Trump Demands Total Loyalty From Supreme Court Justices He Appointed

The president has publicly declared that the Supreme Court should cave to his whims, penning that it’s “OK” for his appointees to “be loyal.”

In a lengthy Truth Social rant Sunday, Donald Trump railed against justices he appointed to the nation’s highest judiciary, wondering how he’s supposed to “reconcile” rulings that he claimed were ideologically opposed to his agenda.

Trump called out Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett by name, whining that “they were appointed by me, and yet have hurt our Country so badly” by ruling against his tariff proposal. The Supreme Court deemed Trump’s “liberation day” tariffs illegal in February, throwing not only the White House’s wildly controversial economic plan but also the primary driver behind the administration’s foreign policy agenda, out of whack.

He blamed the fallout of his illegal tariffs on the bench’s decision, claiming that the Supreme Court—rather than the judgment of his own office—had cost the country $159 billion by putting the U.S. in a position to “pay back to enemies.” Trump further lamented that the justices should have specified that the U.S. did not need to pay anyone back for his office’s failure, and he did not seem to understand why the court could not have done so.

“With certain Republican Nominated Justices that we have on the Supreme Court, the Democrats don’t really need to ‘PACK THE COURT’ any longer,” Trump continued. “In fact, I should be the one wanting to PACK THE COURT! I’m working so hard to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, and then people that I appointed have shown so little respect to our Country, and its people. What is the reason for this?

“They have to do the right thing, but it’s really OK for them to be loyal to the person that appointed them to ‘almost’ the highest position in the land, that is, a Justice of the United States Supreme Court,” Trump wrote.

He baselessly claimed that justices appointed by Democratic presidents have “always [remained] true to the people that honored them”—a bold-faced lie that is regularly disproven, including in cases this year.

The sudden anxiety about his apparently fragile judicial loyalties appeared to be spurred by the court’s highly anticipated decision on birthright citizenship, a constitutionally protected right that Trump has attempted to dismantle since the moment his second term began. The court’s decision is expected to be released sometime in June.

Trump recalled his visit to the Supreme Court last month to sit in on the birthright citizenship hearings—a choice that made him the first sitting president in U.S. history to watch in person while the bench worked. He said that based on what he saw, he believes the court “will be ruling against us on Birthright Citizenship, making us the only Country in the World that practices this unsustainable, unsafe, and incredibly costly DISASTER.”

“I don’t want loyalty, but I do want and expect it for our Country,” Trump wrote.

He then specified that he has other ways of enacting his tariff agenda that are “far slower” than the plan deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, and suggested that the judiciary should step outside of their job and their oaths of office to consider what’s “good” for the country rather than what’s illegal.

“Well, maybe Neil, and Amy, just had a really bad day, but our Country can only handle so many decisions of that magnitude before it breaks down, and cracks!!!” Trump continued. “Sometimes decisions have to be allowed to use Good, Strong, Common Sense as a guide. A negative ruling on Birthright Citizenship, on top of the recent Supreme Court Tariff catastrophe, is not Economically sustainable for the United States of America!”

Americans could soon lose access to some widely used antidepressant medications.

As Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. prepares to wean the country off mental health medications, U.S. Health Department officials explored last week whether the department had the ability to ban certain treatments within a class known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, better known as SSRIs, Reuters reported Friday.

That class of drugs includes Zoloft, Prozac, and Lexapro, which have been approved for public use for decades. People familiar with the conversations did not reveal to Reuters which drugs the Trump administration is in talks to restrict.

HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon denied the report, declaring in a statement that Kennedy’s department “has not had any discussions about ​banning SSRIs, and any claims suggesting otherwise are false.”

Yet the writing is on the wall. Kennedy blamed the country’s mental health crisis on medication earlier this week, announcing at a daylong mental health summit that America is suffering from a “dependency crisis driven by overmedicalization” of mental health and wellness. Kennedy also unveiled new policies that he said would rein in the prescription of the widely used drugs, though he explained that while he intends to steer America’s health institutions away from prescribing psychiatric medications, those currently on them should not stop doing so.

Kennedy has railed against the use of mental health medication for years, even going so far as to spread falsehoods that antidepressants and other medications are the real underlying reason for school shootings and mass murder (as opposed to a lack of adequate gun control).

A 2026 study published in the medical journal BMJ Mental Health found that roughly one in six U.S. adults are currently taking antidepressant medications—an uptick from previous decades. Between 2005 and 2008, just 11 percent of people above the age of 12 were using the mood stabilizers, according to CDC data.

The American Psychiatric Association lists SSRIs as the first option for depression as an evidence-based treatment.

“There are a lot of prescriptions because there are a lot of folks with illnesses that can respond to these medications,” including depression and several anxiety disorders, Dr. J. John Mann of the New York State Psychiatric Institute told Reuters. “Restricting use of these medications is not justifiable medically.”

Two press freedom groups are warning that Larry Ellison may “implement the CBS playbook” at CNN by getting rid of all the anchors President Donald Trump doesn’t like.

In a letter sent Thursday to Paramount Skydance, Freedom of the Press Foundation and Reporters Without Borders demanded to see internal documents, alleging that there was “credible concern that Paramount leadership has offered, solicited, or effectuated a corrupt exchange: more favorable coverage of the Trump administration and its allies in exchange for favorable treatment by Trump administration antitrust and media regulators.”

The groups warned that since taking over Paramount, Ellison had “wielded the company to benefit Trump and cater to his preferences,” and had promised to do the same to CNN if given the chance.

Referring to a story The Guardian reported in November, the letter said: “Ellison reportedly raised the possibility that Paramount would include CNN in the purchase, then implement the CBS playbook: transforming CNN’s programming and firing anchors and commentators Trump dislikes.”

Following the Ellison takeover of Paramount, and the installation of Bari Weiss as CBS News editor in chief, there has been a talent exodus from the network, including Anderson Cooper, longtime 60 Minutes executive producer Bill Owens, CBS News producer Mary Walsh, and CBS Evening News producer Alicia Hastey. 60 Minutes host Sharyn Alfonsi will also reportedly exit her role at the end of May after clashing with Weiss.

Trump has repeatedly railed against CNN and lashed out at its stable of journalists, claiming the network is “fake news.”

Alabama Republicans approved two redistricting bills Friday, over the objections of Democrats and protesters who shouted their disapproval in the state Capitol. 

Republican Governor Kay Ivey immediately signed into law the legislation, which would redraw the state Senate map and allow for new congressional primaries in the state if the Supreme Court lifts an injunction against drawing new congressional maps before 2030. Voters had already begun casting ballots in this year’s primaries.

Protesters filled the state Capitol on Friday, shouting their disapproval of both bills, and at one point, debate was halted in the House.

“And I know we are going to redistrict here at some point, and we are going to look at some of the census data, and you are going to look at some of the people in this room, you are going to look at me in the face, you are going to shake my hand, say everything nice, and you are going to redraw my district so I can’t come back,” Democratic state Representative Chris England, who is Black, said during the debate. He and other Democrats brought up Alabama’s legacy of segregation and voter suppression.

But Alabama Republicans weren’t deterred. “Alabama now stands ready to quickly act, should the courts issue favorable rulings in our ongoing redistricting cases,” Kay said in a statement after signing the legislation. 

The move comes on the heels of the Supreme Court’s decision last week in Louisiana v. Callais, which gutted the Voting Rights Act and spurred Republican-led states across the South to begin redistricting procedures that would dilute majority-Black districts. But Alabama Republicans’ congressional effort may run afoul of that ruling, according to the ACLU of Alabama, which said in a statement that it was planning a lawsuit.

“For several years now, the court has been consistent: Alabama violated the 14th Amendment by intentionally discriminating against Black voters in its congressional and legislative maps,” ACLU of Alabama Director JaTaune Bosby Gilchrist said. “The Callais opinion even agrees.”  

The U.S. secretary of transportation is supposed to oversee America’s transportation policy, but Sean Duffy has spent a chunk of his tenure galavanting across the country with his family.

The road trip, filmed “over the course of seven months,” was fodder for an upcoming reality television show called The Great American Road Trip, Duffy revealed Friday. The series was launched in partnership with Fox News, and is set to be released on YouTube in the lead-up to America’s 250th birthday.

But not all 50 states will get airtime. Instead, Duffy’s multimonth trip hit just eight states—most of them conservative bastions—as well as the nation’s capital: Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Florida, Texas, Arizona, Montana, Massachusetts, and Washington, D.C.

In a promotional interview on Fox News Friday, Duffy confessed that the trek was his idea.

“I wanted to lean in to America’s 250th birthday,” Duffy said, reminding the panel that he and his wife, Rachel Campos-Duffy, met on a road trip for MTV’s Real World spinoff, Road Rules: All Stars, in 1998.

“And so over the course of seven months we just kind of found these moments where I might be able to do some work, take the kids with me, do a road trip—and our motto is, ‘To love America is to see America.’” Duffy continued, “There’s so much to see in this beautiful country.” (He later clarified on X that the series “was filmed in short, one to two day production windows—such as weekends and the kids’ spring break.”)

Campos-Duffy said the straight-to-streaming family vacation emerged out of a prompt from Donald Trump, who urged his Cabinet to find ways to celebrate America ahead of the 250th anniversary.

“We thought we were going to do it on our iPhones and just do little reels, but then we started talking about it and we were like, ‘Let’s go back to our roots! Let’s do this one for free, we’ll put it onto YouTube, we’ll let the whole country see it,’” Campos-Duffy said. “Just one more family says, ‘Load up the car and let’s go spend time together, let’s make these memories, let’s see America during her birthday year.’

“Then we said we’ll have done something wonderful,” she added.

Preempting criticism of the major outing, Campos-Duffy claimed that the rest of America is living in a “PornHub world.”

“This is really wholesome, good family stuff,” she said.

The couple urged American families to do the same, insisting that 2026 is the perfect year to explore the nation—though exactly how Americans are supposed to afford it is not clear.

The cost of oil and gas is through the roof due to the ongoing war with Iran. The average cost of gas nationwide is $4.54 per gallon, with large swaths of the country pushing $5 a gallon, according to the American Automobile Association’s price tracker. That’s about 50 percent higher than before the war started. In some areas of California, such as Mono County, fuel costs are well above $7 per gallon.

Analysts have predicted that high prices are probably here to stay at least through the end of 2026 as the war drags on. Last month, Energy Secretary Chris Wright posited that costs could climb even steeper before the midterm elections.

This article has been updated to clarify the amount of time Duffy spent filming the series.