Trump Lashes Out at His Own Supreme Court Picks Over Mail Ballot Ruling
President Trump launched a sharp attack on three of his own Supreme Court appointees Tuesday after the court rejected his administration's push to restrict mail-in voting ahead of November's midterm elections, calling the justices “a shell of their original selves” and claiming they had let down the country.
What the Court Decided
The Supreme Court declined on Monday to lift preliminary injunctions blocking a Trump administration rule that would have given the U.S. Postal Service a central role in mail ballot delivery and eligibility for the 2026 midterms. Under the contested plan, states would have been required to provide voter name and address lists to USPS and use specific barcodes on ballot envelopes.
Two federal judges had previously blocked the rule, finding the administration was unlikely to succeed in court and that the changes posed an unacceptable risk of operational chaos with the election already underway. The Supreme Court majority agreed, leaving those injunctions in place.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, one of Trump’s own nominees, wrote separately that the rule could not be implemented before the 2026 elections without causing “mistakes, delays, and confusion” — though he left open the possibility it might be valid for future elections. Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas were the only two publicly willing to grant the administration’s request.
Trump Attacks His Own Appointees
Trump responded with an extended social media post targeting Justices Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, and Kavanaugh — all three of whom he nominated and the Senate confirmed during his first term.
“These are not the people I interviewed to serve on the United States Supreme Court,” Trump wrote. “They are merely a shell of their original selves.” He went on to claim that “The Court’s inability and unwillingness to do the right thing for our Country will go down, in a very negative way, in the annals of History.”
Trump characterized the court as having been “bullied and cajoled by the Radical Left into making decisions that have set America back at least a hundred years” and described the ruling as a “big loss for Republicans.”
Alito and Thomas Called “Legends”
In contrast to his criticism of the majority, Trump praised the two dissenters. He called Alito and Thomas “legends” for their willingness to side with the administration. The pairing is notable: both justices have faced scrutiny in recent years over ethical disclosures and their public appearances at events tied to conservative donors, but neither has faced calls for removal from Trump’s political circle.
The dynamic illustrates a growing tension inside the conservative legal movement, where Trump has increasingly measured loyalty to the court’s ideology against what he expects from individual justices in politically charged cases.
What It Means for the Midterms
The ruling provides immediate certainty for eight states that rely almost entirely on mail voting — California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, and Washington — where ballots were already being distributed to registered voters ahead of the November 3 midterm contests.
State election officials in several Republican-led states, including Utah, had themselves warned that the administration’s plan would create operational chaos. They argued their existing systems were secure and that the changes were logistically impossible to implement on the compressed timeline the White House demanded.
The midterms will determine control of Congress, and disputes over voting rules have already become a central front in the political battle. The court’s decision on mail ballots adds to a series of rulings that have frustrated the administration’s broader effort to reshape election procedures ahead of November. Trump’s administration has argued, without significant evidence, that mail voting enables widespread illegal voting by non-citizens — a claim studies consistently show is not supported by the data.
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