‘Slim to None’: Senate Democrats Suggest They Would Block Any Trump SCOTUS Noms for 2 Years if They Win Midterms
(AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Senate Democrats are signaling that President Donald Trump could face a blockade of his Supreme Court nominees for the final two years of his term if the party wins control of the Senate in November.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and several of his Democratic colleagues indicated they have little appetite for confirming another Trump nominee to the nation’s highest court, according to a Monday report from NBC News’ Sahil Kapur.
“The bottom line is: One of the reasons we want to do everything we can to take back the Senate is not let Trump put such horrible justices — MAGA justices — on the Supreme Court and the lower courts,” Schumer said when asked how Democrats would approach a potential vacancy.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was even more explicit.
“Well, given the history of Trump nominees, I think it is slim to none that we would support a nominee from this administration,” Blumenthal said. “Because we’ve seen this movie, we know how it ends, which is a politician in robes who is following Trump’s orders on most major questions.”
The issue could become particularly consequential, NBC noted, after Justice Samuel Alito, 76, recently revealed that he considered retiring earlier this year before deciding to remain on the bench. Justice Clarence Thomas, 78, is the court’s oldest member. Neither has announced plans to step down.
Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) argued that Democrats should follow the precedent set by former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who refused to consider then-President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland in 2016.
“No, we’ve got to do exactly what McConnell did to us,” Gallego said, while later arguing Democrats should at least “even the scales.”
Throughout Trump’s nearly six years in office, the president has placed 290 judges on the federal bench, including three Supreme Court justices. In an interview last week, though, he admitted he regrets appointing all three — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett — because they have voted against him “too often.”
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