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US Supreme Court Will Uphold Trump Disqualification Predicts Top Legal Expert
A top legal expert predicts the U.S. Supreme Court will uphold Tuesday evening’s Colorado Supreme Court’s groundbreaking decision that Donald Trump violated the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution by engaging in insurrection and is disqualified from holding public office, including the presidency. As a result, the court ruled, he is disqualified from the Colorado ballot.
Neal Katyal, the well-known former Acting Solicitor General of the United States who is now a Professor of National Security Law at Georgetown University Law Center, said on MSNBC the conservative justices on the U.S. Supreme Court have little choice but to apply their “textualism” method of reading the Constitution to the Colorado case. Textualism requires the text of the Constitution to be not interpreted but applied via a plain reading of the words on the document.
If they do, Katyal said, “Trump will be disqualified from the ballot.”
Section Three of the 14th Amendment reads: “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office…who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States…to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.” (Abbreviated, full version here.)
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Katyal is no stranger to the U.S. Supreme Court, In 2017 he broke “the record held by Thurgood Marshall for the minority lawyer with the most oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court.”
MSNBC’s Katie Phang told viewers, “the Colorado Supreme Court has ruled that Donald Trump has been disqualified from being included on the GOP primary ballot going into 2024.”
Calling the Colorado ruling a “predictable decision,” he noted that “section three bars insurrectionists from holding public office, that’s part of our Constitution, just like you’ve got to be 35 in order to be president or a natural born citizen.”
“And what the Colorado Supreme Court did today is just read that provision for what it means, which is, if you’re engaged in insurrection, you can’t run for president.”
Noting the court stayed its own decision, knowing it would be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, Katyal called the 217 page ruling “incredibly persuasive reasoning.” He predicted, “what’s going to happen now is the United States Supreme Court will be asked to hear this case, they will undoubtedly hear the case and make a ruling and that will cover all 50 states, but for now, Donald Trump is not allowed to run in Colorado.”
He also observed the ruling “follows pretty much directly from the text of the Constitution. So you know, someone like Donald Trump who claims to be a strict textualist when it comes to the Constitution has been hoisted on his own petard.”
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Phang asked, “do you think then, if they’re intellectually honest, that the members of SCOTUS will not only take up this case, but would be forced to follow the text of section three of the 14th amendment and affirm the decision to not let Donald Trump be on a ballot?”
“I do,” Katyal definitively replied. “When it comes to Donald Trump, it’s important to remember this is the court that ruled against him many times in the 2020 election.”
“It’s the court that ruled against his executive privilege claims over the January 6 committee in an eight-to-one decision last year.”
“So, you know, I think that a fair-minded reading of this provision really compels this result.”
The Colorado Supreme Court, he added, “took pains to say, you know – this is just a quote from the opinion – ‘we’re mindful in our solemn duty to apply the law without fear or favor, and without being swayed by public reaction to the decisions that the law mandates we reach.’ And I think that the United States Supreme Court would apply that same standard. Trump will be disqualified from the ballot.”
Image: Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour
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Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney drew a standing ovation at the World Economic Forum in Davos after warning that the global order has ruptured.
“Let me be direct: We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition,” Carney said, as The New York Times reported.
“I will talk today about the breaking of the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a brutal reality where the geopolitics of the great powers is not subject to any constraint,” he explained.
“Every day we are reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry,” he said. “That the rules-based order is fading. That the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.”
Carney did not say President Donald Trump’s name, but he did tell his audience, “recently, great powers began using economic integration as weapons. Tariffs as leverage. Financial infrastructure as coercion. Supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited.”
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“You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration, when integration becomes the source of your subordination.”
He also said that “there is a strong tendency for countries to go along to get along. To accommodate. To avoid trouble. To hope that compliance will buy safety.”
“It won’t,” he warned.
Carney said that “intermediate powers like Canada, are not powerless. They have the capacity to build a new order that encompasses our values, such as respect for human rights, sustainable development, solidarity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the various states.”
And he warned that those powers “must act together, because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu.”
The Times noted that Carney’s speech came “not long after” President Donald Trump “posted an A.I. image on social media that included a map of American flags superimposed over both Canada and the United States,” along with the U.S. flag on Greenland, Venezuela, and Cuba.
Very important and very well put remarks by 🇨🇦 PM Mark Carney. It’s time to take down the sign and speak up. pic.twitter.com/Ky00CNMYVM
— Carl Bildt (@carlbildt) January 20, 2026
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Image via Reuters
In a stark warning on the first anniversary of President Donald Trump’s second term in office, The Bulwark’s editor, Jonathan V. Last, suggests that under Trump, America may adopt Putinism as its domestic policy, having already adopted it for its foreign policy.
“Will Putinism take over American domestic politics, too?” Last asks, in an opinion piece titled, “This Is the End.”
“America has adopted Putinism as its modus operandi for foreign affairs,” he says. “Why would America not also adopt Putinism in its domestic affairs? Why would the American regime tolerate free and fair elections or the transfer of power to an opposition party?”
Pursuing the question, Last continued: “Are there examples of expansionist, rogue regimes which ignored international law and attempted to subjugate free people abroad, but respected liberal democratic outcomes that terminated their possession of power at home?”
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To those who suggest Trumpism is temporary, Last suggests he disagrees.
“Many people comfort themselves by saying some version of ‘Donald Trump is an aberration’ or ‘This isn’t who we are,'” he writes.
But, he continues, “If Trump was an aberration and his actions did not have sufficient public support, then he would be removed from office. There are two mechanisms for doing so—impeachment and the 25th Amendment.”
“Trump will not be removed from office; which allows one of two conclusions. Either: Trump’s policies are supported by a sufficient percentage of Americans to be viable; or America’s constitutional order is so ossified that it no longer functions to safeguard the will of the people.”
“Neither of these is an alibi,” Last warns, noting that, “either one supports the conclusion that the problem is not Trump. It is America and Americans. This is who we are. Like it or not.”
Last also makes several other predictions:
“The days of intelligence sharing between America and our former allies are drawing to a close.”
“The death of NATO.”
“Germany, Poland, and Canada will acquire nuclear weapons. So will Japan. Sweden, Australia, and South Korea may develop nuclear capabilities as well.”
“Europe will draw closer to China.”
“Greenland will become disputed territory.”
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Image via Reuters
Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent was met with mockery after explaining he wants to protect “mom and pop” owners who have up to a dozen homes they’ve bought as retirement investments.
Bessent and President Donald Trump have declared they want to ban large institutional investors from purchasing single-family homes as housing becomes more scarce and less affordable.
“We are going to give guidance at some point to see what is a mom and pop, that someone — maybe your parents — for their retirement, [bought] about 5, 10, 12 homes,” Bessent told Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
“So we don’t want to push the mom and pops out,” he continued. “We just want to push everyone else out.”
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Bessent, a former hedge fund manager, has an estimated net worth of $521 million, according to The Street.
Critics were quick to ridicule Bessent as out of touch.
“Good news for the forgotten man,” declared The Bulwark’s Tim Miller. “The mom and pop real estate investor who has purchased 12 homes can breathe easy, the Treasury Secretary is looking out for you.”
“These people are completely out of touch with how life is for you,” observed The Lincoln Project.
Governor Gavin Newsom’s Press Office commented, “Scott, people are trying to buy 1 house — to live in. Could the Trump Admin be any more out of touch?”
Bessent: “Someone, maybe your parents for their retirement have bought 5, 10, 12 homes.” pic.twitter.com/eUZXTmnhpH
— The Bulwark (@BulwarkOnline) January 20, 2026
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