Trump Scores Major Victory at Supreme Court: Mass Layoffs of Federal Workers Cleared to Resume

President Donald Trump secured another major win at the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, as the justices ruled in favor of his administration’s sweeping plan to slash the size of the federal government. The ruling clears the way for large-scale layoffs across dozens of federal agencies—a central campaign promise Trump made to rein in the bloated Washington bureaucracy.

In a brief, unsigned emergency order, the Court overturned a lower court’s injunction that had blocked Trump’s executive order authorizing broad “reductions in force” across multiple departments. The decision allows agencies to resume preparations to restructure or eliminate offices, reduce headcount, and streamline operations.

The Trump administration’s plan—spearheaded by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—targets mass layoffs at the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, HHS, State, Treasury, Veterans Affairs, and over a dozen other federal bodies.

The Supreme Court said the administration is “likely to succeed” in proving the executive order is lawful and reaffirmed that managing federal personnel lies within the core authority of the executive branch under Article II of the Constitution.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the lone dissenter. In her criticism, Jackson accused the Court of siding too eagerly with the president, writing that the majority had “greenlit” legally questionable actions in a rushed process. Her dissent echoed the now-overturned opinion of Obama-appointed U.S. District Judge Susan Illston, who had ruled in May that the president needed congressional authorization for such a reorganization.

But Trump’s Justice Department argued—and the Supreme Court agreed—that the president does not require special permission from Congress to manage federal agency staffing.

“The Constitution does not erect a presumption against presidential control of agency staffing,” the DOJ wrote in its appeal.

The high court’s ruling overrides both Illston’s injunction and a subsequent 2–1 decision from the left-leaning Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which had blocked Trump’s order on May 30. That court claimed the reorganization was an “unprecedented” attempt to reshape the federal government.

The plaintiffs—a coalition of unions, left-wing nonprofits, and state and local governments—warned that Trump’s plan would “gut government programs” and put “hundreds of thousands” of federal workers out of a job. Trump officials made clear that is precisely the point.

The DOGE office, formerly advised by Elon Musk before a public split, has aggressively pursued plans to eliminate waste, fraud, and bureaucratic bloat across the federal government. Although Musk ended his formal government role in May, the efficiency overhaul has continued full speed under Trump’s direction.

This is just the latest in a string of wins for Trump at the Supreme Court. The justices have also:

• Approved his policy to deport migrants to third countries.

• Upheld the end of humanitarian protections for hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants.

• Backed Trump’s ban on trans-identifying individuals in the U.S. military.

• Sided with DOGE twice in its efforts to restructure federal departments.

• Limited the power of federal judges to issue sweeping nationwide injunctions against presidential actions.

The ruling marks a turning point in Trump’s second-term agenda to finally drain the swamp—not with slogans, but with action.

“This is only the beginning,” a senior administration official said. “President Trump is fulfilling his promise to bring back power to the people by gutting the unelected administrative state that has held this country hostage for decades.”