Mitch McConnell Vows Senate Will Move Forward With Vote To Replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg In Stark Reversal

Mitch McConnell said on Friday that whoever President Donald Trump picks to replace the Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will get a Senate floor vote.

As CNBC reported, McConnell released a statement hours after it was announced that Ginsburg had passed from complications due to pancreatic cancer, saying that he would hold a confirmation hearing for a new court justice, despite holding up a hearing in the previous election cycle, claiming that the American people should have a say in who is nominated.

“President Trump’s nominee will receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate,” he wrote.

As the news outlet reported, in the days leading to her passing, Ginsburg had expressed a desire to see her seat held until the election was completed.

“My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed,” she said.

The controversy over replacing a supreme court judge ignited in 2016 when McConnell said that voters should be given the opportunity to make their opinion heard in their pick for president. At the time, former President Barack Obama had appointed Merrick Garland with nine months left before the election after Scalia’s death.

With only six weeks until the 2020 decision, McConnell stated that the upper chamber would still hold hearings to replace the storied judge.

“Since the 1880s, no Senate has confirmed an opposite-party president’s Supreme Court nominee in a presidential election year,” he wrote. “We pledged to work with President Trump and support his agenda, particularly his outstanding appointments to the federal judiciary.”

McConnell has faced accusations of hypocrisy, given his statement that a judge shouldn’t be confirmed during an election year after the 2016 death of Antonin Scalia. But he defended his position, saying that there was a likelihood that Obama would be replaced by a Republican in 2016, but the possibility that Trump would be re-elected in 2020 is much higher.

McConnell’s position isn’t based in precedence or rule, but based in political expediency, as New York Magazine revealed.

President Trump was holding a political rally in Minnesota on Friday when the news was released about Ginsburg’s death. While he didn’t address the passing during the rally, he later commented on the situation.

“She just died? Wow. I didn’t know that. She led an amazing life. What else can you say? She was an amazing woman, whether you agree or not. She was an amazing woman who led an amazing life,” Trump said, as CBS reporter Nicole Sganga tweeted.

During his speech, apparently without knowledge that Ginsburg had died, he touted Sen. Ted Cruz as a replacement, as The Inquisitr previously reported.

Ginsburg died in her home in Washington, D.C., on September 18, after a battle with metastatic pancreatic cancer. She was the second woman to be appointed to the high court.