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Speaker 1: I'm Gregg Store in our Washington ninety nine one Studios

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Speaker 1: with Michael Best and June Grosso in New York. President

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump tweeted today that he will name his Supreme

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Speaker 1: Court nominee next Thursday, and his narrowing list of potential

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Speaker 1: justices is now at four, according to reports in Bloomberg

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Speaker 1: and elsewhere. The names to know Neil Gorcich, Thomas Hardeman,

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Speaker 1: William Prior, and Raymond Kethlitch, all federal Appeals Court judges.

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Speaker 1: Each of the four was appointed to his current post

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Speaker 1: by George W. Bush, and each has a solid conservative

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Speaker 1: track record. But there are differences that could affect both

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Speaker 1: Trump's selection process and the level of opposition the nominee

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Speaker 1: will generate among Senate Democrats. Grc was an Oxford scholar,

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Speaker 1: Hardeman used to drive a taxi. Prior has said that

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Speaker 1: abortion has slaughtered millions of innocent unborn children. How much

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Speaker 1: do these differences matter for the confirmation process and the

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Speaker 1: Supreme Court itself. Our guest to discuss Donald Trump's shortlist

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Speaker 1: is Steve Sanders, professor at the University of Indiana's Mars

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Speaker 1: School of Law. Steve, Welcome. Let's start with the big picture.

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Speaker 1: If these names are are correct, is it safe to

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Speaker 1: say Donald Trump is going to be nominating a rather

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Speaker 1: conservative justice. Um. I'd say at least three of the

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Speaker 1: four grad I mean they're all solid conservatives. Yes, Um.

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Speaker 1: I think people would tend to agree that William Pryor

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Speaker 1: is probably the most conservative, is the person who is

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Speaker 1: identified as the most overtly ideological of the four. The

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Speaker 1: others are certainly solid conservatives. Um. In their writing, It's

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Speaker 1: important to remember, I think that when these people are

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Speaker 1: writing majority opinions, UM, they're not just speaking for themselves.

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Speaker 1: Court of Appeals judges are not low and wolves. They're

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Speaker 1: speaking for panels. And so when they authored a decision

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Speaker 1: about a particular issue, it wasn't just their idea. It

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Speaker 1: means that a panel of the court agreed with them.

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Speaker 1: But sure, to answer to question, yes, uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: these people, to one degree or another, would preserve the

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Speaker 1: ideological valence I guess of the seat that justice really

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Speaker 1: have vacated when he house the way, the question would be,

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Speaker 1: would any of these people be the sort of intellectual

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Speaker 1: leader of a conservative judicial philosophy that made Justice Scalia

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Speaker 1: so important for so many years? Greg, we've talked about

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Speaker 1: Gorsitch and how much he is like Justice Scalia in

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Speaker 1: many ways. As far as you know who is the

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Speaker 1: front runner, he is certainly one of the front runners.

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Speaker 1: Neil Gorcache of the tenth Circuit in Denver. The other

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Speaker 1: name I was told yesterday I talked to somebody who's

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Speaker 1: familiar with the process is Tom Hardeman, the judge from

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Speaker 1: Pittsburgh on the Federal Appeals Court. There. Uh Bill Prior,

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Speaker 1: whose name has been bandied about a lot because Donald

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Speaker 1: Trump met him, mentioned him several times on the campaign trail. Uh,

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Speaker 1: he seems to be a less likely person, not totally

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Speaker 1: out of contention, and Catholic is sort of sort of

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Speaker 1: a dark horse. But my information is that right now

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Speaker 1: it is at this point a two man race between

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Speaker 1: gorc and Tom Hardeman. Well, Steve, knowing what you do

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Speaker 1: about those two Hardeman and Corsage, let's say that one

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Speaker 1: of them does in fact being the pick. Do you

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Speaker 1: think either of them has shown, uh, in their track

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Speaker 1: record on the court, on the appeals courts, that they

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Speaker 1: might be somebody you can do. Justice Scaliah, who takes

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Speaker 1: kind of a leadership role, or is it is it

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Speaker 1: impossible to know that it's a little bit harder, just

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Speaker 1: because Justice Scalia was on a federal Court of Appeals

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Speaker 1: before going to the Supreme Court. But Justice Scalia before

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Speaker 1: that was an academic and was a lawyer in the

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Speaker 1: executive branch. And so you know, through those ways, particularly

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Speaker 1: as an academic, as somebody who wrote scholarly articles and

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Speaker 1: spoke and taught, he was actually able to develop an

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Speaker 1: articulate a very coherent philosophy. Um Judge Gorsuch, at least

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Speaker 1: according to to Gregg's reporting and that of others, is

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Speaker 1: seen as kind of following in that tradition, as as

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Speaker 1: certainly being in tune with Justice Scalia's philosophy. I think

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Speaker 1: probably what it would come down to more is personality.

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Speaker 1: So I don't know either these people personally, but are

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Speaker 1: they is either than the kind of person who not

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Speaker 1: just can write forcefully and persuasively, but who has the

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Speaker 1: frankly people and political skills necessary to perhaps bring other

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Speaker 1: justices along to his view of a particular case. Greg

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Speaker 1: you mentioned that Harteman drove a cab course, it is

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Speaker 1: more in the mold of the current Supreme Court justices.

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Speaker 1: Having clerked for Justice Kennedy and going to an Ivy

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Speaker 1: League Law school. So does that matter to Donald Trump

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Speaker 1: as much as we know it does seem to matter

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Speaker 1: to some degree. That's at least based on what people

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Speaker 1: have told me who have been talking to him about

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Speaker 1: the Supreme Court. Uh. You know the court right now,

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Speaker 1: everybody on the Court went to either uh Yale Law

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Speaker 1: School or Harvard Law School. Justice Ginsburg actually graduated from Columbia.

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Speaker 1: But they're all Ivy League, all Ivy leaguers, and for

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Speaker 1: the most part there from the two coasts. Uh. Now,

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Speaker 1: Neil gors Is does have an Ivy League education. Uh.

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Speaker 1: He is, however, from Colorado, and that is a new

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Speaker 1: element of diversity that the Court doesn't have right now.

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Speaker 1: But Tom Hardeman has a pretty compelling personal story. He's

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Speaker 1: the first person in his family to attend college. He

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Speaker 1: did drive a taxi to help support himself when he

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Speaker 1: was younger. His father ran a taxi company. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: you know, those sorts of personal stories. We've seen it

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Speaker 1: with other justices like Sonya Soto mayor. Those matter when

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Speaker 1: you're trying to sell somebody to the public. Steve, given

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Speaker 1: that we're now we're going to get another conservative vote,

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Speaker 1: it appears to replace what was a generally conservative vote

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Speaker 1: in Justice Scalia, What issues can we expect if their

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Speaker 1: ninth justice does get confirmed to for the that the

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Speaker 1: court might you know, immediately changed the law on there's

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Speaker 1: more chance of things being overturned. Let's say, well, I

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Speaker 1: think religious liberty questions are going to continue to bubble

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Speaker 1: up through the lower courts, or maybe more specifically the

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Speaker 1: intersection between religious liberties and and in other claims of

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Speaker 1: right gay rights, transgender rights, for example. There are many

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Speaker 1: ways those could come up. The court this spring will

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Speaker 1: hear its first major case related to transgender rights, but

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Speaker 1: the issue is actually a fairly narrow technical one. It's

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Speaker 1: not a big picture constitutional law issue, so transgender rights

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Speaker 1: could come back to the court. There were a number

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Speaker 1: of things related to immigration policy, related to labor unions

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Speaker 1: support and whether or not people can be required to

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Speaker 1: support labor unions cases where the Court essentially sort of

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Speaker 1: had to punt wasn't able to make a definitive ruling

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Speaker 1: in the past year. Those could come back to the

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Speaker 1: Court in some form or other. Greg are both are

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Speaker 1: both harden It and Gorzege equally confirmable. In other words,

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Speaker 1: they both went got their confirmations to the federal Circuit

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Speaker 1: courts on voice votes. I believe. Yeah, I think Steve

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Speaker 1: is exactly right. They're distinguished from Prior in that regard.

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Speaker 1: Prior was the subject of a two year fight. Uh

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Speaker 1: he was confirmed eventually on a party line basis. Both

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Speaker 1: of them borrying something we don't know, borring something hidden.

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Speaker 1: Both Gorsuch and Harteman would look to be much more

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Speaker 1: easily confirmable. The Republicans have the votes regardless, but in

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Speaker 1: terms of the ease of confirmation, yes, they are more

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Speaker 1: likely to have a smoother path. And we want to

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Speaker 1: thank you Greg Store for being here with us and

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Speaker 1: sharing your Supreme Court knowledge and another excellent report on

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Speaker 1: the future nominee