Longtime NBC anchor Tom Brokaw lauded President Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Judge Neil Gorsuch, on Friday during an appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."
Brokaw said there will be major pushback from Democrats for Gorsuch's nomination hearing and that it will be one of the "testing places" for them.
"The fact is that this man has a very distinguished background in the judicial world," Brokaw said. "I have friends in the federal judiciary who don't agree with his philosophy, but say there is not a better judge in the federal circuit right now than him."
Brokaw then rhetorically asked why Senate Democrats would use this nomination hearing as their fight.
Senate Democrats are still bitter that their Republican colleagues would not hold a vote on former President Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, last year. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) has suggested his party will filibuster Gorsuch's nomination because he is not a sufficiently "mainstream" jurist.
"We Democrats will insist on a rigorous but fair process," Schumer said in a speech on the Senate floor this week. "There will be 60 votes for confirmation. Any one member can require it. Many Democrats already have, and it is the right thing to do. On a subject as important as a Supreme Court nomination, bipartisan support should be a prerequisite. It should be essential. That's what 60 votes does."
While several Democrats are following Schumer's lead, Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) criticized Senate Democrats for trying to get even with Republicans, the Washington Free Beacon reported on Wednesday.
"I'm anxious to sit down with the new nominee and find out more about him, to find out basically to look at his judicial rulings and have more of an idea of what's going on," Manchin said. "If you want the third branch of government to work, then you got to have a nine-member Supreme Court."
"If Republicans did something and now Democrats are going to do something, two wrongs don't make a right," Manchin added.