McConnell, Grassley, Hatch get smaked over Supreme Court

American Bridge hits McConnell, Grassley, Hatch with ads on Supreme Court

By Edward-Isaac Dovere

American Bridge Project, the 501c4 of the liberal super PAC, is getting into the Supreme Court fight with a series of digital ads—including ones directly targeting Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah).

American Bridge isn’t disclosing the size of the buy, but says it will be national, with specific buys in the home states of the three senators—all of whom look somewhat younger, but not too different, even in videos that are 20 years old.

The main ad intersperses old clips of the three senators speaking against obstruction on judicial nominations with more recent clips insisting that they won’t move on President Barack Obama’s pick, Merrick Garland. McConnell is shown saying that judges deserve an up-or-down vote. “We have nothing against this nominee, Mr. Garland,” Grassley is shown saying in vintage footage. Hatch, who voted to confirm Garland to his current seat on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in 1997 while complaining against politicization, is shown saying, “Playing politics with judges is unfair.”

“I believe Merrick Garland is a fine nominee,” Hatch is shown saying in the ad specific to him.

“That was then, but this is now,” the ad’s narrator says, over quickly escalating suspense music and “UNPRECEDENTED OBSTRUCTION” flashing on screen.

The ads also feature a clip of Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump saying “delay, delay, delay” on stage at the Republican debate from the night after Antonin Scalia was found dead.

Conservative groups have already been spending heavily and threatening more, and seem to have been successful in pushing Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kansas) back from saying he thought Garland should get a hearing. But the fight is about to intensify as the Senate comes back from its two-week recess, and the White House pushes for more senators to take meetings with Garland.