Chief Justice John Roberts offered a warning after President Donald Trump used social media to attack the Supreme Court and other judges.
Roberts did not name Trump or cite any specific post, but his remarks arrived shortly after the president’s latest comments online. He said public debate over the judiciary is normal and even beneficial, but argued it should stay centered on the reasoning behind rulings rather than the people who issue them.
He made the statements during an event at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy on March 17, 2026, where he cautioned that criticism can cross a line when it turns personal and hostile toward judges, and he stressed the difference between substantive legal disagreement and attacks aimed at the judiciary itself.
“We don’t believe that we’re flawless, in any way, and it’s important that our decisions are subjected to scrutiny and they are,” he explained. “The problem, sometimes, is that the criticism can move from a focus on legal analysis to personalities and you see, from all over, not just any one political perspective on it, that it’s more directed in a personal way and that, quite frankly, can be quite dangerous.”
On Sunday, Trump published a lengthy message on Truth Social, praising the three justices who sided with him in an emergency case involving global tariffs, while condemning the remaining members of the Court for what he claimed was “openly disrespect[ing] the Presidents who nominate them to the highest position in the Land.”
His post came after the Court’s 6–3 ruling that invalidated most of his tariff proposal, a decision Trump characterized as disloyalty from justices he said should show deference to the presidents who appointed them.
He went on: “This completely inept and embarrassing Court was not what the Supreme Court of the United States was set up by our wonderful Founders to be. They are hurting our Country, and will continue to do so.”
In the same message, Trump claimed the courts were ‘highly politicized’, saying the system treated ‘Republicans, and me, so unfairly, always seeming to protect those who should not be protected.’
Trump said the tariffs ruling was the one that ‘mattered most’ to him, writing, “The Court knew where I stood, how badly I wanted this Victory for our Country, and instead decided to, potentially, give away Trillions of Dollars to Countries and Companies who have been taking advantage of the United States for decades.
“Our Supreme Court has made these Countries very happy but, as the Court pointed out, I have the absolute right to charge TARIFFS in another form, and have already started to do so.”