During Wednesday’s edition of Deadline: White House, the show's Democratic and faux Republican panelists were not having a good day, complaining about Justice Kennedy’s decision to retire from the Supreme Court, which means that President Trump will get to pick his successor.
Host Nicolle Wallace played a clip of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer saying that “[o]ur Republican colleagues in the Senate should follow the rule they set in 2016, not to consider a Supreme Court justice in an election year.”
Apparently, the distinguished gentleman from New York does not see the difference between the final year of a lame duck Presidency and the first midterm of a brand new President.
Failed McCain/Palin campaign head Steve Schmidt said that while he believes that “Presidents should be afforded wide discretion with their Supreme Court nominations,” he slammed Republicans for having “stole[n] a Supreme Court seat from the Democrats.”
According to Schmidt: “For the fabric of our democracy, Democrats should dig in hard here and do everything they conceivably can do to block this nomination, any nomination from going forward until after we see what happens in the midterm election.”
Strangely, Schmidt ended his soliloquy by saying that Senators Bob Corker and Jeff Flake should make sure that if a nomination does go forward, “they will insist it will be a conservative, it will be an institutionalist, and it will be somebody with the highest qualities of probity and rectitude who can be trusted not to be a politician on the Court, but to be a justice of the Supreme Court.”
During Wallace's subsequent interview with California Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell, Wallace, who once referred to herself as a “non-practicing Republican”, lamented the fact that “Roe v. Wade is now potentially in jeopardy.” Their obsession with supporting and defending Roe v. Wade at all costs explains precisely why the left, including some “Republicans,” have gotten all bent out of shape because of the news of Justice Kennedy’s retirement.
While Justice Kennedy was appointed by Ronald Reagan, he has voted with the four reliably liberal justices in cases addressing the acceptability of homosexuality in mainstream culture and most notably the Obergefell v. Hodges decision that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
The left and their media allies can yell and scream all they want about whoever President Trump nominates to replace Justice Kennedy. Because of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s decision to abolish the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees, the Democrats, who control 49 seats in the Senate, have virtually no power to stall the nomination. Assuming that President Trump nominates another conservative along the lines of originalist icons likes Justices Scalia or Thomas, the left will go into full meltdown mode. The left may forever refer to the summer of 2018 as the “Cruel Summer.”
To see the relevant transcript from MSNBC's Deadline: White House on June 27, click "expand."
MSNBC's Deadline: White House
06/27/18
04:27 PM
NEW YORK DEMOCRATIC SENATOR CHUCK SCHUMER: Our Republican colleagues in the Senate should follow the rule they set in 2016, not to consider a Supreme Court justice in an election year. Senator McConnell would tell anyone who listened that the Senate had the right to advise and consent, and that was every bit as important as the President’s right to nominate.
NICOLLE WALLACE: For our friends who listen on radio and their car, they’ll hear from the audio that was Senator Schumer in the last hour saying that we should abide by the McConnell rule. Joining us by phone to weigh in on that, our friend Steve Schmidt. Steve, your thoughts.
STEVE SCHMIDT: Well, Nicolle, I think there is a very unfortunate era where strength is an important quality in a democracy, particularly in a country where the politics are closely divided. And the reality is you have Donald Trump lost the popular vote by three million. He won by 78,000 votes across three states. And the Republicans control all three branches of government; the legislative and by Republican nominees, 5-4 on the, on the Supreme Court. So, we have a minority that is ruling the majority of the country who are opposed to this President, and that is extremely unhealthy in a democracy. You know, as you know in the White House, I ran the Roberts and Alito confirmations. I was supportive of President Obama, with Kagan and Sotomayor. Because I believe Presidential Elections have consequences and that Presidents should be afforded wide discretion with regard to their Supreme Court nominations. But Mitch McConnell has as much as anyone done great damage to the United States Senate as a institution that was once known as the world’s greatest deliberative body. They stole a Supreme Court seat from the, from the Democrats. And for the fabric of our, of our democracy, Democrats should dig in hard here and do everything they conceivably can do to block this nomination, any nomination from going forward until after we see what happens in the midterm election. This is also, and I think it’s important to point out, a President who is increasingly lawless, who asserts himself to be above the law, who attacks constantly fundamental institutions and pillars in the middle of a criminal investigation that has moved closer and closer and closer to the Oval Office. So, there is an enormous amount at stake here, and, you know, Democrats, I think, need to, need to hold the line and be very, very tough in this moment and not allow this to go forward. And lastly, with Bob Corker and Jeff Flake, I think it is incredibly important for those two, and it’s only those two, that if we’re down to two possibilities, to signal that if a nominee does go forward, that they will insist though it will be a conservative, it will be an institutionalist, and it will be somebody with the highest qualities of probity and rectitude who can be trusted not to be a politician on the Court, but to be a justice of the Supreme Court.
WALLACE: Steve Schmidt, thank you for joining us every day. Thank you for joining us today on a day like this. Joining us now, Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell. Congressman, we’ve now heard almost word for word the same analysis from former Republican Steve Schmidt, from former Democratic Congresswoman Donna Edwards, from our own Rachel Maddow, that it is time for you guys to get mean and fight. Are you ready?
CALIFORNIA DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSMAN ERIC SWALWELL: Yes, Nicolle. And we’ve seen this week that we cannot count on the Court to save us from the wrecking ball that is Donald Trump. And as far as what I can do as a Congressman, electing a Democratic majority that can push that big red button to stop the wrecking ball, that’s what we have to do. But what the Senate should do, I believe Mitch McConnell should believe in his own rules, that he set under Merrick Garland. And as long as he is the leader of the Senate, I don’t think they should, they should work under any other rules.
WALLACE: Are you ready, though, to take a sharper message to the country? I mean part of the reason that Donald Trump defeated 16 Republicans and I guess bested Hillary Clinton is that he doesn’t play by the old rules. As Rachel Maddow articulated, he’s not restrained by the truth, he’s not restrained by the norms, he’s not restrained by arguments rooted in fact. He plays to people’s fears. He makes emotional arguments. I mean, are you guys ready to maybe rip up some of the rules that have as Rachel said limited Democrats?
SWALWELL: Yes, Nicolle, and I know we’re ready because I’ve seen these candidates. I was in Dallas and Tulsa just last weekend. I’ll be in Indiana, Kansas and Colorado coming up. We have 60 candidates who are under the age of 40 and what they’re talking to, to the voters that they have to appeal to is that why don’t we put on Donald Trump’s desk all the things he has said he would do that Republicans have been unwilling to do? Infrastructure, background checks, prescription drug repeal, taking money out of politics, he has benefited from making imaginary decisions every day, just blaming it on the Democrats because he knows Republicans won’t put it on his desk. It’s time to see if he’s ready to be serious. And if not, I think he will pave the way if you put those items on his desk for a Democratic President who will sign those bills in 2020.
WALLACE: Let me ask you something. My old boss John McCain called it straight talk. Let me ask you for some. For all of the dramatic high points and low points of the Trump Presidency, I’d argue there have been more low points than high points. His poll numbers are pretty steady. No matter what he does, whether it’s talking about grabbing women you know where, whether he’s separating infants from their mothers and fathers at the border, his numbers don’t go much higher than they, than they usually are, between about 38 and 40. But they don’t go much lower than that. How do you plan to break through if none of those, none of those what would be considered sins, what would be considered disqualifying things, how do you break through on the idea that Roe v. Wade is now potentially in jeopardy, if you haven’t been able to break through when the President’s essentially been shooting himself in his own foot?
