In his sprawling new interview with TIME, President Donald Trump finally said the quiet part out loud with respect to his Supreme Court justice picks — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett — flat-out admitting that he regrets all three of them because they “voted against me too often.”
Trump’s entire second presidential term has been inundated with one Supreme Court defeat after another, despite his best efforts to stack the highest Court in the land with his own devout loyalists. In February, the SCOTUS ruled 6-3 that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act did not, in fact, give him the authority to implement his sweeping emergency tariffs. Kavanaugh dissented, while Gorsuch and Barrett joined the controlling opinion.
Just a few short months later, Trump was hammered again when the Supreme Court rejected his attempt to impose severe restrictions on birthright citizenship. Barrett and Chief Justice John Roberts joined the liberal-leaning justices in striking down Trump’s attempt as unconstitutional. Kavanaugh joined a separate majority that concluded the restrictions violated federal law. Gorsuch dissented.
Just one day before that loss, the Supreme Court blocked his efforts to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook in a 5-4 decision.
When asked point-blank in the TIME interview whether he regretted his SCOTUS choices, Trump did not mince his words.
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