Schmidt: McConnell’s ‘Knee-Jerk Response’ After Scalia’s Death a ‘PR Debacle’ for GOP

RUSH TRANSCRIPT:

BRZEZINSKI: “I’m just wondering how limited they are in their thinking, these Republicans that you listed, chuck. Because their options are to look at someone that on paper they could be open to. Or to wait it out and to force President Obama going against the constitution which I’ve heard they like, to wait it out and see who Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump picks. I mean, I’m sorry, it defies logic.”
TODD: “Did you see what Pat Toomey said yesterday?”
BRZEZINSKI: “It seems like the word ‘stupid’ could be used here — with respect. They’re not being smart.”
TODD: “Did you see what pat Toomey said?”
BRZEZINSKI: “What did he say?”
TODD: “He would probably consider and possibly vote to confirm judge Garland next year.”
BRZEZINSKI: “Oh, OK. Cool.”
SCARBOROUGH: “So it seems to me Mitch McConnell coming out of this quickly as they did. Steve Schmidt calling them up saying we won’t provide hearings, he has actually boxed them into a position where three months from now if Kelly Ayotte, Rob Portman, Pat Toomey, other — Ron Johnson, other people in swing states are saying I’m getting killed back at home. Even if we vote him down, we have to have hearings. It seems that escape route was cut off and I haven’t understood the logic of the Republican party from day one. From the instant Scalia died to immediately go oh, we’re not going to — why don’t they slow roll it. Why don’t they let the process play out and have the vote even if they vote him down?”
SCHMIDT: “Good question. Mitch McConnell’s knee-jerk response after Justice Scalia’s death is a public relations debacle for the Republican Party and as Chuck pointed out, you look about these Republican senators in contested races and democratic states and marginal seats, Mitch McConnell has put them in a more difficult position by orders of magnitude than anything that Donald Trump has done. This is a real issue in all of these states and there are four ways to derail a Supreme Court justice nomination you can do it ideologically, you can do it through an ethics prism, you can do it through a qualifications aspect but you can do it through process that there are violations of process on the Senate’s role to advise and consent. There are many, many opportunities to say, hey, we’ll give all due consideration to the judge and to derail it slowly over time to do in the bad faith, that’s the nature of politics. There’s really no person in American politics who has more politicized the Supreme Court in the confirmation process than Joe Biden has over the last 20 years so, you know, there’s not a lot of sympathy on the hard ball politics side of this but Mitch McConnell put Republicans in extremely tough position with regard to this confirmation.”