{"id":150949,"date":"2026-05-12T09:19:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T17:19:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/05\/12\/trump-to-gorsuch-and-barrett-i-made-you-i-can-break-you\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T09:19:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T17:19:15","slug":"trump-to-gorsuch-and-barrett-i-made-you-i-can-break-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/05\/12\/trump-to-gorsuch-and-barrett-i-made-you-i-can-break-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump To Gorsuch And Barrett: I Made You, I Can Break You"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump took to Truth Social<\/a> over the weekend to do what Donald Trump does when things don\u2019t go his way: write an extremely long post that reads like a stream of consciousness from a man who has never heard of the separation of powers and would like a refund.<\/p>\n

The screed is nominally about the Supreme Court\u2019s tariff decision, in which a 6-3 majority that included Trump appointees Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett struck down his tariff authority. But it is really about something much simpler: Trump believes that the justices he appointed owe him their votes, and he is furious that they have not delivered them. \u2026 And also some likely tea-leaf reading about the birthright citizenship case that\u2019s in front of the Court.<\/p>\n

The post opens with what can only be described as a hostage negotiation with his own feelings: \u201cI \u2018Love\u2019 Justice Neil Gorsuch! He\u2019s a really smart and good man, but he voted against me, and our Country, on Tariffs, a devastating move. How do I reconcile this?\u201d It continues through Barrett, through a lengthy detour about how Democrat-appointed justices \u201calways remain true to the people that honored them\u201d (they don\u2019t, but sure), through a suggestion that he should be the one packing the Court, through a complaint that the Court didn\u2019t acknowledge him when he showed up to watch the birthright citizenship arguments<\/a>, and finally to a remarkable conclusion: \u201cit\u2019s really OK for them to be loyal to the person that appointed them.\u201d<\/p>\n

NOPE, the only thing the justices (or really any member of the bar) owe \u201cloyalty\u201d to is the Constitution. We need to reckon with the ways it is genuinely strange and nakedly authoritarian, despite how commonplace it has become in the Trump regime. A sitting president publicly declaring that his Supreme Court appointees should vote for him out of personal loyalty \u2014 not because the law requires it, not because the Constitution demands it, but because he<\/em> gave them the job \u2014 is not normal. It is, in fact, the specific thing that lifetime tenure was designed to prevent. But more to the point, this is not an isolated sentiment: Trump has been openly transactional about loyalty for his entire presidency, and the people around him have learned to perform it on cue. Just yesterday<\/a>, at a White House event announcing a new maternal health resource, Trump turned to Senator Katie Britt and said, \u201cI hope she always remains loyal to me so I can continue to support her,\u201d before adding: \u201cI would hate to go against her. That will never happen, Katie, right?\u201d Britt\u2019s response: \u201cThat\u2019s right, sir.\u201d It\u2019s the same energy \u2014 I gave you something, you owe me something, and I will remind you of that in public \u2014 applied to a senator, to justices, to anyone in his orbit. The difference with the Supreme Court is that the justices have lifetime tenure and are, at least in theory, not supposed to care. Gorsuch and Barrett occassionally take that seriously. Trump appears to find this inexplicable.<\/p>\n

This is, of course, not the first time Trump has publicly melted down over justices showing a modicum of judicial independence. When the tariff decision first came down<\/a>, Trump told a room full of Republican members of Congress that Gorsuch and Barrett \u201csicken me\u2026 they sicken me because they\u2019re bad for our country.\u201d That\u2019s the same Barrett whose nomination party was a COVID superspreader event<\/a> that sent Trump to the hospital, so she has a complicated history with sickening the man regardless. And as we noted at the time<\/a>, an earlier Truth Social eruption declared the Court \u201clittle more than a weaponized and unjust Political Organization\u201d and said he was \u201cashamed of certain members of the court, absolutely ashamed of them for not having the courage to do what\u2019s right for our country.\u201d He thanked Alito, Thomas, and Kavanaugh for their \u201cwisdom and courage\u201d while flaying the majority \u2014 which is a pretty clear statement of exactly what kind of \u201ccourage\u201d he\u2019s looking for.<\/p>\n

The current post adds some new rhetorical flourishes. There\u2019s the electoral mandate argument \u2014 \u201cI got elected in a Landslide, including winning the Popular Vote, all seven Swing States, an Electoral College \u2018clobbering,\u2019 and all U.S. Counties, by 86%, 2,750 to 525\u201d \u2014 which is not a legal argument for anything but does seem to be Trump\u2019s all-purpose justification for why the rules shouldn\u2019t apply to him. There\u2019s the threat of court-packing, which is darkly funny given that Democrats have been proposing exactly that for years and Trump has opposed it. And there\u2019s the closing warning that a negative birthright citizenship ruling on top of the tariff decision \u201cis not Economically sustainable for the United States of America,\u201d which suggests the president may not fully understand that the Supreme Court\u2019s job is constitutional interpretation, not economic forecasting.<\/p>\n

The birthright citizenship anxiety is not unfounded, and, tbh, reading the tea leaves on that case may just be part of the motivation for this particular rant. The oral arguments did not go well for the administration, with Gorsuch and Barrett both pressing the government\u2019s lawyer hard, the same two justices Trump is currently describing as having \u201chad a really bad day\u201d on tariffs. At this point Trump\u2019s relationship with his own appointees resembles nothing so much as a Yelp review from a customer who is shocked to discover that the restaurant has a menu and not just his personal order.<\/p>\n

The deeper tell in the post is the line about Democratic appointees: \u201cDemocrat Justices always remain true to the people that honored them for that very special Nomination. They don\u2019t waver, no matter how good or bad a case may be.\u201d This is, empirically, not true. But more importantly, it reveals exactly what Trump thinks the job is. In his view, a justice\u2019s role is to vote for the appointing president\u2019s agenda. The fact that Republican-appointed justices occasionally follow the law instead is, to him, a betrayal. The fact that this would make the Court not a court but an extension of the executive branch is not a bug in his analysis. It is the feature.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want loyalty,\u201d he writes, \u201cbut I do want and expect it for our Country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sure. That\u2019s definitely what he wants.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of\u00a0The Jabot podcast<\/a>, and co-host of\u00a0Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email\u00a0her<\/a>\u00a0with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The post Trump To Gorsuch And Barrett: I Made You, I Can Break You<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tvia ChatGPT\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Donald Trump took to Truth Social<\/a> over the weekend to do what Donald Trump does when things don\u2019t go his way: write an extremely long post that reads like a stream of consciousness from a man who has never heard of the separation of powers and would like a refund.<\/p>\n

The screed is nominally about the Supreme Court\u2019s tariff decision, in which a 6-3 majority that included Trump appointees Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett struck down his tariff authority. But it is really about something much simpler: Trump believes that the justices he appointed owe him their votes, and he is furious that they have not delivered them. \u2026 And also some likely tea-leaf reading about the birthright citizenship case that\u2019s in front of the Court.<\/p>\n

The post opens with what can only be described as a hostage negotiation with his own feelings: \u201cI \u2018Love\u2019 Justice Neil Gorsuch! He\u2019s a really smart and good man, but he voted against me, and our Country, on Tariffs, a devastating move. How do I reconcile this?\u201d It continues through Barrett, through a lengthy detour about how Democrat-appointed justices \u201calways remain true to the people that honored them\u201d (they don\u2019t, but sure), through a suggestion that he should be the one packing the Court, through a complaint that the Court didn\u2019t acknowledge him when he showed up to watch the birthright citizenship arguments<\/a>, and finally to a remarkable conclusion: \u201cit\u2019s really OK for them to be loyal to the person that appointed them.\u201d<\/p>\n

NOPE, the only thing the justices (or really any member of the bar) owe \u201cloyalty\u201d to is the Constitution. We need to reckon with the ways it is genuinely strange and nakedly authoritarian, despite how commonplace it has become in the Trump regime. A sitting president publicly declaring that his Supreme Court appointees should vote for him out of personal loyalty \u2014 not because the law requires it, not because the Constitution demands it, but because he<\/em> gave them the job \u2014 is not normal. It is, in fact, the specific thing that lifetime tenure was designed to prevent. But more to the point, this is not an isolated sentiment: Trump has been openly transactional about loyalty for his entire presidency, and the people around him have learned to perform it on cue. Just yesterday<\/a>, at a White House event announcing a new maternal health resource, Trump turned to Senator Katie Britt and said, \u201cI hope she always remains loyal to me so I can continue to support her,\u201d before adding: \u201cI would hate to go against her. That will never happen, Katie, right?\u201d Britt\u2019s response: \u201cThat\u2019s right, sir.\u201d It\u2019s the same energy \u2014 I gave you something, you owe me something, and I will remind you of that in public \u2014 applied to a senator, to justices, to anyone in his orbit. The difference with the Supreme Court is that the justices have lifetime tenure and are, at least in theory, not supposed to care. Gorsuch and Barrett occassionally take that seriously. Trump appears to find this inexplicable.<\/p>\n

This is, of course, not the first time Trump has publicly melted down over justices showing a modicum of judicial independence. When the tariff decision first came down<\/a>, Trump told a room full of Republican members of Congress that Gorsuch and Barrett \u201csicken me\u2026 they sicken me because they\u2019re bad for our country.\u201d That\u2019s the same Barrett whose nomination party was a COVID superspreader event<\/a> that sent Trump to the hospital, so she has a complicated history with sickening the man regardless. And as we noted at the time<\/a>, an earlier Truth Social eruption declared the Court \u201clittle more than a weaponized and unjust Political Organization\u201d and said he was \u201cashamed of certain members of the court, absolutely ashamed of them for not having the courage to do what\u2019s right for our country.\u201d He thanked Alito, Thomas, and Kavanaugh for their \u201cwisdom and courage\u201d while flaying the majority \u2014 which is a pretty clear statement of exactly what kind of \u201ccourage\u201d he\u2019s looking for.<\/p>\n

The current post adds some new rhetorical flourishes. There\u2019s the electoral mandate argument \u2014 \u201cI got elected in a Landslide, including winning the Popular Vote, all seven Swing States, an Electoral College \u2018clobbering,\u2019 and all U.S. Counties, by 86%, 2,750 to 525\u201d \u2014 which is not a legal argument for anything but does seem to be Trump\u2019s all-purpose justification for why the rules shouldn\u2019t apply to him. There\u2019s the threat of court-packing, which is darkly funny given that Democrats have been proposing exactly that for years and Trump has opposed it. And there\u2019s the closing warning that a negative birthright citizenship ruling on top of the tariff decision \u201cis not Economically sustainable for the United States of America,\u201d which suggests the president may not fully understand that the Supreme Court\u2019s job is constitutional interpretation, not economic forecasting.<\/p>\n

The birthright citizenship anxiety is not unfounded, and, tbh, reading the tea leaves on that case may just be part of the motivation for this particular rant. The oral arguments did not go well for the administration, with Gorsuch and Barrett both pressing the government\u2019s lawyer hard, the same two justices Trump is currently describing as having \u201chad a really bad day\u201d on tariffs. At this point Trump\u2019s relationship with his own appointees resembles nothing so much as a Yelp review from a customer who is shocked to discover that the restaurant has a menu and not just his personal order.<\/p>\n

The deeper tell in the post is the line about Democratic appointees: \u201cDemocrat Justices always remain true to the people that honored them for that very special Nomination. They don\u2019t waver, no matter how good or bad a case may be.\u201d This is, empirically, not true. But more importantly, it reveals exactly what Trump thinks the job is. In his view, a justice\u2019s role is to vote for the appointing president\u2019s agenda. The fact that Republican-appointed justices occasionally follow the law instead is, to him, a betrayal. The fact that this would make the Court not a court but an extension of the executive branch is not a bug in his analysis. It is the feature.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want loyalty,\u201d he writes, \u201cbut I do want and expect it for our Country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sure. That\u2019s definitely what he wants.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of\u00a0The Jabot podcast<\/a>, and co-host of\u00a0Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email\u00a0her<\/a>\u00a0with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump took to Truth Social over the weekend to do what Donald Trump does when things don\u2019t go his way: write an extremely long post that reads like a stream of consciousness from a man who has never heard of the separation of powers and would like a refund. The screed is nominally about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":150943,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-150949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_5243-1-scaled-e1623338814705-620x568-SZbSln.jpg?fit=620%2C568&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}