Trump shrugging in front of the Supreme Court

Andrea Austria / Media Matters | Trump photo: Gage Skidmore

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Right-wing media cheer SCOTUS immunity ruling as a victory for Trump and attack the dissenting opinion

Written by Gideon Taaffe, Emma Mae Weber & Courtney Hagle

Research contributions from Noah Dowe

Published

In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled on July 1 that presidents can act with “absolute” immunity from criminal prosecution for “official acts” taken while in office, placing the burden on prosecutors to establish that former President Donald Trump’s actions to overturn the 2020 election were “unofficial.” As the conservative majority rewrites the law around executive powers, right-wing media have framed the ruling as a necessary step to prevent the alleged political prosecution of Trump and downplayed the severity of the court’s decision while attacking the dissenting liberal justices as partisan and “hysterical.”

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  • The Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity grants Donald Trump new protections and increases presidential powers

    • The Supreme Court’s ruling that a president has absolute immunity for official acts taken while in office significantly expands presidential powers. As Amy Howe of SCOTUSblog explains, “There is at least a presumption that they have immunity for their official acts more broadly.” Former acting U.S. Solicitor General Neal Katyal commented that the ruling is “as grave a shift in our constitutional system as any in our lifetimes.” [SCOTUSblog, 7/1/24; MSNBC, Ana Cabrera Reports, 7/1/24]
    • The three dissenting liberal justices pushed back against the radicalism of the ruling, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor writing: “In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law.” Sotomayor listed crimes the president could hypothetically be immune from going forward and claimed the new protection for the president “makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of Government, that no man is above the law.” [Twitter/X, 7/1/24, 7/1/24, 7/1/24]
    • This latest Supreme Court decision will provide Trump with more protection in his federal indictment over his role in January 6, as his allies continue to claim that he is the victim of political persecution. [CNN, 7/1/24, The Washington Post, 5/7/24]

  • Right-wing media are claiming that the decision was necessary to prevent “political prosecution” against Trump

    • Fox contributor Andy McCarthy claimed the U.S. is in a “a new era of politicized prosecutions” and the court needed to “protect the executive branch.” McCarthy said: “The most important thing about this case, which Judge Gorsuch — Justice Gorsuch — noted that they were writing for the ages, was the need to protect the executive branch from what I think we're in, which is a new era of politicized prosecutions.” [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus, 7/1/24]
    • Fox contributor Jonathan Turley said, “If they want to look at the implications of leaving presidents without protection, they just need to look around the country.” Turley added: “Even though Manhattan was not a federal case, it was a political prosecution in the view of many of us that was rather raw and open.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 7/1/24]
    • Fox host Jeanine Pirro said the ruling would protect a president from prosecutors with an “agenda” to indict. Pirro said: “The idea that prosecutors who may have another agenda want to go and indict a president or an ex-president for actions while he was president, this court is basically saying there is presumptive immunity.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 7/1/24]
    • Fox guest Brett Tolman said that “we are seeing that they have been using and manipulating our criminal laws to try to take out a political opponent” and that the ruling is “literally the definition of democracy working.” Tolman said, “They came down exactly where the Constitution is on it, where the law is, and it’s not a slam-dunk, 100% win for President Trump. It is a 90% win for President Trump. … That's the way it should be. Because we are seeing that they have been using and manipulating our criminal laws to try to take out a political opponent.” [Fox News, America Reports, 7/1/24]

  • Conservative commentators are arguing that the ruling is “fair” and “nonpolitical,” downplaying the decision's impact

    • Fox contributor Jonathan Turley claimed that “no one reading this opinion would view this as the work of political hacks.” He continued, “The opinion actually took a middle road to try to balance the interests of the office against the interests of the public in making sure that you don't have a rogue president but you also don't have a captive president.” [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus, 7/1/24]
    • Fox host Mark Levin called the ruling a “brilliant decision” that “helped protect the republic.” Levin said, “This court had a job to do and they did it today. And they deserve our praise for doing it.” [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus, 7/1/24]
    • On Fox News, former federal prosecutor Andrew Cherkasky said, “It is really important to emphasize how nonpolitical this is.” Cherkasky claimed that “there is reasonableness to this decision,” adding, “That’s not political. I think that shows that the court wasn't willing to just slap down this prosecution in full, you know, in a total slapdown. They’re leaving room for prosecutions in some cases, in these outlying conditions. And that shows that it’s really not a political decision we saw today." [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus, 7/1/24]
    • Fox host Trey Gowdy noted that presidents have “always enjoyed powers that the rest of us do not.” Gowdy continued, “What the court is saying is we're not going to allow you to go inside the mind of a president and try to figure out whether this was — I mean, what president does not act in his or her own best political interest? What president has ever said, ‘You know what? This is going to cost me reelection, but I'm going to do it anyway.’ I mean, to me it is obvious that motive should not be part of this.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 7/1/24]

  • Right-wing media are downplaying and attacking the liberal dissent in the case

    • TheBlaze’s Leon Wolf said that “just because Sotomayor claims a president can assassinate his political opponents with immunity does not mean it’s true. Sonia Sotomayor believes many things that are not in fact so.” [Twitter/X, 7/1/24]
    • Right-wing social media personality Rogan O’Handley known online as “DC_Draino,” called Sotomayor a “loser judge.” “PSA: The Supreme Court did not rule that a President could use SEAL Team 6 to murder a political opponent. That would be an unofficial act outside the constitutional scope of the office of the President. It would be murder. Just b/c a loser judge wrote that in a dissenting opinion doesn’t make it true. Anyone calling for Biden to use lethal military force against Trump is effectively calling for Trump’s assassination.” [Twitter/X, 7/1/24]
    • Article III Project’s Mike Davis said, “These liberal justices are a disgrace for ruling the way they did.” Davis claimed that “these three liberal justices put their partisan politics and their Trump derangement above their most important job, which is to follow the Constitution, and part of following the Constitution is protecting the presidency and therefore our country.” [Real America’s Voice, War Room, 7/1/24]
    • Fox’s Mark Levin said that “there is no legal basis or constitutional basis for anything" written in the dissent. Levin said, “I read the dissent. The dissent sounds like Chuck Schumer. The dissent sounds like Bernie Sanders. There is no legal basis or constitutional basis for anything that they're saying. Above the law? Ask Donald Trump if he thinks he has been above the law. This has nothing to do with above the law. This is, do we want to live in a constitutional republic or not?” [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus, 7/1/24]
    • Fox host and former Trump White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said that Sotomayor’s dissent is “apoplectic” and “hyperbolic.” On Fox, McEnany responded to the dissent’s concerns by saying that “we have checks and balances in the form of Congress' check on the executive all throughout the Constitution.” Fox’s Lisa Kennedy Montgomery agreed, saying that Sotomayor’s dissent was “hysterical.” [Fox News, Outnumbered, 7/1/24]