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Trump has launched attacks on federal judges who have ruled against the administration’s attempt to enact the president’s agenda at a breakneck pace
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President Donald Trump is using his administration as well as his own social media to launch attacks on federal judges who have ruled against his recent slew of executive orders, slowing down his attempts to instate his agenda.
On Friday evening, the president directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to begin investigating law firms that filed challenges to Trump’s actions – claiming the lawsuits were frivolous and caused delays. He asked her to recommend punitive actions that could hurt the law firms.
Meanwhile, Trump has turned to his social media to defend his attempts to end birthright citizenship, install the Department of Government Efficiency, drastically cut the federal workforce and redirect funding from agencies.
Among his specific comments, he called a federal judge in D.C. a “local, unknown Judge, a Grandstander” after the judge pushed back on Trump’s attempts to deport suspected Venezuelan gang members.
Since taking office, many of Trump’s executive orders have faced legal pushback and despite judges from the left and right political spectrum ruling against him, his administration has appealed many of the decisions and attacked the individual judges.
The president’s recent executive order calling for the end of the Department of Education is expected to face similar legal challenges.
While President Donald Trump gathered the media in the Oval Office to announce that Boeing had won the contract to build the Air Force’s next generation of fighter jet, he also took questions about a variety of current events.
Here are some highlights:
During a high-stakes hearing over Donald Trump’s use of a centuries-old wartime law to swiftly deport suspected Venezuelan gang members, a federal judge rebuked lawyers for the Department of Justice for their “intemperate and disrespectful language” in their responses to court orders.
Trump and his allies have threatened to impeach Judge James Boasberg after he temporarily blocked the administration from deporting immigrants under the Alien Enemies Act and questioned whether the government intentionally defied his court orders to turn planes around before they emptied out dozens of people into a prison in El Salvador last week.
A standoff between the judge, who has ordered the administration to respond to several questions about the flights, has reached a boiling point, and legal scholars and critics of the administration have warned that Trump’s apparent defiance has reached a dangerous constitutional crossroads.
Alex Woodward reports.
Despite the pressure food banks find themselves under, with funding down from pandemic highs and inflation high, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has chosen to pause and review existing programs, canceling some $500 million in deliveries.
Such an interruption can have serious consequences for people reliant on food banks — one in every six Americans — and especially those in rural areas.
Per The Washington Post:
Food banks across the country — already facing huge cuts to locally grown food assistance — learned this week that the U.S. Department of Agriculture is canceling $500 million in expected food deliveries, further disrupting help at a time when need continues to rise.
Vince Hall, chief government relations officer at Feeding America, the country’s largest hunger-relief organization, said some local food banks and food pantries were told that USDA deliveries of commodities such as cheese and meat are being canceled at least temporarily. Many others were not notified by federal officials that their deliveries were not coming, he said.
Hall characterized the USDA’s decision as a pause to review existing programs and said his organization is hoping the administration will resume purchases and deliveries “with minimum disruption on the flow of food.” Groups working in rural areas, which rely more on government food than gleaning, would be especially hard hit by a lack of commodities, he said.
Eric Garcia writes:
When President Donald Trump signed his executive order to dismantle the Department of Education, it should have caused consternation from the United States Congress. Presidents cannot unilaterally abolish cabinet departments; they require an act of Congress.
But rather, Trump received praise from almost all Republican lawmakers despite the fact that he subverted their power and took away their authority.
Only a few, like Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Chairman Bill Cassidy, who helped put Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s confirmation as Health and Human Services Secretary over the finish line, alluded to proposing legislation.
But it’s just the latest example of Congress utterly abdicating its duties in the name of Trump.
Continue reading…
The federal judge presiding over a challenge to Donald Trump’s ban on transgender service members in the U.S. military unloaded on government lawyers on Friday after the administration asked to dissolve a ruling that blocks the president’s order from taking effect.
Alex Woodward listened in.
President Donald Trump’s administration requested that the federal judge overseeing the challenge to Trump’s executive order aimed at the law firm Perkins Coie recuse herself from the case, alleging a “pattern of hostility” toward the president.
Justice Department lawyers said U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell’s impartiality could “reasonably be questioned.” They referenced her previous rulings against Trump and comments made in cases involving his supporters related to the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“This Court has not kept its disdain for President Trump secret,” the lawyers wrote in a court filing. “It has voiced its thoughts loudly—both inside and outside the courtroom.”
Last week, Howell temporarily blocked the Trump administration from enforcing much of its order against the Democratic-linked firm Perkins Coie, determining that it likely violated the U.S. Constitution.
The Trump administration has escalated its criticism of federal judges in recent weeks as courts have at times sought to limit Trump’s broad use of presidential power.
With reporting from Reuters
Columbia University has reportedly agreed to a series of sweeping changes the Trump administration demanded from the Ivy League university to restore $400 million in suspended federal funding.
The university will give police new powers to arrest students, ban face masks at protests, and appoint a university official to oversee changes at its Department of Middle East, South Asian and African Studies and Center for Palestine Studies.
Josh Marcus reports.
Richard Hall writes:
The election was decided more than four months ago and the next one is years away, but Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was in full campaign mode when she took to the stage in Las Vegas on Thursday afternoon.
“Are you ready to fight? Are you ready to win?” she shouted to a capacity crowd of more than 3,000 people. “We’re gonna take our country back.”
Ocasio-Cortez traveled across the country to join her political mentor Bernie Sanders on a “Fighting Oligarchy” tour that will hit several states this week.
Continue reading…
Nearly 250 years after America declared independence from Great Britain, President Donald Trump suggested he was open to taking a small step back towards the warm embrace of the British monarchy after a media outlet reported that King Charles III intends to extend an offer for the United States to join the Commonwealth of Nations.
The King is reportedly preparing to extend the offer of “associate membership” in the voluntary association of 56 nations, most of which have history as former British colonies. Trump, it seems, is open to the idea.
Andrew Feinberg reports.
An Elon Musk-backed group is offering voters in Wisconsin $100 to sign a petition opposing “activist judges” just two weeks ahead of a state Supreme Court election.
Musk’s Super PAC made a similar offer to swing state voters during last year’s election campaign. The political action committee, America PAC, revealed the petition in a Thursday night post on X. It says that each voter in the state who signs the petition will receive $100 in addition to another $100 for every signer they refer.
Gustaf Kilander reports.
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