Lindsey Graham: SCOTUS nomination 'means the radical left has won President Biden over yet again'

South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said on Friday that the nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court "means the radical Left has won President Biden over yet again."

The "attacks by the Left" on Graham's preferred candidate, Judge J. Michelle Childs, "apparently worked" since she was not nominated, said Graham, ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Childs, a federal district court judge for the District of South Carolina, was widely seen as more moderate philosophically than the other two candidates on the administration's short list for the high court opening.

"I expect a respectful but interesting hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee," said Graham. 

"The Harvard-Yale train to the Supreme Court continues to run unabated," he added.

Jackson graduated from Harvard University and Harvard Law School.

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Friday that he will carefully consider Jackson's nomination.

Cruz congratulated Jackson and said he looks forward to sitting down with her.

"While I have concerns about how President Biden is handling this nomination process, I look forward to evaluating Judge Jackson on her record, views, and judicial philosophy alone," Cruz said Friday. "Sadly, Senate Democrats have undermined the American people's confidence in previous judicial confirmation processes with vicious personal smears and unfounded accusations.

"These kinds of shameless attacks demeaned the Senate and made a mockery of our constitutional role in providing advice and consent to the president on nominations. I believe Judge Jackson should be treated with the dignity and decorum that has been lacking from the consideration of past nominations." 

Cruz said Texans deserve a "rigorous investigation" of Jackson's nomination.

"This is especially key in a time when too many parts of our executive and judicial branches are at risk of politicization, and when Americans face crises directly related to our legal system with unenforced federal laws at our border and in prosecutors' offices across the country," he said.

"While I previously voted against confirming Judge Jackson to her current position on the D.C. Circuit, I will engage in careful consideration of her nomination," he continued. "I will closely scrutinize her record, as I firmly believe that justices must hold fidelity to the Constitution and the proper role of a judge — that of an impartial jurist, not a robed partisan."