Much of what Donald Trump has done in his first eight days back in the White House is legally unjustifiable. What’s uncertain is whether the Supreme Court will do anything to stop him.

In two particularly egregious cases, Trump ordered an end to birthright citizenship for many Americans, and ordered the federal government to pause spending on a wide range of federal grants and loans already approved by Congress. While the order announcing the pause is confusing, early reporting suggests that tens of billions of dollars could be cut off (although the White House argued the order is more limited than it appears).

In both cases, the law is clear. The Reagan-appointed federal judge who blocked Trump’s birthright citizenship order said that in his 40 years on the bench he “can’t remember another case where the question presented is as clear as this one is.” (Birthright citizenship is a right enshrined in the Constitution.)

Similarly, the Department of Justice has long warned that there is no argument to justify a president’s decision not to spend money appropriated by Congress. As future Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote in a 1969 DOJ memo, “it is in our view extremely difficult to formulate a constitutional theory to justify a refusal by the President to comply with a congressional directive to spend.”

Assuming that Trump actually wants these orders to take effect — and it’s possible that they are nothing more than political stunts — he appears to be making a risky bet. The premise of many of Trump’s executive actions appears to be that the Supreme Court will let him get away with things that aren’t just illegal, but that, until recently, weren’t even considered debatable.

Sadly, the outcome of this bet is uncertain. A year ago, the idea that presidents are allowed to use their official powers to commit crimes was also considered laughable. Among other things, why would then-President Gerald Ford have pardoned former President Richard Nixon in 1974, for crimes Nixon allegedly committed using the power of the presidency, if Nixon were already immune from prosecution?

And yet, the Supreme Court’s Republican majority did not........

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