'A Disgrace to Our Nation': Trump Delivers Blistering Attack on Supreme Court After Tariff Ruling

Hours after the Supreme Court struck down a cornerstone of his economic policy, President Donald Trump personally attacked Supreme Court justices who ruled against his claim that emergency powers gave him sole authority to impose tariffs on nearly all U.S. trading partners. Speaking to reporters at the White House on Friday, Trump singled out Supreme Court Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch, who he appointed in his first term and joined with the majority, as “a disgrace to our nation.” “I think it’s an embarrassment to their families, if you want to know the truth, the two of them,” Trump said. In the 6-to-3 decision released Friday morning, the court found that Trump had overstepped Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, which enumerates some of the powers granted to Congress. ”The Framers gave ‘Congress alone’ the power to impose tariffs during peacetime,” the Court’s majority opinion stated. Over a sprawling press conference in which he veered from complaining about the ruling to downplaying its impact, Trump lambasted the justices and questioned their motivations. He repeatedly stated without evidence that the Supreme Court had been influenced by “foreign interests.” He said that Barrett and Gorsuch were “just being fools and lap dogs for the RINOs and the radical left Democrats,”—using an acronym for “Republicans in name only’—and called them “very unpatriotic and disloyal to our Constitution.” “I’m ashamed of certain members of the court—absolutely ashamed—for not having the courage to do what is right for our country,” Trump said. Trump himself appointed three of the sitting nine justices during his first term, tilting the court to the right for a generation. While Trump has since enjoyed multiple victories at the court, he’s been frustrated with several rulings aimed at bringing his power within the limits in the Constitution. Next week, Trump is scheduled to give the State of the Union address to both chambers of Congress. Traditionally, some sitting justices of the Supreme Court attend the speech in a show of national unity between co-equal branches of government. Trump was asked Friday if he wanted the Supreme Court justices who ruled against him to attend. “They are barely invited,” Trump answered. The Court ruled that Trump could no longer use a 1977 law called the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEPPA) to impose sweeping tariffs as his personal whim. Since the start of his second term, Trump has cited IEEPA to impose across-the-board 10% tariffs on nearly all U.S. trading partners. He’s also wielded tariffs as a tool of geopolitical pressure across many countries. Trump believes tariffs will help him convince manufacturers to open more factories inside the U.S. One year into his second term, U.S. manufacturing jobs have not increased. Trump said Friday he won’t try to convince Congress to pass his tariffs. Instead, he plans to use other authorities to mirror the existing tariffs. Issuing tariffs through those venues typically require investigations into unfair trading practices and other steps and take more time to implement.