Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch’s surprise admission in a private meeting that President Donald Trump’s attacks on the judiciary were “disheartening” and “demoralizing” appeared carefully choreographed to demonstrate his independence from the person who chose him.

The strategy may be working.


Some Senate Democrats who will play pivotal roles in whether Gorsuch gets installed at the Supreme Court later this year said Thursday that it may help his prospects — or at least that it didn’t hurt. And Republicans argue that Gorsuch, with his comments privately rebuking Trump, is giving Democrats little reason to oppose the 10th Circuit judge as he vies to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia.

“The cynical part of that is, people say, ‘Well, you think that was all a ploy?’ I don’t think so,” said West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat who is under heavy political pressure to support Gorsuch. “I think that that’s who he really is. I got that sense that he’s a jurist’s jurist. He’s a judge’s judge. And you get that feeling. He’s very protective of the judicial process and system, and he’s very endeared to it.”

Asked whether Gorsuch’s remarks make Manchin more inclined to back him, the senator said: “It makes you basically thinking that he will be independent enough to do what he says he’s going to do, which is basically not try to interpret or rewrite the law, but basically administer the law.”

Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), who voted to advance both of President George W. Bush’s Supreme Court nominees, was asked whether Gorsuch’s remark helps his chances of confirmation.

“Doesn’t hurt him!” Carper responded.

“Thank God he said it. If he didn’t say it, we would’ve thought, how could you ever be a Supreme Court justice if you can’t recognize what’s going on here?” Carper said in an interview. “But there’s a lot more that we’ll be interested in hearing from him.”

The positive responses threatened to drive a bigger strategic rift through the Democratic caucus, which holds the power to block Gorsuch from getting confirmed but so far has struggled to coalesce around a Supreme Court tactic. Republicans, who’ve plotted an elaborate strategy to fill the Scalia seat after blockading it for a year, are targeting a host of moderate Senate Democrats up for reelection next year in pro-Trump states.

Still, while a handful of Democrats were satisfied with the distance Gorsuch had put between himself and the president, others insisted it wasn’t enough.

“To whisper in a closed room behind closed doors to a senator that ‘I’m disheartened’ and not condemn what the president has done to the judiciary and not do it publicly — what he did does not show independence,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Thursday.

When Schumer met with Gorsuch earlier this week, the New York Democrat privately implored the judge to condemn Trump’s remarks. But Gorsuch declined, according to one senior aide who said Gorsuch’s comments would not be sufficient to persuade Democrats.

In an interview Thursday after Trump attacked him, Blumenthal said he didn't understand the tactics so far used by Republicans. “If there is a strategy to attract support, it isn’t working. It hasn’t attracted a lot of support from our side of the aisle.”

Blumenthal said Gorsuch had to publicly disavow the president’s attacks and answer more questions on issues like worker safety, the emoluments clause and the travel ban. “If he fails to state his own views, Judge Gorsuch must be assumed to fit Donald Trump’s views,” Blumenthal said.

White House officials were told that Gorsuch would try to distance himself from Trump’s comments, according to a person with knowledge of the discussions.

There was also some lack of clarity as to what specifically Gorsuch called “disheartening” and “demoralizing” — particularly after Trump’s tweet early Thursday questioning Blumenthal’s integrity over his account of Gorsuch’s remarks. Blumenthal said the judge was referring to the president— and that he “implicitly encouraged” the senator to make the remarks public.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer, echoing a statement from former Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), who is acting as the so-called sherpa in Gorsuch’s confirmation, stressed Thursday that Gorsuch was not referring to any one specific incident when the judge made his comments to Blumenthal.

But other accounts of private meetings during which Gorsuch made similar remarks — such as one with Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) — also trickled out. Sasse said during a Senate floor speech Thursday that he pressed Gorsuch specifically on Trump’s tweet calling a federal judge who issued a nationwide injunction on his controversial immigration executive order a “so-called judge.”

“He got a little bit emotional, and he said that any attack, or any criticism, of his ‘brothers and sisters of the robe,’ is an attack or a criticism on everybody wearing the robe as a judge,” Sasse recalled.

As is typical in Trump world, it was unclear what was staged, what was real, and how it would all shake out. The problems in the Senate with the nominee, several people said, are less about Gorsuch and more about Trump. The president’s advisers hope the imbroglio over Trump’s Blumenthal tweet will die down — and that the process can return to being about Gorsuch’s record and credentials.

But if Gorsuch’s admissions — however orchestrated — didn’t outright help his confirmation prospects in the chamber, they were at least buying some goodwill with key Democratic senators.

“Well, I for one appreciated them,” said California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee that will hold the pivotal confirmation hearings. “I think he was being truthful as to how he felt about it. And that was very much appreciated.”

South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the third-ranking Senate Republican, said “absolutely” Gorsuch’s prospects for confirmation brightened along with his distance from Trump.

“He’s already proven that he’s willing to take exception with the very person who nominated him, so I think [Democrats are] going to have to look at this and say, hmm,” added Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who sits on the Judiciary Committee. “They’re still struggling for finding any basis for continuing the obstructionist tactics on this nomination.”

