Jessica Levinson
Appearances
Morning Wire
Education Overhaul & RFK Jr.’s Bold Moves | 3.7.25
It basically means that the Supreme Court isn't going to parachute in and stop what's happening in the lower court.
Morning Wire
Education Overhaul & RFK Jr.’s Bold Moves | 3.7.25
Yeah, what we're talking about here isn't very broadly, can the Trump administration push pause on foreign aid? What we're talking about here is something much, much narrower. It's a district court judge's temporary decision, a TRO, saying to the Trump administration, pay $2 billion of money that's for work that was already completed prior to the Trump administration.
Morning Wire
Education Overhaul & RFK Jr.’s Bold Moves | 3.7.25
Now, absolutely, this is a part of a bigger case that deals with whether or not the Trump administration has the power to push pause either temporarily or long term on foreign aid. But this particular Supreme Court decision is really much narrower. There's a lot more kind of weediness with respect to what type of order was appealed and issues like sovereign immunity.
Morning Wire
Education Overhaul & RFK Jr.’s Bold Moves | 3.7.25
But I think the basics are the Supreme Court is not going to get involved in an emergency basis right now.
Morning Wire
Education Overhaul & RFK Jr.’s Bold Moves | 3.7.25
Justice Alito brought up a couple of points, and you pointed out one of them with respect to the power of a federal judge to say you have to pay this money. And what Justice Alito felt is that the order that was being appealed, which is, again, a temporary restraining order and is typically not appealable here.
Morning Wire
Education Overhaul & RFK Jr.’s Bold Moves | 3.7.25
He said that actually should be viewed as a preliminary injunction, which could be appealed. He also said there's important issues here dealing with sovereign immunity and whether or not this case could even proceed and who's likely to succeed. So is this a case where the Supreme Court has set new precedent, laid down new legal standards? I would say it's not.
Morning Wire
Education Overhaul & RFK Jr.’s Bold Moves | 3.7.25
This is a short order by the court that says your emergency appeal for relief is not granted.
Morning Wire
Education Overhaul & RFK Jr.’s Bold Moves | 3.7.25
Well, many, many. So there are so many different executive actions and so many different lawsuits with respect to those executive actions. I think what I would do is call out a few things for people to think about. The big question in a number of these cases where the Trump administration is trying to
Morning Wire
Education Overhaul & RFK Jr.’s Bold Moves | 3.7.25
freeze funds or maybe it's to fire people or maybe it's to remove certain federal employees or reorganize agencies. The question is, does any president have the power to do that? And those are big and deep questions that at some point are going to get to the Supreme Court. And then there are the initial questions in a lot of these suits, which aren't ultimately, can a president do X?
Morning Wire
Education Overhaul & RFK Jr.’s Bold Moves | 3.7.25
But did this president go about trying to do that in the right way? For instance, is this particular executive order so vague that people don't know what to do? Or is there a different agency that had to implement this executive order? So there's both these kind of procedural questions, which are serious.
Morning Wire
Education Overhaul & RFK Jr.’s Bold Moves | 3.7.25
And then there's the big kind of substantive on the merits questions of who, if anyone in the executive branch, has the power to implement these actions.