On Monday’s Tennessee Star Report with Steve Gill and Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 am to 8:00 am – Gill and Leahy chatted with Tennessee State Senator Lamar Alexander about the Democrat stalling of confirmation efforts and his exchange with Chuck Schumer and the lack of an apology during Schumer’s display of discourtesy on the Senate floor.
Gill: Senator Lamar Alexander going all “Lindsey Graham” on Chuck Schumer who not only has disrespected the process of slowing the judicial confirmation process for no good reason. But with a particular nominee for the TVA board, John Ryder, lawyer from Memphis. Excellent lawyer with as Lamar Alexander pointed out, seven to ten million people in the region waiting for a new board member so they can get a new CEO, a new Chairman of the TVA. The Democrats holding up John Ryder’s confirmation after he’s already been through the committee process, holding him up for like a hundred and seventy seven days and basically, Chuck Schumer walking out in the midst of the debate, the conversation between Senator Lamar Alexander and himself over this issue. Did everything but you know, kind of flip him the finger like that Harvard player did against the Yale player while he was scoring this weekend. And Lamar good to have you back with us.
Alexander: (Chuckles) Thank you Steve.
Gill:Â Whatever you and Lindsey Graham are eating for breakfast these days we love it! (Laughter)
Alexander: We have breakfast these days sometimes in the same restaurant. (Gill Laughs) I don’t like to have that kind of discussion. But what bothers me is the President, whether it’s President Obama or President Trump, has twelve hundred presidential nominations from Supreme Court Justice to TVA board members. Which is a part time job. And that’s the way an elected President forms the government. So I worked pretty hard for Senator Schumer and Republicans and Democrats a few years ago to make it easier for President’s to get their nominees confirmed so an elected President can form a government. Now what the Democrats are doing is their ‘slow walking’ all the nominees’, they know they can’t beat them, because it just takes fifty one votes to confirm somebody. But they’ll take someone like John Ryder who’s one of the, who’s from Memphis, he’s regularly named one of the best lawyers in Tennessee, he’s been nominated by the President to be a member of the board of the Tennessee Value of Authority. That board needs to pick a new Chief Executive Officer, the most important thing it will do during any of the board members terms. And the Democrats have held up Ryder’s nomination for a hundred and seventy six days for no reason at all.
Gill pointed out that Republicans typically go along and play by the rules when there is a Democrat in the White House. He questioned Alexander on how to fix this problem which appears to be a ‘one way street’ with Democrats. Republicans play by the rules and Democrats break the rules.
Alexander: Well, to some extent that’s true. But just because somebody else misbehaves doesn’t mean you should. I mean we have system of checks and balances in the United States. And right now the Senate is a check on the President. And a lot of the Senate Democrats are complaining about the new Acting Attorney General, Whitaker. Well if they keep this up and won’t confirm the President’s nominees for say, Attorney General, they’ll have a whole government filled with acting officers, acting assisting secretary of this, acting cabinet member of that, and the Senate won’t have any role at all and it won’t have any check and balance. So I don’t want to get into a situation where we have a Republican President and a Democratic Senate and they never confirm anybody. I was trying to point that out to Senator Schumer. What if we have a Democratic President next time and a Republican Senate and the Republican Senate acts like Schumer’s doing right now. The Democratic President won’t even be able to form a government, and that’s not good for the country. So, I don’t think this is benefitting the Democrats for doing it, the election, the Senate election, they don’t get any points for obstructing. They just hurt the country.
Leahy interjected by asking Alexander if he received an apology from Chuck Schumer after walking off the Senate floor as an act of discourtesy while Alexander was directly addressing him. Alexander laughed about how Chuck Schumer called him after the session and was actually mad at him. Alexander chuckled and said to him, “You shouldn’t be mad at me, I should be mad at you.” Alexander stated that no, he did not receive an apology.
Listen to the full segment:
Watch Senator Lamar Alexander’s full remarks on the Senate floor:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 am to the Tennessee Star Report with Steve Gill and Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Just maybe Schumer thought there was an imposter posing as Alexander. All jokes aside–If Lamar Alexander weren’t such a RINO and had developed a backbone a few years ago he may get a little respect from some of those Democrat’s. I know I would. You can’t complain when you get no respect when you have a long history of being a wishy washy Republican COWARD Lamar!!!!