"The Supreme Court: It’s what it’s all about”

Another Trump debate drives home the danger of the MAGA Court

Eight years ago, in the third and final presidential debate of 2016, Donald Trump declared “The Supreme Court: It’s what it’s all about. … [I]t’s just so imperative that we have the right justices.” A few moments later Trump made an unprecedented promise to appoint Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade: “automatically … because I am putting pro-life justices on the court.”

As president, Trump followed through on that threat, appointing three anti-abortion Republicans to the Supreme Court. And when they helped their fellow anti-abortion Supreme Court justices overturn Roe shortly after Trump left office, Trump took a victory lap, boasting that it was “only made possible because I delivered everything as promised.”

That’s why a wave of Republican abortion bans are endangering the freedom and the lives of Americans all across the country: Because Donald Trump, a man who once said women would have to be punished for having abortions, appointed three justices to the Supreme Court for the specific, announced purpose of ending abortion rights. 

“The Supreme Court: It’s what it’s all about.” Trump doesn’t tell the truth often, but that line in 2016 was true. And it echoed loudly during last night’s debate, with Trump once again bragging about his responsibility for the MAGA Court overturning Roe (which Trump falsely and ludicrously claimed everyone wanted to happen) and with Vice President Kamala Harris holding Trump and the court accountable for the resulting abortion bans.

But it’s not just abortion. Trump also made an (accidentally) revealing comment about the responsibility he and the Supreme Court share for millions of Americans facing an ongoing college debt crisis. While ducking a straightforward question about whether he would veto a national abortion ban, Trump started talking – barely coherently – about college debt. In an apparent attempt to stoke discontent with the Biden-Harris administration, Trump said “When they said they’re going to get student loans terminated … it ended up being a total catastrophe. … It got rejected again by the Supreme Court. So all these students got taunted with this whole idea.” 

Trump was trying to tweak Harris for the ongoing college debt crisis and the disappointment of those suffering from it. But he blurted out an important truth: Three Trump appointees provided the margin for the MAGA Supreme Court’s ruling blocking the Biden-Harris administration’s college debt relief plan. The Biden-Harris administration has responded to that ruling with a series of smaller debt relief measures that have added up to a total of nearly $170 billion in relief for nearly 5 million people. Anyone unhappy with the pace of college debt relief should understand the reason relief hasn’t been faster or more comprehensive is simple: Donald Trump and the MAGA Supreme Court.

Once again, Trump and the Republican Supreme Court are joined at the hip both substantively and politically.