How President Trump Shaped the Courts in 2017

Click on the 'Listen' button above to hear this segment

All this week, The Takeaway is looking at President Trump’s first year in office, and the effects he's had on the government, and on people's lives. On Monday, we focused on the economy, and today, we go to the courts.

When Trump came into office, he inherited around 100 judicial vacancies, nearly twice as many as President Obama had in his first year. Back in December 2016, we spoke to Russell Wheeler, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution's Governance Studies Program, to forecast how Trump might change the courts.

"Currently Democratic appointees are majorities on 9 of 13 courts of appeals and they have majorities among district judges," Wheeler said. "I would not be surprised that come 2020 that will be if not reversed, there will be at least Republican majorities on many more courts of appeals and the district courts will have more republican appointees than democrat appointees." 

Over a year later, we caught up with Wheeler to catalogue Trump’s impact so far.

This episode is hosted by Todd Zwillich