President Donald Trump is looking down the road at a possible opening on the U.S. Supreme Court, and Texas Senator Ted Cruz (R) could be a potential nominee to the high court.
Speaking Wednesday at a Washington summit promoting the administration’s new “Trump Accounts” initiative for children, Trump called Cruz “a very tough guy, very brilliant guy,” adding: “He’s a brilliant legal mind, he’s a brilliant man.
If I nominate him for the United States Supreme Court, I will get 100% of the vote.”
That has sharpened the incentive for Trump and Senate Republicans to move quickly on any Supreme Court opening that arises before the election.
Cruz, a former Supreme Court clerk to Chief Justice William Rehnquist, has long cultivated credentials that fit the profile of modern nominees: elite legal training, conservative bona fides, and experience arguing before the court as Texas solicitor general.
In 2020, Trump publicly included Cruz on a list of possible Supreme Court picks, though he ultimately chose others for prior openings.
The last sitting U.S. senator appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court was Sen. Harold Hitz Burton (R–Ohio), nominated by President Harry S. Truman and confirmed in September 1945. »