John Roberts Sends Pathetic Message to Trump on Takeover of Courts

Chief Justice John Roberts offered a gentle rebuke of Donald Trump’s escalating attacks on the judiciary. 

During a fireside chat Wednesday night marking the twenty-fifth anniversary of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York in Buffalo, Roberts emphasized the importance of judicial independence. 

“In our Constitution, judges and the judiciary is a coequal branch of government separate from the others with the authority to interpret the constitution as law, and strike down, obviously, acts of Congress or acts of the president,” Roberts said. “And that innovation doesn’t work if the judiciary is not independent.

“Its job is to, obviously, decide cases, but in the course of that, check the excesses of Congress or of the executive, and that does require a degree of independence,” he said.

The chief justice’s impartial recounting of the nation’s founding document flies in the face of the Trump administration’s efforts to sidestep the checks and balances provided by the judiciary. 

Roberts also doubled down on his rare public criticism of Trump, after the president called to impeach a federal judge who ruled against his illegal deportations under the Alien Enemies Act. 

“Well, I’ve already spoken to that, and impeachment is not how you register disagreement with decisions,” Roberts said. 

But Roberts’s mild criticism may not be enough, as the administration has escalated into making direct threats. When announcing his inane plan to reopen Alcatraz Sunday, Trump listed “judges that are afraid to do their job and allow us to remove criminals” alongside the “criminals” and “thugs” he hoped to imprison there. 

Josh Gerstein, a senior legal affairs reporter at Politico, suggested that there may be a method to Roberts’s missing madness. 

“Subdued Roberts seemed to be keeping his powder dry since many of the big fights, like law firms, deportations, contempt, are making their way to the court or already there,” Gerstein wrote on X Thursday.  “A reasonable strategy, but that’s not some rousing defense of the judiciary or separation of powers.”

Gerstein noted that Roberts’s “‘judicial independence’ stuff” was “thinner” than his 2024 Year End report on the federal judiciary, which had compared political bias to doxxing and disinformation as some of the “illegitimate activity” that threatens independent judges. At the time, his comments seemed to echo Trump’s complaints about critics who went after judges that ruled in his favor. Now the Trump administration has taken to attacking so-called “activist” judges who rule against him. 

Roberts’s refute is comparatively limp when held beside Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s recent indictment of the right-wing campaign of threats being used to intimidate judges.

“The threats and harassment are attacks on our democracy, on our system of government. And they ultimately risk undermining our Constitution and the rule of law,” Jackson said last week.

Trump had a press conference Thursday to explain to everyone that the beautiful, spectacular trade deal that he’s made with Britain is actually unfinished.

“The final details are being written up in the coming weeks; we’ll have it all very conclusive, but the actual deal is a conclusive one,” Trump said to reporters with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on the other line. “We think just about everything has been approved, so good for both countries.”

While details remain extremely unclear, this “deal” is said to include greater market access and mutually lowered tariffs.

Trump taking a victory lap for an unfinished, undefined deal immediately raised eyebrows.

“Why Britain? And why now? … You’ve described this deal as a full and comprehensive deal, and yet … clearly, there’s much more work left to do,” said James Matthews of Sky News. “With respect, are you overstating the reach and significance of this deal, because you’re a president who needs a result at a difficult time?”

Trump proceeded to ramble, almost completely avoiding Matthews’s question.

“I think that it’s a great deal for both parties.… It opens up a tremendous market for us. It works out very well, very well. A lot of assets, you see the chart. Those are tremendous assets. But we’ve been trying, and when you say, ‘Why us?’ meaning your country; we’ve been trying for years, and they’ve been trying for years to make a deal.… This is a maxed-out deal, not like you said it, really incorrectly. This is a maxed-out deal that we’re gonna make bigger. And we’ll make it bigger through growth.”

The framework of the deal that has been announced would reduce U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum imports to 0 percent and reduce auto tariffs to 10 percent, while leaving in a baseline 10 percent tariffs on all other products. Trump also bragged about greater market access in the United Kingdom for American beef, before being reminded by a reporter that the U.K. doesn’t accept American beef because of its higher food standards.

The Trump administration apparently deported two U.S. citizen children—ages 5 and 4—after surreptitiously luring their mother to an immigration appointment. 

Denisse Parra Vargas and her husband, Omar, had just dropped off their three children at school in Austin, Texas, last Thursday when they were pulled over by Texas state troopers ostensibly for having an expired license plate. But then, the police officers turned the couple over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement as suspected undocumented immigrants. 

Omar was sent to an ICE detention center and then deported to Mexico, but Parra Vargas was fitted with an electronic bracelet and told to report to a processing center near Austin on Tuesday. An Austin-based criminal justice and immigration advocacy organization, Grassroots Leadership, said to the Daily Beast that “she was told that if she showed up, then she would be eligible for asylum as well as a work permit.”

Parra Vargas complied, and showed up on Tuesday with her three children, two of whom are U.S. citizens, for what she thought was a routine appointment. But then she and all of her children seemed to disappear in ICE custody. Grassroots Leadership scrambled its legal team to try to find them. 

“We were just trying to figure out where she was,” a spokesperson for the organization said. “ICE was not giving us information.”

Even entering Parra Vargas’s information into ICE’s online detainee locator wasn’t showing any results. Then Parra Vargas called the organization to tell them that she had been deported to Mexico with her three children.

“When she called from the other side of the border, she said that she signed a paper, but she wasn’t sure exactly what it was,” the spokesperson said. “She did not understand what she was signing.”

ICE seems to have disregarded the fact that two of Parra Vargas’s children are citizens and could have stayed in the U.S. with a caretaker. She does not appear to have been informed of her options, Grassroots Leadership said. 

“She never had a chance to consult with anybody,” the organization’s spokesperson told the Daily Beast. “Any efforts from our end to be able to advocate for her release, or even for our legal team to be able to work on her release, none of that was possible because we weren’t even able to locate her.”

Parra Vargas’s situation fits a pattern of haphazard and cruel immigration actions from the Trump administration. Her two U.S. citizen children aren’t the first Americans to be swept up by ICE or even deported in President Trump’s second term. Jose Hermosillo, a 19-year-old U.S. citizen with learning disabilities, was detained by a Border Patrol officer while visiting Tucson, Arizona, and spent 10 days in ICE detention before being released. 

Late last month, the Trump administration was caught lying about undocumented immigrant women being deported with their U.S. citizen children. Similar to Parra Vargas, the women were prevented from communicating with legal counsel while in ICE custody. It appears that in order to get around the pesky constitutional rights of U.S. citizens, the Trump administration is deporting them anyway if they’re kids. 

RFK Jr.’s old running mate thinks someone is controlling him—and it isn’t Trump. 

Former vice presidential candidate Nicole Shanahan was both surprised and dismayed by the nomination of Casey Means, a pseudoscientific doctor with zero clinical experience, for U.S. surgeon general. 

“Yes, it’s very strange. Doesn’t make any sense. I was promised that if I supported RFK Jr. in his Senate confirmation that neither of these siblings would be working under HHS or in an appointment (and that people much more qualified would be). I don’t know if RFK very clearly lied to me, or what is going on,” Shanahan wrote on X Wednesday evening. “It has been clear in recent conversations that he is reporting to someone regularly who is controlling his decisions (and it isn’t President Trump). With regards to the siblings, there is something very artificial and aggressive about them, almost like they were bred and raised Manchurian assets.”

The other sibling Shanahan is referring to is Means’s brother Calley, who is an adviser to RFK Jr.

There’s a lot going on here. What’s actually strange is how shocked and betrayed Shanahan seems to feel about this. The man whose ticket she ran on has for decades pushed conspiracy theories about vaccines causing autism, Black people having naturally stronger immune systems, and the Covid-19 pandemic being prolonged by Dr. Anthony Fauci and Bill Gates, among other views. This all sounds perfectly in line with someone like Means, a snake oil salesman who has called vaccine mandates “criminal.” 

And who does she possibly think is controlling RFK Jr. if not Donald Trump? Laura Loomer? QAnon? His MAHA disciples? The remnants of the worm in his brain? It’s likely RFK Jr. is just lying to Shanahan in these “recent conversations” they’ve had. She might even be lying to herself. 

“Calley and Dr. Casey Means, siblings on a mission to end corruption and help Make America Healthy Again,” Shanahan wrote in response to a post from Calley Means last September. Means thanked her and called her an inspiration. What changed between now and then?

Someone here is misrepresenting their views on the Means nomination. It’d be helpful if Shanahan started naming some names as to who this mysterious puppet master controlling RFK Jr. is. 

Donald Trump threw yet another tantrum Thursday about Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s latest alert that the president’s tariffs will cripple economic growth.

“‘Too Late’ Jerome Powell is a FOOL, who doesn’t have a clue,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Other than that, I like him very much!

“Oil and Energy way down, almost all costs (groceries and ‘eggs’) down, virtually NO INFLATION, Tariff Money Pouring Into the U.S.—THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF ‘TOO LATE!’ ENJOY!” Trump added.

The Federal Reserve chair issued a fresh warning Wednesday about inevitable stagflation. “If the large increases in tariffs that have been announced are sustained, they’re likely to generate a rise in inflation, a slowdown in economic growth, and an increase in unemployment,” said Powell.

Since first imposing his sweeping “reciprocal” tariff policy, Trump has repeatedly attacked Powell for not lowering the interest rates to offset any economic damage, dubbing him “Mr. Too Late” and “a major loser,” and even calling for his termination.

As tariff tensions rise, Trump has taken to pushing his own lies about prices.

While the price of oil has been falling, it spiked Thursday, buoyed by optimism about trade talks between the U.S. and China. That has not, however, translated into cheaper prices at the gas pump. Trump has repeatedly claimed the price of gas is only $1.98, but U.S. drivers were actually paying more than $3 a gallon as of Monday.

Trump’s claims about the falling price of groceries are also questionable.

“I’m not aware of any data that supports that,” said Tucker Balch, a finance professor at Emory University, who spoke to ABC News about Trump’s claims of lowered prices in the checkout aisle. The already high prices of groceries have stayed relatively stable throughout the first 100 days of Trump’s presidential term, according to data from the federal government.

Trump has also lied about how much money his tariffs are actually making. In April, he claimed that they were raking in $2 billion per day. In reality, they’d collected closer to $250 million each day, according to Customs and Border Protection.

Last week, Senator John Fetterman held what would normally be a friendly meeting with Pennsylvania’s largest teachers’ union.

Representatives from the Pennsylvania State Education Association and the National Education Association praised Fetterman for defending public education. But when the subject turned to asking Fetterman to take stronger actions against the Trump administration’s education cuts, the senator’s mood took a turn.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Fetterman started yelling and banging his fists on a desk at the five union representatives before him, asking them what they wanted from him. He shouted, “Everybody is mad at me,” “Why does everyone hate me?” and “What did I ever do?” beginning to repeat himself.

The meeting quickly fell apart, with a staffer for the senator ushering the representatives into the hallway before she broke down in tears. The outburst from Fetterman seemed to show a disturbing pattern in the senator’s mental health, especially as just one day later, a story was published by New York magazine painting a picture of Fetterman as unrecognizable to his own staff following a 2022 stroke.

In a statement to the Inquirer, Fetterman defended the meeting as “a spirited conversation about our collective frustration with the Trump administration’s cuts to our education system.

“As a proud product of PSEA, I will always support our teachers, and I will always reject anyone’s attempt to turn Pennsylvania’s public schools into a voucher program,” the statement read.

The Inquirer spoke to several former Fetterman staffers anonymously who said that Fetterman wasn’t living up to his duties as a senator. His sharp, zero-sum advocacy for Israel and antipathy toward Palestinians amid Israel’s war on Gaza has alienated staff and constituents. He frequently misses meetings and votes, avoids colleagues, and spends many hours on Capitol Hill alone in his office.

“It’s pretty impossible to overstate how disengaged he is,” said one former Fetterman staffer. “He doesn’t read memos, he’s taking very few meetings.… The job is just a platform for him to run for president; that’s all he cares about.”

Fetterman has the third-worst voting attendance record in the Senate this year, missing 29 of 236 votes, and in the past two years, he has the lowest voting attendance record of any senator. He’s only made one public appearance in Pennsylvania since August. It’s a shocking turn for a man who started his political career as the mayor of Braddock, Pennsylvania, helping to rebuild the Rust Belt town. Now, it seems that he ought to leave politics and focus on his health and well-being.

Trump’s nominee for U.S. surgeon general is beyond unqualified. The president has selected Casey Means, a self-described “wellness influencer” from the Make America Healthy Again ranks, to serve as highest public health official in the land.

“I am pleased to announce that Dr. Casey Means, will be nominated as our next Surgeon General of the United States of America,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Wednesday. “Casey has impeccable ‘MAHA’ credentials, and will work closely with our wonderful Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to ensure a successful implementation of our Agenda in order to reverse the Chronic Disease Epidemic, and ensure Great Health, in the future, for ALL Americans. Her academic achievements, together with her life’s work, are absolutely outstanding. Dr. Casey Means has the potential to be one of the finest Surgeon Generals in United States History. Congratulations to Casey!”

Trump’s original nominee, Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, was axed for not being sufficiently kooky enough for the likes of Laura Loomer.

“[Nesheiwat] used her access to Fox News to promote the dangerous Covid vaccine, which is now killing millions of people,” Loomer wrote on X this week. “She tried to shame people who didn’t take the vaccine by calling them global health threats. Vaccines are a matter of PERSONAL HEALTH FREEDOM.”

Means has no active medical license, as she dropped out of her residency after becoming “disillusioned” with basic medicine. She instead decided to commit herself to alternative medicine.

She also has unsurprisingly controversial views on vaccination.

“I have said innumerable times publicly I think vaccine mandates are criminal. I think corruption in the FDA is overwhelming. I think RFK is doing God’s work in calling all this out,” Means wrote on X last November.

“There is no benefit to the baby or the wider population for a child to get this vaccine who is not at risk for sexual or IV transmission. There is only risk. Kids who don’t have this unnecessary pharmaceutical can’t go to school in many states,” she wrote in August, referring to the hepatitis B vaccine. “EVERYONE should become curious about why these interventions are institutionally jammed down our throats and people are made to be heretical whackos for questioning it.”

Actual medical professionals raised immediate alarm after news of Means’s nomination broke.

“Casey Means is a grifter who dropped out of ENT residency & start a company selling glucose monitors & health all to non-diabetics. She doesn’t know basic science, yet claims she’s a metabolism expert,” scientist Dr. Andrea Love wrote on X. “Incomplete ENT residency ≠ expert. Of course she’s up for Surgeon General.”

More information about Means’s confirmation hearing schedule is expected in the coming weeks.

* This story has been updated to note that her medical degree is not active.

Jerome Powell has once again said what everyone except Trump seems to already know: Lowering inflation while enacting staggering tariffs is virtually impossible.

“If the large increases in tariffs that have been announced are sustained, they’re likely to generate a rise in inflation, a slowdown in economic growth, and an increase in unemployment,” the Federal Reserve chair said on Wednesday. “The effects on inflation could be short-lived, reflecting a one-time shift in the price level. It is also possible that the inflationary effects could instead be more persistent. Avoiding that outcome will depend on the size of the tariff effects, on how long it takes for them to pass through fully into prices, and ultimately on keeping longer-term inflation expectations well-anchored.”

This is exactly what Trump doesn’t want the American public to hear. The president has repeatedly attacked Powell for his honesty, referring to him as “Mr. Too Late” and “a major loser,” and calling for his termination after Powell correctly noted that wanton tariffs cause inflation.

Though Powell didn’t name it, he was clearly referring to “stagflation: slow GDP growth, high inflation, and high unemployment. The Federal Reserve refused to cut interest rates on Wednesday, as Powell described the concerns with Trump’s economic plans.

“Donald Trump’s tariffs mean you could suffer higher prices and lose your job AT THE SAME TIME, Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote on X. “Forget dolls, families will be forced to make impossible choices between necessities like food, housing, and health care.”

Trump’s trade war loses a lot of validity when people like Powell call it what it is: a tax on top of an already high cost of living for everyday people.

Donald Trump says he doesn’t know whether he plans to deport hundreds of immigrants to Libya, amidst reports that his administration will do so as soon as Wednesday.

“Is the administration sending migrants to Libya?” Trump was asked during a press conference Wednesday afternoon.

“I don’t know,” he responded. “You’ll have to ask the Department of Homeland Security.” Whether Trump is lying or not, his answer does nothing to quell the terrifying possibility that immigrants could be sent to a country whose prisons have been called a “hellscape” and “open slave markets” by human rights organizations.

On Tuesday, U.S. officials confirmed to multiple news outlets that the government was planning to send undocumented immigrants to Libya in what would be a cruel and unlawful escalation of the president’s deportation efforts. In March, Trump unlawfully deported 200 Venezuelan immigrants, the majority of whom had no criminal record, to El Salvador, where they are now being held in CECOT, a mega-prison notorious for human rights abuses.

More than a decade after Libya’s authoritarian state was toppled, the political situation in the country remains incredibly unstable. It’s been plagued by conflict for years, and the State Department advises Americans not to travel there amidst the risk “crime, terrorism, unexploded land mines, civil unrest, kidnapping and armed conflict.” It’s a stunning display of irony given the government may literally send people there against their will.

Libyan officials have denied the country is communicating with the United States, Reuters reported.

The president is reportedly eyeing Africa as a whole as his next target for deportations, which will likely face a flurry of legal challenges. Rwanda has already accepted at least one deportee from the United States, while several other African countries including Benin, Angola, Equatorial Guinea, and Eswatini have been mentioned in various media reports.

President Donald Trump is planning to send a planeful of deportees to Libya—but both of Libya’s governments say they won’t take them, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.

Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh, the prime minister for the Government of National Unity based in Tripoli, wrote on social media that “Libya refuses to be a destination for the deportation of migrants under any pretext.”

Dbeibeh said that Libya would not be held to any agreements made by “illegitimate entities.”

The Libyan National Army, which controls the eastern half of the country from Benghazi, also released a statement rejecting the arrival of deportees from the United States, saying that accepting deportees would “violate sovereignty in the homeland.”

While the U.S. government only has foreign relations with Dbeibeh’s government, the son of Khalifa Haftar, the general turned warlord in the east, visited with Trump administration officials last month. The meetings were not about deportations, according to the State Department and a Libyan official, CNN reported.

It’s not clear that any formal deal was made to facilitate the removal of immigrants to a potentially hostile host country. Libya’s migrant detention centers are notorious for subjecting detainees to severe beatings, sexual violence, extortion, and forced labor, according to a 2021 report from Amnesty International.

Lawyers for immigrants currently held in Texas have asked a judge for an emergency order barring any potential deportations to Libya. The lawyers argued that carrying out such a flight without warning would “blatantly” violate court orders.

Previous reports said that a military plane potentially carrying hundreds of immigrants could depart for Libya as soon as Wednesday, so it’s entirely possible that wheels are already up on the latest phase of Trump’s inhumane mass deportation crusade.