President Trump used a warning from Rush Limbaugh on Tuesday to increase pressure on fellow Republicans to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, suggesting control of Congress is at stake.
“Rush Limbaugh to Republicans: ‘You can kiss the MIDTERMS goodbye if you don’t get highly qualified Kavanaugh approved,’” Trump tweeted, as Kavanaugh’s confirmation hangs in the balance amid multiple allegations of sexual misconduct.
On his show Monday, conservative talk radio icon Limbaugh warned Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and other Republicans not to allow Democrats to delay a vote on Kavanaugh until after November’s midterms.
“If the Republicans do not get this vote taken and have Kavanaugh confirmed, you can kiss the midterms goodbye,” Limbaugh said. “You can kiss goodbye holding the House and you can kiss goodbye holding the Senate.”
He said Republicans have already demonstrated they are open-minded and want to hear accuser Christine Ford testify, but Democrats have continued to try and delay the process.
“If you guys don’t conduct this vote in defiance of all this … then you can kind of kiss goodbye Republican chances in the midterms in November. Because people are gonna logically say, ‘What good does it do?'” Limbaugh said.
Kavanaugh and Ford, who accuses him of sexually assaulting her at a party when they were teenagers, are both scheduled to testify on Thursday at an election-season hearing in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
In a second allegation, another woman, Deborah Ramirez, told The New Yorker that Kavanaugh exposed himself at a drunken dormitory party at Yale in the 1983-84 school year. Kavanaugh has denied both accusations.
Trump on Tuesday challenged the account of the second accuser, saying she has “nothing.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Republicans have focused on accusing Democrats of railroading Kavanaugh by using decades-old, “vague, unsubstantiated and uncorroborated” claims of sexual misconduct.
“Justice matters. Evidence matters. Facts matter,” said McConnell.
The leader of the chamber’s Democrats fired back, demanding that McConnell apologize to Ford for his assertion that Democrats are using the allegations to wage a smear campaign against the nominee.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said McConnell’s comment “demeans many, many women” who have gone public with sexual harassment accusations, saying, “They’re doing a noble thing.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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