GOP's 2024 contenders leap into Supreme Court spotlight

Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton and Marsha Blackburn are all grilling Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson this week. And how many of them will run for president in two years?

“I’d set the line at two,” guessed Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who serves on the Judiciary Committee with the four. “And bet the over.”

In a Senate where committee meetings often go unattended and unnoticed, a Supreme Court hearing is still one of politicians’ biggest platforms. And the quartet of potential 2024 hopefuls knows it, with all of them sitting together on a national stage more than a year before the presidential primaries begin.

Though most Judiciary panel Republicans viewed as future White House contenders started their questioning toward Jackson warmly, they quickly descended into the usual antagonism that accompanies most questioning of a prospective Supreme Court justice by senators in the minority party. The reasons for that are manifold: Cable news carries the hearings live, political junkies follow along on Twitter and Judiciary members see Supreme Court confirmations as one of the biggest moments in their careers.

“People get on that committee knowing that it’s going to be a very high-profile committee for times like this, and gives them an audience if they have national… ambitions or aspirations,” said Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the GOP whip. Some Republicans on the committee, he added, “are at least thinking about that possibility. And now is the time that the spotlight shines on them.”