Campaign Action
The Republican ploy to make it look like Popular Vote Loser Donald Trump's Supreme Court pick is going to be independent of his benefactor is not fooling too many Democrats. Clearly, Neil Gorsuch's being "disheartened and demoralized" by Trump's rage-tweets about the judiciary has been scripted by Republicans. That's so transparent, the DNC sees it. From an emailed press release:
"While Donald Trump's morning tweets show Steve Bannon may not have clued him in on the ruse, this is clearly a meaningless White House orchestrated attempt to help Judge Gorsuch pretend he won't be a rubber stamp for the Trump Administration. As Senator Blumenthal made clear, Gorsuch's suspicious private criticism is not nearly enough to prove he'll fulfill his duty as a check on the concerning and unconstitutional behavior of the President."
Here's what Blumenthal said he told Gorsuch: "I said [Trump's tweets] were more than disheartening and I said to him that he has an obligation to make his views clear to the American people, so they understand how abhorrent or unacceptable President Trump's attacks on the judiciary are." Minority Leader Sen. Schumer's spokesperson followed up with "that's a very milquetoast response. […] Anyone can be disheartened, but the judge refused to condemn the comments privately or publicly."
Let's make this clear. Gorsuch's independence from Trump is just one of the many problems with this nomination. It won't be enough for him to publicly tell the world he believes in checks and balances. His record is far more troubling to allow distance from Trump to be a high-enough bar for Democratic support. Just take his record on women's rights and women's health for an example.
Gorsuch wouldn't have been on the short lists of the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation if he weren't an extremist. He wouldn't be lauded by the right as the next coming of Antonin Scalia if he wasn't. No, a public declaration that the president shouldn't be tweeting about judges is not enough to make the nomination palatable. Not by a long shot.