Trump to Supreme Court: What Have You Done for Me Lately

At an address made to a joint congressional session last May, President Trump shook Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts’ hand and said, “Thank you again. Thank you again. I won’t forget.”

What would he not forget? Perhaps he had in mind Roberts’ destructive opinion in 2024 that gave Trump immunity for “official acts,” including absolute immunity for Trump’s commands to the Justice Department.

Trump, however, apparently had his fingers crossed when he made the “I won’t forget” comment to Roberts.

It turned out that Trump had no trouble “forgetting” last week when after the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s tariffs. Trump attacked Roberts and two of his own appointees to the Court as “fools and lapdogs,” “disloyal, unpatriotic” and “a disgrace to our nation.”

Roberts had led the Supreme Court in 2025 in acting as a submissive partner to Trump, making some 80 percent of its decisions in Trump’s favor on cases on the so-called shadow docket.

Yet Trump is the ultimate “what have you done for me lately” kind of guy. The tariff decision unleashed Trump’s fury and reckless, irresponsible attacks on Roberts and the two Trump appointees.

Meanwhile, the lower courts, particularly the federal district courts, are frequently deciding cases against Trump and his administration. And federal judges reportedly are getting angry at the administration’s failure to comply with their court orders:

• According to The New York Times, there are 35 cases since last summer where the administration has been ordered “to explain why it should not be punished for violating their orders in immigration cases.”
• A Minnesota federal district judge held an administration attorney in civil contempt for “flagrant disobedience of court orders” in a case involving the ICE crackdown in the state.
• This week, Trump appointee Judge Eric C. Tostrud of Minnesota found the administration in civil contempt for transferring an ICE detainee to Texas in violation of his order and then releasing him without his belongings.
• Earlier this month in New Jersey, a government lawyer admitted that Justice Department lawyers had violated some 50 orders from a judge issued in an immigration case.

Additionally:

• This week, a Virginia federal judge reportedly admonished the Justice Department and denied its request to search a Washington Post reporter’s electronic devices that it had subpoenaed. The judge suggested that the administration could not be trusted to do a narrow search, based on the way it had obtained the subpoena, and that the court would assume responsibility for doing the search.
• Another federal district court judge found yesterday that the administration’s policy of summarily deporting immigrants to countries other than their origin countries is unlawful.
• Still another federal judge reprimanded the administration for claiming an immigrant held in custody was convicted for marijuana possession in 2009, a period when the immigrant was four years old. The judge wrote, “This sloppiness further validates the Court’s concerns about the procedures utilized by the Respondents depriving people present in the United States of their liberty.”
• Just today, a federal district judge found that the Internal Revenue Service had violated federal law “approximately 42,695 times” in providing confidential taxpayer addresses to immigration enforcement officials.

Trump and his administration have been ignoring the rule of law, ignoring court orders, and ignoring the Constitution. Trump apparently believes he rises above all three, as shown by his flat assertion last year that “I have the right to do anything I wanna do. I’m the President of the United States.”

An example of this is Trump’s secret national police force operating under the guise of immigration enforcement. This police force is an abomination that hides behind masks and nameless identities, breaks into homes without warrants and murders United States citizens without cause.

It is a lawless Trump creation, and unlike anything ever seen before in our country.

The Republican-controlled Congress sees no evil and hears no evil when it is faced with Trump’s many abuses. The Supreme Court majority for the most part does the same.

The lower courts and the American people, however, have not sat idly by. They challenge Trump in the courts and forcefully but peacefully, in the streets.

Judging by numerous recent polls showing Trump’s public support and his policies at their nadir, concerned Americans are winning the battle for our democracy. Unlike Trump’s “commitment” to Roberts, the American people are not going to forget their commitment to the Constitution and to a rule of law that no one is above.

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Fred’s Weekly Note appears on Thursdays in Wertheimer’s Political Report, a Democracy 21 newsletter. Read this week’s newsletter, and other recent editions, here. And subscribe for free here and receive your copy each week via email.