Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., emerged from a White House meeting with President Obama and GOP leaders early Tuesday afternoon and said that while the president would name a Supreme Court a nominee “quickly,” no progress had been made in convincing Republicans not to block whoever he chooses.
Because Democrats and Republicans are still at odds, Reid said the meeting was “very short” and noted that they killed a lot of time talking about basketball.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, left the White House without speaking to reporters.
Reid also said he guessed Republicans are waiting to see whom Donald Trump wants to nominate to the Supreme Court, because they remain “adamant” there will not be hearings, and they brought no names for Obama to consider.
“They think they are going to wait and see what President Trump will do I guess as far as the nomination is concerned,” Reid said.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest deemed the meeting “pretty straightforward.”
“No one represented that they were on the verge of changing their opinion… but the president takes quite seriously his responsibility” to consult with the Senate before selecting a nominee.
“We certainly would have liked to have Republicans handle the meeting differently,” he added. “We would have liked a greater engagement from the Republicans and [have them] resist the urge to allow the process to be so deeply affected and corrupted by partisan gamesmanship.”
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, said it was his fifth time he had been involved in filling a vacancy on the court, and the Republican argument that they should not consider a nominee in a presidential election year “makes no sense.”
“Every president since I have been here — I came here at the time of President Ford — has realized that the Constitution makes it very clear that the president shall nominate and the Senate shall offer advice and consent,” Leahy said. “The president is going to fulfill his constitutional duty. The Senate is supposed to fulfill theirs. Have the hearing. Vote it down. Don’t pretend it doesn’t happen.”
Asked what kind of leverage they have to try to force Republicans into action, Reid referred to the “a nasty little thing” called the Constitution.
