President Trump this month celebrated the confirmation of his 200th lifetime appointment to the federal bench, outpacing his predecessor by dozens through three-and-a-half years. Campaign supporters of Mr. Trump and Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican majority leader, have been urged to buy T-shirts saluting the two men as “Back-to-Back Supreme Court Champs,” their faces rendered in white silhouette with “Gorsuch” and “Kavanaugh” etched on the sleeves. And four years after the battle over a court vacancy helped deliver Mr. Trump to the White House, the president hopes to keep his job by playing the hits: He has pledged to produce an updated roster of would-be justices to galvanize the right before November, warning that his Democratic opponent, Joseph R. Biden Jr., would nominate “a radical lefty” as a slate of major rulings returns the judiciary to the political fore. “Based on decisions being rendered now, this list is more important than ever before,” the president wrote on Twitter on June 18. “VOTE 2020!”

Source: New York Times June 29, 2020 06:56 UTC