Obama: GOP Blocking Garland Because He Has ‘Been Nominated by a Democrat’

OBAMA: "Number two, with respect to my actions when I was a junior senator, you will recall that I never said that a nominee should not get a hearing. I never said that a nominee should not get a vote. And what I also said at the time was that I was concerned about some of Judge Alito’s views that I considered more troubling. But in the case of Merrick Garland, we haven’t seen a substantive argument against his jurisprudence. This is just raw politics. “We don’t want somebody who’s been nominated by a Democrat” — a claim that I would have never made at the time."