Perhaps he was relying on Trump’s sterling reputation as one whose word is his bond and would never renege on any agreements he made. 
And this just in…
White House doesn’t deny report Trump made secret deal with Kennedy over retirement, replacement
(Let it be noted that ThinkProgress is not on the Federalist Society’s list of approved sources of truthiness…_
Doesn’t deny doesn’t mean the same thing as confirms.
And it’s irrelevant for another reason: if the White House DID deny it, would elucidator’s reaction be, “Well, that settles it; the White House might evade, but they wouldn’t outright lie?”
Politically, yeah, it pretty much does.
You do know about Kennedy’s *son *at Deutsche Bank approving huge loans to Trump when no one else would, right?
Mere coincidence, I’m sure, ElvisL1ves; it’s not as if there’s a vast right-wing conspiracy afoot to subvert our democracy or anything.
Hard to believe that only 3 weeks ago, Kennedy was a mostly-respected moderate SCOTUS justice, but all it took was a tiny little bit of contact with Trump and he’s now a corrupt reactionary in bed with the slime in the WH. Any contact with Trump is character poison.
At the risk of a whoosh, I’d figure it could involve Kennedy talking to, say, Thomas: patiently explaining what and why while specifying that he repeatedly met with the Trump administration and got what sure seemed like deferential treatment when they discussed his successor. What happens if Thomas, when mulling retirement, recalls that, oh, right; on SCOTUS, Trump comes through as agreed, doesn’t he?
President generic, as in Truman, Madison, Johnson, Johnson…yeah, that’s plausible. With this goon? Who knows?