The time for voting to confirm Judge Neil Gorsuch as President Trump’s pick for the Supreme Court is rapidly approaching. The BIG question is whether or not there will be a filibuster. The answer now seems to be that there will be. That means that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will have to pull the trigger on the nuclear option to keep his promise. Hopefully, as this will be a strictly party line vote, he has his party shored up and ready. Has he counted them yet? 

As Written By Jazz Shaw for Hot Air:

Earlier today, Ed went over the current state of the pending “nuclear battle” concerning the confirmation of Judge Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. No matter how you look at it, the pickings are slimmer than I’d previously hoped in terms of finding enough Democrats to reach cloture. In Ed’s estimation it looks like we’re going to need Mitch McConnell to pull the trigger on Friday. But that leaves us with one uncomfortable question on the table… is the gun really loaded?

Last week I wrote about some of the back room maneuvering going on, much of it centered on John McCain. While I still think the era of “gang warfare” in the Senate may be pretty much over, I continue to hear rumblings about McCain hoping to strike some sort of a deal. It’s true that he, along with some other veterans of the Gang of 14 and more moderate members, have said they will support the option if they have to, but they wouldn’t have to if they cut some sort of a deal on their own. After all, it only takes three Republicans to scotch the entire thing. The Daily Caller looked at this looming train wreck a week ago and saw some possibilities, including a defection by Susan Collins for starters.

The most likely candidates in this regard are GOP Sens. Susan Collins, John McCain, and Lindsay Graham. All three were members of the “Gang of 14,” a bipartisan group of senators that reached an accord on confirmed Bush-era nominees without invoking the nuclear option in 2005. Other Republicans with something of a moderate streak, like Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Jeff Flake, might also oppose such a dramatic….

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Wait… do we actually have the votes to nuke the filibuster? « Hot Air