Trump taps Barrett, launching brawl over Supreme Court’s future

President Donald Trump made it official on Saturday: He wants Amy Coney Barrett to fill Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s vacant Supreme Court seat. And he relishes the upcoming confirmation battle that could solidify the court’s conservative leaning for decades to come.

Standing in the White House Rose Garden on an overcast but warm fall day, Trump formally announced the 48-year-old federal judge — a devout Catholic and mom to seven kids who has served on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals since late 2017 — as his third Supreme Court nominee in just under four years.

Trump vowed Barrett would help ensure "the survival of our Second Amendment, our religious liberty, our public safety and so much more," nodding to his law-and-order rhetoric of recent months.

“We must preserve our precious heritage as a nation of laws," Trump added, "and there is no one better to do that than Amy Coney Barrett."

Barrett’s nomination has thrilled social conservatives and members of the Trump base, who admire her anti-abortion comments and strict views on the Constitution. Those same views have alarmed Democrats and progressives, who fear she will imperil abortion rights, voting rights and healthcare rights.

In her brief remarks, Barrett seemed to allude to those fears, even though there's little chance any Democrat — or progressive groups — will be won over to Barrett's nomination.

“I will be mindful of who came before me," she said, referencing Ginsburg's recent passing. "Judges are not policymakers."

Inside the White House, Barrett had the support of both chief of staff Mark Meadows and top attorney Pat Cipollone, two key aides involved in the selection process. On Capitol Hill, she had the backing of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. She visited the White House twice this week and had positive meetings, cementing her frontrunner status — which was established nearly two years ago when she was a leading contender during the search that ended in Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination.

Even though White House aides spent the week drawing out the selection process, floating other names as a nod key voting blocs, the president made up his mind early. He didn’t even meet with the other leading candidate, Barbara Lagoa, a judge on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, while traveling in her home state of Florida this week.

If confirmed by the Senate, Barrett will replace Ginsburg, the longtime liberal justice who died just over a week ago. Her appointment would firmly tilt the court toward the right for the first time in decades, potentially altering the outcome of key upcoming court cases on issues like Obamacare, reproductive rights and even the presidential election.

“It solidifies the conservative 6-3 majority,” said Carl Tobias, a law professor and expert on federal judicial selection at the University of Richmond Law School. “Chief Justice [John] Roberts will not be as central as he was last term. I do not see much hope for progressives in the short term.”

“Barring structural changes to the court,” he added, “the conservative majority could last for decades, or at least a decade.”

The journey to Barrett’s nomination can be traced back to her confirmation hearing in 2017 for her current appeals court post. During the hearing, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, pressed Barrett about her Catholic faith — “the dogma lives loudly within you,” she said. Barrett told senators her religious beliefs would not affect her decisions.

The White House — and Trump — took notice, said several people familiar with the administration’s selection process. Staffers got coffee mugs made with the phrase emblazoned on them. Barrett became a minor celebrity in the West Wing. Trump started asking others about her. While she wasn’t picked in 2018, she remained front of mind for Trump, the people said.

Once Ginsburg’s seat opened up, Trump quickly settled on Barrett. After his first meeting with her, she started filling out the appropriate paperwork, the people added. On Saturday, Trump touted the fact that, if confirmed, Barrett would be the first female justice with school-aged children.

“What I saw at her 2017 confirmation hearing, and what I saw day in and day out when I clerked for her, is she’s got incredible fortitude and poise,” said John Adams, a former judicial law clerk for Barrett and attorney at Eimer Stahl LLP. “She will handle this process very well.”

Trump unfurled his choice with predictable pomp and circumstance that paid little heed to the ongoing pandemic. Most guests in the large crowd of roughly 150 were maskless, including Dr. Scott Atlas — one the president’s key coronavirus advisers on Covid — and seated right next to one another. American flags were draped along the colonnade of the Rose Garden. State flags lined the other side that opens to the White House lawn.

Coming just five weeks before Election Day, Barrett’s nomination will ignite the enthusiasm of voters on both the left and right. In less than 48 hours after Ginsburg’s death, the liberal group ActBlue raised roughly $100 million dollars for Democratic candidates, while conservative groups — concerned with deregulation, social issues and abortion rights — prepared tens of millions of dollars in ad buys and grassroots efforts for a contentious confirmation battle.

“We are all in for a seven-figure effort along the kind of lines we did with Kavanaugh and Gorsuch,” said Tim Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity, a Koch-backed group concerned with economic and fiscal issues, referencing Trump’s other Supreme Court pick, Justice Neil Gorsuch. “This is a huge moment for the country.”

Trump's 2020 rival, Joe Biden, admonished Trump's choice shortly after the announcement. In a statement, Biden argued Barrett would erode healthcare protections legalized under Obamacare, such as guaranteeing access to insurance for people with preexisting medical conditions.

"The United States Constitution was designed to give the voters one chance to have their voice heard on who serves on the court," he said. "The Senate should not act on this vacancy until after the American people select their next president and the next Congress."

For Trump himself, aides hope Barrett will help strengthen his bond with evangelicals and Catholics; support among these groups had slipped during 2020. Trump cannot afford to alienate or lose any parts of his base during a tight election year in which polls show Biden slightly ahead in battleground states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

“Trump likes her conservative principles and values and I think he likes the fact that she makes all the conservatives very happy,” said a second Republican close to the White House.

The confirmation process will now move to the Senate, where Cipollone and Meadows will help Barrett with the outreach to lawmakers. She is expected to start doing mock hearings soon to prepare for her confirmation hearings, just as Kavanaugh did. He held at least six prep sessions with different people playing different senators.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold its confirmation hearing the week of Oct. 12, likely spanning three to four days. Then, Senate Republicans are aiming to confirm the nominee before the election, although Democrats are doing everything they can to delay the process with procedural moves. Several Republican senators attended Saturday's ceremony, including Sens. Ben Sasse, Mike Lee, Thom Tillis, Josh Hawley and Kelly Loeffler. At one point, Trump said he expected “a straightforward and prompt confirmation,” before adding to the senators: “Good luck.”

“I have no illusions that the road ahead of me will be easy, either for the short term or the long haul," Barrett conceded.

Immediately after the ceremony, reporters asked Meadows if he was confident Barrett would be confirmed before Election Day. “I’m not confident that — that would be a discussion for the senators,” Meadows said.

An ABC/Washington Post poll released Friday showed the majority of Americans believe the Senate should not confirm a new justice until after the election, when the winner of the presidential race is clear. Only 38 percent of Americans surveyed said the confirmation should happen before Nov. 3.

But Republicans have opted to seize on a rare opportunity to seat another conservative jurist who could serve for decades — even if it means potentially suffering through political backlash or losing their thin Senate majority.

In 2016, President Barack Obama similarly tried to fill a Supreme Court vacancy during an election year only to be rebuffed by McConnell, who controlled the Senate majority and argued a new justice should only receive a vote after the presidential election.

That year, Obama officially nominated Merrick Garland, the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, in mid-March. Many Republicans refused to even meet with him in person. McConnell held the seat open for months until he and Trump could confirm Gorsuch, causing many liberals to feel like the seat had been stolen.

For liberals, it was a reminder of the high political value of a Supreme Court seat — something Republicans zeroed in on decades ago after the Senate in 1987 declined to confirm Robert Bork, one of President Ronald Reagan’s judicial picks.

Now, McConnell and other key Republicans, including Senate Judiciary Chair Lindsey Graham, say the argument for waiting for the election results no longer applies because the same party controls both the Senate and White House.

The intense focus on the Supreme Court confirmation helps Trump in many ways, even if it lets Democrats cast Republicans as hypocrites for going back on their previous arguments and rushing an election-year confirmation process. To start, the unexpected battle will divert voters’ attention away from more negative headlines about issues potentially damaging to Trump, like the ongoing pandemic or his refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power. Democrats have tried to play up the idea that a conservative court will dismantle Obamacare for millions of Americans during a once-in-a-century pandemic.

Trump had been looking for weeks for a message to supplant the terrible headlines about this administration’s handling of Covid-19, which has killed over 200,000 Americans. A confirmation battle and all of the controversy it generates fulfills that need and gives the White House another topic to focus on at fundraisers, campaign rallies and even the upcoming debate on Tuesday, Sept. 29.

Some judicial experts, like Tobias, argue there is not enough time this fall to confirm a judge who will serve on the highest court for decades.

“You can’t do it right in 30 days,” Tobias said. “I don’t think hearings could be any shorter than four or five days. By rushing it, you risk not having the public buy-in on the process.”

Daniel Lippman, Marianne LeVine and Meridith McGraw contributed to this report.