Every Trump Lawsuit Calmly Explained (as of April 2026)

Every Trump lawsuit, in one calm place. Fifteen months, six hundred cases, thirty-five Supreme Court emergency orders, and one legal analyst trying to make sense of it without raising his voice. This is a long-form legal treatise covering every significant lawsuit involving Donald Trump and the second Trump administration from Inauguration Day 2025 through April 2026. Personal and official. Plaintiff and defendant. Criminal and civil. The Carroll verdicts, the Manhattan appeal, the dismissed Georgia RICO case, the $75 billion Trump has sought as a plaintiff, the birthright citizenship fight now before the Supreme Court, the IEEPA tariff ruling that cost the government $160 billion, the Alien Enemies Act deportations, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the four law firm executive orders, Harvard's win, Columbia's surrender, the looming death of Humphrey's Executor, and the judges whose names will still be in the footnotes a hundred years from now. No hot takes. No doom-scrolling. Just fifteen years of copyright-defense habits applied to the biggest docket in American legal history, delivered at a pace you can actually listen to. Put it on while you fold laundry. Pour something. We'll be boring together. What you'll get: A complete case-by-case walkthrough of every major second-term lawsuit. Plain-language explanations of the constitutional doctrines at stake. The actual judicial reasoning, paraphrased carefully and attributed by judge. Aggregate numbers on the shadow docket, the loss rates, and the defiance rate. An honest accounting of what's been declared illegal versus what's actually been stopped. Resources and trackers mentioned in this video: Just Security Litigation Tracker: https://www.justsecurity.org/107087/tracker-litigation-legal-challenges-trump-administration/ Brennan Center Shadow Docket Tracker: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/supreme-court-shadow-docket-tracker-challenges-trump-administration Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse (Michigan Law): https://clearinghouse.net/ SCOTUSblog interim docket coverage: https://www.scotusblog.com/ Lawfare: https://www.lawfaremedia.org/ If this helped you think a little more clearly today, hit subscribe. New long-form legal explainers every week, plus shorter breakdowns when the docket breaks fast. I read the comments and I answer the interesting ones. Support the channel: https://patreon.com/ljfrench https://postcardstocongress.org #LawfulMasses #SupremeCourt #TrumpLawsuits #ConstitutionalLaw #LegalAnalysis 00:00:00 - Introduction: Calming Signals 00:02:41 - Part 1: Cases where Trump is personally a party 00:04:04 - The Manhattan Hush-Money Case 00:06:39 - The Jan 6th, 2021 Prosecution 00:07:12 - The Classified Documents Charges 00:07:45 - The Georgia State Racketeering Case 00:09:10 - The E. Jean Carrol Verdicts 00:09:27 - Carrol 2 00:10:15 - Carrol 1 00:10:49 - $500 Million Fraud Judgement 00:12:21 - Trump as a Plaintiff 00:13:02 - ABC News, CBS/Paramount 00:14:00 - Wall Street Journal / Rupert Murdouche 00:14:37 - BBC 00:14:58 - JP Morgan / Jamie Diamon / Cap One / IRS / Treasury 00:16:36 - Part 2: Birthright Citizenship 00:19:24 - Trump v. CASA 00:21:47 - Part 3: Trans Ban & DEI Bad 00:22:13 - Talbot v. Trump 00:22:35 - Shilling v. Trump 00:23:51 - DEI 00:24:07 - Nadohe v. Trump 00:24:47 - Dept. of Education 00:25:06 - Part 4: National Guard Deployment 00:26:45 - Part 5: DOGE 00:27:24 - Treasury Payment System 00:28:26 - Alliance for Retired Americans v. Bessent 00:28:55 - AFSCME v. SSA 00:29:27 - The Federal Advisory Committee Cases 00:30:26 - The Mass Firing of Probabtionary Employees 00:31:24 - AFGE v. Trump 00:33:22 - USAID and the Wood Chipper 00:34:01 - Doe v. Musk 00:35:18 - The CFPB 00:37:09 - The Dept of Education 00:38:39 - The Federal Employees Union 00:39:15 - AFGE v. Noem 00:39:50 - Part 6: Immigration & Deportation 00:40:18 - Alien Enemies Act 00:41:42 - JGG v. Trump 00:44:24 - Kilmar Abrego Garcia 00:48:51 - Temporary Protected Status 00:49:22 - NAACP v. Trump 00:49:50 - Miot v. Trump 00:50:26 - Sanctuary Cities & International Students 00:51:32 - Part 7: Tariffs 00:55:17 - Refunds 00:57:04 - Part 8: First Amendment Cases. Law Firms, Universities, Press 01:00:56 - Harvard and Colombia 01:02:57 - NPR and PBS 01:04:31 - Part 9: Indepedent Agencies & The Death of Humphrey's Executor 01:06:01 - Wilcox v. Trump 01:07:13 - Trump v. Slaughter 01:08:29 - Trump v. Cook 01:09:32 - Boyle v. Trump 01:09:43 - Samuels v. Trump 01:09:49 - Perlmutter v. Blanche 01:10:18 - Part 10: Impoundment Cases 01:11:26 - New York v. Trump 01:13:11 - Inspectors General 01:14:29 - Part 11: Supreme Court - Midterm 01:16:20 - Calvinball Jurisprudence 01:17:00 - Part 12: Final Inventory 01:18:43 - Leonard Thoughts 01:20:20 - Lawful Masses Needs Your Support