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TRUMP AND MUSK ARE GETTING THEIR BUTTS ROYALLY SPANKED IN THE COURTS
 
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Michael Tomasky
March 14, 2025
The New Republic
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_ Some 25,000 federal employees will be back at work Monday. Look
beyond Capitol Hill: The resistance, in fact, is strong. _

, MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images

 

You may have seen the headline Thursday
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two federal judges ordered the Trump administration to reinstate
thousands of fired government workers. This was, certainly, a defeat
in court for President Trump and Elon Musk. But it was a lot more than
that.

It was a royal spanking. One judge in particular shredded the
administration’s arguments and humiliated the lawyer who was arguing
the government’s case, all but openly calling her a liar. And it was
something else too: a great example of the opposition working for the
millions of people who are counting on it.

Let’s start with the sum and substance of the judges’ orders. Some
25,000 federal employees will be back at work Monday. One judge’s
order covers the employees at the departments of Agriculture, Defense,
Energy, Interior, Treasury, and Veterans Affairs. The other covers
those at Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Energy, Health and Human
Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior,
Labor, Transportation, Treasury, and Veterans Affairs, as well as the
Environmental Protection Agency, the Consumer Financial Protection
Bureau, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the General
Services Administration, the Small Business Administration, and USAID.

I’m not exactly sure which employees that leaves out. But the two
injunctions leave _in_ a hell of a lot of people, people despised
and excoriated by Trump and Musk and idiots like Linda McMahon,
who called her terminations at the Education Department “a
humanitarian thing”
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says she took care to keep “the good people.” She has no business
running this department—she once lied
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having a bachelor’s degree in education. (Remember when that might
have mattered to a few U.S. senators? Remember when a president
wouldn’t even have nominated such a person?)

The judges’ rulings leave in the people McMahon heave-ho’ed. They
leave in the people at the agency (USAID) Musk called a “criminal
enterprise.” They leave in everyone at the hated consumer protection
bureau. They leave in everyone at the IRS (under the Treasury
Department). All of them were unfairly mocked and marginalized, and
all of them are back on the job.

Granted, these are temporary injunctions, which last just a couple
weeks. We’ll have to see where it goes after that. But if the way
the arguments unfolded Thursday is any indication, especially in Judge
William Alsup’s San Francisco courtroom, the administration has a
long way to go in making arguments the court will find credible.

Alsup more than once called the government’s arguments a “sham.”
At one point, he said to Assistant U.S. Attorney Kelsey Helland: “I
tend to doubt that you’re telling me the truth.” At another,
observing that Helland had no witnesses testifying in support of his
case, Alsup said: “You will not bring the people here to be
cross-examined. You’re afraid to do so, because … it would reveal
the truth. This is the U.S. District Court.… I’ve been practicing
or serving in this court for over 50 years, and I know how we get to
the truth.”

It was no picnic for the administration in the other courtroom,
either. Judge James K. Bredar in Maryland quoted Musk’s line about
moving fast and breaking things, saying: “Move fast? Fine. Break
things? If that involves breaking the law, then that becomes
problematic.”

Complete repudiation. And it’s hardly in just these two courtrooms.
Earlier this week, a third (!) federal appeals court ruled against
the administration’s efforts
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end birthright citizenship. And this week isn’t unusual. On February
25 alone, the administration lost three cases
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on the attempted freezing of federal grants and loans, on the payment
of foreign-aid-related money to government contractors, and on refugee
admissions and funding.

Spank, spank, spank, spank, and spank. The law is kicking their asses.
And it’s happening because a lot of people are standing up and
making it happen. With respect to the cases heard by Alsup and Bredar,
it’s Democratic state attorneys general who brought these suits.

When liberals take the measure of the opposition, they tend to zoom
their mental camera in to a very narrow field of view. There’s a lot
of complaining
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now about Chuck Schumer’s decision to let the House GOP’s spending
resolution have the eight Democratic votes it needs to pass the
Senate.

Don’t get me wrong, I think Schumer made the wrong decision—a
defensive and feeble decision of the sort I’ve seen Democrats make
far too many times in my life. They’re _always_ thinking of
reasons why they shouldn’t throw caution to the wind and try
something bold. Blocking the resolution would have carried risks, and
yes; a shutdown might have resulted in even more harm to the American
people. But rank-and-file Democrats are pretty tired of watching their
party’s leaders mothball their fortitude like this.

The good news, though, is that the resistance isn’t limited to what
happens in the halls of Congress. It’s in the hands of those
attorneys general. It’s in the hands of governors (at least those
who aren’t inviting Steve Bannon onto their podcasts
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It’s in the hands of a range of nonprofit litigators who are in many
cases, trust me, probably risking their funding and/or their 501(c)3
status, considering who’s in charge of the IRS.

And it’s in the hands of millions of people who are enraged. If
you’re not watching Rachel Maddow’s show on MSNBC these days, you
should. Every night, toward the beginning, she offers a sampling of
that day’s protests and actions around the country—of which there
are many all over the country, including in red states and towns.
People are registering their shock and disgust at what’s going on.

Cast your gaze a little more widely. The resistance is, in fact,
strong, and as the madness multiplies, it’s just going to get
stronger.

_This article first appeared in Fighting Words, a weekly TNR
newsletter authored by editor Michael Tomasky. __Sign up here_
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_MICHAEL TOMASKY is the editor of The New Republic and the author of
five books, including his latest and critically acclaimed The Middle
Out: The Rise of Progressive Economics and a Return to Shared
Prosperity
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extensive experience as an editor, columnist, progressive commentator,
and special correspondent for renowned publications such as The
Guardian, The Washington Post, The New York Times, the Daily Beast,
and many others, Tomasky has been a trusted voice in political
journalism for more than three decades._

_THE NEW REPUBLIC was founded in 1914 to bring liberalism into the
modern era. The founders understood that the challenges facing a
nation transformed by the Industrial Revolution and mass immigration
required bold new thinking._

_Today’s New Republic is wrestling with the same fundamental
questions: how to build a more inclusive and democratic civil society,
and how to fight for a fairer political economy in an age of rampaging
inequality. We also face challenges that belong entirely to this age,
from the climate crisis to Republicans hell-bent on subverting
democratic governance._

_We’re determined to continue building on our founding mission._

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* Donald Trump
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* Elon Musk
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* Courts
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* resistance
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