Tourists pass by members of the National Guard stationed outside Union Station in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 18, 2025. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has authorized the thousands of National Guard troops deployed to the District of Columbia to carry their weapons as they patrol the city, the Pentagon said Friday.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump said he is considering declaring a “national emergency” to keep troops in the nation’s capital for longer than the 30 days allowed under the law, and also said he’s eyeing the Democratic-led cities of Chicago, New York and San Francisco for additional military deployments.
Carrying weapons would be a significant escalation in the show of force for the troops in the district.
“At the direction of the Secretary of Defense, (Guard) members supporting the mission to lower the crime rate in our Nation’s capital will soon be on mission with their service-issued weapons, consistent with their mission and training,” a Defense Department official said in a statement to States Newsroom.
The final decision will be made by Brig. Gen. Leland Blanchard II, who is the interim commanding general of the D.C. National Guard, and any coordination will occur with D.C. Metropolitan Police and federal law enforcement, the Defense Department official said.
There are 800 D.C. National Guard members now in the district, joined by more than 1,260 members from six GOP states called to assist Trump’s federal takeover of the 62 square miles of the district that is home to 700,000 residents.
National Guard members from the Republican-led states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia began arriving in the district this week.
It’s unclear if the 2,060 National Guard members will carry their “service-issued weapons” while on duty.
The change comes days before students in the district return to school.
The Pentagon did not respond to States Newsroom’s question on what type of weapons the National Guard members would be carrying, such as rifles or hand guns.
Typically a standard-issue weapon for most of the U.S. military is a M4 assault rifle, which is a variant of the AR-15.
More cities for military force
The president told reporters Friday in the Oval Office that Chicago, New York and San Francisco could be next for military deployment, similar to the federal takeover of the district.
“After we do this, we’ll go to another location and we’ll make it safe also,” Trump said. “Chicago is a mess…And we’ll straighten that one out probably next. That’ll be our next one after this.”
Because the district is not a state, the president has the sole authority over its National Guard members.
State governors have control over their National Guard members, but the president earlier this summer federalized California’s National Guard to respond to immigration protests — a test case for use of the state-based military forces. The Guard has since left Los Angeles.
Trump declared a “crime emergency” in the district on Aug. 11, even though violent crime in the district is at a 30-year low.
The president also invoked the district’s Home Rule Act in order to use the Metropolitan Police Department’s 3,400-member police force for immigration enforcement.
National Guard troops have been sent to patrol Metro stations, the tourist-heavy National Mall and near federal buildings across the district.
“The D.C. National Guard remains committed to safeguarding the District of Columbia and serving those who live, work, and visit the District,” the Department of Defense official said.
Potential Trump declaration of ‘national emergency’
It’s unclear how long the National Guard will remain in the district and the president Friday said he is considering declaring a “national emergency” to keep troops in the nation’s capital.
Troops are currently staying in local hotels around the district, according to a Joint Task Force-District of Columbia spokesperson.
“If I have a national emergency, I can keep the troops there as long as I want,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
Earlier Friday, Trump had said he was unsure of how long he would keep National Guard members in the district.
“The big question is how long do we stay? Because we want to make sure it doesn’t come back,” Trump said at another back-and-forth with reporters. “So we have to take care of these criminals and get them out.”
On Thursday, Trump visited a U.S. Park Police facility in a district neighborhood known as Anacostia, where he addressed local and federal law enforcement officials as well as National Guard members.
“You’re incredible people,” Trump said. “You make the country run.”
He thanked them for their service and had White House officials hand out hamburgers he said were cooked at the White House and pizza from a local restaurant.
Louisiana Illuminator Reporter Wes Muller contributed to this story.
Then-White House National Security Advisor John Bolton (R) listens to President Donald Trump as he and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte talk to reporters in the Oval Office at the White House July 18, 2019. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — FBI agents raided the home and office of former Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, a one-time adviser to President Donald Trump who has become a frequent critic of the president, to investigate Bolton’s handling of classified documents, according to multiple media reports.
The raid on a former Trump adviser’s house represents an escalation from the Justice Department in targeting critics of Trump, whom he vowed to go after should he return to the White House for a second term.
Speaking to reporters Friday, Trump said he was not briefed on the raid of Bolton’s house in the wealthy suburb of Bethesda, Maryland, and office in Washington, D.C., according to White House pool reports.
But the president noted his longstanding feud with his former adviser.
“I’m not a fan of John Bolton,” Trump said. “He’s a real sort of a low life. He could be a very unpatriotic guy. We’re going to find out.”
Earlier this year, the president revoked the security detail for Bolton, who served as Trump’s national security advisor from 2018 to 2019 and as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during the George W. Bush administration in 2005 and 2006.
Following his time in the Trump administration, Bolton, who was an important member of the Bush administration’s national security team that favored active military involvement in the Middle East, emerged as a chief Republican foreign policy critic of Trump, authoring a 2020 book that blasted the president and widened the public rift between the two men.
Bolton has not been charged with a crime and is not in custody, according to The Associated Press, which cited a person familiar with the matter.
The first Trump administration launched an investigation into Bolton to probe if he improperly used sensitive information in his book. The current search involves federal officials investigating Bolton’s actions over the last four years, according to the New York Times, which cited a federal law enforcement official.
Trump documents case
Trump himself was prosecuted for mishandling classified documents after the FBI raided his Florida golf course and main residence of Mar-a-Lago in 2022. A federal judge dismissed the resulting criminal charges against Trump.
FBI Director Kash Patel wrote on social media that “NO ONE is above the law,” and that FBI agents were “on mission.”
The FBI declined to comment.
In 2020, the Department of Justice opened a criminal investigation into Bolton’s book and tried to block its publication, but were stymied in court.
Patel also wrote a 2023 book where he lists Bolton, along with a dozen other people, as members of the “deep state” who are working against Trump, according to the Times.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 29, 2024. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday set aside a lower court’s ruling, allowing the Trump administration to cancel hundreds of millions of dollars in National Institutes of Health grants that addressed diversity, equity and inclusion issues.
The 5-4 ruling narrowly divided the court, with Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Justice Elena Kagan and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissenting from their colleagues.
The Trump administration originally requested the Supreme Court to intervene in the case in July, when Solicitor General D. John Sauer filed an application arguing “the district court lacked jurisdiction to order the government to pay out some $783 million in terminated grants.”
Sauer wrote the case was similar to one the Supreme Court had ruled on earlier this year, determining that a district court erred when it blocked “the Department of Education from terminating DEI-related grants.”
In that case, the Supreme Court ruled that “such claims likely belonged in the Court of Federal Claims, that the district court accordingly lacked jurisdiction.”
Sauer wrote in his application to the Supreme Court that the lower courts in the NIH grants case chose to ignore the justices’ prior ruling.
“The district court’s order directs the NIH to continue paying $783 million in federal grants that are undisputedly counter to the Administration’s priorities,” Sauer wrote. “This Court has already intervened to stay a materially identical order … and the same course is even more warranted here given the district court’s brazen refusal to follow controlling Supreme Court precedent.”
Democratic AGs weigh in
Democratic attorneys general for Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington and Wisconsin opposed the Trump administration’s request in a 49-page filing.
“The federal government’s application spins a tale of lower courts disregarding established legal guardrails to block routine agency decisions,” they wrote. “That narrative bears little resemblance to reality; indeed, it gets things exactly backward.”
The Trump administration’s decision to cancel the NIH grants, they wrote, came “without providing any meaningful explanation of their decisions.
“Defendants then executed the directives by, among other things, canceling hundreds of research grants to the plaintiff states’ public universities for projects investigating heart disease, HIV/AIDS, Alzheimer’s disease, alcohol and substance abuse, mental-health issues, and countless other health conditions.”
The American Public Health Association also opposed the Trump administration’s efforts to get the Supreme Court to throw out the lower court’s rulings.
The APHA wrote in its own filing that the Trump administration “failed to consider the reliance interests at stake—namely, the impact to researchers’ career progression, the risk to human life, and the damage to the overall scientific endeavor and the body of public health.”
Siding with Trump administration
Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh disagreed, siding with the Trump administration and setting aside the lower court’s rulings in the case. Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote a concurring opinion.
Gorsuch sharply rebuked the district and appeals courts in his opinion, in which Kavanaugh joined in part and dissented in part.
“Lower court judges may sometimes disagree with this Court’s decisions, but they are never free to defy them,” Gorsuch wrote. “In Department of Ed. v. California … this Court granted a stay because it found the government likely to prevail in showing that the district court lacked jurisdiction to order the government to pay grant obligations.”
Barrett appeared to agree, writing in her concurring opinion that “the District Court likely lacked jurisdiction to hear challenges to the grant terminations, which belong in the Court of Federal Claims.”
In a dissenting opinion, Jackson wrote that the justices did not take enough time to seriously consider the ramifications of their decision in the Education Department case when they spent “a mere nine days” deciding whether a federal district court or the Court of Federal Claims holds jurisdiction when the government terminates “federal grants en masse.”
“I viewed the Court’s intervention then—in an emergency stay posture, while racing against a fast-expiring temporary restraining order—as ‘equal parts unprincipled and unfortunate,’” Jackson wrote. “As it turns out, the Court’s decision was an even bigger mistake than I realized.”
President Donald Trump speaks to the media as, left to right, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer and Secretary of Education Linda McMahon look on after signing executive orders in the Oval Office at the White House on April 23, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
A New York state appeals court on Thursday overturned as overly punitive a nearly $500 million civil penalty against President Donald Trump, but left in place a finding of fraud based on records that inflated the value of Trump’s business holdings.
A five-judge panel of the New York Appellate Division for the First Department disagreed over aspects of the case and the trial court’s ruling that awarded $465 million to the state after finding Trump liable for fraud, issuing three opinions that spanned more than 300 pages.
Two judges concluded that the finding of liability against Trump was correct, two said errors in the trial court meant a new trial should be held, and one judge said the case was wrongly decided.
Still, all five judges agreed the penalty was excessive, and the two judges who’d called for a retrial joined the two upholding the decision “for the sole purpose of ensuring finality, thereby affording the parties a path for appeal” to the state’s highest court, according to the decision.
Loan applications
A New York state court found last year that Trump committed financial fraud by submitting loan applications that exaggerated the value of some of his real estate assets, which resulted in more favorable loan terms from banks.
Writing the determinative opinion Thursday, Appeals Justice Peter Moulton said New York Attorney General Letitia James was within her power to sue over the statements, even though they were between private parties and did not involve the state.
The state has an interest in upholding “market hygiene” and discouraging fraudulent behavior, he wrote. But the fine went too far, he said.
“While the injunctive relief ordered by the court is well crafted to curb defendants’ business culture, the court’s disgorgement order, which directs that defendants pay nearly half a billion dollars to the State of New York, is an excessive fine that violates the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution,” Moulton wrote.
The amendment says that “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”
Trump celebrates
One judge, Justice David Friedman, said he would have thrown out the case entirely, arguing that James overstepped her authority by bringing the civil case because no one was actually harmed. Most of the valuations were not fraudulently high and even if they were, would have resulted in the same favorable terms Trump received, Friedman wrote.
“All parties to these private transactions profited handsomely from the deals, from which there was no discernable negative effect on the public interest,” he wrote. “This action does not serve to protect the consuming public… This action does not protect the integrity or operation of the public securities market…, given that defendants do not issue publicly traded securities.”
In a post to his social media site, Truth Social, Trump exaggerated the court’s finding, saying it cleared him of wrongdoing.
“TOTAL VICTORY in the FAKE New York State Attorney General Letitia James Case!” Trump posted. “I greatly respect the fact that the Court had the Courage to throw out this unlawful and disgraceful Decision that was hurting Business all throughout New York State… The amount, including Interest and Penalties, was over $550 Million Dollars. It was a Political Witch Hunt, in a business sense, the likes of which no one has ever seen before.”
In a statement, James pledged to appeal the opinion, while highlighting that the appeals court had affirmed the finding of fraud.
“The First Department today affirmed the well-supported finding of the trial court: Donald Trump, his company and two of his children are liable for fraud,” she wrote. “It should not be lost to history: yet another court has ruled that the president violated the law, and that our case has merit.”
Thursday’s order does not affect Trump’s May 2024 criminal conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels.
A homeless encampment near the Lincoln Memorial is cleared by employees of the Washington, D.C., government on Aug. 14, 2025. City officials put notices at the camp that they would be breaking it down after President Donald Trump issued his "crime emergency" order. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Officials have already cleared dozens of homeless encampments in the District of Columbia in recent days as President Donald Trump’s federal takeover of the nation’s capital for a “crime emergency” at the same time takes aim at people without housing.
Advocates working to end homelessness within the district and across the country raised alarm to States Newsroom over these removals and their impact on people without housing and the providers trying to serve them. The drive to push out homeless people came after Trump in July signed an executive order that attempts to overhaul federal policy on homelessness, declaring: “Endemic vagrancy, disorderly behavior, sudden confrontations, and violent attacks have made our cities unsafe.”
Multi-agency teams had eliminated 48 encampments in the District of Columbia as of Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a briefing.
Metropolitan Police Department patrol units “are actively working with city officials to locate and clear additional encampments and remove homeless residents off of Washington’s streets,” she said.
Leavitt told reporters days prior that homeless people in the city would be “given the option to leave their encampment, to be taken to a homeless shelter, to be offered addiction or mental health services,” and would be “susceptible” to fines or jail time if they refused.
A day before Trump declared his “crime emergency” in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 11, the president wrote on social media that homeless people must move out “IMMEDIATELY.”
“We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital,” he wrote.
Days later, bulldozers and garbage trucks were at work dismantling campsites.
According to WTOP News last week, leaders in the surrounding area of Montgomery County, Maryland, were preparing for a potential rise of homeless people in the county as a result of the president’s crackdown.
Jesse Rabinowitz, campaign and communications director at the National Homelessness Law Center, said “things seem so fluid and so chaotic that it’s hard to get an accurate representation” of where Trump’s campaign to get homeless people out of sight stands.
Rabinowitz said last week he witnessed the tossing of people’s belongings and the evictions of people experiencing homelessness, noting that “it was fast, it was chaotic, it was expensive, and it didn’t help anybody.”
“We know that clearing encampments makes it harder for people to get into housing,” he added. “People’s IDs that they need to get into housing are destroyed, people’s medications that they need to stay healthy are thrown away, people’s bikes that they need to get to work are often trashed.”
Ann Oliva, CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, said the practice and policy of fining, ticketing and arresting people rather than creating housing and services for them is “devastating” — both to people experiencing homelessness and the providers who serve them.
Oliva said outreach workers can lose track of people that they’ve been working with for a long time, destroying trust between the two.
“That’s some of what I’ve seen over the last week here — as providers are trying to keep people as safe as possible, it’s getting harder to track them down to make sure that they can provide the services that are necessary for folks.”
Street outreach teams at work
Lara Pukatch, chief advocacy officer at Miriam’s Kitchen, said the organization, which works to end chronic homelessness in Washington, D.C., is “deeply concerned about what’s happening.”
Pukatch said the group’s street outreach teams “have really been working almost around the clock to address what’s going on,” including sharing information with people living outside when they hear about threats of encampment evictions to make sure they know what’s happening and the options they have.
“This also involves working nights, working weekends, connecting people to the life-saving supplies and supports that they’ve always needed, but in addition, really working hard with people to make sure that they’re safe and that they are not going to be further harmed or traumatized by what’s happening in the city.”
July executive order
Trump’s federal takeover in Washington, D.C., and the encampment clearings build off of the sweeping July executive order he signed.
The order says it aims to end federal support for “Housing First” policies that “deprioritize accountability and fail to promote treatment, recovery, and self-sufficiency.” The “Housing First” model focuses on providing immediate housing, with services offered afterward.
The order also calls on Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner to ensure that programs receiving federal housing and homelessness assistance require people with “substance use disorder or serious mental illness” obtain treatment or mental health services in order to participate.
Part of the order also encourages involuntary civil commitment expansion, where individuals with mental health conditions are placed into treatment facilities against their wishes.
Administration officials who say they are fighting crime in the district have also emphasized actions of homeless people. Vice President JD Vance, talking to National Guard troops at Union Station on Wednesday with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, said when he visited the transit center with his children two years ago, they were “screamed at by violent vagrants and it was scaring the hell out of my kids.”
Now, he said, “DC is already safer than it was nine days ago. We’re going to make it safer still to come. This is your city. You should feel free to come and visit here, have a meal, see all these incredible monuments, and actually enjoy yourself.”
Supreme Court decision
Oliva, of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, noted that while the events of the past week are “certainly alarming,” they mark a broader trend that has gained steam, beginning with the 2024 Supreme Court decision that allowed cities to punish homeless people for sleeping outdoors, even where there is no shelter available to them.
“What we’ve seen since President Trump came into office is a series of policies put in place — or attempted to put in place — through executive orders that really don’t do anything to address the root causes of homelessness because we know that homelessness itself is not actually a criminal issue, it’s an economic issue,” she said.
Though the president’s federal takeover has a 30-day limit, Trump wants an extension, leading to questions about how long these actions will continue.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at a Nashville press conference on July 18, 2025. An appeals court on Aug. 21, 2025, said it will allow Noem and the Trump administration, for now, to move forward with ending temporary protections for 60,000 immigrants from Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua. (Photo by John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout)
WASHINGTON — An appeals court late Wednesday said it will allow the Trump administration, for now, to move forward with ending temporary protections for 60,000 immigrants from Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua.
It means that Nepali immigrants with Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, will lose their legal status – including work permits and deportation protections – immediately. Honduran and Nicaraguan holders will lose their status by Sept. 8.
The judges on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals — Michael Daly Hawkins, Consuelo M. Callahan and Eric D. Miller — did not give a reason for their decision. Former President Bill Clinton nominated Hawkins, former President George W. Bush nominated Callahan and President Donald Trump nominated Miller in his first term.
Wednesday’s decision pauses a late July ruling from California District Judge Trina Thompson that found Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s decision to end deportation protections for those nationals to be rooted in racism.
Instead, Thompson extended TPS for nationals from Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua until Nov. 18 while the case proceeded through the courts.
“The freedom to live fearlessly, the opportunity of liberty, and the American dream. That is all Plaintiffs seek,” Thompson wrote in her 37-page ruling. “Instead, they are told to atone for their race, leave because of their names, and purify their blood. The Court disagrees.”
As the Trump administration aims to carry out its plans of mass deportation of immigrants in the country without legal authorization, DHS has also moved to end the temporary legal status many immigrants have held.
Noem has acted to halt TPS for nationals from Haiti and Venezuela and end humanitarian protections for those from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. The Supreme Court has allowed, for now, many of those moves by the Trump administration.
DHS praises decision
DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin in a statement called the decision from the appeals court a victory for the Trump administration.
“TPS was never meant to be a de facto asylum system, yet that is how previous administrations have used it for decades while allowing hundreds of thousands of foreigners into the country without proper vetting,” McLaughlin said. “This unanimous decision will help restore integrity to our immigration system to keep our homeland and its people safe.”
Certain nationals are granted TPS because their home country is deemed too dangerous to return to due to war, disaster or other unstable conditions.
Immigrants who are granted TPS go through vetting by DHS, including a background check, and have to re-apply roughly every 18 months to keep work permits and have deportation protections. A misdemeanor could result in the loss of TPS status for an immigrant.
‘Fear and uncertainty’
“I am heartbroken by the court’s decision,” Sandhya Lama, a TPS holder from Nepal who is a plaintiff in the case, said in a statement.
“I’ve lived in the U.S. for years, and my kids are U.S. citizens and have never even been to Nepal. This ruling leaves us and thousands of other TPS families in fear and uncertainty,” Lama continued.
Many immigrants are on TPS for lengthy periods due to their home country’s condition. Those from Nepal had TPS for more than 10 years and those nationals from Honduras and Nicaragua were on TPS for more than 26 years, attorneys at the American Civil Liberties Union, which is one of the groups that filed the suit, said.
“This administration’s attack on TPS is part of a concerted campaign to deprive noncitizens of any legal status,” Emi MacLean, an attorney at the ACLU Foundation of Northern California said in a statement. “(Wednesday’s) ruling is a devastating setback, but it is not the end of this fight. Humanitarian protection–TPS–means something and cannot be decimated so easily.”
Organizations that filed the suit include the ACLU Foundations of Northern California and Southern California, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law and the Haitian Bridge Alliance.
In an aerial view from a helicopter, the migrant detention center dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz" is seen located at the site of the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport on July 4, 2025 in Ochopee, Florida. (Photo by Alon Skuy/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — As the Trump administration moves to expand immigrant detention centers across the country through state partnerships, more than 60 Democratic lawmakers Wednesday pressed top immigration officials for details regarding a quickly constructed facility in the Florida Everglades, dubbed by Republicans as “Alligator Alcatraz.”
“Brushing aside concerns from human rights watchdogs, environmentalist groups, and Tribal nations, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has greenlit the construction of this expansive detention facility that may violate detained individuals’ human rights, jeopardize public and environmental health, and violate federal law,” according to the letter signed by 65 Democratic members of Congress.
The letter comes after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Tuesday announced a partnership with the state of Nebraska to open a 300-bed federal immigration detention center for its version of “Alligator Alcatraz,” dubbed the “Cornhusker Clink.”
Democrats addressed the letter to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, DHS Office of Inspector General Joseph V. Cuffari, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Acting Director Todd Lyons and Acting Head of FEMA David Richardson.
DHS did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment regarding the letter from Democrats.
Lawsuits in Florida
As the Trump administration aims to carry out its plans of mass deportations, partnerships with states to detain immigrants for removal are key but are also provoking opposition.
The facility in the Everglades, where state and federal officials aim to detain up to 5,000 immigrants, is currently facing a legal challenge in federal court from immigration advocates over allegations of limited access to attorneys for detainees.
There is also a second lawsuit from environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe to pause construction of the site, arguing it violates federal environmental laws.
“Experts worry this novel state-run immigration detention model will allow Florida to create an ‘independent, unaccountable detention system’ that runs parallel to the federal detention system,” according to the letter.
Other states following Florida’s lead?
Democrats also expressed concern that the facility in the Everglades would serve as a model for other states.
“Beyond human rights and due process issues, this plan raises serious environmental concerns,” according to the letter.
In the letter, Democrats are asking for information about the legal authority for the state of Florida to construct and operate a migrant detention facility; the agreement between the state and DHS related to the operation of the facility; and measures that are being taken to ensure clean water, food, temperature regulation and medical care are provided for detainees, among other things.
“Human rights experts have condemned the plan as ‘cruel and inhumane’ by design,” according to the letter. “Construction progressed at ‘turbo speed,’ and it remains unclear whether the facility has plans to ensure medical care, rapid hurricane evacuation, access to counsel, and sufficient infrastructure for sewage, running water, and temperature controls, despite being located in one of the ‘hottest parts of the state.’”
Democrats are also seeking inspection reports, environmental review documents and contracts of private vendors that are operating the facility.
The letter asks for a response by Sept. 3.
Democratic senators who signed the letter include: Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden of Oregon, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Jon Ossoff of Georgia, Brian Schatz and Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and Tina Smith of Minnesota.
Democratic representatives who signed the letter include: Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Kathy Castor, Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, Frederica S. Wilson, Lois Frankel and Maxwell Alejandro Frost of Florida; Hank Johnson and Nikema Williams of Georgia; Betty McCollum of Minnesota; Rashida Tlaib and Shri Thanedar of Michigan; Valerie P. Foushee of North Carolina; Chuy García, Bradley Scott Schneider, Delia C. Ramirez, Danny K. Davis, Sean Casten, Mike Quigley and Jonathan L. Jackson of Illinois; Pramila Jayapal, Suzan K. DelBene and Adam Smith of Washington; Eleanor Holmes Norton of the District of Columbia; Dina Titus of Nevada; Glenn Ivey and Sarah Elfreth of Maryland; Gwen S. Moore of Wisconsin; Luis Correa, Juan Vargas, Mark Takano, Zoe Lofgren, Mike Thompson, Sydney Kamlager-Dove, John Garamendi and Jim Costa of California; Janelle S. Bynum, Suzanne Bonamici, Maxine Dexter and Andrea Salinas of Oregon; Yvette D. Clarke, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Paul Tonko and Dan Goldman of New York; Sylvia R. Garcia, Jasmine Crockett and Veronica Escobar of Texas; Wesley Bell and Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri; Summer L. Lee and Mary Gay Scanlon of Pennsylvania; Jahana Hayes of Connecticut; Brittany Pettersen of Colorado; Yassamin Ansari of Arizona; Seth Moulton and James P. McGovern of Massachusetts; Seth Magaziner of Rhode Island; and Sarah McBride of Delaware.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting will no longer administer a grant program that provided millions of dollars to local television and radio stations to upgrade the equipment they use to send out emergency alerts to warn of impending natural disasters and more. In this photo, flood waters left debris including vehicles and equipment scattered in Louise Hays Park on July 5, 2025 in Kerrville, Texas. (Photo by Eric Vryn/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The Corporation for Public Broadcasting will no longer administer a grant program that has so far provided millions of dollars to local television and radio stations to upgrade the equipment they use to send out emergency alerts.
The change comes after Republican lawmakers voted last month to defund the corporation, following a request from President Donald Trump to zero out more than $1.1 billion in previously approved spending for the organization.
Congress originally formed the Next Generation Warning System grant program in fiscal 2022 and provided the Federal Emergency Management Agency about $40 million during its first year.
FEMA then gave that money to CPB to reimburse stations for infrastructure and other improvements meant to get emergency alerts sent through the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System to more Americans.
That appears on track to change in the months ahead.
FEMA officials wrote in a notice of funding opportunity for the current fiscal year that the grants will now go directly to state and tribal governments that can then award funding to public broadcasting stations that make improvements to their emergency alert systems.
Democrats and some Republicans have raised concerns that without funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, local stations wouldn’t be able to raise enough funding to remain in operation, potentially leading to holes in the country’s emergency alert system.
‘Rescission consequences’ for local public media
CPB, which plans to cease operations later this year, announced this week that it would no longer be able to administer the grant funding Congress approved during fiscal 2023 and 2024. The corporation had yet to determine which applicants would receive the funding lawmakers provided for those two years.
“CPB has been fully invested in the NGWS program and its mission to protect the American public,” CPB President and CEO Patricia Harrison wrote in a statement. “This is one more example of rescission consequences impacting local public media stations and the communities they serve—in this case, weakening the capacity of local public media stations to support the safety and preparedness of their communities.”
That could potentially leave much of the $136 million in grant funding approved by Congress in limbo.
CPB wrote in a statement that “FEMA should assume responsibility for disbursing the funds as Congress intended, or most of the FY 2022 funding—and all funds from FY 2023 and FY 2024—will go undistributed.
“As a result, critical emergency alerting equipment will not be purchased, leaving communities, especially those in rural and disaster-prone areas, without the upgrades Congress intended.”
A FEMA official, speaking on background, couldn’t say definitively how the agency would handle funding for those three fiscal years.
The White House and Office of Management and Budget did not immediately respond to requests for comment from States Newsroom on Wednesday about the grant program.
Mid-South Public Communications Foundation in Cordova, Tennessee, which received $1.657 million to “replace a transmitter and two emergency generators to ensure the rural agricultural communities in Tennessee, Mississippi, and eastern Arkansas receive timely emergency communications.”
Blue Ridge PBS in Roanoke, Virginia, which received $1.122 million to “replace critical broadcast infrastructure that will strengthen their signal in the mountainous region to reach more rural communities with targeted emergency alerts.”
Louisiana Public Broadcasting, which received nearly $2 million to “install transmitters and antennas for KLTL-TV in Lake Charles and KLTM-TV in Monroe and update alerting equipment to enable statewide delivery of alerts and warning messages.”
Congress votes to end public media funds
Kate Riley, president and CEO of America’s Public Television Stations, released a written statement this week calling CPB’s inability to administer the grant program for FEMA “yet another devastating result of the rescission of public media funding.”
She also called on FEMA “to establish a new process for delivering this funding to public broadcasters” and urged “Congress to restore essential direct funding to local stations throughout this country whose communities depend on them for lifesaving public safety services, proven educational resources and essential community connections.”
Trump sent Congress a rescissions request in early June, proposing lawmakers eliminate previously approved funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and several foreign aid accounts.
U.S. President Donald Trump meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House on Aug. 18, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
President Donald Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European allies at the White House Monday celebrated Russian President Vladimir Putin’s concession of NATO-like security protections for Ukraine as part of a future peace deal between the two countries.
In a social media post on Monday night, Trump said he called Putin after the meetings were over and began arrangements for a meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy, at a location to be determined. After that meeting, all three would meet, Trump said.
At the White House earlier, Zelenskyy and officials from Western Europe called Putin’s acceptance of security guarantees for Ukraine protecting the nation against another attack a major step toward ending the three-year-old war.
Dating to before the war, one point of tension between Ukraine and Russia has been Ukraine’s increasingly warm relationship with the West, with potential membership in NATO a major issue for Putin.
But Trump said Putin accepted something like it during the pair’s meeting in Alaska last week.
“The Alaska summit reinforced my belief that, while difficult, peace is within reach,” Trump said before a group meeting in the White House’s East Room. “In a very significant step, President Putin agreed that Russia would accept security guarantees for Ukraine.”
Trump and Zelenskyy met one-on-one in the Oval Office before a handful of European leaders joined them for a multilateral meeting in the East Room.
During introductions for the multilateral meeting, Zelenskyy said it had been his best meeting with Trump to date, and he was “very happy” with Trump about the possibility of winning security guarantees.
“We spoke about it, and we will speak more about security guarantees,” he said. “This is very important that (the) United States gives such (a) strong signal and is ready for security guarantees.”
The other attendees Monday were NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Finnish President Alexander Stubb.
‘Article 5-like’
Several European allies highlighted the issue of security guarantees for Ukraine, which they compared to the NATO charter’s Article 5 that compels every member state to defend any other member that has been attacked.
“It’s very good to hear that we’re working on the security guarantees,” von der Leyen said. “Article 5-like security guarantees: so important.”
The next step in the peace process would be to set up direct talks between Putin and Zelenskyy, possibly also to include Trump.
Trump said he had spoken to Putin “indirectly” on Monday and that he planned to phone the Russian president following the meeting with European leaders.
Ceasefire needed?
Before meeting with Putin, Trump had supported a ceasefire as a path toward a permanent end to the war, though he came out of the Alaska summit closer to Putin’s position that a ceasefire was not necessary before a final peace agreement.
Monday, he said he would like a ceasefire to immediately end violence, but that it was not strictly necessary from a diplomatic point of view. The United States had helped negotiate the ends of other conflicts without a temporary ceasefire in place, he said.
“All of us would obviously prefer an immediate ceasefire while we work on a lasting peace,” he said. “I don’t know that it’s necessary.”
Germany’s Merz pushed back, saying a ceasefire should be a precondition for a Putin-Zelenskyy meeting.
“I can’t imagine that the next meeting would take place without a ceasefire,” Merz said. “So let’s work on that, and let’s try to put pressure on Russia, because the credibility of these efforts we are undertaking today are depending on at least a ceasefire from the beginning of the serious negotiations.”
Smoother meeting with Zelenskyy in suit
At the open-press portion of Trump’s meeting with Zelenskyy, the two appeared on friendlier terms than they had during the Ukrainian leader’s last Oval Office visit in February, when Trump and Vice President JD Vance complained Zelenskyy was not appreciative enough of U.S. aid.
As the February meeting turned heated, Trump told Zelenskyy he had “no cards” to fight Russia on his own or make demands of the United States.
But Monday, Trump resisted an option to return to that argument, brushing off a reporter’s question about which country had “better cards.”
And Zelesnkyy also wore an all-black suit Monday after a writer at a pro-Trump media outlet questioned him at the February meeting about wearing military-style attire.
“You look fabulous in that suit,” the same writer said Monday.
A member of the National Guard stands alongside a military vehicle parked in front of Union Station, near the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Monday, Aug. 18, 2025. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)
This report has been updated.
WASHINGTON — Six Republican governors are sending more than 1,000 National Guard members to the District of Columbia after President Donald Trump last week activated 800 members from the district’s Guard as part of his federal takeover of the nation’s capital.
The deployment would bring the total number of National Guard troops to roughly 2,060 in the district’s 68 square miles, following the president’s “crime emergency” declaration, even though violent crime in the district is at a 30-year low.
Because the district, home to more than 700,000 residents, is not a state, the president has the sole authority over its National Guard members.
The president has not only activated the National Guard but through the district’s Home Rule Act is using the Metropolitan Police Department’s 3,400-member police force for immigration enforcement.
The more than 1,000 National Guard members sent from the states are expected to arrive in the district Monday and through the coming days and are expected to be armed, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry will send 150 members; Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine will send 150 military police from his state’s National Guard; Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves will send 200 members; South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster approved 200 members; Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee will send 160 National Guard members; and West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey will send up to 400 National Guard members.
McMaster and Morrisey added that the federal government would cover the cost of deploying state troops.
Unknown how long Guard will stay
It’s unclear how long National Guard members will remain on duty in the district. National Guard members are usually deployed for natural disasters and kept in reserve. Most have civilian jobs and families that they are pulled away from when they are activated.
The Department of Defense did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment.
The president has 23 days left in his emergency declaration and has signaled he wants to extend the emergency longer, as well as request funding from Congress to finance his plans for the district. He’s directed federal law enforcement officers to not only conduct local policing, but to clear out camps of homeless people.
It’s not the first time Republican governors have signaled they will deploy their National Guard members at Trump’s request. Iowa’s Kim Reynolds has stated she will send troops to help with the Trump administration’s mass deportation plans.
The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 generally bars the use of the military for domestic law enforcement purposes.
Vermont Gov. Phil Scott, a Republican, declined a request from the Trump administration to send the state’s National Guard to the district, according to Vermont Public.
DeWine, McMaster and Morrisey said the Pentagon made requests for additional National Guard members.
What other states might see deployments?
States Newsroom reached out to the offices of all 27 Republican governors to ask if the Trump administration had requested National Guard members.
The administration has not made any requests to Georgia, South Dakota and Virginia, according to spokespeople at those offices. Maryland, which borders the district and is led by Democratic Gov. Wes Moore, has not received a request from the Pentagon to send in National Guard members, according to a spokesperson for Moore’s office.
A spokesperson for Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt said there are no current plans for a deployment of National Guard troops from the state.
Laura Strimple, communications director for Republican Gov. Jim Pillen of Nebraska, said in a statement that the governor supported the president’s “initiatives to reduce crime and clean up the streets in our nation’s capital, including placing the Metropolitan Police Department under federal leadership and tasking the District of Columbia National Guard and National Guard troops from several nearby states with security in Washington.”
“At this time, the Nebraska National Guard is not part of this mission,” she added.
A spokesperson for Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis did not directly answer States Newsroom’s question if the state, which is preparing for Category 4 Hurricane Erin, had received a request from the Trump administration to send National Guard members to the district.
“We stand ready to mobilize any resources necessary in response to President Trump’s federal priorities,” the spokesperson said.
The rest of the state offices did not respond to States Newsroom’s requests for comment.
Former AmeriCorps service member Daniel Zare, 27, visits Project Change at Sligo Middle School on Monday, Aug. 11, 2025 in Silver Spring, Maryland, where he mentored students before federal government cuts in April. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
SILVER SPRING, Md. — Daniel Zare worked one-on-one as an AmeriCorps member with students going through rough times in school, lightening teachers’ workload in the classroom.
At AmeriCorps Project CHANGE, based in Silver Spring’s Sligo Middle School, Zare was one of several in his group who tracked adolescents’ emotional and social wellbeing over months using a system dubbed “My Score.” They then helped support the kids who were struggling the most.
In April, though, the program screeched to a halt. That’s when the Trump administration abruptly canceled nearly $400 million in active AmeriCorps grants across the United States that fund volunteers who embed in communities, in exchange for a small stipend and education award.
“All the work that we had culminating toward the end of the year, the relationships that we built with teachers and students and officials, it just completely went kaput because we were told we weren’t allowed to go to work at all,” Zare, 27, told States Newsroom.
Like so many longstanding federal programs and institutions severely reduced or dismantled as part of President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency project, AmeriCorps — and its nonprofit partners — are now assessing the damage and seeking a way forward.
AmeriCorps programs that survived last spring’s DOGE cuts are slowly beginning a new year of service amid major uncertainty over whether they will be able to continue their work in classrooms, food banks, senior centers and other community hubs.
Winners and losers among states
AmeriCorps, a federal agency signed into law in 1993 by former President Bill Clinton, places roughly 200,000 members across the United States at 35,000 service locations, according to current agency data.
Members serve in schools, local governments and with a wide range of nonprofits that focus on health, disaster relief, environmental stewardship, workforce development and veterans.
The staffers, who pledge to “get things done for America,” are paid a modest living allowance that hovers around the poverty line. Some, but not all, can get health insurance while in the program.
Members who complete their service term, which usually lasts from 10 to 12 months, receive an education award that can be used to pursue a degree, earn a trade certificate or pay student loans.
AmeriCorps federal dollars reach programs via a couple routes. In many cases, grants flow from AmeriCorps to governor-led state and territorial commissions that divvy them up according to local priorities. In other cases, federal dollars flow straight to a program via a competitive grant process.
Kaira Esgate, CEO of America’s Service Commissions, said when the Trump administration ordered the cuts in April, some states lost large portions of their AmeriCorps portfolio, while other states fared better.
“There were no real clear trend lines around what or who got terminated and why,” said Esgate, whose member organization represents all 49 state commissions (South Dakota doesn’t have one) and the commissions for the District of Columbia, Guam and Puerto Rico.
Abby Andre, executive director of The Impact Project, an initiative of Public Service Ventures Ltd., a private corporation that launches and scales solutions to strengthen public service and communities., has been collecting data and plotting on an interactive map where AmeriCorps programs have been canceled. Andre, a former Department of Justice litigator, has also worked with her team to build other maps showing where federal workforce cuts have been felt across the country.
“AmeriCorps is a really great example of the federal dollars being kind of invisible in communities. Communities often don’t know that a local food bank or a senior center are supported by AmeriCorps volunteers and AmeriCorps money,” said Andre, who taught administrative law at the Vermont Law School after working under President Barack Obama and in Trump’s first administration.
Andre said communities with a lack of social services, including in rural areas, will likely feel the biggest losses without an AmeriCorps presence because the agency “facilitates pennies-on-the-dollar type services through volunteer work.”
“It’s not as though if these community services folded, those communities would have the money to fund equal or better services through the private market,” she said.
Losing trust
The Maryland Governor’s Office on Service and Volunteerism gave the green light to Project CHANGE to keep its program, which serves Montgomery County in suburban Washington, D.C., running through the upcoming school year.
Paul Costello, director of Project CHANGE, is now scrambling to launch a new AmeriCorps cohort after receiving the news on July 22 that the initiative had been funded. He estimates members won’t be able to begin until almost a month into the school year.
Paul Costello, director of Project CHANGE at Sligo Middle School in Silver Spring, Maryland, reads student self-assessments of their confidence levels, hopefulness and excitement for learning. Costello’s program places AmeriCorps members in classrooms to help students with emotional and social challenges. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
“Sadly, AmeriCorps, as a brand name, is badly damaged, I think. I mean, I’ve got a meeting on Wednesday with a major partner who told us two weeks ago ‘We thought you were dead,’” Costello told States Newsroom in an Aug. 11 interview.
Costello’s program not only places service members in Montgomery County Public Schools, where Zare served, but also with partners including Community Bridges, Montgomery Housing Partnership and Family Learning Solutions.
The nonprofits respectively focus on helping adolescent girls from diverse backgrounds, children whose families live in community-developed affordable housing units and teens eyeing college and career paths.
The county’s school system is the largest in the state and serves a highly diverse population. About 44% of the system’s 160,000 students qualify for free and reduced meals, and close to 20% are learning English while continuing to speak another language at home.
Costello’s 18 cohort members embedded in those schools and nonprofits this past academic year were suddenly yanked in April when the government cut his grant. The partners, which had planned and budgeted to have the members through June, were thrown into “total chaos,” Costello said.
“So some of them are so desperate, they rely on their members. They had to dig into their pockets to keep them on as staff. And then we go back to them this year and say, ‘You want members this year?’ AmeriCorps has made no attempt to make them whole. So they’ve been screwed,” Costello said.
AmeriCorps did not respond to States Newsroom’s questions about nonprofits losing money.
Legal action
The federal courts granted some relief to members and organizations who abruptly lost living allowances and contractually obligated funding.
A Maryland federal district judge ordered in June that funding and positions be restored in 24 Democratic-led states and the District of Columbia that sued the agency.
Another district judge in the state also handed a win to more than a dozen nonprofits from across the country that sued to recover funding they were owed.
But for many it was too late, and AmeriCorps’ future still feels shaky.
After suddenly losing his living allowance in April, Zare had to leave Silver Spring.
“I was renting a room off of Georgia (Avenue), and I was not able to pay rent there anymore, so I actually moved back to my mom’s in Germantown for the time being,” he told States Newsroom in August, referring to another Maryland suburb.
Hillary Kane, director of the Philadelphia Higher Education Network for Neighborhood Development, said by the time the court orders were issued, many of her AmeriCorps members had already found other positions and she had completely let go of one of her full-time staffers.
While the court injunctions were “welcome news,” reinstating the programs remained “questionable,” Kane wrote in a July 21 update for Nonprofit Quarterly.
Kane’s organization is a member of the National College Attainment Network, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that was among the successful plaintiffs.
Other organizations that joined the lawsuit are based in California, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and Virginia.
The Democratic-led states that won reinstatement for AmeriCorps members include Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin.
Going forward?
Kane got news on July 10 that PennSERVE, Pennsylvania’s state service commission, reinstated funding for her AmeriCorps program that places members in four West Philadelphia high schools to mentor students on their post-graduation plans.
The late notice meant Kane could only begin recruiting new members in mid-July.
“And so our start date has to be a bit fluid,” Kane told States Newsroom during a July 22 interview. “We have to essentially recruit people into this one-year cohort position, and say, ‘We’re hoping to start September 2, but we’re not 100% sure. Can you kind of just roll with it?’ It’s an awkward position to have to be in.”
The AmeriCorps pledge hangs at Project CHANGE at Sligo Middle School in Silver Spring, Maryland, on Monday, Aug. 11, 2025. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
Other AmeriCorps programs have not fared so well, as the Trump administration’s Office of Management and Budget continues to withhold funds that were appropriated by Congress for the ongoing fiscal year.
Trump signed legislation in March that extended the $1.26 billion for AmeriCorps for the full 2025 fiscal year, which ends on Sept. 30.
Kane said the most “insidious” part of the recent AmeriCorps storyline is that programs that receive grants directly from the federal agency are being strung along by OMB.
“So there are agencies who have been theoretically awarded money, but they’re like, ‘Is it actually going to happen? Should I spend all this money and then not be able to bill the federal government to reimburse me if OMB is going to hold it hostage?’”
Programs at risk include 130 recently expired contracts for AmeriCorps Foster Grandparent and Senior Companions programs that support roughly 6,000 senior citizen volunteers across 35 states. The programs are eligible for just over $50 million for the new service year, which should be off to a start.
Congress pleads with budget office
A bipartisan group of U.S. senators pressed the executive branch agency on Aug. 1 to release the funds.
“Further delays in grantmaking will have immediate and irreversible consequences for programs, AmeriCorps members, and communities,” the senators wrote in a letter to OMB Director Russ Vought.
Republican Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Thom Tillis of North Carolina joined Democratic Sens. Chris Coons of Delaware, Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York in signing the letter. All are members of the Senate National Service Caucus.
The White House and AmeriCorps did not respond for comment.
The Republican-led Senate Committee on Appropriations voted on July 31 to preserve $1.25 billion in AmeriCorps funding for fiscal year 2026. Collins chairs the committee.
U.S. House appropriators, which for the last two years under Republican leadership have sought to cut AmeriCorps funding, are expected to debate its budget in September. But it’s almost certain Congress will have to pass a stopgap spending bill when the end of the fiscal year arrives to stave off a partial government shutdown, so a final decision on funding may not come for months.
Change for everyone
Zare never did have a chance to say goodbye to all his students in April.
And even though the option was on the table, he did not sign up to serve a third year with AmeriCorps.
Before he applied and earned a spot with Project CHANGE, Zare was working odd jobs, including as a utilities contractor for Comcast. He had also earned his associate’s degree.
Former AmeriCorps service member Daniel Zare, 27, visits Project CHANGE at Sligo Middle School on Monday, Aug. 11, 2025 in Silver Spring, Maryland, where he mentored students before federal government cuts in April. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
“I don’t think there’s any other program to take someone like me who was working a couple of different jobs and put them in an environment like this, to see firsthand as an American citizen how our classrooms operate and what position I would need to be in to actually be of benefit,” Zare told States Newsroom.
Zare is now freelancing and debating his next move, whether that’s a new job or further higher education.
“AmeriCorps is something that I’m always going to cherish because a lot of the people there still help me,” he said.
Editor’s note: D.C. Bureau Senior Reporter Ashley Murray served in AmeriCorps in 2009-2010.
The Lyndon Baines Johnson Department of Education Building in Washington, D.C., pictured on Nov. 25, 2024. (Photo by Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — A federal judge in Maryland has struck down the U.S. Education Department’s attempts to do away with diversity, equity and inclusion practices in schools.
The Thursday ruling marks a blow to President Donald Trump’s administration as it continues to take significant strides to try to crack down on DEI efforts across the federal government.
U.S. District Judge Stephanie A. Gallagher found both an agency Dear Colleague letter threatening to yank federal funds for schools from K-12 through colleges and universities that use race-conscious practices in aspects of student life and a memo ordering state education leaders to certify compliance to be “unlawful,” vacating the two.
Gallagher’s ruling follows a lawsuit from the American Federation of Teachers union and its affiliate, AFT-Maryland, as well as the American Sociological Association and a public school district in Oregon.
She noted that both the letter and certification requirement are “unconstitutionally vague.”
Gallagher is one of three federal judges who blocked different parts of the agency’s initiatives back in April, which brought enforcement of the letter and the memo on certifying compliance to a halt.
“The administration is entitled to express its viewpoints and to promulgate policies aligned with those viewpoints,” wrote Gallagher, who was appointed by Trump. “But it must do so within the procedural bounds Congress has outlined. And it may not do so at the expense of constitutional rights.”
Feb. 14 letter to states
The department drew swift legal action after sending a Feb. 14 letter to school districts that threatened to rescind federal funds for schools that use race-conscious practices in programming, admissions, scholarships and other aspects of student life.
The letter gave a sweeping interpretation of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2023, which struck down the use of affirmative action in college admissions.
The four-page letter raised a myriad of questions for schools over what exactly fell within the requirements. The department in March issued a Frequently Asked Questions document on the letter in an attempt to provide more guidance.
Adding fuel to the fire, the department in April gave state education leaders just days to certify all K-12 schools in their states were complying with the letter in order to keep receiving federal financial assistance.
Reaction from department, union
“While the Department is disappointed in the judge’s ruling, judicial action enjoining or setting aside this guidance has not stopped our ability to enforce Title VI protections for students at an unprecedented level,” a spokesperson for the department said in a statement shared with States Newsroom on Friday.
“The Department remains committed to its responsibility to uphold students’ anti-discrimination protections under the law,” the spokesperson added.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said “the court agreed that this vague and clearly unconstitutional requirement is a grave attack on students, our profession, honest history, and knowledge itself,” in a Thursday statement.
Weingarten added that “it would hamper efforts to extend access to education, and dash the promise of equal opportunity for all, a central tenet of the United States since its founding.”
Federal Bureau of Investigation and Metropolitan Police Department officers conduct a traffic stop near the U.S. Capitol on Aug. 14, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice will rewrite an order from Attorney General Pam Bondi that initially placed a Trump administration official in charge of the District of Columbia’s police force, after an emergency hearing late Friday afternoon on a lawsuit filed by the district.
Attorneys on behalf of the Justice Department told District of Columbia Judge Ana C. Reyes they would rewrite Section 1 of Bondi’s order by a deadline the judge set of 6:30 p.m. Eastern Friday.
In that section, Bondi’s late Thursday order named Terry Cole, administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, as head of the Metropolitan Police Department.
District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb called that move a “brazen usurpation of the district’s authority” in his suit filed early Friday against the Trump administration.
Reyes, who was nominated by former President Joe Biden, said if she did not receive the new order by the deadline, she would issue a temporary restraining order against the DOJ. She said she found that section of Bondi’s order “plainly contrary to statute” of the district’s Home Rule Act of 1973.
The exact changes to the order were not immediately available.
District filed suit Friday
Schwalb early Friday sued the Trump administration for taking control of the Metropolitan Police Department’s 3,400 officers.
The suit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia argued that President Donald Trump’s Monday executive order to federalize the district’s police force “far exceeded” the president’s authority under the Home Rule Act of 1973 that allows Washingtonians to elect their local leaders, but gives Congress control over local laws and the district’s budget.
Trump has warned he may pursue similar action in other Democratic-led cities that he sees as having “totally out of control” crime, though experts have questioned the legality and mayors already have raised objections.
“This is the gravest threat to Home Rule DC has ever faced, and we are fighting to stop it,” Schwalb, a Democrat elected in 2022, wrote on social media. “The Administration’s actions are brazenly unlawful. They go well beyond the bounds of the President’s limited authority and instead seek a hostile takeover of MPD.”
District Mayor Muriel Bowser pushed back on Bondi’s order, and wrote on social media that “there is no statute that conveys the District’s personnel authority to a federal official.”
“Let us be clear about what the law requires during a Presidential declared emergency: it requires the mayor of Washington, DC to provide the services of the Metropolitan Police Department for federal purposes at the request of the President,” she said. “We have followed the law.”
The suit asks for a judge to vacate Bondi’s order and an order to prevent the Trump administration “from issuing any future orders or directives or taking any other action that attempts to place MPD under the control of anyone other than the Mayor and the Chief of Police, otherwise assert operational control over MPD, or otherwise attempt to direct local law enforcement activities.”
The suit does not challenge Trump’s decision to deploy 800 National Guard members to the district. Because the district, home to more than 700,000 residents, is not a state, the president has the sole authority over the National Guard members.
Carjacking preceded Trump order
Trump earlier this week declared a “crime emergency” after a former U.S. Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, official was injured on Aug. 3 in an attempted carjacking incident around 3 a.m. Eastern near the Logan Circle neighborhood. Two Maryland teenagers were arrested on charges of unarmed carjacking in connection with the incident.
Violent crime in the district is at a historic 30-year low.
The suit notes Trump’s previous comments about his plans for the district, from his time as a 2024 presidential candidate to his most recent remarks about taking over control of the district while at a February press conference.
“I think that we should govern the District of Columbia … I think that we should run it strong, run it with law and order, make it absolutely flawless … And I think we should take over Washington, D.C. … We should govern D.C. The federal government should take over the governance of D.C.,” Trump said in the court document.
Advocates and local leaders have criticized the president’s decision, arguing that the move is nothing more than an extension of the administration’s immigration crackdown. Checkpoints have popped up all over the city in communities with a high immigrant population.
Additionally, the district’s police chief Thursday issued a new order to allow local police to aid federal officials in immigration enforcement for immigrants not in police custody.
Trump praised Thursday’s order, calling it “a very positive thing,” especially at checkpoints in the district.
“When they stop people, they find they’re illegal, they report them, they give them to us,” he said.
Police officers set up a roadside checkpoint on 14th Street Northwest on Aug. 13, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Local leaders and advocates Thursday said that President Donald Trump’s decision to seize the District of Columbia’s 3,400-member police force and deploy 800 National Guard members is a continuation of his administration’s immigration crackdown.
Since the president’s decision Monday to invoke the district’s Home Rule Act, checkpoints are being set up in busy neighborhoods, bulldozers are clearing out tents of people experiencing homelessness and Republican governors are volunteering their own National Guard members to bolster the president’s federalization of the district’s 68 square miles.
Videos of masked law enforcement officers making Washingtonians step out of their cars and conducting arrests have been posted on social media by journalists, drawing concern over civil liberties.
While Trump’s control of the district’s police force ends in 28 days, he’s signaled he wants Congress to extend his authority to deter the “crime emergency.”
Advocates questioned the situation. “There does appear to be evidence that non (Metropolitan Police Department) federal authorities may have exceeded the lawful bounds at some of those traffic stops … and there will be accountability if the law is violated,” said Norm Eisen, the executive chair of Democracy Defenders Fund, a litigation organization that has challenged many of the Trump administration’s actions, in a call with reporters.
Trump predicts enforcement ‘all over the country’
The checkpoints have drawn backlash from district residents and local elected leaders.
In a statement, district Councilmember Brianne Nadeau criticized the immigration enforcement at checkpoints.
“Last night what would have been a routine MPD traffic safety operation was co-opted by federal law enforcement agents,” she said. “Agents who are not trained in D.C. law. Agents who do not know our community. Agents who were not seeking to address traffic safety but rather were interrogating drivers on their immigration status.”
Trump Thursday said that law enforcement using the checkpoints as immigration enforcement was “a great step.”
“I think that’s going to happen all over the country,” the president told reporters at the White House after signing a proclamation celebrating Social Security‘s 90th birthday. “We want to stop crime.”
Violent crime in the district is at a historic 30-year low, according to the Department of Justice.
Eisen called the checkpoints unlawful.
“They’re using it as an immigration control checkpoint,” he said. “That is illegal.”
Bulldozing camps for homeless people
Homeless camps across the district are also being cleared as part of the president’s directive.
Trump Wednesday signaled that he plans to send a request to Congress for “a relatively small amount of money” to make improvements to the district.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday that if those people experiencing homelessness don’t agree to go to a shelter, they could face fines or jail.
“The homeless problem has ravaged the city,” Leavitt said. “Homeless individuals will be given the option to leave their encampment, to be taken to a homeless shelter, to be offered addiction or mental health services, and if they refuse, they will be susceptible to fines or to jail time.”
The district has faced a backlog in getting vouchers to those experiencing homelessness, according to Street Sense Media, a news outlet that focuses on reporting on homelessness in the district.
Local police to aid feds on immigration actions
The district’s police chief Thursday issued a new executive order allowing local police to aid federal officials in immigration enforcement for immigrants not in police custody.
The new order does not change the district’s law that prohibits local police from sharing information with federal immigration officials about people in police custody. It’s a policy for which Trump has criticized the city, calling it a “sanctuary city,” but the policy does not bar immigration enforcement.
Trump called Thursday’s executive order “a very positive thing,” especially at checkpoints in the district.
“When they stop people, they find they’re illegal, they report them, they give them to us,” he said.
Since taking office for a second term, the president has intertwined military involvement in immigration enforcement, such as sending thousands of troops to the southern border and deploying thousands of National Guard members to Los Angeles after protests sparked by the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
More National Guard movements possible
Additionally, the Trump administration is evaluating plans to establish a “Domestic Civil Disturbance Quick Reaction Force” composed of 600 National Guard members to remain on stand-by in order to be quickly deployed to any U.S. city undergoing a protest or other civil unrest within an hour, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.
On Wednesday, in another new twist, Republican Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said he’s prepared to send his National Guard members to the district. Lee added that U.S. Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll told him that the military might request states send troops to the district for law enforcement.
The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 generally bars the use of the military for domestic law enforcement purposes.
While the president has stated he also wants to send in National Guard members to other cities – Baltimore, Chicago, New York City and Oakland – all heavily Democratic cities led by Black mayors, like he has done with the district, it can’t be replicated, said Abbe Lowell, a high-profile defense attorney.
“One thing that people need to remember about his assault on the District of Columbia, it is a very unique legal framework because of the Home Rule Act that gives him some ability to do something which he does not have in other states and cities where the governors still have some or the primary control over things like the National Guard,” said Lowell, who was with Eisen on the call with reporters.
Baltimore Mayor Brandon M. Scott said Trump’s singling out of those cities, including the district, can’t be ignored.
“Every city that he called out had a Black mayor, and we’re talking about Black-led cities,” he said on the call with Eisen and Lowell. “We cannot overstate the racial undertones here.”
Scott also criticized the Trump administration for pulling federal law enforcement officers – Drug Enforcement Agency, Homeland Security Investigations, FBI, Customs and Border Patrol – from their duties. Instead they are “patrolling neighbors of Washington DC, stopping residents and checking cars instead of doing their actual jobs,” Scott said.
“If the president really wants to help these cities continue to lower violence and crime, he could go back to sending agents to their actual agencies and having them help us work on gun trafficking, work on violent drug organizations, and not taking these agents off to work on this immigration brigade that he’s had them on,” Scott said.
He added that he’s working closely with Maryland Democratic Gov. Wes Moore and “we’ll be prepared to take any legal and any other action that we need to take.”
Moore, who served in the U.S. Army, has criticized the president for calling in the National Guard to the district and raised concerns that service members do not have the same training as police officers.
Trump brushed those concerns off on Thursday.
“They’re trained in common sense,” the president said of National Guard members.
Emergencies
Eisen said Trump’s actions in the district are part of the president’s pattern of invoking “non-emergencies.”
On Inauguration Day, Trump declared a national emergency at the border, despite low levels of immigration.
In March, he invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a wartime law only used three times previously.
Trump’s decision to declare a “crime emergency” in the district earlier this week came after a former U.S. Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, official was injured in an attempted carjacking incident around 3 a.m. Eastern near the Logan Circle neighborhood. Two Maryland teenagers were arrested on charges of unarmed carjacking in connection with the incident.
“Well, what he’s doing in the District of Columbia, including illegal traffic stops, what he’s doing is of a piece with that dictatorial approach,” Eisen said of the president.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Social Security Act on Aug. 14, 1935. (Photo by FPG/Archive Photos/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump signed a proclamation celebrating the 90th anniversary of Social Security on Thursday, though he offered no plans for avoiding insolvency and a steep drop-off in benefits within the next decade.
Trump, who campaigned on “saving” the income stabilization program for America’s seniors, said during an appearance in the Oval Office that Republicans would keep the program going.
But neither Trump, nor Republican leaders in Congress, have advanced legislation that would avoid a decrease in Social Security benefits in 2033, or begun to seriously address the issue.
“In the campaign I made a sacred pledge to our seniors that I would always protect Social Security and under this administration we’re keeping that promise and strengthening Social Security for generations to come,” Trump said. “You keep hearing stories that in six years, seven years, Social Security will be gone. And it will be if the Democrats ever get involved because they don’t know what they’re doing.
“But it’s going to be around a long time with us. Very much, you’ll be surprised to hear some of the numbers.”
‘One big, beautiful’ law speeds up fund depletion
The latest Social Security trustees report, released earlier this year, shows that without changes the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance trust fund will no longer be able to pay full benefits starting in 2033.
“At that time, the fund’s reserves will become depleted and continuing program income will be sufficient to pay 77 percent of total scheduled benefits,” the report states.
Republicans’ “big, beautiful” law will, however, speed up that timeline.
Karen Glenn, chief actuary for the Social Security Administration, wrote in a letter released earlier this month that the lower tax rates in the GOP law will reduce the amount of revenue flowing into the trust fund.
When combined with “increased program cost” associated with the new law, Glenn wrote “the reserve depletion date for the OASI Trust Fund is accelerated from the first quarter of 2033 to the fourth quarter of 2032.”
Bipartisanship needed
Republicans cannot restructure Social Security on their own and will need to negotiate with Democrats in the years to come if lawmakers want to avoid insolvency.
The budget reconciliation process, which GOP lawmakers used to pass their “big, beautiful bill,” cannot be used to address Social Security, making bipartisanship the only path to avoiding a decline in benefits for America’s retirees.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget wrote in a post published Thursday that “solutions are needed soon to prevent insolvency and the statutorily required benefit cut.”
Without a new law to address the financial struggles facing the program, CRFB wrote, a “typical couple retiring just after insolvency will face an $18,400 cut in annual benefits.”
President Donald Trump holds up an executive order after signing it during an indoor inauguration parade at the Capital One Arena on Jan. 20, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court on Wednesday overturned a lower court’s ruling that had required the Trump administration to spend foreign aid dollars approved by Congress.
But instead of addressing the central argument of the lawsuit — that a president cannot refuse to spend money approved by lawmakers, who hold the power of the purse — the Circuit Court in a potentially significant decision said the organizations that filed the case didn’t have the authority to do so.
Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson wrote in her 33-page opinion that only the comptroller general, who leads the Government Accountability Office, has the power to bring lawsuits when a president impounds, or refuses to spend, congressionally approved funds. The GAO is an independent, non-partisan watchdog agency that works for Congress.
“Because the grantees lack a cause of action, we need not address on the merits whether the government violated the Constitution by infringing on the Congress’s spending power through alleged violations of the 2024 Appropriations Act, the ICA and the Anti-Deficiency Act,” Henderson wrote. The ICA is the Impoundment Control Act, which is the legal mechanism through which the president can delay or withhold funds.
Henderson was nominated to the Circuit Court in 1990 by President George H.W. Bush, a few years after President Ronald Reagan nominated her as a federal district judge in 1986.
Henderson wrote that she and Judge Gregory G. Katsas, who was nominated by President Donald Trump, concluded “the district court abused its discretion in granting a preliminary injunction” for several reasons.
Both Republican and Democratic state attorneys general filed amicus briefs in the case, with Republicans siding with the Trump administration. The case originated when Trump signed an order on Inauguration Day freezing certain foreign aid spending.
Henderson wrote that “within weeks, the State Department and USAID suspended or terminated thousands of grant awards.”
‘It is our responsibility to check the president’
Judge Florence Y. Pan, who was nominated by President Joe Biden, issued a 46-page dissenting opinion, arguing the ruling from her two colleagues was “procedurally and substantively flawed.”
“It is our responsibility to check the President when he violates the law and exceeds his constitutional authority,” Pan wrote. “We fail to do that here.”
Pan wrote she disagreed with the majority’s opinion that Trump withholding certain foreign aid funding was “a mere violation of the Impoundment Control Act that should be addressed by the Comptroller General.”
“In this case, the President’s violation of the Impoundment Control Act is a sideshow,” Pan wrote. “That statute provided a mechanism for the President to lawfully attempt to impound the funds, and his failure to follow its prescribed procedures is evidence that he was, in fact, refusing to obligate the funds in defiance of Congress.”
Public media funding targeted
The Trump administration has used the Impoundment Control Act one time this year, when it requested Congress cancel $9.4 billion in funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and various foreign aid programs.
Senate Republicans approved the bill in July after preserving full funding for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR.
House GOP lawmakers then cleared the bill for Trump’s signature just before a 45-day clock ran out.
Trump administration sees ‘big win’
Several members of the Trump administration, including Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought and Attorney General Pam Bondi, cheered the Circuit Court’s ruling in social media posts.
“In a 2-1 ruling, the DC Circuit lifted an injunction ordering President Trump to spend hard-earned taxpayer dollars on wasteful foreign aid projects,” Bondi wrote. “We will continue to successfully protect core Presidential authorities from judicial overreach.”
Vought wrote the ruling was a “Big win!”
An OMB spokesperson wrote in a statement the ruling represented a victory for the White House.
“Radical left dark-money groups have been using the court system to seize control of U.S. foreign policy,” the spokesperson wrote. “Today’s decision stops these private groups from maliciously interfering with the President’s ability to spend responsibly and administer foreign aid in a lawful manner and in alignment with his America First policies.”
Lauren Bateman, attorney at Public Citizen Litigation Group and lead counsel on the suit, wrote in a statement that the court’s ruling represented “a significant setback for the rule of law and risks further erosion of basic separation of powers principles.
“We will seek further review from the court, and our lawsuit will continue regardless as we seek permanent relief from the Administration’s unlawful termination of the vast majority of foreign assistance. In the meantime, countless people will suffer disease, starvation, and death from the Administration’s unconscionable decision to withhold life-saving aid from the world’s most vulnerable people.”
A member of the National Guard arrives at the Guard’s headquarters at the D.C. Armory on Tuesday, Aug. 12, 2025 in Washington, DC. President Donald Trump announced he is placing the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department under federal control, and will deploy the National Guard to the District to assist in crime prevention in the nation’s capital. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s move to deploy 800 National Guard members in the District of Columbia over claims that crime is plaguing the city – despite historic lows – follows his use of the military in his administration’s growing immigration crackdown.
“(D.C.’s) out of control, but we’re going to put it in control very quickly, like we did on the southern border,” Trump said at a Monday press conference where he was flanked by members of his Cabinet, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. He vowed to do the same in more cities governed by Democrats.
Trump’s return to the White House was led by a campaign promise of mass deportations, tying newly arrived immigrants at the southern border with high crime rates and the need to use troops to detain and remove those migrants.
Since Inauguration Day, the president has sent thousands of National Guard members to be stationed at the U.S.-Mexico border and has militarized strips of land along the border, putting migrants into contact with military personnel.
Trump’s deployment of the California National Guard in June in response to unrest over immigration raids was seen as a test case for use of the state-based military forces. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom of California wrote on X on Monday that Trump “was just getting warmed up in Los Angeles” with that order.
“He will gaslight his way into militarizing any city he wants in America,” Newsom said. “This is what dictators do.”
‘Quick Reaction Force’
Now the Trump administration is evaluating plans to establish a “Domestic Civil Disturbance Quick Reaction Force” composed of 600 National Guard members to remain on stand-by in order to be quickly deployed to any U.S. city undergoing a protest or other civil unrest within an hour, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.
The groups, who would be armed with riot gear and other weapons, would be split evenly between Alabama and Arizona, according to the Post.
The DOD proposal also calls for a rotation of service members from Army and Air Force National Guard units based in Alabama, Arizona, California, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Tennessee, according to the Post.
National Guard members are typically in reserve and are some of the first responders to natural disasters.
The Department of Defense and the National Guard did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment about the “Quick Reaction Force” plans. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Which cities are next?
At the Monday press conference, Trump specifically cited four cities that could see similar National Guard movements: Baltimore, Chicago, New York City and Oakland – all heavily Democratic cities led by Black mayors. Violent crime in all those cities has continued to trend downward, according to each city’s police database.
Baltimore County, Maryland, Cook County, Illinois, New York City and the entire state of California also all are on a new “sanctuary jurisdiction” list issued by the Department of Justice on Aug. 5. They are identified as “having policies, laws, or regulations that impede enforcement of federal immigration laws.”
But, unlike the district, where the president has control over the National Guard, state governors, under the law, have had control over their National Guard members.
Additionally, while Trump has seized control of the 3,400 officers in the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department for 29 days due to the district’s Home Rule Act, experts don’t see how that can legally be done with other local police departments.
“What they are doing in D.C. cannot be replicated outside of D.C. All of this is only possible because D.C. is not a state,” said Joseph Nunn, a counsel in the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program. “There’s no playbook for them to do what they seem to want to do outside of D.C.”
Law enforcement officials gather at Union Station, near the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Aug. 12, 2025. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
On Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt clarified Trump’s statements about sending in National Guard members into cities.
“The president is speaking about what he’d like to see take place in other cities across the country,” she said. “When the time comes we’ll talk about that. Starting with our nation’s capital is a great place to begin and it should serve as a model.”
Trump said he hoped other cities were “watching.”
“Maybe they’ll self clean up and maybe they’ll self do this and get rid of the cashless bail thing and all of the things that caused the problem,” the president said.
Nunn said that even if the president were to federalize a state’s National Guard, those members would be subject to the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which generally bars the use of the military for domestic law enforcement purposes.
“There is no statutory exception to the Posse Comitatus Act that allows the military to participate in local law enforcement,” Nunn said.
The president deployed 4,000 members of the National Guard and 700 Marines to Los Angeles after protests erupted against aggressive immigration actions by masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents conducting raids in Home Depot parking lots.
But the legal issue before a San Francisco court is not if the president’s actions were unlawful, but on the political question of who has authority over the National Guard.
Other governors in the states Trump mentioned as candidates for National Guard activation pushed back on the notion.
Maryland Democratic Gov. Wes Moore, who served in the U.S. Army, said in a statement that the president’s decision to call in the National Guard to the District of Columbia “lacks seriousness and is deeply dangerous.”
Illinois Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that the president could not send in the National Guard to Chicago.
“Let’s not lie to the public, you and I both know you have no authority to take over Chicago,” he said.
The conflict between Trump and the Democrats comes at the same time Newsom has threatened to launch a redistricting of California’s congressional districts in order to nullify Texas’ attempt to redraw maps to add more Republican seats to the U.S. House.
And Pritzker is hosting in Illinois the Texas Democrats who left the state to prevent the state legislature from having a quorum after Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott called a special session for redistricting.
Military forces
Since taking office for his second term, the president has signed five executive orders that lay out the use of military forces within the U.S. borders and extend other executive powers to speed up Trump’s immigration crackdown.
More funding also soon will be at hand for Trump’s mass deportations. The massive tax and spending cut bill enacted in July has as its centerpiece $170 billion for the administration’s immigration crackdown. It bolsters border security, increases immigration detention capacity and adds fees to legal pathways for immigration, among other things. Thousands more Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers are slated to be hired.
Some Republican governors have agreed to deploy their own National Guard members to aid the Trump administration in immigration enforcement, such as in Iowa and Tennessee. The secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, sent National Guard to the southern border in Texas when she was governor of South Dakota.
Nunn said that while it’s not typically normal for states to use National Guard members for local policing there is some precedent, such as when New York had members stationed in the New York City subway.
“What is unprecedented is the federal government using military personnel for sort of crime prevention, for regular policing,” Nunn said.
E.J. Antoni of the Heritage Foundation testifies before a U.S. Senate Judiciary subcommittee on Oct. 24, 2023. (Screenshot from C-SPAN)
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump nominated conservative economist E.J. Antoni to fill the top spot at the Bureau of Labor Statistics after abruptly firing the previous statistician following a disappointing jobs report earlier this month.
Trump announced the nominee late Monday on his Truth Social platform, stating that “Our Economy is booming, and E.J. will ensure that the Numbers released are HONEST and ACCURATE.”
Antoni, an economist at the far-right Heritage Foundation, has harshly criticized the previous BLS commissioner, Erika McEntarfer, who was nominated by former President Joe Biden in 2023 and confirmed by the U.S. Senate 86-6 in January 2024. The bureau tracks national economic data, including employment figures.
Without providing evidence, Trump slammed the latest jobs report, released Aug. 1, as “RIGGED” and fired McEntarfer hours later.
The economy gained just 73,000 jobs in July, according to the monthly report. BLS also significantly adjusted May and June figures, to 33,000 for both months, down from the previously reported 291,000. Revisions to past reports often happen after the bureau receives updated data from businesses and federal agencies.
U.S. economic data collection is often referred to as the “gold standard,” as Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, a Trump appointee, said last month.
Trump faced backlash for firing McEntarfer, including from his own former BLS commissioner.
William Beach, whom Trump tapped in 2017 to lead BLS, told CNN McEntarfer’s firing was “groundless.”
BLS data is “more accurate now than they were 30 years ago,” Beach said during the Aug. 3 interview.
In an Aug. 4 appearance on Steve Bannon’s WarRoom podcast, Antoni said BLS data collection is “outdated.”
“You need somebody who is willing to overhaul the entire thing,” he told Bannon.
Shortly after Trump’s November win, Antoni posted on X that “DOGE needs to take a chainsaw to BLS.”
Kevin Roberts, Heritage Foundation’s president, said Tuesday that Trump made a “stellar choice” in nominating Antoni.
“EJ Antoni is one of the sharpest economic minds in the nation—a fearless truth-teller who grasps that sound economics must serve the interests of American families, not globalist elites,” Roberts said in a statement. “His leadership as chief economist at The Heritage Foundation has been instrumental in advancing our mission to protect American families and rebuild a resilient economy rooted in free enterprise.”
Antoni contributed to the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, a roughly 900-page far-right blueprint to overhaul government institutions published ahead of Trump’s election win.
Antoni will need approval from the Senate, which currently has a 53-47 Republican majority.
Sen. Patty Murray, a senior member and former chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, slammed Antoni as an “unqualified right-wing extremist who won’t think twice about manipulating BLS data and degrading the credibility of the agency to make Trump happy.”
“Any Senator who votes to confirm this partisan hack is voting to shred the integrity of our nation’s best economic and jobs data, which underpin our entire economy. If E.J. Antoni gets confirmed, I hope Republicans like playing make-believe, because that’s all BLS data will become,” the Washington state Democrat said in a statement Tuesday.
Sen. Bill Cassidy chairs the committee, which will be tasked with advancing Antoni’s nomination to the full Senate. Cassidy, of Louisiana, did not have a statement on Antoni posted on his website or X feed as of Tuesday at 3 p.m. Eastern.
A sign in an Indianapolis store shown on Aug. 1, 2023, says SNAP benefits are accepted. A new analysis by the Congressional Budget Office projects 2.4 million fewer people per month will participate in the program under Republicans’ tax cut and spending law. (Photo by Getty Images)
About 10 million people, mostly Medicaid recipients, will lose access to health insurance and 2.4 million fewer people per month will participate in a federal food aid program under Republicans’ massive tax cut and spending law, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Monday.
Median-income U.S. households will see a small overall gain in resources from President Donald Trump and the GOP’s “big, beautiful” law, CBO said.
But major changes to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, mean Americans at the bottom of the income distribution will see a net loss of benefits, CBO said.
The law, which both chambers of Congress passed without any Democratic votes and Trump signed July 4, significantly narrows eligibility for Medicaid and SNAP.
Those changes, even combined with federal tax cuts, will lead to a roughly 3% drop in resources over the next nine years for households in the bottom tenth of earners, the CBO analysis said.
“The changes in resources will not be evenly distributed among households,” the congressional scorekeeper said. “The agency estimates that, in general, resources will decrease for households toward the bottom of the income distribution, whereas resources will increase for households in the middle and toward the top of the income distribution.”
The projection shows households in the bottom two-tenths of the income distribution would see a net loss of resources.
Households in the middle 20% of the income distribution would receive, on average, between $800 and $1,200 more per year, which would account for 0.8% to 1% of their income.
At the top of the income distribution, households in the top tenth would see, on average, $13,600 more annually, about 2.7% of their projected income, from 2026 to 2034, the CBO said.
But the lowest tenth of households by income would see a drop of about $1,200 per year, which accounts for 3% of that group’s projected income, the CBO said.
Millions to lose benefits
Roughly 10 million people will lose access to health insurance by 2034, the CBO projected. Most of that group, 7.5 million, would lose Medicaid benefits.
A single section of the law creating new work requirements for Medicaid recipients would result in 5.6 million people losing access to care, the CBO said.
The law also creates new work requirements for SNAP participants and mandates that at least some states pay for a portion of the benefits. States had never been required to cover any share of the cost of SNAP benefits.
The changes to work requirements will result in reduced participation in the program by about 2.4 million people, the CBO said in another analysis published Monday.
The changes to state cost-share in SNAP will save the federal government about $41 billion from 2026 to 2034, CBO said. The agency expects states to pick up most, $35 billion, of that spending.
But the new requirements for states would still likely lead to 300,000 people fewer accessing benefits monthly. The report considered state officials would choose from policy responses including cutting benefits, reducing eligibility or leaving the program altogether in response to the new cost-share.
‘Stealing from working families’
In a press release, a quartet of Democratic leaders in Congress highlighted the regressive impact the CBO projected.
“Prices keep rising and American families are struggling,” House Budget Committee ranking Democrat Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania said. “So what are President Trump’s Republicans doing to help? They passed a law that will make things worse by stealing from working families to give billionaires a tax break.”
“It is truly unfathomable that Trump and Republicans in Congress are championing a bill that gives the top 10 percent $13,600 more per year – while the least affluent 10 percent will lose $1,200 per year,” Senate Budget ranking Democrat Jeff Merkley of Oregon said. “This is families lose, and billionaires win.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both of New York, made similar statements in the release.
White House budget director Russ Vought speaks with reporters inside the U.S. Capitol building on Tuesday, July 15, 2025. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — The White House budget office has until Friday to republish a website detailing the pace at which it plans to spend money approved by Congress, following a federal court ruling.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in an opinion filed Saturday denied the Trump administration’s request to halt a lower court’s ruling that required it to once again post information about spending decisions called apportionments.
The 27-page opinion, written by Circuit Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, said that to “grant the Executive a stay pending appeal in this separation-of-powers standoff would effectively cut the Congress’s purse strings.”
“No President would allow a usurper to command our armed forces. And no Congress should be made to wait while the Executive intrudes on its plenary power over appropriations and disclosure thereof,” Henderson wrote. “The public interest is best served by maintaining the separation-of-powers balance struck by the Constitution and especially so if the challenged statutes keep the citizenry abreast regarding duly appropriated expenditures.”
Henderson was nominated to the Circuit Court in 1990 by then-President George H.W. Bush, a few years after then-President Ronald Reagan nominated her as a federal district judge in 1986.
Cerin Lindgrensavage, counsel for Protect Democracy Project, one of the organizations that filed the lawsuit, released a statement cheering the Circuit Court’s decision.
“Restoration of this website could not have come at a more important time — over the last two weeks journalists have broken story after story of OMB holding back funds using apportionment footnotes — and once this website goes back online we should all have a chance to learn where else OMB has been holding up money that — under law — should be spent,” Lindgrensavage wrote.
The Office of Management and Budget did not immediately respond to a request for comment from States Newsroom on Monday. The Department of Justice replied “no comment” when asked if they planned to appeal the Circuit Court’s decision.
OMB pulled down website
Congress began requiring OMB to publicly post information about how quickly, or how slowly, the executive branch was spending taxpayer dollars during the Biden administration.
White House budget director Russell Vought opted to pull down that website in March, leading to two separate lawsuits — one from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, and one from Protect Democracy Project.
U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled in late July that OMB must republish the website, writing that Congress “has sweeping authority” to require the president to detail how his administration doles out taxpayer dollars throughout the year.
“As explained in this Memorandum Opinion, there is nothing unconstitutional about Congress requiring the Executive Branch to inform the public of how it is apportioning the public’s money,” he wrote. “Defendants are therefore required to stop violating the law!”
The Trump administration appealed that ruling and asked for the district court’s decision to be put on hold while the case played out in the circuit court.
The weekend ruling from Henderson denied that request.
Login
