Speaking on a flight from Washington to New Jersey on Friday, President Trump said he would not ask Supreme Court candidates about their position on the landmark 1973 Roe v Wade decision which legalised abortion across the US.<doc-sep>President Trump Donald TrumpTrump lashes out after grand jury seated for New York criminal probe Schumer tees up vote on Jan. 6 commission bill Senators struggle to save Jan. 6 commission MORE on Friday said he has narrowed his list of potential Supreme Court nominees to about five, including two women, and plans to announce his pick on July 9. “I’ve got it narrowed to about five,” he told reporters on Air Force One en route to his New Jersey golf club, where he said he plans to interview one or two candidates this weekend. Trump said he would interview six to seven candidates in total, saying, "I like them all." “We have great people,” Trump said of his short list. “Highly talented, brilliant, mostly conservative judges.” ADVERTISEMENT Trump’s comments are the latest sign he is moving rapidly to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy, who announced his retirement this week. Kennedy's retirement does not become official until July 31. A July 9 announcement would come just before Trump leaves for a six-day trip to Europe and could set up a potential confirmation vote as early as the fall. The vacancy has given Trump an opportunity to solidify conservative control of the nation’s highest court. Kennedy, 81, served as a swing vote on key immigration, abortion and gay rights cases. The president has said he wants to fill his seat with someone in the mold of his first Supreme Court pick, Neil Gorsuch, a staunch conservative jurist. The president said he would not ask potential nominees about their position on Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that gave women the right to an abortion. “I’m not going to ask them that question,” he said. Trump did not offer up the five names on his short list, which he has said will be pulled from a list of 25 judges he first released during the 2016 campaign. But he did recognize Sen. Mike Lee Michael (Mike) Shumway LeeHillicon Valley: Amazon facing lawsuits alleging racial, gender bias | Senate Commerce panel advances Biden's top science nominee | Colonial Pipeline CEO to testify on Capitol Hill in June Senate Commerce advances Biden's top science nominee Senators introducing bill to penalize Pentagon for failed audits MORE’s (R-Utah) public acknowledgment he would not turn down the post. “He said he’d like the job, usually they don’t say that,” Trump said. Lee is on Trump’s initial list of possible Supreme Court picks. The confirmation battle is expected to be the most expensive in history , since the ideological balance of the court is at stake. The conservative Judicial Crisis Network has said it plans to spend at least $1 million on a national cable and digital advertising campaign pressuring Democrats facing for reelection in states that Trump won in 2016. Americans for Prosperity, which serves as the political arm of the network founded by conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch, said it will also spend more than $1 million on a campaign “to support a nominee in the mold of Neil Gorsuch.” Liberal groups are also expected to spend significant money making the case that another conservative judge could endanger Roe v. Wade and result in unfavorable rulings in crucial gun-rights and voting-rights cases. – Alexander Bolton contributed Updated at 6:16 p.m.<doc-sep>WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump said on Friday that he planned to interview one or two candidates this weekend at his Bedminster, N.J., resort to fill Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy’s seat, and plans to announce his final pick on July 9. “I’ve got it narrowed to about five,” he said, including two women. The president also said he wouldn’t specifically ask candidates about Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling making abortion legal. However, a potential nominee’s approach to the issue has been a factor in creating Mr. Trump’s list of 25 conservative candidates. The president didn’t say if all of his five finalists were from that list, but he had earlier pledged to pick exclusively from it. Late Thursday, the president met with a bipartisan group of six senators who will play a pivotal role in selecting Mr. Kennedy’s successor because they have deviated from their party on key votes in the past. The lawmakers signaled they want an ideological centrist, complicating Mr. Trump’s decision. Among them were Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, both of whom back abortion rights. Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa), and Democratic Sens. Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Manchin of West Virginia also met with the president, the White House said. “At the end of the day, this is where confirmation is made or broken,” a White House official said, referring to the senators who visited Thursday night. Mr. Manchin said in a radio interview Friday he believed Mr. Trump would face stiff Senate resistance for picking a “hard-core” nominee, and that opposition to the Roe v. Wade decision would raise “red flags for all Americans.” “If he picks somebody that is hard-core on Roe v. Wade or that is hard-core on repealing health care, that is a bigger lift, that is a harder person, going to be a harder person on either side,” he said. Mr. Trump has an opportunity to remake the court for a generation in his choice of a justice who will replace the bench’s most important swing vote, but they must steer the pick through a slender Senate majority that allows little room for error. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) has to lock down the support of at least 50 senators, with a GOP bloc of 51 that includes one senator fighting brain cancer, John McCain of Arizona, as well as several others who have shown themselves willing to buck their party in the past. Opponents of the administration have already sought to center the debate on such flashpoint issues of abortion and health care, arguing that any candidate on Mr. Trump’s list will be too extreme. Ms. Collins said Thursday she would be wary of a nominee committed to overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that broadly established a constitutional right to abortion. “One of the questions that I always ask is, do they respect precedent? What is their view toward precedent? And from my perspective, Roe v. Wade is an important precedent, and it is settled law,” Ms. Collins told reporters. She also said that she believed Mr. Trump should consider a broader swath of candidates than the 25 vetted by leaders of the conservative Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation for ideological reliability, and that she didn’t think “any outside group should determine the list of nominees.” For many of Mr. Trump’s allies, the prospect of remaking the Supreme Court has been their priority, and they are jockeying to promote their favorites on the list of 25, including Judges Amy Coney Barrett, Allison Eid, Thomas Hardiman, Brett Kavanaugh, William Pryor and Amul Thapar. Inside the White House, the person running the search process is White House counsel Don McGahn. He has already compiled extensive records on the 25 candidates—millions of documents in total, a White House official said Friday. “The White House Counsel’s Office has been preparing for this for a long time,” the official said. Mr. McGahn has called about a dozen senators to sound them out about the nomination, the official said. Mr. McGahn didn’t respond to a request for comment. The Democrats left the Thursday meeting indicating that they had pressed Mr. Trump to chart a middle path, rather than a conservative one. “I stressed the importance of nominating someone to the Supreme Court who is pragmatic, fair, compassionate, committed to justice, and above politics—traits that match Justice Kennedy and which I know are important to North Dakotans,” said Ms. Heitkamp. “I told the president that he has a chance to unite the country by nominating a true nonideological jurist.” In a subsequent video posted on Facebook Friday, she said she’s made progress. “The president assured me he wants to look at someone that could gain a wide amount of support.” Each of the Democrats in the group that met with Mr. Trump voted for a previous conservative Supreme Court pick of the president’s, Neil Gorsuch. But Mr. Gorsuch replaced the late Antonin Scalia, an iconic conservative, and so his appointment didn’t change the makeup of the court, and the Democratic votes didn’t make or break his confirmation. Democrats face a steep fight in blocking a pick by Mr. Trump. Some activists see a potential path by replicating the party’s successful effort to block repeal of the Affordable Care Act—holding their own votes and keeping pressure on GOP senators to pick off just enough more. Faiz Shakir, national political director for the American Civil Liberties Union who is coordinating with the Democrats, said: “One question is whether the nation sees this as a national referendum on Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to choose?” Activists in Maine hope to put pressure on Ms. Collins as they did during the health care debate. “Abortion is a health care issue and we were very organized about health care when it was about the ACA,” said Karin Leuthy, co-founder of Suit Up Maine, a grass-roots group associated with Indivisible. —Janet Hook contributed to this article. Write to Louise Radnofsky at louise.radnofsky@wsj.com and Peter Nicholas at peter.nicholas@wsj.com<doc-sep>
ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday he plans to announce his nominee to replace retiring U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy on July 9, and that he has narrowed his list of candidates. “I’ve got it down to about five,” Trump said, including two women. He would not identify the candidates by name. “It’s a great group of intellectual talent ... they are generally conservative,” Trump said. When asked about several specific potential nominees mentioned in recent days, including federal jurists Brett M. Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, and U.S. Senator Mike Lee from Utah, Trump said each was “outstanding.” Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One en route from Washington to his private golf club in New Jersey, Trump said he may interview two contenders for the nomination this weekend. Trump said he not will push the candidates to say whether they would overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which established a woman’s right to abortion. “That’s not a question I’ll be asking,” he said. U.S. President Donald Trump waves as he walks on the South Lawn of the White House upon his return from Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, to Washington, U.S., June 28, 2018. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas He also said he would not discuss gay rights with the candidates, and that he might interview as many as seven people. While Kennedy was a conservative, he proved to be a somewhat unpredictable “swing” vote over his long career. For example, he sided with the court’s liberals by voting in favor of abortion rights and gay rights in key cases. Views on abortion was expected to be one that senators will ask the new nominee about in confirmation hearings, even if the president does not. Trump’s nominee must win confirmation by the Senate. Republicans control the chamber but only by a slim majority, making the views of moderates, including some Democrats, important. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said on Friday he hoped the confirmation process would be done “in time for the new justice to begin the fall term of the Supreme Court ... the first Monday in October.” White House aide Marc Short said on MSNBC that the White House hoped for a Senate confirmation vote in September. That would put a new justice in place before the congressional midterm elections in November, when all seats in the House of Representatives and a third of those in the Senate will be contested. Trump met on Thursday with senators from both parties at the White House to discuss the court vacancy created by the retirement of Kennedy, which was announced on Wednesday. Kennedy’s replacement could cast a deciding vote on limiting or ending the right to abortion. “I do not apply ideological litmus tests to nominees, but I want to see integrity, intellect, a respect for precedent and adherence to the rule of law,” moderate Republican Senator Susan Collins told Reuters when asked about Roe v. Wade. Collins, who favors a woman’s right to choose on abortion, joined like-minded Republican Lisa Murkowski at the White House meeting. Also attending were Republican Charles Grassley and Democrats Joe Manchin, Joe Donnelly and Heidi Heitkamp. Democrat Bill Nelson, asked by reporters if a nominee’s views on Roe v. Wade will be important to him, said, “very.”