After several days of silence regarding the Supreme Court’s ruling against a Texas anti-abortion law, Donald Trump on Thursday finally weighed in on the decision and claimed that such a ruling would not occur if he were to appoint the next Supreme Court justice.
“Now if we had — Scalia was living or if Scalia was replaced by me, you wouldn’t have had that. Okay? It would’ve been the opposite,” Trump told conservative radio host Mike Gallagher.
To be clear, the Supreme Court voted 5-3 against the Texas law, and a ninth justice would not have been enough to change the court’s opinion.
In the case, the Supreme Court struck down Texas provisions that required abortion clinics to have admitting privileges to nearby hospitals and mandated that the clinics meet the same standards as surgical centers.
During his interview with Gallagher, Trump indicated that the Supreme Court will issue more opinions unfavorable to conservatives if Hillary Clinton wins the presidency and nominates a justice to replace the late Antonin Scalia.
“You won’t even have to question. You wouldn’t even have to bother going to court. You’re going to know the answers,” he said.
Gallagher then asked Trump if the court would issue a majority opinion like the one issued in the Texas abortion law case if Trump were elected president.
“No,” Trump replied. “You wouldn’t see that.”
Trump then mentioned that Chief Justice John Roberts voted to uphold Obamacare subsidies.
“Now you know, when you appoint judges, sometimes they change their minds. Because you had that in the case of Obamacare with John Roberts. I mean, who would’ve thought that could’ve happened? He could’ve killed it twice and he didn’t,” he said. “That was terrible. And that was a Bush appointment. That was so bad, what happened. And you know, to me, you know, almost not recoverable from his standpoint. Very, very sad situation.”
