A Supreme Court setback over mail-in ballots sent President Donald Trump into a public rage against the very justices he put on the bench, accusing the court he helped shape of caving to political pressure.
The president attacks the court following a setback over mail-in ballots
Trump’s fury followed a Monday ruling in which the Supreme Court blocked a Postal Service rule limiting mail-in voting ahead of the November midterms: a policy Trump himself had ordered into place.
He took to Truth Social the next day to unload on the court in personal terms, accusing it of folding under liberal influence: “This Supreme Court is bullied and cajoled by the Radical Left into making decisions that have set America back at least a hundred years.”
The president went further, suggesting the justices no longer resemble the people he chose for the job. “These are not the people I interviewed to serve on the United States Supreme Court, they are merely a shell of their original selves,” he wrote, stopping short of naming names.
Donald Trump forecast a grim legacy for the court, calling its recent output among “the most destructive, hurtful, and damaging decisions in our Country’s history.” However, his three appointees, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, cemented a 6-3 conservative majority during his first term, reshaping the judiciary’s direction for years to come (via Reuters).
Monday’s order itself was short and unsigned, standard practice for the court’s emergency docket, and it stopped the Postal Service from enforcing rules. It would have forced states to hand over voter data and use barcode-tracked mail ballot envelopes, a system that could have let the agency withhold ballots flagged as noncompliant.
Trump branded the outcome a “horrible, highly political, ruling.” Two justices broke from the majority to side with him: Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, whom Trump praised as “legends, both.” Attorney General Todd Blanche later confirmed the administration would still comply with the ruling.
