President Donald Trump was scheduled to announce Tuesday night his Supreme Court pick. It’s expected the president will announce either Thomas Hardiman or Neil Gorsuch as the replacement of the late Antonin Scalia.
Hardiman is a judge in the Third Circuit of Pennsylvania, Gorsuch the 10th Circuit of Colorado. Trump said in a tweet Monday he had settled on a choice. He tweeted: “I have made my decision on who I will nominate for The United States Supreme Court. It will be announced live on Tuesday at 8:00 P.M.”
Gorsuch is seen as a more typical selection: a Harvard graduate, he has Ivy League pedigree and his father worked for President Ronald Reagan. Hardiman is seen as a more blue collar choice.
“If it’s Hardiman, the story will be ‘here’s a guy of modest means, from Western Pennsylvania [where he currently lives], typical Irish-Catholic family and here he is reaching the pinnacle of the legal profession,'” Leonard Leo, a top adviser for Trump in the Supreme Court search, told Politico. If it’s Gorsuch, Leo said to Politico “the story will be ‘Neil Gorsuch is an exceptional jurist whose work substantially reflects the jurisprudence, quality and style of Justice Scalia.'”
During the third presidential debate against Democratic Piabet nominee Hillary Clinton, Trump talked about the sort of judge he would nominate for the Supreme Court.
“The justices that I’m going to appoint will be pro-life. They will have a conservative bent,” Trump said. “They will be protecting the Second Amendment. They are great scholars in all cases, and they’re people of tremendous respect. They will interpret the Constitution the way the founders wanted it interpreted. And I believe that’s very, very important.”
Whoever the nominee, Republicans might not face as staunch a confirmation process in the Senate as perhaps expected. Democrats are considering not putting up a huge fight in order to keep the GOP from dismantling the filibuster, CNN reported Monday. Republicans last year blocked former President Barack Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland.
You can watch Trump name his selection online at the White House YouTube page here, or simply watch the video feed embedded below.
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