Poll results released this week show that a significant majority of Americans (81%) believe that President Donald Trump’s administration should not ignore federal court orders. An expert joined Audacy this week to explore what those results could mean for the president.
“The fact of the matter is most presidents have gone along with what the courts,” said Robert Hogan, a political scientist from Louisiana State University, who joined Tommy Tucker in New Orleans.
NBC News reported that 19,410 adults participated in the poll from NBC Decision Desk and SurveyMonkey, from May 30 through June 10. While most Americans want Trump and his administration to obey court orders, the numbers look different among Republicans – they’re split 50%-50% over whether they think the president should obey federal courts.
“There’s a stark difference between you know… Republicans and Democrats – those on the right and those on the left – on matters of how the institutions of governing should behave,” said Hogan. He said that polling results can often be very different from party to party. For example, people who are members of the party with a president in power tend to say the economy is better regardless of the actual data, he said.
However, this issue is different, according to Hogan.
“I think this poll is a… warning sign of what’s ahead,” he told Tucker.
Concerns about whether the Trump administration plans to adhere to court rulings became heightened this year when Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia was erroneously deported to El Salvador. A judge ruled that the administration could not deport the man but it did not comply and instead doubled down with negative claims about him.
“This is not just about one person this is about a broader issue about the constitution due process it’s about the right of people to have hearings before the government just rounds you up. And that’s why this is such a significant case, because it’s one person. But it’s about a broader, broader principle,” said David Schultz, professor of political science and law at Hamline University, in an interview with Tucker this April.
Hogan also noted that Trump has launched “vicious” attacks against federal judges who have made rulings against him. He likened this behavior as a sign of slipping from a “representative democracy” to “some sort of autocracy.”
“That is certainly not what the founders intended, and I don’t think… that’s what a lot of people living in the United States today want,” Hogan added.
At the same time, Trump has a considerable amount of power with Republican majorities in both chambers of Congress and a conservative-leaning Supreme Court. Hogan noted that the main way to check a president’s power is impeachment, which requires votes in Congress.
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