Jay Weber Show transcript 5-8-25
President Trump has been back in office for nearly four months now-and the amount of change is staggering. I’m perpetually impressed with how many moving parts there are to this administration. Every major dept and agency is being reformed.Every terrible, useless, anti-American regulation and program is being identified for destruction....
It's the greatest stretch of ‘smaller government’, less intrusive government, pro-America reform that I’ve ever seen in my lifetime of doing this.
And Trump and his team ‘really are’ just getting started. If these killer cabinet members who he’s got working so hard-and so smartly-for him right now ‘stick around’ and ‘stay focused’ this is going to be an incredible era of government reforms and ‘American reinvention’. If the house and senate republicans can manage to do ‘their part’ of this...and pass the big, beautiful reconciliation bill....and continue to focus on deregulation and -permanent- immigration fixes and reforms, too- wow-
The potential here to live through a truly great era is looming.
And one area we haven’t even spoken about yet, in this second Trump term, is ‘judicial vacancies and the openings in the federal courts.
Here, too, if President Trump simply sticks to his ‘first term’ pattern and new senate majority leader John Thune prioritizes this like Mitch McConnell did- the GOP can continue to transform the federal judiciary.
You’ll remember that -in his first term-Trump came into office with 140 vacancies. These were federal judgeships that Mitch McConnell had-very smartly- held open...on the hopes of a republican president taking over.
Mitch blocked them from being filled until after the election. And -miracle of miracles- trump won in 2016.
Fantastic.
It was that ‘reserve’ of openings that really put Trump and McConnell on the path to confirming 234 judges in trump’s first term.... which only really got the overall makeup of the federal judiciary back to about 50/50.
After all-president Obama had had 8 years to fill vacancies....and left office with a federal judiciary that was 2/3 liberal. So, as aggressive as trump and McConnell were -last term- they still only managed to move the needle back toward ‘even’ with 234 vacancies filled.
However.Trump got three supreme court picks and added an important number of conservative justices to the appeals court level. These are the levels of judiciary that matter the most, of course.
The supreme court can only hear ‘so many’ cases each year...and so...it’s the appeals courts that become the ‘final decision’ on most cases that are appealed. And Trump moved many of them back toward even...or even ‘lean conservative’.
Then Biden got into office, and unfortunately, a flood of old leftist judges decided to retire, which allowed Biden and Chuck Schumer to appoint 235 federal judges.
Darn it.The exact number- plus one-that Trump and McConnell had seated.
But the vast majority were only district judges...and so...Biden didn’t get as many ‘quality’ appointments as trump did...so...we can easily call this federal judiciary that Trump ‘re-inherits’ now...to be about 50/50 ideologically, with conservatives having the strong advantage on the supreme court.
So. Where do Trump and Thune start ‘term two’.
Well...
With only 40 vacancies. But it’s a start.
And given how pre-occupied President Trump has been with other things, no, I don’t think he will have the same sort of focus, or obsession, with getting these court appointments filled...but he will be smart enough to put a good team of advisors on it...to make the appointments.
Then it’s up to John Thune and the GOP senators to get them through the process and get them seated.
So, here’s the balancing act: right now, senate republicans are focused on other things. They’ve still got other presidential appointments to get seated. They’re working to build that ‘big, beautiful’ reconciliation bill and get that passed. They’re using the congressional review act to kill off some last-minute Biden era reforms...etc.
Confirming new judges-is not- on their radar, and it probably won’t be for a while.
However.
However.Remember that there is no ‘house role’ here. Only the senate votes to confirm presidential nominations -and thanks to Harry Reid’s blunder-they can all be confirmed with a simple majority vote.
And so-these are ‘guaranteed wins’ for conservatives if trump nominates them and majority leader Thune rams them into place. And four years’ worth of trump picks and Thune confirmations loom ahead.Great.
But what if the democrats retake control of the senate next fall? Then Thune isn’t the majority leader- and it’d be up to Chuck Schumer to hold hearings on-and confirm-Trump judges.
Do you think he’d put any priority on it?
No.
He’d probably hold the vacancies until 2028-hoping a democrat retook the white house.
At the very least...he’d ‘slow walk’ any trump nominees and refuse to allow ‘real conservative’ justices to advance. He’d insist that...if we are going to agree to confirm ‘any’ of president trump’s judges...he needs to select more moderate judges....
Get it?
And so-the game that the public never thinks about is: if we want trump to appoint more conservative judges...and at least fill these 40 new vacancies.... He and John Thune need to ‘get on early...and make sure the confirmation votes are all taken before next fall when control of the senate is in question, again.
Now- the 2026 senate map is better for republicans. We hold a 53-member majority. The expectation is that republicans-will not- lose control of the senate in 2027...but you never know. A lot can happen in a year and a half.
And if we’ve learned anything in this modern era of politics, it’s that our side has got to ‘take the wins when we have the chance.
So-I’m hoping that Trump and Thune will at some point here... Get this system of confirming new judges and filling those vacancies ‘up and running’. They can focus on other things and have it running in the background...like an anti-virus program.
They’ll only need to pay attention to it, occasionally, so long as they have staffers and committees constantly advancing the nominees in the background...
But...it isn’t too early for trump’s vetting team to start giving Thune’s team lists of names.
Because-unless trump sees a rash of conservative judges retire- this term isn’t going to be anything like the first term. Trump might get only get 40 to 60 new judges placed.
Apparently, there are 21 judges who are known to be contemplating retirement. So that’d be 60 or so appointments this term. Maybe more...as a few more retire or die ...but...it won’t be the 234 judges he did in term one.
Last Thursday, president trump announced the first judicial nominee of this term...a women in the Tennessee ADs office- whom he wants to sit on the sixth circuit court of appeals.
Great. It’s another one of these ‘higher court’ positions that amounts to a more substantial win. Great.
This Tuesday, Trump’s team released four more names. Fantastic. Now we’re cooking’....
Robert Luther is a professor at the Antonin Scalia law school and helped trump make selections in his first term...and says...we’ve still got a list of great conservative judges who we wanted to appoint last time...so...the process just begins again.We’ll be looking for the same qualities.
As for the supreme court- no one knows quite what will happen there...but we ‘gamed’ all of this out in term one: conservatives have a 6-3 advantage now with three youngish, newer, justices thanks to Trump: Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Coney Barrett.
Meanwhile-the three more veteran conservatives -are not- ancient men: Sam Alito will be 75 this year... Clarence Thomas is 77 and john Roberts is 70.
They are all over the normal retirement age, yes, but these supreme court justices normally go into their 80s. Two of these men will, at least, be ‘touching 80’ by the time trump leaves office...which means...over the next few years.... Thomas and Alito have an important decision to make: do they want to retire and ensure a republican president names their replacement? Or not?
If so- holy cow-Trump could appoint to younger justices and we’d have at least a 5-4 conservative court for the next 15 to 20 years, probably. And that’s regardless of what John Roberts does.
I don’t see him retiring in the trump era...and I have no idea whether Alito and Thomas ‘find it important’ to have their seats remain in the hands of a conservative...
But if they do....one, or both, could decide to play it safe and retire before trump leaves office. Especially if republicans keep control of the senate in 2026-and can control the nomination process thru 2028.
Too wonky?
Maybe. But it’s important stuff.
photo credit: Getty Images
audio version of the segment here > Trump continues to balance out the courts