MAGA turns against Amy Coney Barrett: "Trump made a mistake" (2024)

Supporters of former President Donald Trump are turning against U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett after she sided with the Biden administration in a dispute with Republican-led states.

In a 6-3 ruling in Murthy v. Missouri, Barrett wrote for the court that the states did not have standing to sue over how social media companies moderate content on their platforms. Justice Samuel Alito filed a dissent and was joined by Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch.

It prompted Trump supporters to take to social media to suggest the former president had made a mistake by appointing Barrett to the nation's highest court in 2020.

She was the third justice appointed by Trump, after Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, and the move had been celebrated by conservatives for cementing the court's 6-3 conservative supermajority.

The decision "is a wakeup call to all Americans," Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida, a Trump ally, wrote on X, formerly Twitter. "Even with 'conservative' judges like Amy Coney Barrett, we can't expect any help from the Courts. If we want to return to a free internet, we must be even stronger in Congress, and ensure that Biden is not in the White House in 2025."

The anonymous @catturd2 on X, which has 2.5 million followers, posted: "Amy Commie Barrett strikes again."

The account had celebrated Barrett's appointment with a post that said: "I can't wait to see Amy Coney Barrett being sworn in by Justice Clarence Thomas tonight."

Other MAGA accounts also shared posts criticizing Barrett, with some claiming she is "compromised."

"Trump made a mistake and missed it when he put her on the Supreme Court! Damn," an X user with the name "MAGA Nation" wrote.

Another Trump supporter wrote that the former president had "trusted the wrong people."

They added: "This is what worries me about him - he just does not have a good read on people's deception and hires the wrong people to help him. He thinks everyone is as honest and loyal as he is."

Jeffrey Clark, a Trump ally and former Justice Department official, said the decision shows the court does not do Trump's bidding.

"We should be able to put to rest forever the nonsense position that the Supreme Court does Trump's bidding," he wrote on X. It doesn't. But watch [mainstream media] continue their relentless attacks on the Supreme Court and its independence nonetheless."

Newsweek contacted a Trump spokesperson for comment via email.

In Murthy v. Missouri, the plaintiffs argued that federal officials leaned on social media platforms to prevent conservative points of view from being seen. The Biden administration argued that it should be free to communicate with social media companies about hate speech as well as issues of public health, election integrity and other areas where the promotion of misinformation must be combatted.

The court's opinion did not weigh in on the substance of the claims or the Biden administration's response.

"We begin—and end—with standing," Barrett wrote. "At this stage, neither the individual nor the state plaintiffs have established standing to seek an injunction against any defendant. We therefore lack jurisdiction to reach the merits of the dispute."

In his dissent, Alito wrote that the states had demonstrated their right to sue.

"For months, high-ranking Government officials placed unrelenting pressure on Facebook to suppress Americans' free speech. Because the court unjustifiably refuses to address this serious threat to the First Amendment, I respectfully dissent," he wrote.