Page 6 - Florida Sentinel 3-4-16 Edition

President Meets With Top Senators About Supreme Court Nominee; To No Avail
Senators Harry Reid, Patrick Leahy, both Democratic leaders and Mitch McConnell and Chuck Grassley, both Republicans met with President Obama on Tuesday.
The two Republican sena- tors sat together on one couch, while the Democratic senators sat a few feet away on another, but the gap between them in Tuesday’s meeting with Pres- ident Barack Obama in the Oval Office could hardly have been bigger.
President Obama asked Republican congressional leaders for suggestions on a Supreme Court nominee.
President Obama met with Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell and Sen- ate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, both Republicans, in the Oval Office to discuss a replace- ment for the late Justice An- tonin Scalia.
"The President ... gave everyone in the room, Democ- rats and Republicans, the op- portunity to put forward their own suggestions for potential Supreme Court nominees. ”The President didn't guar-
antee that he would choose that person, but the Presi- dent did indicate that he would take seriously any rec- ommendations that either De- mocrats or Republicans had to put forward."
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid and Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy, the top Democrat on the judiciary panel, also attended the meet- ing.
After the discussions about choosing a nominee for the Supreme Court seat left va- cant when Justice Antonin Scalia died, Sen. Reid and Leahy emerged and quickly denounced their Republican colleagues before a bank of TV cameras set up outside the West Wing of the White House.
“They think they are going to wait and see what Presi- dent Trump will do, I guess, as far as the nomination is concerned,” Mr. Reid said,
referring to Donald J. Trump, the Republican pres- idential front - runner.
Mr. Reid said the meeting was brief. “We killed a lot of time talking about basketball and other stuff,” he said. Mr. Reid described the Republi- cans as implacable and said there was nothing to suggest that they might budge.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen- ator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the Republican chair- man of the Senate Judiciary Committee, waited to talk about the meeting until they returned to Capitol Hill.
“Mr. Grassley and I made it clear that we don’t intend to take up a nominee or to have hearings,” Mr. McConnell said at a news conference at the Capitol. He added, “We will look forward to the Amer- ican people deciding who they want to make this appoint- ment through their own vote.”
President Obama Expected To Attend Rays-Cuba Exhibition Game
The Tampa Bay Rays will travel to Cuba to play the Cuban National Team in an exhibi- tion game on March 22, and President Barack Obama is expected to be in atten- dance.
"Americans and Cubans share a love of baseball, and this is yet another powerful re- minder of the kinship between our peoples as well as the progress we can achieve when we leverage those natural ties," a White House official said Tuesday.
The announcement of the president's planned attendance was first made on Sports- Center. The game will be televised on ESPN and ESPN Deportes. SportsCenter and Out- side the Lines begin live coverage March 20 of the Rays' trip to Havana.
Major League Baseball and the MLBPA offi- cially announced the exhibition in a release earlier Tuesday evening. It will be the first visit to Cuba by an MLB team since the Balti- more Orioles played an exhibition game there against the Cuban National Team in 1999.
Rays owner Stuart Sternberg said in the release that his team was "privileged" to visit the country on what would be a "memorable
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA
and significant" trip, a sentiment echoed by league commissioner Rob Manfred.
"Major League Baseball is excited to play in Cuba and to have the Tampa Bay Rays rep- resenting our 30 Clubs," Manfred said. "During a time of historic change, we appre- ciate the constructive role afforded by our shared passion for the game, and we look for- ward to experiencing Cuba's storied baseball tradition and the passion of its many loyal fans."
Presidential News
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