Despite recent viral social media claims, trees do not literally “explode” like bombs in extreme cold.
What happens instead is a natural physical response to rapid and severe temperature drops. When temperatures plunge well below freezing, moisture and sap inside a tree’s wood can freeze.
Water expands as it freezes, which can create stress between the colder, contracting outer bark and the relatively warmer inner wood. That stress can cause the bark or trunk to split suddenly, sometimes making a loud bang or crack that people describe as an explosion.
This rare phenomenon is most accurately called frost cracking or cold splitting and happens during abrupt temperature swings, not continuous cold. It can occur most often in species with higher moisture content or thin bark.
While the noise may be startling, such splits usually do not pose widespread danger to people indoors, though they can injure trees.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Do trees explode in extreme cold? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
Lawmakers in Washington often insist data centers, which require thousands of acres and enormous amounts of energy, are a municipal issue. But residents organizing against their construction say candidates up and down the ballot will have to answer for their concerns — especially if those politicians are going to campaign on affordability.
“This absolutely plays into affordability,” said Christine Le Jeune, a founding organizer of Great Lakes Neighbors United in Wisconsin. “People are concerned about rapidly rising energy prices.”
Le Jeune’s group launched a petition to recall the mayor of Port Washington, a Wisconsin town on Lake Michigan where construction began last month on a $15 billion data center to service OpenAI and Oracle through the Stargate project backed by President Donald Trump.
The recall effort is one of the bolder actions in a wave of local protests against data centers sweeping Wisconsin and the country.
Le Jeune said Mayor Ted Neitzke failed to take into consideration residents’ concerns that they will end up “on the hook” for data centers’ energy usage when he went ahead with the Stargate plans.
Neitzke did not respond to NOTUS’ request for comment.
On Capitol Hill, lawmakers feel insulated from the grassroots resistance threatening local elected officials.
“It’s going to be more (of) a challenge in gubernatorial races and state races because that’s where those decisions are made. We don’t have as much, in fact very little to do with it at a federal level,” said Rep. Mark Pocan, who represents the Dane County area.
That may not last long.
“The destruction of what they’re trying to do is going to be on the forefront of our minds as we listen to these politicians,” said Wisconsin retailer David Aversa.
In Ozaukee County, residents like Aversa are organizing against American Transmission Company’s plan to construct power lines, which they said will raze woods and waterways on or near their properties, potentially devaluing their homes. The power lines would serve the Port Washington data center currently being built.
Aversa was offered up to $5,000 by ATC to appraise his land as the company plans power line construction, according to a NOTUS review of communications from the company.
Data centers are subject to local zoning and permitting laws, but that doesn’t mean federal lawmakers’ hands are tied.
What lawmakers plan to do around growing utility price concerns is less clear. Sen. Bernie Sanders proposed a national moratorium on data center construction last month, an idea that has failed to gain traction among Democrats.
Preventing data centers from raising energy prices has become something of a unifying issue for both parties and the president, who said in a Truth Social post earlier this month that he does not want to see electricity bills rise as a result of the AI infrastructure. The Trump administration signed an agreement with 13 governors, including Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, to slow rising electricity prices in the mid-Atlantic and Midwest attributed to data centers.
Wisconsin lawmakers who spoke to NOTUS largely agreed that their constituents shouldn’t bear the costs of private companies’ energy use.
“Existing ratepayers and commercial users should not have their rates go up as a result of someone that’s coming in using massive amounts of electricity,” said Rep. Tom Tiffany, the front-runner in Wisconsin’s Republican primary for governor. “The data centers are going to have to answer the question, ‘How do we get enough energy to be able to run our operations yet not harm our neighbors?’”
Sen. Tammy Baldwin echoed Tiffany’s call for protecting ratepayers, though she said any moratorium on data centers must be considered by the state Legislature first.
“The developers of these need to have commitments to the local community that they won’t see, that they won’t have to shoulder the costs of the energy use and water use by these data centers,” Baldwin said.
Sen. Ron Johnson said data centers’ impact on the state’s electrical grid is a “very serious concern,” adding that he is unsure local officials have “really factored it in properly.”
When asked whether residents should take on the cost of data centers’ energy, Rep. Glenn Grothman, whose district includes Port Washington, hedged.
“It varies in different situations,” Grothman said.
Microsoft, which is building “the world’s most powerful AI datacenter” in Racine County, pledged last week that it will pay to ensure its developments do not raise electricity prices for people living nearby.
While the announcement is good news for one corner of Wisconsin, many across the state still worry that they will end up with the bill for the construction of data centers and related infrastructure.
The residents of Port Washington will reimburse Vantage Data Centers the development costs for its data center — plus 7% annual interest — from new property tax revenue generated by the development.
To some, cases like Port Washington’s are even more important than rising energy rates.
“The focus should be more on if they’re going to build something, they should have to pay for all the infrastructure costs related to it,” Pocan said. “That means power lines, that means a lot of other infrastructure.”
Pastor Patti Plough, who chairs the Protect Fredonia Coalition organizing against the ATC transmission lines, said the expansion of AI infrastructure can hit Wisconsinites where it hurts most.
“If you ruin their property, and ruin the value of their property, what really stands out more?” said Plough, whose home lies near a contingent route for the power lines. “The destruction of their property, right? No one wants to pay more, but the destruction of your property and then more?”
This story was produced and originally published by Wisconsin Watch and NOTUS, a publication from the nonprofit, nonpartisan Allbritton Journalism Institute.
Data centers become a flashpoint in Wisconsin politics is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
The state Assembly passed a package of nuclear energy incentives Thursday, with backers promising a "nuclear renaissance" in Wisconsin amid a data center building boom.
The post Nuclear power tax credit measure passes Assembly with wide bipartisan support appeared first on WPR.
Writer and forester Ron Weber returned to his family home and tells us what he cherishes the most.
The post Eyes of the beholder: Saying goodbye to the family homestead appeared first on WPR.
WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” kicks off a series aimed at understanding the impact of the state’s aging population on workforce needs, community services, and more. This conversation kicks looks at the big trends we’re seeing.
The post Aging Wisconsin: Wisconsin’s baby boomers are state’s fastest growing age range appeared first on WPR.
A group of senior engineering students at the University of Wisconsin-Stout developed a custom pallet stacker for Wisconsin-based Ashley Furniture as part of a capstone project last year.
The post UW-Stout engineering students design pallet stacker for Ashley Furniture appeared first on WPR.
From the dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education to withholding billions of federal dollars, K-12 and post-secondary education saw unprecedented changes during the first year of Trump’s second term in office.
The post Education has seen unprecedented changes in Trump’s second term appeared first on WPR.
With Wisconsin’s decades-old land conservation program due to expire this summer, Assembly Republicans passed legislation Thursday to keep it afloat through 2028.
The post Assembly Republicans approve stewardship reauthorization, with less money and more oversight appeared first on WPR.
A former Madison police chief spent years reviewing police use-of-force incidents. A retired Kenosha Air Force pilot lost his son in a police shooting. Their experiences with law enforcement have shaped how they view the shooting of Renee Good.
The post Wisconsin police reform advocates: ICE needs more oversight after fatal shooting appeared first on WPR.
At least 100,000 gallons of manure spilled at a large dairy farm in central Wisconsin, flowing into an unnamed tributary of Black Creek.
The post Around 100K gallons of manure spilled from large farm in central Wisconsin appeared first on WPR.
An analyst from KFF and a Wisconsin health care-focused lawyer reflect on the biggest changes in health coverage since the beginning of the second Trump administration.
The post ‘Paid for by all of us’: Trump’s second term set to increase health costs, uncompensated care appeared first on WPR.
This week’s new album comes from the Pacifica Quartet, the ensemble in residence at the University of Indiana, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary with a collection of chamber works by Erich Wolfgang Korngold.
The post WPR Music new album of the week: ‘The Korngold Collection’ appeared first on WPR.
Data centers are mushrooming all over the country, with many planned projects on deck in Wisconsin. We need to get ahead of them by putting in place protections for the state's energy and water resources. (Photo by Dana DiFilippo/New Jersey Monitor)
Wisconsin stands at a pivotal moment.
Artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and hyperscale data centers are arriving quickly, bringing enormous demand for electricity and water. The real question is not whether these investments will come, but how we manage them and who pays the costs if we get it wrong.
Families want affordable bills. Businesses want reliable power. Communities want clean water and economic opportunity. We need a common-sense approach to guide how we respond to rapid data center growth.
The scale of proposed data centers is unlike anything Wisconsin has seen.
Just two projects, one in Port Washington and another in Mount Pleasant, have requested nearly four gigawatts of electricity combined. That is more power than all Wisconsin households use today.
Meeting this demand will require massive investments in power plants, transmission lines, substations, pipelines and water infrastructure. But under Wisconsin’s current utility model, these costs are not paid only by the companies driving demand. They are instead spread across all of us who pay electric bills, including families, farms, and small businesses that won’t benefit from data center power.
For small businesses operating on thin margins, even modest increases in electric or water rates affect hiring, pricing and long-term viability. In rural communities with fewer customers sharing infrastructure costs, the impact can be even more severe.
This concern is already becoming real. Utilities are citing data center demand to justify new methane gas plants and delaying coal plant retirements. Utilities doubling down on fossil fuels should give every one of us pause.
Building new methane gas plants for data centers would lock customers into decades of fuel price volatility, even though cleaner options have become cheaper and faster to deploy.
Wind, solar and battery storage can come online far more quickly than fossil fuel plants and without exposing families and businesses to unpredictable fuel costs. Battery storage costs alone have fallen nearly 90% over the past decade.
Across the country, these tools are replacing methane gas plants in states as different as Texas and California.
There is also a serious risk that we will pay higher bills for decades, even when data centers stop using those methane gas plants. In Nevada, a major utility has acknowledged that only about 15% of proposed data centers are likely to be built. When speculative projects fall through, all of us are left to pay for infrastructure we actually never needed.
This is not ideology. It is basic financial risk management, and basic fairness.
Wisconsin policymakers and elected officials need to put guardrails in place to protect everyday residents from the AI bubble that’s threatening the state. The core principle should be that data centers operate on 100% clean energy, not as a slogan, but because it is the lowest-cost and lowest-risk option over time.
A smart framework would require developers to:
This approach reduces peak demand, lowers infrastructure costs and protects existing customers while allowing data centers to advance.
Major companies like Microsoft, Google and Meta have already publicly committed to operating on carbon-free energy. We need to hold them to that. Wisconsin risks losing our competitive advantage if we default to gas-heavy solutions instead of offering clean, flexible grids.
Energy is not the only concern. Water matters just as much.
A single hyperscale data center can use millions of gallons of water per day, either directly for cooling or indirectly through power generation. In communities with limited water systems, that can crowd out agricultural use and raise residents’ water bills.
Wisconsin should require closed-loop cooling systems, full accounting of direct and indirect water use, and ongoing public reporting to ensure local water supplies are protected.
Wisconsin does not have to choose between economic growth and affordability. We can do both if we insist on clear guardrails.
That means requiring data centers to pay the full cost of service, powering growth with clean energy first, and protecting water resources and ratepayers from unnecessary risk.
Data centers are coming. The question is whether Wisconsin families and small businesses will be partners in that growth or be left paying higher bills for decades to come.
If we choose smart clean power over costly gas, Wisconsin can lead.
GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.
Former special counsel Jack Smith arrives to testify during a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill on Jan. 22, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Republicans on the U.S. House Judiciary Committee sought to poke holes Thursday in former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith’s investigations into President Donald Trump, while Democrats on the panel commended him and Smith restated his finding that Trump sought to overturn the 2020 election results.
Republicans on the panel accused Smith, a longtime prosecutor who has led investigations of public officials of both major U.S. parties and international figures, of undertaking a partisan probe targeting Trump ahead of the 2024 election.
“It was always about politics,” Chairman Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican, said to open the hearing.
During the hearing, Trump posted on social media a suggestion that he would seek to prosecute Smith.
But Smith, and the many Democrats on the committee who defended him Thursday, repeatedly asserted that his investigation was by the book, guided by Justice Department policies, legal requirements, “the facts and the law.”
“I made my decisions without regard to President Trump’s political association, activities, beliefs or candidacy in the 2024 election,” Smith said in an opening statement. “President Trump was charged because the evidence established that he willfully broke the law — the very laws he swore an oath to defend.”
Smith led two prosecutions of Trump during the years between his presidential terms.
One, in District of Columbia federal court, accused Trump of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election results. The other, in Florida federal court, accused Trump of mishandling classified documents.
Grand juries indicted Trump in both cases but the Justice Department dropped both cases after Trump’s 2024 election victory, consistent with department policy that forbids prosecution of a sitting president.
Midway through the five-hour hearing, Trump posted to Truth Social his analysis of the meeting and a veiled threat against Smith.
“Deranged Jack Smith is being DECIMATED before Congress,” he wrote. “If he were a Republican, his license would be taken away from him, and far worse! Hopefully the Attorney General is looking at what he’s done, including some of the crooked and corrupt witnesses that he was attempting to use in his case against me. The whole thing was a Democrat SCAM — A big price should be paid by them for what they have put our Country through!”
In the hearing room, Smith directly rejected charges he was motivated by partisanship, and said he would not give in to intimidation attempts by Trump.
“If asked whether to prosecute a former president based on the same facts today, I would do so regardless of whether that president was a Democrat or a Republican,” he said. “No one — no one — should be above the law in this country.”
Vermont Democrat Becca Balint noted Trump had used the term “Deranged Jack Smith” 185 times on Truth Social.
“I think … the statements are meant to intimidate me. I will not be intimidated. I think these statements are also made as a warning to others what will happen if they stand up,” Smith responded.
“We did our work pursuant to department policy,” he continued. “We followed the facts, we followed the law, and that process resulted in proof, beyond a reasonable doubt, that he committed serious crimes. I’m not going to pretend that didn’t happen because he’s threatening me.”
Several committee Republicans challenged Smith’s pursuit of phone records from members of Congress related to the election interference case.
The case included an examination of Trump’s attempt to block Congress’ certification of the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to Democrat Joe Biden, on Jan. 6, 2021. Smith and other prosecutors sought phone logs leading up to the eventual attack on the Capitol that day.
Republicans on the panel accused Smith of violating Congress’ rights as a co-equal branch of government and took further umbrage at efforts by Smith and his colleagues to keep the records requests secret, and noted that only Republicans’ records had been sought.
Jordan said his phone records were among those obtained, and described the entire investigation as a partisan attack on Trump.
“Even the Democrats said this was wrong,” he said. “We shouldn’t be surprised. Democrats have been going after President Trump for 10 years, for a decade, and the country should never, ever forget what they did.”
Smith said the investigation had to do with Trump’s pressure campaign on members of Congress to object to the election results, including appeals to Republicans’ partisan loyalties. If the president had been a Democrat, he’d have sought Democrats’ records, he said.
He and Democrats on the panel also noted that the phone records only included data like the length, time and date of phone calls, without disclosing anything about their content. Such records are typical pieces of conspiracy investigations, they said.
Democrats complimented and defended Smith throughout the hearing.
“Special Counsel Smith, you pursued the facts,” ranking Democrat Jamie Raskin of Maryland said. “You followed every applicable law, ethics rule and DOJ regulation. Your decisions were reviewed by the Public Integrity Section. You acted based solely on the facts.”
Raskin contrasted Smith’s approach with that of Trump, who he said sought unprecedented control over the Justice Department to pursue “political vendetta and motives of personal revenge.”
Several other Democratic members held Smith up as an exemplary public servant.
“I want to thank you for your service,” Tennessee Democrat Steve Cohen said.
“I think you’re a great American, and you came out of this as being somebody who people can respect and look up to,” he said. “We should be instilling people’s desire to go into justice, to go into law, to go into government. You’re an example of the type of person they should follow.”
Ensign Lake in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. (Photo by Zach Spindler-Krage)
A proposal to repeal a ban on mining in northeastern Minnesota’s Superior National Forest is headed to the U.S. Senate following approval in the House, reigniting a long-simmering fight between environmentalists and pro-mining interests.
The reaction of outdoors and environmental groups was swift Wednesday.
“Congress just tossed aside years of scientific study and local input about how to conserve the headwaters of this wilderness for future generations, allowing the threat of toxic mining to return,” Jordan Schreiber, director of government relations at The Wilderness Society, said in a statement. He called on the Senate to “reject this attack and the precedent it sets to arbitrarily strike down” public land protections.
House Republicans voted Wednesday to undo former President Joe Biden’s 20-year moratorium on the extraction of copper, nickel and other minerals across more than 225,000 acres near the popular Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. If approved by the Republican-controlled Senate, the resolution would next go to President Donald Trump, who has indicated he would sign it into law.
The resolution requires only a simple majority vote to pass the Senate, rather than a filibuster-proof majority.
Republican Congressman Pete Stauber, whose Duluth-based district covers the area, introduced the resolution last year. It uses an obscure but increasingly popular procedural tool that allows Congress to void certain Executive Branch actions.
In a statement Wednesday, Stauber hailed the resolution’s passage as a win for the regional economy, national security and congressional prerogatives. The resolution would prevent future administrations from imposing similar bans in the future.
“Reversing Biden’s mining ban will protect Northern Minnesota jobs, strengthen national security through domestic production, and prevent future overreaches from happening again,” Stauber said.
Organized labor cheered the move, too, albeit in terms more palatable to the Democratic base.
“One of the most important contributions Minnesota can make to the fight against climate change is leading the world in setting the highest bar for labor and environmental protections in the responsible production of copper, nickel and other critical minerals,” Joel Smith, president and business manager of LIUNA Minnesota and North Dakota, said in a statement, also mentioning the promise of “family-supporting careers” for union members and “community-supporting jobs at schools, hospitals, public and private sector employers.”
Environmental and outdoor recreation groups have long opposed mining near the Boundary Waters, a remote section of Superior National Forest along the border with Canada. The groups say it would disturb critical habitats and pollute a pristine watershed enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of visitors each year.
In a statement describing the resolution as an unprecedented use of congressional power over public land use, Save the Boundary Waters urged voters to contact their senators and push for a “no” vote on the resolution. Save the Boundary Waters is pushing for a permanent ban on copper-ore sulfide mining in the boundary watershed. Citing peer-reviewed scientific research, the group says mining for copper and other heavy metals inevitably leaches sulfuric acid, toxic metals and other pollutants into surrounding water systems, harming the natural environment and imperiling tourism.
Northeast Minnesota sits atop the Duluth Complex, one of the world’s richest deposits of copper and nickel. Twin Metals, a subsidiary of the Chilean mining conglomerate Antofagasta, wants to extract both minerals — along with cobalt and other precious metals — from underground veins near Ely and Babbitt, about a dozen miles from the wilderness area.
It would be the first copper-nickel mine in Minnesota, which produces most of the United States’ domestic iron but few other metals. Regional and state officials have sought for years to reduce northeastern Minnesota’s economic dependence on volatile global markets for iron and steel. Its rich deposits of higher-value metals, along with elusive gases like helium and possibly hydrogen, could offer a lifeline.
The Twin Metals project has been in development for more than 15 years amid an arduous state and federal permitting process. It suffered a severe setback in early 2023 when the Biden administration announced a 20-year moratorium on mining across 350 square miles of the Superior National Forest, though Minnesota has issued new mineral exploration permits in the years since.
Copper, nickel, cobalt and some precious metals are key inputs for a bevy of medical, automotive and industrial products. They’re also needed to produce wind turbines, solar panels, rechargeable batteries and other electrical technologies that scientists say are crucial for mitigating local air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Environmentalists say the the demand can be met with more robust recycling.
Mining companies and their allies say it’s better for everyone’s sake to extract them in the United States rather than countries with lax environmental and human health protections, such as China or the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Removing the 20-year moratorium allows “proposed developments to proceed through the world’s strictest state and federal regulatory and permitting processes,” Stauber said on Wednesday.
This story was originally produced by Minnesota Reformer, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance gives remarks following a roundtable discussion with local leaders and community members amid a surge of federal immigration authorities in the area, at Royalston Square on January 22, 2026 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Trump administration has sent a reported 3,000-plus federal agents into the area, with more on the way, as they make a push to arrest undocumented immigrants in the region. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
Vice President JD Vance on Thursday blamed Minnesota elected officials for the clashes between federal agents and protesters, arguing that their refusal to facilitate the federal government’s immigration enforcement is the cause of the chaos across the Twin Cities.
Vance held a closed-door roundtable with federal agents, law enforcement and businesses. The Minnesota Chamber of Commerce and Republican House Speaker Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, confirmed after the fact that they were in the room with Vance, though other participants are unknown.
Democrats who said they were not invited included Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey.
Vance took questions from reporters, defending the actions of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and downplaying recent, high-profile instances of alleged civil rights violations committed by federal agents.
In at least one instance, Vance misled the public when he said the Trump administration is focused on Minneapolis because “that’s where we have the highest concentration of people who have violated our immigration laws.” This is false.
Pew Research estimates that 130,000 undocumented immigrants lived in Minnesota as of 2023.
States that are the most populous — California, Texas, Florida and New York — had the highest concentration of unauthorized immigrations, a combined 8 million in 2023.
A reporter asked the vice president about agents detaining a 5-year-old boy, whom the Columbia Heights Public School district says agents used as “bait” to draw family members away from their homes.
Vance said the incident is an example of the media failing to provide context about ICE’s arrests. Vance said the boy was not arrested, but the boy’s father was in the country illegally. When ICE approached the father, he ran and left his child, Vance said.
“Are they supposed to let a five-year-old child freeze to death? Are they not supposed to arrest an illegal alien in the United States of America?” Vance asked sarcastically. “… If we had a little cooperation from local … and state officials, I think the chaos would go way down in this community.”
At a Thursday press conference, a lawyer for the boy’s family disputed that the father was in the country illegally, stating he came into the country a few years ago seeking asylum.
Vance said the administration wants Minnesota law enforcement to work with the federal government and honor ICE “detainers.” Detainers are written requests from ICE that a local jail or other law enforcement detain an individual for an additional 48 hours to give ICE time to decide to take the person into federal custody to begin removal proceedings.
Minnesota officials say that they honor ICE detainers. In addition, some of the arrests that ICE claims to have made in recent weeks were people already in prison that Minnesota handed over.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit last week alleging that immigration authorities are racially profiling Minnesota residents and detaining people with legal status, even U.S. citizens. Numerous U.S. citizens have said they’ve been arrested by ICE.
When asked about alleged instances of racial profiling and arrests of U.S. citizens, Vance said citizens are arrested because they’ve assaulted immigration agents, and agents are not looking for people based on skin color.
“When there are American citizens who have been caught up in some of these enforcement operations, very often it is people who have assaulted a law enforcement officer,” Vance said. “They’re not being arrested because they violated the immigration laws. They’re being arrested because they punched a federal law enforcement officer. That is a totally reasonable thing.”
He again blamed Minnesota officials.
“So long as we had more cooperation, I think they can do these things in a much more targeted way. They would actually know where some of the bad guys are,” Vance said.
Vance said that based on what he heard in his roundtable Thursday, he doesn’t believe the Insurrection Act needs to be invoked at this time, like President Donald Trump threatened last week. The Insurrection Act is a rarely-invoked 19th century law that would allow Trump to send the military to Minnesota.
“What I do worry about again is that the chaos gets worse. If more and more ICE agents are getting assaulted, if other law enforcement officers start getting assaulted, that would be a real problem,” Vance said.
After Vance’s visit, Walz said the estimated 3,000 federal agents patrolling Minnesota shouldn’t be there.
“I’m glad the Vice President agrees the temperature needs to be turned down, but actions speak louder than words,” Walz said on X. “Take the show of force off the streets and partner with the state on targeted enforcement of violent offenders instead of random, aggressive confrontation.”
This story was originally produced by Minnesota Reformer, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
The E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse in Washington, D.C., home of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, on July 14, 2025. (Photo by Jacob Fischler/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s ban on transgender troops came under scrutiny again in federal court Thursday — this time before a three-judge appeals panel considering the merits of the president’s executive order.
The policy has been challenged in two major federal cases, one of which the administration appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court’s emergency docket. In May, the justices allowed the ban to go into effect while the lawsuits continue in the lower courts.
For just over three hours at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, judges pressed the Trump administration and the lawyer for the plaintiffs in Talbott v. Trump for clarity on the ban instituted just under one year ago.
The panel was made up of Judges Judith W. Rogers, appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1994; Robert L. Wilkins, appointed by President Barack Obama in 2014; and Justin R. Walker, a 2019 Trump appointee.
U.S. Deputy Associate Attorney General Abhishek Kambli, arguing for the administration, told the judges the ban in question rests on the findings and policy of former Secretary of Defense James Mattis.
“The Mattis report does provide the rationale,” Kambli said, when pressed by Wilkins on why “people who’ve been in (service) for years, with Bronze Stars and commendations” are swept up in the policy.
“What we have here is an area of medicine, which we can all agree there’s uncertainty over,” Kambli argued.
Mattis, who served during Trump’s first term, disqualified transgender service members from the military, except in very narrow circumstances.
A February 2022 Defense Department report concluded that transgender service members, even members who are not suffering a gender dysphoria diagnosis, “could undermine readiness, disrupt unit cohesion, and impose an unreasonable burden on the military.”
Kambli, moments later, added the courts are “ill equipped” to decide the issue and should show deference to the military.
But Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for LGBTQ Rights, said Kambli and the Trump administration ignored new information revealed after President Joe Biden reversed the Mattis ban and allowed transgender troops to serve openly.
Minter, who argued in court for the plaintiffs, said there was “zero evidence of any problems. … That is part of the record now.”
“So for someone to come in and just go back to keeping people out … this is based on animus,” Minter said.
The government “has to show there is a legitimate purpose,” Minter said.
Kambli told the judges that “so far no one has been discharged” and the policy is still “in progress.”
The transgender service members would be informed via letter of an honorable discharge, and would have the opportunity to go before a three-officer administrative discharge panel, he said.
The special panel process is usually reserved for members who’ve served six or more years, but the military will make an exception for trans members with less than six years of service, Kambli added.
In an animated exchange, Rogers pressed back: “The end result is predetermined. It’s a meaningless process. It’s just moving paper around.”
Jennifer Levi, senior director for GLAD Law, one of the organizations representing the roughly 30 plaintiffs, told States Newsroom after the arguments that trans members have already been “forced out” through a voluntary process.
“This was an important hearing, and the plaintiffs in this case are all meeting military standards and reflect some of the highest ideals of this country. They’ve committed their lives to service, and the military has conceded that they have been able to contribute and meet all of the rigorous standards for service,” Levi said.
“This hearing brought out just how devastating and harmful it is to purge a group of people who have been contributing and putting their lives on the line in service of the country.”
The Pentagon declined to comment, citing ongoing litigation.
Trump signed the order on Jan. 27, 2025, asserting the “adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.”
Further, the order said that being transgender is “not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.”
Eight active-duty service members and transgender individuals who are actively pursuing enlistment in the armed forces initially brought the case against Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, among other officials and three branches of the U.S. military. The number of plaintiffs has since grown.
U.S. District Judge for the District of Columbia Ana Reyes granted the plaintiffs a preliminary injunction in mid-March, criticizing the administration in her 79-page opinion for a lack of data proving the claims in Trump’s order.
“Transgender persons have served openly since 2021, but Defendants have not analyzed their service. That is unfortunate. Plaintiffs’ service records alone are Exhibit A for the proposition that transgender persons can have the warrior ethos, physical and mental health, selflessness, honor, integrity, and discipline to ensure military excellence,” Reyes wrote.
Administration officials swiftly appealed the case to the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Oral arguments were heard April 22 before Judges Cornelia Pillard, appointed during Obama’s second term, and Neomi Rao and Gregory Katsas, both appointed during Trump’s first term.
On Dec. 9, the three judges issued a 2-1 decision staying the lower court’s preliminary injunction, with Katsas and Rao writing the Hegseth policy “likely does not violate equal protection.”
Pillard issued a blistering dissent, asserting the ban “brands all transgender people, without regard to individual merit, as unworthy to serve in our armed forces solely because they are transgender.”
In a separate case, Shilling, et al v. Trump, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on April 18 upheld a lower court’s ruling that allowed transgender troops to continue serving, denying the government’s appeal.
In May, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed Trump to ban transgender people from the military.
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