Trump Blasts Supreme Court After Defeat He Says Set US Back

Donald Trump launched a blistering attack on the Supreme Court after the justices rejected his effort to alter mail-in voting procedures only weeks before the midterm elections.

Trump’s attorneys had asked the court to permit an executive order directing the US Postal Service to compare mail-in ballots with each state’s central voter-registration database—and discard ballots submitted by voters whose names did not appear in the records.

The request marked the third time the Trump administration had urged the Supreme Court to step into the dispute, underscoring the importance it placed on the case. The justices rejected the effort in an emergency order issued Monday evening.

“The damage done to America is incalculable, and they know this, just as everyone else does—it is an irreparable and unrecoverable harm!” Trump wrote in a furious response Tuesday morning.

“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 objected to the justices’ observation that there was too little time to change voting rules before the election. He described the existing mail-in voting system as a corrupt, “nation-destroying scam” that makes the United States “a laughing stock all over the world.”

“It is a big loss for Republicans, and America itself, and makes cheating by the Radical Left ‘Dumocrats,’ on Mail-In Ballots, a much easier thing to do—and now they have an open field to do so!”

Only two justices—Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas—dissented from the decision. Trump praised both in his post, calling them “legends.”

The ruling was particularly significant because all three justices appointed by Trump sided against him, intensifying the former president’s anger.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a Trump appointee, wrote a brief concurrence with the majority, indicating that the USPS might have authority to establish rules governing mail-in ballots.

However, Kavanaugh said election officials “do not have sufficient time to reasonably implement the rule before” the November midterm elections.

The other two Trump-appointed conservatives, Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch, joined Chief Justice John Roberts and the court’s liberal justices in rejecting Trump’s bid—a result likely to further infuriate him.

“These are not the people I interviewed to serve on the United States Supreme Court,” Trump said of his appointees. “They are merely a shell of their original selves, a Court that is costing the United States Trillions of Dollars with shockingly bad rulings that are of such magnitude that it won’t be easily possible for our Country to recover or heal.”

Critics warned that the new USPS rules desired by Trump, and their eleventh-hour implementation, risked creating widespread chaos in the run-up to Election Day, and could disenfranchise millions of US voters who cast their ballots by mail. 

Trump has had several high-profile cases before the Supreme Court during his second term, including his challenge to birthright citizenship and his expansive use of tariff authorities – both which were ruled against. 

The court’s rejection of the President’s cases has led to much animus between the pugnacious Trump and the typically quiet justices. He has taken to calling them names online when they hand him a ruling he deems unfavorable. 

In his statement, Trump ridiculed the ‘horrible’ tariff ruling and the birthright citizens decision as a ‘complete and total disaster.’   

There have been at least 42 emergency applications before the Supreme Court related to the Trump administration during 2025 and 2026, according to Ballotpedia.