Mitch McConnell is on the Senate floor praising Ruth Bader Ginsburg as a “spirited, powerful and historic champion for American women” and says: “The legal world is mourning a giant.”
Mitch McConnell now on the Senate floor: “Presidnent Trump’s nominee for this vacancy will receive a vote on the floor of the Senate.”
McConnell is distinguishing 2016 from 2020 by saying there was “a divided government” then while Republicans control the Senate and White House now.
(For context, some of his own members didn’t see it this way at the time, including Chuck Grassley and Lindsey Graham.)
McConnell says 2014 voters gave Republicans control of the Senate to be a “check and balance” on Obama while in 2018 they preserved the majority to continue confirming Trump’s judges.
Chuck Schumer is now on the Senate floor talking about SCOTUS, citing RBG's dying wish that she be replaced by the next president. "By all rights, by every modicum of decency and honor, Leader McConnell and the Republican Senate majority have no right to fill it. No right."
Chuck Schumer needles McConnell for being “defensive” with his SCOTUS comments, arguing he’s flipping his standard. “No amount of sophistry can change what McConnell said then. And it applies even more so now, more so — so much closer we are to the election.”
Schumer says McConnell’s words are “totally empty, totally meaningless if he moves to appoint someone to tear down everything Justice Ginsburg built.”
“To hear Leader McConnell up on the floor trying to defend this — pathetic. Pathetic.”
SCHUMER: “I worry for the future of this chamber if the Republican majority proceeds down this dangerous path. If the Senate majority over the course of six years steals two SupCt seats using completely contradictory rationales, how could we expect to trust the other side again?"
Schumer on Republicans moving to replace Ginsburg after 2016: “Tell me how. Tell me how this would not spell the end of this supposedly great deliberative body? Because I don’t see how.”
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Democrats remain haunted by what happened to Ginsburg. Rewind to 2014: She was 81, Obama was president, Dems had 55 Senate seats; liberals called on her to retire. She rejected them. And died in 2020, got replaced by Trump pick A.C. Barrett—the 6-3 SCOTUS. nbcnews.com/politics/supre…
BLUMENTHAL wants Sotomayor to “weigh the competing factors.”
“The old saying — graveyards are full of indispensable people, ourselves in this body included.”
Sen. WHITEHOUSE warns of a “full MAGA court” if it goes to 7-2.
“Certainly I think if Justice Ginsburg had it to do over again, she might have rethought her confidence in her own health.”
NEW: Republican Study Committee releases a sweeping budget plan
RSC chair is HERN; 170+ members incl Speaker and his full leadership team.
Highlights:
• Raises Social Security retirement age for future retirees
• Converts Medicare to "premium support" a la Paul Ryan plan
• Rolls back ACA
• Endorses Life At Conception Act
On Social Security, RSC budget endorses "modest adjustments to the retirement age for future retirees to account for increases in life expectancy." Calls for lowering benefits for the highest-earning beneficiaries. No changes for current/imminent retirees. nbcnews.com/politics/congr…
New RSC budget is a glimpse into how Republicans will seek to govern if they win power in 2024. It puts Trump in an awkward spot after he has been all over the map on what to do about Social Security and Medicare. One goal he and RSC agree on: undo ACA.
Ron Johnson: "How did we get ourselves in a situation where we’re being blamed for Biden's open border policy? How could that be possible? The answer is McConnell made that possible."
The Senate just unanimously agreed to fill committee slots vacated by Dianne Feinstein. Perhaps most significant: @LaphonzaB fills the empty Judiciary Committee slot and Democrats regain their majority on a key panel. Biden’s judicial nominees can now move without GOP support.
As we had been reporting for months, Republicans didn’t block Dems from filling the Judiciary Cmte seat. There were months of fabricated claims, amplified by figures like @HillaryClinton & @SenStabenow, that Rs would leave that seat open permanently if Feinstein vacated it. Nope.
Many were conflating two different things. What Republicans objected to was a *temporary* swap on one panel while Feinstein was still a senator. They didn’t threaten to permanently keep committee seats open if she left the Senate; unlikely that could’ve succeeded if they tried.
👀 @TedLieu tells me that a Speaker Jim Jordan could mean the House refuses to certify a potential Biden re-election win in 2024. “He will absolutely do everything he can to not certify a Biden victory. That’s what he did before.” nbcnews.com/politics/congr…