Kamala for SCOTUS Speculation Swirls
SHANNON BREAM: Several people that I talked to yesterday ultimately told me that yesterday was not the day for this announcement. Justice Breyer was not planning it, and his emotions were described to me a lot of different ways. There was some consternation. But there were, you know, more surprised I’m told from a lot of people that, listen, he made this decision firmly some time ago. There was no change or pressure, he said, on him. But he decided this was the right time for him — at the age of 83 after decades on the bench — to step down. But he was not ready for the announcement yesterday, although we were told that it’s imminent, and he was, I’m told by one person, “blindsided” by what happened yesterday.
BUCK: Blindsided by the libs. Welcome back to the Clay and Buck show. They let it out. Usually, a Supreme Court justice has the ability to make his own decisions about when he or she says that they’re going to retire, but not in this instance, not in this case. You know, Clay, I don’t think there’s gonna be a big fight over this. We talked about that a bit yesterday.
I don’t see how there will be a big fight over it, as long as the person is basically qualified. As long as we don’t have, honestly, a Harriet Miers situation. You know, that was a Bush thing, everybody. That was not good. That was not a good moment for that administration among some that were pretty challenging. This is interesting, though. Fox’s own Geraldo yesterday going to the theory, Clay, that you’ve brought up about the big Kamala switch of roles.
GERALDO: I thought that Kamala Harris would be a great idea. It was the first name that jumped into my mind. She could be a terrific Supreme Court justice, an appointment for life.
PERINO: (laughing)
GERALDO: She’s only in her fifties; she’d be there for 30 years.
PERINO: You think she would be a good justice?
GERALDO: I think she would be a terrific justice.
PERINO: You think she has the mental —
GUTFELD: You thought she would be a good VP!
ALL: (laughing)
GERALDO: It’s a… It’s a role fit for her.
BUCK: Clay, can we just put aside whether we think…? Obviously, I don’t think she’s meant for the Supreme Court in terms of her abilities as a jurist. I doubt you do. I won’t speak for you. The politics of that, though, I think are much more fraught than it may seem at first. You’re gonna bail on the first female, African-American vice president to make her Supreme Court justice? I don’t know about that.
CLAY: She has to ask for it, right? I mean, and there’s no suggestion… I mean, she was the attorney general of California, but there’s no suggestion that she has aspired for her entire life to sit on the Supreme Court bench. If she did ask for it and she made it clear that it was her choice, I think that that would be a decent choice for Joe Biden because it would solve one of the issues he has right now which is she is a drag on his overall administration, particularly if he’s planning to run again. Whether or not that is, we don’t really know for sure. I don’t know we’ll know ’til after the midterms. But she’d have to ask for it, and I don’t think she’s gonna ask for it.
BUCK: I also think she wants to have that — if she’s not gonna be president — post-VP $150,000 a speech, $5 million advance for a book nobody reads about her time at VP. She wants… I know the Supreme Court, different ethical considerations.
