Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) revised his rule for Supreme Court appointments in election years on Sunday, telling Chris Wallace at Fox News that he would consider confirming a potential nominee by President Donald Trump in 2020.
"We simply followed the tradition in America, which is that if you have a Senate of a different party than the President you don’t fill a vacancy created in a presidential [election] year," the Majority Leader said over the weekend.
That's a far cry from what he claimed two years ago.
In 2016, McConnell proudly blocked Merrick Garland, President Barack Obama's pick to replace Justice Antonin Scalia.
“The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice," McConnell said at the time. "Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new President.”
McConnell changed his tune on Sunday. When asked by Wallace if he would uphold the rule he implemented two years ago, the 76-year-old Republican said: "we'll see if there's a vacancy in 2020."
McConnell claimed that not since 1880 has a Senate of a different party than the president confirmed a Supreme Court nominee.
Watch the full segment below:
McConnell reiterated this point on CBS's Face the Nation, but this time host John Dickerson noted that in 1956, a Democratic Senate confirmed William Brennan, who was nominated by Republican President Dwight Eisenhower, to the bench.
And in 1968, the Republican leader in the Senate allowed hearings to fill a Supreme Court vacancy under Democratic President Lyndon Johnson.
Dickerson's point was that McConnell was mischaracterizing history to fit his own agenda.
Watch the clip below:
The American people remember exactly what happened in 2016.
Twitter users weren't surprised by McConnell once again changing the rules as he goes along.
Nor were they shocked over his hypocrisy.
Dickerson's pushback was much appreciated too.
One person summed it up nicely.
We're not buying it, Senator.
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