On Monday morning, even rumors about the possibility of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy retiring sent the network morning shows into panic mode. Reporters wrung their hands over the potential that President Trump could replace the high court’s “swing vote” and make it “solidly conservative for decades.”

On NBC’s Today, Justice Correspondent Pete Williams described Kennedy as “the man in the middle” who “gutted the Voting Rights Act” when he sided with conservatives and “upheld abortion rights” when joining liberal decisions. Williams noted that “Conservatives like Ted Cruz have long dreamed of the day he’ll step down.”

In the discussion that followed minutes later, MSNBC anchor Nicolle Wallace warned: “Kennedy is the swing voter, which means he sides sometimes with the Democrats, so his vote is really important if you’re on the left or if you’re in the middle....it terrifies people in the middle and on the left because it has the potential to swing the Court in a different direction.”

In another report at the top of 8 a.m. ET hour, Williams fretted that Kennedy’s retirement “would allow President Trump to make the Court solidly conservative for decades.”

On ABC’s Good Morning America, correspondent Terry Moran declared that any such announcement would be “huge” and promised “a war for this court like nothing seen in the past 30 years since the nomination of Robert Bork was defeated and Justice Kennedy took his seat.” Co-host George Stephanopoulos agreed: “Everything changes in Washington if he retires, it would be just seismic.”

At the top of the 8 a.m. ET hour, Moran reiterated: “If he does retire, and there are signs that he will, it’ll start a war for this Court like nothing this town has seen in decades.”

On CBS This Morning, correspondent Jan Crawford proclaimed: “But here’s the thing, he is a moderate conservative, so if he goes, that’s going to give President Trump a massive opportunity to move the Court further to the right for generations and Democrats would basically be powerless to stop it.”

After the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in early 2016 and then-President Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland, the networks acknowledged the political battle that followed but routinely demanded that Republicans give up their opposition. The NBC, ABC, and CBS morning shows all predicted electoral doom for the GOP.

When Garland was nominated, the liberal media did the bidding of Democrats in trying to pressure Republicans to get on board. Now that Kennedy may step down at some point during the Trump administration, those same networks are suddenly eager for political “war.”

Here are excerpts of the June 26 coverage on all three morning shows: