Supreme Court justices face Trump State of the Union choice

This goes against the instincts of some of the most powerful officials in the United States: get fully dressed, appear before a national television audience, but sit there like statues without betraying any words or emotions.

For members of the annual permanent Supreme Court State of the Union The title is a civic exercise in poker face appreciation. As recent history has shown, it has not always been easy.

President’s speech on Tuesday Donald Trump It will be closely watched not only for what is said, but also for who will be there in person to hear it — especially an unspecified number of judges sitting in the front row seats.

This year’s appearance is particularly interesting, as it comes four days after a 6-3 majority on the court The president’s blanket definitions were droppedIn a crushing setback for his economic agenda.

Chief Justice John Roberts, Justices Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, and retired Justice Anthony Kennedy attend President Donald Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress at the U.S. Capitol on March 4, 2025. (Wayne McNamee/Pool via Reuters)

Trump strongly criticized the court, especially the six members who voted against him, including Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett.

The president said he was “ashamed of some members of the court, and utterly ashamed that they do not have the courage to do what is right for the country.”

At least one member of the court, Justice Samuel Alito, had previously said he likely would not go any further — after the persistent and provocative criticism he made of Obama’s court ruling in his 2010 speech.

But one or more of the justices has always attended the annual address before Congress and the nation in recent decades. Members of the court are not required by law to be there, but custom dictates that they be present, often for show. They are an essential, if low-key, part of the festival, forced to sit politely and stoically, amidst the lively party discourse and response to the event.

No word yet from supreme court On who will appear? Invitations are sent to each room, and judges have individual discretion on whether or not to go.

Those traditionally wearing their judicial robes are escorted into the House as a group, occupying prominent seats at the front.

Retired judges are usually asked as well, without the robes. They are joined by other court officials, such as the marshal and the clerk.

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Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Ilana Kagan, along with former justices Stephen Breyer and Anthony Kennedy, have been regular attendees over the years.

Chief Justice John Roberts, Justices Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, and retired Justice Anthony Kennedy attend President Donald Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress on March 4, 2025. (Reuters/Evelyn Hochstein)

But the ceremony put the judges in a very uncomfortable position in 2010.

Democrats cheered President Barack Obama as he attacked conservatives on the Supreme Court over its ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, issued a week ago, that removed legal barriers preventing corporations and unions from spending unlimited sums on federal elections.

“With all due respect to the separation of powers, the Supreme Court struck down a century of law to open the door for special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend unlimitedly in our elections,” Obama said.

Court sources later confirmed that Alito, who was sitting a few feet from the audience, shook his head and uttered words that were interpreted as “incorrect,” referring to the line about “foreign companies.”

Alito’s five colleagues present showed no emotion.

He had been a regular at previous speeches, but months after the incident, Alito told an audience in New York that he felt “like a proverbial potted plant” and would not attend in the near future. In fact, the year after the presidential anointing, Alito was in Hawaii for a law school seminar.

The justices pose for an official group photo at the Supreme Court building on Capitol Hill on October 7, 2022, after Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was added. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

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The 75-year-old judge also noted with a smile that his “more disciplined” colleagues refrain from showing any emotion or opinion at all.

Roberts described the political atmosphere in the 2010 speech as “deeply troubling.”

The head of the federal judiciary said the partisan rhetoric and gestures directed at the court made him question whether his colleagues should continue to attend.

During the 2010 speech, members of Congress sat directly behind the justices, and many of them applauded loudly when Obama made his remarks on the court’s election spending issue, especially Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.

“It makes me think about whether or not it makes sense for us to be there,” Roberts said after weeks of controversy. “To the extent that the State of the Union address has turned into a political pep rally, I’m not sure why we’re there.”

Then-White House press secretary Robert Gibbs quickly responded at the time with an indirect attack on Roberts, saying that “the only thing of concern” was the self-governing Citizens United party.

Regardless, Roberts never missed a State of the Union address as Chief Justice.

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This included in 2021 with President Joe Biden addressing a joint session of Congress whose attendance was limited due to the pandemic. The sparse and widely spaced crowd included Roberts, a few Cabinet officials and a few members of Congress, all wearing masks.

Some justices have been regularly absent from the State of the Union, including John Paul Stevens, who resigned from the court months after the 2010 State of the Union address.

Roberts’ predecessor, Chief Justice William Rehnquist, rarely appeared in person, once because he considered a drawing class more preferable.

Justice Clarence Thomas called it “very uncomfortable for a judge to sit there.” He went to attend Obama’s first annual speech in 2009, but has not returned since.

“There’s a lot of what you don’t hear on TV, the screaming, the shouting, the hushed comments,” he once said.

Another more vociferous prohibitionist included the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who compared the televised State of the Union to “cheerleading sessions.”

President Donald Trump speaks to Chief Justice John Roberts on the day of his address to a joint session of Congress, at the U.S. Capitol, March 4, 2025. (Reuters/Kevin Lamarque)

“I don’t know at what point it happened, but it happened, and now you go and sit there like a bump on a tree trunk while the applause lines cause half the Congress to jump while [another line] “It makes the other half jump up,” he once said. “It is a scene of events. I resent being asked to give her dignity.”

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He last attended the event in 1997, but he attended a special joint session of Congress after the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, with four other justices.

Scalia, a generally verbose and energetic jurist, said bluntly: “You just sit there, looking stupid.”

Even statements touching on supposedly nonpartisan topics like patriotism, veterans and puppies leave justices in a dilemma: Should they applaud, should they stand and applaud, or do neither? The protocols are never clear, and members of the court may be viewed by the general public as aloof or indifferent if they show no reaction during, say, a tribute to Martin Luther King Jr., when everyone appears to take part in the bipartisan applause in the chamber.

One of the must-attend “out-of-court” events for the Supreme Court is Inauguration of the President. All nine members attended Trump’s public swearing-in last year for a second four-year term. Roberts and Kavanaugh had the formal duties of swearing in the president and vice president, respectively, but the other seven justices had only to sit there, quietly again, in the Capitol Rotunda.

Breyer is the only justice who can be called “regular” in the State of the Union, having been to nearly all of them since joining the court in 1994, including one upon his retirement.

I miss the president Bill ClintonHis last annual speech in 2000 was due to influenza. That year, there were no judges present.

Many believe that judges should go to such events, and that this is just another unwanted chore. Breyer told us in 2005 that this is not the case. “People come if they want to come. I want to come, so I go.”

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President Donald Trump is scheduled to deliver his fourth State of the Union address of his presidency on February 24, 2026. (Wayne McNamee/Getty Images)

Below is a list of members of the Supreme Court who have attended recent State of the Union addresses or equivalent joint sessions of Congress in recent years, based on Fox News research and congressional records. Names in order of seniority:

– 2025: John Roberts, Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, Anthony Kennedy (retired).

– 2024: Roberts, Sonia Sotomayor, Kagan, Neil Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Kennedy (retired).

– 2023: Roberts, Kagan, Kavanaugh, Barrett, Jackson, Kennedy, Stephen Breyer (retired)

– 2022: Roberts, Breyer, Kagan, Kavanaugh, Barrett

– 2021: Roberts (limited attendance for speeches due to the pandemic)

– 2020: Roberts, Kagan, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh

– 2019: Roberts, Kagan, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh

– 2018: Roberts, Breyer, Kagan, Gorsuch

– 2017: Roberts, Kennedy, Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan

– 2016: Roberts, Kennedy, Ruth Bader GinsburgBreyer, Sotomayor, Kagan

– 2015: Roberts, Kennedy, Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan

– 2014: Roberts, Kennedy, Ginsburg, Breyer, Kagan

– 2013: Roberts, Kennedy, Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan

– 2012: Roberts, Kennedy, Ginsburg, Breyer, Kagan

– 2011: Roberts, Kennedy, Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan

– 2010: Roberts, Kennedy, Ginsburg, Breyer, Samuel Alito, Sotomayor

– 2009: Roberts, Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Ginsburg, Breyer, Alito

– 2008: Roberts, Kennedy, Breyer, Alito

– 2007: Roberts, Kennedy, Breyer, Alito

– 2006: Roberts, Thomas, Breyer, Alito

– 2005: Briar

– 2004: Briar

– 2003: Briar

– 2002: Kennedy, Breyer

– 2001: Briar

– 2000: None

– 1999: Sandra Day O’Connor, Kennedy, David Souter, Thomas, Ginsburg, Breyer

– 1998: William Rehnquist, O’Connor, Sutter, Thomas, Breyer

– 1997: Antonin Scalia, Kennedy, Souter, Thomas, Ginsburg, Breyer, Byron White (retired)

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– 1996: Rehnquist, O’Connor, Kennedy, Thomas, Ginsburg, Breyer

– 1995: Rehnquist, O’Connor, Scalia, Ginsburg, Breyer, Harry Blackmun (retired)

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