Trump rips own Supreme Court picks after justices block mail-in ballot rules: ‘These are not the people I interviewed’
WASHINGTON — President Trump railed Tuesday against his three nominees to the Supreme Court after each of them voted to block new rules governing mail-in ballots from taking effect ahead of the November midterms.
“These are not the people I interviewed to serve on the United States Supreme Court, they are merely a shell of their original selves,” Trump wrote about Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.
“This Supreme Court is bullied and cajoled by the Radical Left into making decisions that have set America back at least a hundred years.”
Trump went on to claim that “certain Justices are petrified of these crazed and depraved Democrats, and are totally unable to show the courage necessary to save our America.”
Only Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito — appointees of George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, respectively — sided with Trump, who had asked the high court to stay a lower court decision enjoining the new mail-in voting regulation.
Trump signed an executive order in March calling on the US Postal Service to tighten rules around absentee ballots, ostensibly to reduce fraud.
The new regulations, finalized on Aug. 26, would have required states to adopt a uniform envelope style for mail-in ballots and submit a list of eligible voters. Twenty-four states and the government of Washington, D.C., sued to block the order.
Kavanaugh, in a concurring opinion, expressed concern about the short window of time for the rules to be implemented ahead of the Nov. 3 election.
“In my view, based on the briefing the Court has received at this interim stage, there is at least a fair prospect that the final rule falls within the Postal Service’s statutory authority,” he wrote.
“But applying the rule in the 2026 elections would be arbitrary and capricious in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act because state and local election officials do not have sufficient time to reasonably implement the rule before the elections.”
The majority ruling, backed by Barrett and Gorsuch, concluded: “The Government is unlikely to succeed on the merits of its challenge to the District Court’s preliminary injunction.”
Alito, joined by Thomas, argued in a dissent that Trump’s new regulation likely was lawful.
“The Postal Service has broad authority to regulate the mail,” they asserted, arguing that “the plaintiff States and the courts bear a substantial share of the blame for the rule’s timing” due to litigation preceding the issuance of the final rule.
Trump has railed before about his nominees breaking with him on major cases, often claiming in public remarks that they are eager to appear independent-minded to their friends and colleagues.
Gorsuch and Barrett were among the six justices who in February invalidated Trump’s new 10% baseline tariff for most countries and a levy imposed on China, Mexico and Canada as punishment for not doing enough against the fentanyl trade — entitling businesses to more than $100 billion in refunds.
Trump has since resurrected most of his “reciprocal” tariff regime under new legal authorities.
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