How powerful is the Supreme Court? Or put more bluntly, what exactly can the SCOTUS force Donald Trump to do?

Per NPR, “the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday reined in some of the Trump administration’s sweeping effort to eliminate foreign aid that has been authorized by Congress.”

The thing is, the Executive is a co-equal branch of government. As such, it is permitted to have its own views on what is constitutional — or not. The founders’ view was that the Supreme Court — being a co-equal partner in governance with the president — has not the power to compel executive compliance with any judicial ruling, even its own.

In a letter to William Charles Jarvis, dated September 28, 1820, Thomas Jefferson wrote these words:

[T]o consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed. ... [T]heir power [is] the more dangerous as they are in office for life, and not responsible ... to the elective control. ... [A]ll the departments [are] co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves. If the legislature fails to pass laws ... as prescribed by the constitution ... the judges cannot issue their mandamus [a judicial order] to them; if the president fails to provide the place of a judge ... the judges cannot force him. They can issue their mandamus ... to no executive or legislative officer ... any more than the president or legislature may issue orders to judges or their officers.

John Adams, in the hours before the end of his presidential term, appointed 16 Federalist judges to the circuit courts and 42 to lesser courts. These hastily ratified appointments were called the “Midnight Judges.” Although President Adams had ordered the commissions for these posts to be delivered, the clock ran out on his administration before all the commissions could be dispensed. In one of his first presidential acts, Jefferson canceled delivery of the remaining commissions

Abraham Lincoln, during his presidency, took the position that the Supreme Court’s decision in the Dred Scott case was against the proposition in the U.S. Constitution that “all men are created equal.” In retrospect, it would appear Lincoln was right.

In a speech supporting his constitutional opinion with respect to Dred Scott, Lincoln quoted President Andrew Jackson:

[T]he opinion of the Supreme court ... ought not to control the co-ordinate authorities of this Government. The Congress, the Executive, and the Court must each for itself be guided by its own opinion of the Constitution. Each public officer, who takes an oath to support the Constitution, swears that he will support it as he understands it, and not as it is understood by others.

In office, Lincoln both rejected and disregarded the Dred Scott ruling, having found it unconstitutional as well as being based on fake history.

Three co-equal Branches, intentionally created to compete with each other for power, so that they are not exclusively spending all their time taking power from We the People. (Another reason that the Senate was meant to be the STATE'S House, protecting their powers there, until "Progressives" ruined that in 1913 with the 17th Amendment).

Trump is neither more or less powerful than SCOTUS... they simply have different powers and responsibilities and focal points...

(But Trump's Branch DOES have quite a few more tank divisions, sooooo...)

Trump is playing 4D chess with USSC and Barrett and Kavanaugh are walking down the path toward the brick wall known as the Three Co-Equal Branches of The Government doctrine. Trump is waiting for the right “most unconstitutional ruling” from these fakers to snap the trap. I think it will be the Tic Toc CAN BE shutdown ruling. That will give Trump the largest possible number of supporters and collapse the facade of the USSC being to leader among equals. The Democrats will also fall into the trap of being FOR the shutdown thereby alienating them from millions of young voters.
This Trump move will sap the Court’s authority and give the power to govern back to the elected Executive.
Commenting on the Tic Toc case Kavanaugh remarked that the decision will hold “unless the Executive decides to ignore it.” Maybe this is Kavanagh’s subtle signal to Trump that “Yes THIS is the case you (we) have been waiting for.
Nevertheless, if the showdown is not this case it will be another.
Trump is unafraid to act decisively as closing down the Dept of Education shows.

Trump is going to have to just ignore them at some point and declare that circuit/district judges have “no jurisdiction” over certain executive decisions, such as those based in the 1952 immigration act that is being used as the legal basis for many deportations. It would be best, in fact, if - in those cases - they did not even file an answer to lawsuits, and refuse to appear at hearings, and ignore all rulings with just a single, terse sentence in response. This is CRITICAL to re-establish Executive authority that has been willfully eroded for over a century.

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