Donald Trump Updates List of Supreme Court Candidates: Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, Josh Hawley Included

Supreme CourtJ. Scott Applewhite/AP

CHARLIE SPIERING 9 Sep 2020

President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced his updated list of conservative candidates he would nominate to the Supreme Court if re-elected as president.

“Every one of these individuals will ensure equal justice, equal treatment, and equal rights for citizens of every race, color, religion, and creed,” Trump said in an appearance at the White House.

The list was comprised of 20 names and included political figures such as newly elected Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, as well as Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX), Tom Cotton (R-AR), and Josh Hawley (R-MO).

“Together we will defend our righteous heritage and preserve our magnificent American way of life,” he said.

The president is unlikely to nominate a political senator to the court, but including their names gives his supporters an idea of his commitment to conservative legal minds.

The president repeated that Judge Amy Coney Barrett of Indiana of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit was still on the list, widely considered by conservatives to be a top candidate.

Trump warned that if former Vice President Joe Biden was elected, he would empower the radical left to put activist judges on the Court.

“In the recent past many of our most treasured freedoms – including religious liberty, free speech, and right to keep and bear arms – have been saved by a single vote on the United States Supreme Court,” he said.

In 2016, the president released a list of Supreme Court candidates when he was first running for president. He updated the list in November 2017 to included Judge Brett Kavanaugh, whom he ultimately nominated to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy.

The president announced in June that he would update the list of conservative potential Supreme Court justices, citing disappointment with some of the court’s decisions upholding former President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) amnesty, defunding Sanctuary Cities, and directing the Census to ask about citizenship.

The president’s lists of candidates were wildly popular with conservative legal groups, some of who had reservations about Trump’s judgment to pick Constitutional originalists in the same legal vein as Justice Antonin Scalia.

Here are the additional names that President Trump added to the list via the president’s campaign:

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