Schumer urges Trump to tap Merrick Garland for High Court
WASHINGTON — Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., privately urged President Donald Trump in a phone call earlier this week to nominate federal Judge Merrick Garland, then President Barack Obama’s third nominee to the Supreme Court who was summarily shunned by Senate Republicans in 2016, to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy.
Trump had called Schumer on Tuesday afternoon for a Supreme Court-centered conversation that lasted less than five minutes, according to a person familiar with the call. Schumer, the person said, pressed the president to name Garland to succeed Kennedy, arguing doing so would help unite the country.
Schumer also warned the president that nominating a jurist who would be hostile to Roe vs. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that established a woman’s right to an abortion, and to Obama’s signature health-care law, would be “cataclysmic” and damage Trump’s legacy, the person added, requesting anonymity since they were not authorized to speak publicly.
“Perhaps the most consequential issues at stake in this Supreme Court vacancy are affordable health care and a woman’s freedom to make the most sensitive medical decisions about her body,” Schumer wrote in a New York Times op-ed earlier this week. “The views of President Trump’s next court nominee on these issues could well determine whether the Senate approves or rejects them.”
Garland serves on the influential U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, along with leading high court canidate Brett Kavanaugh.
Trump’s shortlist, meanwhile, is narrowing, but the search process remains fluid, according to a White House aide and three Trump associates familiar with the discussions who spoke with The Washington Post on Thursday.
Trump is now mostly focusing his attention on federal judges Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett and Raymond Kethledge, they said, requesting anonymity since they were not authorized to speak publicly.
During Fourth of July festivities at the White House, Trump asked friends and advisers about Kavanaugh and Kethledge, in particular, they added, prompting much of Trump’s circle to believe those two contenders could be the top finalists.