On Monday night, President Donald Trump will end the suspense; on prime-time television he’ll announce who his SCOTUS nominee is for the Supreme Court seat being vacated by Justice Anthony Kennedy. On Monday’s MidPoint, we focused on how the next justice could impact the rights of women in the U.S. and here in Florida.
Joining us here in the studio was Amy Weintraub. She’s the reproductive rights program director at the Progress Florida Education Institute.
There’s so much at stake with Donald Trump’s pick. For example, on the campaign trail, Trump promised his base that if he was elected he would appoint justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade.
We’re told the four finalists are federal appeals court judges Thomas Hardiman, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett and Raymond Kethledge. Two other judges, Amul Thapar and Joan Larsen have also been considered by the President. They were all on a list of 25 names that were vetted by the conservative groups Federalist Society and Heritage Foundation.
“Well, they’re going to be completely in concert with President Trump’s promise to only appoint biased judges who will overturn Roe. All of the folks that you mentioned have strong histories of making decisions in opposition to abortion access. So, yeah, those societies who vetted the justices are extremely conservative. They’re extreme anti-abortion folks. And they’re going to put forward people who do not uphold women’s’ health.”
Even if all 49 members of the Democratic caucus united to oppose the nominee they would still need at least one Republican to join them to block the nomination. But there are red state Senate Democrats who are up for re-election in November like Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Joe Manchin of WV and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota.
Listen to the whole show here:
At the beginning of the show we heard comments left by two listeners after last week’s show. On that show we heard audio from two Tampa Bay area rallies to protest the separation of families at the border.
Watch the show here:
