<mediadc-video-embed data-state="{"cms.site.owner":{"_ref":"00000161-3486-d333-a9e9-76c6fbf30000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b93390000"},"cms.content.publishDate":1656087962302,"cms.content.publishUser":{"_ref":"00000162-079e-d172-a563-4ffe40be0000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"cms.content.updateDate":1656087962302,"cms.content.updateUser":{"_ref":"00000162-079e-d172-a563-4ffe40be0000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"rawHtml":"
var _bp = _bp||[]; _bp.push({ "div": "Brid_56082225", "obj": {"id":"27789","width":"16","height":"9","video":"1039680"} }); rn","_id":"00000181-9688-ddcb-a3e1-dfcaccc50000","_type":"2f5a8339-a89a-3738-9cd2-3ddf0c8da574"}”>Video EmbedEven as occasional Republican critics of Donald Trump thanked the former president for appointing the Supreme Court justices who made overturning Roe v. Wade possible, another figured prominently in the termination of federal protections for abortion rights: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Trump and McConnell (R-KY) are now bitter foes, disagreeing over the former president’s handling of the post-2020 election period and the Jan. 6, 2021, ransacking of the Capitol. But during Trump’s single term in office, he and McConnell worked hand-in-glove to reshape the federal judiciary and install a conservative majority on the Supreme Court.
Without that 6-3 majority, punctuated by the confirmation of three Trump-nominated conservative jurists shepherded through the Senate by McConnell, Roe v. Wade might never have been overturned. The decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, handed down Friday, delivered the conservative movement a legal and political victory that it has sought for decades. The ruling returns the authority to regulate abortion to the states.
As Republican activists noted in some of the immediate reactions to the long-anticipated decision rendered by the Dobbs ruling, Trump deserved credit. The 45th president kept the commitment he made while campaigning for the White House in 2016, nominating conservative judges to the high court more likely than not to consider overturning a 50-year-old legal precedent.
“Thank you, President Trump, for keeping your word and putting good Justices on the Supreme Court,” tweeted Erick Erickson, a conservative talk radio host in Macon, Georgia, who has delivered Trump a tongue-lashing from time to time.
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However, McConnell, who was then the Senate majority leader, played a critical (and some might say, indispensable) role in ensuring that Trump’s Supreme Court nominees survived what is often a brutal confirmation process. Indeed, Trump likely would not have had the opportunity to appoint three justices to the Supreme Court in just four years if not for McConnell and a daring, unilateral decision he made long before the 45th president was inaugurated.
In early 2016, as Trump was campaigning for the Republican nomination, Justice Antonin Scalia died, offering lame-duck President Barack Obama to appoint a replacement for the famous conservative jurist. But McConnell, without consulting any of his GOP colleagues, quickly announced that the Senate would not consider any Obama nominees — no Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, no floor votes.
Obama nominated Merrick Garland (now President Joe Biden’s attorney general) in an attempt to pressure McConnell to back down. The Kentucky Republican didn’t wilt, sticking to his position that in an election year, the voters should, through their vote for president, have a say in which party controls the right to fill a Supreme Court vacancy. Trump took office, and instead of a liberal like Garland succeeding Scalia, the seat went to Justice Neil Gorsuch.
“It just doesn’t happen without McConnell,” a Republican operative said of the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court ruling that mandated federal protections for abortion rights. “Lots of good work when into confirming those justices, but ultimately, if Merrick Garland is on the court, this is 5-4 the other way.”
Even after McConnell created the conditions for Trump’s Supreme Court trifecta by keeping the Scalia seat vacant, he faced unique adversity at every turn as he presided over the confirmation of each new associate Supreme Court justice.
With Justice Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation in 2017, McConnell overcame a Democratic filibuster by implementing the so-called “nuclear option” to eliminate the 60-vote filibuster threshold for Supreme Court nominees. Under Obama, Democrats had used the same tactic, which essentially broke Senate rules to change the rules, to get rid of the 60-vote threshold for executive branch nominees and judicial nominees except for Supreme Court picks.
With Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation in 2018, McConnell had to keep Senate Republicans together amid intense opposition from Democrats that saw them promote unsubstantiated allegations of sexual misconduct and other personal misbehavior against the nominee. And with Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation in 2020, McConnell had to expedite a consideration process that often lasts for months.
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Trump nominated Barrett just weeks before Election Day after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. In each instance, McConnell delivered, leading to a historic conservative advantage on the Supreme Court.
“Millions of Americans have spent half a century praying, marching, and working toward today’s historic victories for the rule of law and for innocent life,” McConnell said as part of a lengthy statement. “I have been proud to stand with them throughout our long journey, and I share their joy today.”
