President Trump on Thursday ramped up his feud with Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts over the independence of the judiciary, carrying the extraordinary dispute into Thanksgiving.
Trump, who has been bitter over a court ruling against his administration’s asylum policy, continued to target the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals throughout the day, describing it as a “thorn in our side” for being what he sees as a liberal court.
{mosads}He also chided the court and took a subtle shot at Roberts, who earlier this week pushed back against Trump’s attacks on a federal judge, made while speaking with troops and then with reporters from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
Trump wrote in a tweet Thursday morning that Roberts “can say what he wants” about the judiciary, but added that the 9th Circuit “is a complete & total disaster.”
“It is out of control, has a horrible reputation, is overturned more than any Circuit in the Country, 79%, & is used to get an almost guaranteed result,” he wrote, adding in a second tweet that the court is “making our country unsafe.”
He then took the conflict into a teleconference with leaders of the five branches of the military, when he lashed out at the 9th Circuit after a judge ruled earlier this week that his administration must keep accepting asylum cases from migrants regardless of how or where they enter the U.S.
The ruling was actually issued by Judge Jon Tigar of the United States District Court in San Francisco, rather than by the 9th Circuit, which hears appeals from that District Court.
“We get a lot of bad court decisions from the 9th Circuit, which has become a big thorn in our side. We always lose, then you lose again and again and then you hopefully win at the Supreme Court, which we’ve done,” Trump said Thursday on the teleconference.
“It’s a terrible thing when judges take over your protective services, when they tell you how to protect the border,” he added. “It’s a disgrace.”
Trump quickly added on to his criticism of the 9th Circuit, telling reporters immediately after the teleconference that the judges on the court “always give us a bad interpretation” of the laws.
The president also took a dig at Roberts, suggesting that he “use common sense” even as Trump claimed to “have a lot of respect” for the judge.
“Hopefully we’ve shone some light on the 9th Circuit. I know that Chief Justice John Roberts has been speaking a little bit about it,” Trump said. “I have a lot of respect for him. I like him and I respect him. But I think we have to use some common sense. The 9th Circuit, everybody knows it’s out of control.”
Trump took another jab at the court Thursday evening, writing on Twitter that U.S. border personnel can’t do their jobs because of “Judicial Activism and Interference by the 9th Circuit.”
“Nevertheless, they are working hard to make America a safer place, though hard to do when anybody filing a lawsuit wins!” he said.
By renewing his attacks on Roberts and the 9th Circuit on Thursday, Trump carried the feud into a third day.
The president issued his initial criticism on Tuesday, calling Tigar an “Obama judge” over the ruling against his asylum policy and saying that the 9th Circuit is a “disgrace.”
That prompted Roberts to issue a rare statement on Wednesday in which he said that the U.S. doesn’t have “Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges.”
“What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them,” Roberts said at the time. “That independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for.”
It was the first time Roberts had directly rebuked Trump for his comments about federal judges, which have been a favorite target of his throughout his time as president.
Trump promptly hit back back at the chief justice that night, writing in a tweet that the courts “do indeed have ‘Obama judges.’”
“Sorry Chief Justice John Roberts, but you do indeed have ‘Obama judges,’ and they have a much different point of view than the people who are charged with the safety of our country,” the president tweeted.
“It would be great if the 9th Circuit was indeed an ‘independent judiciary,’ but if it is why are so many opposing view (on Border and Safety) cases filed there, and why are a vast number of those cases overturned,” he added. “Please study the numbers, they are shocking.”