President Donald Trump is expected to announce his court pick next week. He told Sean Hannity that he has “made my decision pretty much in my mind.” | AP Photo Trump backs nuclear option if Dems block SCOTUS nominee The stance is sure to ratchet up tensions ahead of a showdown with Democrats over his high court pick.

PHILADELPHIA — President Donald Trump and some Senate Republicans are now openly threatening to kill the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees — a pronouncement sure to inflame a brewing battle with Democrats over Trump's choice to replace the late Antonin Scalia.

Trump said Thursday that he would encourage Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to deploy the "nuclear option" — changing Senate rules on a majority vote — if Democrats block his Supreme Court pick. The president's stance could amplify pressure on McConnell — a Senate institutionalist who is reluctant to further erode the chamber's supermajority rules — to barrel through Democratic resistance by any means necessary.


Eliminating the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees would shred the fabric of the chamber, making it much easier for future presidents to confirm ideologically extreme nominees and potentially leading to the death of the 60-vote threshold for legislation. But House Republicans and some of their Senate counterparts meeting at an annual retreat here this week said they're eager to capitalize on their unified control of Washington. The filibuster is the final obstacle to a GOP agenda that can pass with Republican votes alone.

In an interview taped with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Thursday morning, Trump said he “would” encourage McConnell to kill the 60-vote threshold on nominees to the high court. Trump plans to name his nominee next week.

“I would. We have obstructionists,” Trump said, dinging Democrats for delaying the confirmations of Sen. Jeff Sessions as attorney general and Mike Pompeo as CIA director. “Why are they doing that?”

McConnell and his deputies have signaled they will do whatever it takes to confirm a Supreme Court nominee after blocking former President Barack Obama from filling the seat for nearly a year, though McConnell is a strict protector of the Senate's arcane rules and procedures. Until Thursday Republicans were not explicitly putting such an earth-shattering rules change is on the table.

Trump's pronouncement seemed to change that.

"I would have to say if they knuckle down on it and and do a straight party-line [vote], I think that the filibuster rule is possibly in danger as far as Supreme Court judges are concerned,"said Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho). "We are going to fill that Supreme Court seat period."

In 2013, Senate Democrats killed the supermajority requirement on all nominees but the Supreme Court. And now Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is threatening to block a court pick that is not “mainstream.” The Senate GOP would need at least eight Democrats to confirm a Supreme Court pick under Senate rules, but Republicans could use the unilateral "nuclear option" to change the rules to a simple majority.

Republicans floated a proposal in 2015 that would have killed the 60-vote threshold on Supreme Court nominees, but Schumer argued against it and it went nowhere. And GOP senators seem to think if the Democrats take back the White House and get the majority, they'd change the rules to their benefit anyway to confirm a liberal judge.

"What do you think's going to happen if they get in charge again and they get to a Supreme Court appointment?" Risch asked.

Schumer has said if the nominee is not "mainstream" he would pledge to fight the pick "tooth and nail." Republicans will argue that and of Trump's nominee are "mainstream" by definition, according to sources on Capitol Hill, but Vice President Mike Pence indicated on Thursday afternoon that Trump's nominee will be a conservative in the mold of Antonin Scalia, whose death created the vacancy on the court.

"I can already tip you off, president Trump is going to keep his promise. He is going to nominate a strict constructionist to the supreme court,"Pence said. “We need this person on the bench as soon as possible, given the vacancy that’s existed on the court.”

To be clear, Republicans would prefer not to change the rules and instead get some cooperation from the 10 Democrats up for reelection in states that Trump won. But they say they simply will not accept a Democratic blockade.

"Leader McConnell's been pretty forthright that the Supreme Court nominee would be confirmed. But obviously, we'd hope to do that by appealing to the better angels of the Democrats," said Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.).

It’s not clear if Republicans could muster enough votes to make a unilateral rules change. Historically, McConnell and people like Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) have been opposed to changing the fabric of the Senate. Republicans would need at least 50 of their 52 members to support such a change.

And if Trump were to pick someone like Circuit judge William Pryor he might struggle to get a simple majority even with a rules change. Collins voted against Pryor when he was nominated to the Circuit court and she said she starts from a skeptical position if he were picked for a promotion.

"I haven't followed his career since opposing him. So I would take a look at what his rulings have been," Collins said in an interview this week. "I remember rather vividly some of the writing that he had made when he was the nominee last time. And they were sufficiently disturbing to cause me to vote against. But to be fair: People change."

Trump is expected to announce his court pick next week. He told Hannity that he has “made my decision pretty much in my mind.”

“That’s subject to change at the last moment,” he said. “But I think this will be a great choice.”

Kyle Cheney contributed.