Ron DeSantis says his SCOTUS picks would be ‘better than’ Donald Trump’s

Is Ron DeSantis poised to upstage Donald Trump?

Ron DeSantis says he can do better than the three jurists former President Donald Trump picked for the U.S. Supreme Court.

“Well, actually, I would say we’ll do better than that. I mean, I respect the three appointees he did, but none of those three are at the same level of Justice (Clarence) Thomas and Justice (Samuel) Alito,” DeSantis told Hugh Hewitt, regarding Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.

“I think they are the gold standard, and so my justices will be along the lines of a Sam Alito and a Clarence Thomas,” DeSantis added.

Trump’s Make America Great Again super PAC offered response, saying DeSantis “attacked” the Trump nominees after having “previously praised” them.

Trump’s campaign also offered comment: “Ron’s latest flip-flop has left many wondering if he tripped in his high-heel boots and hit his head or is simply hallucinating from his disastrous event in Oklahoma last weekend, as he seems to have forgotten countless statements he made in the past praising President Trump’s nominations of Justice Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.”

DeSantis has previously suggested in comments to the National Religious Broadcasters Convention that, if elected President, he can take advantage of court attrition to create an enduring conservative high court.

“You know, the U.S. Supreme Court with some of the recent appointments is in a much better spot than it’s been in a long time. But I think if you look over, you know, the next two presidential terms, there is a good chance that you could be called upon to seek replacements for Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito,” DeSantis said.

“And the issue with that is you can’t really do better than those two. They are the gold standard for jurisprudence. And so you’ve got to make sure that we’re appointing people who are going to be as close to that standard as possible,” DeSantis said.

The Governor noted that it could go wrong.

“If you replace a Clarence Thomas with somebody like a John Roberts or somebody like that, then you’re going to actually see the court move to the left and you can’t do that,” DeSantis said.

“I also think if you, if you look over those eight years, you very well could be called upon to replace Chief Justice John Roberts and perhaps even someone like Justice Sonia Sotomayor,” he continued. “So it is possible that in those eight years, we’d have the opportunity to fortify Justices Alito and Thomas as well as actually make improvements with those others. And if you were able to do that, you would have a 7-to-2 conservative majority on the Supreme Court that would last a quarter century,” the Governor noted.