Paul Collins’s and Matthew Eshbaugh-Soha’s work contributes in several ways to our understanding of the president’s influence on public opinion of the Supreme Court in specific cases and as an institution more broadly. First, they speak to a broad swath of our discipline by drawing from a wide range of scholarly literatures on the president, Supreme Court, Congress, public policy, public opinion, media, separation of powers, constitutional interpretation, judicial independence, and executive–judicial relations. Second, the topic of their work (and for the most part the presentation of their empirical findings) appeals to a broader public audience than most related scholarly works. Third, they have compiled a rich, novel database of the president’s public comments (written and spoken) about Supreme Court cases. These data offer a much more detailed understanding of what cases presidents focus on in public comments (pending, recently decided, and historical), the timing of their comments, the tone they take, at whom those comments are directed (media, Congress, or the bureaucracy), and especially why “they go public.”

In addition, based on an original survey experiment, the authors provide a significant opportunity to understand the direct effect of public comments on support for the Court in specific cases and more generally. Unfortunately, however, the authors also conduct an OLS regression, despite the lack of precision of their dependent variable; in so doing, they miss an important opportunity to assess appropriately the effect of presidential remarks on either specific or diffuse public support for the Court (p. 68). This is not ameliorated by the experimental design they use that itself is ideal for establishing internal validity. The appropriate analysis is either a nonparametric or nonlinear regression model (logistical regression).

Finally, their work improves debates on the norm of judicial independence. That is, a president’s condemnations (or praise) of a pending or decided case by the highest court in the land violates the norm of judicial independence of courts to render their decisions without interference by elected branches. Their findings underline the notion that public comments on the Court (as with public comments on Congress) are part of a dynamic public policy process, rather than a pure separation-of-powers conflict or a fixed game of the Court lacking the power of enforcement and requiring independence to maintain its legitimacy.

Although empirically presidents seem to violate the norm of judicial independence by commenting on the courts more generally or on specific cases, the authors do not back away from the normative question of whether they should do so. Rather than a theoretical discussion of this norm, however, they examine the strategy of violating the norm, especially for pending cases, given the threat of backlash for violating this appropriate check or constraint on presidential power (judicial independence as defined as judicial supremacy on matters of constitutional interpretation). According to their perception data, when the public is asked about these rhetorical strategies, it is much more accepting of presidential comments on decided rather than on pending cases. That is, with respect to policy implementation of decided cases, the public is much more accepting of public comments and statements about the equal and coordinate authority of all three branches to interpret the Constitution.

In contrast, the public roundly condemns the idea that the president should weigh in on pending cases. In fact, during their primary study period of the modern presidency—Eisenhower through Obama (1953–2017)—presidents rarely commented on pending cases: only 5.8% of the time. The timing, length, and tone of those comments do not support that they are a primary strategy of influence on the Court’s final decision (policy adoption phase). Instead, presidents rely on a much more useful tool to influence the Court’s decision-making in pending cases: arguments made by the principal attorney for the executive branch, the Solicitor General. Empirically, the Solicitor General’s position often wins, and the Court is seen as paying more deference to this individual.

Collins’s and Eshbaugh-Soha’s primary focus and findings are about the effect of the president’s public comments on recently decided cases in encouraging a legislative response, affecting media coverage, and moving key constituencies in line with the president’s preferred policy position in reelection years and periods of divided government, and to support their legacy in their second terms. A president whose preferred policy position is at odds with that of the Court is much more likely to speak negatively about the Court’s decision and to call on Congress to pass legislation and the bureaucracy to create rules that blunt the effect of the decision (its implementation). In both reelection years and their second terms, presidents tout decisions (whether narrowly decided or not) that align with their signature policy achievements and goals. The tone of their comments match and reflect public opinion to signal their democratic responsiveness to matters of national import, rather than as means of changing opinion.

In their concluding chapter, the authors expand their database to the first 21.5 months of Trump’s first term. This is a very compelling addition, because much condemnation of President Trump has been about his attacks on institutions, especially the courts. It allows comparison to all other presidents’ public comments—made in the study period’s first 21.5 months of their first terms—on pending, recent, and historical cases to the public record. Examining the tone, timing, and calls on Congress and the bureaucracy to act, Trump looks to have made no comments about pending cases; he only praised a single recently decided case supporting his travel ban (Trump v. Hawaii) and did not ask Congress or the bureaucracy to respond to recent or historical cases during these initial months.

However, when Trump’s tweets are added as public statements, in the first two years of his presidency he appears much more in line with post-Carter presidents with respect to decided cases. In contrast to his predecessors, however, he has commented at much higher levels about pending cases that were negatively decided in lower courts. Rather than seeming to pressure or bully the High Court, Trump’s tweets are directed at lower-court decisions (and judges) and the judicial branch writ large. During his first 21.5 months in office, Trump used Twitter to circumvent direct media coverage of him compared to his Tweets which he used to attack lower court rulings and particular judges. He also once asked Congress to respond to a recent case and praised decisions on which he agreed with the outcome. On multiple occasions, however, he also directed his Justice Department to focus attention on the High Court to get a ruling in his favor. Considering Tweets and other forms of social media as tantamount to formal speeches, interviews, and the like is a particularly interesting route for future research on public comments.

Collins and Eshbaugh-Soha have contributed greatly to the work on executive–judicial relations by documenting and compiling a database of presidential public comments. These data clearly demonstrate that presidents throughout our history have used their public forum (particularly public speeches) strategically, focusing their limited resources to help achieve specific goals, including reelection, good public policy, and their historical legacy. With respect to reelection goals, their public comments are designed not necessarily to affect the outcome in pending cases, but rather to take positions on preferred outcomes to motivate key constituencies and so increase their chances of being reelected. Presidents often will do this with respect to previously decided cases to appeal to key constituencies, not to change opinion. In fact, this rhetorical strategy is applied with regard to reelection or during their second terms by presidents in high-salience cases to align with existing public opinion so as to reflect their democratic responsiveness to issues of national import. Interestingly, to gauge differences in rhetorical strategy, Collins’s and Eshbaugh-Soha’s work could expand to compare presidential nominees whose goal is election to the office versus those who want to defeat an incumbent.