Gorsuch says loyalty belongs to Constitution amid Trump court attacks
Gorsuch said his loyalty is to the Constitution and laws of the United States as Trump escalated attacks after the tariff ruling. The clash put judicial independence under a public stress test.
Neil Gorsuch drew a bright line between the bench and the presidency, saying his loyalty is to the “Constitution and laws of the United States” when asked whether a justice owes a president loyalty. The remark lands in the middle of a sharper fight between Donald Trump and the Supreme Court, one that has turned a tariff case into a broader test of judicial independence.
The confrontation intensified after a 6-3 Supreme Court ruling invalidated most of Trump’s tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Trump lashed out at the justices in the majority, calling them “disloyal to the Constitution,” “a disgrace to our nation,” and suggesting they were “swayed by foreign interests.” That is an unusual posture from a former president toward the nation’s highest court, and it matters because public pressure on judges can reshape how the public reads every ruling that follows.
Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, both Trump appointees, joined the majority in the tariff case. The dissenters were Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh. That split sharpened the political stakes of the ruling, because Trump’s criticism did not fall only on ideological opponents but also on jurists he himself elevated to the bench.
The American Bar Association said Trump’s remarks crossed a dangerous line and threatened the safety of the judiciary and public confidence in the courts. That warning goes beyond one clash over tariffs. It speaks to the larger democratic principle that federal judges are expected to answer to the law, not to political loyalty or personal allegiance to any president.
Gorsuch also said the Supreme Court system is “working,” a notable defense of the institution’s role at a moment when its legitimacy is under fresh strain. In the same conversation, he reflected on the court’s hardest cases and on his new children’s book, Heroes of 1776: The Story of the Declaration of Independence, published May 5, 2026.
The book, co-written with Janie Nitze and illustrated by Chris Ellison, is timed for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. HarperCollins Children’s Books says it includes familiar founders such as Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and Paul Revere, alongside lesser-known figures including Caesar Rodney, Thomas Paine, John Hart, Emily Geiger and Mary Katharine Goddard. Gorsuch said he wanted to share the “human stories behind the document that changed everything,” and said brave, often forgotten men, women and children helped secure independence.
The timing gives the interview added weight. As Trump presses attacks on the court, Gorsuch is publicly defining loyalty in constitutional terms, a reminder that for the judiciary, allegiance is supposed to run to law first and to any president never.
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