Mindless Obstruction, Foot-Dragging Undermining Transition of Power

Wednesday I had the chance to meet with Judge Gorsuch personally, the man President Trump nominated to serve on the United States Supreme Court. It's plain to me now why President Trump selected him to be the nominee for the seat vacated by the death of Justice Scalia. Judge Gorsuch’s experience, his intellect, and background make him uniquely qualified and qualify him as well as a mainstream nominee.”

But I fully expect our colleagues across the aisle to try to paint him as some sort of extremist, which they can't do based upon his distinguished record on the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals for the last ten years as a federal judge or his previous life. So they're going to have to make things up in order to cause people to believe that this nominee is not a mainstream nominee.

Unfortunately Senate Democrats, particularly their leader, the Senator from New York, have already announced that he and his other colleagues will fight tooth and nail against any nominee put forward by President Trump. And predictably the Minority Leader has made clear he will try to filibuster the President's choice.

The American people made their choice, and it's plain that our Democratic colleagues are simply just not happy about the choice they made and are going to undermine and resist this President no matter what, particularly when it comes to staffing his Cabinet with the people he's chosen to serve the nation as part of his Administration.

My question is what purpose is to be served from keeping the President fully-staffed with the Cabinet that he's chosen, knowing that you're ultimately going to lose the fight?

President Obama, to his credit, after the election talked about the importance of a peaceful transition of power from one Administration to the next. And some of our colleagues who are now obstructing this President's Cabinet members have also paid lip service to peaceful transition of power.

But what we are seeing is a hostile transition of power, mindless obstruction, foot dragging, and delay for delay's sake. Let me remind them once again, the American people voted on November 8 and chose a President who has the authority to nominate the people he sees fit to serve on his Cabinet. We can't afford to let this Administration operate with one hand tied behind its back for the foreseeable future.