Many legal experts worry it’s just a matter of time before Donald Trump crosses the line toward authoritarianism by ignoring a court order, triggering a constitutional crisis.
Judging by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt‘s comments Friday, that time may be rapidly approaching.
Leavitt unloaded on “judicial activists throughout our judicial branch who are trying to block this president’s executive authority.”
The rant by the administration mouthpiece followed two more rulings curtailing Trump’s ongoing grab for unprecedented executive power. On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell ruled against Trump in a case about stripping security clearances. At the same time, Judge William Alsup ordered the president on Friday to reinstate fired probationary federal employees.
Nearly 50 rulings have gone against the Trump agenda so far, including at least 15 injunctions.
Leavitt claimed the courts are out of order.
“And it is, for anybody who has a basic understanding of the law,” said Leavitt, showing she doesn’t have a basic understanding of the law. “You cannot have a low-level district court judge filing an injunction to usurp the executive authority of the President of the United States. That is completely absurd!”
X users sent the 28-year-old press secretary back to school over her ignorance of the Constitutional order.
“In a shocking reveal, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt admits that she doesn’t understand checks and balances, calling federal court orders reversing Trump on fired federal workers ‘unconstitutional,’ user Acyn of Meidastouch.com wrote.
“A low level district court judge can do that—if you have an issue, appeal it,” added one commenter. “That’s how our courts work. The president doesn’t have absolute unilateral authority.”
Leavitt said appeals are coming.
“We are going to fight back,” she said. “And as anyone who saw President Trump and his legal team fighting back, they know how to do it. He was indicted nearly 200 times, and he’s in the Oval Office now because all of the indictments, all of these injunctions have always been unconstitutional and unfair.”
Leavitt said she was “appalled” by the 15 injunctions of the Trump Administration in its first three months. In three years under the Biden administration, there were 14 injunctions, she said.
“She doesn’t understand checks and balances and neither does she know that the judiciary are not subservient or subordinates to the President, no matter how he wished they were,” an X user remarked.
Leavitt isn’t the first member of the Trump administration to accuse the courts of illegally usurping the president’s authority.
In February, after a federal judge in Rhode Island found that the White House had defied an earlier court order to unfreeze federal grant and program funds, U.S. District Judge John McConnell Jr. ordered the administration to immediately resume federal funding.
“If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal,” Vice President JD Vance wrote on X after the ruling. “If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that’s also illegal. Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.”
Trump has said he will “always abide by the courts. Always abide by them, and we’ll appeal.”
Kristin Hickman, a professor of administrative law at the University of Minnesota Law School, said talk of a pending constitutional crisis is premature.
“We’re not there yet, and we have no guarantee we’re ever going to get there. It is not healthy for our body politic for us to overreact and roll around a lot of overheated rhetoric,” she said.
But Blake Emerson, a professor of law and political science at the University of California, Los Angeles, said the threat can’t be understated.
“We’re now seeing a leap to a new level, potentially, where the president claims authority to act outside the bounds of the law established by Congress,” he said. “And if that comes to pass, we really will be in a different form of constitutional government or maybe one that really shouldn’t be described as constitutional in the true sense. And here, I do think risks about tyranny or dictatorship become quite real.”
Leavitt concluded her remarks to the press with a warning for judges who defy the administration.
“They are led by partisan activists who are trying to usurp the will of this president and we’re not going to stand for it,” he said.
