- A Fox News panel discussed an unlikely idea for VP Kamala Harris to be nominated to the Supreme Court.
- Justice Stephen Breyer is retiring, and Biden promised to nominate a Black woman to the court.
- "At the very least, it's an opportunity for her to stand up and own the job she has," a Fox host said of Kamala Harris.
A Fox News panel floated the unlikely prospect of President Joe Biden nominating Vice President Kamala Harris to the Supreme Court in response to Wednesday reports that Justice Stephen Breyer plans to retire from the court.
Biden promised to nominate the first Black woman to the Supreme Court during his presidential campaign, a promise reiterated during his presidency.
"Race is at the heart of just about everything we see from the left right now. It is so much in the nomenclature of politics that are most divisive in America right now, not bringing us together. Would this further divide?" anchor Harris Faulkner said.
Faulkner then mentioned the speculation that Harris could be nominated in the context of news reports detailing internal turmoil in Harris' office and a strained relationship with Biden's team.
"So this person has to be a woman, she has to be Black and she's gotta be younger. Anybody thinking what I'm thinking? They don't know what to do with Kamala Harris in the White House right now. And I can't be the only person seeing this," Faulkner said.
"Politically speaking, if you are not happy with the vice president and you want her in a different role, there's no greater role than the Supreme Court," former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, also on the panel, said.
McEnany agreed that "it's a theory that could be credible" and a position Harris "readily want to consider or accept given the challenges of the vice presidency, given the frustrations she's incurred."
"Or at the very least, it's an opportunity for her to stand up and own the job she has, that we may find out that she actually relishes and would love to be able to do, and would like to take a stab at it," Faulkner replied. "I always like to give people the benefit of the doubt."
—Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) January 26, 2022
The speculation was previously floated in an extensive November 2021 CNN report detailing the internal discontent within Harris' office, their at-times rocky relationship with the Biden White House, and her missteps as vice president, including her struggles with her policy portfolio that includes voting rights and immigration.
CNN reported that when Harris' allies were "depressed" over her woes in the vice president's office, they send around a satirical Onion article and "bat down the Aaron Sorkin-style rumor that Biden might try to replace her by nominating her to a Supreme Court vacancy."
"That chatter has already reached top levels of the Biden orbit, according to one person who's heard it," CNN said.
The idea of Biden nominating Harris to the Supreme Court would create numerous procedural and political complications.
Harris, in her capacity as vice-president, is also president of the Senate and a crucial tiebreaking vote for Democrats, in a Senate split between 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans. Harris cast 15 tiebreaking votes in 2021, surpassing the previous record for the number of tiebreaking votes cast by a vice president in their first year in office set by John Adams in 1790.
It's unclear whether Harris would be able to cast the tiebreaking vote in order to confirm herself to the Supreme Court. Furthermore, her vacating the vice president's office would deny Democrats a majority in the Senate, and set off another time-consuming and politically costly confirmation fight in the Senate to confirm her replacement as vice president.
A representative for Fox News did not immediately return Insider's request for comment.