WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump came away from this Supreme Court term without some of the rulings he was pushing for — including on tariffs, birthright citizenship, and his attempt to remove Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook from her post. Yet when all was said and done, Trump’s overall authority as president grew considerably.
His aggressive immigration enforcement was mostly backed by the court, partisan redistricting efforts got the green light, and the justices dramatically expanded the president’s grip over federal regulatory agencies by striking down a precedent that had stood for 90 years. The court’s conservative majority also showed a pattern of giving Trump the benefit of the doubt — even when he used racially charged language or pushed the limits of executive authority.
In a ruling handed down Monday, the court gave the president effective control over independent regulatory agencies by allowing him to dismiss their leaders whenever he chooses. For decades, federal law — some of it more than a century old — had required presidents to show cause, such as negligence, before removing agency heads. The court declared those protections unconstitutional restrictions on presidential power.
The decision opens the door for the president to reshape agencies that Congress designed to function independently of the White House. It could also eventually threaten civil service protections for lower-level federal workers if future rulings extend the president’s firing power further down the chain.
One notable exception: the Federal Reserve. The court ruled Monday that the Fed’s leadership cannot be dismissed at will, even though many legal experts say there is no clear legal distinction between the Fed and other agencies. The ruling means Cook can keep her position while she fights efforts to remove her over mortgage fraud allegations, which she denies.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was a landmark achievement of the Civil Rights Movement, finally giving Black Americans and other minorities meaningful access to the ballot and paving the way for thousands of Black elected officials nationwide. Since 2013, however, the Supreme Court has steadily weakened minority voters’ ability to use that law to challenge election changes, concluding that such protections were no longer as necessary.
This past April, the court raised the bar even higher, making it significantly more difficult for minority voters to challenge electoral maps that limit their ability to elect candidates of their choice — unless they can essentially prove that racial discrimination was intentional.
That ruling aligned with Trump’s push for Republicans to redraw as many congressional districts as possible to protect their narrow House majority. In the aftermath, Alabama, Louisiana, and Tennessee each eliminated majority-Black districts, including one in Alabama that had only been drawn three years earlier following a previous Supreme Court order.
On immigration, the Trump administration racked up a string of victories this term. The justices permitted the Department of Homeland Security to end deportation protections for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans and Haitians, and to cap the number of asylum seekers allowed to cross the southern border each day. The court also gave border officers greater flexibility in handling cases involving green-card holders accused of crimes — a legal question that originated during the Obama administration.
On birthright citizenship, Trump pursued a restriction no president had attempted before, and tried to do it through an executive order rather than going through Congress. In the end, six justices concluded he had overstepped. Still, four justices sided with the administration’s interpretation of the 14th Amendment, suggesting it would allow the government to deny citizenship to children born in the U.S. to parents who are here illegally or on temporary visas.
Throughout the term, conservative justices repeatedly gave Trump favorable readings of his own statements and actions — a practice critics have labeled “sanewashing.” The pattern was on clear display last week when the court stripped protections from Haitian migrants. Justices Samuel Alito and Elena Kagan clashed sharply over whether race played a role in Trump’s remarks, which included describing Haitians as “poisoning our blood” and amplifying false stories about them eating pets in Springfield, Ohio.
“None of the cited statements by either the President or the Secretary was overtly racial,” Alito wrote, arguing the comments could have innocent explanations.
Kagan pushed back forcefully: “The statements fairly shout, in their racial undertones and overtones alike, that race entered into the President’s resolve to remove Haitians from this country.”
The dynamic echoed the 2018 travel ban case, when Chief Justice John Roberts said Trump’s comments about Muslims were irrelevant to the court’s review of a “Presidential directive, neutral on its face, addressing a matter within the core of executive responsibility.” Justice Sonia Sotomayor disagreed at the time, writing that “the full record paints a far more harrowing picture, from which a reasonable observer would readily conclude that the Proclamation was motivated by hostility and animus toward the Muslim faith.”
The court similarly set aside the broader context in the 2024 ruling that helped Trump sidestep prosecution. Two of his own appointees, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, showed little interest in examining Trump’s efforts to reverse the 2020 election results or the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot. “We’re writing a rule for the ages,” Gorsuch said during arguments. Kavanaugh later added: “I’m not focused on the here and now of this case. I’m very concerned about the future.”
Trump did suffer a clear defeat on tariffs. In February, a six-justice majority — three liberals and three conservatives — ruled that an emergency powers law does not give the president authority to bypass Congress on tariffs. No president had ever tried to use the law that way before. Trump responded angrily, publicly criticizing the justices who ruled against him and calling those he had nominated an “embarrassment to their families.” He has since continued pursuing tariffs under other legal authorities, and new tariffs he announced following the ruling remain in effect even as they face fresh legal challenges.
The court also issued two rulings expanding Second Amendment rights. In one case, the justices found that people who regularly use marijuana cannot be automatically barred from owning firearms, recognizing that cannabis is now used by millions of Americans and cannot be presumed to make someone dangerous. In another, the court struck down a Hawaii law requiring individuals to obtain permission before carrying firearms into stores and hotels. Several other states have similar laws, some of which have already been blocked by lower courts.
Both decisions build on the court’s landmark 2022 ruling that significantly broadened Second Amendment protections. And a major new gun rights battle is on the horizon: the court announced Tuesday it will take up the question of whether state and local bans on semiautomatic rifles commonly referred to as assault weapons violate the Second Amendment.
