Trump ‘probably won’t’ ask nominees about Roe
Candidate must respect precedent, Collins says
President Donald Trump said he “probably won’t” ask potential Supreme Court nominees about whether they would overturn Roe v. Wade.
“They were all saying, ‘Don’t do that ... you shouldn’t do that,’ ” he said during an interview that aired Sunday on Fox News.
Abortion rights supporters are concerned that he will nominate a conservative judge who would vote to overturn the landmark case in 1973 that legalized the procedure nationwide.
Trump will probably not need to ask potential nominees about their views on Roe v. Wade. The Federalist Society, a conservative legal group whose leaders disagree with the Roe decision, vetted candidates on the president’s list.
Trump’s second Supreme Court pick will replace Justice Anthony Kennedy, the Ronald Reagan appointee who served as a swing vote on the court. Kennedy announced his retirement last week.
Trump said he plans to interview six or seven people from his candidate list and will make an announcement of his pick July 9.
“I’m going to pick someone who is outstanding,” he said.
The nominee already faces a hurdle: Republicans hold a slim 51-49 majority in the Senate, and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is out as he battles brain cancer. The president needs to cater to senators on both sides of the aisle if he hopes to get a majority to vote in favor of his pick.
The president told Fox News that he believes his nominee will get some support from Democrats.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, an abortion rights supporter, is one of the key votes on a nominee. She said she wouldn’t vote for someone who would overturn Roe v. Wade.
“A candidate who would overturn Roe would not be acceptable,” she said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”
Collins, who has bucked party lines on issues such as health care, said she plans to have an in-depth conversation with the nominee. She emphasized that there were certain people on Trump’s candidate list that she wouldn’t vote for, though she didn’t specify who those people were.
She said it would be inappropriate to ask a nominee how he or she would vote on a future case, but they would have to talk about precedent. In her view, Roe v. Wade is settled law, and she wants someone on the court who would respect that.
“What I want to see is a nominee who, regardless of his or her personal views on the very difficult and contentious life issue, is going to respect precedent, regardless,” she said. “A number of judges (have told me) that good judges are always unhappy with some of their decisions, but they make the right call, regardless of their personal views. And that’s what I want to see in this nominee.”
Collins said she and fellow Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska have spoken to the president about his pending decision.
“I got the feeling that he was still deliberating and had not yet reached a decision and that this was genuine outreach on his part,” she said.
Collins said she was in favor of moving forward with a nominee in the next couple of months.