Differently than the preceding ones. President , the pressure and tension on the existing process which exploded during the thomas nomination fight make a restoration of what came before judge thomas nomination, even it was desirable, a practical impossibility. That we face my immediate question, can our Supreme Court nomination and confirmation process so rectified discord and bitterness be repaired and it president ial Election Year . Mr. President , history teaches us that this is extremely unlikely. Bitter our nations most and heated confirmation fights have come in president ial Election Years. A confirmation fight over roger tommys tawnys confirmation in 1836, the senate refusal to confirm for nominations for president tyler in 1844, the single vote projections of rejection nominees badger and black by lameduck president s fillmore in the canon in the mid19th century. Approval ofow justices lamarr and fuller in 1888. These are just some examples of these fights in the 19th centur
Announcing the nomination of Merrick Garland. President barack obama good morning. Verybody please have a seat. Of the many powers and responsibilities that the constitution vests in the few are more consequential than appointing a Supreme Court justice particularly one that succeeds Justice Scalia one of the most influential jurrists of our time. The men and women who sit on the Supreme Court are the final arbiters of american law. They safeguard our rights. They ensure that our system is one of laws and not men. Theyre charged with the essential task of applying principles put to paper more than two centuries ago to some of the most challenging questions of our time. So this is not a responsibility that i take lightly. The decision that requires me to set aside shortterm expediency and narrow politics so as to maintain faith with our founders and perhaps more importantly with future generations. Thats why over the past several weeks ive done my best to set up a rigorous and comprehen
Well dive into that in a little bit. We did begin with that top story. White House Press Secretary sean spooiser saying it is a long held belief of President Trump that millions of illegal voters participated in the election this fall and that they participate in general in elections. Trump pointing to that as the reason he lost the popular vote by 2. 8 million votes to Hillary Clinton. Reports surfacing late last night from nbc news and from others that trump at a closed door reception with congressional leaders once again brought up the election and these beliefs to the house and senate leadership. The press secretary asked repeatedly during his briefing about these remarks. He just said, its something the president stands by. Does the white house to want formerly ask for a probe into this no, he won very handedly with 306 electoral votes, three states. Hes comfortable with his win. He was having a discussion with folks and mentioned something in pass which has been a long standing b
nominee get through. unfortunately the court has become so ever since george bork has become so political that every one of these is a major, major fight. and as i said earlier, a couple of conservatives, what we thought were conservatives turned out not to be so conservative. and i think to a certain extent the purity of the judges is very, very important. whether it s a liberal, democrat, or whether it s a conservative for us. but if donald trump doesn t appoint a conservative, he appoints somebody else with a swing vote. i think he will pay a heavy price of the conservative voters. looks like he could be just a matter of days now before we find out who donald trump wants to put on the supreme court. ed, sam, thanks for joining us. more on trump s busy day ahead. including those executive orders. key stone and the dakota access pipeline. closer look at those projects. how much support they have. plus democrats succeeded in delaying the vote on the pick for attorney general.