WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump on Wednesday urged Republicans to use all tools at their disposal to confirm Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, including tearing up the rules of the Senate if Democrats try to block his nominee.
As Gorsuch held his first round of meetings on Capitol Hill, Trump spoke at a White House meeting with conservative activists who support Gorsuch's nomination.
Trump said if the gridlock of recent years persists in the Senate, Republicans should change the Senate rules to permit the confirmation of a Supreme Court nominee with a simple majority vote.
"I would say, 'If you can, Mitch, go nuclear.' Because that would be an absolute shame if a man of this quality was put up to that neglect. I would say it's up to Mitch, but I would say, 'Go for it,'" Trump said, referring to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
[U.S. SUPREME COURT: More on Gorsuch, current justices, voting relationships]
By urging McConnell, R-Ky., and his fellow Republicans to "go nuclear," Trump meant that they should break the Senate's long-standing tradition of requiring a bipartisan supermajority to change the chamber's rules and instead allow the majority party to change the rules and allow nominees to be confirmed by a simple majority of senators.
Trump's comments came as Gorsuch was beginning a series of courtesy calls on Capitol Hill.
Accompanied by Vice President Mike Pence when he arrived on Capitol Hill, Gorsuch began a round of meetings with McConnell; his deputy, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas; and Sens. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Cory Gardner, R-Colo.
"The president made an outstanding appointment. We're all thrilled and looking forward to getting the confirmation process started," McConnell said as he stood with a smiling Gorsuch in the senator's ceremonial office in the Capitol.
[PRESIDENT TRUMP: Details on administration, previous coverage, photos, videos]
McConnell has not said whether he will invoke the "nuclear" option if minority Democrats block Gorsuch's confirmation, but the Senate leader has said repeatedly that, one way or another, Gorsuch will be confirmed. He reiterated that Wednesday evening in an interview on WHAS radio in Kentucky, saying: "Well I appreciate the president's advice. What I would say to him is what I would say to you: We're going to get this nominee confirmed and this is the beginning of a lengthy process."
The White House asked Gorsuch to meet with Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., but aides said Schumer declined in order to learn more first about the nominee's record.
Party-lines split
The contrasting approaches to Gorsuch on his first full day as the nominee underscored the politically charged fight quickly forming around him.
Republicans are hoping to confirm the U.S. Court of Appeals judge by early April, before a two-week Easter recess, which would clear the way for him to participate in the final cases of the court's term that ends in June. But Democrats are ramping up opposition efforts.
"We must insist upon a strong mainstream consensus candidate because this Supreme Court will be tried in ways that few courts have been tested since the earliest days of the republic," Schumer said Wednesday, adding later that "This administration seems to have little regard for the rule of law and is likely to test the Constitution in ways it hasn't been challenged in decades."
Democrats are still smarting from the treatment given to Judge Merrick Garland, former President Barack Obama's nominee to the court after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia a year ago. McConnell never allowed even a hearing on Garland over 10 months, asserting that the decision was up to the next president.
Schumer and several colleagues have declared that Gorsuch should expect to need at least 60 votes to clear procedural hurdles to reach a final confirmation vote. Republicans hold 52 seats in the Senate.
"I plan to stand up for individuals over corporations and oppose his nomination, and I will insist that his nomination meet a traditional 60-vote threshold," Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., said Wednesday, echoing the views of other liberal senators.
And some Democrats have argued, after nearly a year spent lamenting a vacancy on the court, that Gorsuch must not be allowed to assume the seat.
"This is a stolen seat being filled by an illegitimate and extreme nominee, and I will do everything in my power to stand up against this assault on the court," said Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon.
"The Democrats should treat Trump's SCOTUS pick with the exact same courtesy the GOP showed Merrick Garland," Dan Pfeiffer, a former senior adviser to Obama, wrote on Twitter. "Don't flinch, don't back down."
But at the center of the political battle over Gorsuch is a handful of Democratic senators who could be persuaded by fellow Democrats or Republicans.
"I think he should not be treated as Obama's nominee was treated. He should be given a hearing and a vote in committee," Sen. Christopher Coons, D-Del., said Wednesday morning. "Let's follow the process, let's do what didn't happen last year."
Unlike Schumer, Coons didn't endorse forcing Gorsuch to face a 60-vote threshold for advancement. But he acknowledged that it probably is the bar Gorsuch will have to clear.
Republicans were quick to highlight the political risks to Democrats in conservative-leaning states. There are 23 Senate Democrats up for election next year, 10 in states Trump won.
"The minority needs to decide whether or not they want to go to states like North Dakota and Montana and Missouri and Indiana and West Virginia where Mr. Trump won by 17 points or more and talk to the real people there and say 'we're going to stop what was clearly your will,'" said GOP Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina.
One of those senators, Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia, met with Gorsuch late Wednesday, telling reporters with the judge at his side: "What I look for in any jurist, especially a jurist at this level, is someone who follows the law." Manchin said character and quality should count, and "politics shouldn't intervene with that."
Pressure's on
Republican leaders have publicly pressured Democrats to allow Gorsuch a simple up-or-down vote without having to win a supermajority first. They have been considering whether to change long-standing Senate rules to break Democratic resistance, if it comes to that point.
GOP leaders are feeling the heat from Trump and supporters yearning to swiftly add a conservative voice to the court for the first time since George W. Bush's presidency.
"Listen, I don't disagree with the idea that the Senate has a tradition of unlimited debate," said Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Judiciary subcommittee on courts, intellectual property and the Internet. "But you get your butt on the floor, and you stand there for the unlimited debate. What it has devolved to is undemocratic."
Democrats and progressive activists have begun zeroing in on elements of Gorsuch's record. Among their concerns is he has voted in favor of employers, including Hobby Lobby, which cited religious objections while refusing to provide some forms of contraception coverage to female workers.
Schumer said Gorsuch had "repeatedly sided with corporations over working people" and demonstrated "a hostility toward women's rights."
Republicans dismissed any complaints about Gorsuch as empty posturing. Some lawmakers were more creative than others.
"Sen. Schumer is about to tell Americans that Judge Gorsuch kicks puppies and heckles piano recitals," Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska said. "That's hogwash."
Most senators don't know Gorsuch well. Just 31 of them were in office in July 2006 when he was confirmed without opposition to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, which has jurisdiction over all or parts of eight Western states.
Gorsuch's first call after being nominated was to Garland, "out of respect," said Ron Bonjean, a spokesman for the nomination effort.
After his meeting with McConnell, Pence walked Gorsuch around the Capitol, stopping in the rotunda, where Gorsuch took a picture with high school students who work as Senate pages. Gorsuch, who grew up in Colorado and Washington, D.C., once served as a page, said an adult supervisor of the pages.
On Gorsuch's way out of the rotunda, a group of eighth-grade girls from a school in Bethesda, Md., waved and told him "congratulations." He shook the hand of one and said: "Thank you very much. Someday you'll be doing this."
Information for this article was contributed by Sean Sullivan, Ed O'Keefe, Karoun Demirjian, Amber Phillips, Paul Kane, Philip Rucker, David Weigel and Mike DeBonis of The Washington Post; by Erica Werner, Mark Sherman, Mary Clare Jalonick, Lisa Lerer and Ken Thomas of The Associated Press; and by Matt Flegenheimer of The New York Times.
A Section on 02/02/2017