Scholar argues that the U.S. Supreme Court is using interim orders to maximize its own authority.
At the beginning of his second term, President Donald J. Trump issued more executive orders than any other president in the past century besides former President Franklin D. Roosevelt. This volume of activity prompted hundreds of lawsuits.
In a recent essay, Jack Goldsmith of Harvard Law School analyzes the U.S. Supreme Court’s responses to the lawsuits filed to challenge President Trump’s executive orders and actions. Goldsmith argues that the Justices’ interim orders reveal a broader theme: maximizing the judicial branch’s role as the ultimate interpreter of federal law.
Interim orders are temporary orders that can pause a lower court’s ruling and either stop or mandate certain conduct while a case proceeds. But in President Trump’s second term, these interim orders have taken up more of the Court’s time than in prior administrations.
As former Solicitor General Gregory G. Garre has observed, the Supreme Court’s response to President Trump’s actions during his first seven months back in office has “swallowed the Court, both in terms of workload and even practical importance.”
Goldsmith explains that usually the Supreme Court files interim orders early in the lifespan of a lawsuit to provide an answer to the parties on the legality of an executive action during the long period between the case’s filing and final judgment. Although interim orders may contain little legal reasoning and are not on the merits, these orders can place broad impacts on lower courts, Goldsmith argues.
Higher courts’ interim orders also instruct lower courts on the general state of the law, Goldsmith adds. These orders can inform how courts across the country should approach interim orders in similar cases.
By shaping how lower courts handle similar or related disputes nationwide even before issuing a final merits decision, these interim orders expand the Supreme Court’s practical influence over the development of federal law, Goldsmith recognizes.
Goldsmith argues that universal injunctions filed by lower courts against presidential action have led to the rise in the number of interim orders filed by the Supreme Court in 2025. He explains that without the intervention of a higher court, a district court judge alone could block a presidential program for months or years by filing a universal injunction.
In contrast to interim orders, universal injunctions instruct the government and parties outside of a case—unlike interim orders, which apply only to the parties within a case—on how to behave while a court reviews the case in full. A universal injunction can also stop the implementation of a federal policy, sometimes for years, while a case proceeds.
The Supreme Court’s orders constrain not only other courts but also the executive branch. Goldsmith argues that these practical effects of interim orders raise a broader institutional question: the extent to which Supreme Court rulings bind not only lower courts but also the executive branch.
Goldsmith contends that although the executive and legislative branches acknowledge the Court’s authority, its orders are not self-executing. The question of whether the executive branch must follow the opinions of the judicial branch can never be settled completely, he argues.
Goldsmith points to several landmark cases in which the Supreme Court came close to declaring its supremacy over the other branches. For instance, in United States v. Nixon, the Court claimed to be the “ultimate interpreter of the Constitution.” But later in its opinion, the Court described this power only to be limited to interpreting the law in a particular case, not to declaring broadly what the Constitution means.
More recently, the Supreme Court held in Trump v. CASA—a case in which the plaintiffs challenged President Trump’s executive order limiting “birthright citizenship”—that federal courts cannot issue universal, nationwide injunctions under the Judiciary Act of 1789.
Goldsmith observes that, after the Court’s decision in CASA, injunctions must be limited strictly to the parties before it, but in practice, the Court seemed to enjoin the Executive Order in a way that suggested the decision was universally applicable.
In addition, litigants in lower courts may still obtain injunctive relief through several pathways, including class action cases, possible APA vacatur, and some lawsuits by the states.
Goldsmith warns, however, that as a result of more narrowly applied injunctions, presidential actions during the interim period of a case will be more inconsistent across jurisdictions.
For instance, a lower court could stop an unlawful executive action when a lawsuit is filed in its jurisdiction, but meanwhile, the same executive action could continue in another jurisdiction.
Goldsmith contends, however, that even when universal relief is unavailable, the Supreme Court could still feel pressure to stop a President from acting unlawfully against individuals who cannot sue. In her dissent in CASA, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson argued that the Court’s fundamental role is to order all actors, including the executive, “to follow the law—full stop.”
In addition, Goldsmith argues that CASA appeared to hold that any federal court, even at a lower level, cannot issue a universal injunction, prompting a broader discussion about the Supreme Court’s reinforcement of its institutional authority. Moreover, Justice Amy Coney Barrett recognized in the majority opinion in CASA that the judgments of the Supreme Court still can cause a universal effect against the executive branch of government.
Goldsmith observes that CASA marked a historic moment by prompting public discussion between the judicial and executive branches about the supremacy of Supreme Court rulings.
For instance, he points out that during oral argument, five Justices raised the issue of judicial supremacy to Solicitor General John Sauer. Sauer pledged that if universal injunctions were eliminated, the executive branch would honor Supreme Court rulings universally.
Trump v. CASA leaves further questions open, Goldsmith notes. The Court did not explain the rationale behind its distinctive role in declaring broad principles and stating the law to the executive branch.
But perhaps this situation is not a surprise, Goldsmith concludes. The Court continues to act to amplify its authority, even though it lacks the executive branch’s sword and the legislative branch’s purse.
