sure all of you have faced it. Another part of the job, actually my job, is public outreach and education. When the justices are on recess, which is what we are doing right now, we really have an opportunity to go out into the community in various different ways."
Public outreach and education. That's the framing Jackson chose for sitting in the audience at an awards show where performers turned the stage into a platform for attacking federal law enforcement. The moot court — the ostensible reason for her trip — received a single passing mention. The Grammy ceremony got the spotlight.
There's a difference between a justice attending a civic event and a justice attending a politically charged spectacle where artists openly defy and denounce government operations that may well land before the Court. Jackson collapsed that distinction into a single word: "outreach."
The concern isn't that a Supreme Court justice went to a music awards show. Justices attend public events. They give speeches, visit universities, and appear at cultural functions. Blackburn acknowledged as much in her letter to Roberts:
"While it is by no means unheard of or unusual for a Supreme Court justice to attend a public function, very rarely — if ever — have justices of our nation's highest Court been present at an event at which attendees have amplified such far-left rhetoric."
That's the relevant distinction. Bad Bunny stood at the podium and delivered a statement aimed squarely at the administration's immigration enforcement:
"We're not savage, we're not animals, we're not aliens — we are humans, and we are Americans."
Billie Eilish went further, cursing out Immigration and Customs Enforcement by name. These weren't abstract artistic statements. They were direct, specific political attacks on federal agencies whose operations are subject to ongoing litigation — litigation that could reach the Supreme Court at any time.
Jackson sits on that Court. She is one of three liberal justices in the minority bloc. And she applauded her way through an evening designed to delegitimize immigration enforcement.
Nobody tuned in expecting a grilling. "The View" delivered exactly what you'd predict: a friendly forum where Jackson's attendance was reframed as brave, and Blackburn's objection was mocked.
Whoopi Goldberg offered the evening's most generous interpretation:
"Let's not forget the fact that you were nominated. You know, and had no way of knowing what anyone's speech was going to be."
That's technically true and entirely beside the point. Jackson didn't need to know what Bad Bunny or Eilish would say in advance. The Grammys had been politically charged for years. The immigration debate was the hottest issue in the country leading into that night. The idea that Jackson walked into the Staples Center with no expectation of political content strains belief.
Goldberg then pivoted to offense, calling Blackburn "snowflake-ian" — a term co-host Sara Haines cheerfully noted was Goldberg's new invention. The audience laughed. The segment moved on. No one asked Jackson whether she saw any tension between her role as an impartial jurist and her visible presence at an event that functioned as a protest against the sitting government policy.
That's the problem with using a daytime talk show as your accountability venue. You choose interviewers who won't ask the follow-up.
Imagine, for a moment, that Justice Samuel Alito attended a country music awards show where performers praised border enforcement, thanked ICE agents by name, and called for mass deportations. Imagine he sat in the front row, smiling, while the crowd roared.
Every editorial board in America would demand recusal from immigration cases. Legal ethicists would flood cable news. "The View" would dedicate a full segment — not to defending Alito, but to demanding consequences.
Jackson gets a Grammy nomination, attends the ceremony, watches artists rage against federal law enforcement, and the response from the cultural establishment is: How dare anyone question her?
The rules only ever travel in one direction. Conservative justices must avoid even the appearance of political alignment. Liberal justices get standing ovations for it — literally.
Confirmed in 2022 after her nomination by President Joe Biden, Jackson became the first Black woman to sit on the Supreme Court. That's a historic achievement regardless of ideology. But history doesn't exempt a justice from the standards that preserve the Court's legitimacy.
The question isn't whether Jackson had the right to attend. She did. The question is whether a justice who willingly placed herself in the middle of a politically explosive event — and then dismissed all criticism as routine noise — takes the appearance of impartiality seriously at all.
She agreed with Goldberg's framing. She accepted the premise that her critics are the problem. She treated the entire episode as a messaging opportunity rather than a legitimate institutional concern.
Blackburn's letter to the Chief Justice may not produce a formal investigation. But it put a question on the record that Jackson clearly has no interest in answering honestly: When you sit in the audience while artists curse out federal agents, whose side are you on?
The Grammys answered that question. "The View" just confirmed it.