Trump says Supreme Court nominee will be a woman
US President Donald Trump has said he'll next week nominate a female to displace the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, escalating a political row over her successor.
Ginsburg, 87, died on Friday, just weeks prior to the presidential election.
Mr Trump's Democrat rival, Joe Biden, insists the decision on her behalf replacement should wait until following the vote.
The ideological balance of the nine-member court is vital to its rulings on the most crucial issues in US law.
But President Trump has vowed to swear in Ginsburg's successor "immediately", a move that has infuriated Democrats, who fear Republicans will vote to lock in a decades-long conservative majority on the country's highest court.
"I am putting forth a nominee in a few days. It will be a female," Mr Trump said at a campaign rally in Fayetteville, NEW YORK on Saturday. "I think it should be a woman because I actually like women a lot more than men."
Some supporters chanted "Fill that seat!" as Mr Trump spoke, urging him to take the rare possibility to nominate a third justice during one presidential term to an eternity appointment on the court.
Earlier, Mr Trump praised two female judges on city appeals courts as possible choices. Both judges - Amy Coney Barrett and Barbara Lagoa - are conservatives who tip the balance of the Supreme Court towards Republicans.
Democrats have vigorously opposed any nomination before November's election, arguing that Senate Republicans blocked Democratic President Barack Obama's choice for the US top court in 2016.
At that time, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell justified the move on grounds that it had been an election year. But on Friday Senator McConnell said he intended to act on any nomination Mr Trump made and take it to a vote in the Senate before election day.
Ginsburg, a liberal icon and feminist standard-bearer, died of metastatic pancreatic cancer at her home in Washington DC, surrounded by her family. She was only the second-ever woman to sit on the Supreme Court.
Supporters gathered outside the court on Friday night to pay tribute to the girl who had become affectionately referred to as "The Notorious RBG".
