Why Trump Keeps Losing at the Supreme Court

Donald Trump has been having a rough go of it in the nation’s highest court. A year ago, he lost the biggest case of last year’s Supreme Court term—a challenge to his addition of a citizenship question to the census. This week, Trump lost what is so far the biggest case of this Court term—a challenge to his termination of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which allows Dreamers to remain, study, and work in America on renewable permits. Both rulings found that the president had violated a law called the Administrative Procedure Act.

This sounds. It isn’t. Trump keeps losing not because of something obscure, but because of something fundamental: his abuse of the executive branch. Much of his administration’s approach to governance rests on attempting executive actions that lack any meaningful justification rooted in expertise, or even rational thought.