Graham on Supreme Court seat: ‘By the time it’s over, it’ll be the Donald Trump court’
U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham on Sunday made clear his intention to fill a Supreme Court seat with a justice nominated by President Donald Trump.
The Republican from South Carolina was expected to attend and speak at a rally for GOP candidates in Okatie on Sunday but instead was called to Washington, D.C., related to the expected nomination, local GOP officials said. Graham instead called in and his brief comments were broadcast by speakerphone to the large crowd at Riverwalk Business Park.
“We’re going to get four more years and by the time it’s over, it’ll be the Donald Trump court,” Graham said via a call to S.C. Republican Party chairman Drew McKissick.
Following the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Friday, Graham has sought to draw a distinction between the current court opening and comments he made in 2016.
Graham said then that a precedent had been set by the Republican-held Senate declining to vote on then-President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland. Confirming a new justice, Graham had said, should be held over until the after the election if the opening falls during the president’s last term.
Now locked in a tight race with Democratic challenger Jaime Harrison for his Senate seat, Graham in a Twitter thread Saturday blamed Democrats for changing the rules and for unfairly attacking Trump nominee Brett Kavanaugh in 2018. Graham later posted he’s “dead set” on confirming a Trump nominee.
Graham is now chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee that will be charged with vetting the potential next justice.
“I’m going to need your prayers and probably a Kevlar vest,” Graham told the crowd attending the grand opening of the Beaufort County GOP headquarters.
Harrison posted a video of Graham’s past comments and criticized his opponent on Twitter on Saturday while calling for campaign donations.
“My grandpa always said that a man is only as good as his word,” Harrison said on Twitter. “Senator Graham, you have proven your word is worthless.”
In his own Twitter thread, Graham said Harrison would oppose any Trump nominee and called him “a loyal foot soldier in the cause of the radical liberals to destroy America as we know it.”
At the GOP rally Sunday, numerous local candidates spoke to a crowd that filled the parking lot of the business park. They included state Rep. Nancy Mace, the Republican nominee for S.C.’s 1st Congressional District running against incumbent Joe Cunningham, state Sen. Tom Davis, R-Beaufort, and state Rep. Jeff Bradley, R-Hilton Head.
The speakers painted a picture of the Republican choice as one for law and order.
In a speech before Graham’s remarks, Davis said the divide with Democrats is an ideological one over the country’s founding principles.
“They want to burn everything to the ground and start from scratch,” Davis said. “What are they going to come up with?”
Trump supporters at one point lined S.C. 170 and held signs and waved flags as cars zipped past.
Several protesters stood in the parking lot behind the rally holding signs alluding to Graham’s previous comments about waiting until after an election to fill the Supreme Court vacancy. Several rally attendees confronted protesters at various points during the rally as Jasper County Sheriff’s Office deputies stood nearby, with unmasked rally attendees at times yelling at masked protesters.
“We just wanted first of all to hold Sen. Graham accountable for his own words,” said protester Lane Cogdill, carrying a sign with a quote attributed to Graham that the next president make the court nomination. “...We also just want to make sure people know that Beaufort County is more than just this hatefulness, that there are people that have reason and sense in their heads.”
This story was originally published September 20, 2020 at 6:45 PM with the headline "Graham on Supreme Court seat: ‘By the time it’s over, it’ll be the Donald Trump court’."
