Schumer: Trump Should Ditch Gorsuch for a ‘Mainstream Nominee’

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., meets with reporters on Capitol Hill before
AP/J. Scott Applewhite

On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said President Donald Trump should change his Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch for “a mainstream nominee” who can get 60 votes in the senate.

Schumer said, “Let me make a proposal here to maybe break this problem that we have, okay? It looks like Gorsuch will not reach the 60-vote margin. So instead of changing the rules, which is up to Mitch McConnell and the Republican majority, why doesn’t President Trump, Democrats, and Republicans in the Senate, sit down, and try to come up with a mainstream nominee? Look, when a nominee doesn’t get 60 votes, you shouldn’t change the rules, you should change the nominee. And let’s just take, give me one minute here, because this is important, let’s just look at the history, okay?”

“Our nominee was Merrick Garland, Mitch McConnell broke 230 years of precedent and didn’t call him up for a vote,” he continued. “It wasn’t in the middle of an election campaign, it was March.Second, then now it looks like we have the votes to prevent Gorsuch from getting on. Now that doesn’t mean you have to change the rules. Each side didn’t get their nominee. Let’s sit down and come together. Our Republican friends are acting like, you know, they’re a cat on the top of a tree and they have to jump off with all the damage that entails. Come back off the tree, sit down, and work with us and we will produce a mainstream nominee.”

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN

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