Schumer vows Senate Democrats would block any ‘right-winger’ Trump Supreme Court nominee

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) says Democrats would block any “right-winger” President Trump attempts to appoint to the Supreme Court after they take control of the Senate , which could ramp up pressure on conservative Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas to retire this year .

“The bottom line is we’re not going to allow a right-winger on the court,” Schumer told The Associated Press in an interview.

Schumer’s vow to oppose any Trump nominee to the Supreme Court in the mold of Alito, Thomas or the late Justice Antonin Scalia raises the prospect that there could be a vacancy on the court for many months if a justice retires or dies before Trump leaves office in January of 2029.

This could put pressure on Alito, who is 76, or Thomas, who is 78, to consider announcing their retirement from the high court in the next several weeks before Republicans lose control of the Senate.

Court watchers generally think Alito is more likely to step down next, though he has told friends he doesn’t plan to give up his job before the end of the year, according to The New York Times .

Schumer’s warning is not unexpected after former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) kept Scalia’s seat vacant for nearly a year during the end of former President Obama’s second term.

The Senate eventually confirmed Justice Neil Gorsuch, a Trump nominee, in April of 2017 to replace Scalia, who died in February of 2016.

Schumer warned weeks before the midterm elections that Trump nominees would have a tough time getting confirmed in a Democratic-controlled Senate.

“If the nominees are as crappy as his present ones, very few of them are going to get through,” Schumer told Semafor .

“It’s the quality of the candidate that matters. Thus far, Trump has a record of notoriously bad candidates.”

Schumer told reporters Wednesday that Democrats aren’t putting a blanket hold on Trump’s judicial nominees but urged the president to advance judges and lawyers who are rated as well qualified or qualified by the American Bar Association (ABA) and have a demonstrated record of adhering to the law.

The ABA rated more than 200 of former President Biden’s judicial nominees, or about 85 percent, as well qualified, its highest rating.

“We want judicial nominees like we showed in ‘23 and ‘24, who obey the law, who have fidelity to the rule of law,” he said of the nominees Biden advanced to the Senate. “Too many of Trump’s nominees did not have that at all.”