RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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See the full story · 3 sourcesPresident claims highest court has deprived U.S. of ‘trillions and trillions of dollars’ by ruling against him
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President Donald Trump has again raged at the U.S. Supreme Court over its rulings against his administration, complaining – without evidence – that the justices’ judgements had cost the nation “trillions and trillions of dollars.”
Posting on Truth Social late Wednesday, the president asked: “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 highest court voted against Trump in cases challenging both of the policies he mentioned, in each instance by a 6-3 majority in which two conservative justices the president himself nominated to the bench sided against him, inspiring his obvious frustration.
In the birthright citizenship case, the court ruled against him on June 30, concluding that his attempt to deny automatic citizenship to people born on U.S. soil to parents who are in the country illegally was unconstitutional.
The justices – including Trump appointees Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh – endorsed the 14th Amendment ’s citizenship clause, which states that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”
The Supreme Court has found the definition to apply to all children born in the U.S. for more than 100 years and Congress codified the Constitution’s phrasing into law in 1952, hence the rejection of Trump’s contentious executive order seeking to revise it.
Chief Justice John Roberts , writing in the majority opinion, said there was “scant evidence” to support the administration’s “dramatically revisionist view” of the amendment.
In the tariffs case, the court overturned the president’s signature economic strategy on February 20, concluding that the “reciprocal” levies he had placed on foreign trading partners had been unlawfully imposed via the International Emergency Economic Powers Act 1977.
Barrett and another Trump appointee, Neil Gorsuch , opposed the tariffs, leading the president to deliver a furious press conference in which he rebuked the justices by saying: “I’m ashamed of certain members of the court, absolutely ashamed. For not having the courage to do what’s right for the country.
“They’re against anything that makes America strong, healthy and great again. They are also frankly a disgrace to our nation, those justices. They’re very unpatriotic and disloyal to our Constitution.”
The administration has already been forced to pay back more than $81 billion of the money it raked in under the tax strategy.
Contrary to the president’s claims in his latest post, Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, concluded on April 2 – the one-year anniversary of “Liberation Day,” on which Trump first announced the policy – that it had backfired and done “significant damage to the economy.”
Also on Truth Social Wednesday, the president singled out Barrett for criticism by reposting a breakdown of her voting record on which right-wing podcaster Tim Pool had commented : “Amy Coney Barrett is clearly terrified of the left.”
Barrett told a House of Representatives subcommittee earlier this month that the threat level to her and other federal judges is currently “really high” given the highly-charged political atmosphere of the moment, a danger Trump’s attacks risk exacerbating.
Despite the president’s anger with the Supreme Court, he continues to appeal to it to resolve his problems, asking it Wednesday to throw out the $83.3 million defamation verdict won by writer E Jean Carroll from a New York City court in January 2024.
Carroll accused Trump in her 2019 memoir of sexually assaulting her in a dressing room at the Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan in the mid-1990s.
While lower courts have upheld the 2024 verdict, the payout has been paused while the Supreme Court considers whether to hear the president’s appeal, which is based around the argument that he cannot be held personally liable for statements he made while serving in the White House.
The court declined in June to hear Trump’s appeal of a separate $5 million verdict in Carroll’s favor.
Trump has repeatedly denied all the allegations made against him.
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