Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On Judicial Hearings Beginning For Donald Trump’s Unqualified, Far-Right MAGA Judges

Washington, D.C. – Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor as Senate Republicans hold their first hearing on Donald Trump’s far-right judicial appointees, and urged Senate Republicans to evaluate these nominees’ qualifications and not simply rubber-stamp Trump loyalists. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:

Today, Senate Republicans are holding their first hearing on judicial nominees under Donald Trump’s second term.

The last time Donald Trump was in the White House – and Republicans held the Senate majority – this chamber mutated into a conveyor belt for hard-right judges who sided with the special interests and not the American people.

Most were radically out of step with mainstream America, others were barely out of law school, and many were handpicked from the ranks of the Federalist Society, not for their fairness, but for their ideological fealty to a hard-right philosophy that hurts average Americans every day.

When it comes to judges, Donald Trump cares about one thing only: will they bow before the king? Will they break precedent and overturn rule of law just to appease Donald Trump? That’s what he wants. Senate Republicans must reject nominees like this.

But unfortunately, Senate Republicans are off to a dismal start.

Among the five nominees testifying today is Joshua Divine of Missouri.

Joshua Divine is a political operative with no judicial experience, who’s made a career attacking everything from voting rights, to commonsense gun safety, to defending government overreach into people’s private lives. He hasn’t been out of law school for ten years, and spent less than half of that time practicing as an attorney.

Well, Senators were not sent here to rubber-stamp Trump loyalists in black robes. Our duty – our sacred duty – is to the Constitution and to provide advice and consent, not blind obedience.

You’d think this would be obvious. But Republicans spent their last majority packing our courts with people who had no business being judges. At least ten nominees were rated “not qualified” by the American Bar Association, an unprecedented number. One nominee had never even tried a case.

Of course, none of this matters to Donald Trump.

He’s not in the business of creating an independent judiciary. He’s not in the business of following what the Founding Fathers constructed as the third branch of government. He’s cooking up a loyalist bench who will do what he wants instead of what the law says.

Recent reports detail how Donald Trump has been fuming lately over judges who haven’t been, in his eyes, loyal enough to him.

This kind of thinking should frighten anyone who cares about judicial independence.

Confirming judges is one of the most consequential things the Senate ever does. It shapes the future of our democracy. Getting it wrong has disastrous consequences.

When hard right judges take over, Roe v. Wade is overturned, voting rights are gutted, and now, the Supreme Court has gone so far as to declare Donald Trump immune from prosecution – as if he wears a crown and sits as a king above the law.

That is not democracy. That is not balance. That is not justice.

So, as Republicans begin marching more nominees through the chamber, they face a choice.

They can be stewards of the Constitution and protect our democracy.

Or they can be foot soldiers in Trump’s crusade to remake the judiciary into his MAGA loyalist bench.

They must reject MAGA loyalists dressed up as jurists.

Because once the robes go on, the damage can last for generations.

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