WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump led a transformation of the Supreme Court that ushered in a conservative supermajority but soon he will confront an emboldened Democratic-led Senate that is preparing to play hardball on his judicial nominations.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who is likely to return as majority leader next year, promised in an interview with The Associated Press that Democrats will prevent Trump from installing a “right-winger” on the Supreme Court and that they are “not going to allow any crappy nominees” elsewhere in the federal judiciary or in Trump's Cabinet.
Democrats will hold at least 54 seats next year and as many as 56 depending on final results in Mississippi and Alaska, giving them a significant majority to block Trump's nominees or just ignore them outright.
After years of being on the losing end of highly partisan confirmation fights against Republicans, especially on Supreme Court nominees, Democrats will be under considerable pressure to wield the same type of aggressive tactics.
This all but erases any prospect that Trump could add to his imprint on the court he established in his first term by naming three of the current justices. In the past, Trump had mused privately that he could end up nominating up to seven people for the nine-person bench by the end of his second term, according to a person with knowledge of those comments.
Schumer declined to say specifically whether he would hold any Supreme Court vacancy open until after the next presidential election, as former Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell did in 2016, clearing the way for Trump to nominate the first of his three Supreme Court picks.
“The bottom line is, we’re not going to allow a right-winger on the court,” Schumer said.
The White House said Thursday that “extreme Democrats have a history of politicizing the Supreme Court, even entertaining plans to pack the Court with liberal justices.”
“President Trump will never let them pack the Supreme Court and ruin the independent judiciary," White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said.
Neither of the court’s two oldest justices, Samuel Alito, 76, or Clarence Thomas, 78, has publicly indicated an imminent retirement. Lifetime appointments typically come with a remove from political upheaval, even of the scale of Tuesday’s elections where Democrats regained control of both the House and Senate.
“I think the justices must know that if they were to retire now, at this moment, right before Democrats take the Senate, there would be an enormous amount of pressure unlike any we’ve seen to make serious change to the court,” said Dale Carpenter, a law professor at Southern Methodist University’s law school.
Alito has publicly mused about retirement in recent months, telling The Associated Press that he’s not sure “how long I’ll be able to continue to do this job.” But he’s also said he’ll stay on the court through the end of the term next summer and told Bloomberg he would not step down during a lame-duck period.
Meanwhile, Thomas is closing in on a record-setting tenure and would become the longest-serving justice in the nation’s history if he served until May 2028.
Trump has shown unusual deference to Alito and Thomas, even as he’s attacked other justices who’ve ruled against him, praising both for their legal acumen and declining to say whether they should step down so the president could nominate their successors.
In a Fox News interview in April, Trump said he has a shortlist of potential nominees but said he did not know whether he would have another vacancy this year, citing Alito’s “very good physical health.”
The Democrats' sizable margins in the Senate also will hamper the Republicans' effort to regain ground in the 2028 elections, where the GOP will be defending states such as Wisconsin, North Carolina and Iowa where Democrats made significant gains on Tuesday.
“Chance of confirming a worthy successor to Justice Thomas and/or Alito during President Trump’s term: Zero,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis posted on X after Tuesday’s elections. “Chance of confirming a worthy successor during a hypothetical GOP admin 2029-2033: probably zero (GOP won’t be able to recapture enough seats in 28).”
Historically, some justices have timed their retirements with the president who would name their successor in mind, but it’s far from the only consideration in their decision making.
Former liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg famously resisted efforts from progressives to retire when President Barack Obama was in office and died in the last year of Trump’s first term, allowing him to replace her with conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
Barrett would go on in 2022 to join the majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which erased the constitutional right to an abortion.
Even if there were a surprise Supreme Court vacancy in the coming weeks, lame-duck confirmations while Republicans still remain in power aren’t a sure thing.
Trump effectively forced Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina out of a reelection bid. That seat was won Tuesday by the state's former governor, Democrat Roy Cooper. The president also opposed two Republican incumbents in their primary races, Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Sen. John Cornyn of Texas. Democrats won those seats. Maine Sen. Susan Collins, another Republican who lost, attributed her defeat in part to Trump.
President Donald Trump speaks before signing an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., speaks at the Center for American Progress (CAP) post election forum, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says his government is seeking specific guarantees from Western allies on how post-war security support would function when the nearly five-year war sparked by Russia's full-scale invasion of his nation finally ends.
Zelenskyy's comments in an interview aired late Thursday followed two days of discussions among allies in Brussels that focused on postwar security and reconstruction. They also came before planned three-way talks next week in Abu Dhabi between Ukraine, Russia and the United States, the first trilateral peace discussions since February.
While talks on the contours of peace continue, the grim reality of war remained front and center Friday in Ukraine, with more Russian drone attacks and a rising death toll from Moscow's guided bomb strike Monday on a former school operating as a humanitarian aid distribution center.
Russian overnight drone strikes caused extensive power outages in several regions, including the Kyiv area.
Two days of talks in Brussels discussed postwar reconstruction, funding for 2027 and security guarantees backed by the Ukrainian government’s Western allies. The meetings brought together officials from the U.S., U.K., France, Germany and the European Union, along with representatives from the World Bank and the U.S. investment group BlackRock, Ukrainian lead negotiator Rustem Umerov wrote in an online post.
“We separately discussed the threats from Russia to Ukraine and all of Europe, as well as joint steps to counter them,” Umerov wrote.
In his television interview, Zelenskyy said he wanted to see tangible results.
“What matters is that it’s clear on paper,” Zelenskyy said in an interview with Ukraine’s private 1+1 television broadcast late Thursday. “The question isn’t dozens of points, but simply an understanding of the outcome: If Russia starts (attacking) again, what will happen? Who will do what, with what means, and when?”
Zelenskyy said it was important to maintain bipartisan support for Kyiv in the United States but acknowledged Democrats’ sweeping victories in this week’s midterm elections could have a positive effect on U.S. assistance, including the faster delivery of Patriot missile interceptors that Kyiv says are vital to fend off Russian airstrikes.
“I believe our chances of getting additional assistance from the United States may now grow,” he said.
President Donald Trump met Thursday with Moscow envoy Kirill Dmitriev but declined to give details of what they discussed.
“There’s going to be an agreement, it’s going to be a big agreement and it’s going to involve more than Ukraine,” Trump said, adding that it might include all of Europe.
Trump, who has long boasted he could quickly broker an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine, has lately blamed Zelenskyy for refusing to make concessions to end the conflict. Trump did not meet Thursday with visiting Ukrainian officials who also were on hand for a ceremony in Washington with first lady Melania Trump.
Trump's son-in-law and envoy Jared Kushner said in a social media message that the goal of the Brussels talks was to “develop practical arrangements that address the security concerns of all sides, reduce the risk of future conflict and create a more stable and predictable security environment.”
The European Union played down expectations for an agreement anytime soon.
“We look forward to seeing it materialize, but there’s a lot of work that needs to go into it,” European Commission spokesperson Paula Pinho said. The commission hosted the first day of talks Wednesday at its Brussels headquarters.
“Above all, there needs to be a willingness on the side of the one who first started the war, the one who aggressed,” she told reporters, in a reference to Russia. “There’s a very long way to go there because we haven’t seen much movement on that side.”
Pinho welcomed the resumption of talks and what appeared to be “full engagement” on all sides.
The Kremlin on Friday did not comment on Trump’s remarks about a possible deal.
“There are no details,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. Peskov said Russia had received no ideas from Europe on security guarantees, but added that any discussion of security between Russia and Ukraine would at some point be “impossible” without Europe’s involvement.
The Kremlin spokesman accused the European side of “persistent indecisiveness and a lack of readiness,” adding that European leaders “haven’t even managed to decide who is authorized to speak on their behalf.”
The death toll from a Russian bomb attack this week on a shelter and a former school now being used as an aid distribution center rose to 53 after more bodies were recovered from the rubble, Mykhailo Semikin, acting head of the region’s military administration, said in an online post.
Ten powerful guided bombs destroyed the facility at Komyshuvakha, a village in southeast Ukraine. Several dozen people are still believed to be missing after what was one of the deadliest attacks in the region in nearly five years of fighting.
Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure caused extensive power outages in seven regions of the country overnight and Friday morning, the Energy Ministry said.
The Kyiv region was hardest hit, with damage forcing continued grid restrictions and crews working on day and night shifts to restore power.
Zelenskyy said the electricity outages and resulting water cuts were worst in the Kyiv area, where “the challenges are very serious” for the capital’s residents and industry.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 227 attack drones, including 86 jet-powered ones, with strikes reported at 14 locations and falling debris at eight more. Overall, Ukraine’s air defenses shot down or suppressed 196 Russian drones overnight into Friday.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense said Friday that it shot down 142 Ukrainian drones overnight.
Associated Press writers Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands; Elise Morton in London; Lorne Cook in Brussels and Farnoush Amiri in New York contributed.
In this photo provided by Ukraine's 65th Mechanized Brigade press service, rescuers search for victims on the site of an underground school which was ruined in a Russian aerial guided bomb strikes, killing at least 43 in Komyshuvakha, Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026. (Andriy Andriyenko/Ukraine's 65th Mechanized Brigade via AP)
Davyd Arakhamia, lawmaker with President Zelenskyy's Servant of the People's party, second left, and Russian Presidential Envoy Kirill Dmitriev, right, hold letters written by first lady Melania Trump to their respective presidents during a meeting with the first lady and Russian and Ukrainian representatives in the Grand Foyer of the White House, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy attends the second and final day of the 30th Ibero-American Summit of Heads of State and Government in Madrid, Spain, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
In this photo provided by Ukraine's 65th Mechanized Brigade press service, an Orthodox Christian monastery is damaged following Russian aerial guided bomb strikes that killed at least 43 in Komyshuvakha, Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026. (Andriy Andriyenko/Ukraine's 65th Mechanized Brigade via AP)
