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President Trump takes on the Judiciary
From Supreme Court rulings on deportations and birthright citizenship to federal troop deployments in Los Angeles, the courts are becoming ground zero for challenges to executive authority. Emily Bazelon tells Ian Bremmer that the judiciary can’t save American democracy alone—and with Congress sidelined and the DOJ increasingly politicized, checks and balances are wearing thin. “The judges cannot save the country from an authoritarian president… by themselves."
GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, the award-winning weekly global affairs series, airs nationwide on US public television stations (check local listings).
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Graphic Truth: Same-sex marriage around the world
LGBTQ+ rights remain far from equal around the world. As of 2025, only 38 of the 195 countries globally recognize same-sex marriage. While some nations are changing course — Liechtenstein and Thailand both legalized same-sex marriage this year — others are moving in the opposite direction, enacting discriminatory laws that target LGBTQ+ communities. In the United States, state-level lawmakers in Oklahoma are pushing to restrict transgender rights and challenge the 2015 Supreme Court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage. Meanwhile in Uganda, the Constitutional Court last year upheld an anti-gay law – initially signed in 2023 – that includes the death penalty for certain homosexual activity, underscoring the legal challenges that LGBTQ+ individuals face in certain countries across the globe.
A group of migrants sit as they wait to be transported for processing on the day the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals hears oral arguments on Texas' motion to lift a block on its SB4 immigration law that would allow state officials to arrest migrants suspected of being in the country illegally, in El Paso, Texas, U.S. March 20, 2024 .
Supreme Court hands Trump a win, with caveats, and ACLU files new suit
In a 5-4 ruling, the US Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration could continue deporting suspected Venezuelan gang members to a Salvadoran prison using the 18th-century Alien Enemies Act, overturning a lower-court judge’s decision to temporarily halt the flights.
“A GREAT DAY FOR JUSTICE IN AMERICA!” US President Donald Trumpposted on Truth Social, celebrating the decision on Monday.
Not so fast. As part of the ruling, the Supreme Court stated that detainees are entitled to receive notice of their deportations and can challenge any decisions before a judge ahead of any removals, a privilege that the first set of deportees weren’t afforded. It comes after the White House started removing these alleged gang members, many of whom have no criminal record, last month. The executive branch even appeared to defy a judge’s order to turn around one of the planes. The American Civil Liberties Union duly asked a New York judge on Tuesday to halt the removals of two migrants who are being detained in the Empire State.
“The critical point is that the Supreme Court said individuals must be given due process to challenge their removal under the Alien Enemies Act. That is a huge victory,”
ACLU attorney Lee Gelerntsaid of the ruling.Out of left field. From requesting more funds for border patrol to invoking old laws, Trump has explored several avenues to secure the border and remove migrants. That’s unlikely to stop anytime soon, as he now explores a $998 daily charge for migrants who shun deportation orders.
How the Supreme Court immunity ruling changes presidential power
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
What does the Supreme Court's immunity decision mean for Trump and the future of presidential power?
Well, for Trump, the first thing it means is that you're not going to be hearing about on the case of his involvement in January 6th. All of that gets punted until after the election earliest, assuming Biden wins and more likely these days, Trump. The case is kind of a dead letter. More broadly for presidential power. We're talking about immunity for all official acts that are engaged in during the course of a person's presidency. Now, in dissent, Justice Sotomayor, who's pretty far left on the court, has said that this doesn't prevent a president from engaging in treasonous acts and makes the president a king. Most jurists don't accept that, but it certainly does lead to huge questions about what is and what is not an official act. And of course, presidents would be inclined to argue that very broadly to be able to avoid the potential at any cases against them. So this is a pretty significant, not necessary momentous, but certainly very significant decision by the court.
With the far-right surging in the French elections, what would a caretaker government in France mean for Europe?
Well, it is more likely that we see a caretaker government than we see a far-right majority. And the efforts by President Macron and the left to ensure that they are not running against each other in the second round, triangular three-person elections make it more likely that you have a hung parliament. Then you have the far right in a cohabitation of this very unusual situation where the prime minister is opposition to the president. But what's going to happen is that you have a very, very weak French government and that almost nothing can pass in the next 12 months until another election would occur. It certainly makes Le Pen stronger. It makes it more likely that the far right is eventually able to defeat a Macron successor from the center in 2027.
And it also makes it more likely that the French budget is out of whack with the EU. They're not able to pass anything that looks like a balanced budget, that more parliamentary approvals for things like, additional support for Ukraine or training troops on the ground, would have a hard time getting through the French parliament if it requires such a vote. So it's a real challenge for the EU. It's a challenge for France.
Does the West have any concerns with Modi's upcoming visit to Russia?
Not really. The West relationship with Prime Minister Modi is very strong. Modi is increasingly decoupling the defense relationship between India and Russia. They buy a lot from Russia. No Indian technology goes to Russia the way that it does from China, for example. So you don't have that dual use problem. And India buys an awful lot of oil from Russia, at a discount. But that is in line with American and the West's policies, because they don't want a global recession. Modi and Putin, in principle, are supposed to visit each other every year. That hasn't happened. And so this is sort of getting that relationship in that regard on track. But I think there's not a lot strategically that the West is worried about near term here.
Ian Explains: Does it matter if Americans don't trust the Supreme Court?
Public approval for the US Supreme Court is at an all-time low. But how much does that matter really? On Ian Explains, Ian Bremmer breaks down why voters believe the Court has become more partisan and politically motivated in recent years and whether public perception makes any difference in how it operates.
According to Gallup polling, SCOTUS has had a strong net approval rating, much higher than the President and Congress, for most of the last 25 years. But as of September 2023, 58% of Americans disapproved of the Supreme Court, a record high. The Court’s credibility has come under fire following ethics scandals involving Justice Clarence Thomas and a string of 6-3 conservative majority opinions, like the June 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturning Roe v. Wade, increasingly out of step with public opinion.
It’s a class question of separation of powers: The justices aren’t elected, and the judicial branch of government isn’t designed to respond to popular will. But if SCOTUS falls out of step with voters completely, it risks losing the very thing that gives it legitimacy: public faith.
Catch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer every week at gzeromedia.com/gzeroworld or on US public television. Check local listings.
- SCOTUS adopts new ethics code as public trust plummets ›
- Who cares if the Supreme Court justices like each other? ›
- Supreme Court divided over Trump’s absolute immunity claims ›
- US Supreme Court ends affirmative action in college admissions ›
- Why Clarence Thomas has eroded trust in the US Supreme Court ›
- The major Supreme Court decisions to watch for in June - GZERO Media ›
- US election disinformation: How myths like non-citizen voting erode public trust - GZERO Media ›
A voter exits a polling station in Selma, Alabama.
SCOTUS backs Voting Rights Act
In a surprising decision on Thursday, the US Supreme Court ruled in favor of voting rights advocates, deciding — in a 5-to-4 vote — that Alabama has carved up the congressional map to dilute the power of Black voters.
What’s this case about? After conducting the census in 2020, the deep-red state left only one out of seven districts majority Black despite the fact that Black voters make up 27% of the vote statewide.
A lower appeals court had previously ruled against Alabama, saying the map needed to be redrawn to be more favorable to Black residents. SCOTUS, for its part, last year put its decision on hold, meaning that the US midterm elections were held according to this now-defunct gerrymandered map.
Indeed, the outcome — in which Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John Roberts, two conservatives, sided with the court’s three liberal justices — surprised many who feared that the majority-conservative court might back Republican-dominated states trying to strip back the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which prohibits racial discrimination in voting.
Still, in handing down his decision, Roberts wrote that there were remaining concerns that the original law in question “may impermissibly elevate race in the allocation of political power within the States.” But for now, it sets a precedent for other states trying to pull similar tricks.
Want to learn more? Tune in here to Ian Bremmer’s interview with Yale Law School Senior Research Fellow Emily Bazelon on the latest episode of GZERO World. Bazelon, the host of Slate’s Political Gabfest podcast, unpacks some of the big cases argued before the court this term.
West Virginia v. EPA ruling hampers climate change action
Jon Lieber, head of Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in Washington, DC, shares his analysis on US politics:
This week's question, what are the implications of the Supreme Court's decision in the case of West Virginia v. EPA?
It's been a busy term for the Supreme Court, topped off this week with a ruling on the EPA's ability to regulate carbon emissions under the Clean Air Act.
The Supreme Court ruled that the EPA did not have the properly congressionally delegated authority to regulate carbon emissions. This will hamper the ability of the Biden administration to act on climate change in the absence of congressional action, which we do not expect. And more broadly could have implications for other agencies, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Trade Commission.
At issue is the agency's ability to regulate in cases where Congress has not specifically laid out that they should. This is known as delegation from Congress to the agencies. And in the past, the courts have given the agencies wide latitude to pass new rules in cases where congressional statutes were ambiguous.
However, under the more conservative courts that were appointed by President Donald Trump, the courts are turning back these abilities. And a concurring opinion by Justice Neil Gorsuch laid out a series of tests that limit the ability of agencies to act.
The conservatives think that courts have allowed agencies to have too much power and would prefer to see those powers concentrated in the hands of the elected representatives in Congress. Liberals argue that the administrative state requires specialized expertise to create complex rules to regulate industries that cannot be administered properly by the more political branches of government.
This will affect not only regulations dealing with climate change, but also future workplace safety regulations, such as the vaccine mandate that President Biden tried to force on large employers earlier this year, the SEC's ability to force disclosures of climate risk by publicly traded companies, and rulemaking that the Federal Trade Commission hopes to do. They're pushing data privacy standards and break up highly concentrated industries.
More broadly, with this decision and the decision to overturning Roe v. Wade, the court has indicated that it is willing to overturn years of precedent and set US policy making on a fundamentally different and more limited path.