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Trump Would ‘Absolutely’ Fill a Supreme Court Vacancy Before Election

If a vacancy on the Supreme Court opened up before the election in November, President Donald Trump says he would move quickly to fill the post. On Tuesday, radio how Hugh Hewitt asked the president, “In the last five…

Bradley CortrightAug 11, 20203 min read

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In his first term, Trump nominated Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, securing a 5-4 conservative majority on the Court.

However, Congressional Democrats — citing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) previous decision to block former President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee due to the upcoming 2016 election — have warned Republicans against pushing through a Supreme Court nominee before the 2020 election.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) told NBC News earlier this month, “We knew basically were lying in 2016, when they said, ‘Oh, we can’t do this because it’s an election year.’ We knew they didn’t want to do it because it was President Obama.”

“If they show that they’re unwilling to respect precedent, rules, and history, then they can’t feign surprise when others talk about using a statutory option that we have that’s fully constitutional in our availability,” he said.

Kaine added, “I don’t want to do that. But if they act in such a way, they may push it to an inevitability. So they need to be careful about that.”