Trump’s executive power faces new Supreme Court term

WASHINGTON (MNTV) — The U.S. Supreme Court opens its new term facing another series of battles over President Donald Trump’s aggressive use of executive power, putting its 6-3 conservative majority under renewed scrutiny over the limits it will impose on the presidency.

The court ended its last term with a mixed record for Trump — major victories alongside rejections of some sweeping claims — and the new term extends the test. It has agreed to hear challenges to two pillars of his immigration agenda: mandatory detention of certain migrants without bond hearings, and rapid deportation of people to third countries. 

Appeals are also pending on his ban on transgender people in the military, cuts to research grants, the installation of federal prosecutors and the suspension of asylum access at the border.

Trump has had notable defeats — the court rejected his sweeping global tariffs, his bid to remove a Federal Reserve governor, his effort to restrict birthright citizenship and his attempt to deploy the National Guard to Chicago — but has also been allowed to pursue aggressive immigration enforcement, cut funding and dismantle programs while litigation continues, and in one major ruling the court expanded his power to remove leaders of independent agencies, overturning a 1935 precedent. 

Scholars note a pattern: Harvard’s Daphna Renan argued the justices tend to constrain Trump when enforcing statutes but expand executive authority when weakening laws that limit presidential control — leaving open whether the president is being checked by Congress’s laws or allowed to exceed them.