It has been a week of extensive legal losses for Trump.Alex Brandon/AP
It was a week of so much losing.
Over the past week, President Donald Trump and his authoritarian agenda have sustained one loss after another in the courts. Putting all of them together reveals a stunning legal rebuke, and unsurprisingly, Trump World has been erupting with anger and petulance. Let’s review:
Last Friday, a federal appeals court ruled that Trump’s reciprocal tariffs were basically illegal, as my colleague Inae Oh covered. (On Truth Social, Trump alleged the court was “Highly Partisan,” adding, “If these Tariffs ever went away, it would be a total disaster for the Country.”)
The same day, a federal judge ruled that the administration could not fast-track deportations of people detained far from the southern border. (White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller called the ruling a “judicial coup.”)
Last Sunday, a federal judge temporarily blocked the administration from deporting hundreds of unaccompanied Guatemalan children. (Miller alleged the “Biden judge” was “effectively kidnapping these migrant children.”)
On Tuesday, an appeals court upheld a lower court’s ruling requiring Trump to rehire fired Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter. That prompted the administration to ask the Supreme Court to allow the firing to proceed.
The same day, a federal judge ruled that Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to Los Angeles was illegal, alleging that the president and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth are “creating a national police force with the President as its chief.” (White House spokesperson Anna Kelly characterized the ruling as “a rogue judge…trying to usurp the authority of the commander in chief to protect American cities from violence and destruction.”)
On Wednesday, a federal judge ruled that the administration broke the law when it froze billions of dollars in research funds to Harvard. (White House spokesperson Liz Huston called the decision “egregious.”)
On Thursday, an appeals court ruled that Trump could not cancel billions of dollars in foreign aid without getting approval from Congress. (The administration already appealed the decision.)
And on Friday, a federal judge blocked Trump from revoking the temporary legal status of hundreds of thousands of Haitian and Venezuelan immigrants. (A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said the ruling “delays justice,” adding, “unelected activist judges cannot stop the will of the American people for a safe and secure homeland.”)
On top of all this, as my colleague James West covered, a new NBC poll out today shows that the majority of Americans—57 percent—disapprove of the job Trump is doing.
We may not be able to rely on the Supreme Court to keep Trump in check, but based on the last week or so, it seems we can trust the lower courts to step in where the high court will not.
