‘This is the ‘Biden rule’: Senate Republican links Supreme Court strategy to Trump’s election foe
A top Senate Republican on Sunday tried to link his party’s intention to hold an election-year vote on Donald Trump’s coming Supreme Court nominee on a former Democratic chairman of the chamber’s Judiciary Committee: Joe Biden.
Wyoming’s John Barrasso, the GOP conference chairman, made the claim during a contentious “Meet the Press” interview with NBC’s Chuck Todd, who grew incredulous as he pressed the senator to support his claims. Mr Barrasso, like other Senate Republicans, would not guarantee a vote before the 3 November election on replacing liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who passed away on Friday. But he did say Senate GOP leaders plan to vote “this year.”
House and Senate Democrats are accusing Republicans of hypocrisy over Mr Trump’s coming nomination, which he says could come as soon as this week. In 2016, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell established a 10-month blockade of then-President Barack Obama’s final high court nominee, Merrick Garland, arguing voters should first decide who they wanted as president and which party would control the Senate.
Four years later, Mr McConnell dispatched allies to the Sunday morning talk shows to argue things are different now and he is merely following over a century of precedent. Mr Barrasso and other GOP senators contend when one party has controlled both the White House and Senate in an election year, the chamber has confirmed a Supreme Court nominee each time.
Mr Barrasso added a twist to the debate on Sunday morning, dragging the Democratic nominee for president into the debate.
“We were following the ‘Joe Biden rule.’ He was chairman of the Judiciary Committee. And he said when there is a Senate of one party and a White House of another” the panel would not consider a high court pick in an election year,” Mr Barrasso claimed.
“He said this to George Hebert Walker Bush, he said if there is a vacancy in the final year, we will not confirm,” he said of the one-term GOP president. “And that’s what we did with Merrick Garland.”
Mr Todd read several quotes from 2016 John Barrasso, who said at that time Mr Obama should “spare the country this fight.”
“Those are your words!” the NBC host all but shouted. “Not once did you say, ‘It depends on which party. … This sounds like a power grab, pure and simple.”
Mr Barrasso ignored that notion, instead repeating his contention that “this is the ‘Biden rule.’
His claim prompted Mr Todd to shoot back: “There is no ‘Joe Biden rule!’”
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