Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., began her questioning by reminding the committee that the Senate should be passing coronavirus relief right now, not rushing a Supreme Court nomination in an election year.

“I appreciate Judge, that you said you did not want to be a 'queen.' I would not mind being the queen around here, truth be known,” Klobuchar said, prompting a laugh from Barrett. “But you said that you would not let your views influence you and the like, but the truth is the Supreme Court rulings rule people's lives.”

Klobuchar then quoted Trump promising to appoint a justice who would overturn the Affordable Care Act and asked Barrett, “Do you think that we should take the president at his word when he says his nominee will do the right thing and overturn the Affordable Care Act?”

“I can't really speak to what the president had said on Twitter,” Barrett said. “He has not said any of that to me. What I can tell you, as I have told your colleagues earlier today, is that no one has elicited any commitment in the case or brought up that commitment in the case. I am 100% committed to judicial Independence from political pressure.”

Klobuchar also quoted from an essay Barrett wrote disagreeing with Chief Justice John Roberts’ majority decision which upheld the Affordable Care Act. Barrett stood by her interpretation.

“One thing I want to clarify is you say that I criticized Chief Justice Roberts, and I don't attack people. It's just ideas,” Barrett said. “So it was designed to make a comment about his reasoning in that case, which as I have said before is consistent with the majority opinion characterizing it as a left plausible reading of the statute.”

Graham called the Senate Judiciary Committee back into session shortly after 12:45 p.m.

There are fifteen senators remaining in this round. Each has 30 minutes to ask Barrett questions.

After three hours of questioning, Graham announced the Senate Judiciary Committee is in recess until 12:45 p.m.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., homed in on Barrett’s dissent in Kanter v. Barr, a gun rights case from 2019. Barrett was the lone dissenter when a Seventh Circuit panel majority rejected a Second Amendment challenge from a man, Ricky Kanter, found guilty of felony mail fraud and prohibited from possessing a gun under federal and Wisconsin law.

Barrett argued non-violent felons shouldn't be banned for life from gun ownership, writing in her dissent that the Second Amendment “confers an individual right, intimately connected with the natural right of self-defense and not limited to civic participation.”

Knowing this, Durbin asked Barrett about the differentiation she made in Kanter between felon voting rights and gun ownership.

“You are saying a felony should not disqualify Ricky [Kanter] from buying an AK-47 but using a felony conviction to deny them the right to vote is all right?” Durbin asked.

Barrett answered confidently but provided little insight into what her Kanter decision might mean for future voting rights cases.

“Senator, what I said was that the Constitution contemplates that states have the freedom to deprive felons of the right to vote. It is expressed in the constitutional text, but I expressed no view whether it was a good idea, whether states should do that. I didn't explore in that opinion because it was completely irrelevant to what limits, if any, there might be on a state's ability to curtail felon voting rights,” she said.

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., fired back at Harris in his line of questioning, claiming that Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., had called Barrett a “liar” when, while she did not use the word, strongly implied that Barrett would not be impartial as she said she would be when it came to considering abortion rights and the ACA.

Kennedy led Barrett through the wording of the Supreme Court oath to administer the law in an impartial manner.

"Are you going to take that oath and affirm it if you are confirmed?" he questioned. "Not lying?"

"Yes," Barrett replied. "Not lying. I took that oath before I began as a judge in the Seventh Circuit. I've never violated that oath. I would take it again. Oaths are serious to me."

“Senator Harris just called you a liar,” Kennedy quipped back. “She said if you take that oath, you would be lying. That you have already made up your mind on how you will vote on some cases, particularly dealing with abortion and the Affordable Care Act. Let's cut to the chase. She said you are a liar. Are you a liar?

“I am not a liar,” Barrett replied.

“I want you to tell me again. Look me in the eye. You're in front of God and country. If you take that oath, will you meet it?” Kennedy asked.

“I will,” Barrett answered.

“Do you swear to God?” he said.

“I swear to God. I have sworn at the Seventh Circuit. I meant it there too,” she said.

“You will never break that oath? No matter what your personal feelings are? No matter what your religion is?” he continued.

“No matter what my religion is,” she said.

“When Senator Harris and her colleagues say you are a liar, they are wrong?” he finally asked.

“They are,” Barrett said.

Though Barrett has been careful about providing her personal view on abortion, repeatedly citing her responsibility to be impartial as a sitting judge, when asked directly by Kennedy if she has a view on it, Barrett confirmed, “I do have personal feelings about abortion.”