Elena Kagan says Supreme Court is not Trump’s puppet

Justice Elena Kagan said the Supreme Court is not a Trump puppet, even as its conservative majority has often ruled in favor of his administration. Speaking Thursday to lawyers and judges from the 9th U.S. Circuit in Bellevue, Washington, Kagan said the court has stopped the executive branch on some major disputes, according to Fortune.

Kagan, one of the court’s three liberal justices, acknowledged that the court is “very conservative” and has issued decisions she considers wrong. But she rejected the idea that the justices operate as a tool of President Donald Trump, saying the court has checked him on significant matters.

Is the Supreme Court Trump’s puppet?

Kagan’s answer was no. She pointed to rulings in which Trump did not get what he wanted, including decisions rejecting broad tariffs and blocking his effort to end birthright citizenship for children born in the United States to people who are in the country illegally.

The court has also handed the Trump administration wins in most of the cases that have reached it so far, Fortune reported. Those include decisions that largely allowed his immigration crackdown to proceed and expanded presidential power over federal regulatory agencies.

The tension between those rulings and the court’s occasional limits on Trump formed the core of Kagan’s remarks. She described the court as conservative, but not as an institution controlled by the administration.

Why the court’s independence is under scrutiny

Public confidence in the Supreme Court has fallen to historic lows in recent years, according to polling cited by Fortune. Critics of the court have also accused some justices of acting politically, while Trump has sharply attacked justices after rulings against him.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, another liberal member of the court, warned in May that the court risked being viewed as political after it struck down a majority-Black district in Louisiana and weakened the Voting Rights Act, according to Fortune.

Chief Justice John Roberts has pushed back on that criticism. Roberts, who joined liberal justices in some major cases involving tariffs and birthright citizenship, has called the idea that the justices are “political actors” a misunderstanding, Fortune reported.

Kagan’s comments followed her appearance before Congress last week with conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett. The two justices testified about security threats and other issues facing the court.

Kagan backs stronger ethics enforcement

Kagan also repeated her support for creating a committee of retired judges to enforce the Supreme Court’s ethics code. The court adopted its first code of ethics in 2023 after criticism over undisclosed travel and gifts from wealthy benefactors to some justices, according to Fortune.

Kagan said the justices are taking the ethics code seriously, but she added that they do not all agree on whether or how it should be enforced. She said the court has not reached a final decision on that issue.

What happened when Trump attended arguments?

Kagan also described Trump’s attendance at Supreme Court arguments over his birthright citizenship order during the past term. Fortune reported that Trump was the first sitting president to attend oral arguments at the court.

Kagan said the moment was largely uneventful for the justices. Trump sat off to the side in an area usually used by members of Congress, the court did not announce that he was there, and many people in the room could not see him.

Trump stayed for about half of the lengthy arguments and left when the other side began presenting its case, according to Fortune. Kagan said she suspected he had other duties and noted that there was none of the ceremony she remembered from her time serving as solicitor general in the Obama administration.

This story draws on original reporting from Fortune.