Usually, when a President comes to office, there’s no — you have no vacancies. Or the previous President would have — boom. There should be no vacancy, you know, whatever their ideology is.

But I guess they thought that the crooked one was going to win or something. (Laughter.) So I came in and, in the first couple of days, they said, “By the way…” You know, I had a couple of other things going, too — including the fact that a few minutes after I was sworn in, the Washington Post wrote a story that the impeachment starts right now. You saw that, right? Did you see that?

Right after I got sworn — took the oath of office, they did that story — literally, a very few moments after the swearing-in — that the road to impeachment starts right now.

But I had a lot of other things. But I said during the course of the first very early period, like a week — I said, “By the way, how many federal judgeships do I have?” They said, “Sir, you have 142.” I said, “What?” (Laughter.) “You have 142, sir.” I said, “You’ve got to be kidding. 142? You mean I have two, one, none?” “No, you have 142.”

And President Obama was not very good at getting it done, because, you know, people held him up and everything else. But, with time, you get them all done. You get them done. But he put a big rush on at the end when he saw we were doing well in the polls, and coming up and up, and it wasn’t enough time. So we inherited 142 open federal judgeships, including the court of appeals. (Applause.) First time in history. First time in history anything like that has ever happened.

And then they say, “Oh, he was a great President. Oh, great. He was great.” Great for who? He was great for us. (Laughter.) And in that way, he was. There’s never been a better President for the Republicans in what they consider the most important way . . . Gave us 142 judgeships on the first day in office. (Laughter.)

— Remarks by President Trump at Values Voter Summit
Omni Shoreham Hotel, Washington, D.C.
October 12, 2019