President Donald Trump has been meeting with senators from both parties and taking advice about replacing retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy ultimately, it will be a "presidential decision," that could come even before his mid-July summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, his counselor Kellyanne Conway said Friday.
"This president, going back to the campaign for two straight years now, has been very transparent and therefore accountable with respect to the type of person, indeed the specific individuals he would consider to put on the nation's highest court," Conway told Fox News' "America's Newsroom."
Trump has said that he likes "a constitutionalist" as an appointee, said Conway, and while "he may" pick a nominee before meeting with Putin, she doesn't think the timeline has anything to do specifically with the summit.
"This president is an original multi-tasker," said Conway. "A timeline won't be according to the summit as much as the president takes seriously the vacancy and knows we should move with some dispatch in filling that vacancy."
Conway said Trump plans to follow the same model for his summit with Putin as he did in Singapore with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
"This president has said from the beginning he is willing to talk to leaders when it is in the best interest of America," she said. "If Russia and the United States of America can work on national security issues together the president will do that. At the same time this president has had no reluctance whatsoever to push back when he has felt it is appropriate."
Conway also spoke out about Thursday's hearing with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray before members of Congress, and Tsaid the president knew the highlights about the meeting.
"The president could not be more clear," she said. "He tweets about it and puts it on social media and talks about it freely often that he believes this is a witch hunt and there was no collusion."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.