A Confidence Crisis At The Supreme Court?

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Thursday, April 23rd, 2026. I'm Dave Anthony. The Supreme Court is under more scrutiny, and not just from President Trump, who keeps criticizing its tariff ruling. The court itself is now becoming a point of controversy with leaks and also public statements by justices that seem to attack their colleagues or attack decisions. I'm Chris Foster. It's a holiday for big football fans, day one of the NFL draft. They did their research based on a few things like this. What times the guy get to practice? What's the guy doing in college in between classes? Is he fanatical about football? Is he fanatical about preparation? Is he fanatical about his diet? And I'm Nicky Beaver. I've got the final word on the Fox News Rundown. He has appointed a third of the Supreme Court. But President Trump continues to be critical in a long truth social rant, writing that certain, quote-unquote, Republican justices have gone weak, stupid, and bad. Still angry about their ruling on tariffs like he was in February. Disappointing. And I'm ashamed of certain members of the court, absolutely ashamed for not having the courage to do what's right for our country. They avoided many of the Trump tariffs, ruling the president, exceeded his authority, attempting to use emergency powers. In yesterday's post, he also wrote of the court also rules against our country on birthright citizenship, which he says they probably will. It'll be even worse for our country. The president attended... Those arguments at the court three weeks ago, when Solicitor General John Sauer argued the Trump executive order being challenged will rightly prevent babies born to people here illegally from being granted citizenship. Based on Chinese media reports, there are 500. 500 birth tourism companies in the People's Republic of China whose business is to bring people here to give birth and return to that nation. Having said all that, you do agree that that has no impact on the legal analysis before us. That's Chief Justice John Roberts, who's also overseeing a court dealing with leaks from the inside about cases in addition to Trump criticism. Well, I'm not too sure the court is feeling much pressure, but certainly there have been few presidents that have been more active in criticizing the court. Jonathan Turley is a professor of public interest law at George Washington University and a Fox News contributor. But I think the more serious issue for the court is an erosion of its culture, that the court itself is... now becoming a point of controversy with leaks and also public statements by justices that seem to attack their colleagues or attack decisions. It has not been a great period for Chief John Roberts. He's someone who is fiercely loyal to the court as an institution. And this must really run against the grain for John Roberts. Okay.

What do you think bothers him the most? Presidential criticism or the leaks? I think the leaks. You know, he famously said in his confirmation that judges are like umpires. Umpires don't make the rules. They apply them. And then he said, nobody ever went to a game to see the umpire. Well. they're now going to this game to see the umpires. I mean, the justices are in the news almost every day with certainly unwarranted comments, it seems. You know, you had Justice Sotomayor who recently criticized Brett Kavanaugh is essentially an out-of-touch prig, who has never met an hourly wage worker. It was unfair. She ultimately withdrew the comment, but that comes after other comments from justices that were very controversial. And now there is this leak which deals with a 10-year-old memorandum. The key about that memorandum is that it was really a... collection of comments between the justices on how they felt about the shadow docket. And that really goes to the very heart of the court's culture. You know, this, the court has always been insular and civil in a city that floats on a rolling sea of leaks. This was an island of integrity. Now, it seems like there are leaks being made with a real malicious purpose. Okay. The shadow docket. So what, boiled down what the New York Times put out there from leaks from internal memos. What did we learn? Well, this particular leak really came in the context of an EPA case that really worried the court. And the problem was that it was taking so long for these cases to work their way through the ordinary system that the Obama administration was essentially forcing utilities to make all types of expensive changes. And the justices had a very frank discussion. including Chief John Roberts, saying, look, this isn't a good idea. He wrote that the absence of a stay allowed the agency to effectively implement an important program we held to be contrary to the law. And he was referring to that Michigan v. EPA ruling. Now, sometimes we hear from the justices publicly. Last week, Clarence Thomas gave a speech at the University of Texas. And Thomas, as you'd expect, at a conservative viewpoint. Progressivism seeks to replace the basic premises of the Declaration of Independence, and hence our form of government. It holds that our rights and our dignities come not from God, but from government. It requires of the people a subservience. Thomas has been on the Supreme Court longer than any of the nine justices since 1991.

Well, it doesn't concern me in the sense of influencing the court or coercing the justices. I think that the EKG on this is flat for the justes. They just don't react to that type of statement. However, I have criticized the president repeatedly for his attacks on judges and justices. These are often personal attacks that I think are unwarranted. The irony about this is that... President Trump made three outstanding choices for justices. The Trump justices have proven to be, you know, quite profound in many of their writings. I don't always agree with them. But they also have shown exactly what President Trump said he wanted, that is justices that follow principle, not politics. I think they're a great credit to his legacy, and that's what baffles me. Now, the birthright citizen capes, he attended part of that hearing to listen to some of the arguments. What do you think the court might do? I know that people try to read into the questions justices ask at these kinds of hearings. This is going to be a case people are really going to be waiting for that ruling on later this year. Yeah, I was surprised many people criticized Trump for attending. I was sort of surprised that no president had attended oral arguments in the past. I see nothing wrong with it. I actually think it's a good thing. Your justices go to the state of the union to listen to a president. I don't think there's anything wrong with the president going and listening to a major oral argument. Before the oral argument, I said that I believed that the Trump administration would lose. And after the argument that that view was reinforced. There's a long line of precedent where the court has said that the 14th Amendment recognizes birthright citizenship. I happen to think there are very compelling arguments to suggest that that was not the intent of the framers of the or the drafters of the 14th Amendment. Some of them expressly said that they did not believe this supports birthright citizenship, but others said something to the contrary. So it's a mess. And so. Despite all the criticism, the president has thrown on some of the justices that he appointed or others who were considered conservative, they have ruled in his favor on a lot of things, just not tariffs and maybe not birthright citizenship, correct? Yeah, and they have, you know, his batting record is slightly above past presidents. It's certainly not lower than past presidents. This is a conservative court that has made significant changes in line with what the president has argued politically. That's why I'm so baffled by these attacks and why I think they are so unfair. I mean, these are justices they're trying to get it right. But they are not robotic. And they're not just yielding because they believe that their party demands that of them. I also, by the way, I think it's unfair to treat the liberal justices that way. Elena Kagan just recently and a couple of occasions departed in terms of her liberal colleagues. She has voted with the right of the court. Jonathan Turley, Fox News contributor.

Professor of Public Interest Law, George Washington University constitutional expert. Great to have you on. Thanks, as always. Great pleasure, Dave. Thank you. This is a new era of American innovation. Google is offering free AI training to U.S. small businesses with a Google AI professional certificate so they can start using AI to get more done. Learn more at G.com slash American Innovation. This week on the Fox True Crime podcast, Psychotherapist and author Lena Durholy breaks down the mind of Chris Watts and the warning signs behind one of America's most disturbing family murders. Listen and follow now at Fox True Crime. This is Nikki Beaver with your Fox News commentary coming up. Hundreds of thousands of football fans are in Pittsburgh for the three-day National Football League draft starting tonight. The last time the draft was in Pittsburgh was before the 1948 season, when picks were sometimes kept secret to keep players from being poached by the league's rival All-America Football Conference. The first pick that year was Alabama quarterback Harry Gilmer, taken by the Washington Redskins. The Las Vegas Raiders have the first pick tonight. and it's universally expected to be Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza. After his undefeated National Championship Heisman Trophy-winning season, here after the title game against Miami in January. If you have optimism in yourself and positive belief, no matter if you're too small, too big, or too whatever, you can do it. You need to have self-belief in yourself, and then God will prosper. And if you're just one around you like we do, it would all prosper and work out on the end. It was Indiana's first ever national football championship. I went to all the games, the Rose Bowl, the semi-final in the final with my wife and my stepdaughter and my daughter. Dan Dockich is a former Indiana and Bowling Green State basketball. Basketball coach and host of the Don't At Me podcast on Outkick. And they all said the same thing to me. Dad, or Dan, you're having the same conversations with all your Indiana buddies. Like, can you believe we're here? Can you believe we got a Heisman trophy winner? Like, you know, I was there at Indiana 17 years as a player and as a coach, and I went to every home football game. Everyone that I was in town for, and in those 17 years, I stayed for one second half. One. It was 19, I think it was 87. We beat Michigan and my mom and dad were there, so we stayed. And that's what you did at Indiana. You went for a great tailgate. You went for the party, went into the game, halftime, and next thing you know, we got the number one pick in the draft. We got a national championship. We got undefeated. We got a big 10 title. It's impossible. So good for Fernando Mendoza seems like.

A great kid. I have never met him. I've paid close attention to him, and I look forward to seeing what he's going to do as a number one pick. After Fernando, what do you think about the class in general this year? Deep, shallow, top-heavy, spread out. I think it's a very boring draft, and I hate to say that. I'm anxious to see what the safety from Ohio State. Everybody, Caleb Downs, does. I'm also anxious to see, are there going to be two quarterbacks in the first round? A lot of people think Ty Simpson, the quarterback from Alabama, had great interviews. I watched him in person in the Rose Bowl. I thought he was okay. Indiana's defense dominated him. But honestly, I think most of us, you know, we don't really pay attention to who the offensive linemen are, the defensive linemen. I think most of us pay attention to, you know, like next year's draft is going to be a ton of quarterbacks, you know, Arch Manning and all. And I think we'll have more interest there. But I think it's kind of a boring setup to a draft, even though, again, as an Indiana guy, our guy's going to go number one. So I'll watch the number one pick, and I may put it on the shelf for a while. So is this a year or is that a year? When do you draft for need? And when do you draft to get the best available guy? Like, for example, Caleb Downs, you imagine he's a safety. The Giants pick fifth, and they could use a guy like that. So do you go for a guy like Caleb Downs, or do you let him fall and take the best skill position guy? You know, I've never understood being definite either way, meaning we don't draft for need or we always draft for the best available. I don't understand either of those. I think that sometimes, you know, taking the best one available doesn't really help you if you already have really good players at that particular position. Or sometimes taking for need isn't really helpful if the player isn't good enough. You know, somebody may be rated as a number one. Let's take. He may be rated as a number one safety, and we need a safety, so we're going to get this guy. But I got to know what I can get elsewhere. I got to know what I can get in the free agent market. I got to know what I could get who's going to be maybe cut from another team that may be better. And I've talked to numerous general managers and assistant general managers and scouts. And, you know, it's kind of fascinating. Everybody has different opinions on it. But the majority of people that I talk to... have helped me form my opinion that there's really no one specific way. I think teams are organic. I think they evolve. They develop. And having a set way, at least according to the people that I've talked to in the NFL, isn't really good business. Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. And with the Raiders sitting at number one and a bunch of other teams in the top 10, they need quarterbacks. A lot of teams need quarterbacks every year. And then that's when you see teams maybe reach and wish cast and be like, yeah, I think this guy might be an NFL quarterback when you never really know. Well, you can talk yourself into anything. You can talk yourself into anything from, you know, marriage. Oh, man, this girl is the only one I can get. She's great. Or this guy is okay. He's not perfect, but blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. In every profession, once you start talking yourself into something, and maybe it's a player, maybe it's a quarterback.

You know, eventually you've got to live with that decision. And if you're talking yourself, which means you're probably exaggerating or accentuating the things you want to like, well, eventually you've got to live with them. I wonder, and I don't have any data on this, I wonder. if you looked at the psychology of certain draft choices, how many times a team that was iffy on a player started making excuses, drafted that player, I'd be curious how many times that worked out as opposed to how many times it didn't work out. I think it'd be fascinating. What kinds of questions are teams asking potential draftees? I mean, are you using character and psychology and makeup, whatever you want to call it, is sort of a tiebreaker between similarly talented players, or is that makeup stuff a must? No, the makeup stuff is a must, particularly a quarterback position. Bill Parcells and Bill Belichick used to come to IU when I was working for Coach Knight, and I always sat and picked their brains. I would sit and meetings with them as fun. And they always talked about Michael Jim Jordan. They always talked about you've got to be a killer. And they put their questions or they did their research based on a few things like this. What time's the guy get to practice? What's the guy doing in college in between classes? Meaning he has class that ends at 10, doesn't have another one until after practice. Is he in the building? Is he fanatical? about football? Is he fanatical about preparation? Is he fanatical about his diet? Is he fanatical about his work in terms of learning offenses, studying the defense of other teams? And when you read, if I want to draft a quarterback, I want to draft a Peyton Manning. Peyton Manning here in Indy, legendary, things like this. During OTAs, which are in the spring, when they were over, he would drive after the draft three hours to go to Ohio State because Anthony Gonzalez, their first round pick, was still in school. And he would work out with him in Columbus and then drive back and be at O. He was fanatical. Tom Brady, fanatical. Andrew Luck didn't quite have the same level of fanaticism. So I got to do everything that I can. I got to research, whether it's with assistant coaches, weight coaches. trainers, everybody involved to find out what is this guy's level of commitment, particularly at the quarterback. The drafts in Pittsburgh this year, Dan, this is a, you know, it's become this hardcore thing. Decades ago, it was a bunch of guys with cigars in a, you know, in a crappy hotel ballroom with, you know, with bad carpeting. You know, you read about it in the paper the next day, and now it's a real thing to the point where hundreds of thousands of people are going to hit this city and double the population and they cancel school for three days. I guess it's good for the sport. The NFL has become 365 days, and this is one of the reasons why, because not only the draft day, but it's three days, right? I'm old enough to remember this. I'm from Gary, Indiana, outside Chicago. I wanted to Chicago Bears who draft a guy named Don Hardiman, who is a running back from Houston.

I had a wait to get the Gary Post Tribune the next morning. I can still remember running upstairs. The paper was under our mat. I opened it up, and they drafted a guy named Walter Payton, and I was pissed. Where the hell is Jackson State? I don't know how old I was, but now it's like, man. General managers get influenced by public opinion now. Like you just described the way it was, right? You think anybody was influencing some guy with a cigar? Nobody even knew who half the players were. Every year it seems like we hear about a guy like the Zachariah Branch. Georgia wide receiver projected to come out. you know, second round somewhere maybe. How much money does he cost himself by getting popped on Sunday on some misdemeanor charges? I don't quite know all the details, but still, is that the time you want to be acting up? Hey, man, when you're LeBron James and you're going in the NBA draft, you can do whatever the hell you want to. Right. To the point. When you're a second round pick and what that means is, all right, I'm going to make a team. I'm going to get good money. But no, that's not the time. It's incredibly stupid. And Georgia has had a history of incredibly stupid, but I will say this. There is also a saying in coach and make sure that your ability overcomes your stupidity. Yeah. And I don't know why there branches that guy. Again, he's a second round pick, which is tremendous. I mean, awesome. But he ain't a first round pick. He ain't a top five pick. You know, that Laramie Tunsell had the mask on smoking weed and it got leaked. And, you know, he fell a little bit, but he was so good as a tackle that people still drafted him. So no, in answering your question, hell no. You should almost put yourself in saran wrap, lock yourself in your basement, watch cartoons, watch movies, play video games. as opposed to, well, he wouldn't leave. The cops, there was some incident. He was standing. The cops said, you've got to clear this area. He told him to go blank off. And next thing you know, he's got a couple of misdemeanors, and he's in the paper, which you don't want to be at this time. Hell no. We're a few years now into college players getting paid. Is this growing pains now, or is the whole thing irreparably broken? Or is that just your point of view? And you could just say, well, it's fine. Is the way things are, let the kids get their money? You know, people say it's broken. I don't think so. Again, I'm biased. This is totally homerism, but I watched my school Indiana, which we always stunk, you know, whether you want to say money was involved or great coaching or both, won a national championship. And I'm going to tell you, I was at the Rose Bowl. Nobody cared about the money and nobody cared about NIL. I was at the semi-final Atlanta national championship game in Miami. Nobody cared about any of it. I think it's yet to come.

There's going to come a time when donors say enough. You know, Indiana last year, my basketball program gave, I think it was two years ago, gave $2 million to a guy. And they didn't make the NCAA tournament. Last year they did the same thing, didn't make the NCAA tournament. Now, you're telling me you're going to go back to those donors and ask for more money? I don't know. But the truth of the matter is, ratings are great. The NCAA tournament was a massive success. But I think as we move forward, it's going to be interesting. But I don't think the sports broke yet. But we're only about two or three years into this. I'm anxious to see where we're at five years from now and see where this whole thing leads. All right, Dan, enjoy the draft. Dan Dockich, host a Don't At Me over on Outkick, member of the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame. Hey, thanks, Dan. Thank you. This is a new era of American innovation. Google AI is helping Americans stay safe from scams, from real-time scam detection on pixel to proactive fishing blocking in Gmail. Learn more at g.co slash American innovation. I'm Dana Perino. This week on Perino on politics, I'm joined by Fox News congressional correspondent Bill Malusian. Listen and follow now at Fox News Podcast.com. Or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Must listen to podcasts from Fox News Audio. Subscribe to this podcast at Fox News Podcasts.com. It's time for your Fox News commentary. Nikki Beaver. What's on your mind? Let's be honest about what happened on April 21st. Voters across Virginia were asked to ratify an amendment that a sitting circuit court judge had already declared void, not once but twice, calling it a blatant abuse of power. They were sold on the word fairness on the ballot while Democrats designed a map that hands them 10 of Virginia's 11 congressional districts. They were told this was about the people's voice, funded by $93 million in largely anonymous cash, with $40 million flowing from House Democrat leadership's own political operation. If they were doing the right thing, they wouldn't have had to buy the election. And the people of Virginia, particularly in rural communities, saw through it. Early voting was up across 70-plus rural Republican localities. Communities that rarely make national headlines turned out in force to say no to a gerrymander designed in a backroom by the same Richmond politicians who raised taxes and cultivated failing schools. That energy is real. It's not going away, and we are going to need it in November. But Democrat celebrations of the vote might be premature. The legal fight is not over. The constitutional defects here are not minor. Now we have to trust the court to do its job. And if the court does its job, Republicans must be ready to fight the next battle. The RNC, the NRCC, Congressman Ben Klein and Morgan Griffith filed suit because the process was corrupt from the start.

Not because Republicans are afraid of competition. We are not afraid of competition. We are afraid of a system where constitutional guardrails are demolished whenever the other side decides they're inconvenient. Today, it's Virginia. Tomorrow, it's your state. This is the broader war Democrats have declared. When President Trump and Republican governors used the legal redistricting process to draw competitive maps in Texas, Missouri, and North Carolina, Democrats screamed about gerrymandering. Then they turned around and drew a map in Virginia, that is, by any objective measure, the most aggressively gerrymandered congressional map in the country. Republican women across this country need to understand what is at stake. If this map stands, Democrats could pick up four house seats in Virginia alone, potentially enough. to flip the majority and end the legislative agenda that is delivering for American families. The courts must consider the referendum's wobbly constitutionality. Our voters showed up in record numbers in places no one expected. And when the Virginia Supreme Court issues its ruling, potentially within weeks, we need to be ready to mobilize, organize, and amplify whatever comes next. They spent $64 million to win by three points in a friendly state. We need to spend our energy making sure that investment never pays off. Fight on. I'm Nikki Beaver, political and communications director at the National Federation of Republican Women. You've been listening to the Fox News Rundown. And now, stay up to date by subscribing to this podcast at Fox News Podcasts.com. Listen ad-free on Fox News Podcasts plus on Apple Podcasts. And Prime members can listen to the show ad-free on Amazon Music. And for up-to-the-minute news, go to Fox News.com.

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