Chaos, lawsuits are the point: Trump expects Supreme Court to give him a free pass [View all]

Trump's approach to established norms has always been to burn them to the ground and then see whether anyone accuses him of arson. He's just moving faster about it in his second term.

Donald Trump learned a valuable lesson while out of office between his first and second term as president ‒ he can get away with just about anything if at least five of the six conservative members of the U.S. Supreme Court take his side.

All six conservative justices granted Trump broad immunity last summer that helped him dodge accountability in a pair of criminal cases, a legal assist that boosted his shot at winning a second term.

Now that he's back in the White House, Trump appears to be angling for the Supreme Court to expand his powers as president. It's been a whirlwind two weeks as Trump and his MAGA wrecking crew attack the federal government, agency by agency.

Three of his actions stand out because of how clearly illegal they are: an executive order to abolish "birthright citizenship," his attempt to freeze federal spending through existing grant programs, and his efforts to shift employment classifications as a precursor to firing huge numbers of federal employees.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2025/02/04/trump-birthright-citizenship-funding-freeze-lawsuit/78186843007/