Today In History: Trump Predicts Riots; Obama Nominates Garland To Supreme Court

March 17, 2017, is the 76th day of the year, with 289 days remaining. The moon is in a waning gibbous phase, with illumination at 78 percent.

Obama Names Merrick Garland as Nominee to Supreme Court

Following weeks of speculation, President Obama announced his nominee to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court. His choice? Chief judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals, Merrick Garland, who was widely viewed as a moderate judge and most known for overseeing the investigation of the prosecution of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. Republicans vowed to block the nomination of Garland, with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stating that the Senate would wait until a new president was in place before holding a hearing on a nominee. Scalia’s death found the nine-member Supreme Court in an even split between four liberal and four conservative justices.

Obama described Garland as a “serious man and an exemplary judge” in his address of the Republican leaders’ refusal to consider a nominee at the time. The president added that, regarding discussion surrounding Supreme Court vacancies, “the one name that [had] come up repeatedly — from Republicans and Democrats alike — [was] Merrick Garland.”

Trump Predicts Riots Ensue If Not Named GOP Nominee

“I think we’ll win before getting to the convention,” said then-presidential candidate Donald Trump in a 2016 address of the GOP nomination of the time. “But I can tell you, if we didn’t and if we’re 20 votes short or ... if we’re ... 100 short and we’re at 1,100 and somebody else is at 500 or 400, because we’re way ahead of everybody, I don’t think you can say that we don’t get it automatically. I think it would be — I think you’d have riots. I think you’d have riots.”

House Speaker Paul Ryan condemned the suggestion.

“Nobody should say such things, in my opinion, because to even address or hint at violence is unacceptable,” he said.

Trump, at the time the original statement was made, had 673 delegates under his proverbial belt, the highest number of delegates of any Republican candidate in American history.

But in the end, there were no riots, and Ryan ultimately endorsed Trump that following June. Trump secured more than the required 1,237 delegates and went on to become the Republican nominee for the 2016 presidential election, eventually winning with 304 electoral votes, a 77-count lead over his opponent, Hillary Clinton.

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Photo credit: Michael Vadon via Flickr