Donald Trump said on Thursday that if he were to veer off the list of judges he has named for the Supreme Court, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would be justified in blocking the nominee.
Appearing on the Hugh Hewitt Show, Hewitt said, “I’ve been writing about the Supreme Court a lot, and they keep telling me we can’t trust Trump on his list of 11, and I wrote hey, you don’t have to trust Trump. If he departs from the list — I trust you, by the way — but if he departs, Mitch McConnell can block your nominee. First, can we trust you to live by that list? And second, if you didn’t, would McConnell be justified in blocking your nominee?” (RELATED: Trump Releases List Of People He Would Nominate For Supreme Court)
“Yeah, number one, I’m going to live by that list or very close to it,” Trump replied. “It is possible there’ll be somebody outside of that list that has very similar principles, and I think you don’t want to totally preclude that. But the answer is yes, I’m living by the list, and yes, he can do whatever he wants, because it’ll be either that list or somebody that is very close to it. In fact, I’m thinking about actually naming four or five more people to the list. You know, we had it vetted from Federalist Society, and we had, and actually got the names from Federalist, and that’s considered pretty much the gold standard. We have Jim DeMint and his group — knows those names and respect those names. I have a lot of respect for Jim DeMint. And we have, you know, we have a great list. It’s a great list of people.”
“Yeah, I mean, if we veered from that, I would say block it, and I would be very happy with that. And I wouldn’t even fight it, because I won’t have to,” Trump said.
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