President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced he is adding 20 names to a list of Supreme Court candidates that he’s pledged to choose from if he has future vacancies to fill.
The list consisted of the following: Advertisement
- Bridget Bade, judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
- Daniel Cameron, 51st attorney general of the Commonwealth of Kentucky
- Tom Cotton, U.S. senator from Arkansas
- Paul Clement, partner with Kirkland & Ellis LLP
- Ted Cruz, U.S. senator from Texas
- Stuart Kyle Duncan, judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
- Steven Engel, assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice
- Noel Francisco, former solicitor general of the United States
- Josh Hawley, U.S. senator from Missouri
- James Ho, judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
- Gregory Katsas, judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
- Barbara Lagoa, judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
- Christopher Landau, ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of the United States of America to Mexico
- Carlos Muñiz, justice on the Supreme Court of Florida
- Martha Pacold, judge on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois
- Peter Phipps, judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
- Sarah Pitlyk, judge on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri
- Allison Jones Rushing, judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
- Kate Todd, deputy assistant to the president and deputy counsel to the president
- Lawrence VanDyke, judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
“Every one of these individuals will ensure equal justice, equal treatment and equal rights for citizens of every race, color, religion and creed,” Trump said at the White House. Trump also warned his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, would select “radical justices” who would “fundamentally transform America,” even though Biden has never outlined his list of potential choices.
“The president is very excited to share who he would nominate to the Supreme Court,” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said ahead of the announcement. She said Trump “wants Constitution-abiding judges, he wants textualists who believe the words of a statute actually are what they are, not subject to interpretation.”
President Trump has already remade the federal bench for a generation. And any vacancy in the highest court would give the president the ability to shape its future for decades to come if he is reelected in November.
Trump has stressed that power as he has campaigned, claiming that the winner of the upcoming presidential election “could have anywhere from two to four, to maybe even five” Supreme Court justices to pick, though that would require an extraordinary level of turnover.
“You will change this country around. It will be irreversible,” he said last month in Minnesota.
Trump released two lists with a total of 21 names of potential Supreme Court nominees during his previous presidential campaign and added another five names in 2017 after becoming president. Trump’s two nominees to the court, Justice Neil Gorsuch and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, were both drawn from Trump’s list.
Even in a race reshaped by the pandemic and the national reckoning over race, Trump’s appointments of Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh remain among his crowning achievements and are frequently noted at his rallies.
The cultural battle over Kavanaugh’s confirmation, in particular, remains an electrifying moment for many on the right and one that Trump continues to highlight as he tries to replicate the excitement that fight generated on the right and make the race an us-vs.-them battle over American values and cancel culture.
“Did you ever see anything like that? Justice Kavanaugh. People forget. You know, time goes by, they forget. We don’t forget. I don’t forget,” Trump told a rally crowd last month in New Hampshire. “They’re destroying the livelihoods of innocent people.”
For the president’s allies, the list is seen as a way to excite his base as well as well as remind voters of what’s at stake come November.
The court’s oldest members are Justice Ginsburg and Justice Stephen Breyer, 82, both liberals, and Justice Clarence Thomas, 72, and Justice Samuel Alito, 70, two conservatives. Ginsburg made news this summer when she announced she is being treated for a recurrence of cancer but has no plans to step down.
Regardless of party, presidents tend to look for the same characteristics in potential Supreme Court picks. Stellar legal credentials are a must. All of the current justices attended Harvard or Yale law school, though Ginsburg left Harvard and graduated from Columbia. And they tend to be old enough to have a distinguished legal career but young enough to serve for decades. That generally means nominees are in their late 40s or 50s.
More recently, nominees have also previously clerked for a Supreme Court justice, an early mark of legal smarts. Five of the current justices previously clerked at the Supreme Court.
