GOP: any Obama Supreme Court nomination is dead in the water

Republicans took to the airwaves on Sunday morning to repeat their vow that nobody President Obama nominates to replace the late Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court will ever get to the bench.

It took about five minutes after the confirmation of Scalia’s death on Saturday for top GOP politicians to telegraph their refusal to consider any Obama nominee. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Judiciary Committee chair Chuck Grassley both said that the next president, not Obama, should be the one to nominate a successor to the conservative titan.

Obama—who, after all, is still the president for nearly a year—said on Saturday night that he will do what presidents do and nominate someone. On Sunday, GOP presidential candidates Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz both dismissed this as dead in the water. Rubio said that he didn’t think the Senate would even take up consideration of a nominee.

“I don’t think the Senate’s going to move on it, and I agree with that decision,” he told CNN. He added that the court could function easily with eight justices, saying, “it does it all the time.”

Cruz went further, telling ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that he will “absolutely” filibuster any Obama nominee.

“If the Democrats want to replace this nominee, they need to win the election,” he said.