The freak out has begun. ABC News broke in on Wednesday with the announcement that Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy is retiring. Journalist Jon Karl fretted that a “hard-line” conservative will be coming. Dan Harris wondered if moderate Republicans might rise up to stop a new conservative nominee.
Relating that Donald Trump will choose someone from his already-released list of possibilities, Karl worried: “The list of conservative judges that the President-elect, back in November, back after the election put out, is the list they'll be going from to look for a replacement for Kennedy. In other words, a hard-line conservative.”
He added: “The people on the President's team involved in this do not believe in the tradition of you replace a moderate with a moderate.” As the Media Research Center’s Rich Noyes noted in 2017, network journalists use ideological labels for conservatives far more than they do liberals.
Harris then wondered (hoped?) if Republicans might stop their party's nominee:
Let's talk about the U.S. Senate because this is where it will all come down to the United States Senate. And as you said, the Republicans have a one-vote majority there. So there are Republican senators who have contentious relationships with the President of the United States. John McCain comes to mind, Jeff Flake from Arizona comes to mind. So is it possible that we could see members of the President's own party stop him on this?
Karl agreed that this was possible.
A transcript is below. Click “expand” to read more:
ABC News Special Report
6/27/18
2:12 p.m. Eastern
DAN HARRIS: Let's give it to ABC News chief White House correspondent John Karl who is standing by in the Washington bureau. Give us a sense, I know it’s early, it is extremely early. This news is just minutes old. But how likely is it for the president to be able to get his pick through?
JON KARL: I think it will be an epic battle as George just mentioned, but I have talked to people involved on the President's team on this, and they are going to push to get a person nominated and confirmed before the midterm elections. That will be a monumental task. Democrats will do everything in their power to prevent that from happening. Remember, the Republicans have right now, Dan, simply a one-seat majority in the Senate. Thanks to the way they have changed the rules, they can confirm a justice on a simple majority and they will want to get this done before the midterm elections, before there is any chance that that majority goes away.
And I am told also that that list that you heard George mention, the list of conservative judges that the President-elect, back in November, back after the election put out is the list they'll be going from to look for a replacement for Kennedy. In other words, a hard-line conservative. The people on the President's team involved in this do not believe in the tradition of you replace a moderate with a moderate. There will be an effort to replace Kennedy with somebody that would decisively sway the balance of power in the Supreme Court.
HARRIS: Jon, let's talk about the U.S. Senate because this is where it will all come down to the United States Senate. And as you said, the Republicans have a one-vote majority there. So there are Republican senators who have contentious relationships with the President of the United States. John McCain comes to mind, Jeff Flake from Arizona comes to mind. So is it possible that we could see members of the President's own party stop him on this?
KARL: No question. Also, there is a question of John McCain has not been in Washington for a vote for some time, obviously suffering from brain cancer. He's been back in Arizona. There's a question of whether or not he would even be here to cast a vote, a vote which they would need potentially. And also you have Susan Collins who hasn't had as openly a contentious a relationship as someone like Jeff Flake or John McCain. but who is very much a moderate, pro-abortion rights Republican who could potentially balk at the idea of somebody that would do away, for instance, with Roe v. Wade, the decisive vote to do away with Roe v. Wade. There would be the decisive vote to do away with Roe v. Wade. Even if the Republicans, even if the president can manage to get somebody nominated, to get through a confirmation hearings and get to a vote on the U.S. Senate before the midterms with the one-seat majority, it will be very difficult to get somebody from this list of judges that they're working from.
