Americans were horrified to hear that they’d been pumping millions of dollars into transgender comic books in Peru, condoms for Afghans, a Baghdad “Sesame Street,” and soup kitchens for terrorists. But they were even more shocked Wednesday when the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to keep funding those projects after the president had cut them. By a 5-4 vote, the majority decided that a single unelected judge can force Donald Trump to restart its $2 billion investment in USAID, no matter how much garbage it bankrolls.

This all started on day one of the Trump administration, when the new president pulled the plug on the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) until his team could get a handle on what, exactly, the office was funding. Based on the White House’s jaw-dropping discoveries (line items for sex changes in Guatemala, DEI musicals in Ireland, “personalized” birth control in developing countries, and more), Trump hit the kill switch on thousands of controversial grants and awards, gutting around 92% of the agency’s projects and putting USAID under the State Department’s control.

Unsurprisingly, the recipients of that gravy train sued, demanding payment for the work they’d done. A last-minute Biden appointee at the U.S. District Court of D.C., Judge Amir Ali (who barely survived his February 2024 confirmation vote 50-49), directed the administration to pay its outstanding invoices. The president appealed to the Supreme Court, where Amy Coney Barrett and John Roberts joined the liberal justices in denying the White House’s plea, sending the case back to Ali to “clarify what obligations the Government must fulfill to ensure compliance with the temporary restraining order, with due regard for the feasibility of any compliance timelines.”

In a livid dissent, Justice Samuel Alito (joined by Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, and Brett Kavanaugh) unleashed on his five colleagues. “Does a single district-court judge who likely lacks jurisdiction have the unchecked power to compel the Government of the United States to pay out (and probably lose forever) 2 billion taxpayer dollars? The answer to that question should be an emphatic ‘No,’ but a majority of this Court apparently thinks otherwise,” he wrote. “I am stunned.” He continued:

“[Judge Ali] took two steps that, unless corrected, would prevent any higher court from reviewing and possibly stopping the payments. First, he labeled the order as a non-appealable TRO, and second, he demanded that the money be paid within 36 hours. …

“The government must apparently pay the $2 billion posthaste — not because the law requires it, but simply because a District Judge so ordered. As the Nation’s highest court, we have a duty to ensure that the power entrusted to federal judges by the Constitution is not abused. Today, the Court fails to carry out that responsibility. …

“Today, the Court makes a most unfortunate misstep that rewards an act of judicial hubris and imposes a $2 billion penalty on American taxpayers…”

Acting U.S. Solicitor General Sarah Harris had argued Monday that “[o]rdering the Trump administration to make payments on a timeline of the lower court’s choosing” and “without regard to whether the requests are legitimate, or even due yet intrudes on the president’s foreign affairs powers” and executive branch oversight when it comes to distributing foreign aid.

As outraged as taxpayers, the constitutionalist justices, and President Trump may be by this decision, National Review’s Dan McLaughlin suggests that this may not be the last word. “By sending it back to Judge Ali with such open-ended instructions,” he writes, “the Court is encouraging a situation in which he will read this as a green light to do whatever he wants, while the administration argues that he is continuing to exceed his authority. That means the dispute is likely to end up back at the Court, because the administration isn’t going to let Judge Ali destroy its right to appeal by using a [temporary restraining order] or a preliminary injunction to make it pay out money it then cannot get back if it successfully appeals.”

In the meantime, McLaughlin points out, “[T]he Court’s order doesn’t say specifically that the administration has to pay anything to anybody, and seems to contemplate that Judge Ali will merely order that payments be made ‘for work already completed.’” For now, “It’s clear that litigation over what the Court just did will continue. That alone is an argument against it. Then again, as we have seen in past disputes, the fact that Roberts and Barrett are hesitant to wade in at this stage doesn’t tell us for certain where they’ll come out if the case returns to the Court on a less-urgent timeline and in a clearer posture.”

As for the original problem, USAID’s stunning mission creep, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo agrees that while the agency has been a force for good, it needs a radical overhaul. “Much like many of the post-World War II institutions … the bureaucracy began to hijack [it] in ways that benefited the Left and not America,” he told Family Research Council President Tony Perkins on “This Week on Capitol Hill.” “We saw that not only at USAID. We saw that with UNWRA,” which, he points out, Trump stopped funding in his first term. “We’ve seen it at the General Assembly, at the U.N. We’ve seen it in the World Health Organization. These global institutions have been taken over by a view of the world that is deeply antagonistic to the United States of America. And so,” Pompeo agreed, “the fact that the Trump administration today is trying to get that back reoriented, get it focused on the things that the American people actually benefit from, makes an enormous amount of sense.”

During his time as secretary of State, USAID didn’t directly report to his department as it does now under Marco Rubio. But still, “it was an important part of what we were doing. … [W]e worked diligently to make sure none of that money flowed to organizations that were supporting abortions anywhere around the world. But goodness,” Pompeo admitted, “the billions of dollars that were there were hard to track. And I think what is trying to be done by DOGE and by the leadership now at USAID is a worthy project. And we should first identify where [the money is] going. And then make sure, fundamentally … whether it’s money that’s going to the U.N. or to any other global institution, it’s being used for something that matters to the American people.”

Regardless of how the legal challenges pan out, Pompeo warned, “If you don’t eliminate [the waste, fraud, and abuse], it will grow back. If you don’t take it down — root and branch — and redirect it, and then put people in place that will actually execute the mission of the commander in chief, it will come off course. The Left loves government,” he reiterated, “and they focus on and spend their lives dedicated to shaping [it] in a way that delivers for them.” That’s why, he continued, “Those of us who are conservative Christians need to make sure that we don’t allow those institutions to come unhinged from the things that the American people demand in our election process. That’s pretty straightforward. You have to be aggressive. You have to be thorough. You have to be complete. You can’t operate just at the edge.”

At the end of the day, the former secretary said, “These things matter an awful lot to us — both as an economic matter and then importantly, as a moral matter as well. The United States has always been a nation that understood that our Judeo-Christian traditions were important to us, and we ought to make sure that we are unambiguous about making clear who we are as Americans, every place we go.”