WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) joined MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” this morning to discuss the vacant Supreme Court seat and Senate Republicans’ intentions to ignore any consideration of a nominee for the seat.
Transcript from this morning’s broadcast:
Jonathan Capehart: “The question is about the Supreme Court and the President’s potential nominee and just to get your reaction to what Leader McConnell said yesterday and the Senate Judiciary Chairman, Senator Grassley, basically saying to the President: ‘Fine, nominate someone, but that nominee won’t even get a hearing, won’t even be welcomed in the Capitol’…
Senator Coons:
“This is a sad development. This is a striking development. In the century since the Judiciary Committee was formed in the Senate, every single nominee has gotten a hearing, has gotten a vote on the Senate floor and in the committee.
Just because this is the eighth year of the President’s two term Presidency doesn’t mean that there’s anything in the Constitution that says he doesn’t have a right to send up a nominee and that we don’t have a role to perform advise and consent.
"And for the Senate of the United States to simply go ‘nah, nah, nah, nah’…that’s not advise and consent. That’s an elementary-school response, not a grown-up response.”