Ron DeSantis looks to appoint seventh conservative Supreme Court justice if elected president

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has indicated he will nominate a seventh conservative Supreme Court justice if he is elected president in 2024 and serves two terms — in a shot at term-limited Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump.

DeSantis, 44, who is expected this week to jump into the GOP presidential primary, said Justice Clarence Thomas, 74, Justice Samuel Alito, 73, Chief Justice John Roberts, 68, and Justice Sonia Sotomayor, also 68, may all retire in the next eight years, giving whoever is president the power to reshape the high court.

“I think if you look over the next two presidential terms, there is a good chance that you could be called upon to seek replacements for Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito and the issue with that is, you can’t really do better than those two,” DeSantis told the National Religious Broadcasters Convention in Orlando on Monday.

“If you replace a Clarence Thomas with somebody like a Roberts or somebody like that, then you’re gonna actually see the court move to the left, and you can’t do that.

“So it is possible that in those eight years, we have the opportunity to fortify Justices Alito and Thomas as well as actually make improvements with those others, and if you were able to do that, you would have a 7-2 conservative majority on the Supreme Court that would last a quarter century.”

The audience broke into applause at DeSantis’ remarks.

Under the 22nd Amendment, Trump cannot run for president in 2028 if he wins back the White House next year, since he already served a full four-year term.

Trump nominated three of the Court’s six conservative justices — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett — all of whom voted last year to strike down Roe v. Wade.

Barrett replaced the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died in September 2020 from metastatic pancreatic cancer.

Kavanaugh replaced former Justice Anthony Kennedy, who retired in 2018 at the age of 81.

Justice Stephen Breyer, 84, stepped down last year, allowing President Biden to fill his seat with another liberal justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Gorsuch filled the vacancy left by the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February 2016 but whose seat was kept open by then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) until after Trump was elected.

Trump, 76, described the Roe v. Wade overturns as “a great victory” last year, but has since criticized DeSantis for signing a “too harsh” six-week abortion ban into law in Florida, prompting the governor to fire back with a criticism of his own.

“I think that as a Florida resident, you know, he didn’t give an answer about ‘would you have signed the heartbeat bill that Florida did?’” DeSantis said last week. “It had all the exceptions that people talk about. The legislature put it in. I signed the bill. I was proud to do it. He won’t answer whether he would sign it or not.”

The Florida governor is expected to challenge Trump for the Republican nomination, though polls have shown the former president leading the pack for months by double-digit margins.

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and Republican South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott are also in the race and polling in the single-digits, along with entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, conservative radio host Larry Elder, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, and longshot bids from businessmen Perry Johnson and Ryan Binkley.

Former President Mike Pence, who is also expected to run in 2024, has not yet announced his campaign.

GOP donors have reportedly pushed Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin to enter the race, citing concerns over DeSantis’ ability to take on Trump.

Youngkin has repeatedly denied planning to launch a presidential campaign when asked.

A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll found 49% of registered Republicans support Trump and 21% support DeSantis. Just 5% back Pence. Around 10% are undecided.