U.S. Senator Doug Jones (D-AL) on Friday confirmed he will not consider the merits of President Donald Trump’s next Supreme Court of the United States nominee, who will be announced by the president on Saturday evening.
Trump has said he will nominate a female and has previously announced the list of candidates from which he will choose.
Yellowhammer News last week reminded the public that Jones in summer 2019 previously vowed to oppose any hypothetical SCOTUS nominee put forward in 2020.
Jones on Thursday told Politico that there was probably not even a point in him meeting with Trump’s nominee.
“I don’t think my vote’s going to count, so I doubt they’ll even want to,” Alabama’s junior senator admitted.
In a Facebook livestream hosted by Jones’ campaign on Friday, he acknowledged that he was keeping his 2019 promise to oppose the nominee, regardless of who that ultimately is.
“I will not support the confirmation of any Supreme Court justice nominee, regardless of who it might be — I will not support that nominee — before the outcome of the November 3 election has been determined,” Jones said.
He is now officially in line with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who has opined that “this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.”
Jones also signaled that he would oppose any nominee before the Senate in the lame-duck period if Trump is not reelected.
The senator in his Friday remarks also claimed that the coming Supreme Court nomination is “about healthcare and destroying the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare).”
It is unclear how Jones divined how a yet-to-be-named nominee would vote in this regard. Nevertheless, his claims and preemptive attempts to delegitimize America’s system of jurisprudence did not stop there.
Jones added, “That’s what this is about. … But it’s also about peaceful transition of power.”
The senator continued to say that his “hopes” of Trump’s nominee not being confirmed have seemingly already “been dashed.”
“My vote will not affect the outcome of this process one bit,” Jones lamented.
Jones voted against Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation in 2018 but had not yet been elected to office at the time of Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation earlier in Trump’s term.
In defending his vote against Kavanaugh, Jones asserted that representing the majority of his constituents is not “the be all to end all.”
An early and fervent backer of Joe Biden’s presidential bid, Jones voted twice to remove Trump from office earlier this year.
National Republican Senatorial Committee spokesperson Paige Lindgren said in a statement to Yellowhammer News, “A nominee has yet to be named and anti-Trump Democrat Doug Jones is already opposing the pick. Refusing to take part in a consequential Supreme Court decision is the latest example that Jones has one foot out the door. He’s clearly no longer focused on accurately representing the people of Alabama.”
RELATED: Doug Jones fundraises off of late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death
Sean Ross is the editor of Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @sean_yhn
Don’t miss out! Subscribe today to have Alabama’s leading headlines delivered to your inbox.