supreme court

WSJ demands 'ugly' Trump apologize to the Supreme Court

The conservative learning Wall Street Journal blasted President Donald Trump for “smearing” members of the Supreme Court who overruled his unilateral tariff policy Friday.

“President Trump owes the Supreme Court an apology — to the individual Justices he smeared on Friday and the institution itself,” WSJ reported. “Mr. Trump doubtless won’t offer one, but his rant in response to his tariff defeat at the Court was arguably the worst moment of his Presidency.”

Where other presidents have criticized SCOTUS when they didn’t like a ruling, WSJ said Trump “lit into the Justices who voted against him as traitors bought by foreign interests.”

Trump called the liberals on the court a “disgrace to our nation,” but reserved even more hate for friendly justices he’d expected to side with him due to their nearly rubberstamp approval in past cases.

“[They] think they’re being ‘politically correct,’ which has happened before, far too often, with certain members of this Court, when, in fact, they’re just being fools and lapdogs for the RINOs and the radical left Democrats—and . . . they’re very unpatriotic and disloyal to our Constitution,” Trump spat. “It’s my opinion that the Court has been swayed by foreign interests.”

“This is ugly even by Mr. Trump’s standards,” said the WSJ. “He’s accusing them of betraying the U.S. at the behest of nefarious interests he didn’t identify, no doubt because they don’t exist. Asked about Justices Gorsuch and Barrett, whom he appointed, Mr. Trump called them ‘an embarrassment to their families.’”

The WSJ editorial board pointed out that “this is the same Court that ruled Mr. Trump’s way on presidential immunity, which was more personally consequential for this President.”

“Mr. Trump shouldn’t have been surprised by the Court. We warned from the start that this would be the result of his unlawful resort to IEEPA. The fault doesn’t lie with the Justices but with his own tariff obsessions,” WSJ said.

'Dark MAGA': White House dims lights after Trump's trouncing

Let it be said that President Donald Trump’s people know how to put on a show

New York Times reporter Chris Cameron noted that The White House “turned down the lights for President Trump’s news conference on Friday after the Supreme Court decision that struck down his sweeping tariffs,” as if in response to the president’s smoldering mood.

Cameron cited White House spokesman Steven Cheung saying in a social media post that “President Trump will not be stopped.” His post highlighted the shadowy lighting, which Cheung described as the tonal shift “Dark MAGA.”

The tactic might be a throwback to former President Joe Biden attempt to invoke an atmosphere of seriousness and warning, as he did when he sought to paint “a dark portrait of a democracy on the brink.”

Speaking outside Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Cameron recalled Biden’s stage and the hall being darkly lit, with Biden flanked by “Marine guards silhouetted in shadow against the building.”

“The dim stage lights were colored blue and red, invoking the American flag, but the lights surrounding Mr. Biden himself were a foreboding, shadowy red,” said Cameron. “The image was ominous. To Mr. Biden’s allies, it effectively conveyed a sense of urgency and signaled a deviation from Mr. Biden’s usual message encouraging bipartisanship and political compromise. To Mr. Biden’s critics, it was divisive, alarming, even authoritarian.”

Cameron said Trump’s lighting might also have been an attempt to invoke Biden’s “dark Brandon” motif.

“By the time of Mr. Biden’s speech in September 2022, the Biden White House had begun leaning into the meme, posting images of the president with glowing eyes that shoot laser beams. After the midterms, the president’s re-election campaign began selling ‘Dark Brandon’ coffee mugs,” said Cameron.

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White House aides nervous about Trump's 'fury' after court decision

NBC News reports “a visibly irritated President Donald Trump” blasted the Supreme Court on Friday for striking down unilateral tariffs he had imposed under an economic emergency law.

Before stalking off, Trump assailed the conservative justices of the court who he had apparently expected to rule in alignment with him — as they already have on many of Trump’s more controversial policies.

NBC reports “Trump's fury was evident in his expression and his voice” when speaking of the conservative justices who had sided against him. When asked if he regretted appointing Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch during his first term, Trump said their vote against him was “an embarrassment to their families.”

Trump’s venom was still apparently flaring after Trump returned to the White House.

"At this point, no one should be surprised that the courts are working against President Trump," said one Trump adviser speaking anonymously to NBC News. "To say everyone here is irate would be an understatement. But this is not over. We will be heard from again on this. I don’t know that there is a specific plan as of this moment, but it’s not over."

Trump admitted that using tariffs as a social media-delivered political weapon against international trade partners will be "more complicated" because of the court’s 6-3 opinion. But he vowed to place a 10 percent global tariff on “all imports” indiscriminately under "Section 122" powers before marching back home.

Trump’s allies were similarly enraged.

Steve Bannon, longtime MAGA Trump adviser and the host of the “War Room” podcast, replied with a four character text message when asked what would come next on the tariff front.

"#War,” posted Bannon, an ally of convicted sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein who had even tried to revamp Epstein’s character up until his arrest.

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Trump may have gotten Insurrection Act idea from Brett Kavanaugh

President Donald Trump has entertained the idea of invoking the Insurrection Act as a means of cracking down on protesters in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He may have initially gotten the idea from one of his own appointed Supreme Court justices.

That's according to a Thursday article by the New York Times' Adam Liptak, who reported that Trump's recent flirtation with the 1792 law allowing presidents to deploy the military on U.S. soil may have come from the Supreme Court striking down his attempt to deploy federal troops in Chicago, Illinois. Liptak noted that a concurring opinion from Justice Brett Kavanaugh – who Trump nominated to the Court in 2018 — effectively characterized that loss as a "speed bump on the road to greater presidential power."

"[Kavanaugh] pointed to the possibility of Mr. Trump invoking a different law, the Insurrection Act, to send more conventional military troops to American cities, Liptak wrote.

The Times writer explained that when the Trump administration defended its federalization of National Guard troops in cities like Chicago, Portland, Oregon and Los Angeles, California, it primarily did so under an "obscure" early 20th century statute allowing for the use of troops if the federal government is unable to execute laws using "regular forces." The statute also allowed for deploying troops on American soil in the event of foreign invasion and in order to quell a rebellion.

While Kavanaugh was one of the five justices joined the majority opinion declining to let Trump deploy troops to U.S. cities, he notably didn't sign the actual opinion. He additionally observed: "As I read it, the Court’s opinion does not address the president’s authority under the Insurrection Act."

"The court’s opinion does not address or purport to disturb the president’s long-asserted Article II authority to use the U.S. military (as distinct from the National Guard) to protect federal personnel and property and thereby ensure the execution of federal law," Kavanaugh's concurring opinion read.

According to the Brennan Center for Justice, the Insurrection Act is "dangerously overbroad and ripe for abuse," and has not been updated in more than 150 years. It is effectively the lone exception to the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the U.S. military from being used for domestic law enforcement purposes. However, in the event of a significant uprising against the government, a president can invoke the Insurrection Act to suspend the Posse Comitatus Act and suppress a rebellion using the military. The last time the Insurrection Act was invoked was in 1992, when Los Angeles was consumed by riots in the wake of a jury's acquittal of four police officers who beat Rodney King.

Click here to read Liptak's full report in the New York Times (subscription required).

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E. Jean Carroll demands Supreme Court intervene to stop Trump

Writer E. Jean Carroll is now urging the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) to halt President Donald Trump's last-ditch attempt to overturn a verdict in Carroll's favor.

Newsweek reported Wednesday that Carroll's attorney, Roberta Kaplan, recently submitted a filing to SCOTUS in opposition to a motion filed by Trump's legal team in November to overturn a verdict that ordered Trump to pay Carroll $88.3 million in damages. That amount stems from a $5 million judgment handed down in 2023 for sexual abuse, and $83.3 million for defamation.

Kaplan's 44-page filing accuses Trump of trying to re-litigate issues already decided at the district court level and upheld at the appellate court level. Kaplan recounted Trump's unsuccessful attempt to exclude the infamous 2016 Access Hollywood tape, in which the eventual president was heard telling host Billy Bush about how he routinely kissed and groped women without their consent. She then reminded justices of Carroll's key allegation against Trump — that he touched her between her legs in a New York City department store in 1996 before she pushed him away.

"Ms. Carroll testified that her encounter with [Trump] began when he asked her to go shopping with him 'for a friend,' ... but then led her into a dressing room, closed the door, and 'shoved [her] against the wall ... so hard [that her] head banged,'" Kaplan wrote in the filing. "In the Access Hollywood tape, [Trump] admitted to this same tactic: He invited Nancy O’Dell to go shopping and then 'moved on her like a b——.'"

Kaplan also addressed Trump's arguments that the verdict should be overturned due to the 2024 Trump v. United States decision that allowed presidents to have absolute immunity for all official acts. Carroll's attorney asserted that the immunity decision does not apply to conduct Trump displayed in private.

Carroll's attorney further warned SCOTUS against taking up Trump's case, arguing that it would jeopardize decades of precedent governing defamation cases. Newsweek also reported that Kaplan cautioned the Court against further delaying accountability in a case tha has dragged on for years.

The Supreme Court has not yet granted a writ of certiorari to hear Trump's appeal. If the Court goes not hear the case, then the judgments against Trump would stand and the president would be compelled to pay the $88.3 million in judgments.

Click here to read Newsweek's full report.

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'Seismic events' may be about to end Trump's control of the US economy: analysis

A former White House economic advisor is warning that President Donald Trump is about to lose control of the U.S. economy.

“Remember 2025, when President Trump dictated bracing new rules for the economy? Impose sweeping tariffs! Dismantle government agencies! Lower taxes! Cut spending! The Federal Reserve remained independent, but almost everyone else fell in line. That may soon feel like ancient history,” former White House Council of Economic Advisors Jason Furman wrote Wednesday in the New York Times.

“Because in the first couple of months of this new year, the power shifts,” continued Furman. “The Supreme Court is expected to rule on both the Trump administration’s huge slew of tariffs and the president’s ability to control the Federal Reserve Board. In addition, a new nominee to lead the Fed will be handed over to the Senate for scrutiny. Meanwhile, Congress no longer seems to be listening to Mr. Trump on taxes and spending — and might even start enacting its own agenda.”

The Supreme Court’s upcoming tariff decision may be the first of major “seismic events,” said Furman. The Court is expected to rule in the coming days or weeks, possibly fully endorsing or rejecting the administration’s rationale, or at least paring down Trump’s disputed authority to levy new import taxes on Americans and U.S. business.

“If some tariffs stay in place, businesses that have so far absorbed much of the costs may no longer be able to shield consumers from higher prices,” warned Furman. “Trading partners may reconsider their agreements — or retaliate against U.S. products. And if any tariffs are struck down, the administration will almost certainly try to reimpose them using alternative legal authorities, which will set off still more litigation.”

And in August, the court will consider Trump’s claim of unilateral power to fire Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook and Fed Chair Jerome Powell.

Congress, itself, may finally be prepared to reclaim some power Republicans happily conceded to Trump. Resulting “affordability” issues caused by Republicans’ combined policies with Trump are driving the GOP to reconsider Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies Republicans let expire on January 1, forcing approximately 22 million people to pay higher health insurance premiums ahead of this fall's midterms.

“These questions come at a moment when the state of the economy is already unusually uncertain,” said Furman, with the risk of recession remaining elevated, lingering inflation an the possibility of the artificial intelligence industry collapsing.

“I find myself wishing for something like Mr. Trump’s decisiveness from 2025 — but only if it could be paired with something it fundamentally lacked: wisdom,” said Furman said. “Instead, we may get a messy, fragmented system in which power is shared among nine Supreme Court justices, 12 Federal Reserve voters, 535 members of Congress, and millions of businesses and households making their own decisions.”

“I would settle for that,” added Furman. “A stalemate, even an untidy one, is preferable to Mr. Trump wielding unilateral control over the economy."

Read Furman's New York Times op-ed at this link.

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'Put the court back in its place': Legal expert lays out 4 ways to rein in Supreme Court

Should Democrats retake the White House in 2028 and have majorities in both chambers of Congress, one legal expert is arguing there are numerous ways the six-member conservative majority on the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) could be brought to heel.

In a Monday essay for Slate, legal writer and attorney Mark Joseph Stern directly addressed a reader's concern that no matter what laws Democrats may try to pass under a potential new Democratic majority government, the Supreme Court could simply strike those laws down. Stern countered that there are several ways to re-establish Congress' powers and prevent SCOTUS from acting as an unelected super-legislature.

First, Stern argued that Congress should immediately grant statehood to both Puerto Rico and Washington D.C. as part of a "suite of structural reforms." He argued this was a necessary step to take in order to make sure that sparsely populated conservative states like South Dakota and Wyoming aren't over-represented in Congress (both territories have already passed statehood resolutions, meaning all Congress needs to do is pass a bill to admit them).

"Remember, the senators who voted to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court represented fewer people than the senators who voted to oppose him," Stern wrote. "That is a huge structural problem that Congress can fix."

Second, Stern proposed that Congress pass a law that would require the Supreme Court to have a 7-2 supermajority to strike down any legislation passed by Congress and signed into law by the president. He noted that the Nebraska and North Dakota state constitutions already have amendments requiring a supreme court supermajority in order to toss out any laws, and called on a potential future Democratic government to "put it in there that the law cannot be struck down unless seven justices agree that it’s unconstitutional."

Stern also advocated for imposing a strict time limit on the judicial review process, calling the Supreme Court to no longer be able to evaluate the constitutionality of any new laws more than one calendar year after their passage. He observed that the Supreme Court's 2012 review of the Affordable Care Act took place after Democrats had already lost their majority in the House of Representatives in 2010, and that a one-year limit would mean that Congress' partisan makeup would still be the same if the Court threw out any laws passed by that Congress and lawmakers wanted to try passing the law again.

The Slate author described these proposed reforms as a "good-faith effort by Democrats to recalibrate the balance of power by reestablishing Congress’ primacy and diminishing the Supreme Court’s untouchable supremacy." However, he allowed for the possibility that these reforms may fall short. In that event, he called on Democrats to "add four seats" and pack the Supreme Court with new Democratic appointees.

"The current Republican justices have already shredded adherence to precedent. A future liberal majority should say no to unilateral disarmament and apply the same rules," Stern wrote. "That is how Democrats put the court back in its place: by undoing its attacks on democracy and restoring the constitutional settlement the Roberts court has spent years dismantling."

Click here to read Stern's full article in Slate (subscription required).

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'Give Republicans a taste': Legal experts propose next Democratic president's Day 1 agenda

The first year of President Donald Trump's second term has been rife with examples of the president doing something previously believed to be illegal until it was eventually upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS). Now, two legal experts are arguing that the next Democratic president should take advantage of the new vastly expanded presidential powers sanctioned by the nation's highest court.

In a Friday article for Slate, legal journalists Mark Joseph Stern and Dahlia Lithwick laid out how the next Democrat to be elected president of the United States should govern in their first 24 hours, under the new legal boundaries SCOTUS granted the White House under the Trump administration. Stern argued that because SCOTUS has blessed the "unitary executive" theory that all powers delegated to the executive branch and federal agencies can be unilaterally exercised by the president, the next president — he named Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) as a stand-in example — should take after Trump's example and "wield those powers aggressively."

"How does that cash out? First, let’s remember that the Supreme Court has now effectively granted the president authority to impound federal funds duly appropriated by Congress and to abolish federal agencies established and funded by Congress," Stern wrote. "I think that is terrible and anti-constitutional. But thanks to the Supreme Court, that is now the law. So let’s talk about what President AOC can do with those powers in 2029."

"On Day 1, she needs to impound ICE’s budget. She needs to refuse to spend the billions of dollars that Congress has appropriated to the agency and fire tens of thousands of immigration agents immediately, starting with those who committed acts of violence and discrimination — which, by that point, may be almost all of them," he continued. "Close as many immigrant detention facilities as possible and free the detainees."

Stern then argued that a Democratic president could then repurpose ICE's budget as a reparations fund for families of immigrants who were improperly deported or denied due process, release the names of all agents who broke the law and prosecute every lawbreaking agent for crimes who wasn't preemptively pardoned by Trump. He reminded readers that all of this would be "100 percent legal under the precedent established by Trump and the Supreme Court."

"Take these powers and use them to undo Trump’s legacy and really flood the zone," he added. "Blitz the country with these executive orders on Day 1 and dare anybody to stop you."

Lithwick agreed with Stern's points, and noted that while many Americans would like to see a return to "norms" that were violated during the Trump administration, Democrats constraining their own powers to adhere to norms after a norm-breaking Republican presidency would only cement the idea that Republicans are free to violate norms whenever they're in power. Stern agreed, and asserted that the only way norms can be restored is if Democrats demonstrate to Republicans what happens under a Democratic administration when they bulldoze all institutional guardrails.

"It can only work if Democrats give Republicans a taste of their own medicine and remind them why the norms were there in the first place," he said.

Click here to read Lithwick and Stern's full conversation.

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Supreme Court hands Trump a 'major defeat' with 'far-reaching effects': report

The U.S. Supreme Court handed President Donald Trump a rare, if temporary, loss on Tuesday, over his efforts to deploy the National Guard in Illinois.

The Court rejected the Trump administration’s emergency request to send troops to Chicago. The administration had claimed that troops were needed to protect federal agents.

“At this preliminary stage, the Government has failed to identify a source of authority that would allow the military to execute the laws in Illinois,” the Supreme Court declared, according to The Washington Post.

The Post called the ruling a “major defeat” for the Trump administration that “could have far-reaching effects,” and a “significant setback for his campaign to push troops into cities across the country over the objections of local and state leaders.”

In rebuffing Trump’s bid, NBC News reported, “the court at least provisionally rejected the Trump administration’s view that the situation on the ground is so chaotic that it justifies invoking a federal law that allows the president to call National Guard troops into federal service in extreme situations.”

“Those circumstances can include when ‘there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion’ or ‘the president is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.'”

The high court reportedly also cited the Posse Comitatus Act, which limits the use of the U.S. Armed Forces to enforce domestic laws.

Bloomberg Law’s Jordan Fischer reported that “In a 6-3 order, the court says at least at this stage the administration has not overcome the Posse Comitatus Act.”

Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, calling it a “Huge loss” for the administration, wrote: “SCOTUS tells Trump no on deployment of Illinois Nat’l Guard, finding a valid exception to the Posse Comitatus Act doesn’t exist.”

Dissenting were Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil M. Gorsuch.

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Conservative Supreme Court justice warns Trump against acting 'very aggressively'

One of the most conservative members of the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is now directly speaking out about President Donald Trump's ever-expanding executive powers.

Newsweek reported Monday that during a recent interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Serra, Justice Samuel Alito – who was appointed by former President George W. Bush in 2006 — spoke with disdain about Trump wielding executive power "very aggressively." The longtime conservative jurist observed that Trump's actions have resulted in a significant higher workload for him and his colleagues.

"[There has been] an inclination by presidents to try to do more and more and more, using their own power, or what they believe to be their own power," Alito said.

"And now, under President Trump, it's just gone on like this, and he's used his executive power very aggressively," he continued. "And what we have seen since the beginning of his second term, since January, is that so many of these things that he has done are immediately challenged in court. We have 680 district court judges. A district judge says ‘it's unconstitutional, or it's unlawful’, and then the case comes to us as an emergency matter."

Alito didn't blame Trump alone for pushing the boundaries of the executive branch. The Bush-appointed justice noted that former President Barack Obama leaned heavily on executive orders due to the difficulty of passing laws through Congress. Alito then acknowledged that during Trump's first term, he escalated executive power considerably, and that former President Joe Biden did the same with student loan forgiveness, mandatory Covid-19 vaccinations and a temporary moratorium on foreclosures and evictions during the pandemic.

"What has happened over the course of the 20th century is that Congress has delegated its authority to the executive branch," Alito said. "And right now, because of the polarization in the country, it's almost impossible to get things through Congress. So as a result, the executive agencies make most of the law. If you look at the end of any year, and if you just stacked up all the regulations that they've issued and compare that to laws Congress has passed, the regulations are many, many times bigger."

According to the Brennan Center for Justice, Alito and the other five members of SCOTUS' conservative bloc have been reliable allies for the Trump administration, as SCOTUS consistently sides with Trump on matters that come before the Court. Many of SCOTUS' pro-Trump decisions have come from the Court's emergency docket (also known as the "shadow docket"). In October, the Brennan Center found that of the 24 shadow docket rulings concerning the Trump administration's actions, the Court has taken Trump's side at least partially in 20 of them, and seven of those rulings came with no explanation.

Stanford University political science professor Adam Bonica came to a similar conclusion in his research; between May and June of 2025, lower courts ruled against the Trump administration's actions 94.3 percent of the time, siding with plaintiffs suing the White House in 82 of 87 cases. But during those same two months, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the administration 93.7 percent of the time in 15 of 16 cases.

Click here to read Newsweek's full report.

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Trump suffers rare loss in Supreme Court's shadow docket

President Donald Trump lost at the U.S. Supreme Court in a case that was hidden on the emergency docket. (also known as the "shadow docket")

Politico's Josh Gerstein posted on X that the justices turned down a request to immediately stop free-speech lawsuits by fired immigration judges.

The issue came up when Trump began firing immigration court judges. It would give Trump an opportunity to install his own "judges" who might fast-track deportations. Many of the firings are from liberal areas, Bloomberg reported.

The disputes went to the court and the administration argued that the cases should go before the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board.

The "shadow docket" is when the justices decide to fast-track a decision without having any public arguments or legal briefings. It's so named because there's no transparency in the process. Justices have begun using it more frequently in the past year.

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