WASHINGTON (AP) President Donald Trump says if political “gridlock” stalls his Supreme Court pick, it may be time for the Senate’s Republican leader to consider the option to “go nuclear.”
That would mean changing Senate rules to make it impossible to filibuster a high court nominee.
The president told reporters that if Senate Democrats try to block Neil Gorsuch’s nomination, he would say this to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell: “If you can, Mitch, go nuclear, because that would be an absolute shame if a man of this quality was caught up in the web.”
Vice President Mike Pence says in an interview with “PBS NewsHour” that he’s hopeful that the Senate will not need to take the so-called “nuclear option” to win approval for Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch.
Pence was asked if Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell might have to resort to changing Senate rules to make it impossible to filibuster the Supreme Court nominee.
Pence says he’s hopeful McConnell won’t, and is pointing to the first-term nominees of former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. He says those nominees received “broad bipartisan support” and were considered in about 60 to 70 days.
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