Brett Kavanaugh Tapped to Fill SCOTUS Seat, Setting Up Bitter Senate Clash
Appellate court judge Brett Kavanaugh is President Donald Trump's pick to fill the soon-to-be vacant spot on the Supreme Court bench.
The 53-year-old would replace the retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy, who often served as a swing vote for liberals on social issues like gay marriage and abortion.
Critics fear Kavanaugh, who has a long record of conservative-leaning decisions, would vote against those rulings and tilt the nation's top court to the right for decades to come.
In accepting the nomination Monday night, Kavanaugh said, "My judicial philosophy is straightforward. A judge must be independent and must interpret the law, not make the law."
He is, in many ways, similar to Trump's first Supreme Court pick Justice Neil Gorsuch, said Eric Boehm, reporter at Reason.com.
"The two of them attended Georgetown prep together, they were just two years apart in high school," said Boehm. "We now have two guys who may have shared a locker room together in their high school gym class sitting on the Supreme Court, which is kind of crazy and maybe worthy of more criticism than it will get."
Kavanaugh's nomination sets up a bitter fight in the Senate that could potentially have a knock-on effect in the midterm elections in November.
Democrats have voiced their strong opposition to Kavanaugh's candidacy, with Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) [tweeting](https://twitter.com/SenSchumer/status/1016493013143605248) after Monday's announcement that he'll oppose the nomination "with everything I have." Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) raised questions over Kavanaugh's support of presidential immunity, suggesting his candidacy is an attempt by Trump to avoid investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
Booker's concerns stem from Kavanaugh's 1998 [law review article](http://www.minnesotalawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Kavanaugh_MLR.pdf), which he penned after working with independent counsel Kenneth Starr on the investigation into former president Bill Clinton.
Though he authored the report that suggested grounds for Clinton's impeachment, Kavanaugh eventually came to reverse course, questioning whether a sitting president should be subject to the burdens of criminal proceedings.
"A president who is concerned about an ongoing criminal investigation is almost inevitably going to do a worse job as president," Kavanaugh wrote.
The GOP holds only a slight majority in the Senate of 51-49, meaning every Republican senator would have to vote along party lines to confirm the new addition to the Supreme Court. However, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) are two potential dissenters who could disrupt the equation. Both are pro-choice Republicans who may take issue with the fact that Kavanaugh could help overturn the landmark 1973 decision of Roe v. Wade that established abortion rights.
To complicate the math further, with the midterms looming, some Democratic Senators in traditionally Republican states may also cross over and vote in favor of Kavanaugh, said Jon Miller, CRTV's White House correspondent.
"We have Joe Donnelly \(D-IN\), Joe Manchin \(D-WV\), and Heidi Heitkamp \(D-ND\) who are up for re-election in really competitive races in deeply red states, so they're probably going to have to come on board too," said Miller.
Kavanaugh has been a law and political insider for decades, with some referring to him as the "Forrest Gump of Republican politics." He clerked for the very judge he may end up replacing, Justice Kennedy. He was on President George W. Bush's team during the months-long 2000 recount case against candidate Al Gore. He also served as Bush's White House lawyer and staff secretary, helping Bush navigate legal issues after the 9/11 attack. In 2003, Bush nominated Kavanaugh for his current position as circuit judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, DC. He was confirmed to the position in 2006.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has signed an application for Ukraine's membership in the European Union, pleading with the bloc to accept this request. It comes as Russian forces push further into Ukraine, forcing at least half a million refugees to flee. Benjamin Schmitt, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Harvard University and Senior Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis, breaks down the latest in Ukraine.
A growing wave of major U.S. companies have taken steps to cut ties with Russia or offer support to Ukraine, as tensions escalate in the region. Exxon, Apple and Boeing are just the latest companies to make the move, following the likes of Google, Meta and BP who have all announced plans to exit the region in response to the conflict. Courtney Vinopal, Breaking News Reporter, Quartz joined Cheddar's Opening Bell for more.
A hospital basement in Ukraine’s coastal city of Mariupol has transformed into a bomb shelter and maternity ward amid shelling during Russia’s invasion.
World leaders are currently dealing with a handful of pressing issues, including Russia's invasion of Ukraine, inflation, and not to mention the COVID-19 pandemic; but it could be argued that the most pressing issue is one that has experienced its fair share of neglect in the past -- climate change. As tensions escalate between Russia and Ukraine, there is fear the focus on climate will once again be pushed aside. However, the White House appears to be making some effort to prevent that from happening. The White House Office of Science and Technology held a first-of-its-kind roundtable discussion with some of the nation's leading climate scientists on Thursday. Michael Mann, Director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, and author of the book 'The New Climate War' joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss his experience as one of the climate scientists at the White House event.
Scott Clemons, Partner and Chief Investment Strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell, where he discusses the factors leading to the sell-off on Wall Street today and explains why uncertainty is worse than bad news for the investors.
U.S. stocks rebounded to end higher on Thursday after President Biden announced new sanctions against Russia following the country's attack on Ukraine. The Dow was down 859 points at its lowest point of the session, before ultimately finishing the day in the green. Melissa Armo, founder and owner of the Stock Swoosh, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
People of African and Middle Eastern descent fleeing from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are facing the double trauma of racism at the borders. Professor of law and migration studies at the University of San Francisco, Bill Hing, joined Cheddar News Wrap to discuss what some are describing as a double standard for other refugees escaping the war. "Those that are from the Middle East and from Africa who just happen to be in Ukraine, for example on a student visa, they are not going to be able to get into Poland or another area of the Schengen area because they are not natural Ukrainian," he said.
Add FIFA to the list of organizations announcing a break with Russia. The world soccer authority has suspended the nation from competing in the 2022 World Cup tournament, while the NHL also announced suspending business relations with Russia. Executive editor and senior writer at Sports Illustrated, Jon Wertheim, joined Cheddar News to discuss the rebukes. "I think a big element of this is, this is a way to really hit at Putin because we know how much this appearance of strength and the victory… often portrayed through sports, how much that means to him," he said. "This will bother him in a way that it might not bother other world leaders."
