President Obama chose to nominate Merrick Garland to fill the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's seat because of his "unimpeachable credentials," he told BuzzFeed News in a live interview Monday.
"He has by all accounts conducted himself fairly, judiciously," Obama told legal editor Chris Geidner. "He works well with people, very well. He's wicked smart. Even Republicans compliment him and say he's a great judge."
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
"[Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell] just in knee-jerk fashion said, 'We're not going to vote on it' despite there being no precedent for it," the president said. "Now what we have is a situation where, having made that promise, Republicans are looking at a Republican nominee who many of them say isn't qualified to be president, much less appoint somebody."
But Obama was careful to clarify that having Donald Trump's presumptive Republican presidential nomination potentially move the ball forward on confirming Garland isn't a situation he had hoped for.
"I think that our country is better off when the Democratic nominee for the presidency and the Republican nominee are both qualified to be president and can be effective," he said.
Watch the full interview below. Julie Kliegman
-
Political cartoons for November 9Cartoons Sunday’s political cartoons include a ripoff, and the land of opportunity
-
A ‘golden age’ of nuclear powerThe Explainer The government is promising to ‘fire up nuclear power’. Why, and how?
-
Massacre in Darfur: the world looked the other wayTalking Point Atrocities in El Fasher follow decades of repression of Sudan’s black African population
-
Has Zohran Mamdani shown the Democrats how to win again?Today’s Big Question New York City mayoral election touted as victory for left-wing populists but moderate centrist wins elsewhere present more complex path for Democratic Party
-
Senate votes to kill Trump’s Brazil tariffSpeed Read Five Senate Republicans joined the Democrats in rebuking Trump’s import tax
-
Border Patrol gets scrutiny in court, gains power in ICESpeed Read Half of the new ICE directors are reportedly from DHS’s more aggressive Customs and Border Protection branch
-
Shutdown stalemate nears key pain pointsSpeed Read A federal employee union called for the Democrats to to stand down four weeks into the government standoff
-
Trump vows new tariffs on Canada over Reagan adspeed read The ad that offended the president has Ronald Reagan explaining why import taxes hurt the economy
-
NY attorney general asks public for ICE raid footageSpeed Read Rep. Dan Goldman claims ICE wrongly detained four US citizens in the Canal Street raid and held them for a whole day without charges
-
Trump’s huge ballroom to replace razed East WingSpeed Read The White House’s east wing is being torn down amid ballroom construction
-
Trump expands boat strikes to Pacific, killing 5 moreSpeed Read The US military destroyed two more alleged drug smuggling boats in international waters
