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A federal judge’s decision to temporarily prevent the Trump administration from stripping birthright citizenship for some babies born in the U.S. is an early test of the legal landscape, after the Supreme Court greatly restricted the ability of judges to issue nationwide blocks of presidential policies.

On Thursday morning, in New Hampshire, U.S. District Judge Joseph Laplante granted class action status to a lawsuit that seeks to protect babies who would be denied birthright citizenship, and granted a temporary block of President Donald Trump’s order from going into effect throughout the country.

The decision brought hope to pregnant women and groups who were dealt a blow two weeks ago when the Supreme Court largely restricted the ability of federal judges to use one of the strongest tools at their disposal — the use of nationwide injunctions to prevent federal policies from going into effect.

The Supreme Court decision would have allowed Trump’s executive order to go into effect on July 27 in parts of the U.S.

In the aftermath, immigrants and their attorneys pivoted to seeking class action status for immigrant babies and parents in hopes of finding another way to stop the president.

“It was clear that the Supreme Court decision had closed one very important door for challenging policies, but it also in the process opened other doors,” Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow with the Migration Policy Institute, told NBC News.

The Supreme Court has not yet ruled on whether Trump’s executive order is unconstitutional and multiple lawsuits challenging it remain ongoing.

But its decision on June 27 left open an important avenue for plaintiffs to try to stop federal government policies nationwide through the use of class action lawsuits.

“This case is an early test for how litigants will adapt to the legal landscape after the Supreme Court’s death blow to national injunctions,” Chishti said. “It normally takes months, if not years, for an altered landscape to be observed. But since this is such an important constitutional issue, we are getting a chance to revisit the landscape within two weeks.”

Under Trump’s plan, birthright citizenship would be limited to those who have at least one parent who is a U.S. citizen or permanent resident. The order also denies citizenship to children whose mothers are temporarily in the United States, including those visiting under the Visa Waiver Program or as tourists, or who are students and whose fathers are not citizens or lawful permanent residents.

In the written order issued Thursday, Laplante wrote that the court certified class action status to the following group in issuing the nationwide block of Trump’s order: “All current and future persons who are born on or after February 20, 2025, where (1) that person’s mother was unlawfully present in the United States and the person’s father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth, or (2) that person’s mother’s presence in the United States was lawful but temporary, and the person’s father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth.”

Laplante, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, had previously denied issuing a nationwide injunction in a similar case earlier this year. Instead, he had issued a narrower order where he only blocked the policy from being enforced on members of groups that would be affected by Trump’s order.

A ‘viable’ legal challenge

But his order on Thursday effectively blocked Trump’s executive order from being enforced nationwide, at least temporarily.

“This was a ruling that certified a preliminary class of folks across the nation from a judge who was skeptical of nationwide injunctions, and so I think it shows that the class action mechanism is a viable one, that courts are willing to entertain,” said Haiyun Damon-Feng, an immigration and constitutional law professor at Cardozo School of Law.

Cody Wofsy, the American Civil Liberties Union’s lead attorney in the case, said after Thursday’s court hearing that Laplante’s order was “going to protect every single child around the country from this lawless, unconstitutional and cruel executive order.”

White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said in a statement to NBC News that the decision was “an obvious and unlawful attempt to circumvent the Supreme Court’s clear order against universal relief.”

“This judge’s decision disregards the rule of law by abusing class action certification procedures. The Trump Administration will be fighting vigorously against the attempts of these rogue district court judges to impede the policies President Trump was elected to implement,” Fields said in the statement.

The Trump administration has seven days to appeal Laplante’s temporary block to a higher court, and the issue could find itself back at the Supreme Court to determine if the judge’s order complies with last month’s ruling.

“It’s not the end right of the birthright question. We are probably going to see more fights take place over procedure, over the question of class certification, as well as the question of birthright citizenship on the merits,” Damon-Feng said.

Daniella Silva

Daniella Silva is a national reporter for NBC News, focusing on immigration and education.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. State Department fired more than 1,300 employees Friday in line with a dramatic reorganization plan from the Trump administration that critics say will damage America’s global leadership and efforts to counter threats abroad.

The department sent layoff notices to 1,107 civil servants and 246 foreign service officers with assignments in the United States, according to a senior department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters.

Notices said positions were being “abolished” and the employees would lose access to State Department headquarters in Washington and their email and shared drives by 5 p.m., according to a copy obtained by The Associated Press.

As fired employees packed their belongings, dozens of former colleagues, ambassadors, members of Congress and others spent a warm, humid day protesting outside. Holding signs saying, “Thank you to America’s diplomats” and “We all deserve better,” they mourned the institutional loss from the cuts and highlighted the personal sacrifice of serving in the foreign service.

“We talk about people in uniform serving. But foreign service officers take an oath of office, just like military officers,” said Anne Bodine, who retired from the State Department in 2011 after serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. “This is not the way to treat people who served their country and who believe in ‘America First.’”

While lauded by President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and their Republican allies as overdue and necessary to make the department leaner and more efficient, the cuts have been roundly criticized by current and former diplomats who say they will weaken U.S. influence and the ability to counter existing and emerging threats abroad.

Antony Blinken, who served as President Joe Biden’s secretary of state, posted on X late Friday: “Thinking today of the men and women of the State Department — Foreign Service and Civil Service. Their dedication to serving the national interest and the American people is second to none.”

The layoffs are part of big changes to State Department work

The Trump administration has pushed to reshape American diplomacy and worked aggressively to shrink the size of the federal government, including mass dismissals driven by the Department of Government Efficiency and moves to dismantle whole departments like the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Education Department.

USAID, the six-decade-old foreign assistance agency, was absorbed into the State Department last week after the administration dramatically slashed foreign aid funding.

Late Friday, the U.S. Institute of Peace’s 300 employees began receiving notices that they were being let go, marking the second time they have been terminated. USIP is an independent, nonprofit think tank funded by Congress.

A recent ruling by the Supreme Court cleared the way for the layoffs to start, while lawsuits challenging the legality of the cuts continue to play out. The department had advised staffers Thursday that it would be sending layoff notices to some of them soon.

In a May letter notifying Congress about the reorganization, the department said it had just over 18,700 U.S.-based employees and was looking to reduce the workforce by 18% through layoffs and voluntary departures, including deferred resignation programs.

“It’s not a consequence of trying to get rid of people. But if you close the bureau, you don’t need those positions,” Rubio told reporters Thursday during a visit to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. “Understand that some of these are positions that are being eliminated, not people.”

Foreign service officers affected will be placed immediately on administrative leave for 120 days, after which they will formally lose their jobs, according to an internal notice obtained by the AP. For most civil servants, the separation period is 60 days, it said.

Protesters gather to criticize the job cuts

Inside and just outside the State Department, employees spent over an hour applauding their departing colleagues, who got more support — and sometimes hugs — from protesters and others gathered across the street.

As speakers took to a bullhorn, people behind them held signs in the shape of gravestones that said “democracy,” “human rights” and “diplomacy.”

“It’s just heartbreaking to stand outside these doors right now and see people coming out in tears, because all they wanted to do was serve this country,” said Sen. Andy Kim, a New Jersey Democrat who worked as a civilian adviser for the State Department in Afghanistan during the Obama administration.

Robert Blake, who served as a U.S. ambassador under the George W. Bush and Obama administrations, said he came to support his peers at a very “unjust time.”

“I have a lot of friends who served very loyally and with distinction and who are being fired for nothing to do with their performance,” Blake said.

Gordon Duguid, a 31-year veteran of the foreign service, said of the Trump administration: “They’re not looking for people who have the expertise … they just want people who say, ‘OK, how high’” to jump.

“That’s a recipe for disaster,” he added.

The American Foreign Service Association, the union that represents U.S. diplomats, said it opposed the job cuts during “a moment of great global instability.”

“Losing more diplomatic expertise at this critical global moment is a catastrophic blow to our national interests,” the AFSA said in a statement. “These layoffs are untethered from merit or mission.”

As the layoffs began, paper signs started going up around the State Department. “Colleagues, if you remain: resist fascism,” said one.

An employee who was among those laid off said she printed them about a week ago, when the Supreme Court cleared way for the reductions. The employee spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation.

She worked with about a dozen colleagues to put up the signs. They focused on bathrooms, where there are no security cameras, although others went in more public spaces.

“Nobody wants to feel like these guys can just get away with this,” she said.

The State Department is undergoing a big reorganization

The State Department is planning to eliminate some divisions tasked with oversight of America’s two-decade involvement in Afghanistan, including an office focused on resettling Afghan nationals who worked alongside the U.S. military.

Jessica Bradley Rushing, who worked at the Office of the Coordinator for Afghan Relocation Efforts, known as CARE, said she was shocked when she received another dismissal notice Friday after she had already been put on administrative leave in March.

“I spent the entire morning getting updates from my former colleagues at CARE, who were watching this carnage take place within the office,” she said, adding that every person on her team received a notice. “I never even anticipated that I could be at risk for that because I’m already on administrative leave.”

The State Department said the reorganization will affect more than 300 bureaus and offices, as it eliminates divisions it describes as doing unclear or overlapping work. It says Rubio believes “effective modern diplomacy requires streamlining this bloated bureaucracy.”

The letter to Congress was clear that the reorganization is also intended to eliminate programs — particularly those related to refugees and immigration, as well as human rights and democracy promotion — that the Trump administration believes have become ideologically driven in a way that is incompatible with its priorities and policies.

___

Lee reported from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and Amiri from New York. Chris Megerian and Gary Fields in Washington contributed.

___

Follow the AP’s coverage of the U.S. Department of State at https://apnews.com/hub/us-department-of-state.

KERRVILLE, Texas (AP) — President Donald Trump on Friday toured the devastation from catastrophic flooding in Texas and lauded state and local officials, even amid mounting criticism that they may have failed to warn residents quickly enough that a deadly wall of water was coming their way.

Trump has repeatedly promised to do away with the Federal Emergency Management Agency as part of his larger pledges to dramatically shrink the size of government, and he’s fond of decrying officials in Democrat-run states hit by past natural disasters and tragedy.

But the president struck a far more somber and sympathetic tone while visiting America’s most populous Republican state — highlighting the heartbreak of what happened while effusively praising elected officials and first responders alike.

“The search for the missing continues. The people that are doing it are unbelievable,” Trump, seated with officials around a table with emblazoned with a black-and-white “Texas Strong” banner, said at a makeshift emergency operations center inside an expo hall in Kerrville.

He later added, “You couldn’t get better people, and they’re doing the job like I don’t think anybody else could, frankly.”

Since the July 4 disaster, which killed at least 129 people and left more than 170 missing, the president has been conspicuously silent on his past promises to shutter FEMA and return disaster response to the states. Instead, he’s focused on the once-in-a-lifetime nature of what occurred in central Texas’ Hill Country and its human toll.

“We just visited with incredible families. They’ve been devastated,” the president said of a closed-door meeting he and first lady Melania Trump had with the relatives of some of those killed or missing.

Honoring the victims

Trump’s shift in focus underscores how tragedy can complicate political calculations, even though he has made slashing the federal workforce a centerpiece of his administration’s opening months. He spent a lot of time Friday discussing the victims from Camp Mystic, the century-old all-girls Christian summer camp where at least 27 people were killed.

“They were there because they loved God. And, as we grieve this unthinkable tragedy, we take comfort in the knowledge that God has welcomed those little beautiful girls into his comforting arms in heaven,” Trump said.

The first lady described meeting “beautiful young ladies” from the area who she said gave her a “special bracelet from the camp in honor of all the little girls that lost their lives.” She promised to return to support the camp in the future.

Trump approved Texas’ request to extend the major disaster declaration beyond Kerr County to eight additional counties, making them eligible for direct financial assistance to recover and rebuild.

“All across the country Americans’ hearts are shattered,” he said. “I had to be here as president.”

Despite saying that he didn’t want to talk politics, Trump couldn’t help himself. During the roundtable, he bragged briefly about his administration reducing the cost of eggs around the country and, in a response to a question about Democratic criticisms of the flood response, said, “All they want to do is criticize.”

“They’re getting just absolutely clobbered ‘cause everyone sees what an incredible job the governor did,” Trump said of Democrats. “Everybody in this room, everybody at this table in particular.”

In praise of FEMA

He also still insisted “we’ve got some good people” running FEMA. That is nonetheless a far cry from his call mere weeks ago to begin “phasing out” FEMA.

At the White House, Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, similarly dodged questions Friday about FEMA’s future. He said that the agency has billions of dollars in reserves “to continue to pay for necessary expenses.”

“We also want FEMA to be reformed,” Vought said. “The president is going to continue to be asking tough questions of all of us agencies, no different than any other opportunity to have better government.”

On the ground in devastated communities, meanwhile, some state and local officials have faced questions about how well they were prepared and how quickly they acted — including if warning systems might have given more people time to evacuate.

Asked about such concerns during his appearance at the operations center in Kerrville, Trump called a reporter “evil” and said he thought “everyone did an incredible job under the circumstances.”

“I admire you, and I consider you heroes,” Trump said of the officials around him.

He also praised a long list of Texas Republicans and had especially kind words for Rep. Chip Roy, who represents some of the hardest-hit areas. A staunch conservative, Roy initially opposed Trump’s sweeping tax-cut and spending package but ultimately supported it.

“He’s not easy, but he’s good,” Trump said of Roy. The congressman, for his part, bristled at questions about authorities’ flood response, calling the queries about inadequate flood warnings “ridiculous.”

Seeing the damage close-up

Prior to the roundtable, Air Force One landed in San Antonio and Trump deplaned in a suit while the first lady wore more casual clothing — though both wore ball caps against the heat. The Trumps then boarded a helicopter to Kerrville and saw the flooding aftermath from the air. They later walked close to the Guadalupe River to receive a briefing from officials near an overturned tractor trailer, numerous downed trees and other debris.

Roads in the center of town were shut down, and people lined the streets, some wearing Trump hats and T-shirts and waving American flags. Green ribbons recognizing the lives lost at Camp Mystic were tied around trees, poles and along bridges, and marquees featured slogans such as “Hill Country Strong” and “Thank you first responders.”

Harris Currie, a rancher from Utopia, Texas, near Kerrville, said the flood devastation can be fully understood only by seeing it firsthand.

“Pictures do not do it justice,” Currie said.

Asked what officials on the ground needed most urgently from federal sources, Kerr County Commissioner Jeff Holt, who also is a volunteer firefighter, stressed the need for repairs to nonworking phone towers and “maybe a little better early warning system.”

Trump himself has suggested that a major warning system should be established, though few details have been offered on what that might eventually entail.

Friday’s visit was far different from the other times the first couple visited natural disaster sites, during Trump’s first weekend back in the White House in January. They toured North Carolina to scope out damage from Hurricane Helene and saw the aftermath of wildfires in Los Angeles, and the president sharply criticized the administration of his predecessor, President Joe Biden, and officials from deep-blue California.

“The state of Texas, No. 1 they do it right and they’ve done it right for a long time,” Trump said. “And it’s a very special place to me.”

___

Weissert reported from Washington.

“Enter Sandman” played as Trump’s Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth signed a memo about using more drones. The new version contains no music

The Pentagon deleted and reposted a video boasting about how President Donald Trump’s administration will increase its use of drone warfare. The first version featured the Metallica song “Enter Sandman” in the background. The second has no music. 

A Metallica representative confirmed to Rolling Stone that the use of “Enter Sandman” in the original video was unauthorized. The Pentagon said in a statement Friday that X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, asked the department to remove the video due to a copyright issue. 

In the video, former Fox News host and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says that the military will manufacture and use more drones. “We were brought here to rebuild the military,” he says. “Match capabilities to the threats of today. So while our adversaries have produced millions of cheap drones before us, we were mired in bureaucratic red tape. Not anymore.” 

“In June, President Trump issued an executive order unleashing American drone dominance to bolster our drone industry and arm our war fighters, because that’s what we’re all about.”

As he speaks, a quadcopter holding what appears to be a blank piece of paper is hovering above Hegseth’s head. He reaches up and grabs the paper. “Here’s the memo we’re signing today, delivered via drone,” he says, signing the page.  

The Defense Department told Military.com’s Konstantin Toropin Friday that X contacted them about the video. “This afternoon, representatives from X reached out to DoD regarding a video posted to our social media page and asked that the video be removed due to a copyright issue with the song ‘Enter Sandman’ by Metallica. The video has been taken down, corrected, and re-uploaded to our page,” said Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson. 

During his first time in office, Trump dramatically increased the military’s use of drone strikes.

An instrumental version of “Enter Sandman” played during the president’s recent lackluster military parade, which outraged Metallica fans. 

Editor’s picks

Rolling Stone reported that parade organizers were even issued a cease-and-desist letter over “illegally” playing “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother,” after they were explicitly told they could not use the song. 

So many musicians have opposed Trump’s use of their music that there is a Wikipedia page devoted to it, listing more than 40 artists.  

The U.S. military has used Metallica’s heavy metal music for dark purposes in the past. During the Iraq War, the military reportedly used Metallica music to torture detainees. In 2013, the Navy SEAL who killed Osama Bin Laden told Esquire that the band asked the military to stop using the song for such purposes. “When we first started the war in Iraq, we were using Metallica music to soften people up before we interrogated them,” he said. “Metallica got wind of this and they said, ‘Hey, please don’t use our music because we don’t want to promote violence.’” 

In 2016, Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich told Vulture there’s not much the band can do about the military using its music that way. “I’ve had to sit there and answer questions like, ‘How do you feel about the U.S. military using your songs to torture prisoners?’ I mean, as much as that makes me squirm, when you hand those recording master tapes to the FedEx guy and then the music goes out into the world, you’ve gotta let it go. Whether people like it or hate it, you just find a way to deal with it. So if [former House Speaker] Paul Ryan likes Metallica, hallelujah, it’s fine with me.”

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The same year, he told a Danish tabloid that he had considered moving back to Denmark if Trump won. Ulrich was born in Denmark and is not a U.S. citizen. 

When asked about his thoughts on Bruce Springsteen calling Trump a “moron,” he explained: “If Bruce Springsteen felt that, then he should say it. I totally support his doing that. The thing is, I’m not an American citizen. I pay taxes here, but I can’t vote. So I have this strange thing about commenting on this country’s politics. I have nothing but love and respect for Bruce Springsteen…. But it’s not for me to say he should or shouldn’t do what he wants to do.”

Trending Stories

In 2017, Metallica lead guitarist Kirk Hammett alluded to historical comparisons to Trump in a series of posts on what was then Twitter: “Trump’s Inaugural Address and his asking us to put America first sounds, to me, familiar to … what was said in speeches going around Germany in the 1930’s … and later Russia in the 1940’s.”

He concluded: “If we don’t put up a fight we risk losing our rights. Defend Democracy from those who want to crush it !”

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Federal Reserve (Fed) Bank of Chicago President Austan Goolsbee warned that ongoing trade policy at the hands of Trump’s constant tariff threats could hamper the ability of the Fed to deliver interest rate cuts that both the broader market and Donald Trump himself want to see.

Key highlights

New tariffs unveiled by Trump have further muddied the inflation outlook, making it more difficult for me to support the rate cuts that the president has pressed for.

Over the past few months, after Trump paused the steep bilateral tariffs he proposed in April, anxiety about how tariffs could push up prices calmed substantially. That had put the Federal Reserve on track to ease interest rates again soon.

But the latest round of tariffs could spark fresh concerns about inflation, which might force the Fed to maintain its wait-and-see posture until the central bank gets more clarity.

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Hello, it’s the weekend. This is The Weekender ☕️

President Donald Trump is pushing hard to get his $9.4 billion rescissions request — $8.3 billion in cuts to foreign aid and $1.1 billion from public broadcasting — over the finish line.

As we have seen over and over again, Trump threatened to withhold endorsements from GOP senators who don’t support the Trump administration’s attempt to force Congress to give some legitimacy to the Department of Government Efficiency’s rampage through the federal government. It’s a constitutionally backward maneuver that further erodes the separation of powers, as Republicans in the 119th Congress continuously hand their authority to appropriate federal spending over to the executive branch. 

House Republicans rubber-stamped the package without batting an eye.

“It is very important that all Republicans adhere to my Recissions Bill and, in particular, DEFUND THE CORPORATION FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING (PBS and NPR), which is worse than CNN & MSDNC put together,” Trump wrote in a social media post. “Any Republican that votes to allow this monstrosity to continue broadcasting will not have my support or Endorsement.”

The Senate is expected to vote on a rescissions package next week ahead of the July 18 deadline — but the bill may get watered down as a handful of senators suggested they may push for amending the bill to eliminate certain cuts. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) has said she has concerns over the cuts to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) — a President George W. Bush-era global HIV and AIDS prevention program. And Sens. Mike Rounds (R-SD) and Dan Sullivan (R-AK) have indicated they want to protect some rural public radio stations, specifically those serving remote parts of the country.

— Emine Yücel

Here’s what else TPM has on tap this weekend:

• An unbound, unbent, unbroken Thom Tillis, no longer running for reelection, cautiously (barely) speaks his truth.
• Fox News makes its union with the House Republican conference official. Mazel Tov to the happy couple!

Thom Tillis Seeks His Truth

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) has officially given notice that he will not run in what will likely be a very tight 2026 race for the Senate seat he currently holds. Thus released, he is now attempting to live his truth. 

Living one’s truth involves, for Tillis, recasting oneself as the consummate political moderate, one in the tradition of such departed greats as Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), who Tillis has alluded to repeatedly in recent weeks. It involves making some eyebrow-raising statements, such as the admission that he now regrets his vote for Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth — or, he doesn’t quite regret it. He would not say “regret.” No regrets when living one’s truth. Rather, he made the right decision when he voted for Hegseth, and he’d make a different decision today. “If all I had was the information on the day of the vote, I’d certainly vote for him again,” he told Jake Tapper this week. “But now I have the information of him being a manager. And I don’t think that his probationary period’s been very positive.” (Notably, now-Secretary Hegseth is not subject to a probationary period. He is confirmed. The purportedly right-at-the-time vote Tillis took four days into Trump’s second presidency is the only vote Tillis will get on this. No regrets.) Tillis similarly wasn’t so sure about how RFK Jr. was working out as head of Health and Human Services, but said he had decided to defer to Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), a doctor, who thought “we should, uh, see how it plays out.” (Not well, as Cassidy has himself acknowledged.)

Other truths that can now be spoken include the fact that it would be a bad idea to run the erstwhile North Carolina gubernatorial candidate — who posted on a porn forum that he was a “NAZI!” — for Tillis’ seat in the Senate, and the fact that President Trump is advised by “amateurs” who “act like the president when he’s out of the room.” Do you mean Stephen Miller? Tapper asked Tillis. Alas, the answer to that question is a truth that it is not time to speak. 

In today’s MAGA era, a Republican senator who has decided it is time to live his truth must still, to some extent, be constrained by greater truths. Specifically, those on Truth Social. It is, in other words, still important to not create circumstances which might inspire a certain Truth Social power user and owner to Truth at you. 

Thus, the newly less-constrained Tillis must still explain that he has no beef with Trump. “I don’t have a problem with President Trump,” he told Tapper. “I very seldom believe I’ve ever disagreed with him,” he said at another point. “But I have disagreed with bad advice that some of his advisors are giving him, whether it’s on a nominee or whether it’s on policy.” Advice, for instance, that might give voters the impression that Trump was lying when he said he would not cut Medicaid. 

Given that Trump has surrounded himself with “amateurs” who give “bad” advice on such things as nominees, will Tillis now see his way to opposing a lifetime judgeship for Trump’s personal lawyer-turned-primary DOJ goon, whose nomination is up for a Judiciary Committee vote next week? 

“I’m probably going to go with the staff recommendation,” Tillis said Wednesday, per Politico. 

The staff recommendation, he added, is that he vote to confirm. 

— John Light

Mazel Tov to Fox News and Their Loved Ones in Congress!

Last month, Fox News and the House Republicans made their union official. 

On June 22, Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA) proposed to Brooke Singman, a Fox News Digital political correspondent and reporter. News of the happy couple’s engagement broke in Friday’s edition of Politico Playbook. The writeup had some incredible details. 

Reschenthaler, who has repeatedly characterized New York City as a deadly, lawless hellscape on his social media, proposed to his fiancée during a picnic in Manhattan’s Central Park. According to Politico, afterwards, they celebrated at Singman’s “favorite restaurant” in SoHo, the upscale French bistro Balthazar. Their magical evening was capped with a night at the five star Plaza Hotel. Somehow, they seem to have avoided the bullets and roving gangs. The Playbook item also noted that the pair first met at one of President Trump’s campaign events before they “reconnected” at a bistro in D.C. where Singman brought her laptop “thinking it could become an interview opportunity.” A totally lovely situation that has none of the makings of a borderline HR violation!

Those two crazy kids aren’t the only ones in the right wing cable empire and the GOP congressional delegation who have ended up in love. The Independent’s Justin Baragona pointed out that their news came on the heels of a similar announcement from Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) and Fox News White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich. 

According to a lavish spread in People, Fitzpatrick and Heinrich were engaged on June 29 after a proposal that included a drone and human photographer in a lavender field in France. Fitzpatrick’s decision to pop the question in France was apparently inspired by an earlier interview Heinrich gave where she declared that it was her dream to go to the French Riviera “to eat the baguettes, see the lavender fields, drink the wine and eat the butter.” Following their proposal and photoshoot, the pair decamped to St. Tropez and Cannes.

One might think that it would be awkward for a media outlet to have two of its reporters literally married to sitting politicians. In our weird new political era, the French might actually have the best answer: c’est la vie. 

TPM would like to wish all of these couples a fair and balanced future together! 

— Hunter Walker

GREENBELT, MARYLAND – In a saga that has dragged on for four months that feel like four years, the Trump administration continues to stonewall the judge in the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case with dilatory tactics and bad faith responses to her inquiries. Unlike the in-your-face defiance of a few weeks ago, the tactics have become a little more subtle and perhaps less obvious to non-lawyers, but they’re not lost on U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis.

With Abrego Garcia now facing criminal charges in Tennessee, the question is no longer whether the government will return him from wrongful imprisonment in El Salvador but whether it will deport him again if he is released from criminal custody — which could come as soon as next week — while his trial is pending. That’s the issue Xinis was being asked to grapple with in what was supposed to be a brief evidentiary hearing that improbably stretched from yesterday afternoon into this morning. Xinis hasn’t yet ruled on Abrego Garcia’s requests, including that he and his attorneys be given 72 hours notice before he’s removed to a third country and that in the meantime he be returned to Maryland, where he lived before he was removed to El Salvador in violation of an immigration judge’s order. A ruling from Xinis is imminent.

I want to look beyond the ultimate fate of Abrego Garcia to the larger issues the case raises about the rule of law. His case presents profound and still unanswered questions about whether the Trump administration can and will be held to account for brazenly defying court orders, giving the judge the runaround, advancing shifting and contradictory legal arguments, jerking the opposing side around during discovery, and using DOJ lawyers to shield government officials from court scrutiny. While the administration’s treatment of Abrego Garcia, who was wrongfully detained at CECOT in El Salvador for some 10 weeks, has been abhorrent, its conduct in court has been egregious, too.

An Ever-Changing Cast of DOJ Lawyers

Let’s start with the DOJ lawyers in the case. After the Trump DOJ early on fired career attorney Erez Reuveni for being too candid with the court, most of the heavy lifting in the case has been done by political appointees, itself unusual and unprecedented at this scale and frequency prior to the second Trump presidency. On top of that, DOJ has sent an ever-changing cast of political appointees into court, not just diminishing the quality of the lawyering but making it difficult for   the judge to hold them to account for their previous representations and assurances.  

Across three days of hearings this week, a merry-go-round of DOJ lawyers popped up again.  A newly minted DOJ attorney named Bridget O’Hickey arrived at a hearing in the case on Monday and handled about half of the government’s argument but didn’t enter her appearance in the case until Wednesday. O’Hickey didn’t start working at the Justice Department until May, according to her Linkedin profile; the Abrego Garcia case started in March. 

By Thursday, another new face popped up at the government counsel table. Sarmad M. Khojasteh joined DOJ in April, according to his Linkedin profile, and had had no previous involvement in the Abrego Garcia case, at least not on the record. But he was suddenly lead counsel for the government across two days of hearings, during which he frequently drew the judge’s ire by mangling the history of the case. 

Judge Xinis of Maryland has lightly remarked on the cavalcade of DOJ lawyers, with tart but breezy asides from the bench like, “I’m sure you’ve read everything in the case.” The revolving door of DOJ attorneys seems clearly intended to replenish the exhausted supply of the benefit of the doubt and personal capital expended by prior attorneys. It has also made it harder for Xinis to pin the government down. 

A Government Witness with No Personal Knowledge Of The Case

But the bulk of the bad faith conduct over the last two days involved the witness that the government put on the stand after Xinis ordered it to present an official with personal knowledge of the Abrego Garcia case who could answer questions about what the government intends to do with him if he is released pending trial in Tennessee. 

The government called Thomas Giles, a career ICE official who is now the interim assistant director for enforcement and removal operations, a relatively high-ranking position. But as Abrego Garcia’s attorneys quickly drew out on cross examination, Giles had had no involvement with the Abrego Garcia case until Tuesday morning, when he received a call notifying him that he would be the designated government witness. 

It only got worse from there. Pressed by Abrego Garcia lawyer Sascha N. Rand to explain what he had done to prepare for his testimony, Giles admitted to reading a one-and-a-half-page executive summary of the case that had been prepared for him, doing a cursory search of his emails, and reviewing new ICE policies on third country removals. Giles confirmed that other than government lawyers, he had talked to no other officials in or outside of ICE involved in the Abrego Garcia case to get himself up to speed.

“I do not have personal knowledge of the case,” Giles conceded at one point, before trying to rally. “But I did acquire that knowledge over the past two days.”

In sum, it became apparent that Giles had no personal knowledge of the Abrego Garcia case despite Xinis’ order that the government produce such a witness. 

“He didn’t call anyone,” Judge Xinis later observed. “He didn’t read anything.”

Giles wasn’t even familiar with the broader policy of third country removals, the process for which the judge was trying to understand so that she could anticipate what might happen to Abrego Garcia as soon as next week. After extended, convoluted testimony from Giles about his understanding of how third country removals work, he conceded, “I have very little experience with third country removals. I haven’t processed anyone in 18 years.”

Giles’ lack of familiarity with the case and general obtuseness dragged what was supposed to have been, according to the judge, a hearing of one hour or so into a four-hour grind of circular, non-responsive answers and multiple interventions by the judge to try to clear up her own confusion about what standard policy at ICE used to be, what it is now, and whether it will be applied to Abrego Garcia. 

“I don’t have a whole lot of faith that I understand exactly what is going on,” Xinis would later say. 

It was a less dramatic but effective parallel to the myriad other obstacles the administration erected to stonewall earlier phases of the case. It left Xinis with “grave concerns about what I heard today and what will happen to Mr. Abrego Garcia,” she said at the end of testimony Thursday.

‘The Evidence Is Not Credible’

Giles’ non-responsive testimony set the stage for arguments Friday morning on Abrego Garcia’s emergency motion seeking 72-hours notice before he’s removed to a third country and his return to Maryland while his trial is pending. Xinis arrived in a sour mood over what she had heard from Giles and the government’s conduct, at one point calling a government argument “an insult to my intelligence.”

It went downhill from there for new-to-the-case DOJ lawyer Sarmad M. Khojasteh. 

“You’re making the plaintiff’s point,” Xinis interjected during his argument. “The point is the utter refusal of your client to engage in any conversation about what is going to happen on Wednesday despite the extraordinary circumstances of this case.”

In comments from the bench, Xinis confirmed that she had little faith in Giles’ testimony and that it had undermined rather than bolstered the government’s position. “The evidence is not credible,” Xinis said. “It’s insufficient and incredible.”

Xinis was particularly incensed by the government’s repeated assertions — made dozens of times — that Abrego Garcia’s fate next week would be left to a yet-to-be-determined low-level case officer and that officer wouldn’t even begin to consider what to do with Abrego Garcia until he is moved from criminal custody into ICE custody. 

“It defies reality that this is going to be left to a desk officer,” Xinis told Khojasteh. “And the more you press that, the more concerned I am.”

Underlying Xinis’ concern is that the Abrego Garcia case has clearly been handled at the highest levels of the Trump administration, including at the Cabinet level and into the White House. Her efforts to figure out who has been making decisions and to obtain testimony from administration officials with direct knowledge of those decisions have mostly failed over the past four months. Instead, she’s been given witnesses who can’t speak from personal knowledge. DOJ political appointees — rarely the same ones twice — have mostly taken the hits that were reserved for administration officials. 

Against that backdrop, the notion that there is no plan for what to do next with Abrego Garcia seemed preposterous. And Judge Xinis called it out: “Now you will have me believe that a desk officer will quarterback where Mr. Abrego Garcia goes and what they do next.”

Based on her comments in court, Xinis seemed most likely to issue an order effectively blocking the administration for at least a short period of time from moving Abrego Garcia to a far-flung location in the United States or to a third country. Her remarks signaled that over the course of the case, Xinis’ skepticism toward the administration has ripened into full-blown disbelief: “If past is prologue, Mr. Abrego Garcia will be moved … and before we know it he’s on a plane and I’ve lost jurisdiction.”