AG TODD BLANCHE / SUPREME COURT
"Not at all. No, I mean, he wants another one. That's OK. He can have another one."
"These are not the people I interviewed to serve on the United States Supreme Court, they are merely a shell of their original selves." — — President Trump on Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett, Truth Social, September 15
Monday the Supreme Court refused to let the Postal Service impose new mail-ballot requirements before the midterms, leaving a Boston judge's injunction in place and saying the administration was unlikely to win on the merits. None of Trump's three appointees noted disagreement. Tuesday he called the Court "a shell of their original selves" and said it had let the country down. Tuesday afternoon the Attorney General took questions in the Rose Garden, and two answers got covered — AI, and the press ban — while the one that matters did not. Asked whether the president's attacks damage even the perception of judicial independence, he said no, and then volunteered a sentence about a seat that does not exist. Nobody asked which one. He also said the ballot effort will not stop "just in November or after - or thereafter," that criminal investigations into voting are unaffected by the ruling, and that the loss came down to running "out of time because of the litigation" — which is entry #46 arriving at its conclusion: the rule was never tested on what it says, only on when it landed. Both statements are on video. Almost nobody has watched it.