The Oval Office photo looks like a postcard from power: President Donald Trump at his desk, announcing a new “critical mineral reserve,” all crisp flags and high-gloss authority. But outside the frame, the administration’s other, less photogenic project is picking a fight with the one branch of government that doesn’t applaud on cue—the courts.
And now a conservative former federal judge is warning that the fight is about to get ugly in the way only the judiciary can make ugly: slow, procedural, and devastating.
Michael Luttig, a longtime Republican legal figure, told the “Legal AF” podcast this week that federal judges are finally “standing up” to Trump, and that the system is poised to unleash what he called a judicial “tsunami.”
In his telling, the era of Donald Trump swaggering past court orders as if they’re optional reading may be nearing its end—not because the president has suddenly found humility, but because judges have found something sturdier than patience.
President Donald Trump is set to launch a strategic critical-minerals stockpile with $12 billion in seed money, a bid to insulate manufacturers from supply shocks as the US works to slash its reliance on Chinese rare earths and other metals pic.twitter.com/Aen88BNH7s
— Altitude Capital (@Altitude_cap) February 2, 2026
Luttig’s message wasn’t subtle or soothing. He argued that the courts’ posture has changed because public opinion has shifted against the Trump administration, and he delivered the kind of sweeping line that’s made for headlines: “Frankly, every American is against Donald Trump today except his die-in-the-wool MAGA, I believe, and of course, the Congress of the United States.”
That’s not a legal claim; it’s a political one. But Luttig’s point was more interesting than the hyperbole: he said this outside pressure gave lower-court judges “the needed courage” to do what they “knew they had to do and wanted to do all along,” and he described “floodgates” opening as rulings piled up.
There’s an uncomfortable truth tucked inside that framing. Judges are supposed to be insulated from politics, guided by law, not vibes. And yet anyone who watches the judiciary closely knows it’s made of humans in robes, living in a real country, reacting to the temperature like the rest of us. Luttig is essentially saying the courts are remembering they have a spine—and they’re not going to apologize for using it.
Trump is set to launch a strategic critical minerals stockpile with $12 billion in seed money, marking the US' latest attempt to offset what policymakers view as Chinese manipulation of prices for lithium, nickel, rare earths and other critical minerals https://t.co/RRO13UtgqF pic.twitter.com/NJDTtqyDuo
— Reuters (@Reuters) February 2, 2026
The underlying accusation is that the Donald Trump administration has treated court orders as obstacles to be sidestepped—ignored when inconvenient—and has publicly attacked judges when their decisions run counter to the White House. Luttig told “Legal AF” that the judiciary is now responding with renewed “vigor and courage” to rein in what he described as “lawlessness.”
If you’ve followed Donald Trump’s political career, the script is familiar: pressure the institution, delegitimize the referee, dare the system to stop you. What’s different now, Luttig suggests, is that the system is starting to stop him.
That’s where the “tsunami” metaphor matters. A tsunami isn’t one wave. It’s a sequence—relentless, compounding, structural. It’s the kind of force that doesn’t need to shout because it doesn’t need to persuade. It just arrives.
And that’s the dread, if you’re the administration: you can bluster at a judge on television, but you can’t campaign your way out of an injunction. You can rage-post about “activist courts,” but deadlines still hit, filings still come due, and contempt findings still exist in the real world.
Trump administration looks to create $12 billion critical mineral reserve. pic.twitter.com/rfa5YeCJkw
— Neelotpal Srivastav (@NS_Neelotpal) February 2, 2026
Luttig’s warning lands, too, because he’s not delivering it from the usual ideological bunker. He’s a conservative, not a liberal resistance celebrity. When he says lower courts needed “courage,” he’s implying something damning about how abnormal this moment has become—and how long the system tolerated abnormal behavior.
Of course, a forecast isn’t an outcome. A “tsunami” can break on the rocks of appeals, delay, and political counterattacks. But the larger point holds: if the Donald Trump administration keeps gambling that the judiciary will blink first, it may be misreading the one institution built to move slowly—and then, suddenly, to strike with permanence.
Inquisitr has reached out to Donald Trump’s reps for comments.
