Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) sat down with Kristen Welker on Meet the Press Sunday, and the segment on the Supreme Court went about as you'd expect from a Democrat these days. He's on board with Kamala Harris's push to expand the Court to 13 justices, because of course he is. I don't care how many times Democrats swear this isn't about seizing permanent power. Packing the bench only becomes a priority whenever they're the ones stuck losing decisions, and something tells me Clyburn's enthusiasm for a bigger bench is entirely dependent on which party gets to fill those seats.
But that's not even the part of the interview that made me sit up.
Welker brought up something I had no idea about: Clyburn testified in favor of Clarence Thomas's Supreme Court confirmation back in 1991.
Welker even played the tape.
"It's a pleasure for me to be here today to present testimony in favor of my good friend, Clarence Thomas," Clyburn said in the old clip. "I have known Clarence for ten years and I consider him to be a personal and professional friend, in spite of the fact that he shares a conservative Republican philosophy."
I looked up his entire testimony, and I was floored. Clyburn praised him as “zealous in his pursuit of the facts and intellectually honest and objective.”
Most significantly, Clyburn said civil-rights officials who worked with Thomas found him “highly compassionate, sensitive, judicious” and possessed of the “intellectual honesty that is required in this field.” Despite their disagreements, Clyburn said he had “never found anything in his philosophy of a nature to deny him this Supreme Court confirmation.” He concluded that Thomas was “deeply committed to an even-handed system of justice” and possessed “the integrity, the conscientious spirit, and the basic sense of fairness” required of a Supreme Court justice.
Welker asked the obvious follow-up.
"Do you stand by your decision to make the case for Clarence Thomas's confirmation?" Welker asked.
"Absolutely not," Clyburn said. He explained that he had trusted Thomas's background and life experience to guide him on the bench, and that he had expected Thomas to uphold precedents like Brown v. Board of Education and the Voting Rights Act. Then came the line that got my attention. "I had no idea that Clarence Thomas would rebel the way he has against his own background and experiences," Clyburn said. He added that Thomas's grandfather raised him in Pin Point, Ga., and accused Thomas of showing "very little sensitivity" to that upbringing.
Democrat Rep. Jim Clyburn agrees with Kamala Harris and calls to pack the Supreme Court.
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) August 30, 2026
NBC: "Do you support adding 4 more seats?"
CLYBURN: “Yes, I do…13 is a pretty good number. A baker’s dozen would be a good number to have on the court.” pic.twitter.com/L2K5Paf9ZS
"Rebelled against his own background."
Sit with that phrase for a second. Clyburn frames Thomas's judicial record as a betrayal of an obligation tied to where he came from, as if the Constitution should take a backseat to his childhood ZIP code. As far as I'm concerned, Clyburn accused Thomas of forgetting his roots… more specifically, his experience growing up poor and black.
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From where I sit, there’s something familiar about Clyburn’s accusations. They remind me of Joe Biden, while campaigning in 2020, telling host Charlamagne that any black voters still deciding between him and Donald Trump "ain't black." The backlash was immediate, and rightly so, because the implication was that authentic blackness requires voting a certain way. Clyburn is making the same argument about Thomas, just dressed up in the language of a Sunday show instead of a campaign bus.
The question isn't whether Clyburn respects Clarence Thomas's legal record. It's whether Clyburn believes black conservatives are allowed to exist at all without being accused of betraying themselves.
Thomas has since spent three decades ruling as an actual constitutional originalist instead of the reliable liberal vote Clyburn apparently hoped he would be. Clyburn's real complaint has nothing to do with constitutional interpretation. He expected Thomas to be a loyal black vote on the Court… which, in his view, means voting with the leftists.
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