Trump Ready If Any Justices Retire Early, Citing Ginsburg (1)

President Donald Trump said older, conservative Supreme Court justices might consider resigning while he is in office, invoking the case of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whose refusal to leave impacted the balance of the court, as a cautionary tale.

Asked about the future of two older members of the court, Justice Samuel Alito, 76, and Justice Clarence Thomas, 77, Trump cited Ginsburg’s decision to stay on into her 80s and after repeated bouts of cancer, leaving Trump to replace her when she died.

“There’s a theory you reach a certain age and you give up your seat to if you have the president,” Trump said in a Fox Business interview. “But she decided that she was going to live forever.”

Read more: Senate Prepared for Any Supreme Court Opening, Grassley Says

Republicans may also lose control of the Senate as soon as January following midterm elections, making it harder for Trump to secure the nomination of a conservative nominee.

Trump said it would be an honor to name another justice, recognizing his role in shaping the judiciary for a generation.

“The average is like, 40 years. It’s a long time so that your ideology, your policies, your everything would be of the kind that we like,” he said.

But he praised Alito, who is rumored to be considering retirement, as a “brilliant justice” who is “in very good physical health.”

“You know, in theory, in theory, it’s two or three, they tell me, if you just read statistics, it could be two, could be three, could be one,” Trump said. “I don’t know. I’m prepared to do it.”

During his first term, Trump named Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett to the court, though he has criticized recent court rulings against his policies. In the interview, Trump renewed his complaint, saying his appointees don’t “stick together.”

“The Liberals do stick together,” he said. “There’s one thing about those justices. They stick together like glue, not like the Republicans.”

(Updates with details in second paragraph)

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Skylar Woodhouse in Washington at swoodhouse15@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Jordan Fabian at jfabian6@bloomberg.net

Magan Crane, Meghashyam Mali

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