President Barack Obama is going after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for vowing to block his upcoming nomination to replace Justice Antonin Scalia in the Supreme Court.
Obama dismisses the argument that senators, including current Vice President Joe Biden, had threatened to block nominations to the court in an election year.
“First of all, we know Senators say stuff all the time,” Obama said, arguing that there was no nomination to the Supreme Court at the time and that statement had “no application” to the current situation.
Obama made his comments to reporters in the Oval Office during a meeting with King Abdullah of Jordan.
He proposed that McConnell would find it hard to continue blocking his nomination to the court after he made his decision.
“I think it will be very difficult for Mr. McConnell to explain how the the public concludes that this person is very well qualified that the Senate should stand in the way simply for political reasons,” he said.
Obama vowed to nominate a replacement and take his argument to the public, even though McConnell and Republican Senators had firmly vowed to block his nominee.
“We’ll see what happens,” he said.
Obama warned that the process to confirm justices to the Supreme Court was getting more and more difficult thanks to growing partisanship in Congress.
“If in fact Republican in the Senate take a posture that defies the Constitution, defies logic, is not supported by tradition, simply because of politics, then invariably what you’re going to see is a further deterioration of the ability of any president to make any judicial appointments,” he said.