President Donald Trump said he regrets appointing all three of his Supreme Court justices, arguing that Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett have voted against him “too often.”
The president made the striking admission in a wide-ranging interview with TIME at the White House on Sept. 28. The full interview was published Thursday.
Asked directly whether he regretted elevating the three justices to the nation’s highest court, Trump did not hesitate.
“Yeah. Yeah. What can I do? I put them in. They voted against me too often,” Trump said. “I gave them the position of a lifetime, and they vote against me often. They vote for me too.”
Trump drew a sharp contrast between his own picks and the Court’s three Democratic-appointed justices, saying the liberal bloc shows far more allegiance to the presidents and party that put them on the bench.
“The Democrats stick like glue — those three, they virtually never vary,” he said. “You can come up with the worst thing in the world and they’ll vote as a group. And while I don’t like it, there’s something I admire about it: there’s loyalty.”
The president went further, saying the liberal justices remain loyal to Barack Obama and to Joe Biden, “even though Biden doesn’t even know who the hell they are.”
“And me, I gave them the chance of a lifetime, and it’s unfortunate what they did,” Trump added.
The president’s frustration comes after a string of major Supreme Court losses during his second term.
In February, the Court ruled 6-3 that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act did not give Trump the authority to impose his sweeping emergency tariffs. Gorsuch and Barrett joined the controlling opinion, while Kavanaugh dissented.
In June, the Court dealt the administration another blow when it rejected Trump’s effort to restrict birthright citizenship. Barrett sided with Chief Justice John Roberts and the liberal justices in finding the order unconstitutional. Kavanaugh joined a separate majority that concluded it violated federal law. Gorsuch dissented.
One day before that ruling, the justices blocked Trump’s attempt to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook in a 5-4 decision.
In the TIME interview, Trump zeroed in on the tariff and citizenship rulings, calling the tariff decision “disastrous for the country.”
“It’s unfortunate what they did — not to me, to our country,” he said. “Birthright citizenship. It’s becoming a major industry now. People are making millions and millions of dollars, and we’re losing trillions of dollars.”
Trump argued the original birthright citizenship decision “was for the babies of slaves,” not for Chinese nationals “pouring into our country.”
On tariffs, the president said the justices could have added a clause saying money already paid did not have to be refunded, which he said would have saved $400 billion. “They chose not to save that,” he said.
Pressed on whether he wanted loyalty from his own Supreme Court picks, Trump first replied, “I do like loyalty, yeah.”
But when asked specifically whether he expected loyalty from the justices, the president changed course.
“No, I don’t want loyalty. I want good decisions,” Trump said. “I want good decisions for the country.”
“Look, I put these people in. It is what it is,” he added. “Very disappointing for the country. The other ones – they stick like glue. It’s unbelievable, right?”
