Joe Scarborough skewers Trump over his attacks on a federal judge

Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough has some tough words for President Trump.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

last updated 6 February 2017

President Donald Trump has a fraught relationship with federal judges. During his presidential campaign, Trump lashed out at Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who was overseeing a lawsuit against Trump University, claiming that Curiel would be unfair in his ruling because of his "Mexican heritage." Then this past weekend, Trump skewered a George W. Bush appointee, Judge James Robart, over a temporary freeze on Trump's travel ban. For standing in the way of Trump's order, Robart was a "so-called judge," Trump claimed in a series of furious tweets:

Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough put his foot down on the matter in an op-ed published at The Washington Post on Sunday. "I had intended to use this space to detail how the chaotic events of the past week had persuaded President Trump to put into practice a more rigorous process to avoid calamities like last week’s immigration executive order," Scarborough began. "But that subject will have to wait for another day, since the 45th president decided to use Twitter this weekend to repeatedly question the legitimacy of a sitting federal judge."

When a president tweets insults at a Hollywood star, the dignity of his office is tarnished. When a commander-in-chief uses Twitter to attack a loyal military ally, America's friends across the globe become unsettled. But when a president uses social media to question the legitimacy of a federal judge following an inconvenient (and temporary) outcome, that is simply unacceptable. From Marbury v. Madison to United States v. Nixon, our federal courts' power to interpret the Constitution has been sacrosanct. As Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote in U.S. v. Nixon, the concept of checks and balances endures because it has remained (to quote Marbury) "the duty of the judicial department to say what the law is." [The Washington Post]

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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.

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