Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) on Tuesday accused Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) of taking orders from GOP presidential candidates to delay the confirmation of a Supreme Court nominee.
Speaking from the Senate floor, Reid called McConnell’s resistance to confirming a nominee “obstruction on steroids.”
“Senator McConnell is leading the charge to obstruct and cheapen the presidency at all costs regardless of the damage it does to our democracy,” Reid said.
Reid wagered that McConnell’s reluctance to replace Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who died at age 79 earlier this month, was a “marching order” from Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).
“Unfortunately, the Republican leader is listening to Donald Trump and the junior senator from Texas. He’s not listening to mainstream America,” Reid continued. “He’s not listening to the few voices of reason coming from his own party, even from his own senators.”
Right before Reid spoke, McConnell again reiterated that the Senate wouldn’t vote on President Obama’s nomination and would instead wait until the election is over to review a candidate. But Reid said it was not “too late to change course,” challenging the majority leader to put in work.
“Reject the extremist approach propagated by the likes of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. It will only hurt our country. Put aside this obstruction and work with President Obama to fill this crucial vacancy on the Supreme Court,” Reid said. “Do your job. All we’re saying is do your job. Do your job.”
The calculation here is that their stonewalling will energize their base more than it energizes ours. But given that their entire electoral strategy depends, literally depends, on a few points of black turnout fall-off in addition to mobilizing the semi-mythical “Missing Whites,” we’ll get to see how that works, I guess.
All I see is a TV spot with Trump’s “Turn out the lights” chant as a soundtrack over pictures of lights winking out on the Statue of Liberty, libraries, space probes, courthouses, embassies, farms, assembly lines and cities then transitioning into B&W footage of 20th century fascism…
Won’t revenge be sweet should the Dems take back control of the Senate and Hillary or Bernie are the ones making the nominations from the White House? Advice and consent from the Rs would no longer be necessary.
If he could line up the volunteers for inevitable defeat, Obama should nominate a new potential justice every few weeks, to keep the issue alive and top-most in voters’ thoughts.
Give 'em hell, Harry! Some iteration of this needs to be said three times a day by every Dem who finds him or herself in front of a camera.