By Talia Kaplan | Fox News
If McConnell can find 50 votes ‘there is nothing the Democrats can do…’
“Democrats are running two big gambles in the way they are responding to what is a legitimate move,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told “Fox & Friends” on Monday regarding how they are reacting to the potential of filling a Supreme Court vacancy during an election year.
As President Trump moves to nominate a candidate to fill the seat of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died Friday, there is a growing number of Democrats threatening to implement a radical strategy and pack the Supreme Court if they take control of the White House and the Senate.
“In 2016, it was Justice Ginsburg who said it was totally appropriate for a president to nominate and the Senate to confirm a justice during an election year so … Republicans can go around and quote Justice Ginsburg’s own statements from four years ago,” Gingrich said.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who has not talked about court packing, on Sunday refused to rule out measures such as impeaching the president if he moves to fill the seat.
During an interview on ABC News’ “This Week,” Pelosi was asked whether she and House Democrats would move to impeach Trump in an effort to stop his Supreme Court pick from being confirmed to the bench.
“We have our options. We have arrows in our quiver that I’m not about to discuss right now, but the fact is we have a big challenge in our country,” Pelosi said. “This president has threatened to not even accept the results of the election.”
When asked for clarification by host George Stephanopoulos on whether she would take any arrows out of her quiver or rule anything out, she eventually said, “We take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
“We have a responsibility to meet the needs of the American people,” she continued. “When we weigh the equities of protecting our democracy, it requires us to use every arrow in our quiver.”
Just hours after it was announced that Ginsburg had passed away on Friday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., vowed that a Trump nominee to the Supreme Court to fill her vacancy “will receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate.”
READ: SUPREME COURT’S STATEMENT ON RUTH BADER GINSBURG’S DEATH
On Monday, Gingrich explained the “two challenges” Democrats face.
He said the first challenge is that Democrats “are going to get more radical” and “more frantic.”
“You are going to see more crowds showing up at senators’ houses and trying to intimidate people, you’re going to talk about packing the court in the future,” Gingrich said. “There will be sort of a frenzy because the truth is that they’re powerless.”
He went on to say that “if the president nominates the people that we’re looking at, they are people of faith and the Democrats have to be very careful when they have somebody like Kamala Harris who is … as openly anti-Catholic as she is to not get involved in an anti-religious thing.”
President Trump said his nominee to replace Ginsburg would be a woman and told “Fox & Friends” on Monday that his pick would likely be announced later this week and that it is down to roughly five people.
Two names, Judges Amy Coney Barrett in Chicago and Barbara Lagoa in Atlanta, have been emerging from the list of Supreme Court contenders Trump is reportedly said to be considering following Ginsburg’s death.
Gingrich also noted on Monday that he thinks “the real question is can Mitch McConnell find 50 votes?”
“If he can, there is nothing the Democrats can do to stop a justice from being approved,” he continued.
According to NPR, Ginsburg’s last wish was to not be replaced until a new president was sworn into office.
Fox News’ David Aaro, Adam Shaw, Brie Stimson and Brooke Singman contributed to this report.
