Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker (R) said President Joe Biden's Supreme Court nominee will be a "beneficiary" of affirmative action after the commander-in-chief promised to make history by picking the first black woman to sit on the bench.
Biden said during a Democratic primary debate in February of 2020 that he would nominate a black woman to the Supreme Court if given the opportunity to select a justice. And after Associate Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer on Thursday announced his plans to retire, the president affirmed his campaign pledge to nominate a black woman to the bench.
Wicker told host Paul Gallo during a Friday appearance on SuperTalk Mississippi Radio that "The irony is that the Supreme Court is at the very time hearing cases about this sort of affirmative racial discrimination while adding someone who is the beneficiary of this sort of quota."
The senator was referring to the Supreme Court agreeing Monday to hear two affirmative action cases involving Harvard University and the University of North Carolina in which the two schools are accused of racially discriminating against Asian Americans in the college admissions process.
Biden said Thursday that he has not yet made a decision about who he will appoint to the Supreme Court but vowed to make a selection by the end of February.
The White House accused Wicker of being inconsistent, pointing out that the Republican praised former President Donald Trump's 2020 selection of Amy Coney Barrett as an inspiration to the young women in his family.
"President Biden has established one of the strongest track records ever when it comes to choosing extraordinarily qualified and groundbreaking nominees - as the American Bar Association ratings for his 42 confirmed nominees demonstrate," White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said in a statement to Fox News.
"What’s more, when the previous president followed through on his own promise to place a woman on the Supreme Court, Senator Wicker said, 'I have five granddaughters, the oldest one is 10. I think Justice Amy Coney Barrett will prove to be an inspiration to these five granddaughters and to my grown daughters.' We hope Senator Wicker will give President Biden’s nominee the same consideration he gave to then-Judge Barrett," Bates continued.
Wicker also explained during the interview that he believed Biden's nominee will be less like Breyer and more like Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
"We’re going to go from a nice, stately liberal to someone who’s probably more in the style of Sonia Sotomayor, … I hope it’s at least someone who will at least not misrepresent the facts. I think they will misinterpret the law," Wicker said.
Sotomayor came under fire earlier this month after she falsely claimed during oral arguments on the Biden administration's vaccine mandate for businesses that more than 100,000 children are "in serious condition" and that many of them are on ventilators because of COVID infections.
Wicker went on to say that Biden's pick will likely not receive any Republican support but that the GOP will not treat the nominee the same way Democrats treated Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2018.
"I guarantee you this, Paul, this new justice will probably not get a single Republican vote, but we will not treat her like the Democrats did Brett Kavanaugh," Wicker said. "It was one of the most disgraceful, shameful things and completely untruthful things that the Democratic Judiciary majority has ever, ever done."
Kavanaugh was baselessly accused by Christine Blasey Ford of sexually assaulting her during their high school years. Kavanaugh denied the allegations and was confirmed to the Supreme Court in on a party-line vote.
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