{"id":21769,"date":"2017-02-10T05:43:48","date_gmt":"2017-02-10T05:43:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=21769"},"modified":"2017-02-10T05:43:48","modified_gmt":"2017-02-10T05:43:48","slug":"trump-urges-moderate-democrats-back-gorsuch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/news\/trump-urges-moderate-democrats-back-gorsuch.html","title":{"rendered":"Trump urges moderate Democrats to back Gorsuch"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tTrump urges moderate Democrats to back Gorsuch<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
\n<\/h2>\n

\n\tTrump urges moderate Democrats to back Gorsuch:-<\/strong> The White House lunch between President Trump and 10 senators Thursday was billed as a “listening session” about the Supreme Court.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tIt was also viewed as a chance to pressure the moderate Democrats in the group to vote for Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tBut Democrats grabbed the opportunity to talk to the president about other issues.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\t“We talked about infrastructure,” said Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.VA.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tSen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., plugged a bill he’s introduced to require federal contracts to take into account whether a bidder has outsourced jobs.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\t“I talked to him about the fact that tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of Carrier announcing that 1,400 people would be let go,” he said.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tSen. Heidi Heitkamp, who sat next to Trump, called the discussion far-reaching.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\t“The single most important thing we can do to reassure the American public is have a dialogue,” the North Dakota senator said.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tTrump began the lunch by praising Manchin for being the only Democrat to vote Wednesday to confirm Jeff Sessions as attorney general.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\t“I want to start by thanking Sen. Manchin for having the courage to vote for somebody who’s really very outstanding,” Trump said.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tHe also enthused about Gorsuch, saying there’s rarely been a more qualified nominee.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\t“He’ll very much respect the Constitution as written. He will apply the law as written,” Trump said. “He’s a mainstream judge – very much mainstream.”<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tHe said some Democrats have told him they like Gorsuch “very much” but “I think that because of politics perhaps they’re not going to vote for him.”<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\t“I think that’s a shame because that’s not being honest,” Trump said. “That’s one of the reasons that our country is in stagnation in so many different forms and so many different ways.”<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tMany Democratic activists, upset about Republicans refusing to consider President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland last year, want Democrats to stand their ground against Gorsuch.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tBut Democrats who face re-election next year in states Trump won easily are being pressured to stop a Democratic filibuster against Gorsuch.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tThe National Republican Senatorial Committee began running ads last week featuring comments Donnelly made last year saying he will vote “yes or no” on whomever the next president nominates.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\t“What I said is that I would vote,” Donnelly said Thursday. “Obviously, there will be a vote for cloture and I’ll be part of that. I’m making that decision right now as to the best way to go on this and that’s why I look forward to sitting down with Judge Gorsuch.”<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tDonnelly also said he tries to give some deference to a president and a Supreme Court pick.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\t“The tie goes to the runner, so to speak,” he said. “What I’m trying to do is learn as much as I can about the judge and try to make sure that what he’ll do is make our country stronger.”<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tMissouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, who was invited to the White House but had a conflict, met with Gorsuch Wednesday. She said Gorsuch made a comment similar to the concerns he expressed to Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., about Trump’s criticism of judges.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\t“I am not going to go into the details of our conversations,” McCaskill told reporters, “but he made it very clear that it was very upsetting to him when the integrity and independence of the judiciary was challenged.”<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tTrump criticized the “so-called judge” who ruled against his proposed travel ban from seven Muslim countries.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tBlumenthal, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will conduct confirmation hearings on Gorsuch, told reporters Wednesday that Gorsuch “expressed to me that he is disheartened by the demoralizing and abhorrent comments made by President Trump about the judiciary.”<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tTrump accused Blumenthal Thursday of distorting Gorsuch’s comments.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\t“His comments were misrepresented and what you should do is ask Sen. Blumenthal about his Vietnam record which didn’t exist,” Trump said at the start of the lunch with senators, while reporters were still in the room.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tWhite House spokesman Sean Spicer later said Gorsuch was speaking in general about attacks on the judiciary, not any one incident.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tsOURCE:- http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/news\/politics\/2017\/02\/09\/trump-urges-moderate-democrats-back-gorsuch\/97700770\/<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t <\/div><\/div>\n\t\t