U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., speaks to reporters at the U.S. Capitol on March 25, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The Department of Defense announced on social media Monday it’s looking into “serious allegations of misconduct” against Arizona Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, one of several lawmakers who posted a video last week telling military members they are not required to follow orders that violate the law.
The video spurred anger from President Donald Trump, who posted, also on social media, that he believed the statement from six Democratic lawmakers represented “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!”
The claim led to safety concerns on Capitol Hill, especially after a year that included numerous acts of violence against lawmakers and key political figures.
The Defense Department announcement didn’t detail exactly how Kelly may have violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice but stated that “a thorough review of these allegations has been initiated to determine further actions, which may include recall to active duty for court-martial proceedings or administrative measures.”
It was unclear how the military review and threat of court-martial proceedings would fit with the constitutional protections held by members of Congress for speech and debate.
Kelly wrote in a statement the Defense Department’s post was the first time he’d heard about the inquiry.
“If this is meant to intimidate me and other members of Congress from doing our jobs and holding this administration accountable, it won’t work,” Kelly wrote. “I’ve given too much to this country to be silenced by bullies who care more about their own power than protecting the Constitution.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Kelly and the other senators in the video were encouraging “disorder and chaos within the ranks.”
“Not a single one of them … can point to a single illegal order that this administration has given down because it does not exist,” Leavitt said. “They knew what they were doing in this video and Sen. Mark Kelly and all of them should be held accountable for that.”
Kelly military background
Kelly served as an aviator in the United States Navy from 1987 until 2012. He was deployed as part of Operation Desert Storm during the first Gulf War. He received several awards throughout his military career, including the Legion of Merit and the Distinguished Flying Cross.
Kelly reached the rank of captain before his retirement from military service.
Kelly, who was also a NASA astronaut, was first elected to the U.S. Senate in November 2020.
The Defense Department’s post announcing an investigation into Kelly said military officials wanted to remind people that “military retirees remain subject to the UCMJ for applicable offenses, and federal laws such as 18 U.S.C. § 2387 prohibit actions intended to interfere with the loyalty, morale, or good order and discipline of the armed forces.”
The statement added that all service members “have a legal obligation under the UCMJ to obey lawful orders and that orders are presumed to be lawful. A servicemember’s personal philosophy does not justify or excuse the disobedience of an otherwise lawful order.”
The statement appeared somewhat similar to the one Kelly, Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin, Colorado Rep. Jason Crow, Pennsylvania Reps. Chris Deluzio and Chrissy Houlahan, and New Hampshire Rep. Maggie Goodlander gave in the video they published Nov 18.
The Democrats, all of whom served in the military or worked in intelligence agencies, said they wanted “to speak directly to members of the military and the intelligence community who take risks each day to keep Americans safe.”
They said that Americans in those institutions “can” and “must refuse illegal orders.”
“No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our Constitution. We know this is hard and that it’s a difficult time to be a public servant,” they said. “But whether you’re serving in the CIA, in the Army, or Navy, or the Air Force, your vigilance is critical.”
Broad constitutional protections for Congress
Members of Congress are broadly protected under the speech and debate clause of the U.S. Constitution, which states that unless a lawmaker is involved in treason, felony and breach of the peace, they are “privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.”
The annotated explanation of the clause on Congress’ official website says the Supreme Court has “broadly” interpreted its applications over the years to ensure an independent legislative branch.
“Despite uncertainty at the margins, it is well established that the Clause serves to secure the independence of the federal legislature by providing Members of Congress and their aides with immunity from criminal prosecutions or civil suits that stem from acts taken within the legislative sphere,” it states. “As succinctly described by the Court, the Clause’s immunity from liability applies ‘even though their conduct, if performed in other than legislative contexts, would in itself be unconstitutional or otherwise contrary to criminal or civil statutes.’ This general immunity principle forms the core of the protections afforded by the Clause.”
A report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service states the judiciary’s “immunity principle protects Members from ‘intimidation by the executive’ or a ‘hostile judiciary’ by prohibiting both the executive and judicial powers from being used to improperly influence or harass legislators.”
Former FBI Director James Comey testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on June 8, 2017 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
A senior federal judge dismissed charges Monday against two public officials with long-running public disputes with President Donald Trump, saying the controversial appointment of the president’s former personal attorney as a prosecutor doomed the cases.
Senior U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie, whom former President Bill Clinton appointed to the bench in South Carolina, wrote in a Monday order that Attorney General Pam Bondi did not have the authority to make Lindsey Halligan the interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.
The judge said the deadline for an interim appointee to that position had lapsed.
Because that process was invalid, the prosecutions against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, both of whom had investigated or prosecuted Trump, must be dropped, Currie wrote.
Currie dismissed the indictments without prejudice, meaning they could be revived. But at least in Comey’s case, in which charges were brought on the eve of the statute of limitations expiring, that appeared unlikely.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Monday the administration would appeal the ruling.
“Lindsay Halligan was legally appointed, and that’s the administration’s position,” Leavitt said. “There was a judge who was clearly trying to shield Leticia James and James Comey from receiving accountability.”
120-day clock
U.S. attorneys are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, but the attorney general can appoint someone on an interim basis for 120 days. After that, the judges in the district are responsible for appointing an interim prosecutor.
“Ms. Halligan was not appointed in a manner consistent with this framework,” Currie wrote.
Bondi appointed Erik Siebert as the interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia in January, while his confirmation was pending in the Senate. After 120 days, the judges in the district allowed him to continue.
Siebert resigned in September, reportedly under pressure from Trump and Bondi to bring charges against Comey. Bondi then named Halligan, at the time a White House aide who had also worked for Trump in a private capacity, as the interim U.S. attorney.
But Bondi could not do that because, after 120 days, the responsibility for naming an interim U.S. attorney fell to the district court judges, Currie wrote.
“The 120-day clock began running with Mr. Siebert’s appointment on Jan. 21, 2025,” she wrote. “When that clock expired on May 21, 2025, so too did the Attorney General’s appointment authority. Consequently, I conclude that the Attorney General’s attempt to install Ms. Halligan as Interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia was invalid and that Ms. Halligan has been unlawfully serving in that role.”
Quick indictment
Halligan, after gaining office in September, quickly secured a two-count indictment against the former FBI chief from a grand jury in Alexandria. Comey was accused of lying to Congress about whether he had authorized a press leak of information related to an FBI investigation of Russian actors’ involvement in Trump’s first presidential campaign.
However, U.S. District Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick wrote last week that issues with evidence, testimony and statements to the grand jury in the case outweighed the usual heavily guarded secrecy of proceedings. He said “profound investigative missteps” could result in the dismissal of Comey’s indictment.
James won a civil case against Trump related to business fraud, though a state appeals court later overturned the sentence as overly punitive.
Trump has publicly blasted James and Comey as using the mechanisms of legal proceedings to persecute him.
In an extraordinary public message to Bondi just before Halligan replaced Siebert, Trump complained that the prosecutions against both were not developing faster.
The Justice Department did not respond to a message seeking comment Monday.
President Donald Trump meets with New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani n the Oval Office on Nov. 21, 2025. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump and New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani turned around their heated criticism in remarks to the press after an Oval Office meeting Friday.
After months of attacking each other, Trump and Mamdani pledged to address the high cost of living for New Yorkers. The White House has tried to steer messaging toward affordability in recent weeks as Trump’s approval ratings on the economy have sunk.
“Some of his ideas really are the same ideas I have,” Trump said. “You know the new word is affordability. Another word is just groceries. It’s sort of an old-fashioned word, but it’s very accurate. They’re coming down.”
Food prices have risen considerably in recent years. Groceries overall cost 3.1% more than they did a year ago, according to the government’s latest Consumer Price Index.
Mamdani campaigned on lowering the cost of living, including property tax reform, making buses free and floating the idea of city-run grocery stories.
The mayor-elect described the meeting as “a productive meeting focused on a place of shared admiration and love, which is New York City, and the need to deliver affordability to New Yorkers.”
“We spoke about rent, we spoke about groceries, we spoke about utilities, we spoke about the different ways in which people are being pushed out, and I appreciated the time with the president,” Mamdani said.
The pair fielded questions on housing costs, crime, whether either of them would retract their recent barbs and whether Trump would backtrack his threats to cut federal money to New York City.
“Well, I think if we didn’t get along, whether it’s cut off or just make it a little bit difficult, or not give as much, we want to see,” Trump said.
“We had a meeting today that actually surprised me. He wants to see no crime. He wants to see housing being built. He wants to see rents coming down. All things that I agree with. Now, we may disagree how we get there,” Trump added.
In response to a question about GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik, a Trump ally, calling Mamdani a “jihadist” as she eyes the New York gubernatorial seat, Trump said “she’s out there campaigning, and you say things sometimes in a campaign.”
“I met with a man who is a very rational person. I met with a man who wants to see, really wants to see, New York be great again,” Trump continued, adding “I’ll be cheering for him.”
Mamdani will be the city’s first Muslim mayor, as well as the youngest ever elected.
Mamdani sought meeting
Mamdani said he sought the meeting with Trump.
“My team reached out to the White House to set up this meeting because I will work with anyone to make life more affordable for the 8 and a half million people who call this city home,” Mamdani said in a press conference Thursday.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Thursday the meeting “speaks to the fact that President Trump is willing to meet with anyone.”
“It speaks volumes that tomorrow we have a communist coming to the White House.”
Trump and congressional Republicans have repeatedly referred to the 34-year-old Mamdani as a “communist.” Mamdani, who ran on the Democratic ticket, identifies as a Democratic Socialist, an organization that claims roughly 85,000 members nationally. The ideology as a movement received a boost after the 2016 presidential run of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent who represents Vermont and caucuses with Democrats.
Mamdani beat out former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo this month by a 50.4% to 41% margin, according to the New York Times election coverage. Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa took just over 7% of the vote. Cuomo, who ran as an independent, resigned from office in 2021 after multiple women accused him of sexual harassment.
Trump endorsed Cuomo, seemingly reluctantly, on the eve of the election, in a post on his social media platform Truth Social.
“Whether you personally like Andrew Cuomo or not, you really have no choice,” he wrote. “You must vote for him, and hope he does a fantastic job. He is capable of it, Mamdani is not!”
Threat to pull funding
As Mamdani’s campaign gained momentum, Trump threatened to cut off billions in federal funding to New York City, Trump’s own home city.
Trump repeated the threat on election eve, writing on Truth Social that if Mamdani won, New York City would be a “total economic and social disaster” and that NYC should not expect any federal dollars “other than the very minimum as required.”
In Mamdani’s victory speech, he referred to Trump as a “despot.”
In July, Trump threatened to arrest Mamdani if the incoming mayor does not comply with the administration’s mass deportation campaign, including sending an influx of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to New York City.
Sedition – typicallywords intended to incite insurrection against the government – is not punishable by death.
The federal crime is seditious conspiracy, where two or more people conspire to overthrow the government.
It is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
President Donald Trump on Nov. 20 said: “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!”
His reference was to Democratic lawmakers who two days earlier reminded members of the military to disobey illegal orders.
Trump’s post prompted a rebuke from U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., among others. Milwaukeean Victor Berger, the first Socialist elected to Congress, was convicted in 1918 of espionage, for his opposition to World War I, and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. The House refused to seat him on grounds of sedition. But he returned to Congress after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the conviction in 1921.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Is sedition punishable by death? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
President Donald Trump prepares to speak after watching as members of the U.S. Army participated in the 250th birthday parade of the U.S. Army June 14, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump accused six Democratic lawmakers of sedition on social media Thursday and threatened them with punishment as severe as death, after they appeared in a video message encouraging U.S. armed forces to refuse “illegal orders.”
Trump also shared another social media post that said the Democrats should be hanged.
The video’s distribution online by Democrats comes as the Trump administration is mired in multiple legal cases objecting to the president’s deployment of National Guard troops to cities across the country, including a challenge to Guard troops in Chicago which is now before the U.S. Supreme Court.
In several morning posts on his own social media platform Truth Social, Trump wrote, “This is really bad, and Dangerous to our Country. Their words cannot be allowed to stand. SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR FROM TRAITORS!!! LOCK THEM UP??? President DJT”
“SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!,” he added a couple of hours later.
Prior to writing and publishing his own, the president reposted several messages from users on Truth Social, including one by a user with the handle @P78 who wrote, “HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD !!”
Trump and his social media supporters were referring to the video, which featured Democratic U.S. lawmakers who served in the military telling current members of the military and the intelligence community to “refuse illegal orders.”
Each line in the video is alternately delivered by Sens. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Mark Kelly of Arizona, and Reps. Chris Deluzio and Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania, Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire and Jason Crow of Colorado.
“We know you are under enormous stress and pressure right now. Americans trust their military, but that trust is at risk. This administration is pitting our uniformed military and intelligence community professionals against American citizens. Like us, you all swore an oath to protect and defend this Constitution. Right now, the threats to our Constitution aren’t just coming from abroad but from right here at home. Our laws are clear: You can refuse illegal orders,” the lawmakers said.
The video was titled “Don’t give up the ship.”
Does Trump want to ‘execute’ Democrats?
When asked by a CBS News reporter during the daily press briefing Thursday whether the president wants to “execute” members of Congress, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt answered, “No.”
Leavitt said Trump was reacting to sitting members of Congress who “conspired” on the video message to encourage active duty service members and national security officials to “defy the president’s lawful orders.”
Leavitt singled out the participation of Slotkin and Kelly, who respectively served as a CIA intelligence officer and a Navy captain. Leavitt also highlighted Goodlander’s marriage to former National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, who served under President Joe Biden.
“They were leaning into their credentials as former members of our military, as veterans, as former members of the national security apparatus, to signal to people serving under this commander-in-chief, Donald Trump, that you can defy him, and you can betray your oath of office. That is a very, very dangerous message, and it perhaps is punishable by law,” Leavitt said.
During the ongoing exchange, CBS’s Nancy Cordes pressed back, saying the lawmakers specifically say “illegal order” in the video.
“They’re suggesting, Nancy, that the president has given illegal orders, which he has not. Every single order that is given to this United States military by this commander in chief and through this chain of command, through the secretary of War, is lawful,” Leavitt responded.
Democrats decry political violence
Democratic lawmakers sounded the alarm Thursday over Trump’s social media posts, accusing him of encouraging political violence.
“Let’s be crystal clear: the president of the United States is calling for the execution of elected officials. This is an outright threat, and it’s deadly serious. We have already seen what happens when Donald Trump tells his followers that his political opponents are enemies of the state,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said on the Senate floor Thursday.
“Every time Donald Trump posts things like this, he makes political violence more likely. None of us should tolerate this kind of behavior,” Schumer said, highlighting political violence in recent years, including the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, and political assassinations just this past year.
House Committee on the Judiciary Chair Jamie Raskin, D-Md., called on Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to “immediately denounce these reckless statements.”
The six Democratic lawmakers featured in the video issued a joint statement, saying they “love this country and swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
“That oath lasts a lifetime, and we intend to keep it. No threat, intimidation, or call for violence will deter us from that sacred obligation. What’s most telling is that the President considers it punishable by death for us to restate the law,” the lawmakers said.
President Donald Trump delivers remarks during a joint press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron in the East Room at the White House on Feb. 24, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump signed into law late Wednesday a bill compelling the release of unclassified investigative files from the case against convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, with whom he shared a well-documented friendship, though Trump denies any involvement in the financier’s crimes.
Epstein, who surrounded himself with the rich and powerful, died in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019 awaiting federal trial on sex trafficking charges.
Trump signed the bill the day after the House sent it to the Senate, which agreed by unanimous consent to accept the measure.
In a post on his own social media platform Truth Social, the president name-called several prominent figures in business and politics, including former President Bill Clinton.
“Perhaps the truth about these Democrats, and their associations with Jeffrey Epstein, will soon be revealed, because I HAVE JUST SIGNED THE BILL TO RELEASE THE EPSTEIN FILES!” Trump wrote.
In the lengthy post, Trump credits himself and Republican leaders in Congress for the legislation, though the bipartisan bill was forced to the House floor via a discharge petition.
After months of loud cries to release the files, even from his base, Trump changed his position Sunday night and directed Republicans to support the measure.
In July, Trump’s Department of Justice issued a memo that it would not publicly release any further records about the Epstein case.
The legislation overwhelmingly passed the House Tuesday in a 427-1 vote. GOP Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., was the lone no vote.
The legislation compels the Justice Department to publicly disclose “all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials in its possession that relate to Epstein or (co-conspirator Ghislaine) Maxwell.”
They include records related to Epstein’s detention and death; flight logs from Epstein’s planes; names of those connected with Epstein’s alleged crimes; records of civil settlements, and sealed and unsealed immunity deals and plea bargains; records pertaining to entities with ties to Epstein’s trafficking or financial networks; and internal DOJ communications “concerning decisions to investigate or charge Epstein or his associates.”
The bill carves out exceptions for records containing victims’ identities, images of death or physical abuse, and information that could jeopardize a federal investigation.
The bill also notes that the “DOJ may not withhold or redact records on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity.”
The bill’s passage and Trump’s signature came less than a week after lawmakers on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released some 20,000 pages of emails from Epstein’s estate that repeatedly mentioned Trump’s name.
In one email from Epstein to convicted co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, the financier and sex offender claimed Trump “knew about the girls.”
Many other names turned up in the thousands of pages of correspondence, including that of Democratic Delegate Stacey Plaskett, who represents the U.S. Virgin Islands, where Epstein owned a residence, and former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers.
A House Republican effort to censure Plaskett narrowly failed in the House Tuesday night. Summers announced Wednesday that he would resign from prominent board and other positions.
Sky Roberts, left, brother of Virginia Giuffre, who was abused by Jeffrey Epstein, and his wife Amanda Roberts hold up a photo of Giuffre during a news conference on the Epstein Files Transparency Act outside the U.S. Capitol on Nov. 18, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
This story contains mention of sexual abuse and suicide. If you or a loved one are in crisis, help is available 24 hours a day by dialing 988 or visiting 988hotline.org.
WASHINGTON — A bill is heading to President Donald Trump’s desk compelling the release of unclassified investigative files from the case against convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a friend to the rich and powerful who died in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019 awaiting federal trial on sex trafficking charges.
Senate Republicans on Tuesday night did not object to a unanimous consent request from Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to accept and pass the legislation, as is, after the U.S. House overwhelmingly approved the measure earlier in the day.
The Senate did not receive the bill from the House before adjourning Tuesday night.
A senior administration official told States Newsroom the president will sign the bill “whenever it gets to the White House.”
The lawmakers in the lower chamber voted 427-1 to compel the Department of Justice to release materials related to the government’s investigation of the financier who harmed over 1,000 victims, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., was the lone “no” vote.
Survivors and their supporters watched the vote from the chamber’s gallery seats. Among them was Sky Roberts, the brother of the late Virginia Giuffre, who sued Epstein’s co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell and the British royal family’s Andrew Windsor, who recently was stripped of his title of prince. Giuffre died by suicide in April.
“I’m very happy with the outcome, but this is just the beginning, and we have a lot of work ahead of us, a lot more to do,” Haley Robson told States Newsroom in an interview after the vote. Robson is prominent among those who have shared their stories of abuse by Epstein.
The bill now goes to Trump, who said Monday he will sign it.
‘Courage and advocacy’ of survivors cited
Schumer, a New York Democrat, wrote on social media earlier the vote would “not have been possible without the courage and advocacy of Jeffrey Epstein’s survivors. They made this vote possible. They risked their safety coming out of the darkness to share their stories and to tell the truth.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said earlier Tuesday he expected the bill to move through the Senate “fairly quickly” and likely without changes, according to reporting by CNN.
The legislation compels the Justice Department to publicly disclose “all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials in its possession that relate to Epstein or Maxwell.” They include records related to Epstein’s detention and death; flight logs from Epstein’s planes; names of those connected with Epstein’s alleged crimes; records of civil settlements, and sealed and unsealed immunity deals and plea bargains; records pertaining to entities with ties to Epstein’s trafficking or financial networks; and internal DOJ communications “concerning decisions to investigate or charge Epstein or his associates.”
The bill carves out exceptions for records containing victims’ identities, images of death or physical abuse, and information that could jeopardize a federal investigation.
The bill also notes that the “DOJ may not withhold or redact records on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity.”
Trump, Johnson opposition
Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson opposed the House effort to release the files until this week.
Johnson said Tuesday morning that he will vote for the measure that has been forced to the floor after Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif., gathered enough signatures on a discharge petition to override leadership.
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., speaks during a press conference on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025. Also pictured, from left, are House Republican Conference Chair Lisa McClain of Michigan, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana and House Republican Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)
The Louisiana Republican told reporters at his regular House leadership press conference that the “forcing mechanism here prevents the very deliberate, professional, careful manner in which Congress is supposed to do this.”
“But having now forced the vote, none of us want to go on record and in any way be accused of not being for maximum transparency,” Johnson said.
The vote comes less than a week after lawmakers on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released some 20,000 pages of emails from Epstein’s estate that repeatedly mentioned Trump’s name.
In one email from Epstein to Maxwell, the financier and sex offender claimed Trump “knew about the girls.”
Trump denies any involvement with Epstein’s alleged crimes, and has said that he kicked Epstein out of his private Florida club, Mar-a-Lago, because he alleged the financier had poached young female staffers from the club. Epstein was convicted in Florida of soliciting minors for sex in 2008.
During a press conference in the Oval Office Tuesday alongside the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Trump told reporters, “As far as the Epstein files, I have nothing to do with Jeffery Epstein. I threw him out of my club many years ago because I thought he was a sick pervert.”
Trump added, as he has repeatedly said before, that the files are a “Democratic hoax.”
Plaskett text messages
The thousands of documents released by Epstein’s estate revealed the sex offender’s correspondence with academics, journalists, lawmakers and at least one spiritual leader.
Among the revelations were text messages between Epstein and U.S. Democratic Delegate Stacey Plaskett, who represents the U.S. Virgin Islands, where Epstein owned a residence.
An effort by Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., is underway to formally reprimand Plaskett for texting with Epstein during a 2019 congressional hearing that featured testimony from Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen. News of the text exchange was originally published by the Washington Post.
The official censure would remove Plaskett from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. A vote was expected Tuesday night.
Plaskett defended herself on the House floor Tuesday afternoon, saying, “We all know that Jeffrey Epstein’s actions were absolutely reprehensible as a constituent, as an individual who gave donations to me. When I learned of the extent of his actions after his investigation, I gave that money to women’s organizations in my community.”
Stories of abuse
Women who told stories of being abused by Epstein as teens rallied outside the U.S. Capitol Tuesday morning, alongside Massie, Khanna and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., whom Trump attacked online this weekend, nicknaming her a “traitor.”
Robson told the crowd that as a Republican herself, the advocacy from Massie and Greene is “unbelievable to watch, and we are so grateful.”
“And to the president of the United States of America, who is not here today, I want to send a clear message to you: While I do understand that your position has changed on the Epstein files, and I’m grateful that you have pledged to sign this bill, I can’t help to be skeptical of what the agenda is,” Robson said.
U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., stood and spoke alongside women who shared stories of sexual abuse by the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025, ahead of a U.S. House vote to compel release of the government’s Epstein case files. (Screenshot courtesy of C-SPAN)
In a Sunday night post on his own social media platform, Trump told Republicans to vote in favor of the bipartisan legislation Tuesday, which lawmakers have named the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
Greene, who also spoke at the press conference, said the administration’s refusal to release what are collectively referred to as the Epstein files “has ripped MAGA apart.”
“The only thing that will speak to the powerful, courageous women behind me is when action is actually taken to release these files, and the American people won’t tolerate any other b- – – -t,” Greene said.
GOP Reps. Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Lauren Boebert of Colorado were the other Republicans to join Massie, Greene and all Democrats to sign the petition.
Grijalva signature
In a second press conference outside the Capitol later Tuesday morning, the House’s newest Democratic member, Arizona’s Adelita Grijalva, spoke alongside sexual abuse prevention advocates.
“The momentum behind this did not come from politicians. It came from survivors and the public who demanded answers. This is why the discharge petition crossed 218 signatures, despite Speaker Johnson doing everything in his power to prevent this from happening, including calling an early summer release, and delaying myself my swearing in for seven weeks,” Grijalva said.
U.S. Rep. Adelita Grijalva, D-Ariz., who became the 218th signature on the discharge petition to force a vote on disclosing the Epstein files, spoke outside the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
Grijalva became the petition’s 218th signature on Wednesday, immediately after her swearing-in ceremony.
Johnson refused to swear in Grijalva, who won her seat on Sept. 23, during the government shutdown despite precedent of other representatives swearing an oath while the House is out of session.
U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., also spoke at the press conference, warning that Senate leadership should not “delay this any further.”
“They need to schedule a vote on this so this can get passed into law,” Kelly said.
Trump told NBC News Monday he would sign the legislation.
Robin Galbraith, 61, of Maryland, and Donna Powell, 67, of Washington, D.C., held signs outside the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025, ahead of a U.S. House vote on releasing the Epstein files. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
Roughly a dozen public protesters stood outside the police barricade surrounding the press conference, holding signs demanding the release of the Epstein files.
Robin Galbraith, 61, of Maryland, held a sign protesting Johnson’s refusal to allow an earlier floor vote to disclose the files.
“These survivors deserve justice. And you know, all women and girls deserve justice,” Galbraith told States Newsroom in an interview. “Like when you have the richest people in the world trafficking girls, I mean, as somebody who has daughters and sons, we all want to see that children are not victims like this anymore.”
FBI memo
In July, the FBI issued a memo stating the department would not publicly release any further information on the Epstein case.
The sudden reversal, after Trump and his supporters campaigned on releasing the files, sparked upheaval among the president’s base and trained a magnifying glass on Trump’s well-documented friendship with Epstein.
Trump denies any wrongdoing.
The president sued The Wall Street Journal for reporting on a 50th birthday card Trump allegedly gave to Epstein. The card featured a cryptic message and a doodle of a naked woman with Trump’s apparent signature mimicking pubic hair. Trump denies that he created and signed the birthday doodle.
The Journal also reported that Attorney General Pam Bondi briefed the president in May that his name appeared in the Epstein case files. The context in which his name appeared is unclear.
A series in the Miami Herald in 2018 by journalist Julie K. Brown drew wide attention to Epstein’s crimes and Trump’s appointment in 2017 of former Miami federal prosecutor Alex Acosta, who cut a deal in 2008 to end a federal investigation into Epstein, as the secretary of Labor.
State Rep. Matt Morgan, R-Richmond, surveys a map of proposed new congressional districts in Texas, as Democratic lawmakers, who left the state to deny Republicans the opportunity to redraw the state's 38 congressional districts, began returning to the Texas Capitol in Austin on Aug. 20, 2025. REUTERS/Sergio Flores
Texas cannot use its new congressional map for the 2026 election and will instead need to stick with the lines passed in 2021, a three-judge panel ruled Tuesday.
“The public perception of this case is that it’s about politics,” U.S. Judge Jeffrey Brown, a Trump appointee, wrote in the ruling. “To be sure, politics played a role in drawing the 2025 Map. But it was much more than just politics. Substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 Map.”
Brown ordered that the 2026 congressional election “shall proceed under the map that the Texas Legislature enacted in 2021.” The case will likely be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, but time is short: Candidates only have until Dec. 8 to file for the upcoming election.
The decision is a major blow for Republicans, in Texas and nationally, who pushed through this unusual mid-decade redistricting at the behest of President Donald Trump. They were hoping the new map would yield control of 30 of the state’s 38 congressional districts — up from the 25 they currently hold — and help protect the narrow GOP majority in the U.S. House.
The map cleared the GOP-controlled Legislature in August and was quickly signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott. Several advocacy groups sued over the new district lines, saying lawmakers intentionally diluted the voting power of Black and Hispanic Texans and drew racially gerrymandered maps. Over the course of a nine-day hearing in El Paso earlier this month, they aimed to convince the judges that it was in voters’ best interest to shelve the new map until a full trial could be held.
It was not immediately clear if the state still has a legal path to restoring the new map in time for 2026. Unlike most federal lawsuits, which are heard by a single district judge and then appealed to a circuit court, voting rights lawsuits are initially heard by two district judges and one circuit judge, and their ruling can only be appealed directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The decision comes 10 days into the monthlong period when candidates can sign up for the March primary. The filing deadline is Dec. 8.
This is just the opening gambit in what promises to be a yearslong legal battle over Texas’ congressional map. A lawsuit over the state’s 2021 redistricting — including its state legislative and education board seats — went to trial earlier this summer and remains pending before the same three-judge panel. The judges have indicated they may want to see how the U.S. Supreme Court rules on a major voting rights case before issuing their full ruling on Texas’ maps.
But for Trump, and many of his Republican supporters in Texas, the short-term goal of having this map for the 2026 election was as important as the long game.
“I’m convinced that if Texas does not take this action, there is an extreme risk that [the] Republican majority will be lost,” Sen. Phil King, R-Weatherford, said on the floor of the state Senate before the new map passed. “If it does, the next two years after the midterm, there will be nothing but inquisitions and impeachments and humiliation for our country.”
Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel speaks with reporters after an event Feb. 26. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)
Former state Attorney General and conservative state Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel has been appointed as the interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin.
Schimel, who was also previously a Waukesha County Circuit Court judge and the Waukesha County district attorney, will now be the highest ranking federal prosecutor in the district that covers the eastern part of the state, including Milwaukee.
Usually, U.S. attorneys are first recommended for the office by the two U.S. senators in a state and then nominated by the president before being confirmed by the Senate. In Wisconsin, Sens. Tammy Baldwin and Ron Johnson operate a joint commission responsible for finding candidates.
Schimel told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel that the commission was unable to reach a consensus for the job — which has been empty since February when former U.S. attorney Gregory Haanstad, a Biden appointee, left the role as part of the normal transition when a new party enters the White House.
In a statement, Baldwin accused Trump of “blowing up Wisconsin’s bipartisan judicial nominating process” and “ignoring Wisconsinites of all stripes” by choosing Schimel, whom voters rejected twice, in his races for state attorney general and Supreme Court.
Once the commission failed to find a candidate, Schimel said he reached out to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, whom he knows from their time as state attorneys general.
Interim U.S. Attorneys are allowed to hold that role for 120 days, though the Trump administration has tried in other states to extend that period.
Schimel will now take over the office as it manages increased federal immigration enforcement happening in the state and heads into the highly political trial of Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan, who federal prosecutors have alleged obstructed the work of federal agents attempting to apprehend a migrant in the county courthouse. Dugan’s trial is set for Dec. 15, Schimel told the Journal-Sentinel the prosecution team on the case will remain the same.
Schimel ran for the state Supreme Court earlier this year in what became the most expensive judicial election in U.S. history — largely due to the involvement of Elon Musk, who was at the time a part of the Trump administration through his DOGE office.
Schimel lost by more than 10 percentage points to Justice Susan Crawford. In his campaign, he touted his prosecutorial experience but was unable to separate himself from criticism that he was too closely tied to Trump and Musk.
Women who say they were abused by disgraced financier and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein raise their hands as attorney Bradley Edwards speaks at a news conference outside the U.S. Capitol on Sept. 3, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Sunday night abruptly changed his tune, telling House Republicans to vote on a bill to compel the Department of Justice to release all files related to its investigation into sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who died in jail in 2019 awaiting federal trial.
In a post on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump wrote “House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide, and it’s time to move on from this Democrat Hoax perpetrated by Radical Left Lunatics in order to deflect from the Great Success of the Republican Party, including our recent Victory on the Democrat ‘Shutdown.’”
Trump continued in his signature style of arbitrary capital letters: “The Department of Justice has already turned over tens of thousands of pages to the Public on “Epstein,” are looking at various Democrat operatives (Bill Clinton, Reid Hoffman, Larry Summers, etc.) and their relationship to Epstein, and the House Oversight Committee can have whatever they are legally entitled to, I DON’T CARE!”
The House is expected to vote Tuesday after a bipartisan discharge petition garnered 218 signatures last week, forcing House Speaker Mike Johnson, of Louisiana, to bring a bill to the floor that would compel the DOJ to release Epstein investigation materials.
It’s unclear whether Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., would bring the legislation to a floor vote in the GOP-controlled chamber.
Kentucky’s Thomas Massie co-sponsored the petition with Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif. Three other House Republicans, Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene, South Carolina’s Nancy Mace and Colorado’s Lauren Boebert, joined all Democrats in signing.
The House’s newest Democrat, Arizona’s Adelita Grijalva, became the 218th signature after she was sworn in Wednesday by Johnson, following weeks in which the chamber was out of session. Johnson refused to swear in Grijalva until after the government shutdown, breaking a precedent of swearing in new members when the chamber is out.
Johnson has not been in favor of a vote, and rather has pointed to the ongoing House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform’s investigation into the Epstein documents.
Committee Republicans released more than 20,000 pages of Epstein’s emails on Wednesday, many of which contained Trump’s name.
The committee, led by Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., revealed the massive trove of emails from Epstein’s estate after the panel’s Democrats released a selection of the correspondence that included the allegation that Trump “knew about the girls because he asked ghislaine to stop.”
Epstein was referring to Ghislaine Maxwell, his co-conspirator, who would later be convicted on federal sex trafficking charges.
Emails and subpoenas
Trump denies any involvement with Epstein’s alleged crimes, and has said that he kicked Epstein out of his private Florida club, Mar-a-Lago, because Epstein had poached young female staffers from the club. Epstein was convicted in Florida of soliciting minors for sex in 2008.
Trump had a well-documented friendship with Epstein, who surrounded himself with the rich and powerful.
Committee Republicans did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment Wednesday on how long the committee has had possession of the emails and their timing of the data dump.
The committee has subpoenaed several people in relation to the probe, including Maxwell, several former U.S. attorneys general and former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Trump dispatched Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who is also the president’s former personal defense attorney, to interview Maxwell in a Florida prison in July.
According to transcripts, Maxwell told Blanche that she “never witnessed the president in any inappropriate setting in any way. The president was never inappropriate with anybody. In the times that I was with him, he was a gentleman in all respects.”
Soon after, Maxwell was moved to a minimum-security prison in Texas, and House Democrats claimed this month that a whistleblower revealed the convicted sex offender was being “pampered” by the warden. House Democrats also claimed the whistleblower revealed Maxwell was preparing a commutation application to Trump for release from her 20-year sentence.
FBI memo
The FBI issued a July memo stating the Department of Justice would not be releasing any further information on the government’s sex trafficking investigation into Epstein.
The announcement sparked a firestorm of demands over the summer to release all investigative material, even among Trump’s supporters in Congress and far-right media influencers, including Megyn Kelly and the late Charlie Kirk.
Trump promised on the campaign trail to release the files.
Since the FBI memo, a magnifying glass has been fixed on Trump’s past relationship with Epstein.
The president sued The Wall Street Journal for reporting on a 50th birthday card Trump allegedly gave to Epstein. The card featured a cryptic message and a doodle of a naked woman with Trump’s apparent signature mimicking pubic hair. Trump denies that he created and signed the birthday doodle.
The Journal also reported that Attorney General Pam Bondi briefed the president in May that his name appeared in the Epstein case files. The context in which his name appeared is unclear.
Trump has denied all reports.
A series in the Miami Herald in 2018 by journalist Julie K. Brown drew wide attention to Epstein’s crimes and Trump’s appointment in 2017 of former Miami federal prosecutor Alex Acosta, who cut a deal in 2008 to end a federal investigation into Epstein, as the secretary of Labor.
A Nov. 14 conference at UW-Madison debated the merits of bringing fusion voting back to Wisconsin (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)
Dozens of political scientists, election experts and members of the public gathered in a UW-Madison conference room Friday to debate whether returning to a 19th century election process could empower voters and help turn back the United States’ slide toward authoritarianism.
The event centered around fusion voting, which is the practice of allowing more than one political party to nominate the same candidate on a ballot. Currently used in Connecticut and New York, the fusion voting system means the candidates on the left can appear on the ballot under both the Democratic Party and the smaller Working Families Party while candidates on the right appear for the Republican Party and the Conservative Party.
In theory this can give the minor parties enough influence to push for policy changes. A minor party that can swing 4% of a vote total can move the needle.
Throughout the 1800s, fusion voting was the norm across the country — the Republican Party itself was formed in Wisconsin as a fusion party by voters who felt that the major parties at the time, the Democrats and Whigs, weren’t doing enough to end slavery. Eventually, the two major parties worked together to get the practice banned in most of the country.
Often, minor fusion parties are further from the ideological center than the major parties, but a lawsuit is currently pending in Wisconsin from a group called United Wisconsin aiming to create a fusion party that connects moderate voters who don’t feel like they’re represented by the modern Democrats or Republicans. The effort is being helmed by former state Senate Majority Leader Dale Schultz and former Dane County Sheriff Dave Mahoney. The group is represented in the lawsuit by the voting rights focused firm Law Forward.
Lawsuits to reinstate fusion voting are also pending in New Jersey and Kansas.
Lilliana Mason, a political science professor at Johns Hopkins University, said during the conference that the two party system and primary election process have polarized the country’s politics and made our’ “sense of winning or losing” more “existential.”
Looming over the discussions, but without being explicitly mentioned very often, was the Trump administration’s anti-democratic actions — including denying the outcome of the 2020 election, supporting the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection and pardoning Wisconsin’s fake electors — and the threat of authoritarianism. The debate Friday was often an exchange over how fusion voting fits into broader systemic reforms and if it can be used in tandem with proposals including proportional representation, multi-member congressional districts, ranked choice voting, gerrymandering prohibitions, filibuster reform and others.
“It makes it possible for people who want to organize and who want to create and claim their own political power, to do so in an effective way,” Beau Tremitiere, an attorney from the non-profit Protect Democracy, said. They’re exactly right. “People are deeply dissatisfied with the system. There’s a lot of energy to do something better and fusion makes that easier.”
Fusion advocates said the system allows politics to be more dynamic. People’s political beliefs don’t always fit neatly in a party system that encourages big tents and the necessity of coalition management in those big tents means that parties aren’t encouraged to distance themselves from their most extreme members.
“Politics is a complex, dynamic system that is always changing,” said Lee Drutman, who studies political reform at the think tank New America. “And the key is, how do you keep it from spiraling out of control? How do you keep it from a self-reinforcing tumult? And if you have a party system problem, which we do, you need a party system solution.”
But several speakers at the conference also laid out the limits and downsides of fusion voting. It’s not a major structural reform. Fusion parties are usually further from the ideological center, so if the goal is a more moderate politics, it’s not clear fusion will deliver that. Members of the Green Party expressed concern that fusion enables a patronage system of political favor trading.
Overall though, the conference often returned to the idea that the country is in a democracy crisis and experimentation is a good thing in the effort to turn it around.
“I’m supportive of experimentation,” Derek Muller, a law professor at Notre Dame, said. “It seems to me, we should see more real world experiments.”
Schultz, who was in the Legislature from 1983 to 2015, said he’s trying to establish a fusion party in Wisconsin to get more “humanity” in the state’s politics.
“Why fusion voting? Why does it matter? Because of agency, the fact that suddenly people get a chance to sit at the table, to be a part of the discussions that matter to them,” he said. “Yes, fusion voting is not the be- and end-all political reform, but it is, in my opinion, an essential part of our future if we’re going to get back to having a healthy democracy.”
Planes line up on the tarmac at LaGuardia Airport on Nov. 10, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The record 43-day government shutdown that ended Wednesday night scrambled air travel, interrupted food assistance and forced federal workers to go without a paycheck for weeks.
It also cost the U.S. economy about $15 billion per week, White House Council of Economic Advisers Director Kevin Hassett told reporters Thursday.
As the government began to reopen Thursday, officials were working to untangle those issues and others.
But in some areas, the processes for getting things back to normal after such a lengthy shutdown will also take time.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday night signed a package passed by Congress reopening the government, which closed on Oct. 1 after lawmakers failed to pass a stopgap spending bill.
Flights back on schedule by Thanksgiving?
The Federal Aviation Administration’s shutdown plan, announced last week by Administrator Bryan Bedford and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, was to reduce flights to 40 major airports by 10%.
As of Thursday afternoon, the FAA had not lifted the order restricting flights. But the agency did stop ramping up the percentage of those affected.
The FAA started by asking airlines to cancel 4% of flights Nov. 7. A Wednesday order halted the rate at 6%.
That was enough to cause major disruptions to travel, and it remained unclear Thursday how long it would take to resume normal operations.
In a statement, Airlines for America, the trade group representing the nation’s commercial air carriers, welcomed the end of the shutdown but was vague about how much longer air travelers would see disruptions. The statement noted the upcoming holiday as a possible milestone.
“When the FAA gives airlines clearance to return to full capacity, our crews will work quickly to ramp up operations especially with Thanksgiving holiday travel beginning next week,” the group’s statement said.
The FAA and Transportation Department did not return messages seeking updates Thursday.
The reduction in flights was meant to ease pressure on air traffic controllers, who worked through the shutdown without pay.
Many missed work as they pursued short-term jobs in other industries. Duffy said that left the controllers on the job overstressed and possibly prone to costly mistakes.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem sought to reward other federal workers at airports, those employed by her department’s Transportation Security Administration, with $10,000 bonuses if they maintained high attendance records during the shutdown.
Noem handed out checks to TSA workers in Houston on Thursday and said more could come.
Federal workers return, with back pay on the way
Hundreds of thousands of federal workers who had been furloughed returned to the office Thursday and those who had been working without pay will continue their duties knowing their next paycheck should be on time.
All workers will receive back pay for the shutdown, in accordance with a 2019 law that states employees “shall be paid for such work, at the employee’s standard rate of pay, at the earliest date possible after the lapse in appropriations, regardless of scheduled pay dates.”
A spokesperson for the Office of Management and Budget said the White House has urged agencies to get back pay to employees “expeditiously and accurately.”
Agencies will need to submit time and attendance files, and payroll processors can then issue checks. According to the spokesperson, agencies have different pay schedules and payroll processors, and “discrepancies in timing and pay periods are a result of that.”
The office estimates that workers will receive a “supercheck” for the pay period from Oct. 1 to Nov. 1 on the following dates:
Nov. 15
General Services Administration
Office of Personnel Management
Nov. 16
Departments of Energy, Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs and Defense
Nov. 17
Departments of Education, State, Interior and Transportation
Environmental Protection Agency
NASA
National Science Foundation
Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Social Security Administration
Nov. 19
Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Justice, Labor and Treasury
Small Business Administration
Doreen Greenwald, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, said in a statement Wednesday that federal workers across all agencies “should not have to wait another minute longer for the paychecks they lost during the longest government shutdown in history.”
“The anxiety has been devastating as they cut back on spending, ran up credit card debt, took out emergency loans, filed for unemployment, found temporary side jobs, stood in line for food assistance, skipped filling prescriptions and worried about the future. Federal employees should receive the six weeks of back pay they are owed immediately upon the reopening of the federal government,” said Greenwald.
The union represents workers at 38 federal agencies and offices.
States Newsroom spoke to several furloughed federal workers who attended a special food distribution event during the shutdown.
The American Federation of Government Employees, one of multiple unions that sued the Trump administration over layoffs during the shutdown, said its members were used “as leverage to advance political priorities,” according to a statement issued Tuesday by the union’s national president, Everett Kelley.
The AFGE, which according to the union represents roughly 820,000 federal workers, did not immediately respond for comment Thursday.
The shutdown-ending deal reinstated jobs for fired federal employees and prohibits any reductions in force by the administration until Jan. 30.
Federal workers speak out
A statement released Thursday by a group of federal workers across agencies struck a different tone on the shutdown and praised the 40 senators and 209 representatives who voted against the temporary spending bill deal.
“The fight mattered. It changed the conversation. More members of the American public now understand that Trump is shredding the Constitution,” according to the statement issued by the Civil Servants Coalition.
The coalition also noted, “Even though the government is reopening, none of us will be able to fully deliver our agency’s missions. Our work has been exploited and dismantled since January through harmful policies and illegal purges of critical staff.”
The group emailed the statement as a PDF document to an unknown number of government workers and urged them to “channel that frustration toward action” by contacting their representatives.
SNAP saga concludes
The government reopening ended a drawn-out saga over the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which helps 42 million people afford groceries.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture told states in a Thursday memo they “must take immediate steps to ensure households receive their full November allotments promptly.”
The guidance also noted that states should prepare for another shutdown as soon as next October by upgrading systems so that they could allow for partial payments.
A key point of dispute between the administration and those seeking SNAP benefits was the lengthy time the administration said it would take to fund partial benefits.
A Wednesday evening statement from a department spokesperson said full benefits would be disbursed in most states by Thursday night.
Lauren Kallins, a senior legislative director for the National Conference of State Legislatures, said Thursday “states are all working hard to resume full benefits.”
“But there will likely be logistical challenges, depending on a state’s system’s capabilities and whether the state had already issued partial benefits, that may impact how quickly a state is able to push out” benefits, she wrote.
The program, which is funded by the federal government and administered by states, sends monthly payments on a rolling basis.
That means that the day of the month each household receives its allotment varies. Households that usually receive benefits mid-month or later should see no interruption.
But many of the program’s beneficiaries receive their payments earlier in the month, meaning that, depending on their state, they may have missed their November payments.
Some states, including Democrat-run Wisconsin, Oregon and Michigan, began paying full benefits last week after a Rhode Island federal judge ordered the administration to release full November payments and the department issued guidance to states to do so.
The administration then asked the U.S. Supreme Court to pause enforcement of the Rhode Island judge’s order and reversed its guidance to states, telling them to “immediately undo” efforts to pay out full November benefits.
The Department of Justice dropped its Supreme Court case Thursday.
“Because the underlying dispute here is now moot, the government withdraws its November 7 stay application in this Court,” U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote to the high court.
In the trial court, the administration cited the USDA guidance and said it would discuss the future of the litigation with the coalition of cities and nonprofit groups that brought the suit.
Capital area tourist attractions reopen
Tourists in the nation’s capital have been shut out of the Smithsonian Institution’s 17 free museums and zoo for most of the federal shutdown.
The institution on Friday will open the National Museum of American History, the National Air and Space Museum and the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, an annex of the Air and Space Museum located at Dulles International Airport in Virginia, according to a message posted on the Smithsonian’s website.
All other museums and the National Zoo will open on a “rolling basis” by Nov. 17.
Multiple public-facing agencies, including the National Park Service and Internal Revenue Service, did not respond to States Newsroom’s requests for reopening information.
Several IRS services were reduced or altogether cut as the funding lapse dragged on. Those disruptions included limited IRS telephone customer service operations and the closure of in-person Taxpayer Assistance Centers.
The U.S. Capitol on the evening of Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2025, just hours before a federal government shutdown. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
The longest government shutdown in U.S. history is over and all we got was the near-cancellation of food assistance just in time for Thanksgiving and a looming explosion in health care costs.
None of the problems that led to the shutdown have been resolved. Instead, a handful of Democrats abandoned their fight to force Congress to address the health care crisis in exchange for rolling back some of the damage the Trump administration did during the shutdown itself. Federal workers are getting their jobs back — for now — and flight cancellations will end just in time for the holiday travel season. Otherwise, we’re pretty much back where we started.
Democrats are fuming and Republicans are gloating over the end of this game of chicken, in which the party that showed it doesn’t care at all about the pain and suffering of its own constituents is the apparent winner. Stay tuned to see how long the glow of victory lasts as members of Congress go home to face the voters.
During the fruitless shutdown battle, a couple of politicians from Wisconsin who are not facing election anytime soon showed real leadership. Their focus on serving the needs of real people, not political posturing, was a breath of fresh air, and a model of the kind of public service we badly need.
Gov. Tony Evers deserves a lot of credit for acting quickly to pay out food assistance funds to nearly 700,000 Wisconsinites last Friday as soon as a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to release the money, which it had been withholding for a week. Evers acted in the nick of time. The Trump administration appealed the decision and, on the strength of an emergency ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court, demanded that Wisconsin and other states that had paid out the benefits overnight claw them back. Evers issued a terse response: “No.”
Thanks to his leadership, hundreds of thousands of Wisconsinites, including 270,000 kids, were spared from going hungry because of the Trump administration’s capricious cruelty. With the shutdown over, the battle over food assistance has ended and the USDA has said full nutrition benefits will begin flowing to states again within 24 hours of the shutdown’s end. But as Evers said when he seized the moment and released the funds, “It never should’ve come to this.” The feds had the money to prevent kids from going hungry all along. Trump made a deliberate decision to cut off aid, and then to demand that states pay only partial benefits, on the theory that doing so would punish Democrats for refusing to reopen the government on Trump’s terms.
Evers deserves a lot of credit for his decisive action to protect Wisconsinites from harm.
Another Wisconsin politician who has been working overtime to stave off disaster for residents is U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin.
Baldwin has spent her entire career working to expand health care access, including writing the provision of the Affordable Care Act that allows children to stay on their parents’ health insurance until they reach the age of 26. She has a reputation for doggedly working across the aisle and, during the shutdown, she never gave up trying to get Senate Republicans to agree to extend ACA tax credits.
This week, when eight Senate Democrats joined the Republicans on a resolution to reopen the government that didn’t include any language about the coming spike in health care costs, Baldwin forced a Senate vote on an amendment to extend the ACA credits for one more year. Many Senate Republicans had told her they knew the expiration of those credits would drive health care costs through the roof in their states.
In her floor speech introducing her amendment, Baldwin said:
“My Republican colleagues are refusing to act to stop health care premiums from doubling for over 20 million Americans. I just can’t stand by without a fight.”
Even as people across the country express shock and dismay, “Donald Trump and congressional Republicans have simply refused to address the biggest increase in American premiums they’ll likely ever experience,” Baldwin said.
“I’m getting calls daily from Wisconsinites begging me to stay in this fight,” she added. She told her Senate colleagues about a couple from Door County who told her their premiums are going up by over $550 per month because of the failure to extend the ACA tax credits. “Everything is already too expensive. So where are they supposed to find 6,500 extra dollars in their budget?” she asked.
Another couple from Butternut, Wisconsin, told her their premiums are going from $400 per month to more than $5,000 per month — “that’s $55,000 more a year,” she said. “As they wrote to me, ‘health care tax breaks are not just numbers on paper. They are a lifeline that allows us to sleep at night knowing that we won’t lose everything if one of us gets sick.’”
Baldwin was back in the state Wednesday where, as Erik Gunn reports, she is holding a series of town hall meetings with people affected by rising health care costs. She is holding out hope that some of her Republican colleagues will come around on the issue. She refused to answer questions about whether she thinks Sen. Chuck Schumer should be ousted from his position as Minority Leader because of the end of the shutdown fight.
Characteristically, she is keeping her head down and working to build bipartisan support — as she did, successfully, when she persuaded enough Republicans to join her to pass the Respect for Marriage Act protecting same-sex and interracial couples — instead of using it to score political points.
As we move past the shutdown power struggle and into the real fight over people’s lives, we need more of that kind of leadership.
U.S. Rep. Adelita Grijalva, D-Ariz., was sworn in to office on Nov. 12, 2025, by House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. (Screenshot courtesy of C-SPAN)
WASHINGTON — Democratic Rep. Adelita Grijalva was sworn in to office Wednesday after a delay that U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson attributed to the long government shutdown, but that critics allege was because the Arizona lawmaker pledged to be the deciding signature on a petition to release the so-called Epstein files.
Grijalva, who was elected on Sept. 23, has publicly vowed to add her name to a bipartisan measure that would force the House to vote on the release of files from the government’s investigation of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who died in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges.
The Trump administration said in July it would not release further information related to the case. President Donald Trump had campaigned on releasing the files.
Grijalva, Arizona’s first elected Latina, called the delayed ceremony an “abuse of power.”
“It has been 50 days since the people of Arizona’s 7th Congressional District elected me to represent them. … One individual should not be able to unilaterally obstruct the swearing-in of a duly elected member of Congress for political reasons,” said Grijalva, who filled the seat occupied by her late father, Raúl Grijalva, who died earlier this year.
“Our democracy only works when everyone has a voice. This includes the millions of people across the country who have experienced violence and exploitation, including Liz Stein and Jessica Michaels, both survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse,” Grijalva said. “They are here in the gallery with us this evening.”
To cheers from her Democratic colleagues in the chamber, Grijalva said she was going to sign the petition “right now.”
Massie, Khanna lead petition drive
As of early September, the discharge petition, led by Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif., had garnered the signatures of all Democrats and four Republicans, leaving the petition just one shy of the 218 signatures needed to bypass Johnson and force a vote on the House floor.
The three Republicans who joined Massie in signing were Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Nancy Mace of South Carolina.
The petition forces to the floor, likely at some point in the next few weeks, a Massie-sponsored resolution from July compelling the Department of Justice to “disclose all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials in its possession that relate to Epstein” and his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted on federal sex trafficking charges.
The resolution attracted 50 cosponsors, nearly a dozen of them Republicans.
Johnson defends delay
Grijalva and her supporters have outright accused Johnson of delaying the swearing-in because of the Epstein petition.
“When the American people vote, this chamber respects their will and seats them immediately. Politics should never come into play,” said Rep. Greg Stanton, D-Ariz., on the House floor moments before Johnson administered the oath to Grijalva.
Democrats pointed to the fact that Johnson has previously sworn in other lawmakers when the House was not in session.
Johnson argued in mid-October that Grijalva hadn’t yet been sworn in because she won her special election after the House went home on Sept. 19, followed shortly thereafter by a government shutdown on Oct. 1. “As soon as (Sen.) Chuck Schumer opens the government … we’ll have that as soon as we get back to business,” he said.
At a press conference on Oct. 15, Arizona Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego accused Johnson of protecting “pedophiles, whether it’s involving Donald Trump or any of his rich, elite friends.”
Trump had a well-documented friendship with Epstein. Trump maintains he booted Epstein from his private Florida club, Mar-a-Lago, because the financier had poached young female employees.
A deluge of Epstein documents
New emails revealing details about the relationship between Trump and Epstein surfaced Wednesday. Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released three exchanges with content suggesting Trump was aware of Epstein’s abuse of underage girls.
Republican leaders on the committee soon followed by releasing more than 20,000 documents they received from the Epstein estate.
Reports also surfaced that the Trump administration had reached out to two GOP lawmakers, Boebert and Mace, about removing their names from the petition.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt appeared to confirm during Wednesday’s briefing that Trump had met with Boebert in the Situation Room, a secure center of national and global information for the president.
“I’m not going to detail conversations that took place in the Situation Room,” Leavitt said when asked about Trump approaching Boebert to remove her name.
Boebert’s office pointed States Newsroom to the lawmaker’s afternoon social media post that read,“I want to thank White House officials for meeting with me today. Together, we remain committed to ensuring transparency for the American people.”
Mace’s office did not respond to questions to confirm the White House reached out to the South Carolina lawmaker. Rather, Mace’s Communications Director Sydney Long said, “The Congresswoman is not removing her name from the discharge petition because of her personal story.”
Mace has publicly shared her own story of sexual assault.
A photograph of President Donald Trump and late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is displayed after being unofficially installed in a bus shelter. (Leon Neal/Getty Images).
WASHINGTON — U.S. House Democrats investigating the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein released emails Wednesday they say show President Donald Trump knew about the financier’s abuse of underage girls as far back as 2011.
The three emails released by Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform were among 23,000 pages of documents turned over to the committee by Epstein’s estate, according to Democrats.
In a 2011 correspondence with the now-convicted sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein wrote that Trump “spent hours at my house” with a victim whose name is redacted from the email. In the same email, Epstein refers to Trump as the “dog that hasn’t barked.”
In a 2015 email exchange between Epstein and journalist Michael Wolff, Wolff tells Epstein that he’s heard CNN will ask Trump about his relationship with the financier. The two have an exchange about how to hypothetically “craft an answer” for Trump.
Wolff responds, “If he says he hasn’t been on the plane or to the house, then that gives you a valuable (public relations) and political currency.”
In a January 2019 email, also to Wolff, Epstein referenced a victim’s name, redacted, as having been at Trump’s Florida estate and private club, Mar-a-Lago, and wrote “Trump said he asked me to resign, never a member ever. Of course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop.”
Trump has said he had a falling out with Epstein and kicked him out of his club over allegations Epstein poached young women workers from the club’s spa.
Emails raise more questions, leading Dem says
House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Robert Garcia said in a statement Wednesday the emails “raise glaring questions about what else the White House is hiding and the nature of the relationship between Epstein and the President.”
“The Department of Justice must fully release the Epstein files to the public immediately. The Oversight Committee will continue pushing for answers and will not stop until we get justice for the victims,” Garcia continued.
Within hours of the committee Democrats’ release of the emails, committee Republican leaders issued a brief press release linking to “an additional 20,000 pages of documents received from the estate of Jeffrey Epstein” contained on Google Drive and Dropbox clouds.
During Wednesday’s press briefing, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “These emails prove absolutely nothing other than the fact that President Trump did nothing wrong.”
Leavitt added that Trump and Epstein both lived in Palm Beach, Florida.
“Jeffrey Epstein was a member at Mar a Lago until President Trump kicked him out because Jeffrey Epstein was a pedophile and he was a creep,” she said.
Congress investigates after FBI backtracks
The bipartisan committee investigation began shortly after the FBI released a July memo stating the Department of Justice would not be releasing any further information on the government’s sex trafficking investigation into Epstein.
Epstein was found dead, apparently by suicide, in August 2019 in a Manhattan jail cell where he was awaiting federal trial.
The FBI’s announcement that the agency would not release further details caused a firestorm of demands to release all investigative material, even among Trump’s supporters in Congress and far-right media influencers, including Megyn Kelly and the late Charlie Kirk.
Trump campaigned on releasing what are often referred to as the “Epstein files.”
A bipartisan effort in the House of Representatives is aiming to force a vote on the release of the files as soon as this week after House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., swears in Arizona Democrat Adelita Grijalva.
Grijalva has pledged to be the final signature needed on a discharge petition by Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif., that will compel a floor vote on a bill to release all Epstein investigation files.
Massie and Khanna hosted a press conference on Capitol Hill in early September featuring several women who told stories of abuse by Epstein and Maxwell.
Since the FBI memo, a magnifying glass has been fixed on Trump’s past relationship with Epstein.
The president sued The Wall Street Journal for reporting on a 50th birthday card Trump allegedly gave to Epstein. The card featured a cryptic message and a doodle of a naked woman with Trump’s apparent signature mimicking pubic hair.
The Journal also reported that Attorney General Pam Bondi briefed the president in May that his name appeared in the Epstein case files. The context in which his name appeared is unclear.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., speaks to reporters while walking to his office on Nov. 10, 2025 on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Tom Brenner/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate approved a stopgap spending bill Monday that will end the longest government shutdown in American history once the measure becomes law later this week.
The 60-40 vote sends the updated funding package back to the House, where lawmakers in that chamber are expected sometime during the next few days to clear the legislation for President Donald Trump’s signature.
Shortly before the vote, Trump said he plans to follow the agreements included in the revised measure, including the reinstatement of thousands of federal workers who received layoff notices during the shutdown.
“I’ll abide by the deal,” Trump said. “The deal is very good.”
Republicans, he added, will soon begin work on legislation to provide direct payments to Americans to help them afford the rising cost of health insurance, one of the core disagreements between the political parties that led to the shutdown.
“We want a health care system where we pay the money to the people instead of the insurance companies,” Trump said from the Oval Office. “And I tell you, we are going to be working on that very hard over the next short period of time.”
House members told to head to D.C.
Earlier in the day, House Speaker Mike Johnson urged representatives to begin traveling back to Capitol Hill as soon as possible to ensure they arrive in time to vote on the bill to reopen the government, after the measure arrives from the Senate.
The Louisiana Republican’s request came as airlines were forced to delay or cancel thousands of flights on the 41st day of the shutdown, a situation that could potentially impact a House vote on the stopgap spending bill if members don’t follow his advice.
“The problem we have with air travel is that our air traffic controllers are overworked and unpaid. And many of them have called in sick,” Johnson said. “That’s a very stressful job and even more stressful, exponentially, when they’re having trouble providing for their families. And so air travel has been grinding to a halt in many places.”
Johnson then told his colleagues in the House, which hasn’t been in session since mid-September, that lawmakers from both political parties “need to begin right now returning to the Hill.”
Trump threatens air traffic controllers
Trump took a markedly different tone over the challenges air traffic controllers have faced during the shutdown in a social media post that he published several hours before he spoke to reporters about the deal to reopen government.
“All Air Traffic Controllers must get back to work, NOW!!! Anyone who doesn’t will be substantially ‘docked,’” Trump wrote, without explaining what that would mean for workers who had to take time off since the shutdown began Oct. 1.
Trump added that he would like to find a way to provide $10,000 bonuses to air traffic controllers who didn’t require any time off during the past six weeks.
“For those that did nothing but complain, and took time off, even though everyone knew they would be paid, IN FULL, shortly into the future, I am NOT HAPPY WITH YOU. You didn’t step up to help the U.S.A. against the FAKE DEMOCRAT ATTACK that was only meant to hurt our Country,” Trump wrote. “You will have a negative mark, at least in my mind, against your record. If you want to leave service in the near future, please do not hesitate to do so, with NO payment or severance of any kind!”
An end in sight
The Senate-passed package will provide stopgap funding for much of the federal government through January 30, giving lawmakers a couple more months to work out agreement on nine of the dozen full-year spending bills.
The package holds several other provisions, including the full-year appropriations bills for the Agriculture Department, the Legislative Branch, military construction projects and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs.
Seven Democrats and one independent broke ranks Sunday on a procedural vote that advanced the package, drawing condemnation from some House members and outside advocacy groups unhappy that no solution was arrived at to counter skyrocketing health insurance premium increases for people in the Affordable Care Act marketplace.
Republicans hold 53 seats in the Senate, where bipartisanship is required for major bills to move forward under the 60-vote legislative filibuster.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said during a floor speech Monday he was “grateful that the end” of the stalemate was in sight.
“We’re on the 41st day of this shutdown — nutrition benefits are in jeopardy; air travel is in an extremely precarious situation; our staffs and many, many other government workers have been working for nearly six weeks without pay,” Thune said. “I could spend an hour talking about all of the problems we’ve seen, which have snowballed the longer the shutdown has gone on. But all of us, Democrat and Republican, who voted for last night’s bill are well aware of the facts.”
Schumer bid for deal on health care costs fails
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., was far less celebratory after his bid to get Republicans to negotiate a deal on health care costs by forcing a shutdown failed.
“The past few weeks have exposed with shocking clarity how warped Republican priorities truly are. While people’s health care costs have gone up, Republicans have come across as a party preoccupied with ballrooms, Argentina bailouts and private jets,” Schumer said. “Republicans’ breach of trust with the American people is deep and perhaps irreversible.”
“And now that they have failed to do anything to prevent premiums from going up, the anger that Americans feel against Donald Trump and the Republicans is going to get worse,” Schumer added. “Republicans had their chance to fix this and they blew it. Americans will remember Republican intransigence every time they make a sky-high payment on health insurance.”
Schumer was insistent throughout the shutdown that Democrats would only vote to advance a funding bill after lawmakers brokered a bipartisan deal to extend tax credits that are set to expire at the end of December for people who purchase their health insurance from the Affordable Care Act marketplace.
That all changed on Sunday when Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Tim Kaine of Virginia, and Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen of Nevada voted to move the bill toward a final passage vote.
Maine independent Sen. Angus King of Maine, who caucuses with Democrats, also voted to advance the legislation.
Jeffries still supports Schumer
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said during a press conference Monday afternoon that he still believes Schumer is effective and should keep his role in leadership, despite the outcome.
“Leader Schumer and Senate Democrats over the last seven weeks have waged a valiant fight on behalf of the American people. And I’m not going to explain what a handful of Senate Democrats have decided to do. That’s their explanation to offer to the American people,” Jeffries said.
“What we’re going to continue to do as House Democrats, partnered with our allies throughout America, is to wage the fight, to stay in the coliseum, to win victories in the arena on behalf of the American people notwithstanding whatever disappointments may arise,” he said. “That’s the reality of life, that’s certainly the reality of this place. But we’re in this fight for all the right reasons.”
Speaker Johnson said earlier in the day that the “people’s government cannot be held hostage to further anyone’s political agenda. That was never right. And shutting down the government never produces anything.”
Johnson reiterated that GOP lawmakers are “open to finding solutions to reduce the oppressive costs of health care,” though he didn’t outline any plans to do that in the weeks and months ahead.
President Donald Trump attends inauguration ceremonies in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 20, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump announced on Monday he pardoned his former lawyer Rudy Giuliani and other people allegedly involved in the attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election, but the president’s federal pardon does not shield members of the group from state charges.
Posting to social media early Monday, U.S. Pardon Attorney Ed Martin released the names of 77 people for whom Trump signed federal pardons in a proclamation dated Nov. 7. Martin is an attorney who represented several people charged in the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection on the U.S. Capitol.
After losing the 2020 presidential election, Trump goaded his supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol and stop Congress from certifying the election results. He was later impeached by the House for a second time, in connection with the insurrection, but the Senate acquitted him.
It’s the latest move from the president, following his return to the White House, to absolve anyone involved in the efforts to overturn or challenge former President Joe Biden’s victory. The proclamation notes that pardons were granted to address “a grave national injustice.”
Those on the list include former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Sidney Powell, a lawyer who was indicted along with Trump in a Georgia election case to overturn the state’s results in the 2020 presidential election.
The proclamation, which is only for federal charges, is symbolic and does not prevent state-level prosecutions. Many of the people named on the list were alleged to have been part of the fake electors’ plot to submit fraudulent certificates claiming that Trump won the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico,Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, instead of Biden.
The White House did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment.
‘Pardoning a conspiracy’
A coalition of more than 100 pro-democracy groups, Not Above the Law, condemned the move by the president to pardon people involved in trying to subvert the 2020 presidential election.
“Trump isn’t just pardoning people – he’s pardoning a conspiracy and trying to rewrite history,” according to the coalition. “He’s creating a two-tier justice system where he and his allies operate above the law. In Trump’s America, loyalty overrides accountability to the Constitution and our federal laws.”
Those on the list include:
Mark Amick, a fake elector from Georgia.
Kathy Berden, a fake elector from Michigan.
Christina Bobb, a former personal lawyer for Trump.
Tyler Bowyer, a fake elector from Arizona.
Joseph Brannan, a fake elector from Georgia.
Carol Brunner, a fake elector from Wisconsin.
Mary Buestrin, a fake elector from Wisconsin.
Darryl Carlson, a fake elector from Wisconsin.
James “Ken” Carroll, a fake elector from Georgia.
Brad Carver, a fake elector from Georgia.
Robert Cheeley, a lawyer who pushed false claims about Georgia’s 2020 presidential election results.
Kenneth Chesebro, an architect of the fake electors plot.
Hank Choate, a fake elector from Michigan.
Jeffrey Clark, a Trump attorney who allegedly assisted the president in his failed bid to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.
Vikki Townsend Consiglio, a fake elector from Georgia.
Nancy Cottle, a fake elector from Arizona.
James DeGraffenreid, a fake elector from Nevada.
John Downey, a fake elector from Georgia.
John Eastman, an alleged architect of the fake electors plot.
Jenna Ellis, a Trump attorney who allegedly assisted the president in his failed bid to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.
Boris Epshteyn, a Trump advisor who was indicted in Arizona for trying to overturn the state’s 2020 presidential election results.
Amy Facchinello, a fake elector from Michigan.
Bill Feehan, a fake elector from Wisconsin.
Carolyn Hall Fisher, a fake elector from Georgia.
Harrison Floyd, a lawyer who allegedly tried to overturn Georgia’s 2020 presidential election results.
Clifford Frost, a fake elector from Michigan.
Gloria Kay Godwin, who tried to obtain signatures for a recall election petition in Georgia’s 2020 presidential election.
Edward Scott Grabins, a fake elector from Wisconsin.
Stanley Grot, a fake elector from Michigan.
John Haggard, a fake elector from Michigan.
Scott Hall, the first to plead guilty in the 2020 election subversion case in Georgia.
Misty Hampton, who was indicted in Georgia’s Fulton County election interference case.
David G. Hanna, a fake elector from Georgia.
Mark W. Hennessy, a fake elector from Georgia.
Mari-Ann Henry, a fake elector from Michigan.
Durward James Hindle III, a fake elector from Nevada.
Andrew Hitt, a fake elector from Wisconsin.
Jake Hoffman, a fake elector from Arizona.
Burt Jones, a fake elector from Georgia.
Anthony T. Kern, a fake elector from Arizona.
Kathy Kiernan, a fake elector from Wisconsin.
Timothy King, a fake elector from Michigan.
Trevian Kutti, former publicist of Kayne West, now Ye, who was accused of intimidating Fulton County election workers into falsely admitting to fraudulent ballots in the 2020 election.
James Lamon, a fake elector from Arizona.
Cathleen Alston Latham, a fake elector from Georgia.
Jesse Law, a fake elector from Nevada.
Stephen Cliffgard Lee, a Chicago pastor accused of intimidating Fulton County election workers into falsely admitting to fraudulent ballots in the 2020 election.
Michele Lundgren, a fake elector from Michigan.
Meshawn Maddock, a fake elector from Michigan.
Michael J. McDonald, a fake elector from Nevada.
Shawn Meehan, a fake elector from Nevada.
Robert Montgomery, a fake elector from Arizona.
Daryl Moody, a fake elector from Georgia.
Samuel I. Moorhead, a fake elector from Arizona.
Loraine B. Pellegrino, a fake elector from Arizona.
James Renner, a fake elector from Michigan.
Eileen Rice, a fake elector from Nevada.
Mayra Rodriguez, a fake elector from Michigan.
Mike Roman, a Trump attorney from Wisconsin who allegedly took part in the efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
Rose Rook, a fake elector from Michigan.
Kelly Ruh, a fake elector from Wisconsin.
Greg Safsten, a fake elector from Arizona.
David Shafer, a fake elector from Georgia.
Marian Sheridan, a fake elector from Michigan.
Ray Stallings Smith III, an attorney for Trump who allegedly tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia.
Robert F. Spindell Jr., a fake elector from Wisconsin.
Shawn Still, a fake elector from Georgia.
Ken Thompson, a fake elector from Michigan.
Pam Travis, a fake elector from Wisconsin.
James Troupis, an alleged architect of the fake electors plot.
Former Dane County Judge James Troupis appears in court on Dec. 12. He faces felony forgery charges for his role in developing the 2020 false elector scheme to overturn the election results for Donald Trump. (Screenshot | WisEye)
President Donald Trump has pardoned a group of Wisconsin Republicans who participated in his scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election by casting false Electoral College votes.
The pardons were issued to a large group of people instrumental to Trump’s 2020 effort, including Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell. Included on the list, posted to X Sunday night by Trump’s pardon attorney Ed Martin, are some of the Wisconsin Republicans who cast the fake votes as well as two attorneys and a former aide who were instrumental in planning the effort.
The pardons are largely symbolic because the president’s authority only extends to federal, not state, crimes.
Wisconsinites Carol Brunner, Mary Buestrin, Darryl Carlson, Andrew Hitt, Kelly Ruh, Bob Spindell and Pam Travis received pardons. Attorneys Kenneth Chesebro and Jim Troupis, and former Trump aide Mike Roman were also on the list.
The 10 people who served as false Trump electors had previously settled a lawsuit against them, which included a formal statement that Joe Biden won the 2020 election and an agreement that they would not serve as electors in any election in which Trump was on the ballot.
Cheseboro, Troupis and Roman are all facing felony charges in Wisconsin for their role in planning the false elector plot.
Sen. Ron Johnson, whose office played a part in the scheme by trying to pass the fake Electoral College ballots to then-Vice President Mike Pence, celebrated the pardons.
“Thank you [Trump] and [Martin] for issuing these well-deserved pardons. It’s well past time for [Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul] to end his corrupt lawfare against a good and honorable man, Judge James Troupis,” Johnson wrote on X.
While the pardons won’t have any effect on the state prosecutions, critics said the real effect is Trump creating a permission structure for his allies to undermine U.S. election results. Jeff Mandell, general counsel of Law Forward, the progressive voting rights focused firm that filed the lawsuit against Wisconsin’s 10 false electors, called the pardons “offensive” and said they invite attacks on democracy.
“Many are dismissing these pardons as merely symbolic. That misses the point,” Mandell said in a statement. “While the pardon has little immediate effect, its purpose is emblematic: it sends an unmistakable message that this White House disdains democracy and will assist, in word and in deed, any effort, no matter how extreme and outrageous, to cling to power regardless of election results.”
Democratic and Republican candidates for governor are working to build their name recognition and campaign throughout the state and had their first opportunity to appear on the same platform at a forum Thursday. Shown are, from left, Matt Smith of WISN-12, Francesca Hong, Sara Rodriguez, Kelda Roys, David Crowley and Missy Hughes, all Democrats, and Josh Schoemann, a Republican. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
The primaries for Wisconsin’s open gubernatorial election are about nine months away and the 2026 general election is still a year out, but Democratic and Republican candidates had their first opportunity to speak at a group forum Thursday.
The forum, moderated by WISN-12 News Political Director Matt Smith, was hosted at the Wisconsin Technology Council’s annual symposium and focused mostly on the economy, especially the technology sector.
Democratic candidates at the forum included Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, state Sen. Kelda Roys, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, state Rep. Francesca Hong and former Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) CEO Missy Hughes.
Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann was the lone Republican candidate at the forum. U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, who is seen as the frontrunner on the GOP side, was not present.
All are competing to replace Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, who won’t seek reelection, in the first open Wisconsin governor’s race in 15 years.
Threats to the economy
Smith asked the candidates what they see as the greatest threat to Wisconsin’s economy. In her answer, Roys elicited the first — and biggest — round of applause from the audience.
“Wisconsin needs three key things to survive and thrive economically. We need higher wages for our workers — we lag behind our midwestern peers — we need lower costs on everything from housing to health care, and we need more freedom,” Roys said. “The biggest threat to all three of these things is the Trump regime.”
Roys said Trump’s tariffs are driving up prices for many products including appliances, building materials and groceries. She also said cuts to health care are going to have a disproportionate impact on rural parts of the state and that targeting immigrants is hurting the state’s agriculture industry. Entrepreneurship and capitalism, she added, also rely on the rule of law.
“We need to have a free society that obeys democratic norms, and right now, Trump and his regime are our biggest threat,” Roys said.
Hong said “authoritarianism” is the biggest threat to the economy, adding that disparities are growing in part because of actions being taken at the federal level, such as cutting food assistance.
“When you have essentially a federal government that is taking away rights of states and our communities, that is going to threaten the economy,” Hong said. “It is workers that power the economy.”
Schoemann said “affordability” is the greatest threat and expressed concerns about young people and retirees leaving the state to live elsewhere. He said the state should work to deregulate industry and lower utility rates and cut taxes to address the threat.
Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann speaks at the first candidate forum of the campaign cycle. He said “affordability” is the greatest threat and expressed concerns about young people and retirees leaving the state to live elsewhere. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
“The average price of a home in Wisconsin right now is almost $350,000… A brand new teacher and a brand new cop who are married with a dual income can’t afford to qualify for the mortgage for that one. If they have a child, they’re trying to pay for child care, and they have utility bills that are going through the roof, and Verizon just had another increase in prices, and not to mention Netflix,” Schoemann said to some chuckles from the audience. “I know we laugh, but it’s a problem. It’s a massive problem.”
Rodriguez agreed that affordability is a big concern, saying that she wants her 19-year-old son to be able to build a life in Wisconsin but she is concerned that he won’t be able to afford to live here.
“He’s not going to be able to do that if he can’t afford a home. He’s not going to be able to do that if, you know, he’s not going to be able to afford child care, so I think affordability is our biggest threat,” Rodriguez said. She added that the state needs to figure out how to ensure that its workforce can grow.
Crowley said “complacency” is the biggest threat.
“We can’t continue to do the same work that we’ve been doing. We should no longer be defending the status quo because we have to figure out how do we build new institutions … ” Crowley said. “We see that public trust has been destroyed in government.”
Hughes said the state isn’t investing enough in K-12 and higher education.
“When we start from a place of thinking, ‘No, we don’t want to take a risk. No, we don’t want to have investment in something,’ we end up just staying in the same place and often spiraling downward,” Hughes said.
Working with the Trump administration
Democratic candidates were asked how they would work with the Trump administration, while Schoemann was asked whether there is anything he would push back on.
Rodriguez said that she would use the “bully pulpit” of the governor’s office to put pressure on the Trump administration to be more consistent. She noted her background as a health care executive, saying that being able to plan is essential.
“You’re trying to figure out what you’re going to be doing in the next several years. Small businesses do the same thing. With this back and forth on tariffs… it is almost impossible to, so, that’s why it feels like we’re stuck,” Rodriguez said.
Roys called Trump a “bully and an authoritarian” and said Wisconsin needs a governor who will stand up to the administration. She noted governors in other states, including California Gov. Gavin Newsome, Maine Gov. Janet Mills and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, as examples of governors across the country who are pushing back.
State Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison) speaks at the first candidate forum of the campaign cycle. “We need to have a free society that obeys democratic norms, and right now, Trump and his regime are our biggest threat,” she said. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Crowley said that he has worked with the federal government under Trump and President Joe Biden to secure grant funding for Milwaukee County. He also noted that he worked with Republicans at the state level to help pass legislation that overhauled local government funding in Wisconsin.
“When we go into a restaurant, you’re not having a conversation with a waiter about their relationship with the cook. You want to make sure that your food is coming out hot and ready and delicious,” Crowley said. “We need our government to work the exact same way. Doesn’t matter if we agree on anything or not. We need to be delivering for the people that we represent every single day because it’s about moving our state forward.”
Hughes noted that Trump pushed for a plan operated by FoxConn during his first term, which had promised would create 13,000 jobs, and the state of Wisconsin invested $1.5 billion in infrastructure to make that happen. The original plan was mostly abandoned by the company.
“I had to come in and clean up that mess,” Hughes said. She was involved in brokering a deal with Microsoft, which launched plans in 2024 for a $3.3 billion data center on the land that was once going to be the site of the FoxConn development.
“You have to work at every level of the economy from a small business on Main Street all the way to our biggest businesses and supporting them and everywhere in between,” Hughes said. “Donald Trump thinks you can do these big things, and it’s all going to be better, and we’re all ending up paying the price for that.” Instead of taking Trump’s “silver bullet” approach, Hughes said, Wisconsin’s governor must understand the complexity of the state economy and ”keep working hard to create the quality of life that keeps people here here.”
Hong said it would be hard to work with the administration. She added that the lack of funding for SNAP is “disrupting an entire ecosystem,” and said public officials need to fight for the most vulnerable.
“We have to make sure that people have food, and so, I think working with an administration that has no interest in your constituents is going to be incredibly difficult to be able to ensure that there is an economy that works for everyone,” Hong said.
Schoemann didn’t say whether he would push back on anything the Trump administration is doing. He said tariffs have been difficult, but he also said the issues are global.
“I hear from manufacturers and agriculture alike it’s the constant give and take, but let’s face it,… the changes that the world is going through right now — it’s a global thing,” he said.
Data centers and artificial intelligence regulations
The growing presence of data centers in Wisconsin and the concerns they raise about increased electricity costs and water consumption, as well as the use of artificial intelligence (AI), was a significant focus of the forum.
According to datacentermap.com, there are currently 47 data centers in Wisconsin. Proposals for more centers in the state are popping up as well, including one for a campus operated by OpenAI, Oracle and Vantage Data Centers in Port Washington.
A recent Marquette Law School poll asked Wisconsinites about data centers and found that 55% say the costs of large data centers are greater than the benefits they provide, while 44% say the benefits outweigh the costs.
Schoemann, noting his close proximity to Port Washington, said that he thinks there is an “abundance of opportunity” created by data centers, but the state needs to be “very, very strategic and smart about where” data centers are placed. He said he also has concerns that there isn’t enough power in Wisconsin, and expressed hope that there will be a nuclear power “renaissance” in the state.
Crowley said he doesn’t think the government should be picking “winners and losers” when it comes to data centers, but instead should “make sure that this is fertile ground for entrepreneurs and businesses to either stay or move right here to the state of Wisconsin.”
Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley speaks at the first candidate forum of the campaign cycle. “There’s an opportunity for us to really become AI and a data hub not only for the entire country, but for the entire globe,” Crowley said. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
“There’s an opportunity for us to really become AI and a data hub not only for the entire country, but for the entire globe and really sets us apart in making sure that we continue to invest in businesses and companies here,” Crowley said.
Hughes said that Wisconsin has a diverse economy and that she doesn’t see the state becoming a data center-based economy in the near future, but that data centers do offer an opportunity for communities.
“To have some of these data centers land here in Wisconsin, provide incredible property tax and revenue for the communities that are really determining how to pay their bills, how to build new schools, how to build new fire departments, it’s an opportunity for those communities to access some of that investment and to benefit from it,” she said.
Hughes also said the state is already involved in conversations with companies seeking to build data centers in Wisconsin and that should continue. She said a project needs to be right for individual communities, noting the example of Microsoft scrapping its plans last month for a data center in Caledonia after major pushback from the local community. The company is now looking for an alternative site.
“We talked to them about their environmental needs, about where they’re building and how to make that happen in a way that has the least impact to the communities and the best benefit for Wisconsin,” Hughes said. “Working directly with the companies and getting to know those companies, acting with them as partners, is critically important for these to be good investments and ultimately beneficial for Wisconsin.”
Hong raised concerns about the environmental impact of data centers and the prospect that they could drive up utility bills.
“One of the big considerations here is that for the workers and jobs that are created from these AI data centers, let’s make sure that the housing that’s being built, the workers are going to stay in Wisconsin, that we have to make sure that the companies are being held accountable,” Hong said.
Roys said that “data centers are coming whether people like it or not” and the question for policymakers is whether they can implement “an approach that respects the values that I think all of us share — of democracy and shared decision making that’s transparent, that’s accountable, of fair play… and of protecting all of our resources.” She added that she has been concerned seeing “the biggest and wealthiest” companies seek to force their ways into communities.
Asked about the role that the state should play in regulating artificial intelligence, most of the candidates appeared open to some regulation of AI but expressed concerns about stifling growth.
Roys said she wants to see consumer protections and said she has authored legislation to crack down on crypto kiosk scams as well as to regulate on the use of AI to ensure landlords don’t use it to help hike rents.
Hughes compared AI to a hammer, saying it could be used to hurt someone or to build structures.
“Trying to regulate it at this moment could potentially hold back some of the benefits that we might see from it. I think that we need to continue to watch it,” Hughes said. “ … I want to make sure that we preserve the right to use that tool in a way that can really advance our society forward.”
Crowley said he thinks there should be laws in place, but there is no “one-size-fits-all solution for technology.”
“How do you make sure that those who are directly involved in this particular industry are at the table, making sure that there is some predictability when it comes down to starting your company and also making sure they can continue to grow?… But make sure that we’re also protecting our environment, protecting the consumer at the exact same time.” Crowley said.
Schoemann, meanwhile, said he was concerned about how AI could be a threat to the state’s workforce. He noted that Washington County has studied the potential impacts of AI, finding that many jobs could be automated using AI in the next 15 years or so.
He said he wanted to see more study of AI’s impact, to answer the question, “How do we prepare the workforce?”
Broadband and marijuana
A question about how to increase broadband access in Wisconsin led the an unexpected answer from Hong: “Legalize weed.”
Wisconsin is one of 11 states that hasn’t legalized recreational or medical marijuana. By some estimates the state is losing out on millions in tax revenue each year due to cannabis prohibition.
“The revenue that comes in will be able to invest in fiber optic and high-speed internet in many different companies across the state,” Hong said.
State Rep. Francesca Hong (D-Madison) speaks at a candidate forum hosted by the Wisconsin Technology Council. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
The push to legalize marijuana for either recreational and medicinal purposes in Wisconsin has been a fruitless pursuit under split government. Republican lawmakers are working to advance a medical marijuana proposal in the Legislature right now, though it is unclear whether it can garner enough support to become law.
Rodriguez said she didn’t disagree with Hong, noting that Wisconsin’s midwestern neighbors are able to bring in significant revenue by taxing marijuana.
“Gov. [J.B.] Pritzker thanks us all the time for the amount of tax Wisconsin [consumers pay],” Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez also added that she wants to build off the Evers administration’s successes expanding broadband.
“It is a requirement for modern day working, for schools. We saw that during COVID,” Rodriguez said. “Making sure that we are able to get that type of connection to every part of Wisconsin is going to be important.”
Hughes agreed both with marijuana legalization and with Rodriguez on broadband, saying there have been “incredible strides” in installing broadband in rural areas under the Evers administration.
“I’m all for legalizing weed, and abortion for that matter,” Roys said.
Roys noted that the state’s progressive tax structure has flattened over the last 16 years and that reversing that trend — taxing higher income residents — could help pay for investments in broadband.
Schoemann started his answer focused on broadband, rather than staking out his position on marijuana legalization, saying broadband it is a massive issue, especially in the Northwoods. He said Washington County was able to make progress using American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding, though he didn’t necessarily support the funding.
“I took [U.S] Rep. Glenn Grothman’s advice: ‘If they’re dumb enough to give you the money, you should be dumb enough to spend it,’” Schoemann said. “Some of that we did in broadband… I think we have to finish the job on broadband.”
French wine on display in a District of Columbia shop on March 13, 2025. The Supreme Court will hear a case on Nov. 5, 2025 challenging President Donald Trump's tariffs and one of the plaintiffs is a wine importer. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court will hear one of the first major cases of President Donald Trump’s second term Wednesday, when the administration defends the president’s emergency tariffs that American small business owners say are upending their livelihoods.
The question at the heart of the case is whether Trump can authorize sweeping tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA — the first time a president has used the statute to impose taxes on imports.
The suit, which challenges the bounds of Trump’s presidential power, is the first of the administration’s appeals to the high court to be fully argued on its merits. The justices have so far addressed Trump’s numerous appeals on other issues on what is known as the shadow docket, a fast track to make a decision without full arguments.
The president initially said he would attend the arguments in person but has since changed course and will go to a business forum in Miami Wednesday.
The high court convenes at 10 a.m. Eastern and live audio of the arguments is posted on the court’s website.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he plans to attend the arguments, “hopefully in the front row (to) have a ringside seat,” he told Fox News’ Jesse Watters Monday
The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 9, 2024. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)
The tariff case is “one for the ages,” said Michael McConnell, professor and faculty director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School and member of the legal team representing the small businesses challenging Trump’s tariffs.
“The president has important powers that come directly from the Constitution, but he has no power to impose taxes on American citizens without the authorization of Congress, and tariffs are taxes on American importers,” said McConnell, who sat on the bench of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit from 2002 to 2009.
“IEEPA simply does not apply here,” he told reporters during an Oct. 28 virtual press conference. “It is a statute about imposing various forms of sanctions, economic sanctions, on countries with whom we are in conflict. It has nothing to do with imposing taxes on Americans for engaging in perfectly lawful trade with friendly nations.”
Tariffs a ‘terrible and unsustainable weight’
Victor Schwartz, founder and president of VOS Selections, a family-owned wine and spirits importer in business for four decades, said Trump’s tariff policy is an “existential threat.”
Schwartz is the lead plaintiff in one of two consolidated cases brought by small business owners and Democratic state attorneys general to challenge the duties that can range from 10% to 50%, depending on the product’s origin.
“These tariffs threaten the very existence of small businesses like mine, making it difficult to survive, let alone grow,” Schwartz told reporters during the Oct. 28 virtual press call.
“Let me be clear, Americans are paying these tariffs, not foreign entities, and the tariffs are a terrible and unsustainable weight. We have to pay tariffs immediately at the port of entry, and we don’t see revenue from those products for at least five or six months,” Schwartz said.
Schwartz said he and his daughter, with whom he runs the business, can no longer import wines from South Africa, as tariffs on products from that country are set at 30%.
Other businesses that joined Schwartz on the lawsuit include a Utah-based plastics producer, a Virginia-based children’s electricity learning kit maker, a Pennsylvania-based fishing gear company and a Vermont-based women’s cycling apparel company.
Arizona, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico and Oregon were among states, led by Democratic state attorneys general, that also sued.
The U.S. Court of International Trade and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit sided with the plaintiffs in finding Trump’s IEEPA tariffs unconstitutional.
The justices will also hear from two Illinois-based toy companies who, in a separate case, challenged Trump’s emergency tariffs. Learning Resources Inc. and hand2mind manufacture most of their educational toys in China, Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam, Thailand and India. Imports from those countries are taxed anywhere from 15% to above 50%, and in the case of China have been unpredictable.
Trump says ‘country is wealthy again’
Trump told reporters Sunday aboard Air Force One that the case is “one of the most important decisions in the history of our country.”
In an interview with the CBS show “60 Minutes” that aired Sunday night, Trump said the economy “will go to hell” if the high court invalidates his emergency tariffs.
“Because of tariffs, our country is wealthy again,” the president told CBS correspondent Norah O’Donnell, arguing his use of tariffs as a negotiation tool will yield billions of dollars in investment in the United States from other countries. Many of the framework trade deals Trump has announced, including with the European Union, South Korea and Japan, are not yet finalized.
The government has so far collected $195 billion this year in customs duties at the end of September, according to a U.S. Treasury monthly statement.
In a September filing asking the Supreme Court to expedite the case, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wrote the U.S. would face “catastrophic” financial consequences, up to $1 trillion, if the emergency tariffs were overturned.
President Donald Trump holds up a chart while speaking during a “Make America Wealthy Again” trade announcement event in the Rose Garden at the White House on April 2, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
In the same filing, U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer argued the import taxes are Trump’s “most significant economic and foreign-policy initiative … which President Trump has determined are necessary to rectify America’s country-killing trade deficits and to stem the flood of fentanyl across our borders.”
The administration is facing pushback on those arguments.
Scott Lincicome, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, said a ruling against the tariffs “would not lead to financial ruin, as the administration has said.”
“The government also claims that ‘With tariffs, we are a rich nation. Without tariffs, we are a poor nation,’ — except studies of the fiscal trajectory of the United States with both the IEEPA tariffs, and without, show that we are drowning in debt either way,” Lincicome told reporters at the late October press briefing.
Cato filed a brief in the case arguing against the tariffs.
Some Republicans break ranks
The case has attracted nearly two dozen friend-of-the-court briefs urging the justices to deem Trump’s IEEPA tariffs illegal, including one signed by hundreds of Democrats in Congress and one Republican, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.
The lawmakers argued IEEPA “contains none of the hallmarks of legislation delegating tariff power to the executive, such as limitations tied to specific products or countries, caps on the amount of tariff increases, procedural safeguards, public input, collaboration with Congress, or time limitations.”
In the days leading up to the oral arguments, four Republican senators broke ranks to join Democrats in passing joint resolutions ending Trump’s emergency declarations triggering tariffs.
One of the bills, passed Oct. 28, targeted Trump’s emergency declaration that led to 50% tariffs on Brazilian goods, including that nation’s major export: coffee. The symbolic bills are not expected to be taken up in the GOP-led House, but mark a shift from when Senate Republicans blocked a similar measure in April.
In its Supreme Court filing, Cato argued the administration’s reading of IEEPA “not only stretches the text beyond recognition but also undermines the Framers’ designs for the separation of powers. Accepting the government’s theory would mean that Congress, through ambiguous text and silence, can transfer sweeping legislative power to the President — a result this Court has cautioned against.”
In an amicus brief supporting Trump’s trade strategy, the America First Policy Institute, a conservative think tank heavily involved in Trump’s second presidential campaign, defended the tariffs as a “pillar of the America-first policies of the current administration” and argued the president has unilateral power to impose the taxes under a Depression-era law.
Executive orders and more
Trump began imposing tariffs under IEEPA through a series of executive orders and proclamations in February and March on products from China, Canada and Mexico, declaring these countries responsible for illegal fentanyl smuggling into the U.S.
The president escalated the emergency tariffs over the following months on goods from around the globe, declaring trade imbalances a national emergency. In addition to a baseline 10% global tariff, Trump specifically targeted countries that export more goods to the U.S. than they import from U.S. suppliers.
As recently as late August, Trump imposed an extra 25% tariff on goods imported from India, bringing the total tariffs on Indian products to 50%, because of the country’s usage of Russian oil.
In early August, Trump slapped a 40% tax on all Brazilian goods after he disagreed with the country’s prosecution of its former right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro for plotting a coup to remain in power in 2022.
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