President Trump will announce his pick to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court July 9, after interviewing potential nominees this weekend during a trip to his golf course at Bedminster, N.J.
Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday that he had whittled down his list of 25 candidates to about five potential choices, two of whom are women, according to the Associated Press.
“I’ll be announcing it the Monday after the Fourth of July. I like them all,” the president stated.
He called the collective group “brilliant, very talented, mostly conservative judges.”
Federal judges Brett Kavanaugh, Tom Hardiman, Raymond Kethledge, Amul Thapar, and Amy Coney Barrett are considered by many court watchers to be among the front-runners.
[Also read: Oddsmakers favor Kavanaugh, Thapar, Sen. Mike Lee for Supreme Court]
In a pre-recorded interview with Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” program released earlier Friday, Trump said he didn’t plan on asking the interviewees whether they would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark abortion case.
Kennedy’s retirement from the Supreme Court, effective July 31, has caused concern for Democrats and liberal groups over the future of abortion rights in the country, as the court will shift to the ideological right with a second Trump-appointed justice.
Kennedy’s departure has offered Trump a rare opportunity to nominate his second justice for Senate confirmation in as many years.
Trump named Justice Neil Gorsuch to fill the late Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat in 2017.
