Ruth Marcus, a columnist for The New Yorker and author of "Supreme Ambition," discusses her critical experience at the Washington Post and her insights on Trump’s legal strategies. She analyzes how Trump's expansive view of presidential power faces rebukes in lower courts but gains unexpected support from the Supreme Court. Marcus questions whether the conservative majority will ultimately check Trump's authority or yield to it, highlighting the implications for constitutional rights and judicial integrity.
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Backfiring Strategy
Trump's legal strategy backfired in lower courts, facing rebukes from judges across the political spectrum.
This includes cases on birthright citizenship, agency restructuring, and due process for deportees.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Wrongful Deportation
A Salvadoran man was wrongly deported, and the government admitted the mistake.
Despite acknowledging their error, the administration refused to repatriate him.
insights INSIGHT
Supreme Court's Stance
The Supreme Court's stance on Trump's actions remains unclear, varying across cases.
While some cases are clear wins or losses for Trump, others concerning presidential power are uncertain.
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In 'Supreme Ambition', Ruth Marcus documents the thirty-year mission by conservatives to win a majority on the Supreme Court and Brett Kavanaugh's lifelong ambition to secure his place in that victory. The book explores the intense political maneuvering, secret meetings, and partisan warfare surrounding Kavanaugh's nomination and confirmation. It also examines the implications of his confirmation for the future of the court.
Ruth Marcus resigned from the Washington Post after its C.E.O. killed an editorial she wrote that was critical of the paper’s owner, Jeff Bezos. She ended up publishing the column in The New Yorker, and soon after she published another piece for the magazine asking “Has Trump’s Legal Strategy Backfired?” “Trump’s legal strategy has been backfiring, I think, demonstrably in the lower courts,” she tells David Remnick, on issues such as undoing birthright citizenship and deporting people without due process. Federal judges have rebuked the Administration’s lawyers, and ordered deportees returned to the United States. But “we have this thing called the Supreme Court, which is, in fact, supreme,” Marcus says. “I thought the Supreme Court was going to send a message to the Trump Administration: ‘Back off, guys.’ . . . That’s not what’s happened.” In recent days, that Court has issued a number of rulings that, while narrow, suggest a more deferential approach toward Presidential power. Marcus and Remnick spoke last week about where the Supreme Court—with its six-Justice conservative majority—may yield to Trump’s extraordinary exertions of power, and where it may attempt to check his authority. “When you have a six-Justice conservative majority,” she notes, there is“a justice to spare.”
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