President Trump has nominated his first slate of potential federal judges despite a slow start to the nomination process during his second term. Filling vacancies on courts of all levels was a key priority — and major legacy — of the first Trump administration. 

On Tuesday evening, Mr. Trump announced that he would nominate five attorneys to serve as judges — four on federal district benches and one at the superior court of Washington, D.C.

All four of the federal district judicial nominees are up for posts in Missouri. Judge Cris Stevens, who currently serves as a state appellate judge, has been nominated to a seat on the eastern district of Missouri. Zack Bluestone — a federal prosecutor — and Maria Lanahan, Missouri’s principal deputy solicitor general, are both nominees to serve in the eastern district of Missouri. Missouri’s solicitor general, Josh Divine, is nominated by the president to serve in both the eastern and western federal districts in the state.  

Senator Schmitt, who has in the past worked with all four of the federal nominees, praised the president’s decision in a statement on Tuesday. 

“All four nominees worked for me in the Missouri Attorney General’s office and together we fought each day for Missourians across our state,” Mr. Schmitt writes. “President Trump’s historic transformation of our federal judiciary was among the greatest successes of his first term, and with these well qualified, proven nominees President Trump is continuing that legacy.”

Mr. Trump’s ability to plow through vacancies on the courts during the course of his first term was often praised by conservatives, even those who often disagreed with him on other issues, like Senator McConnell. The Republican-controlled Senate between 2017 and 2021 confirmed 234 federal judges nominated by Mr. Trump — the highest number for a one-term president since President Carter left office in 1981. 

That record was soon broken by President Biden, who got 235 judges confirmed to their respective courts, though Mr. Trump had more impact by getting three Supreme Court justices confirmed. One high court nominee was confirmed while Mr. Biden was in office. 

Now, Mr. Trump does not have nearly the window to fill seats on the judiciary that he had eight years ago. When Mr. Trump entered office the first time in 2017, he had 112 federal court vacancies to fill, including one seat on the Supreme Court. By the time he returned to the White House in 2025, there were only 40 seats available to fill. 

Despite this, he could be well on track to have the highest number of judicial nominations ever confirmed by an American president, considering President Reagan currently holds the record of 383 after eight years in the White House, and Mr. Trump will more likely than not have a Republican-controlled Senate during all four years of his second term, based on the 2026 Senate map that seems impossible for Democrats to overturn. 

On top of that, the president is expected to get at least two more Supreme Court vacancies, given that Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito are well into their 70s.