Trump wants to attend SCOTUS arguments on his tariffs case. It would be a first for a sitting president.
The US Supreme Court will take up the case of President Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs on Nov. 5, and Trump has said he feels an obligation to watch the proceedings in person. If he does so, he would be the first sitting president to attend SCOTUS' oral arguments, Bloomberg reports:
There is no record in the Supreme Court’s 235-year history of a sitting president ever attending arguments, according to Clare Cushman, director of publications and resident historian at the Supreme Court Historical Society.
Presidents have attended other events at the court. Trump himself attended the investitures of two of his Supreme Court nominees, Associate Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.
He sought permission to attend oral arguments last year in his presidential immunity case, but was denied, as he was scheduled to begin trial in New York on business fraud charges.
Trump has suggested on several occasions he would attend the arguments himself — part of a larger effort by his administration to pressure the judiciary into upholding the tariffs.
During an oval office press briefing in October, Trump said tariffs had made the US a “strong, sound country.” Without them, he said, it would be a “big slog.”
