Attorney General Todd Blanche says the Trump administration will follow the Supreme Court's decision halting new Postal Service mail voting regulations, even as President Trump publicly criticized the ruling as yet another wrong turn by the justices.

Blanche made the pledge Tuesday during a White House briefing, hours after the Court issued a brief unsigned order blocking the U.S. Postal Service from enforcing mail ballot requirements that had been finalized just weeks earlier. The order came after multiple states sued to stop the rules, arguing they could not comply in time and warning that voters would be disenfranchised.

The administration's response landed on two tracks. Blanche, speaking to reporters, struck a measured tone, pledging compliance while making clear the White House still believes the ruling was wrong. Trump, posting on Truth Social early Tuesday, struck a far sharper one, calling the decision part of a pattern of rulings that have done "incalculable" damage to the country.

Blanche draws the line: comply first, fight later

CBS News reported that Blanche responded directly to questions about whether the administration would honor the Court's order.

"Of course, we're going to comply with the Supreme Court's decision, as we always do. 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."

That framing, compliance paired with a promise to keep pressing on election integrity, tracks with the administration's broader posture. Blanche did not back away from the substance of the USPS rules. He pushed back on what he described as a political effort to cast the administration's election-security goals as illegitimate.

"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."

Blanche's path to the attorney general's office was itself contentious. The Senate confirmed him in a razor-thin 50-49 overnight vote, and the nomination nearly collapsed before that when two Republican senators initially blocked it.

On the ruling itself, Blanche was direct: "We do think that this decision is not the right decision. That is okay. That's the way democracy works."

New USPS rules demanded barcodes, voter data portals

The regulations at the center of the dispute were finalized last month by the Postal Service. They would have required mail ballot envelopes to meet specific design standards, including unique barcodes. State and local election officials would also have been required to submit certain voter information to a government-operated portal.

Several states filed legal challenges, and state and local election officials warned that compliance would be difficult, or impossible, given that some states had already begun sending mail ballots ahead of November's midterm elections. Officials said the rules, if implemented on the current timeline, risked mass disenfranchisement.

The Supreme Court sided with those challengers on Monday, issuing a brief unsigned order that blocked enforcement while the legal fights continue. In a pointed signal about the government's legal position, the Court stated the administration "is unlikely to succeed on the merits" in one of the cases.

Only two justices dissented: Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, both conservatives, who argued the states challenging the rules are unlikely to show the policy is unlawful. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, also a conservative, sided with the majority, a split that underscored how broadly the Court viewed the administration's legal footing as weak.

The administration had previously secured a favorable outcome on a related executive order. The Supreme Court cleared Trump's mail-in voting executive order in a 6-3 ruling earlier, making this latest rebuke a reversal of momentum on the election-integrity front.

Trump's Truth Social broadside targets the justices directly

Early Tuesday, before Blanche's briefing, President Trump posted a lengthy response on Truth Social calling the ruling "another bad decision" against his administration. He went further than disagreement.

"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."

Trump also took aim at the justices' character, writing that they are "merely a shell of their original selves" and accusing the Court of "costing the United States Trillions of Dollars with shockingly bad rulings." He said the Court has "rendered some of the most destructive, hurtful, and damaging decisions in our Country's history." The post included praise for Justices Alito and Thomas, the two dissenters.

Asked about the president's frustration, Blanche acknowledged it plainly: "He is very frustrated." But the attorney general defended Trump's right to speak out, telling reporters that the president "has every right and indeed, he should communicate his concerns with the Supreme Court whenever he has them."

That dynamic, public criticism from the Oval Office paired with institutional compliance from the Justice Department, is not new for this administration. Trump has publicly rebuked media coverage of Blanche before, and the relationship between the president's public voice and his attorney general's legal posture has drawn scrutiny from both allies and critics.

Election integrity push loses its enforcement tool, for now

With the USPS rules blocked, the administration's most concrete mechanism for tightening mail ballot procedures ahead of November is off the table while litigation proceeds. The Court's language, that the government "is unlikely to succeed on the merits", suggests the legal road ahead is steep.

Blanche framed the setback as temporary, not terminal. His emphasis on doing "everything in this administration that we can" to ensure election integrity signals the White House intends to pursue other avenues. Meanwhile, former DOJ official Ed Martin has already departed to lead an outside election-integrity legal effort ahead of the midterms and 2028, suggesting the fight is moving to multiple fronts simultaneously.

Several open questions remain. Which specific states filed the challenges, and how many cases are still pending? Does the Court's order apply across all the lawsuits or only one? And what specific voter data would officials have been required to hand over through the government portal? None of those details have been publicly clarified.

What is clear: the administration wanted tighter controls on mail voting, the Court said no, at least for now, and the White House accepted the loss without abandoning the goal.

Compliance with a court order you disagree with is not weakness. It is how constitutional government is supposed to work, and it is a standard this administration's critics would do well to remember the next time they lose one.