On the Senate floor, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blasted Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer over his threatening comments against Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch.
McConnell said Schumer’s comments were “astonishingly reckless and completely irresponsible.”
McConnell started his speech by discussing the anti-institutionalism, anti-American rhetoric growing within the Democratic Party. He tied the two together by saying anti-American rhetoric led Schumer to threaten one of the nation’s most elite institutions.
“It is [the Democrats] own side of the aisle where anti-institutionalism is rampant. We can talk about attacks on the office of the presidency, on the electoral college, on the First Amendment, on the Senate itself. But most striking of all have been the shameless efforts to bully our nation’s independent judiciary,” McConnell said.
McConnell then detailed how Schumer, “prompted a crowd of left-wing activists to ‘boo’ two of the associate justices. As though Supreme Court justices were professional athletes and Senator Schumer were jeering from the stands.”
McConnell apologized for having to read Schumer’s comments into the record, and said “there is nothing to call this except a threat.”
“And then the Senior Senator from New York said this, ‘I want to tell you Gorsuch, I want to tell you Kavanaugh you released a whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decision,'” McConnell said.
McConnell concluded by offering Schumer an idea for a better way to spend his time.
“I would suggest that my democratic colleague spend less time trying to threaten impartial judges and more time coming up with ideas that are actually constitutional.”
