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Chief Justice John Roberts - C-SPAN
Chief Justice John Roberts of the U.S. Supreme Court participates in a fireside chat in Buffalo, NY (2025)
Chief Justice John Roberts took a thinly veiled shot at President Donald Trump during an interview Wednesday, and his remarks stunned CNN anchor Erin Burnett, who noted, “he knows the weight of every word.”
Burnett told Senior White House Correspondent Kristen Holmes she had just heard new comments from the Supreme Court's chief justice. “Literally just finding out that he said this. Trump, obviously, has been attacking judges who rule against him. The Chief Justice has just spoken out. Let me just play what he said,” Burnett said.
She played a clip of Roberts speaking in a fireside chat with Judge Lawrence Vilardo of the New York Western District. The clip aired on C-SPAN. “In our Constitution, judges and the judiciary is a co-equal branch of government, separate from the others, with the authority to interpret the Constitution as law—and strike down, obviously, acts of Congress or acts of the President. And that innovation doesn't work if the judiciary is not independent,” said Roberts.
He added: “Its job is to obviously decide cases—but in the course of that, check the excesses of Congress or of the executive. And that does require a degree of independence.”
Roberts' remarks were met with applause from the audience and awe from Burnett. “He knows the weight of every word, Kristen. The words there carry a lot of weight—and come amid major tensions with Trump. So significant to come from the Chief Justice," she said.
Holmes agreed, noting “we don’t usually hear him weighing in on politics. And of course, as you say, he knows the weight of every word. He never said Donald Trump’s name. He was incredibly diplomatic when he was talking, said Holmes.
"In fact, he was actually asked about this idea that people should be impeached, and he referred back to a previous statement,” Holmes continued. “He never really speaks out of turn. Everything he says is incredibly deliberate—we know this from years of covering him.”
But Holmes noted Roberts' comment came after Trump railed against judges hours earlier, calling for impeachment.
“Not just that—his followers have doxxed judges. We know judges have had to have increased security, particularly around immigration, saying that they were trying to stand in his way—accusing them of being liberal judges. This is very important context around Roberts speaking out at this time.”
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Holmes also flagged what she found “really interesting” listening to Trump’s interview over the weekend. Trump, she said, “started to get very deferential to the Supreme Court after building up all of this tension with the court system.”
“You could hear him over and over again repeating, 'Well, we’re going to do what the Supreme Court says. Our lawyers are going to do what the Supreme Court says.' But Erin, as we’ve seen, they have really used the ambiguity in a lot of these Supreme Court rulings to their advantage. And some people believe they’re not exactly doing what the Supreme Court says. They say they’re following the order—but it’s ambiguous.”
