Conservatives backing Trump keep focus on Supreme Court

Conservatives who are sticking with Donald Trump despite the groping accusations against him are stressing the importance of having a Republican president make the next appointment to the Supreme Court.

Trump is facing mounting allegations of inappropriate sexual touching in the wake of a leaked 2005 tape where he brags about kissing women and grabbing their genitals.

{mosads}While some Republicans have rescinded their endorsements of Trump, many more are standing by him — and they say the possibility of Hillary Clinton making Supreme Court appointments is a big reason why.

“What’s at stake here is bigger than Donald Trump,” Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-Okla.) said in an interview with CNN Thursday, a day after multiple women recounted having been kissed and groped by the business mogul without their consent.

“What is on the ballot here is two visions for America,” Bridenstine said. “Is the Supreme Court going to be seven-to-two liberal or is the Supreme Court not going to be seven-to-two liberal?”

Republican office-holders have other reasons, beyond the Supreme Court, to stick with Trump. Polls show he retains a strong base of support in the GOP, so abandoning him risks a backlash that could imperil their own reelection bids.

Yet the Supreme Court is undeniably a reason why many social conservatives are sticking with the businessman, despite his recorded remark about grabbing women “by the p—y.”

The liberal and conservative wings of the court are now evenly divided, which means the next justice could tip the scales decisively.

Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) endorsed Trump last month after holding out for months. In making the decision, he warned that the Supreme Court “hangs in the balance.” 

“This is an election unlike any other, but I’ll tell you, Hillary Clinton, I think, is manifestly unfit to be president. The policies she’s advancing are the continuation of eight years of Barack Obama,” Cruz told a Texas television station this week. 

“We need to have a president, we need to have leaders in Washington that will fight to defend our jobs, to get government off our back and to defend the Constitution and Bill of Rights and keep us safe.”

At Sunday’s debate, Trump vowed to appoint judges to the Supreme Court who respect the Constitution.  

“I am looking to appoint judges very much in the mold of Justice [Antonin] Scalia,” Trump said of the late justice who died unexpectedly in February.

Yet Trump has long faced doubts about his conservative bona fides, in part because he said in an October 1999 interview with NBC that he was “very pro-choice” despite hating abortion.

To assuage doubts on the right, Trump took the unprecedented step of releasing a short list of potential Supreme Court nominees. That list was well received and helped solidify conservative support for his candidacy.

Bridenstine and Cruz aren’t alone in stressing the importance of the court.

At a luncheon hosted by the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce Wednesday,

Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (Texas) said he’s going to continue to support Trump, according to a report in the Austin American-Statesman.

“The most important issue in this presidential election is who’s going to nominate the next members of the Supreme Court. I don’t see Mrs. Clinton nominating the type of justice who is going to fill the role of Justice Scalia, for example,” he said. 

Jerry Falwell Jr., a prominent evangelical leader, also said Wednesday that he’s going to vote for Trump despite his remarks about women.

“Donald Trump of five, ten years ago, even two or three years ago may have been a different person,” Falwell Jr. told CNN’s Erin Burnett. “The bigger point is he is going to appoint the right justices to the Supreme Court.”

In a Facebook post Saturday, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin called Trump’s remarks “disgusting, shameful, totally disrespectful ‘locker room’ garbage, “ but said what was “privately shared between two Hollywood playboys over a decade ago, is now made to be the crudeness heard round the world.”

“As offensive, however, is media obsession with a very old conversation between non-political figures when we’re in a crucial time facing earth-altering shifts in our future,” she wrote. “The Supreme Court, international tinderbox relationships, global security, and our entire economy hang in the balance.”

In a Fox News interview Wednesday, former Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said he’s disgusted by Trump’s remarks and “frankly, a little surprised more people aren’t,” but said the only thing that matters in this election is who gets to make the next appointments to the Supreme Court.

“The political process in Washington is at a standstill and will be regardless of who wins, and the only thing that really matters over the next four years or eight year is who’s going to appoint the next Supreme Court nominees,” he said. 

“I just believe that the next president’s going to appoint two, three maybe four justices to the Supreme Court and all throughout the federal court system because more and more issues, because they can’t be dealt with legislatively, are going to end up in the court system.”

Boehner later added that Trump’s “view of who these judges should be is much closer to where I am than the judges that Hillary Clinton would appoint.”

In a statement last weekend, Family Research Council Action President Tony Perkins called Trump’s remarks “deeply offensive,” but said his support for the candidate was based on shared concerns, not shared values.

“These concerns include the damage the Supreme Court would continue to do to this country through the appointment of activist justices, concerns over the security of our nation because of our government’s refusal to confront the growing threat of Islamic terrorism and concerns over the prospects of continued attacks by our own government upon religious freedom,” he said.

Still, it’s clear that some conservative groups and commentators have found the allegations against Trump hard to stomach. In private conversations, some express growing discomfort with the candidate and his campaign.

Liberal groups, meanwhile, say Trump’s pledge to fill Supreme Court vacancies with justices in the mold of Scalia is how he courted much of his base to begin with.  

“Many right-wing leaders have been willing to ignore Trump’s bigoted comments and allegations of sexual assault because they want a President Trump to nominate Supreme Court justices, as he has promised, who would undermine Constitutional rights by overturning Roe v. Wade and undermining LGBT equality,” Peter Montgomery, a senior fellow at the People For the American Way, said in a statement. 

“Religious Right leaders have been using the Supreme Court to justify their support for Trump for months, and they’ve doubled down since the latest sexual harassment revelations.”