Many thought the second Trump administration would feature a confrontation between a Supreme Court intent on limiting executive discretion and an empowered president flaunting the rules. Instead, the Supreme Court has largely acquiesced to Trump’s moves, using the shadow docket to overturn lower court actions limiting Trump, even those from Republican judges. Adam Bonica finds that Trump has sought to purge and cut more liberal agencies but has been repeatedly shot down by lower courts. Yet the Supreme Court alone has often sided with the administration, making the courts much less of a check on executive power.
