US President Donald Trump said Friday he will announce his pick to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy on July 9, and will spend the weekend interviewing candidates.
Speaking aboard Air Force One, he said there are at least five candidates on his short list, including two women, NBC reported.
Though he may meet with one or two candidates during his stay at his golf club in New Jersey this weekend, “I’ll probably interview six or seven” candidates altogether, Trump said.
“Outside of war and peace, of course, the most important decision you make is the selection of a Supreme Court judge, if you get it. As you know, there are many presidents who never get a choice,” Trump said.
“It is a group of highly talented, very brilliant, mostly conservative judges,” he added.
NBC News previously reported that one of the front-runners, according to those involved in the process, is Brett Kavanaugh of Maryland. He serves on the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and is a former Kennedy law clerk, as was Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s first Supreme Court nominee, who succeeded Antonin Scalia.
Kennedy, who plans to retire at the end of July, was a key swing vote who sometimes sided with his liberal colleagues on contentious social issues. The next appointee could shift the balance to a more conservative-learning bench.
On the campaign trail, Trump pledged to appoint a justice who would overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court case that legalized abortion, saying as a candidate that reversing the decision “will happen, automatically” under his presidency.
Kennedy, who was nominated to the bench by President Ronald Reagan, earned praise from both parties for the weight he put on the rights to privacy, dignity and freedom of speech.
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