Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said Thursday that that he was “saddened” to see Republicans giving each other high-fives after they voted to change Senate precedent in order to confirm President Trump’s Supreme Court pick.
“I could not help but notice a number of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle high-fiving each other,” Blumenthal said on the Senate floor. “That image stays with me as I stand here now. It saddens me.”
Blumenthal, like other Democrats, warned that the change to prevent the minority party from blocking Supreme Court picks would damage both the high court and the Senate itself.
“There is no cause for celebration in what happened in the Senate just hours ago,” he said. “No one should sleep well tonight. No one should underestimate the magnitude of what happened here. Damage was done to our democracy.”
“Today is indeed one of my saddest in the Senate,” Blumenthal added.
My GOP colleagues high fived each other after voting to damage pillars of our democracy. This is no cause for celebration. #NuclearOption
— Richard Blumenthal (@SenBlumenthal) April 6, 2017
The rule change has been nicknamed the “nuclear option,” but Blumenthal compared it to a real nuclear explosion.
“No one should make light of the potential fallout, as there is in any nuclear explosion, from this action today,” he said. “My hope is that we can avoid that truly cataclysmic outcome, a nuclear explosion in some ways even more deafening and damaging than would be the one used today.”
