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“I think in the middle of a presidential election, if you have a Senate from the party opposite the president, you have to go back to the 1880s to find the last time a vacancy was filled. So I think it’s highly unlikely. In fact, no, I don’t think that either party if it dominated, if different from the president, would confirm a Supreme Court nominee in the middle of the election. What was different in 2020 was that we were from the same party as the president,” McConnell said on a Hugh Hewitt radio show on Monday.
When asked what he would do if his party controlled the Senate and opened a seat at the end of 2023, McConnell said, “Well, we’ll have to wait and see what happens.”
It also comes under pressure like the Progressives and some Democrats are increasingly indicating they hope to see Justice Stephen Breyer retire in order to clear the way for Biden to file a nomination for the Supreme Court. “It’s something I’m thinking about, but I’m probably leaning toward yes,” Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told Dana Bash on “State of the Union” Sunday, when asked if Breyer should retire at the end of the Supreme Court term.
McConnell and Senate Republicans famously declined to consider the Supreme Court’s nomination of Merrick Garland by then-President Barack Obama in 2016, a presidential election year, following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.
After former President Donald Trump won the White House and was sworn in, he nominated Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court and the Republican-controlled Senate confirmed the nomination.
But in 2020, the year of another presidential election, McConnell and Senate Republicans embraced and confirmed Amy Connie Barrett’s nomination for the Supreme Court, Trump’s choice to fill the vacancy created by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
McConnell claims that 2020 was different from 2016 because Republicans controlled the Senate and there was a Republican in the White House, while when a vacancy arose in 2016, Obama was president while Republicans held the Senate.
But Senate Republicans rarely made that argument in 2016, instead focusing on making a broader argument that voters should decide the direction of the Supreme Court as the country nears electing a new president.
“I think the case you raised is the most important thing I’ve done in my time as majority leader,” McConnell told Hewitt Monday, reflecting on his moves to enter confirmation of Supreme Court justices when Trump was in office. , and the appointment of Gorsuch…and of course we only had a little time left when Judge Ginsburg passed away. It took a great deal of priority and skill to get Connie Barrett Emmys. I think we’ll discover the difference it makes for the American people.”
CNN’s Manu Raju and Ted Barrett contributed to this report.
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