‘They Cheated in 2016’: Dan Abrams Calls Out GOP Flip-Flop on Supreme Court Nomination
Mediaite founder and ABC News chief legal analyst Dan Abrams called out the Republican Party for having effectively “cheated” four years ago when when it refused to let then-President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, get a vote.
On his SiriusXM radio, Abrams talked about the upcoming Supreme Court battle and the condemnations over the GOP’s obvious hypocrisy over forging ahead with a SCOTUS pick after the death of liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg just weeks before a presidential election.
“The question now is: Should the Republican Senate vote on that seat or should they wait?'” Abrams said. “I have a view that is maybe a bit more nuanced than others out there. But in my view it is the only principled view. Meaning on something like this we have to try as best we can to take the politics out of it—very hard to do that. But the way to do that is to establish a set of rules and guidelines that apply and will apply no matter who is in power at the time.”
Abrams then said, because of his stance, that he thought Garland’s nomination should not have been summarily blocked by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in 2016.
“But that’s not what happened in 2016,” Abrams acknowledged.
“My position is, and my rule would be: Presidents get to nominate Supreme Court justices, elections have consequences. Saying ‘Well, it’s an election year,’ is sort of nonsense,” he added, before dismissing McConnell’s excuse four years ago. “I’m not to be talking about the hypocrisy. Of course, it’s hypocritical. But it’s worse than that. As someone who believes that someone should be able to nominate and get a timely vote on a Supreme Court nominee, I think we have to have a serious discussion about what happens now. It is clear, based on what we are hearing from Republicans today, that they cheated in 2016. This nonsense about ‘Well, it was a different party that was in the Senate versus the president.’ That’s not what they were talking about in 2016.”
“That doesn’t mean that, therefore, Donald Trump shouldn’t be able to get a vote,” Abrams conceded.
“Should that mean that Democrats get a couple of additional spots, as a one-time punishment, to add to the Supreme Court if Joe Biden is elected?” Abrams asked. “I never would’ve thought that I would be seriously considering adding Supreme Court justices. I think it’s a horrible precedent. But I don’t what else is fair here.”
Listen to the audio above, via SiriusXM.
