The Supreme Court failed the test posed by Trump

This article generally aligns with a Left point of view. Learn more about this AI-generated analysis

The following AI-generated content is powered by Perplexity. The Los Angeles Times editorial staff does not create or edit the content.

Ideas expressed in the piece

• The article argues that the Supreme Court’s ruling in Trump v. United States granting former presidents absolute immunity for “core” constitutional powers and at least presumptive immunity for other official acts has effectively created a near-absolute shield from criminal liability for conduct in office, insulating Trump from accountability for using official powers in potentially unlawful ways.^[9][21][26]

• Building on that concern, the piece suggests this new immunity regime has emboldened Trump in office, pointing to his aggressive assertions that “there are no limits” to presidential power and his claims that only his own morality constrains him, which the article interprets as evidence of autocratic impulses unchecked by the Court.

• The column contends that in the 2025–26 term, the Court largely enabled Trump’s agenda and expanded presidential power, invoking a historical comparison that not since the pre-Civil War pro-slavery Court has the institution been so misaligned with the needs of the moment, with the danger now being a “lawless, power-drunk president” rather than slavery.

• The article emphasizes that the Court’s conservative majority has repeatedly favored Trump in litigation over his second-term actions, citing analyses that the justices have sided with him in the vast majority of cases and arguing this pattern reflects partisan alignment and a strong preference for the “unitary executive” theory, which concentrates executive power in the presidency.^[20][24]

• The piece highlights the decision referred to as Trump v. Slaughter, in which the Court struck down long-standing limits on presidential authority to remove independent regulators, allowing Trump and future presidents to fire at will officials in agencies that Congress had insulated from political interference; the article calls this ruling “aptly named,” portrays it as dismantling expertise and institutional memory, and warns it will leave the public less protected from unsafe products, pollution, and financial abuses.^{[7][10][15][24]}

• At the same time, the article notes that the Court carved out an exception for the Federal Reserve, allowing Trump to dismiss most independent regulators while preserving protections for a Fed governor, and portrays this as incoherent favoritism toward Wall Street that undercuts claims of principled doctrine.^[7]

• The column argues that Trump’s own celebratory reaction to the removal-power ruling—boasting that 90 years of precedent had been “completely and unequivocally overruled” and calling it the “Greatest Increase in Presidential Power in the last 100 years”—underscores how the Court’s decisions have empowered a president who openly welcomes expanded, personalized authority.^[7][10]

• Turning to immigration, the article criticizes two recent 6–3 decisions that allowed Trump to terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for hundreds of thousands of Haitians and Syrians and to turn away asylum seekers at the southern border unless they physically reach U.S. soil, even as U.S. agents may block their entry; the piece characterizes these rulings as cruel, “mean-spirited,” and contrary to the spirit of federal and international refugee protections.^{[1][2][3][5][8][11][16][19][25]}

• The piece stresses that these immigration rulings could expose more than a million people to deportation and effectively gut the TPS program by placing decisions entirely in the hands of the Homeland Security secretary and barring meaningful judicial review, which the article views as another example of the Court abdicating its role as a check on executive overreach.^{[3][5][8][25]}

• The article acknowledges a handful of notable exceptions where the Court curtailed Trump’s power—such as striking down his attempt to end birthright citizenship,^[4][10][15] limiting his claimed authority to impose sweeping tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act,^[10][13] and preserving the independence of the Federal Reserve in a removal case^[7]—but presents these as scattered setbacks that do not change the overall trend of expanding presidential authority.

• The column argues that the birthright citizenship case illustrates the Court’s ideological and slow-walking tendencies: despite lower courts’ willingness to quickly find Trump’s executive order unconstitutional, the justices took years to resolve the case and did so only by a narrow 5–4 margin, which the article sees as evidence of reluctance to stand firmly against Trump on a clear constitutional question.^[4][10][15]

• The piece portrays the conservative justices as “willfully obtuse” about the risks posed by Trump’s rhetoric and actions, contrasting them with lower-court judges appointed by both parties who have issued rulings against the administration and emergency orders temporarily blocking some Trump policies, and suggesting the Supreme Court has become uniquely complicit in enabling an autocratic presidency.^[18][22]

• The article also notes that many civil-rights and legal organizations view Trump v. United States and related decisions as placing presidents above the law, citing critiques that the immunity framework lacks constitutional grounding and undermines the basic principle that no one—including a president—is beyond criminal accountability.^{[6][12][14][21][26]}

• In response to what the column describes as a failed Supreme Court “test,” the article calls for a counterreaction: Congress, through legislation and litigation, should reclaim its constitutional powers over spending, war-making, and appointments, and pursue structural reforms to the Court such as term limits for justices, backed by a popular movement, rather than court expansion.^[15][21][26]

• Finally, the piece suggests that, as with the antebellum Court that defended slavery, the current Court’s and Trump’s “trespasses” can ultimately be remedied through democratic processes—by congressional action and electoral choices—urging voters to change the composition of Congress to make such reforms possible.

Different views on the topic

• In contrast, some legal scholars and commentators have defended the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. United States as a necessary safeguard for the separation of powers, arguing that absolute immunity for core presidential powers and presumptive immunity for official acts are required to prevent politically motivated prosecutions and to preserve an energetic executive branch; one article contends that the ruling is “one of the most resounding defenses of executive power” and that when presidents exercise core constitutional powers, they must be shielded from criminal liability to avoid judicial encroachment on the presidency.^{[17][12][14][26]}

• Other analyses underscore that Trump v. United States explicitly denies immunity for unofficial acts and does not grant blanket protection for all conduct; the Supreme Court’s opinion and subsequent reporting emphasize that former presidents “do not possess absolute federal criminal immunity for any acts committed while in office,” and that there is “no immunity for unofficial acts,” a framework that some commentators say the article understates by describing the ruling as near-absolute.^[9][23][26]

• Supporters of the Court’s immigration decisions have framed them as exercises in textual fidelity and judicial restraint rather than cruelty, noting that in Mullin v. Doe the Court held that the TPS statute bars judicial review of certain determinations and places discretion squarely with the secretary of Homeland Security, and that in the asylum case the majority distinguished between “arrives in” and “arrives at” the border to conclude that only individuals who have physically entered the United States have a statutory right to be inspected and apply for asylum; these opinions are presented by their defenders as careful readings of the law, not as policy endorsements.^[8][25]

• Some officials and commentators sympathetic to Trump’s immigration agenda argue that stricter enforcement, curbs on TPS, and limits on asylum metering reflect legitimate concerns about border security and system capacity; coverage of the rulings notes that the decisions give the administration “pivotal endorsements” of its strategy, and that hundreds of policy changes have been upheld by federal courts, which supporters interpret as validation that these measures fall within lawful executive discretion rather than evidencing a “cruel crackdown.”^[1][3][19]

• Regarding the dismantling of removal protections for independent agency officials, several conservative scholars and commentators have welcomed the Court’s move as restoring democratic accountability by allowing elected presidents to control regulators who wield vast policymaking power; reporting on the ruling emphasizes that it “carries significant consequences for over twenty federal agencies” and marks “a considerable shift in authority from Congress to the presidency,” which supporters describe as correcting an imbalance in which unelected bureaucrats were insulated from electoral control.^{[7][10][15][24]}

• Defenders of the Court’s 2025–26 term also point out that the justices delivered key defeats to Trump’s agenda, suggesting the record is more mixed than the article’s portrayal; news coverage notes that the Court struck down Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship,^[4][10][15] rejected his claim to sweeping tariff authority under the emergency economic powers law,^[10][13] declined to take up appeals of civil verdicts against him,^[10] and preserved the independence of the Federal Reserve in a removal case,^[7] which these observers argue undercuts the narrative that the Court is simply “complicit” with Trump.

• Some legal commentators resist the article’s analogies to the pro-slavery Court, asserting that current decisions reflect long-standing debates over textualism, the unitary executive, and administrative law rather than loyalty to a single president; discussions in law reviews about Trump v. United States situate the immunity ruling within broader jurisprudential disputes about how to interpret the Constitution’s silence on presidential immunity and the historical practice of not prosecuting former presidents, suggesting that the Court is grappling with doctrinal questions rather than intentionally enabling autocracy.^[21][26]

• On proposals such as term limits for Supreme Court justices, critics note that Article III’s guarantee of life tenure for federal judges presents serious constitutional obstacles, and law review commentary warns that attempts to impose term limits by statute could themselves raise separation-of-powers concerns or require a constitutional amendment; these commentators argue that while dissatisfaction with the Court is real, structural changes must be evaluated in light of constitutional text and historical practice, not solely as a response to particular outcomes.^[21][26]

• Finally, some observers voice concern that characterizing the current Court as “wrong for its moment in history” risks delegitimizing judicial decisions that, in their view, are grounded in legal reasoning even when controversial; they contend that robust criticism is appropriate, but that framing the Court’s record primarily through Trump’s personal behavior and rhetoric may obscure the institutional and doctrinal reasons why a majority of justices have embraced stronger presidential power and narrower judicial review in areas like immigration and agency removal.^{[7][10][17][26]}