Justice Elena Kagan told a gathering of federal judges in Washington state that the Supreme Court is "very conservative" but has repeatedly checked executive power on tariffs, birthright citizenship, and agency firings, a defense that reveals as much about the court's internal fault lines as it does about the left's frustration with it.
Kagan, the senior liberal justice, spoke Thursday at the annual conference of the ninth judicial circuit in Bellevue, Washington. She addressed head-on the charge, popular among progressives and some legal commentators, that the six-justice conservative majority has functioned as a rubber stamp for the Trump administration's most aggressive moves.
Her answer was blunt: the court is conservative, but it is not a puppet. And she pointed to a string of high-profile rulings to make the case.
The Guardian reported that Kagan singled out the February 2026 tariffs decision as Exhibit A. In that ruling, the court struck down Trump's use of executive authority to impose tariffs on a host of countries. Kagan and the two other liberal justices joined three members of the conservative majority to form the winning coalition.
Kagan told the gathering:
"Tariffs is probably the key policy issue for this president. I don't think that there are all that many decisions in recent times where a court strikes down such an important policy to a sitting president."
She went further, listing other cases where the court blocked the administration. The justices stopped Trump's effort to end birthright citizenship for children of illegal immigrants. They blocked his attempt to fire Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook. And in a separate line of cases, the court dealt the administration a narrow defeat on birthright citizenship that prompted the president to announce a rehearing bid.
Kagan framed the record as proof of judicial independence, not ideological loyalty:
"I don't see this as a court that is... going to rubber-stamp what the current administration does. You know, quite the opposite. I actually think that there are significant times with respect to very significant issues where the court has checked the executive branch."
Kagan's defense was selective. The same court upheld Trump's effort to end Temporary Protected Status, a form of temporary deportation relief, for Haitians and Syrians. It issued a shadow docket order stripping Venezuelans of those same protections. And in a ruling that weakened the Voting Rights Act, the conservative majority delivered a result that bolstered Republican chances of holding the House.
The court also ruled that Trump and future presidents may fire the heads of independent federal agencies, a sweeping expansion of executive authority that alarmed critics on the left and drew mixed reactions on the right. Three of the six conservative justices were appointed by Trump during his first term.
So when Kagan says the court is not doing the administration's bidding, she is telling a partial truth. The court has checked Trump on some of his boldest moves. It has also cleared the way for others, including on immigration enforcement, where internal tensions among the justices have spilled into public view.
What makes Kagan's remarks notable is who delivered them. She is one of three liberals on a court with a commanding conservative majority. She was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2010. She has been on the losing side of many of the term's biggest decisions.
And yet she stood before a room of federal judges and lawyers and argued that the court deserves more credit than its critics, mostly her own political allies, are willing to give it. AP News reported that Kagan went so far as to say the court is "definitely not" a puppet for the current administration, citing the same tariffs and birthright citizenship decisions.
That framing cuts against the progressive narrative that the court has been captured by the Trump movement. It also, perhaps unintentionally, undercuts the left's broader case for court-packing, term limits, and other structural changes that Democratic activists have pushed for years. If a liberal justice says the court is checking executive power on the issues that matter most, the argument for blowing up the institution gets harder to make.
The conservative majority has not been monolithic. Chief Justice John Roberts joined the liberals on key cases, including birthright citizenship and tariffs. And the recent frustration among some conservatives over Justice Amy Coney Barrett's votes shows that the right is not getting everything it wants from the bench, either.
Kagan's concession that the court is "really conservative" is not news. Six of nine justices were appointed by Republican presidents. The court's recent terms have produced landmark conservative victories on agency power, voting rights, and executive authority over independent regulators.
But her insistence that the court is not a rubber stamp puts her at odds with the loudest voices in her own ideological camp. For months, progressive commentators and Democratic lawmakers have treated every ruling favorable to the administration as evidence of institutional corruption. Kagan's rebuttal, delivered not from a conservative podium but from the liberal wing of the bench, is harder for the left to dismiss.
She did not pretend the court always gets it right. She did not claim the conservative majority shares her judicial philosophy. She simply said that a court willing to strike down a sitting president's signature tariff policy, block his firing of a Federal Reserve governor, and reject his attempt to rewrite birthright citizenship is not a court that takes orders.
Meanwhile, Trump has kept his own options open. The president has a vetted Supreme Court shortlist ready in the event a vacancy opens, a reminder that the court's composition is never far from the political fight.
Kagan's two-part answer, yes, the court is conservative; no, it does not do the president's bidding, may frustrate partisans on both sides. Progressives want a villain. Some on the right want a reliable ally. What they have is a court that rules case by case, sometimes unpredictably, and a liberal justice willing to say so out loud.
When the left's own appointee says the system is working, maybe the system is working, and the people demanding it be torn apart are the ones who owe an explanation.
