Sen. Lindsey Graham declared on Tuesday that President Donald Trump should renominate Brett Kavanaugh if the Senate fails to confirm him for the Supreme Court this year.
The South Carolina Republican said that he still hopes that Kavanaugh will be confirmed to the high court soon. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has also vowed that this week the Senate will vote on Kavanaugh.
However, Graham offered Trump a good contingency plan in case the nominee is defeated narrowly .
Graham said in a statement that if his nomination were to fall short, he would encourage President Trump to re-nominate Judge Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. He added that it would – in effect – be appealing the Senate’s verdict directly to the people of America.
Graham discussed the strategy in more detail on a news channel, saying that the President could use the issue in the midterm elections to go after Democratic Sens. Heidi Heitkamp from North Dakota, Claire McCaskill from Missouri, Joe Donnelly from Indiana and Joe Manchin from West Virginia. These four Democrats represent the Republican-leaning states that Trump had won in 2016.
Graham said that Trump could also announce to voters in these states that he would nominate Kavanaugh again in 2019, after a new Senate convenes.
He said in one of his statements that the midterm elections are only 35 days away and a new group of senators may view Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination in a very different way after hearing from the voters in their states.
Trump told reporters on Tuesday that Graham’s idea was certainly interesting.
Kavanaugh would be a non-starter if Democrats win the Senate. However, it is interesting to note that there are more vulnerable Democrats than Republicans in this year’s midterm elections.
Graham, who serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee, is a fierce defender of Kavanaugh. This is despite the allegations against Kavanaugh being engaged in sexual misconduct while he was drunk in high school and college. The FBI has reopened the background investigation of Kavanaugh to conduct a probe that is expected to conclude by the end of this week.
Graham said Tuesday that he can only imagine how awful this entire process has been for Judge Kavanaugh and his family.
Graham also urged senators who support Kavanaugh to not to give up on him.
