Democrats are basically wasting their time trying to pressure Republicans into setting hearings for Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley said Thursday.
"This strategy has failed to recognize that I am no stranger to political pressure and to strong-arm tactics," the Iowa Republican told
The Hill. "When I make a decision based on sound principle, I'm not about to flip-flop because the left has organized what they call a pressure campaign."
Democrats have been trying to force Grassley and other key Republicans into scheduling hearings for Garland, who was nominated last month by President Barack Obama to succeed Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February.
In Chicago Thursday, the president said that the Senate was jeopardizing the "integrity of the judicial branch" by refusing to consider Garland, whom he described to law school students as "extraordinary."
"We now have a situation where they're saying we simply will not consider the nominee itself," Obama said at his alma mater, the University of Chicago Law School. "We're just going to shut down the process.
"Our democracy can't afford that," Obama said.
Democrats insist that Grassley and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will eventually cave — but the Iowa senator told the Hill not to bet on it.
The "so-called pressure being applied to me now is nothing — it's absolutely nothing — compared to what I withstood from heavy-handed White House political operations in the past," Grassley said.
As many as 17 Republicans have said that they would be willing to meeting with Garland, and three GOP committee members — including Grassley — have said they would talk with the nominee, the Hill reports.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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