Liberal politicians, activists, and talking heads have been in full panic mode ever since Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy announced Wednesday he would retire in a month’s time.

As Friday came to a close, there was no sign liberal fears were subsiding.

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Michael Starr Hopkins, who worked for the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, pointed Friday to an appearance by President Donald Trump on “Hardball” with Chris Matthews during the 2016 presidential campaign. Hopkins (pictured above right), appearing on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle,” recalled that Trump then suggested that women who obtain abortions should face a penalty.

“Here, I take the president at his own word,” he said. “When the president appeared on Chris Matthews on MSNBC, he said he thought that women who had abortions should be punished. And so, you know, when we talk about rolling back the protections of Roe vs. Wade, that’s a realistic thing that could happen.”

Hopkins, who briefly entered the Democratic primary against Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), picked up on a suggestion by the state’s other Democratic senator, Cory Booker. The junior senator suggested this week that Kennedy’s seat be held open until after independent counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign.

“The president has already talked about loyalty pledges,” he told host Laura Ingraham. “So I think that when you are talking about a Supreme Court justice who can decide issues such as whether or not a president can pardon himself, whether or not a president has to comply with a subpoena, this president has put himself in that position where now Democrats have to say, ‘We have to wait and let the voters decide.”

But Harmeet Dhillon, a San Francisco lawyer who serves as California’s Republican National Committeewoman, said it is ridiculous to watch Booker “go full Venezuela.” It simply is untrue that Trump is the subject of the criminal investigation, Dhillon said.

“It isn’t just true, Laura. I just got an email from Nancy Pelosi, who’s my member of Congress, with a hysteria that we’re talking about, rolling back LGBT rights,” she said. “We’re talking about Roe v. Wade. We’re talking about the rights of the disabled. We’re talking about the rights of women. I mean, you know, it’s gonna be dystopia if the president gets to make another appointment.”

Related: Here Are the Top 5 Possible Trump Supreme Court Nominees (and 3 Dark Horses)

To Dhillon (pictured above left), it all had a familiar ring.

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“Guess what? They said all of those same things about [Justice] Neil Gorsuch, and none of that happened,” she said. “It’s just the Democratic playbook. We see it every time.”

Dhillon agreed with Ingraham that the potential justices on the list that Trump released last year are similar in their qualifications to Obama’s second pick for the high court, Elena Kagan.

“She’s highly qualified, and we don’t play the same games on our team that the other side does,” Dhillon said.

PoliZette senior writer Brendan Kirby can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter.