House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday morning that the House has plenty of options available to delay the Senate from acting on President Donald Trump’s nominees for the Supreme Court.
“Well, we have our options,” she said on ABC’s “This Week,” replying to host George Stephanopoulos’ question about whether the House would consider launching impeachment proceedings to block the confirmation of a Trump Supreme Court nomination.
“We have arrows in our quiver that I’m not about to discuss right now, but the fact is we have a big challenge in our country. The president has threatened to not even accept the results of the election with statements that he and his henchmen have made.”
Less than a day after the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Trump assured voters that his administration would be moving ahead with nominating a new justice before the election.
“We were put in this position of power and importance to make decisions for the people who so proudly elected us, the most important of which has long been considered to be the selection of United States Supreme Court Justices,” Trump tweeted Saturday morning. “We have this obligation, without delay!”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell supported that sentiment, promising that Trump’s nominee would “receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate.”
The House plays no part in the confirmation process but could, in theory, take other actions that clog up the Senate calendar.
“We have a responsibility,” Pelosi added. “We’ve taken an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. We have a responsibility to meet the needs of the American people. When we weigh the equities of protecting our democracy, that requires us to use every arrow in our quiver.”
Sen. Amy Klobuchar made similar remarks on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“As Sen. [Chuck] Schumer says, there’s a lot of things we can try to do,” the Minnesota Democrat said. “But in the end, I’m not going to concede any of that. My colleagues — and I do have facts on my side here — you have a number of them that haven’t said what they’re going to do. You have a number of them that have already said that the next president should make a decision.”
“You have the precedent of the only time a justice died this close to an election. Abraham Lincoln was president and he made the decision to wait until after the election. And you have the fact that people are voting right now. And I think that creates pressure on my colleagues, honestly — and that’s what a democracy is about.”
Ultimately, Pelosi said the best tool in their arsenal is to “just win the election” and encouraged everyone to vote.
“The fact is this administration has been a total failure in protecting the health and well-being of the American people, and it has had an impact on our economy,” she said. “The lives, the livelihood and the life of our democracy are threatened by the administration. So again, when people say, ‘What can I do?’ You can vote. You can get out the vote and you can do so as soon as possible.”