Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia found Donald Trump’s outspokenness and unfiltered comments as a presidential candidate early in the 2016 campaign to be refreshing, a friend of the late judge revealed in an interview.
“Justice Scalia thought it was most refreshing to have a candidate who was pretty much unfiltered and utterly frank,” Bryan Garner, a lexicographer who wrote two books with Scalia, told the Wall Street Journal in an interview published Monday.
Garner, a longtime friend of the late Supreme Court justice, said Scalia liked Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, and was also intrigued by Trump.
“But he was fascinated by the fact that Trump was so outspoken in an unfiltered way, and therefore we were seeing something a little more genuine than a candidate whose every utterance is airbrushed,” he said.
Garner traveled through Asia with Scalia for two weeks before his death in 2016. He has since written a memoir about his friendship with Scalia, called “Nino and Me,” which hits stores Tuesday.
Though Scalia spoke well of Trump’s candidacy, Garner stopped short of speculating on how he may have viewed Trump’s presidency and the actions he’s taken since the inauguration.
“These [were] early days in the campaign,” Garner told the Wall Street Journal. “It shouldn’t be looked at through the lens of everything that’s happened since.”
Scalia died in February 2016, just one week after he and Garner concluded their trip to Asia.
Trump has since called his nomination of Neil Gorsuch to fill Scalia’s seat on the Supreme Court one of the greatest accomplishments of his presidency.
“He was a man of pugnacity, and he just couldn’t help himself when he thought he had a knockout punch,” Garner said of Scalia.
