Double Standard: Media Slamming Trump, but Obama Blasted Judges Too
President Trump has been taking a lot of heat from the news media for his criticism of the judiciary for acting "political," but his comments are nothing new when it comes to presidents going after the judicial branch of government.
The strongest attempt in recent memory came from President Barack Obama, when he used his bully pulpit to push the Supreme Court to uphold Obamacare, which the court later did.
"I am confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress," Obama had said.
And unlike their regular attacks on the veracity of Trump's statements, the news media did not rush to point out the fallacies in Obama's statement.
The truth: His law barely passed without a "strong majority," and it is not "unprecedented" or "extraordinary" for the court to overturn acts of Congress.
In fact, the foundation establishing the powers of the Supreme Court was laid all the way back in 1803, in Marbury v. Madison, the first time the court overturned an act of Congress.
Another profound rebuke of the judiciary came from President Obama during his State of the Union speech in 2010. He took a swipe at Supreme Court justices sitting right in front of him for their ruling on a case about campaign finance.
"Last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests," Obama complained.
As the cameras quickly shifted to catch the reaction from the justices, Justice Samuel Alito famously mouthed the words "not true."
Here's our 2010 CBN News Fact Check, where you can see Alito shake his head in response:
It wasn't just Obama who went after rulings he didn't like. Near the end of his presidency, President George W. Bush also criticized the Supreme Court for granting rights to the terror detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay.
And in 2004, after the Massachusetts Supreme Court's same-sex marriage ruling, President Bush took aim at "activist judges" for "redefining marriage."