Judicial criticism of Donald Trump's actions is now shaping his second term in real time. More than 800 lawsuits have challenged executive actions from Donald Trump’s administration, and federal courts have already blocked or narrowed some of the most important ones.
Norm Eisen, a former Obama White House ethics lawyer and cofounder of the Democracy Defenders Fund, said Trump has attempted to flood the zone with illegality. Eisen added that wins for the president on major initiatives would represent “a stunning break with American constitutionalism.”
Supreme Court rulings
The Supreme Court has already cut in two directions. It struck down Trump’s across-the-board tariffs for exceeding his legal authority, but it also allowed federal immigration agents to stop and question people about their immigration status based on appearing Hispanic, speaking Spanish and working in construction.
That mix leaves Trump’s second-term agenda partly constrained and partly intact. The court has not shut the door on every contested policy, and that has left lower court judges with a large share of the work in sorting through the rest of the lawsuits.
Washington, DC lawsuit
A federal lawsuit in Washington, DC, is now testing an unusual piece of that agenda: a planned UFC event on the White House South Lawn. The event, UFC Freedom 250, is planned for June 14, Trump’s birthday, and it is tied to the United States’ 250th anniversary celebrations this summer.
The event would also include fighter weigh-ins at the Lincoln Memorial. In March, Trump’s trust bought between $15,001 and $50,000 of stock in the UFC’s parent company, and Trump reported that purchase in a financial disclosure filed in May.
White House and Justice Department
Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, blamed lower court judges for what she called “the unrelenting, unlawful rulings issued by some lower court judges who push their own policy goals and are clearly triggered by President Trump’s agenda.” Natalie Baldassarre, a Justice Department spokesperson, said, “These achievements are nothing short of astonishing, and the policy positions of rogue, unelected judges will not deter us from delivering for the American people.”
The next pressure point is the court docket in Washington, DC, where the challenge to UFC Freedom 250 could test how far Trump can go in turning a White House event into part of his political and personal brand while the larger wave of lawsuits keeps moving through federal courts.
