Yesterday was one of the most important days in American legal history! Federal judge Richard Leon ordered the Trump administration to stop construction of a new White House ballroom on the grounds of the somewhat recently torn down East Wing. And he did so by using a lot of exclamation points! In fact, he used 18 of them in a 35-page opinion. That’s a lot!
If we believe his Wikipedia page picture, Leon, who was appointed to the U.S. District Court in D.C. nearly 25 years ago by George W. Bush, actually looks like Seinfeld&#8216;s George Costanza in disguise. He previously worked as a hand model, for the New York Yankees, as an architect, and in an unknown capacity at Vandelay Industries. He also loves using exclamation points in his opinions! Four times, he refuted White House arguments by saying “Please!” As in, “according to Defendants, any construction delay will undermine national security. Please!” At least he didn’t say, “b*tch, please!” but it’s implied.
 Here are some other examples of the exclamatory function in Leon’s judicial prose: “the existence of a &#8216;large hole&#8217; beside the White House is, of course, a problem of the President&#8217;s own making!”; “This clearly is not how Congress and former Presidents have managed the White House for centuries, and this Court will not be the first to hold that Congress has ceded its powers in such a significant fashion!”; and “After all, the White House does not belong to any one man, not even a president!”
There’s a large percentage of the establishment, buttressed by Boomers and permanently terrified Gen-Xers on social media, who act like Trump’s attempts to build a grand ballroom at the White House are akin to him tearing out the Rose Garden to make way for a crematorium for illegal immigrants. The only thing that makes them madder is the Melania documentary. Leon, clearly, is the judge they want! This is the “People’s House,” they argue, even though most people don’t live there and will never go there. The renovation is privately funded and, in the end, will harm absolutely no one. But the real headline here is that a major judge has used exclamation points in a significant ruling like he’s a middle-schooler writing a mash note.
Imagine John Marshall using exclamation points, or Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., or Thurgood Marshall. During their long and unlikely friendship, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia never used exclamations in their judicial writings. William Howard Taft never used them. Also, he never got stuck in a bathtub!
But maybe American judicial writing would have been more exciting and easier to study if judges had been using exclamation points all along. According to Marbury v. Madison, which established judicial review, &#8220;It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is!” That’s pretty awesome. Rand and Ron Paul would have gone to bat hard for McCulloch v. Maryland in 1819: &#8220;The power to tax involves the power to destroy!&#8221;
&#8220;Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal!” Brown v. Board of Education would go. That’s for sure. John Marshall Harlan’s brave dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson might have carried more weight if he’d written: &#8220;The Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens!” As Miranda v. Arizona might say, “You have the right to remain silent!” Please!
I do exclaim: we all know how this will end. President Trump will ignore the court’s ruling or find a way around it. He’s going to build his big, beautiful ballroom. And then he and his administration will say to Judge Leon: Bye, Felicia!
***
Neal Pollack is the author of 12 semi-bestselling books of fiction and nonfiction and is a three-time Jeopardy! champion.

Trump indictment DC

Judge’s Anti-Trump Tone Raises Questions After One Over-The-Top Move

Courts

Judiciary

Trump Administration

White House Ballroom

The American judicial system is facing a coordinated &#8220;manipulation&#8221; effort led by the Climate Judiciary Project (CJP), <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/fairness-justice/4363339/extreme-climate-activists-are-manipulating-judges/">according</a> to Jason Chaffetz, who represented Utah’s 3rd Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2009 to 2017.
Created by the Environmental Law Institute (ELI), the CJP claims to provide &#8220;objective&#8221; education to judges on climate science. Yet, in August, the House Judiciary Committee <a href="https://cdn01.dailycaller.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/climatejudiciaryproject.pdf">noted</a>, “Public reports have documented concerns around apparent efforts by the Environmental Law Institute (‘ELI’) and its Climate Judiciary Project (‘CJP’) to influence judges who potentially may be presiding over lawsuits related to alleged climate change. These efforts appear to have the underlying goal of predisposing federal and state judges in favor of plaintiffs alleging injuries from the manufacturing, marketing, or sale of fossil-fuel products.”
The House Judiciary Committee has launched an investigation into the CJP, warning that the project may be violating the Judicial Code of Conduct. The committee alleged that the CJP seeks to influence judges on &#8220;controversial&#8221; and &#8220;fast-moving&#8221; legal topics — such as the social cost of carbon and the limits of the political-question doctrine — which are currently being litigated. By engaging in what the committee calls ex parte advocacy, the CJP is accused of undermining judicial impartiality.
<a class="c-link" href="https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/?utm_medium=website&amp;utm_source=editorial&amp;utm_campaign=christmas&amp;utm_content=christmassale25" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-stringify-link="https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/?utm_medium=website&amp;utm_source=editorial&amp;utm_campaign=christmas&amp;utm_content=christmassale25" data-sk="tooltip_parent">Christmas Sale &#8211; Get 40% off New DailyWire+ Annual Memberships</a>
“The scope of ELI’s and CJP’s attempt to influence judges is not trivial,” the Committee stated. “CJP boasts that it has educated more than 2,000 judges, including judges at the federal and state level. At the same time, ELI and CJP have concealed the identities of the judges who have attended or participated in ELI and CJP training sessions or conferences, and they have not been transparent about the funding sources for these events.”
A major point of concern is the CJP&#8217;s recent shift toward secrecy. Media reports exposed an online forum where judges and CJP staff <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/climate-group-scrubs-judges-names-from-website-after-unearthed-chats-unmasked-cozy-ties">privately exchanged</a> climate legal updates. The organization has reportedly:
<ul style="font-weight: 400;">
<li>Anonymized the names of participating judges.</li>
<li>Locked down its national forums.</li>
<li>Removed testimonials from its website.</li>
</ul>
Furthermore, financial disclosures reveal a potential conflict of interest regarding the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In 2023, approximately 13% of ELI’s revenue came from EPA awards. Twenty-three state attorneys general have called for an investigation into whether these taxpayer-funded grants are being used to &#8220;rig the courts&#8221; against the U.S. energy industry.
Despite these alleged efforts to &#8220;capture&#8221; the judiciary, climate activists have faced significant defeats in 2025. Courts in New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and South Carolina dismissed climate lawsuits, ruling that regulating global emissions is a matter for Congress and the EPA, not state judges.

Representative Jason Chaffetz

Rigging The Bench: How Climate Activists Manipulate The Courts

Rigging The Bench: Investigating How Climate Advocates Manipulate The Courts

Climate Advocates

Jason Chaffetz

Judge II

The Strange Tradition The Left Is Using To Undermine Republicans

Conservatives

Donald Trump

Judges

Matt Walsh

Opinion

Republicans

Anyone following the news in recent months has likely heard that there is a constitutional crisis going on. Anyone paying close attention, not to the hysterical headlines but to the actual legal issues at play, should understand that there is indeed a constitutional crisis, but it has nothing to do with Trump being a tyrant. No, the real crisis is not in the executive branch. The crisis stems from <a href="https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript#3">Article III</a> of the U.S. Constitution, which states that “The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.” (emphasis added). In case it isn’t clear, judicial power is invested in the Supreme Court. All other federal courts are created by statute (they have no necessary constitutional right to exist) and are inferior to the Supreme Court.
Yet, an observer might be forgiven for thinking this is not the case. The federal district courts (which have jurisdiction over a particular district within a state and are subject to the rulings of the higher courts, especially the U.S. Supreme Court) seem to have almost unlimited control over the rule of law in America today. This is indeed a crisis.
It is a problem when district courts, who are supposed to decide particular cases about the parties before them, somehow have jurisdiction to issue nationwide rulings that thwart the president’s agenda all across the country. But it is quite another problem, a more dire and disturbing one, when district courts not only attempt to govern the country but directly subvert the decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court, to whom these district courts are inferior.
There are many egregious instances of federal district courts running wild. For example, on April 4 the Supreme Court <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24a910_f2bh.pdf">vacated a decision</a> by a Massachusetts district court. The district court attempted to apply a temporary restraining order prohibiting the Trump administration from terminating various education-related grants. The district court’s order also required “the Government to pay out past-due grant obligations and to continue paying obligations as they accrue.” The Court reasoned that the administration’s order should stay in place until the final resolution of the case, because if the administration prevailed they would never see those grant funds returned and the education programs had sufficient money to continue operating without those disputed grants. Therefore, the Supreme Court vacated the lower court’s restraining order and allowed the administration to freeze the grant funds until the final decision was made.
Yet the fight to stop the Trump administration from defunding and dismantling the Department of Education continues. Just a couple weeks later, a Connecticut <a href="https://ctmirror.org/2025/04/24/dei-education-funding-trump/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">district court blocked</a> the Trump administration’s efforts to cut funding to schools that continue to implement DEI programs. And in May, another district judge in Massachusetts <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/judge-blocks-trumps-executive-order-to-dismantle-education-department">blocked</a> the administration’s efforts to dismantle the Department of Education.
In the most recent and perhaps most troubling example, on June 23 the Supreme Court <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24a1153_l5gm.pdf">stayed a preliminary injunction</a>. The injunction attempted to stop the administration from holding suspected illegal immigrants in “third countries” (neither the United States nor the country of origin, which often will not take these people back). Yet after the Supreme Court vacated the district court injunction, the district judge <a href="https://abovethelaw.com/2025/06/sotomayor-outlawyers-supreme-court-majority-in-shadow-docket-deportation-ruling/">immediately &#8220;clarified&#8221;</a> that his pause on these third country deportations is still in effect. How? Well, he relied on Justice Sotomayor’s dissent from the Supreme Court ruling and claimed that his order was not properly before the Supreme Court in the first place.
We are watching a dangerous game playing out here. The Supreme Court (the court with actual judicial authority under the U.S. Constitution) says that a district judge may not stop the Trump administration from freezing Department of Education funds, then district courts continue stopping those types of actions. The Supreme Court says the district court may not stop the removal of illegal aliens to third countries, then the district court claims that its orders preventing those same deportations remain in effect. One can quibble about procedure, but the reality is the Supreme Court’s rulings are being boldly and disturbingly undermined by inferior courts.
Two things to note. First, it is troubling that the lower courts are relying on dissents to thwart the rulings of the Supreme Court. That is not how law works. Dissenting opinions simply do not have force of law and they cannot be relied upon in undermining the majority opinions of the Supreme Court.
Second, the Supreme Court’s actions in these cases are quite modest: the court is vacating the lower courts’ extreme choice to stop the Trump administration’s actions while the cases are still being decided. The Supreme Court is not issuing final decisions; it is simply saying that lower courts need to stop interfering with every action the administration takes until the courts actually rule on these cases. This is a prudent action in the face of activist courts trying to thwart the actions of the people’s president.
The Supreme Court has the power to decide what the law says. The Court is doing just that and, often, what the Court is saying is that the Trump administration has the power to make executive decisions that cannot be stopped by activist district court judges.
Federal district courts are frankly out of control. The U.S. Supreme Court <a href="https://www.stevevladeck.com/p/122-contempt-of-the-supreme-court">has the power</a> to hold people in contempt who disobey the Court’s orders. That power should extend to lower court judges who are clearly doing just that. Perhaps desperate times call for desperate measures and this is what it will take to rein in the out-of-control actions of renegade district judges.
* * *
Frank DeVito is Senior Counsel and Director of Content at the Napa Legal Institute. His work has previously been published in The American Conservative, the Federalist, Public Discourse, the Daily Wire, First Things, and several other publications. He lives in eastern Pennsylvania with his wife and children. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily his employer.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

U.S. Supreme Court Allows South Carolina To Block Medicaid Funds To Planned Parenthood

Tyranny From Below: How Activist Judges Defy The Supreme Court

Democrats

Leftists

President Trump

SCOTUS

Supreme Court

Judges were one of the big wins of President Donald Trump’s first term. His initial batch of nominees this term suggests he’s not tired of winning yet.
Last week, Trump named several judges for the district court in Missouri and the municipal court in Washington, D.C. And earlier this month, he <a href="https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/white-house-press-release-president-donald-j-trump-announces-judicial-candidate-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced</a> Whitney Hermandorfer as his nominee for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
All are strong picks, but Hermandorfer has garnered the most attention — and for good reason.
She’s Trump’s only court of appeals nominee so far. This is significant because the courts of appeals are one level below the Supreme Court in more ways than one. They resolve upwards of 99% of federal litigation, while the High Court rules on around 60 cases each year.
Moreover, the court of appeals is a common stepping stone to higher office. Eight of the nine sitting Supreme Court justices previously served on the court of appeals,
But perhaps most importantly, Hermandorfer’s nomination suggests that Trump will apply the same criteria we saw for his first-term judicial nominees: originalists who will uphold the rule of law and are not afraid of the opprobrium heaped on those who take on the Left’s sacred cows.
That’s what has the Left running scared.
As Hermandorfer’s current boss, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, <a href="https://www.tn.gov/attorneygeneral/news/2025/5/2/pr25-26.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> upon the announcement of her nomination, she is “an absolute rock star” and “perhaps the single most credentialed lawyer in America, having clerked for a full third of the justices on the Supreme Court.” He wasn’t exaggerating.
She graduated from Princeton University magna cum laude and was first in her class at the George Washington University Law School, where she was editor-in-chief of the George Washington University Law Review. Most lawyers would consider having clerked at the Supreme Court the gold standard for a nominee, but Hermandorfer went even further.
After clerking for Judge Richard Leon of the D.C. district court, she served then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh on the D.C. Circuit before clerking on the Supreme Court for Justices Samuel Alito and Amy Coney Barrett. That’s a trifecta of every type of federal clerkship possible, plus an extraordinary double Supreme Court clerkship. As Trump put it in his Truth Social <a href="https://x.com/TruthTrumpPosts/status/1918151975453245946" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announcement</a>, Hermandorfer “has a long history of working for Judges and Justices who respect the RULE OF LAW.”
Hermandorfer has long been part of the conservative legal movement, and in recent years has played an integral role in the successful Tennessee Attorney General’s office, where she has served under <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/tennessee-ag-jonathan-skrmetti-is-the-real-deal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Skrmetti</a> as director of the Strategic Litigation Unit. State attorneys general were the tip of the spear defending constitutional limits under the Biden administration, and Hermandorfer played an important role by leading two successful multi-state coalitions <a href="https://ecf.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/25/02/242249P.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">challenging</a> Biden’s Title IX regulations mandating that boys be allowed to play girls’ sports and use girls’ facilities in schools and <a href="https://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/25a0150n-06.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">arguing</a> against his attempts to rewrite Pregnant Workers Fairness Act regulations to circumvent pro-life state laws.
Of course, Hermandorfer’s stellar resume won’t guarantee her a smooth confirmation. Leftist groups, including the Alliance for Justice, have already come out <a href="https://afj.org/article/trumps-first-judicial-nominee-has-disturbing-extremist-record/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">attacking</a> her for embracing Trump’s “discriminatory authoritarian agenda” and said Trump nominees do “not deserve the benefit of the doubt…when we already have 234 examples of his judges causing harm on the bench.”
Indeed, the 234 Article III judges Trump <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/judicial-nominations-update-64/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">appointed</a> during his first term are among the highest four-year totals in history. And the quality of those picks was even more impressive than the quantity, course-correcting the Supreme Court and much of the rest of the federal judiciary after years of rootless activism.
Because Trump begins this term with far fewer judicial <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/judicial-nominations-update-73/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">vacancies</a> than he faced eight years ago, his second-term totals are unlikely to match those of his first, but he is nonetheless <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/the-judicial-appointment-train-is-leaving-the-station/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">on track</a> to close out eight years with more judicial appointments than any other president. Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) recently <a href="https://www.dailysignal.com/2025/05/07/confirming-trumps-court-nominees-is-priority-judiciary-committee-sen-lee-says/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">noted</a> that judicial nominations will be a “big priority” for the Judiciary Committee, which suggests the senators also recognize how key judges are, and time is of the essence to confirm as many judges as possible while Republicans control the Senate.
Hermandorfer’s hearing before the committee will be <a href="https://www.axios.com/2025/05/13/grassley-senate-republicans-trump-judges" target="_blank" rel="noopener">scheduled</a> for June 4th, setting her up for potential confirmation before the August recess.
Liberal dark money groups like the Alliance for Justice know very well that a president’s judicial appointments have an impact that lasts much longer than his term. While presidents come and go, federal judges serve for life. President Trump has the opportunity to bolster what could be his most enduring legacy with his second-term judicial appointments. He’s off to a great start.
Carrie Severino is the president of JCN and co-author of the bestselling book Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Court.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

TOPSHOT-US-POLITICS-TRUMP

Trump Is Off To a Great Start On Judicial Nominees

Brett Kavanaugh

A French court has now banned Marine Le Pen, who is highly likely to win the next election in France, from seeking public office for five years. The court convicted her of misusing European Union funds.
&#8220;The court ruled that Le Pen and other members of her party illegally used 4.4 million euros, equivalent to $4.8 million, in EU funding that was earmarked for assistants helping lawmakers in the European Parliament with their work,&#8221; The Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/frances-marine-le-pen-found-guilty-of-embezzlement-b8c42dac" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>. &#8220;Monday’s sentence bars Le Pen from seeking public office for the next five years, thrusting her far-right party into limbo. Le Pen also received a four-year prison sentence. Half of that term was suspended, judges said, adding that she could serve the remaining two years by using an electronic bracelet or other alternatives to jail time. The ruling takes Le Pen out of contention for the 2027 race, unless she can win a swift appeal. Le Pen had been expected to enter that contest as a front-runner as President Emmanuel Macron will be term limited and other prominent contenders have yet to emerge.&#8221;
This is crazy — but this is part and parcel of the broader attempt by Left-wing judiciary activists across the globe to stop “populist politicians” from being able to run.
We saw it with President Trump, where the DOJ went after him for supposed crimes, the same crimes for which they let Joe Biden off the hook. We saw it in New York, where a New York attorney general filed a civil fraud lawsuit in an attempt to stop then-candidate Trump.
We have seen it in Brazil, where the entire judicial apparatus has been brought down on the head of Jair Bolsonaro, the former president of Brazil, in favor of Lula da Silva, who was then freed by that same exact judiciary.
We&#8217;ve seen it in Romania, where Cǎlin Georgescu won the election in 2024 and then the judiciary decided the election had been rigged by the Russians and annulled it. 
We have seen it in Israel, where the attorney general of Israel has been targeting Benjamin Netanyahu on specious charges for literally years, and the judiciary keep saying that Netanyahu can&#8217;t perform the basic functions of an executive, such as fire his attorney general or fire anyone in the executive branch.
And now we are seeing it in France.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/bss-ep-2169-member-exclusive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
It is absolutely amazing to watch these unelected officials going out of their way to thwart the will of the people in supposed democracies. It&#8217;s really insane.
You want to talk about undermining democracy itself? This undermines democracy because the reaction to this is, “Okay, what if we just overthrow the judicial institutions?”
Why do I feel like this is a put-up job? Because it takes effect immediately. The point is to get her out of the elections. Thus they&#8217;re suspending her jail sentence but they are not suspending her ban from running.
Le Pen had denied the charges, “testifying in court that it was appropriate for the assistants to perform other party-related work because they were political aides, not direct employees of the European Parliament,” the Journal noted.
In other words, if the European Parliament didn’t want them focused solely on party-related tasks, perhaps it should have hired them directly, rather than paying the party to handle some of its work. That sounds like a strong defense.
Is the idea here that Marine Le Pen desperately needed a couple of million euros in order to pay off her political party? I feel like she probably could have raised it. Her party&#8217;s pretty big in France.
This is just the latest NATO member to reject a populist candidate by some sort of judicial intervention.
If you want to talk about undermining the argument that democracy must flourish in Europe, this would be a great way to do it.

FRANCE-POLITICS-JUSTICE-TRIAL-RN

Marine Le Pen Banned From Running

Ben Shapiro

Corruption

Europe

European Union

France

Marine Le Pen

Parliament

Populism

Prison

Another foreign company brings business back to the United States, accidental texts reveal confidential conversations between cabinet members, a federal judge continues to stand in the way of Trump’s deportation agenda, and Disney’s newest live-action remake could become its biggest flop of all.
It’s Tuesday, March 25th, and this is the news you need to know to start your day. If you’d rather listen to your news, today’s edition of the Morning Wire podcast can be heard below:
<iframe style="width: 100%; max-width: 660px; overflow: hidden; border-radius: 10px;" src="https://embed.podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/car-maker-invests-big-snow-white-bombs-3-25-25/id1576594336?i=1000700724795" height="175" frameborder="0" sandbox="allow-forms allow-popups allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-storage-access-by-user-activation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation"></iframe>
<h2>You Win Some</h2>
<div id="attachment_897097" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-897097" class="size-large wp-image-897097" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Trump-Hyundai-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Trump-Hyundai-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Trump-Hyundai-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Trump-Hyundai-768x512.jpg 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />(Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)</div>
Topline: South Korean car manufacturer Hyundai announced Monday that it would invest more than $20 billion in the United States to build new steel and auto plants. Meanwhile, senior Trump officials accidentally included a left-wing journalist in classified military discussions.
Hyundai has joined the long list of companies pouring billions of dollars into American manufacturing. On Monday, the South Korean car giant announced a nearly $21 billion investment in the United States — for context, that’s equal to the total amount they’ve invested here since 1986. As part of that effort, it will build a $6 billion steel plant in Louisiana that will employ more than 1,400 Americans. The company currently has two major auto plants on American soil — now it will open a third in Georgia, which will create another 8,000 jobs.
“With your leadership, Mr. President, Hyundai Motor Group is proud to be a stronger partner in America’s industrial future,” Hyundai’s Executive Chair Euisun Chung said at a White House press conference.
The president’s tariff policies had a significant influence on Hyundai’s decision to onshore jobs. As Hyundai Motor CEO Jose Munoz put it, “The best way for [Hyundai] to navigate tariffs is to increase localization.”
Monday’s announcement is only the latest in a series of investment pledges since Trump took office. Apple announced it was pouring $500 billion into new American manufacturing projects over the next four years. Before that, Japan’s SoftBank announced a hundred billion dollar investment in American AI infrastructure. Asian chip manufacturer Taiwan Semiconductor is pouring a hundred billion dollars to build high-tech chips in America. The United Arab Emirates announced a ten-year, $1.4 trillion investment in high-tech manufacturing. According to the president, there have been up to $4 trillion worth of new investments in the United States since Inauguration Day.
“This investment is a clear demonstration that tariffs very strongly work,” President Trump said. “And I hope other things also, but the tariffs are bringing them in at levels that have not been witnessed.&#8221;
<h3>You Lose Some&#8230;</h3>
<div id="attachment_897093" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-897093" class="size-large wp-image-897093" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Signal-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Signal-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Signal-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Signal-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Signal-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Signal-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Signal-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Signal-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />(Photo by Matthias Balk/picture alliance via Getty Images)</div>
On Monday, The Atlantic&#8217;s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, published a report entitled “The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans.” That is exactly what happened.
Two weeks ago, Goldberg was mistakenly added to a group chat on the unclassified messaging app Signal. The chat included Vice President JD Vance, SecDef Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, along with the heads of the CIA, DNI, etc. Over the course of multiple days, the group debated whether or not to launch airstrikes against Houthi terrorists in Yemen who’ve been attacking ships in the Suez Canal for years.
Goldberg published a number of those messages — in one, VP Vance weighs the potential risks of airstrikes, writing, “3 percent of US trade runs through the suez. 40 percent of European trade does. There is a real risk that the public doesn’t understand this or why it’s necessary. The strongest reason to do this is, as POTUS said, to send a message.” Later, Vance said he “hate[s] bailing Europe out again” but would support the strikes if the team was in agreement. Ultimately, the group, led by Hegseth, opted to push for the strikes, which were carried out on March 15.
“This appears to be an authentic message chain, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain,” said National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes.
While no incriminating messages were published, it’s certainly an embarrassing mishap for the administration, and there could be consequences. A number of prominent Democrats on the Hill have called for heads to roll and vowed to investigate why sensitive national security conversations were being held in such a manner. The White House <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/white-house-acknowledges-journalist-was-inadvertently-added-to-high-level-chat-on-houthi-strikes?topStoryPosition=undefined">confirmed</a> the legitimacy of the group chat, telling our own Mary Margaret Olohan, “We are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain,” while adding, “The thread is a demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials.”
<h2>Immigration Court Case Continues</h2>
<div id="attachment_897091" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-897091" class="size-large wp-image-897091" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Darth-Boasberg-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Darth-Boasberg-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Darth-Boasberg-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Darth-Boasberg-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Darth-Boasberg-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Darth-Boasberg-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Darth-Boasberg-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Darth-Boasberg-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />(Photo by Valerie Plesch/Bloomberg via Getty Images)</div>
Topline: The Trump administration has been blocked again from deporting aliens under a 1798 invasion law.
On Monday, federal district court Judge James Boasberg decided not to lift a temporary restraining order he placed on the Trump administration to block its use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act. The administration used it to move illegal aliens with alleged Venezuelan gang ties to El Salvador &#8212; the United States struck a deal with El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, earlier this year to hold illegal aliens in its modern prison system. The judge said the administration misapplied the law and violated the due process rights of dozens of the illegal aliens flown to El Salvador.
Boasberg believes that shipping the aliens to El Salvador without a court hearing violated their due process rights. He also said that the administration’s use of the act to move the alleged gang members is likely an abuse of the law because, in his interpretation, it’s only applicable in wartime. The administration’s interpretation is a bit different. Trump’s team points out that the text of the law says that it can be used in wartime or when “any invasion or predatory incursion is perpetrated … against the territory of the United States.”
Critics of Boasberg and other lower court judges who have blocked elements of the president’s agenda have accused them of judicial activism and say their decisions are clearly politically biased rather than reflecting an impartial reading of the Constitution.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) observed on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uVJCRXMGvQ">Fox News</a> over the weekend that “62% of the federal injunctions, for example, that have been handed down in the last century have been handed down against President Trump, and 92% of those were done by partisan Democrat-appointed judges.”
Republicans in Congress are <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/jim-jordan-says-house-may-soon-pass-bill-targeting-nationwide-injunctions">currently exploring</a> options for reigning in the power of the lower courts to issue nationwide injunctions.
<h2>“Magic Mirror on the Wall, What’s the Biggest Flop of All?”</h2>
<div id="attachment_897089" style="width: 880px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-897089" class="size-large wp-image-897089" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Poisoned-Apple-870x576.jpg" alt="" width="870" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Poisoned-Apple-870x576.jpg 870w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Poisoned-Apple-300x199.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Poisoned-Apple-768x509.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Poisoned-Apple-1536x1017.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Poisoned-Apple-2048x1357.jpg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 870px) 100vw, 870px" />(Photo by MDBrockmann via Getty Images)</div>
Topline: After a year of delays, Disney’s latest live-action remake, &#8220;Snow White,&#8221; <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/snow-white-bombs-with-one-of-disneys-lowest-opening-weekends-for-a-remake">tanked</a> at the box office on its opening weekend. The film, once poised to be a crown jewel in Disney’s lineup, has instead become a cautionary tale.
&#8220;Snow White&#8221; opened to a dismal $43 million domestically and $87 million worldwide against a reported $270 million budget. While the exact numbers are still being finalized, that means the reimagining of the beloved 1937 classic had one of the worst openings for a Disney live-action remake ever.
Many critics attribute the cool reception of the film to its deliberate inversion of the source material: Disney took a classic tale of romance and true love and turned it into one of self-empowerment.
Rachel Zegler, a Hispanic actress who played the titular character, has been a lightning rod for controversy – initially because she wasn’t a physical match for the princess whose “skin was white as snow” and later because of her caustic comments about the quality of the original film.
“The original cartoon came out in 1937 and very evidently so,” Zegler said in 2023. &#8220;There is a big focus on her love story with a guy who literally stalks her &#8212; weird, weird. So we didn&#8217;t do that this time.”
Other political controversies also grabbed headlines in the lead-up to the film’s release, including dueling stances from Zegler and co-star Gal Gadot on the war between Israel and Hamas. Zegler is a <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/03/21/disney-tried-rein-in-snow-white-star-free-palestine-tweet/">vocal supporter</a> of the Palestinians, while Gadot is an Israeli Jew who served in the IDF and has spoken out in defense of her country’s ongoing war effort, leading to <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/snow-white-film-faces-anti-israel-boycott-calls-targeting-gal-gadot/">backlash</a> from people on both <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/article/2024/aug/25/snow-white-israel-gaza-rachel-zegler-gal-gadot">sides of the issue</a>. Zegler also made waves when she told Trump voters she “didn’t need their business” in the lead-up to the election, and then afterward stated that she hopes Trump supporters never know peace &#8212; she would <a href="https://cbsaustin.com/news/nation-world/disney-actress-apologizes-for-wishing-no-peace-on-trump-supporters-negative-discourse-rachel-zegler-live-action-snow-white-presidential-election-kamala">later</a> attempt to walk that statement back.
But politics may not have been the driving force behind the film’s disappointing returns &#8212; it performed about as well in red counties as it did in blue counties, and the consensus among those who have seen the film is that it isn’t very good: even critics were generally sour on it, and the film is certified rotten on rating website <a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/disneys_snow_white">Rotten Tomatoes</a>, with a 43% critic score and a 22% approval rating by all audiences. Perhaps there’s general fatigue with the Disney remakes, which have generally been soulless, shallow, cynical cash-grab simulacra of some of the most beloved films of all time.
International receipts and a second life on Disney+ could help &#8220;Snow White&#8221; break even, but the reputational damage of a domestic flop could have a major impact on Disney&#8217;s brand.

Trump Hails Hyundai Plan For US Expansion As Vindicating Tariffs

Morning Brief: Trump Tariff Win, Accidental Texts, & Snow White’s Poisoned Box Office

Disney

House Judiciary Committee

Immigration

Morning Wire

Snow White

The Atlantic

Democrats find themselves facing angry voters as a massive rift opens up between the far-Left and the party’s more moderate members. President Donald Trump and his top donor, Elon Musk, draw national attention to what could prove to be a pivotal battle for control of Wisconsin’s Supreme Court. And Trump revokes the security clearances of a number of Biden allies, while ICE and the IRS prepare to team up.
It’s Monday, and this is the news you need to know to start your week. If you’d rather listen to your news, today’s edition of the Morning Wire podcast can be heard below:
<iframe style="width: 100%; max-width: 660px; overflow: hidden; border-radius: 10px;" src="https://embed.podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/democratic-infighting-grows-wisconsins-judicial-showdown/id1576594336?i=1000700568389" height="175" frameborder="0" sandbox="allow-forms allow-popups allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-storage-access-by-user-activation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation"></iframe>
<h2>Democrats’ Downward Spiral</h2>
<div id="attachment_896267" style="width: 841px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-896267" class="wp-image-896267 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Dueling-Dems-831x576.jpg" alt="" width="831" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Dueling-Dems-831x576.jpg 831w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Dueling-Dems-300x208.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Dueling-Dems-768x532.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Dueling-Dems-1536x1064.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Dueling-Dems-2048x1419.jpg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 831px) 100vw, 831px" />(Photo by wildpixel via Getty Images)</div>
Topline: Democratic lawmakers have found themselves confronted by angry constituents as the party searches for a unifying message amid rampant infighting. Meanwhile, new polling shows Democrats continue to be less popular than ever before.
Historically, there’s often a sort of buyer&#8217;s remorse with voters, where a president’s approval ratings will start to decline quickly, and the opposition party will become more popular &#8212; but that has not happened. Trump’s approval ratings have held steady at around 48% — well above where he stood during his first term — and Democratic popularity has only plummeted since Election Day. Last week, CNN found that just 29% of Americans view the party favorably — that’s a 20-point drop from 2021. And over the weekend, things got even worse.
A new <a href="https://poll.qu.edu/poll-release?releaseid=3919">Quinnipiac</a> poll showed that just 21% of Americans approve of Democrats’ job performance in Congress &#8212; the lowest mark in the poll&#8217;s history &#8212; and only 40% of Democrats approve of the job their leaders are doing in Congress. By contrast, Congressional Republicans are more popular today than ever, with a 40% approval rating.
Democrats appear torn between two differing visions of the party’s strategy going forward.
There are those who say the party needs to listen to its left-wing base and double down on their opposition to Trump, doing everything possible to prevent his agenda from being implemented. In that camp is Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who kicked off a “Fighting Oligarchy” tour last week with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), hitting Tempe, Las Vegas, and Denver in recent days and drawing crowds in the tens of thousands.
“We are going to fight Trump and his oligarchic friends,” Sanders said. “But we have got to do something else. We have got to ourselves have a vision for the kind of country we want to become.&#8221;
On the other side are Democrats who feel November’s results were a clear rebuke of progressive ideologies and governance. They say the party has to shake the “woke” label and moderate on social issues while embracing a more old-school Blue Dog Democrat approach. Leading the charge on that front is, ironically, California’s Gavin Newsom, one of the nation’s most far-Left Governors. Newsom launched a new podcast where he’s been having friendly chats with hardline conservatives like Steve Bannon and Charlie Kirk. He’s openly criticized his party as being elitist and out of touch while conceding that he understands why folks supported Trump in November. He even went as far as saying he opposes trans-identifying males in women’s sports and called on Democrats to stop using gender-neutral language like “Latinx,” although he has used that term many times in the past.
The Democratic base appears to be as divided as their leadership &#8212; the latest numbers from Gallup found that 45% of Democrats want the party to become more moderate, while 29% say they should be more liberal, and 22% want to hold course.
<h2>Wisconsin Supreme Court</h2>
<div id="attachment_896401" style="width: 873px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-896401" class="wp-image-896401 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-2206573074-863x576.jpg" alt="" width="863" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-2206573074-863x576.jpg 863w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-2206573074-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-2206573074-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-2206573074-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-2206573074-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes=" (max-width: 863px) 100vw, 863px" />RACINE, WISCONSIN &#8211; MARCH 23: Dane County Circuit Court Judge Susan Crawford, candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)</div>
Topline: An upcoming election will determine whether liberals or conservatives control Wisconsin’s top court. Already the most expensive judicial race in United States history, analysts are calling it the first referendum on Trump’s presidency.
Next week, a midwestern election will offer a rare chance to flip the ideological balance of the highest court in a key swing state. Depending on how things play out on April 1st, Wisconsin’s Supreme Court could go from a 4-3 liberal majority to a 4-3 conservative one, which would have several ramifications on national policy.
The balance of power could play a significant role in Wisconsin’s congressional districting. After the 2020 census, Republicans — who controlled the legislature — drew Wisconsin’s congressional maps. Democrats said this was gerrymandering and sued. In 2022, the liberal court threw out the GOP’s maps and adopted ones drawn by Governor Tony Evers, a Democrat. That new map helped Democrats flip one congressional seat in 2024. If conservative candidate Brad Schimel wins, he will likely uphold GOP-drawn maps that help cement that very slim margin Republicans have in the House right now. On the other hand, if liberal Susan Crawford wins, the court is likely to strike down the Republican maps again, meaning Democrats will have a greater likelihood of winning more seats in the state.
“The congressional majority is so razor thin, it could cause the house to switch to Democrat if federal redrawing takes place,” Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest man and the mastermind behind DOGE (the Department of Government Efficiency), said on <a href="https://x.com/cb_doge/status/1903547076002316644">X</a>, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “Then we won&#8217;t be able to get through the changes that the American people want.”
Republicans also see a conservative court in Wisconsin as a potential firewall that could shield Trump’s policies from state-level challenges — think lawsuits over federal overreach or immigration crackdowns. On Truth Social yesterday, Trump called Crawford a “Radical Left Democrat” who is “insistent on bringing hardened CRIMINALS, that we removed to far away places, back into our Country, allowing men into women’s sports, [and] Open Borders.”
<h2>Security Switch Up</h2>
<div id="attachment_896275" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-896275" class="size-large wp-image-896275" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/US-Security-Nodes-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/US-Security-Nodes-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/US-Security-Nodes-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/US-Security-Nodes-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/US-Security-Nodes-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/US-Security-Nodes-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/US-Security-Nodes-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/US-Security-Nodes-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />(Photo by Douglass Rissing via Getty Images)</div>
Topline: Immigration authorities may soon receive help from the IRS to confirm the identities of illegal aliens. Reports of the new agreement come as thousands of law enforcement officials are expected to be redirected toward President Trump’s mass deportation agenda.
The IRS and ICE are near an agreement that would essentially allow immigration agents to cross-check information on aliens with IRS databases &#8212; that’s according to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/22/us/politics/irs-ice-immigrants-deportation.html">The New York Times</a>. To be clear, DHS would not have access to IRS systems, but agents would be able to verify with the IRS whether the home addresses agents have for illegal aliens are correct. The Trump administration has tried before to get the IRS to help locate illegals, but the agency has always resisted because of the sensitivity of taxpayer information &#8212; and because it didn’t want to run afoul of federal law. This way, the IRS can keep complete control over its taxpayer database.
Illegal immigrants are often employed in the United States and file tax returns that include information such as where they live, who they work for, and their income. The IRS has long encouraged illegal aliens to pay taxes; the agency even has a separate nine-digit code called an individual taxpayer identification number that it will give to aliens in place of a Social Security number.
More generally, the Department of Homeland Security is in the middle of a massive reshuffle to focus resources on deportations, according to reporting by <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/thousands-agents-diverted-trump-immigration-crackdown-2025-03-22/">Reuters</a>. The Trump administration has also canceled the CHNV parole program, which allowed 30,000 immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to apply for entry to the United States. Trump ended the program on his first day in office, but over the weekend, DHS issued an order revoking legal status for those aliens who entered the country through it. The order encourages them to self-deport within 30 days or risk deportation.
In other news, President Trump officially revoked the security clearances of a number of people on Friday, including top Biden administration officials, as well as some of the president’s top antagonists &#8212; those who brought and supported the court cases he faced during the election and who pushed Russian collusion conspiracies. Some of the most prominent names on that list include former President Joe Biden, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney (WY).

TOPSHOT-US-POLITICS-GOVERNMENT-HEALTH-KENNEDY

Morning Brief: Dems’ Downward Spiral, Wisconsin Supreme Court Race, And Security Shakeup

Democratic Party

Department of Homeland Security

Elections

Internal Revenue Service (IRS)

Politics

Wisconsin

Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk are under attack for his influence on the Trump administration. A handful of judges are halting a number of Trump’s executive actions, setting up numerous legal showdowns. And a Daily Wire investigation into a recently shuttered federal agency uncovers rampant waste and abuse.
It’s Thursday, March 20th, and this is the news you need to know to start your day. If you’d rather listen to your news, today’s edition of the Morning Wire podcast can be heard below:
<iframe style="width: 100%; max-width: 660px; overflow: hidden; border-radius: 10px;" src="https://embed.podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tesla-attacks-investigated-trump-battles-legal-injunctions/id1576594336?i=1000700081217" height="175" frameborder="0" sandbox="allow-forms allow-popups allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-storage-access-by-user-activation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation"></iframe>
<h2>Attacks On Tesla</h2>
<div id="attachment_894499" style="width: 778px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-894499" class="size-large wp-image-894499" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/67da9af669253ccddf99a82f-768x576.webp" alt="" width="768" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/67da9af669253ccddf99a82f-768x576.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/67da9af669253ccddf99a82f-300x225.webp 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/67da9af669253ccddf99a82f-1536x1152.webp 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/67da9af669253ccddf99a82f.webp 2000w" sizes=" (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" />(Photo via the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department)</div>
Topline: Elon Musk remains in the spotlight this week, with attacks on Tesla facilities continuing nationwide as the tech mogul worked to bring home NASA astronauts who had been stuck in space for more than nine months. 
Once the darling of the Left, Musk and Tesla are under attack by Democrats. This week alone, we saw a Tesla facility attacked with Molotov cocktails and firearms in Las Vegas. In that incident, the perpetrators spray painted the word “RESIST” across walls and doors.  The day before, we saw similar vandalism at a dealership in Kansas City, with multiple cars being set ablaze. A week earlier, a shooter fired more than a dozen times at a dealership in Oregon. There were separate attacks at dealerships and charging stations in Massachusetts, South Carolina, and Washington.
It&#8217;s not just Tesla dealerships being hit; individual owners have also been targeted. Social media has been flooded with security footage showing Teslas being keyed, spray painted, or having their windows busted. Musk says he has received numerous death threats in recent weeks, including from an Indiana man who was arrested. 
“They basically want to kill me because I&#8217;m stopping their fraud,” Musk <a href="https://x.com/AutismCapital/status/1902176061187879404">said</a> in a recent interview on Fox News, referencing Trump&#8217;s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative that he leads. “And they want to hurt Tesla because we&#8217;re stopping this terrible waste and corruption in the government. I guess they&#8217;re bad people and bad people will do bad things.&#8221;
This week, Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a statement saying the DOJ is treating attacks on Tesla dealerships and Tesla owners as domestic terrorism because they are political in nature. Bondi says perpetrators will be hit with five-year mandatory minimum sentences, and there will be severe consequences for “those operating behind the scenes to coordinate and fund these crimes.” 
<h2>The White House Slams Judicial Overreach</h2>
<div id="attachment_894493" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-894493" class="size-large wp-image-894493" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Gavel-over-flag-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Gavel-over-flag-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Gavel-over-flag-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Gavel-over-flag-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Gavel-over-flag-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Gavel-over-flag-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Gavel-over-flag-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Gavel-over-flag-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />(Photo by Creativeeye99 via Getty Images)</div>
Topline: Several of President Trump’s executive orders have been halted or hampered by injunctions made by district court judges, sparking a heated constitutional dispute about the separation of powers.
A series of court orders issued by relatively junior federal judges are attempting to reverse the Trump administration’s executive actions on issues ranging from deportation to DOGE. These decisions, often issued before a formal trial, have led to allegations of judicial overreach and activism by the president and his allies.
“We will continue to comply with these court orders and fight the battles in court,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Wednesday. “But it&#8217;s incredibly apparent there is a concerted effort by the far Left to judge shop to pick judges who are clearly acting as partisan activists from the bench to derail this president’s agenda. We will not allow that to happen.”
Federal judges serve for life and are largely insulated from political blowback, although in extreme circumstances, they can be impeached and removed by Congress. 
Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX) introduced articles of impeachment against Judge James Boasberg, an Obama appointee, after he attempted to block the deportation of more than 250 illegal aliens to El Salvador. The move drew a rare public condemnation by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who said “impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.”
Other prominent Republicans have proposed different means of checking the power of nationwide injunctions. Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis has suggested that Congress<a href="https://x.com/RonDeSantis/status/1902313141951762729"> strip the federal courts of their jurisdiction.</a> 
“Jurisdiction stripping statutes are [constitutionally] permitted.” Daniel Huff, Senior Legal Fellow at the American Path Initiative and former attorney in the Trump White House, told Morning Wire. “However, as a practical matter, you can&#8217;t get that through the Senate.”
The relevant cases are likely going to be settled before the Supreme Court, and the scope of the judiciary’s power to issue nationwide injunctions could come before the court as well, but while the court has a 6-3 conservative majority, even temporary delays can have meaningful repercussions on the president’s agenda. “The Supreme Court conservative majority has not always been reliable,” Huff said. “These things take time. And in the meantime, momentum is lost.”
&nbsp;
<h2>DOGE Downsizes, Shutters 7 Agencies</h2>
<div id="attachment_894491" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-894491" class="size-large wp-image-894491" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Money-Down-the-Drain-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Money-Down-the-Drain-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Money-Down-the-Drain-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Money-Down-the-Drain-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Money-Down-the-Drain-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Money-Down-the-Drain-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Money-Down-the-Drain-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Money-Down-the-Drain-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />(Photo by Bill Oxford via Getty Images)</div>
Topline: Trump ordered seven small federal agencies downsized or eliminated, including one that might be the poster child for waste, fraud, and abuse. A new Daily Wire investigation reveals just how deep the corruption went. 
The agencies include the United States Agency for Global Media, which oversees the Voice of America; the Minority Business Development Agency; and four smaller boards. Daily Wire’s investigative reporter Luke Rosiak spent a year scrutinizing the final target, the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS).
“The first thing to understand is that these are “independent” agencies, which means their top person nominally reports directly to the president, but also that they’re so tiny that no one, including the president, ever looks at them,” Rosiak told Morning Wire. “That has made them really susceptible to all the worst impulses of bureaucrats. And I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a more wild example of out-of-control unaccountability than FMCS.”
For more details, you can read the full investigation <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/fmcs-slush-fund-abolished-by-trump">here.</a> Highlights include a few dozen bureaucrats maintaining a luxurious 9-story office building in Washington, D.C., hiring friends and family for positions and contracts, silencing whistleblowers, billing personal expenses such as housing and luxury vacations to Uncle Sam and generally living like “reigning kings.”
“Let me give you the honest truth,” one anonymous employee told Rosiak. “A lot of FMCS employees don’t do a hell of a lot, including myself. Personally, the reason that I’ve stayed is that I just don’t feel like working that hard.”

Tesla Supercharger Station In San Diego

Morning Brief: Tesla Attacks, Judicial Overreach, And DOGE Axes Government Waste

Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)

DOGE

Elon Musk

The House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on the slew of federal judges who have issued rulings that halted elements of President Donald Trump&#8217;s second-term agenda, Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) said on Wednesday.
Jordan made the announcement during an interview with CNN&#8217;s Kasie Hunt after James Boasberg, an Obama-appointed judge, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/congressman-introduces-articles-of-impeachment-against-judge-blocking-trump-deportations?topStoryPosition=undefined" target="_blank" rel="noopener">blocked</a> Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act to deport violent criminal illegal migrants.
&#8220;We&#8217;re going to hold hearings on this entire issue, the 15 injunctions that have been done in an eight-week timeframe. Judge Boasberg&#8217;s decision &#8230; hearing from experts, talking about this whole kind of body of law, this whole situation,&#8221; he said.
Over the past few weeks, some House Republicans have <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/impeachathon-ensnares-growing-number-of-get-trump-judges" target="_blank" rel="noopener">unveiled</a> articles of impeachment against Boasberg and other judges they feel are delivering rulings that are unfavorable to the Trump administration out of political animus.
Trump himself took aim at Boasberg in a <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114183576937425149" target="_blank" rel="noopener">post</a> on Truth Social on Tuesday, calling him a “troublemaker and agitator” who “like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!!”
Jordan would not go as far as to reveal whether he would hold impeachment hearings, but the chairman did say, &#8220;We&#8217;re not ruling out anything.&#8221; He also stressed that &#8220;it&#8217;s important for us to gather information — get input on this issue.&#8221;
The House and Senate are currently led by Republicans, though by slim margins. While a simple majority to impeach could be achieved along party lines in the House, a bipartisan group of 67 senators would be needed for removal.
On Tuesday, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/chief-justice-john-roberts-speaks-out-against-trump-backed-push-to-impeach-judges" target="_blank" rel="noopener">issued</a> a rare statement pushing back on the GOP impeachment push and declaring the &#8220;normal appellate review process exists&#8221; for the purpose of fighting a judicial decision.
While Jordan acknowledged that he expects the White House to proceed with the appellate process, he emphasized that Boasberg&#8217;s history with <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/meet-the-obama-appointed-judge-trying-to-stop-trump-from-deporting-criminal-illegals" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Russiagate</a> and &#8220;the pace&#8221; of the injunctions has become a &#8220;concern&#8221; for Republicans.
Jordan also touted a bill the Judiciary Committee recently <a href="https://issa.house.gov/media/press-releases/issa-legislation-stop-rogue-federal-judges-passes-house-judiciary-committee" target="_blank" rel="noopener">advanced</a> that seeks to restrain the number of injunctions being levied by federal judges and said there may be &#8220;another legislative remedy&#8221; that lawmakers may want to examine, too.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
<a href="https://t.co/N8CfdR3IR3">pic.twitter.com/N8CfdR3IR3</a>
&mdash; Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) <a href="https://twitter.com/Jim_Jordan/status/1902473422996742227?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 19, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH

Jordan Plans Hearings On Flood Of Judges’ Injunctions Against Trump Agenda

Congress

Jim Jordan

Supreme Court Chief Justice <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/john-roberts" target="_blank" rel="noopener">John Roberts</a> issued a rare statement on Tuesday pushing back on a push by some Republicans to impeach federal judges who have sided against President Donald Trump&#8217;s second-term administration.
&#8220;For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,&#8221; Roberts <a href="https://x.com/edokeefe/status/1902029175638073448" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>. &#8220;The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.&#8221;
Over the past few weeks, a couple of House Republicans have <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/impeachathon-ensnares-growing-number-of-get-trump-judges" target="_blank" rel="noopener">unveiled</a> articles of impeachment against federal judges who have issued rulings unfavorable to the Trump administration, arguing they have become &#8220;judicial activists.&#8221;
The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/congressman-introduces-articles-of-impeachment-against-judge-blocking-trump-deportations?topStoryPosition=undefined" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> the latest set of impeachment articles was introduced against James Boasberg, an Obama-appointed judge blocking Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act to deport violent criminal illegal migrants.
Trump himself <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114183576937425149" target="_blank" rel="noopener">took aim</a> at Boasberg in a post on Truth Social earlier on Tuesday, calling him a &#8220;troublemaker and agitator&#8221; who &#8220;like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!!&#8221;
More than a dozen judges have been subject to impeachment proceedings over the course of United States <a href="https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/impeachment/impeachment-list.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">history</a>, dating back to the 1700s. Some of the cases resulted in a guilty verdict and removal from office.
The House and Senate are currently led by Republicans, though by slim margins. While a simple majority to impeach could be achieved along party lines in the House, a bipartisan group of 67 senators would be needed to convict.
Mike Davis, who <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/govt-background-checks-for-trump-political-appointees-include-left-wing-questions" target="_blank" rel="noopener">helped</a> oversee the vetting of judicial appointments as a Senate staffer and now runs the conservative Article III Project, responded defiantly to Robert&#8217;s statement on impeaching judges in a <a href="https://x.com/mrddmia/status/1902029950452113699" target="_blank" rel="noopener">post</a> on X.
&#8220;For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is a political decision by Congress. An activist judge ordering planes to turn around during a national-security operation is not a &#8216;judicial decision,'&#8221; Davis said.
&#8220;That is a highly illegal and extremely dangerous sabotage of the presidency, which is an impeachable offense,&#8221; he added. &#8220;Your statement is not an appropriate response. The normal impeachment process exists for that purpose.&#8221;

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts

Chief Justice John Roberts Speaks Out Against Trump-Backed Push To Impeach Judges

Impeachment

John Roberts

Salvadoran Government Receives 238 Alleged Members Of Criminal Organizations ‘Tren De Aragua’ and ‘MS13’

Menu