Scalia on Obama: 'What can he do to me?'

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on Sunday said he did not “view it as a threat” when President Barack Obama in April predicted his signature healthcare overhaul “will be upheld because it should be upheld” and that anything less would constitute “judicial activism” by the high court.

Scalia conceded in an appearance on "Fox News Sunday" that Obama’s forceful comments on a pending Supreme Court case were “unusual, but as I say I don’t criticize the president publicly. And he normally doesn’t criticize me.”

But when host Chris Wallace pressed, asking whether Scalia, who in June sided with a minority seeking to overturn the law, felt “any pressure as a result of that to vote a certain way,” Scalia laughed.

“No. What can he do to me? Or to any of us?” the justice responded. “We have life tenure. And we have it precisely so that we will not be influenced by politics, by threats from anybody.”

Scalia did, however, express disapproval of Obama’s criticisms of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision during his 2010 State of the Union speech.

When Wallace pointed out that Chief Justice John Roberts called the criticism – delivered with justices in the audience – “troubling,” Scalia said “That’s a very mild adjective. I wasn’t there and it’s yet another reason why I will not be there in the future."