Schumer Vows Democrats Will Block Any Trump ‘Right-Winger’ for the Supreme Court
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said Thursday that Democrats will not allow President Donald Trump to put “a right-winger” on the Supreme Court once they take the Senate majority in January.
In an interview with the Associated Press, Schumer framed the midterm results as a mandate to play hardball on judicial and Cabinet confirmations for the final two years of Trump’s term.
“The bottom line is we’re not going to allow a right-winger on the court,” Schumer told the Associated Press, according to the outlet’s account of the interview.
He also said Democrats are “not going to allow any crappy nominees” for lower federal courts or for Trump’s Cabinet, expanding the fight beyond any single Supreme Court vacancy.
Democrats flipped enough seats Tuesday to hold at least 54 Senate seats when the new Congress convenes, the Associated Press reported, giving Schumer a working majority for confirmation votes.
Schumer would not say whether Democrats would leave a Supreme Court seat open until after the 2028 presidential election, the tactic then-Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell used in 2016 after Justice Antonin Scalia’s death.
That refusal to rule a holdout strategy in or out left Republicans warning that lame-duck confirmations before January 3 may be their last clear window for Trump judicial picks.
American Greatness summarized the AP interview as Schumer signaling that the incoming majority would refuse to confirm a conservative Supreme Court nominee and intensify scrutiny of lower-court and executive picks.
Trump remade the Supreme Court during his first term and early in his second, helping build a conservative majority that delivered major rulings on abortion, administrative power and other constitutional fights.
Schumer’s comments reverse that dynamic for the next two years: any unexpected vacancy would land in a Senate run by Democrats who have already announced they will reject a nominee they brand as too conservative.
Republicans have urged Majority Leader John Thune to keep the Senate in session during the lame-duck period to confirm pending Trump nominees before Democrats take the gavels.
Schumer’s AP interview did not detail which lower-court nominees Democrats would target first, but it put Cabinet and judicial nominations on the same hard line.
The warning lands as conservatives separately urge Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas not to retire while Democrats control the Senate, a debate that intensified after Tuesday’s results.
For Trump, the practical effect is divided government with an explicit Democratic veto over the kinds of judges and Cabinet officials he wants confirmed after January.
Schumer has said he expects to be reelected as Democratic leader despite open discontent from some newly elected senators; the SCOTUS vow gives progressives a concrete fight even if leadership stays in place.
Confirmation battles will start as soon as the new majority organizes and Trump continues to send names to the Senate for courts and remaining executive posts.
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