The Big Questions Around a Damaging Trump Administration Concession in Court

Russ Vought’s Power Play Sows Legal Chaos for Administration

Last month, the New York Times reported that the administration confessed, in federal court, to having blocked grants in October 2025 for clean energy projects in blue states simply because they voted against president Trump.

TPM discovered that the administration has in fact conceded this point in court multiple times.

Our story, by Emine Yücel and Josh Kovensky, does a few things. First, it notes that a negotiations tactic deployed by Office of Management and Budget director Russ Vought during the government shutdown last year — declaring that he was withholding grant funding to blue states in an effort to exert leverage over Democrats in Congress — has backfired, with the administration’s lawyers forced to make damaging admissions before judges and, in two cases, ultimately losing their case and being ordered to restore the grants.

Second, we know that the Trump administration regularly withholds funds to blue states, sometimes mustering an excuse about why it’s doing so — vague claims of “fraud,” perhaps. But while talk is cheap, our story shows that in court, DOJ lawyers were not able to muster a fig leaf for these October 2025 grant denials. They were, simply, political.

Third, our story shows that these concessions were made as part of an effort by administration lawyers to avoid discovery, which raises the question of why the administration was willing to go to these lengths to avoid discovery. What emails were sent, and what discussions were had, within the White House as these grants were withheld that lawyers hoped to keep out of the record?

There are big elements of this story still to come.

• First, the Trump administration has proposed a new rule to make it so that political appointees have final review over grants, and that grants can be more easily terminated, making standard the kind of control the administration has exercised over federal funding since the days of DOGE — and continuing through the example of the October 2025 grants that formed the core of Emine and Josh’s story. This assault on the separation of powers and federalism has led to urgent warnings, particularly from the scientific community, where researchers say it could decimate the U.S.’s advantage.
• As Emine wrote earlier this week, the Senate has for now proposed a temporary halt to this rule, which Sen. Susan Collins, chair of the appropriations committee and in a tight reelection fight in Maine, is touting as her work. Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the committee, said Republicans would not support a more fulsome ban on the rule. A fight over this legislation, which is part of a Senate effort to fund the government through December, will ensue when members return in September.
• We may also get some insight into what the administration was hiding as it sought to avoid discovery. This could come from the continuing, ongoing lawsuits in this space, from other litigation, from congressional oversight by a future Democrat-controlled legislature, or another avenue.
• In the meantime, there is a nascent effort in the House to impeach Vought over his October 2025 decision to withhold these grants.

Trump Comes for Birthright Citizenship Again

Trump is taking another run at restricting birthright citizenship through executive order.

• He signed EOs Thursday specifically targeting the children of parents deemed to be an “alien enemy” — a concept that has become a favorite of this administration — and purporting to end “birth tourism.”
• Targeting alien enemies plays on an idea that the administration has sought to get great mileage out of: that immigrants within the U.S. are actually representatives of an invading army.
• This justification was core to early administration efforts to render Venezuelan men to a Salvadoran prison camp, and to its attempts to send the National Guard and the military into American cities. Both encountered skepticism at the Supreme Court.
• The “birth tourism” thing loomed large during Supreme Court oral arguments for Trump’s last executive order on birthright citizenship. Justice Samuel Alito in particular latched onto it. Despite the insistence of right-wing media that there is a booming industry of foreigners coming to the U.S. to have their kids, the Washington Post notes data showing that “in 2024, fewer than 10,000 babies were born in the U.S. to people with foreign addresses, out of 3.6 million total live births.”

Tabs

• Trump has ordered a leak probe into reports that munitions were running low amid the Iran War, the Wall Street Journal reports.
• Will Sommer has a fascinating look in the Bulwark at a group of right-wingers who feel burned by the Trump administration and who are mulling establishing a third party. They include Tucker Carlson, former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Rep. Thomas Massie, and former counterterrorism official Joe Kent. Carlson seems perhaps the most invested in the project, and recently gave a long speech describing the ideas such a party should push.

Man of the Hour

Anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, scandal-plagued and performative pro-Trump representative Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) lost his primary fight last night to former state agriculture commissioner Charlie Hatcher. Hatcher won roughly 53% of the vote.

Are We at War?

Yes. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), who gets it, accused Trump in a speech yesterday of “gaslighting” Americans on this topic. “The essential gaslight,” he said, “is that the war is about to end. Don’t worry. Yet it appears that there is no end.”