Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who is threatening to delay President Trump’s nominees to the federal appeals courts, will not tie his support for the president’s pick to succeed Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court to other issues.

“My goal here is not to block judges. My goal is to get a vote on tariffs, and I have all the leverage I need with circuit court nominees,” Flake told the Arizona Republic.

The Arizona senator said the Supreme Court “is unaffected. I have all the leverage I need. I certainly wasn’t anticipating a Supreme Court vacancy, but it’s unaffected.”

Flake, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Sunday he and several other senators would stall the nominations of circuit court nominees until the Senate votes on a bill responding to Trump’s tariffs.

“I think myself and a number of senators, at least a few of us, will stand up and say, ‘Let’s not move any more judges until we get a vote, for example, on tariffs,’” Flake said during an interview on ABC.

The Senate has moved quickly to confirm more than a dozen of Trump’s nominees to the federal appeals courts, and Senate Republican leaders vowed to continue quickly confirming Trump’s judicial nominees through the end of the year.

But Republicans have just a one-vote majority on the Judiciary Committee, and Flake can block a nominee from progressing out of the committee.

Republicans face a similar danger before the full Senate, where there are currently 50 voting GOP senators. Losing the support of one for Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court could endanger the confirmation.

But Flake said he is employing his own standards for evaluating Trump’s nominee to the high court.

"This is important in its own right. I want someone who will interpret the Constitution and not legislate from the bench; it's what I've always said in terms of how I would view any nominee," he said. "It's what I did with [Justice Neil] Gorsuch and I thought he passed the test. It's what I'll do with this one."

Flake said, though his focus has always been on nominees to the appeals courts.

"My goal has been to force a vote on tariffs," he said. "I just think it's unconscionable for Congress not to speak on this, so a couple of weeks ago I let the chairman on the Judiciary Committee know that I would vote 'No' on circuit court nominees until I was assured of some kind of vote coming up. ... At the same time, I've voted 'Yes' on district court nominees, and those have passed through. This was only with circuit court nominees."

Kennedy announced Wednesday he was retiring from the Supreme Court, effective July 31. The retirement means Trump will get to name a second justice nominee to the high court in so many years.