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Four days after deriding the U.S. Supreme Court justices who struck down most of his signature tariffs, President Donald Trump was far milder in his criticism with some of them in the room.
Delivering his State of the Union address Tuesday, Trump criticized Friday’s 6-3 ruling against his sweeping global tariffs as “very unfortunate” and “disappointing.” The four justices who attended – Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett – sat stoically in their front-row seats.
Speculation had been mounting over how Trump would address the justices during his speech. After last week’s ruling he berated justices ruling against his levies as “fools,” “lapdogs,” “unpatriotic,” “disloyal to our Constitution” and “an embarrassment to their families.”
The group who struck down the tariffs included Roberts, Kagan and Barrett. The president later dubbed Kavanaugh, who wrote the main dissenting opinion, as his “new hero.”
Trump, who appointed Kavanaugh and Barrett during his first term, shook hands with each of the four justices on his way to the dais, exchanging brief greetings without stopping to chat.
The interactions stood in contrast to those a year ago – when after speaking before Congress Trump warmly thanked Roberts and said, “Won’t forget it.” The exchange led to speculation that Trump was referring to the court’s ruling granting him and other presidents broad immunity from prosecution.
Roberts, Kagan, Kavanaugh and Barrett have all been fairly regular attendees at the annual presidential speech to Congress, and all four went to Trump’s speech last year.
Even in their relatively mild form, Trump’s comments marked a rare instance of high court criticism during a State of the Union address. In 2010, then-President Barack Obama criticized the just-issued Citizens United campaign-finance ruling, accusing the court of ignoring a century of precedent.
That claim prompted Justice Samuel Alito to shake his head and mouth “not true” as Democratic lawmakers directly behind the justices rose to cheer. Alito hasn’t attended a State of the Union since.
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