A decision by Donald Trump to flip out on Truth Social and unload on a close associate of multiple Supreme Court justices will likely come back to haunt him.
That is according to Politico's Senior Legal Affairs correspondent Josh Gerstein who told the hosts on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that the president may have obliterated a great deal of SCOTUS good will he could count on when he called conservative judicial activist Leonard Leo a "sleazebag."
After Trump tariff war was put on a temporary pause on Thursday, he turned to his Truth Social account to post an extraordinarily long and vicious attack on Leo as well as the Federalist Society which is home to a wide array of conservative attorneys and judges.
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In part, the president wrote, "I was new to Washington, and it was suggested that I use The Federalist Society as a recommending source on Judges. I did so, openly and freely, but then realized that they were under the thumb of a real 'sleazebag' named Leonard Leo, a bad person who, in his own way, probably hates America, and obviously has his own separate ambitions. He openly brags how he controls Judges, and even Justices of the United States Supreme Court — I hope that is not so, and don’t believe it is! In any event, Leo left The Federalist Society to do his own 'thing.'"
According to Gerstein, Trump will come to regret the attack.
"Leo is somebody who's very close to those justices and we're already seeing signs, right, that the three Trump appointees are not so firmly in Trump's camp as some would have expected," the legal expert told the panel.
"And to have that kind of unhinged attack calling Leonard Leo a sleazebag, the word the president used, I mean, it's almost incomprehensible," he added before recalling, "The last time I saw Leonard Leo was last fall at the Federalist Society conference, and he was not schmoozing with other, you know, wealthy lawyers who were there or other conservative legal activists who were there. He was sitting in the lobby of the Hilton Hotel that I know you all are very familiar with, chatting with a Catholic priest and a Catholic nun, okay, so the guy is not a sleazebag."
"There are people that will have disagreements and criticisms, will say he's anti-majoritarian, those are all things that I think one can debate as reasonable criticism," he pointed out. "But to call him a sleazebag is just sort of bizarre lashing out at someone because you didn't get your way and I don't think that's going to sit well with his friends on the Supreme Court."
You can watch below or at the link.
- YouTubeyoutu.be
