(PresidentialWire.com)- President Donald Trump will reveal his Supreme Court nominee by Friday or Saturday, he said on Monday.
Trump told Fox & Friends on Monday that he would wait for the funeral services for late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg are over. Ginsburg, 87, passed away on Friday.
The president said he’s hoping the Senate will hold confirmation hearings and a vote for his nominee before the November 3 presidential election. At present, Trump said there are “actually five (potential nominees) I’m looking at — it’s down to five.”
While Trump declined to name any of the potential people who could be nominees, he did say at a rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina, this weekend that his nominee would be a woman. The president did say that one person he’s considering is 38 years old, which would mean the person would have the potential to serve on the high court for 50 or so years.
Trump also apparently confirmed that among his choices is Barbara Lagoa, a judge with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. When asked directly about Logoa, he said:
“She’s excellent, Hispanic. She’s a terrific woman from everything I know. I don’t know her … Florida. We love Florida. So very smart — they’re all very smart.”
Of his selection process in general, Trump said:
“We tend to go young, and I think in almost all cases, you could have somebody be on the bench for 40 or 50 years. We’re looking for somebody who’s brilliant, really understands the law and abides by the Constitution, and a good person. We’re looking for a good person.”
One of Trump’s main goals in nominating and confirming a replacement for Ginsburg is he believes there may be issues regarding the presidential election that the Supreme Court would have to decide. With a high court that’s currently split 4-4 between liberals and conservatives, that could pose a big issue.
As Trump explained:
“We have an obligation to do what’s right and act as quickly as possible. We should act quickly because we’re going to have probably election things involved here, you know, because of the fake ballots that they’ll be sending out, which is a terrible … We don’t want to have a tie, no, we don’t. And we want to have nine justices.”
But, nominating and confirming another conservative Supreme Court justice could also be a big boost to Trump at the polls. The likelihood that he’d have the opportunity to name additional justices was a big reason he received conservative support over Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.
In his four years in office, Trump has successfully installed two justices on the Supreme Court — Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. He’ll add a third to his resume if he’s able to get his nominee confirmed before the election takes place.
The next president may also have the opportunity to nominate one or two other replacements on the Supreme Court, depending on whether a few of the elder justices decide to retire.
