Sunday shows preview: Justice Breyer announces retirement from Supreme Court

This week’s announcement that Justice Stephen Breyer will retire from the Supreme Court, giving President Biden an opportunity to nominate his replacement, is expected to dominate this week’s Sunday show circuit.

Breyer on Thursday officially confirmed that he planned to depart from the high court after its current term ends and his successor has been confirmed by the Senate.

Following the news of Breyer’s retirement, Biden reaffirmed his pledge to appoint a Black woman to the Supreme Court for the first time.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will hold confirmation hearings on the future nominee, expressed optimism about Biden’s pick after reports of Breyer’s retirement first broke on Wednesday.

“With this Supreme Court vacancy, President Biden has the opportunity to nominate someone who will bring diversity, experience, and an evenhanded approach to the administration of justice,” he wrote in a statement. “I look forward to moving the President’s nominee expeditiously through the Committee.”

Durbin is scheduled to appear on ABC’s “This Week” and NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.

Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), who is set to appear on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” on Wednesday predicted that potential Supreme Court nominee J. Michelle Childs, a federal district judge in South Carolina, would win Republican support if Biden taps her as Breyer’s replacement.

“I’ve talked to the Republican senators from South Carolina, both Tim Scott, Lindsey Graham, they are very high on Michelle Childs,” Clyburn said. “And so I think that both of them would vote for her if her name were to be put in nomination.”

Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), the only two Republicans left in the Senate who voted for former President Obama’s Supreme Court nominees, are also scheduled to make appearances on Sunday, Graham on CBS’s “Face the Nation” and Collins on ABC’s “This Week.”

In a pair of tweets this week, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said “elections have consequences,” alluding to the fact that Democrats would have the power in Congress to select a liberal justice to the court.

In a Wednesday statement, Graham noted that “elections have consequences, and that is most evident when it comes to fulfilling vacancies on the Supreme Court.”

“If all Democrats hang together – which I expect they will – they have the power to replace Justice Breyer in 2022 without one Republican vote in support,” he said.

Sen. Tom Cotto (R-Ark.), who is set to appear on “Fox News Sunday,” said on Twitter on Thursday that Biden should “nominate a jurist committed to the Constitution and the rule of law, instead of nominating yet another unqualified, left-wing ideologue, as he has done so often with lower-court nominees.”

Below is the full list of guests scheduled to appear on this week’s Sunday talk shows:

ABC’s “This Week” — Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Susan Collins, R-Maine; Linda Thomas-Greenfield, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

NBC’s “Meet the Press” — Durbin; Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio; Govs. Asa Hutchinson, R-Ark., and Phil Murphy, D-N.J.

CBS’s “Face the Nation” — Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C.; Oksana Markarova, Ukrainian ambassador to the U.S.; Victoria Nuland, undersecretary of state for political affairs; Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former Food and Drug Administration commissioner.

CNN’s “State of the Union” — Sens. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., and James Risch, R-Idaho; Gov. Chris Sununu, R-N.H.; Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, D-Del.

“Fox News Sunday” — Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark.; Pentagon spokesman John Kirby.

Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures” — Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), Republican Conference Chairman, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations; Peter Schweizer, Author, “Red Handed”; John Ratcliffe, Former Director of National Intelligence; Alan Dershowitz, Harvard Law Professor Emeritus