The enormous stakes in a new Supreme Court case about Trump’s mass firings

Demonstrators protest against mass layoffs outside the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, DC, on May 22, 2025.

In late May, a federal court handed down an order pausing President Donald Trump’s plans to fire a simply astonishing amount of federal workers. As Judge Susan Illston explains in her opinion, the proposed cuts are so sweeping that they would effectively shut down multiple federal programs.

To give just a few examples, Santa Clara County, one of the plaintiffs in this suit...