Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis raised eyebrows Monday with his apparent criticism of former President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court appointments.
The Florida governor stated on the Hugh Hewitt Show that Donald Trump’s picks for the Supreme Court — Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — pale in comparison to Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. DeSantis then claimed that although he appreciates the work of all three, he would select more ideologically conservative justices as president.
“Well actually, I would say we’ll do better than that,” DeSantis said when asked by Hewitt if he would pledge to appoint judges similar to Trump.
“I mean, I respect the three appointees he did, but none of those three are at the same level of Justices Thomas and Justice Alito,” DeSantis added. “I think they are the gold standard, and so my justices will be along the lines of a Sam Alito and a Clarence Thomas.” (RELATED: Trump And DeSantis Are At War Over Their COVID Responses. Here Are Their Records)
Gov. @RonDeSantis: “None of” Trump’s 3 Supreme Court appointees “are at the same level of Justices Thomas and Justice Alito. I think they are the gold standard, and so my justices will be along the lines of a Sam Alito and a Clarence Thomas.” pic.twitter.com/fxSPmp2LSt
— Never Back Down (@NvrBackDown24) June 12, 2023
Desantis added that, as governor, he was able to quickly shift the ideological composition of Florida’s supreme court. “In Florida, I inherited a very liberal state supreme court, maybe the most liberal in the country, very activist,” DeSantis told Hewitt.
“I was able to replace three of the four liberals my first month in office with conservative justices,” DeSantis added. “I’ve since been able to make a number of appointments since then. So we now have the most conservative state supreme court in the country. And so I think we have a really good track record on doing that.”
Twitter users quickly drew attention to the governor’s past praise of Trump’s Supreme Court picks.
The then-congressman praised Gorsuch in 2017, tweeting that if someone, “created a nominee from scratch with the goal of filling Scalia’s large shoes, such a nominee would look a lot like Neil Gorsuch.” DeSantis tweeted in the summer of 2018 that Kavanaugh “understands” and can “apply” the Constitution and its principles in a “persuasive way.” In 2020, he tweeted that Barrett was an “outstanding choice” with “an exemplary legal career,” and that she would “apply the law of the Constitution faithfully & serve as an inspiration to millions of our fellow citizens.”
Stephen Cheung, a political advisor who served in the Trump Administration, took aim at DeSantis over his criticism of Trump’s judicial nominees.
“Ron DeSantis just said he does not support the three Trump-appointed Supreme Court Justices that overturned Roe v. Wade,” Cheung tweeted.
Alito authored the majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which returned the issue of abortion to the states. Gorsuch and Barrett joined the 6-3 majority, while Kavanaugh and Thomas authored concurring opinions. Kavanaugh’s concurrence emphasized the limited scope of the decision, while Thomas took a broad view, suggesting the court reexamine precedents that recognized constitutional rights to contraceptive use, gay sex and interracial marriage.