First, Hardball host Chris Matthews demanded Democrats “wreak vengeance” on President Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court. Then, Morning Joe promoted the idea of Democrats packing the court with liberals to “neutralize” any of Trump’s “extreme” appointments. Now, MSNBC’s strategy has shifted to arguing that the President should not be allowed to name anyone to the high court while under investigation in the Mueller probe.

During Thursday’s 11:00 a.m. ET hour, anchor Ali Velshi raised the prospect of Watergate while pointing out: “...there were four judges appointed by President Nixon. One, William Rehnquist, did recuse himself from consideration of anything to do with Watergate because he was actually part of the Nixon administration.” The host fretted: “If the guy hires you, nominates you for the job, what does the law say about your obligation to the man?”

Former Assistant U.S. Attorney and NBC News Legal Analyst Mimi Rocah noted that it was “way too broad” to expect a Supreme Court justice to recuse themselves from any cases involving the president who nominated them, but then warned: “We are in a very unique situation here, though. We have a president who is facing not only an unprecedented number of civil and criminal liability questions, unprecedented, but also a very credible threat of impeachment.”

Moments later, Velshi followed up by highlighting: “I have dozens of tweets from people who – lay people like myself – who are saying this president should not, being under investigation, even be in a position to nominate a judge at all.” He bolstered the case: “There are some people, legal and ethical scholars, who have chimed in on that, and said maybe that’s true.”

Rocah eagerly voiced her agreement: “Look, I agree with that. My first choice, if I were sort of putting these in order of how we should analyze this, is he should not get to nominate someone until this investigation is done.” She even touted how New Jersey Democratic Senator Cory Booker had been pushing the same talking point: “That’s the Cory Booker view, as far as I can tell.”

Rocah proceeded to invoke the supposed “McConnell rule” and argue that Trump – still in the middle of his first term of office – was already a “lame duck president”:

I think that even under the [Senate Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell rule, he called Obama a, quote, “lame duck president,” and that’s why he didn’t get to nominate someone, in his view. Well, I think someone who, again, is facing a credible possibility of impeachment, is under serious criminal investigation, is not – you know, could be also considered a lame duck president. And just, you know, for the legitimacy of the court, for – and again, some of this is about the public view and we want people to have faith in these institutions.

Velshi feared: “Right, that’s huge. Because right now there are a lot of Americans, polls continue to show, don’t have faith in media, they don’t have faith in some of our federal institutions....If people also start to lose that faith in the Supreme Court, that’s worrisome for the fabric of society and democracy.”

What will be MSNBC’s next excuse for obstructing the President’s judicial appointments? Apparently hosts and pundits are only bound by their own left-wing imaginations.

Here is a full transcript of the July 5 segment: