President Donald Trump lashed out at the Supreme Court on Thursday after the high court ruled in a 5-4 decision that his administration cannot carry out its plan to shut down the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
The Obama-era immigration program has allowed nearly 800,000 young people, known as Dreamers, to remain in the U.S. and avoid deportation.
"These horrible & politically charged decisions coming out of the Supreme Court are shotgun blasts into the face of people that are proud to call themselves Republicans or Conservatives," Trump tweeted Thursday. "We need more Justices or we will lose our 2nd. Amendment & everything else. Vote Trump 2020!"
Trump's comments hours after Thursday's ruling and days after the court ruled that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects LGBTQ Americans from job discrimination on the basis of their sexual orientation or transgender status.
"Do you get the impression that the Supreme Court doesn’t like me?" Trump tweeted Thursday.
Trump later Thursday unleashed a series of tweets complaining about the ruling.
"The DACA decision, while a highly political one, and seemingly not based on the law, gives the President of the United States far more power than EVER anticipated," Trump wrote. "Nevertheless, I will only act in the best interests of the United States of America!"
He called for "NEW JUSTICES" to be appointed to the Supreme Court and said he would, like in the 2016 campaign, release a list of conservative judges he will consider appointing in a second term.
"As President of the United States, I am asking for a legal solution on DACA, not a political one, consistent with the rule of law," Trump wrote. "The Supreme Court is not willing to give us one, so now we have to start this process all over again."
In the Thursday decision, Chief Justice John Roberts was the swing vote in the 5-4 decision, dealing Trump a major legal defeat on his key issue of immigration.
Roberts said Thursday that the government failed to give an adequate justification for ending the popular program. The Trump administration could again try to shut the program down by offering a more detailed reason for why.
Roberts, who was joined by liberal-leaning justices Sonia Sotomayor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan, called the administration's "total rescission" of DACA "arbitrary and capricious" in his decision.
Leading Democrats, including former President Barack Obama, praised the ruling Thursday.
Former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive 2020 Democratic presidential nominee, said the ruling "is a victory made possible by the courage and resilience of hundreds of thousands of DACA recipients who bravely stood up and refused to be ignored."
A number of Republicans meanwhile expressed disdain for the ruling.
"The most disappointing week at #SCOTUS in years," Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., tweeted.
But others, like vulnerable Sen. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., said it was time to advance legislation on the program.
"Today’s DACA ruling gives the White House and Congress the opportunity to do what is right and solve this issue with thoughtful legislation," she tweeted. I’ve fought many times in Congress to provide a legal status for DACA recipients while enhancing border security, closing loopholes in our laws, and modernizing our legal immigration system. I stand ready to continue that work in a bipartisan way."
