On Sunday, September 7, 2025, Mediaite reported that Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett downplayed concerns regarding President Donald Trump’s adversarial relationship with the judicial branch. Barrett’s remarks came during a forum hosted by The Free Press, where she addressed the historical context of presidential-judicial conflicts.
The discussion was sparked by a statement made by Trump in March, in which he responded to a question from Fox News anchor Laura Ingraham about defying a court order by saying that while he wouldn’t defy a court order, there are “bad judges” who “shouldn’t be allowed,” and questioned what to do about “a rogue judge.”.
Forum host Bari Weiss then asked if a president had ever spoken about the judicial system in that way. Barrett responded by asserting that conflicts between the president and the judiciary are not new, citing examples such as Andrew Jackson’s disputes with the Supreme Court, conflicts involving Abraham Lincoln, and tensions between Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Court. She characterized the dynamic as a recurring “tug and pull” inherent in the separation of powers.
Barrett, a Trump nominee to the Supreme Court in 2020, has recently faced criticism from conservatives who disagree with some of her rulings. In March, she sided with liberal justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor in a case that rejected Trump’s attempt to overturn a lower court order mandating the payment of $2 billion in foreign aid, according to ABC News. Additionally, in April, Barrett partially joined the liberal justices in dissenting against an order that dismissed the appeal of Venezuelan detainees who were sent to El Salvador in defiance of U.S. District Judge James Boasberg.
Conservative Fox News host Mark Levin criticized Barrett the following month for comments she made during oral arguments regarding birthright citizenship, claiming that she did not understand the role of the courts.
Source: Mediaite
