Mitt Romney Will Support Vote on SCOTUS Nominee Remarks Transcript September 22

Mitt Romney: (00:00)
… which is, if you will, center right, to have a court which reflects center right points of view, which again are not changing the law from what it states, but instead following the law and following the Constitution.

Speaker 2: (00:13)
Senator Romney, you know Supreme Court nominations take some time and there isn’t a lot of time before the election. Would you support a lame duck vote if Democrats win the majority?

I’m not going to look at all the hypotheticals that might occur, but I’ve laid out what I intend to do and that would be dependent upon or, excuse me, not dependent upon the timing. I don’t know whether the decision will be made before or after the election, meaning the final vote will be before or after the election.

Speaker 3: (00:41)
Would you be all right if the final vote was before the election? Would you have a problem with that?

Well, my statement applies to the current circumstance, which means the timing will be decided by the Judiciary Committee and the majority leader as to when it gets to the floor.

Speaker 3: (00:56)
But if Biden wins, you’d be okay with a vote in the lame duck session, if Biden wins?

I’m not going to get into the particulars of who wins and who doesn’t.

Speaker 3: (01:03)
I mean that’s a very possible [crosstalk 00:01:04].

There are many possibilities that we could go through. I’ve indicated that what I intend to do is to proceed with the consideration process and if a nominee actually reaches the floor, then I will vote based upon the qualifications of that nominee.

Speaker 4: (01:19)
When you think back to 2016, do you disagree with your party’s decision to stop Merrick Garland?

You know, I wasn’t there. I think there’s some perception on the part of some writers and others that what happened with Merrick Garland was unfair. I don’t agree with that. I don’t know whether you think it was a good decision or not, but it wasn’t unfair because it was consistent with history. It was consistent with precedent. It was consistent with the Constitution.

So the idea that the Merrick Garland decision was unfair and therefore it has to be made up by doing something, which also wouldn’t make a lot of sense, which is saying to President Trump, you can’t get your nominee either, that just doesn’t follow for me.

The Garland decision was consistent with history. The decision to proceed with a new nominee is also consistent with history and precedent. And that’s where I come out.

Speaker 2: (02:11)
Senator Romney, I know you said you will assess the nominee on his or her qualifications, but the President does have a list of 40 people out and he’s made it very clear that his nominee will always come from that list. Do you, have you studied everyone on that list? Would you support anyone on that list?

I have not studied the full list nor have I done the qualification evaluation that I would want to do before I decided to support anyone on that list. I presume there’s at least one or two on that list that I would support, and there may be one or two that I wouldn’t, but I haven’t looked at their qualifications to make the adjustment.

But I will before the process is complete.

Speaker 4: (02:48)
What about Amy Coney Barrett in particular?

I haven’t reviewed her judicial record to this point and will look forward to doing so if she’s the nominee.

Speaker 2: (02:59)
Thanks so much.

Mitt Romney Will Support Vote on SCOTUS Nominee Remarks Transcript September 22

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