By Former Attorney General Eric Holder has reopened the long-running fight over the future of the Supreme Court, signaling that if Democrats regain the White House in 2028, they should be prepared to expand the bench. His remarks—delivered in an interview with the progressive outlet Meidas Touch—mark the clearest indication yet that court-packing will return as a central plank of the Democratic left.
Holder, once described by Barack Obama as his “wingman,” depicted the Supreme Court as a “broken institution” responsible for “an untold amount of damage to the fabric” of the country. He praised lower federal courts for blocking President Trump’s policy initiatives, but insisted that “it’s only when you get to the Supreme Court that you see these problems start to arise.” The “problems,” he suggested, flow from the Court’s 6–3 conservative majority—cemented during Trump’s first term with the confirmations of Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, and responsible for rulings on abortion, gun rights, and executive authority that have infuriated the party’s activist base.
Eric Holder has said he want to add 4 judges to Supreme Court if Democrats win in 2028 — that will bring the total to 13 justices.
Packing the court will happen if Democrats win.pic.twitter.com/zJ7CnKZf33
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) November 7, 2025
Pressed on what a future Democratic administration should do, Holder was explicit: “Expanding the court is something I think that should be considered.” The message was unmistakable. After a decade of progressive frustration—Roe v. Wade overturned in 2022, federal agencies checked by separation-of-powers rulings, and the administrative state constrained—court expansion is no longer a fringe idea. It is becoming a litmus test.
The historical analogy is unavoidable. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1937 plan to swell the Court in order to secure favorable rulings collapsed under bipartisan resistance, widely condemned as an attack on judicial independence. Yet Holder’s comments suggest the party may be willing to revisit a strategy once dismissed as authoritarian overreach. Democrats, still seething over what they view as Republican “seat theft” in 2016 and 2020, increasingly see expansion as political restitution.
President Trump, for his part, moved quickly to warn Republicans that the judiciary will not survive the next Democratic administration unless his party rewrites Senate procedure now. In a late-night flurry on his Truth Social platform following Democrats’ sweep of key statewide contests, Trump urged the GOP to “TERMINATE THE FILIBUSTER!” and muscle through a slate of election-law measures while it still holds congressional majorities. “Pass Voter Reform, Voter ID, No Mail-In Ballots. Save our Supreme Court from ‘Packing,’” he wrote, tying the procedural fight directly to the integrity of the Court. The posts came as Republicans absorbed losses in New Jersey, Virginia, and New York—results that rattled party leaders and intensified the debate over how aggressively to use their current Senate advantage.
.@POTUS to Republican Senators: "It's time for Republicans to do what they have to do — and that's terminate the filibuster." pic.twitter.com/BMUKPybb9a
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) November 5, 2025
The call landed as the shutdown crisis stretched into another week, as Democrats believe the shutdown “helps their brand.” Trump has pressed Senate Republicans to embrace the “nuclear option,” either through a narrow carve-out to reopen the government or a broader elimination of the 60-vote threshold to advance voting-rules legislation. GOP leaders remain wary, warning that scrapping the filibuster now would give Democrats a green light to pursue precisely the kind of court-expansion agenda Holder outlined. But Trump’s message was unmistakable: if Republicans hesitate, Democrats will not, and the institutional restraints that once stabilized the separation of powers could dissolve in a single Congress.
Reform advocates argue that structural changes deserve open debate—expansion, mandatory retirement ages, or even a larger bench to manage workload and turnover. With Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito well into their 70s, and Chief Justice John Roberts turning 70, some scholars contend that a retirement age of 75 or 80 could promote predictable succession without the political warfare triggered by outright term limits.
But Holder’s framing raises a different question: how radical are the Democrats really willing to become? Some have called for the abolition of the Electoral College and the elimination of the Senate. Is that what’s on the horizon if the left continues to control the party?
[Read More: Dems Shutting Down Government To Help ‘Brand’]
