Trump said he wants Democrats to launch a second impeachment probe if he tries to push through his Supreme Court pick to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

       

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., discusses the Democrats' threat to impeach President Trump as a method to stall appointing a Supreme Court nominee.

Don’t assume Mitt Romney will stick it to Donald Trump and try to block the president’s new Supreme Court nominee.

After the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Utah Republican finds himself at another legacy-defining crossroads. He must decide whether to support an effort to install Trump’s third Supreme Court justice and shift the balance of the court to the right for decades to come, or oppose the move on principle and hinder the plans of Trump and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

With two of his Senate Republican colleagues lining up against a pre-election appointment, a Romney defection would evenly split the 53-47 GOP Senate and one more, however unlikely, would defeat the GOP push. With the pressure looming, Romney is showing little of his hand.

Since Ginsburg’s death on Friday, he’s declined to address the looming vacancy even as the vast majority of his conference gets on board with a speedy confirmation. He told reporters Monday that he would not comment before Tuesday's weekly party meeting and a chance to discuss the issue with his colleagues.

His reticence is not altogether a surprise: Romney is on the party’s whip team and prefers to speak to his colleagues before making a significant decision or announcement. And many Republicans think he will get on board.

“This is a lot different than impeachment,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.). “Romney is from a state that is very religious and strongly pro-life. I think he was elected to support a nominee like that. … I would be very surprised if Romney doesn’t vote for the nominee.”

Romney has already made lonely political stands in the Trump era. He won’t support Trump for president and was the sole Republican vote to oust him from office during this winter’s impeachment trial. But that doesn’t make Romney an automatic vote against Trump’s appointee. And his staff has pushed back against the suggestion he’s leading the charge to block the pick.

People on both sides of the debate are giving Romney a wide berth. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who opposes filling the seat before the election, said she’s speaking to fellow senators about how to handle the vacancy — but has not spoken to Romney. Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who once criticized Romney in the run-up to impeachment, declined to weigh in on the Utah Republican’s role in the next Supreme Court nomination.

“He’s a principled person. And he’s going to make his decision on what he thinks is right,” said Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).

“I admire Sen. Romney’s character and his independent streak, his willingness to weigh things carefully and his careful consideration of matters of precedent and consequence,” added Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.). “This is a moment of great consequence.”

Romney’s short Senate career has been punctuated by big moments of distancing himself from the president: marching in a Black Lives Matter protest and penning an op-ed before he even took his Senate seat vowing to push back against Trump when needed. He also occasionally criticizes Trump’s rhetoric, but he’s careful not to get dragged into a back and forth with the president on Twitter or elsewhere.

Yet the party’s 2012 presidential nominee has also largely backed Trump’s appointments and much of his agenda. His voting record is a regular reminder that he’s still a conservative, which his GOP colleagues hope is a sign that he will divorce his differences with Trump from the monumental opportunity the conservative movement sees before it.

“I really don’t know what he’ll do,” said Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.). “I think he’s probably wrestling with it just like he has on other issues.”

Romney’s opinion may not be decisive: He’d need one other Republican senator to join him and Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Collins in opposition to derail McConnell’s hopes of a swift confirmation. For now, that would take a surprise defection after vulnerable Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) backed McConnell's strategy.

But should Romney be the only other Republican to join the Senate GOP’s moderate bloc, it would invite the explosive scenario of Vice President Mike Pence breaking a 50-50 vote on the Senate floor for a Supreme Court nominee, perhaps just days before Election Day.

Romney’s decision may do a lot to illustrate what kind of senator he will be as he finishes his first two years in the chamber. Romney has little of the baggage of his colleagues over past Supreme Court fights or battles over precedent. At a 2018 debate, Romney said Senate Republicans’ blockade of President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, set no new standard and did not say how he would handle an election-year confirmation under Trump.

Conservative advocacy groups are keeping a close eye on Romney. The Judicial Crisis Network announced Monday that it was pouring $2.2 million into ads boosting the effort to fill the seat. The targeted states are home to vulnerable GOP incumbents, except one: Romney’s Utah.

But Romney is insulated from immediate political ramifications. His term isn’t up until 2024, and that gives Romney significant freedom to make his own way.

With the filibuster gutted on all nominations after recent rules changes by both parties, Senate Democrats are powerless to stop Trump’s appointment on their own. But many enjoy good relationships with Romney and are counting on him to take yet another stand against Trump.

“He’s shown extraordinary courage before,” said Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). “I hope he does again.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell pushed back Monday against Democratic allegations of hypocrisy over holding a vote this year on Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s replacement, arguing that historical precedent is on his side.

Democrats are accusing McConnell and other Republicans of a double standard when it comes to the Supreme Court, citing McConnell’s 2016 decision to block President Barack Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, because it was an election year. But McConnell and Senate Republicans claim 2016 was different because the White House and Senate were controlled by different parties.

In his floor remarks Monday, McConnell argued that this time the White House and the Senate are controlled by the same party and therefore the Senate should confirm President Donald Trump’s nominee.

“Apart from that one strange exception, no Senate has failed to confirm a nominee in the circumstances that face us now,” McConnell said, referring to Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas, who served on the high court in the 1960s but resigned over ethics issues. “The historical precedent is overwhelming and it runs in one direction. If our Democratic colleagues want to claim they are outraged, they can only be outraged at the plain facts of American history.”

McConnell added that in 2016, Obama asked “Senate Republicans for an unusual favor that had last been granted nearly 130 years prior.”

The Kentucky Republican further highlighted that the Senate is merely responding to voters, noting that Senate Republicans expanded their majority in 2018 after the contentious Supreme Court confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh. Sen. Susan Collins is however facing a backlash this year from Democratic voters over her support for Kavanaugh and is currently trailing in the polls in her Senate race in Maine.

"Ironically, it was the Democratic leader who went out of his way to declare the 2018 midterms a referendum on the Senate’s handling of the Supreme Court," McConnell said. “In his final speech before Kavanaugh was confirmed, he yelled over and over at the American people to ‘go vote!’ He told Americans to go elect senators based on how they’d approached their advice-and-consent duties over those weeks. Unfortunately for him, many Americans did just that."

But Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer shot back on Monday, saying the majority leader and Senate Judiciary Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) are “making a mockery” of their previous position.

“Why not just come to the floor and say I’m going to do whatever is best for my political party, consistency be damned, reason be damned, democracy be damned,” Schumer said. “They know there is no reason, no reason, no argument, no logic to justify flipping your position 180 degrees and calling it some kind of principle. It is not.”

Republicans argue that Democrats in 2016 called for the confirmation of Garland during an election year, but Democrats say that with the Garland nomination Republicans set a new standard.

Since Ginsburg’s death on Friday, Graham, who is up for reelection, has faced a torrent of accusations of hypocrisy. The South Carolina Republican, who said he would not confirm a nominee during a presidential year in 2018 during the Kavanaugh confirmation, has since said he would in fact vote for a nominee during an election year. On Monday, he reiterated that he changed his mind after the ugly confirmation process for Kavanaugh, who faced allegations of sexual assault.

McConnell and Schumer’s dueling floor remarks are only the beginning in what’s expected to be a brutal Supreme Court fight. McConnell has repeatedly vowed that Trump’s nominee will receive a vote on the Senate floor, though he hasn’t specified whether the vote will take place before or after the election. Trump said Monday he will announce his pick Friday or Saturday.

Schumer said Monday that at no time in the Senate’s history have senators confirmed a Supreme Court nominee so close to a presidential election, which is just 43 days away.

McConnell, countered that the Senate has more than enough time to confirm Trump’s nominee, noting that Justice Sandra Day O’Connor was confirmed in 33 days. (O'Connor, however, was approved unanimously while Trump's pick is expected to be more controversial.) The confirmation process typically takes more than 40 days.

There is little Democrats can do to stop the nomination from going through. So far, only two Senate Republicans — Collins and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — said the Senate should wait until after the election. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who has broken with Trump in the past and even voted to convict him during the impeachment trial, has not yet said where he stands on the confirmation.

But Democrats say if Republicans move forward they will fundamentally change the Senate as an institution.

“How can we trust each other if when push comes to shove, when the stakes are the highest, the other side will double-cross their own standards when it’s politically advantageous,” Schumer said. “Tell me how this would not spell the end of this supposedly great deliberative body.”

The race is on to quickly fill the Supreme Court vacancy left by Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Here are the senators to watch.