The Week Trump's Own Supreme Court Picks Voted Against Him — and So Did Everyone Else
Four losses this week, and the throughline is delicious: the Court he built told him no, a district judge called his reasoning 'exceptionally weak' with hours to spare, his crypto priority died a procedural death in his own Senate majority, and a fresh poll says most of the country has settled on 'corrupt' as the go-to adjective. Pour something cold — even his own picks aren't picking him anymore.
1. Trump's Own Supreme Court Picks Just Blocked His Mail-Ballot Power Grab
The Supreme Court voted 7-2 on September 14 to deny the Trump administration's request to lift a lower-court injunction blocking a new Postal Service rule that would have let the government control who gets a mail ballot for the 2026 midterms. The unsigned order found the government 'is unlikely to succeed on the merits,' and only Justices Alito and Thomas dissented — meaning all three of Trump's own appointees, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett, left him standing alone. Trump responded by calling the ruling a 'big loss for Republicans' and attacking the justices he picked.
He spent a first term stacking the Court with loyalists. This week three of them looked at his mail-ballot scheme and said, politely, no thank you.
2. Judge Blocks Trump's Four-Year Visa Cap Hours Before It Was Set to Kick In
U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor granted a nationwide preliminary injunction on September 14 blocking a Department of Homeland Security rule that would have capped most international students and postdoctoral researchers at four years in the country, hours before it was scheduled to take effect on September 15. Saylor called the administration's national-security justification 'exceptionally weak,' finding DHS never explained why it skipped less-burdensome alternatives or ran a cost-benefit analysis, as STAT reported. The rule, challenged by a coalition including NAFSA and the AFT, is on hold nationwide while the case proceeds.
DHS had since July to build a case for this rule. They built one that couldn't survive a single afternoon of judicial reading comprehension.
3. Trump's Crypto Bill Couldn't Even Get a Floor Vote in His Own Senate
The Senate voted 49-50 on September 15 to reject cloture on the CLARITY Act, the crypto market-structure bill Trump had personally pushed, falling 11 votes short of the 60 needed just to open debate — and one vote short of a simple majority. Four Republicans broke ranks to vote no alongside every voting Democrat, as CNBC reported, over unresolved ethics language covering officials' own crypto holdings. With midterm floor time running out, the bill's 2026 push is effectively dead.
A president with his own meme coin couldn't whip his own party to even debate crypto rules. That's not gridlock — that's a vote of no confidence.
4. A Majority of Voters Just Picked 'Corrupt' as the Word for Trump
A September 11-14 Economist/YouGov poll of 1,461 registered voters found 53% describe Trump as 'corrupt' and 51% call him 'dangerous,' while just 18% reached for 'steady.' The same survey put his approval at 35%, and Axios noted even 10% of Republicans signed onto the 'corrupt' label. Democrats are already testing an anti-corruption midterm message as public perceptions of government corruption sit at a 20-year high.
They asked the country to describe the president in one word. The country reached for 'corrupt' before it reached for 'president.'
Now go back to doomscrolling. You've earned five minutes of not-doom.