WASHINGTON—The suspect arrested last October with <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/man-who-targeted-supreme-court-justices-with-explosives-arraigned-in-dc-court">more than 100 explosive devices</a> outside of St. Matthew’s Cathedral ahead of the annual Red Mass that marked the start of the Supreme Court term was back in court on Tuesday. 
Louis Geri appeared in D.C. Superior Court for a status hearing. During the hearing, the court addressed a potential resolution between the prosecution and the defense. Initially, Geri was set to appear back in court on February 5, but was rescheduled to a later date at the apparent request of Geri. After February 5 was mentioned, Geri whispered to his attorney. After the two discussed, his attorney said Louis “doesn’t want to come back until there’s a resolution.” D.C. Superior Court Judge Jennifer Di Toro acknowledged Geri’s request. 
Previously, Geri’s defense rejected a plea deal offered by the prosecution. Due to a judge caseload transfer, Geri’s case was reassigned from Judge Heide Herrmann to Judge Di Toro. Geri faces charges of one count of Unlawful Manufacture or Possession of  Weapon of Mass Destruction and False Report of a Weapon of Mass Destruction. 
Geri was apprehended after stepping outside his tent to urinate on October 5 of last year. His tent, which allegedly contained the explosives, was set up on the steps of St. Matthew’s Cathedral, <a href="https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/crime/court-documents-give-insight-arrest-man-molotov-coctails-outside-dc-cathedral/65-a8db0416-0ce8-42a7-934a-1e84a4828a5b">according</a> to WUSA9. Authorities <a href="https://eaccess.dccourts.gov/eaccess/search.page.3.1?x=IGWQXnhkXfdw23D7wILJbHXmSW75pj1pCysMq7pwvjW14loRdrX2QrZD528XkwKiXbnDekXPF*4Pp8t52jcGzUpVuauGXvd9c6WZN8FE3opp2fTIkseP5epTZMbdG81OG9heL8vJ8ueuO-oFZyr5X6WLNoGF25MSM7bt2TCUAa4">say</a> he had gathered materials for the devices in Arkansas and was aware “that multiple public figures would likely attend” the event and that the “potential for damage was incredibly high.” 
Due to security concerns at the time, Supreme Court justices did not attend the Red Mass, which is an annual event held by the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle, wherein the parish prays for the High Court at the beginning of a new term.
On Tuesday, Judge Di Toro granted a mutual continuance, indicating that both sides agreed to delay proceedings while assessing if the case could be resolved without a trial. The court is set to reconvene on February 19 to discuss the case’s next steps.

Louis Geri

Suspect Who Targeted Supreme Court Mass With Hundreds Of Explosives Back In Court

Alleged Supreme Court Mass Bomber Back In Court

bombing

explosives

St. Matthew’s Cathedral

Supreme Court

CBS Chief Legal Analyst Jan Crawford sharply decimated claims from the Left that the conservative-leaning Supreme Court is corrupt, describing such narratives as &#8220;patently false&#8221; and &#8220;dangerous.&#8221;
In November, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) called the Court dishonorable, telling CNN&#8217;s Wolf Blitzer: “We&#8217;re committed to driving down the high cost of living, to fixing our broken health care system and, at the same period of time, cleaning up the corruption that exists in Washington, D.C., in the Congress, at the Supreme Court and, of course, with the Trump administration, the most corrupt administration in American history.”
“I just want to be precise,” Blitzer cautioned. “You say the Supreme Court has been corrupt? Is that what you&#8217;re saying?”
“Yes, what I&#8217;m saying is that the outrageous behavior by individual justices like Clarence Thomas and Justice Alito and the failure to have an ethical code of conduct is corrupt. These are the only people in the country who can operate above the law,” Jeffries answered.
“There is a narrative that the Supreme Court is corrupt,” Crawford said on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.” “We saw that emerge in the wake of the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. And now we see it, that they&#8217;re ‘in the tank for Trump.’ Not only is that narrative overreported, it is patently false, and it is dangerous for the institution and the public&#8217;s faith and confidence in the rule of law.”
“This is a conservative Supreme Court,” she stated. “It has been a conservative Supreme Court for 20 years. People can disagree and do disagree with their opinions, but it&#8217;s profoundly wrong to call it – or say corruption where there, in fact, is none.”
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“What&#8217;s underreported is any understanding of what this court&#8217;s been doing for the past 20 years,” she explained. “Its views of its role, vis-à-vis the other branches. How it sees the law. How it&#8217;s trying, in its focus, to restore some kind of accountability and our constitutional structure. Again, this is a court that is functional. It is consistent. They are nine justices. They don&#8217;t necessarily see the Constitution the same way by any means or how to interpret federal law. There&#8217;s a struggle over the proper way to interpret the Constitution. But that is as it should be. And I think as we approach our 250th anniversary of this country, it&#8217;s important to think about the court and their rule of law as the justices are doing, especially if we hope to keep democracy intact.”
“That&#8217;s a big statement, Jan, if we hope to keep democracy intact,” host Margaret Brennan responded. “My goodness.”
Undaunted, Crawford replied, “If we lost — if the public loses confidence in the rule of law, I don&#8217;t know what that means for democracy. And that&#8217;s why I think some of the rhetoric about corruption is so, so profoundly irresponsible.&#8221;
“And it causes threats,” CBS News correspondent Scott MacFarlane pointed out.
“Oh, yes. Which, again, I mean the justices are under tremendous (pressure), and federal judges as well,” Crawford concluded.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
On <a href="https://twitter.com/FaceTheNation?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@FaceTheNation</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/JanCBS?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@JanCBS</a> Crawford scolded the press corps in naming her “under-reported” story of the year: “There is a narrative the Supreme Court is corrupt. We saw that emerge in the wake of the Dobbs decision&#8230;and now we see it that they’re in the tank for Trump. Not only… <a href="https://t.co/2rPcXbEnvQ">pic.twitter.com/2rPcXbEnvQ</a>
&mdash; Brent Baker 🇺🇲🇺🇦 🇮🇱 (@BrentHBaker) <a href="https://twitter.com/BrentHBaker/status/2005408938599051421?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 28, 2025</a></blockquote>
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The Inauguration Of Donald J. Trump As The 47th President

CBS Chief Legal Analyst Slams Left’s ‘Corrupt Supreme Court’ Narrative As ‘Patently False’

CBS News

Corruption

Leftism

Media

Politics

CBS News legal analyst Jan Crawford insisted that despite recent history suggesting otherwise, 2026 would be a year of losses for President Donald Trump, particularly in the Supreme Court.
Crawford joined the discussion on Sunday morning&#8217;s broadcast of &#8220;Face the Nation,&#8221; and although she conceded that the Trump administration had seen &#8220;tremendous success&#8221; with regard to the Supreme Court, she was absolutely certain that pattern would not hold.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
The Trump administration will “absolutely not” win its case before the Supreme Court on the legality of President Trump&#8217;s executive order that seeks to end birthright citizenship, says <a href="https://twitter.com/JanCBS?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@JanCBS</a>.
The Court’s next term in 2026 is “highly consequential” as it also rules on tariffs,… <a href="https://t.co/mGLeSqyJDd">pic.twitter.com/mGLeSqyJDd</a>
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) <a href="https://twitter.com/FaceTheNation/status/2005327712215273751?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 28, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Despite the fact that the Supreme Court has given President Trump a lot of wins in the form of emergency rulings — which pause lower court rulings and allow his policies to take effect while the related litigation plays out — Crawford predicted that Trump&#8217;s luck in the high court was likely to dead end in the case on birthright citizenship.
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&#8220;Those are temporary, interim orders,&#8221; Crawford said of the emergency rulings. &#8220;And the administration has been very strategic and only appealing adverse ruling from courts below that it thinks it can win.&#8221;
&#8220;Again, these are just interim orders. Once we do get to the merits, I don&#8217;t think Trump&#8217;s going to win all of these cases,&#8221; Crawford continued. &#8220;And I certainly don&#8217;t think he&#8217;s going to win the birthright citizenship case.&#8221;
&#8220;You don&#8217;t?&#8221; host Margaret Brennan pressed.
&#8220;No, absolutely not,&#8221; she replied. &#8220;And he may not win the tariffs case. Right now it&#8217;s looking great for Trump in the Supreme Court, but it may look very different come June when we&#8217;ve kind of gotten through some of these big landmark rulings.&#8221;
Crawford went on to say that a number of other major issues would be a part of the &#8220;highly consequential&#8221; slate facing the Supreme Court in the coming months, from gun rights cases to trans identifying men in women&#8217;s sports.

Donald Trump

CBS Legal Analyst Predicts Trump Will Face Major SCOTUS Losses In 2026, Despite Recent Wins

birthright citizenship

Courts

Illegal Immigration

The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the Trump administration can&#8217;t send National Guard troops to quell violence in the streets of Chicago amid federal immigration raids.
The Trump administration asked the high court to give the federal government the authority to send troops while facing pushback from Democratic Illinois Governor JB Pritzker.
“I want to be clear: there is no need for military troops on the ground in the State of Illinois. State, county, and local law enforcement have been working together and coordinating to ensure public safety around the Broadview ICE facility, and to protect people’s ability to peacefully exercise their constitutional rights. I will not call up our National Guard to further Trump’s acts of aggression against our people,&#8221; Pritzker said in October of Trump&#8217;s announcement to federalize 300 National Guard soldiers for the deployment.
The 6-3 decision largely hinged on whether the circumstances on the ground in Chicago can be controlled by &#8220;regular forces.&#8221;
Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch dissented, according to reports.
“At this preliminary stage, the government has failed to identify a source of authority that would allow the military to execute the laws in Illinois,” the court said in its unsigned order, according to CNN.
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A lower court previously struck down the Trump administration&#8217;s deployment attempt, sparking the president&#8217;s request for the high court to weigh in on the issue.
The federal government commenced &#8220;Operation Midway Blitz&#8221; in September, deploying federal immigration agents to Illinois, where they&#8217;ve since faced violence and had hefty bounties placed on their heads from Mexican cartels.
Protests were also occurring outside the Broadview ICE facility on an almost weekly basis during the height of the operation.
Still, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol have made roughly 1,500 arrests as part of the crackdown, according to reports.

SCOTUS Rules Trump Can’t Deploy National Guard Troops To Chicago

Chicago

National Guard

Michigan state Senator Mallory McMorrow, a Democrat who&#8217;s running for U.S. Senate in 2026, said in a video posted to social media on Thursday that she &#8220;would not be able to control&#8221; herself if she saw conservative Supreme Court Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh in public.
The undated video, posted on X by Townhall, shows McMorrow answering a question from someone about the conservative majority on the Supreme Court. McMorrow, a Notre Dame grad and one of the Democratic leaders in the Michigan Senate, said that it makes her &#8220;furious&#8221; that Coney Barrett also graduated from Notre Dame.
&#8220;I talked to somebody yesterday who said they saw her with Brett Kavanaugh at a tailgate last weekend. I was like, &#8216;I would not be able to control myself,'&#8221; McMorrow said. &#8220;That would be a bad— there would be beers thrown in people&#8217;s faces.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
🚨WATCH: Democrat Candidate for Senate in Michigan Mallory McMorrow says that she would not be able to stop herself from hurling cans of beer at Amy Coney Barrett &amp; Brett Kavanaugh if she saw them in public.
Despicable! <a href="https://t.co/aQTsPBnvQC">pic.twitter.com/aQTsPBnvQC</a>
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) <a href="https://twitter.com/townhallcom/status/2001727745919680652?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 18, 2025</a></blockquote>
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The Daily Wire reached out to McMorrow&#8217;s Senate office and her campaign team to ask about her comments, but they did not respond.
Conservative Supreme Court justices have been the target of intense criticism from Democratic leaders in recent years. In 2020, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/05/chuck-schumer-supreme-court-comments-121960">called out</a> Kavanaugh and Justice Neil Gorsuch by name and warned that they would &#8220;pay the price&#8221; if they voted to overturn Roe v. Wade.
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&#8220;You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions,&#8221; Schumer added at the time. The Democratic leader was rebuked by many of his colleagues and by Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote, “Justices know that criticism comes with the territory, but threatening statements of this sort from the highest levels of government are not only inappropriate, they are dangerous.”
Then, in 2022, shortly after the court overturned Roe v. Wade, a trans-identifying male traveled to the home of Kavanaugh with plans to assassinate the conservative justice.
McMorrow is one of three Democrats who are seeking to replace retiring Democratic Senator Gary Peters. The 2026 election in Michigan will be one of the most closely watched contests in the country, as Republicans hope to capitalize on the open seat. McMorrow, 39, has served in the Michigan Senate since 2019 and became the Senate majority whip in 2023, where she has focused on advocating for abortion, especially after the Supreme Court&#8217;s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022.
Earlier this year, McMorrow rubbed shoulders with a radical leftist blogger who mocked Charlie Kirk after he was assassinated. In late September, McMorrow <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/michigan-democrat-teams-up-with-leftist-blogger-who-mocked-charlie-kirk-after-assassination">attended a fundraiser</a> alongside Rebecca Schoenkopf, who, a day after Kirk was killed, published an article titled “Second Amendment Comes for Charlie Kirk.”

Mallory McMorrow/Brett Kavanaugh/Amy Coney Barrett

Dem Senate Hopeful Says She’d Throw Beer At Conservative Justices, Lacks Self-Control

2026 Midterms

Amy Coney Barrett

Brett Kavanaugh

Democrats

Elections

Michigan

U.S. Senate

When Democrats want to slam their political opponents, they resort to a kind of linguistic reductionism. Everyone to their right is a neocon, or alt right, or MAGA, or a Christian nationalist, or whatever the popular term of art is at the moment.
Republicans have the opposite problem. For years, they’ve used “liberal,” “leftist,” and progressive” interchangeably. Today things are even further obfuscated by more specific but still somewhat vague concepts like “DEI,” and of course, the ever-evocative but incredibly diffuse “woke.”
This isn’t a good rhetorical strategy. Liberal hasn’t meant what it really means in a century, and it’s such a useless term that even the liberals don’t want to claim it. Leftist is probably the most accurate, but it’s still so dripping with the blood of 1968 that Democrats will sooner call themselves socialists before they proclaim themselves leftists.
That leaves progressive, which has more or less been the go-to epithet for partisan Democrats since Barack Obama.
But what is progressivism, and why is it bad? Progress in and of itself seems like a good thing: we like that our cars are safer and our phones are faster, and that we no longer have lead in our paint or children in our factories. Those on the Right, of course, know that “progress” as a political concept is something altogether more sinister, a Hegelian tidal wave that if left unchecked will wipe out the nuclear family and Judeo-Christian values in one fell swoop.
What relevance does any of this have, though, for contemporary politics?
If ever there were a man who could answer this question, it’s Ronald J. Pestritto. A graduate dean and professor of politics at Hillsdale College, Pestritto has been writing, researching, and teaching about progressivism throughout his career, which began at Claremont McKenna College in 1990 and continued through his graduate work at Claremont Graduate University, where he earned his Ph.D in 1996.
I&#8217;ve had the pleasure of hearing Pestritto lecture on the progressives, by which he means the early 20th-century American political movement defined by presidents like Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson and thinkers like John Dewey and Herbert Croly. Unlike some of his colleagues at both Hillsdale and Claremont, who — due respect — love to sound off on contemporary political debates, Pestritto is a thinker and teacher through and through.
This is reflected not just in his engaging classroom demeanor and professorial aesthetic, but in his body of work. His first book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Woodrow-Liberalism-American-Intellectual-Culture/dp/0742515176/ref=sr_1_4?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Y0zFGAtuwQqPwDeNJuKGfVWPvluFeMoF5qWn89yfGZy4hrvGVUDju8aQhN-S92NE1HYjCNZgxbKQscvrjc9p6AaoUpqGOyHPer3AK54SupWi8HfFj2yx6hCmB_bcxmlGD-1vyALpgLAnsi28K0Maeg.T_1I2viGooACkQVFk8PNtFp8BvjbKajD1b6VBkL4KGQ&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;qid=1766077924&amp;refinements=p_27%3ARonald+J.+Pestritto&amp;s=books&amp;sr=1-4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism,</a> is a sustained engagement with the controversial progressive president. He has edited a fine collection of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Woodrow-Wilson-Essential-Political-Writings-ebook/dp/B00EJKJGXY/ref=sr_1_6?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Y0zFGAtuwQqPwDeNJuKGfVWPvluFeMoF5qWn89yfGZx3BcY0ba2YCzmoLq3MaDTFr09KNZ88X8pJlfkXNS5D0sqb2136e2O-z3mgoE5tPt12NjeAipXXr0ODTrHeO6V_helDXyECIovH12fQYsgluA.a0cCKFHfONuUQoSeQ_RpaFfNqExHJe0n0fHNi1hZypQ&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;qid=1766078016&amp;refinements=p_27%3ARonald+J.+Pestritto&amp;s=books&amp;sr=1-6&amp;text=Ronald+J.+Pestritto" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Wilson’s political writings</a> as well as <a href="https://www.amazon.com/American-Progressivism-Ronald-J-Pestritto/dp/0739123033/ref=sr_1_5?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Y0zFGAtuwQqPwDeNJuKGfVWPvluFeMoF5qWn89yfGZy4hrvGVUDju8aQhN-S92NE1HYjCNZgxbKQscvrjc9p6AaoUpqGOyHPer3AK54SupWi8HfFj2yx6hCmB_bcxmlGD-1vyALpgLAnsi28K0Maeg.T_1I2viGooACkQVFk8PNtFp8BvjbKajD1b6VBkL4KGQ&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;qid=1766077924&amp;refinements=p_27%3ARonald+J.+Pestritto&amp;s=books&amp;sr=1-5" target="_blank" rel="noopener">American Progressivism: A Reader,</a> both indispensable volumes for anyone interested in progressivism or turn-of-the-century American political history.
It is precisely these academic bona fides that make it all the more exciting when Pestritto starts talking about contemporary politics — which he did in a wide-ranging interview with The Daily Wire.
The occasion of our conversation was the publication of Pestritto’s latest offering, “Government by the Unelected: How It Happened, and How It Might Be Tamed.” The ninth installment in the Claremont Institute&#8217;s <a href="https://dc.claremont.org/provocations/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“Provocations” series</a>, Pestritto describes it alternately as a long essay or a small book.
It is, according to the précis, &#8220;a comprehensive, historically-grounded account of how America moved from the founders’ vision of republican self-government to a regime governed by a permanent, unaccountable class of administrators.”
But the book&#8217;s goal is less lofty than that makes it sound. Pestritto says he wrote it with the 2026 midterm elections firmly in view, and in the hopes of providing Americans with a deeper understanding of precisely what is at stake when they go to the polls.
“The point is to help people understand the current controversies, because the way that they&#8217;re explained in the press is often not useful,” he says. “These are things that have been boiling for 80, 90 years, and we&#8217;re now finally at a point where there&#8217;s going be a fight over it. So, that background is necessary to hopefully help explain what&#8217;s been going on legally to bring us to this point.”
By this, Pestritto means the administrative state and its discontents. Better known as the bureaucracy or the “deep state,” this unelected leviathan is both the outgrowth and steward of American progressivism. Now a popular conservative bugaboo, the administrative state, as Pestritto admits, “something that most folks did not pay much attention to until probably Obama.”
If Mr. “Pen and Phone” raised hackles about the deep state, it was his onetime vice president who really laid bare what was at stake. From mandating coronavirus vaccines to banning gas-powered stoves, Joe Biden’s administration made clear to Americans what happened when elected officials ceded all authority to government bureaucrats.
A quick refresher for anyone who fell asleep in Deep State 101: federal agencies like the EPA, CDC, FCC — pretty much anything with a three-letter acronym — aren’t in the Constitution. They were largely created by congressional action, and the idea was that Congress would fund them, the president would control them (as part of the Executive Branch), and the courts would intervene when necessary.
If that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the system of checks and balances most of us had drilled into our heads in school. But things changed in 1984, when the Supreme Court ruled in a case called Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council. The result of the case was, in short, that administrative agencies were allowed to interpret and enforce federal guidance about themselves however they saw fit.
In other words: screw the branches, we can do whatever we want.
The result of that case, which came to be called “Chevron Deference,” led to a bloated and powerful administrative apparatus with no fear of legislative or executive oversight. It also fueled the neutering of Congress, and, until the election of President Donald Trump in 2016, made it seem like the rule of unelected bureaucrats over the United States was simply a forgone conclusion.
That, to Pestritto, is unacceptable.
“Government by bureaucracy contradict our principles of law and constitutionalism,” he says, in addition to violating “the basic democratic idea, that the people are supposed to govern themselves.”
“We have guards against majority tyranny, but basically you have people making rules, you have people governing who aren&#8217;t accountable to voters, and that&#8217;s not kosher in a republic.”
This is not merely a partisan gripe. It’s not that the federal bureaucracy is often staffed with liberals because liberals tend to gravitate toward government work. No, the liberal bias is built into the machinery — a machinery that seeks to shred the foundations of the country.
The original progressive idea, he notes, was that “the circumstances are different today than they were at the Founding. Progress means new circumstances, and requires a new kind of government.”
In other words, “our constitution&#8217;s outdated.” This, more than anything, Pestritto sees as the progressives’ lasting legacy.
“I would say the main way in which, uh, you see the Progressive legacy today is in the deference to the administrative state,” he says. “I am not naive enough to think that contemporary Democrats who call themselves progressives are true believers in the way that the original progressives were.”
While the original progressives at least had some kind of political program — workplace safety protections, things like that — “the contemporary Left is all about power.”
But that doesn’t mean that the bureaucracy the progressives built isn’t a useful tool for the Left.
“The bureaucracy, given the nature of what it does, is inherently Left ideologically,” Pestritto tells The Daily Wire. “It&#8217;s not conducive to conservative priorities.”
Here, Pestritto sounds increasingly like the odd man out among conservatives. It’s popular on the Right these days to say that the problem with the federal bureaucracy is simply that the wrong people are running it. Put patriots in charge, the argument goes, and things will turn around.
Pestritto isn’t buying it.
“You&#8217;re never gonna get an entity like the Federal Trade Commission but conservative, or the EPA but conservative,” he says. “That&#8217;s where I get off the bus.”
But this hardly means Pestritto is the kind of conservative intellectual who waxes poetic about Congress reasserting itself as a coequal branch of government — quite the contrary.
“Congress has basically ceased to become a legislative body,” he says. “It&#8217;s not a legislative institution anymore. It&#8217;s a kind of public media company.”
Asked how he would rate congressional efforts to rein in the administrative state, he pulls no punches.
“I&#8217;d give the congressional Republicans an F,” he says, noting that lawmakers are “failing to take advantage of a historic opportunity.”
That opportunity, of course, is the re-election of Trump, who has made “draining the swamp” one of his top priorities. On this front, the president is succeeding, Pestritto says.
“Trump&#8217;s really trying to go after the kind of inherent ideological bias in the federal government that&#8217;s sort of seated there in the bureaucracy, and that’s why they&#8217;re fighting like hell right now,” he says.
While Congress gets an F, “The current Trump administration I would give almost an A+,” Pestritto says, “because they are peddle to the floor trying to take advantage of every opening to rein in the bureaucracy, with the agency firings, with DOGE, and with a lot of the executive orders pertaining to rescinding regulations pertaining to bringing the independent agencies under the control of the president.”
Pestritto is quick to distinguish between his kind of robust executive authority and an effort to make the bureaucracy conservative.
“I’m much more an advocate of making the agencies directly accountable to the president by a total removal of power that he has, and then by paring back their authority and returning governing to actual elected officials, not so much in the federal government but probably in the state governments.”
Trump isn’t the only reason Pestritto is optimistic about the future of representative government. The Supreme Court, he says, has over the past decade begun “to try to turn the tables on the bureaucracy.”
The Court took a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/supreme-court-seems-likely-to-give-trump-power-to-remove-independent-agency-heads" target="_blank" rel="noopener">major step</a> in this direction earlier this month during oral arguments for Trump v. Slaughter, which deals with the president’s ability to remove independent agency heads. The Court’s conservative majority appeared to side with President Trump, who contends he had the ability to remove Rebecca Slaughter from the Federal Trade Commission.
In January, the Court will hear oral arguments in Trump v. Cook, a similar case that hinges on Trump’s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/appeals-court-protects-biden-appointed-fed-governor-lisa-cook-from-trump-ouster" target="_blank" rel="noopener">attempt to remove</a> Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook.
“This stuff is kind of filtering up to the grownups in the judicial system,” Pestritto says.
Though Pestritto is optimistic about all of these developments, he is clear that we never should have gotten to this point.
The best way to dismantle the administrative state, he says, “would be for Congress to reverse all of the discretionary authority it has delegated to bureaucratic executive agencies.”
But of course, “they&#8217;re not going to do that — that ship has sailed.”
“Congress is never going to be what it should be,” he says. That’s a pity, because in the not-so-distant past, congressional appropriators from both parties (he names Democrat John Dingell as one example) were so bullish about protecting their own power that they would fight the bureaucracy if only for territory.
“Nowadays, ideology has transcended all of that,” he says. “So the Democrats in Congress essentially know that the bureaucrats are their proxy.”
“And so, they are perfectly happy to let the bureaucrats disparage and ignore and resist congressional efforts for oversight,&#8221; he adds. &#8220;Because they understand that the bureaucracy will do the hard legislative work of legislating for the Left.”

Untitled design (84)

Could Donald Trump Finally Dismantle The Deep State? Ronald Pestritto Thinks So.

Congress

Hillsdale College

Progressivism

WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court heard oral arguments Monday in a case that could change the way presidents interact with the massive federal bureaucracy.
At issue in the case, Trump v. Slaughter, is whether a president has the authority to fire officials from independent agencies. Rebecca Slaughter, a former Federal Trade Commissioner, sued the president for removing her from the commission in March. Over the day&#8217;s three-hour proceeding, the court&#8217;s six conservative justices seemed inclined to side with President Donald Trump. Doing so would upend the way the federal bureaucracy interacts with the executive branch — a win not just for Trump, but for small-government conservatives anxious to claw back power from the &#8220;deep state.&#8221;
Slaughter’s team argues that independent agencies like the FTC have long-standing statutory protections allowing commissioners to be removed only “for cause” rather than “at will.” The team also insisted that these protections are essential for preserving agency independence, preventing partisan interference, and maintaining the separation of powers.
“We are asking the court to adhere to all of its precedents and to give effect to the collective wisdom and experience of all three branches of government,” said attorney Amit Agarwal. “Multi-member commissions with members enjoying some kind of removal protection have been part of our story since 1970.”
Solicitor General John Sauer contends, however, that Slaughter&#8217;s case rests on a precedent he called a “decaying husk.&#8221; Relying on the 1935 case, Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, &#8220;continues to tempt Congress to erect, at the heart of our government, a headless branch,” he argued.
Sauer acknowledged, however, that not all independent agencies are alike. In response to a question from Justice Brett Kavanaugh about how the Federal Reserve differs from the FTC, Sauer said the Fed was “sui generis” and should be treated as such.
Kavanaugh was frequently at odds with Justice Elena Kagan throughout oral arguments.
“Once you’re down this road, it’s a little bit hard to see how you would stop,” Kagan <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2025/25-332_p8k0.pdf">said,</a> arguing that giving the president control of the bureaucracy would essentially cede power to the executive.
Kavanaugh pushed back, <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2025/25-332_p8k0.pdf">noting</a> that &#8220;the real world of this is the independent agencies shift power from the presidency to the Congress. Everyone recognizes that.&#8221;
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In the email notifying Slaughter that she was being fired, the White House <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/12/trump-v-slaughter-an-explainer/">said</a> that allowing Slaughter to remain on the commission would be “inconsistent with [the] Administration’s priorities.” Former President Joe Biden appointed Slaughter to her second term at the Federal Trade Commission, which would have ended in 2029.
The Supreme Court is expected to issue a decision on the president’s authority to dismiss Slaughter by June 2026. If the Supreme Court sides with President Trump, Slaughter’s attorneys <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/12/trump-v-slaughter-an-explainer/">argue</a> the decision “would profoundly destabilize institutions that are now inextricably intertwined with the fabric of American governance.”

Supreme Court Confronts Trump’s Power To Disrupt Global Economy

Supreme Court Seems Likely To Give Trump Power To Remove Independent Agency Heads

Executive

Federal Reserve

Federal Trade Commission

The Supreme Court is looking at the possibility of ensuring that the federal executive branch is a unitary executive.
The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/07/us/politics/supreme-court-trump-independent-agencies.html">reports</a>:
<blockquote>As a young staff member in the Reagan administration, John G. Roberts Jr. was part of a group of lawyers who pushed for more White House control over independent government agencies.
The “time may be ripe to reconsider the existence of such entities, and take action to bring them back within the executive branch,” the future chief justice of the United States advised the White House counsel in a 1983 memo. Independent agencies, he wrote, were a “constitutional anomaly.”
Once he ascended to the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Roberts joined other conservatives on the bench in a series of rulings that have chipped away at Congress’s power to constrain the president’s authority to fire independent regulators.</blockquote>
The real question here is this: Where in the Constitution do you find the idea of independent regulators? It does not exist. We have three branches of government, and, in order of power, it’s supposed to be: legislative, executive, and judicial.
With that said, all of these are unitary powers. The president is not supposed to implement legislative power, which is why many of the regulatory agencies that currently exist should be ruled unconstitutional. If there are unelected agencies writing laws — which is what regulations are — there is no mode for that under the Constitution of the United States.
Simultaneously, there is no independent fourth branch of government set up by Congress that is not answerable to the executive branch, but only answerable to Congress. There&#8217;s nothing like that contemplated by the Constitution.
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-974957" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-300x50.webp 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-768x128.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1536x256.webp 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-2048x341.webp 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></div>
There will be a case argued in the Supreme Court over whether President Trump can fire people across the federal government in defiance of laws meant to protect their jobs and shield them from politics.
The Court’s majority will likely side with Trump, which makes perfect sense because there is nowhere in the Constitution where it says Congress has the power to set up an agency inside the executive branch that the president of the United States cannot run.
This case revolves around whether President Trump can fire Rebecca Slaughter, a Democratic member of the Federal Trade Commission, simply because he says she does not align with his agenda. That firing would be despite a law that says the president can only remove commissioners for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.
The administration is asking the justices to toss out a 90-year-old precedent that said the Constitution allowed laws like that one and put limits on the president&#8217;s authority to dismiss some quasi-independent government officials.
There are two dozen other agencies charged with protecting consumers, workers, the environment, or nuclear safety. They have been insulated from complete presidential control by similar laws.
One of the points Trump makes is that he&#8217;s doing the obvious thing. Democrats have been firing these people by ginning up cases against them for a very, very long time. This is also how they manage to maintain control of the regulatory state even after they lost an election. This is what Trump would label the so-called “deep state.”
Trump has repeatedly ousted Democratic leaders — including at the National Labor Relations Board, the Merit Systems Protection Board, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission —  to make way for replacements who share his policy priorities. That makes perfect sense. When you elect a president, you&#8217;re supposed to be able to shift regulatory policy along those lines.
It is why the Constitution was written the way that it was. Once you have a gigantic regulatory authority wedded to the executive branch, either the executive branch itself, run by the president, gains significant power, or you have to set up a fourth unregulated branch of government that is the regulatory state that actually runs the place.
Neither of those two solutions is good. Thus, the Constitution states that no lawmaking power lies with Congress. Executive power lies with the president.
We should hope that we return to the idea of a functional unitary executive, meaning everything that happens under the executive branch is run by the president.
If we go back to that, maybe Congress would actually legislate instead of kicking the can over to the regulatory branches of government to avoid responsibility.
The theory of the unitary executive is an idea that dates back to the Reagan administration. In a 2010 decision, Chief Justice Roberts said that the president&#8217;s power generally includes the authority to remove those assisting him in carrying out his duties. Without such power, the president could not be fully held accountable for discharging his own responsibilities.
That is exactly right, and I hope that the Supreme Court carries through on all of that. That would be a genuinely positive development.

Gemini generated Roberts Scotus Trump

Supreme Court Poised To Rein In ‘Fourth Branch,’ Restore Unitary Executive

Ben Shapiro

executive power

Federal Government

John Roberts

Judicial Branch

Opinion

Presidency

The Supreme Court takes up a case that could decide the future of so-called birthright citizenship, elected leaders in Minnesota are scrutinized for links to the state&#8217;s massive welfare scandal, and the announced Netflix-Warner Bros merger sends shockwaves through Hollywood.
It’s Monday, December 8, 2025, and this is the news you need to know to start your day. Today’s edition of the Morning Wire podcast can be heard below, and the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/mrn-251208">video version can be seen on The Daily Wire</a>:
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<h2 style="text-align: center;">Trump vs Birthright Citizenship</h2>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-1011047" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/SCOTUS-Weighs-Citizenship-300x169.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="169" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/SCOTUS-Weighs-Citizenship-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/SCOTUS-Weighs-Citizenship-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/SCOTUS-Weighs-Citizenship-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/SCOTUS-Weighs-Citizenship-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/SCOTUS-Weighs-Citizenship.jpg 1920w" sizes=" (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Topline: The Supreme Court will soon decide the fate of birthright citizenship in what could be a historic court case brought on by the Trump administration.
On his first day back in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring that children born in the United States to illegal immigrants and other short-term visitors would no longer be considered American citizens.
That order was immediately challenged in multiple lower federal courts and subsequently put on hold. But on Friday, the White House got some major news: the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case and will decide on the constitutionality of birthright citizenship. A ruling is expected by this summer.
Preview: The case will hinge on the court’s interpretation of the 14th Amendment, which reads: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”
Supporters of birthright citizenship say that sentence includes virtually everyone born on U.S. soil, but opponents say those born to illegal immigrants are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States, and thus are not Americans.
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Essentially, the White House says birthright citizenship was originally a good-intentioned provision meant to extend citizenship to the children of former slaves after the Civil War.
But they argue it’s now been abused by millions of illegal immigrants and even tourists, who race across the border while pregnant to ensure their children will get citizenship. 
Lawyers for the White House argue that Trump’s executive order would simply “restore the clause’s original meaning.”
<h2 style="text-align: center;">Massive Minnesota Fraud</h2>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-1011049" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Welfare-Scandal-Widens-300x169.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="169" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Welfare-Scandal-Widens-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Welfare-Scandal-Widens-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Welfare-Scandal-Widens-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Welfare-Scandal-Widens-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Welfare-Scandal-Widens.jpg 1920w" sizes=" (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Topline: The Somali-linked welfare fraud scandal in Minnesota is now being tied to Democrat leaders in the state, drawing more attention from the Trump administration and Congress.
Catch up: Billions of tax dollars have been stolen in the state of Minnesota during the tenure of Democrat Gov. Tim Walz. City Journal reporting has uncovered that at least a billion dollars in welfare and social service schemes have largely been connected to the Somali community in Minnesota. Alarmingly, some of this money was allegedly <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/minnesota-welfare-fraud-somalia-al-shabaab" target="_blank" rel="noopener">funneled</a> to Somalia-based terrorist group Al-Shabaab.
How could it be worse? Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller says the welfare fraud scheme is far worse than the American people think, involving “complicit” state government officials and totaling more stolen money than initial early estimates stated.
“We believe we have only scratched the very top of the surface of how deep this goes,” <a href="https://x.com/RapidResponse47/status/1997135207707615556?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1997135207707615556%7Ctwgr%5E79d8d486c99e2a14a41c75308117655867895db2%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailywire.com%2Fnews%2Fthe-somali-welfare-fraud-scandal-is-even-worse-than-you-think">said</a> Miller in an appearance on Fox News. “We believe the state government is fully complicit in this scheme, and we believe that what we are going to uncover is going to shock the American people.”
Miller also underscored the Somali ties to this fraud, connecting it to a larger conversation the nation is having about immigration from third-world countries.
“Seventy-five percent of the Somali population in Minnesota is on welfare, and that’s likely a significant undercount of just how much of a financial burden the Somali refugee population is imposing on this country,” <a href="https://x.com/RapidResponse47/status/1997135207707615556?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1997135207707615556%7Ctwgr%5E79d8d486c99e2a14a41c75308117655867895db2%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailywire.com%2Fnews%2Fthe-somali-welfare-fraud-scandal-is-even-worse-than-you-think">said</a> Miller.
Who knew what: Reporting from the New York Post has tied Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar to the scandal. Omar held parties at one of the key restaurants named, and she knew one of its owners, who is now convicted of stealing millions in funds. Additionally, one of her own staffers has been convicted of stealing millions. Omar even introduced the bill that led to $250 million in fraud.
“I just think that a lot of the COVID programs were set up so quickly that a lot of the guardrails did not get created,” Omar <a href="https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/1996395142001864889?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1996395142001864889%7Ctwgr%5Edaf0b98b351595e957decab8d8baed2dec55e0db%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailywire.com%2Fnews%2Filhan-omar-says-trump-supporters-might-attack-somalis-brushes-off-fraud-scandal">told</a> CNN last week when asked about the fraud.
There have also been questions about Walz’s oversight. The Treasury Department is investigating this scandal, and House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) has announced a congressional investigation.
<h2 style="text-align: center;">Netflix-Warner Bros Seismic Merger</h2>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-1011051" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Streaming-Studio-Shake-up-300x169.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="169" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Streaming-Studio-Shake-up-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Streaming-Studio-Shake-up-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Streaming-Studio-Shake-up-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Streaming-Studio-Shake-up-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Streaming-Studio-Shake-up.jpg 1920w" sizes=" (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Topline: In a seismic shift for Hollywood, Netflix has struck an $83 billion deal to acquire Warner Brothers. The merger would potentially reshape the entertainment business for generations.
Announced just days ago, Netflix&#8217;s binding offer will give it not just Warner Bros the movie studio, but also streaming assets like HBO Max. And it&#8217;s gobbling up classics like Batman, Superman, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Looney Tunes, Friends, etc.
It’s being called one of the biggest, if not the biggest, mergers in Hollywood history. It comes after a bidding war that saw heavyweights like Paramount Skydance and Comcast get outmaneuvered or outspent by Netflix.
The Netflix angle: Netflix has been in a content arms race with Disney and Amazon. The Warner Bros. vault offers instant firepower.
Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos says it&#8217;ll “accelerate HBO Max growth” while blending Warner&#8217;s “theatrical expertise.” But many critics are concerned that this means Netflix will shorten theatrical windows and further decimate the moviegoing business.
That’s part of the reason many creatives hate this deal. During the bidding war, director James Cameron <a href="https://x.com/Todd_Spence/status/1996991743116591550?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> that Netflix&#8217;s acquisition of Warner Bros would be “a disaster” for the industry.
Batman director Christopher Nolan is representing the Directors Guild in meetings with Netflix to express concerns. Both the East and West Writers’ Guilds issued a joint statement unequivocally opposing the sale and asking regulators to block it.
Could it be blocked? There are already rumbles in Washington that the Trump administration doesn’t like this merger.
And opposition is bipartisan. Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), chair of the antitrust subcommittee, said Netflix should “Buckle up for an intense antitrust hearing.” Meanwhile,  Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has called the merger an “anti-monopoly nightmare,” warning that it could lead to higher subscription prices and fewer choices for consumers.
There’s no question that because Netflix is already the largest global streamer, adding Warner Bros. content and HBO Max subscribers would give it extraordinary dominance–over a third of the streaming market.
Netflix, though, already seems to be trying to soothe customer jitters. It sent a message to subscribers on Saturday night, repeatedly assuring them that their plans, fees, content access, and the separate operations of both Netflix and HBO Max will not change.

MRN_251208_V1

Morning Brief: Birthright Citizenship Showdown & Minnesota Fraud Firestorm

Ilhan Omar

Minnesota

Morning Wire

Netflix

Stephen Miller

Tim Walz

Warner Bros

The Supreme Court agreed Friday to decide whether President Donald Trump&#8217;s push to end birthright citizenship is legal, according to reports.
Upon re-entering the White House, Trump signed an executive order to prevent the children of illegal immigrants or foreigners with temporary visas from receiving citizenship upon birth.
It quickly faced a slew of lawsuits arguing that the order violated the 14th Amendment, which affords citizenship to anyone born on U.S. soil regardless of their parents&#8217; immigration status.
The high court is now expected to decide in late June or early July on the longtime interpretation of the 14th Amendment, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/05/us/politics/supreme-court-trump-birthright-citizenship.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to The New York Times.
In June, the high court justices <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24a884_8n59.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ruled</a> 6-3 along ideological lines to allow Trump to try to end birthright citizenship in some parts of the country.
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The ruling, however, did not address the question of birthright citizenship itself, which is the practice of granting automatic citizenship rights for babies born on United States soil, regardless of their parents’ citizenship status.
The Trump administration <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-asks-supreme-court-to-hear-birthright-citizenship-case?author=Reuters&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Trump+Asks+Supreme+Court+To+Hear+Birthright+Citizenship+Case">asked</a> the Supreme Court in September to take up the case after several lower courts paused the order.
“The lower court’s decisions invalidated a policy of prime importance to the President and his Administration in a manner that undermines our border security. Those decisions confer, without lawful justification, the privilege of American citizenship on hundreds of thousands of unqualified people,” the Justice Department wrote in the appeals at the time.

Donald Trump/Supreme Court

Supreme Court To Rule On Trump’s Push To End Birthright Citizenship

A Christian evangelist&#8217;s battle with a Mississippi city over street preaching took center stage at the Supreme Court on Wednesday as the justices heard arguments that could have far-reaching consequences for Americans who want to defend their constitutional rights in federal court. 
The case <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/qp/24-00993qp.pdf">revolves</a> around whether 33-year-old Gabriel Olivier can challenge an ordinance from Brandon, Mississippi, that restricted street preaching in a public park outside of a local amphitheater. Olivier, who was convicted in 2021 of street preaching outside of the designated area, is now attempting to overturn the ordinance on First Amendment grounds. 
“This is a really important case,  for Christians specifically, because I noticed that all around the country, there&#8217;s always an exercise of free speech [that] does not seem to be cracked down on the way that Christians&#8217; free speech is nowadays,” Olivier told The Daily Wire in an interview. 
The city of Brandon argues that Olivier cannot challenge the ordinance in federal court because he has previously been convicted of violating it. Olivier says that he doesn’t want to revisit the 2021 conviction, for which he paid a fine, but wants to protect his right to share his faith in the future. 
During oral arguments on Wednesday, the justices seemed sympathetic to Olivier’s arguments that he should be able to seek relief in federal court despite his previous conviction. Nate Kellum, a lawyer with First Liberty Institute representing Olivier, told The Daily Wire that he was encouraged by the questions he heard from the justices. 
Kellum said that all he wants is for Olivier to have his day in court to argue against the ordinance and make an appeal for his First Amendment rights. 
“Everybody, regardless of their ideology and their belief, deserves their day in court,” Olivier said. “We&#8217;re just asking that people would continue to pray for us.”
The Trump administration is <a href="https://www.justice.gov/crt/media/1414041/dl">supporting</a> Olivier’s petition, as are a number of other conservative organizations. 
The ordinance implemented by Brandon, a suburb east of Jackson, restricts protest activity in the park surrounding the city&#8217;s amphitheater to a designated area when events are being held. 
“What the ordinance does is it puts him in a place where no one can hear him,” Kellum told The Daily Wire. “You can&#8217;t have a conversation.  You can&#8217;t hand out literature. If he preaches, he cannot be heard, and if he held up a sign, no one could read it. And so that seemed to be the whole idea, is that the city wanted to pass a law that separated him from his would-be audience.”
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The city and some legacy outlets have attempted to suggest that Olivier shouted rude or inappropriate things during his previous outings at the park. 
“It&#8217;s patently false. And it seems to be an attempt to try to malign Gabe, malign his character,” Kellum said. “But if Gabe or really anyone else would say anything that would amount to fighting words or could be something that could lead to an altercation, there&#8217;s disorderly conduct ordinances.”
Olivier first went to the park in 2019, where he had productive conversations about his faith with others. But when he returned in 2021, the city had passed an ordinance against such evangelism. His passion for street evangelism comes from his own conversion ten years ago when he encountered a street preacher. 
“I see it very clearly as a command in scripture,” he said. “And so I choose to do that and exercise the rights that we have enjoyed here in America. And we would like for an opportunity to continue to fight for those rights to be upheld.”
Todd Butler, the attorney representing Brandon, said in a statement to The Daily Wire: &#8220;The City of Brandon was excited to present its position to the Court. The case before the Supreme Court is not about the constitutionality of the ordinance or religious expression. It is about whether a person who has been found guilty in criminal court may undermine his conviction through a civil tort lawsuit. The importance of this case cannot be overstated as it will impact cities across the country.&#8221;

MixCollage-04-Dec-2025-02-39-PM-4809

Supreme Court To Weigh In On Christian Evangelist’s Street Preaching Battle With City

Street Preaching Heads To Court: Evangelist’s Battle With City Heard By Supreme Court

Christianity

First Amendment

Free Speech

Mississippi

The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that Texas could forge ahead with its newly redrawn congressional map ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
The <a href="https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/26338616/25a608-order.pdf">initial order</a> was unsigned, and declared that the lower court&#8217;s decision to block the map — which favors Republicans — had been made in error. A brief concurring opinion followed that was joined by Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch. Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown-Jackson joined together in dissent.
The order opened with a brief explanation, noting that a three-judge District Court had granted the League of Latin American Voters&#8217; request for an injunction — which would have prevented the state from implementing the new map — and stated that the Court intended to stay the injunction, as requested by the state of Texas. &#8220;The District Court failed to honor the presumption of legislative good faith by construing ambiguous direct and circumstantial evidence against the legislature,&#8221; the explanation read, in part.
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Justice Alito, in his concurring opinion, argued that the lower court&#8217;s determination — that the Republican-drawn map was based on race rather than politics — was made in error. He wrote that it was &#8220;indisputable&#8221; that the &#8220;impetus for the adoption of the Texas map (like the map subsequently adopted in California) was partisan advantage pure and simple&#8221; — and that being the case, the state should be permitted to move forward with that map. Thomas and Gorsuch agreed.
&#8220;When the asserted reason for a map is political, it is critical for challengers to produce an alternative map that serves the State’s allegedly partisan aim just as well as the map the State adopted. Id., at 34; Easley v. Cromartie, 532 U. S. 234, 258 (2001). Although respondents’ experts could have easily produced such a map if that were possible, they did not, giving rise to a strong inference that the State’s map was indeed based on partisanship, not race,&#8221; their concurring opinion continued.
Justice Kagan, in her lengthy dissent, complained that the ruling had declared the redrawn maps to not be based on race, as the lower court had found, but had instead justified them being drawn for political reasons.
The ruling, she said, &#8220;disserves the millions of Texans whom the District Court found were assigned to their new districts based on their race.&#8221;

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