The Week Everyone From the Supreme Court to His Own Pollster Told Trump 'No'
Four losses this week, and the pattern is unmistakable: judges he can't bully, a lawsuit he filed himself, and a poll number that keeps digging. Pour something cold — the only thing lower than his approval rating right now is his legal team's win percentage.
1. The Supreme Court Told Trump No — and Didn't Even Bother Explaining Why
The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused the Trump administration's emergency bid to let the Bureau of Prisons strip medical care from roughly 600 transgender federal inmates while the underlying lawsuit plays out, leaving a district court's injunction fully intact. The one-line, unsigned order simply said the stay request "is denied." AP's wire coverage notes only Justices Alito and Thomas said they'd have sided with the administration — and skipped explaining that too. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth's order, which a divided D.C. Circuit already left standing, keeps care continuing exactly as it was.
Nine justices, zero signatures, one very clear message: try again never. When the Supreme Court can't even be bothered to explain why your policy lost, that's not a close call — that's a formality.
2. Trump Sued the BBC for $10 Billion. Now a Judge Is Making Him Actually Answer Questions.
Trump's own $10 billion defamation suit against the BBC hit a snag Thursday when U.S. Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Lett ordered him to sit for a deposition by December 11 or risk sanctions — up to and including dismissal of the case he himself filed. NBC News reports Trump's team had already blown past one agreed-upon October date, citing unspecified "matters of national importance," before pushing for a slip to mid-January. Lett wasn't having it: the court, she wrote, expects strict compliance, and noncompliance "will lead to sanctions."
He sued someone else for lying. Now a federal judge has to threaten him with losing his own case just to get him to show up and answer questions under oath. The defamation suit may be fake news. The irony is not.
3. Trump Called the Judge a 'Crazed Lunatic.' She'd Just Finished Proving She Wasn't Biased.
Hours after a federal judge rejected the Justice Department's bid to force her off the fight over Trump's East Potomac golf-course redevelopment, Trump took to social media to call her a "crazed lunatic." U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes ruled Sunday that the government's bias claims didn't meet the legal bar for recusal, writing that "it is easy to weaponize selective quotations to bring a baseless recusal motion." The underlying fight is over plans to remove as many as 529 trees at the historic public park for the course's redesign — the same case Reyes is still overseeing, entirely unmoved by the insult.
She said the recusal motion was baseless. He responded by baselessly calling her a lunatic in public, on the record, for the whole internet to see. Thanks for the corroborating evidence.
4. New Poll, Same Basement: Trump's Approval Finds a New Sub-Floor at 31%
A Reuters/Ipsos poll released Monday — covered here via its Reuters-sourced wire reporting — put Trump's approval at just 31%, with 66% disapproving, the lowest mark of either of his terms and a full point below the record he'd set two weeks earlier. US News' coverage of the same exclusive adds that 68% disapprove of his handling of the economy — including 37% of self-identified Republicans — and that Democrats lead the generic congressional ballot 47% to 35%, with the midterms two weeks out.
He said the midterms would be a referendum on his record. His own record just filed a motion for summary judgment against him.
Now go back to doomscrolling. You've earned five minutes of not-doom.