President Donald Trump on Wednesday unveiled his updated list of potential Supreme Court justices with 20 new names — and at least three big surprises.
The list: Among the additions were rising GOP star Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, U.S. ambassador to Mexico Christopher Landau, eight federal appeals court judges and several respected former White House and Justice Department lawyers.
- But it was Trump’s naming of a trio of Republican senators that drew the most attention, and controversy.
- The attorney-lawmakers — Ted Cruz of Texas, Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Josh Hawley of Montana — are all populist conservatives seen as possible inheritors of Trump’s movement.
- A former senator has not been appointed to the Supreme Court since 1949, though it was not unusual earlier in American history.
The stakes: At a White House event announcing the revamped list, Trump warned that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, if elected, would empower a “growing radical-left movement” to reshape government and the judiciary.
- Trump said the next president could nominate “one, two, three and even four Supreme Court justices” and challenged Biden to release his own list of potential nominees.
- Similar lists, likewise created with the help of members of the conservative legal movement, are credited with helping Trump win the 2016 election.
The reaction: On Twitter, Cruz and Cotton said they were honored to join Trump’s talent pool.
- Cotton went on to threaten Roe v. Wade, a 1973 abortion-guaranteeing Supreme Court ruling cherished by liberals, and to endorse broad constitutional rights to own guns and practice religion.
- But Hawley said he had “no interest in the high court” and would remain in the Senate, where he looked “forward to confirming constitutional conservatives.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republicans, praised Trump and his team for putting together a “great list of conservative jurists and accomplished Americans.”
Many pro-Trump commentators, like Turning Point USA’s Benny Johnson, especially appreciated the inclusion of the senators.
Even hardline socialist conservatives like New York Post op-ed editor Sohrab Ahmari — who have been disappointed by recent Republican nominees to the court — reacted positively.
Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, speaking for many dismayed liberals, complained Trump “has worked hand-in-hand with right-wing groups to pack the bench with Supreme Court justices and lower court judges who represent big special interests rather than the interests of the American people.”
- The new names are more of the same, he said.
Popular podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen was among those on the left who decried Trump’s selection of Cruz and Cotton and warned the president’s reelection would mean the end of nationally guaranteed abortion rights.
Who’s on the shortlist: In his remarks at the White House, Trump said all his Supreme Court candidates, which now number about 40, are judicial conservatives in the mold of late Justice Antonin Scalia and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito Jr.
- The president singled out singled out for mention three judges from earlier lists who are widely seen as front-runners: Amy Coney Barrett of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, in Chicago; Thomas Hardiman of the Third Circuit, in Philadelphia; and William Pryor Jr. of the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta.
- “He wants textualists,” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters earlier Wednesday, referring to a literalist method of legal interpretation.
- Axios reported Barrett remains at the top of the list.
- An anonymous source involved in selecting the latest candidates told the Wall Street Journal Trump was looking for the same qualities as always, including judicial “courage.”
