Trump’s Pet Issues Keep Losing At The Supreme Court

President Donald Trump keeps losing the Supreme Court cases he seems to care about the most, even as more traditional conservative causes are racking up wins.

The court has been a solid ally in Trump’s bid to expand presidential power, especially over the federal workforce, and to gut a slew of laws meant to insulate some appointees from political pressure. It has allowed him to fire tens of thousands of people, cancel billions in federal grants and dramatically downsize federal agencies.

But the justices have stiff-armed Trump over and over again on his unique personal priorities — the issues he talks about most often, and most passionately, and that dominate his Truth Social feed. The court has rejected his sweeping tariffs, his claim to unquestioned authority to deploy the military on U.S. soil, parts of his immigration agenda, his grievances over election laws and his bid to upend the centuries-old definition of American citizenship.

Ever since the court helped spare Trump from prison, aiding his return to power last year, the justices have looked askance at priorities that are practically woven into Trump’s DNA but that have otherwise had little purchase in the conservative mainstream.

Want to fire an executive branch agency head?Let it rip. Want to yank congressionally approved spending? No problem. But want to upend decades of mail-in balloting practice to vindicate false claims of election fraud, or threaten the independence of the Federal Reserve? No dice. The justices rubbed salt in the wound Monday by declining to take up Trump’s appeal of the $5 million verdict in the sexual abuse and defamation lawsuit brought against him by writer E. Jean Carroll.

Trump’s social media feed, often a direct line to his psyche, has been clogged in recent weekswith warnings that if the justices opposed him on birthright citizenship, it would amount to “suicide” for the country, economic devastation and geopolitical weakness. He made similarly dire predictions about the effects of striking down his tariffs.

Trump let the world know just how deeply he cared about the birthright citizenship issue when he attended oral arguments at the Supreme Court earlier this year, an unprecedented step for a sitting president.

Yet after the ruling, Trump appeared noticeably restrained, saying (incorrectly) that the birthright ruling could be reversed by Congress and sarcastically congratulating China for the outcome. He shifted his focus to praise the Supreme Court for siding with him Monday in a case giving him free rein to fire agency heads — a case he had rarely mentioned before the court ruled, but which he now claims is “the biggest and most consequential Decision issued by the Court, by far.”

Trump’s lawyers did rack up an impressive series of wins at the high court last year. The Justice Department prevailedin about 80 percent of emergency appeals seeking to preserve his early policy moves — like DOGE-inspired firings of federal employees and contractors, as well as abrupt cancellations of billions of dollars-worth of grants and contracts.

But those appeals were carefully chosen by the government’s top lawyers — filing the appeals they know they’re most likely to win. Those same lawyers slow-walked other cases to avoid high-profile defeats.

And at times, the president’s priorities and the Justice Department’s seemed to divide. DOJ lawyers signaled that they planned to stop fighting for Trump’s executive orders targeting law firms he viewed as hostile — only to quickly reverse course.

“President Trump racked up significant wins at the Supreme Court this term, including: the Court reaffirming his authority to eliminate Temporary Protected Status, the Court ruling against men playing in women’s sports, and the hugely significant Slaughter Case which overturned Humphrey’s Executor and gave significant additional power back to the Presidency to remove Executive Branch Officers and agency appointees," White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said.

"President Trump will never waver when it comes to fighting for the agenda the American people elected him to enact," she added.

The Supreme Court’s rulings on Trump’s immigration policies — a centerpiece of both of his campaigns — have been a mixed bag.

The justices rejected Trump’s efforts to use the Alien Enemies Act to abruptly throw immigrants with alleged gang ties out of the U.S., and they rebuffed the administration in a high-profile fight over Kilmar Abrego Garcia, ordering officials to facilitate his return from a notorious Salvadoran prison.

On the other hand, the justices cleared away obstacles to the administration’s use of third-country deportations, in which foreigners are deported to countries to which they have no ties. And the court green-lit the administration’s termination of Temporary Protected Status for more than 1.2 million people.

But to Trump, loyalty to his personal priorities is how he measures the court, and despite his muted reaction to Tuesday’s rulings, he made his feelings known loudly after the tariff decision.

“With certain Republican Nominated Justices that we have on the Supreme Court, the Democrats don’t really need to ‘PACK THE COURT’ any longer. In fact, I should be the one wanting to PACK THE COURT!” he wrote last month. “I’m working so hard to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, and then people that I appointed have shown so little respect to our Country, and its people. What is the reason for this? They have to do the right thing, but it’s really OK for them to be loyal to the person that appointed them.”