SOTU: Chief Justice Roberts, other SCOTUS members, to face Trump after tariff rebuke

Chief Justice John Roberts has attended every State of the Union address since being confirmed to the Supreme Court more than 25 years ago, notwithstanding his past criticism of the event as a "political pep rally."

On Tuesday night, Roberts, who heads the judicial branch of government, is expected to again be seated stoically in the front row -- this time facing a president angry and agitated about the court's invalidation on Friday of his signature global tariffs policy.

LIVE UPDATES: Pres. Trump to deliver State of the Union address on ABC

"Our incompetent supreme court did a great job for the wrong people, and for that they should be ashamed of themselves," Trump posted Monday on his social media platform, not capitalizing the court's name, saying it had shown a "complete lack of respect."

He was even more pointed and personal Friday during a news conference shortly after the ruling, calling Roberts and the five other justices who voted against his tariffs, including two he nominated -- Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett - "very unpatriotic and disloyal to our Constitution."

Whether Trump delivers that criticism to the justices in person remains to be seen.

Direct attacks on the court or individual justices by a president during the State of the Union address or public remarks outside of it are historically rare but not unprecedented.

President Joseph R. Biden's final State of the Union Address had pointed words for Chief Justice Roberts and members of the court's conservative majority after they overruled Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark decision legalizing abortion nationwide.

"With all due respect, justices," he said during the nationally televised speech in 2024, "you're about to realize" the political power of women angered by the decision.

More than a dozen years earlier, it was President Barack Obama who confronted the court's conservatives over their rollback of campaign finance regulations in the Citizens United decision.

"With all due deference to separation of powers," Obama said in 2010, the ruling "will open the floodgates for special interests - including foreign corporations - to spend without limit in our elections."

As Democrats applauded the criticism, Justice Samuel Alito was caught on camera shaking his head and mouthing "not true."

"My mistake was that I didn't think about the fact that the text is distributed to the media ahead of time. They knew that the president was going to talk about the Supreme Court, so they had their cameras on us," Alito told the Wall Street Journal after the episode. "That's why it's a sore point."

Alito hasn't attended a State of the Union address since.

One of the earliest instances of a presidential rebuke of the court during a State of the Union was in President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's 1937 address when he was feuding with the justices over New Deal cases and wanted to pack the court with more favorable members.

'Very uncomfortable' for justices

Many justices over the years have described attendance at the State of the Union address as a high-pressure and highly uncomfortable experience, balancing a desire to represent the institution in a spirit of national unity with a desire to avoid any appearance of political bias.

"It has turned into a childish spectacle," Justice Antonin Scalia said in 2013. "I don't want to be there to lend dignity to it."

Justice Clarence Thomas, who was confirmed in 1991, has not attended the annual address since 2006. It has "become so partisan and it's very uncomfortable for a judge to sit there," he said in a 2010 interview.

"The image of having the members of one branch of government standing up, literally surrounding the Supreme Court, cheering and hollering, while the court, according to the requirements of protocol, has to sit there expressionless, I think is very troubling," Roberts told students at the University of Alabama Law School that same year.

Justices Elena Kagan and Brett Kavanaugh have consistently attended the State of the Union as a show of support for the court as an institution, sources close to the justices have said.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, and Ketanji Brown Jackson have each attended most, but not all, addresses since taking the bench.

A court spokeswoman declined to confirm which justices are expected to attend Tuesday night.

"I think it is very, very, very, important -- very important -- for us to show up at that State of the Union," now-retired Justice Stephen Breyer told Fox News in 2010. "Because people today, as you know, are more and more visual and I would like them to see the judges too, because federal judges are also part of that government."

Trump criticizes despite win streak

While none of the current justices has directly addressed Trump's latest criticism of the court, many have said publicly that they expect and even welcome unfriendly feedback about their decisions.

"I think that justices and all judges are public figures and public criticism kind of comes with the job," Justice Barrett told a judicial conference in 2023. "I've acquired a thick skin."

Roberts has praised critiques of the court's work as an important sign of public engagement and free speech, but also lamented the politicization of rhetoric. Some of it is "not terribly helpful," Roberts told a gathering of federal judges last year.

Trump's pointed attacks on the court and, in particular, Roberts, Gorsuch and Barrett, come despite the justices' consistent votes in his favor over the past year.

The court's conservative majority has approved nearly all of the president's unprecedented number of emergency applications seeking a green light for government layoffs, federal funding freezes, expedited removal of immigrants, and expulsion of transgender military service members.

In 2024, the court extended sweeping immunity to Trump in the face of criminal prosecution, and last year sharply limited the ability of lower court judges to issue nationwide injunctions to block his policies.

"Thank you again. Thank you again. Won't forget," Trump told Roberts last March as they shook hands following the president's address to a joint session of Congress. The caught-on-camera moment went viral.

Trump later clarified on social media that he was thanking Roberts for "doing a really good job" swearing him in for a second term.

Notwithstanding his disappointment over tariffs, the president is still looking to the high court for favorable rulings on other major cases still pending, including his ability to remove a member of the Federal Reserve, redefine birthright citizenship, and fire members of independent federal agencies.

Those decisions are expected by the end of June when the court's term concludes, but could come as soon as this week when the justices release more decisions on Tuesday and Wednesday.