that none of the top four contenders, amy barrett, hardiman, kavanaugh and kethledge, have been eliminated at this point, but there seems to be a focus on two of the candidates. kava kavanaugh and hardiman. the president likes kavanaugh s pedigree. he clerked for justice kennedy. the downside is he has a long paper trail. worked under former president george w. bush and was a member of ken starr s team which investigated former president bill clinton. you have hardiman who is getting a lot of buzz in the final hours. he is a federal judge who was a front runner last year. the president has been getting input from a number of people, including senate majority leader mitch mcconnell. even fox news host sean hannity. who will he pick? we re trying to drill down before the big announcement. kristen welker, i ll see you
folks. we have a great country. he knows how to create a cliffhanger. that is his jam. right now, a source with firsthand knowledge of president trump s supreme court lselectio process tells nbc news none of the top four contenders have been excluded. those four are hardyman, kethledge and barrett. the two judges getting the most attention are kavanaugh and hardiman. kavanaugh is the 53-year-old currently serving for the d.c. circuit. on the plus side, he s a favorite of white house counsel don mcgahn. he also has tied to george w. bush which could be problematic for trump reporters. one other issue with kavanaugh, he s got 12 years worth of decisions that senators will want to go through, potentially delayi ining confirmation.
i don t know if this quite raises to the level of hostility but it sure doesn t look good. it looks like she s headed in that direction. she would have the most trouble with senators murkowski and collins in this case. that s why i think for a while it looked like it was between kethledge and kavanagh until mcconnell sort of made this last weekend overture. republicans like, he s from pennsylvania, used to drive a taxi, has a great story. now he s back in the mix as somebody who the president can really get behind and so could possibly we should also mention his secret weapon, judge hardiman s
barrett, ray monld kethledge and thomas hardi man. take a listen to this. i believe this person will do a good job but i m close to making a decision. i have not made it official yesterday obviously, have not made it final, but we re close to making a decision. meanwhile, the new york times is reporting that senate majority leader mitch mcconnell is supporting two particular candidates. according to the paper mcconnell told trump this past week that judges raymond kethledge and thomas hardiman presented the fewest obstacles to being confirmed. this is greg store from bloomberg news. thanks for joining us this morning. good morning. trump has narrowed down supreme court justice choices down to just a few, four specifically. mcconnell though, as i just said, is pushing hard for hardiman and kethledge as well. what makes them standout choices
it would be interesting. if she was selected, we d get a scalia clerk pick for the kennedy seat and a kennedy clerk pick for the scalia seat, justice gorsuch. bill, you get the last word. you ve been critical of the president but if he picks another conservative judge will you approve? yeah, it s a good list, i agree with ken on that. i talked to people who talked to the president or people close to the president, i think kavanaugh will not get it. i this he s a good judge but he s a d.c. circuit judge, an insider. easy for democrats to attack on those grounds and doesn t add anything. i think the two judges in the midwest, hardiman and kethledge give you more of a gorsuch-li gorsuch-like people who didn t go to ivy league law schools and i agree with ken that amy barrett would be a risky and daring pick so the decision becomes a confirmation