Australia

Canberra, September 16, 2026. The Australian press is devoting most of its coverage not to the content of the US Supreme Court ruling, but to the reaction, deemed unprecedented, of President Donald Trump against the judges he himself appointed. ABC News and SBS News are reporting in detail on the attack published on Truth Social, where Mr. Trump describes his own nominees as a "shell of their original selves" and accuses the Court of having given in to the "Radical Left". For Australian media, the episode illustrates the fragility of the American judicial system's checks and balances in the face of presidential pressure, even when it has been shaped by the president in office himself.

The ruling, unsigned and brief, as is customary for emergency requests, maintains the blockage of new rules imposed on the US postal service (USPS) for mail-in voting ahead of the midterms on November 3. ABC details the rejected mechanism: states would have had to transmit lists of registered voters for mail-in voting and use envelopes approved by the agency, trackable by barcodes. Only two conservative judges, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, publicly expressed their disagreement — whom Mr. Trump hailed as "legends, both". The conservative majority he himself built (Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett, 6-3 since 2020) does not appear to be unanimous, but none of the Australian articles detail the motives of the two dissenters or the separate opinion filed. The administration has also indicated that it can present similar rules for the 2028 election, which, according to the Australian press, limits the practical scope of this Democratic victory to the November election alone.

Australian coverage also highlights the executive's political management: Attorney General Todd Blanche, a former personal lawyer for Mr. Trump, defended the president's outburst in front of the press, explaining that he was "very frustrated", while confirming that the administration would comply with the decision for this election. The Age, in its news feed for the day, lists the episode among the international news to follow in one line, without its own analysis — unlike domestic topics covered at greater length the same day, from interest rates to the anti-corruption commission of New South Wales.