<Starkly different views of presidential power, labor rights, and judicial review were aired in court on Wednesday during a hearing over the Trump administration‘s efforts to bust public sector unions.

“This is a really important case,” U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman, a Bill Clinton appointee, said after oral arguments were conducted — thanking attorneys representing both the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), the nation’s second largest federal union, and the U.S. Department of Justice for the quality of their arguments.

In the underlying lawsuit, the NTEU is challenging an executive order issued by President Donald Trump that deems more than a dozen agencies exempt from labor law requirements because they have a “primary function” in “intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security work.” The union claims the order is a thinly-veiled effort to effectuate wider plans to drastically shrink the federal workforce by making it easier to fire workers. The NTEU also says the order amounts to “political retribution” over a series of lawsuits unions have filed challenging various Trump administration policies.

The DOJ, for its part, rubbished the union’s arguments on both jurisdiction and the merits; the government believes such disputes do not belong in the court system at this stage and, for good measure, defended the president’s prerogative with regard to national security.

Wednesday’s hearing offered the parties a chance to make those arguments one final time before the court decides whether or not the new policy will be enjoined in whole, or in part, or not at all.

“Political retribution is the driver,” the union’s attorney insisted. “This court shouldn’t sanction that type of unconstitutional executive action.”

To hear the NTEU tell it, an accompanying White House fact sheet explaining the order tells the court all it needs to know about the true purpose of the effort to de-unionize the federal government.

“Certain Federal unions have declared war on President Trump’s agenda,” the fact sheet reads. “The largest Federal union describes itself as ‘fighting back’ against Trump. It is widely filing grievances to block Trump policies.”

The judge appeared sympathetic to the union’s reading of this document by grilling the DOJ over the aggressive verbiage.

“This president, which is his wont, sometimes chooses to explain himself,” Friedman said.

The judge went on to call the fact sheet “part of the problem” and said the upshot appears to be that unions who work with the president will be left alone while those who work against him will face consequences.

“How else can you read what he’s done?” Friedman asked.

The government lawyer argued the fact sheet’s reference to the union’s “war on” Trump’s agenda is related to the national security determination.

“Unions at time may obstruct agency management,” she said. “President Trump’s agenda is safeguarding American national security.”

National security, the government believes, is a question-and-jurisdiction-ending off-ramp the judge himself should take.

“The president here is acting with his maximum level of authority under the Constitution,” the DOJ lawyer argued.

She said such power, as delegated by Congress, is “inherently entwined with the president’s assessments of what is required to protect the nation’s authority” and added that it is “really inappropriate for judicial second-guessing and judicial review.”

For now, at least, the judge does have jurisdiction — and had several questions during the hearing.

At the present stage, the plaintiff union is seeking a preliminary injunction that would stop the government from enforcing its eradication of collective bargaining rights for federal workers. And such a sea change, the union says, has exacted vast harm and will continue to do so....>

<....The Trump administration insists the union is overstating the damage — terming the alleged harms speculative in nature.

The judge appeared to lean toward the NTEU on this point.

“Is it really speculative that they’re going to lose lots of dues in the meantime and lots of members?” the judge asked.

In response, the DOJ lawyer said the union might very well win — if it filed its dispute with the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA), which is where the government believes the case should be handled.

The court was not convinced; the judge wondered whether “there is really any recourse” under the FLRA and suggested the best bet for any corrective action under the circumstances would, in fact, be the federal courts.

The judge seemed particularly askance of the Trump administration policy when he asked the government’s lawyer what incentive there would be to join a union if its members cannot collectively bargain.

The DOJ attorney replied that unions offer many benefits to members beyond their ability to collectively bargain. She noted the NTEU continues to represent some 70,000 employees in agencies not covered by the anti-collective bargaining executive order.

“The federal government is extremely large,” the DOJ lawyer said.

“It’s getting smaller,” the judge quickly shot back.

“That’s true,” the DOJ lawyer acknowledged.

In rebuttal, the union’s attorney heaped scorn on those answers.

“There’s simply nothing there,” he told the court. “[The Trump administration] is taking away the very reason people pay dues to us. That’s not a credible argument. We are losing more than $2 million per month.”

The NTEU’s lawyer said that if the executive order stands, the union will lose two-thirds of its workers and that already agencies are ignoring them, won’t come to the bargaining table, won’t meet with union representatives and are ignoring grievances.

The government serially aimed to reconfigure the dispute as being about the broad reach of presidential power, in general, and by dint of the statute that allows the national security determination in the first place.

That statute, the DOJ lawyer said, contains “very broad and capacious language” for the president to “look prospectively at what the country might need.” She argued collective bargaining agreements and dealing with union grievances might “impede” threat responses.

The attorney representing the NTEU addressed the president’s power — and the government’s argument against justiciability — head-on.

“The president has gone far beyond his statutory powers,” the union attorney said. “Judicial review is available.”.

The judge ended the hearing with the aforementioned laudatory speech — but held off on issuing any kind of a ruling.

Friedman previewed his upcoming order, however, offering something to both sides: the plaintiffs will not have to file a bond — to the government’s chagrin; joint status reports will be ended — opposite the plaintiff’s request. The judge also signaled he might possibly sever the order by allowing the government to apply the anti-collective bargaining rule to agencies that “clearly” deal with national security.>

Chicken served at Colorado town hall as meeting conducted with GOP rep in absentia:

<Democrats, progressive groups and constituents in Colorado’s 8th Congressional District are keeping up the pressure on Republican U.S. Rep Gabe Evans of Fort Lupton as the GOP’s narrow House majority closes in on drastic federal budget cuts that could have a big impact in the battleground district.

More than 100 people gathered Thursday in a high school auditorium in Thornton for the latest in a series of “People’s Town Halls” organized by the Democratic National Committee across the country, in districts where Republican members of Congress have declined to hold in-person town halls themselves. In place of Evans, attendees asked questions of Rep. Greg Casar, a Democrat in his second term representing Texas’ 35th District.

“My title actually isn’t congressman. The title is representative,” Casar told the crowd. “And the person that is supposed to be representing you here in Colorado is not acting like a representative. He’s acting like an employee of the Trump-Musk organization, and he’s not going to show up and answer your questions.”

Casar and Colorado Democratic Party Chair Shad Murib shared the stage with a cardboard cutout of Evans — complete with chicken legs for a lawmaker who Rebecca Miller, a hospice nurse criticizing Evans’ support for Medicaid cuts, said was too “chicken” to hold a proper town hall.

“I’m sure you recognize my voice, since I call you at least once a week,” Miller told the cutout. “Hey Gabe, did you know that 25% of your constituents … are on Medicaid? That’s 73,000 people that you’re getting ready to kick off their health care.”

Evans and his fellow Republicans in Congress are pursuing a major rewrite of the federal budget, and have approved an initial plan calling for trillions of dollars in tax cuts paired with trillions more in cuts to spending programs, including $880 billion in cuts to be made by the committee that oversees Medicaid. That legislative effort has coincided with an unprecedented executive power grab by President Donald Trump’s administration, which has attempted to shut down congressionally-authorized agencies and departments, freeze spending programs, order mass layoffs of federal workers, and take other actions that run contrary to longstanding separation-of-powers principles in the U.S. Constitution.

After multiple House Republicans faced backlash from constituents over the GOP agenda during town halls earlier this year, party leaders advised their members to stop holding in-person events, Politico reported.

Evans, serving his first two-year term after defeating former Democratic Rep. Yadira Caraveo by about 2,500 votes in the 2024 election, appears to have listened. To date, he has held just a single telephone town hall, answering a select handful of questions on a call that many constituents reported was plagued by technical issues.

“They were told by House Speaker Mike Johnson not to have town halls, so they’re just doing what they’re told,” Casar said.

Though he represents one of the country’s most evenly divided congressional districts, Evans — a former Arvada police officer and Army veteran who served one term in the state Legislature before running for Congress — has done little to distance himself from Trump and his agenda. He has endorsed Trump’s plans to carry out the mass deportations of more than 12 million immigrants in the country without authorization and backed the president’s chaotic efforts to launch a global trade war.

In a statement, Delanie Bomar, an Evans spokesperson, called Casar a far-left activist “who wants to see socialism and transgenderism take over America.”

“He represents the total opposite of Congressman Gabe Evans’ commonsense and winning plan of improving public safety, the immigration system, and the economy,” Bomar said. “Any day with Greg Casar in Colorado’s 8th District is a day that helps re-elect Gabe Evans in 2026.”

With Evans absent, critics of the Republican agenda have sought to fill the vacuum with events of their own, including a March 22 event in Northglenn organized by local groups. Last month, more than 10,000 people turned out for a rally in Greeley to hear from U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who taunted Evans from the stage for refusing to meet with his constituents.

Thursday’s town hall was jointly organized by the DNC and the Colorado Democratic Party. Two other events are planned for this weekend: a Medicaid-focused event organized by labor groups, scheduled for Friday evening at the Thornton Community Center; and a town hall at 10 a.m. on Saturday at the Moxie Theater in Greeley....>

<....The 8th District is Colorado’s most diverse — about 40% of its residents are Latino — and most competitive House seat. Drawn by an independent redistricting commission after the 2020 census awarded Colorado an additional congressional seat, it extends from Denver’s northern suburbs to Greeley and more rural areas in southern Weld County.

With Republicans holding just a three-vote majority in the House, the 8th District race could again prove crucial in determining control of Congress in the 2026 midterms. Caraveo earlier this month announced she would seek to win her old seat back next year, but first she faces a primary contest against Democratic state Rep. Manny Rutinel of Commerce City.

Murib said that despite Democrats’ relatively strong performance in Colorado in 2024, the loss of the 8th District race was a disappointment the party is eager to make up for next year.

“We are not going to let Gabe Evans continue to be employee of the month for Donald Trump,” Murib said. “We are not going to continue to let this cardboard cutout stay away from the people.”

Polls show that cuts to Medicaid, which provides health care to more than 1 in 5 Americans, are deeply unpopular, with 82% of Americans believing that funding for the program should be increased or kept the same, according to a March KFF survey.

Evans has defended House Republicans’ budget resolution, which mandates the $880 billion in cuts from the committee that oversees Medicaid spending, by falsely claiming that there are “a wide range of places where those cost savings can be found.” The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that Medicaid comprises 93% of the spending that could be cut by the committee. As a result, the GOP’s budget requires a minimum of $700 billion in Medicaid cuts over 10 years — or a 10% reduction in projected spending.

Evans sits on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which will be responsible for implementing the Medicaid cuts required by the budget plan. Casar noted that with Republicans holding only a razor-thin majority, it would only require a handful of GOP House members to “replace the chicken legs with normal legs” to derail the budget plan.

“Your organizing from here over the course of the next few weeks could save Medicaid as we know it,” Casar said. “That’s why I got on a plane all the way over here to do this. … I know we can and will do it.”>

<A major organization that combats antisemitism denounced the Trump administration for withholding funds from Harvard University after the administration alleged the university has allowed antisemitism to flourish on campus.

"Antisemitism on college campuses is a genuine crisis that demands serious attention, but we are concerned about the extent and scope of the current approach taken by the Administration to Harvard," wrote Jonathan Greenblatt, president and CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, in an open letter Friday.

"Denying federal funds (whether in part or in total) is an extremely serious and rightfully rare punishment that should be used only in the most severe situations with institutions incapable or unwilling to improve," Greenblatt added.

The Trump administration has frozen more than $2.2 billion in grants to Harvard University, called for the Internal Revenue Service to remove the university's tax-exempt status and threatened to revoke its ability to accept and host international students. Harvard sued the Trump administration on April 21 to block those measures. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier that day that the administration is planning to slash an additional $1 billion in cuts to federal health research funding at the university.

The administration has claimed Harvard did not do enough to combat antisemitism during pro-Palestinian student protests against the Israel-Hamas war. Reports of antisemitism and Islamophobia have increased on college campuses since Oct. 7, according to reports from the Anti-Defamation League and the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

It has also demanded that Harvard, along with other universities and schools across the nation, get rid of diversity, equity and inclusion programming, offices like its Office of Civil Rights and Belongings and other DEI-related initiatives.

Harvard has denied the administration's accusations that it's not doing enough to combat antisemitism and declined to comply with a list of demands, including changing its recruitment, screening, and admissions of international students to prevent admitting "students hostile to the American values," paying an external party to audit the university's student body, faculty, staff, and leadership for "viewpoint diversity" and shutter all DEI programming.

Harvard has improved in its efforts to combat antisemitism on campus by the Anti-Defamation League's own metrics since 2024, Greenblatt said.

Multiple federal agencies on April 11 sent a letter to Harvard University accusing the college of violating federal civil rights law for not doing enough to combat antisemitism during student protests of the Israel-Hamas war.

"Harvard has in recent years failed to live up to both the intellectual and civil rights conditions that justify federal investment," the administration's letter reads. The letter detailed a list of directives for Harvard to follow and gave university leaders months to comply with many of its demands.

One of the demands calls on the university to change programs with an "egregious record of antisemitism or bias."

The agencies direct Harvard to fire a third party to audit the school's programs and departments "that most fuel antisemitic harassment or reflect ideological capture," including the university's Graduate School of Education, Carr Center for Health & Human Rights and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies.

They direct the university to hire a third party to conduct a report including information about faculty members "who discriminated against Jewish or Israeli students or incited students to violate Harvard’s rules following October 7" and to cooperate with the federal government to "determine appropriate sanctions for those faculty members within the bounds of academic freedom and the First Amendment."

On April 14, Harvard University President Alan Garber wrote a letter addressed to the Harvard community titled "The Promise of American Higher Education." He said in the letter that the university told the Trump administration it refused to comply with its directives and would not accept its proposed agreement.

According to Garber, the Trump administration violated Harvard’s First Amendment rights with its demands and exceeded the statutory limits of the government’s authority under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights," Garber wrote. "The administration’s prescription goes beyond the power of the federal government ... And it threatens our values as a private institution devoted to the pursuit, production, and dissemination of knowledge."....>

<....Garber also critiqued the administration's overreach on American universities.

"No government—regardless of which party is in power—should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue," Garber wrote.

He said Harvard has "taken many steps" to address antisemitism on campus and plans to do more.

"It makes clear that the intention is not to work with us to address antisemitism in a cooperative and constructive manner," he said.

The Trump administration has sent similar letters to other universities. Harvard is the first university to refuse to comply with the administration's demands.

Columbia agreed to comply with the administration's demands after it pulled $400 million in federal funding from the university, citing the school's "continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students," according to the U.S. Education Department and other agencies.

The case at Harvard is "simple, but complex," Greenblatt said.

The university made progress on the organization's Campus Antisemitism Report Card since last year – jumping from an "F" grade to a "C" grade, he wrote.

"To be clear, this is not a grade that satisfies ADL, nor should it satisfy anyone associated with one of the most elite universities in the world," he said. "Nonetheless, it’s a step in the right direction."

Between 2024 and 2025, Harvard has publicly disclosed how antisemitism is included in the school's code of conduct and policies and has an advisory council to address antisemitism, according to the Anti-Defamation League's Campus Antisemitism Report Cards from those years.

Campus antisemitism requires action and oversight to ensure Jewish students are protected from discrimination, but that should not come with overreach, Greenblatt said.

"This does not take Harvard off the hook. Far from it," he wrote. "The institution needs to do a demonstrably better job to ensure that Jews benefit from the same privileges and protections as those provided to all other students."

The group wants the university to implement mandatory antisemitism education for students according to its campus antisemitism report cards.

The clash between Harvard and the Trump administration persists.

"Harvard will continue to suffer reputational damage and donor repercussions until supporters and the public see credible change," Greenblatt wrote. "However, the fight against antisemitism must be about antisemitism — nothing more, nothing less.">

<New York University law professor Ryan Goodman says he sees two big flaws in the federal charges against Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan for obstruction and concealing an individual from arrest.

FBI Director Kash Patel said on X in a Friday morning post: “We believe Judge Dugan intentionally misdirected federal agents away from the subject to be arrested in her courthouse, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, allowing the subject — an illegal alien — to evade arrest.”

“Thankfully our agents chased down the perp on foot and he’s been in custody since, but the Judge’s obstruction created increased danger to the public,” Patel added before deleting the post (he eventually reposted it later on Friday).

Attorney General Pam Bondi immediately went on Fox News on Friday, calling Dugan and a second New Mexico judge who resigned after the arrest of an alleged gang member in his home, “deranged.”

“I think some of these judges think they are beyond and above the law," Bondi said. “And they are not.”

During a segment with CNN host Erin Burnett, however, Goodman revealed flaws in the letter of Dugan’s indictment.

“The affidavit itself said that at a certain point the court deputy tells two federal agents ‘you need to leave the courtroom’ and they agree to do that,” said Goodman, a former Special Counsel at the Department of Defense. “The entire thing is tainted … because they’re inside her courtroom. They’re not supposed to be there. That’s one piece of it.”

But the second issue is the affidavit’s claim that Dugan acted to conceal Eduardo Flores-Ruiz when she sent him through the court’s jury exit and into the hall with agents.

“The affidavit itself says what happens to the man when he goes through the jury door. Where does he end up? According to the affidavit he enters a public hallway. How do we know this, because two DEA agents observe him there. And then where does he go? Into the elevator. Who’s in the elevator with him? One of the agents,” argues Goodman.

"It just doesn’t seem like a case that’s going to hold up, that you would charge somebody … for concealment. It seems like they were able to pick him up," he added.>

<Donald Trump, in his speech at the Department of Justice on Friday, said it “should be illegal” for people to criticize judges, adding that it “probably is illegal in some form.”

It’s not the first time the president has expressed this sentiment — on the campaign trail last year, Trump said people “should be put in jail” for criticizing the conservative justices on the Supreme Court.

Trump has, of course, consistently attacked the judges who presided over his criminal and civil cases. His comments Friday came just hours after his press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, stood outside the White House and attacked a judge who ruled on Thursday that the Trump administration had illegally fired thousands of probationary employees in a “sham” operation to circumvent employment laws.

“You cannot have a low-level district court judge filing an injunction to usurp the executive authority of the president of the United States, that is completely absurd,” Leavitt said, adding that “all of these injunctions have always been unconstitutional and unfair.”

She asserted that “as the executive of the executive branch, the president has the ability to fire or hire,” further complaining about “these lower-level judges who are trying to block this president’s agenda.”

In recent weeks, as Trump and his top donor and advisor Elon Musk have torn through the federal government in a reckless, unilateral manner, some federal judges have stepped in to try to put a halt to their destruction. The administration’s response hasn’t been to accept the rulings and orders, or scale back its assault on the balance of power that has held the government together for centuries — but rather to repeatedly demand the conservative Supreme Court’s assistance, and relentlessly attack the judges while claiming Trump should be able to decree whatever he wishes without oversight.

“Lawless judicial tyranny,” Stephen Miller, a senior adviser to Trump, wrote on X this week after a judge halted Trump’s move to punish a law firm that represented Democrats during the 2020 election. “Judges have no authority to force the executive branch to provide classified secrets to Democrat activist law firms.

“Under the precedents now being established by radical rogue judges, a district court in Hawaii could enjoin troop movements in Iraq,” Miller wrote a few hours later. “Judges have no authority to administer the executive branch. Or to nullify the results of a national election. We either have democracy, or not.”

Musk — whose work leading Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has led to several legal challenges — has also argued that “democracy” means letting Trump do whatever he wants. “If the will of the president is not implemented and the president is representative of the people, that means the will of the people is not being implemented, and that means we don’t live in a democracy, we live in a bureaucracy,” he told Sean Hannity last month.

“The only way to restore rule of the people in America is to impeach judges,” Musk wrote on X a week after his comments to Hannity. No one is above the law, including judges.” He has continued to regularly rail against the judges blocking Trump’s orders to his 220 million X followers — including on Friday when he shared a story from a right-wing satire site about a judge naming himself president. “Seriously, this is essentially what’s happening!!” Musk added.

Vice President J.D. Vance agrees. “If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal,” he wrote last month. “If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that’s also illegal. Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.”....>

<....So does Attorney General Pam Bondi. “You got one district judge thinking he can control the money for the entire country,” the head of the Justice Department said on Fox Business last week. “They think they control everything and they don’t, and that is why we are going after them every step of the way. The Justice Department will fight back. … It is the president of the United States’ decision who to hire, who to fire, where money goes — not these career bureaucrats.”

Republican lawmakers have already introduced efforts to impeach two judges for ruling against the Trump administration.

Trump, for his part, has threatened to “look at” judges who rule against DOGE’s efforts to gut federal agencies and freeze their funds.

It’s hardly an idle threat — Trump viciously attacked the judge overseeing his criminal prosecution in the New York hush money trial. He went after the judge’s daughter multiple times, for having worked at a Democratic consulting firm, until the judge instituted a gag order — which Trump said was “not fair.”

Trump also routinely slammed the judge overseeing his New York civil trials — calling him a “bully” and a “terrible, biased, irrationally angry Clinton-appointed judge.”

Somehow, on Friday, Trump decided to call out Democrats and the media for saying “horrible things” about judges who had ruled in his favor, characterizing it as “truly interference.”

“They wanted to scare the hell out of the judges. And they do it,” he said. “And how do you stop it if you’re a judge? Because you want to go home, you have a family, you have children, and The New York Times will write whatever these people say.”>

<Funerals can often be contentious events, and Pope Francis’ funeral on Saturday — at which dozens of (often combative) world leaders will be seated in the same space — will be no exception.

From President Donald Trump, to whom the pope expressed his displeasure about Trump’s hostility to immigration, to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — who recently rejected Trump’s offer that he concede territory to Russia — the papal funeral will be a moment when different factions, perhaps frustratingly, may have to interact with one another. And the possibilities of tension, secret conversations and disappointment over seating arrangements will abound.

Indeed, with a growing list of dignitaries and delegations from 130 countries around the world planning to attend, expect political tensions to bleed into the funeral of a pope who had pointed opinions about the way many world leaders conducted their affairs. His opinions include opposition to current wars, disappointment at the way Israel responded to Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack, and even annoyance at the way Vice President JD Vance, a relatively recent Catholic convert, attempted to use Catholic theology to defend loving immigrants less than people in the U.S.

Some tensions are already spilling out. After Francis’ death, some Israeli leaders initially sent messages of condolence via social media. But then those diplomats were ordered to delete those messages and not to sign any condolence books in Vatican embassies.

While a message of condolence was sent by Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu didn’t send anything. Israel erasing expressions of sympathy that were sent and directing its officials not to sign the book of condolence can perhaps be traced to Francis’ statement about Israel in December 2023 that “this is war, this is terrorism,” which Israel interpreted as Francis’ support for Hamas.

It can be easy to forget that the Vatican is an ecclesiastical state that was established in 1929. That means that Francis was not only the head of the Catholic Church but that he was also a head of state. Therefore, his final service serves as both a religious and a state funeral, and the list of dignitaries and delegations present is a recognition of the pope’s role as someone who speaks not just to Catholics but to other world leaders. Francis did that throughout his 12-year papacy, through statements, encyclicals and visits to 68 countries.

As for seating arrangements, don’t expect to see Trump, the so-called leader of the free world, front and center. Argentina — where the future pope Jorge Mario Bergoglio was born Dec. 17, 1936 — will be given the most prominent spot upfront. Then there’s Italy, because that country surrounds the Vatican and because the pope is the bishop of Rome. Next are reigning monarchs who’ll be seated ahead of other heads of state whose countries will be alphabetically arranged according to their names in French.

According to the Holy See press office, Trump, president of États-Unis, will be seated between leaders from Estonia and Finland. Those world leaders will be seated in one block of the Basilica to one side of Francis’ coffin, while cardinals, bishops and other ecclesiastical figures will be seated at the other. While care will be taken not to keep adversaries from interacting with each other, it’s difficult to see how leaders who are not getting along will be able to completely avoid each other. The close quarters of the seating in the Basilica will mean less personal space than usual.

The apostolic nuncios, the papal ambassadors to each country, will be responsible for smoothing out all of these issues and for handling any hurt feelings. They will be responsible for their country’s delegations. Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the apostolic nuncio for the United States, will be responsible for the American delegation. He will have his hands full, especially with Trump. Vance acknowledged Trump’s prior run-ins with Francis while on a visit to India, saying, “I’m aware he had disagreements with some of the policies of our administration. I’m not going to soil the man’s legacy by talking about his politics. I think he was a great Christian pastor and that’s how I choose to remember the Holy Father.”....>

<White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has created an atmosphere of hostility, mockery, and disparagement in the briefing room, a veteran reporter told Politico.

In a lengthy profile, correspondent Adam Wren quoted Peter Baker, chief White House correspondent with The New York Times, who has covered 17 press secretaries over his career.

Wren wrote, "He told me that the current tension 'goes beyond anything that is traditional to the point of open hostility, and mockery and disparagement in a way that’s meant for the larger audience, not for the people in the room.'"

Baker continued, “They don’t view the briefing room as a way to impart information. They don’t even view the briefing room as a way to shape reporters’ stories. They view the briefing room as a theater for the MAGA audience.”

Wren wrote that Leavitt "relishes dispatching mainstream reporters’ hardballs with dismissive quips and, increasingly, welcomes right-leaning influencers’ softballs."

In addition, the report claimed that Leavitt "has amped up Trump’s anti-media tirades while playing loose with the facts, breaking longstanding precedents for how the White House interacts with the press. Reporters in the briefing room, while friendly with Leavitt interpersonally behind the scenes, are worried about what norms will be shattered next in the administration’s assault on the media."

Wren wrote that Leavitt and White House Communications Director Steven Cheung "are considered by reporters to be the good cop and the bad cop, respectively," although "Leavitt has confided with some that she sometimes wishes she could be known as the bad cop. After all, when the briefings start and the cameras turn on, Leavitt can be openly hostile to the press and has helped foster the conditions necessary for such hostility to occur.">

<Wisconsin Republicans said they're prepared to move against a Milwaukee County judge arrested by the FBI and accused of interfering with immigration enforcement if she's convicted. Judge Hannah Dugan was released on her own recognizance after being taken into custody on Friday in her courtroom. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos told WisPolitics that "should the charges result in a conviction, we will act." Majority Leader Tyler August said legislative Republicans will "act decisively if these serious allegations are confirmed," per the Washington Post. The legislature has the authority to remove a state judge.

FBI Director Kash Patel has accused Dugan of misdirecting agents looking for an immigrant due for a court appearance. The judge protests her arrest, her attorney told a court during a brief appearance on Friday in Milwaukee. "It was not made in the interest of public safety," Craig Mastantuono said. Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, a Democrat, called the arrest performative and said the Trump administration is trying to "instill fear and hostility across our community." US Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a Wisconsin Democrat, said the administration is abusing the Constitution's separation of powers. Gov. Tony Evers' administration had recently told state employees not to answer questions from federal immigration officers at their workplace, per WisPolitics.

Immigration enforcement officials like to make arrests at courthouses because they know exactly when the people they're looking for are due in the building, and they'll have already gone through a security check, per the Post. The criminal complaint says witnesses described Dugan as "visibly upset" when she learned that federal agents were waiting outside her courtroom on April 18 to arrest Eduardo Flores Ruiz, who was scheduled to appear before her on misdemeanor state battery charges. A sign on her courtroom door says that anyone who doesn't feel safe going into her courtroom can ask for an online hearing.>

<Tyrants come to a sticky end, or so history suggests. Richard III and Coriolanus made bloody exits. More recently, Saddam Hussein went to the gallows, Slobodan Milosevic went to jail, Bashar al-Assad went into exile. Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi was run to ground in a sewer. Tyranny, from the Greek túrannos (“absolute ruler”), is typically fuelled by hubris and leads ineluctably to nemesis. Tyrants are for toppling. Their downfall is a saving grace.

Tyranny, in its many forms, is back in vogue, and everyone knows who’s to blame. To be fair, to suggest similarities between the aforementioned abominable individuals and Donald Trump would be utterly wrong. In key respects, he’s worse. Measured by willingness and capacity to harm the world’s poorest and most vulnerable, wreak global economic mayhem and threaten nuclear annihilation, Trump is uniquely dangerous – and ever more so by the day.

In any notional league of tyranny, Trump tops the table, with Russia’s Vladimir Putin following closely in his rear. If these two narcissists formed a partnership (a scary but not wholly improbable thought), it could be called Monsters R US. Across a disordered globe, wannabe “strongmen” queue to join their club.

Yet like every tyrant, old and new, Trump must fall. How may nemesis be peacefully and swiftly attained? As he marks 100 days back in power next week, such questions gain urgency. Can the 47th president’s premeditated swinging of a wrecking ball at US democracy, laws, values and dreams be halted? How may what remains of the international rules-based system be salvaged? Who or what will dethrone him?

Policy failures and personal misconduct do not usually collapse a presidency. The US constitution is inflexible: incompetence is protected; cupidity has a fixed term. Trump is in power until 2029 unless impeached – third time lucky? – for “high crimes and misdemeanors”, or else deemed unfit under section 4 of the 25th amendment. With JD Vance, his yes-man Veep, playing Oval Office bouncer and Congress awash with Maga converts, such procedural defenestration appears unlikely.

Public backing is certainly slipping. Last week’s nationwide demonstrations, worries about inflation and savings, and anger over federal funding cuts, cultural war-making and mass firings reflect deepening alarm about threats to an entire way of life. Polls show Trump losing the middle-of-the-roaders whose votes ended the Biden interregnum. Yet despite a royal resemblance to another “tyrant”, King George III, a second American revolution is a long way off.

Many look to the courts for rescue. Judges continue to challenge Trump’s diktats on deportations and other issues. It was a New York jury that convicted Trump of 34 felonies last year, but sadly failed to jail him. His businesses are repeatedly accused of fraud. Now it is suggested the supreme court-tested “major questions doctrine” could bring him to heel. This requires the government to demonstrate a “clear congressional authorisation” when it makes decisions of great “economic and political significance”, explained US law professor Aaron Tang. It’s restraint of sorts.

In the land of Watergate, will the media bring the tyrant low? It’s a fond hope. Major news organisations, undercut by social media and tsunamis of official lies, are derided from on high as liberal purveyors of “fake news”. They face costly legal challenges and outright bans, as in Trump’s malicious “Gulf of America” vendetta with Associated Press. Basic concepts of objective reporting are torched as the White House favours rightwing, pro-Trump outlets. The free press, perforce, is not so much cowed as cautious....>

<....This fight has moral and ethical aspects, too – and, given this is the US, prayer is a powerful weapon in the hands of those who would slay evil-doers. Of the seven deadly sins – vainglory or pride, greed or covetousness, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, sloth – Trump is comprehensively, mortally guilty. In Isaiah (13,11), the Lord gives fair warning: “I will put an end to the pride of the arrogant and humiliate the insolence of tyrants.” God knows, maybe he’ll listen. Miracles do happen.

Of all the tools in the tyrant-toppling toolbox, none are so potentially decisive as those supplied by Trump’s own stupidity. Most people understand how worthless a surrender monkey “peace deal” is that rewards Putin and betrays Ukraine. Does Trump seriously believe his support for mass murder in Gaza, threats to attack Iran and reckless bombing of Yemen will end the Middle East conflict and win him a Nobel peace prize?

By almost every measure, Trump’s chaotic global tariff war is hurting American consumers, damaging businesses and reducing US influence. It’s a boon to China and an attack on longtime allies and trading partners such as Britain. Trump’s big tech boosters know this to be so, as do many Republicans. But they dare not speak truth to power.

And then there’s his greed – the blatant, shameless money-grubbing that has already brought accusations of insider trading, oligarchic kleptocracy, and myriad conflicts of interest unpoliced by the 17 government oversight watchdogs Trump capriciously fired. His relatives and businesses are again pursuing foreign sweetheart deals. Corruption on this scale cannot pass unchallenged indefinitely. Avarice alone may be Trump’s undoing.

All this points to one conclusion: as a tyrant, let alone as president, Trump is actually pretty useless – and as his failures, frustrations and fantasies multiply, he will grow ever more dangerously unstable. Trump’s biggest enemy is Trump. Those who would save the US and themselves – at home and abroad – must employ all democratic means to contain, deter, defang and depose him. But right now, the best, brightest hope is that, drowning in hubris, Trump will destroy himself.>

<United States Agency for Global Media senior adviser Kari Lake accused “out of control” judges ruling against the Trump administration of attempting to slow the president’s agenda and, in so doing, subverting the will of the people.

Last week saw U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth issue a preliminary injunction requiring USAGM to rehire employees working at Voice of America, Radio Free Asia, and Middle East Broadcasting Network. The injunction also required that congressional funding not be withheld from any of the outlets. Lake was greatly critical of these types of judges and their rulings, arguing that the case of Lamberth’s injunction is attempting to tell her “how to run an agency.”

“The president has Article II powers to run the executive branch of this government, and we’re seeing a whole handful of judges trying to stop that and really subvert the will of the people,” Lake stated on Fox News’s Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo. “In our situation over at U.S. Agency for Global Media, we’re trying to modernize it, and we’re trying to shrink it down a little bit because of the bloat there, and the federal judge is basically saying, ‘You can’t do that.’”

Regarding efforts to shrink the agency, Lake noted that no one had been fired yet and some employees had been placed on leave to properly assess what shrinkage could be taken with USAGM.

Lake continued by stating that voters elected Trump in November, reiterating her belief that judges are seeking to “subvert the will of the people.” However, she suggested that these cases will move up the chain to the Supreme Court, suspecting that some judges could be “compromised.”

“My concern, and I believe the concern of the American people, is the delay and the time that is ticking away, keeping President Trump, keeping people like me that he’s brought in and hired to do our job, and it’s very concerning that judges are behaving this way,” Lake stated. “I would rather follow the Constitution than a judge who’s got an agenda.”

Lake also weighed in on the FBI arresting Wisconsin-based Judge Hannah Dugan on Friday on obstruction charges, with her arrest made after she allegedly misdirected U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in mid-April to help an illegal immigrant evade arrest. The USAGM adviser suggested that people “end up in handcuffs” if they break the law, and that “it appears” Dugan broke the law, noting that the law is applied equally regardless of whether a person is a judge or a “regular, everyday person.”

Another roadblock the Trump administration is facing is three judges ruling against the Education Department’s effort to defund public schools with diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. The administration has made multiple steps to roll back DEI programs within the country, and is expected to appeal the rulings.>

Loser Lake's concern for the law is touching.

<U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders led congressional progressives on Friday in condemning the Trump administration's arrest of a county judge in Wisconsin for allegedly helping an undocumented man evade capture by federal immigration agents.

FBI agents arrested 65-year-old Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan, who faces felony charges of obstruction and concealing an individual, whom she is accused of giving refuge in her chambers as federal officers sought to arrest him.

In a statement accusing President Donald Trump of "illegally usurping congressional powers," Sanders (I-Vt.) said: "Let's be clear. Trump's arrest of Judge Dugan in Milwaukee has nothing to do with immigration. It has everything to do with his moving this country toward authoritarianism."

"Trump continues to demonstrate that he does not believe in the Constitution, the separation of powers, or the rule of law."

"He is suing media that he dislikes. He is attacking universities whose policies he disagrees with. He is intimidating major law firms who have opposed him," Sanders continued. "He is ignoring a 9-0 Supreme Court decision to bring Kilmar Abrego García back from El Salvador, where he was illegally sent. He is threatening to impeach judges who rule against him."

"Trump's latest attack on the judiciary and Judge Dugan is about one thing—unchecked power," the senator asserted. "He will attack and undermine any institution that stands in his way. Trump continues to demonstrate that he does not believe in the Constitution, the separation of powers, or the rule of law. He simply wants more and more power for himself."

"It is time for my colleagues in the Republican Party who believe in the Constitution to stand up to his growing authoritarianism," Sanders added.

Other progressive lawmakers also condemned Dugan's arrest, with Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) calling this "a red alert moment" that we "all must rise against."

Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) said on the social media site X: "Judge Dugan's arrest is outrageous and a fear tactic to our independent judiciary. Trump has always thought he was above the law, but now he's enabling his goons to push that limit as far as it can go. His reckless deportations and flaunting of the Constitution will fail."

Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) said on social media that "arresting judges is the kind of crackdown you see in a police state."

"This is how dictators take power," Lee warned. "They manufacture crises, undermine our institutions, and erode our checks and balances. If they'll come for one, they'll come for all."

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) said that "Trump's playbook is simple: punish anyone who stands in his way."

"This ain't law and order—it's a rise of authoritarianism in real time," she added.

Accusing the Trump administration of a "shocking" willingness to "weaponize federal law enforcement," Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) contended that the FBI "coming into a community and arresting a judge is a serious matter" that would require a "high legal bar."

Moore added, "I am very alarmed at this increasingly lawless action of the Trump administration," including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which has "been defying courts and acting with disregard for the Constitution."

Advocacy groups including Voces de la Frontera, Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (MAARPR), and Milwaukee Turners led a Friday afternoon protest against Dugan's arrest outside the Milwaukee County Courthouse.

"To refer to this heinous attack as alarming would be an understatement," MAARPR said in a statement accusing FBI Director Kash Patel of "intentionally being public with his announcement and accusations" and "seeking to bypass Dugan's due process and label her as a criminal before she even has an opportunity to speak up."

"It's no coincidence that Patel and the FBI have acted this way when the agency has a long history of bypassing any due process," the group said. "They are seeking to send a clear message: Either you play along with Trump's agenda, or pay the consequences."

MAARPR continued:

During this period of racist and political repression, we must stand together to denounce today's actions by the FBI. What happened to Dugan is not new. The FBI and other agencies have been emboldened in recent months, snatching people off the streets, separating families, terrorizing communities, breaking doors down of pro-Palestine activists, and contributing to the unjust deportation of immigrants who don't have criminal records. What is new is that they have gone after a judge.

<What if I were to tell you that not long ago — maybe 30 or 40 years in the past — there was a political party in America ideologically devoted to protecting the rule of law, restricting the power of the executive branch and limiting the intrusion of the federal government into the free market. This same party was supportive of free trade, immigration, a strong national defense and muscular internationalism.

Could you figure out which party I was describing?

Those too young to have come of age in the era of Ronald Reagan will likely be surprised to discover that I’m talking about the Republican Party.

The makeover — of the modern Republican Party into the “cult devoted To Donald Trump” is not a new story. But, in the context of the president’s current trade war, the evolution of the Republican Party (some might say devolution) from an ideologically conservative party to one defined, from a policy perspective, largely by economic and social populism is one of the most extraordinary party transformations in modern political history.

True story: Two generations ago, the Republican Party was the party of free trade, and the Democrats were the party of protectionism. The latter is still evident in the reluctance of some Democratic politicians to criticize Trump’s imposition of tariffs. Republicans voiced a clear preference for stability, predictability, and tradition, along with an aversion to radicalism. The DOGE philosophy of “move fast and break things” might have caused William F. Buckley to roll over in his grave.

The GOP’s actual practice of conservatism has always been, to put it mildly, inconsistent. Self-described conservative Republican presidents never actually shrank the size of government, often intervened in the economy, generally expanded the powers of the president, and frequently infringed on political and personal freedom. But the gap between conservative rhetoric and the reality of Trump’s second term has reached Grand Canyon-like proportions.

Over the past month, Trump, the GOP standard bearer for three straight elections, has arguably meddled more aggressively in the U.S. economy than any president of any party in American history. In the process, he’s fostered the kind of economic and political uncertainty that Republicans used to rail against.

This week, when asked by Time Magazine about the status of trade talks with China, Trump said, “I am this giant store. It’s a giant, beautiful store, and everybody wants to go shopping there. And on behalf of the American people, I own the store, and I set prices, and I’ll say, if you want to shop here, this is what you have to pay.”

It’s hard to imagine a statement more anathema to Republicans’ oft-stated belief in the efficacy of the free market. A party that long railed against the government picking economic winners and losers is supporting a president who is doing precisely that....>

<...Indeed, the haphazard nature of Trump’s trade war is allowing well-connected companies to successfully lobby the government to ensure their products are exempted from tariffs. First, it was Apple and semiconductor companies who coaxed an exemption for their goods out of Trump. Next, after companies like Walmart and Target warned of empty shelves at their stores, Trump said the current 145% tariffs on Chinese goods will soon “come down substantially.”

Then there are the less well-known companies, such as manufacturers of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) resin, which is used to make plastic bottles. They received a tariff exemption for reasons that are unclear. However, ProPublica reports that the exemption “is a win for Reyes Holdings, a Coca-Cola bottler that ranks among the largest privately held companies in the U.S. and is owned by a pair of brothers who have donated millions of dollars to Republican causes. Records show the company recently hired a lobbying firm with close ties to the Trump White House to make its case on tariffs” (Neither Reyes Holdings, its lobbyists nor the White House responded to ProPublica’s questions).

The seeking of exemptions is so ripe for corruption that even the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial page called the process “the Beltway Swamp’s dream.”

“Welcome to the new tariff economy,” says the paper’s editorial board, “where you still pay onerous taxes, endure punishing regulation, and now must also navigate the political minefield of arbitrary tariffs.”

It’s no surprise that the Journal’s editorial writers would advocate for free-market economic policies. They’ve been doing that for years. What’s different now is that the rhetorical fealty to conservative ideology that once defined the Republican Party no longer exists. The Journal once stood at the forefront of the GOP’s governing philosophy — in 2025, it’s been left in the dust.

Dictating to private universities what they can teach, denying due process, thumbing its nose at court orders, and the rule of law — all of these Trump “policies” should be anathema to conservatives. The party that once described America as a “shining city on a hill” and trumpeted America’s global leadership role has now become a virtual handmaiden of Vladimir Putin and a party of belligerent isolationists. Trump’s GOP bears more similarities to the Republican Party of the 1920s and 30s, rather than the Republican Party of the past 70 years.

The irony of all this is that much of what Trump is doing in office is what Republicans said would result from overbearing, big government and an executive branch unchecked by norms and laws — or, in simpler terms, from electing Democrats. In its fealty to Trump — the Republican Party has become the governing monster that it once warned Americans about. Republicans still define themselves as conservatives, but they have discarded any notion of actual conservatism. The GOP is the party of Trump — and defined not by ideology, but rather clownish cultism.>

<Shari Redstone wanted to know what 60 Minutes was going to say next about President Donald Trump.

The CBS newsmagazine aired two segments involving Trump on April 13 that angered the president, one on his plans to take over Greenland and another an interview with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that discussed US policy in the region. Trump immediately lashed out on social media, saying 60 Minutes should “pay a big price” for its frequent reporting on him, which he called “fraudulent.”

Following Trump’s post, Redstone, who is the chair of CBS’ parent company Paramount Global, had a conversation with CBS Chief Executive Officer George Cheeks to discuss 60 Minutes’ upcoming slate of stories about the president. Redstone indicated which ones she thought were fair and those that could be problematic, according to CBS employees Bloomberg spoke with.

60 Minutes didn’t change its plans based on her feedback, the employees said. The network aired a segment Sunday about Trump’s cuts to the National Institutes of Health. Still, Executive Producer Bill Owens announced to his staff last week that he’s leaving, citing corporate interference at the most-watched TV news program in the US.

The 37-year CBS News veteran said in a memo to staff that it had become clear he “would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it. To make independent decisions based on what was right for 60 Minutes, right for the audience.”

Also on Sunday night, correspondent Scott Pelley closed out the show with an explanation for Owens’ departure. “Paramount began to supervise our content in new ways,” Pelley told viewers. “None of our stories has been blocked, but Bill felt he had lost the independence that honest journalism requires. No one here is happy about it.”

Owens’ exit is the culmination of months of conflict between Redstone and CBS’ news division, during which the billionaire publicly criticized its decision-making and privately pushed for leadership changes, according to interviews with almost a dozen current and former Paramount employees, most of whom asked to not be identified discussing internal company business. Redstone, Owens and Cheeks all declined to comment. Semafor reported earlier some details about Redstone’s request to hear about upcoming stories.

Redstone’s frustrations with the news division began with its coverage of Israel, a subject dear to her heart, and mounted as its reporting on the president jeopardized an $8 billion deal.

Trump sued CBS last year over the way it edited an interview 60 Minutes conducted with Kamala Harris, a complaint the network has said is without merit. Paramount is also waiting for the Federal Communications Commission to approve its merger with Skydance Media, a deal that includes a $2.4 billion payment for the Redstone family’s holding company. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, who was appointed to that position by Trump, has been a staunch ally of the president.

Though the FCC review is officially unrelated to Trump’s complaint, many at the company believe approval is contingent upon a settlement, current and former executives said.

While the merger hangs in limbo, Redstone’s final months as a media mogul are engulfed in controversy, as the Boston-bred lawyer is caught between a defiant news division and a president who has sought to punish media companies he sees as disagreeing with him. Many journalists at CBS say they are worried that their corporate overlords are impinging upon their independence to get the deal approved.

“Bill’s departure is a real gut punch,” said Rome Hartman, a producer on 60 Minutes. “We all hope that the sacrifice that he’s making will convince the corporate bosses that the kind of oversight and meddling that they were trying to get Bill to accept is unacceptable.”

CBS News has long been a crown jewel for its owners, a legendary news division that’s been home to Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow. While CBS trails NBC and ABC in the morning and evening audience ratings, 60 Minutes is the steward of that legacy. The show’s mix of awarding-winning journalism and celebrity interviews has delivered 8.4 million viewers a night during the 2024-2025 TV season, making it the third most-watched non-sports broadcast on TV. Bloomberg News competes with CBS in Washington and on business coverage.

Owning a news division can also be a headache. News operations can anger politicians and rack up legal bills. Redstone’s concerns first started to mount after a segment on CBS’s morning show last year....>

<....On Sept. 30, CBS This Morning aired an interview with author Ta-Nehisi Coates about his new book, The Message, in which he expressed sympathy for Palestinians. Host Tony Dokoupil challenged Coates, saying the book sounded like it was written by an extremist. In response to many upset staffers, CBS News executives said the interview didn’t meet its editorial standards and reprimanded Dokoupil.

Redstone disagreed with the decision. “They made a mistake here,” she said during an Oct. 9 appearance at a media industry conference in New York. “I think we all agree that this was not handled correctly.”

Redstone, who is Jewish, has been heavily involved in causes related to Israel. She has devoted an increasing amount of her time to combating anti-Semitism since Hamas attacked Israel in October 2023, and has even told friends it’s one of the reasons she was ready to give up her family’s media empire, according to people close to her.

Her frustration with CBS News increased in January when 60 Minutes ran a piece about State Department officials who resigned over the US government’s support for Israel in the Gaza war. Redstone expressed her displeasure to Cheeks, and began suggesting the company make changes at 60 Minutes.

The day after that piece aired, CBS announced that Susan Zirinsky, the former head of the news division, would return to oversee standards. In a memo to staff, Cheeks said her mission was to ensure “balanced, accurate, fair and timely reporting, including highly complex, sensitive issues like the war in the Middle East,” Variety reported.

The appointment irked Owens, according to people who work for the company. 60 Minutes has long operated with a degree of independence that is rare in journalism. Though technically part of CBS News, the show sees itself as a separate entity. The producers often ignore requests and dictates from their corporate overlords, creating tension between the show and the rest of the division. Zirinsky added a level of scrutiny that hadn’t existed before.

She and Owens also had a history, having both worked at CBS News for decades. Zirinsky had been a top contender for the job of leading 60 Minutes, ultimately losing out to Owens. Zirinsky didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Zirinsky’s appointment, which Redstone supported, was in the works before the State Department piece ran, the people said. It allowed Redstone to deflect any questions about her intervention in newsgathering. Redstone officially kept her distance from the news division, channeling any frustration through Cheeks, who is expected to have a role at the new company. Cheeks and Owens, once friendly, all but stopped speaking to one another.

60 Minutes kept reporting on Trump, examining changes at the Justice Department and the dismantling of the US Agency for International Development. Most of them were narrated by Pelley, a longtime Owens collaborator and ally.

Despite Trump’s lawsuit against CBS, Redstone and executives at Skydance still assumed their deal would close by the end of March or early April, the people said. There were no antitrust concerns and the new entity would be controlled by Larry Ellison, a major Trump supporter, and his son David.

Throughout the end of 2024 and start of 2025, executives at Skydance met with all the top leaders at Paramount to introduce themselves and hear their perspective. Skydance executives have sketched out the leadership team of the new company, but made no official announcements or decisions while the deal is pending.

Former NBC leader Jeff Shell, who is expected to be the president of the combined company, met once with Owens, who came away heartened that Skydance was supportive of 60 Minutes.

Yet as weeks ticked by, the Paramount-Skydance deal seemed no closer to approval. It became clear to leaders at both companies that the FCC wouldn’t bless the deal until CBS had settled its suit with Trump. The FCC called upon CBS to release the full transcript of its interview with Harris, which Trump argued had been edited deceptively to help her win the election.

Owens initially refused, not wanting to kowtow to the president. Other media companies, such as Walt Disney Co. and Meta Platforms Inc., had paid Trump millions of dollars to settle lawsuits, and yet Trump still criticized both companies.

“It was edited not to make her look good or make her look bad,” said Hartman, the 60 Minutes producer. “It was edited for brevity and clarity because we couldn’t run the raw interview. We didn’t have time.”....>

<....Executives at both Paramount and Skydance believed CBS should release the transcript of the Harris interview to prove they had nothing to hide. While many felt that 60 Minutes didn’t commit any mistakes grave enough to merit a lawsuit, some inside the company thought the piece shouldn’t have been edited the way it had been, according to several current employees.

Owens released the transcript in February, but that did little to calm Trump or the FCC. As Owens began to weigh the situation, his future at CBS looked uncertain. Ellison was going to make changes in the news division, assuming the deal goes through. And if the Trump fight tanked the deal, Redstone would blame 60 Minutes, some of the people said.

Owens gathered his staff in a conference room last week to inform them of his departure. CBS News chief Wendy McMahon spoke, as did correspondents Lesley Stahl and Pelley, with the latter brought to tears. Anderson Cooper, a 60 Minutes contributor, appeared on Zoom from Rome, where he was reporting for CNN. Multiple attendees described the meeting as emotional.

Owens didn’t officially resign in protest. He and Paramount mutually agreed to part ways – a settlement that will pay him out for the rest of his contract. He hasn’t spoken to the press, though the audio of his meeting was leaked – as was his parting memo. Owens is still roving the hallways, although sitting out on screenings of upcoming segments.

Executives at Paramount and CBS are aiming to settle the suit with Trump as soon as possible. Both sides have agreed to mediation. News staffers and media watchdogs are keeping a close eye out for the terms, which may include contributing money to a Trump library and apologizing for the Harris edits, some of the people said.

The Center for American Rights, a nonprofit, public-interest law firm, has filed a complaint with the FCC alleging news distortion at CBS. The group recommends that the commission condition the Skydance merger approval on the addition of an independent ombudsman to field consumer complaints of bias.

All of those concessions are possible if Redstone wants to get the merger approved, the people said.>

< The funeral for Pope Francis was intended to be a stripped-down affair to honor the simplicity of the man. Instead, the attendance of President Donald Trump has turned it into a high-profile stage for international diplomacy at a moment of geopolitical turmoil.

With the world in the throes of a trade war, markets gyrating wildly and a truce between Ukraine and Russia hanging in the balance, everyone from Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who landed in Rome early Saturday, to Britain’s Keir Starmer and France’s Emmanuel Macron is seeking a quick audience with the mercurial American leader on his first trip abroad since the inauguration.

The brief sojourn, with its blend of religious ceremony and political deal-making, recalls the setting for the reopening of Notre Dame cathedral back in December. Trump’s appearance at that gathering was a reason for many to rush to Paris for some fly-by negotiating. In Rome, Trump joins 50 heads of state who, along with paying their respects to Francis, are hoping to cross paths with the president in St. Peter’s Basilica or on the sidelines.

Trump, who landed in Rome late Friday, told reporters on the flight over that he was interested in seeing other leaders though he declined to offer any details. His window on the ground to discuss any business is narrow.

“I’m going to be meeting with some people in Rome, yes…And a little bit quickly, and frankly it’s a little disrespectful to have meetings when you’re at the funeral of a pope, they say,” Trump said. “But I’ll be talking to people, I’ll be seeing a lot of people.”

For Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, it’s an opportunity to firmly establish herself as one of main conduits to Trump, perhaps by orchestrating a brief three-way chat on trade with Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president who Trump hasn’t yet spoken to since coming to power.

Meloni visited him just over a week ago in Washington — where he heaped praise on her — and days later hosted Vice President JD Vance, a fellow Catholic and recent convert, who met with Pope Francis at the Vatican the day before he died.

It’s not always clear what you get in return even when Trump likes you or if you flatter him — in the end almost no one was spared from being slapped with tariffs. In the case of Trump-friendly Javier Milei, it’s yielded some dividends for Argentina with the approval of an IMF loan, in spite of the red flags raised inside the lender of last resort.

One mourner at the funeral who might not be seeking out Trump is Joe Biden. A devout Catholic who met with Francis a number of times — including when Meloni made the unprecedented gesture of bringing the pope to the Group of Seven by the Adriatic Sea — the former president is often blamed by Trump for everything from wars to economic woes.

Trump told reporters that seeing Biden was “not high on my list.”

With so many in Rome, one conspicuous absence is Russia’s Vladimir Putin — who did evade tariff punishment and will host Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and China’s Xi Jinping in Moscow for the Victory Day Parade on May 9. Back in 2019, Trump was flattered to have been asked to attend what amounts to a flashy celebration of Russian military might on the anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II.

This time, the circumstances aren’t quite aligning. The US president is in a hurry to declare a diplomatic win by brokering the end of the war in Ukraine and in recent days has vented rare criticism of Russia with the 100-day milestone of his second presidency fast approaching.

Leftist Lula will be in Rome — carefully avoiding his libertarian arch foe Milei as he’s been doing now in various gatherings. It’s unlikely Xi will make a last-minute decision to attend. The two economic giants are talking past each other, with Trump insisting there are talks ongoing on trade while Beijing denies it. The tension has rattled investors.

A meeting on the Vatican sidelines would be of huge consequence — and also awkward. The Holy See doesn’t have formal relations with China even if it does with Taiwan. There has been some rapprochement with Beijing and Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te won’t be attending, though former Vice President Chen Chien-Jen will be there to represent the island.

One open question is if Trump will use the moment to offer any suggestion on who should next lead the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.

A conclave – a gathering of Cardinals to select the next pope – will meet in the coming weeks and the secretive process is famously hard to predict.....>

<....Father James Martin, editor at large at America Magazine, a Jesuit publication, said that it is normal for those gatherings to consider the global politics of the times as they make their choice.

“It’s natural for the college of cardinals to consider the signs of the times, that is what is going on in the world,” he said. “So broadly speaking they will be considering the geopolitical situation.”

The relationship between Trump and Francis was never easy, punctuated by clashes over issues like immigration and climate change that underlined the deep fissures between conservative and liberal Catholics in the US. Earlier this year, Francis criticized the Trump administration’s migration policies, which include forced deportations.

So far, Trump has not weighed in on who should be next. At the White House this week, he said of Francis: “He loved the world, and he especially loved people that were having a hard time — and that’s good with me.”

Michael Moreland, a professor of law and religion at Villanova University, is of the view that any attempt to influence the conclave with “any campaigning or lobbying from the outside would risk backfiring.”

Trump, who heavily wooed the religious right, won a majority of Catholic voters in the 2024 presidential election. He was supported by conservative Catholics and has a number of Catholics serving in his administration, including Vance.

Vance himself was asked about the direction he’d like the next pope to take the church but declined to answer: “I won’t pretend to give guidance to the cardinals on who they should select as the next pope. We’ve got plenty of issues to focus on in the United States.”

It remains to be seen if Trump will weigh in. Francis himself was known for going off script from time to time, and not without consequences. His defense of the Palestinian cause, criticism of Israel and his daily calls to a church in Gaza compelled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to order ambassadors to delete social media posts expressing their condolences.

The ceremony will start at 10 a.m. on Saturday, attracting some 250,000 people. And despite all the high-profile guests and the significance of the occasion, it was Francis’s firm desire to do away with all the pomp and grandeur that usually comes with the passing of a pope.

His final request, left in a will compiled in 2022, was simple: to be buried in naked soil in a single wooden coffin engraved with one Latin word: “Franciscus.”>

<agent orange>: once a whore, always a whore.

<A federal judge appeared poised to hand Big Law another win after he snapped Monday at a Justice Department lawyer attempting to justify President Donald Trump's executive order targeting one firm.

During Monday's court hearing, Richard Lawson, the Justice Department attorney, argued that Trump's order could not possibly be illegal because it required federal agencies to act "consistent with applicable law."

Lawson appeared to struggle through arguments, at times not giving direct responses to questions from the judge.

Lawson said Trump could target Jenner & Block, the Big Law firm, because the president said "Jenner discriminates against its employees based on race" — even though no court or government agency had come to that conclusion.

"Give me a break," US District Judge John Bates snapped, as Lawson said federal agencies should be allowed to follow the order because the firm engaged in "racial discrimination."

The oral arguments, in a Washington, DC, federal court, were part of Jenner & Block's lawsuit seeking to permanently block Trump's March 25 executive order targeting the firm. Bates previously ordered the federal government to pause the implementation of Trump's order.

Jenner & Block, represented by the elite law firm Cooley LLP, is one of four firms that sued the government seeking to stop Trump's executive orders. Nine other Big Law firms all made deals with Trump, collectively promising nearly $1 billion in pro bono work, to avert orders targeting them.

The law firms fighting the Trump administration, so far, are winning. Federal judges have swiftly issued temporary restraining orders preventing the executive orders from going into effect. And in court hearings for other cases, federal judges have been similarly impatient with Lawson's arguments, Business Insider reported Sunday.

During one hearing last week, for the law firm Perkins Coie's lawsuit seeking to stop an executive order, a judge referred to some of the Justice Department's positions as "hyper-technical legal arguments that may have no merit."

Bates, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, appeared impatient Monday as he questioned Lawson over the legal basis for Trump's order.

Trump, in the first section of the order, said he targeted Jenner & Block in part because the firm previously hired a lawyer who worked for former Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Mueller, among other reasons.

The order would strip Jenner & Block employees of security clearances, cancel any contracts with the firm and its clients, and ban all employees from government buildings and from meeting with government officials.

"Ordering guidance specific to Jenner & Block that limits access to federal buildings, access to federal employees, access to federal agencies — the rationales in Section One that warrant that are what? Are what?" Bates asked Lawson.

In court filings and in Monday's hearing, Lawson has argued that judges should give broad leeway to Trump's power to target people and companies through executive orders, especially for purported national security issues.

Lawyers for Jenner & Block say the order is effectively government retaliation for free speech, violating the First Amendment. They also say Trump's order would violate their clients' right to counsel, as well as Jenner & Block's obligation to advocate on behalf of their clients without government interference.

The law firm argues that the order would also effectively kick several Jenner & Block lawyers out of their military reserve service because that service depends on their having security clearances....>

<....Lawson said federal agencies would review security clearances on "an individual-by-individual basis" rather than issuing a blanket suspension of everyone at the firm to remain "consistent with applicable law."

Bates said he found that to be "a pretty strange reading" of the executive order.

"You think an agency official, given this executive order, is going to say, 'Well, I'm going to do a person-by-person analysis to decide whether I will suspend the security clearances of these seven Jenner people subject to my agency,'" the judge asked incredulously. "Is that what you think?"

Bates also reserved sharp questions for Jenner & Block's attorney, Michael Attanasio, during the hearing.

He asked whether it was necessary to strike down the entire executive order, or just the parts that directly harmed the law firm.

Attanasio asked the judge to issue a permanent injunction against the entire order, much like Trump withdrew the executive order he issued for Paul Weiss, which struck a deal with the president. The lawyer said Trump issued the order against Jenner & Block as "retribution."

"It was set up to be one form of punishment, and it should be taken down the same way, just as the President did for Paul Weiss," Attanasio said. "The difference being this time it gets taken down not on bended knee, but because this court enforces the constitution."

Bates said a written opinion in the case was "forthcoming.">