Member-only story
Trump Backs Off Putting Citizenship Question On 2020 Census, Then Says He’s Not, Really. But By Then He’d Already Successfully Changed The Subject Anyway
His decision not to speed toward a head-on collision with Chief Justice John Roberts, could be viewed as a real milestone in Trump’s Presidency.
Especially among those wondering if the President has any limits, or any respect for the rule of law at all. Now it looks like he might. Then again, maybe not. (What’s the “rule of law” anyway? We hear that term thrown around a lot these days as if everyone’s supposed to automatically know what it means. Here’s how we understand it: “the reining in of a capricious exercise of power by well-defined and respected laws.”)
Anyway, Trump drew a line despite his threats to the contrary, at attempting to overrule a ruling by the Supreme Court by contradicting it with an Executive Order. At least with the current composition of the Court, and even though his Attorney General seems generally very eager to challenge the limits of Presidential power with a view toward expanding it.
No way of knowing if Trump did it ultimately out of respect for the Supreme Court, or because he knew he couldn’t win if the case…
