Republicans Are About to Massively Screw Up the Courts Using Tax Bill

Republican Representative Jim Jordan was called out so much over his party’s budget bill that he had to consult lawyers to see if the bill was upending federal law.

At a House Rules Committee meeting Wednesday morning, Democratic Representative Joe Neguse pointed out that language in the bill seeking to curtail federal judges from enforcing nationwide injunctions doesn’t just apply to immigration cases currently being litigated against the Trump administration, as Republicans want, but also to any federal case, retroactively.

“This is all cases! This is not immigration cases! The plain language of this statute that you have written applies to every conceivable case brought in a federal court, period,” Neguse said, tapping his desk for emphasis. “IRS cases. Patent cases. Immigration cases. If you have a constituent that sues the ATF, this provision applies to them.

“This is the point. And you can visit with your lawyers, and maybe they can provide you with the clarity, but it is unquestionably the case that this provision applies to every plaintiff,” Neguse continued, as Jordan actually consulted with attorneys seated next to him.

“I just want to say that the situation we’re trying to address is what’s been happening around the country,” Jordan responded, flustered, saying that one federal judge can “issue a decision that applies nationwide to all immigrants during that situation.”

“Why didn’t you put ‘nationwide’ in this language?” Neguse replied, waving the bill in the air.

“Well, we can look at the language—” Jordan stammered before Neguse interjected.

“It’s 6 a.m.! You’re voting on this thing in like 10 hours! What are we talking about?” said the Colorado Democrat.

This exchange between leading a House Democrat and Republican illustrates a major problem with Republicans’ so-called “big, beautiful bill”—it’s being put together quickly and broadly to accomplish many of Trump and the GOP’s priorities at once, from immigration to big budget cuts.

As a result, massive cuts have been proposed to essential programs like Medicare and Medicaid, and Trump’s desire to rein in federal courts that strike down his egregious immigration policies could severely upend the way the federal judicial system works. As Jordan demonstrated Wednesday, Trump and the GOP have a big wish list but have no idea what they’re doing.

Two years after they led an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden on allegations that the forty-sixth president benefited from his son’s business dealings in Ukraine and China, MAGA Republicans have decided that conflicts of interest are no longer worth mentioning—at least with regard to Donald Trump.

Testifying before Congress Wednesday, state secretary turned joint national security adviser Marco Rubio claimed that the Trump family’s business in the Middle East wasn’t anything out of the ordinary for a sitting president, despite the fact that Trump and his relatives appear to be making money hand over fist, thanks to Trump’s power over the White House.

“I don’t think this is a complicated question. President Trump is personally profiting from a deal with a foreign government while selling weapons to that same government who’s enabling a genocide,” said California Representative Sara Jacobs, referring to the United Arab Emirates’ “complicity” in the genocide of the Masalit community in West Darfur. “Policy aside, do you really think this isn’t a conflict of interest?”

“No you’re making claims—the president’s family owns a business, and they can conduct business anywhere in the world they want,” Rubio said. “The president never once raised business deals in UAE  when talking about—any president would have to have a relationship with the UAE.”

But Jacobs pointed out that Trump’s business dealings in the Middle East are not passive, as the forty-seventh president has “retained his ownership” of the companies. He has also continued to intertwine his image with his brands: On his cryptocurrency World Liberty Financial’s website, Trump’s image is plastered alongside text urging investors to “shape a new era of finance.”

“It literally says on the website that Mr. Trump and his family members own a 60 percent stake in this company. That’s silly,” Jacobs said. “I’m asking you a very simple question: Do you believe it’s a conflict of interest to have a president personally profiting from a deal with a foreign government while selling weapons to that same government who’s enabling a genocide?”

“I don’t accept the premise of your question,” Rubio replied. “I think this has nothing to do with personally benefiting from anything. This has to do with the fact that in order to conduct foreign policy in the Middle East, you have to deal with the UAE.”

Trump and his businesses have a huge financial stake in the Middle East, especially the UAE. Some of his real estate plans include a Trump-branded golf course in Qatar (as part of a $5.5 billion development project) and a $1 billion Trump hotel and residence in Dubai. Other investments include a $2 billion cryptocurrency stake by an Abu Dhabi firm in World Liberty Financial Coin. 

The family also revealed in December that it would be expanding its presence in Saudi Arabia, announcing Trump Tower Jeddah. The price tag for the building has not been made public, but one of the developers on the project, Dar Global, compared it to another $530 million Trump Tower in the city, reported Reuters.

The president has also come under intense recent scrutiny for accepting a super luxury jumbo jet from Qatari leadership, in an act that was widely interpreted as a foreign bribe, including by longtime supporters of the president’s agenda, such as far-right influencers Ben Shapiro and Laura Loomer. It was one of the most lavish gifts ever bestowed on a U.S. president.

Accepting gifts from foreign governments is a blatant violation of the Constitution’s foreign emoluments clause, so in an effort to circumvent that, Trump has claimed that the plane is instead a donation to the Department of Defense. But his reported plans to shift ownership of the aircraft to his presidential library shortly before exiting office would effectively make that excuse null and void.

Donald Trump argued with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa Wednesday about whether there was a so-called “white genocide” in the latter’s own country.

During a press conference in the Oval Office, Trump was asked by one reporter, “What would it take for you to be convinced that there is no white genocide in South Africa?” 

Earlier this month, the U.S. president carved out an exception in his refugee ban to allow Afrikaners, white descendants of mainly Dutch colonizers in South Africa, to immigrate to the U.S., claiming that they were facing a “genocide.” 

Ramaphosa quickly stepped in. “Well, I can answer that for the president. It will take President Trump listening to the voices of South Africans, some of whom are his good friends like those who are here,” he said.   

“It will take President Trump listening to them. I’m not going to be repeating what I’ve been saying,” Ramaphosa continued. “I would say that if there was Afrikaaner farmer genocide, I can bet you, these three gentlemen would not be here, including my Minister of Agriculture. He would not be with me. So, it’ll take him, President Trump listening to their stories, their perspective.”

“We have thousands of stories talking about it, and we have documentaries, we have news stories,” Trump replied, before turning the lights down to play a long clip from an unspecified documentary, which included a clip of the leader of the South Africa’s Economic Freedom Fighters party chanting, “Kill the Boers.” As the video played, Ramaphosa looked increasingly uncomfortable. 

After a long moment, Trump began narrating, “Now, this is very bad, these are burial sites, over a thousand, of white farmers.”

“It’s a terrible site, I’ve never seen anything like it,” Trump continued. 

“Have they told you where that is, Mr. President?” Ramaphosa asked. “I’d like to know where that is, because this I’ve never seen.”

“It’s in South Africa,” Trump shrugged. 

“We need to find out,” Ramaphosa replied. 

Trump was also asked what he hoped Ramaphosa would do about the violence against Afrikaners. 

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” Trump said holding print-outs of several articles. “Look these are articles over the last few days. Death, of… people. Death, death, death, horrible death. Death. I don’t know.” 

Trump continued to lament the deaths of white Afrikaners. “If this were the other way around it would be the biggest story. Now, I will say, apartheid—terrible,” Trump said. “That was the biggest story, that was reported all the time. This is sort of the opposite of apartheid.”

Ramaphosa invited John Henry Steenhuisen, South Africa’s minister of Agriculture who is white and from an opposition party, to address Trump’s claims. Steenhuisen admitted that the country had a “rural safety problem” that it was working to address. 

Steenhuisen also responded to the documentary clip Trump had shown. “The two individuals in that video that you’ve seen are both leaders of opposition minority parties in South Africa,” he said. 

“Now the reason that my party, the Democratic Alliance, which has been an opposition party for over 30 years, chose to join hands with Mr. Ramaphosa’s party was precisely to keep those people out of power. We cannot have those people sitting in the union buildings, making those decisions,” said Steenhuisen.

This story has been updated.

Donald Trump’s administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency threw a tantrum Wednesday when asked to explain how exactly his agency had decided to cancel nearly 800 grants focused on helping decrease the impact of climate change. 

Lee Zeldin lost his cool during a Senate hearing when Senator Sheldon Whitehouse asked him to explain conflicting accounts of the process for approving the cuts to 781 grants. Zeldin had stated in a prior House hearing to have “personally reviewed” each grant that was cancelled—but so had his deputy assistant administrators Daniel Coogan and Travis Voyles.

“It cannot be that Voyles personally, himself, conducted the review of 781, and that Coogan saw to it that it was individually done,” Whitehouse said, arguing that their stories didn’t quite match up. 

“It’s a crazy concept, Senator, but maybe more than one person was individually reviewing these grants. Maybe they were working on it for more than one day, Senator! How about that concept?” Zeldin snapped. 

“When their testimony is that they did it all on one day, no I do not. I do not agree with that,” Whitehouse replied. “He swore in court that he did it on one day. So you can’t now come in and say that that’s false.”

Zeldin ranted that while the decision had been made in one day, the process of “busting your ass” to review the grants had taken much longer, and the two argued over each other as Whitehouse referred to the testimony of Zeldin’s deputy assistants. 

“None of that is what he said, I’m using the facts as your employees stated them,” Whitehouse said.

“I conducted an individual review of everything, and that concept doesn’t work for you,” Zeldin cried. 

“When? When? When? When did you conduct an individualized review of 781 grants?” Whitehouse pressed. “Will you show me your schedule?”

“You don’t care about wasting money, but the Trump administration does, Senator,” the EPA head ranted. When Whitehouse repeated the question, Zeldin replied, “Our schedule is publicly released, we don’t put on the schedule every single moment of the day.”

Zeldin continued to rant, claiming that Whitehouse didn’t care about answering the taxpayers, becoming increasingly exasperated. “I don’t know what to say to you, you’re insisting on the fact—” Zeldin continued.

“I’m insisting on the facts, that’s exactly what I’m insisting on!” Whitehouse snapped. 

Zeldin continued to rant, “The American taxpayers, they put President Trump in office because of people like you, they have Republicans in charge of the House and Senate because of people like you, because you don’t care about 99 percent of this story, you don’t want me to go through the list of the all the waste and abuse—”

“No, what I want you to do is explain why the Department of Justice lawyers representing EPA in court under a duty of candor have said that everything you’ve just said isn’t true. That’s what I want. Get me that answer,” Whitehouse said, before yielding his time back to the chair.  

Donald Trump escalated his threats against Bruce Springsteen Wednesday with a stupid but shocking meme posted to Truth Social.

The eight-second edited video shows the president in a MAGA hat hitting Springsteen with a golf ball, taking the rock star down as he gets onstage. It was posted without a caption but is yet another indication that Trump’s absurd targeting of Springsteen may not be a joke.

On Monday, Trump said in a Truth Social post he planned to launch an investigation into how much money Kamala Harris paid celebrity musicians, including Springsteen and Beyoncé, to endorse her campaign.

“HOW MUCH DID KAMALA HARRIS PAY BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN FOR HIS POOR PERFORMANCE DURING HER CAMPAIGN FOR PRESIDENT? WHY DID HE ACCEPT THAT MONEY IF HE IS SUCH A FAN OF HERS? ISN’T THAT A MAJOR AND ILLEGAL CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION? WHAT ABOUT BEYONCÉ? … AND HOW MUCH WENT TO OPRAH, AND BONO??? I am going to call for a major investigation into this matter,” he wrote on Truth Social early Monday morning.

Springsteen’s production company was paid $76,000 by the Harris campaign after he performed at one of her rallies in October. But Trump’s tirade against the 75-year-old singer likely has more to do with Springsteen insulting him at a show in Manchester, England, last week.

“The mighty E Street Band is here tonight to call upon the righteous power of art, of music, of rock ’n’ roll, in dangerous times,” Springsteen said. “In my home, the America I love, the America I’ve written about that has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years, is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent, and treasonous administration.”

As he often does with celebrities, Trump insulted Springsteen in a series of Truth Social posts before it became clear he actually wants government agencies to investigate him. Rolling Stone reported Tuesday that Trump’s plans to weaponize campaign finance laws against the pop culture icon could be a legitimate undertaking backed by lawyers and political advisers.

“So this is not something where Donald Trump is just ranting and raving about it all alone out there on an island,” Rolling Stone reporter Asawin Suebsaeng told TNR’s Greg Sargent.

“This is something where heavy hitters in the MAGA elite and in the Republican elite, even if they don’t really believe it on an intellectual level, are willing to give Trump space to cook and to be like, ‘Let’s see how far we can take this.’”

This story has been updated.