The appellate court repudiation of President Donald Trump’s travel ban marked the first high-level loss for a new administration that, for all the chaos it has inflicted on Washington and itself, had thus far largely succeeded in accomplishing its goals.
Before the judicial panel refused Thursday to reinstate Trump’s order — which prevented entry into the U.S. from seven mostly Muslim countries and all refugees, until a lower-court judge issued a stay — drama in Washington played out as if the nation had only two pillars of power. Trump nominated Cabinet secretaries, and the Republican-led Senate, the only part of the legislative branch with a role, pushed them past Democratic opposition.
The court decision was a reminder to the president that the success of his administration will also be driven by the views of jurists who represent the third center of power under the U.S. Constitution.
And it was a reminder of how Trump, and his inability to curb his impulses, can pose a threat to his own goals.
Tweets and comments from the president that were once seen as merely inflammatory and insulting, such as his regular campaign pledge to enact a ban on all Muslims seeking to come to the U.S., took on more power when cited as evidence before the courts. Indeed, Trump’s own words cut against the Justice Department’s argument that the president’s executive order did not amount to an unconstitutional ban on any particular religion.
The court also provided a rebuttal to the bleak worldview Trump has promoted through exaggerations and falsehoods about safety threats at home and abroad.
“The government has pointed to no evidence that any alien from any of the countries named in the order has perpetrated a terrorist attack in the United States,” the judges wrote.
Trump contributed to the court’s rebuke by adopting, in his early weeks as president, a shock-and-awe strategy that put a premium on speed and secrecy rather than thoughtful actions. In the case of the executive order, issued one week after he took office, that meant the administration bypassed review by agencies that might have helped the plan meet judicial muster.
The unanimous decision by the three-judge panel based in San Francisco kept in place the stay of the executive order; it did not toss it on the merits. The administration has the option of appealing — either to a broader appellate panel or to the Supreme Court.
“SEE YOU IN COURT, THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE!” Trump tweeted soon after the court decision was announced. Later, in a quick aside to reporters at the White House, Trump said the judges’ decision was “political” and that he was confident that his order would eventually be upheld.
Trump came into office bent on upending politics, and his actions have been meant to further that image. Swift, unilateral behavior — and sharp rejoinders to anyone not going along — have been his hallmarks.
While that has kicked up controversy, Trump has succeeded because his power over Capitol Hill has been nearly complete. The president is hardly a conservative ideologue, but he shares goals important to the Republican majorities in both houses, such as tax reform and the repeal of President Barack Obama’s health care plan. And that has kept them in line.
With a firm hold on the most activist and energized voters in the Republican base, Trump also represents a potential threat to the political ambitions of Republicans who might want to publicly disagree with him.
After a rocky confirmation hearing, his Education secretary, Republican donor Betsy DeVos, was approved with only two GOP defections when Vice President Mike Pence broke a Senate tie. His attorney general, former Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, survived furious Democratic objections on the Senate floor with even less GOP wobbling.
That loyalty and a provocative sense of siege have propelled his administration’s first few weeks. In many ways, Trump has worked to create the sense he first floated in the campaign that only he can solve the nation’s deluge of problems, and that any entity that threatens his political power is illegitimate.
As president, he has crafted that alternative universe from his first inaugural words, when he cast a dark vision of “American carnage” afoot in the land, of gangs and criminals and the imminent threat of terrorist attacks.
He declares almost daily that the media are dishonest and out to get him, even when his allegations are disproved by video. He has cast reporters as effectively treasonous for intentionally hiding incidents of terrorism — an accusation that is false.
“They have their reasons and you understand that,” Trump told military leaders in Florida this week, speaking of the media. (His staff later released a lengthy list of supposedly ignored attacks that had, in fact, been covered.)