What are the odds? Betting on Trump’s SCOTUS pick.
America’s fresh Supreme Court nominee is to be revealed at 5 p. m. Saturday, but President Donald Trump has already handled the gender reveal with such speed and aplomb that he didn’t even start a forest fire.
At least not literally. A woman will replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, gone barely a week, so Allison Jones Rushing would seem like a logical choice for that surname alone. I’d put the odds against Rushing ( capital R) at about 3- 1, and I’ve got Barbara Lagoa at 2- 1 and Amy Coney Barrett as the favorite at 3- 2.
This must have been a killer week for Mr. Trump, poring over the voluminous and nuanced legal opinions of up to a dozen candidates, then analyzing their additional legal writings and scholarly articles to fully inform this difficult, generational decision. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Poor man, he barely had time to stage pep rallies and events in five states and threaten the foundations of democracy.
Helpfully today, I’m posting odds on some other prominent women within the Trump orbit, owing both to the potential pitfalls of the president’s hurry- up offense on this vacancy and in part due to something he told Bob Woodward for “Rage,” the book that sold some 600,000 copies on the first day it was released.
“I had an uncle who was a professor at [ the Massachusetts Institute of Technology] for 40 years, one of the most respected in the history of the school,” Mr. Trump offered Mr. Woodward as the reason he was able to tell North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un he understands more about that country’s nuclear sites than anyone in the United States. “He was [ a physicist] at MIT for 42 years or something. He was great, so I understand that stuff. You know, genetically.”
Since Mr. Trump is able to absorb so much complex information just by having the same surname as someone, you have to wonder what astounding knowledge he’s drawn from those even closer to him, you know, genetically, and how that knowledge might have impacted Mr. Trump’s decision.
How about Maryanne Trump Barry, who I’ve got at 50- 1 in the morning line.
She’s an attorney, a retired federal judge and the president’s sister. Let’s take a look at some of her opinions.
“He has no principles, none, none,” she said of the president in Mary Trump’s book “Too Much and Never Enough.” Also, “My God, the tweeting and the lying, the change of stories, the lack of preparation, holy [ expletive] — what they’re doing with kids at the border.” She guessed that “he hasn’t read my immigration opinions.”
Well, he doesn’t read, but he doesn’t have to — his uncle went to MIT.
What might Mr. Trump know genetically from Mary Trump, the niece who is suing the family and will doubtless be countersued ( it’s what they do), she of my 55- 1 morning line? Does he understand the following, from Mary’s book?
“By continuing to enable Donald, my grandfather kept making him worse: more needy for media attention and free money, more self- aggrandizing and delusional about his ‘ greatness.’ Nobody has failed upward as consistently and spectacularly as the ostensible leader of the shrinking free world.”
OK, make Mary Trump 155- 1, and let’s steer back toward the more likely candidates from whom the president might know something intuitively, genetically, like Ivanka Trump. If you think this president is incapable of nominating his daughter to the Supreme Court, there’s no way you’d have read this far into this column. I’ve got Ivanka at 5- 1. Here are some of her thoughts.
“I am almost always, when I’m at home in the evening after work, in a silk bathrobe I got from India. Like, I never take off this bathrobe. I have a series of Indian silk bathrobes that I love, and that’s what I rock all the time.”
Likes robes? Make Ivanka 4- 1.
Judge Jeanine Pirro is 4- 1 too. A former New York state prosecutor and judge,
Ms. Pirro has major curriculum vitae as a Trump favorite. With opinions so deep in the reactionary right nutbag that she once got herself suspended from Fox News for them ( talk about accomplishments), Ms. Pirro can draw presidential support in her darkest hours.
“Bring back @ JudgeJeanine Pirro,” Mr. Trump raged on Twitter. “Stop working soooo hard on being politically correct, which will only bring you down, and continue to fight for our Country.” She was back two weeks later.
I’ve got Laura Ingraham at 6- 1. Another Fox provocateur, Ms. Ingraham has a legal background and is another Trump favorite. It’s her show he likes to call when he has information about the dark people in the shadows, on the streets, who are controlling Joe Biden and occasionally crowding a commercial airliner, all dressed in black — anarchists, looters, rioters, etc.
For you long- shot lovers, there’s Stormy Daniels at 200- 1, while E. Jean Carroll, still trying to force the president to provide some DNA over a 1990s- era rape allegation, is at 300- 1.
Though he was not speaking in terms of a Supreme Court opening, Mr. Trump is on record as saying that Ms. Carroll is “not my type.”
Odds are for amusement only.
You’re welcome.