On the campaign trail, long before he called the news media “the enemy of the American people,” President Trump pledged to curtail press freedom. “We’re going to open up those libel laws,” he said.

The statement was puzzling, not least because opening up laws is not a thing. And if it were a thing, it would be done by legislatures or courts, not the president.

Read generously, though, Mr. Trump’s statement may have meant that he intended to appoint Supreme Court justices who would vote to overturn precedents that make it hard to sue for libel.

On this score, at least, Judge Neil M. Gorsuch, Mr. Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, seems destined to disappoint his patron. Judge Gorsuch’s decisions in libel and related cases show no inclination to cut back on protections for the press.