A top Democrat senator humiliated himself on live television this week when he was forced to admit that there isn’t actually anything illegal about President Donald Trump nominating Amy Comey Barrett to the Supreme Court.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, took to Twitter minutes after Trump nominated Barrett to call this process an “illegitimate sham.”

“I will oppose the confirmation of Judge Amy Coney Barrett, as I would any nominee proposed as part of this illegitimate sham process, barely one month before an election as Americans are already casting their votes. Americans deserve a voice in this hugely consequential decision,” he wrote.

“I will refuse to treat this process as legitimate & will not meet with Judge Amy Coney Barrett,” Blumenthal added, despite the fact that there is a decades-long precedent of senators of both parties meeting with nominees to the Supreme Court.

This all came back to bite Blumenthal when he was interviewed by CNN on Saturday evening. When host Wolf Blitzer asked him to give a straight answer on how Barrett’s nomination was “illegal or illegitimate,” however, he could not give a straight answer.

“What are the Republicans doing that is illegal or illegitimate?” Blitzer asked, going on to say that the Constitution delineates exactly how nominations to the court are supposed to go down.

“The Constitution says the president has to nominate Supreme Court justices; the Senate has to advise and consent and confirm,” Blitzer added. “So what what is illegal about what the president and the Republicans are doing? You say it’s illegitimate.”

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Blumenthal responded by trying to dance around the question, saying it was illegitimate because of the timing, as “the vote on this nominee will occur literally at the end of October, a handful of days before an election.”

Blitzer, however, was not having any of it.

“Where does it say that’s illegitimate in the U.S. Constitution or in the law?” the CNN host asked. “Where does it say that what they’re doing … is illegal?”

The Connecticut senator was finally forced to admit that the Republicans actually aren’t doing anything “illegal” or “illegitimate” under the Constitution. However, he still said that the GOP is breaking “unwritten rules.”

“Illegal it may be not under the Constitution,” Blumenthal said. “Under the norms and traditions and unwritten rules of the Senate, it is illegitimate.”

Blitzer then doubled down, forcing Blumenthal to outright admit that there is nothing “illegal” or “illegitimate about what’s happening right now.

“What I hear you saying, Sen. Blumenthal, it may be inappropriate, it may be wrong — especially so close to an election — but you agree that there’s nothing illegal or totally illegitimate as to what they’re doing,” Blitzer said.

“It may not violate the letter of the Constitution,” Blumenthal admitted. “It violates the spirit of the Constitution.”

It’s refreshing to watch CNN ask the tough questions to a Democrat for once!