One of the hallmarks of the State of the Union is the president of the United States greeting those in attendance at the U.S. Capitol on his way into the House chamber to deliver the address. Tuesday night, President Donald Trump glad-handed with lawmakers, administration officials, and Supreme Court justices while walking to the podium.
Representing the High Court was Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. Of the four, all but Kavanaugh recently ruled against the Trump administration in striking down tariffs imposed under the 1977 International Emergency Economics Power Act (IEEPA) – and many wondered if Trump would admonish the court the way his predecessor Barack Obama did during the 2010 SOTU in the aftermath of the Citizens United decision.
If you were watching ABC News, you would have been led to believe Trump didn’t wait for his speech to make his feelings known. According to World News Tonight anchor David Muir and chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl, the president shook hands with Roberts and ignored the other justices. The only problem? That’s not what actually happened.
On Wednesday’s show, Megyn was joined by Tom Bevan, Carl Cannon and Andrew Walworth of RealClearPolitics to discuss the inaccurate reporting and the potential motive behind it.
The Erroneous Report
Reports and video show President Trump shook hands with all four justices present in the chamber as he entered for the State of the Union address. Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Clarence Thomas, Sonia Sotomayor, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch did not attend.
The chief justice was seated on the aisle and was first to shake Trump’s hand, but the president also exchanged handshakes and pleasantries with Kagan, Kavanaugh, and Barrett. In video of the entrance, Barrett could be seen smiling while visibly reaching out to shake Trump’s hand as she said a few words.
But over on ABC News, here is how Muir and Karl described the encounter:
MUIR: We just saw the President obviously shake the Chief Justice’s hand. There is justice Elana Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett. Of course, he chose Amy Coney Barrett for the bench. She was one of the justices who did not vote in his favor and he did not shake her hand there. Did interact with the Chief Justice, but then with none of the other justices. And Jon Karl, this was a question for the president today… It was clear to us at the White House that he didn’t quite know how he was going to handle the justices when he got there tonight.
KARL: Interesting that shake, very quick shake with John Roberts and then going right by Amy Coney Barrett, who he put on the court… But Trump felt particularly betrayed by the justices that he put on the court that ruled against him.
During the SOTU address, Trump kept his critique of the court rather restrained, simply mentioning “an unfortunate ruling from the United States Supreme Court” while speaking more broadly about his tariff policy.
After the speech wrapped – some two hours after the erroneous report took place – Muir was forced to do cleanup:
MUIR: We should point out… that he did shake their hands there this evening. There were a couple of shots that they showed, one of them making it very clear that not only did he shake the chief justice’s hand but the others who had gathered there, including Amy Coney Barrett, who did not rule in his favor of the tariffs, though he did appoint her to the court.
“These little drama queens… They thought they had such a juicy moment the president snubbing his own appointee. No, that’s not what happened at all, and they should be embarrassed,” Megyn said. “They saw what they wanted to see.”
A False Narrative
Megyn said Muir was likely told to correct the record, but Bevan said the correction was too little too late. “The apology comes two hours later, when the audience is probably a third of what it was when Trump was coming into the chamber,” he noted. “It is the same thing over and over again, but clearly they wanted that. In their minds, they already had this narrative.”
The problem, Bevan said, is that Trump didn’t stick to the script Muir and Karl expected. “Trump actually was very restrained, I think, to his credit, in terms of the way he dealt with the court. He was very cordial with them on the way in. He didn’t attack them personally,” he recalled. “I thought he actually handled it much more deftly than most people, including all the media. They were all hyped up for him to attack the court. He didn’t do it.”
Megyn admitted the president defied even her own expectations. “I actually predicted that he would attack them because he had and he is not afraid of doing it in somebody’s face,” she said. “But he went with decorum, to his credit, on the night in question and handled himself quite well.”
In Megyn’s view, the error from the ABC News team was not innocent. “I will submit to you that there is a reason they made this blunder, which they then had to correct,” she said. “Those two clearly wanted their little catty moment of, ‘Aha… it’s all falling apart at the Supreme Court, and they hate him now too. And Trump blew it, and he’s such a jerk. He didn’t shake the hands.'”
“But he did shake the hands,” Megyn concluded, “even though his own justices, whom he appointed – Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett – were two of the three… who sided with the libs.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with RealClearPolitics by tuning in to episode 1,260 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s The Megyn Kelly Channel (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.