Trump clashes ahead as new Supreme Court term begins

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s harsh criticisms may still be ringing in the ears of Supreme Court justices when they return to the bench for a new nine-month term next week.In the final months of its previous term and over its summer break, the conservative-majority court, which includes three Trump appointees, ruled against Trump on some of the issues he holds most dear.The justices blocked his sweeping tariffs, ended his plan to curb birthright citizenship, prevented him from firing a member of the Federal Reserve and blocked his plan to exert control over mail-in ballots ahead of this fall’s election.The Supreme Court has “let our country down,” Trump said in a Truth Social post after the mail-in ballots ruling.The very justices he appointed — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — are “a shell of their previous selves,” he added.

The president made similar claims in a Time magazine interview published Thursday, saying: “I gave them the position of a lifetime, and they vote against me often.”Add to GoogleSupreme Court breaks with Trump in rulings ahead of midterm elections04:27The president still desperately needs justices’ votes when key parts of his agenda come before the court in the coming months, in particular multiple cases arising from his hard-line immigration crackdown.The court could also weigh in on his administration’s ban on transgender people in the military, which the justices in a previous decision allowed to go into effect.Another appeal is pending in Trump’s effort to overturn a defamation verdict against him in a case brought by writer E.

Jean Carroll, who accused him of sexual abuse.The court in June rejected an earlier Trump appeal concerning a separate case that Carroll won.Trump’s complaints about the court mask the fact that the administration has had plenty of wins, in particular in emergency cases that reach the court via what is known colloquially as the “shadow docket.”The cour...