A conservative Supreme Court justice pressed for broader executive power even in rulings that favored Trump.
Where do the boundaries of executive authority reside, and by what means should the judiciary uphold them?
If one overarching motif characterized the Supreme Court’s just-concluded 2025–2026 term, it is captured by these two questions: the scope of presidential power and the methods by which courts should police that power. The term stood out for its intense focus on the question of how far the president may go in governing, and where checks might still apply.
This emphasis is understandable given the person holding the office. In his second term, President Donald Trump has pressed an agenda of expansive unilateral authority across the administration. He is not the first president to sidestep Congress and seek to govern through executive fiat alone, of course. Yet the audacity of his approach to executive power remains striking.
Trump ultimately lost several of these disputes once they reached the Supreme Court. Nevertheless, he did have reliable allies on the bench. In particular, one justice signaled that, if it were his decision alone, Trump would have prevailed in every case assessing the reach of executive power.
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Take the tariffs dispute into account. Six justices, among them two appointed by Trump, maintained that the president exceeded the separation of powers by wielding tariff authority not lawfully granted to him. In dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas argued not only that Trump should prevail, but also that Congress could surrender the tariff-making power entirely to the president without inviting constitutional concern.
Counsel for Thomas asserted that “Congress has many powers that are not subject to the nondelegation doctrine.” In Learning Resources v. Trump, he enumerated areas like “the powers to raise and support armies” and “the power to regulate external affairs.” In his view, the president may act unilaterally in these profoundly consequential spheres, and Congress—the branch assigned with these powers in the Constitution—would not incur constitutional injury as a result.
Immigration policy offered another arena for contention. In Mullin v. Doe, a 6–3 majority led by Justice Samuel Alito sustained the administration’s move to revoke temporary protected status (TPS) for Haitians and Syrians. Thomas joined Alito’s opinion in full, but issued a separate concurrence arguing that Trump should have won on even broader grounds.
The Haitian nationals argued that the president’s many disparaging statements indicated racial animus behind the TPS decision, in violation of equal protection. Alito’s majority rejected that claim, finding a plausible race-neutral rationale that could explain the outcome and thus supporting Trump.
In his solo concurrence, Thomas contended that the Court should not even evaluate the Haitians’ equal-protection claim because “courts cannot examine” “the President’s actions on subjects within his ‘conclusive and preclusive’ constitutional authority,” regardless of whether he violates the Constitution in exercising that authority. For Thomas, this represents another domain where the president could act without facing a constitutional check from any other branch, including the Supreme Court itself. It is notable that even Alito, a steady ally of Trump on the Court, did not embrace this level of separation from constitutional constraint.
The reach of the presidency—under Trump and for future occupants as well—has grown more potent, a development aided by the Court’s posture in these cases. If Clarence Thomas had carried the majority this term, the executive would have enjoyed even more latitude.
