For Trump v. Casa, I'm going to set aside the argument that "nationwide injunctions are bad" because it's not really relevant here. The court has had plenty of

For Trump v. Casa, I'm going to set aside the argument that "nationwide injunctions are bad" because it's not really relevant here. The court has had plenty of opportunities to shut down nationwide injunctions, 14 during the Biden administration according to your linked Wikipedia article, and I think you need to consider what it means that the court only now decides to close that door during this administration and this case, specifically. With regards to McMahon v. New York, what makes you think that the plaintiff is unlikely to succeed in the merits? The court can absolutely take into consideration the intent of the Trump administration and McMahon as his secretary to illegally shutter the Department of Education. On the one hand, you have the executive branch's ability to oversee a reduction in force; on the other, you have the executive reducing force as an end-run around the duty charged to them by law. If the "unitary executive theory" means that the executive can discharge duties they are bound by law to execute, then the Constitution is meaningless (as Sotomayor cites at the very beginning of her dissent, Article 2 section 3 charges the President to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed"). Your argument that irreparable harm extends only to the staff being fired is also naively narrow; the states brought the suit, not the staff of the DoEd. The states argue--correctly--that if the Department cannot carry out its duties, then a vast array of students and teachers that rely on services funded or administered by the DoEd would be harmed. It seems batshit to argue that the harms done to the executive by temporarily curtailing that power outweigh the harms that will be done to an uncertain but certainly vast number of people in the interim. It's worth noting that, in this case, providing relief simply means that the government must maintain the status quo for a few months or however long it takes for the case to work through the courts. Restoring someone's job with back pay is sufficient when one person is fired. It is not sufficient when the executive has eliminated 50% of a statutorily-mandated department of the federal government with an eye to cut more.