Chief Justice John Roberts defended the Supreme Court on Tuesday against a sustained flurry of attacks President Donald Trump recently unleashed against the justices for striking down the core of his politically pivotal tariff policy.
“Personally directed hostility is dangerous and it’s got to stop,” Roberts said during an appearance at Rice University in Houston.
Roberts did not mention Trump directly and made an effort to frame intemperate criticism of the judiciary as emerging “from all over” and “not just any one political perspective.”
But with Trump lashing out at the justices — or at least some of them — every few days since his high court defeat last month, it seemed clear the chief justice sought to counter the president’s public expressions of displeasure.
In Trump’s latest salvo Sunday, he appeared to broaden his crusade against the court, faulting them not only for the tariffs ruling but for failing to back him in 2020 when he contended without evidence that he’d been reelected.
“Our Country was unnecessarily RANSACKED by the United States Supreme Court, which has become little more than a weaponized and unjust Political Organization,” Trump wrote in a lengthy rant on Truth Social. “The sad thing is, they will only get worse!”
Roberts said that while criticism of the Supreme Court and judges is often useful and stressed that the justices are not infallible, he suggested that false and inflammatory claims can lead to threats and violence.
“A lot of what we do is, of necessity, controversial. And … some of the criticism is very healthy. Some of it's not,” the chief justice said. “It’s important to keep the facts before you.”
Asked for a response, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said the public has "always valued President Trump’s ability to freely speak his mind" and share his views.
"The President will continue speaking with the same candor that the American people love to hear from him," Jackson said.
Roberts also rejected repeated suggestions by Trump, including in his recent posts, that Trump’s appointees were showing disloyalty by voting against him in cases. Two of Trump’s nominees to the court, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, earned Trump’s ire by siding against the administration in the tariffs case.
"The notion that we carry forward the views of the people that appointed us is absurd,” the chief justice said. “President George W. Bush appointed me 20 years ago. The idea that I'm carrying out his agenda somehow is absurd. … History is full of examples of presidents appointing people and being really surprised how they turned out, going both ways.”
Roberts also sought to dispel perceptions that the court, which has six justices appointed by Republican presidents and three by Democratic ones, is divided into warring ideological camps.
“We’re not as much at each others’ throats as you might think,” he said.
U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal, who conducted the public interview with Roberts Tuesday, praised the chief justice for defending his colleagues on lower courts who have faced an outpouring of threats in recent months, particularly when handling politically sensitive cases.
“It's very much part of our lives these days. And on behalf of trial judges everywhere, I want to personally thank you, because while we know that you may not always agree with us, we always know that you have our backs,” said Rosenthal, a George H.W. Bush appointee. “I hope it continues. I know it will.”
During the discussion, Roberts did concur with Trump on one point he has often emphasized: the need for judges to display “courage.”
“Courage, I think, is an overlooked virtue in a judge,” the chief justice said.
Attendees at Roberts’ appearance in Houston were also treated, very briefly, to hearing the chief justice recite a couple lines from a rap song. The interlude came as he described his son Jack recently demonstrating to him how AI could be used, in a matter of seconds, to create a rap about the family’s dog visiting the high court.
“I’m just completely befuddled by how that can happen,” Roberts said.
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