#Mark Meadows says Trump almost done with new list of Supreme Court nominees

White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on Tuesday said President Trump is nearly finished with a new list of potential Supreme Court nominees.

The list is being unveiled to excite Trump’s conservative base ahead of the election. In 2016, Trump also issued a list of candidates, which he used for his two nominations.

“I’m optimistic that you’ll see those SCOTUS picks in coming days, but we’ve been working very closely, the president has, with the White House general counsel, getting input from a number of others,” Meadows said on the White House driveway.

“I’m excited about the list. And the president will be signing off on that in the coming days,” the former North Carolina congressman said.

Meadows also defended Trump’s remarks at a Monday press conference that a COVID-19 vaccine may be available in October, and Trump’s denunciation of the military-industrial complex.

“I’m very optimistic that we will have something by the end of October, so if you’re looking at the end of October as election day, I would agree with the president,” he said of a possible vaccine to end the coronavirus pandemic.

The former House Freedom Caucus budget hawk supported Trump’s Monday remark that “the top people at the Pentagon” may not like him because “they want to do nothing but fight wars so that all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make everything else stay happy.”

“This president is consistent about one thing: if we’re going to send our sons and daughters abroad to fight on our behalf, he’s not going to let some lobbyist here in Washington, DC, just because they want a new defense contract, suggest that they need to stay abroad, one minute longer than they should. He’s been consistent about stopping these endless wars,” Meadows said.

The chief of staff said Trump wanted to issue his Supreme Court candidates list earlier, but “a whole lot of other priorities” were being addressed.

Trump wrote on Twitter in June that he would issue the list by Sept. 1.

“I will be releasing a new list of Conservative Supreme Court Justice nominees, which may include some, or many of those already on the list, by September 1, 2020. If given the opportunity, I will only choose from this list, as in the past, a Conservative Supreme Court Justice,” Trump wrote.