“The Constitution says ‘advice and consent,’” Biden said in brief remarks in the Oval Office before meeting with Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Richard J. Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, and Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the committee’s senior Republican. “And I’m serious when I say it, that I want the advice of the Senate as well as the consent, if we can arrive on who the nominee should be.”
In a nod to his long Senate tenure, Biden said of Durbin and Grassley, “I invited — we’re different parties — but two good friends down here.” Biden was a member of the Judiciary Committee for many years, serving as chairman from 1987 to 1995…
Grassley, who led the Judiciary Committee when Senate Republicans confirmed two of President Donald Trump’s three Supreme Court nominees, did not indicate whether he would make such suggestions to the White House, but said, “I had a chance to tell him that I want somebody that’s going to interpret law, not make law.”
In describing his call with Biden on Tuesday afternoon, McConnell’s office said the Senate minority leader “believes the cornerstone of a nominee’s judicial philosophy should be a commitment to originalism and textualism.”
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