It may sound like a gag delivered by a famous comedy dim bulb: Tom Smothers, maybe, or Jenna from “30 Rock.” But it came from the dead-serious Twitter fingers of the president’s son, Don Jr. Today the Supreme Court delivered a verdict in the Masterpiece Cake Shop case, finding that the state of Colorado had violated the First Amendment rights of a baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. It was a 7-to-2 vote, and several news stories and tweets described it as a narrow decision.
Commenting on an Associated Press tweet, Don Jr. tweeted, “I am reading about a 7 – 2 vote. Pretty sure that’s not narrowly… At least 2 dem leaning justices must have agreed.”
I am reading about a 7 – 2 vote. Pretty sure that’s not narrowly… At least 2 dem leaning justices must have agreed. https://t.co/vOjX0mOHPf
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) June 4, 2018
Wait, what is a narrow decision?
A narrow decision is one that is very specific and doesn’t necessarily set a precedent — not a close vote margin. That is the situation in the Masterpiece case. The justices wrote that their ruling applied to this specific baker because of officials’ actions in that specific state, but other bakers who make a similar business judgment could lose a future case.
If Don Jr. was Tom Smothers, then Twitter got to be Dick.
Narrowly means that the legal decision was narrow not the vote count, Good lord.
— MeltLikeButta (@jwbutta) June 4, 2018
Trump Jr. also thought the Trump Tower meeting with Russian operatives was “narrowly” about adoption so despite a Penn education he clearly has no idea what the word means https://t.co/da2jTsDNW1
— Adam Blickstein (@AdamBlickstein) June 4, 2018
You lost him at legal.
— Joy (@serenitynowokay) June 4, 2018
I have read
the decision
that the Supreme Court
issuedand which
you have misinterpreted
like the tweet itselfForgive me
the ruling was trifling
so narrow
Like your frickin’ understanding of the law, the media, and the unsettled constitutional issues in the case, genius https://t.co/om5h9dgWdG— Matt Fuller (@MEPFuller) June 4, 2018
Surprisingly, Donald Trump Jr. is not a legal scholar. Here’s my report on today’s, yes, narrow decision: https://t.co/D6Ls80ldtF https://t.co/qdwPlK5ZIw
— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner) June 4, 2018
He’s not the only one who doesn’t know what a narrow decision is
Don Jr. then doubled down, retweeting a tweet from Sen. Ted Cruz, an attorney, who made the same mistake.
“Today’s Supreme Court decision upholding a Colorado baker’s constitutional right to live according to his faith is a major victory for religious liberty. The fact that the decision was 7-2 (not a narrow 5-4) underscores that govt should NEVER discriminate against religious faith,” wrote Cruz.
Brit Hume of Fox News got half credit for his own tweet questioning the legal knowledge of the Associated Press’s Supreme Court reporter: “Narrowly? It was 7-2. Maybe they meant ‘narrowly’ to mean it applies only to cases where the product in question has such a creative and therefore personal component that a religious exemption from anti-discrimination laws would apply.”
To which Don Jr. responded, somewhat half-heartedly: “Maybe, but we all know they would rather have then implication be that it was conservative vs lib rather than clarifying, because that’s far more polarizing. Not sure I can give the MSM the benefit of the doubt anymore.”
Maybe, but we all know they would rather have then implication be that it was conservative vs lib rather than clarifying, because that’s far more polarizing. Not sure I can give the MSM the benefit of the doubt anymore. https://t.co/OYJm2Y63WA
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) June 4, 2018
All in all, it has not been a great few days for the man who has been described as the Fredo Corleone of the Trump family. Over the weekend, President Trump’s lawyers released a 20-page letter, purportedly sent to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, in which they admitted that the president had dictated Don Jr.’s false “Russian adoptions” statement about his meeting with Russians in Trump Tower in June 2016.
