McConnell accuses Obama of politicizing Supreme Court pick

Minutes after President Barack Obama announced the nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the president intended to "politicize" the pick — and reaffirmed his commitment to blocking the nominee.

McConnell pointed to remarks from then-Sen. Joe Biden in 1992 in which the current vice president, then serving as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, remarked that the Senate should not hold hearings on a Supreme Court vacancy in an election year. Biden has maintained that those remarks, which have frequently been used against the administration in the past month, misrepresented his views on how the Senate should handle court vacancies.


Even so, McConnell argued, the principle of not considering a nominee until the next president nominates one remains paramount.

“The Biden rule reminds us that the decision the Senate announced weeks ago remains about a principle and not a person. About a principle and not a person. It seems clear that President Obama made this nomination not — not with the intent of seeing the nominee confirmed, but in order to politicize it for purposes of the election, which is the type of thing then-Senate Judiciary Chairman Biden was concerned about," McConnell said. "The exact thing Chairman Biden was concerned about.”

Instead of considering Garland, McConnell said, the Senate should focus on areas of bipartisan agreement, such as heroin and opioid-addiction prevention legislation that recently passed, as well as jump-starting the economy.

"As we continue working on issues like these, the American people are perfectly capable of having their say—their say on the issue. So let’s give them a voice," McConnell said. "Let’s let the American people decide. The Senate will appropriately revisit the matter when it considers the qualifications of the nominee the next president nominees, whoever that might be.”

