Fox News’ Shannon Bream Says Ketanji Brown Jackson Will Likely Get ‘A Handful Of Republican Votes’

Fox News Channel anchor Shannon Bream—the network’s top Supreme Court correspondent—says she believes President Biden’s pick for the Supreme Court, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, is on course for confirmation by the U.S. Senate, where Bream believes Jackson will likely receive a “handful of Republican votes.”

“There’s been a lot of talk about whether it could end up in a tie,” Bream told me, with Republicans and Democrats voting on party lines and Vice President Kamala Harris voting to break the tie. “But I think Democrats are going to have the votes sometime in April to get her through.”

Bream, the anchor of FNC’s late-night newscast, Fox News @ Night, covered Judge Jackson’s four days of hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, hearings which at times simmered with tension and emotion, as Republicans grilled Jackson’s record of sentencing in child pornography cases, while Democrats marked the moment in American history, as Jackson would be the first Black woman to serve on the Court.

On NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) described the questioning of Judge Jackson by Republicans was “just sad, frankly.” Booker told NBC’s Chuck Todd that “what we saw though this week was to me outrageous and beyond the pale, and very different than what I’ve witnessed in my short time in the Senate seeing three different confirmation hearings.”

Bream agreed that the nature of Supreme Court confirmation hearings had changed. “You think back to even the days of Justice Ginsburg or Justice Scalia, where you had votes that were like 90 to ten,” Bream told me. “And you think about how the two of them were on such opposite ends of the ideological spectrum…and now it’s almost always a party line vote for these nominees, which makes you feel like so much of the process is strictly political.”

Bream, who watched the hearings first-hand from a unique vantage point—a small windowed room giving her a view looking down into the hearing room—said “it’s clear that both sides sometimes posturing whether it’s to the midterm elections” or for 2024 political campaigns. “So they’re thinking about scoring points in that context as well.”

“So the days of strictly looking at a nominee’s qualifications and whether you adhere to the principle that a president has deference to his picks as long as they’re not outside of the mainstream of judicial thought…I’m afraid those days are over.”

“It does feel very much like it’s turned into a partisan exercise that isn’t necessarily all about the nomination,” Bream told me.

Bream, whose new book, “The Mothers and Daughters of the Bible Speak,” will be the subject of a Fox News special on April 3, has explored the ways modern women can draw inspiration and hope from stories of women in the Bible. And Bream noted how Judge Jackson herself discussed her faith.

“I must also pause to reaffirm my thanks to God,” Jackson said as the confirmation hearings began. “Even prior to today, I can honestly say that my life had been blessed beyond measure.”

“I think it’s beautiful that Judge Jackson has talked regularly about her faith,” Bream told me. “Clearly she’s guided by that and she finds comfort in that. I think she finds wisdom in that. And so I think it’s a beautiful thing to have somebody who was a nominee to one of the highest positions you could possibly rise to in this country, to openly speak about her faith.”