Krauthammer: If Dems Filibuster, GOP Goes Nuclear

If Democrats filibuster the nomination of Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch, Senate Republicans will employ the "nuclear option" and nominate him with a 51-vote majority, conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer said.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell "is not going to allow this nomination to go down," Krauthammer said on Fox News Channel. "Now, perhaps, the Democrats will decide that a filibuster in this case is not worth it. After all, it is a one-for-one substitution for Scalia. They want to hold their powder for the next one, which could be the replacement for a liberal, a Democrat on the court. In which case, it would shift the balance of power dramatically for decades."

But if Democrats do decide to dig in and fight on Gorsuch, McConnell will likely not back down, he said. "After all, he stood up to a lot of heavy incoming fire by holding up the Merrick Garland nomination, which I think was exactly the right move."

McConnell refused to hold hearings for Garland after he was nominated in March by former President Barack Obama to replace conservative Justice Antonin Scalia.

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