WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump on Friday applauded the Supreme Court’s “giant” decision to end federal district judges’ ability to abuse nationwide injunctions.
Trump held a press briefing on short notice after the decision, as lower court judges have imposed nationwide injunctions to stymie his agenda on numerous fronts.
“This was a big decision, an amazing decision, one that we’re very happy about,” Trump said.
“This morning, the Supreme Court has delivered a monumental victory for the Constitution, the separation of powers, and the rule of law in striking down the excessive use of nationwide injunctions to interfere with the normal functioning of the executive branch,” he added.
Trump said left-wing district judges have worked to prevent the American people from receiving the policies they voted for.
“I was elected on a historic mandate, but in recent months, we’ve seen a handful of radical left judges effectively try to overrule the rightful powers of the president to stop the American people from getting the policies that they voted for in record numbers,” he told reporters.
“It was a grave threat to democracy, frankly, and instead of merely ruling on the immediate cases before them, these judges have attempted to dictate the law for the entire nation,” he said.
Left-wing groups and attorneys would often seek out districts where judges were more likely to rule against Trump policies. These judges would often rule against Trump and impose a nationwide injunction, meaning their ruling applied to the entire country.
“In practice, this meant that if any one of the nearly 700 federal judges disagreed with the policy of a duly elected president of the United States, he or she could block that policy from going into effect, or at least delay it for many years, tie it up in the court system,” Trump said.
“This was a colossal abuse of power which never occurred in American history prior to recent decades, and we’ve been hit with more nationwide injunctions than were issued in the entire 20th century together,” he added.
He lauded Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s “brilliantly” written majority opinion, as well as Chief Justice John Roberts, Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, and Brett Kavanaugh, who helped make the 6-3 ruling.
“Thanks to this decision, we can now promptly file to proceed with numerous policies that have been wrongly enjoined on a nationwide basis,” Trump said, pointing to the birthright citizenship case as one example.
