Donald Trump interviewed at least three finalists in New York during the transition, one source said. | AP Photo Trump's down to 3 in Supreme Court search He plans to nominate a replacement for the late Justice Antonin Scalia next week.

President Donald Trump has narrowed his first Supreme Court nomination to three finalists, with 10th Circuit judge Neil Gorsuch and 3rd Circuit judge Thomas Hardiman emerging as front-runners while 11th Circuit Judge Bill Pryor remains in the running but is fading, according to people familiar with the search process.

Trump interviewed at least those three finalists in New York during the transition, according to a person familiar with the search. Trump himself said Tuesday he would make a selection for the court’s empty seat next week and summoned top Senate leaders to the White House to discuss his impending choice to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, who died nearly a year ago.


“The president wants to move as quickly as he can,” said Leonard Leo, one of Trump’s advisers on the court pick and a top official at the Federalist Society.

Leo declined to discuss Trump’s short list, but he praised both Gorsuch and Hardiman effusively.

“Under our Constitution, the power rests with the people, and that was at the core of Justice Scalia’s legacy, and you heard from President Trump’s inauguration that is the core of Trump’s agenda, and that’s very much the core of what Neil Gorsuch’s record is as a jurist,” Leo said. “He’s an excellent writer. He’s got sharp analytical ability, strong intellect and he’s got a lot of strength and courage. Those are things that the president very much wants in a nominee.”

“Hardiman,” Leo added, “shares many of the same qualities.”

Leo went on to say that Hardiman is “an extraordinarily talented and smart jurist” who has “a very direct and understandable writing style.”

As Gorsuch’s fortunes have risen, Pryor’s have dimmed. A 2006 George W. Bush appointee, Pryor is currently the subject of raging debate on an off-the-record group email list that includes many in the conservative legal and political communities, including many Republican Senate staffers, thanks to his decision to join the majority in Glenn v. Brumby, a 2011 opinion that protected transgender people from workplace discrimination.

“I think everybody on this list probably has something I’m not going to agree with. I think that decision with Pryor probably would be the one that would fall into that category,” said Carrie Severino, chief counsel and policy director of the Judicial Crisis Network, a conservative legal organization.

John Malcolm, who oversees a legal center inside the Heritage Foundation, acknowledged that “Bill Pryor has been getting attacked from the right. Which is strange to me.”

Politically, Pryor’s nomination would spark outrage on the left — liberal activists are likely to mobilize around his statement that Roe v. Wade is “the worst abomination of constitutional law” — without fully unifying conservatives.

Trump will nominate a Supreme Court replacement next week President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday from the Oval Office that he will name a nominee next week.

Firmly in Pryor’s corner, however, is a longtime friend and fellow Alabama native likely to join the Trump administration soon: attorney general nominee Jeff Sessions, who is pushing hard for his nomination, according to two sources familiar with the conversations.

Gorsuch has many fans. One former White House counsel described his opinions as forceful and elegant. “His analysis is tremendous, and it relies on first principles,” said the former Republican administration official. “That’s the sort of thing that has an impact on the court.”

The court pick is a top priority for the administration in its early weeks, a way, senior Trump officials have said, to score points with the GOP base quickly. Republicans in the Senate blocked former President Barack Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, leaving the seat open for the new president to fill.

Trump said in the Oval Office on Tuesday that he would name a nominee next week who will be “truly great.”

Trump is set to meet Tuesday afternoon with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on Judiciary, to discuss his coming Supreme Court choice.

McConnell said on the Senate floor that Trump invited them to the White House “as part of his ongoing consultations with members of the Senate.”

“I appreciate the president soliciting our advice on this important matter,” McConnell said.

Schumer has drawn a hard line on confirming any Trump pick to the Supreme Court. He told Rachel Maddow of MSNBC in early January, "It's hard for me to imagine a nominee that Donald Trump would choose that would get Republican support that we could support."

Leo said Trump was unconcerned with Schumer’s threatened blockade.