The great undoing: Trump's presidency reeled in by courts

• The inevitable showdowns between Trump and the judiciary are only going to get more intense.

Judges have issued dozens of orders blocking Trump from doing something he wants to do, and the flood seems to grow every day. The headlines are constant: Judge blocks X; Judge freezes Y; Court allows Z to continue.

• This week's ruling against Trump's tariffs — handed down by the usually sleepy Court of International Trade — was one of the biggest shockwaves yet, striking at the centerpiece of his economic agenda and efforts to exert leverage on the world stage.
• That ruling was quickly put on ice, temporarily, by an appeals court. But there will be more tariff litigation, and more litigation on just about everything else.

On education, a federal judge in Boston this week said Trump could not stop Harvard from enrolling international students, at least for now.

• A separate Boston-based judge last week froze Trump's plans to largely eliminate the Department of Education.

That added to an absolute mountain of litigation over Trump's various efforts to gut the federal bureaucracy.

• Courts have stopped or slowed some DOGE-led cuts across the government, the firing of people who serve on independent boards, and the laying off of other government workers.

Immigration has been the most explosive flashpoint of all.

• Every court that's considered Trump's executive order redefining the rules of American citizenship has ruled against it.
• The administration has pointedly refused to bring back the man it wrongly deported to El Salvador, despite even the Supreme Court telling it to "facilitate" his return.
• Judges in lower courts have blocked similar deportations or ordered the government to provide some sort of hearing before deporting people.

Between the lines: To some extent, this is the system working the same way it always works. The big things presidents do, at least in the modern era, end up in court.

• Obamacare was a big thing, done by both the president and Congress. It's been before the Supreme Court no less than three times.
• Forgiving student loans and trying to impose COVID vaccine mandates were, for better or worse, big things President Biden attempted. The Supreme Court said both were too big.

Trump has made no bones about wanting to go as big as possible, all the time, on everything — and to do it mostly through executive action. Everyone knew before this administration began that myriad legal challenges were inevitable. And, well, they were.

• Unlike previous presidents, Trump and his allies have relentlessly attacked judges whose rulings block parts of his agenda.

As these battles progress, Trump will win some and lose some.

• Every single person Trump has tried to fire may not end up fired. But if and when all of those one-off challenges coalesce into a real, big-picture Supreme Court referendum on the president's power to fire federal workers, the smart money says that's a fight Trump will most likely win.
• On the other hand, eliminating birthright citizenship is a long shot. The Justice Department is trying to persuade the Supreme Court that it's been misinterpreting the Constitution for 100 years. That is (a) obviously going to end up in court; and (b) a hard sell.

What's next: Almost none of this — on any issue — has reached the point yet where judges are actually striking down or upholding Trump's policies.

• This is why the headlines you see all use words like "block" or "freeze" or "temporarily." For now, what's being decided is mainly whether Trump can go ahead and enact X or Y policy while the courts figure out whether that policy is legal.

As explosive as these legal battles already are, we haven't even touched the highest-stakes chapters in the ongoing saga of Trump vs. the courts.

• The real showdowns over the president's power — his power to fire people, to override Congress' spending decisions, to deport people without due process, to levy tariffs, to revoke citizens' citizenship — are all still to come.