Trump attacks the judges of the Supreme Court over the tariffs decision

When the six Supreme Court justices overturned the administration’s international tariffs, they dealt him one of the worst blows of his second term in office. US President Donald Trump responded in remarkably personal terms.

“Deeply disappointing” was the court’s decision on Friday. Trump turned his response into a broad assault on a coequal department of government, saying that the justices who signed the majority ruling should be “absolutely ashamed” and that they lacked the fortitude to “do the right thing.”  Even for a president known for defying political conventions and loudly criticizing people who question his authority, the broadside was astounding.

“I’m ashamed of certain members of the court. Absolutely ashamed for not having the courage to do what’s right for our country,” Trump said at the start of a press conference at the White House, which was held a few hours after the decision was released.

As he analyzed the ruling, which maintained that presidents lack the innate power to impose broad tariffs on any nation, Trump did not hold back.  For the next forty-five minutes, Trump criticized the decision and argued that he would continue to impose tariffs on other nations. However, he kept coming back to the justices in ways that demonstrated how personally he felt the judgment had let him down.  Additionally, the president did not treat Democratic and Republican appointees differently. 

The liberal and conservative wings of the court were equally represented among the six justices who overturned Trump’s tariffs. Democratic presidents nominated three justices: Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Republicans appointed the other three. Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett were selected by Trump during his first term in office, while Chief Justice John Roberts, who authored the majority opinion, was a George W. Bush appointment.

Trump targeted them all. “They’re just being fools and lapdogs for the Rhinos and the radical left Democrats,” Trump said, using shorthand for a term – Republicans in Name Only – that is deployed by some on the right to disparage other Republicans deemed not sufficiently loyal to the party. The president also claimed that the court was influenced by “foreign interests” in its decision, though he did not provide any details or evidence for the assertion.

“It’s my opinion that the court has been swayed by foreign interests,” he said. Trump declined to elaborate when a reporter pressed him to explain what he meant. When asked if he regretted nominating Gorsuch and Coney Barrett, the president stopped short of saying that he had made a mistake. But Trump said their votes were an “embarrassment” and brought up their families, a highly unusual move. “It’s an embarrassment to their families, to one another,” Trump said.

Meanwhile, Trump praised the three justices who voted to uphold his tariffs authority: Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh.  His other first-term appointee, Kavanaugh, received particular attention from him.  In a long dissent, Kavanaugh claimed that the government would have to return billions of dollars in tariff revenue, calling the procedure a “mess.” Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh were all commended by the president “for their strength and wisdom and love of our country.”  Considering how much he had staked in the case’s result, court observers and business analysts said Trump’s response was not unexpected.