Nina Totenberg

Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.

The Trump plan overturns policies adopted by six previous administrations, including his own first term, that allowed what the plaintiffs say was their ability to list on their passports what they refer to as their apparent transgender identity instead of their sex at birth.

But in the second administration, Trump reversed course, allowing only the designation of a person's sex at birth.

Transgender passport applicants went to court, contending the new rule amounted to unconstitutional sex discrimination.

A lower court agreed, but yesterday the Supreme Court, bowing to the Trump administration's appeal, allowed the new Trump plan to be put in place for now.

Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.

In an unsigned opinion, the six-member conservative court majority was unusually blunt, declaring that the Trump administration was suffering a form of irreparable injury by not being allowed to carry out a policy with foreign affairs implications.

In a strongly worded dissent,

Justice Katonji Brown-Jackson, speaking for the court's three liberals, accused the majority of once again paving the way for immediate infliction of injury without adequate or really any justification.

Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.

The Supreme Court's conservative supermajority has in the past been receptive to Trump's claims of presidential authority.

But most of those Trump victories came in cases involving the so-called emergency docket, allowing Trump policies to take effect on a temporary basis while the litigation played out in the lower courts.

The tariff cases are the real thing.

with the court having ordered full briefing and expedited arguments.

On its face, Trump's opponents have a strong case, but the court is often reluctant to second-guess presidential determinations on questions of national security.

Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.

Tariffs are the hallmark of Trump's economic policy, and he has said on Truth Social that if he loses this case and is not able to move quickly to use the power of tariffs, he would be, quote, defenseless, leading perhaps even to the ruination of our nation.

Indeed, Trump flirted with the idea of attending today's argument and

but in the end decided against being the first president to do that.

Instead, his treasury secretary will be there.