Dick Durbin nails ‘shameless’ GOP for rushing Barrett nomination: ‘They must doubt Trump will be re-elected’

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) blasted his Republican colleagues for rushing President Donald Trump's nominee through Supreme Court confirmation hearings.

The Illinois Democrat denounced GOP senators for reversing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's position on Supreme Court nominations in an election year, and called out their motivations as shamelessly political.

"My Republican colleagues marched in front of the cameras, looked down at their shoes, reversed their positions and lined up obediently behind their leader again," Durbin said. "Either the American people get a voice or they don't. In 2016 Sen. McConnell said give them a voice, now he says don't give them a voice. It is a shameless, self-serving venal reversal."

"Why are Senate Republicans so afraid to give the American people a voice about the future of the Supreme Court?" Durbin continued. "First, they must doubt that Donald Trump will be re-elected. Second, they want a 6-3 Supreme Court to carry out a Republican agenda that's not popular with the American people, and there are two dates on the calendar which explain the timetable: Nov. 3 and Nov. 10. You know Nov. 3 is Election Day. President Trump made it clear he wants another of his appointees on the Supreme Court before the election because he anticipates court challenges over the vote, especially over mail-in balloting which he has repeatedly attacked without any substance."

"President Trump has indicated he'd be perfectly happy to have a close election decided by a 6-3 conservative majority Supreme Court rather than by the votes of the American people," he added. "The other date is Nov. 10. We know that date well on this committee. That's the date the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in California vs. Texas. This is the case in which the Trump administration is urging the court to strike down the entire Affordable Care Act, including protections for tens of millions of Americans with preexisting conditions. It's unimaginable that in the midst of a pandemic the Republicans want to strike down a law that 23 million Americans rely on for their personal health insurance and millions more for the protections given to the writing of future insurance policies."