A second Trump presidency is going to leave more than a lasting legacy on the executive branch, according to a CBS legal analyst who believes that President-elect Donald Trump is likely to cement another achievement on the high court over the next four years.
Jan Crawford, chief legal correspondent for CBS, predicted on Sunday that the Republican leader will fill another vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court given the ages of several older justices including Clarence Thomas, 76, Samuel Alito, 74, and Sonia Sotomayor, 70. “I think that Donald Trump will probably get his fourth nomination to the Supreme Court, either this year or maybe next year,” Crawford told host Major Garrett and a “Face the Nation” panel, adding that she thinks Alito will be the next to retire. Alito was appointed by former President George W. Bush and confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2006, filling a vacancy left by Sandra Day O’Connor.
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“He was nominated, took the bench in 2006 after nearly two decades on the court,” she added.
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Such a scenario, which would take place during Republican control of the Senate, would likely present President-elect Trump with a historic victory and a rare opportunity to select four of the court’s nine justices. George Washington and Franklin D. Roosevelt each saw eight of their nominees approved to the bench, the most in history. In his first term, President-elect Trump helped nominate and confirm Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh, and Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court.
The latter, whom Trump nominated in 2017, was the first to be approved following the abolishment of the Senate filibuster by a Republican majority under Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who cited Democrats’ 2013 decision to invoke the “nuclear” option and do away with the filibuster for lower-level court nominees. Kavanaugh was confirmed the following year in a 51-49 vote, and Coney Barrett took the bench after a 51-48 vote. None of the three justices would have made cloture under historic Senate rules, which required 60 votes for approval of a high court nominee.
Polling by Gallup shows that mistrust in the Supreme Court remains at a historic high; 51% of Americans disapprove of the way the court handles its responsibilities, while just 44% approve, according to a survey in September. However, the trend began to occur under President Joe Biden when a majority of Americans first disapproved of the Supreme Court’s job performance in September of 2021. During President-elect Trump’s first term, the Supreme Court enjoyed a net favorability for most of his four years in office.
Since Trump’s appointments, the court has issued a wealth of groundbreaking conservative decisions, none more so than the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade. The 2024 Chevron decision eliminated the ability of government professionals to be prioritized over private sector specialists when establishing industry regulations. In 2023, the court effectively ended affirmative action on college campuses when applicants challenged the acceptance policies of Harvard and the University of North Carolina.
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