Biden thanked the 3 Republicans who voted to confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court: 'I hope I don't get them in trouble'

• Biden thanked the 3 Republicans who voted to confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.
• "I hope I don't get them in trouble," he quipped, adding that they "deserve enormous credit."

President Joe Biden on Friday publicly thanked the three Republican senators who voted to confirm his Supreme Court nominee, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.

"I hope I don't get them in trouble," Biden quipped, before he praised the trio. "I want to thank three Republicans who voted for Judge Jackson."

Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Mitt Romney of Utah each announced ahead of the final confirmation vote that they will support Jackson. They broke with their party and voted to confirm her on Thursday.

Biden extended his appreciation toward the three GOP members during a White House ceremony on Friday in celebration of Jackson's bipartisan and historic confirmation to the Supreme Court. The Senate voted to confirm Jackson in a 53-47 vote on Thursday afternoon. Jackson will serve as the 116th justice and first Black woman on the nation's highest court after retiring Associate Justice Stephen Breyer, 83, steps down from the bench this summer.

"Senator Collins, who is a woman of integrity, Senator Murkowski in the same way, who's up for reelection," said Biden, alluding to the potential challenges for a Republican lawmaker who voted to confirm a Democratic-appointed Supreme Court nominee in an election year. "And Mitt Romney, whose dad stood up like he did. His dad stood up and made those decisions on civil rights."

Biden was giving a nod to George Romney, the Utah senator's father who served as Michigan's governor and was a Republican supporter of the civil rights movement. In the summer of 2020, following the police murder of George Floyd, Mitt Romney marched in a Black Lives Matter protest in Washington, DC.

"They deserve enormous credit for setting aside partisanship and making a carefully considered judgement based on the judge's character, qualifications, and independence," Biden said.

Biden's comments come as the three GOP senators face some criticism from the far-right factions of their party over their decision.

Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia accused them of being "pro-pedophile," a charge that Collins rebuked to Insider as "obviously ludicrous and typical." Greene appeared to be referencing the Republican attacks on Jackson's sentencing record concerning a handful of child-pornography cases. Legal experts have repeatedly rejected the claims as dishonest and misleading.

Murkowski, for her part, said she had not experienced any significant backlash over her support for Jackson. Murkowski, Collins, and Sen. Lindsey Graham voted to confirm Jackson last year to her current seat on the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. But Graham opposed Jackson's nomination to the Supreme Court.

"I think every one of us all, all 50 senators on the Republican side of the aisle, know that we come to these very important votes, we have to come to it in our own way and our own place, our own analysis, our own review, recognizing the states that we come from," Murkowski told reporters on Thursday after the vote.