WASHINGTON, DC — President Donald Trump’s controversial “big, beautiful bill”—dubbed the “Big Ugly Bill” by Robert Reich in an op-ed for The Guardian—contains a hidden provision that could severely undermine the authority of federal courts, Reich warns.
A professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, Reich served as U.S. Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton and previously worked under the administrations of Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter.
Reich contends that if this GOP-backed budget bill is enacted, it would result in “the largest redistribution of income and wealth in American history” and effectively allow Trump to “crown himself king” by rendering federal court orders unenforceable.
For the past several months, the op-ed notes, Trump has routinely ignored court rulings against him, a practice Reich describes as an abuse of power. Federal judges have accused Trump of disregarding orders related to deportation, including the case of Kilmar Ábrego García, a U.S. legal resident mistakenly deported to El Salvador. Reich reports that the Supreme Court ordered the president to facilitate García’s return—an error even acknowledged by the Trump administration, yet no action has been taken.
Reich adds that lower federal courts have ordered Trump to halt the deportation of migrants without affording them basic due process, but those orders, too, have gone unheeded.
In one such case, Chief Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a temporary restraining order, only to later conclude that the Trump administration had “willfully disregarded” it.
“Is there anything that the courts can do in response to Trump’s open defiance of judges and justices?” Reich asks in his column.
He explains that the judiciary’s primary enforcement mechanism is its power to hold federal officials in contempt, punishable by fines or imprisonment—a “radical remedy,” Reich notes, but one that is rarely used. Nonetheless, he adds, “several federal judges are at their wits’ end.”
Judge James Boasberg reportedly warned Trump’s legal team that he would initiate contempt proceedings if they failed to give dozens of Venezuelan men deported to a Salvadoran prison a fair opportunity to challenge their removal in court.
Similarly, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis questioned the administration’s failure to comply with the Supreme Court’s order to “facilitate” García’s return. Reich writes that Xinis asked whether the administration had any intention of complying at all.
According to Reich, Judge Xinis cited a statement from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem asserting that García “will never be allowed to return to the United States.” Xinis reportedly viewed that comment as an “admission” of noncompliance.
Reich claims that Trump and congressional Republicans have anticipated that the courts may soon begin holding the administration in contempt—and that the new budget bill is designed to preemptively block such enforcement.
The bill includes a provision that reads: “No court of the United States may use appropriated funds to enforce a contempt citation for failure to comply with an injunction or temporary restraining order if no security was given when the injunction or order was issued.”
In effect, this clause would strip the federal courts of their power to enforce contempt citations, weakening their authority.
Reich warns that, if enacted, the provision would make many essential cases—including antitrust, police reform, and school desegregation lawsuits—unenforceable.
Legal experts have echoed Reich’s concerns. Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law, argued that the provision would eliminate a critical restraint on executive power and eviscerate judicial authority.
“Without the contempt power, judicial orders are meaningless and can be ignored,” Chemerinsky told Reich. “There is no way to understand this except as a way to keep the Trump administration from being restrained when it violates the Constitution or otherwise breaks the law.”
“This would be a stunning restriction on the power of the federal courts,” Chemerinsky continued. “The Supreme Court has long recognized that the contempt power is integral to the authority of the federal courts. Without the ability to enforce judicial orders, they are rendered mere advisory opinions which parties are free to disregard.”
If the provision stands, Reich argues, Trump “will have crowned himself king.” Neither Congress nor the courts will be able to stop him. And even if a future Congress tries, he adds, its efforts will fail without an empowered judiciary.
If passed, the bill would not only reshape national fiscal priorities—it could also shift the balance of power between the branches of government.
Reich concludes that Trump’s budget bill is not just fiscally unjust, but constitutionally dangerous. By gutting the final institutional constraint on Trump’s authority, he warns, it places the foundations of American democracy at risk—and time is running out.
