President Donald Trump has railed in recent weeks against federal judges who have ruled against his administration, painting them as threats to the country and demanding that the Supreme Court halt all nationwide injunctions.
In a post on Truth Social Thursday, Trump attacked the judges who have issued injunctions against his policies, calling them “radical left judges” and “lunatics” who “want to assume the Powers of the Presidency, without having to attain 80 Million Votes.” (Trump won the 2024 election with 77 million votes, and federal judges are appointed to their positions, not elected.)
“STOP NATIONWIDE INJUNCTIONS NOW, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE,” he added, before calling on Chief Justice John Roberts to intervene. “If Justice Roberts and the United States Supreme Court do not fix this toxic and unprecedented situation IMMEDIATELY, our Country is in very serious trouble!”
On Friday morning, Trump again suggested in a Truth Social post that federal judges are attempting to “assume the duties of the President of the United States.”
With more than 100 lawsuits against Trump’s policies to date, the administration has claimed that judges are improperly using nationwide injunctions to impede the president’s agenda and to override his executive powers. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt accused those judges of being “partisan activists.”
“They are trying to dictate policy from the president of the United States,” she said. “They are trying to clearly slow-walk this administration’s agenda, and it’s unacceptable.”
Nationwide injunctions have stymied both Republican and Democratic presidents in the past. However, Trump and his allies argue that his administration has faced more injunctions than any other in recent decades. According to the Harvard Law Review, Trump faced 64 injunctions in his first term in office, far more than any president since 2001. But Trump has wielded executive power in ways that other presidents have not, and in his second term, he has aggressively sought to expand the boundaries of his office. As my colleague Steve Benen pointed out, Republicans are leaning on the assumption that courts are engaged in a widespread conspiracy to undermine Trump’s agenda, rather than face the more straightforward explanation that his actions may simply be at odds with the law. Nevertheless, the president and his billionaire ally Elon Musk have also called for judges who rule against the administration to be impeached, which provoked Roberts to take the rare step of issuing a statement saying “impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.” The Justice Department is currently awaiting the Supreme Court’s ruling on a request to narrow orders from several judges who have blocked Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order from taking effect nationwide. But as The Associated Press pointed out, the high court appears to be in no hurry to decide.
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.
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