During a high-profile debate against Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Democrat Senate candidate Jaime Harrison, a well-funded challenger, put up a large plexiglass barrier.
"Where the hell is all this money coming from?" Graham said in the debate at Allen University in Columbia, S.C., noting Harrison might raise as much as $100 million. "They hate me. This is not about Mr. Harrison. This is about liberals hating my guts because I stood up for [now-Supreme Court Justice Brett] Kavanaugh when they tried to destroy his life. This is about me helping Donald Trump."
Graham, who tested negative for COVID-19 amid a rash of GOP senators contracting the virus, followed President Trump's own urging to reopen the economy and move on as a country, despite the outbreak.
"The one thing I want people to know is that the virus is serious, but we have to move on as a nation," Graham said in the debate. "When a military member gets infected, you don't shut down the whole unit.
"We're going to have a hearing for Amy Barrett, the nominee to the Supreme Court. It will be done safely — but I've got a job to do, and I'm pressing on."
The Senate has closed legislative activity on the floor until Oct. 19, but the Senate Judiciary will still begin the nomination process for Judge Amy Coney Barrett on Oct. 12. Her nomination is expected to come out of committee Oct. 22.
Republicans hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate and three GOP senators are currently quarantined after testing positive for COVID-19: Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah; Thom Tillis, R-N.C.; and Ron Johnson, R-Wis. If those senators do not recover in time, vulnerable moderates like Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, or Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, might doom Judge Barrett's nomination with a "no" vote.
Assuming they are well, both Lee and Tillis on the Senate Judiciary Committee, might attend the nomination hearings virtually during quarantine.
Johnson, who is not in the Judiciary committee, did not attend the introduction ceremony in the White House Rose Garden, but contracted the COVID-19 infection days later in Washington, D.C., The Atlantic reported.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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