President Donald Trump criticized the Supreme Court during his State of the Union address on Tuesday for striking down many of his sweeping global tariffs — just feet away from a collection of justices who voted against him.
“Just four days ago, an unfortunate ruling from the United States Supreme Court,” Trump said. “It just came down, very unfortunate ruling. But the good news is that almost all countries and corporations want to keep the deal that they already made.”
“Knowing that the legal power that I as president, have to make a new deal could be far worse for them, and therefore they will continue to work along the same successful path that we had negotiated before the Supreme Court’s unfortunate involvement,” he continued.
The remarks came after the court ruled 6-3 on Friday to strike down many of Trump’s global tariffs, warning they represented “a transformative expansion of the President’s authority over tariff policy.” Chief Justice John Roberts joined associate justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, Neil Gorsuch, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Amy Coney Barrett against the president, while Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh opposed the decision.
Roberts, Kagan, Barrett and Kavanaugh attended Tuesday’s State of the Union. They did not express any visible emotion during his remarks.
Roberts wrote last week that Trump’s desire to pass the tariffs under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act was an attempt to exert “extraordinary power” and that he needed to “identify clear congressional authorization to exercise it.”
Trump lashed out at the justices online last week, saying he was “ashamed” of them and claimed the court had been “swayed by Foreign Interests and a Political Movement that is far smaller than people would think — But obnoxious, ignorant, and loud!” He later claimed he had different powers he could use to implement tariffs.
Trump later told reporters the justices were “barely invited” to the speech. “Honestly, I couldn’t care less if they come,” he said.
