The two top Republicans up for the job of Senate Majority Leader if they take the Senate in the upcoming election talked about how they would thwart a Kamala Harris agenda including potential Supreme Court nominees.
Senator John Thune of South Dakota told CNN’s Manu Raju that if Kamala Harris wins the presidency and Republicans take the senate, there isn’t any abortion proposal that would get sixty votes in the Senate and when asked if he could see himself allowing any Harris Supreme Court nominee to be confirmed, Thune said it would depend on who it was.
Senator John Cornyn of Texas separately told Raju he wouldn’t “schedule a vote on some wild eyed radical nominee, which I know she would love to nominate.”
Watch:
NEW: “I’m not going to schedule a vote on some wild-eyed radical nominee, which I know she would love to nominate.” @mkraju’s new reporting on how @SenJohnThune and @JohnCornyn could throw up roadblocks for a potential President Harris. https://t.co/5RHjVGkE12 #InsidePolitics pic.twitter.com/nIAPOb9IbR
— Inside Politics (@InsidePolitics) September 29, 2024
Raju asked: Would you put a national abortion ban on the floor for majority leader?
Thune answered that there isn’t *any* abortion proposal that would get 60 votes: I don’t think there’s any any abortion proposal that gets sixty votes on the floor of the United States.
Raju: Could you see yourself allowing the Supreme Court nominee for Harris to be confirmed?
Thune: Well, I mean, obviously probably depends on who that is, and that’s the advantage of having Republican Senate.
Thune said he would not change a filibuster on any issue.
Another potential Majority Leader, Texas Senator John Cornyn, also said he didn’t think an abortion ban would get 60 votes, and that he would absolutely preserve the filibuster.
When Raju asked him if he would allow a confirmation on a Harris Supreme Court nominee, Senator Cornyn said, “It depends, I think, would also depend on who the President nominates,” and that he wouldn’t “schedule a vote on some wild eyed radical nominee, which I know she would love to nominate.”
Harris is a former prosecutor and Attorney General who has been endorsed by scores of former Republican officials and former Trump administration officials, so the idea that she would nominate a “wild eyed radical” to the Supreme Court is laughable. Cornyn’s comment might best translate to regular voter speak as he would not schedule a vote on someone who would protect basic individual freedoms like abortion healthcare. It’s odd that Republican leadership sees basic freedom as radical but taking away long established freedoms as conservative (this is not traditional conservatism).
Thune has been barnstorming to boost Republican Senate candidates.
Republicans have spent since 2009 dedicated to obstructing a Democratic president to the point of driving the country over the fiscal cliff and shutting down government when they didn’t get pieces of their radical agenda.
In the Senate they used that power to deny a vote to then President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland, who was respected by both sides of the aisle. Garland would have made a perfect Supreme Court Judge; he has the moderate temperament for it and the commitment to the rule of law and precedent, unlike the three justices Donald Trump put on the court and of course in complete opposition to the rampant corruption of conservative Justice Clarence Thomas.
So in that context, the way Cornyn and Thune responded to the abortion ban question was to widen it out to make it about any abortion measure, a way of wiggling out of being held to account by their base for not committing to passing an abortion ban while also making room to imply there is also no way abortion protections will be codified if Republicans win the senate.
The majority of Americans want the protection of Roe restored. Women are dying due to Republican abortion bans, and others are losing their fertility and going through unnecessary fear and pain, akin to medical torture. Republicans are committing to continuing to allow women and girls to die under their rule if they win the senate. It’s worth pausing here to ask ourselves how they define “pro-life” and why that definition doesn’t include the lives of women and girls.
Republicans are promising to continue abusing their power to obstruct the will of the people, which is an attack on the foundations of freedom and democracy upon which our country depends. They have become a radicalized party, with common sense Republicans marginalized and the extreme voices amplified, which is a direct contradiction to the Democratic Party currently.
Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.
Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
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