MAGA Pastor Doubles Down in Apology for Racist Supreme Court Justice Rant

Pastor Shane Vaughn, a supporter of former President Donald Trump's Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, has made a controversial apology video for Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson after targeting her with a racial slur.

Jackson is the newest justice on the Supreme Court after being nominated by President Joe Biden, a Democrat, in 2022. She is considered liberal-leaning, alongside Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, as the other six justices on the bench are decidedly more politically conservative. Jackson is also the first Black woman to serve on the high court.

On Friday, Right Wing Watch, a group that monitors the far right, posted a clip of Vaughn, apologizing for his remarks about Jackson in a video he posted.

"Anyone that knows me personally knows there's not a racist bone in my body, but a lot of people don't know me personally, do they? So, they go by what I say and if you're just going by what I said that night, you have every right to be offended," he said.

Vaughn continued: "That was unacceptable and I'm asking every one of you to forgive me if you can find it in your heart to do so. And thank you for letting me learn from this experience and I will learn from this experience. I will try to be more careful with my speech. And there's no excuse. I'm not gonna try to excuse anything."

However, the pastor then doubled down on some of his past remarks: "I still think she talks monkey talk. I still think that she's ignorant, dumb and should not be wearing a robe, and should be living in the jungle as Judge Jumanji, but her physical appearance—off limits."

Right Wing Watch wrote alongside the clip: "MAGA pastor Shane Vaughn apologizes for his attack on Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, though he appears to be apologizing for his attacks on her personal appearance and not the, you know, racism."

In a previous video from Vaughn that Right Wing Watch posted last month, the pastor went on an angry rant about Jackson.

"See the problem is Jumanji Jungle, Judge Jumanji Jungle lips—the problem with it is this, yeah, because what's coming out of her lips is monkey sense. Not common sense.

"It's jungle monkey sense pouring out of your liberal lips, and you are a curse to this nation. You are a rodent in our republic. Your mindset is messed up. It is the enemy of the people. Disrobe yourself because you have dishonored yourself," he said in the clip.

Right Wing Watch called the clip "a racist rant" against Jackson.

When asked to explain his insults toward Jackson, Vaughn told Newsweek via email on Friday: "Without the freedom of speech that the judge verbally attacked— we turn into a jungle of controlled speech by certain groups, and restricted language is totally dichotomous to the ideals of the Republic.

"As a play on words, her name was linked to JUMANJI—if you will recall the CHAOS in Jumanji, this is what the results would be without the First Amendment protection of free speech. Therefore, her name was referred to as Judge JUMANJI with political satire."

Vaughn's insults toward Jackson were in response to a Supreme Court hearing on March 18 in the case Murthy v. Missouri. At the heart of the lawsuit brought on by Louisiana and Missouri and several other plaintiffs is whether the administration of President Joe Biden violated the First Amendment when it pushed social media platforms to censor posts that, officials said, shared falsehoods about the pandemic and the 2020 presidential election.

During the March hearing, Jackson told the lawyer representing the plaintiffs: "My biggest concern is that your view has the First Amendment hamstringing the federal government in significant ways in the most important time periods."

She added: "And so I guess some might say that the government actually has a duty to take steps to protect the citizens of this country, and you seem to be suggesting that that duty cannot manifest itself in the government encouraging or even pressuring platforms to take down harmful information."

The pastor said that he crossed the line, but still stands by some of his statements.

"My apology was not calling her Judge Jumanji but instead taking it too far to her personal physical attributes. I crossed the line of comedy and violated my own standard of conduct; it should never be personal, and I made it so," he told Newsweek.

Vaughn added: "I STAND BY MY STATEMENT that her saying that 'Freedom of speech hamstrings the government' would lead to JUMANJI; therefore, she is now Judge JUMANJI by her own statements. In an OUT OF CONTROL Republic—A JUNGLE—we would have suppression of speech for certain classes, clubs, and churches."