Trump's War With the Courts

Plus: A listener asks why some American libertarians seem to unquestioningly accept everything Vladimir Putin says.

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Trump's War With the Courts

In this week's The Reason Roundtable, editors Peter Suderman, Katherine Mangu-Ward, and Nick Gillespie welcome a very special guest, Andrew Sullivan, to discuss President Donald Trump's defiance of court orders on deportations, his antagonism toward Canada, and the COVID-19-era lies told by Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

11:55—Trump deportations ignore due process and defy court order

38:19—Canada as the 51st state?

50:38—Weekly listener question

58:09—The five-year anniversary of COVID-19 and Fauci's lies

1:07:30—This week's cultural recommendations

 

Mentioned in this podcast:

"Trump's Reading of the Alien Enemies Act Defies the Usual Meaning of Its Terms," by Jacob Sullum

"Trump Administration Deports Alleged Venezuelan Gang Members Despite Court Order," by Katarina Hall

"Did ICE Deport This Guy Over a Real Madrid Tattoo?" by Eric Boehm

"Pesky Judges," by Elizabeth Nolan Brown

"Trump's Judge Bashing Provokes a Rebuke From Chief Justice John Roberts (Again)," by Jacob Sullum

"Forget Woke Snow White. Disney's Remake Is More Like Socialist Snow White," by Peter Suderman

"Why Did This Man Mislead Us?" by Andrew Sullivan

Reason Speakeasy: Jeffrey A. Singer, April 8, 2025

 

Send your questions to [e-mail]. Be sure to include your social media handle and the correct pronunciation of your name.

 

Today's sponsors:

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Audio production by Ian Keyser

Assistant production by Hunt Beaty

Music: "Angeline," by The Brothers Steve

• Video Editor: Ian Keyser
• Producer: Hunt Beaty

What are we consuming this week?

Peter Suderman

• Snow White

Nick Gillespie

• The Electric State

Katherine Mangu-Ward

• KAOS

Andrew Sullivan

• The White Lotus, Season 3
• The Dishcast with Andrew Sullivan: Mike White On Transcending Identity

---

Comments

[Stupid Government Tricks]

Ya know ... just saying ... it's interesting that you didn't phrase it as the courts' war with Trump, or even the war between Trump and the courts. Had to phrase it as Trump's fault.

[JFree]

What's more interesting is that your comment is phrased as if you are employed, at very low wages, to write sentences that ensure coverage of Trump in independent sources is as positive as possible.

Are you paid in money or in dingleberries?

[Stupid Government Tricks]

Nope, I get paid every time idiots like you click the bait.

And do so by not responding to the comment. It's like magic!

[JFree]

Well that's ok. I respond. You get a dingleberry. Happy eating

[JesseAz (Prime Meanster of Sarcasia)]

As jewfree turns into sqrsly dreaming of shit.

[Fire up the Woodchippers! (Democrats are domestic terrorists)]

So, of how many Hamas supporting organizations are you a member?

[Mother's Lament - (Here's your attention, Sarckles)]

J(ew)Free inhabits a comments section that has both Chemjeff and Tony, but somehow SGT is the fifty-center because he said something different than what JFree was told by Morning Joe earlier in the day.

This is almost as stupid as Sarcasmic's assertion that SGT and Jesse are the same guy.

[MWAocdoc]

There was a graduate student at the University of Chicago a few years ago who pioneered a research technique that counted column-inches and hot-button words to determine bias in published public media. She was probably deported, though.

[Love to be Wrong]

When is Reason going to add up and downvotes to the comments? At least give us an upvote if they have no balls like the tech corporations. That would give them a good indication of fringe comments vs mainstream libertarian.

BTW I would upvote your comment.

[VULGAR MADMAN]

Now why on earth would Trump have issues with the courts? I guess that
shall always be a mystery.

[SQRLSY]

Because The TrumptatorShit LOVES DickShitorial Powers, and the courts like to pretend that a Cunts-Tits-Tuitional democracy is still possible? Could THAT be it?

[Chupacabra]

Lol, who asked that question?

[Mother's Lament - (Here's your attention, Sarckles)]

White Mike. It's always White Mike.

[Love to be Wrong]

Libertarians unquestioningly accept everything Putin says? It seems like the RRT is making up crap to fill their show. Or maybe it's because they operate out of Democrat states and think the rest of America shares the same concerns. We don't.

[Longtobefree]

Truth in headlines:
"The court's war with democracy"

[SQRLSY]

Because The TrumptatorShit ***IS*** Democracy!!! Dear Leader ***IS*** The People!!!!

All votes and courts SNOT for Trump and trumpanzees are FRAUDULENT!!!

[JesseAz (Prime Meanster of Sarcasia)]

Given how many of the injunctions, the ones that have gotten there, have already been overturned... isn't it the courts war against trump?

I mean these judges even attend virulence anti trump conferences.

https://justthenews.com/accountability/political-ethics/hldjudge-who-blocked-trump-deportations-took-junket-event-anti

Or is it trumps fault for wearing the skirt?

[Eeyore]

Are we sure we aren't at war right now? We never declared victory or defeat in the war on poverty. How about the war on COVID, is that over yet? How about that war on chickens, did we win?

[Vernon Depner]

Are chickens systematically oppressed?

[Eeyore]

I'm sure they are. The good news - if you are reincarnated as a chicken, you won't be one for long.

[DesigNate]

War on Terror is going on 24 years.

Goddamn I’m old.

[Eeyore]

Totally forgot about the war on drugs.

[InsaneTrollLogic (On Sarc’s List!)]

I think we lost that one.

[Rev Arthur L kuckland (5-30-24 banana republic day)]

Are the cola wars still a thing? My uncle lost a foot in that one

[Mother's Lament - (Here's your attention, Sarckles)]

Yes, although the Burger Wars have calmed down after genocide in the Congo perpetrated by Mayor McCheese

[Ersatz]

Cola wars antagonists on both sides deployed diabetes like a certain country deployed gas in WWI... it is an atrocity!! I'm assuming thats how he lost his foot (eventually).

[Chumby]

Sarc won the war against sobriety.

Jeff won the war against anorexia.

Pluggo won the war against attraction to adults.

Molly won the war against intelligence.

Misek refuted the results of his war.

[MollyGodiva]

Victory!

[Incunabulum]

>Plus: A listener asks why some American libertarians seem to unquestioningly accept everything Vladimir Putin says.

Covid.

No one trusts what the media or the government says anymore. Thus when someone puts out a narrative *that actually makes sense* (true or not), people accept it.

That narrative is that Putin wants a buffer zone, Europe was insistent that everyone join NATO, Putin acted.

Since there are actual logical national security reasons for Russia to not want NATO on the border and warm water ports in Ukraine, it makes sense to act now to secure those things.

Is that true? How the fuck would I know. But the Democratic Party and the MSM has ensured I will *give more weight* to the words of A KGB AGENT!!!!!

I'd have loved for Ukraine to push Russia out. But they didn't. They can't. We can't afford to give them the help they need - and we certainly aren't going to be putting troops out there to be shot at (especially since we're not supposed to be defending our own border, let alone some other country's). So maybe Putin will be satisfied with control of some ports and the majority ethnic Russian areas. Maybe he'll just regroup and re-attack in 3 years.

At the end of the day - I don't give a fuck any more. Europe is not a bastion of freedom (it never was but that's a different argument), they're not *actually useful* as allies, and they're going down the totalitarian path.

We'd be better off re-forming and refocusing our efforts on Mexico, central, and South America and building up an alliance (military and economic) across the western hemisphere than to continue to mess around with Europe.

[Vernon Depner]

Yes, this. It is no longer in our interests to be allied with Western Europe. They have fallen to totalitarianism and Islam.

[DesigNate]

Can you imagine if we ended up annexing Canada and Mexico as quasi-territories or something and turned our back on Europe? The wailing and gnashing of teeth would be worth the price of admission.

[Vernon Depner]

I can see us annexing part of northern Mexico as a buffer zone against the cartels/government.

[SQRLSY]

NAZI Empire, meet the Trumpist Empire!

NAZIs had "Anschluss", the annexation of Austria. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anschluss#Legacy ... Now the Evil Trumpian Empire will have "Canschluss", the annexation of Canada. And then Greenland, Panama, the Gaza Strip, and who know twat all else!!! Evil Empires cum to evil ends, did You SNOT know that?

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/global-trends/us-news-trump-tariff-canada-canada-under-siege-is-trump-planning-a-canschluss/articleshow/119208691.cms?from=mdr

[SQRLSY]

"We'd be better off re-forming and refocusing our efforts on Mexico, central, and South America and building up an alliance (military and economic) across the western hemisphere..."

And Trump is declaring economic tariff-wars against all of our allies, and will SNOT renounce the use of military force to annex Canada, Greenland, and Panama! (And more?) Is THIS how one builds alliances? Or is this how one unifies the world against a common aggressor-foe, like NAZI Germany?

See "Canschluss"... NAZIs had "Anschluss", the annexation of Austria. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anschluss#Legacy ... Now the Evil Trumpian Empire will have "Canschluss", the annexation of Canada. And then Greenland, Panama, the Gaza Strip, and who know twat all else!!! Evil Empires cum to evil ends, did You SNOT know that?

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/global-trends/us-news-trump-tariff-canada-canada-under-siege-is-trump-planning-a-canschluss/articleshow/119208691.cms?from=mdr

[Mother's Lament - (Here's your attention, Sarckles)]

Lol, like you give a fuck about us outside of orangemanbad, clowntits.

And seriously, "Trump is going to invade Canada" is your stupidest allegation yet. Pants on head retarded.

[SQRLSY]

Look, Marxist Moose-Mammary Farter-Fuhrer, face the facts: Ye are OLD and yer tits droop something Government-Almighty AWFUL! Even AFTER the Canschluss, Dear Orange Leader will SNOT spurn Spermy Daniels, and He will SNOT add YOU to His PervFect Harem, no matter HOW PervFect Ye regard Yerself to be! So give UP on Your PervFect Lusts, for Your own good!

[Thought about __ all my life]

Dang !! It's the logic training...IF a Libertarian --- or anybody --- accepts something they VERY often do not accept it qua Libertarian. See, your view is being warped by REASON, which makes L. your god and highest allegiance. IF I am Libertarian, Catholic, heterosexual, male, older, etc. I probably don't accept or reject anything based just on fact that I am X.

So I look at comments on Blacks and districting and I think : How can you possibliy defend saying that Black is the basis in any way for drawing a voting district. Will we now have lawyers determine how Black you are , as with Plessy , who was white as snow but had one Black great granparent out of 8

[Gaear Grimsrud]

" A listener asks why some American libertarians seem to unquestioningly accept everything Vladimir Putin says."
Another listener asks why some Reason libertarians support US proxy wars in Europe.
Full disclosure: I am not that listener. I wouldn't listen to any podcast that references Jacob Sullum unless it consists of only mockery and derision which I'm sure is not the case here.

[Mother's Lament - (Here's your attention, Sarckles)]

Remember that the same people who think that firing back at Houthis for attacking American ships is warmongering, are the same guys who want American soldiers and weapons attacking Russia on their border for the sake of the Ukraine.

[Social Justice is neither]

And are the same people that believe there is nothing wrong with the infinite invasion of the southern US border and that Hamas, er Palestine, was justified for Oct 7.

[Chumby]

Activist Judges’ War with Trump

[InsaneTrollLogic (On Sarc’s List!)]

Exactly. Trump, contrary to the opinions expressed by the Reason writers, did not start this.

[Chumby]

Pearl Harbor’s War with Imperial Japan

[SQRLSY]

Drag Queens's wars with ALL Right-Thinking People EVERYWHERE!!! Also the wars of illegal sub-humans, trannies, accused “groomers”, abortionists, gays, heathens, infidels, vaxxers, mask-wearers, atheists, dirty hippies, Jews, witches, or, the very WORST of them all, being one of those accused of STEALING THE ERECTIONS OF OUR DEAR LEADER, right, right-wing wrong-nuts? ANY methods are OK, so long as they are used against the CORRECT enemies, am I right?

[Mother's Lament - (Here's your attention, Sarckles)]

You can't address the topic at hand because you know your wrong, so instead you're going to shout about the horrors of men in miniskirts being forbidden from twerking for kindergarteners.

[SQRLSY]

The topic at hand is that Dear Orange Leader wants to shit ALL over the courts and the USA Cunts-Tits-Tuition (which ass educated people KNOW, gives MUCH power to the courts, and SNOT ALL of the Power to the Trumptatorshit), and appoint His Annointed Self Ass THE Trumptator!

He swore to defend the USA Cunts-Tits-Tuition, which (oath of His) was-is a vast JEST! Worst of all, stupid and evil people voted for Him even AFTER He firmly, fascistly announced His Power-Pig intentions!

https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/03/politics/trump-constitution-truth-social/index.html
Trump calls for the termination of the Constitution in Truth Social post

Proud Boys, STAND with TRUMP, and stand by! And if ye don’t agree 110%, then we don’t need you polluting our world, because all who disagree with us in ANY way are LEFTISTS!!!

[Chumby]

Squirrel is the heckler’s pedo

[Vernon Depner]

Nor are conservatives and moderates the aggressors in the "culture war".

[SQRLSY]

Nor are we v/s Canada, Greenland, Panama, and who know twat all else, the aggressors... THEY are the aggressors!!! By DISRESPECTING our Dear Leader!!! Just ass Ukraine is the aggressor against Russia, per Our Dear Leader!!! All Hail Dear Leader!!!

[Mother's Lament - (Here's your attention, Sarckles)]

You realize that lying about Trump invading Canada is almost as evil as demanding the US attack Russia right? You're a very bad person.

[SQRLSY]

Why do Ye PervFectly encourage this disrespectful, bloviating, arrogant, power-pig ASSHOLE making aggressive threat at all sorts of peace-loving allies, and sucking butt with Putin? Don't you know that "trial balloons" that do SNOT get shot down, often turn into policy? Evil people (ass YOU should PervFectly know!) are afflicted with "unquenchable thirst", and their lusts can NEVER be sated!

Plus, PLEASE, for Your own good, get shit through Your PervFectly Thick Head, that He will SNOT add Ye to His Harem! Yer tits are WAAAAY too saggy and baggy!

[Chumby]

The squirrel is just here for supply. The psychological kind as well as the scatological variety.

[SQRLSY]

War is peace and peace is war!!! And day is night, and tariff-taxes swill make us all RICH!!! Servants and serpents of the Evil One have TOLD me so, so THERE!!!

[Chumby]

Squirrel is the aggressor in the “who can eat the corn out of the piles of shit” war.

[SQRLSY]

And I can also find the rubies in the mountains of rock!!! Thanks for the cumpliment!!! Even Shitler, Trump, and Chumpy Chump, from time to time, had the wisdom to eat food and breathe, so ass to stay alive!!! There ARE rubies in that them thar mountains of rock, and even stupid and evil people have a few good ideas!

Hump Chumpy-Chump AND Grumpy-Trump in the Rump, all of the way to the Dump!

[Don't get eliminated]

Someone cheeked their meds this evening.

[Mother's Lament - (Here's your attention, Sarckles)]

They didn't make him lift his tongue.

[SQRLSY]

Sure… All of those who disagree with MEEEE are… Mentally ILL!!! YES, this! Good authoritarians KNOW this already!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_abuse_of_psychiatry_in_the_Soviet_Union

All of the GOOD totalitarians KNOW that those who oppose totalitarianism are mentally ill, for sure!!!

[Thought about __ all my life]

Americans overwhelmingly support President Trump’s agenda.
81% support deporting criminal illegal immigrants.
76% support a “full-scale effort to find and eliminate fraud and waste in government.”
76% support closing the border with additional security and policies.
69% support keeping men out of women’s sports.
68% support government declaring there are only two genders.
65% support ending race-based hiring in government.
63% support “freezing and re-evaluating all foreign aid expenditures and the department that handled them.”
61% support reciprocal tariffs.
60% support direct U.S. negotiations with Russia to end the war in Ukraine.
59% support cutting government spending already approved by Congress.
57% support ending the ban on new offshore drilling.

Harvard CAPS/Harris poll

[Thought about __ all my life]

I tell my students , if you are dumb and arguing with dumber people, use words like 'dicey' -- it completely distances your from "I approve" or "I disapprove"
Might use this in class

[SQRLSY]

The idea that tariff-taxes will make us all rich? This is VERY dicey!!!

[Thought about __ all my life]

Can't you for once say "This is wrong" or "This is right" -- dicey ,what the hell does that mean? I tell my students that such words are evidence you are not thinking.

[Thought about __ all my life]

But he never said "will make us all rich" and that is the flaw in arguing without really having an opinion of your own.

[TJJ2000]

Trump is not at war with the courts.

He's at war with Liberal [Na]tional So[zi]alist[s] and their treasonous Empire that has destroyed and bankrupted this nation.

[Brandybuck]

> Plus: A listener asks why some American libertarians seem to unquestioningly accept everything Vladimir Putin says.

Because a whole bunch of libertarians aren't libertarians at all. They are instead contrarians. Automatic knee jerk opposition to anything that vaguely resembles mainstream. So of course they love to love on Putin, because it's so damned contrarian. Putin kills drugs users and homosexuals and still this so called "libertarians" think he's the next best thing to Trump. Hell, I've had one try to explain to me how it was Ukraine that invaded Russia. I shit you not.

[Thought about __ all my life]

Actually, Putin's attitude to gays is based on the great decline of children and stable marriages. I would not do it that way but I certainly would do something about the gay thing in Russia

I quote this merely to show that you are trivilalizing the horrible social situation in Russia
"Sixty-three percent of Russians surveyed said they believe a secret organization is trying to "destroy" the country's "spiritual values" through gay propaganda."

Just don't reply and say 2/3 of Russians are stupid. Okay? No gay stereotyping and no Russian stereotyping.

[Love to be Wrong]

The secret organizations are known as: CIA, Mossad, MI6, CSIS, etc...

[Thought about __ all my life]

I think Peter, Nick , et al jhave got money and a relatively cush life. My family has had a horrible time with SS, IRS, and general government. They threaten you and then you call and get "your call is very important and a computer voice guiding you through a huge maze and you finally talk to someone and get cut off or they say 'you will have to talk to X" and X is someone who wants you to go through the whole thingg again...PURE KAFKA

[Thought about __ all my life]

So you DID mean "trump's war with the courts' and not "the courts' war with trump"
WHY Number of injunctions halting Trump policies trounces predecessors by double

You never explain, so as a college teacher me gives you an "F"

[Love to be Wrong]

It's amazing how Andrew Sullivan sounds when you are listening to the audio only. He comes off as overly dramatic actor. Which is probably what he is.

[Thought about __ all my life]

Seems to me you using lawyers to tell us whether lawyers are overstepping law , is like asking tyrants to talk about human rights.
By making Trump the epicenter of this you are coming down immediately on the side of people like Boasberg.

BUT BILL BARR (former AG) seems to say that this very approach is wrong

======================
According to Barr, the ruling goes beyond the judge’s authority and interferes with the president’s constitutional powers.

"The Constitution gives the president the power to make the judgments about how we deal with foreign nationals when we are animated by national security concerns," said Barr, who served as Trump's attorney general in 2019 and 2020.

"It’s his call, not a district court judge’s call."

[Thought about __ all my life]

Is being an American mean any shared values anymore ???

"all of these men [ THE FOUNDERS ]publicly and privately affirmed a shared natural theology: that there is a Creator who has imbued the world with discernible natural laws, both physical and moral, and who governs the affairs of men with his sustaining and intervening providence. Michael Pakaluk, following Avery Cardinal Dulles, refers to this natural theology as the “deist minimum” that in late eighteenth-century America was combined with providentialism and was “held by Christians of all denominations (and also by Jews and philosophical theists), who nonetheless might differ on what additional doctrines were revealed.”

This combination of the deist minimum with providentialism served as a workable and stable public theology that made sense of the Declaration’s right to the pursuit of happiness: the latter is coherent only against this backdrop. The right was understood to be bounded by a God-given natural law that was affirmed by each of the various intellectual traditions that underpinned the American Founding."