White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany defended the Republican push to confirm a new Supreme Court Justice to the bench before the Nov. 3 election.
“Twenty-nine times, there has there been an appointment during an election year,” McEnany said at a press briefing on Tuesday. “Twenty-nine times. And when you break down those numbers, 19 times when the nominations were made, the Senate and the president were of the same party. Seventeen of those 19 times, that nominee went on to be confirmed. The 10 times when it was a difference in party between Republicans and Democrats in the Senate and the presidency, only two went on to be confirmed, so precedent is on our side.”
President Trump is set to announce a nominee, who he said will be a woman, to the high court on Saturday after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died Friday at the age of 87 due to complications with cancer.
Democrats, including presidential nominee Joe Biden, are calling for Republicans to wait and see who wins the election, which is 42 days away, to move forward with a Supreme Court nominee. But the party’s leadership is pushing ahead.
McEnany alluded to “very optimistic words” by Sen. Lindsey Graham, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who said in a Fox News interview on Tuesday that Senate Republicans have enough votes to confirm a nominee to the court.
“We’ll go about this the way we always have, by putting forward a Constitution-abiding textualist, originalist that we believe the American people will appreciate, and we believe will get through the approval process, the nomination and the confirmation process, I should say, quite quickly,” she said.
