Chuck Todd grills Republican senator on rationale for supporting Supreme Court confirmation vote

Chuck Todd and John Barrasso.
(Image credit: Screenshot/Twitter/NBC)

A number of Republican senators have attempted to differentiate between the current effort to confirm a new Supreme Court justice to replace the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the scenario in 2016 when the Republican-led Senate blocked then-President Barack Obama's nominee, Merrick Garland.

Back then, the argument was that it was too close to the general election to confirm a lifetime nominee. One of the senators who supported that argument was Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wy.). On Sunday's Meet the Press, moderator Chuck Todd read a series of Barrasso's own previous quotes on the matter back to him, and also showed an old clip of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) saying he would support waiting to confirm a nominee until after the election if there was a vacancy at the end of President Trump's term.

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.