JUDY WOODRUFF: The stakes don't come any higher.
The death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has created an opening on the U.S. Supreme Court
just before a presidential election. Now a battle royal begins, and the outcome could
decisively shift the high court to the right.
John Yang begins our coverage.
JOHN YANG: Flags flew at half-staff over the White House today to honor the late justice
who died Friday of metastatic pancreatic cancer. Inside, behind closed doors, talks intensified,
as President Trump prepares to nominate a successor.
The president said he's narrowed his list of candidates to five, all of them women.
DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: I would say, on Friday or Saturday, I'll be
announcing the pick. It's five women are being looked at and vetted very carefully.
We will pick somebody that is outstanding, very qualified. They're all qualified, but
somebody that is outstanding. And I would rather see it all take place before the election.
JOHN YANG: The president's proposed timing would leave less than 40 days for confirmation
hearings and a vote before Election Day.
No Supreme Court justice has been confirmed that quickly since 1981, when Sandra Day O'Connor
was unanimously approved to be the first female justice a little more than a month after President
Reagan nominated her.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has insisted Mr. Trump's nominee will get a vote
on the Senate floor.
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): The Senate has more than sufficient time to process the nomination.
History and precedent make that perfectly clear. If our Democratic colleagues want to
claim they are outraged, they can only be outraged at the plain facts of American history.
This Senate will vote on this nomination this year.
JOHN YANG: But it's still unclear if there are enough Senate Republican votes to push
a nomination through. The party controls the chamber 53-47. Just four Republicans breaking
ranks would block the president's nominee.
Already, two of them, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, have said they
do not support a vote before Election Day.
Democrats slam the scramble to quickly confirm a replacement as hypocritical. In 2016, McConnell
refused to consider former President Obama's nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to replace
Justice Antonin Scalia, who died nine months before the election.
SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA): Mitch McConnell believes that this fight is over. What Mitch
McConnell does not understand is, this fight has just begun.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
JOHN YANG: Yesterday, in Philadelphia, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said jamming
a nomination through the Senate would be an abuse of power, and he made a direct appeal
to Senate Republicans.
JOSEPH BIDEN (D), Presidential Candidate: Please, follow your conscience. Don't vote
to confirm anyone nominated under the circumstances President Trump and Senator McConnell have
created.
Don't go there. Uphold your constitutional duty. The last thing we need is to add a constitutional
crisis that plunges us deeper into the abyss, deeper into the darkness.
JOHN YANG: Biden said that, if he wins in November, President Trump's nominee should
be withdrawn and replaced with his own.
Outside the Supreme Court building, a steady stream of mourners paid their respects at
a makeshift memorial.
LEAH KRYNICKY, Washington, D.C.: It was because of the work that she's done that I was able
to have a good job that allowed me, as a single woman, to support myself and to choose to
have a family, to have reproductive choices that allowed me to delay pregnancy until I
was ready for it, and then to choose to do it on my own, to have the confidence that
my job would be OK.
DANIEL HICKEY, Washington, D.C.: The fact that we had a Supreme Court persona who was
dedicated to reason and justice and, I think, balance is something that is imperative in
our judicial system, particularly at the top.
JOHN YANG: Inside, black crepe drapes the entrances to the high court's chambers, Justice
Ginsburg's seat and the bench in front of it.
Ginsburg will lie in repose at the Supreme Court Wednesday and Thursday, placed under
the Portico at the top of the court's front steps to allow the public for outdoor public
viewing amid the pandemic. On Friday, she will lie in state in the Capitol's Statuary
Hall, before a private burial next week at Arlington National Cemetery.
For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm John Yang.