An Analysis of the Coverage of Mitch McConnell’s Statements following Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Death
Following the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, plans about filling her vacancy were widely discussed. On September 18, 2020, the day Ginsburg passed away, her granddaughter, Clara Spera told NPR that her grandmother had one wish before her death: that her vacancy on the Supreme Court not be filled until after the next president is elected. Soon after her death, Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, tweeted a statement about the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg in which he offered his condolences to her family and friends. He concluded his statement by adding that “in the last midterm election before Justice Scalia’s death in 2016, Americans elected a Republican senate majority because we pledged to check and balance the last days of a lame-duck president’s second term. We kept our promise … Once again [in 2020] we will keep our promise. President Trump’s nominee will receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate.”
In 2016, following the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, Mitch McConnell stated that “The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.” McConnell’s decision to allow for President Trump’s nominee to receive a vote in the Senate has received a lot of backlash from Senate Democrats and the Biden campaign. Many Senate Democrats have expressed that it is hypocritical for McConnell to allow for Trump’s nominee to receive a vote in the Senate because at the time of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, the election was only two months away, whereas Justice Antonin Scalia died in February of 2016, eight months before the 2016 election. Other than the fact that Justice Scalia died much earlier in the election year than Justice Ginsburg did, another factor that made this story so newsworthy was the fact that McConnell blocked a Democratic president’s nomination to replace a conservative justice with a moderate but intends to support a Republican president’s nomination to replace a liberal justice with a conservative.
The contradictory statements of McConnell made news following the death of Ginsburg and many news outlets reported on it, including Fox News, MSNBC, Politico, and NPR. In my analysis, I will be identifying the ways in which coverage varied between the four news outlets.
On September 18. Fox News released an article titled “McConnell: Trump’s Supreme Court nominee ‘will receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate.’” The headline was clear and to the point and did not try to sway readers to agree or disagree with McConnell’s decision. The article remained neutral, providing quotes from the statement that McConnell had made on Twitter that same day, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s tweet in which he stated that “The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.” The only aspect the article failed to mention was the fact that Ginsburg’s dying wish was for her vacancy to be filled after the election.
The Fox News article included clips from their television network from the moments after it was announced that Ginsburg had died. They also included a clip of McConnell addressing the Republican National Convention, in which he endorses Trump and urges viewers to do the same. On Twitter, the article was met with both praise and opposition. It received a total of 369 retweets and 2400 likes compared to the 182 retweets and 810 likes that the story that announced that Ginsburg died received.
On September 18, MSNBC published a clip from Rachel Maddow’s show in which she explained the hypocrisy of Mitch McConnell’s statements after Scalia and Ginsburg’s deaths. In the clip titled, “How Mitch McConnell broke the process for naming a new Supreme Court justice,” Maddow explained that almost immediately after Scalia’s death, McConnell stated that his seat would be held open until the next president was elected. She also gave more information on the senate’s opinion on Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, and that he may have been “unanimously approved by the Senate in the past.” She added that “nevertheless, Mitch McConnell vowed that Merrick Garland would never see the inside of the Supreme Court, that his nomination would never be considered, President Obama would not be allowed to fill that open seat, not even if he nominated Jesus himself.” She also added that McConnell said that not allowing President Obama to fill the Supreme Court vacancy was “one of [his proudest moments].”
Throughout the clip, Maddow is stern and critical of McConnell’s decision to allow for Trump’s nominee to receive a vote Senate floor. At one point during the clip, a chyron with statement, “Ginsburg dictated statement before her death wishing she ‘will not be replaced until a new president is installed.’” Maddow had evidence to back up every statement she made, whether it was citing other articles or showing archival footage, however it was evident that she was opposed to McConnell’s decision and agreed that he was being contradicting and vocal about supporting Trump’s nomination because Trump is a Republican and wants to fill Ginsburg’s seat with a conservative justice. Most of the comments under the MSNBC’s YouTube version of this clip that garnered 703,258 views, 9,600 likes and 1,100 dislikes, agreed with Maddow’s criticism.
On September 21, NPR published an article titled “McConnell Reiterates Pledge to Vote on Trump’s Supreme Court Nominee This Year.” The article explained that McConnell is sticking with his plans to support President Trump’s nominee to fill Ginsburg’s vacancy. It also explained that “McConnell pushed back at those who argued that with just weeks left before the election the Senate can't complete the confirmation process, saying there are 43 days until the election and 104 until the end of this session of Congress.” The article also included Chuck Schumer’s complaint that Republicans who support McConnell “made a mockery of their previous positions,” referencing Senate Republican’s opposition of President Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland. The headline was once again neutral, not swaying toward opposition or in favor of McConnell’s statement. The article itself included quotes from both Republican and Democrat senate leaders. Online, the article was used as a source from both sides of the political spectrum, readers who supported and opposed McConnell’s statements shared and commented on the article on Twitter.
The last news organization I chose was Politico, and there September 21 article titled “McConnell fends off accusations of hypocrisy over holding Supreme Court vote.” Right off the bat the article stated that “Democrats are accusing McConnell and other Republicans of a double standard when it comes to the Supreme Court, citing McConnell’s 2016 decision to block President Barack Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, because it was an election year.” This article was the only article to include the following remarks made by McConnell: “Apart from that one strange exception, no Senate has failed to confirm a nominee in the circumstances that face us now … The historical precedent is overwhelming and it runs in one direction. If our Democratic colleagues want to claim they are outraged, they can only be outraged at the plain facts of American history.” A quote from Schumer aggressively opposing the Senate Republicans was also included in the story. Schumer said, “They know there is no reason, no reason, no argument, no logic to justify flipping your position 180 degrees and calling it some kind of principle. It is not.”
Once again, this article remained neutral and did not support or condone McConnell’s statements. It can be argued that their use of the word “fend” to describe McConnell’s actions after his statements were announced does imply that McConnell has something to defend, however I do not believe this article was meant to persuade or dissuade any reader’s opinion on the story.
The reason I chose to analyze stories from Fox News, MSNBC, NPR, and Politico was because I believe they represent the different sides of political news coverage. Fox News leans conservatively, and with praise from President Trump while MSNBC caters to the liberal audience. Both NPR and Politico are neutral news organizations. Although I believe that all four of the news organizations covered the story in a fair, truthful, and neutral way, objectively MSNBC’s coverage of the story was the most truthful, even though some can argue that Maddow was too critical of McConnell. It is no secret that McConnell had an agenda in 2016 and knew exactly what he was doing when he blocked Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland. He also knows exactly what he is doing by stating that the Senate will receive Trump’s nomination. His argument for blocking Obama’s nomination in 2016 was that it was only fair that the American people have their voices heard, and that it was too close to the election to have the current president fill the vacancy. Now, even closer to the election than in 2016 when a Supreme Court seat became vacant, McConnell believes that the President should fill the vacancy, and there is more than enough time to do so before the election. Maddow was rightfully critical and skeptical of McConnell’s statements and the blatant hypocrisy that Senate Republicans stand behind, and I do not believe you have to be a Democrat or liberal to understand the contradictory statements made by McConnell. Fox News, Politico, and NPR were fair in their reporting, however their downfall, in my opinion, was appealing to both-side-ism and not being slightly more critical.