Supreme Court building, 2011 (CC BY-SA 3.0, photo Joe Ravi)
I know it’s a bit simplistic given the incalculably high stakes involved, but it also takes some of the sting out of the dire predicament the US (and the world) currently faces, to occasionally look at the battle between the courts and Trump’s barrage of executive orders from a sports perspective.
So, with apologies to those unfamiliar with the American sports references, here’s a (nonchronological) blow by blow on most of the major cases:
Goalie blocks Trump’s penalty kick against Harvard—Trump’s vindictive attempt to revoke Harvard University’s ability to enroll foreign students was stalled by a federal court’s temporary restraining order.[1]
COURTS: 1, TRUMP: 0
Trump rounds first on foreign student visas but called out at second—The Department of Homeland Security terminated the student visas of 4,700 foreign nationals based on Trump’s “Student Criminal Alien Initiative,” but a federal judge reinstated them.[2]
COURTS: 2, TRUMP: 0
Trump aces law firms for Ad-in, then double-faults for deuce—Trump’s retaliatory sanctions against law firms who’d litigated against him looked like a slam dunk when several caved and offered a billion dollars in pro bono work on Trumpian causes. Four of the targeted firms, however, stood firm, filed suit, and won preliminary relief from the courts, with one judge ruling the sanctions unconstitutional.[3]
COURTS: 3, TRUMP: 1
Trump called for goaltending on AP free throw—In a stinging rebuke of the president, Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee, ordered him to lift his ban on the Associated Press from attending press conferences and other presidential events due to its clear violation of the First Amendment.[4]
COURTS: 4, TRUMP: 1
Trump’s perfect game against DEI marred, but no-hitter still possible—The nationwide injunction against Trump’s order against diversity and inclusion programs has been temporarily lifted by an appeals court decision allowing enforcement to go forward while legal challenges proceed.[5]
COURTS: 4, TRUMP: 2
Game tied in regulation on Trump anti-Fed and NLRB actions—The Supreme Court insulated the Federal Reserve form Trump’s meddling but backed his firing heads of the National Labor Relations Board; and it allowed Trump to remove Temporary Parole Status (TPS) for 350,000 Venezuelan refugees, but blocked the cancelation of TPS for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Cameroonians.[6]
COURTS: 6, TRUMP: 4
Trump’s stolen base on tariffs still under replay review—The flurry of taxes on foreign imports Trump imposed, de-imposed, and re-imposed led to suits filed by 12 states, various businesses, and even arch-conservative billionaires Leonard Leo and Charles Koch, but so far the courts have yet to act. Other cases still in limbo include Trump/Musk’s stripping of worker protections from 10s of 1000s of government employees.[7]
COURTS: 6, TRUMP: 4
Trump’s Hail Mary on birthright citizenship gets batted down at the goal line, though there’s a flag on the field—Clearly a long shot, Trump’s order to end birthright citizenship was put on hold by three federal judges, one of whom stated that it plainly violated the 14th Amendment.[8] The Supreme Court has yet to rule on the matter but the odds are clearly stacked against the president.
COURTS: 7, TRUMP: 4
Goal-line stand stops dismantling of government agencies and suspension of refugee relief program; field goal successful on grants—Federal district courts halted DOGE’s dismantling of the Education Dept. and USAID, which handles foreign aid programs, and halted Trump’s suspension of the refugee relief program affecting Sudanese, Congolese, and even Afghans who’d fought against the Taliban. The Supreme Court did allow the curtailing of educational grants.[9]
COURTS: 9, TRUMP: 5
Trump’s hanging curve on Alien Enemies Act knocked out of the park—In a rare unanimous decision, the Supreme Court ruled that all immigrants facing deportation based on the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 must be afforded due process under the Constitution; and again unanimously, the high court let stand a lower court order directing Trump to “facilitate and effectuate” the return of Venezuelan immigrant Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, whom the US admitted having unlawfully deported to El Salvador. This case maddeningly remains in limbo because of meager facilitation efforts by the US and the intransigence of Salvador’s authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele, but Judge Paula Xinis has threatened to charge the Department of Justice with contempt.[10]
COURTS: 11, TRUMP: 5
Grand slam against Trump on sending migrants to non-home countries—The Department of Homeland Security attempted to send migrants from the Philippines, Vietnam, and Laos to Libya. As this was not their home country, they hadn’t been given a chance to challenge the action, and Libya balked at their admission in any case, a court halted the deportation. That loaded the bases, and when immigrants from Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, Vietnam, and Sudan were sent to the violence-plagued country of South Sudan, which also refused them entry and they were stranded in Djibouti, Judge Brian Murphy, echoing Judge Xinis in the Abrego Garcia case, called the action “unquestionably violative of this court's order” and warned of “the possibility of holding officials in criminal contempt.”[11]
COURTS: 13, TRUMP: 5
Trump faces possible suspension for the rest of the season (or worse) for betting on his own team—More than mere baseball fandom caused Trump to cheer the lifting of Pete Rose’s permanent ban from baseball due to illegal gambling; self-identification also clearly came into play. Indeed, Trump likely influenced Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred’s decision to lift the ban, since it came right after a meeting with the president.[12] In any event, Trump began his second term where he left off on his first, with a “woefully inadequate ethics pledge” that “falls far short of divestment” of his business interests and leaves open the Trump Organization’s “striking deals with foreign companies.”[13] Then came a spree of firings of ethics-enforcement officers and the dismantling of related agencies, some of which have been upheld by the courts and others halted or reversed.[14] As for potential impeachable offences, the most brazen conflict-of-interest schemes so far have been the “insider-trading” scandal on the tariffs switcheroo, the Qatar jumbo jet bruhaha, and the ongoing cryptocurrency scam ($TRUMP), with the president’s recent $1.7 million a seat dinner for 200 crytpo investors at one of his country clubs amounting, as Democrats rightfully charged, to an “orgy of corruption.”[15]
COURTS: 14, TRUMP: 6—Score as of May 27
Cartoon by Daryl Cagle (https://wp.me/p4wCIX-2JWl)
A pretty good trouncing of the president so far, it would seem, and reinforced by the almost identical Washington Post tabulation of Trump’s actions and court decisions through May 23, based on 4 categories:
1. BLOCKED FOR NOW: 8 (Ban on birthright citizenship, freezing of grants and loans, ban on gender-transition care of minors, law firm sanctions, banning AP from some events, mass layoffs of federal workers, deporting migrants to Salvadoran prison, deporting Mahmoud Khalil)
2. PARTIALLY BLOCKED: 6 (Accessing private data, dismantling agencies, dismantling DEI, ban on refugee admissions, deportations through Alien Enemies Act, proof of citizenship to vote)
3. AWAITING DECISONS: 1 (Removing employment protections)
4. ALLOWED FOR NOW: 6 (DOGE legality, firing of probationary workers, firing of commissioners and Inspector Generals, freezing university funding, ban on transgender troops, revoking temporary protection for migrants)[16]
Altogether, then, though we’re still early in the game, it isn’t too farfetched to presume that while Trump has had more shots at goal and more time in the red zone, his batting average at this rate isn’t likely to keep him in the majors for long. Whether he’ll abide by the decision to send him down is another story.
* * * * * * * * * *
NOTES
Many thanks to Karen Brook, Tom Pfister, and David Beaulieu for their assistance!
[1] Jonathan Stempel and Nate Raymond, https://www.reuters.com/world/us/harvard-sues-trump-administration-blocking-enrollment-foreign-students-2025-05-23.
[2] Melissa Quinn, May 22, 2025, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/federal-judge-stops-trump-terminating-legal-status-international-students.
[3] Brian Barber and Erin Mulvaney, May 23, 2025, https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/trumps-campaign-against-elite-law-firms-suffers-another-defeat-in-court.
[4] Gary Grumbach and Zöe Richards, April 8, 2025, https://www.nbcnews.com/media/judge-orders-white-house-lift-ban-associated-press.
[5] Austin Williams, March 14, 2025, https://www.fox4news.com/news/trump-dei-executive-orders-court.
[6] On the Federal Reserve and NLRB decisions: Dab Mangan, https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/22/supreme-court-federal-reserve-trump.html; on the TPS decisions: Justin Juvenal and Ann E. Marimow, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/02/07/trump-lawsuits-executive-orders-actions-legal-challenges; Mark Sherman, May 22, 2023, https://whyy.org/articles/supreme-court-trump-strip-venezuelan-legal-protection.
[7] Juvenal and Marimow; Robert Tait, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/07/trump-tariffs-lawsuit.
[8] Juvenal and Marimow.
[9] Lindsay Whitehurst and Michael Kunzelman, March 18, 2025, https://apnews.com/article/usaid-federal-judge-trump-administration; May 23, 2025, cwsglobal.org/blog/daily-state-of-play-trumps-indefinite-refugee-ban-and-funding-halt; Nina Totenberg, April 4, 2025, https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house/deadline-legal-blog/supreme-court-dei-grants-education-trump-rcna198917.
[10] Damon Root, https://reason.com/2025/04/11/supreme-court-unanimously-orders-trump-to-facilitate-the-return-of-wrongly-deported-man; Juvenal and Marimow, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/02/07/trump-lawsuits-executive-orders-actions-legal-challenges; Kelsey Reichmann, May 13, 2025, https://www.courthousenews.com/judge-threatens-doj-with-contempt-over-silence-in-abrego-garcia-deportation-case.
[11] Kimmy Yamm, Courtney Kube, Gary Grumbach, and Laura Strickler, May 7, 2025, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/us-deporting-migrants-libya; Nate Raymond, Ted Hessen, https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-official-says-us-seeking-deport-eight-serious-criminals-declines-confirm-2025-05-21.
[12] Jake Seiner, https://www.kbtx.com/2025/04/28/rob-manfred-says-he-discussed-pete-roses-status-with-donald-trump-will-rule-reinstatement.
[13] Rebecca Jacobs, February 3, 2025, https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/crew-investigations/crew-is-tracking-trumps-unprecedented-corruption-again.
[14] Jacobs; Nick Popli, May22, 2025, https://time.com/7288191/trump-to-attend-crypto-dinner-corruption.
[15] Isabella Murray, April 28, 2025; https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/democrats-press-white-house-potential-insider-trading-trump/story; Seb Starsevic, May 20, 2025, https://www.politico.eu/article/qatar-defends-jumbo-jet-trump-bribery-allegations-transperancy-air-force-one; Popli.
[16] Juvenal and Marimow.
Great post, my friend. I enjoy the sports metaphor approach that lightens this dark time.
Thanks so much!