MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough bashed the “Republican grievance signaling” on parade during the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson.
The “Morning Joe” host singled out Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who asked Jackson to rate her religious faith on a scale of 1-10 before storming out of the hearing in a fit of pique, but had harsh criticism for all the GOP senators who questioned the nominee about a variety of topics hyped by Fox News but unlikely to come before the court.
“The grievance signaling this week has been, Republican grievance signaling — RGS — this week, has been on full display,” Scarborough said.
Scarborough criticized Democrats — then and now — for their questions about Amy Coney Barrett’s faith and years-old misconduct allegations against Brett Kavanaugh, and co-host Willie Geist said Republicans were relitigating their own grievances about those previous confirmation fights.
“That line of questioning, which was so grotesque from Lindsey Graham, was all about Amy Coney Barrett,” Scarborough said. “The point he was trying to make, if you actually hung in there for the however long, 15 minutes, is these were the kind of questions that were being asked of Amy Coney Barrett, now Justice Barrett. I thought Judge Jackson handled them well. She took a deep breath from time to time to absorb what she probably wanted to say, and cooly say, ‘This isn’t about my faith, I don’t apply my faith to the decisions.’ She cited Justice Barrett, who said my faith will not impact the decisions that I make, it is not appropriate to talk about it here,’ though she did signal her faith when asked questions about when life begins by Sen. [Ted] Cruz, for example.”