MAGA loyalists are furious with one of President Donald Trump's Supreme Court appointees after he refused to hand Republicans an extra House seat in Missouri, calling him a "traitor" just hours after his ruling dropped.
Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh rejected an emergency request Tuesday to preserve new Missouri district lines that would have helped Republicans flip an additional congressional seat ahead of November's midterms, offering no explanation for the decision.
According to The Daily Beast, MAGA accounts flooded X almost immediately, circulating Kavanaugh's official headshot alongside blunt condemnations, while pro-Trump commentators piled on, with one conservative outlet calling the ruling "unbelievable" and another warning it proved the court itself was compromised.
MAGA influencer SteveLovesAmmo responded, “SCOTUS is severely compromised.”
“Brett Kavanaugh is a TRAITOR," added MAGA Voice.
Eric Daughtery called it “SERIOUSLY disappointing.”
The backlash is notable given Kavanaugh's own history: Trump nominated him to the bench in 2018, and Senate Republicans confirmed him despite sexual assault and misconduct allegations at the time.
While Kavanaugh has sided with Trump on issues like immigration and tariffs, he's also broken with the administration before, including on birthright citizenship and Trump's attempt to remove Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook earlier this year.
The Missouri fight is part of a broader nationwide redistricting battle that began last year, when Trump first pressured Texas lawmakers to overhaul their congressional map in a bid to net Republicans five more seats.
Similar mid-decade map redraws have since followed in Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, Louisiana and Alabama.
That puts the GOP ahead by roughly nine seats before a single midterm vote is cast — an edge that should be enough to survive a modest Democratic wave, though recent polling showing an eight-point Democratic lead on the generic ballot suggests that cushion may not be big enough.
A lower Missouri court had already blocked the GOP's new map last week, and Kavanaugh's ruling effectively left the state's older lines in place.
But in a late-night twist, a separate federal judge ordered Missouri to use the Republican-favored map anyway, setting up a fresh appeal that will likely land back at the Supreme Court and keeping the redistricting fight alive.
Missouri's Republican secretary of state, Denny Hoskins, celebrated that second ruling on Facebook with a pointed jab clearly aimed at Kavanaugh's earlier decision, saying, "This victory halts a full-on constitutional crisis."
