U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a rally to mark his 100th day in office, at Macomb Community College in Warren, Michigan, U.S., April 29, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Dozens of federal judges — including 11 appointed by President Donald Trump over the course of his two terms — have been unable to hide their “disdain” for the administration’s attacks on the judiciary. This is according to a new analysis by CNN, which found 77 rulings in which federal judges “launched blistering attacks on the president and his administration over a range of issues since January 2025.”
As the Daily Beast explains, “These damning rulings from judges appointed by presidents of both parties include condemnations of the Trump administration for violating the Constitution, openly disobeying court orders and acting unlawfully. In one particularly scathing ruling, a federal judge appointed by Trump in Florida ordered ICE to immediately release immigrant Dmitrii Iastrebov while blasting the government’s ‘complete inability to follow judicial directions’ in the case.”
“A federal court is not a testing lab where the Executive Branch can pilot a concession to get a case closed, stand by silently while its own administrative process flouts the resulting mandate and then stroll back in demanding a clean slate,” Judge Dudek wrote. “Give me a break.”
The report also cited 64 examples of judges accusing the Trump administration of abusing its power by attempting to act beyond the legal bounds of executive authority. As one judge wrote in May 2025, “The Constitution does not permit immigration detention to be used as a punitive or suppressive tool against protected speech.”
“What we’ve seen over the last 16 months is far above and beyond what we’ve seen before,” said CNN Supreme Court analyst and law professor at Georgetown University Law Center Steve Vladeck, who also noted the concerning frequency with which judges have had to bench slap the White House over Trump’s second term. “You can find one-off examples of bad behavior ... but here it’s systemic.”
When asked for a response, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told the Daily Beast: “Per usual, CNN is focused entirely on the wrong thing. The real problem is the unrelenting, unlawful rulings issued by some lower court judges who push their own policy goals and are clearly triggered by President Trump’s agenda. President Trump will not waver when implementing the America First initiatives he was elected on and no amount of judicial activism will deter him.”
But as CNN notes, “The criticism has been extraordinary, both in terms of its intensity and consistency[.] Across dozens of rulings, federal judges have described the government’s actions using scathing language: ‘squalid,’ ‘irrational,’ and ‘shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.’”