President Donald Trump is asserting far greater control over the judicial nomination process in his second term, determined not to repeat what he views as past missteps in selecting judges who later bucked his agenda.

According to senior aides and sources familiar with the internal deliberations, Trump is personally directing a streamlined, loyalty-first vetting process shaped by the lessons from his first term — amid frustrations with some of his Supreme Court appointees including Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh, and Neil Gorsuch. White House aides are conducting as many as four interviews with prospective judicial nominees, looking into candidates’ personal backgrounds, and taking their time filling vacancies to determine they only nominate strict constitutionalists.

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The recalibration approach reflects Trump’s growing skepticism toward legacy institutions such as the Federalist Society, whose then-Executive Vice President Leonard Leo’s fingerprints were all over his first-term judicial picks. While Trump has privately criticized Barrett and expressed regret over how some of his nominees have ruled, aides say the goal now is not to abandon the conservative legal movement but to ensure that new nominees are deeply aligned with the “America First” agenda from the outset.

“This is Trump 2.0 and we have learned a lot when we were taking a four year break, and we’ve come into this administration now as a well-oiled machine that is relying on sound counsel from his White House Counsel, his DOJ and his most senior advisors here, where every single person advising the president on these judges is committed to the America First agenda, committed to making sure that these justices align or judges align with the priorities of what a constitutionalist judge would support, and that’s the priority,” a White House aide told the Washington Examiner.

One source familiar with Trump’s inner-circle grumblings over his own appointees told the Washington Examiner the president airing his concerns is more like a pressure tactic than an all-out divorce from the conservative legal movement.

“They’re being aggressive. They are making noise on purpose. It’s a tactic, and I think, you know, they’re having some success with it,” the source said, noting that behind the scenes, the Trump administration is actually “pretty happy with some of the wins they’ve been getting in court.”

A White House source also acknowledged that Trump “may have frustrations towards some of the judges or justices that have ruled against what he feels is common sense.”

On the record, the White House has downplayed the initial reports by CNN about Trump’s frustrations, remaining adamant that Trump supports the Supreme Court, regardless of adverse decisions it has made against him.

“President Trump will always stand with the U.S. Supreme Court, unlike the Democrat Party, which, if given the opportunity, would pack the court, ultimately undermining its integrity,” White House spokesman Harrison Fields told the Washington Examiner. “The President may disagree with the Court and some of its rulings, but he will always respect its foundational role.”

Another White House source also pushed back on the reports, based on how Trump has treated people he has been unhappy with in the past.

“If he’s pissed, he’s doing a remarkable job of not showing it,” the aide told the Washington Examiner. “The president usually makes it clear exactly who is on his s*** list.”

Barrett has sided with the high court’s Democratic-appointed bloc in several closely watched decisions this term, at first fueling backlash from MAGA advocates and fanatics online. She joined the majority in rejecting the Trump administration’s attempt to freeze billions of dollars in foreign aid and joined Chief Justice John Roberts in refusing to delay Trump’s sentencing in his New York hush money case just before his inauguration. She partially dissented from a decision allowing deportations of Venezuelan nationals, expressing more concern about due process protections than Trump’s hard-line immigration enforcement — an issue critical to Trump’s agenda.

Outside Trump ally Mike Davis, a former law clerk for Gorsuch and one-time Senate Judiciary Committee chief counsel for nominations, declined to discuss his conversations with Trump to the Washington Examiner but has publicly criticized Coney Barrett. Davis is also the founder of the Article III Project, a nonprofit advocacy organization that promotes the confirmation of conservative justices to the Supreme Court. 

“She’s a rattled law professor with her head up her a**,” Davis, who was a rumored contender to become Trump’s attorney general before the president tapped Pam Bondi during his transition, told former White House chief political strategist Steve Bannon last month.

But with Barrett already serving a lifelong tenure on the Supreme Court, short of a highly unlikely impeachment, the White House’s efforts have turned to improving its judicial vetting process.

“The process for nominating judges to the federal bench is one [where] the president’s always going to be the final decider,” the first White House aide said. “These people are going to be thoroughly vetted, both on judicial philosophy and, you know, just personal backgrounds and their street cred, if you will. Part of that is, yes, we are accepting the recommendations from outside groups. … Hometown senators, hometown representatives, we’re going to entertain those as well. But at the end of the day, we want to make sure that we are vetting these people.”

Regarding what the White House is seeking in its nominees, it is a constitutionalist in the mold of Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito, and Clarence Thomas, according to the aide.

“We’re going to dot every ‘I,’ cross every ‘T,’ and we’re going to comb through everything. This is a process, right? Many people are like, ‘Well, why haven’t there been many more judges?’ This is a thorough process,” the aide said. “And the one thing we want to underscore is that the president has had specific interest in the process. If he feels that he doesn’t have enough information, he will demand more information.” 

The aide added that Trump is committed to an “extremely thorough process,” requiring nominees to be interviewed “not just once, not just twice, maybe three, four times” to ensure they reflect a genuine constitutionalist philosophy. The goal, the aide said, is to nominate judges “every member of the staff can stand by,” rather than those who merely espouse a political ideology “adjacent to what a constitutionalist would believe.”

For instance, the White House is working with the likes of Davis’s Article III Project, with Davis’s organization recommending Trump’s first appellate nominee of his second term, Whitney Hermandorfer. Hermandorfer, who has been a member of the Federalist Society since she was in graduate school, was nominated last month to become the next judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit.

Regardless of Trump’s criticism of the Federalist Society, a nonprofit organization that advocates for a textual and originalist interpretation of the Constitution, the group has such an expansive influence across the conservative legal world that it is almost impossible to sideline. 

Even if the administration sought to exclude Federalist Society-affiliated attorneys from judicial consideration, doing so would drastically shrink the talent pool. The organization’s network is so deeply embedded in the right-of-center legal ecosystem that disqualifying its members would leave few viable alternatives.

“They’re not able to fill the federal bench with people who are conservatives, who don’t have Federalist Society ties … because it’s just a null set,” the source familiar with Trump’s inner circle planning said.

Meanwhile in the Senate, several Republican lawmakers pushed back on Trump’s frustrations with past appointees such as Barrett.

Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA), a vocal member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, defended Barrett, while not directly challenging Trump over his reported frustration with the justice.

“Well, I don’t agree with it, but this is America. You can believe what you want, but I don’t agree with it. I think she’s been a good justice,” Kennedy told the Washington Examiner.

Other lawmakers close to the president such as Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) expressed frustrations not with the Supreme Court, but with lower court judges issuing nationwide injunctions against Trump’s key executive agenda items.

“I mean, they got their own mind, yeah, but it’s just unfortunate. The Supreme Court is, I think, pretty much non-biased, I mean we’ve seen the voting. It’s the federal judges with all these injunctions that is out of control. They’re just trying to slow him down,” Tuberville told the Washington Examiner, saying, “I’ve had hit and misses on coaches I hired.”

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), another member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has been one of the few Republicans willing to challenge Trump’s judicial vetting process publicly. 

During Trump’s first term, Hawley helped sink at least two of the president’s nominees — Michael Bogren, whom he accused of harboring anti-Catholic bias, and Halil Suleyman “Sul” Ozerden, whom he criticized for lacking a solid constitutionalist record. Hawley has long insisted that Republican-appointed judges must have a proven track record of conservative jurisprudence, not just paper credentials. 

On Wednesday, Hawley boasted confidence over four federal district court nominees from his home state of Missouri lined up for a nominations hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, suggesting that Trump’s second-term picks are up to par with the once-critical lawmaker’s framework.

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Carrie Severino, a conservative judicial advocate, president of the Leo-backed group JCN and a former law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, described the high court as the “best” in generations.”

“I don’t agree with every decision the justices make, but if it weren’t for them Roe would still be on the books, companies could engage in DEI and racism with impunity, the administrative state would be even more powerful, and Trump himself would probably be in jail,” Severino, whose nonprofit organization advocates for conservative judges, told the Washington Examiner.