The Supreme Court justice Amy Coney Barrett has rejected the idea of a president serving more than two terms as she sought to assuage critics who see the conservative majority on the nation’s top court as too friendly to Donald Trump.
Barrett, 53, whose appointment boosted the number of Republican appointees to six against three liberals in Trump’s first term, also said that “we’re not deciding cases based on the president” but on purely constitutional issues.
In a Fox News interview to promote her memoir, Listening to the Law, she said only 10 per cent of rulings were a straight left-right split as she sought to emphasise the collegiality of the judges but did little to quell suspicions about her on both sides of America’s ideological divide.
Democrats resent Barrett for being rushed by Trump into the seat left vacant by the death of the liberal icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 2020 and joining key conservative rulings like overturning the federal right to abortion, which they allege drew on her Catholic faith as much as the law.
Barrett denied this, telling Fox that the abortion decision did not take away a right but ruled that the constitution did not protect that right and rather that “it belongs to the political process” in each state.
A section of Trump’s Maga (Make America Great Again) base begrudges her because she has not consistently followed a pro-Trump line, even occasionally helping to tip the balance against him when joined by John Roberts, the chief justice, as in the ruling to allow Trump’s sentencing in his hush money case to proceed two weeks before his inauguration.
Barrett during her confirmation hearing in October 2020
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The US constitution was changed after Franklin D Roosevelt died in office in his fourth term, to declare that “no person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice”.
Trump occasionally excites supporters by musing about serving a third term, telling NBC News in March that “a lot of people would like me to do that” and “there are methods which you could do it, as you know”.
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When the Fox News host Bret Baier pointed out to Barrett that “the 22nd Amendment says you can only run for office for two terms”, she replied: “True.”
Following claims that there are workarounds like running as vice-president with a lead candidate who stands aside, Baier asked Barrett if she thought the constitution was “cut and dry”. Barrett responded: “Well … you know, that’s what the amendment says, right? You know, after FDR had four terms, that’s what that amendment says.”
Franklin D Roosevelt died in 1945
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This will dismay hardline Trump supporters like Steve Bannon, a former White House counsellor, who said in March: “I’m a firm believer that President Trump will run and win again in 2028, so I’ve already endorsed President Trump. A man like this comes along once every century, if we’re lucky. We’ve got him now.”
After the sentencing ruling in January, he called for Barrett to “step down, take another job and open that slot up for President Trump to … appoint a true Maga judge to the Supreme Court”.
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Liberal commentators were also furious with Barrett when she joined a conservative majority for Monday’s ruling allowing raids by agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement based on general suspicions. This lifted a lower court ruling that agents must have specific reasons to arrest people beyond speaking Spanish or gathering in places where those seeking casual work gather. Barrett did not publish her reasoning.
Neera Tanden, a former senior adviser to President Biden, told CNN: “They are providing these decisions without any explanation why — [that] Justice Amy Coney Barrett has time to write a memoir but not a decision on an issue that affects all of our rights is frankly outrageous.”
It is rare for a Supreme Court justice to give TV interviews and Barrett’s recent outings to promote her book show why — they are unlikely to satisfy either side completely. Her reported $2 million advance will help to mitigate that but the real dangers were underlined in her Fox interview, after Roberts’s warning in June that the polarised atmosphere was leading to “serious threats of violence and murder of judges just simply for doing their work”.
Asked about “where the country is going” with the threatening atmosphere, given that she has a family of seven children, Barrett said: “I’m very grateful for the security that we have. It is something I’m worried about.”
