President Trump has tamed Congress and largely defanged the federal bureaucracy as he pursues his vigorous second-term agenda, but federal district judges have rushed to the battlements to take him on.
As Mr. Trump crosses the six-month mark in office, he has faced at least 500 lawsuits challenging his executive actions, or a rate of four lawsuits for every business day since Jan. 20.
District judges have made substantive rulings in more than half of those cases, and the results have been grim for Mr. Trump. According to The Washington Times’ Trump litigation tracker, judges have ruled against the president’s position 75% of the time.
About 50 of those cases were part of the administration’s ill-fated effort to boot some foreign students over irregularities in their immigration and criminal records. Mr. Trump lost roughly 90% of those cases.
Still, district judges ruled against the government, either by issuing injunctions or otherwise delaying Mr. Trump’s agenda, a stunning 70% of the time.
Leading the opposition are judges appointed by Presidents Obama and Biden, who have ruled against Mr. Trump’s positions more than 125 times. That works out to more than 80% of the cases on which they have ruled so far.
However, the resistance crosses party lines. Judges appointed by President Reagan ruled against Mr. Trump in all 15 cases to reach substantive outcomes, and George W. Bush appointees ruled against Mr. Trump nearly 85% of the time.
