Supreme Court Pick To Be Announced By President Trump In Primetime

Supreme Court nominee to be announced by President Trump on Tuesday

President Donald Trump will make his national prime-time address to the nation on Tuesday (the announcement is being moved up from Thursday) night. He will use the bright lights of the White House to announce his Supreme Court nominee to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia. But before President Trump announces his choice the Democrats in the Senate are saying no matter who he nominates they will block the candidate on principle.

Democrats, had to sit on the sidelines for eight months and watch as former President Barack Obama’s choice for the opening, Judge Merrick Garland was denied even a single interview by the GOP controlled senate. Garland went nearly a year without being interviewed, prompting many Democrats, to say that the Republicans have “hijacked the high court opening.”

Don’t think that President Trump is not going to fight. The Republican Senate Leadership Committee is poised to spend at least $10 million in ads backing the nominee — much of it directed at Senate Democrats up for election in 2018 in states carried by the president.

So, who is the person that President Trump wants to be his Supreme Court nominee?

The smart money is on one of these four candidates. Two federal judges — Neil Gorsuch, of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, and Thomas Hardiman, of the 3rd Circuit in Philadelphia — are frontrunners for the nomination, according to CBS News. “Gorsuch has a slight edge,” CBS claims. Other outlets, such as Bloomberg and the Washington Post, lengthen Trump’s reported shortlist a bit to also include William Pryor and Raymond Kethledge, federal judges on the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit and Cincinnati-based 6th Circuit, respectively.

All four men were appointed to their current judgeships by George W. Bush. All four are conservative enough to make the base happy, at least till they make their first decision.

The nomination of Gorsuch, Pryor or Kethledge would probably lead to the addition of a solid, reliably conservative voice and vote on the court, Gorsuch and Kethledge may be somewhat more so. None of the rumored justices, however, would likely be to the right of the court’s most conservative voice, Justice Clarence Thomas.

Video used in this story from CBS News. 

Jim Williams is the Washington Bureau Chief, Digital Director as well as the Director of Special Projects for Genesis Communications. He is starting his third year as part of the team. This is Williams 40th year in the media business, and in that time he has served in a number of capacities. He is a seven time Emmy Award winning television producer, director, writer and executive. He has developed four regional sports networks, directed over 2,000 live sporting events including basketball, football, baseball hockey, soccer and even polo to name a few sports. Major events include three Olympic Games, two World Cups, two World Series, six NBA Playoffs, four Stanley Cup Playoffs, four NCAA Men’s National Basketball Championship Tournaments (March Madness), two Super Bowl and over a dozen college bowl games. On the entertainment side Williams was involved s and directed over 500 concerts for Showtime, Pay Per View and MTV Networks.