Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, today spoke at a White House event hosted by President Donald Trump marking the latest judicial milestone of this presidency. One out of four appellate court judges have now been appointed by Trump.
Grassley’s tweets about the milestone and White House event can be found here, here and here and an Instagram post can be found here.
Video of Grassley’s and Trump’s remarks can be viewed and downloaded here and a transcript can be found below.
TRANSCRIPT
TRUMP: A man that I have a lot of respect for, and everybody does in the Senate, Chuck Grassley. Come up and say a couple of words, Chuck. Come on up.
GRASSLEY: Now like I tell my colleagues, if I yell, I’m not mad at you. If I – let me say what set the stage for this, before any of us had anything to do with this. You ran on a platform that no other president has run on, to tell the type of people that you were going to put on the Supreme Court. And named 20 or 25 people, and that list is still out there, and it’s made up of just the kind of people that Mitch McConnell’s talked about, you’ve talked about, people that are constitutionalists. And you kept your word. And 20 percent of the people who voted for you on – based on the proposition of the kind of people you were going to put on the Supreme Court. So a lot of candidates for any office run on a platform but they don’t stand on that platform and I think what’s important about not only the judges that you have appointed along the lines of what you promised the people you were going to appoint, but also a lot of other issues that you stand for and the people of this country ought to be complimented that we have a president that said he was going to run on a platform and he stands on that platform and you’ve particularly done it for judges.
TRUMP: He’s great. Thank you. You know he’s got this fierce way about him. He’s tough even when he’s trying to be nice, like now he’s fine. But I heard that voice. I shouldn’t say this but he looked during one of the big events in the United States Senate, he looked at a guy named Comey and he said, did you leak? And he was being nice. And Comey choked. He didn’t know what to say. He was so frightened of this guy. He choked. I want him to start looking that stuff up by the way, please. Please look it up. A lot of choke there.
