Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) said Sunday that Republicans should swiftly confirm President Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court if a Democrat is projected to win the presidential election in November.
Flake was asked on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” if he’d changed his mind about approving Merrick Garland for the late Justice Antonin Scalia’s vacant seat, after Donald Trump swept the Indiana primary last week to become the presumptive GOP nominee.
“I think Republicans are more than justified in waiting that is following both principle and precedent,” Flake said, adding that he wanted to have “the most conservative, qualified” jurist on the Supreme Court.
Flake said when Obama first announced Garland as his nominee that he would consider approving the nomination if it looked like the Republican Party would lose the general election. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) ruled out the possibility of a lame-duck confirmation on “principle.”
The Arizona senator floated confirming Garland in a lame-duck session again in the “Meet The Press” interview.
“If we come to a point, I’ve said all along, where we’re going to lose the election or we lose the election in November, then we ought to approve him quickly, because I’m certain he’ll be more conservative than a Hillary Clinton nomination come January,” Flake said.
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GOP now means “gaming on principle”
Thanks for pointing out that “the next president should nominate the justice” is a complete sham. Not that anyone needed any help seeing through that.
Glad to see that politics plays no part in the serious deliberations of the GOP conTROLLed senate!!!111111!!!
I know Obama can’t do this, but I’d be elated if he withdrew his nomination now. Unfortunately, the risk is that Trump would “actually be elected president”. Seems like a good bet to me to withdraw the nomination and kick these losers in their too-white teeth. Then again, this is not a viable risk for Obama, yet. I hope the GOP debates this quandary until it is too late to confirm Obama’s man. Then he and / or Hillary can retract the nomination if so desired (not sure how that’d play for the nominee however - but he’s really only a pawn in the game at this point anyhow).
If this comes to pass, the justification will undoubtedly be that the voters chose a Democrat and one Democrat’s pick is as good as another’s.