Donald Trump and Markwayne Mullin Insist That Politics Should Prevail Over Principle

Some Supreme Court justices are so eager to demonstrate their independence, President Donald Trump complained last week, that they “openly disrespect the Presidents who nominate them.” A few days later, Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R–Okla.), who was confirmed this week as secretary of homeland security, explained why he had called Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.) “a freaking snake”: It “seems like you fight Republicans more than you work with us,” Mullin told Paul.

Trump and Mullin take it for granted that public officials should be prepared to sacrifice their principles on the altar of party loyalty. But those officials, whether they serve on the Supreme Court or in the U.S. Senate, have higher duties that may require them to take stands that invite misguided rebukes like these.

The specific targets of Trump’s ire were Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, who last month had the temerity to reject his claim of essentially unlimited authority to impose “emergency” tariffs. In Trump’s view, their defiance of his will was unforgivable because he is the guy who gave them their jobs.

Contrary to Trump’s take, the tariff case, which hinged on statutory interpretation informed by the separation of powers, was not a test of personal or party loyalty. If Gorsuch and Barrett had automatically agreed with the president who appointed them, they would have forsaken their obligation to reach conclusions based on their honest assessment of the facts and the law.

Trump is not oblivious to that obligation. In fact, he faulted “the Democrats on the Court” for ignoring it, complaining that they “always ‘stick together,’ no matter how strong a case is put before them.” Trump thinks justices should be independent, as long as they side with him.

Mullin seems similarly dismayed by Paul’s periodic failures to toe the party line. But like Gorsuch and Barrett, Paul has what he takes to be good reasons for antagonizing the president and lapdog loyalists like Mullin.

Paul, for instance, objects to Trump’s policy of summarily executing suspected cocaine smugglers without statutory authorization or any semblance of due process. Mullin, by contrast, has “zero problems with sending them to the bottom of the ocean.”

Mullin likewise seemed untroubled when immigration agents fatally shot Minneapolis protester Alex Pretti on January 24, saying they had defended themselves against a “deranged individual” who “came in to cause max damage.” Paul, by contrast, called for an independent investigation and questioned the initial account of the shooting, noting that it was immediately contradicted by video evidence.

Paul thinks Trump should have sought congressional approval for his war with Iran, since the Constitution gives the legislative branch the sole authority to “declare war.” Mullin, by contrast, can’t even seem to decide whether the extensive U.S. attacks on Iran qualify as “war.”

Mullin played similar word games when he parroted Trump’s defense of the steep, wide-ranging, ever-changing tariffs that the Supreme Court later ruled illegal. “This isn’t a trade war,” Mullin said on Fox News last year. “This is balancing our economy with countries that have taken advantage of us.”

Here, too, Paul takes a decidedly different view. The argument that “we’re being ripped off” is “a fallacy,” he noted in an interview with Reason‘s Nick Gillespie last November, because voluntary trade always entails mutual benefits.

“The farm state senators will all privately tell you, ‘We are [for] free trade, and this is killing our farmers,'” Paul said. “But they will not stand up, and they will not vote with me to end the emergencies” that Trump declared to justify his tariffs.

That reticence, Paul said, reflected a broader problem. “What Founding Father would ever have imagined a Congress with no ambition?” he asked.

Most Republican legislators, Paul complained, are “feckless,” “completely without principles,” “afraid of their own shadow,” “afraid of their own president,” and “unable to even squeak.” You can start to see why Mullin, who fits that description pretty well, was so mad at Paul.

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