Former Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) put a GOP marketing campaign strategist on blast Saturday, repeatedly asking her to defend a declare about why Lawyer Common Merrick Garland’s Supreme Court docket nomination was “held up” in 2016.
Franken and Alice Stewart, a CNN analyst and onetime aide to former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R), have been weighing in on current remarks by Supreme Court docket Chief Justice John Roberts.
In these remarks, Roberts, in his first public look because the Supreme Court docket overturned Roe v. Wade in June, defended the legitimacy of the court docket.
Franken informed CNN host Jim Acosta that he disagreed with Roberts’ take.
He mentioned the court docket’s legitimacy was undermined years in the past, when a Republican Senate majority led by Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) didn’t “take up” Garland’s nomination, submitted by President Barack Obama. On the time, McConnell cited what he referred to as a “longstanding custom” to not fill Supreme Court docket vacancies throughout an election yr.
PolitiFact has described McConnell’s “longstanding custom” declare as “deceptive.”
Franken identified that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) later supporting filling Supreme Court docket vacancies in election years, which additionally had the impact of undermining the court docket’s legitimacy.
“They’ve stolen two seats: the one which Merrick Garland wasn’t given a listening to for, and the one which [Justice Amy] Coney Barrett, the place she was seated every week earlier than the [2020] election,” Franken mentioned. “That destroyed the legitimacy of the court docket.”
Stewart mentioned she wished to “throw slightly accuracy” into what Franken mentioned, claiming that the Garland nomination was held up as a result of “we had a divided authorities ― we had a Democrat within the White Home and we had Republicans in management [of Congress].”
Franken instantly fired again: “That’s not what McConnell mentioned.”
“However that’s the way in which, traditionally, this has been,” Stewart replied. “While you’re near an election yr and you’ve got divided authorities … there sometimes is an inclination to attend ―”
“Inform me when this occurred earlier than,” Franken interrupted. “Inform me when it occurred earlier than.”
You possibly can watch the trade, beginning across the 3:06 mark, under.