Trump admin. will comply with mail ballot ruling by Supreme Court, Blanche says

By Jacob Rosen Justice Department Reporter Jake Rosen is a reporter covering the Department of Justice. He was previously a campaign digital reporter covering President Trump's 2024 campaign and also served as an associate producer for "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan." Read Full Bio Ed O'Keefe Senior White House and Political Correspondent Ed O'Keefe is CBS News' senior White House and political correspondent reporting for all CBS News platforms. He's part of the team covering President Trump and covered all four years of Joe Biden's presidency. From the White House to the campaign trail, O'Keefe's reports stretch from the politics of the moment to how policy enacted in Washington affects the nation and the world. Read Full Bio September 15, 2026 / 5:58 PM EDT / CBS News Add CBS News on Google Attorney General Todd Blanche pledged the Trump administration would comply with the Supreme Court's ruling Monday that effectively blocked the U.S. Postal Service from enforcing new regulations for mail voting ahead of November's midterm elections.The high court rejected the administration's efforts to move forward with the new rules, which were finalized last month, while multiple legal challenges proceed. The new rules would mandate that mail ballot envelopes meet certain design requirements, including unique barcodes, and would require state and local election officials to submit to a government-operated portal certain information about voters receiving mail ballots. Several states have already begun sending mail ballots, and election officials at the state and local levels have said it would be difficult to comply with the rules in time for the upcoming elections. Many have warned of mass voter disenfranchisement if the new Postal Service rules were implemented before the November elections."Of course, we're going to comply with the Supreme Court's decision, as we always do," Blanche said in response to a question from CBS News while briefing reporters at the White House on Tuesday. "That doesn't mean that we're not going to do everything in this administration that we can to make sure that there are free and fair elections."Blanche continued, saying "there's this constant pressure, and this effort by the media and by mostly by Democrats that somehow doing that is a bad thing. Everybody should want that."The attorney general was also asked by CBS News about a Truth Social post from President Trump early Tuesday that referred to the ruling as "another bad decision" against his administration and blamed the high court for doing "incalculable" damage to the country in recent court decisions against him.In a brief unsigned order, the Supreme Court said the government "is unlikely to succeed on the merits," in one of the cases challenging the U.S. Postal Service rules. Two of the court's conservatives, Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, dissented from the court's ruling, arguing the states that sued over the Postal Service's new rules are unlikely to show the policy is unlawful. A third conservative, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, sided with the majority. "The Court's inability and unwillingness to do the right thing for our Country will go down, in a very negative way, in the annals of History. This Supreme Court is bullied and cajoled by the Radical Left into making decisions that have set America back at least a hundred years," President Trump wrote, after praising Alito and Thomas. "These are not the people I interviewed to serve on the United States Supreme Court, they are merely a shell of their original selves, a Court that is costing the United States Trillions of Dollars with shockingly bad rulings that are of such magnitude that it won't be easily possible for our Country to recover or heal," Mr. Trump continued, adding the court has "rendered some of the most destructive, hurtful, and damaging decisions in our Country's history.""He is very frustrated," Blanche said of Mr. Trump and the Supreme Court, adding Mr. Trump "has every right and indeed, he should communicate his concerns with the Supreme Court whenever he has them." In response to another question on Mr. Trump's criticism of the high court, Blanche replied, "We do think that this decision is not the right decision. That is okay. That's the way democracy works." In: Supreme Court of the United States Todd Blanche Absentee Ballot Donald Trump Watch: Blanche talks possible DOJ role in AI regulations, mail-in voting at White House briefing 44:57 Watch: Blanche talks possible DOJ role in AI regulations, mail-in voting at White House briefing (44:57)