The New York Daily News’s front page featured a caricature of President Trump as a judge with the headline “we are f*#%’d,” referring to the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy on Thursday morning.
Justice Anthony Kennedy has announced his retirement, giving President Trump the chance to appoint a second judge. https://t.co/bYil5UUR4O
An early look at Thursday’s front… pic.twitter.com/sMqbfavkXY
— New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) June 27, 2018
Justice Kennedy announced his retirement Wednesday hours after the justices released the final decisions of the current term.
“For a member of the legal profession it is the highest honor to serve on this Court,” Kennedy wrote in a letter to the president. “Please permit me by this letter to express my profound gratitude for having had the privilege to seek in each case how best to know, interpret, and defend the Constitution.” (RELATED: Kennedy Calls It Quits: Longtime Swing Justice Hands Trump The Biggest Gift Of His Presidency)
Kennedy’s retirement could dramatically affect the court’s political demographic. He was often the tie-breaking swing vote, having provided the deciding vote on issues like gay marriage, abortion, the First Amendment and Guantanamo Bay detainees. (RELATED:Liberal Meltdown Over Justice Kennedy Retirement)
His retirement will give President Trump the opportunity to appoint two Supreme Court justices in merely two years in the Oval Office.
Last April, the president appointed Neil Gorsuch to the highest bench in the country.