In a tumultuous week for President Donald Trump’s administration, a series of federal court rulings have blocked several signature policies, delivering the White House one of its most challenging stretches in recent months. The setbacks—ranging from immigration crackdowns to education funding freezes and contested tariffs—underscore the fierce legal and political battles now defining Trump’s second term as he leans heavily on executive power to reshape the nation’s direction.
The latest round of legal defeats began shortly after Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer announced that Democrats would “force votes” in the coming weeks to reverse Trump’s sweeping import tariffs. Schumer, in remarks Friday night, pointed to the most recent job report, which showed rising unemployment and slowing job growth, and placed the blame squarely on Trump’s trade agenda. “These tariffs are hurting American workers,” Schumer argued, making it clear that Democrats see economic fallout as a potent rallying cry against the White House’s policies.
But as Democrats prepared their legislative push, Trump’s legal woes deepened. A week earlier, an appeals court struck down part of the president’s tariffs, prompting Trump to appeal to the Supreme Court. He warned that failing to overturn the decision would be a “disaster,” and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent echoed the urgency, stating, “Swift review of that decision is necessary to avoid derailing critical ongoing negotiations with our foreign trading partners and threatening broader U.S. strategic interests internationally,” according to NBC News.
Then, in rapid succession, federal judges issued a string of rulings that blocked key elements of Trump’s agenda. Among the most high-profile was a decision halting the administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act—a rarely invoked wartime statute—to expedite deportations of alleged Venezuelan gang members. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that “we find no invasion or predatory incursion,” and granted a preliminary injunction against the removals. The panel also noted that other legal provisions exist for removing individuals designated as foreign terrorists.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson defended the administration’s actions, insisting, “The authority to conduct national security operations in defense of the United States and to remove terrorists from the United States rests solely with the President. President Trump exercised this lawful authority and employed the Alien Enemies Act to remove enemies of the United States, including vicious TdA gang members, from the country.” Jackson also criticized media coverage, saying, “Fake News NBC is trying to push the left’s narrative in a new way. Here’s the reality: with almost 20 Supreme Court victories, the Trump Administration’s policies have been consistently upheld by the Supreme Court as lawful despite an unprecedented number of legal challenges and unlawful lower court rulings. And the winning will continue.”
Another major blow came when a federal judge in California ruled that the deployment of the National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles in June, following large-scale protests against Trump’s immigration policies, violated the Posse Comitatus Act. The 1878 law prohibits the use of the military for domestic law enforcement without Congressional approval. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer wrote that the government “systematically used armed soldiers (whose identity was often obscured by protective armor) and military vehicles to set up protective perimeters and traffic blockades, engage in crowd control, and otherwise demonstrate a military presence in and around Los Angeles.” Breyer’s order blocks the administration “from deploying, ordering, instructing, training, or using the National Guard currently deployed in California, and any military troops heretofore deployed in California, to execute the laws, including but not limited to engaging in arrests, apprehensions, searches, seizures, security patrols, traffic control, crowd control, riot control, evidence collection, (or) interrogation.” The order is stayed until September 12 to allow for an appeal.
Education policy was also upended when U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs found that the administration’s move to freeze over $2 billion in federal funds to Harvard University was “violative of the First Amendment” and amounted to “unconstitutional coercion.” The White House had justified the freeze by citing Harvard’s alleged failure to combat antisemitism, but Burroughs called the claim a “smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault on this country’s premier universities.” She emphasized that the terminated grants related to a wide range of research, including breast cancer, antibiotic resistance, and veterans’ health, not issues of campus antisemitism. The administration has pledged to appeal the ruling.
Meanwhile, a separate ruling from the Northern District of California found that the administration’s attempt to terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for hundreds of thousands of Haitians and Venezuelans exceeded statutory authority and must be set aside. Judge Edward Chen wrote, “The Secretary’s action in revoking TPS was not only unprecedented in the manner and speed in which it was taken but also violates the law.” Chen underscored that for 35 years, TPS decisions had been based on careful interagency review, “until now.”
Despite these setbacks in lower courts, the Trump administration has enjoyed notable success at the Supreme Court. According to NBC, of 22 emergency requests made to the high court, 17 have been granted. A White House-connected lawyer described the administration’s strategy as “flooding the zone” with executive orders, reasoning, “The courts aren’t going to strike down all that they’re doing, and, at the end of the day, they’ll end up accomplishing more by flooding the zone.”
While the legal battles rage at home, Trump’s foreign policy is facing its own storms. China’s recent military parade offered a stark visual: Narendra Modi, Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un walking together—a display of coordination among America’s principal adversaries. Just days earlier, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization hosted leaders from India, Turkey, Vietnam, and Egypt, all countries that had previously leaned toward Washington. But Trump’s aggressive tariffs, harsh rhetoric, and ideological demands are pushing these nations away.
India, for instance, was slapped with the world’s highest tariff rate, while Brazil and South Africa faced steep tariffs, sanctions, and visa bans. The backlash has been swift. In India, pro-American sentiment has plummeted, and there’s growing distrust of Washington. Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, once struggling in the polls, has gained support by resisting Trump’s pressure. South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa earned political credit for standing up to Trump during a tense Oval Office exchange. According to reporting from Cryptopolitan and NBC News, these moves are eroding U.S. influence and realigning global alliances.
As Trump fights legal battles on multiple fronts and doubles down on executive action, the administration’s approach is testing the limits of presidential power. The coming weeks promise more showdowns—in Congress, in the courts, and on the world stage—as the consequences of these policies ripple through American society and the international order.
