President Donald Trump on Tuesday tapped Judge Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court, elevating a 49-year-old judge who has served on a federal appeals court for more than a decade to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia. “I respect, too, the fact that in our legal order it is for Congress, and not the courts, to write new laws,” Gorsuch said. My teenage daughters were cheering the TV!” 
 
 The reference to “the justice” was to Antonin Scalia, the late justice whom Gorsuch replaced, and “Mrs. Scalia’s widow, Maureen, was also in the audience. He was confirmed by a Senate voice vote, meaning there were no objections to his confirmation but individual senators' votes were not recorded. “It is the role of judges to apply, not alter, the work of the people’s representatives. Bad!” 
 
 Trump had additionally said that a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit that held oral arguments to review the judge’s order was “disgraceful” and that the judges cared more about politics than following the law. The remarks angered the president, who attacked Blumenthal on Twitter, saying the senator misrepresented Gorsuch’s comments. Trump has suggested Republicans should eliminate the filibuster if Democrats use it, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has been more circumspect about that idea, saying it remains up to the Senate, not the White House. In a ruling last August in an immigration case, Gorsuch questioned the wisdom of that doctrine, arguing that the meaning of the law is for judges to decide, not federal bureaucrats. And I’m heartened by the support I have received from people who recognize that there’s no such thing as a Republican judge or a Democratic judge. Gorsuch pledged that, if confirmed, he would serve as “a faithful servant of the constitution and laws of this great country.” 
 
 “The Supreme Court’s work is vital not just to a region of the country, but to the whole, vital to the protections of the people’s liberties under law and to the continuity of our constitution — the greatest charter of human liberty the world has ever known,” Gorsuch said. “I appointed and confirmed a Supreme Court justice in the mold of the late, great Antonin Scalia,” he said, “and now Justice Gorsuch has a seat on the United States Supreme Court.” 
 
 In his March note to Trump, Gorsuch was similarly effusive.
– Was the bloom at one point off the Neil Gorsuch rose? When President Trump first tapped the Supreme Court justice for the job earlier this year, he praised Gorsuch as being the "best" candidate for the job, and by many accounts, Gorsuch has since made good at carrying out the president's conservative agenda. And Trump has publicly touted Gorsuch as one of his main achievements so far—but privately things may have been quite different initially. Sources tell the Washington Post Trump was furious after hearing Gorsuch was slamming him in private meetings with lawmakers (specifically a February one with Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal) in response to the president's attacks on the judiciary. So furious, in fact, that Trump spoke of yanking his nomination of Gorsuch and finding someone else for the job, sources say. "He's probably going to end up being a liberal like the rest of them," Trump reportedly told Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell during a meeting; a source says McConnell had to talk Trump down. Part of what fueled Trump's "explosion" was that Gorsuch didn't seem "loyal" and appeared ungrateful for the opportunity of a lifetime position on the Supreme Court, other sources note. What appears to have soothed Trump's nerves: a handwritten letter from Gorsuch, dated March 2 and seen by the Post, expressing his gratitude. "Your address to Congress was magnificent," Gorsuch wrote. "And you were so kind to ... mention me. My teenage daughters were cheering the TV!" The White House is pushing back on the Post report. "At no point did the president consider withdrawing Justice Gorsuch's nomination," a spokesman said in a statement. "He is very proud of the accomplishment."