Unfreeze spending. Un-fire appointees. Un-delete websites. Un-gut research grants. Un-fork Elon Musk’s bureaucrat resignation program.
Federal courts are ablaze with orders blocking many of President Donald Trump’s early efforts to transform the federal bureaucracy and expand executive power. The adverse rulings, though temporary, are defining the first chapter of Trump’s second presidency.
Over a 24-hour period starting Monday morning, six judges took steps to rein in the new president. More emergency orders are expected Tuesday and later this week. They follow nine other orders in the previous two weeks abruptly halting some of Trump’s aggressive executive actions, at times warning that they flagrantly violate federal laws and the Constitution.
The escalating confrontation between the president and the courts is riling Trump and his allies. Elon Musk labeled it a “judicial coup.” JD Vance said “judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power” — a comment that landed as many pro-Trump voices encouraged the president to defy adverse court orders.
The Justice Department, meanwhile, has insisted the administration is scrupulously abiding by the orders even as the department calls them “impermissible” and even “anti-constitutional.” The White House, too, has said Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” is following every court order “to a T.”
One federal judge, however, upbraided the administration for what he said was a violation of his order to lift a freeze on federal grants, and he hinted he might hold administration officials in contempt for further non-compliance.
“The broad categorical and sweeping freeze of federal funds is, as the Court found, likely unconstitutional,” U.S. District Judge John McConnell wrote, “and has caused and continues to cause irreparable harm to a vast portion of this country.”
The Trump administration quickly appealed the order, saying the just vastly overreached in his attempt to constrain the president’s management of federal funds and believed officials had been faithfully implementing his directives.
By Tuesday morning, Trump joined the chorus of court critics. “[C]ertain activists and highly political judges want us to slow down, or stop,” Trump said on Truth Social. “Losing this momentum will be very detrimental to finding the TRUTH.”
The truth, though, is that Trump court fights have already slowed his momentum. Trump’s most dramatic policy initiatives are on hold, including his attempt to end the right to birthright citizenship, his firing of thousands of people at USAID and his effort to enforce a swift deadline for federal workers to accept the deferred-resignation offer that Musk’s team has dubbed “A Fork in the Road.”
The federal district judges who have blocked these and other policies were appointed by presidents of both parties and span the ideological spectrum. Operating on short timetables caused by the breakneck pace of Trump’s executive orders and other maneuvers, the judges are issuing what they describe as short-term pauses to keep the status quo in place while litigation proceeds.
But these district judges — the lowest level in the three-tiered federal court system — are unlikely to have the last word. Already, some of the legal challenges have begun to arrive at appellate courts and may soon be en route to the Supreme Court, where Trump expects a friendlier reception.
For instance, in the litigation over Trump’s attempt to freeze vast amounts of federal spending, the Justice Department has asked an appeals court for an “emergency” block on McConnell’s order to keep the funding spigot open. The department has also appealed an order blocking Trump’s bid to end birthright citizenship.
Beyond the judicial rulings themselves, the court battles are producing something else: information. In a battery of lawsuits challenging Musk’s opaque “Department of Government Efficiency,” the Justice Department has had to produce sworn affidavits about the secretive operations.
In one case, a top Musk ally — Thomas Krause — described his handling of Treasury’s massive payment system, indicating he has “over the shoulder” access to view it and has toyed with copies of the code underlying the system. In another, Trump’s day-to-day manager of USAID, Peter Marocco, filed a 12-page affidavit describing efforts to shutter the agency — and forced DOJ to admit that those efforts were more extensive than lawyers had previously acknowledged in court. The administration revealed in yet another case that FBI leaders had been resisting efforts by Trump’s Justice Department appointees to fork over the names of agents who worked on Jan. 6 cases.
