Lindsey Graham reverses 2016 declaration that Supreme Court justices shouldn’t be pushed through in an election year: ‘Use my words against me’

Senate Judiciary chairman Lindsey Graham’s Saturday announcement that he intends to support the president’s Supreme Court justice nomination during an election year pits him against one of the most prominent voices in the Republican party.

That would be his 2016 self.

As debate swirls on whether President Trump should replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg before the election, progressive activists are circulating video of the South Carolina senator stating in 2016 that Republicans were setting precedent against appointing new justices with an election on the horizon by blocking President Obama’s nomination to the Supreme Court following the death of Antonin Scalia.

“I want you to use my words against me,” Graham said on the Senate floor four years ago. "If there’s a Republican president in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say Lindsey Graham said let’s let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination.”

Graham argued Saturday that he was reneging on his vow because, he said, circumstances have changed.

“The two biggest changes regarding the Senate and judicial confirmations that have occurred in the last decade have come from Democrats,” he tweeted.

Graham first blamed Harry Reid, the Nevada senator who retired in 2017 and introduced “the nuclear option” in 2013 to allow judges, though not Supreme Court justices, to pass through the senate with a simple majority vote. A 60-40 split had been the standard.

“Harry Reid changed the rules to allow a simple majority vote for Circuit Court nominees dealing out the minority,” he claimed.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) extended that precedent to cover the nation’s highest court when Neil Gorsuch was confirmed in 2017.

Graham also placed blame for his about-face on New York Sen. Chuck Schumer and “his friends in the liberal media” for their opposition to the 2018 nomination of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh after he was accused of — and angrily denied — sexually assaulting a female student while in high school.

“In light of these two events, I will support President @realDonaldTrump in any effort to move forward regarding the recent vacancy created by the passing of Justice Ginsburg,” Graham tweeted.

Among those circulating Graham’s 2016 video comments was civil rights attorney Vanita Gupta, who headed the Department of Justice’s civil rights division during the Obama administration.

Graham appeared to appreciate the gravity of what he was saying.

“If Ted Cruz or Donald Trump get to be president they’ve all asked us not to confirm or take up a selection by President Obama, so if a vacancy occurs in the last year of their first term, guess what? You will use their words against them,” Graham said before the GOP chose Trump as the party’s 2016 candidate.

Graham punctuated his declaration by stating: “You could use my words against me and you would be completely right.”

Introducing a debatable caveat, Graham said that his words regarding Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland, should hold true in 2020.

“We’re setting precedent here today, Republicans are, that in the last year of a lame duck eight-year term, I would say it’s going to be a four-year term, that you’re not going to fill the vacancy of the Supreme Court based on what we’re doing here today. That’s going to be the new rule.”

Also making the rounds is video of Graham doubling-down on his earlier remarks in 2018 at the Atlantic Festival repeating “If an opening comes in the last year of President Trump’s term, and the primary process has started, we’ll wait to the next election.”

Several GOP senators who made similar statements in 2016 — including Colorado’s Cory Gardner and Georgia’s David Perdue — find themselves in a difficult position the day after Ginsburg’s death, with an election weeks away and a Republican president, who’s trailing in the polls, likely to try and fill the empty Supreme Court seat.

Reacting to his resurfaced comments, the 65-year-old congressman also tweeted an Aug. 3 NBC News article on Saturday foreshadowing his change of heart. That article included a statement from 2016 Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine, who said he never expected Republican senators like Graham to honor their word.

“We knew basically they were lying in 2016, when they said, ‘Oh, we can’t do this because it’s an election year.’ We knew they didn’t want to do it because it was President Obama,” the Virginia senator said.

This controversy comes at a difficult time for Graham, who’s facing a tight race for his Senate seat from Democratic challenger Jaime Harrison. A Quinnipiac poll published Wednesday shows the two dead even, with 49% of likely voters questioning Graham’s honesty and only 40% taking him at his word.

Graham has also been targeted in ads by anti-Trump groups showing him criticizing the president — before he became the Republican nominee in 2016 — as “race baiting” and “xenophobic.” Graham has since become an unflinching advocate for Trump.

The president tweeted Saturday that he would push through a replacement for Ginsburg “without delay,” which Graham responded to by stating “I fully understand where President @realDonaldTrump is coming from.”

The Republicans will likely need the votes of 50 of their 53 senators to win a simple majority vote and push through a Trump nominated justice. That’s no guarantee.

In Arizona, Democrat Mark Kelly has opened a double-digit lead over Republican Martha McSally, according to AZ Central. NBC News reports Kelly could be sworn in by the end of November if he prevails.

Republican senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said Friday that she would not push through a SCOTUS nominee before the November election.

Susan Collins of Maine — whose state largely supports abortion rights — on Saturday tweeted that the next court appointment “should be made by the President who is elected on November 3rd.”

Utah’s Mitt Romney is also being pressured to take stand against Trump, whose impeachment conviction he supported in February. It’s too early to tell how GOP officials will respond. There are also two independent senators.

It was Ginsburg’s dying wish that the vacancy she left on the court be filled by the next elected president.