A hot mic moment between President Donald Trump and Supreme Court Justice John Roberts led to left-wing media outlets publishing a flurry of outlandish conspiracy theories about what the president had said.
The hot mic moment occurred shortly before Trump delivered a speech to Congress late Tuesday at the Capitol. As Trump was making his entrance and greeting attendees, he said something to Roberts.
Listen:
President Donald Trump to Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts: “Thank you again, I won’t forget”
pic.twitter.com/O97l7082K8— Purple Soul (@realPurpleSoul) March 5, 2025
“Thank you again,” the president said as he shook Roberts’s hand and gave him a pat on the arm. “I won’t forget.”
What did he mean by that? Probably nothing nefarious. The likely benign remarks nevertheless led partisan, left-wing media outlets to publish a slate of wild conspiracy theories inferring the worst.
“Donald Trump Rips The Mask Off Of John Roberts’ Court In One Sentence,” an ominous headline at HuffPost read.
HuffPost went on to claim that Trump thanked Roberts for the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision last summer to grant him presidential immunity.
“Roberts is the author of the decision in Trump v. United States, which in July 2024 made it possible for Trump to win the White House in November,” the HuffPost report read.
“The decision granted presidents absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts, and, in doing so, postponed Trump’s prosecution for trying to overturn the 2020 election long enough for him to win the election, putting him in the Oval Office and thus beyond the reach of prosecutors,” the report continued.
Meaning, the report alleged, that “Roberts gave Trump a get-out-of-jail-free card,” for which Trump is uber-grateful.
According to the author of the report, Paul Blumenthal, Trump’s entire presidency has to be viewed through the lens of the immunity decision.
“All of Trump’s unlawful actions since taking office must be seen through the lens of Roberts’ decision in Trump v. U.S.,” he claimed. “The Trump administration believes that the court’s conservative supermajority has blessed an autocratic executive and that, while the justices have not officially ruled on many of his unconstitutional and illegal acts, they will in due time.”
“Whatever decisions are forthcoming from the court on Trump’s unlawful administration are now tainted by Trump’s gratitude to Roberts. He ripped the mask off the court’s pretensions to fairness and independence and revealed his most vital accomplice,” he concluded.
MSNBC, a corporate media outlet that often peddles leftist propaganda, also echoed HuffPost’s wild angle, albeit more subtly.
“An obvious first guess at what Trump could’ve been talking about (if anything specific) is the immunity decision that Roberts authored last year,” a report from the far-left network read.
“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,” it continued.
The Daily Beast, another left-wing outlet like HuffPost, meanwhile claimed “there have been more than a few instances over the past few years of Supreme Court intervention in favor of the president.”
Besides the immunity case, The Daily Beast also cited a Jan. 6th case in which “Roberts wrote for the court that obstruction charges against Jan. 6 defendants had to be narrower than what prosecutors had brought.”
This was allegedly beneficial to Trump because Trump’s election subversion case in D.C. had involved two obstruction charges.
The media’s wild theories caught the attention of Trump himself, who responded forcefully in a Truth Social post published late Wednesday:
In the post seen above, he attributed his remarks to Roberts solely to the gratitude he feels over the chief justice swearing him into office.
“The Fake ‘Play the Ref’ News, in order to create a divide between me and our great U.S. Supreme Court, heard me say last night, loudly and openly as I was walking past the Justices on the way to the podium, ‘thank you,’ to Chief Justice John Roberts,” Trump wrote. “Like most people, I don’t watch Fake News CNN or MSDNC, but I understand they are going ‘crazy’ asking what is it that I was thanking Justice Roberts for?”
“They never called my office to ask, of course, but if they had I would have told these sleazebag ‘journalists’ that I thanked him for SWEARING ME IN ON INAUGURATION DAY, AND DOING A REALLY GOOD JOB IN SO DOING! The Fake News never quits!” he added.
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
V. Saxena is a staff writer with a decade of experience as a professional writer, and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University. Saxena also contributes to BizPac Review.
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