Question: I’m looking for examples of medical schools which may just have received a letter from the Justice Department demanding detailed records of the school’s admissions going back five years. If you have information: Signal joshtpm.99 or joshtpm at protonmail dot com. All comms confidential.
The Sciences Training Pipeline Massively Impacted
This isn’t terribly surprising, given the broader budgetary situation at American universities, particularly in the sciences and biomedical research specifically. I’ve heard from faculty and graduate students at a number of schools around the country. Many programs are dramatically reducing the number of offers being made for PhD programs. One prestigious school of medicine cut the number of PhD students it’s admitting for next year by 50%. At another program, PhD students are being graduated on an expedited basis, sooner and with less work produced than would normally be allowed. The logic is simple. The program doesn’t think they’re going to have the money to allow these students to finish. I’ve heard multiple examples of offers being turned down to attend programs in other countries. Meanwhile and unsurprisingly, foreign students are turning down offers to study in the United States.
Continue reading “The Sciences Training Pipeline Massively Impacted”Does Trump Want Out of the Harvard Fight?
Let’s review some recent events.
The White House (yes, technically the GSA guy and the two lawyers) sent that letter to Harvard, demanding de facto control of the university’s hiring, admissions and various elements of its curriculum. Harvard replied with a flat rejection ten days ago. The White House immediately responded by freezing $2.3 billion in grants to Harvard. That was on April 14th. Then, four days later (April 18th), there was that weird article in the Times in which we learned that the White House said that the original demand letter had been sent by mistake. The White House wasn’t disowning the contents of the letter, or not exactly? They made what might best be described as a kind of low-energy and churlish demand or beg for Harvard to continue negotiating. It’s been reported that the White House made as many as three informal contacts to restart negotiations. Then, three days (April 21st) after that, Harvard sued. I noted yesterday that a majority of the University of Michigan Regents published an op-ed backing Harvard’s stand and denouncing the White House’s coercion tactics. The American Association of Colleges and Universities published an open letter doing the same which was signed by more than 150 university presidents.
Continue reading “Does Trump Want Out of the Harvard Fight?”Trump Takes Aim Directly At Democratic Party’s Infrastructure
It’s been expected for some time that President Trump would eventually roll out a strategy ahead of the 2026 Midterms that involved at least a bit of ratfuckery, and, potentially, Big Lie version 3.0, taking aim at Democrats running for office and election administration generally. His recently released presidential memorandum going after ActBlue — the fundraising machine that powers the vast majority of the Democratic Party ecosystem, and is used by candidates running for offices at every level across the nation — could well end up being the beginning of his scheme’s grand unveiling.
Continue reading “Trump Takes Aim Directly At Democratic Party’s Infrastructure”Judge Rejects Trump’s Vision Of An All-Powerful Presidency In Blocking Chunks Of His Election Order
A federal judge temporarily blocked parts of President Trump’s executive order demanding that proof of citizenship be added to some federal voting forms Thursday.
In her lengthy ruling, U.S. district judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly dismissed the administration’s argument that the power of the presidency entitles him to tinker with voting requirements.
“The President has no constitutional power over election regulation that would support this unilateral exercise of authority,” Kollar-Kotelly wrote. “The Constitution vests that power in the States and Congress alone.”
She blocked the two sections of the order numerous voting groups had challenged: one requiring that the Election Assistance Commission, an independent executive branch agency, add the proof of citizenship requirement to the federal voter registration form, and one requiring the various agencies that dispense public assistance to assess each individual’s citizenship before giving them voting forms.
A coterie of national Democratic organizations also challenged other parts of the order that Kollar-Kotelly did not enjoin, including the order that the EAC cut off federal funds for states that accept ballots sent before but delivered after Election Day, and the mandate that the attorney general enforce the executive order.
On the former, she wrote that states were the more natural plaintiffs in that claim (many of which have challenged the order in a parallel, separate case). On the latter, she questioned the feasibility of the attorney general taking action under the Election Day statutes, and reasoned that she could comply with the order and the law with lower-level enforcement, like sending states letters urging compliance.
In Kollar-Kotelly’s order, she bolstered the independence of the EAC, writing that “the President lacks the authority to direct the outcome of the rulemaking process that Congress has assigned to the EAC.”
She also dinged the administration for making misrepresentations to court. In a revelation shortly before a hearing earlier this month, the voting group plaintiffs produced proof that the head of the EAC was already reaching out to state election officials for guidance about how to put the citizenship requirement into effect — despite claiming to the Court that implementation of the order had not yet begun.
The order is part of a bundle of actions Trump and Republicans in Congress have taken that, if successful, could suppress voting in the 2026 elections. House Republicans have also passed voter restrictions in the SAVE Act (Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has vowed that the bill, which would need Democratic votes to overcome a filibuster, will not pass in the upper chamber). And Trump has signed a different executive order targeting the Federal Election Commission, which is also being litigated.
Read the ruling here:
Trump Asks ‘How High?’ After Xi Tells Him to Jump
This morning, the White House announced that trade talks with China continue, albeit at a staff level. This came after a flurry of reports that Trump is planning to unilaterally ramp back the embargo-level tariffs he imposed on China earlier this month, advance notice that cheered Wall Street. Then Chinese officials said that the White House is wrong. There actually are no talks. And Trump must take the first step, unilaterally undoing the tariffs he had already imposed.
He appears set to do just that.
This comes just three days after the CEOs of Walmart, Target and Home Depot met with Trump at the White House and reportedly told him that his tariffs would result in empty shelves and product shortages in as little as two weeks.
All of this is, to put it mildly, a humiliating climb down for the President. He upended the global economy and seems to have massively damaged the perception of American assets as a safe haven during times of economic uncertainty. The goal was to go toe-to-toe with China and see China blink. But it’s the U.S. that’s blinking. And that’s after the earlier reciprocal tariffs blink that already happened.
Continue reading “Trump Asks ‘How High?’ After Xi Tells Him to Jump”Listen To This: JD Kills The Pope
A new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is live! This week, Kate and Josh discuss Pete Hegseth and Signal-gate part two, the Supreme Court’s extraordinary Alien Enemies Act order and the passing of Pope Francis.
Continue reading “Listen To This: JD Kills The Pope”Judge Pauses Abrego Garcia Case After Parties Reach Secret Agreement
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
Constitutional Clash Is On Hold
Apparently the Trump administration is finally doing enough to facilitate the release of the mistakenly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia to satisfy his lawyers – at least for now. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis of Maryland on Wednesday night ordered the case paused for a week at the agreement of the parties. Her order came after dueling filings earlier in the day, with the government asking for the pause and Abrego Garcia’s lawyers initially opposing it. Both filings were under seal so it’s not clear precisely what was initially in dispute, what has been agreed to, or what the government revealed that convinced the judge the delay was not just more gamesmanship from the Trump DOJ.
As Morning Memo described in some detail yesterday, the Trump administration’s request for a pause would be a plausible move in a normal world where it was acting in good faith to secure Abrego Garcia’s release and didn’t want the details of its efforts to become public yet in court filings. But the Trump administration has consistently acted in bad faith throughout these proceedings, and a request for delay was consistent with its numerous other efforts to stonewall in the case.
We’re left to speculate about what exactly is happening, but it’s fair to say that neither the trial judge nor Abrego Garcia’s attorneys would have been likely to accede to a delay without concrete and verifiable representations and assurances from the Trump administration.
To this point, the administration has played fast and loose in the case. Despite court orders to the contrary, it has gone so far as to take the position in court that if Abrego Garcia somehow got himself released from detention in El Salvador and showed up at the U.S. border or at a U.S. embassy, he would be taken into custody and either removed to a third country or returned to El Salvador.
In parallel with defying court orders, including from the Supreme Court, the administration has launched a full-scale propaganda campaign against Abrego Garcia that has included the participation of the President, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and top White House officials. In one episode, the Department of Homeland Security – apparently seeking to impugn Abrego Garcia – posted on social media an application for a domestic violence restraining order that his wife had once sought. The court filing included their home address, forcing his wife to move to safe house.
For the time being, the constitutional clash that was playing out in this case is in abeyance. But the administration is still playing fast and loose elsewhere, as the next item shows …
Trump Administration Does The Ol’ Switcheroo!
In a case out of Massachusetts that has flown mostly below the radar, the Trump administration revealed last night that it sidestepped a court order barring removals of migrants to third countries without notice and an opportunity for review – by purporting to transfer custody of detainees from DHS to DOD and letting the Pentagon transport them to El Salvador. The government is taking the extremely dubious legal position that because DOD wasn’t party to the case it was not subject to the court order. Ryan Goodman has the details on this latest defiance of court orders.
In Related News …
- Citing the Abrego Garcia case, U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher of Maryland has ordered the return of a Venezuelan man deported to El Salvador on one of the notorious March 15 flights in violation of a 2024 settlement agreement.
- Marisa Kabas: Rwanda, which agreed to receive U.S. deportations of third-country nationals, has apparently received its first detainee, an Iraqi national.
- Judd Legum: U.S. citizen wrongly detained by Border Patrol says government account is false
Federal Judges Poised To Rule On Trump’s Law Firm EOs
The Trump administration was forced to defend two of President Trump’s executive orders targeting major law firms in back-to-back hearings Wednesday in front of federal judges in D.C. It did not go well for the White House.
The Perkins Coie case was a particular “bloodbath” for the White House. In batting around a hapless DOJ attorney, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell seemed convinced that the executive order targeting the firm was unconstitutional, though she hasn’t ruled yet.
In the WilmerHale case, U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon said he would rule in the coming weeks.
Trump’s Attack On Higher Ed: College Accreditors
- President Trump signed a new executive order targeting university accreditors.
- As part of an apparent Trump-driven investigation under the guise of fighting anti-semitism, the EEOC sent a text to Barnard College employees asking if they are Jewish.
Ed Martin Watch
- Stat News: The New England Journal of Medicine is the second scientific journal known to have received one of acting D.C. U.S. Attorney Ed Martin’s threatening missives.
- TPM’s Khaya Himmelman: Trump’s DOJ Is Taking Cues From MAGA Influencers And Conspiracy Theorists
- ProPublica: The Untold Story of How Ed Martin Ghostwrote Online Attacks Against a Judge — and Still Became a Top Trump Prosecutor
‘Bloodbath’ In DOJ’s Civil Rights Division
New reporting from Reuters, NBC News, and others in recent days show how far off the rails the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division has already gone under Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for civil rights.
Will SCOTUS Spare The Fed From The Ravages Of Trump?
Todd Phillips: “There is simply no principled way for the Supreme Court to retain the Fed’s removal protections while overturning Humphrey’s Executor.“
Drip, Drip, Drip
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the installation of Signal on a desktop computer in his Pentagon office, the WaPo reports.
The Corruption: $TRUMP Edition
President Trump is offering top buyers of his memecoin a private dinner with him at his Virginia club and a tour of the White House.
The Courage To Be Decent
Radley Balko: “The Trump administration wants to make us too afraid to look out for one another. Don’t let them.”
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Another Dem Sends Warning To Bukele
Illinois’ Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker has asked officials in his state to take steps to implement a boycott against El Salvador in response to President Nayib Bukele’s cooperation with the Trump administration in denying a Maryland resident, deported and detained in one of his infamously hellish detention camps, his due process rights.
Continue reading “Another Dem Sends Warning To Bukele”Trump Stumbles—A Bit—in the Unis Wrestlin’ Match High-Stakes Drama
I wanted to point your attention to this recent article from the Times on the battle between Trump and Harvard University. It captures the Times’ feature quality. It contains good factual detail, but it radiates what I can only describe as a Chernobyl-level condescension and contempt, not so much for anything “liberal” but anything not conservative, or not in line with what it terms the “rightward shift of the country” — anything that can be construed as a posture of opposition to Donald Trump. The Harvard board is portrayed as reflexively and out-of-touchedly liberal, repeatedly shocked in a weak-kneed sort of way and yet also, paradoxically, headstrong in its inability to resist outmoded Trump I-era “resistance” thinking. In a few words, weak, out-of-touch and contemptible.
Continue reading “Trump Stumbles—A Bit—in the Unis Wrestlin’ Match High-Stakes Drama”