No sooner had Anthony Kennedy announced he's retiring from the Supreme Court was Chris Matthews going on an absolute rampage, demanding Democrats do everything in their power to prevent Republicans from placing another justice on America's highest court.
Matthews, who started his harangue claiming the Supreme Court "threw the election" for George W. Bush, laid out his case for why Democrats should obstruct any nominee President Trump names.
"This Supreme Court, this 5-4 court has been pro-Republican, pro-gun, pro-money and against immigration — anti-immigrant, if you will," Matthews said. "I think the Democrats, as I said a few moments ago, have to fight this tooth and nail. They have to use every process, opportunity they have to stop this until next year when we have a new Senate."
"We don’t know whether next year’s Senate will be Republican or Democratic nominated," he went on. "But to give this to the Republicans when they control the Senate basically 51 or 50-49 with John McCain perhaps not voting again, to give them this last chance to pack the court 5-4 again hard conservative, I say this, the base will attack the leadership for this if they allow it to happen and they should. Because this is time for vengeance for what happened two years ago."
He emphatically concluded: "And if they don’t reap the vengeance right now, with four and a half months to go before the election, they will not look very strong to their base and I think they’ll be under attack and you will see more Joe Crowley’s go down.”
But Matthews wasn't done.
He returned to the air minutes later even more fired up, warning that it would be "insane" if Democrats let Republicans "foist a judge" onto the Court.
MSNBC's Velshi asked how exactly Democrats can stop a nominee when they don't control the Senate and Harry Reid did away with the filibuster on judicial picks.
“Don’t allow a vote, don’t have a hearing, don’t allow anything to go forward," Matthews panted in response. "Don’t play ball with this decision. This is almost July. With an election for the Senate which is to teetering right now between Democrat and Republican. And they want to foist a judge who is going to be the deciding judge for the Supreme Court for the next 30 or 40 years in the last weeks before an election which will decide who controls the United States’ Senate. That would be insane for the Democrats to allow that. They have to use every tactic at their disposal."
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