Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) apologized on Thursday for remarks about two Supreme Court justices after Chief Justice John Roberts chided him for making “threatening statements,” the Washington Post reports. “I should not have used the words I used yesterday. They didn’t come out the way I intended them to,” Schumer told Senate colleagues. “I’m from Brooklyn. We speak in strong language…. but in no way was I making a threat.” A day earlier, Schumer, speaking outside the Supreme Court on Wednesday as the justices heard oral arguments on a Louisiana law limiting access to abortions, warned Trump-appointed justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh that in deciding to hear the first abortion case brought before the Court in decades, “you have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price.”
The comments also brought a sharp retort from President Donald Trump. “This is a direct & dangerous threat to the U.S. Supreme Court by Schumer,” the president tweeted. “If a Republican did this, he or she would be arrested, or impeached. Serious action MUST be taken NOW!” Schumer’s comments, widely criticized by conservatives and anti-abortion activists, got a curt response from the chief justice. “Justices know that criticism comes with the territory, but threatening statements of this sort from the highest levels of government are not only inappropriate; they are dangerous,” Roberts said.