On the Monday, June 15, 2026, episode of The Excerpt podcast: From immigration to elections, ballrooms to tax immunity, much of President Donald Trump’s second term agenda is mired in the courts. What’s the latest status of these cases and what’s next for Trump’s complicated legal journey? USA TODAY Justice Department Correspondent Aysha Bagchi joins The Excerpt to unpack the political and legal issues.

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Dana Taylor:

From immigration to elections, ballrooms to tax immunity, much of President Donald Trump's second term agenda is mired in the courts. While a Republican-controlled Congress has shown little interest in restraining the president, the courts may still decide that it's in the country's best interest to do so. What's the latest status of these cases and what's next for Trump's complicated legal journey?

Hello, and welcome to USA TODAY's The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Monday, June 15th, 2026. Here to unpack the political and legal issues for the many cases currently standing in the way of President Trump's agenda is USA TODAY Justice Department Correspondent Aysha Bagchi. Aysha, thank you so much for joining me. It's great to have you back.

Aysha Bagchi:

Thanks, Dana. I'm happy to be here.

Dana Taylor:

Before we dive into the specifics here, I want to start with some broad strokes to set the stage. How many cases are currently winding their way through the courts and how might these impact Trump's legacy?

Aysha Bagchi:

Many cases, at a minimum hundreds. There's a litigation tracker that is published by an outlet connected to the law school at New York University that has tracked more than 800 cases filed against Trump executive actions. So really, a lot of what the administration has tried to implement since Trump returned to the Oval Office is tied up in the courts right now.

Dana Taylor:

Let's start with what could be the most impactful case that's currently awaiting a final decision from the Supreme Court, and that's birthright citizenship. The court heard arguments back in April. Break that one down for us, please.

Aysha Bagchi:

This is one of the biggest new policies of the Trump administration. On day one of Trump's return to office, he issued an executive order that ended birthright citizenship starting 30 days after the order was issued. This is a policy that has been widely understood by legal scholars and by past presidential administrations going back many, many decades, really kind of dating back in its furthest form to a Supreme Court decision from the 1800s where everyone believed, many people at least believed that a provision of the Constitution that says that all people born in the United States and subject to U.S. jurisdiction are citizens.

Many people believe that, that meant that people who were born in the United States are automatically U.S. citizens even if their parents aren't citizens and even if their parents weren't authorized to be in the country. So this is something that a lot of presidential administrations have rested their policy on.

And Trump, in his first day back in office issued this new order that ends that policy, that essentially says if a person's parents are not authorized to be here or are only temporarily authorized to be in the country, then the person is not automatically a citizen.

This inspired a lot of lawsuits that have winded their ways through the court system and the Supreme Court is adjudicating one of those lawsuits right now, basically interpreting the Constitution. Does that constitutional language about people born here and subject to U.S. jurisdiction, does that mean that Trump's executive order essentially, redefining birthright citizenship, who has that right? Does that mean that the order is unconstitutional?

So, a huge policy. I've talked to Democratic state attorneys general who have said that this could affect even welfare that their states receive because a lot of children are in this type of situation, where the benefits that they get through programs like Medicaid are tied to their status in the country. So really, a policy that could have wide-ranging effects.

Dana Taylor:

Did the court give any indication of which way they were leaning here, and when can we expect a decision?

Aysha Bagchi:

Yes. Most people who listened to the arguments thought that the Supreme Court justices had more kind of critical questions to ask of the Trump administration. That might not have been too surprising because the Trump administration is kind of pushing the boundaries of what was widely understood to be the meaning of the Constitution when it comes to birthright citizenship.

But with that said, it's not the case that the court was just dismissive of the Trump administration's arguments. They took those arguments seriously. Those arguments were very technical and legal and had to do with issues about how the word jurisdiction has been understood historically.

So I'm loath to make any hard prediction about what's going to happen here, but many people thought that the court had more critical questions for the Trump administration, and we expect a decision by the end of the court's term. Typically, those decisions are wrapped up by June 30th or at the latest by early July. So, a decision should be coming soon.

Dana Taylor:

Aysha, another very big case currently in the courts pertains to Trump's historic $1.8 billion settlement with the IRS to suspend his $10 billion case against the agency for the leak of his and his son's tax returns during his first administration. A lot has unfolded with regard to that very controversial settlement over the last couple of weeks. Where are we at with all of it today?

Aysha Bagchi:

Yes. This was, as you said, a very controversial thing to arise. Basically, Trump and his two oldest sons filed a lawsuit against the IRS saying that it didn't have safeguards in place when a contractor unlawfully leaked not only their tax returns, but the tax returns of many, many other people, including many wealthy individuals.

They filed this lawsuit and then essentially, the Justice Department, which is run by people chosen by the president, negotiated a settlement with the president's own lawyers about how to resolve this case without a judge being involved in that resolution. And that included both, creating this $1.8 billion so called anti-weaponization fund, a fund that many critics fear could be used to pay Trump supporters who committed crimes, assaulted police officers during the January 6th, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. And it also cleared those Trump individuals of past tax liability, including the president.

There's a New York Times analysis from 2020 that discussed an audit that the president was in with the IRS that could potentially force him to pay up to $100 million. So that part of the settlement is also potentially, quite valuable to the president.

The president discovered very quickly, not only that he faced legal challenges to what happened here, but also enormous political pushback, especially when it came to the so called anti-weaponization fund. Republicans in Congress were refusing to pass an immigration enforcement spending bill until the administration either scrapped the fund or placed limitations on it.

And when that happened, the Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said that the DOJ isn't going to move forward with the fund. That doesn't mean litigation has stopped. One judge, last week said that he wasn't going to basically issue an order stopping the fund because to him it sounded like the fund was moot, but he said that the administration better not be playing possum, so to speak, better not be saying something in order to avoid a court ruling they wouldn't like when he could still act in the case.

Another judge actually did issue an order blocking the fund from going forward saying that what the administration provided wasn't sufficiently satisfactory about whether the administration was really moving forward with this fund. And then you have the tax liability part of it. Basically, the full settlement that happened here when Trump and the DOJ initially negotiated this settlement, a judge closed the case because the judge's understanding was basically that they had the ability to privately negotiate the settlement without a judge being involved.

But since then, 35 former federal judges wrote into that judge, basically telling her that they think she should reopen the case, that in their minds, this arrangement between the DOJ and Trump was an improper form of collusion, where you have parties that aren't really what we call adverse in the legal system, aren't really having opposing interests because Trump heads the executive branch and is also kind of on the opposite side of that lawsuit.

And so the settlement, they argue is improper. And that judge has said that she's considering whether to reopen the case, and she wants people involved in the settlement and in these arguments to be filing formal papers with the court on what they think she should do, and then she'll issue a decision on whether to reopen the case and potentially, to scrutinize this settlement and whether it was lawful.

Dana Taylor:

Let's pivot to a case that's transfixed many of Washington's elite, and that's the addition of Donald Trump's name to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. A judge had given a deadline of last Friday for his name to be removed. The Kennedy Center Board appealed at the last minute. Where does that stand?

Aysha Bagchi:

For people here in D.C., the Kennedy Center is kind of an arts focal point in the city and it also almost serves as kind of a prominent monument. There's so many beautiful national monuments in the city, and the Kennedy Center is this glistening one that's next to the river and near other major sites.

So perhaps for that reason, this issue has gotten a lot of attention, especially in the Capitol. The board that was largely appointed by Donald Trump renamed the Center, put up in big gold letters, his name calling it the Trump Kennedy Center from now on. And actually, merchandise was created that basically had this new name. And also, after tickets plummeted in the wake of those changes voted to close down the Center and that has prompted this sort of litigation.

A judge has actually ruled now that changing the name was unlawful, that basically Congress said the name of the Center is the Kennedy Center and the board didn't have the authority to rename it. Basically, the judge talked about the idea that the board has a duty to kind of honor the statute that Congress created naming the Center.

And also, the judge said that probably the board's actions in closing the Center were unlawful because according to Congress, the board is supposed to think about multiple things when considering how to run the Center. And that's not just about the Center's physical kind of wellbeing. Part of what the board is supposed to do is think about the Center functioning properly.

The board here said that the Center needs major renovations and that's why they said that they are closing it. But the judge said, "You also have to think about the idea that Congress has established that the Center should be available for arts performances." And that the board didn't go through the type of analysis that would allow them to basically shut it down. So the judge issued a deadline that the board has to remove the name by Friday.

The board appealed that decision. Following that appeal, then the district court judge issued a ruling saying he's not going to undo his decision for now and that the name needs to come down. Following that decision, the appeals court declined to issue what's called a stay that would've allowed the name to have stayed up, so the name came down.

Dana Taylor:

Another big case which could have big implications for the midterms concerns mail-in voting. What's the issue here and is this being adjudicated on a federal level, which typically is not involved in election administration, or on a state level, which is?

Aysha Bagchi:

Yes. This has to do with an executive order that President Trump has issued that is a little complicated, but basically has to do with regulating mail-in voting. And as you said about this kind of issue of jurisdiction, is it the federal government or state governments that really run elections?

In the U.S., state governments mainly run elections, and that has to do with the U.S. Constitution. It's a constitutional issue. The constitution says that states will administer elections. They'll make all sorts of decisions about how elections are run. It does give Congress, the U.S. Congress power to regulate most of those decisions that states make.

So Congress has an explicit role in addition to states in administering elections, but the constitution itself doesn't give the president explicit authority to really be involved here. And that is really what comes in as the crucial legal issue when it comes to challenges in this space.

President Trump issued an executive order that directed the U.S. Postal Service to basically do things that would regulate and potentially interfere with mail-in voting. He's made, for many years, claims that are baseless, that are not rooted in evidence questioning the integrity of U.S. elections claiming that elections with results that he dislikes in particular were rigged, going back to the 2020 presidential election that Joe Biden won.

This is especially controversial because many outsiders are concerned that it's part of a broader effort by the president to undermine public confidence in U.S. elections and potentially get the federal government involved, interfering with elections when the president doesn't like the outcomes of those elections.

So the lawsuit both, formally has to do with the idea of presidential authority in this space and also might have an effect on public opinion and public apprehensions about how our elections are run and the integrity of that process.

Many cases involve another kind of sweeping effort by the Trump administration that has to do with what's happened to the U.S. federal workforce. Mass layoffs across various executive agencies, shutting down certain areas of the government entirely. That includes the U.S. Agency for International Development, also referred to as USAID that has essentially been shattered by the Trump administration. It's an agency that provided a lot of foreign assistance and humanitarian assistance across a broad array of issues.

Another area of litigation that is certainly major for understanding the president's power and how it will be affected under the current administration has to do with investigations and prosecutions of people that have been explicitly targeted by President Donald Trump or who are perceived to be major critics of the president.

Right now, there's a case that's been brought against former FBI director, James Comey. This is someone who he was heading the FBI when Trump first took office in his first presidential term, and Trump fired him unceremoniously. And since then, Comey has been a major critic of the president. And Trump's Justice Department has brought multiple prosecutions against James Comey.

There are many other investigations going on that are also targeting critics of the president. So, this is an area in which seeing what happens in these cases is going to be really important to understanding the power of the president, potentially to direct the Justice Department to target people in ways that may not conform to the ways that the Justice Department traditionally runs and evaluates cases.

Dana Taylor:

Aysha Bagchi is USA TODAY's Justice Department correspondent. Aysha, it's always a pleasure speaking with you. Thank you so much for taking the time.

Aysha Bagchi:

I'm glad to be here, Dana. Thank you.

Dana Taylor:

Thanks for listening to USA TODAY's The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. The Excerpt helps you start your day. Tap, follow, or subscribe so it's here every weekday morning.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump board loses Kennedy Center court fight. Are more defeats ahead? | The Excerpt