President Donald Trump on Monday publicly chastised the Supreme Court for rulings he says harm the country, lashing out after the high court rejected his tariff program and as justices signaled skepticism about his bid to curtail birthright citizenship. In a post on Truth Social, Trump urged the justices to “USE THEIR POWERS OF COMMON SENSE FOR THE GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY” and accused the court of failing “miserably on Tariffs,” a decision he said will cost “Hundreds of Billions of Dollars in potential rebates.”
The president also pressed the justices to reconsider long-standing interpretation of the 14th Amendment, urging them not to strike down his executive order that would bar the children of immigrants and nonresidents born on U.S. soil from automatic citizenship. “It’s too bad that the Supreme Court can’t watch and study the Mark Levin Show tonight on the Birthright Citizenship Scam,” Trump wrote, citing the conservative commentator whose radio and Fox News programs have pushed the argument that birthright citizenship is not spelled out in the Constitution.
Levin, during a Sunday segment on Fox’s “Life, Liberty and Levin,” told viewers he could not find birthright citizenship in the text of the Constitution, quipping that he had “looked at the invisible ink.” He argued the 14th Amendment’s framers could not have intended to grant citizenship at birth to children of immigrants without legal status because immigration was largely unrestricted in 1868. Constitutional scholars and decades of precedent, however, have interpreted the 14th Amendment to confer citizenship on nearly all persons born on U.S. soil for more than a century.
The Supreme Court heard arguments last week challenging Trump’s executive order. During oral argument, several justices raised practical and doctrinal concerns. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson asked whether mothers would be required to produce documentation at hospitals to establish their status before a birth, and Justice Neil Gorsuch probed how Native Americans would be categorized under the proposed rule. Solicitor General D. John Sauer appeared to struggle to provide a clear framework for how such groups would be treated under the administration’s approach.
The tariffs decision that drew Trump’s ire was a separate recent ruling by the court that halted key aspects of his trade measures, a loss the president framed as needlessly costly to the nation. Trump’s post accused the justices of not caring about the country and implored them to avoid more rulings that, in his view, damage national interests.
The administration’s bid to narrow birthright citizenship has already drawn pushback in courtrooms and from legal experts. Chief Justice John Roberts, in prior coverage of the case, appeared to rebuke the government’s contention that the Constitution’s guarantees should be read differently for some children born on U.S. soil, noting that “it’s the same Constitution.” That skepticism, along with the practical questions posed by several justices, underscores the legal and logistical challenges the administration faces as it urges the court to upend an interpretation of the 14th Amendment that has endured for roughly 125 years.
Trump’s public rebuke highlights a rare moment of an active president openly castigating the justices while the court considers litigation tied to his policies. The latest exchange leaves the judiciary at the center of a high-stakes dispute over citizenship, immigration policy and the scope of executive power.