Dems Have ‘No Ammunition Left,’ Only ‘Lots of Noise’ on Kennedy Exit

Democrats have “no ammunition left except to make lots of noise” about blocking President Donald Trump’s forthcoming Supreme Court nominee to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy, Ethics and Public Policy Center President Edward Whelan said Wednesday night on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle.”

“What the Left is saying now — have in mind that they tried to filibuster [Justice] Neil Gorsuch, someone who was widely acclaimed. And in the process, of course, they triggered the abolition of the Supreme Court filibuster,” Whelan (shown above, second from left) noted. “They have no ammunition left except to make lots of noise.”

Liberals erupted in near-apocalyptic hysterics after Kennedy made public his decision to retire from the Supreme Court bench on July 31. Kennedy’s retirement gives Trump the opportunity to cement a conservative trajectory for the nation’s highest court. Trump’s first nomination was not long after he took office, nominating and gaining Senate confirmation for Justice Neil Gorsuch.

“President Trump has a spectacular opportunity before him,” Fox News host Laura Ingraham said. “So this is not the time for the administration to play it safe, to nominate someone who’s considered a judicial moderate or to allow concerns about gender or ethnicity override pure merit and fidelity to the Constitution.

“So use this opportunity to nominate another stellar figure to the highest court of the land, who respects the limits of the judiciary and is faithful to the Constitution and our Bill of Rights,” Ingraham added.

Whelan said Trump “has a great list with lots of great candidates on it” to select from as he winnows down his potential Supreme Court nominees. “I’m confident we’re going to end up with someone is outstanding,” Whelan said.

Democratic lawmakers and activists are nevertheless promising to use every tool, fair and foul, in their power to stall or thwart Trump’s agenda, including especially nominating Kennedy’s replacement.

“We don’t even have a nominee yet,” Solicitor General of Texas Scott Keller (shown above, left), a former Kennedy clerk, told Ingraham. “But this also goes to the point that this administration has hit home run after home run with their nominations to the federal bench. I don’t think it’s going to let up now when they get to appoint a second Supreme Court justice in just two years.”

Democratic senators’ filibuster of Gorsuch’s nomination process led Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to invoke the “nuclear option,” requiring only a simple majority to confirm the nominee.

“We just need 50 votes, and these Democrats running in these blue seats in these red states, Laura, they have got to support this Supreme Court nominee or they are in big political trouble,” American Conservative Union Chairman Matt Schlapp (shown above, second from right) told Ingraham.

“The one thing we know on the Supreme Court is that Democrats are going to do everything again — they’re going to play dirty. They’re going to do everything they can to disparage the person,” Schlapp added. “What the president needs to do is not overthink it … He just needs to pick a solid choice, and let’s get it on.”

Related: Kennedy Retirement Gives Trump Chance to Solidify Conservative Bloc

But the fearmongering from the Left permeated the news cycle in the hours following Kennedy’s announcement.

Jeffrey Toobin, a CNN analyst, for example, warned, “Let’s talk about what America is going to be like that’s different. You are going to see 20 states pass laws banning abortion outright. Just banning abortion. Because they know that there are now going to be five votes on the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade.”

Toobin added, “And abortion will be illegal in a significant part of the United States in 18 months. There is just no doubt about that. Somebody has the last word, and here it is, the Supreme Court, and Roe v. Wade is doomed. It is gone because Donald Trump won the election. And because he’s going to have the chance to appoint two Supreme Court Justices.”

Keller said hyperbolic rhetoric like Toobin’s represents “continued scaremongering” from the Left with roots in the historic and then-unprecedented gloom and doom Democrats used in 1987 to kill President Ronald Reagan’s nomination of former U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Judge Robert Bork to the Supreme Court.

“I mean, this all sounds like Sen. Ted Kennedy’s (D-Mass.) infamous speech about Robert Bork,” he said. “If this is the play they are going to run, I agree that they’re going to have a real hard time because this list … of potential nominees the administration has put forward have excellent credentials.”

“And if they’re really going to try to run the Bork play again, it’s going to fail,” Keller warned.

PoliZette writer Kathryn Blackhurst can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter.