Justice Elena Kagan: Supreme Court Not a 'Puppet' for Trump

BELLEVUE, Wash. -- The U.S. Supreme Court may be deeply conservative, but it is not simply a rubber stamp for President Donald Trump, Justice Elena Kagan said Thursday.

Kagan, one of the court's three liberal justices, told an audience of lawyers and judges from the 9th U.S. Circuit in Bellevue, Washington, that at significant times, on some big issues, “the court has checked the executive branch.”

The court has sided with the Trump administration in the vast majority of cases to come before it so far, including largely upholding his immigration crackdown and expanding Trump's authority over federal regulatory agencies. But Kagan pointed to key rulings where the president did not get what he sought, such as decisions rejecting Trump's sweeping tariffs and his efforts to strip birthright citizenship from the children of people who are in the U.S. illegally.

“Is this court very conservative? Does it do a bunch of things that are out of the playbook of the conservative legal movement that I think are deeply wrong? You know, yes,” Kagan said. “But is this court the kind of puppet for the current administration? I think definitely not.”

Polling has found public trust in the Supreme Court at historic lows in recent years, and a number of critics of the current court have suggested political motivations on the part of its justices. Trump has personally assailed justices who rule against him in stark terms. One liberal justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson, said in May after the court struck down a majority-Black district in Louisiana and weakened the Voting Rights Act that the institution risked being seen as political.

Chief Justice John Roberts, who was among those joining the court's liberal justices on some key cases such as birthright citizenship and tariffs, has fought back against the perception that the justices are “political actors,” calling it a misunderstanding.

Kagan, often seen as a bridge-builder, echoed that approach in her comments Thursday, which followed her testimony before Congress alongside conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett last week on security threats and other issues facing the court.

Kagan reiterated her support for appointing a committee of retired judges to enforce the Supreme Court's first code of ethics, adopted in 2023 during a storm of criticism over undisclosed trips and gifts from wealthy benefactors to some justices. While the justices are taking the ethics code seriously, opinions differ on the court about how or whether it might be enforced, and no conclusions have been reached, she said.

Kagan also offered a view from the bench of a historic moment from the court's past term, when Trump himself took a front-row seat for arguments over his birthright citizenship order. He was the first sitting president to attend oral arguments.

It was largely a “non-event” for the justices, Kagan said. Trump took a seat off to the side, in an area relatively far from the bench typically reserved for members of Congress, and the court made no announcement of his presence. Many in the audience couldn't see him, she noted.

“He was just like a person who came in and sat down and then had to listen to an argument,” Kagan said.

The president remained for about half of the lengthy arguments, leaving when the other side began making its case.

“You really did kind of think, he probably has other things to do, you know?” said Kagan, who served as solicitor general during the Obama administration. “I was sort of thinking, I worked for a president, and when a president walks into the room, you get the whole ‘Hail to the Chief' stuff. And there was like none of that. And so, I don’t know, I think he probably won’t come back.”