One of Donald Trump’s own Supreme Court appointees refused to show up to the president’s State of the Union address, days after striking down his signature economic policy.
Conservative justice Neil Gorsuch—one of the justices Trump described as a “lap dog” and a “disgrace to our nation” for voting against his global tariffs — was a notable no-show on Tuesday night.
Only four of the court’s nine justices attended: Chief Justice John Roberts, Trump appointees Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh and liberal justice Elena Kagan.
Conservative justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas (who doesn’t often attend State of the Union speeches), and liberal justices Sonya Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson were also absent.
The president shook hands with each of the justices after entering the chamber to an enthusiastic response from GOP lawmakers.
During his speech, as Barrett stared at him intently, Trump called the Supreme Court’s ruling “unfortunate” and “totally wrong.”
But he avoided attacking members of the bench personally, unlike last week when he said the families of his handpicked justices would be “ashamed” they voted against him.
Gorsuch’s snub came after he hit out at the president’s overreach when it came to his tariffs, declaring that major decisions affecting Americans—“including the duty to pay taxes and tariffs”—should not be determined through “one faction or man.”
“Yes, legislating can be hard and take time. And, yes, it can be tempting to bypass Congress when some pressing problem arises. But the deliberative nature of the legislative process was the whole point of its design,” Gorsuch wrote in a concurring opinion.
