President Trump said on Saturday that he would nominate a woman to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court next week.
“I will be putting forth the nominee next week; it will be a woman,” Mr. Trump told supporters at an outdoor rally at an airport in Fayetteville, N.C. “I actually like women much more than I like men.”
He also indicated that he would push for a swift vote on his nominee, without regard for the results of the November election.
“It says the president is supposed to fill that seat, right?” he said, referring to the U.S. Constitution. “And that’s what we’re going to do, is fill that seat.”
“Fill that seat!” members of the audience chanted to the president’s satisfaction. “You said it better than I can say it,” he said, suggesting that his campaign make T-shirts with the slogan.
Reminding his supporters that he had won the 2016 election, Mr. Trump declared that “those are the consequences,” adding, “It’s called fill that seat, and that’s what we’re doing.”
Mr. Trump said that he and Republicans had promised to fill any vacancies on the Supreme Court and now have “a moral duty to fulfill” that commitment, “and that is exactly what we’re going to do.”
Mr. Trump also conducted a tongue-in-cheek, “very scientific” poll of rallygoers, telling them to express their preference between a male or a female nominee through cheering. The cheers were far louder for a woman, although Mr. Trump had already expressed his intention to choose one.
Responding in those earlier remarks to a statement by Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, saying the Senate should not vote on a nominee before the election, Mr. Trump replied: “I totally disagree with her, we have an obligation. We won. And we have an obligation as the winners to pick who we want.”
Asked at the White House about the Republican Senate’s refusal to take action on President Barack Obama’s March 2016 nominee for the court, Merrick Garland, Mr. Trump rejected the idea of a precedent.
“Well that’s called the consequences of losing an election,” he said. “He lost the election, he didn’t have the votes. When you lose the election, sometimes things don’t work out well.”
Mr. Trump said he would only be doing what others before him had done, saying that Supreme Court vacancies had opened during election years or prior to an inauguration 29 times, adding: “Every single time, the sitting president made a nomination.”
Mr. Trump opened his evening remarks in Fayetteville with a brief tribute to Justice Ginsburg, saying that “our nation mourns the loss of a legal giant” with a “fierce devotion to justice.”
He added that her life was “a powerful reminder that we can disagree on fundamental issues while treating each other with decency, dignity and respect,” an unlikely message from a president who personally denigrates his political opponents on a daily — sometimes an hourly — basis.
Mr. Trump faces a tight race in North Carolina, which he carried by three points in 2016, but several recent polls have shown former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. with a slight edge there, although Mr. Trump claimed that he was “winning by about 400 points” in the state.
He also hopes to boost the state’s junior senator, Thom Tillis, one of his party’s most vulnerable Senate incumbents and a reliable ally who attended the rally. A series of recent polls have put Mr. Tillis a few points behind his Democratic challenger, Cal Cunningham, a former state senator and Iraq War veteran.
Acknowledging Mr. Tillis, who attended the rally, Mr. Trump called him a “smart guy” and praised legislation the senator has sponsored to limit “sanctuary city” policies.
Before leaving the White House, Mr. Trump also responded to questions about two specific candidates for the high court.
Asked whether Amy Coney Barrett, a judge on the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, is the front-runner for his nomination, Mr. Trump replied, “She’s very highly respected, I can say that.”
And he called the former Florida Supreme Court Justice Barbara Lagoa “an extraordinary person. I’ve heard incredible things about her.”
“I don’t know her. She’s Hispanic, and highly respected,” he added.
Mr. Trump also pressed Democrats to release their own list of potential court selections. “I think that the other side should show their radical-left list, and I think you’ll be surprised,” he said.
Of Mr. Biden, he repeated to rallygoers in North Carolina his charge that his Democratic opponent had lost his mental faculties. “He’s totally shot,” Mr. Trump said.
He also accused Mr. Biden of taking drugs to enhance his performance before debates, and said both candidates should take drug tests to disprove the possibility.
“They give him a big fat shot in the ass and he comes out, and for two hours he’s better than ever before,” Mr. Trump said. “Problem is — what happens after that?” he asked, saying that he would ask for a drug test. “Both of us.”
“You see the condition he is in,” Mr. Trump added. “Maybe I’ll sign an executive order: ‘You cannot have him as your president.’”
The fight over Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat on the Supreme Court has profound implications for the entire country. But its outcome depends on the personal and political calculations currently being made by a handful of Capitol Hill Republicans who have been bruised, buoyed and bullied by President Trump over the years.
And of that group, this is a Gang of 7 to keep a special eye on in the coming days (more on them below):
- Senator Susan Collins of Maine
- Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska
- Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado
- Senator Mitt Romney of Utah
- Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina
- Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee
- Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa
Here’s the big picture first:
Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, who has proudly rammed through dozens of Mr. Trump’s appointments to the federal bench, played to type on Friday, saying it was his intention to schedule a vote on the president’s as-yet unnamed pick. Mr. Trump followed up on Saturday, exhorting fence-sitters in the Republican conference to act “without delay.”
But behind the scenes, their front was less unified.
Mr. McConnell is far less enthusiastic about the political implications of an ugly nomination battle during the final weeks of a presidential campaign, according to two Republicans who are close to the leader. And his public statement made no mention of the precise timing of a floor vote, or whether he would call one if he did not have the votes to win.
Mr. McConnell’s control of the majority rests, in large measure, on the fates of three imperiled incumbents on the ballot in November — Ms. Collins, Mr. Gardner and Thom Tillis of North Carolina. Late Friday, Mr. McConnell counseled his members to keep their “powder dry” before they convened to discuss matters. Most gladly complied.
Republicans currently hold a 53 to 47 seat advantage over Democrats in the upper chamber. Four Republicans would have to defect in order to overcome Vice President Mike Pence’s tie-breaking vote and block a potential nominee.
Ms. Collins, who is trailing her Democratic opponent, Sara Gideon, in most recent polls, argued in a statement on Saturday that President Trump had the power to nominate a Supreme Court nominee, but the Senate should not hold a confirmation vote before the November election.
Ms. Murkowski, a frequent critic of the president’s who is, at the moment, unassailably popular in her home state, said Friday she opposed holding a vote before the election. But she made the remarks, in an interview with Alaska Public Media, before Justice Ginsburg’s death was announced, and she didn’t address the confirmation process in a Friday night statement mourning her death.
Mr. Tillis, who is banking on a strategy of maximizing turnout among Mr. Trump’s supporters, seized on the fight like a runner grabbing an energy drink, backing the pre-election approach as a way to keep “radical, left-wing” Biden appointees off the bench. Three other incumbents in tight re-election fights — Martha McSally of Arizona, Kelly Loeffler of Georgia and Joni Ernst of Iowa — also expressed support for Mr. McConnell’s plan.
But Mr. Gardner, who has questioned election-year confirmation votes in the past, laid low, as did Mr. Grassley.
Mr. Graham, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, which would oversee the confirmation process, said Saturday that he would support “any effort to move forward regarding the recent vacancy created by the passing of Justice Ginsburg,” directly contradicting remarks he made in 2016, when he said he would oppose any effort to fill a Supreme Court vacancy during a presidential election year.
Then there’s Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, the party’s 2012 nominee and the most outspoken Republican critic of Mr. Trump in the Senate. An aide to Mr. Romney, reached on Saturday, had no immediate comment on the matter. But Stuart Stevens, a top adviser to Mr. Romney’s 2012 campaign who remains close to him, blasted the president’s plan on Twitter, suggesting it would lead to a backlash that would “end” Republican control of the Senate.
SOURCE: The New York Times
