Warren won’t meet with Barrett, calling Trump’s nomination an ‘illegitimate power grab’

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said Tuesday that she will not meet with President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, calling the nomination an “illegitimate power grab.”

The former 2020 presidential candidate took to Twitter to announce she will not meet with Judge Amy Coney Barrett as Senate Republicans prepare to confirm Trump’s nominee before the Nov. 3 election. 

Warren slammed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in particular, saying she will “not lend legitimacy” to his “efforts to steal another Supreme Court seat.”

“The nominee has already made it clear that she will try to deliver a death blow to health care coverage for millions of Americans and to erase protection for people with pre-existing conditions,” Warren said in a statement. 

“She’s an extremist who was picked to overturn Roe v. Wade, rubber stamp Trump’s attacks on immigrants, strip away voting rights, and complete the decades-long assault on our judiciary by billionaires and giant corporations to tilt the courts in their favor,” she added.

“Too many lives are on the line,” she continued. “We need to treat this nomination like the illegitimate power grab it is.”

I will not be meeting with Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee. We need to treat this nomination like the illegitimate power grab it is. pic.twitter.com/KwmtQ27miP

— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) September 29, 2020

Warren’s official declination to meet with Barrett came hours after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced he also will not meet with Trump’s third Supreme Court nominee. 

“I am not going to meet with Judge Barrett. Why would I meet with a nominee of such an illegitimate process and one who is determined to get rid of the Affordable Care Act?” Schumer tweeted.

Barrett began meeting with several Republican senators including McConnell and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Tuesday.

Two Democrats who sit on the Judiciary Committee – Sens. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) – announced over the weekend that they will not schedule meeting with the Indiana judge. 

Two other senators on the committee – Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) – have both said they will talk with the Supreme Court nominee. 

Senate meetings with Supreme Court nominees are not required but have been tradition and allow senators to question them before the public hearing.

Warren is not on the Judiciary Committee.

Trump officially nominated Barrett on Saturday to fill the vacancy in the Supreme Court after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on Sept. 18. McConnell has committed to holding a vote on Trump’s pick, and has secured enough votes in the GOP-held upper chamber to push Barrett through.

Democrats have accused Republicans of hypocrisy after they blocked a confirmation hearing of former President Barack Obama’s nominee Merrick Garland in 2016, saying it fell too close to the election.

Garland was nominated nine months ahead of the election that year. 

McConnell and several other Republicans have argued that the 2016 circumstances were different because there were different parties that held the White House and the Senate, unlike this year.