Democrats “will find it very hard to go after” Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett if they met with her, Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., told “Fox & Friends” on Tuesday.
Tillis, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, made the comment on the same day Barrett will start meeting with senators on Capitol Hill as her accelerated confirmation process continues despite multiple Democrats refusing to see her, calling the process that led to her nomination so close to a presidential election “illegitimate.”
“I believe first the whole process has been illegitimate,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said on Sunday. “And second, because she’s already stated that she is for overturning the ACA. I will not meet with her.”
Schumer, who has said if Barrett is confirmed the GOP “will have stolen two Supreme Court seats,” is joined by Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Maize Hirono, D-Hawaii, in refusing to meet with the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judge.
“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,” Blumenthal said Sunday.
Tillis said on Tuesday that he thinks Democrats “are going to make a circus when they get into the committee.”
He went on to say that “if they met with Judge Barrett for an hour, they would find it very difficult to go after her the way I think that they’re going to.”
Tillis then listed some of what he thinks are her positive characteristics.
The conservative Barrett, 48, currently serves as a judge on the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. She is a devout Catholic and a working mother to seven children, including two adopted from Haiti. She previously clerked for the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016, and is devoted to the literal interpretation of the Constitution known as originalism.
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“This is an extraordinary mother of seven children,” Tillis said on Tuesday, adding that “she has an incredible academic record,” has done “great work as a jurist,” and there are a “number of people across the ideological spectrum who support or clerked with her.
“So I don’t think they [Democrats] want to meet her because if they knew her beforehand it’s going to be a lot more difficult to pull off the theater I expect to see on October the 12th,” Tillis continued.
Republicans, at this point, are eyeing Oct. 12 as the target date for the start of confirmation hearings for Barrett.
Barrett’s most high-profile meetings starting Tuesday will be with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Senate Majority Whip John Thune, R-S.D, and a joint sit-down with both Vice President Mike Pence and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
Graham, McConnell and Thune have already declared their support for Barrett, as have a number of other Senate Republicans who are familiar with the judge from her 2017 circuit court confirmation.
Some Democrats have claimed that Barrett’s nomination could mean overturning the Affordable Care Act or ObamaCare, or Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark Supreme Court decision that guarantees a woman’s right to an abortion.
“I think that’s just another political stunt,” Tillis said on Tuesday.
“Really what the Democrats want to do is distract the discussion away from who would Joe Biden put forth.
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“Joe Biden refuses to even publish a list,” he added.
Fox News’ Tyler Olson and Brooke Singman contributed to this report.
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