Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan said on Oct. 20 that the court has gotten a "bum rap" for supposedly being in President Donald Trump's pocket. Speaking publicly at Catholic University's law school in Washington, the liberal justice defended the 6-3 conservative court's independence from the president while also voicing concern about the effects of an ideologically lopsided bench.
Kagan was pressed on comments she made this summer about the court's record against some of Trump's top policy priorities, according to reports. She said making that point mattered "because when you pick up the newspapers and get on the internet, you see a lot of 'This court just does whatever the president says.'"
"I do think it's a bum rap," Kagan said during a conversation with Professor J. Joel Alicea at the law school, according to USA Today.
Justice Elena Kagan in an official portrait. She said the Supreme Court has gotten a 'bum rap' for supposedly being in President Donald Trump's pocket. (Official court portrait)
What Kagan Said
The justice argued that the court is not the puppet of the current administration, even though she disagrees sharply with many of its conservative rulings. "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 at a July judicial conference in Bellevue, Washington. "But is this court the kind of puppet for the current administration? I think definitely not."
She returned to the theme on Oct. 20, pointing to a string of decisions in which the justices told the administration no. "On quite a number of occasions we've said to this administration, to this president: 'You can't do that,'" she said at the July event, a line her Oct. 20 remarks echoed.
The context matters: Trump appointed three of the nine justices — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — giving the court its 6-3 conservative supermajority. Kagan, appointed by President Barack Obama in 2010, is one of the court's three liberal justices. That alignment has fueled a persistent public perception, especially among the president's critics, that the bench simply does Trump's bidding.
The Record She Cited
Kagan's rebuttal rests on the rulings themselves. She listed cases in which the court ruled against Trump's signature policies, according to reports.
In February 2026, the court struck down the sweeping tariffs Trump had imposed on nearly every country on Earth, ruling that the law he used to justify them did not authorize such levies. The decision gutted the central pillar of his trade policy and drew an unusually furious public response from the president himself.
The court also rejected Trump's executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship — the constitutional guarantee that children born on American soil are citizens regardless of their parents' immigration status. And it blocked the administration from firing Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, while leaving in place lower-court orders barring Trump's deployment of the National Guard in American cities as part of his immigration crackdown.
"These were things that President Trump cared deeply about," Kagan said, according to USA Today.
Legal observers have noted that Chief Justice John Roberts — himself a conservative — has occasionally joined the court's liberal bloc in such cases, including the tariffs and birthright-citizenship decisions, adding data points to the argument that the court is not monolithic in the president's favor.
A Lopsided Court, and Her Concern
Kagan's defense of the court's independence came paired with an unusually candid worry about its ideological tilt. She said the court was in a better place when its makeup was more balanced.
"I do think that there was a period of time when the court was in a better place and the country was in a better place because the court was more balanced and it was unclear whether the court could push through anybody's program," she said.
The 6-3 conservative majority has repeatedly sided with the Trump administration on immigration enforcement and on expanding presidential power over federal agencies, according to court watchers. That record is what frustrates many Democrats, some of whom have called for expanding the court or imposing term limits on justices — changes that would be difficult to impose even if Democrats retake Congress in the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
Polling has found public trust in the Supreme Court at historic lows in recent years, and Trump has personally attacked justices who rule against him in stark terms. The tension puts justices like Kagan in an awkward position: defending the institution's legitimacy while openly criticizing its direction.
The U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C. (File photo)
What This Means
Kagan's remarks are the latest in a running public-relations battle over the court's legitimacy. By listing the anti-Trump rulings, she is trying to separate two ideas that have merged in the public mind: that the court is deeply conservative, and that it is therefore the president's instrument.
"There's a conservative court doing things that conservative jurists have long thought inappropriate to do," she said in July. "I can really dislike that, but it has nothing to do, I think, with becoming the arm of this current administration."
The distinction may matter politically. With the midterm elections two weeks away, the court's standing — and its future makeup — is quietly on the ballot. Democrats campaigning on court reform need voters to believe the institution can be salvaged rather than captured beyond repair; Kagan's argument, coming from one of the court's own liberals, gives that position its strongest institutional voice.
At the same time, her candor about the bench's imbalance hands ammunition to critics who say the court's conservative supermajority, whatever its occasional independence, is still the product of a deliberate political project — one that has weakened voting rights, expanded presidential power and rolled back long-standing precedents.
Justice Elena Kagan, one of the court's three liberal justices, was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2010. (Official court portrait)
What Happens Next
The justices are in the early weeks of a new term, and the docket will keep testing Kagan's thesis. Every major ruling involving the administration — on executive power, immigration, or the regulatory state — will be read as another data point on the independence question.
Kagan herself gave no sign of backing down from either half of her message: the court is not Trump's puppet, and it is not as balanced as it should be. For a liberal justice on a conservative court, that two-track argument may be the only one available — defending the institution she serves while dissenting from where it is going.
Whether the public buys it is another matter. Trust in the court remains near historic lows, and two weeks before the midterms, both parties will keep using the justices as characters in their larger political stories. Kagan, at least, wants the record — and the rulings — to speak for themselves.
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