President Donald Trump said he regrets nominating all three justices he placed on the Supreme Court during his first term, pointing to rulings he said went against him and the country too often.
Breitbart News reported the remarks from a TIME interview published Thursday. Trump named Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, the jurists he elevated between 2017 and 2020, and said their votes had repeatedly disappointed him.
Trump tied the frustration to concrete decisions on birthright citizenship, emergency tariffs, and mail-in ballots. He framed the problem as one of results for the nation, not personal score-settling.
Asked whether he regretted the nominations, Trump answered directly.
Trump said:
“Yeah. Yeah. What can I do? I put them in,”
He expanded on the pattern he saw.
Trump stated:
“They voted against me too often. I was very, I gave them the position of a lifetime, and they vote against me often. They vote for me too.”
The sharpest recent flashpoint came in June, when the Court found Trump’s order restricting birthright citizenship unlawful. Barrett and Kavanaugh joined the majority. Gorsuch dissented.
That outcome cut against a core Trump priority on citizenship and border enforcement. Trump called the broader pattern unfortunate for the country.
Trump said:
“It’s unfortunate what they did, not to me, to our country,”
Just the News reported that Trump’s strongest criticism targeted the birthright citizenship decision upholding the 14th Amendment reading he opposed, even as the three justices had delivered conservative victories on abortion, affirmative action, gun rights, and administrative authority.
Those earlier wins matter to millions of voters who wanted the Court rebalanced. Yet the same jurists have viewed some of Trump’s later efforts with open skepticism.
A February ruling struck down Trump’s global tariffs. Trump argued the Court could have limited the damage with simple language.
Trump said:
“All they had to do was a little clause saying any money paid does not have to be paid back…would have saved $400 billion,”
He added:
“They chose not to save that.”
Trump also described the tariff fallout in blunt terms.
Trump stated:
“And it’s become a corrupt business, all because of the Supreme Court decision.”
In September the Court declined to let a Postal Service directive restrict mail-in ballots ahead of the midterms. Trump called that “another bad decision” from a Court he said had been “bullied and cajoled by the Radical Left.”
Readers tracking the Court’s election-related work have seen parallel fights over tools and maps, including when the Supreme Court restored Trump’s SAVE tool for state voter citizenship checks.
Weeks before the TIME interview, Trump took the criticism public on Truth Social. He wrote that the justices were “not the people I interviewed to serve on the United States Supreme Court” and called them “merely a shell of their original selves.”
In the interview he circled the loyalty question from two directions. First he said he does like loyalty. Then he drew a sharper line.
Trump said:
“No, I don’t want loyalty. I want good decisions.”
That distinction sits at the center of the fight. Lifetime tenure was always meant to free justices from political pressure. It was never a license to ignore the real-world costs of rulings on citizenship, trade, and ballot integrity.
Trump has noted that Democratic appointees often vote as a bloc. His own picks have split more often on the cases he cares about most. The contrast is hard to miss for voters who expected a steadier originalist majority.
Court watchers following personnel and process stories have also noted moments such as when Alito stepped aside from a major Supreme Court climate liability case, another reminder that individual justices still shape high-stakes outcomes one recusal and one vote at a time.
Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett arrived on the Court after bruising confirmation battles. They helped lock in landmark conservative results on life, guns, and the administrative state. Those outcomes remain real and durable.
Yet the same Court blocked Trump’s birthright citizenship order, struck down the global tariffs package, and refused to green-light tighter mail-in ballot rules through the Postal Service directive. Each loss landed on a priority Trump had campaigned on and governed toward.
The sequence is straightforward. Appointments between 2017 and 2020. A February tariffs defeat. A June birthright citizenship defeat with Barrett and Kavanaugh in the majority. A September mail-in ballot setback. Then the public Truth Social rebuke. Then the Thursday interview in which Trump said he regrets the nominations.
Trump has little structural recourse. Lifetime appointments mean exactly that. He put them in. They stay.
That reality does not erase the policy stakes. Birthright citizenship rules affect sovereignty and incentives. Tariff authority affects leverage with foreign competitors and the scale of potential refunds. Mail-in ballot safeguards affect election confidence. When the Court closes those doors, the country lives with the consequences.
Similar institutional tension has appeared in other recent matters, from the Supreme Court taking up Missouri’s redistricting fight for a third time as voters already cast ballots to capital cases where timing and stays decide final outcomes.
Even outside the Court, Trump faces parallel institutional pushback, including when CNN, MSNBC, and Politico filed suit over a White House press ban. The pattern is consistent: major power centers test the limits of a president who insists on results.
Trump’s critique is not abstract. He listed the votes. He named the dollars he believes were left on the table. He described the justices as changed from the people he interviewed. He said the damage ran to the country.
Supporters who cheered the earlier conservative wins still expected follow-through on citizenship, trade, and election rules. The gap between those expectations and the recent 6-3 or split outcomes is what produced the regret statement.
Justices are not employees. They do not take orders. They do take an oath and receive a lifetime post of immense power. When that power repeatedly blocks the agenda of the president who nominated them, and of the voters who sent him there, the public hears about it.
Trump put the matter in plain language: he gave them the position of a lifetime, and they vote against him often. They vote for him too. The mix no longer satisfies him.
The Court will keep deciding cases. Presidents will keep nominating. Voters will keep judging the results by what actually happens on borders, ballots, and the economy, not by process language alone.
Lifetime tenure protects judicial independence. It does not shield poor outcomes from public judgment.
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