Why did the White House just release a list of potential Supreme Court nominees?
The White House on Friday released an updated list of 25 potential Supreme Court nominees. There is no current vacancy on the Supreme Court, but the announcement does come on the same day as the national convention for the Federalist Society, a conservative legal organization whose members have made up a significant portion of President Trump's judicial picks.
The White House's statement specifically noted the president's commitment to "Make the Judiciary Great Again" and reaffirmed that his next Supreme Court nominee would be "in the mold of Justice [Neil] Gorsuch." Trump released his original list of potential Supreme Court nominees last May, before Gorsuch was eventually confirmed to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia.
In October, Axios reported that Trump thinks he'll get the opportunity to nominate three more justices to the Supreme Court during his first term. Trump apparently told an individual who spoke to Axios that he would end up replacing Justice Anthony Kennedy, whose imminent retirement is a long-standing rumor on Capitol Hill; Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, because "what does she weigh? 60 pounds?"; and Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who is just 63 years old, because her health is "no good. Diabetes."
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Neither the White House nor spokespeople for the Supreme Court justices in question commented on the Axios report. Kennedy has reportedly said that he plans to stay on the Supreme Court for at least another year, while Ginsburg has said that she wants to "do this job as long as I can do it full steam."
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