Presidents and the Supreme Court

Is Treasury Secretary Besssent Correct?

“This is one of President Trump’s signature policies and traditionally the Supreme Court does not interfere with a president’s signature policy.” — Treasury Secretary Bessent talking about the Supreme Court’s weighing whether the president’s tariff policy is Constitutional.

(h/t aaron.rupar)

In general terms, the Supreme Court’s judicial review exists precisely to “interfere” when it determines that legislative or executive actions (including “signature policies”) conflict with the Constitution.

In specific terms, the court has often acted against a president’s signature policies.

Obama and the Affordable Care Act:
Barack Obama’s signature policy was the Affordable Care Act. The Court struck down the mandatory Medicaid expansion and carved out religious-freedom exemptions to the contraceptive mandate.

George W. Bush and the war on terrorism:
During George W. Bush’s war on terrorism, the Court limited the president’s power to detain enemy combatants, invalidated his Guantanamo military commissions, affirmed habeas rights for detainees, and even curtailed domestic antiterrorism tools in Ashcroft v. ACLU (2004), pushing back on expansive claims of national-security immunity.

Truman and the Korean War emergency:
During Harry Truman’s management of the Korean War, the Court blocked his seizure of the steel mills — a direct rejection of his claim to inherent emergency power at the height of a signature wartime effort.

FDR and the New Deal:
During Franklin Roosevelt’s launch of the New Deal, the Court struck down the NIRA, the AAA, and multiple labor and economic reforms, dismantling pillars of his central recovery program.

Bessent is framing Trump’s tariff plan as a “signature policy” to create the impression that the Supreme Court shouldn’t touch it — not because the law says so, but because he wants to pre-emptively label any judicial pushback as political overreach, reassure Trump’s supporters that the policy is safe, and pressure the Court by suggesting that blocking it would look like interference with the voters’ will. In other words, he’s turning a legally vulnerable position into a story about legitimacy, hoping to shape how a ruling is interpreted before it even arrives.