The Paper Tyrant

Has fortune changed for the man-child who would be king?

Photo courtesy of ABC News

It’s been a tough 24 hours for Trump, and it will likely get worse as he heads to the Supreme Court today to attend oral arguments on his illegal and unconstitutional order eliminating birthright citizenship.

In fact, Trump has suffered so many setbacks in the last day that I couldn’t help wonder: Has Trump become a paper tyrant?

By this I mean, while Trump shuffles about and issues pronouncements like a king, is he being treated like little more than a court jester?

Let’s run through some top stories to test this hypothesis, all from just the past day.

The war with Iran

So, it’s not going well. Despite over 3,000 bombings missions striking targets in Iran, killing over 2000 of people including over 170 school children, Iran has not surrendered. Nor has it agreed to open the Strait of Hormuz, through which flows a fifth of the world’s oil and gas.

Trump is mustering U.S. forces toward the Persian Gulf, but our allies are not leaping to help. Indeed, our closest ally, the United Kingdom, has declined to participate in most offensive operations alongside the U.S. And like Trump did with Mark Carney and Canada’s Liberal Party, his attacks on Starmer appear to be boosting the Prime Minister’s personal approval ratings, with polling showing a 26-point improvement when voters are reminded of their rift — potentially helping Starmer survive a leadership challenge even if Labour fares poorly in May’s local elections.

With our NATO allies declining to help the U.S. forcibly reopen the Strait, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is now whining that we won’t be there for them when they need us, calling the very existence of the most important and successful defensive alliance in modern history into serious doubt.

Trump is now signaling he wants to end the war without reopening the Strait of Hormuz. That would leave the world worse off than before and do nothing to curb rising energy and food prices.

When Trump finally does TACO and orders a retreat, the big question that will long linger is, “What was the point of all that?”

(And no, we haven’t forgotten about the Epstein files.)

Mail-in voting executive order

Yesterday, Trump issued a sweeping executive order attacking mail-in voting, despite voting by mail himself multiple times. The order would effectively create a national voter list by using federal databases to identify adult citizens for states to compare against their voter rolls. Meanwhile, the U.S. Postal Service would be required to transmit ballots only for states that have provided a list of eligible mail voters 60 days before the election.

As Democracy Docket noted,

Previous Trump executive orders attempting to impose nationwide election rules — including proof-of-citizenship requirements and federal control over voter registration processes — were blocked by federal courts, which ruled that the president cannot unilaterally rewrite election law.

Trump was nevertheless defiant. “I don’t know how it can be challenged. They’ll probably challenge it. You may find a rogue judge,” he added. “A lot of rogue judges. Very bad, bad people. A lot of bad judges.”

Election experts argue that the order is likely DOA in the courts because the Constitution leaves the federal elections to the states, not the White House. David Becker, the executive director of Center for Election Innovation and Research, called the order “unconstitutional on its face” and expects it “will be blocked by multiple federal courts in a very, very short period of time and will have no legal effect whatsoever.”

Civil suit against Trump can proceed

Adding to Trump’s legal woes was a long-awaited federal court order from Judge Amit Mehta of the D.C. District Court. Per Politico, Judge Mehta ruled that evidence produced in the case brought by police officers and Democratic lawmakers showed that Trump’s speech at the Ellipse on January 6 was political in nature. It was therefore not covered by any broad immunity the Supreme Court had applied to a president’s official acts.

Trump has tried to derail this lawsuit for years, arguing that his words and deeds were protected from any civil liability by his immunity as president. Not so, said Judge Mehta. “President Trump has not shown that the Speech reasonably can be understood as falling within the outer perimeter of his Presidential duties,” Mehta wrote in his 79-page opinion. “The content of the Ellipse Speech confirms that it is not covered by official-acts immunity.”

The decision means years of additional litigation and appeals for Trump, while giving litigants a path forward.

Big Beautiful Blue Ballsroom

In a decision likely to evoke cheers across the country, another federal court, in a ruling by Judge Richard J. Leon, appointed by George W. Bush, halted further construction of Trump’s $400 million ballroom. As the New York Times reported,

In a 35-page opinion, Judge Leon wrote that Mr. Trump likely did not have the authority to act without consulting Congress to replace entire sections of the White House — changes that could endure for generations.

In an opinion punctuated by 19 exclamation points, Judge Leon also reiterated concerns he had raised for months in court: that from the start, the administration has provided shifting and questionable accounts of who was in charge of the project and under what authority private donations could be accepted to fund it.

Judge Leon hinted that Congress could get the ball rolling again by passing authorizing legislation. “Unless and until Congress blesses this project through statutory authorization, construction has to stop!” he wrote. “But here is the good news. It is not too late for Congress to authorize the continued construction of the ballroom project.”

Such an effort would be highly unpopular among voters, and Judge Leon likely understands that. Good news indeed!

Trump didn’t take the news well. In a Truth Social post following the ruling, Trump lashed out over being sued by the National Trust for Historic Preservation over a ballroom that is “under budget, ahead of schedule, being built at no cost to the Taxpayer, and will be the finest building of its kind anywhere in the World.”

Birthright citizenship case

Finally, later today Trump is expected to face skepticism from SCOTUS as it hears a challenge to his birthright citizenship order, which is also plainly unconstitutional. (Fun fact: My friend and former colleague at the Keker & Van Nest law firm in San Francisco, Cecillia Wang, who is now National Legal Director for the ACLU, will be arguing the case.)

As NPR noted,

Trump has long maintained that the Constitution does not guarantee birthright citizenship. So, on Day 1 of his second term, he issued an executive order barring automatic citizenship for any baby born in the U.S. whose parents entered the country illegally or who were here legally, but on a temporary, or even a long-term visa.

Trump likes to claim we are the only country that grants birthright citizenship, but there are actually more than 30 others, including our neighbors Canada and Mexico. It’s a common practice among countries in the Americas.

After the Civil War, and to undo the pernicious Dred Scott decision of 1857, Congress passed the 14th Amendment defining citizenship in broad terms: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”

It will be hard for Trump to get around the plain text of the 14th Amendment and the legislative record, showing Congress intended to extend birthright citizenship broadly, including to immigrants.

Roaring like a tyrant, ruling like a fool

With all these setbacks, snubs by our allies and federal court smackdowns, Trump is looking like a lame duck paper tyrant, all strut and bluster but little ability to act beyond the bounds of his authority and power. Granted, when it comes to making war, that authority and power are considerable, especially with a GOP unwilling to rein him in.

But in other matters, if he thinks he can simply rule by decree, change our voting system and our Constitution at the stroke of a pen, alter whatever he wants of our cherished landmarks and property, and escape civil or even criminal liability for actions lying outside the authority of his office, he will be mightily disappointed.