The nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court may well be the "most important decision" President Donald Trump has made in his four years in office, Sen. Ted Cruz said Monday.
"It's a culmination of promises made to the American people and promises to nominate strong constitutionalists, justices who will defend the Constitution and defend the Bill of Rights, and defend our fundamental liberties," the Texas Republican said on Fox News' "Fox & Friends."
Barrett's nomination is expected to be confirmed Monday by the Republican-controlled Senate, and Cruz said he thinks the current divisions are "really sad," considering other justices like the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg were approved overwhelmingly.
"Justice [Antonin] Scalia in 1986, he sailed through his confirmation hearing, the first Italian-American justice to serve on the court," said Cruz. "It's really great, if you look at the video, he sits there smoking a pipe during his hearing ... my advice to Judge Barrett: judge, you will do great but don't follow your own boss's example and probably don't smoke a pipe," he joked.
But Democrats "don't care about the substance" when it comes to Barrett.
"Every one of them will agree she's qualified, she's impressive, and she's serious, but this is a shirts and skins exercise. This is a partisan battle and part of the problem is that for the left, they've decided the court is the key to their radical agenda," said Cruz.
He added that Democrats have a "radicalized view of confirmations" and have "turned them into the slugfests, the circuses that we see so regularly."
He also pushed back hard against Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee who focused their questioning on Obamacare and against Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden's statements that Americans didn't lose health insurance coverage under the plans.
"Remember when Barack Obama said, 'If you want your healthcare, you can keep your healthcare,'" said Cruz. "Joe Biden just re-upped the lie of the year."
The right place to have a policy debate on healthcare is in the Senate, he added, not in the courts.
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.
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