Trump wants court pick before Ginsburg burial

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Monday he expects to announce his pick for the Supreme Court by week’s end, before Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is buried, launching a monumental Senate confirmation fight over objections from Democrats who say it’s too close to the November election.

Trump said he is planning to name his pick by Friday or Saturday, ahead of the first presidential election debate. Ginsberg’s casket is to be on view midweek on the iconic steps outside the court and later privately at the Capitol. She is to be buried next week in a private service at Arlington National Cemetery.

Democrats, led by presidential nominee Joe Biden, are protesting the Republicans’ rush to replace Ginsburg, saying voters should speak first, on Election Day, Nov. 3, and the winner of the White House should fill the vacancy.

Trump dismissed those arguments, telling “Fox & Friends,” “I think that would be good for the Republican Party, and I think it would be good for everybody to get it over with.”

The impending clash over the vacant seat — when to fill it and with whom — has scrambled the stretch run of the presidential race for a nation already reeling from the Coronavirus pandemic that has killed nearly 200,000 people, left millions unemployed and heightened partisan tensions and anger.

Democrats point to the hypocrisy of Republicans in trying to rush through a pick so close to the election after refusing to do so for President Barack Obama in February 2016, long before that year’s election. Biden is appealing to GOP senators to delay the vote until after the election.

Ginsburg, 87, died Friday of metastatic pancreatic cancer.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is pushing ahead with plans to begin the confirmation process, vowing to vote “this year” on Trump’s nominee. With just over a month before the election, he said the Senate has “more than sufficient time” to handle the nomination.

Trump allowed that he would accept a vote in the lame duck period after Election Day but made clear his preference would be that it occur by Nov. 3.

ASSOCIATED PRESS People gather at the Supreme Court in Washington, Saturday night to honor the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, one of the high court’s liberal justices, and a champion of gender equality. Her death leaves a vacancy that could be filled with a more conservative justice by President Donald Trump.