The White House is using the Constitution as its playbook for getting Judge Merrick Garland confirmed for the Supreme Court, and there are "more than a handful of Republican senators" who have changed their positions on the matter after learning about the nominee's experience, Chief of Staff Denis McDonough said Thursday.
"When there's a vacancy on the Supreme Court, the president has the responsibility to nominate someone to fill that vacancy and then the Senate has the responsibility to confirm that nominee," McDonough told
MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program. "The president has nominated someone with years of experience, somebody who lead the federal response to the terrorism in Oklahoma City, so we think that this is the right judge for that assignment."
McDonough said the White House has been speaking with senators since last month, when Justice Antonin Scalia died, and is now gratified to see some Republicans changing their minds on the issue.
And while Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) has ruled out a hearing on Garland's nomination, saying holding confirmation hearings during a presidential election year would be improper, McDonough said that every other committee chairman and the Senate in the last several decades has held hearings, and the White House believes that should happen this time too.
"It's able question of fairness on top of their Constitutional responsibility," he said. "We think they should be fair, as the president said yesterday, and we think at the end of the day they will be.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.