This morning on The Situation Room, CNN broke news on the 6-3 Supreme Court ruling limiting the ability of lower courts to generate nation-wide injunctions. CNN chief legal affairs correspondent Paula Reid spent her whole segment on how monumental the ruling was, drawing to the conclusion that Republicans and the “conservative super majority” were to be feared.
Reid tried her best to hide her discontent with the ruling, but she couldn’t help constantly harping on the political ideology of the majority opinion:
Now I will say, these nationwide injunctions, this is a bipartisan concern, these have plagued every modern president. But, because President Trump does so much through executive action, he has faced the greatest number of these nationwide injunctions, so he and his Republican allies here on Capitol Hill, they have been railing against these. This is a pet issue for them, and now the conservative super majority siding with President Trump and his Republican allies to limit this power from judges. A huge decision.
She said the nationwide injunctions were a bipartisan issue but omitted the fact that in eight years President Obama faced just 12 injunctions, Trump had 79 in four years and three months. Most of these injunctions against Trump stem from political differences by lower court judges, who case shopped to them.
Reid loved to make it seem like it’s only the Republicans and the “super majority” who made decisions based on political ideals. Here’s what Justice Amy Coney Barnett said in the court's opinion when discussing Justice Jackson’s decision to go against the majority:
“ We will not dwell on JUSTICE JACKSON’s argument, which is at odds with more than two centuries’ worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself. We observe only this: JUSTICE JACKSON decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary.”
Essentially calling her colleague a hypocrite for doing the exact thing she tried to be so hard-pressed in opposition of.
While CNN was crying outrage over the “huge win” of the “conservative super majority,” it ironically took a Princeton law professor to be the voice of reason. Deborah Pearlstein tapped the brakes and dared to suggest the sky was not falling, just that the procedure changed:
I think that’s actually one of the critical points. This is not an end, this is the beginning. I think it’s premature to declare victory for the administration in this. What this opinion is, is a full employment license for litigators. Now, this — all of these cases go back to the lower courts. The Supreme Court appears to have said you can bring these cases as class actions. You don’t have to proceed individually, but class actions are a complicated question as well. This is going to get litigated over time, now that’s consistent with the long game strategy.
Pearlstein showed Reid that this ruling didn't undermine the rule of law and create a dictatorship, it was a constitutionally rash ruling to make national decisions the responsibility of the nation's court. She stopped the fearmongering by stating that it’s not clear yet if the policies from the ruling will succeed or ever actually be implemented.
The full transcript is below. Click "expand" to view:
CNN: The Situation Room
10:12:32 AM EST
June, 27th, 2025PAULA REID: But right now, the question was really whether a single judge anywhere in the country could block an executive action for the entire nation. And here, in historic opinion, the justices are limiting that power, and again, President Trump’s lawyers have told me this is the case that they are watching. This means everything for the president's ability to govern through executive actions.
Now I will say, these nationwide injunctions, this is a bipartisan concern, these have plagued every modern president. But, because President Trump does so much through executive action, he has faced the greatest number of these nationwide injunctions, so he and his Republican allies here on Capitol Hill, they have been railing against these. This is a pet issue for them, and now the conservative super majority siding with President Trump and his Republican allies to limit this power from judges. A huge decision.
WOLF BLITZER: So, just to be precise, Paula, this was a 6 to 3 decision. Six conservative justices, three liberal justices, is that right?
REID: And it was authored by Justice Amy Coney Barnett. Now, some of her conservative — her conservative colleagues did also opined concurrences here. We’re still reading through those, we have old school paper copy, it is very long. We're still getting through the whole opinion. So, these are just the top lines, but this is enormous. This is yet another huge win for President Trump from this conservative super majority.
Now, we have been reporting since Trump took office in January, that his lawyers were telling me, even though a lot of their policies were getting bogged down in the lower courts, that anything they could get in front of this high court that they would ultimately win. That they were playing a long game, and this decision right here, this is proof that this long game they’ve been playing for the past six or seven months, they’ve won and they’ve won big time.
(...)
10:19:15 AM
DEBORAH PEARLSTEIN: I think that’s actually one of the critical points. This is not an end, this is the beginning. I think it’s premature to declare victory for the administration in this. What this opinion is, is a full employment license for litigators. Now, this — all of these cases go back to the lower courts. The Supreme Court appears to have said you can bring these cases as class actions. You don’t have to proceed individually, but class actions are a complicated question as well.
This is going to get litigated over time, now that’s consistent with the long game strategy. It was absolutely a strategic decision by the administration to bring it in this posture. They’ve prevailed sort of initially in allowing — getting themselves more time to pursue this, but it’s not at all clear that this policy will succeed or ever actually be implemented. It now depends what lower courts across the country do. This is coming back to the Supreme Court, but first, more litigation over the coming year.
BLITZER: And Deborah Pearlstein is a constitutional law professor at Princeton University, so you understand the Constitution and you understand the ramifications of this major decision.
