{"id":8032,"date":"2018-06-30T11:39:19","date_gmt":"2018-06-30T18:39:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=8032"},"modified":"2018-06-30T11:40:01","modified_gmt":"2018-06-30T18:40:01","slug":"trump-to-announce-supreme-court-pick-july-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=8032","title":{"rendered":"Trump to announce Supreme Court pick July 9"},"content":{"rendered":"
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President Trump<\/a><\/span>\u00a0on\u00a0Friday\u00a0said he has narrowed his list of potential Supreme Court nominees to about five, including two women, and plans to announce his pick on July 9.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cI\u2019ve got it narrowed to about five,\u201d he told reporters on Air Force One en route to his New Jersey golf club, where he said he plans to interview one or two candidates this weekend.<\/p>\n

Trump said he would interview six to seven candidates in total, saying, “I like them all.”<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have great people,\u201d Trump said of his short list. \u201cHighly talented, brilliant, mostly conservative judges.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Trump\u2019s comments are the latest sign he is moving rapidly to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy, who announced his retirement this week.\u00a0Kennedy’s retirement does not become official until July 31.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

A July 9 announcement would come just before Trump leaves for a six-day trip to Europe and could set up a potential confirmation vote as early as the fall.<\/p>\n

The vacancy has given Trump an opportunity to solidify conservative control of the nation\u2019s highest court.<\/p>\n

Kennedy, 81, served as a swing vote on key immigration, abortion and gay\u00a0rights cases. The president has said he wants to fill his seat with someone in the mold of his first Supreme Court pick, Neil Gorsuch, a staunch conservative jurist.<\/p>\n

The president said\u00a0he would not ask<\/a>\u00a0potential nominees about their position on Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that gave women the right to an abortion.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to ask them that question,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Trump did not\u00a0offer\u00a0up the five names on his short list, which he has said will be pulled\u00a0from\u00a0a list of 25 judges<\/a>\u00a0he first released during the 2016 campaign. But he did recognize Sen.\u00a0Mike Lee<\/a><\/span>\u2019s (R-Utah) public\u00a0acknowledgment\u00a0he would not turn down the post.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said he\u2019d like the job, usually they don\u2019t say that,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

Lee is on Trump\u2019s initial list of possible Supreme Court picks.<\/p>\n

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Kennedy\u2019s retirement announcement set off a scramble by the president, White House staff and outside conservative allies to identify a replacement and strategize for what is expected to be a brutal confirmation fight in the Senate.<\/div>\n
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Trump met\u00a0on Thursday\u00a0night with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman\u00a0Chuck Grassley<\/a><\/span>\u00a0(R-Iowa) and two key GOP swing votes, Sens.\u00a0Lisa Murkowski<\/a><\/span>\u00a0(Alaska) and\u00a0Susan Collins<\/a><\/span>\u00a0(Maine). Also meeting with the president were Democratic senators representing\u00a0states Trump won in 2016: West Virginia\u2019s\u00a0Joe Manchin<\/a><\/span>, North Dakota\u2019s\u00a0Heidi Heitkamp<\/a><\/span>\u00a0and Indiana\u2019s\u00a0Joe Donnelly<\/a><\/span>.<\/div>\n
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White House aides have spoken with several other senators by phone.<\/div>\n
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Senate Majority Leader\u00a0Mitch McConnell<\/a><\/span>\u00a0(R-Ky.) said he would likely hold a confirmation vote in the fall before the Supreme Court\u2019s new session begins in October. It would also be before the November midterm elections, when the GOP is looking to hold onto its slim majority in the upper chamber.<\/div>\n
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While Trump hasn\u2019t discussed possible nominees, some names are believed to include Washington-based federal appeals court judge Brett Kavanaugh, a former clerk to Kennedy, and Amy Coney Barrett, another federal appeals judge.<\/div>\n
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Finalists from Trump\u2019s first Supreme Court search may also receive another look: Raymond Kethledge, a federal appeals court judge who also clerked for Kennedy, Philadelphia-based appeals judge Thomas Hardiman, and Ohio-based appeals judge Amul Thapar.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The confirmation battle is\u00a0expected to be the most expensive in history<\/a>, since the ideological balance of the court is at stake.<\/div>\n
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The conservative Judicial Crisis Network has said it plans to spend at least $1 million on a national cable and digital advertising campaign pressuring Democrats facing for reelection in states that Trump won in 2016.<\/div>\n
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\u2028Americans for Prosperity, which serves as the political arm of the network founded by conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch, said it will also spend more than $1 million on a campaign \u201cto support a nominee in the mold of Neil Gorsuch.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Liberal groups are also expected to spend significant money making the case that another conservative judge could endanger Roe v. Wade and result in unfavorable rulings in crucial gun-rights and voting-rights cases.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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