Will screw this up....

‘Even Trump can’t screw this up’: Kennedy retirement unites GOP

The president hopes naming a new Supreme Court justice will return him to the high-water mark of the Gorsuch confirmation just in time for the midterms.

By ANDREW RESTUCCIA and LORRAINE WOELLERT

Anthony Kennedy’s retirement announcement was the moment Republicans have been waiting for since Neil Gorsuch was confirmed in April 2017.

Every time Trump ranted on Twitter, questioning the rule of law or pushing policies that run counter to Republican priorities, many in the GOP simply put their heads down and looked ahead to the day when Kennedy stepped down, telling themselves it’d all be worth it for another shot at influencing the makeup of the court for decades to come.

Now, Republicans are eager to set aside their disagreements with Trump to unite around the common goal of installing another conservative on the high court.

The Gorsuch confirmation marked a moment of GOP harmony that hasn’t been replicated. Trump and his aides often refer to the Gorsuch pick to fill the vacancy left by the death of Antonin Scalia, which Senate Republicans blocked President Barack Obama from filling, as a high-water mark of his presidency, and the president has long been obsessed with naming another justice.

Choosing a reliably conservative justice to replace Kennedy, who has been a swing vote on the court, would tip the bench to the right and cement Trump’s legacy long beyond his presidency.

“Originalism does indeed draw the conservative movement together and for a powerful, enduring reason: The court guarantees liberty, and liberty is at the heart of every conservative faction,” said conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, a leading voice urging fellow Republicans to support Trump because of the possibility of naming justices. “A majority on the Supreme Court protects the Constitution as it is written not as the left would like it to read.”

Republicans see the upcoming confirmation fight as an easy win, even for a president known to make unforced errors.

“Even Trump can’t screw this up,” said one Republican close to the White House.

Trump said Wednesday that he will likely pick his nominee from a list that he has publicly circulated, a decision that has reassured Republicans worried he will choose a Fox News personality or other pick out of left field. Aides said Trump is expected to narrow the list to two or three candidates and then conduct in-person interviews.

Brett Kavanaugh, a former Kennedy clerk who is now a D.C. Circuit Court judge, is seen as a leading candidate for the job, as is Raymond Kethledge, who sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit. Other candidates include Thomas Hardiman, a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit who was passed over for Gorsuch in 2017; Amy Coney Barrett, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit; and Amul Thapar, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit who is said to be a favorite of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, according to a person familiar with the issue.

White House counsel Don McGahn, who’s been credited by Trump with successfully running the Gorsuch selection process, will head up the internal search for a candidate, according to Leonard Leo, an outside adviser to the White House. Leo will take a leave of absence from his job as executive vice president of the Federalist Society to manage the outside campaign, as he did during Gorsuch’s confirmation.

Leo said he expects Trump will talk to candidates over the next two or three weeks. “In terms of the process, it’s not clear yet,” Leo said. “But, generally, the White House has tried to move swiftly and I expect this to be no different.”

McConnell said Wednesday he wants to confirm a new justice by the fall, and he has canceled the Senate’s traditional August recess in part to focus on judicial appointments.

Trump’s July, however, is quickly filling up. The president will be in Europe for the NATO summit, a visit to London and an expected meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. His team is also continuing to negotiate with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un in the wake of his summit with Trump in Singapore earlier this month.

Yet the upcoming confirmation fight could breathe new life into a White House that has been beaten down by months of negative headlines and low morale.

Several McGahn associates told POLITICO earlier this year the top White House attorney wanted to leave his post, but the timing hinged to a large degree on whether he’d get a chance to help add another conservative voice to the high court. “I think if we had a possibility of getting another Supreme Court justice, I think he’d hang in,” one McGahn associate said in March.

One former administration official said on Wednesday Kennedy’s retirement will give McGahn new purpose amid the ongoing Russia investigation, from which his office is recused.

Trump’s political advisers are already looking at the court appointment as a way to pressure red-state Democrats ahead of the November midterms. Vulnerable Democratic Sens. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Jon Tester of Montana and Joe Manchin of West Virginia will all “need to decide whether they vote against the [Trump] nominee and lose, or vote for the nominee and lose their base,” said a GOP operative close to the White House.

“The vacancy gives Republicans a unifying focus and will help galvanize the base,” Brian O. Walsh, president of the pro-Trump America First Action, told POLITICO. “The same could be said for the Democrats, but it’s a net positive for the GOP as Dems are already energized.”

Ken Blackwell, a senior fellow at the Family Research Council, said Kennedy’s departure will “turbo-charge” the evangelical vote. “This opportunity has energized the Trump base,” he said. “Everyone’s talking about who’s winning the intensity battle. All of a sudden this vacancy flips the switch on in terms of base intensity.”

It’s been no secret that Republicans wanted Kennedy to step down in time to confirm a new justice before the midterms in case Republicans lose control of the Senate. Last month, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley publicly urged Supreme Court nominees who were flirting with retirement to do so quickly. And Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) said recently that there was a “very real possibility” that Kennedy would retire.

A former senior GOP administration official said Kennedy’s decision appeared to be all about the political calendar and still having a guaranteed Republican Senate majority in place to confirm his successor before the midterms.

“I think the circumstances were beyond obvious. I doubt very much if any pressure was put on him at all,” the former Republican official said. “I don’t think he was going to take chances at his age with 2020 coming up.”

Kennedy personally informed Trump that he was stepping down during a Wednesday visit to the White House. The pair have had warm personal interactions, in part because the justice’s son, Justin, knows Donald Trump Jr. through New York real estate circles.

The justice, who was the subject of retirement rumors last year, served in his final term alongside Gorsuch, his former law clerk.

Retired law professor Alan Dershowitz, who is close to Trump, said that gave the president plenty of lead time to consider a successor.

“I think he’ll take very seriously who he nominates not so much because he cares about the Supreme Court but he cares very much about the symbolism for who he can get credit for appointing, like Gorsuch,” Dershowitz said.