President Trump said he probably won’t ask a prospective Supreme Court justice’s stance on overturning Roe v. Wade when he decides who to nominate to the federal bench.
In an excerpt from an interview set to air Sunday with Fox Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo, the president said he was “putting conservative people” on the high court, but probably would not ask beforehand how those nominees might vote on the landmark case that legalized abortion.
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“Are you going to ask your nominee beforehand how they might vote on Roe V. Wade?” Bartiromo asked.
“That’s a big one, and probably not,” the president responded, according to an excerpt tweeted by Fox News producer Fin Gomez. “They’re all saying, ‘don’t do that, you shouldn’t do that,’ but I’m putting conservative people on and I’m very proud of Neil Gorsuch who has been outstanding. His opinions are so well-written and so brilliant.”
“[So] I’m going to do something, but I don’t think I’ll be so specific,” Trump added.
Trump said during the campaign that he would appoint justices who oppose abortion, but declined to say, specifically, that they would overturn the ruling.
“I will protect it and the biggest way you can protect it is through the Supreme Court and putting people in the court,” he said in May 2016.
The president’s previous nomination to the Supreme Court, Justice Neil Gorsuch, told the Senate Judiciary Committee that his stance on Roe v. Wade never came up in his meetings with the president during his confirmation hearings last year.
“In that interview did he ever ask you to overrule Roe v. Wade?” Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) asked.
“Senator, I would have walked out the door,” Gorsuch replied. “It’s not what judges do. I don’t do it at that end of Pennsylvania Avenue and they shouldn’t do it at this end either, respectfully.”
A recent poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 67 percent of Americans say they don’t want the Supreme Court to overturn the landmark 1973 decision, while 29 percent said they do.