President Trump took aim at liberal Supreme Court justices, at CNN’s coverage of his administration, and constant thorn in his side, Adam “Shifty” Schiff,” and more, during a high-spirted press conference held at the close of his whirlwind first official visit to India.
The president held court in New Delhi following a tour that included a visit to the iconic Taj Mahal, a rally in front of over 110,000 people with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and a business roundtable earlier during his visit.
At the press event, Trump began by addressing a question from Fox News about his overnight Twitter comments saying that two Supreme Court justices — Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg — should recuse themselves from cases surrounding his presidency over past comments. He then singled out Sotomayor for particular criticism.
“I just thought it was so inappropriate, such a terrible statement for a Supreme Court justice,” he said. “She’s trying to shame people with perhaps a different view into voting her way, and that’s so inappropriate.”
Sotomayor, who was nominated by former President Barack Obama in 2009, issued the blistering dissent Friday after a ruling in the case of Wolf v. Cook County.
Sotomayor wrote in her dissent, on a case dealing with the Trump administration’s expansion of situations where the government can deny visas to non-citizens looking to enter the U.S., that she finds it troubling that the administration is constantly running to the Supreme Court for relief from injunctions against its policies, and how often the court is granting Trump’s requests.
“It is hard to say what is more troubling,” Sotomayor wrote, “that the Government would seek this extraordinary relief seemingly as a matter of course, or that the Court would grant it.”
Trump continued in India, “I just don’t know how they cannot recuse themselves from anything having to do with Trump or Trump-related. The right thing to do is that.”
He then took a shot at Adam Schiff, D-Calif., over the alleged new accusations of continued Russian meddling in the 2020 election.
“They went to see Bernie [Sanders] and they told Bernie about something having to do with they want Bernie to win. They did not tell me, intelligence never told me … anything about that and it was sort of a strange thing that they went to Bernie,” Trump said, before mentioning reports that the initial claims about 2020 Russian meddling may have been “highly exaggerated” and criticizing the House Intelligence Committee for alleged leaks, blaming Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.
Trump later declared, “I want no help from any country, and I haven’t been given help by any country,” before taking a pointed jab at CNN reporter Jim Acosta, over a question on the Russia meddling matter.
“Your record is so bad you ought to be ashamed of yourself. You probably have the worst record in the history of broadcasting,” Trump charged.