Trump attacks Supreme Court after mail-in voting restriction bid fails
President Donald Trump criticised the US Supreme Court on Tuesday after it rejected his bid to restrict mail-in voting in this year’s midterm elections, saying the justices who opposed him were “not the people I interviewed”. The court’s late Monday emergency order said the restrictions would most likely fail in court, at least for this year’s election.
The Trump administration had made a last-minute push to give the US Postal Service a central role in deciding who would be able to receive a ballot. But state election officials said there was not enough time to make the changes before the Nov. 3 midterms and maintained that their systems were already secure and accurate.
In a lengthy social media post, Trump said, “The Court’s inability and unwillingness to do the right thing for our Country will go down, in a very negative way, in the annals of History.” He added, “This Supreme Court is bullied and cajoled by the Radical Left into making decisions that have set America back at least a hundred years.” Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas publicly dissented from the order, and Trump described them as “legends both”. Trump has nominated three of the justices on the court — Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh.
Trump also said, “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 further claimed that the court “is costing the United States Trillions of Dollars with shockingly bad rulings that are of such magnitude that it won’t be easily possible for our Country to recover or heal.” Later on Tuesday, Attorney General Todd Blanche said the administration would comply with the ruling, but added that “that doesn’t mean that we’re not going to do everything in this administration that we can to make sure that there are free and fair elections.”
Blanche also defended Trump’s criticism of the court and rejected the suggestion that it weakened judicial independence. “He has every right and indeed, he should communicate his concerns with the Supreme Court whenever he has them,” Blanche said at the White House. “This isn’t the first time that he’s done it, and it won’t be the last.” Trump has a long record of attacking judges, often personally, when they issue rulings against him, and he has often treated his legal appointments as owing loyalty to the person who nominated them. As Barrett, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch ruled against him at different points over the years, Trump publicly criticised them, while praising them when they sided with him.
At the same time, the court led by Chief Justice John Roberts has backed Trump on several major priorities. Most notably, in 2024, the court’s conservative majority ruled that former presidents are presumptively entitled to immunity for all official acts, clearing the way for Trump to run for re-election without the threat of a criminal trial that year. Trump has long opposed mail voting and has falsely blamed fraud linked to mail voting for his 2020 election loss. A Brookings Institution report published in 2025 found that mail voting fraud occurred in only about four cases out of every 10 million mail ballots cast.
Roughly a third of voters use mail ballots, and voting by mail has already begun in some states. The ruling means states can continue sending out mail ballots under the same systems they have used for years. Trump also complained on Tuesday that the court had taken too long to issue its decision, saying, “It is not easy for me to write this criticism of the United States Supreme Court - it will likely cost me dearly for years to come - but I feel it my obligation and duty, as President, to do so for the America we love!” Overall, the decision leaves existing mail ballot procedures in place for the midterms, even as Trump and his administration continue to attack the ruling and the court.
