WASHINGTON, Sept 15 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump lashed out on Tuesday at his own Supreme Court appointees a day after the top U.S. judicial body declined to allow a U.S. Postal Service rule restricting the use of mail-in ballots in the November midterm elections in his latest acidic criticism of the court after an unfavorable ruling.
“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 on social media.
“These are not the people I interviewed to serve on the United States Supreme Court, they are merely a shell of their original selves,” Trump continued on Truth Social, without specifying the justices to whom he was referring. “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.”
Trump appointed three justices — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — during his first term as president, building a 6-3 conservative majority and allowing the court to steer a dramatic rightward route since 2020.
On Monday, the court’s decision preventing implementation of the rule, which the Postal Service adopted at the president’s direction, was brief and unsigned, as is typical when it handles emergency requests. Trump called it a “horrible, highly political, ruling.”
Only conservative Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas publicly dissented. Trump referred to them as “legends, both.”
It was not the first time Trump directed harsh words at his own appointees. After the court in February struck down his sweeping global tariffs that it found he had imposed illegally using a law meant for national emergencies, Trump reserved special ire for Gorsuch and Barrett, who were in the majority in that 6-3 ruling.
“I think it’s an embarrassment to their families, you wanna know the truth, the two of them,” Trump said from a White House lectern.
In Tuesday’s post, Trump revived his grievances about the tariffs ruling and a separate ruling in June against his attempt to restrict birthright citizenship.
THE BALLOTS RULE
The USPS regulation would have required states to provide voter-specific data and use agency-approved mail-ballot envelopes that would be tracked using barcodes. The Postal Service could then refuse to send out ballots that do not comply with the new standards or are associated with voters who do not appear on the lists.
Critics warned that the measure could disrupt the delivery of thousands of legitimate ballots as the November 3 vote approaches and cause chaos given imminent plans by many states to send out mail ballots to eligible voters.
The administration said the new rule would prevent voter fraud, though evidence of such fraud is rare.
Trump’s fellow Republicans are locked in a tight battle to retain control of Congress in the midterms. Restricting mail-in ballots would stand to benefit Republicans given that Democratic voters disproportionately use mail-in ballots, according to various surveys.
Trump signed his executive order targeting mail-in ballots in March after years of casting doubt on their security, though he often votes by mail himself. Trump has made false claims of widespread fraud in U.S. elections including his 2020 loss to former Democratic President Joe Biden.
“It is a big loss for Republicans, and America itself,” Trump wrote on Tuesday of the mail ballot ruling.
The Supreme Court has delivered several election-related rulings in recent months that have benefited Republicans, although last Thursday it blocked Missouri from using a redrawn congressional map that favors Republicans. That was a setback to Trump and his party’s chances of maintaining its slim majority in the U.S. House of Representatives in November’s elections.
(Reporting by Bhargav Acharya, Doina Chiacu and Andrew Chung; Editing by Susan Heavey, Caitlin Webber and Will Dunham)
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