President Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee were trying to drum up public support for Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch Thursday, including by characterizing the media as out to get them.
That came as Senate Republicans prepared to confirm him, likely by having to change the Senate rules so that a simple majority rather than a 60-vote supermajority was needed as a way to override a Democratic filibuster of the nomination.
An email to supporters from the President and distributed by the RNC sought signatures on an online petition saying "We the People" support Gorsuch. "The only way to fight back against the Democrats’ filibuster is for the American people to step up and show your support for the Honorable Neil Gorsuch right now..."
"Could you imagine if the roles were reversed and Republicans were standing on the Senate floor blocking a vote," the President asks. "The media would try to eat us alive," adding cannibal, or at least carnivore, to his attacks on the media, which have included enemies, fake news purveyors, failing, biased and much more.
Judiciary Committee chairman Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) took to the Senate floor Thursday morning to argue for Gorsuch's nomination, saying the far left's playbook was to recount "the same preordained narrative," in this case to justify a historic partisan filibuster by Democrats, which he said was also preordained before Trump was even sworn into office.
Grassley promised that Gorsuch would be confirmed and deserved to be so. He called it a "sad state of affairs."
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the majority whip, invoked Merrick Garland, saying that was a historic denial of a nomination hearing or vote by Republicans, saying he was just as qualified as Grassley says Gorsuch is.
The Democratic National Committee was pitching its own version of a petition in opposition to Gorsuch. In e-mail to ITS supporters, the DNC said that, were he confirmed, "corporate executives and Wall Street profiteers will have a friend on the Court for life -- with dire consequences for working families."
