Trump COLLAPSES as ALL 9 Supreme Court Justices TURN Against Him

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]Well, we have some breaking news to get to. The Supreme Court has overturned the Colorado decision to remove former President Donald Trump from the 2024 ballot. The decision holds that only Congress can enforce the 14th Amendment's insurrection clause against federal candidate.

[00:00:14]>> How to respect the immunity to >> I mean, limiting presidential immunity should also not be a partisan thing at all, even though it happens to be about Trump we're we're discussing, but Trump Trump's voters and defenders should understand that we wouldn't want Biden's immunity to be we wouldn't want the person holding the office of the executive >> 9 to 0. Every justice on a court with a 6 to 3 conservative supermajority, including three Trump nominees, agreed that the administration's approach to specific deportation actions violated the constitutional requirement of due process. 9-0, not 6-3, not 7-2. 9-0.

[00:00:53]That number is significant, but it does not mean what the headline implies. And and [clears throat] save up for the next round of the of the battle.

[00:01:00]>> Right. And it's just it's just something so funny about people and I and again, I'm not saying this is broadly characteristic of the Democrats or the people who having takes cuz as you point out most are >> chose not to use the primary process to allow voters to weigh in in a direct democracy, precisely because they wanted the party to have more control of the convention, then I think all of the arguments about the undemocratic nature of the Democratic Party certainly do stand. Very interesting. Well, we will continue to monitor developments related to this and many other issues coming up next.

[00:01:30]>> Subscribe and leave a like because what the 9-0 ruling actually established, what the wins alongside the losses reveal about the constitutional map being drawn, and why Trump attacking his own appointees reflects a fundamental confusion about how judicial independence works are worth being precise about. The document this commentary is built on says something that most content in this space does not say.

[00:01:52]The all nine turned against him framing is is exaggeration that the documented mixed record does not support. That honesty is where the analysis has to start because the real story, a court with six Republican appointed justices drawing specific constitutional lines that sometimes constrain the administration's most aggressive tools, is significant enough without the collapse packaging.

[00:02:15]The 9-0 due process ruling is the most constitutionally striking documented ruling of Trump's second term, and it deserves precise treatment for exactly that reason. Due process is among the most foundational constitutional requirements in the American legal system. It applies to citizens and non-citizens alike within the United States. It applies regardless of the government's substantive authority to act. Even when the government has legitimate authority to deport someone, it must provide notice and a meaningful opportunity to contest the removal before doing so. That constitutional floor is clear, established, and not contingent on immigration policy preferences. The Trump administration's approach to specific deportation actions, acting without providing adequate notice, without meaningful opportunity to contest the removal, crossed that floor in a way that all nine justices found clear enough to produce unanimous agreement. The unanimity is the constitutional signal.

[00:03:08]It says, "On this specific question, there is no legitimate jurisprudential framework that reaches a different conclusion." The floor is that clear.

[00:03:17]The administration crossed it. What unanimity does not say that all nine justices are uniformly hostile to Trump's immigration agenda. The 9-0 ruling constrains how deportations can be conducted, not whether they can be conducted. The administration continued pursuing deportations within the due process requirements the ruling imposed.

[00:03:37]The constraint is specific. The agenda continued. That distinction, specific constraint versus comprehensive repudiation, is the analytical key to evaluating the court's relationship to Trump's second term correctly. The IEEPA tariff ruling is the second major documented ruling, and this series has covered it previously. 6-3 with Gorsuch and Barrett in the majority. Roberts writing that Trump's reading of IEEPA would effectively hand Congress's core taxing power to the president without clear authorization. Two Trump nominees applying the major questions doctrine to strike down his signature economic tool.

[00:04:12]Trump publicly attacked them, called them fools and lapdogs, expected personal loyalty, and received constitutional principle instead. That expectation that judges he appointed should deliver outcomes favorable to his agenda as political reciprocation is constitutionally illiterate. Gorsuch and Barrett were applying the same textualist methodology they apply to every statutory interpretation question.

[00:04:35]What did the 1977 Congress intend when it passed IEEPA? Roberts asked the same question through the major questions doctrine. The answer, on the specific question of whether Congress authorized sweeping peacetime trade wars in a 1977 emergency statute, was no. That is not betrayal. It is the fulfillment of their judicial role. When originalists and textualists are asked what a 1977 statute means, they apply originalist and textualist methodology. Sometimes that produces results the appointing president dislikes. That is what judicial independence looks like in practice. The 7-2 humanitarian protections ruling adds the cross-ideological dimension.

[00:05:14]Conservative justices joining the three liberal justices in a ruling that constrained specific administration actions. Not 6-3 along partisan lines.

[00:05:23]7-2 with conservative votes in the majority. The specific action at issue was found legally deficient by justices who are not uniformly hostile to the administration's broader agenda.

[00:05:33]Specific legal deficiency, not political opposition. The wins alongside the losses complete the picture, and the document correctly insists they must be examined together. The immunity ruling, 6-3 July 2024, established broad criminal immunity for presidential official acts. That ruling strengthened Trump's hand in criminal accountability proceedings in fundamental and lasting ways. The agency head firing authority expansion gave the administration significant latitude in restructuring independent regulatory institutions. The emergency docket grant rate, more than 30 applications with a high success rate, means the court has been a generally favorable backstop for challenged administration policies while litigation proceeds. Those wins are real. They are significant. They tell you that the court is not operating from a global political stance against Trump's presidency. What the wins and losses together describe is a constitutional map, not a political judgment. A map of specific limits and specific protections drawn through the application of specific constitutional principles to specific claims. The map shows IEPA authority without congressional authorization for sweeping peacetime tariffs blocked. Presidential immunity for official acts protected.

[00:06:46]Due process before deportation required unanimously. Agency head firing authority extended. The map is specific.

[00:06:54]Each point on it reflects where a specific claim falls relative to a specific constitutional standard. The collapse framing flattens that map into a false narrative of total unified rejection. The administration sought alternative legal authority after the IEPA ruling. It continued deportations within the due process requirements. It continued the broader immigration enforcement agenda. The court constrained specific tools. The presidency continued. The agenda adapted. Judicial constraint producing administrative adaptation, not collapse, is the actual relationship between the court and Trump's second term. The court is drawing constitutional lines. The administration is responding by modifying specific approaches while continuing broader objectives within those lines. That is constitutional democracy functioning as designed, not collapse, not total victory. A court applying constitutional principles and an executive branch adapting to the constraints those principles impose. The 9-0 number is significant. The 6-3 tariff ruling is significant. The 7-2 humanitarian ruling is significant. They are all part of the same documented picture of a court drawing specific constitutional lines that sometimes constrain the administration's most aggressive claims. The collapse framing is not what the documented picture shows. The documented picture is significant enough without it. The Colorado ballot decision, which the document opens with, is worth naming as the specific precedent that establishes Congress's exclusive role in enforcing the 14th Amendment's insurrection clause against federal candidates. The Supreme Court unanimously held that states cannot unilaterally remove federal candidates from the ballot under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. Only Congress can enforce that provision against federal office holders and candidates.

[00:08:35]The Colorado Supreme Court's decision removing Trump from the 2024 primary ballot was reversed. That ruling, which favored Trump's ability to appear on the ballot, is part of the same mixed record the document describes. A court that struck down his IEPA tariffs also protected his access to the ballot from state-level enforcement of the insurrection clause. A court that unanimously required due process in deportations also unanimously ruled that states cannot remove federal candidates under Section 3. Both rulings are 9-0 or near unanimous. Both involve the court applying specific constitutional principles to specific claims. One constrained an administration policy.

[00:09:13]One protected a political right. The same institution, the same methodology, producing results that cut in different directions depending on what the constitutional text and structure require. The Colorado decision is the historical anchor for the IEPA ruling's analytical significance. The court that protected Trump's ballot access from state enforcement of the insurrection clause later limited his economic emergency powers. The court is not Trump's court. It is not his opponent's court. It applies constitutional principles and reaches conclusions based on what those principles require in each specific case. The major questions doctrine's role in the IEPA ruling deserves one more analytical development because it describes the specific conservative legal principle that brought Gorsuch and Barrett into the majority against the administration. The major questions doctrine holds that when an executive agency, or in this case, the president, claims authority to make decisions of vast economic and political significance, Congress must have spoken clearly to authorize that specific exercise of power. Breadth of statutory language does not substitute for clarity of authorization when the claimed power would produce transformative economic consequences. Gorsuch has been the court's most articulate champion of the major questions doctrine. He has deployed it to limit EPA climate regulations, OSHA vaccine mandates, and student loan forgiveness. The doctrine is a text- ualist and originalist tool for constraining executive overreach, requiring the legislative branch to clearly authorize significant power rather than allowing agencies and presidents to read broad authorizations expansively. When Roberts applied the major questions doctrine to IEPA, he was using Gorsuch's own preferred analytical framework. Gorsuch joining the majority was methodologically consistent. He could not apply the major questions doctrine to limit EPA's authority over the energy economy and then decline to apply it to the president's claimed authority to impose sweeping peacetime tariffs on most imports. The principle applies regardless of the political identity of the party claiming expansive authority. Barrett's joining reflects a similar methodological consistency. She is not uniformly hostile to presidential authority. She has joined majorities upholding Trump's agency head firing authority and other executive power claims, but the major questions doctrine asks a textual question. Did Congress authorize this specific exercise of power clearly? And the answer for IEPA's peacetime tariff application was no. The court Trump built contains justices who apply conservative legal principles consistently. Sometimes that consistency constrains a conservative president.

[00:11:48]That is what judicial independence means. The emergency docket dimension of the wins is worth naming precisely because it describes a specific procedural mechanism that has been important for the administration's ability to implement policies while litigation proceeds. The Supreme Court's emergency docket, the shadow docket, allows parties to seek emergency stays of lower court orders while appeals proceed. When a lower court issues an injunction blocking an executive policy, the administration can ask the Supreme Court to stay that injunction pending appeal. A high grant rate means the administration's policies have generally been allowed to go into effect while the legal challenges work through the courts. The practical consequence, even when lower courts have blocked specific administration actions through the 17 injunctions this series has documented through APA challenges, through constitutional challenges, the administration has often been able to continue implementing those actions while the appeals proceed. The Supreme Court's willingness to grant emergency stays has been the procedural mechanism that limits the immediate practical impact of lower court losses. That emergency docket success is part of the same mixed record. The court that required due process before deportations has also allowed specific deportation policies to proceed while litigation continues. The court that struck down the IEPA tariff program stayed lower court injunctions against other administration policies. The mixed record operates not just at the merits level, but at the procedural level. The administration loses on some merits questions and wins on some emergency docket requests. The court's role as both the final arbiter of constitutional questions and the emergency procedural backstop for challenged policies produces a complex relationship that neither all nine against him nor complete judicial support captures accurately. The immunity ruling's place in the mixed record is worth developing more precisely because it is the most significant win and it produced the most significant expansion of presidential authority in the court's second term relationship with Trump. The July 2024 6-3 ruling in Trump v. United States held that former presidents have absolute immunity from prosecution for official acts and presumptive immunity for other official acts. The practical consequence for Trump's specific situation, it halted the federal election interference case, required the lower courts to engage in an official unofficial act categorization before the case could proceed and ultimately contributed to the circumstances under which the federal charges were dismissed after Trump's election victory. The immunity ruling is the single most consequential judicial outcome for Trump personally in the entire accountability record this series has documented. It restructured how presidential accountability through criminal prosecution operates for every future president and for Trump specifically. A court that produced that ruling for Trump also produced the 9-0 due process ruling against specific deportation approaches and the 6-3 IEPA ruling against his tariff program. The same institution, different questions, different outcomes. That is the complete picture. Not a court uniformly hostile, not a court uniformly favorable. A court applying constitutional principles to specific questions and reaching different conclusions depending on what those principles require. The immunity ruling's magnitude makes it impossible to characterize the court as having turned against Trump. It also does not prevent the same court from drawing constitutional lines on specific emergency power claims. Both are simultaneously true and both belong in any complete accounting of the court's second term relationship with this administration. The constitutional map the court is drawing has specific implications for the administration's legal strategy going forward, and those implications are worth naming. The IEEPA ruling's clear legal authority principle, combined with the earlier Chicago National Guard federalization rejection, applying the same principle, establishes that the administration must demonstrate specific congressional authorization for its most dramatic emergency power claims. The map shows where the lines are. Future administration claims in the economic emergency power domain will be evaluated against the IEEPA precedent. Claims to tariff authority under Section 232, the national security provision, may survive if the administration satisfies the procedural requirements and national security determination requirements that provision imposes. Claims to tariff authority under other statutory frameworks will be evaluated under the same major questions doctrine principle Roberts applied to IEEPA. Future administration claims in the domestic military deployment domain will be evaluated against the Chicago National Guard precedent. Claims to use state guard units for domestic law enforcement will need clear statutory authorization.

[00:16:29]Claims to use federal military forces under the Insurrection Act specific triggers may survive if those triggers are satisfied. The map the court has drawn as a guide for what legal theories are viable and what require clearer congressional authorization than currently exists. The administration's lawyers are operating in a specifically constrained but not completely closed legal environment. The constraint is real. The administrative adaptation is also real. Both are the complete picture of what the court has produced and what the administration is navigating.

[00:16:58]November is where the political consequences of that navigation are measured. The five competitive seats, the economic environment produced by tariff uncertainty after the IEEPA ruling, the enforcement environment produced by due process requirements in deportations. The court's map is the legal context within which the political context develops. Last thought, connecting the court's mixed record to the broader accountability arc this series has documented. The court has been one of several institutional accountability mechanisms operating simultaneously throughout Trump's second term. The Boseberg contempt proceedings, executive defiance of judicial orders, the Merchant 10 contempt findings and incarceration warning, the IEPA tariff ruling, the 9-0 due process ruling, the Chicago National Guard rejection, the No Kings protest movement, the cabinet departure pattern, the Hixith hearing bipartisan questioning, the WPR clock.

[00:17:50]Each is a separate institutional expression of accountability pressure in a specific domain. None of them, individually or collectively, has ended Trump's presidency or produced comprehensive removal. Together, they describe the documented record of how multiple accountability mechanisms have functioned against a president with significant political resilience. The court's contribution to that record is the constitutional map, specific limits on specific emergency power claims drawn through specific rulings, alongside specific expansions of presidential authority where constitutional principles support those expansions. The map will outlast the specific term and will shape how future presidents and future courts understand the outer limits of emergency executive power.

[00:18:33]That is the court's most durable contribution to the accountability record, not collapse, not total support, a constitutional map drawn through principled application of established legal doctrine across historically unusual mix of rulings, unanimous, near unanimous, and 6-3, that together describe where this court, at this moment in constitutional history, understands the limits of presidential power to be. The document this commentary built on named its own exaggeration before developing the real analysis. That honesty is rarer than it should be in the information environment this series has been navigating. The real documented story, a court drawing specific constitutional lines across a mixed record of wins and losses is significant enough.