Democrats Rip McConnell for Promising to Fill Potential SCOTUS Vacancy in 2020

Democrats blasted Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell Tuesday for promising that the GOP would confirm President Trump’s third nominee to the Supreme Court should a vacancy arise in 2020.

“Oh, we’d fill it,” the Kentucky Republican said in response to a question about the matter from a guest at the Paducah Area Chamber of Commerce Public Policy Luncheon in Kentucky.

Democrats responded with outrage, citing McConnell’s refusal to consider former president Barack Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to fill the late Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat in 2016. McConnell said at the time that he would not grant a hearing or vote on Garland’s nomination because it was a presidential election year, saying voters should decide whether a Democratic or Republican president filled the seat.

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer called McConnell’s admission “no surprise.”

“Seriously it’s no surprise. McConnell lives for GOP judges because he knows the GOP agenda is so radical & unpopular they can only achieve it in courts,” the New York senator wrote on Twitter.