The Constitution is pretty clear about what is supposed to happen now. When there is a vacancy on the Supreme Court, the President of the United States is to nominate someone. The Senate is to consider that nomination, and either they disapprove of that nominee or that nominee is elevated to the Supreme Court. Historically, this has not been viewed as a question. There's no unwritten law that says that it can only be done on off years – that's not in the constitutional text.

It will be the office of the President to nominate, and, with the advice and consent of the Senate, to appoint. There will, of course, be no exertion of choice on the part of the Senate. They may defeat one choice of the Executive, and oblige him to make another; but they cannot themselves choose — they can only ratify or reject the choice of the President.

Article Two of the Constitution clearly states, whenever there is a vacancy in one of the Court's created by the Constitution itself, the Supreme Court of the United States, the president shall — not may — the president shall appoint someone to fill the vacancy with the advice and consent of the United States Senate. And advice and consent includes consulting and voting!

We know that Justice Scalia's seat on the Court does not belong to any President or any political party; it belongs to the American people. When it became vacant in the middle of a contentious Presidential election, we followed the rule set down by Vice President Joe Biden and Democratic Leader Senator Schumer, which said that Supreme Court vacancies arising in the midst of a Presidential election should not be considered until the campaign ends. It is the same rule, by the way, that President Obama's own legal counsel admitted she would have recommended had the shoe been on the other foot. I have been consistent all along that the next President, Democrat or Republican, should select the next nominee for the Supreme Court. I maintained that view even when many thought that particular President would be Hillary Clinton. But now the election season is over and we have a new President who has nominated a superbly qualified candidate to fill that ninth seat. So I would invite Democrats who spent many months insisting we need nine to join us in following through on that advice by giving the new President's nominee a fair consideration and an up-or-down vote, just as we did for past Presidents of both parties.

It has been alleged, that it would have been preferable to have authorized the Senate to elect out of their own body an officer answering that description. But two considerations seem to justify the ideas of the convention in this respect. One is, that to secure at all times the possibility of a definite resolution of the body, it is necessary that the President should have only a casting vote. And to take the senator of any State from his seat as senator, to place him in that of President of the Senate, would be to exchange, in regard to the State from which he came, a constant for a contingent vote. The other consideration is, that as the Vice-President may occasionally become a substitute for the President, in the supreme executive magistracy, all the reasons which recommend the mode of election prescribed for the one, apply with great if not with equal force to the manner of appointing the other.

The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.

President Trump’s nominee will receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate.

Now, on other hand, as President, I cannot just impose my will on Congress -- the Congress of the United States -- even though sometimes I wish I could. The legislative branch has its own powers and its own prerogatives, and so they check my power and balance my power. I appoint some of our judges, but I cannot tell them how to rule, because every person in America -- from a child living in poverty to me, the President of the United States -- is equal under the law. And a judge can make a determination as to whether or not I am upholding the law or breaking the law. And I am fully accountable to that law.

I want you to use my words against me. If there’s a Republican president in 2016 and a vacancy [on the United States Supreme Court] occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say, “Lindsey Graham said, ‘Let’s let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination,’” and you could use my words against me, and you’d be absolutely right.

The Constitution is quite clear about the role of the vice president in the counting of electoral votes. It essentially says the vice president presides over a joint session of Congress where the electoral votes that are certified by the states shall be opened and shall be counted. And irrespective of the indictment, I want the American people to know that I had no right to overturn the election. And that on that day, President Trump asked me to put him over the Constitution. But I chose the Constitution and I always will. … I really do believe that anyone who puts themself over the Constitution should never be president of the United States. And anyone who asks someone else to put themselves over the Constitution should never be president of the United States again.

I don't care who does the electing, so long as I get to do the nominating.

The JSC appointments during my tenure were made in accordance with the Judicial Service Commission Act and the Constitution. Reappointments were effected by the appointing authority—the President of Uganda—without requiring ULS input, as incumbents were eligible for a second term

Without the intervention of the State legislatures, the President of the United States cannot be elected at all. They must in all cases have a great share in his appointment, and will, perhaps, in most cases, of themselves determine it. The Senate will be elected absolutely and exclusively by the State legislatures. Even the House of Representatives, though drawn immediately from the people, will be chosen very much under the influence of that class of men, whose influence over the people obtains for themselves an election into the State legislatures. Thus, each of the principal branches of the federal government will owe its existence more or less to the favor of the State governments, and must consequently feel a dependence, which is much more likely to beget a disposition too obsequious than too overbearing towards them.

[A]ccording to the Constitution the Chief Justice presides, that is to say, he's in charge. The Senators are meant to be jurors. What Chief Justice Roberts allowed to happen, was that the jurors decided that they could do things like, say how they were going to vote in advance; that the jurors could decide to do things like, not listen to evidence; that the jurors could decide, basically, the shape of the trial. ...[I]f you're in any kind of court in the United States, those kind of principles where the judge just gives up, would be unthinkable. So basically what we saw was a trial that wasn't a trial, and so both in the form and in the outcome the Supreme Court ends up being marginalized, and not just the Congress.