With the U.S. Supreme Court weighing his eligibility for the presidential primary ballot, former President Donald Trump said he considers efforts to disqualify him to be “more election interference by the Democrats.”
His comments followed a hearing in which the nation’s high court heard oral arguments for and against his name’s appearance on the ballot in Colorado, where the state’s Supreme Court has ruled him ineligible under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
Speaking with reporters outside his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, President Trump described the judicial process as “a beautiful thing to watch,” though unfortunate.
“It’s unfortunate that we have to go through a thing like that. I consider it to be more election interference by the Democrats—that’s what they’re doing. The good news is we’re leading in virtually every poll,” he said.
“I hope that democracy in this country will continue because, right now, we have a very, very tough situation with all of the radical left ideas, with the weaponization of politics,” he added.
“They’ve weaponized it like it’s never been weaponized before. It’s totally illegal, but they do it anyway.”
The specific question before the Court is whether the Colorado Supreme Court erred in ruling that the 14th Amendment’s Disqualification Clause bars President Trump from the ballot because he “engaged in insurrection” against the United States by inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach.
During the hearing, an argument raised by Jason Murray, an attorney for President Trump’s challengers, was that his public statements that day contributed to the “insurrection.”
President Trump disagrees with the characterization of the breach as an insurrection. But even if were an insurrection, he argued, it was “caused by Nancy Pelosi,” not him.
Pointing to the tweets he posted shortly after the violence broke out that day, he said: “If you take a look at those five or six tweets, you will see very beautiful, very heartwarming statements. ‘Go home,’ ‘the police are doing their job,’ … beautiful statements.”
He also cited his speech, which urged protesters to “peacefully and patriotically” make their voices heard.
Application of the Law
President Trump’s attorney, Jonathan Mitchell, opened Thursday’s hearing by arguing that the Disqualification Clause does not apply to the president.Although the law does not explicitly list the presidency among the offices it applies to, some have argued that the president is grafted in as “an officer of the United States.”
Mr. Mitchell, however, said that designation only applies to officials who have been appointed, not elected. And even if the clause does apply to a candidate, he argued, that candidate cannot be barred from the ballot because the law only disqualifies certain individuals from “holding” the specified offices, not running for them.
Disqualifying President Trump from the ballot, Mr. Mitchell said, would be “accelerating the deadline” for the former president to be cleared by Congress, which has the authority to lift the “disability” of disqualification with a two-thirds majority vote.
“Even if the candidate is an admitted insurrectionist, Section 3 still allows the candidate to run for office—and even win election to office—and then see whether Congress lifts that disability after the election. This happened frequently in the wake of the 14th Amendment, where Confederate insurrectionists were elected to Congress, and sometimes they obtained a waiver, sometimes they did not.”
In support of that argument, the attorney cited a similar case, U.S. Term Limits v. Thornton, which established inauguration day as the date on which candidates must be of age to hold a certain office, not Election Day or some other prior date.
Mr. Murray, however, contested the notion that the Disqualification Clause does not apply to President Trump.
Court Signals Skepticism
In their questioning of Mr. Murray, several justices appeared unconvinced that Colorado should have the power to influence a national election by disqualifying a candidate from its ballot.“I think that the question that you have to confront is why a single state should decide who gets to be president of the United States,” Justice Elena Kagan said. “This question of whether a former president is disqualified for insurrection to be president again—it sounds awfully national to me. So whatever means there are to enforce it would suggest that they have to be federal, national means.”
Mr. Murray disagreed with that conclusion, holding that other states could decide for themselves whether to leave President Trump on the ballot. But Justice Amy Coney Barrett pushed back on that defense.
“If we affirmed and we said he was ineligible to be president, yes, maybe some states would say, ‘Well, you know, we’re going to keep him on the ballot anyway.’ But, I mean, really, it’s going to have, as Justice Kagan said, the effect of Colorado deciding.”
Meanwhile, Chief Justice John Roberts noted that the point of the 14th Amendment was to limit the powers of the states, not grant them additional power over federal elections.
“Wouldn’t that be the last place that you’d look for authorization for the states—including Confederate states—to … enforce the presidential election process?” he asked. “That seems to be a position that is at war with the whole thrust of the 14th Amendment, and very ahistorical.”
Mr. Murray replied that the authority for states to enforce the amendment would be derived from Article II of the Constitution, which establishes that state legislatures have the power to direct the appointment of electors.
But the chief justice countered that the power at the center of the case—the power to disqualify a federal candidate—is embedded in the 14th Amendment.
“That is a very specific power in the 14th amendment, and you’re saying that was implicitly extended to the states under a clause that doesn’t address that at all.”
Justice Roberts also mulled the potential ripple effects of affirming the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling.
“I would expect that a goodly number of states will say, whoever the Democratic candidate is, ‘You’re off the ballot.’ And others, for the Republican candidate, ‘You’re off the ballot,’” he said. “It will come down to just a handful of states that are going to decide the presidential election. That’s a pretty daunting consequence.”
President Trump’s ballot eligibility has now been challenged in at least 35 states, though only two—Colorado and Maine—have chosen to disqualify him thus far.
President Joe Biden, the leading Democrat candidate, also faced challenges to his eligibility in Illinois, though those have been dismissed.
