Mitch McConnell Brags About Blocking Obama For 2 Years, Then Laughs About It
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Mitch McConnell Brags About Blocking Obama For 2 Years, Then Laughs About It
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Thursday night bragged about blocking President Barack Obama ’s attempt to fill federal judicial vacancies for two years. Then, he laughed about it as he discussed the Republican Party’s effort to stack the courts with conservative judges under President Donald Trump .
“I was shocked that former President Obama left so many vacancies and didn’t try to fill those positions,” Fox News host Sean Hannity said to McConnell.
Obama didn’t leave those vacancies so much as he was blocked from filling them by a GOP-controlled Senate led by McConnell ― something the majority leader was quick to point out.
“I’ll tell you why,” he said. “I was in charge of what we did the last two years of the Obama administration.”
Then, he laughed:
“I will give you full credit for that, and by the way take a bow,” Hannity said. “All right, that was good line!”
McConnell not only blocked federal judges, he prevented Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland from even getting a hearing. In 2018, McConnell told Kentucky Today that the decision to block Garland’s appointment was “ the most consequential decision I’ve made in my entire public career .”
Trump eventually filled that seat with Neil Gorsuch, one of his two Supreme Court appointees.
Trump has had an even bigger impact on the federal courts as a whole. As Vox reported, more than a quarter of all active judges on the courts of appeal are now Trump appointees. In fact, Trump has named nearly as many judges in his three years in office (48) as Obama did during his eight-year presidency (55).
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Elections have consequences
Yep, the gop's whooping in 18 lead to impeachment.
Trump is going to be your president in 2020 again because of this impeachment attempt. I have no doubts.
Pointless and idiotic impeachment, perhaps.
Removal from office....never.
That's sort of an incomplete account.
Obama did leave some vacancies without nominations to fill them, and that's not unusual. There's always a lot of vacancies and presidents don't fill them all right away. There's a bunch right now that Trump hasn't filled.
It's also not as if everything Obama did was blocked. About 3/4 of Obama's nominations were confirmed. Even when Republicans controlled the Senate, several of his nominations were confirmed. A few, whose nominations lapsed, were actually renominated by Trump.
Also, it seems a little late in the game to get offended by nominations being blocked. Several of President Bush's nominations were blocked by Democrats in the Senate. It goes around; it comes around.