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This is an adapted excerpt from the March 20 episode of “Deadline: White House.”
Donald Trump and his administration believe they are more powerful than the judicial system. They believe that his executive authority has more weight than the rule of law. But that is not the way our Constitution is designed — and that is not the way we have conducted business in the United States of America for almost 250 years.
Across the country, dozens of judges have blocked parts of Trump’s agenda from going into effect. According to the president, these judges aren’t basing their decisions on the rule of law. Instead, he claims they are “radical left lunatics” targeting his administration.
Trump wants to blow up our rule of law, and frankly, way too many people who know better in his party are going along with it.
However, according to an analysis from Adam Bonica, a professor of political science at Stanford University, that is not the case. He found that judges across ideological lines are ruling against Trump at a similar rate. Bonica also took the decisions handed down from the courts thus far and compared them to decisions from Trump’s first administration. While a judge’s ideology strongly predicted case outcomes back then, Trump’s overreach during his second term has united judges across partisan divides.
“This isn’t partisan opposition to Trump — it’s the judiciary functioning as intended by cutting across partisan lines to uphold the Constitution,” Bonica wrote.
Judges are putting their political biases or ideology aside, they’re looking at the Constitution and the rule of law, and they’re making rulings in accordance with how our country is supposed to run. While Trump may find a friendly judge and succeed in one or two of these cases, there will likely be a lot more cases where Republican-appointed judges come down against this administration.
Trump knows this. That’s why the president and his allies are pushing for these judges to be impeached — but that’s not happening. Impeaching a federal judge requires a two-thirds vote in the Senate. In the end, all Trump is doing is political theater and animating his base in a way that’s very dangerous to people who sit on the bench.
Simply rejecting or dismissing Trump’s far-fetched push to impeach these judges isn’t enough, however. I believe some of my former colleagues in Congress — people who have been in the system for a long time and have great faith in our constitutional checks and balances — have not fully grasped how far Trump has already gone.
He’s taken inspiration from autocrats across the globe. He’s targeted higher education, tried to shut down the free press and has ousted people from the federal government who may disagree with his positions. He is taking the U.S. to a place that is absolutely autocratic.
Forget any checks and balances when it comes to the legislative and executive branches: The president has a Republican-controlled Congress already bending the knee. I can’t believe that more U.S. senators, especially those on the Judiciary Committee, have not spoken up about the president’s threats against these judges.
Trump wants to clear the field of any defenders of the Constitution. He wants to blow up our rule of law and put himself in charge. And frankly, way too many people who know better in his party are going along with it.