President Trump has described his administration as a quote well oiled machine. That might not be true as a general matter, but it's a pretty apt description when it comes to judicial nominations. In addition to the successful Supreme Court nomination of now Justice Neil Gorsuch, the president has selected eleven men and women to the all important federal appeals courts, and three have now been confirmed by the Senate. More than two dozen other people have been nominated for federal
district courts and other tribunals. Democrats are starting to complain about the process. A new story in Politico says several of the nominations were made without taking the traditional step of consulting consulting with the home state senators. With us to talk about Donald Trump's campaign to remake the federal judiciary is Kerrie Severino, She's chief counsul at the Judicial Crisis Network. And Caroline Frederickson, she's the president of the
American Constitution Society. Welcome to you both, um, Caroline, I know you have some concerns about the people Donald Trump is supporting, but I want to talk, just if we can, at first, just about the scope of what he's doing. Is it fair to say that Donald Trump is moving much more quickly and assertively to fill vacancies than Barack Obama did eight years ago. Well, without a doubt he's UM.
He has been moving very quickly UM. And I think, as you mentioned, the well oiled machine UM seems not to apply generally UM with respect to the Trump administration, but they have definitely moved much more quickly UM on judicial nominations, which I think for many of us because of the caliber of the people he's nominating, is very concerning.
Carry Also, is it true that there have been a lot more nominations for him to fill when he entered office because of the fact that Mitch McConnell, much as he held up the nomination of another Supreme Court justice and didn't have any hearings on Merrick Garland, also tried to hold back on federal judge nominations. Actually, at the end of Obama's term, he had he was confirming judges on par at the same time period in George bush
bushes second term. I think you just have kind of a an ebb and flow of the number of vacancies and Donald Trump, I I agree, has UM come in with a great number of vacancies, and different presidents have had more and more or less, but on average, he has a hand a great number to fill and then made it a higher priority than than President Obama just didn't make it a higher priority, particularly his first term. So he's certainly moving with a lot more speed than
President Obama did. I just knew the two of you weren't were going to agree on everything, Caroline, and it sounds like you wanted to jump in there, go ahead, time frameier talking about. But there was a historic vacancy because Mitch McConnell decided that the last two years of Obama's presidency wasn't gonna allow any judges practically to get through. So, um,
let's set the record straight here. Um, the reason why Donald Trump is presented with so many vacancies is because Mitch McConnell is a fierce partisan, uh and took it out on our nation's court system and left so many vacancy eats and now they're jamming through. I like to quote back Kerry who accused President Obama simply of trying when he tried to fill vacant seats on the d C circuit of packing the courts. We'll actually think that
that's what Donald Trump is trying to do. He's trying to pack the courts with a bunch of of very um questionable nominees. Caroline, let me before we go back to Carry, I want to ask you, given the way you just describe Republicans acting, um, are we not seeing some of the same tactics from the Democrats? What what are you seeing from the Democrats and dealing with the Trump nominations. It seems like they are trying to push
back pretty hard. Well, you know, they have very limited leverage. Honestly, the uh what they are trying to do is assert their constitutional advice and consent role. Um. They're supposed to be consulted before nominations get sent to the Senate. Um, they're supposed to have a role that is played in the Senate historically through the blue slip process um where home state senators get to register whether or not they're in agreement with the nominees um, and that's not being respected. Carry.
As far as the blue slip plot process, I'd like you to explain it and whether it is supposed to be used for for home state senators who don't want to approve who or who don't approve of the judicial nominee before them. So the blue slip process isn't the Senate rule or any any laid down rule. It's a practice of senatorial courtesy that goes back about a hundred years and really under every judiciary committee has had a different process for most of its history. UM, And I
think that's what as it described now. It doesn't mean an absolute block on a nominee where the blue slip has not been returned, or even where negative blue slip has been returned from that home state senator. And that's what Democrats seemed to be asking at this point. But that's that's simply not historical for what has been happening. However, at this point, we haven't had anyone moved forward that didn't have a slips return. So I'm not I'm not
actually sure what but Freaderson complaining about. At this point, we have had Democrats holding up trying to hold up nominee saying, oh, we need time to look at these nominees. UM, a link of time that I would describe as unreasonable when these are people who are well known in their home states. The ideas these senators should know their states well Historically it was more common they give them seven
days to return their blue slips. Now senators are asking for extended periods of time, and it's really just a matter of foot dragging, as we've seen the Democrats doing with confirming uh, the Trump nominees from the cabinet on doubt. Kerry Um, you're talking a moment ago about you said Democrats are are sort of dragging their feet and handing in the so called blue slips that are the home state senators basically saying, uh, go ahead and consider a nominee.
Um are when you look big picture at at everything Republicans and Democrats have been doing on the subject of judicial nom nominations. Are Democrats really doing anything that Republicans didn't do when the shoe was on the other foot in Barack Obama was in the White House. Well, we've
been talking about the blue sliss up until now. But I think a real significant point that is a big contrast is the way they've used just Senate procedure to require extensive amounts of debate, debate for all these nominees. You even have David and I who was a nominee who was a former Obama nominee who had unanimous support in the Senate a hundred votes, who they required that the Republican Senators to go through culture required them to
spend thirty hours of debate allocated to his nomination. These are nominees who would have absolutely been confirmed by a voice vote by unanimous consent um in any other type of administration. Typically there are a lot of judges who were confirmed that way, and nowadays this is not something that they reserve for anyone who's even remotely controversial. It is just simply everyone across the board. Again, even people who have unanimous support, they're trying to pull out all
these procedural stops to slow the process down. That's that abuse of the process and shouldn't be shouldn't be continued. It's not in the best interests of the American people. Caroline, I want to talk about controversial appointment John Bush. He was confirmed to the sixth Circuit. Just some of the more notable things that he did was or said was he compared abortion to slavery. He also spread Obama conspiracy
theories on blogs. Does his confirmation indicate and it was down party lines mean that there is no way for Democrats to block a Trump appointee, even one that stands out as unique. Caroline, Yes, can you hear me? Yes? Go ahead? So I did, I just want to This
actually relates to something that Kerry was just saying. Um. You know, the major point here is that, Um, the Republicans did away with the filibuster for all traditional nominations and so UM, the reason why they were so many vacancies is that they created them by blocking every single one of of President Obama's and keeping those seats open. That doesn't exist anymore. So, uh, you know, there are other tactics that the Democrats are forced to use. UM,
and partly because these nominees are really so extreme. UM. And the conspiracy theory that the nominee was active in spreading was that President Obama was not American, that he was Kenyan, uh, and therefore not appropriate as as the president. I mean, this is completely out of line with what we should be expecting for the caliber of our federal judges. UM. And so it is very concerning. UM. There have been others who are equally disturbing. UH. Nominee who has called
Justice Kennedy a judicial prostitute. I mean, these aren't the kind of people we think have the right temperament to be sitting on the federal bench. Karl, let me have you responded that in particularly with John Bush is now on He's now judge. Bush was confirmed by by the Senate. But you heard June describes some of the things that he said as a blogger. Um, is he in the mainstream?
Is he fit to be a federal judge? Well, first, I do have to correct one glaren factual error where she said Republicans were the ones who elimited the judicial filibuster, completely false. That was Harry Reid in two thousand thirteen who did so in order to allow President Obama to fill up the DC circuit, which had the lowest caseload of the nation, and were judges were twiddling their thumbs.
This is why I thought you shouldn't be packing that court. So, Um, the the Republicans helped get rid of it for the last step, which was the Supreme Court. But all of these are appellate nominees that had everything to do with Harry read nothing to do with Republicans. Um. These nominees are people who are fulfilling President Bushes or President Trump's promise campaign promise that was very significant in this last selection.
I think a key to his winning, which is he wants to put nominees McCourt who are going to be in the line of Justice Scalio, who are going to be committed to the Constitution and the law as written. That something that in this election was squarely before the people in a way that I don't know that it ever has been in a presidential election before. And we even saw one fifth of voters going to the polls with that is their number one issue, and they broke
decidedly for Trump. So these nominees are are fulfilling that campaign promise. And I think their their judicial philosophy is the most important thing here, and that is that is very squarely in line with Justice Scalia. Caroline. Is everybody like John Bush? Um? You know, I look at somebody like Kevin Newsom, the last judge who was confirmed. I know him a little bit. Um. He's somebody who clerked
for Justice suitor, a liberal liberal justice. Um. Are we are we painting with two broad a brush here when we when we're talking about Trump nominee. I think all the Democrats are asking is that just as President Obama prior to nominating anybody always consulted with the Republican Senators UM and worked with their judicial selection commissions. Instead. What President Trump is doing, who, by the way, was elected by a minority of the voters, UM, not the majority
of the voters UM. What President Trump is doing is he is making nominations without consulting in advance. And that's the problem that Democrats have because they are being cut out of this process and expected, you know, after President Trump picked somebody as extreme as Judge bush Um to turn over their blue slips without having been played a role in the selection process, and that is completely unprecedented. We're going to have to leave it there. I want
to thank our guests. That was Caroline Frederickson, she is the President of the American Constitution Society, and Kerry Sabino, chief council of the Judicial Crisis Network. I'm sure we'll be talking to both of you more. We of course, do have the prospect of another Supreme Court vacancy or perhaps more during the Trump presidency, and we will certainly have many, many more lower court nominations as well.