File this under “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Wow. Flake says he’s prepared to block votes on Trump’s judicial nominees >> “I think myself and a number of senators, at least a few of us, will stand up and say let’s not move any more judges until we get a vote, for example, on tariffs.” — Andrew Desiderio (@desiderioDC) June 24, 2018

To explain, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) is very fond of criticizing Donald Trump using very strong words. At a recent speech at Harvard Law School, for example, the retiring Republican senator warned that “our presidency has been debased by a figure who has a seemingly bottomless appetite for destruction and division and only a passing familiarity with how the Constitution works.”


Meanwhile, a number of Republicans, who historically support free trade policies, object to Trump’s use of a law permitting the president to impose tariffs for national security purposes — in order to impose tariffs on friendly nations like Canada. An amendment pushed by Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN), another Trump critic who speaks loudly and carries an widdle-bitty stick, would require these “national security” tariffs to be approved by Congress.

Yet, while Flake is very quick to use mean words when talking about Mr. Trump, he’s hardly done anything at all to use his power as a sitting United States Senator to rein in the president.

Currently, Republicans control a 51-49 majority. But, with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) in Arizona battling cancer, the GOP only has 50 possible votes on any given issue. That means that a single Republican could team up with the 49 Democrats to shut down Trump’s entire legislative agenda and to halt all confirmations of Trump nominees.

Flake did not use this power to pressure Trump to stop separating families at the border. He did not use it to pressure Trump to halt his Muslim Ban. Or to curtail Trump’s efforts to undermine Mueller investigation.

But, hey, now he says that Trump’s policy on tariffs is a bridge too far!

Nevertheless, if Flake is serious, this move to block Trump’s judges could be quite significant. Filling the bench with Federalist Society loyalists is a top priority of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). McConnell held a seat on the Supreme Court open for a year until Donald Trump could fill it. And he recently canceled most of the Senate’s August recess after several colleagues urged him to do so to give them more time to confirm Trump’s judicial nominees.

So if Flake actually sticks to his guns here, McConnell is fairly likely to blink.