美国国家公共电台 NPR Trump's Criticism Of Judges Out Of Line With Past Presidents

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Americans are used to the hurly-burly of political and legal debate. But historically, presidents have been careful not to criticize individual judges or their motives 1. Of course, President Trump 2 has broken with a lot of institutional traditions over the last year. And this week, he tweeted and railed against judges who have ordered a temporary halt to his ban on people entering or returning to the U.S. from seven mostly Muslim countries. The president's words left many lawyers and historians on the right and the left aghast, or at least scratching their heads. NPR's legal affairs correspondent, Nina Totenberg, reports.

NINA TOTENBERG, BYLINE 3: To recap briefly 4, President Trump has belittled 5 all four judges who've ruled against him so far in the travel ban case. He's referred to the first judge to rule, a George W. Bush appointee, as a so-called judge. When the case was heard by an appeals court panel, he told a group of police chiefs that even a, quote, "bad high school student" could understand the ban was authorized 6 by law.

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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Courts seem to be so political. And it would be so great for our justice system if they would be able to read a statement and do what's right.

TOTENBERG: The next night, when the appeals court judges, including another Republican appointee, ruled unanimously against him, Trump responded this way.

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TRUMP: It's a political decision, and we're going to see them in court.

TOTENBERG: Presidents, for the most part, avoid public feuds 7 with courts for a very practical reason.

JOSH BLACKMAN: Trump's statements are extremely self-defeating.

TOTENBERG: Josh Blackman is a constitutional law professor at South Texas School of Law.

BLACKMAN: The more he says that the courts are biased 8 and will rule against him because they're stupid, it subconsciously 9 increases the chance that they rule against him.

TOTENBERG: But there's a more serious reason, too, he observes. Under our system of three branches of government, the courts ultimately are the checks on the legislative 10 and executive branches when they exceed or even abuse the limits of their power. Understanding that, presidents going back to the founders 11 have largely refrained from personal attacks on judges. Thomas Jefferson, for instance, avoided publicly berating 12 Chief Justice John Marshall about decisions limiting the power of the president and the legislature. James Simon is the author of four books about the court and the presidency 13.

JAMES SIMON: Jefferson spoke 14 privately 15 about what he called Marshall's twistifications of the law, but he didn't do it publicly.

TOTENBERG: Jeff Shesol, author of a book about Franklin Roosevelt's infamous 16 court packing plan, makes a similar observation.

JEFF SHESOL: Privately, Roosevelt was very bitter about his treatment at the hands of the Supreme 17 Court. But even in the height of the court fight, he never allowed it to get personal in the way that we have heard recently from President Trump.

TOTENBERG: Modern presidents have followed a similar path. Here, for instance, is President George W. Bush after the Supreme Court ruled that prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had the right to challenge their detentions 18.

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GEORGE W. BUSH: We'll abide 19 by the court's decision. That doesn't mean I have to agree with it.

TOTENBERG: President Obama was widely criticized in 2010 for similar comments about a campaign financing decision, mainly because he chose to do it at a State of the Union speech. Still, the tradition is that while presidents are free to criticize court decisions, they should avoid personal attacks on judges. Why? Because judges have no actual power of enforcement. They don't have troops to carry out orders. They have no power of the purse. Yet our system of laws depends on lowly citizens and presidents abiding 20 by court rulings. Throughout our history, the Supreme Court has entered national crises, often preventing presidents from doing what they want to do. Indeed, sometimes the court's verdicts are not vindicated 21 by history. And yet presidents have complied with those rulings.

That gets to the ultimate worry about Trump. Less than a month into his presidency, many leading lawyers and scholars have begun to wonder what would happen if the president ultimately loses this case or another big one. Would he be so sure of his cause that he would refuse to comply? That would undoubtedly 22 provoke a constitutional crisis, and refusal to comply with a Supreme Court decision would almost certainly be grounds for a serious attempt at impeachment 23. Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.