Trump slams the Supreme Court for rejecting his push to restrict mail
ballots
[September 16, 2026]
By SEUNG MIN KIM
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Tuesday went after the
Supreme Court after it rejected his push to restrict mail-in voting in
this year’s midterms, saying justices who opposed him were “not the
people I interviewed.”
His social media missive was just the latest in a long history of Trump
assailing justices, particularly those he had nominated, who ruled
against him on his administration's most prominent initiatives. The
president has been publicly furious with the Supreme Court over its
decisions against restricting birthright citizenship and his ability to
issue tariffs unilaterally.
On mail-in voting, the Trump administration had made a last-minute push
to have the U.S. Postal Service play a central role in deciding who
would be able to receive a ballot. But state election officials argued
there was not enough time to make the changes for the Nov. 3 midterm
elections — and said their systems were already secure and accurate.
The court ruled late Monday in an emergency order that the restrictions
would most likely lose in court, at least for this year’s election.
“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 wrote in a lengthy social media post Tuesday. “This Supreme Court
is bullied and cajoled by the Radical Left into making decisions that
have set America back at least a hundred years.”
Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas publicly dissented from the
order, and Trump on Tuesday called them “legends both.” Trump has
nominated three of the justices on the Supreme Court — Neil Gorsuch, Amy
Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh.
“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
said. He asserted that the court "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.”
It won't be the last time Trump criticizes the court, his attorney
general says
Attorney General Todd Blanche said later Tuesday that the administration
was going to comply with the decision but “that doesn’t mean that we’re
not going to do everything in this administration that we can to make
sure that there are free and fair elections.”
Blanche also defended Trump's commentary about the court, dismissing the
idea that it was undermining the court's independence and saying it was
part of the democratic process for the president to be critical of
another branch of government.
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President Donald Trump walks from Marine One to his limousine upon
his arrival at the Ellipse just outside of the White House, Sunday,
Sept. 13, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
“He has every right and indeed, he should communicate his concerns
with the Supreme Court whenever he has them," Blanche said at the
White House. “This isn’t the first time that he’s done it, and it
won’t be the last.”
The president has a lengthy track record of attacking judges, often
very personally, who issue decisions that go against his wishes, and
Trump has long viewed his legal appointments as owing loyalty to the
person who nominated them to the bench.
So as Barrett, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch ruled against Trump at varying
points over the years, the president has not hesitated to go after
them publicly, while praising them if they sided with him in a case.
Yet this court, led by Chief Justice John Roberts, has ruled in
favor of Trump on several of his priorities, most notably the 2024
decision from the court's conservative majority that said former
presidents are presumptively entitled to immunity for all official
acts. That paved the way for Trump to run for reelection without
threat of a criminal trial that year.
Trump has opposed mail voting and falsely blamed fraud associated
with mail voting for his 2020 election loss. A report by the
Brookings Institution published in 2025 found that mail voting fraud
occurred in only about four cases out of every 10 million mail
ballots cast.
Roughly a third of voters use mail ballots, and mail voting has
already begun in some states. The decision allows states to continue
sending out mail ballots under the same processes they’ve used for
years.
On Tuesday, Trump also complained that the decision took too long to
issue.
“It is not easy for me to write this criticism of the United States
Supreme Court — it will likely cost me dearly for years to come —
but I feel it my obligation and duty, as President, to do so for the
America we love!” Trump said.
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Associated Press writer Michelle L. Price contributed to this
report.
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