Trump says he regrets nominating Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett to SCOTUS - USA Today
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said he regrets nominating each of the three Supreme Court justices he tapped during his first term, criticizing Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett for ruling against the Trump administration after he picked them for the bench.
Trump expressed disappointment with his three hand-picked conservative justices in an interview with Time magazine published Oct. 1, following a series of Supreme Court losses this year for the president on his tariff policy, efforts to eliminate birthright citizenship and push to restrict mail voting.
"Yeah. Yeah, What can I do?" Trump said when asked whether he regrets nominating them. "I put them in. They voted against me too often. I was very—I gave them the position of a lifetime, and they vote against me often."
Trump added that he admires how the three justices who make up the liberal bloc on the court ‒ referring to Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson ‒"stick like glue" together and "vote as a group."
"They have loyalty to Barack Hussein Obama," Trump said. "They have loyalty to Biden, even though Biden doesn't even know who the hell they are. He wouldn't know. He doesn't even know what the Supreme Court is. And me, I gave them the chance of a lifetime, and it's unfortunate what they did."
Asked whether he wants loyalty from his justices, Trump responded, "I do like loyalty, yeah."
Pressed again, Trump said: "No, I don't want loyalty. I want good decisions. The tariff decision was disastrous for the country. I want good decisions for the country."
Trump's most recent setback in the nation's high court came on Sept. 14, when the court, in a 7-2 decision, blocked the president's plan to use the U.S. Postal Service to restrict mail-voting. The two dissenters were Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, with Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett each siding against the Trump administration.
Trump lashed out his three Supreme Court picks shortly after the ruling.
"These are not the people I interviewed to serve on the United States Supreme Court," Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. "They are merely a shell of their original selves, a Court that 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."
In June, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 against his efforts to undo the long-standing principle that all individuals born in the U.S. are American citizens, commonly referred to as birthright citizenship. Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch each dissented.
In another 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court in February struck down Trump's use of presidential emergency powers to issue sweeping tariffs on imports, taking away one of the president's top tools to carry out his aggressive trade policy. Alito, Thomas and Kavanaugh dissented.
Despite these losses, Trump has won several other Supreme Court cases that include recognizing presidential power to fire leaders of intendent agencies, allowing the end of deportation protections for Haitians and Syrians, and allowing states to ban transgender women and girls from competing on female sports teams.
And during his first White House term, all three of Trump’s Supreme Court picks in 2022 ruled in favor of overturning a constitutional right to an abortion under Roe v. Wade, helping hand conservatives a win they sought for decades.
It is unclear whether Trump will have an opportunity to nominate a fourth justice to the Supreme Court. Alito in August said he plans to remain on the bench through at least the next session, batting down speculation the conservative justice could step down to allow Trump to choose his replacement.
Reach Joey Garrison on X @joeygarrison.
