Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) is criticizing President Joe Biden for his decision to announce that he will nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court.
Collins told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos on Sunday that she would “welcome” the appointment of a Black woman to the Supreme Court and that she believes “diversity benefits the Supreme Court.”
“But the way that the president has handled this nomination has been clumsy at best. It adds to the further perception that the court is a political institution like Congress,” she added.
Watch the video below:
Sen. Susan Collins tells @GStephanopoulos that she would welcome the appointment of a Black female justice.
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) January 31, 2022
"I believe that diversity benefits the Supreme Court. But the way that the president has handled this nomination has been clumsy at best." https://t.co/eC9kCiWDyH pic.twitter.com/PyobGpMCZu
Stephanopoulos asked, “Isn’t it exactly what President Reagan did when he said he would appoint a woman to the Supreme Court? Isn’t it exactly what President Trump did when he said he would appoint a woman to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg?”
President Ronald Reagan declared in 1980 that he would make history by nominating a woman to fill “one of the first Supreme Court vacancies in my administration.” And in 2020, then-President Donald Trump vowed that he would nominate a woman to replace the late-Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
“Actually, it isn’t exactly the same,” Collins responded.
She noted that Biden vowed to nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court during the 2020 election, which she argued helps “politicize the entire nomination process.” By contrast, she said President Ronald Reagan said “one” of his nominees would be a woman.
Pressed by @GStephanopoulos on how Pres. Biden's handling of a Supreme Court nomination is different from his predecessors, @SenatorCollins says his campaign vow to nominate a Black woman "helped politicize the entire nomination process." https://t.co/Fx21oXfKC3 pic.twitter.com/oDBeDeNpi9
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) January 31, 2022
During the 2020 campaign, Biden vowed to make history by appointing the first Black woman to the Supreme Court.
And following Justice Stephen Breyer’s announcement that he plans to retire, Biden confirmed that he would follow through on his pledge and nominate a Black woman.
However, an ABC News/Ipsos poll released on Sunday that 76% of Americans think Biden should consider “all possible nominees.” Meanwhile, just 23% of Americans want him to follow through on his pledge.
The network noted that the sample size of the poll was not large enough to “break out results for Black people,” but it found that just one in four, 28%, nonwhite Americans think Biden should only consider a Black woman for the court.
