The sabotaging of President Trump’s agenda by ‘resistance’ judges was predictable – why no jurisdiction-stripping bills tee’d up at the onset of this Congress? Congress has the authority to strip jurisdiction of the federal courts to decide these cases in the first place.
Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL)
Not since FDR has a US president had such a clear mandate as Donald Trump. 79% of Americans support the deportation of illegal-alien criminals (source: Newsweek). 76% support DOGE finding and eliminating fraud and waste in government expenditures (source: Harvard/Harris polling). 72% oppose identity-based admissions and hiring policies (source: Gallup). Sadly, a few leftists judges don’t agree.
Conservatives see a generational moment. Republicans control the executive, judicial and legislative branches. Democrat approval is its lowest (27%) ever. The GOP is out-registering Dems in California, Silicon Valley is supportive, and I cannot recall a more talented or articulate presidential cabinet (doubters, watch the All-in In DC podcasts with secretaries Bessant and Lutnick). It is Go Time!
So, in order to protect illegal-alien criminals, bureaucrats, and DEI programs, left-liberals brought more than 120 lawsuits before left-leaning district-court judges. In February alone, 15 suits resulted in nationwide injunctions. Elsewhere, Democrats and their media allies have incited Tesla Terrorism to drive Elon Musk out of the cost-cutting business. With Americans like that, why worry about Hamas?
In reaction, MAGA purists demand these “rogue judges” be impeached, and excoriate Chief Justice Roberts for issuing a “terse three-line statement” that threatens “the court’s legitimacy (and) the republic itself” (Ben Weingarten in The Federalist). Stop! Roberts was not opposing the President. He was being practical, and setting the table for his 6-3 conservative court to make America First happen.
The right MAGA message comes from Florida’s Republican governor (read above): get Mike Johnson and John Thune off their butts to help Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and John Roberts. Initiate legislation ASAP to (1) codify the America First agenda, and (2) restrict the jurisdictions of 677 district-court judges. After all, Congress is also responsible for the “more prefect Union” that Trump promised voters.
DeSantis knows things. Like the America First message is why Trump got 77,302,580 popular votes last November, compared to 60,933,504 for Romney in 2012. Like impeaching an “un-elected” judge will never get 67 Senate votes. Like Roberts is right to want a bad “judicial decision” remedied by “the appellate review process” because his court was THE America First movement during the Biden era.
Fact: the Supreme Court voted 6-3 in 2022 to uphold the Mississippi law in Dobbs, stalled DEI in 2023 by overturning Affirmative Action, and de-fanged federal regulatory agencies in 2024 by overturning the Chevron deference. Odds are Team Trump will win two-thirds of its appeals. C’mon, no way the Supremes oppose the deportation of Tren de Aragua gang members.
The Roberts court has, in fact, methodically ruled to strip power from federal regulatory agencies (e.g. ruling the president could fire heads of independent agencies), so let’s view the Chief Justice as a common-sense ally to the President. What’s probable is that Roberts wants to re-establish his own independence to maintain the legitimacy of this Supreme Court.
After voting with the majority in Trump v. Anderson (14th Amendment’s disqualification clause) and Trump v. United States, (presidential immunity against criminal prosecutions), Roberts cannot behave like Marjorie Taylor Greene. Especially, after cameras caught Trump’s exit from his speech to Congress, when he patted Roberts on the back and said, “Thank you, I won’t forget it.”
After bashing John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett for their every vote with the court’s liberals, MAGA stalwarts should remember both are Catholic and longtime Republicans, and pay closer attention to their questions in Ames vs. Ohio Department of Youth Services, which will be THE landmark case against DEI (a solid majority of the justices sound ready to overturn the lower court ruling).
Marlean Ames, a heterosexual woman, claims she’s the victim of reverse discrimination. After ten years of good reviews and pay raises, she was passed over for a promotion and later demoted in favor of a lesbian woman and a gay man, respectively, both of whom Ames argued were objectively less qualified. Not only was her fate decided by a gay woman, Ohio’s solicitor general sided on a key point with Ames.
After Ohio’s SG Elliot Gaiser conceded that heterosexual people “should not face” a higher burden, the entire Court was bewildered, and their questions signaled skepticism in the lower-court ruling that required Ames to meet a “higher bar” because she was a straight, white woman. Savvy court watchers expect the conservative justices to prevail; thereby delivering a huge win for equal opportunity over equity.
Republicans should tune out the political noise – including Trump’s tweets – and focus on what is real; presidential orders, congressional statutes, and judicial rulings. Period.
On second thought, if you need a good laugh, follow Tim Walz on Twitter-X.