“My expectation’s gonna be will the Senate do its job, as outlined in the Constitution," President Obama said Thursday morning. Obama pressures GOP on Supreme Court: You can’t abandon your principles

President Barack Obama on Thursday urged Senate Republicans not to abandon their principles, calling on Senate leaders to consider whoever he nominates to fill the seat on the Supreme Court that was held by Antonin Scalia.

“In terms of who I select, I’m gonna do my job,” Obama said during a joint news conference beside Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. “My expectation’s gonna be: Will the Senate do its job, as outlined in the Constitution?”


GOP leaders immediately announced their intention to block a potential Supreme Court nominee, following news of Scalia's death, contending voters should determine the ideological makeup of the court during the general election in November. Obama said it was ironic that constitutional conservatives would read into the document things that aren’t there.

“That’s precisely the kinds of interpretive approach that they vehemently reject and that they accuse liberals of engaging in all the time,” he said. “Well, you can’t abandon your principles — if, in fact, these are your principles — simply because they have political expedience. So we’ll see how they operate once a nomination has been made.”

Obama reiterated his qualifications for a potential Supreme Court nominee and maintained that fair-minded people will see his choice as an “imminently qualified person, and it will then be up to Senate Republicans to decide whether they wanna follow the Constitution.”

“My hope is that cooler heads will prevail,” he said.