Sen. Tim Kaine (D., Va.) has had a change of heart when it comes to using the nuclear option in the Supreme Court.

Kaine told the Weekly Standard on Monday that if Democrats had won in 2016, they would have not used the nuclear option to get former President Barack Obama's Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland confirmed, contradicting previous comments he made on the matter.

Kaine: If they gave us a vote and they voted somebody down, we would have put somebody else up. But if they had stonewalled and … refused to meet with somebody– TWS: So if 41 Republicans said "no" to Judge Garland, you would've picked a different [Supreme Court] nominee? Kaine: Yeah. Well, the president would have.

This belies what Kaine told the Huffington Post days before the election. Kaine said Democrats would be willing to use the nuclear option to remove the filibuster and allow a simple majority to approve Supreme Court nominees.

"I was in the Senate when the Republicans’ stonewalling around appointments caused Senate Democratic majority to switch the vote threshold on appointments from 60 to 51. And we did it on everything but a Supreme Court justice," Kaine said. "If these guys think they’re going to stonewall the filling of that vacancy or other vacancies, then a Democratic Senate majority will say, ‘We’re not going to let you thwart the law.’"

Kaine later added that Senate Democrats would change the rules of the Senate "to uphold the law."

Former Sen. Harry Reid (D., Nev.) laid the groundwork for the GOP to use the nuclear option when he used the nuclear option for Obama's executive and judicial branch nominees. Before leaving office, Reid was asked if he was worried that Republicans would nuke the filibuster for the Supreme Court.

"Let them do it. Why would we care?" Reid said. "We were trying to protect everybody. If they want a simple majority, fine."



Before the election, Senate Democrats lectured their Republican colleagues about the importance of having an up and down vote for a Supreme Court nominee, but now they have changed their tune. A Free Beacon video documented the hypocrisy.