On Fox, Heritage Action CEO Praises List Of Trump's Potential SCOTUS Nominees That Heritage Helped Write

Written by Media Matters Staff

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On Fox, Heritage Action's Michael Needham praised presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's list of potential Supreme Court nominees as “phenomenal” and “fantastic,” without disclosing that the Heritage Foundation helped make the Trump campaign's selections. According to CNN, Trump was “assisted by conservative groups The Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation” in compiling his list, and “five of the 11 names” on his list “were floated in March by the conservative Heritage Foundation.” From the May 22 edition of Fox Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday:

JOHN ROBERTS (HOST): What about the Supreme Court? [Donald Trump] comes out with 11 people that he says he'd put on the Supreme Court. I mean, this is 'Don't worry, conservatives, I'm with you here.' It really seems like he's got to go to great lengths to keep people with him. 

MICHAEL NEEDHAM: It was, and I think that was a great gesture. In some ways it's a microcosm of the Trump campaign. He puts out this list, it is a phenomenal list. Conservatives think fantastic. Donald Trump is saying, 'Where is Hillary's list? Let's talk about that.' And then later that night he said, 'But maybe I'll add to the list.' And so, kind of this great moment with Donald Trump and conservatives for some reason gets a question mark at the end, and I think what that causes is some people say this was really shrewd, this is how you make deals, this is how you negotiate. And other people say, well hold on, that's a little erratic, what's going on there, does he really mean it, is this a fraud? And so I think the challenge for Trump is to find those issues, give conservatives confidence, and then convince those people in the second who look at that question mark and see erratic behavior and say we're going to make them comfortable, we're going to make them come over and join the coalition.