Fox News host Jeanine Pirro is predicting that President Trump’s next pick for the Supreme Court will be “fantastic.”
“Neil Gorsuch has been a great appointee to the Supreme Court and his next candidate and appointee will be fantastic, as well,” Pirro told radio host John Catsimatidis on AM 970 in New York.
Her comments came days after Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement from the nation’s highest court, giving Trump his second opportunity to nominate a new justice.
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Pirro, a former judge who served for years as a district attorney in Westchester County, N.Y., has been floated by some as a possible judicial pick for Trump since he took office.
The president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., responded to the idea on Twitter this week of Pirro becoming a justice on the high court, writing that it “would be pretty awesome.”
In the interview broadcast Sunday, Catsimatidis mentioned the speculation surrounding Pirro before adding, “But I’m not going to ask for comment on that.”
The president has said that he will choose his next Supreme Court nominee from a list of 25 candidates released by the White House last year. He said on Friday that he had narrowed his list to about five names, including two women.
He said he plans to announce his nominee on July 9.
Trump tapped conservative Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court shortly after taking office last year. But Kennedy’s retirement offers Trump his most significant opportunity yet to reshape the ideological bent of the court for generations.
Kennedy was often seen as the swing vote on the court, often siding with its conservative justices on issues of religious freedom and free speech and with its liberals justices on issues like gay rights and abortion.
Trump could move to replace Kennedy with a conservative more likely to consistently side with the Supreme Court’s four other committed conservatives.