The coastal elites are mocking the president's failed appeal, but everyday Americans know exactly what it's like to need nine justices to bail them out of a defamation judgment.
The mainstream media is treating the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear President Donald Trump’s appeal of the E. Jean Carroll verdict as some sort of triumph for the rule of law. Let’s be honest: it is nothing of the sort. It is a chilling message to everyday Americans that the highest court in the land will not lift a finger to save you from a $5 million sexual abuse judgment.
I spent this morning speaking with regular, working-class folks at a $14-a-cup pour-over coffee shop just off K Street, and the anxiety was palpable. The forgotten men and women of this country look at the Supreme Court declining to intervene in a civil defamation case, and they wonder how this affects them. If the President of the United States isn't immune from the consequences of his actions in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room, how can I be sure the justices will protect me when I aggressively defame an advice columnist on Truth Social?
It’s a fair question, and frankly, the coastal elites refusing to answer it are telling on themselves.
We need to have an adult conversation about what the justice system is actually for. For centuries, the conservative legal movement has worked tirelessly to ensure that the courts act as a reliable shield for concentrated wealth and executive power. I was having drinks with a senior aide to the Republican caucus just last week on background, and he made a brilliant point: if you cannot use the Supreme Court as a personal concierge service to erase your multimillion-dollar legal liabilities, what is the point of appointing a supermajority in the first place?
The left wants to make this about sexual abuse and defamation, which completely misses the broader messaging problem. When the base sees the highest court in the land refuse to bail out a billionaire, it dampens voter enthusiasm. People need to know the system is appropriately rigged in their favor.
Say what you will about Donald Trump, but his request was entirely reasonable. He simply asked the justices to politely set aside a unanimous jury verdict because it was politically inconvenient and personally expensive. Who among us hasn't wanted to do exactly the same thing? Have we become so blinded by partisanship that we can no longer empathize with a man trying to leverage the federal judiciary to avoid writing a check?
I am just asking the questions no one else has the courage to ask. The left loves to preach about accountability and consequences, completely ignoring how alienating those concepts are to the donor class. When a jury in Manhattan awards E. Jean Carroll $5 million, it is an affront to the fundamental American principle that laws are meant for other people.
A source close to leadership tells me that the White House is already walking back expectations for future Supreme Court bailouts, which is a tragedy. We are witnessing the erosion of a sacred presidential norm: the ability to tie up the legal system so thoroughly that your victims simply age out of the process.
If we don't stand up for the president's right to demand bespoke judicial intervention today, we have no right to complain when the system comes for our own $5 million verdicts tomorrow.