President Joe Biden said Thursday that he’s done thorough background checks on four potential successors for retiring Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.
In a clip of Biden’s interview with NBC’s Lester Holt — the president’s first televised interview of 2022— he said the candidates, all Black women, are highly qualified for the position.
“I’ve taken about four people and done the deep dive on them, meaning thorough background checks, to see if there’s anything in the background that would make them not qualified,” Biden told Holt.
When Holt asked if his historic selection of a Black woman would receive a Republican vote, Biden said he anticipated GOP support for his pick.
“Whomever I pick will get a Republican vote for the following reason: I’m not looking to make an ideological choice,” Biden said. “I’m looking for someone to replace Judge Breyer, with the same kind of capacity Judge Breyer had, with an open mind, who understands the Constitution and interprets it in a way that’s consistent with the mainstream interpretation of the Constitution.”
Breyer was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1994 and has served for more than 27 years on the court.
Some of the likely candidates are Ketanji Brown Jackson, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit; Leondra Kruger, a California Supreme Court justice; and J. Michelle Childs, a judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina, according to CNN.
Biden also discussed hot-button issues, such as the spread of the omicron variant of the coronavirus, the U.S. evacuation from Ukraine and his falling presidential approval ratings.
The full interview between Biden and Holt will air on Super Bowl Sunday on NBC.