Trump says Republicans have ‘obligation’ to fill Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat ‘without delay’ only weeks before election
PRESIDENT Donald Trump says Republicans have an "obligation" to choose a new Supreme Court justice "without delay."
The remarks from on Saturday come hours after Justice , a feminist icon and the second woman to ever serve on the nation's highest court, .
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now has eight justices – , following Ginsburg's death, and five conservatives.
The imbalance of the court just six weeks before a historic is expected to unleash a battle on whether Trump should or shouldn't nominate her successor so soon.
Multiple sources that Trump is within the coming days.
Trump on Saturday morning: "We were put in this position of power and importance to make decisions for the people who so proudly elected us, the most important of which has long been considered to be the selection of United States Supreme Court Justices.
"We have this obligation, without delay!"
Trump's current list of potential justice nominees is said to be "very short" and includes at least one woman.
US Circuit Judge Amy Coney Barrett, a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, is reportedly a leading contender.
In the hours after Ginsburg died at her home in , Senate Majority Leader said the -led Senate will vote on Trump's pick – despite it being an election year.
Trump's list of potential SCOTUS picks
On September 9, Trump released a list of 20 additional people he might nominate to the Supreme Court if there was a vacancy, on top of 25 people previously named
- Bridget Bade, a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit
- Amy Coney Barrett, a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit
- Keith Blackwell, a justice of the Georgia Supreme Court
- Daniel Cameron, Kentucky's attorney general
- Charles Canady, a Florida Supreme Court justice
- Paul Clement, a partner with Kirkland & Ellis, LLP
- Steven Colloton, a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit
- Tom Cotton, US senator from Arkansas
- Ted Cruz, US senator from Texas
- Stuart Kyle Duncan, a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit
- Allison Eid, a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit
- Steven Engel, the assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel of the Department of Justice
- Noel Francisco, the US solicitor general until July
- Britt Grant, a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit
- Raymond Gruender, a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit
- Thomas Hardiman, a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit
- Josh Hawley, a US senator from Missouri
- James Ho, a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit
- Gregory Katsas, a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
- Raymond Kethledge, a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit
- Barbara Lagoa, a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit
- Christopher Landau, the US ambassador to Mexico
- Joan Larsen, a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit
- Mike Lee, a US senator from Utah
- Thomas Lee, a justice on the Supreme Court of Utah
- Edward Mansfield, a justice of the Iowa Supreme Court
- Federico Moreno, a federal judge in Florida
- Carlos Muniz, a justice on the Florida Supreme Court
- Kevin Newsom, a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit
- Martha Pacold, a federal judge in Illinois
- Peter Phipps, a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit
- Sarah Pitlyk, a federal judge in Missouri
- William Pryor, a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit
- Allison Jones Rushing, a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit
- Margaret Ryan, a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces
- David Stras, a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit
- Diane Sykes, a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit
- Amul Thapar, a judge of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky
- Kate Todd, deputy counsel to Trump
- Timothy Tymkovich, chief judge of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals
- Lawrence VanDyke, a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit
- Don Willett, a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit
- Patrick Wyrick, a judge on the Supreme Court of Oklahoma
- Robert Young, chief justice of the Michigan Supreme Court
"In the last midterm election before Justice Scalia's death in 2016, Americans elected a Republican majority because we pledged to check and balance the last days of a lame-duck president's second term.
"We kept our promise. Since the 1880s, no Senate has confirmed an opposite-party president's Supreme Court nominee in a presidential election year," he said.
But in 2016, McConnell said: "The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice.
"Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president."
His willingness to vote on Trump's nominee is a reversal from when conservative Justice Antonin Scalia died in February 2016 – also a presidential election year.
At the time, McConnell refused to vote on then- nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, and the seat stayed vacant until Trump won the election and took office.
Garland was nominated 237 days before the 2016 election, and as of Saturday, there are just 45 days until Trump and rival face off for the presidency.
While Election Day is less than two months away, mail-in voting and early voting have already started in many states.
On Friday, Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski, of , said she would not vote on a nominee before the November election.
"I would not vote to confirm a Supreme Court nominee. We are 50 some days away from an election,” Murkowski said before Ginsburg's death was announced.
Republican Senator Ted Cruz – who was recently included on Trump's list of SCOTUS picks – said the Senate should vote on a nominee this week.
"We have a responsibility to do our job," Cruz told Fox News host Sean Hannity.
"We cannot let Election Day come and go and with a 4-4 court ... we risk a constitutional crisis.
"I believe that the president next week should nominate a successor to the court – and I think that it is critical that the Senate takes up and confirms that successor."
Cruz's remarks are also a reversal from his 2016 views on nominating a justice during an election year.
: “It has been 80 years since a Supreme Court vacancy was nominated and confirmed in an election year. There is a long tradition that you don’t do this in an election year.”
Senator John Cornyn, also of Texas, didn't explicitly comment on voting, but retweeted McConnell's tweet about Trump getting a SCOTUS nominee vote.
In 2018, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, of , said: "If an opening comes in the last year of President Trump's term, and the primary process has started, we'll wait until the next election."
Despite Graham saying to "use my words against me," he said on Saturday he's supporting Trump putting forth a nominee.
"I will support President @realDonaldTrump in any effort to move forward regarding the recent vacancy created by the passing of Justice Ginsburg," he .
He said the reason he's doing so is because, "Harry Reid changed the rules to allow a simple majority vote for Circuit Court nominees dealing out the minority."
Graham said it's also because "Chuck Schumer and his friends in the liberal media conspired to destroy the life of Brett Kavanaugh and hold that Supreme Court seat open."
Senator Rick Scott also called for a Senate vote for Trump's pick, saying it would be “irresponsible” to leave an "extended vacancy."
, at least four Republican senators have said they will oppose a SCOTUS vote before Election Day.
Democratic presidential nominee Biden said the Supreme Court vacancy left by Ginsburg should be filled only after the election.
"There is no doubt, and let me be clear, that the voters should pick the president, and the president should pick the justice for the Senate to consider," on Friday night as he returned from a campaign event.
Senate Minority Leader shared the same sentiment – and used McConnell's very own words he said in 2016 against him.
"The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president," Schumer on Friday night.
Schumer's tweet is an exact quote of what McConnell said after Scalia died.
On Saturday, Schumer said during a call with Senate Democrats, : "Let me be clear: if Leader McConnell and Senate Republicans move forward with this, then nothing is off the table for next year.
"Nothing is off the table.”
Obama said in a statement on Friday night that a vote on Ginsburg's replacement should wait until after the election.
He said that decisions the Supreme Court will make in the coming years are "too consequential to future generations for courts to be filled through anything less than an unimpeachable process."
Trump on Saturday morning sarcastically former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for removing the 60-vote filibuster on judicial nominees.
In 2013, when Democrats had control of the Senate, they chose the "nuclear option" under Reid.
With the "nuclear option," they got rid of the 60-vote threshold to break filibusters on nominees because they were upset about the blockage of Obama’s nominees to a powerful appellate court.
Democrats pushed through a rules change lowering the vote threshold on all nominees except for the Supreme Court from 60 to a simple majority.
The Supreme Court was exempted as part of a deal bringing along Democrats reluctant to change the rules.
At the time, McConnell warned Democrats the strategy would backfire: “I say to my friends on the other side of the aisle, you will regret this, and you may regret it a lot sooner than you think.”
Ginsburg, of , was the second female to sit on the Supreme Court, and led the liberal wing of four justices on the court.
The court was considered to have a 5-4 conservative majority, and Trump’s nominee will presumably tilt the balance further right.
Trump has appointed two Supreme Court justices who are both conservative: Neil Gorsuch in January 2017 shortly after he entered the White House, .
In a he tweeted on Friday, and her powerful dissents at the Supreme Court."
"Justice Ginsburg demonstrated that one can disagree without being disagreeable toward one's colleagues or different points of view," Trump stated.
Trump did not mention in his statement any plans to nominate Ginsburg's replacement.
As word of Ginsburg's death grew, Trump was on stage at a campaign rally in .
When asked by reporters about her death, the president said: "She just died? Wow. I didn't know that. You’re telling me know for the first time.
"She led an amazing life. What else can you say?” he said. “She was an amazing woman. Whether you agreed or not, she was an amazing woman who led an amazing life."
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Days before her death, Ginsburg dictated a statement to her granddaughter expressing that her greatest desire was not to be replaced until after the election.
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“My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed," Ginsburg said.
Ginsburg championed the rights of women and minorities and was the oldest justice on the court, which she served on for 27 years.