Trump Responds to Kennedy’s Retirement: We’ll Begin Search for New Justice ‘Immediately’

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump responded to the news that Associate U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy was retiring.

In a letter to Trump released earlier today, Kennedy wrote this expressing gratitude for his tenure on the nation’s highest court: “For a member of the legal profession, it is the highest of honors to serve on this court. Please permit me by this letter to express my profound gratitude for having had the privilege to seek in each new case how best to know, interpret, and defend the Constitution and the laws that must always conform to its mandates and promises.”

Kennedy visited the White House in-person before his retirement went public.

Speaking to pool reporters about Kennedy’s departure, Trump first heralded Kennedy as a man with “tremendous vision.”

He then said that with Kennedy retiring, “we will begin our search for a new justice of the United States Supreme Court that will begin immediately. And, hopefully, we’re going to pick somebody who will be as outstanding.”

As for who may be the next pick, Trump said that he already had a list of 25 candidates and the candidate will come from the list.

“We have a list of 25 people that I actually had during my election. I had the 20 and I added five a little while ago. We have a very excellent list of great talented, highly educated, highly intelligent hopefully tremendous people,” Trump said.

He continued on: “I think the list is very outstanding. When I was running, I put down a list of 20 people because not being a politician, I think people wanted to hear what some of my choices may be. And it was pretty effective. And I think you see the kind of quality that we’re looking at when you look at that list. But I did add, I added five additional people to the list. So it will be somebody from that list. So we have now boiled it down to about 25 people.”

Here are the names on the list that the White House has made public so far.

Watch above, via CNN.

[image via screenshot]