President Trump used a National Republican Congressional Committee dinner Thursday night to deliver an extraordinary attack on two of his own Supreme Court appointees, declaring that Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett sicken him because they voted against his broad tariff authority. "Two of the people that voted for that, I appointed, and they sicken me," Trump told the assembled Republican lawmakers. "They sicken me because they're bad for our country." He added that bad courts are costing the nation a tremendous amount of money and charged that the Supreme Court ruling had cost the country hundreds of billions of dollars. Fox Business confirmed Trump's specific quotes; CNBC and The Hill also reported the remarks. Chief Justice John Roberts separately cautioned against personal attacks on judges — a warning broadly understood as a response to Trump's escalating rhetoric.

The remarks refer to the Supreme Court's February 20, 2026, decision in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, in which six justices held 6-3 that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not give the president authority to unilaterally impose tariffs. The majority concluded the law cited to justify the import duties does not authorize the president to impose tariffs. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh dissented. Trump had used IEEPA to impose wide-ranging tariffs on imports from dozens of countries, generating a 275 percent year-over-year increase in federal tariff collections — roughly $124 billion for the fiscal year — before the ruling compelled refunds of duties collected under the invalidated authority.

Trump responded to the ruling on the day it was announced by invoking Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, imposing a 10 percent global tariff, then raising it to 15 percent the following day. He has vowed to pursue other legal avenues to maintain import duties. The auto industry's 25 percent Section 232 tariffs on foreign vehicles and parts remain unaffected by the IEEPA ruling because they were imposed under separate statutory authority. CNBC confirmed that despite the president's rhetorical escalation, his administration has continued to pursue alternative tariff mechanisms rather than directly defying the court's ruling.

Legal observers and bar associations warned that Trump's personal attacks on sitting justices cross a constitutional line by threatening the independence of a co-equal branch. The NYC Bar Association stated Trump's remarks constitute a calculated and dangerous assault on the independence of the judiciary. SCOTUSblog noted that while presidents have long criticized court decisions, calling specific justices by name as personally noxious is nearly without precedent in the modern era. Supporters of the tariff policy argued the criticism reflects genuine frustration that the Court overruled an economic strategy that was generating significant federal revenue.