President Donald Trump enjoyed a round of golf with Republican Senator Lindsey Graham at his Virginia golf club on Saturday as he continued to plan to pass a Supreme Court candidate if a vacancy occurred before Election Day.
Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made it clear that, given the opportunity, they will try to get another nomination for the Supreme Court before November.
The topic has taken on new immediacy with Friday’s revelation that Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg is receiving chemotherapy for a recurrence of cancer after four previous episodes with the disease.
The 87-year-old liberal, who apologized in 2016 for her public criticism of Trump during her first campaign, says she has no plans to retire.
President Donald Trump along with South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham played golf at the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia on Saturday
Graham, pictured left with the president on Saturday, is among the top Republicans who think it would be nice for Trump to push another candidate to the Supreme Court.
It occurs when Judge Ruth Bader Ginsberg announced Friday that she is receiving chemotherapy for a recurrence of cancer after four previous episodes with the disease.
The president traveled to the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia, when he began playing a round with the South Carolina senator over the weekend.
It came a week after Trump hit Graham over two Supreme Court decisions related to his financial records.
Graham, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was called by Trump for not doing enough to investigate former President Barack Obama.
The president said Obama was not receiving enough scrutiny over his administration’s decision to open a counterintelligence investigation into alleged links between the Trump campaign and the Russian government in 2016.
“There was no judicial response from the Republican Senate,” Trump wrote, referring to Graham’s committee.
It has now emerged that Trump aims to ensure that he does not suffer further similar losses in the Supreme Court by putting pressure on a conservative judge if given the opportunity as a result of Ginsberg’s disease.
Development has focused even more on what is at stake in this election, with the winner in a position to help shape the court’s trajectory for years to come.
Trump and Graham played a round of golf on Saturday despite the president criticizing the South Carolina senator last week after two losses in the Supreme Court.
Trump, pictured Saturday with Graham, is said to be lining up a list of names that could fill a possible Supreme Court vacancy before the end of his term.
Senator Lindsey Graham, pictured downtown during a round of golf Saturday with Trump, is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and was criticized by the president last week.
Trump administration officials have stressed that Trump would not hesitate to fill a vacancy before voters give their opinion on November 3, less than four months away, on whether to give him a second term.
And Graham is now among the top Republicans who say it’s okay to consider a date for the election year when the Senate and White House are in the hands of the same party.
Four years ago, also in a year of presidential elections, the Republican-controlled Senate refused to vote when Obama, a Democrat, nominated Merrick Garland, a federal judge, to succeed Judge Antonin Scalia after his death in February. .
Nine months before that year’s election, McConnell said voters should determine who would nominate the person to fill that position.
However, top Republicans have now shifted their focus as the possibility of a loss approaches in November and Trump is expected to act quickly if a vacancy arises.
Liberal Supreme Court judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg is fighting Caner again
Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, told reporters: “I can’t imagine that if I had a vacancy on the Supreme Court, I would not make it to the appointment quickly and would look to the Senate to take quick action.
Meadows spoke shortly after the court said Ginsburg was briefly hospitalized this week, but before justice announced she had a recurrence of cancer and had been treated with chemotherapy since May 19.
Ginsburg is the oldest judge, followed by Stephen Breyer, 81, Clarence Thomas, 72, and Samuel Alito, 70.
Trump views his efforts to reshape the judiciary as a distinctive achievement of his presidency.
Earlier in his tenure, he obtained confirmation from Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh before the Supreme Court.
And last month marked his 200th judicial appointment.
The president has tried to remind Republicans that if he were to win a second term, he would have an opportunity to push the Supreme Court and lower courts further to the right.
Last month, after the court rejected his administration’s attempt to end an Obama-era program that provided legal protection to approximately 650,000 immigrants brought illegally to the United States as children, Trump said more needed to be done. to push the court to the right.
He said he would release a “new list of Conservative Supreme Court justice nominees” before September 1.
‘Based on the decisions being made now, this list is more important than ever (Second Amendment, Right to Life, Religious Liberty, etc.) – VOTE 2020!’ he tweeted.
Last month, Trump said he would launch a “new list of Conservative Supreme Court justice nominees” before September 1, as his goal is to take the court further to the right.
Justices of the United States Supreme Court. Seated from the left: Associate Justice Stephen Breyer, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Presiding Judge of the United States John G. Roberts, Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Associate Justice Samuel Alito Jr. Standing from left: Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch, Judge Associate Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Judge Elena Kagan and Associate Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh
At 87 years old, Judge Ginsburg is the oldest member of the court. His next oldest colleagues are Stephen Breyer, 81, Clarence Thomas, 72, and Samuel Alito, 70.
Carl Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond School of Law, said the Republicans “have been inconsistent” between his refusal to give Garland an audience and his insistence that it would be appropriate to advance a vacancy during the last few days of a potentially lame duck chair.
Tobias said Trump and Republicans are calculating that representing their commitment to add another conservative justice is such an attractive argument for grassroots voters that it’s worth risking being labeled hypocritical by their opponents.
McConnell was even more direct about the move to push for a new nomination.
“Yes, we would fill it,” he said in an interview in February.
At least one key Republican has expressed reservations.
In 2018, Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley said that if he were still the committee’s chairman in 2020 and there was a vacancy on the Supreme Court, he would not accept the nomination.
But Grassley, who now chairs the Senate Finance Committee, said that if there was a different president, that person would have to make the call.
Senator Joni Ernst, a Republican from Iowa, who is facing reelection, told the Iowa PBS station on Friday that she would support taking a candidate for Trump in November or December after the 2020 election and before the start of the next session. of the Senate.
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