(Fwrd Axis) — President Joe Biden on Thursday predicted his Supreme Court nominee will get some support from Senate Republicans in an exclusive interview with NBC’s Lester Holt ahead of Super Bowl Sunday.
The President said he has done a “deep dive” on four possible candidates to succeed Justice Stephen Breyer on the US Supreme Court, but declined to say who they were when pressed by Holt.
“I’ve taken about four people and done the deep dive on them, meaning thorough background checks, to see if there’s anything in the background that would make them not qualified,” Biden said. “I’m not looking to make an ideological choice here, I’m looking for someone to replace [Justice Stephen] Breyer, with the same kind of capacity Judge Breyer had.”
President Biden on his search for a Supreme Court nominee:
Biden tells @LesterHoltNBC that he’s done a deep dive on “about four people,” and thinks his pick will get a vote from Republicans
Biden says he's looking for someone "with the same kind of capacity" as Justice Breyer pic.twitter.com/pNYLrLVSBR
— NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt (@NBCNightlyNews) February 10, 2022
Judge J. Michelle Childs, Ketanji Brown Jackson and California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger are all under consideration and the White House has said Biden is on track to make his decision by the end of the month.
House Majority Whip James Clyburn has been pushing for Childs to get the job. Clyburn is a long-time Biden ally who played a key role in getting the President to vow he’d name a Black woman to the Supreme Court on the campaign trail.
“As he’s looking at the process, he’s reviewing not just bios, but he’s also reviewing cases and he is looking at binders of cases because he is … taking this approach very seriously. He’s taking a very thorough approach to it,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters at Tuesday’s press briefing.
Biden said while Republicans may not support his agenda, he believes they will get votes from the Republican side of the aisle.
“I think whomever I pick will get a vote from the Republican side,” he said.
Biden has already spoken with several Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), and Senate Judiciary ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).
The President will meet with the Senate Judiciary Committee, who will handle the nominee’s confirmation, on Thursday evening to discuss who he should choose.
