U.S. President Donald Trump published a lengthy 463-word social media post Tuesday evening in which he sharply attacked the U.S. Supreme Court, hours after the justices blocked, by majority vote, an administration effort to change mail-in voting rules at the last minute. Democrats and some Republican election officials had warned the changes could cause chaos in the November midterm elections, in which Trump fears Democrats could take control of both houses of Congress — the Senate and the House of Representatives — and make governing far more difficult during the final two years of his term.
Trump directed particular criticism at the three justices he appointed during his first term, appointments that cemented the court’s 6-3 conservative majority, saying the justices he chose are now “merely a shell of their original selves.”
In his post, Trump also complained about other rulings in which conservative justices joined the liberal wing to block some of his initiatives, including his global tariff program and his attempt to restrict birthright citizenship.
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Trump: Supreme Court bullied and cajoled by the Radical Left into making decisions that have set America back at least a hundred years
(Photo: Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)
“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. This Supreme Court is bullied and cajoled by the Radical Left into making decisions that have set America back at least a hundred years," Trump wrote in his post.
The conservative majority on the court has also handed Trump several major victories over the years, including the landmark 2024 ruling granting him, as a former president, immunity for official acts taken while in office, effectively derailing the federal case against him over efforts to overturn the 2020 election. More recently, the justices ruled in his favor and allowed him to continue building a large ballroom at the White House.
But this time, the three justices he appointed — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — did not object to the ruling freezing the new mail-voting rules, and Trump lashed out at them: “ These are not the people I interviewed to serve on the United States Supreme Court, 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. It is a Court that will go down as having rendered some of the most destructive, hurtful and damaging decisions in our Country’s history. 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!”
Trump's post critical of members of the Supreme Court:
The Supreme Court ruling concerned petitions filed by a group of Democratic-led states against an executive order Trump signed at the end of March. The order followed a series of earlier moves by the president aimed at influencing U.S. election systems, beginning with the upcoming November 3 election, against the backdrop of his claims of widespread voting fraud, particularly in mail-in voting. Trump has never provided evidence for those claims, which are central to his persistent refusal to acknowledge his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden.
Numerous experts and organizations stress that fraud or voting by noncitizens, whether by mail or at polling places, is extremely rare and, even when isolated cases occur, not on a scale capable of determining an election.
US Supreme Court in an October 2022 photo
(Photo: J. Scott Applewhite/AP)
The order Trump signed required all U.S. states — which under the Constitution are responsible for administering elections within their borders rather than the federal government — to provide the U.S. Postal Service, which is run by officials in the president’s administration, with lists of eligible voters. The order also provided that the Postal Service would not be permitted to deliver ballots to people whose names did not appear on those lists and required ballot envelopes to carry barcodes that would allow them to be tracked.
Democratic-led states challenged the order, arguing that it exceeded the president’s authority and infringed on their constitutional power to administer elections. They also warned that the new rules could not be implemented in time for the November midterms and that forcing states to do so could cause real chaos and impair the ability of millions of Americans to exercise their right to vote. According to CNN, Republican election officials also joined in that warning.
The legal battle included a series of rulings and appeals. After an earlier Trump appeal to the Supreme Court, the justices ruled last month that the order could remain in place, but did so on technical grounds. Other judges later froze the new rules again, prompting Trump to return to the Supreme Court with another emergency petition seeking to have the rules enforced in time for the November election.
In a brief decision issued overnight between Monday and Tuesday Israel time, the Supreme Court rejected the latest petition, ruling that the administration was unlikely to prevail in the underlying legal dispute over implementing the new rules, at least with regard to the upcoming midterm elections. The court’s order did not specify how each justice voted. Only two conservatives, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, issued a dissent backing the administration’s position.
Mail-in ballot envelopes in the US, in 2020. Trump has been claiming for years - without evidence - of fraud
(Photo: AP)
It remains unclear how two of Trump’s appointees, Gorsuch and Barrett, voted, but Kavanaugh issued an explanation for supporting the freeze, citing concern that there was no longer enough time to prepare for the changes before the upcoming election. At the same time, he stressed that the Postal Service may, in principle, have legal authority to enforce Trump’s new rules.
In his post Tuesday evening, Trump again attacked the justices he himself appointed. By contrast, he praised Alito and Thomas, who were not appointed by him and supported his position, calling them “legends.”
Trump also wrote: “It is a big loss for Republicans, and America itself, and makes cheating by the Radical Left 'Dumocrats,' on Mail-In Ballots, a much easier thing to do - And now they have an open field to do so! The Supreme Court has really let our Country down! Certain Justices are petrified of these crazed and depraved Democrats, and are totally unable to show the courage necessary to save our America."
Democrats, meanwhile, welcomed the ruling. “Trump’s attempt to sabotage the 2026 elections has failed,” said Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, an elected official responsible for administering elections in the state. “The courts have stopped Trump from using the Postal Service to decide which voters can receive a mail-in ballot. Trump will continue to fail in his attempts to take over the 2026 midterm elections. We will fight every attempt to suppress the vote or unlawfully transfer election administration to the federal government. This decision is a major victory for Colorado and for American democracy.”
California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, likewise called the Supreme Court’s decision “a victory for our democracy and a powerful reaffirmation of the rule of law.”