Background
Donald Trump's relationship with the judicial system has been contentious throughout his political career. During his first administration (2017-2021), there were multiple instances where his administration challenged, delayed implementation of, or sought workarounds to court orders:
In 2017, after courts blocked his travel ban, the administration issued revised versions until finding one that could withstand judicial scrutiny
The Trump administration initially resisted a Supreme Court ruling on adding a citizenship question to the census
In a recent case (April 2024), the Supreme Court had to order the Trump administration to unfreeze foreign assistance payments that had been withheld
Resolution Criteria
This market will resolve as YES if, during the second Trump administration (2025-2029):
Trump or his administration explicitly refuses to comply with or implement any ruling from SCOTUS, AND
This refusal is documented through official statements, actions, or credible reporting from multiple mainstream news sources.
The market will resolve as NO if:
Trump complies with all Supreme Court rulings, OR
Trump's administration challenges rulings through legal channels but ultimately complies after exhausting legal options.
In case of legal ambiguities, I will resolve based on my perceived consensus among legal scholars. If no clear consensus emerged, the question will resolve NO.
Update 2025-03-11 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): In this update:
The ruling must directly compel enforcement by the president for a refusal to count as non-compliance with a SCOTUS decision.
A refusal to enforce a law (for example, as in the TikTok case) is treated as a failure to obey Congressional authority rather than a refusal to obey a SCOTUS ruling.
The requirement for credible evidence (including multiple sources and a consensus among legal scholars) to establish that a specific SCOTUS order was ignored remains unchanged.
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3.00@SeamusConlon I would say that the Supreme Court ruling in that case didn't directly order the president to do anything. Instead, it simply upheld the law against legal challenges from Tiktok. It's true that what Trump did is a refusal to enforce the law. But that's more of a refusal to obey Congress than a refusal to obey the Supreme Court.
What would count is if the Supreme Court had specifically compelled the law to be enforced and Trump refused to do so.
I accept that I'm not a legal scholar. If you are able to find multiple articles written by legal scholars explicitly arguing that Trump had ignored or violated a supreme court ruling AND they clearly represent the consensus (or large majority) position of the legal profession, I will resolve yes.
@EdisonYi your question is phrased as refusal to carry out a Supreme Court decision. How is this materially different from refusing to enforce the bill after the court decided it was constitutional and should be enforced?
@EdisonYi your question is phrased as refusal to carry out a Supreme Court decision. How is this materially different from telling the justice department not to enforce the bill after the court decided it was constitutional and should be enforced?
I agree, Trump did not do anything to contradict the ruling but he did refuse to carry out a SCOTUS ruling. This much is very clear.
The decision is too recent for scholarly articles. But here are several news articles quoting legal scholars.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/10/us/politics/trump-constitutional-crisis.html
@SeamusConlon thanks. I will take a look.
There is a distinction between refusing to carry out a SCOTUS ruling and refusing to carry out a law that is upheld in a separate ruling (which Trump's administration wasn't directly involved in). I understand that this is a fine line, this is why I am willing to defer to the legal scholars. You are right that it may be too recent. I might wait for more articles to be written on this before resolving.