Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Images
Eighty-nine year-old Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) returned to Congress in a wheelchair yesterday after missing a month and change worth of work with a painful case of shingles, but the steady stream of leaks about her cognitive decline continues to flow.
A report from Politico on Thursday included a particularly troubling anecdote about Feinstein confusing Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) with Senator Raphael Warnock (D-GA) shortly after Warnock’s election to the upper chamber of Congress in 2021.
Ben Terris wrote that a Senate staffer told him the story:
About a year earlier, Feinstein had approached Senator Tim Scott, stuck out her hand, and told him she had been rooting for him and was so happy to have him serving with her in the Senate. It was obvious to Scott and the staffers in tow that Feinstein had mistaken the South Carolinian for Raphael Warnock, the newly elected Democratic senator from Georgia. Scott had played along. “Thank you so much,” he had told Feinstein, according to the staffer who told me about the incident. “Your support means a lot.”
The story exemplifies a lack of mindfulness — even two years ago — that has been remarked upon by commentators as well as a number of Feinstein’s own colleagues. A report from the San Francisco Chronicle last year included anonymous quotes from several senators, including Democrats. One fellow progressive remarked that the senior senator’s condition was “bad” and “getting worse.”
But some Republicans have argued that the calls for Feinstein’s resignation reflect only a desire to replace her collegial spirit with a firebrand. According to the Chronicle, she “shocked colleagues” when she thanked then-Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) for his “fairness” during Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation hearing in 2020.
Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) articulated this suspicion during Feinstein’s hiatus, saying she should not support a temporary replacement for Feinstein on the Judiciary Committee because “During the past two years, it has become crystal clear that there has been a concerted campaign to force her off the Judiciary Committee.”
“I will have no part in it,” she added.
Representatives Ro Khanna (D-CA), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and Dean Phillips (D-MN) all called on Feinstein to resign during her hiatus from the Senate.
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