Hello listeners. This is Politico's Nurdcast. I'm Charlie Matessian sitting in for Scott Bland this week. This week on NerdCast, first there was a long list and now there's a short list of names to replace the retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court.

Plus, we'll talk about some of the stakes surrounding this nomination by looking ahead

at some of the big cases on the horizon for the Supreme Court.

Turns out that whomever Donald Trump picks is soon going to be asked to weigh in on a lot of cases

involving Donald Trump.

A reminder to our listeners to subscribe to the

Nurdcast to rate us and write a review. And stay tuned for the end of the show

for a contribution from one of the NCast's biggest fans.

One last note before we begin.

We're taping this a little bit before noon-eastern time on Thursday, July 5th,

so it's all up to date as of then.

Let's get started.

I want to welcome our guests today. We've got

two political White House reporters who also happened to be nerdcast rookies.

Lorraine Wallert. Hello. Hey there Charlie. And Chris Catalago, welcome.

Big honor to be with you.

How was your first 4th of July in Washington, D.C.

It was good.

We have a little one so we missed the fireworks, but certainly heard them from inside.

God, I don't miss that.

Time for our first data point.

Six or seven.

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