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Larry Hogan praised Donald Trump’s ‘incredible justices to the Supreme Court’ in 2022

Updated Aug 16, 2024, 10:46am EDT
politics
Office of the Maryland Governor
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The News

Maryland Senate candidate Larry Hogan heaped praise on Donald Trump for his Supreme Court nominees at a speech in November 2022, months after all three joined a majority ruling overturning Roe v. Wade.

The remarks came in an address to the Republican Jewish Coalition that was otherwise devoted to urging the GOP to move on from Trump, who he criticized as a political drag on the party after Republicans underperformed in the midterms. In his speech, Hogan qualified his criticism of Trump with compliments about aspects of his record that he said he supported.

“Now, we should give President Trump all the credit he deserves for his accomplishments in office,” Hogan said. “He cut taxes, he unleashed the power of domestic energy production, nominated incredible justices to the Supreme Court, and his policies for Israel were the strongest we ever had.”

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An archived video of the remarks is available on C-SPAN, but they do not appear to have generated prior news coverage or political attention to this point.

Hogan has sought to generate distance from national Republicans on abortion in his Senate campaign against Democratic nominee Angela Alsobrooks, including by airing campaign ads in which he promises to support legislation that would codify Roe v. Wade as the law of the land. He also has said that Roe was correctly decided. At the same time, Hogan has not said he would impose any litmus tests on future judicial nominees.

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The View From The Hogan Campaign

Asked for comment on whether Hogan still believed Trump appointed “incredible justices,” a spokeswoman said he was celebrating a 2022 court decision on religious education, which was not mentioned in the speech or in an apparent copy of Hogan’s prepared remarks posted online.

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“Governor Hogan’s comment to a Jewish group came in the context of a recent Supreme Court decision determining students could not be excluded from scholarships to attend Jewish schools,” Hogan campaign spokeswoman Blake Kernen said. “Long before he was a candidate for Senate, Governor Hogan was clear he believed Roe v. Wade was ’rightly decided,’ called out Senator McConnell for ramming through Supreme Court nominations right before an election on a party-line vote, and urged Senate Republicans to delay a vote on Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation until sexual misconduct allegations could be fully investigated. As Governor, he appointed over 180 judges with more female, Hispanic, and Asian judges than any previous governor and without regard to party affiliation. That is the non-partisan approach which is desperately needed in Washington today.”

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Notable

  • In an op-ed for the Washington Post, Hogan condemned “Project 2025,” the conservative umbrella group devoted to preparing the next Republican administration to hire staff and implement policy. “In truth, Project 2025 takes many of the principles that have made this nation great and shreds them,” he wrote.
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