Former President Donald Trump has stirred speculation about his shortlist for running mates, but he’s also compiling another, more impactful shortlist.
Trump told reporters Tuesday that he’s drafting a list of approximately 20 potential picks for the Supreme Court, should he win the 2024 election — including some former potential nominees like Republican Sens. Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley.
“I’m going to be putting together a list of judges — great judges — a list of about 20. I think it’s important to reveal who your Supreme Court justices will be,” Mr. Trump told The Washington Times. “There are people who say the list helped me win the election last time.”
Trump first released a shortlist of potential judges in 2016. During that year’s election, the Supreme Court had become a salient issue. Justice Antonin Scalia had died in office, and neither party commanded enough power to replace him that year.
Eventually, Trump appointed Justice Neil Gorsuch to succeed Scalia. Trump had included Gorsuch on his shortlist of nominees… but he’d also included some bigger names, like Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.
Trump released additional lists in 2017 and 2020, and he named Republican Sens. Mike Lee of Utah, Josh Hawley of Missouri, and Tom Cotton of Arkansas.
The former president has been playing coy about his search for a running mate. “I know who it’s going to be [but] I can’t tell you that,” he told two Fox News hosts in January.
However, he’s amassed a long record of transparency about his picks for the judiciary. All in all, Trump appointed three justices to the Supreme Court, and he’d previously named each of them on his shortlist.
Trump promised to publicize the new list sometime before November’s election, and he encouraged Biden to release his own list. “Frankly, I think Biden should be doing the same thing,” Trump told The Washington Times.
The president nominates federal judges for lifetime terms, and the Senate confirms them. The House doesn’t have a role.
Currently, the Democrats control both the Senate and the White House.
Conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, 75, stirred questions about succession after a week-long hospitalization in 2022, and conservative Justice Samuel Alito is only two years younger than Thomas.
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The Horn editorial team