World
Sotomayor's dissent: A president should not be a 'king above the law'
WASHINGTON (AP) — In an unsparing dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the Supreme Court allowed a president to become a “king above the law” in its ruling that limited the scope of criminal charges against former President Donald Trump for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol and efforts to overturn the election.
She called the decision, which likely ended the prospect of a trial for Trump before the November election, “utterly indefensible.”
“The court effectively creates a law-free zone around the president, upsetting the status quo that has existed since the founding,” she wrote, in a dissent joined by the other two liberal justices, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Sotomayor read her dissent aloud in the courtroom, with a weighty delivery that underscored her criticism of the majority. She strongly pronounced each word, pausing at certain moments and gritting her teeth at others.
“Ironic isn’t it? The man in charge of enforcing laws can now just break them,” Sotomayor said.
Chief Justice John Roberts accused the liberal justices of fearmongering in the 6-3 majority opinion. It found that presidents aren’t above the law but must be entitled to presumptive immunity for official acts so the looming threat of a potential criminal prosecution doesn’t keep them from forcefully exercising the office’s far-reaching powers or create a cycle of prosecutions aimed at political enemies.
While the opinion allows for the possibility of prosecutions for unofficial acts, Sotomayor said it “deprives these prosecutions of any teeth” by excluding any evidence that related to official acts where the president is immune.
“This majority’s project will have disastrous consequences for the presidency and for our democracy,” she said. She ended by saying, “With fear for our democracy, I dissent.”
Trump, for his part, has denied doing anything wrong and has said this prosecution and three others are politically motivated to try to keep him from returning to the White House.
The other justices looked on in silence and largely remained still as Sotomayor spoke, with Justice Samuel Alito shuffling through papers and appearing to study them.
Sotomayor pointed to historical evidence, from the founding fathers to Watergate, that presidents could potentially face prosecution. She took a jab at the conservative majority that has made the nation’s history a guiding principle on issues like guns and abortion. “Interesting, history matters, right?”
Then she looked at the courtroom audience and concluded, “Except here.”
The majority feared that the threat of potential prosecution could constrain a president or create a “cycle of factional strife,” that the founders intended to avoid.
Sotomayor, on the other handed, pointed out that presidents have access to extensive legal advice about their actions and that criminal cases typically face high bars in court to proceed.
“It is a far greater danger if the president feels empowered to violate federal criminal law, buoyed by the knowledge of future immunity,” she said. “I am deeply troubled by the idea … that our nation loses something valuable when the president is forced to operate within the confines of federal criminal law.”
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Associated Press writer Stephen Groves contributed to this story.
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President Masoud Pezeshkian invoked one of Iran’s strongest wartime symbols on May 24, signaling Tehran’s resolve to hold its ground against the U.S. and Israel across the region, a counterterrorism expert said.
The Iranian leader’s remarks came at a key moment in diplomacy, as President Donald Trump said a deal with Tehran to end the war is “largely negotiated” and warned the U.S. would either sign “a great and meaningful” agreement or walk away entirely.
While Iran signaled broad agreement with Washington on some points, it said a final deal is not imminent and that negotiations over the remaining details are still underway.
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Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian speaks with Fox News Channel’s Martha MacCallum during an interview in New York City on Sept. 25, 2025. (John Lamparski/Getty Images)
In an X post marking the anniversary of the 1982 recapture of Khorramshahr from Iraqi forces during the Iran-Iraq War, Pezeshkian said, “Khorramshahr today is Iran, the Persian Gulf, and the Strait of Hormuz,” adding that “resistance, self-sacrifice, and repelling aggression are rooted in the culture of this land.”
Analysts claimed Pezeshkian was deliberately invoking one of the deepest ideological touchstones of the Islamic Republic — the battle that came to symbolize national resistance, civilian sacrifice and defiance against invasion.
“This is the Iran-Iraq War reference, and the timing is the point,” said Dr. Omar Mohammed, director of the Antisemitism Research Initiative Program on Extremism at George Washington University.
May 24 marks the anniversary of the 1982 liberation of Khorramshahr, the southwestern city Saddam Hussein captured early in the war and Iranian forces retook after months of brutal urban combat.
FROM HOSTAGE CRISIS TO ASSASSINATION PLOTS: IRAN’S NEAR HALF-CENTURY WAR ON AMERICANS
An Iranian flag is placed amid rubble next to a destroyed residential building near Ferdowsi Square in Tehran on March 3, 2026. (Atta Kenare/AFP)
“This is one of the Islamic Republic’s foundational mythological moments — civilian resistance, mass sacrifice, repelling an ‘aggressor army.’ Roughly what the Great Patriotic War is to Russia. The rhetorical move is the extension,” Mohammed told Fox News Digital.
“He’s mapping the 1980-82 defensive-war frame onto the current confrontation: Iran attacked by an aggressor, ordinary citizens (‘battle-untested but brave’) expected to stand and fight, with ‘resistance, sacrifice, repelling aggression’ cast as the cultural default mode.”
Some of the phrasing, Mohammed said, also evokes volunteer and Basij fighters versus a professional invading army. The analyst noted that Pezeshkian’s “Hormuz line” comment reflects a standard Iranian escalation tactic.
IRAN TO HOLD LIVE-FIRE DRILLS IN STRAIT OF HORMUZ WITH US ARMADA IN MIDDLE EAST
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and President Donald Trump stand together in an official setting. (Majid Saeedi/Getty Images)
“Invoking the strait inside a wartime-mobilization frame — even rhetorically — is a deliberate signal, not throat-clearing,” he added.
“The Khorramshahr frame is the deepest register the regime has. It’s what they reach for to signal existential war, not a managed crisis.”
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Mohammed explained that Pezeshkian’s X post is framing the current confrontation from the presidential account to send a “high-stakes message.”
“It’s also a tell on internal posture: Khorramshahr, in short, means ‘we are being invaded and we will not negotiate,’” he added.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has announced that her country will host the Iranian national football team during the upcoming FIFA World Cup, due to tensions with the United States.
On Monday, Sheinbaum said that FIFA, the global football governing body, had approached Mexico about hosting Iran, after the US said it did not wish to do so.
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“We have no reason to deny them the possibility of staying in Mexico,” Sheinbaum said during her daily media conference.
Previously, Iran had been scheduled to play all three of its group matches in the US.
But the administration of US President Donald Trump has previously said it is not “appropriate” for Iranian team members to be in the country, “for their own life and safety”.
It has yet to grant the Iranian team the necessary visas to travel to the US, despite Trump’s assertion that players and staff would be “welcome”.
Since February 28, the US and Israel have been at war with Iran, and peace negotiations are tense but ongoing.
The head of Iran’s football federation, Mehdi Taj, confirmed on Sunday that the team planned to move its training base from Tucson, Arizona, to the Mexican border city of Tijuana.
Taj explained that team leaders got approval for the move after meeting with FIFA officials in Istanbul, as well as holding an online conference with FIFA’s Secretary General, Mattias Grafstrom.
Switching the team’s base to Mexico, Taj said, would help avoid visa complications, with the team able to travel directly to Mexico aboard Iran Air flights.
But the US-Israeli war against Iran has cast a pall over the World Cup, making the Iranian team’s participation uncertain.
Roughly 3,468 people have been killed in Iran since February’s war began, and more than 26,500 have been injured. Further fatalities have been reported across the region.
The war has also thrown the global economy into turmoil, driving up the costs of fuel and agricultural fertiliser, among other goods.
Iran’s football team has long been a top squad in its region: It currently ranks near the top of the Asian Football Confederation. Its participation in the 2026 tournament marks its fourth straight World Cup qualification.
Trump, however, has sent mixed messages about Iran’s presence at the World Cup, suggesting at times that Iran should sit out the tournament. At other moments, he has expressed ambivalence.
In March, for instance, Politico asked Trump about Iran’s presence at the World Cup. Trump reportedly responded, “I really don’t care”, before calling Iran a “badly defeated country”.
The US, Mexico and Canada are co-hosting the games, with 78 matches in the US alone, including the final. Kick off is on June 11.
Iran is set to play its first two Group G matches in Los Angeles against New Zealand on June 15 and Belgium on June 21, before facing off against Egypt in Seattle on June 26.
The Trump administration’s hardline approach to immigration has raised additional concerns about whether the US will be a welcoming host for fans from around the world.
Already, Trump has moved to suspend visa processing for applicants from nearly 75 countries, including Iran, Brazil, Colombia, Ivory Coast and Senegal, which have teams at the World Cup.
Residents from some of those countries, however, are not required to receive visas to enter the US for short-term visits.
On Monday, Sheinbaum explained that she had been approached by the Iranian team and FIFA officials for help hosting players and staff.
“The United States doesn’t want the Iranian team to spend the night,” Sheinbaum said. “So they asked us, ‘Can we stay the night in Mexico?’ We said sure, no problem.’”
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