by
Nathan
Howard/Getty
Images)
Sure.
Okay.
Let’s
do
this.
Donald
Trump
posted
to
Truth
Social
this
week
to
register
his
outrage
at
House
Minority
Leader
Hakeem
Jeffries,
who
had
called
the
Supreme
Court
illegitimate.
“Hakeem
Jeffries
just
called
the
Supreme
Court
of
the
United
States
an
illegitimate
Court!”
Trump
wrote.
“This
is
a
Low
IQ
individual,
who
should
not
be
allowed
to
talk
that
way
about
one
of
the
Greatest
Institutions
anywhere
in
the
World.
He
should
withdraw
the
statement,
IMMEDIATELY!
President
DONALD
J.
TRUMP.”
One
of
the
Greatest
Institutions
anywhere
in
the
World,
he
says.
Well,
let’s
take
a
look
at
what
was
behind
Jeffries’s
criticism
of
the
Court.
Context
matters
here.
Jeffries
was
responding
to
the
Supreme
Court’s
6-3
decision
in
Louisiana
v.
Callais,
handed
down
Tuesday
—
a
ruling
that
eviscerated
Section
2
of
the
Voting
Rights
Act,
a
critical
civil
rights
protection
that
has
long
served
as
the
backstop
against
racially
discriminatory
redistricting.
The
decision,
written
by
Justice
Alito
and
joined
by
the
Court’s
full
conservative
majority,
struck
down
Louisiana’s
congressional
map,
which
had
created
a
second
majority-Black
district,
a
map
that
itself
existed
only
because
a
federal
court
found
Louisiana’s
previous
map
likely
violated
the
VRA.
As
Justice
Elena
Kagan
wrote
in
dissent,
joined
by
Justices
Sotomayor
and
Jackson,
the
majority
opinion
had
rendered
Section
2
“all
but
a
dead
letter.”
The
practical
consequences
are
stark:
analysts
estimate
that
without
the
strength
of
the
VRA,
up
to
12
seats
in
southeastern
states
could
flip
from
Democrat-leaning
to
Republican-leaning.
Jeffries,
standing
with
members
of
the
Congressional
Black
Caucus,
put
it
plainly:
“affirmative
action
is
gone,
diversity
is
gone,
equity
gone,
inclusion
gone,
racial
tolerance
gone,
the
Voting
Rights
Act
largely
gone.”
So
no,
Hakeem
Jeffries
does
not
need
to
withdraw
that
statement.
The
crown
jewel
of
the
civil
rights
movement
—
the
law
that
ended
Jim
Crow
at
the
ballot
box
—
has
just
been
gutted
by
a
6-3
partisan
vote,
and
calling
that
Court
illegitimate
is
not
a
provocation.
It’s
a
description.
Now.
To
the
man
demanding
the
apology.
This
is
the
same
Donald
Trump
who,
just
a
few
weeks
ago,
after
the
Supreme
Court
struck
down
his
tariffs
in
a
6-3
ruling
that
included
two
of
his
own
appointees,
posted
what
Politico
senior
legal
affairs
reporter
Kyle
Cheney
characterized
as
“one
of
the
most
incendiary
attacks
on
the
court
in
memory.”
The
post
was
riddled
with
falsehoods
and
at
over
1,600
words
across
multiple
Truth
Social
entries,
declared
that
“Our
Country
was
unnecessarily
RANSACKED
by
the
United
States
Supreme
Court,
which
has
become
little
more
than
a
weaponized
and
unjust
Political
Organization.
The
sad
thing
is,
they
will
only
get
worse!”
He
said
he
was
“ashamed
of
certain
members
of
the
court,
absolutely
ashamed
of
them
for
not
having
the
courage
to
do
what’s
right
for
our
country.”
He
thanked
the
dissenters
—
Alito,
Thomas,
and
Kavanaugh
—
for
their
“wisdom
and
courage”
while
flaying
the
majority.
That
was
a
few
weeks
ago.
Now
the
Supreme
Court
is
one
of
the
Greatest
Institutions
anywhere
in
the
World
and
Hakeem
Jeffries
needs
to
apologize
immediately.
The
whiplash
would
be
funny
if
it
weren’t
such
a
perfect
encapsulation
of
how
this
administration
—
and
this
president,
specifically
—
relates
to
institutions
generally:
they
are
legitimate
and
great
when
they
rule
for
Trump,
and
weaponized,
unjust,
and
in
need
of
immediate
denunciation
when
they
don’t.
The
Court’s
legitimacy,
in
Trump’s
framework,
is
entirely
a
function
of
its
vote
count
in
any
given
case.
And
*that’s*
the
real
problem
with
the
Court.
We
have
been
tracking
the
Court’s
legitimacy
crisis
for
years
now,
and
the
numbers
tell
a
consistent
story:
just
22%
of
Americans
now
say
they
have
a
great
deal
or
quite
a
bit
of
confidence
in
the
institution,
down
from
a
high
of
52%
before
Bush
v.
Gore.
The
Fox
News
poll
from
2024
showed
38%
approval
—
a
20-point
drop
from
the
2017
high,
with
83%
of
respondents
saying
partisanship
plays
a
role
in
the
Court’s
decisions
at
least
some
of
the
time.
The
public
has
been
saying
for
years,
with
increasing
clarity,
that
it
views
this
Court
as
a
political
institution.
The
irony
is
that
the
president
most
responsible
for
making
it
one
is
now
demanding
that
a
Democrat
retract
a
statement
for
noticing.
Of
course,
Trump
is
not
the
only
one
who
has
struggled
with
the
concept
that
the
Court’s
legitimacy
crisis
might
be
of
the
Court’s
own
making.
John
Roberts
has
spent
years
insisting
that
critics
of
the
Court
are
simply
sore
losers.
As
my
colleague
Joe
Patrice
documented
last
June,
Roberts’s
official
position
is
that
if
you
have
a
problem
with
the
Court,
“it’s
because
you
lost
and
you’re
just
venting”
—
going
so
far
as
to
compare
calling
out
the
justices
as
partisan
hacks
to
burning
crosses
on
the
lawns
of
Southern
federal
judges
in
the
1960s.
And
in
his
2024
year-end
report,
Roberts
returned
to
form,
suggesting
that
criticism
of
the
Court
amounts
to
intemperance
that
“may
prompt
dangerous
reactions”
—
from
a
Court,
as
Joe
noted,
that
was
“junking
decades
of
precedent
every
term
while
enjoying
vacations
with
right-wing
activists.”
The
“all
criticism
is
delegitimizing”
school
of
thought
has
always
been
a
dodge.
Trump
just
makes
it
impossible
to
keep
a
straight
face
while
delivering
it.
It’s
also
worth
noting,
as
we
have
before,
that
Trump
wins
at
the
Supreme
Court
at
a
90%
clip
—
a
number
that
tracks
neatly
with
the
public’s
read
of
the
Court
as
a
partisan
institution,
and
one
that
makes
his
tariff-loss
meltdown
even
more
remarkable.
The
one
time
the
Court
didn’t
deliver,
Trump
called
it
ransacked
and
weaponized.
The
90%
of
the
time
it
does
deliver,
gutting
voting
rights
and
reshaping
American
democracy
along
partisan
lines,
it’s
one
of
the
Greatest
Institutions
anywhere
in
the
World.
As
Justice
Kagan
put
it
in
a
speech
we
covered
back
in
2022,
judges
create
legitimacy
problems
for
themselves
“when
they
stray
into
places
where
it
looks
like
they’re
an
extension
of
the
political
process.”
She
was
right
then.
She
is
clearly
still
right
now.
But
even
she
probably
didn’t
anticipate
the
specific
indignity
of
the
president
of
the
United
States
demanding
an
apology
for
a
legitimacy
critique,
weeks
after
posting
the
most
incendiary
attack
on
the
Court
in
recent
memory,
when
his
Court’s
partisan
majority
gutted
the
Voting
Rights
Act
to
tilt
the
2026
midterms.
Hakeem
Jeffries
should
withdraw
his
statement
immediately,
says
the
man
who
called
the
Court
“weaponized
and
unjust”
in
March.
Sure.
Kathryn
Rubino
is
a
Senior
Editor
at
Above
the
Law,
host
of The
Jabot
podcast,
and
co-host
of Thinking
Like
A
Lawyer.
AtL
tipsters
are
the
best,
so
please
connect
with
her.
Feel
free
to
email her with
any
tips,
questions,
or
comments
and
follow
her
on
Twitter @Kathryn1 or
Bluesky @Kathryn1