October 1, 2026
President Donald Trump has won and lost some as the Supreme Court wraps its final week of a term focused on executive power.
The justices said Monday that Trump can fire leaders of independent agencies with one exception, ruling that central banker Lisa Cook can keep her job at the Federal Reserve for now.
The court said states can count late-arriving mailed ballots, rejecting a Trump-led challenge. It declined to consider Trump’s push to toss a $5 million jury verdict that he sexually abused writer E. Jean Carroll. And it turned away Alan Dershowitz ’s effort to rewrite the U.S. libel law standards.
Trump called the Supreme Court ruling that ballots postmarked by Election Day can be counted days after an election a “tremendous loss.”
Trump posted on social media that the decision makes it more important for his SAVE America Act to pass. The measure would require proof of citizenship and include a ban on mail-in ballots unless that person is sick, disabled, traveling, or deployed by the military, Trump noted.
“There is only one reason to oppose — CHEATING!” Trump said.
The top election officials in Washington and Oregon — states that conduct elections mostly by mail — commended Monday’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowing states to continue counting late arriving mail ballots.
Oregon allows mail ballots that are postmarked by Election Day and received in the seven days following to be counted. In Washington, mail ballots can be counted if they are postmarked by Election Day and received 21 days after a general election or 14 days after a primary.
RNC Chairman Joe Gruters said the court’s decision upholding state practices of accepting all ballots postmarked by Election Day is a reason to pass the president’s proposed elections bill that is stalled on Capitol Hill.
“If we want fair and secure elections, Election Day should mean exactly what it says, which is why this decision makes it even more imperative that Congress pass the SAVE America Act,” Gruters said.
In another case, a majority of the justices ruled that presidents have free rein to fire agency heads at will, despite federal laws that require a cause for such dismissals and a previous court ruling from 91 years ago.
“It is such an Honor to be the sitting President who won this Historic and Unprecedented Ruling, one of the most important ever given with respect to Presidential Powers,” Trump posted on social media.
The justices ruled in the case of former Federal Trade Commission member Rebecca Slaughter. The decision’s logic extends to the National Labor Relations Board, the Merit Systems Protection Board, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
The Supreme Court’s decision, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said, gives Trump a “permission slip to turn independent federal agencies into members-only clubs for his golf buddies and cronies.”
Slaughter once served as Schumer’s chief counsel.
Reacting to the decision in the Carroll case, the president said in a social media post that it was “a Fake Case” brought against him by a woman he claims he never met.
“I will continue the fight against this Weaponization and Lawfare Case against me, including the ridiculous claim of Defamation, with all of my power and strength,” Trump wrote.
He also said the case, in which a jury found that he sexually abused the writer in New York City in the 1990s and later defamed her, is “really against the United States of America, and all it stands for.”
In a statement Monday, Carroll said the decision affirms the jury’s verdict will stand. “His multiple efforts to appeal that verdict have all failed, and today’s ruling ends his quest to avoid accountability for his actions,” she said.
Trump said he lost his effort to remove the Federal Reserve’s Lisa Cook “on a strictly procedural basis” and would still seek to remove the central bank governor.
The court ruled 5-4 that the Federal Reserve’s Lisa Cook can remain on the Fed board as she challenges the administration’s attempts to fire her over claims of mortgage fraud, which she has denied.
Trump said in a social media post that “we will take appropriate action immediately to make sure that someone who has committed wrongdoing will not be making vital decisions concerning the Welfare of the United States of America!”
The firing attempt “was never about mortgage documents signed years ago” but rather “was an attempt to remove me on a manufactured pretext because I refused to bow to political pressure” from Trump, who has long sought lower interest rates from the central bank, Cook said in a written statement reacting to the court’s ruling.
Trump fired Cook last August, citing allegations that she had committed fraud in mortgage documents she signed in June and July of 2021. The Biden appointee sued to keep her job, and lower courts ruled she could remain while the case is litigated. The Supreme Court on Monday upheld those rulings.
The Supreme Court refused Monday to revive prominent attorney Alan Dershowitz’s defamation lawsuit against CNN over its coverage of remarks he made while defending Trump during his 2020 impeachment.
Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas dissented from the majority decision, saying legal standards for public figures who claim defamation should be reconsidered.
Dershowitz said the news network aired only part of a comment he made, distorting his meaning to make him look like he’d “lost his mind,” according to court documents.
The network said that multiple outlets had interpreted his remarks in a similar way, and Dershowitz couldn’t show CNN was trying to mischaracterize what he said.
Dershowitz had urged the justices to reconsider New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, the landmark First Amendment case that made it harder for public figures to win libel lawsuits by requiring proof that an outlet either knowingly published something false or showed a reckless disregard for the truth.
The Supreme Court said Monday it will consider a Republican push to enforce strict Arizona voting laws passed in the swing state after the 2020 election.
The high court has allowed some similar rules to take effect temporarily before, including Arizona’s proof-of-citizenship requirement for state and local elections and a Virginia purge of voter rolls that the state said was aimed at keeping noncitizens from voting.
President Donald Trump’s Republican administration joined the appeal after lower courts found the measures violated federal voting laws.
The high court is expected to hear arguments in the fall and hand down an opinion after the midterm elections.
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