Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) retweeted a video of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) after the 2016 death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia telling participants during a Senate meeting to “use my words against me.”
At the time, the senator said he was against picking a justice right before a presidential election, stating that if then-candidate Donald Trump or Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) were president and a vacancy were left at the end of the their first term, the choice should be left to the winner of the next election.
“I want you to use my words against me. If there’s a Republican president in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say Lindsey Graham said let’s let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination.”
In 2016, Republicans prevented former President Obama’s Supreme Court selection, saying the vacancy should not be filled in an election year.
Schatz retweeted the video of Graham, who is up for reelection this year, with just one word: “Done.”
The resurfacing of Graham’s statement comes just hours after the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Friday. Ginsburg reportedly told her granddaughter her “most fervent wish” was that the next president would name her replacement.
Ginsburg’s death has set the stage for a massive battle between Democrat and Republican lawmakers, throwing yet another curveball into the election just weeks before Nov. 3.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Friday said that he would bring President Trump’s pick for the vacancy to a vote in the upper chamber.
“Americans reelected our majority in 2016 and expanded it in 2018 because we pledged to work with President Trump and support his agenda, particularly his outstanding appointments to the federal judiciary. Once again, we will keep our promise,” McConnell said.
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) also retweeted the older video of Graham after posting a tweet in honor of Ginsburg.
“The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president,” Schumer wrote, a direct quote from a statement McConnell released in 2016 after Scalia’s death.