Maggie Haberman Warns Courts Are ‘Last Vestige’ Against Trump Onslaught on ‘Every System’
CNN commentator and New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman told Anderson Cooper that the courts are the “last vestige” against President Donald Trump’s onslaught on “every” American system he can “attack,” control, or “neutralize.”
This week, the Supreme Court is hearing arguments in a case that challenges nationwide injunctions against President Donald Trump’s executive order attempting to end birthright citizenship. But also at issue is whether lower court orders are immediately binding across the country.
On Thursday night’s edition of CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, Haberman and Jeffrey Toobin discussed the case with Cooper. Haberman said that if Trump wins this case, “they’re going to move forward quite quickly” to capitalize:
COOPER: And are they, I mean, is the administration ready to act on this?
HABERMAN: Well, if they if they win in this case, yes, they’re going to move forward quite quickly and you are going to see a rollout of a number of executive actions.
Look, they have done — they’re very proud of how many executive actions they have taken. They are very proud of basically trying to expand and maximize executive power in ways, obviously, that critics say is going beyond the scope of their authority. But they are maneuvering around Congress, and they have been trying to both do two things. One is to try to get things before the Supreme Court so they can then have whatever they are trying to do, either signed off of or not signed off and then they’ll try again in certain cases.
But they are also attempting to attack the legitimacy of some of what courts nationwide are doing in general. You are seeing Stephen Miller doing it. You’ve seen Elon Musk doing it. Trump is doing it, albeit to a slightly lesser degree.
If they succeed here, they will move very quickly. But what aspects of their agenda will say.
COOPER: Has there —
TOOBIN: Well, but if they succeed in any way in limiting nationwide injunctions, that’s good for the Trump administration. And that is, I mean, because ultimately, you know, so many —
COOPER: Because that is the only thing that is stopping a number of these executive orders.
HABERMAN: Correct and everything.
TOOBIN: I mean, the main story of the first months of the Trump administration has been this attempt to expand executive authority and the courts reeling it back in certain circumstances, to the extent you can limit the courts, that helps the Trump administration. So, any sort of limitation on that —
COOPER: It seems possible — they are pulling every lever in every realm. It’s remarkable.
HABERMAN: Look, we heard Steve Bannon talk about flooding the zone in 2017 when they first came in. This is an entirely different order of magnitude. They are not just with policy but basically with every system that they can trying to either attack it or take ownership of it or neutralize it. And the courts are the last vestige.
COOPER: Maggie Haberman, Jeff Toobin, thanks very much.
Watch above via Anderson Cooper 360.
