Former Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) put a GOP campaign strategist on blast Saturday, repeatedly asking her to defend a claim about why Attorney General Merrick Garlands Supreme Court nomination was held up in 2016.
Franken and Alice Stewart, a CNN analyst and onetime aide to former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R), were weighing in on recent remarks by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.
Franken told CNN host Jim Acosta that he disagreed with Roberts take.
He said the courts legitimacy was undermined years ago, when a Republican Senate majority led by Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) didnt take up Garlands nomination, submitted by President Barack Obama . At the time, McConnell cited what he called a longstanding tradition not to fill Supreme Court vacancies during an election year.
PolitiFact has described McConnells longstanding tradition claim as misleading.
Theyve stolen two seats: the one that Merrick Garland wasnt given a hearing for, and the one that [Justice Amy] Coney Barrett, where she was seated a week before the [2020] election, Franken said. That destroyed the legitimacy of the court.
Stewart said she wanted to throw a little accuracy into what Franken said, claiming that the Garland nomination was held up because we had a divided government we had a Democrat in the White House and we had Republicans in control [of Congress].
Franken immediately fired back: Thats not what McConnell said.
But thats the way, historically, this has been, Stewart replied. When youre close to an election year and you have divided government ... there typically is an inclination to wait
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Tell me when this happened before, Franken interrupted. Tell me when it happened before.
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