Sen. Bernie Sanders has strongly criticized Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for blocking Sen. Elizabeth Warren from speaking during the senate's debate over the nomination of Jeff Sessions to be attorney general.On Tuesday night, Warren attempted to read from a 1986 letter in which Coretta Scott King, the widow of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., opposed Sessions' nomination to be a federal judge because King said Sessions had an extremely poor record on civil rights issues.
McConnell invoked a rule that prohibits senators from engaging in personal attacks, and the Republican majority upheld the ruling.
On Wednesday morning, Sanders called the ruling "incomprehensible," and read Coretta Scott King's letter in full. He also demanded that McConnell apologize to Warren.
“I am going to vote against Jeff Sessions to become our next attorney general, but I am even more alarmed about the decision of the majority leader here in the Senate to deny one of our leading senators the right to voice her opinion, the right to put into the congressional record what I have just said,” said Sanders.
Sanders challenged Republican leaders to try to stop him from speaking on the Senate floor.
"And if Mr. McConnell or anybody else wants to deny me the right to debate Jeff Sessions' qualifications, go for it,” said Sanders.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj9Mekjh-KI
Republican leaders allowed Sanders to read King's letter. Sen. Patrick Leahy also condemned the Republican effort to silence Warren.
