Vice President JD Vance made an unannounced visit to the Supreme Court last week to attend a private dinner in a wood-paneled conference room with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and dozens of the chief justice’s former law clerks.
Accompanying his wife Usha, who clerked for the chief justice nearly a decade ago, Mr. Vance’s visit was a social call, people familiar with the dinner said. But Mr. Vance’s friendly pop-by illustrated the awkward dance that has been underway between the Trump administration and the nation’s highest court, as the administration has at times appeared to woo the justices even as President Trump has repeatedly bullied and insulted them.
With the court preparing to issue major rulings in the coming weeks that will determine the fate of key aspects of the president’s agenda, Mr. Trump has vacillated between combative and conciliatory in his treatment of the justices.
He has seemed ever aware and at times resentful of the critical role the justices play in determining the lawfulness of his policies, with the court representing perhaps the one force in American government truly able to thwart his agenda. At the heart of the tension: a president who appears to believe that justices, especially those he appointed, should be loyalists rather than independent actors in a separate, equal branch of government.
Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, said in a statement that the American people have “always valued President Trump’s ability to freely speak his mind and share his thoughts directly with them” — including about the court.
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