The Corruption on Display at Last Night’s Address to Congress

With a slap on the back, President Trump apparently “won’t forget” that Chief Justice Roberts enabled his return to power

Mar 05, 2025

What’s happening?

President Donald Trump shook hands with Chief Justice John Roberts and said, “I won’t forget it,” before patting him on the back after the address to Congress.

What’s the context?

What is Trump promising not to forget?

Chief Justice Roberts played the central role in orchestrating Donald Trump’s unprecedented victory to secure sweeping immunity from criminal prosecution, paving the way for Trump’s return to the White House, as The New York Times reported based on multiple sources.

In Trump v. United States, the case in which the Roberts Court handed Trump immunity for crimes committed as part of Trump’s purported “official acts,” Chief Justice Roberts led the Court’s right-wing supermajority to “greatly expand[] presidential immunity and push[] off any trial until well after the election—if ever.” In a February 2024 memo, Chief Justice Roberts urged the Court to take up the unanimous ruling against Trump by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, writing, “I think it likely that we will view the separation of powers analysis differently.”

Chief Justice Roberts later authored the ruling doing exactly that. The 6-3 majority in the case included Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, who refused to recuse themselves from the case, despite significant questions about their impartiality that disqualified them from hearing the case under federal law. Flags linked to the January 6 insurrection were flown over Justice Alito’s homes, and Justice Thomas’s wife played a key role in the “Stop the Steal” scheme to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s win in 2020.

What’s the big picture?

Now in the White House, Trump is taking the Roberts Court up on its invitation to consolidate executive power, including through unlawful impoundments. Trump is betting that the Roberts Court is on his side—and threatening to set off an even wider constitutional crisis by defying court orders if the justices don’t do what he wants. As Pam Bondi, Trump’s new Attorney General, asserted on Fox yesterday, “[t]he Supreme Court is going to back us up, it’s just getting through all these district court judges. The president has a right—he was elected overwhelmingly by the people of the United States of America to do just the job he's doing.”

So far, Trump’s bets seem to be paying off. Four of the six MAGA justices on the Supreme Court voted today in support of the Trump administration’s request to suspend a court order by Judge Amir Ali to unfreeze $2 billion in foreign aid funds. Trump lost—so far. Although Chief Justice Roberts voted to deny Trump’s demand, he may have managed to give the Trump administration the relief it sought without actually endorsing the unlawful impoundment of funds. The administrative stay authored by the Chief Justice delayed the implementation of Judge Ali’s order, and today’s Supreme Court order instructs the lower court to clarify his order and to give “due regard” for the “feasibility” of blocking the State Department from freezing funds for foreign aid. What that means for the foreign aid funding freeze—and the millions who depend on these funds—is anyone’s guess.

Why does it matter?

The kind of corruption on display last night—in a fleeting but profound moment that had “an almost classic mob boss feel to it,” as Joyce Vance aptly put it—harms not only the legitimacy of the Court, but us all.

When Trump allows Elon Musk, who spent hundreds of millions backing Trump’s campaign, to unlawfully slash critical public programs and eliminate thousands of jobs, it’s everyday Americans’ health, safety, and well-being that are under attack. Let’s not forget that.

The courts will not save us—we must resist the learned helplessness of judicial supremacy.

For more on how the Roberts Court set the stage for Trump and Musk to impose their agenda on our country—and how we can begin to fight back—don’t miss the latest edition of Weekend Reading from Michael Podhorzer.