Published June 18, 2026
In his memoir, The Long Game, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) recounts how, following the 2016 elections, he “spoke with President [Donald] Trump about the Scalia vacancy.” He “urged [Trump] to name the best-qualified conservative candidate, since filling this slot would almost certainly lead to a show-down over the question of filibustering Supreme Court nominees.” Knowing both that he’d need to nuke the filibuster to fill the seat and that he had a mere 52-48 margin, “if any question existed as to the nominee’s fitness for office, it might result in the nomination’s defeat.”
Trump went on to nominate Neil Gorsuch, D.Phil. (Oxon.), and the rest is history. McConnell argued persuasively to moderates like Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R., Alaska), John McCain (R., Ariz.), and Susan Collins (R., Maine) that if Democrats won’t confirm this guy they won’t confirm anyone. It worked and the filibuster was abolished. Thanks to Sen. Chuck Schumer’s (D., N.Y.) alternating devotion to and fear of his party’s progressive base, the pieces were positioned for McConnell’s ultimate checkmate with Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.
Schumer seems to have learned nothing from this episode while Trump may remember its lesson. The selection of James McDonald to replace DNI-designate Jay Clayton as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York is a Gorsuch-like move in Trump’s quest to abolish the blue slip.
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Michael A. Fragoso is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in the Constitution, the Courts, and the Culture Program, where he writes and speaks on issues relating to the law, the federal judiciary, and Congress. An attorney in private practice, he served in all three branches of the federal government, including most recently as chief counsel to the Senate Republican Leader, Mitch McConnell (R-KY). His writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, National Review, The Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy: Per Curiam, and elsewhere.
