[When the Supreme Court justices first shared an inaugural stage with Donald Trump, they heard the new president deliver a 16-minute declaration against the country, vowing that “this American carnage stops right here and now.” Afterward, they returned to a chamber on the first floor of the Capitol, where they fell unusually silent, with no one knowing what to say.
The justices and their law clerks greeted Trump with collective apprehension eight years ago. Liberal or conservative, they wondered what to expect next. Today, no mystery exists as to what Trump is all about – or whether the Supreme Court majority is mostly with him.
The bench has been remade in his image. Trump appointed three of the current nine justices during his first term: Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. Two other justices on the right wing, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, were galvanized by the Trump effect.
Whatever guardrails were in place from Congress and Trump’s Cabinet in his first term have been lowered. The question for the Supreme Court is whether any of his moves will be a bridge too far.
Chief Justice John Roberts, whose relationship with Trump has been bumpy, nonetheless shepherded the opinion in the case that mattered most to him. Roberts wrote the July 1 decision that gave Trump substantial immunity from criminal prosecution and ensured he would not face trial for charges of election subversion from the 2020 presidential contest.
The reconstituted Supreme Court has diminished norms and transformed the law, beginning with the court’s upholding of Trump’s travel ban in 2018, then its reversal of Roe v. Wade and abortion rights in 2022, and finally its groundbreaking move to shield the president from prosecution.
Along the way, the justices revealed varying levels of regard for Trump. Thomas and his wife, Ginni, dined privately with him. Ginni Thomas also worked to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss. At the home of Samuel and Martha-Ann Alito in January 2021, an upside-down American flag flew, similar to a symbol adopted by Trump supporters who breached the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
At the other end of the spectrum, liberal Sonia Sotomayor has shown her disdain for Trump. As she dissented from the bench in the travel ban case, she highlighted his verbal attacks on Muslims. More recently, during January 10 oral arguments in the TikTok dispute, she derisively questioned whether Trump would abide by Congress’ ban and enforce the law.
The Supreme Court created a more powerful president. Trump will return to the White House with new muscle, notably through the court’s decision shielding him from prosecution for any challenged conduct taken during official acts. On the social policy front, the Supreme Court has issued a series of rulings that would bolster his agenda, for example, against reproductive rights and racial remedies.
All three of Trump’s appointees banded together for landmark decisions in those areas of the law, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard. Gorsuch and Kavanaugh have been Trump’s most reliable allies among the three. That was seen earlier this month when they dissented (with Thomas and Alito) as the majority rejected Trump’s plea to block his sentencing in the Manhattan hush-money case.
Trump’s bid to the Supreme Court to avoid sentencing was a long shot. As the majority wrote, Trump’s allegations of “evidentiary violations” at trial were separately on appeal and any burden from the scheduled sentencing was “relatively insubstantial” because it was to be a virtual hearing and the trial judge was giving Trump an “unconditional discharge.”
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