WASHINGTON — Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, speaking at a Washington event, rebuffed President Donald Trump's suggestion that Supreme Court justices owe loyalty to the president who appointed them, saying his allegiance lies with the Constitution. Gorsuch made the remarks in response to public statements by Trump pressing Republican-appointed justices to remain aligned with the president and the political movement that elevated them.

"My loyalty is to the Constitution, the laws of the United States," Gorsuch said. Gorsuch, who joined the court in 2017 at age 49, defended the design of the federal judiciary and said he believes the structure laid out in the Constitution works.

"You've given nine old people life tenure. But you give them life tenure if you believe their job is only to apply the law fairly without regard to anybody or anything else or politics or any of the noise," Gorsuch said.

The remarks followed a Truth Social post last month in which Trump urged Republican-appointed justices to "stick together like glue, totally loyal to the people and ideology that got them there." In the same post, Trump said "Certain Republican Appointees let the Democrats push them around, always wanting to be popular, politically correct, or even worse, wanting to show how 'independent' they are, with very little loyalty to the man who appointed them or, more importantly, the ideology from which they came to be Nominated and Confirmed."

Trump repeatedly criticized the Supreme Court for its 6-3 ruling in February that invalidated tariffs he had imposed. Gorsuch and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, both appointed by Trump, were among the six justices in the majority.

Trump has also indicated he believes the court will invalidate his executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship. After attending oral arguments for the case last month, he wrote on social media, "based on the questioning by Republican Nominated Justices that I watched firsthand in the Court, we lose."