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The GOP's SCOTUS dreams: From the Politics Desk

Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, an evening newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the campaign trail, the White House and Capitol Hill.

In today’s edition, senior national political reporter Sahil Kapur looks at the excitement among Republicans over the prospect of confirming new Supreme Court justices if Donald Trump wins. Plus, chief political analyst Chuck Todd breaks down the questions the VP debate left for the top of the ticket.

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Republicans eye confirming even more Supreme Court justices if Trump wins

By Sahil Kapur

During Donald Trump’s White House tenure, Republicans assembled the most conservative Supreme Court in a century. Now, they’re excited about the prospect of building on those efforts by confirming even more conservative justices, as well as lower-court judges, if he wins another four years.

GOP senators widely expect there would be at least one Supreme Court vacancy during a second Trump term — and if he defeats Vice President Kamala Harris, Republicans would be likely to control the Senate, which handles the confirmation process. Two long-serving conservative justices will be on retirement watch in the coming years: Clarence Thomas, 76, and Samuel Alito, 74.

“High — extremely high to certain,” Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who is on the Judiciary Committee, said when he was asked about the odds of Trump’s having the opportunity to appoint more Supreme Court justices if Republicans emerge victorious in the election.

“I think you’ll see, on the conservative side, at least one retirement. I’m speculating, but I’m fairly confident of that,” Hawley said, adding that Republicans would probably look for more potential justices in the mold of Thomas and Alito — “particularly if we’re replacing one of those individuals.”

If Trump were to get two more Supreme Court picks, he would have appointed over half the court — which no president has done since Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who is running to be the next Senate GOP leader, said: “The three we’ve confirmed has been a legacy, one of the best things the administration and President Trump did with a Republican majority. Five almost seems too much to hope for.”

On the campaign trail, Harris hasn’t said much about the prospect of Supreme Court vacancies under the next president. But she has repeatedly criticized Trump for picking the three justices who were essential to the five-member majority that overturned Roe v. Wade and ruled in a case involving Trump that presidents have immunity for some official acts.

Trump, who campaigned heavily on the Supreme Court in 2016, has said less about it this time as he finds himself on defense over his role in the overturning of federal abortion rights. His campaign did not respond when it was asked whether he will release another list of high court prospects to choose from if he has another vacancy to fill.

A ‘happy warrior’ VP debate leaves questions unanswered for the top of the tickets

By Chuck Todd

Given America’s polarization and the everyday tone and tenor of this presidential election, people would be forgiven for thinking they had accidentally stumbled upon a rerun from another era in American politics instead of the 2024 vice presidential debate.

In some ways, this debate felt like a throwback to the VP debates America got used to in the pre-Trump era — essentially one-week intermissions between the first and second presidential debates. The flashback vibe I was getting the most was similar to the Dick Cheney debates of 2000 and 2004 (versus Joe Lieberman and John Edwards) or the Joe Biden debates of 2008 and 2012 (versus Sarah Palin and Paul Ryan).

Going into this debate, I assumed that both vice presidential nominees would be more focused on the tops of the tickets. And for the most part, the two played to type. In just about every answer, Tim Walz went after Donald Trump and regularly looked for ways to praise JD Vance in a way that made him look anti-Trump. Vance similarly would try to throw shade at Walz by praising his empathy and concern about an issue while contrasting them with Kamala Harris’.

But what was a bit surprising to me was that Walz turned out to be more aggressive against Trump than Vance was against Harris.

Ultimately, the No. 1 job of the VP candidate in these debates is to make the case against the top of the ticket. So it’s quite interesting to me that the strategy Vance chose to engage in seemed designed to improve his own personal ratings.

Walz’s performance was the very definition of uneven. His nervousness came through quite a bit, especially at the start. Clearly, he was telling the truth when he reportedly told Harris during the VP vetting process that debating wasn’t a strong suit for him. But Walz was strong at times when he was prosecuting a case against Trump, particularly on Jan. 6 and abortion. He was less good at defending Biden-Harris actions in general.

🗞️ Today’s top stories

📂 New Trump case filing: Trump was "fundamentally" acting as a private candidate for office and not as president when he sought to overturn his 2020 election loss, special counsel Jack Smith's team argued in a filing Wednesday that revealed new details of the federal election interference case. <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-resorted-crimes-stay-office-2020-loss-jack-smith-team-says-rcna172340">Read more →</a>
🌀 Storm fallout: Biden visited North and South Carolina while Harris went to Georgia for tours of the catastrophic damage resulting from Hurricane Helene. <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/biden-heads-carolinas-kamala-harris-georgia-view-hurricane-helene-dama-rcna173520">Read more →</a>
↗️ Ramping up: Walz is taking on a more aggressive travel and media schedule after the VP debate, including holding events in Pennsylvania, Nevada and Arizona and attending fundraisers in Ohio, California and Washington. <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/live-blog/harris-trump-election-live-updates-rcna173208#rcrd58194">Read more →</a>
📉 Crime on the decline: Trump has portrayed crime in the U.S. as out of control, but years of data show it is declining in cities and towns across the country. <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/investigations/trump-says-crime-up-fbi-numbers-say-crime-historic-lows-rcna173590">Read more</a> →
🔀 Turning the tables: Harris’ campaign targeted Trump’s age for the first time in paid media since she became the Democratic nominee with a new digital ad. <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/harris-launches-new-ad-hits-trumps-age-criticizing-vance-rcna173526">Read more →</a>
🗳 Campaign appeals: Harris has directed her campaign messaging in Nevada toward Filipino Americans, a push to harness the group’s support as the largest ethnic group within the Asian American voting bloc. <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/kamala-harris-filipino-americans-nevada-rcna173444">Read more →</a>
⚖️ Battleground balance: Democratic Sen. Bob Casey and Republican Dave McCormick have made efforts to strike a balance with the top of the ticket in Pennsylvania’s Senate race, voicing their agreement with some Harris’ and Trump’s policies while also highlighting areas where they diverge. <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/pennsylvania-senate-race-casey-mccormick-balance-rcna173592">Read more →</a>
🥼 House call: The Democratic super PAC House Majority PAC is running ads featuring doctors blasting Republicans on abortion in key races. But in at least four cases, the doctors do not live in the districts where the group was advertising. <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/democrats-lean-doctors-battleground-ads-abortion-even-not-district-rcna173611">Read more →</a>
🎸 Teardrops on Swift’s guitar: A Texas man smashed a Taylor Swift-autographed guitar after he paid $4,000 for it at a charity event as a “joke,” despite saying he wasn’t pleased with Swift’s endorsement of Harris. <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/texas-man-says-smashed-taylor-swift-signed-guitar-bid-4000-auction-jok-rcna173483">Read more →</a>
<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/live-blog/harris-trump-election-live-updates-rcna173208">Follow live coverage from the campaign trail →</a>

That’s all from the Politics Desk for now. If you have feedback — likes or dislikes — email us at [email protected]

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This article was originally published on NBCNews.com

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