State of the Union May Be a Trial for ‘Barely...

Just once a year do the justices of the Supreme Court and the president routinely gather in the same place, as the justices file onto the floor of the House of Representatives and sit silently in their robes while the president delivers his State of the Union address. There have been tense moments before as the jurists have perched within easy eyesight of a sitting president they have ruled against. But perhaps never before has the moment been so fraught as it will be on Tuesday night. The justices will cross paths with President Trump just days after he bitterly criticized them in personal terms for dealing a major blow to his signature economic initiative by ruling against the legality of his tariffs. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote the opinion, declaring that Mr. Trump had exceeded his legal authority when he relied on an emergency statute to impose sweeping tariffs without congressional approval. The chief justice was joined by the three liberal justices but also two of Mr. Trump’s first-term picks for the bench, Justices Neil M. Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett.