Trump Says Supreme Court Will Decide The Election, Needs A Ninth Justice

Over the weekend, in the aftermath of Ruth Bader GInsburg’s death, we said that the “worst case scenario” for markets – a contested election – had become even more complicated as it now appeared that the US was heading into the most controversial election since Gore vs Bush with a SCOTUS that could end up deadlocked with a 4-4 vote should the election outcome escalate to the Supreme Court.

It appears that the president agrees, because moments ago President Trump also predicted that the U.S. Supreme Court will decide the outcome of the November election and argued the Senate should confirm his nominee – who we already know will be a conservative woman – to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to break any tie.

Trump said that “I think this will end up in the Supreme Court and I think it’s very important to have nine justices.”

Speaking before reporters at the White House, he continued, claiming that “this scam that the Democrats are pulling, it’s a scam, this scam will be before the United States Supreme Court,”

Trump plans on Saturday to announce a nominee to replace Ginsburg, a liberal icon who died Friday at 87.

Lawyers representing Trump’s campaign are challenging mail-in voting rules in a host of states, as a result of Trump’s claims that mail-in voting is more susceptible to fraud than in-person voting on Election Day.

As reported yesterday, there is a growing probability that the first major test of the new post-RBG iteration of the Supreme Court, which will soon have a 6-3 conservative majority, the GOP is planning to ask SCOTUS to review a major PA state court decision that extended the due date for mail-in ballots in a critical battleground state.