On a late Thursday afternoon conference call of the left-wing group Patriotic Millionaires, group President Erica Payne urged activists to work against a coming Trump Supreme Court nominee by “mak[ing] this an unbelievably painful process for Senate Republicans” and “kick[ing] the f— out of” Democratic senators who won’t fight hard enough.
Saying that Democrats are showing such weakness as to be “utter bullshit,” Payne acknowledged that the nominee almost certainly will be confirmed, but “the question is whether we can extract any flesh and bone in the process.”
Payne then turned the call over to Adam Jentleson, who served as deputy chief of staff to Democratic former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, so that Jentleson could explain the strategy and tactics the group is urging Democratic senators to adopt.
The strategy, outlined in a letter the group plans to send to all Democratic senators, would involve gumming up the Senate works in several ways in order to cause “a massive headache” for Republican senators who want to be in their home states campaigning for reelection. Specifically, the group wants to block the Senate from adjourning next Tuesday, repeatedly demand quorum calls that will force at least 51 Republicans to be in the Senate chamber to conduct business, and, in the Senate Judiciary Committee, completely boycott all hearings related to the coming nomination.
“We need to help senators do some things that are out of their comfort zones but are necessary … to save this country,” Jentleson said. Both he and Payne repeated numerous times the refrain that Democrats cannot let the media portray the coming confirmation process as a “normal” one.
“I think I manipulate the media better than anyone else on this phone call,” Payne said — then, by way of example, claimed credit for the infamous 2011 ad that portrayed Republicans throwing a wheelchair-bound grandmother off a cliff.
Let’s see if both the media and the Senate Democrats take kindly to efforts to “manipulate” them in such contemptuous fashion.
