President Donald Trump sharply criticized the Supreme Court in a Truth Social post Tuesday, one day after the Court declined to lift an injunction blocking a Postal Service rule on federal ballot mail.
Trump called the outcome a bad decision for Republicans and the country. He also complained that the Court had taken too long to rule before insufficient implementation time became part of the reasoning against immediate enforcement.
Insufficient implementation time was Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s stated reason for concurring in the denial. It was not a reason specified in the unsigned order.
“The Supreme Court has really let our Country down!”
Trump characterized American mail-in voting as corrupt and claimed the ruling would make it easier for Democrats to cheat using mail-in ballots. He offered no evidence for those assertions, and they have not been independently verified.
Monday’s order made no findings that mail-in voting was corrupt or that either political party was using it to cheat.
Trump praised dissenting Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas as “legends” and said they had strongly opposed the ruling, which he characterized as politically motivated.
The president claimed that some unnamed justices were afraid of Democrats and lacked the courage to protect the country. The post did not identify those justices or provide evidence supporting the accusation.
Trump also wrote that the current Court was not the one he encountered when interviewing candidates to serve on it. He accused the Court of yielding to pressure from the political left and issuing decisions that had set the country back by at least 100 years.
His criticism extended to rulings involving tariffs and birthright citizenship. Trump claimed the tariff decision would cost the United States trillions of dollars over many years and criticized the Court’s handling of money already collected.
He also alleged that the birthright-citizenship ruling had produced widespread corruption and caused incalculable damage. Trump did not identify either ruling by case name or provide evidence supporting his claims about financial losses and corruption.
Trump closed by saying the criticism was difficult to write and could cost him “dearly for years to come.” He nevertheless described speaking out as his obligation and duty as president.
Court Leaves Injunction in Place
The Supreme Court order, issued Monday in United States Postal Service v. California, denied the government’s application to stay a nationwide preliminary injunction against the ballot-mail rule.
The unsigned order said the government was unlikely to succeed in challenging the injunction. It also found that the equitable factors governing emergency relief did not favor a stay.
The Postal Service rule would require federal ballot-mail envelopes to carry an election-mail logo, support high-speed scanning and include a barcode unique to each voter. States would also have to submit envelope designs for review and upload basic voter information to a Postal Service portal.
Kavanaugh agreed with the denial. He wrote that the rule may fall within the Postal Service’s statutory authority but that election officials lacked sufficient time to implement it reasonably before the 2026 elections.
Applying the rule during those elections would be arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act, Kavanaugh concluded.
Alito, joined by Thomas, dissented. He wrote that the government had made the showing necessary for a stay.
The order does not provide a complete vote breakdown beyond Kavanaugh’s concurrence and the dissent from Alito and Thomas. It leaves the underlying legal questions unresolved while the litigation continues.
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