Federal Judges don’t like Trump’s Executive Orders Will it matter?
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The Federal Judges don’t like Trump’s executive orders. Will it matter?
Feb 14, 2025 at 5:38pm
Garnet Henderson & Cameron Oakes
Plus, RFK Jr. is sworn-in as the head of HHS after overcoming hurdles in confirmation.
Donald Trump’s second government is creating chaos in the federal administration.
Cage Rivera/Rewire News Group
This week, the Trump administration learned that relying almost exclusively on presidential orders might not be sustainable. If you think the federal courts play a role in limiting the power of executive branch, then yes. Here’s what happened in the news this week about the Trump administration. Here’s what happened in Trump administration news this week.
Health and science
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was sworn in as the new secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. The noted anti-vaxxer will now oversee the nation’s biggest public health agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
To accompany his confirmation, President Trump established a “Make America Healthy Again” commission via executive order. According to the press release, the commission will coordinate efforts across federal agencies in order to combat chronic diseases and make healthy produce more affordable. It sounds really great, but that’s before you realize Kennedy has a history of making false health claims that are not supported by science–like claiming antidepressants are as addictive as heroin; referring to Lyme disease as a military bioweapon; and suggesting mifepristone, a drug that’s been FDA approved for use in medication abortions for decades, may be unsafe.
Senator Mitch McConnell was the only Republican to vote against Kennedy. Trump accused McConnell, who had survived polio when he was a child as being “bitter”. He also questioned McConnell’s mental acuity and raised doubts regarding McConnell’s brush with infectious disease. More than 5,000 employees are expected to be fired before next week, according to STAT News.
- Reproductive rights
- New York Gov. Kathy Hochul refused extradition of a New York Doctor charged with prescribing an abortion pill to a Louisiana patient under 18 years old, citing New York’s “shield” law that protects abortion providers offering telehealth to patients in another state. It is the first time a doctor has been charged with criminally prescribing pills to a patient across state borders. A Louisiana grand jury also indicted the girl’s mother, who could face up to five years in prison.
- Hochul previously refused to extradite the same doctor to Texas, where she faces a civil lawsuit. A Texas judge fined $100,000 to the New York physician who did not attend Thursday’s hearing. In a major test of the shield law framework, one or both of these cases will likely end up before the Supreme Court. One or both of these cases will likely end up before the Supreme Court in a major test of the shield law framework.
- Louisiana officials met with newly-confirmed U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to ask for her help to stop out-of-state doctors from providing abortions to Louisiana residents. “I would love to work with you,” said Bondi, hinting that she may be open to an interpretation of the 1973 Comstock Act that would ban sending abortion pills through the mail–at a minimum.
KFF reports that some abortion ban states claim zero abortions in 2023, which a researcher called “dishonest” and a doctor deemed “ludicrous.”
- LGBTQ+ rights
- Two federal judges, one in Maryland and another in Washington, temporarily blocked Trump’s executive order that aimed to restrict youth access to gender-affirming health care. The executive order came as part of a sweeping effort by the Trump administration to restrict transgender rights, limit academic research on LGBTQ+ communities, and erase trans people from the historical record.
- Speaking of trans history, the National Parks Department took down references to transgender people from a website it runs about Stonewall Inn, a New York city bar at the center of queer rights activism for decades.
- Anti-democratic actions
In response to a federal judge’s block of efforts by Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to access treasury department systems, Vice President JD Vance suggested that judges can’t check a president’s “legitimate power.” The Yale Law School graduate may have been surprised to learn that judges are, in fact, the people typically tasked with determining whether legislative or executive actions fall within the scope of the law.
- And determine they did. Since Vance’s tweet, federal judges have blocked a number of the Trump administration’s actions, including a freeze on funding to USAID.
- How long judges will be willing or able to check executive power is unclear, however, after The Hill reported that some congressional Republicans are considering lodging impeachment articles against federal judges who have challenged the legality of various Trump administration efforts.
Multiple federal prosecutors resigned this week, after the Department of Justice ordered a corruption indictment against New York City Mayor Eric Adams be dropped. The decision came amid reports that Adams would help the Trump administration carry out its immigration enforcement policies in the city.
- Immigration
- Four federal judges have issued orders blocking a Trump executive order ending birthright citizenship, according to The Associated Press. Imani’s Rewire News Group analysis will give you more information on how this might play out in court. All rights reserved.
