President Donald Trump has promised to put forth a female nominee in the coming week to fill the Supreme Court vacancy created by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, pushing the Republican-controlled Senate to consider the pick without delay.
Taking the stage at a North Carolina rally to chants of “fill that seat”, the president said he would nominate his selection despite Democrats' objections.
And, after conducting what he joked was a “very scientific poll" of the Fayetteville crowd as to whether supporters wanted a man or a woman, he declared the choice would be “a very talented, very brave woman".
He added that he did not yet know whom he would choose.
“We win an election and those are the consequences,” said the president, who then seemed to signal that he'd be willing to accept a vote on his nominee during the lame duck period after the election.
“We have a lot of time. We have plenty of time. We're talking about January 20th."
But one Republican senator already broke ranks. Maine’s Susan Collins, who is in a tough reelection battle, said today that she believed replacing Ginsburg should be the decision of the president who is elected November 3.
Three more defections from the GOP ranks would be needed to stop Trump’s nominee from joining the court.
At stake is a seat held by a justice who spent her final years on the bench as the unquestioned leader of the court’s liberal wing.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Republican senator from Kentucky, vowed to call a vote for Trump’s nominee, but Democrats countered that Republicans should follow the precedent that GOP legislators set in 2016 by refusing to consider a Supreme Court choice in the run-up to an election.
The impending clash over the vacant seat — when to fill it and with whom — scrambles the stretch run of a presidential race for a nation already reeling from the pandemic that has killed nearly 200,000 people, left millions unemployed and heightened partisan tensions and anger.
McConnell pledged to Trump in a phone call yesterday to bring the choice to a vote though he has not said if it would be before the election. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said any selection should come after November 3.
“Voters should pick the president and the president should pick the justice to consider,” he said.
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