Published : 02 Oct 2026, 05:38 PM
Updated : 02 Oct 2026, 05:38 PM
The US Supreme Court begins its new nine-month term on Monday much as it ended its last one, confronted with more cases involving President Donald Trump's far-reaching policies and aggressive uses of power that will test how far the justices will let him expand his authority.
The court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, wrapped up its last term in June after a period dominated by legal battles over Trump's use of presidential powers. The justices gave the Republican president several major wins as well as some significant losses.
The new term is expected to bring more such disputes, with the court already agreeing to hear challenges to two policies underpinning Trump's hardline immigration agenda and pursuit of mass deportations — mandatory detention without a bond hearing and the rapid expulsion of deportees to countries other than their own.
The administration has also filed appeals involving Trump's ban on transgender people serving in the military, cuts to academic grants, efforts to install federal prosecutors and the suspension of asylum at the US-Mexico border. The court will decide whether to hear those cases in the coming weeks and months.
Pushing Boundaries
In the Trump era, the court's work has continued to be shaped by cases involving a president willing to move quickly and push the boundaries of executive power.
"The Supreme Court has consistently facilitated the Trump administration's efforts to radically transform the scope of presidential power in the United States," said Syracuse University College of Law professor Jenny Breen.
Breen said Trump's losses had often been linked to concerns among some justices about economic destabilisation, citing rulings against his sweeping global tariffs and his effort to fire a Federal Reserve governor. Outside that group of cases, she said, losses for the president had been relatively limited.
Last term, the court also ruled against Trump's efforts to curtail birthright citizenship and deploy National Guard troops to the Chicago area.
Despite those setbacks, the court has repeatedly allowed Trump to pursue consequential policies on immigration, transgender issues and research funding that lower courts had blocked, while legal challenges continue.
In a landmark decision that overturned a 1935 precedent, the court also allowed Trump to assert greater control over independent government regulators, significantly expanding presidential power.
Legal experts said the court was prepared to support a strong executive branch but had limits when Trump moved beyond the laws passed by Congress.
"In those rare instances when the Supreme Court has stood up to President Trump, it has been by enforcing federal laws," said Harvard Law School professor Daphna Renan, an expert in presidential power.
"By contrast, when the court has defied or invalidated federal laws that touch on the presidency ... it has emboldened Trump and enabled his own law-breaking," Renan said, citing Trump's victory over independent regulators as an example.
Not Rubber Stamp, Not Resistance
"It's not a rubber stamp, and it's not the resistance," said Morgan Ratner, a lawyer who has argued numerous cases before the Supreme Court.
Ratner said the court was focusing strongly on maintaining the structural balance between the executive, legislative and judicial branches set out by the US Constitution.
Presidential power over executive branch officials will "cut strongly in his favour", Ratner said. But when the president acts in areas closer to Congress's authority or expands narrow grants of statutory power, "that's going to cut against him".
Donald Verrilli, who served as US solicitor general under Democratic former President Barack Obama, said the court was asserting its independence from the president.
"It's doing so at a time in which there really is a pretty darn serious ... constitutional clash going on, in which the president is asserting an enormous amount of executive authority or trying to do so," Verrilli said during a recent panel discussion at Georgetown University.
Trump Lashes Out
Trump has not taken his losses at the court lightly and has continued to criticise the justices for ruling against him in various cases.
He has recently focused his criticism on Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, the three conservative justices he appointed during his first term, suggesting they have not been sufficiently loyal to him. Trump has said they are "merely a shell of their original selves" and that he regrets nominating them.
Their appointments helped create the court's current conservative supermajority, which has moved the court to the right since 2020. The court has rolled back abortion rights, expanded gun and religious rights, rejected race-conscious university admissions policies and limited the power of federal agencies, among other decisions.
The court, which chooses the cases it takes up, is expected to have more opportunities this term to define the scope of Trump's authority.
One case that could again favour the administration concerns Trump's ban on transgender troops. The administration is appealing a judicial decision that concluded the policy appeared to be driven by an unconstitutional desire to harm a politically unpopular group.
The court's conservative majority, acting in a separate challenge to the ban, last year allowed the policy to take effect while that legal challenge proceeded.
Since last year, the court's majority has also ruled against transgender student athletes, allowed the administration to bar passport applicants from designating their gender identities on the document, and allowed states to ban gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth.
In a case to be heard this term, Trump's administration is backing a bid by parents in Washington state to challenge laws protecting the rights of transgender runaway children who seek gender-affirming care at shelters.
In another major case due to be argued in December, Trump's administration is backing a challenge to the legality of state-level restrictions on assault-style rifles, giving the justices another opportunity to address the scope of gun rights.
