Donald Trump doubled down on his promise to appoint extremely conservative Supreme Court justices on Monday, telling conservative talk radio host Mike Gallagher that, if he were to become president, his court picks would be “as close to Scalia as you could find.”
In the same interview, as Media Matters noted yesterday, Trump entertained conspiracy theories about Justice Antonin Scalia’s death, calling them “big stuff.” Trump made similar comments to conservative radio host Michael Savage on Tuesday.
“Should the Senate absolutely make every effort to block a liberal justice appointee from President Obama?” Gallagher asked Trump.
“I think absolutely,” Trump responded. “I mean, why shouldn’t we? They can do it easily. The time, fortunately, is not that long, and it seldom happened where they appointed in that last year. No, we have to do that, we have to do that.”
He added that if the Senate fails to block an Obama nominee, it will become “even easier” for him to win the GOP presidential nomination by capitalizing on conservative backlash.
When Gallagher asked what kind of justices he would put on the Supreme Court, Trump repeated the name of George W. Bush appeals court nominee Diane Sykes , adding, “I’ll tell you, honestly, as close to Scalia as you could find would be the best way to describe it, that’s what I would want.”
