What good would it do to lose the House over a nominee that cannot get past confirmation? You lose two big important things. You no longer have the House, and your nomination fails.
Exactly. Trump is playing the long game here, knowing he most likely will have at least one, if not two more picks before it’s over.
RE: What good would it do to lose the House over a nominee that cannot get past confirmation? You lose two big important things. You no longer have the House, and your nomination fails.
1) You are assuming that nominating a Scalia-like textualist would cause you to lose the house. How does that follow...
2) If what you fear is your nominee failing because he is too much like Scalia, then we should avoid anyone like Scalia and Thomas altogether and just nominate someone like Roberts and Kennedy.
With that kind of “fear” we get what we deserve, always an unreliable swing vote that gave us Obama-care and gay marriage.