Chuck Schumer said Thursday that Senate Democrats will not let President Donald Trump place a right-wing justice on the Supreme Court once they control the chamber, raising the prospect that any vacancy in the next two years could go unfilled.
Schumer, who is likely to become majority leader next year, said the same resistance would apply to weak nominees for lower federal courts and Trump's Cabinet. He refused to say whether he would keep a high-court seat open until after the next presidential election, the tactic Republican Mitch McConnell used in 2016.
The warning came two days after Tuesday's midterm elections handed Democrats both the House and the Senate. The party is guaranteed at least 54 of 100 Senate seats and could reach 56 if the still-uncalled races in Mississippi and Alaska go its way.
That margin all but ends Trump's hopes of extending the conservative supermajority he built in his first term, when he appointed three of the current justices. A person with knowledge of his comments said Trump had privately mused about naming as many as seven justices by the end of his second term.
The White House accused Democrats of politicizing the court and of entertaining plans to expand it with liberal justices.
President Trump will never let them pack the Supreme Court and ruin the independent judiciary,
Lauren Bis, White House spokeswoman
The justices' timing
Neither of the two oldest justices, Samuel Alito, 76, and Clarence Thomas, 78, has publicly signaled that retirement is imminent. Alito has said he will serve through the end of the term next summer and would not step down during a lame-duck period.
Thomas would become the longest-serving justice in U.S. history if he stays on the bench until May 2028. Trump has praised both men and declined to say whether they should leave so he could choose their replacements.
Dale Carpenter, a law professor at Southern Methodist University, said a retirement right before Democrats take over the Senate would set off unprecedented pressure for serious changes to the court.
A lame-duck path is uncertain
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wrote on X after the election that Republicans have no chance of confirming a worthy successor to Thomas or Alito during Trump's term, and probably none under a Republican president in 2029-2033, because the party will not win back enough seats in 2028.
Even a surprise vacancy in the coming weeks would not guarantee a quick confirmation while Republicans still hold power. Several of the departing Republican senators have had rocky relations with Trump.
Trump effectively pushed Sen. Thom Tillis out of running again in North Carolina, where former Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, captured the seat. Trump also opposed Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and John Cornyn of Texas in their primaries, and Democrats flipped the Texas seat.
Maine Sen. Susan Collins, who lost to Democrat Troy Jackson, blamed her defeat partly on Trump. Schumer, meanwhile, would not say whether he will try again to eliminate the filibuster, which would let Democrats pass bills with a simple majority.
