Donald Trump vs Chief Justice John Roberts: Why are United States' two of the most powerful men under pressure, attacking each other in public?

USA President Donald Trump and US Chief Justice John Roberts are undoubtedly two of the most powerful men in the country. However, dynamic between the two has remained complicated.

The tension has risen once again, culminating in an extraordinary public statement by Roberts on Tuesday rebuking the Republican president for urging the impeachment of a Washington-based federal judge who faulted the administration's actions in a dispute over the legality of deportation flights.

"For more than two centuries," Roberts said, "it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision."


Donald Trump and John Roberts

Since Trump first took office in 2017, Roberts has figured prominently in the president's fortunes, and in many ways, vice versa. Trump appointed three justices in his first term, creating the 6-3 conservative majority that Roberts needed to deliver landmark rulings rolling back abortion rights and affirmative action practices, expanding gun rights and curbing federal regulatory power.

Roberts, meanwhile, presided over the first of Trump's two impeachment trials - he was acquitted both times - and has penned Supreme Court rulings that both boosted the president - including by granting him broad immunity from criminal prosecution - and constrained him at key moments.

The landmark immunity ruling authored by Roberts last July involved federal criminal charges against Trump over his efforts to undo his 2020 presidential election loss to Democrat Joe Biden, bolstering his bid to regain the presidency by effectively delaying a trial that ultimately never took place.

President Trump thanked Roberts as Supreme Court justices attended the president's address to a joint session of Congress this month.

Biggest Victory and Setbacks for Trump

Roberts also authored a ruling that gave Trump one of his biggest victories during his first term, upholding his travel ban blocking people from several Muslim-majority countries from coming to the United States against claims that the policy represented religious discrimination in violation of the Constitution. Trump's administration now is considering issuing a new travel ban that could include dozens of countries.

On the other hand, Roberts has handed Trump some setbacks. In recent weeks, Roberts joined a narrow majority of Supreme Court justices in declining to let Trump immediately fire the head of a federal watchdog agency or withhold payment to foreign aid organizations for work they already performed for the government - though neither decision resolved the legal merits of the cases.

In 2019, Roberts joined the court's liberal justices to block his plan to add a contentious citizenship question to the national census questionnaire, prompting Trump to suggest that the administration would find a way to move forward anyway - before backing down.

In 2020, Roberts wrote a ruling that let a New York prosecutor obtain Trump's financial records, and the chief justice again joined the liberals to block Trump's bid to end a program protecting from deportation immigrants - known as "Dreamers" - who entered the United States illegally as children.

Obama Judges

Chief Justice Roberts' rebuke of Trump on Tuesday was not his first. After Trump in 2018 called a federal judge appointed by Democratic former President Barack Obama who ruled against his policy barring asylum for certain immigrants an "Obama judge," Roberts responded in a statement.

"We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges," Roberts wrote, referring to former presidents who made the appointments and emphasizing the importance of an independent judiciary.

FAQs

Q1. Who is President of USA?
A1. President of USA is Donald Trump.

Q2. Who is Chief Justice of USA?
A2. Chief Justice of USA is John Roberts.