President Trump turned his frustration on the Supreme Court Saturday, accusing the justices of costing the nation "trillions of dollars" through recent rulings on tariffs and birthright citizenship, and some fellow Republicans pushed back.
Trump posted on social media that the Court "has lacked the Courage to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN," lumping together a string of defeats over the past six months into a single broadside against the institution and, pointedly, against conservative justices he appointed during his first term. The attack came just days after the Court handed him yet another loss, this time rejecting his administration's bid to restrict mail-in ballots ahead of the upcoming midterm elections.
The president accused conservative justices, including Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh, and John Roberts, of being "bullied and cajoled by the Radical Left," calling them "merely a shell of their original selves." It was a remarkable public rebuke of jurists who owe their seats, in part, to Trump's own nominations.
Trump's frustration did not materialize overnight. Over the past half-year, the Supreme Court dealt his administration three significant setbacks on signature policy priorities: tariffs, birthright citizenship, and mail-in voting.
The tariff ruling struck at the legal foundation of Trump's trade agenda. The Court found that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the law the administration relied on to impose sweeping tariffs, does not authorize the president to levy them. Just The News reported that the decision will cost the United States $159 billion in repayments tied to duties collected under Trump's trade policies. Trump singled out Gorsuch and Barrett by name for siding against his administration, posting that they "were appointed by me, and yet have hurt our Country so badly."
On birthright citizenship, the Court struck down Trump's executive order attempting to deny automatic citizenship to children born on U.S. soil to parents in the country illegally or on temporary visas. AP News reported the vote was 6-3, with Chief Justice John Roberts authoring the majority opinion. Roberts was joined by Barrett and the Court's three liberal justices on the constitutional question. More than 250,000 babies born in the United States each year would have been affected by the order.
Roberts wrote that citizenship "was the right to have rights, to freely participate in our political community," adding that "the Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to every free-born person in this land." Justice Clarence Thomas dissented, writing:
"The Court today takes the extraordinary step of holding facially unconstitutional the President's Order excluding from citizenship the children of foreign temporary visitors and illegal aliens."
The ruling rests on constitutional grounds, meaning Congress cannot override it through ordinary legislation. Only a constitutional amendment could change the outcome, a virtually impossible political lift.
Then came the mail ballot decision. The Court used its emergency docket, the so-called "shadow docket" where justices typically rule without full briefing or oral argument, to reject the Trump administration's request to impose new restrictions on mail-in voting before the midterms. The majority did not explain its rationale, as is customary for emergency orders.
Justices Alito and Thomas dissented. Alito noted in his dissent that the Postal Service "has broad authority to regulate the mail" and likely does possess the authority to implement the restrictions Trump sought. Kavanaugh concurred with the majority's decision to block the restrictions for the midterms but signaled he might side with the administration if the issue returns to the Court later.
The timing of the ruling underscored the practical reality the Court faced. Alabama, North Carolina, and Wisconsin had already begun distributing mail ballots to voters in the week before the decision. Washington and Oregon, two states that conduct their elections entirely by mail, stood to be particularly disrupted by any last-minute changes.
Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs issued a written statement after the ruling:
"Washington's election workers are already hard at work preparing to carry out a safe, secure, and accurate election. Now, that work continues without having to upend our election processes to meet unrealistic ballot mail requirements."
Mail ballots account for nearly a third of all ballots cast nationally, a share that has grown steadily in recent election cycles. The administration's repeated emergency appeals to the Court on this issue had already been the subject of extended legal maneuvering before the latest rejection.
Trump's broadside against the Court drew pushback from within his own party. Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana, a reliable conservative voice, did not hold back about his disagreement.
"The president is entitled to his opinion, but I don't agree with him. I know every one of the justices. I think they do their very best to call it as they see it, and that's their job."
Kennedy added that "mail-in ballots are important in many parts of the country because they represent a substantial portion of the overall vote", a practical observation that cut against the premise of Trump's push to restrict them.
Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, a member of the Judiciary Committee, was equally direct. He told reporters he didn't understand the rationale for the restrictions:
"I don't know why you would want to restrict mail-in ballots. I'm all for voter integrity measures and there are plenty of ways to do that, but restricting the availability of mail-in ballots is, to me, counterproductive."
That two senior Republican senators publicly distanced themselves from the president's position, and defended the Court's independence, suggests the attack landed differently inside the GOP caucus than Trump may have intended. The Court's earlier defeat of Trump's mail ballot rules had already drawn muted Republican reaction, and this latest round of criticism from the president did not change the dynamic.
The president's most striking assertion, that the Court's rulings cost the United States "trillions of dollars", does not have an obvious factual foundation. The tariff ruling carries a concrete price tag: the $159 billion in refunds tied to duties collected under policies the Court invalidated. That is a substantial sum, but it is not trillions.
On birthright citizenship, the financial claim is even harder to pin down. The ruling preserves the constitutional status quo that has existed since the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868. No cost estimate from any government agency or independent body was cited by Trump or appears in any reporting on the matter.
Trump posted a separate message on Truth Social making the point even more broadly, as Fox News reported:
"Does anybody have any idea how much Money and Prestige the United States Supreme Court has cost our Nation with their negative Rulings on Birthright Citizenship and TARIFFS? The answer, TRILLIONS AND TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS!"
The Washington Examiner noted that the birthright citizenship ruling was decisive enough, resting on the Constitution itself, to block any future congressional attempt to restrict birthright citizenship without a formal amendment. That finality may be what stings most for an administration that made immigration enforcement a centerpiece of its agenda.
The mail ballot loss, the tariff reversal, and the birthright citizenship defeat together represent a Court that has drawn clear lines around presidential authority, even when a majority of the justices were appointed by Republican presidents. The E. Jean Carroll rehearing rejection added yet another entry to the list of outcomes that went against the president this term.
Three of the nine sitting justices, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and Barrett, were nominated by Trump during his first term. All three sided against his administration on at least one of the major rulings he attacked Saturday. Trump had previously warned that a loss on birthright citizenship, combined with the tariff decision, would not be "economically sustainable for the United States of America."
That warning went unheeded. And the Court's willingness to rule against the president who appointed a third of its members is a reminder that judicial independence, whatever its frustrations for any given administration, remains intact.
Presidents have clashed with the Supreme Court before, and lost. The difference now is that Trump is directing his fire not at liberal justices or at the concept of judicial review, but at conservatives he chose and championed. Whether that pressure changes any future votes remains an open question. Kavanaugh's concurrence on the mail ballot case, blocking the restrictions now but leaving the door open later, suggests at least one justice is still listening.
Frustration with a court ruling is every president's prerogative. Publicly branding the justices you put on the bench as weak and co-opted is something else, and it is a strategy that, so far, has not produced a single reversal.
