Here’s the Biggest Lie Sean Spicer Told Today

Hint: It wasn’t even about the Russia scandal.


While chastising Democrats for threatening to filibuster Neil Gorsuch’s Supreme Court nomination, White House press secretary Sean Spicer on Thursday delivered one of his most egregious falsehoods yet. Republicans, he insisted, have historically been cooperative when it comes to giving up-or-down votes to Democratic presidents’ court appointments. Spicer specifically mentioned former President Barack Obama in making this assertion.

“Republicans in the past have allowed Democrat presidents to have their [SCOTUS] nominees voted on up or down,” Spicer said. “And for the most part, when you go back through President Obama or President Clinton…Republicans have joined with Democrats to allow people who are qualified to go onto the court.”

“It was Obama’s nominees that got through—all with Republican support,” he added. “It’s difficult to understand why, when you’ve got someone as eminently qualified as Gursuch, that this is the stake that they want to drive. And I think it further sets a partisan divide in our country when we can’t allow people who are qualified, and universally so, to get on the bench.”

There’s one glaring problem with Spicer’s remarks: Merrick Garland. In 2016, Obama selected Garland to replace the Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who died last February. Arguing the nomination to fill the vacant seat should be left to the next president, Republicans staged an unprecedented blockade to the nomination process, refusing to even hold hearings on Garland’s nomination. That gamble paid off, and here we are with Trump and Gorsuch—and Spicer’s bald-faced lie.

Watch Spicer’s remarks, which start around the 1 hour and 49 minute mark:

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do things differently in the aftermath of a political crisis: Watergate. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after, and go deep on, stories others don’t. And we’re a nonprofit newsroom because we knew corporations and billionaires would never fund the journalism we do. Our reporting makes a difference in policies and people’s lives changed.

And we need your support like never before to vigorously fight back against the existential threats American democracy and journalism face. We’re running behind our online fundraising targets and urgently need all hands on deck right now. We can’t afford to come up short—we have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

Please help with a donation today if you can—even just a few bucks helps. Not ready to donate but interested in our work? Sign up for our Daily newsletter to stay well-informed—and see what makes our people-powered, not profit-driven, journalism special.

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