Sen. Tim Scott will recommend to President Donald Trump that he nominate Rep. Trey Gowdy to become the next Supreme Court justice.

Trump said he will announce his nominee to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy next Monday, July 9.

“I’m going to recommend Trey Gowdy be one of the folks that I would have a strong recommendation for him serving on the Supreme Court,” Scott said in an interview on CNN Sunday. “I hope that the President will be open to that recommendation.”

Scott and Gowdy, both South Carolina Republicans, have become good friends during their time together in Washington and have co-authored a book on bringing Americans from different backgrounds together.

Gowdy, who is retiring after his fourth term ends this winter, has been “incredibly fair” criticizing both parties and their leaders, Scott said.

“A guy who will call balls and strikes and not choose a side, even when he’s an elected member — at this time in our nation’s history, that’s hard to find,” Scott said.

Scott and fellow South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham previously endorsed Gowdy for another judicial appointment earlier this year in the federal appeals circuit, but Gowdy was not interested.

Gowdy, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, was a federal and state prosecutor in South Carolina for 16 years before running for Congress in 2010.

Watch: McConnell Vows Vote on Kennedy Successor ‘This Fall’

The president has whittled his list of potential nominees down to five, he told reporters Friday.

The outbound Kennedy is widely considered a moderate conservative, siding with his more conservative colleagues most of the time but breaking from them on some notable issues such as same-sex marriage and abortion rights.

Republicans hold a one-seat majority in the Senate, although the presumed absence of Sen. John McCain, who has been at home in Arizona for months for cancer treatment, means just one Republican must defect in order for Senate Democrats to block Trump’s nominee.