Trump's Trials - Trump's SCOTUS wins and losses this term

Episode Date: July 1, 2026

Taken as a whole, it's been an overwhelmingly good year for the president with this conservative court supermajority. Three of the six conservative justices were appointed by Trump during his first term. But, the president also faced significant setbacks at the court, as NPR's Tamara Keith reports.Support NPR and hear every episode of Trump's Terms sponsor-free with NPR+. Sign up at plus.npr.org.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Trump's terms. I'm Scott Detrow. Every episode, we bring you one story from NPR's recent coverage of the 47th president. With a focus on ways his administration is pushing the boundaries of presidential power. Here's the latest from NPR. I'm Stevensky. President Trump has spent much of his second term asserting the power of the presidency. Republicans who control another branch of government, Congress, have largely obeyed the president's commands or fell silent as he took their power for himself. The third branch of government, the Supreme Court, has in some cases blocked the president and in other cases affirmed his efforts. Now that the court's term is over, NPR senior

political correspondent Tamara Keith is here with an assessment. Tam, good morning. Good morning. We should note that in this term, Trump lost two really big cases, one over tariffs and the other over his effort to end birthright citizenship, which came this week. How did he take those defeats? Well, on tariffs back in February, he held this angry press conference at the White House and called the conservative justices who cited against him disloyal, among other insults. The president had campaigned on tariffs. He loves tariffs as a tool. But in terms of politics, polls show voters don't share that love. So there's a way in which that legal loss could be seen as a political win. And then with the citizenship case, Trump's response has been much more muted. We, didn't even see him yesterday. On social media, he said the decision was, quote, too bad for our country. And yes, he campaigned on ending birthright citizenship and signed that executive order on day one. But it was a long-shot legal theory, and it wasn't the cornerstone of his immigration agenda. And it seems he did win some other cases on immigration. Yeah, immigration is an area where there's a lot of

executive authority, and the court confirmed that with two recent decisions, citing with the Trump administration on both amnesty and temporary protected status, allowing Trump to strictly limit even legal immigration. So the bulk of the president's immigration agenda is full steam ahead. And taken as a whole, I have to say, this has been an overwhelmingly good year for the president with this conservative supermajority on the court. Say what you mean by that. This is a midterm election year. The president has low approval, gas prices are elevated, voters are in a bad mood, and that's a recipe for a rough election for the president's party. But a decision from the court yesterday, loosening campaign finance rules, is widely seen as helping

Republicans more than Democrats. And an earlier decision from the court throwing out Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act that came early enough for some red states to scramble to redraw congressional district lines to favor Republicans is another one. Thanks to this court, Republicans now have more structural advantages than they did at the beginning of this year. The court did happen to make sure that that particular districting case got in a little bit earlier than some others. So do you have any sense of how the president sees this term then? Oh, he is celebrating the wins and talking about workarounds for the losses. He has now posted repeatedly about the expansion of executive power that the court granted him earlier this week.

It allows the president to fire commissioners at federal agencies that were designed by Congress to be independent. And he wrote yesterday, quote, this decision gives tremendous additional power back to the presidency where it belongs. Trump is known for hyperbole, but even those who disagree with that decision say this is a huge concentration of power in the hands of the president. Trump adds, the Republican Party was treated very fairly by the United States Supreme Court. NPR's Tamara Keith always treats the news very fairly. Tam, thanks so much. Good to hear from you. You're welcome.

A note before we go, if you value this show and want to help keep it going, a free and totally easy way to support us is to rate and review Trump's terms on the platform where you listen in a world of algorithms that goes a long way toward helping us reach new listeners. If you have left a review in the past, thank you so much. I'm Scott Detrow. Thanks for listening to Trump's tour. terms from NPR.