At congressional address, Trump told Chief Justice Roberts he ‘won’t forget’

What was Donald Trump thinking about when he thanked Chief Justice John Roberts and said he wouldn’t “forget”?

If the answer lies in any Trump-friendly court rulings, then the president might’ve been thinking about multiple things.

Trump made the remark Tuesday night, as he shook hands with the Supreme Court justices attending his congressional address. Starting at about 2:20:05 on C-SPAN’s recording, the president shook hands with retired Justice Anthony Kennedy (who stepped down during Trump’s first term, making way for Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s appointment); then Trump’s third appointee, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, whom Republicans pushed through at the end of his first term after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died; then Kavanaugh; then Justice Elena Kagan; and finally Roberts, whom Trump thanked “again,” said he wouldn’t forget, and then patted him on the back/shoulder area.

An obvious first guess at what Trump could’ve been talking about (if anything specific) is the immunity decision that Roberts authored last year. The high court’s handling of that appeal helped Trump avoid a trial in the federal election interference case and could even help him overturn his state conviction in New York in his only criminal case that went to trial before he won the 2024 election.

On the subject of that political victory, another crucial Roberts Court decision last year was in Trump v. Anderson, the case that kept Trump on the ballot despite the 14th Amendment’s insurrectionist ban.

And on the subject of Jan. 6, there’s the Roberts-authored ruling in Fischer v. United States, which narrowed obstruction charges against Jan. 6 defendants in a case that could’ve also benefited Trump’s legal challenge to his federal election interference charges. We’ll never know the full extent to which the Fischer ruling would’ve helped Trump; due to the Justice Department’s policy against charging sitting presidents, his victory in November led the prosecution to drop the case entirely.

To be sure, Roberts hasn’t always sided with Trump. Indeed, on Wednesday morning, the chief justice and Barrett were in the majority of a 5-4 decision rejecting the administration’s bid to avoid paying out certain congressionally appropriated funds. As Trump’s litigation-packed second term gets underway, the president will likely win some court cases and lose others. But he has the Roberts Court to thank for being in a position to play the game at all.

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This article was originally published on MSNBC.com