Fact check: Hannity says Supreme Court nominees were never picked because of 'race and gender'
After President Joe Biden pledged to nominate a Black woman to the retiring Justice Stephen Breyer's Supreme Court seat, Sean Hannity said on his radio show that "there's never been a president that has made race and gender the defining factor."
Posted — UpdatedFox News host Sean Hannity misleadingly claimed that President Joe Biden was venturing into unprecedented territory with his pledge to nominate a Black woman as a replacement for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, who is retiring after 28 years.
But Hannity’s claim that Biden did what’s never been done before when he announced his intent to fill Breyer’s seat with a Black woman — a move some conservatives have cast as affirmative action — runs counter to the long history of Supreme Court nominations.
A spokesperson for Hannity’s radio program did not respond to a request for comment.
Less than two years ago, President Donald Trump vowed to nominate a woman to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. He then appointed Justice Amy Coney Barrett to the vacancy.
"I will be putting forth a nominee next week. It will be a woman," Trump said Sept. 19, 2020, during a rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina. He later added: "It will be a woman, a very talented, very brilliant woman. I haven’t chosen yet, but we have numerous women on the list."
A year later, Reagan followed through, nominating Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.
Race, and also religion, played a role in other Supreme Court nominations, as well.
Nikolas Bowie, assistant professor of law at Harvard Law School, said Hannity’s claim "ignores the reality that from 1789 through 1967, every president made race and gender a defining factor in their selection process by refusing to nominate anyone other than a white man."
"Reagan had asked me whether Scalia was of Italian extraction," Wallison said, according to the Miller Center’s interview transcript. "I think he used the word ‘extraction,’ and I said, ‘Yes, he’s of Italian extraction.’ Reagan said, ‘That’s the man I want to nominate, so I want to meet him.’"
PolitiFact ruling
Hannity said that before Biden’s recent pledge to nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court, "there's never been a president that has made race and gender the defining factor."
The claim ignored that both Trump and Reagan made similar vows to nominate women to the Supreme Court, then followed through on those promises. Other presidents in history have also considered race and religion as they have made their picks.
We rate Hannity’s claim False.
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