More than half of the Supreme Court justices did not attend President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address on Tuesday night. Five of the nine justices were absent from the event, leaving only four seated in front of the House dais as Trump delivered his first State of the Union address of his second term.
Those in attendance were Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. Absent were Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor, Neil Gorsuch, and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
The majority sit-out follows a recent 6-3 ruling by the high Court that blocked Trump’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose sweeping tariffs. In that decision, the Court held that IEEPA “does not authorize the President to impose tariffs,” according to a February 20 report by The Dallas Express.
At a news conference on February 20, Trump called the decision “ridiculous” and expressed disappointment in some justices while praising Justice Kavanaugh’s dissent. The ruling limited the use of IEEPA but does not eliminate presidential tariff authority altogether, DX reported.
Despite the optics of a majority absence, the five-justice sit-out is not unprecedented. In 2002, seven justices skipped then-President George W. Bush’s State of the Union address, according to reporting by The Hill.
Justice Stephen Breyer was, at times, the only member of the Court to attend in subsequent years.
Some members of the Court have long opted out. Thomas has not attended since 2006, and Alito has not gone since 2010, after he was seen mouthing “not true” during President Barack Obama’s remarks criticizing the Court’s Citizens United decision, according to The Hill.
Occasionally, former justices attend even when sitting members do not.
Retired Justices Stephen Breyer and Anthony Kennedy appeared at President Joe Biden’s 2023 address, marking the first time in 26 years that a former justice attended, per The Hill.
Attendance at the State of the Union has historically varied.
In 2015, the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg publicly acknowledged she was not “100 percent sober” at one address after being seen dozing off, according to remarks she made at a Smithsonian event reported by Politico.
