02 Jul 2018 Liberal Justices’ Different Standard for Judging Trump, Obama Statements

National Center Senior Fellow Horace Cooper says the Constitution won out over emotionalism when the U.S. Supreme Court voted to keep President Donald Trump’s travel security orders in place.

In an interview published by Newsweek, Horace also noted that the Supreme Court justices who incorporated the President’s “out of court” statements – particularly about the threat of Muslim-inspired terrorism – as a basis for their opposition in this case acted to the contrary when it came to defending Obamacare.

The Court upheld the Trump Administration restrictions on travel from certain countries, noting that presidential authority and concerns about national security justified the action over allegations that statements made by Trump as a candidate and as president held no relevance.

Horace commented on the decision:

The decision was obviously correct from both a statutory and constitutional perspective. The real disappointment is that not one of the progressives on the Court acknowledged that fact. All four were willing to use out of court statements to justify their decision.

Opponents of the travel restrictions convinced lower courts to overturn them on the argument that comments at rallies and tweets by Trump constituted an anti-Muslim bias. Their hopes this sway a majority of the justices failed, with Chief Justice John Roberts noting in his majority opinion that “[t]he text of the ban says nothing about religion.”

But the justices who did think these “out of court” statements could be used against President Trump didn’t react this way in 2012 when they upheld Obamacare. Horace said:

When President Obama emphatically stated publicly that his signature health care reform was not a tax, but when government lawyers came before the Supreme Court and argued that it was indeed a tax, all four of the progressives‎ accepted the “in court” claim and ignored the “out of court” statements.