President Donald Trump used his State of the Union address Tuesday to slam the Supreme Court’s decision against his sweeping emergency tariffs, repeatedly calling the ruling “unfortunate” even as he suggested his administration would quickly move past it. Kavanaugh, whom Trump also appointed to the high court in his first term, wrote the dissent from that decision. The justices themselves have made clear for years they would prefer to be almost anywhere besides a State of the Union address. Nothing in the court’s decision barred Trump from relying on other laws to raise tariffs, though many of those other measures come with strings attached. In 2018, Trump touted his “great new Supreme Court justice,” referring to Neil Gorsuch, who sat so expressionless that his locked face became a social media meme.

Source: CNN February 25, 2026 15:55 UTC