Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) revealed on his podcast this week why Senate Democrats are trying to force Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) off the Senate Judiciary Committee.
What is the background?
Democrats want to remove the 89-year-old Feinstein from the Senate Judiciary Committee because her long-term absence from the Senate — due to a case of shingles — is thwarting Senate Democrats from confirming some of President Joe Biden’s judicial nominees.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer even tried to temporarily replace her with Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), but Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), the committee’s ranking member, blocked the move.
“This is about a handful of judges you can’t get the votes for,” Graham said this week on the Senate floor.
What did Cruz say?
Speaking on his podcast “Verdict with Ted Cruz,” the Texas Republican said that Democrats’ ire toward Feinstein began in 2020 when she hugged Graham — then the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee — at the end of Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing.
“The radical left-wing of the Democrat Party lost their mind. They truly went into fits of rage that she would dare hug Lindsey Graham,” Cruz said
According to Cruz, Democrats then punished Feinstein by choosing Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) to be chairman of the committee when they regained control of the Senate despite Feinstein having served as ranking member.
“Now, Dianne Feinstein was slated to be the next chairman of the Judiciary Committee if the Democrats took the majority. Because the radical left wing was so angry, within days, Chuck Schumer announced Feinstein is no longer in line to be chairman of the Judiciary Committee,” he explained. “”Basically, he took Feinstein to a back alley and effectively shot her. And it was giving in to the most extreme left-wing voices of the Democrat Party.”
Making Durbin chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee was unusual, Cruz said, because Durbin already served in a leadership position as Senate Democrats’ whip.
“Under Senate rules, typically, the majority leader, the minority leader, the majority whip, the minority whip can’t be a committee chairman also. There’s a basic principle that if you have one leadership position, you can’t have another one,” Cruz said. “Well, the Democrats decided, ‘Screw that. We’re gonna make Dick Durbin both majority whip and chairman of the Judiciary Committee.’ Why? Because the radical left is so pissed at Dianne Feinstein.”
In the end, Cruz observed that it is a telling Democrats are pushing for Feinstein’s removal when they did not in the past when other senators were sidelined for health reasons, citing the late Sen. John McCain (R) and freshman Sen. John Fetterman (D-Penn.).
“It raises an obvious question: Why the double standard? Why is she the target of their ire?” Cruz said.
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!