Former President Trump blasted the Supreme Court for refusing to hear his campaign’s election challenges, saying on Tuesday that the high court lacked the “courage” it needed to overturn the 2020 election results.
In an interview with Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo, Trump repeated his claims that the election had been stolen from him because states moved to allow expanded access to mail balloting due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Trump lost scores of court challenges, and his own Justice Department disputed the idea that there was widespread fraud in the election. However, the former president on Tuesday unloaded on the courts for refusing to throw out Democratic votes in states that changed their election laws to expand access to voting.
“The Democrats used COVID to do things they can’t believe they got away with, that they didn’t get their legislatures to approve, and our courts and the Supreme Court didn’t have the courage to overturn elections that should have been overturned because you’re talking about decisive amounts, hundreds of thousands and even millions of votes,” Trump said.
The former president singled out the Supreme Court, which refused to hear several of Trump’s challenges because his campaign didn’t have standing.
Trump appointed three Supreme Court justices in his four years in office, giving the high court a 6-3 balance in favor of conservatives.
“The Supreme Court didn’t rule on the facts. It ruled on standing,” Trump said. “The Supreme Court should be ashamed of itself.”
The former president also fumed at Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), blaming him for the party’s Senate runoff losses in Georgia, which cost the GOP the majority in the upper chamber.
Many Republicans have blamed Trump’s fixation on the idea that the election was stolen from him for the GOP’s Senate losses in the state. Trump’s claims divided the party and may have convinced some conservatives to stay home out of the belief that their votes wouldn’t be counted anyway.
But Trump said that McConnell’s refusal to back $2,000 checks for all Americans as part of a COVID-19 relief bill is what cost Republicans.
“That was a disaster,” Trump said. “Mitch McConnell made a tremendous mistake. He lost those two seats.”