President Donald Trump fired off another barrage of criticism for the judicial branch during his Cabinet meeting since launching the Iran war.
Just a day after Trump, 79, said that two of the Supreme Court justices he appointed, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, “sicken” him, the president doubled down on his harsh assessment of the judicial branch’s unwillingness to appease his whims on Thursday.
Trump lamented that “the judges are really hurting this country,” while continuing his campaign against Minnesota.
“You know, it’s interesting, because I just saw something that the nursing home business and the daycare centers in particular, they went out and inspected them in Minnesota, and they didn’t exist,” Trump said during the meeting. “They’re knocking on doors, it’s like homes, and they’re getting hundreds of thousands. They didn’t exist. And in California, it’s worse. It’s even worse.”
“So I spoke with Russell Vought,” he continued. “I said, ‘Russell, don’t send them any money.’ He said, ‘But we have a court order that we have to.’ Can you believe it? A judge. The judges are really hurting this country.”
Earlier this month, a federal judge in Illinois blocked the Trump administration from withholding over $600 million in health-related funding from four Democratic states, including Minnesota, after the administration targeted them for opposing his failed immigration crackdown.
“Justice Roberts doesn’t like when I say it, but the judges are really hurting this country. And frankly, the justices, the Supreme Court, has really hurt our country too.”
The Daily Beast reached out to the White House for comment.
At Wednesday night’s National Republican Congressional Committee fundraising dinner, Trump railed against the Supreme Court for their 6-3 vote ruling that his signature tariffs were unlawful, singling out Gorsuch and Barrett in particular.
“Courts, bad courts in this country are costing us a tremendous amount of money,” the president said. “And the Supreme Court, that’s right, of the United States, cost our country—all they needed was a sentence—hundreds of billions of dollars, and they couldn’t care less. They couldn’t care less."
“And not that it matters, doesn’t matter at all. But two of the people that voted for that I appointed, and they sicken me,” he added, referring to Gorsuch and Barrett. “They sicken me because they’re bad for our country.”
Last month, Gorsuch and Barrett joined justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, John Roberts, and Ketanji Brown Jackson to strike down Trump’s tariff authority, ruling that the president had acted outside his authority in his institution of global tariffs through a 1977 law.
“The President asserts the extraordinary power to unilaterally impose tariffs of unlimited amount, duration, and scope,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote in the decision. “In light of the breadth, history, and constitutional context of that asserted authority, he must identify clear congressional authorization to exercise it.”
Roberts, who was appointed by former Republican President George W. Bush in 2005, responded to the onslaught of criticism heaped upon judges by Trump, calling it “dangerous.”
“Judges around the country work very hard to get it right, and if they don’t, their opinions are subject to criticism,” Roberts said during a forum on March 17. “But personally directed hostility is dangerous, and it’s got to stop.”
