Trump calls out Supreme Court for lacking 'guts to do what's right'

President Trump unloaded on the Supreme Court during a White House roundtable on Friday, accusing the justices of cowardice and telling attendees the court "ought to be ashamed of itself."

The remarks came during an event centered on college sports and NCAA reforms, but Trump's frustration spilled well beyond the topic at hand. He cited "a number" of recent decisions that he said have damaged the country, including the 6-3 ruling late last month that struck down the bulk of his tariff agenda.

"They have hurt this country so badly because they haven't had the guts to do what's right."

Trump made clear he is not interested in tempering his language to preserve goodwill with the bench. He predicted the justices would rule against him again on birthright citizenship, a case the court agreed in December to examine after Trump signed an executive order in January 2025 restricting the practice.

"I got to live with these people. And I say this…and they'll only vote bad, and I couldn't care less at this point."

The tariff ruling and its fallout

The sharpest edge of Trump's frustration traces to last month's tariff decision. The court's majority ruled that Trump's expanded use of the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act exceeded his authority, gutting the legal foundation of a central pillar of his economic agenda in a 6-3 split.

Trump called it a "very unfortunate ruling" during his State of the Union address, where three of the justices who joined the majority sat expressionless in front of him. That image alone tells the story of a standoff between a president who believes he was elected to act and a court that increasingly believes its job is to stop him, as The Hill reports.

The broader pattern is hard to ignore. Between the tariff decision, setbacks on attempts to federalize the National Guard, and the looming birthright citizenship case, the court has positioned itself as the primary institutional check on the Trump agenda. Whether that constitutes principled jurisprudence or judicial overreach depends entirely on where you sit. For the millions who sent Trump back to the White House with a mandate to enforce the border, reshape trade, and restore American sovereignty, the court looks less like a guardian of the Constitution and more like a veto pen with a lifetime appointment.

College sports and the NIL mess

The roundtable's stated purpose was NCAA reform, and Trump had plenty to say there too. His target: the Supreme Court's 2021 decision in NCAA v. Alston, where the justices ruled 9-0 that the NCAA's restrictions on education-related benefits for student athletes violated federal antitrust law.

Shortly after that decision, the NCAA adopted its policy allowing athletes to earn compensation for their name, image, and likeness. What was sold as fairness for student athletes has, in Trump's telling, devolved into chaos.

"Everybody was happy, and now you got yourself a mess."

He's not wrong. The NIL landscape has turned college recruiting into a bidding war, with boosters funneling money through collectives, programs scrambling to compete, and smaller schools watching helplessly as the transfer portal becomes an open market. The 9-0 decision was unanimous precisely because it was narrow. The flood that followed was not the court's doing alone, but the ruling opened a gate that nobody knew how to close.

Trump pushed for a return to the previous scholarship-based system with modest enhancements through compensation, and he announced plans for an executive order on the matter. He also acknowledged the inevitability of litigation.

"And I'd like to see you go back to where you were, enhance it a little bit through some compensation, and let them take you to court because no matter what you do, you're going to be sued."

That last line is perhaps the most telling sentence Trump delivered all day. It reveals a president who has fully internalized the reality that every significant action he takes will be dragged into federal court, challenged by activists and interest groups, and decided by judges he believes lack the courage to rule correctly.

A president versus the judiciary

Trump's willingness to criticize the court openly, and repeatedly, marks a sharp departure from the genteel norm where presidents treat judicial independence as sacred ground that must never be questioned aloud. But the norm always favored one side. Progressive legal organizations have spent decades shopping for friendly judges, engineering test cases, and using the courts to achieve policy goals they could never win at the ballot box. When conservatives finally secured a court majority, the establishment suddenly rediscovered the importance of "respecting institutions."

Trump is not playing that game. He has appointed three of the sitting justices and still finds himself on the losing end of major rulings. His frustration is not with judicial independence as a concept. It is with a court that, in his view, flinches when the stakes are highest.

"I just don't think it's right that a judge is allowed — that knows nothing — is allowed to destroy college sports and colleges."

Whether the subject is tariffs, immigration, or college athletics, the underlying argument is the same: the American people elected a president to govern, and unelected judges keep substituting their judgment for his. That tension is not new. But the willingness to say it out loud, in a room full of cameras, with the full weight of the presidency behind it, is.

The court will hear the birthright citizenship case. Another executive order is coming on college sports. The legal battles are not slowing down. Neither is the president.