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MIAMI — President Trump’s zero-tolerance immigration policy split more than 5,000 children from their families at the Mexico border during his first term, when images of babies and toddlers taken from the arms of mothers sparked global condemnation.

Seven years later, families are being separated but in a much different way. With illegal border crossings at their lowest levels in seven decades, a push for mass deportations is dividing families of mixed legal status inside the U.S.

Federal officials and their local law enforcement partners are detaining tens of thousands of asylum-seekers and migrants. Detainees are moved repeatedly, then deported, or held in poor conditions for weeks or months before asking to go home.

The federal government was holding an average of more than 66,000 people in November, the highest on record.

During the first Trump administration, families were forcibly separated at the border and authorities struggled to find children in a vast shelter system because government computer systems weren’t linked. Now parents inside the United States are being arrested by immigration authorities and separated from their families during prolonged detention. Or, they choose to have their children remain in the U.S. after an adult is deported, many after years or decades here.

The Trump administration and its anti-immigration backers see “unprecedented success” and Trump’s top border adviser Tom Homan told reporters in April that “we’re going to keep doing it, full speed ahead.”

Three families separated by migration enforcement in recent months told The Associated Press that their dreams of better, freer lives had clashed with Washington’s new immigration policy and their existence is anguished without knowing if they will see their loved ones again.

For them, migration marked the possible start of permanent separation between parents and children, the source of deep pain and uncertainty.

A family divided between Florida and Venezuela

Antonio Laverde left Venezuela for the U.S. in 2022 and crossed the border illegally, then requested asylum.

He got a work permit and a driver’s license and worked as an Uber driver in Miami, sharing homes with other immigrants so he could send money to relatives in Venezuela and Florida.

Laverde’s wife Jakelin Pasedo and their sons followed him from Venezuela to Miami in December 2024. Pasedo focused on caring for her sons while her husband earned enough to support the family. Pasedo and the kids got refugee status but Laverde, 39, never obtained it and as he left for work one early June morning, he was arrested by federal agents.

Pasedo says it was a case of mistaken identity by agents hunting for a suspect in their shared housing. In the end, she and her children, then 3 and 5, remember the agents cuffing Laverde at gunpoint.

“They got sick with fever, crying for their father, asking for him,” Pasedo said.

Laverde was held at Broward Transitional Center, a detention facility in Pompano Beach, Fla. In September, after three months detention, he asked to return to Venezuela.

Pasedo, 39, however, has no plans to go back. She fears she could be arrested or kidnapped for criticizing the socialist government and belonging to the political opposition.

She works cleaning offices and, despite all the obstacles, hopes to reunify with her husband someday in the U.S.

They followed the law

Yaoska’s husband was a political activist in Nicaragua, a country tight in the grasp of autocratic married co-presidents Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.

She remembers her husband getting death threats and being beaten by police when he refused to participate in a pro-government march.

Yaoska only used her first name and requested anonymity for her husband to protect him from the Nicaraguan government.

The couple fled Nicaragua for the U.S. with their 10-year-old son in 2022, crossing the border and getting immigration parole. Settling down in Miami, they applied for asylum and had a second son, who has U.S. citizenship. Yaoska is now five months pregnant with their third child.

In late August, Yaoska, 32, went to an appointment at the South Florida office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Her family accompanied her. Her husband, 35, was detained and failed his credible fear interview, according to a court document.

Yaoska was released under 24-hour supervision by a GPS watch that she cannot remove. Her husband was deported to Nicaragua after three months at the Krome Detention Center, the United States’ oldest immigration detention facility and one with a long history of abuse.

Yaoska now shares family news with her husband by phone. The children are struggling without their father, she said.

“It’s so hard to see my children like this. They arrested him right in front of them,” Yaoska said, her voice trembling.

They don’t want to eat and are often sick. The youngest wakes up at night asking for him.

“I’m afraid in Nicaragua,” she said. “But I’m scared here too.”

Yaoska said her work authorization is valid until 2028 but the future is frightening and uncertain.

“I’ve applied to several job agencies, but nobody calls me back,” she said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to me.”

He was detained by local police, then deported

Edgar left Guatemala more than two decades ago. Working construction, he started a family in South Florida with Amavilia, a fellow undocumented Guatemalan migrant.

The arrival of their son brought them joy.

“He was so happy with the baby — he loved him,” said Amavilia, 31. “He told me he was going to see him grow up and walk.”

But within a few days, Edgar was detained on a 2016 warrant for driving without a license in Homestead, the small agricultural city where he lived in South Florida.

She and her husband declined to provide their last names because they are worried about repercussion from U.S. immigration officials.

Amavilia expected his release within 48 hours. Instead, Edgar, who declined to be interviewed, was turned over to immigration officials and moved to Krome.

“I fell into despair. I didn’t know what to do,” Amavilia said. “I can’t go.”

Edgar, 45, was deported to Guatemala on June 8.

After Edgar’s detention, Amavilia couldn’t pay the $950 rent for the two-bedroom apartment she shares with another immigrant. For the first three months, she received donations from immigration advocates.

Today, breastfeeding and caring for two children, she wakes up at 3 a.m. to cook lunches she sells for $10 each.

She walks with her son in a stroller to take her daughter to school, then spends afternoons selling homemade ice cream and chocolate-covered bananas door to door with her two children.

Amavilia crossed the border in September 2023 and did not seek asylum or any type of legal status. She said her daughter grows anxious around police. She urges her to stay calm, smile and walk with confidence.

“I’m afraid to go out, but I always go out entrusting myself to God,” she said. “Every time I return home, I feel happy and grateful.”

Salomon writes for the Associated Press.

United States President Donald Trump has said that the US has seized a sanctioned oil tanker close to the coast of Venezuela, in a move that has caused oil prices to spike and further escalates tensions with Caracas.

“We’ve just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela, large tanker, very large, largest one ever, actually, and other things are happening,” Trump said on Wednesday.

The Venezuelan government called the move an act of “international piracy”, and “blatant theft”.

This comes as the US expands its military operations in the region, where it has been carrying out air strikes on at least 21 suspected drug-trafficking vessels since September. The Trump administration has provided no evidence that these boats were carrying drugs, however.

Here is what we know about the seizure of the Venezuelan tanker:

What happened?

The US said it intercepted and seized a large oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, marking the first operation of its kind in years.

The last comparable US military seizure of a foreign tanker occurred in 2014, when US Navy SEALs boarded the Morning Glory off Cyprus as Libyan rebels attempted to sell stolen crude oil.

The Trump administration did not identify the vessel or disclose the precise location of the operation.

However, Bloomberg reported that officials had described the ship as a “stateless vessel” and said it had been docked in Venezuela.

Soon after announcing the latest operation on Wednesday, US Attorney General Pam Bondi released a video showing two helicopters approaching a vessel and armed personnel in camouflage rappelling onto its deck.

“Today, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations and the United States Coast Guard, with support from the Department of War, executed a seizure warrant for a crude oil tanker used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran,” Bondi said.

She added that “for multiple years, the oil tanker has been sanctioned by the United States due to its involvement in an illicit oil-shipping network supporting foreign terrorist organisations”.

Today, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations, and the United States Coast Guard, with support from the Department of War, executed a seizure warrant for a crude oil tanker used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran. For multiple… pic.twitter.com/dNr0oAGl5x

— Attorney General Pamela Bondi (@AGPamBondi) December 10, 2025

Experts said the method of boarding demonstrated in the video is standard practice for US forces.

“The Navy, Coast Guard and special forces all have special training for this kind of mission, called visit, board, search, and seizure – or VBSS,” Mark Cancian, a retired Marine Corps colonel and senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Al Jazeera.

“It is routine, especially for the Coast Guard. The government said it was a Coast Guard force doing the seizure, though the helicopter looks like a Navy SH-60S.”

Which vessel was seized?

According to a Reuters report, British maritime risk firm Vanguard identified the crude carrier Skipper as the vessel seized early Wednesday off Venezuela’s coast.

MarineTraffic lists the Skipper as a very large crude carrier measuring 333m (1,093 feet) in length and 60m (197 feet) in width.

The tanker was sanctioned in 2022 for allegedly helping to transport oil for the Lebanese armed group, Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, and Iran’s Quds Force.

The Skipper departed Venezuela’s main oil terminal at Jose between December 4 and 5 after loading about 1.8 million barrels of Merey crude, a heavy, high-sulphur blend produced in Venezuela.

“I assume we’re going to keep the oil,” President Trump said on Wednesday.

Before the seizure, the tanker had transferred roughly 200,000 barrels near Curacao to the Panama-flagged Neptune 6, which was headed for Cuba, according to satellite data analysed by TankerTrackers.com.

According to shipping data from Venezuela’s state-owned oil and gas company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), the vessel also transported Venezuelan crude to Asia in 2021 and 2022.

Where did the seizure take place?

The US said it seized the oil tanker in the Caribbean Sea.

US officials have said the action occurred near Venezuelan territorial waters, though they have not provided precise coordinates.

MarineTraffic data shows the vessel’s tracker still located in the Caribbean.

Is the US action legal?

Cancian noted that “seizing sanctioned items is common inside a country’s own territory. It is unusual in international waters”.

He added: “Russia has hundreds of sanctioned tankers sailing today, but they have not been boarded.”

Experts say it is unclear whether the seizure was legal, partly because many details about it have not been made public.

Still, the US could make use of various arguments to justify the seizure if needs be.

One is that the boat is regarded as stateless. Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), ships need “a nationality”.

The government of Guyana, Venezuela’s neighbour, said the Skipper was “falsely flying the Guyana flag”, adding that it is not registered in the country.

If a vessel flies a flag it is not registered under, or refuses to show any flag at all, states have the “right of visit”, allowing their officials to stop and inspect the ship on the high seas – essentially meaning international waters.

If doubts about a ship’s nationality remain after checking its documents, a more extensive search can follow.

In previous enforcement actions against sanctioned ships, the US has seized not the ship itself but the oil on board. In 2020, it confiscated fuel from four tankers allegedly carrying Iranian oil to Venezuela.

US law also allows the Coast Guard, which carried out this operation, to conduct searches and seizures on the high seas in order to enforce US laws, stating that it “may make inquiries, examinations, inspections, searches, seizures, and arrests upon the high seas” to prevent and suppress violations.

But some legal experts argue that the US has overstepped, as it “has no jurisdiction to enforce unilateral sanctions on non-US persons outside its territory”, according to Francisco Rodriguez, a senior research fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR).

Rodriguez said the US is relying on maritime rules for stateless vessels “as an entryway to justify enforcing US sanctions outside of US territory”.

“To the extent that the US is able to continue to do so, it could significantly increase the cost of doing business with Venezuela and precipitate a deepening of the country’s economic recession,” he warned in a CEPR article.

The US has no jurisdiction to enforce unilateral sanctions on non-US persons outside its territory. The seizure of ships in international waters to extraterritorially enforce US sanctions is a dangerous precedent and a violation of international law.

— Francisco Rodríguez (@frrodriguezc) December 10, 2025

How has Venezuela responded to the seizure?

Venezuela’s Foreign Ministry stated that “the true reasons for the prolonged aggression against Venezuela have finally been exposed”.

“It is not migration, it is not drug trafficking, it is not democracy, it is not human rights – it was always about our natural resources, our oil, our energy, the resources that belong exclusively to the Venezuelan people,” the statement said.

The ministry described the incident as an “act of piracy.”

The government added that it will appeal to “all” international bodies to denounce the incident and vowed to defend its sovereignty, natural resources, and national dignity with “absolute determination”.

“Venezuela will not allow any foreign power to attempt to take from the Venezuelan people what belongs to them by historical and constitutional right,” it said.

What are the potential consequences for Venezuela’s oil exports?

Experts say the seizure could produce short-term uncertainty for Venezuelan oil exports, largely because “this has been the first time [the United States has]… seized a shipment of Venezuelan oil”, Carlos Eduardo Pina, a Venezuelan political scientist, told Al Jazeera.

That may make shippers hesitate, though the broader impact is limited, Pina said, since “the US allows the Chevron company to continue extracting Venezuelan oil”, and US group Chevron holds a special waiver permitting it to produce and export crude despite wider sanctions.

Chevron, which operates joint ventures with PDVSA, said its operations in Venezuela remain normal and continue without disruption.

The US oil major, which is currently responsible for all Venezuelan crude exports to the US, increased shipments last month to 150,000 barrels per day (bopd), up from 128,000 bpd in October.

Inside Venezuela, Pina warned the move could spark financial panic, however: “It could instil fear, trigger a currency run… and worsen the humanitarian crisis.”

How will this affect US-Venezuela relations?

Diplomatically, Pina said he views the action as a political message to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, noting its timing – “the same day that [opposition leader] Maria Corina Machado was awarded the Nobel Prize” – and calling it “a gesture of strength… to remind that [the US is present in the Latin American region].”

Maduro has long argued that the Trump administration’s strikes on boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific are not, in fact, aimed at preventing drug running, but are part of a plan to effect regime change in Venezuela. Trump has authorised CIA operations in Venezuela and has given conflicting messages about whether he would consider a land invasion.

Analysts see this latest action as part of a broader strategy to pressure the Maduro government.

“This is certainly an escalation designed to put additional pressure on the Maduro regime, causing it to fracture internally or convincing Maduro to leave,” said Cancian.

“It is part of a series of US actions such as sending the Ford to the Caribbean, authorising the CIA to move against the Maduro regime, and conducting flybys with bombers and, recently, F-18s.”

Cancian added that the broader meaning of the operation depends on what comes next.

“The purpose also depends on whether the US seizes additional tankers,” he said. “In that case, this looks like a blockade of Venezuela. Because Venezuela depends so heavily on oil revenue, it could not withstand such a blockade for long.”

WASHINGTON — President Trump last week released a national security strategy laying out his vision for America’s role in the world, tempering U.S. support for longstanding allies and recasting U.S. global interests in business terms.

China took note.

The paper’s section on Asia, almost entirely devoted to China and the threat of war over Taiwan, concludes with an imperative to win “economic and technological competition” in the Indo-Pacific.

But the document offers no strategic plan on how to bolster U.S. alliances and an infrastructural base unprepared for a war this decade. And it never once mentions the race against China for superiority in artificial intelligence.

Three days after releasing the document, Trump announced that Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company and leading chip maker, could begin selling powerful chips to China — the kind of chips key to powering AI. Trump’s move broke with decades of U.S. export control policy he once supported.

It was a welcome series of events in Beijing, where Chinese-state media interpreted Trump’s actions as an “inward retrenchment” — pragmatic steps from a shrinking superpower, focused on U.S. trade in the region above all else. The president’s moves come as the White House has tried to lower tensions with Beijing triggered by Trump’s tariff hikes.

Trump alluded to economic concerns when he explained the decision on chips with a social media post: “We will protect National Security, create American Jobs, and keep America’s lead in AI.”

Trump’s new strategy “differs from the style of the first term, which emphasized ‘great power competition,’” one Chinese analysis read, “and shifts toward an inward and domestic focus, emphasizing ‘America First.’”

One provision of the paper suggested Trump would adopt a version of the Monroe Doctrine, asserting U.S. influence over the Western Hemisphere while allowing other regional powers — such as Russia and China — to assert dominance in their own backyards. Other portions described China’s threat to Taiwan in purely economic, not military, terms.

“The document adopts softer language and shifts its declaratory policy from ‘opposes’ to ‘does not support’ any unilateral change to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait,” said Tong Zhao, an expert on China at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. China views Taiwan as a breakaway province and has long spoken of reuniting with the mainland.

“China has shifted from merely opposing Taiwan independence to proactively promoting unification, and is no longer satisfied with simply maintaining the status quo,” Zhao said. The softer wording, he added, “could signal to Beijing a weaker U.S. commitment to preserving that status quo.”

It’s a strategic direction with few adherents in Washington.

For decades, U.S. presidents have maintained a policy of strategic ambiguity with China over Taiwan, suggesting that Washington would defend the island against Chinese military action without explicitly outlining its plans.

But Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill have encouraged Trump to take the opposite tack, abandoning strategic ambiguity and recognizing Taiwanese independence. And this week, senior GOP senators spoke out against the president over his decision to allow Nvidia to sell chips into China.

Rush Doshi, a former Biden administration official now at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, said it was a “big deal” that China isn’t even mentioned in the national security strategy until the 19th page.

“It’s also a significant departure from the first Trump term and the Biden administration,” Doshi said. “The aim is to stabilize relations with China rather than compete to secure American interests.”

A diplomat with the Chinese Foreign Ministry reacted cautiously to the Trump administration’s recent moves, telling reporters that both countries “stand to gain from cooperation and lose from confrontation.”

“The principle of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and win-win cooperation is the right way for the two countries to get along,” said Guo Jiakun, spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry, “and is the only realistic choice.”

Taiwanese officials declined to comment, but pointed to an official statement from their Foreign Ministry that said that the Trump administration “has continued to show support for Taiwan” with its national security strategy.

The statement said Taiwan was committed to working with the United States and bolstering its defense capabilities, adding, “these actions demonstrate to the international community Taiwan’s steadfast determination to protect itself and maintain the status quo.”

‘Military overmatch’

Trump’s security strategy emphasizes the need to deter a conflict over Taiwan to preserve global shipping routes in the region, stating the United States “will build a military capable of denying aggression anywhere in the First Island Chain” — a strategic ring of islands off the east coast of China, including Taiwan.

“Deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority,” the paper reads.

An internal Pentagon assessment first reported by the New York Times this week found the U.S. military had lost its strategic edge over China, and that its forces would be outgunned, or overmatched, in a direct conflict in the South China Sea. A defense official confirmed the veracity of the report to The Times.

Pledges by the Trump administration to transform the U.S. military, and particularly the Navy, in time for such a conflict may be too little, too late, with Chinese President Xi Jinping directing the Chinese army to be ready to reclaim Taiwan by 2027. And China’s rapidly expanding military capabilities on land and sea have shortened the warning time that Washington and its allies would have to come to Taiwan’s defense.

“The problem is, the lead time to prepare is getting shorter and shorter,” one Australian diplomat told The Times. “We won’t have much notice.”

Oriana Skylar Mastro, a strategic planner on China for U.S. Indo-Pacific Command and a fellow at Stanford University, said the document’s language on defending the First Island Chain is consistent with that of past administrations — but leaves out details on how it plans to carry that out.

“The United States needs to invest in the right technologies, and needs to build the right weapons, more of them — and then figure out where to place them,” Mastro said. “Part of the issue may be political, but for the most part, it’s just geography. There’s very little landmass in the combat radius of Taiwan, and those areas — southwest Japan, northwest Philippines — are already saturated [militarily]. There’s just not a lot of space to put stuff.”

The administration’s strategy also provides China with a road map to retake Taiwan in a way that Trump may be able to accept, Zhao said, allowing Chinese dominance over the island while pledging to maintain freedom of navigation throughout the region.

The administration’s approach to the area follows “mercantile logic,” Zhao said, providing Beijing with a path forward on unification that could avoid U.S. intervention — inspired by Russia’s efforts to woo Trump and his aides away from American commitments to Ukraine with promises of trade deals, financial opportunities and economic cooperation.

“If Washington was willing to tacitly accept China’s sovereignty claims over disputed features across the South China Sea,” Zhao said, “Beijing would have little incentive to threaten commercial navigation.”

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Congressional Democrats say Paramount’s bid for Warner raises ‘serious national security concerns’
The deep dive: In first year in Senate, Schiff pushes legislation, party message and challenges to Trump
The L.A. Times Special: AI slop ad backfires for McDonald’s

More to come,
Michael Wilner
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Tourists from 42 countries may soon need to also disclose email accounts, extensive family history and biometrics to enter US.

Visitors who are eligible to enter the United States without a visa may soon be required to provide the Department of Homeland Security with significantly more personal information, including details about their social media activity, email accounts and family background.

According to a notice published on Wednesday in the Federal Register, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is proposing to collect up to five years of social media data from travellers from certain visa-waiver countries.

The proposed requirement would apply to travellers using the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) under the Visa Waiver Program, which allows citizens of 42 countries – including the United Kingdom, Germany, Qatar, Greece, Malta, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Israel and South Korea – to travel to the US for tourism or business for up to 90 days.

Currently, the ESTA automatically screens applicants and grants travel approval without requiring an in-person interview at a US embassy or consulate, unlike standard visa applications.

At present, ESTA applicants are required to provide a more limited set of information, such as their parents’ names, current email address, and details of any past criminal record.

A question asking travellers to disclose their social media information was first added to the ESTA application in 2016, though it has remained optional.

New rules also target metadata, email history

The new notice also states that the CBP plans to request additional personal information from visitors, including telephone numbers used over the past five years and email addresses used over the last 10 years.

Authorities also said they plan to add what they describe as “high-value data fields” to the ESTA application “when feasible”. These would include metadata from electronically submitted photographs, extensive personal details about applicants’ family members, such as their places of birth and telephone numbers used over the past five years, as well as biometric information, including fingerprints, DNA and iris data.

The announcement did not say what the administration was looking for in the social media accounts of visitors or why it was asking for more information.

But the CBP said it was complying with an executive order that US President Donald Trump signed in January that called for more screening of people coming to the US to prevent the entry of possible national security threats.

Travellers from countries that are not part of the Visa Waiver Program system are already required to submit their social media information, a policy that dates back to the first Trump administration. The policy remained during US President Joe Biden’s administration.

The public has 60 days to submit comments on the proposed changes before they are finalised, the notice in the Federal Register states.

A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the Trump administration must immediately end the deployment of the National Guard in Los Angeles, the latest legal blow to the president’s embattled efforts to police American streets with armed soldiers.

Senior U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer said in his ruling that command of the remaining 300 federalized National Guard troops must return to Gov. Gavin Newsom, who sued the administration in June after it commandeered thousands of troops to quell protests over immigration enforcement in Los Angeles.

On June 12, Breyer ruled that deployment illegal — a decision that was challenged and ultimately reversed by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The court said the esoteric statute Trump invoked to wrest command of the Guard from the governor afforded him “a great level of deference” to determine whether a rebellion was underway in Los Angeles, as the Justice Department claimed at the time.

The same sequence repeated this autumn in Oregon, where 200 California Guard troops were sent to help quash demonstrations outside an ICE facility.

Unlike in California, the Oregon decision was vacated amid claims the Justice Department inflated the number of federal protective personnel it said were detailed to Portland and misrepresented other facts to the court.

The decision is now under review by a larger panel of the 9th Circuit, while the Supreme Court weighs an almost identical challenge to the deployment in Illinois.

In both cases, conservative judicial appointees have signaled skepticism about the president’s authority to order boots on the ground, and to keep troops federalized indefinitely.

“States are not only owed protection by the federal government, they are owed protection from it,” Judge Jay Bybee wrote in a lengthy filing Tuesday in support of the 9th Circuit review. “There is no greater threat to the sovereignty of the states than an assertion of federal control over their domestic affairs.”

The “domestic violence” clause of the Constitution was part of a careful compromise between its framers allowing the president to deploy armed soldiers against citizens “only as a last resort,” the judge argued. The president should be compelled to provide some proof of his claims and the states should be empowered to test it — “particularly in the face of contrary evidence.”

That position earned him a sharp rebuke from the court’s newest member, Trump appointee Judge Eric Tung, who echoed the administration’s claim that its deployments were “unreviewable” by the courts.

A demonstrator interacts with U.S. Marines and National Guard troops standing in line at the entrance of the Metropolitan Detention Center following federal immigration operations in July.

(Etienne Laurent / AFP via Getty Images)

Their exchange reflects a deepening rift on the 9th Circuit, once the most liberal appellate division in the United States.

Trump remade the 9th Circuit in his first term, naming 10 judges to the bench. Those picks were largely curated by Leonard Leo of the libertarian-leaning Federalist Society.

But Leo has since lost favor to Tung’s longtime friend Mike Davis of the Article III Project, whose recommendations tack well to the right of his predecessor, experts said.

Still, infighting on the appellate bench is far from the only hurdle facing Trump’s domestic deployments.

In October, the Supreme Court ordered both the administration and the state of Illinois to address a theory by Georgetown University law professor Martin S. Lederman, who argued the statute only allows presidents to federalize the National Guard after they send in the army.

“If the court wants to rule against Trump on this, that’s the least offensive way,” said Eric J. Segall, a professor at Georgia State College of Law. “It’s a way to avoid all factual determinations for the moment.”

But such a ruling could open the door to even more aggressive military action in the future, he and others warn.

“If the Supreme Court comes in and says, ‘you have to use the active duty military before you can use the National Guard,’ it has the effect of saying everything that happened until now [was illegal],” said David Janovsky from the Project on Government Oversight. “But then you have the prospect of more active duty troops getting deployed.”

Congress, too, is taking a fine-toothed comb to Trump’s troop cases. The Senate Armed Services Committee is set to hear testimony Thursday from military top brass about repeated domestic deployments.

“Across the United States, Donald Trump has illegally deployed our nation’s servicemembers into American cities under unclear and false pretexts and despite the costs to our military and civil rights,” Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) said in a statement announcing the hearing. “The American people and our troops deserve answers.”

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has continued to broaden its claims of executive power in court.

In recent weeks, Department of Justice lawyers have argued that, once federalized, state Guard troops would remain under the president’s command in perpetuity. Breyer called that position “contrary to law” in his ruling Wednesday.

“Defendants’ argument for a president to hold unchecked power to control state troops would wholly upend the federalism that is at the heart of our system of government,” Breyer wrote.

California leaders cheered Wednesday’s ruling as a turning point in what until now has been an uphill legal battle to constrain the president’s use of state troops. The order was set to take effect on Monday, though it was all but certain to be appealed to the 9th Circuit.

“The President deployed these brave men and women against their own communities, removing them from essential public safety operations,” Newsom said in a statement Wednesday morning. “We look forward to all National Guard servicemembers being returned to state service.”

Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta called it “a good day for our democracy and the strength of the rule of law.”

Still, some legal scholars and civil liberties experts warn repeated deployments — and the slogging court battles that attend them — could inure the public to further politicization of the military around the midterms.

“The sense of normalization is probably part of the plan here,” Janovsky said. “Having troops trained for war on the streets of American cities puts everyone at more risk. The more we normalize the blurring of those lines, the higher the risk that troops will be used for inappropriate purposes against the American people.”

Times staff writers Kevin Rector and Jenny Jarvie contributed to this report.

MOUNT POCONO, Pa. — On the road in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, President Trump tried to emphasize his focus on combating inflation, yet the issue that has damaged his popularity couldn’t quite command his full attention.

The president told the crowd gathered at a casino and resort in Mount Pocono that inflation was no longer a problem and that Democrats had used the term “affordability” as a “hoax” to hurt his reputation. But his remarks weaved wildly to include grievances he first raised behind closed doors in his first term in 2018 — and later denied saying — asking why the U.S. doesn’t have more immigrants from Scandinavia.

“Why is it we only take people from s—hole countries, right?” Trump said onstage. “Why can’t we have some people from Norway, Sweden, just a few?”

Trump said he objected to taking immigrants from “hellholes like Afghanistan, Haiti, Somalia and many other countries.” He added for emphasis that those places “are a disaster, right? Filthy, dirty, disgusting, ridden with crime.”

Tuesday’s gathering in the swing state — and in a competitive House district — was an official White House event, yet it seemed more like one of his signature campaign rallies that his chief of staff said he would hold regularly ahead of next year’s midterms. But instead of being in an arena that could draw several thousand attendees, it was held in a conference center ballroom at the Mount Airy Casino Resort in Mount Pocono, a small town of about 3,000 residents.

Voters starting to pin inflation on GOP

Following dismal results for Republicans in last month’s off-cycle elections, the White House has sought to convince voters that the economy will emerge stronger next year and that any anxieties over inflation have nothing to do with Trump.

He displayed a chart comparing price increases under his predecessor, Joe Biden, to prices under his own watch to argue his case. But the overall inflation rate has climbed since he announced broad tariffs in April and left many Americans worried about their grocery, utility and housing bills.

“I have no higher priority than making America affordable again,” Trump said. “They caused the high prices and we’re bringing them down.”

As the president spoke, his party’s political vulnerabilities were further seen as Miami voters chose Eileen Higgins to be their first Democratic mayor in nearly 30 years. Higgins defeated the Trump-endorsed Republican Emilio Gonzalez.

The president’s reception in the county hosting his Tuesday rally showed he could still appeal to the base, but it was unable to settle questions of whether he could hold together his 2024 coalition. Monroe County flipped to Trump last year after having backed Biden in 2020, helping the Republican win the swing state of Pennsylvania and return to the White House after a four-year hiatus.

As home to the Pocono Mountains, the county has largely relied on tourism for skiing, hiking, hunting and other activities as a source of jobs. Its proximity to New York City — under two hours by car — has also attracted people seeking more affordable housing.

In Monroe County, prices are a problem

But what seems undeniable — even to Trump supporters in Monroe County — is that inflation seems to be here to stay.

Lou Heddy, a retired maintenance mechanic who voted for Trump last year, said he’s noticed in the past month alone that his and his wife’s grocery bills have risen from $175 to $200, and he’s not sure Trump can bring food prices down.

“Once the prices get up for food, they don’t ever come back down. That’s just the way I feel. I don’t know how the hell he would do it,” said Heddy, 72.

But Suzanne Vena, a Democratic voter, blames Trump’s tariffs for making life more expensive, as she struggles with rising bills for food, rent and electricity on a fixed income. She remembers Trump saying that he would stop inflation.

“That’s what we were originally told,” said Vena, 66. “Did I believe it? That’s another question. I did not.”

The area Trump visited could help decide control of the House in next year’s midterm elections.

Trump held his rally in a congressional district held by first-term Republican Rep. Rob Bresnahan, who is a top target of Democrats. Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti, a Democrat, is running for the nomination to challenge him.

Speaking to the crowd before Trump, Bresnahan said the administration was working to lower costs, but voters “aren’t asking for partisan arguments — they’re asking for results.”

It’s not clear if Trump can motivate voters in Monroe County to show up in next year’s election if they’re worried about inflation.

Nick Riley, 38, said he’s cutting back on luxuries, like going out to eat, as he absorbs higher bills for food and electricity and is having a hard time finding a good deal on a used car. Riley voted for Trump in 2020, but he sat out the 2024 election and plans to do so again next year.

“We’re all broke. It doesn’t matter whether you support Republicans or support Democrats,” Riley said. “We’re all broke, and we’re all feeling it.”

Trump to start holding more rallies

White House chief of staff Susie Wiles said on the online conservative talk show “The Mom View” that Trump would be on the campaign trail next year to engage supporters who otherwise might sit out a congressional race.

Wiles, who helped manage Trump’s 2024 campaign, said most administrations try to localize midterm elections and keep the president out of the race, but she intends to do the opposite of that.

“We’re actually going to turn that on its head,” Wiles said, “and put him on the ballot because so many of those low-propensity voters are Trump voters.”

The challenge for Trump is how to address the concerns of voters about the economy while simultaneously claiming that the economy is enjoying a historic boom.

Asked on a Politico podcast how he’d rate the economy, Trump leaned into grade inflation by answering “A-plus,” only to then amend his answer to “A-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus.”

The U.S. economy has shown signs of resilience with the stock market up this year and overall growth looking solid for the third quarter. But many Americans see the prices of housing, groceries, education, electricity and other basic needs as swallowing up their incomes, a dynamic that the Trump administration has said it expects to fade next year with more investments in artificial intelligence and manufacturing.

So far, the public has been skeptical about Trump’s economic performance. Just 33% of U.S. adults approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, according to a November survey by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

But Trump indicated that his tariffs and other policies were helping industries such as the steel sector. He said those industries mattered for the country as he then specifically told Americans that they should buy fewer pencils and dolls from overseas.

“You don’t need 37 dolls for your daughter,” he told the crowd. “Two or three is nice.”

Levy and Boak write for the Associated Press. Boak reported from Washington.

President Trump admitted Tuesday that he used the slur “shithole countries” to disparage Haiti and African nations during a 2018 meeting with lawmakers, bragging about a comment that sparked global outrage during his first term.

Back then, Trump had denied making the contemptuous statement during a closed-door meeting, but on Tuesday, he showed little compunction reliving it during a rally in Pennsylvania. He went on to further disparage Somalia as “filthy, dirty, disgusting, ridden with crime.”

Trump was boasting in his speech that he had last week “announced a permanent pause on Third World migration, including from hellholes like Afghanistan, Haiti, Somalia and many other countries,” when someone in the crowd yelled out the 2018 remark.

That prompted him to recall the 2018 incident. His telling hewed closely to the description offered at the time by people who were briefed on the Oval Office meeting.

“We had a meeting and I said, ‘Why is it we only take people from shithole countries,’ right? ‘Why can’t we have some people from Norway, Sweden?’” Trump told rallygoers.

“But we always take people from Somalia,” he continued. “Places that are a disaster. Filthy, dirty, disgusting, ridden with crime.”

The White House at the time did not deny Trump’s remarks, but the president posted on Twitter the day after the news broke that “this was not the language I used.” He added that he “never said anything derogatory about Haitians.”

Back in 2018, Trump’s comments denigrating predominantly Black nations while seeking more migration from predominantly white countries were widely denounced as racist. Some congressional Republicans condemned the comments, and foreign leaders were outraged. Botswana’s government summoned the U.S. ambassador, and Senegal’s president at the time, Macky Sall, said he was shocked, noting, “Africa and the Black race merit the respect and consideration of all.”

But since then, Trump has pushed past many norms and traditions of decorum that had guided his predecessors, both in his first term and in the years since. He often peppers his public remarks with curse words, and this year has dropped the F-bomb as cameras were rolling — on two separate occasions.

On Thanksgiving, in a pair of lengthy posts on social media complaining about immigrants, he demeaned Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, using a dated slur for intellectually disabled people. Asked by a reporter if he stood by a comment that many Americans find offensive, Trump was unrepentant. “Yeah. I think there’s something wrong with him,” he said.

Cooper writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — President Trump said Wednesday that the United States has seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela as tensions mount with the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Using U.S. forces to seize an oil tanker is incredibly unusual and marks the Trump administration’s latest push to increase pressure on Maduro, who has been charged with narcoterrorism in the United States. The U.S. has built up the largest military presence in the region in decades and launched a series of deadly strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean.

“We’ve just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela, a large tanker, very large, largest one ever seized, actually,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

Trump said “other things are happening,” but did not offer additional details, saying he would speak more about it later.

The seizure was led by the U.S. Coast Guard and supported by the Navy, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity. The official added that the seizure was conducted under U.S. law enforcement authority.

Venezuela has the world’s largest proven oil reserves and produces about 1 million barrels a day. Locked out of global oil markets by U.S. sanctions, the state-owned oil company sells most of its output at a steep discount to refiners in China.

The transactions usually involve a complex network of shadowy intermediaries as sanctions scared away more established traders. Many are shell companies, registered in jurisdictions known for secrecy. The buyers deploy so-called ghost tankers that hide their location and hand off their valuable cargoes in the middle of the ocean before they reach their final destination.

During past negotiations, among the concessions the U.S. has made to Maduro was approval for oil giant Chevron Corp. to resume pumping and exporting Venezuelan oil. The corporation’s activities in the South American country resulted in a financial lifeline for Maduro’s government.

Maduro did not address the seizure during a speech before a ruling-party organized demonstration in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital. But he told supporters that Venezuela is “prepared to break the teeth of the North American empire if necessary.”

Maduro, flanked by senior officials, said that only the ruling party can “guarantee peace, stability, and the harmonious development of Venezuela, South America and the Caribbean.”

The seizure comes a day after the U.S. military flew a pair of fighter jets over the Gulf of Venezuela in what appeared to be the closest that warplanes had come to the South American country’s airspace since the start of the administration’s pressure campaign. Trump has said land attacks are coming soon but has not offered any details on location.

It was not immediately clear who owned the tanker or what national flag it was sailing under. The Coast Guard referred a request for comment to the White House.

Madhani and Toropin write for the Associated Press. AP writer Regina Garcia Cano in Caracas, Venezuela, contributed to this report.

Right-wing opposition leader Maria Corina Machado was missing from the ceremony awarding her this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. She’s been in hiding for the past year since she accused Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro of rigging the July 2024 election.

Donald Trump’s public feud with the Muslim family of a fallen soldier has drawn attention to the businessman’s own record of military service.   

Khizr Khan delivered an emotional speech at the Democratic National Convention in which he told the story of his son, Humayun, who was killed in 2004 by a car bomb while serving in Iraq. In his remarks, Khan, with his wife at his side, said the Republican presidential nominee had “sacrificed nothing” for his country. 

And in a response condemned by both Democrats and Republicans, Trump criticized the Gold Star parents and insisted his own “sacrifices” included creating jobs and helping establish a Vietnam War memorial in New York.

But for all of Trump’s boasting about his support from veterans, he has never served in the military, thanks to a string of deferments that enabled him to avoid the draft during the Vietnam War. 

Here’s a look at what happened: 

Trump graduates from New York Military Academy in 1964 as Vietnam War is ramping up.

At the military academy, Trump wore a uniform and participated in marching drills all four years, up until his graduation in the spring of 1964.  In March 1965, the first U.S. combat troops arrived on the ground in Vietnam.

Shortly after his 18th birthday, Trump registered with the Selective Service on June 24, 1964. Federal law requires men at age 18 to register and be available for military draft. His Selective Service card noted that Trump was 6-foot-2 and 180 pounds. Under a section titled “physical characteristics” it stated that Trump has a birthmark on both heels. 

Registering made Trump a candidate for a military draft, which was about to ramp up as U.S. involvement in Vietnam grew. 

But Trump said he wanted to pursue his education so he could enter the real estate business and follow in the footsteps of his father, Fred, who had built a profitable company in New York.

Donald Trump’s Selective Service card (National Archives and Records Administration )

(Kurtis Lee)

College deferments during his years at Fordham and the University of Pennsylvania.

Trump decided to stay in New York, enrolling at Fordham University in the fall of 1964. He would remain there for two years, before transferring to the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where he would study business. 

Trump received four education deferments while in school, according to the National Archives and Records Administration.

The first education deferment came on July 28, 1964, several weeks before he began his freshman year at Fordham. Trump received similar deferments his sophomore, junior and senior years. 

The deferments ended once he graduated from Wharton, making the then-22-year-old Trump eligible to be drafted again.

After college, Trump receives a medical deferment.

Trump graduated in 1968, one of the most turbulent years of the war. He set his sights on returning to New York.

On Oct. 15, several months after his graduation that spring, Trump was granted a 1-Y medical deferment. 

In an interview with the New York Times, Trump said the reason he received the medical deferment was because of  bone spurs in his heels.

The National Archives and Records Administration does not specify the reason for the medical deferment, only that it resulted from a September 1968 physical exam that “disqualified” him from service. 

“I had a doctor that gave me a letter — a very strong letter on the heels,” Trump told the New York Times.

Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks declined to offer additional comment about the deferment. 

Election 2016 | Live coverage on Trail Guide | Sign up for the newsletter

What’s a 1-Y medical deferment?

This deferment was handed out to individuals with health conditions that would have limited their effectiveness to serve. Those conditions, among others, included high blood pressure, severe asthma and allergies. 

Registrants who received this deferment were deemed “not qualified for military service” by the Selective Service. 

Trump’s high lottery number for the draft.

When the draft lottery for Vietnam began in December 1969, Trump was already shielded because of his medical deferment. 

Over the years, Trump has offered few details about his deferments, but has sometimes said the reason he did not fight in Vietnam was because he was fortunate enough to receive a high lottery number. 

“If I would have gotten a low number, I would have been drafted. I would have proudly served,” he told ABC News last year. “But I got a number, I think it was 356. That’s right at the very end. And they didn’t get — I don’t believe — past even 300, so I was — I was not chosen because of the fact that I had a very high lottery number.”

An official for the National Archives confirmed that Trump received a draft number of 356 out of 365.

But before that, Trump was protected from the draft for more than year by his 1-Y medical deferment. 

The draft ended in 1973. 

Listen to Trump talk about his draft number and deferments:

What are Trump’s views on not serving?

At a campaign rally in New Hampshire last year, after Trump had criticized the war record  of Sen. John McCain for being captured and held prisoner in Vietnam, he expressed some guilt about having not served. 

“I didn’t serve, I haven’t served,” said Trump. “I always felt a little guilty.”

Trump’s relations with veterans groups.

Trump has aggressively courted veterans in his presidential campaign and boasted of his contributions to veterans’ causes. But many of those donations remain undocumented. 

Earlier this year, the Washington Post found that Trump had raised $3.1 million at a January fundraiser for veterans, despite proclaiming  he had raised about $6 million. At that same fundraiser, Trump pledged to personally donate $1 million to veterans’ causes. Only after intense pressure and questions from reporters did Trump make good on his pledge four months later. 

While speaking at the Veterans of Foreign Wars conference last month, Trump asserted he would be the best commander-in-chief that veterans have ever seen. “Our debt to you is eternal — yet our politicians have totally failed you,” he said. 

Yet after his confrontation with the Khan family, the VFW issued a statement condemning Trump’s remarks. 

“Election year or not, the VFW will not tolerate anyone berating a Gold Star family member for exercising his or her right of speech or expression,” said Brian Duffy, head of the veterans organization. “There are certain sacrosanct subjects that no amount of wordsmithing can repair once crossed.”

Numerous other Gold Star families called upon Trump to apologize, but he has said he does not regret responding to what he called Khan’s “vicious” attack against him.

At a Virginia rally Tuesday, a retired lieutenant colonel gave Trump his Purple Heart medal in a gesture of support. Trump thanked him and said, “I always wanted to get the Purple Heart. This was much easier.”

Follow @kurtisalee on Twitter 

kurtis.lee@latimes.com 

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WASHINGTON — President Trump on Friday said he has deemed churches and other houses of worship “essential” and called on governors to allow them to reopen this weekend despite the threat of the coronavirus.

“Today I’m identifying houses of worship — churches, synagogues and mosques — as essential places that provide essential services,” Trump said during a hastily arranged news conference Friday. He said if governors don’t abide by his request, he will “override” them, though it’s unclear what authority he has to do so.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had prepared reopening guidelines for churches and other houses of worship weeks ago, but the White House had refused to release them until Thursday, when Trump abruptly changed course.

“I said ‘You better put it out.’ And they’re doing it,” Trump said Thursday at a Ford Motor Co. plant repurposed to make ventilators in Michigan. “And they’re going to be issuing something today or tomorrow on churches. We got to get our churches open.”

Trump on Friday stressed the importance of churches in many communities and took issue with some of the businesses that had been allowed to reopen.

“Some governors have deemed liquor stores and abortion clinics as essential,” but not churches, he said. “It’s not right. So I’m correcting this injustice and calling houses of worship essential.”

“These are places that hold our society together and keep our people united. The people are demanding to go to church and synagogue, go to their mosque,” he said.

Rights group FairSquare accuses world football governing body of ‘openly flouting’ its own rules on political neutrality.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino’s effusive praise for Donald Trump and the decision by the world football governing body to award a peace prize to the US president have triggered a formal complaint over ethics violations and political neutrality.

Human rights group FairSquare said on Tuesday that it has filed a complaint with FIFA’s ethics committee, claiming the organisation’s behaviour was against the common interests of the global football community.

The complaint stems from Infantino awarding Trump FIFA’s inaugural peace prize during the December 6 draw for the 2026 World Cup to be played in the United States, Canada and Mexico in June and July.

“This complaint is about a lot more than Infantino’s support for President Donald Trump’s political agenda,” FairSquare’s programme director Nicholas McGeehan said.

“More broadly, this is about how FIFA’s absurd governance structure has allowed Gianni Infantino to openly flout the organisation’s rules and act in ways that are both dangerous and directly contrary to the interests of the world’s most popular sport,” said McGeehan, head of the London-based advocacy group.

According to the eight-page complaint from the rights group filed with FIFA on Monday, Infantino’s awarding of the peace prize “to a sitting political leader is in and of itself a clear breach of FIFA’s duty of neutrality”.

“If Mr. Infantino acted unilaterally and without any statutory authority this should be considered an egregious abuse of power,” the rights group said.

FairSquare also pointed to Infantino lobbying on social media earlier this year for Trump to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in the Israel-Gaza conflict. Venezuela’s Maria Corina Machado ultimately received the prize.

FairSquare said it wants FIFA’s independent committee to review Infantino’s actions.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch also criticised FIFA’s awarding of the prize to Trump, saying his administration’s “appalling human rights record certainly does not display exceptional actions for peace and unity”.

Disciplinary action from the FIFA Ethics Committee can include a warning, a reprimand and even a fine. Compliance training can also be ordered, while a ban can be levied on participation in football-related activity. But it remains unclear if the ethics committee will take up the complaint.

Infantino has not immediately responded, and FIFA said it does not comment on potential cases.

Current FIFA-appointed ethics investigators and judges are seen by some observers to operate with less independence than their predecessors a decade ago, when FIFA’s then-president, Sepp Blatter, was removed from office.

Trump was on hand for the World Cup 2026 draw ceremony on Friday, along with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.

But it was Trump who received the most attention during the event at the Kennedy Centre in Washington, DC.

During the event, Infantino presented Trump with a gold trophy, a gold medal and a certificate.

“This is your prize; this is your peace prize,” Infantino told Trump.

FIFA also played a video that touched on some of Trump’s efforts towards so-called peace agreements.

WASHINGTON — President Trump will road-test his claims that he’s tackling Americans’ affordability woes at a Tuesday rally in Mount Pocono, Penn., — shifting an argument made in Oval Office appearances and social media posts to a campaign-style event.

The trip comes as polling consistently shows that public trust in Trump’s economic leadership has faltered. Following dismal results for Republicans in last month’s off-cycle elections, the White House has sought to convince voters that the economy will emerge stronger next year and that any anxieties over inflation have nothing to do with Trump.

The president has consistently blamed his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden, for inflation even as his own aggressive implementation of policies has pushed up prices that had been settling down after spiking in 2022 to a four-decade high. Inflation began to accelerate after Trump announced his sweeping “Liberation Day” tariffs in April. Companies warned that the import taxes could be passed along to consumers in the form of higher prices and reduced hiring, yet Trump continues to insist that inflation has faded.

“We’re bringing prices way down,” Trump said at the White House on Monday. “You can call it ‘affordability’ or anything you want — but the Democrats caused the affordability problem, and we’re the ones that are fixing it.”

The president’s reception in the county hosting his Tuesday rally could give a signal of just how much voters trust his claims. Monroe County flipped to Trump in the 2024 election after having backed Biden in 2020, helping the Republican to win the swing state of Pennsylvania and return to the White House after a four-year hiatus.

As home to the Pocono Mountains, the county has largely relied on tourism for skiing, hiking, hunting and other activities as a source of jobs. Its proximity to New York City — under two hours by car — has also attracted people seeking more affordable housing.

It’s also an area that could help decide control of the House in next year’s midterm elections.

Trump is holding his rally in a congressional district held by freshman Republican Rep. Rob Bresnahan, who is a top target of Democrats and won his 2024 race by about 1.5 percentage points, among the nation’s closest. Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti, a Democrat, is running for the nomination to challenge him.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is running digital ads during Trump’s visit on the Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader website that criticize Bresnahan for his stock trading while in Congress and suggest that Trump has not as promised addressed double-dealing in Washington.

White House chief of staff Susie Wiles said on the online conservative talk show “The Mom View” that Trump would be on the “campaign trail” next year to engage supporters who otherwise might sit out a congressional race.

Wiles, who helped manage Trump’s 2024 campaign, said most administrations try to localize midterm elections and keep the president out of the race, but she intends to do the opposite of that.

“We’re actually going to turn that on its head,” Wiles said, “and put him on the ballot because so many of those low-propensity voters are Trump voters.”

Wiles added, “So I haven’t quite broken it to him yet, but he’s going to campaign like it’s 2024 again.”

The challenge for Trump is how to address the concerns of voters about the economy while simultaneously claiming that the economy is enjoying an historic boom.

Asked on a Politico podcast about how he’d rate the economy, Trump leaned into the grade inflation by answering “A-plus,” only to then amend his answer to “A-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus.”

Trump has said he’s giving consumers relief by relaxing fuel efficiency standards for autos and signing agreements to reduce list prices on prescription drugs.

Trump has also advocated for cuts to the Federal Reserve’s benchmark interest rate — which influences the supply of money in the U.S. economy. He argues that would reduce the cost of mortgages and auto loans, although critics warn that cuts of the scale sought by Trump could instead worsen inflation.

The U.S. economy has shown signs of resilience with the stock market up this year and overall growth looking solid for the third quarter. But many Americans see the prices of housing, groceries, education, electricity and other basic needs as swallowing up their incomes, a dynamic that the Trump administration has said it expects to fade next year with more investments in artificial intelligence and manufacturing.

Since the elections in November when Democrats won key races with a focus on kitchen table issues, Trump has often dismissed the concerns about prices as a “hoax” and a “con job” to suggest that he bears no responsibility for inflation, even though he campaigned on his ability to quickly bring down prices. Just 33% of U.S. adults approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, according to a November survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Boak and Levy write for the Associated Press. Levy reported from Harrisburg, Penn.

Dec. 9 (UPI) — Former Colorado clerk Tina Peters seeks a pardon from President Donald Trump after her request to be released via a writ of habeas corpus was denied.

Peters, 70, was the Mason County (Colo.) clerk and kept a copy of Colorado’s 2020 election results as reported by Dominion Voting Systems, according to her attorney.

Attorney Peter Ticktin wrote the president on Saturday while seeking Peters’ pardon and said other inmates have threatened and attacked her several times, The Hill reported.

“About 6 months ago, Mrs. Peters was threatened with harm … by a group of inmates” who said they would “stab and kill her,” Ticktin wrote.

“This was reported to the FBI and DOJ, which had agents interview her,” he said, adding that she was moved to a different unit.

“In the new unit, she was attacked by other prisoners three times in different locations where guards had to pull inmates off of her,” Ticktin said.

Peters has sought a transfer to a safer unit six times, but was denied each time, Axios Denver reported.

‘They stole our whole country’

Peters is serving a nine-year sentence after being convicted in 2024 of attempting to influence a public official, conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, first-degree official misconduct, violation of duty and failure to comply with Colorado Secretary of State requirements.

Ticktin called her trial a “travesty” and said she was not allowed to raise her defenses.

“Tina Peters is a critical and necessary witness to the most serious crime perpetrated against the United States in history,” he wrote. “They stole our whole country for four years.”

He accused Dominion officials of carrying out an “illegal operation on our soil, which was supported and controlled by foreign actors.”

Ticktin said Dominion officials told Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold to help delete all data collected by Dominion voting machines and demanded criminal charges be filed against Peters when they learned she had a lawful copy of the state’s 2020 election data.

He told the president that Peters’ copy of that data is “essential” and that she is a “necessary and material witness” who can testify regarding chain of custody and other evidence regarding alleged misconduct during the 2020 election in Colorado.

Release petition denied

The pardon request preceded U.S. District Court of Colorado Chief Magistrate Judge Scott Varholak on Monday denying Peters’ request to be given a bond and released from prison pending the outcome of an active appeal of her conviction that is active in the Colorado Court of Appeals.

Varholak said three conditions must exist for a federal court to intervene in a state-level case and grant a writ of habeas corpus in the matter.

One is that there is an ongoing case, which her appeal satisfied, while another is that there be an important state interest, which Varholak agreed exists in the matter.

The third condition is that there be an adequate opportunity to raise federal claims in the state court proceeding, and the judge ruled her bond request satisfies that requirement.

When the three conditions are met, the federal court then must determine if one of three exceptions apply for it to intervene in a state case.

The exceptions are that the prosecution was done in bad faith or to harass the petitioner, is unconstitutional or related to any other extraordinary circumstances that create a “‘threat of irreparable injury, both great and immediate,'” Varholak explained.

He said Peters did not establish grounds for the federal court to determine one or more of the exceptions apply in her case and dismissed without prejudice her writ of habeas corpus petition.

US President Donald Trump has criticised European leaders as “weak” and suggested the US could scale back support for Ukraine.

In a wide-ranging interview with Politico, he said “decaying” European countries had failed to control migration or take decisive action to end Ukraine’s war with Russia, accusing them of letting Kyiv fight “until they drop”.

European leaders have made attempts to carve out a role in the US-led efforts to end the war, which they fear will undercut the long-term interests of the continent in favour of a quick resolution.

In response, the UK’s Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said all she saw in Europe was “strength”, citing investment in defence as well as funding for Kyiv.

She added two presidents were “working for peace” – referring to Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky – and “one president – President Putin – has so far simply sought to escalate the conflict with further drone and missile attacks”.

Trump continued to increase pressure on Zelensky to agree to a peace deal, and urged him to “play ball” by ceding territory to Moscow. Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Zelensky, writing on X later on Tuesday, said Ukraine and Europe were working actively on “all components of potential steps toward ending the war”, that the Ukrainian and European elements of the plan were now more developed and that Kyiv was ready to present them to “our partners in the US”.

Trump’s latest public criticism of Europe comes a day after European leaders came together in London to discuss their continued joint efforts to stop the fighting in Ukraine.

Asked whether Europe could help end the war, Trump said: “They talk but they don’t produce. And the war just keeps going on and on.”

US officials have held separate talks with Ukrainian and Russian officials in recent weeks in an attempt to broker an end to the war. So far, no agreement has been reached.

Ukraine’s president has pressed European and Nato leaders to help deter the US from backing a deal that Kyiv fears would leave it exposed to future attacks.

On Sunday Trump suggested, without evidence, that Zelensky was the main obstacle to peace.

He told reporters that Russia was “fine” with the peace plan outlined to both sides by the US, that contained major concessions for Ukraine and which allies feared would leave it vulnerable to a future invasion.

In the Politico interview, he claimed Ukrainian negotiators “loved” the US-backed proposal and alleged Zelensky had not yet read it.

Trump also repeated previous calls for Kyiv to hold elections and claimed it was “using war” as a reason not to do so.

He said: “You know, they talk about a democracy, but it gets to a point where it’s not a democracy anymore.”

Zelensky’s five-year term as president was due to end in May 2024, but elections have been suspended in Ukraine since martial law was declared after Russia’s invasion.

Speaking to reporters after Trump’s comments, Zelensky said he was “ready for the elections” and he would ask for proposals to be drawn up which could change the law.

Elections could be held in the next 60 to 90 days if security is guaranteed with the help of the US and other allies, he told reporters.

Also in the Politico interview, Trump claimed ideological divisions now threatened to fracture Washington’s alliances with Europe.

Asked whether leaders who he viewed as weak could still be allies, he replied: “It depends”, adding: “I think they’re weak, but I also think that they want to be so politically correct. I think they don’t know what to do.”

The president’s remarks came after his administration released its new 33-page National Security Strategy, which warned of Europe’s potential “civilisational erasure” and questioned whether some nations could remain reliable allies.

Russia welcomed that strategy – which did not cast Russia as a threat to the US – as “largely consistent” with Moscow’s vision.

Trump also warned on Tuesday many countries in Europe “will not be viable countries any longer” if they keep on the way they are going, adding: “What they’re doing with immigration is a disaster.”

He singled out Hungary and Poland as doing a “very good job” on immigration, but said most European nations were “decaying”.

Responding on Tuesday to the strategy, German chancellor Friedrich Merz said some parts were plausible and some understandable, but other elements were unacceptable from a European point of view.

He rejected the idea that the US needed to “save democracy” in Europe, saying Europeans could address such questions themselves.

The strategy also followed similar rhetoric to Trump’s speech to the UN earlier this year, where he had harsh criticism for western Europe and its approach to migration and clean energy.

“The threat that I worry the most about vis-a-vis Europe is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not any other external actor. What I worry about is the threat from within,” Vice President JD Vance at the Munich Security Conference, February 14, 2025.

America’s new National Security Strategy (NSS) marks an ideological and substantive shift in U.S. foreign policy. The administration of President Donald Trump is attempting to define a new “America First” foreign policy doctrine that is deeply pragmatic. It invokes the Monroe Doctrine but with a “Trump Corollary.” The agenda of previous administrations to spread democracy around the world through foreign military interventions is no longer the aim. Foreign policy choices will be made based on what makes the United States more powerful and prosperous. This is a truly pivotal moment in the way the US will navigate world affairs.

This NSS is a real, painful, shocking wake-up call for Europe. It is a moment of significant divergence between Europe’s view of itself and Trump’s vision of as well as for Europe. If Europe had any doubt that the Trump administration is fully committed to a tough love strategy, it now knows it with certainty. The administration is asking — demanding, really — that Europe polices its own part of the world and, most importantly, pays for it itself. The strategy—which has been long overdue—chastises Europe for losing its European character. The orientation behind the words seems to indicate that the US sees Europe as evolving into a rigid, intransigent, globalist entity. And the latter is apparent given the EU’s reaction to the new NSS as illustrated by Brussels and the establishment elite of France, Germany, Poland and the Baltics: one of shock and dismay as met Vice President JD Vance’s Munich speech.

The continent of Europe is plagued with immigration issues and a predilection towards censorship, according to the US president’s newly issued National Security Strategy (NSS).

Europe is facing potential “civilizational erasure” as EU policymakers encourage censorship, stifling of political dissent, and turning a blind eye to mass immigration.

The landmark and strongly worded document released on Friday says that while the EU is showing worrying signs of economic decline, its restive cultural environment and internal political instability pose an even greater threat.

The strategy cites as serious concerns EU-backed immigration policies, suppression of political opposition, curbs on speech, collapsing birthrates, and “loss of national identities and self-confidence.” It warns that Europe could become “unrecognizable in 20 years or less.”

Over-regulation

The document argues that many European governments are “doubling down on their present path,” while the US wants Europe “to remain European” and abandon what it termed “regulatory suffocation.”  The latter is an apparent reference to America’s push back against the EU over its strict digital market guidelines, which Washington claims discriminate against US-based tech giants such as Microsoft, Google, and Meta.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday denounced the European Commission’s $140 million fine against Elon Musk’s social media platform X, calling it an attack on American tech companies and “the American people.”

Rubio wrote on X, “The European Commission’s $140 million fine isn’t just an attack on @X, it’s an attack on all American tech platforms and the American people by foreign governments. The days of censoring Americans online are over.”

Rubio’s comments reflected others within the Trump administration, including Vice President JD Vance, who also posted on the social media platform that the Commission was punishing X for not engaging in censorship.

“The EU should be supporting free speech, not attacking American companies over garbage,” he wrote.

Immigration

Another one of Washington’s key objectives is “cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations,” the paper adds.

Trump’s strategy notes that the rise of “patriotic European parties” offers “cause for great optimism,” in a reference to growing bloc-wide support for right-wing Euroskeptic parties calling for strict immigration limits.

The document proclaims that “the era of mass migration is over.”  It argues that large inflows have strained resources, increased violence, and weakened social cohesion, adding that Washington is seeking a world in which sovereign states “work together to stop rather than manage” migration flows.

Normalizing relations with Russia

President Trump’s security strategy for the US also calls for a swift end to the Ukraine conflict and preventing further escalation in Europe.

To this end, the US has placed the restoration of normal ties with Russia at the center of its newly released National Security Strategy, presenting both aims as among America’s core interests.

The 33-page report outlining President Donald Trump’s foreign-policy vision was released by the White House last Friday.

“It is a core interest of the United States to negotiate an expeditious cessation of hostilities in Ukraine,” the paper states, “in order to stabilize European economies, prevent unintended escalation or expansion of the war, and reestablish strategic stability with Russia.”

It notes that the Ukraine conflict has left “European relations with Russia… deeply attenuated,” resulting in destabilization of the entire region.

The report criticizes EU leaders for “unrealistic expectations” regarding the outcome of the conflict, arguing that “a large European majority wants peace, yet that desire is not translated into policy.”

The US, it says, is ready for “significant diplomatic engagement” to “help Europe correct its current trajectory,” reestablish stability, and “mitigate the risk of conflict between Russia and European states.”

In contrast with the US national strategy during Trump’s first term, which emphasized competition with Russia and China, the new strategy shifts the focus to the Western Hemisphere and to protecting the homeland, the borders, and regional interests. It calls for resources to be redirected from distant theaters to challenges closer to home and urges NATO and European states to shoulder primary responsibility for their own defense.

The document also calls for an end to NATO expansion—a demand that Russia has repeatedly voiced, calling it a root cause of the Ukraine conflict, which Moscow views as a Western proxy war.

Overall, the new strategy signals a shift away from global interventionism toward a more transactional foreign policy, arguing that the US should act abroad only when its interests are directly at stake.

President Donald Trump’s new National Security Strategy puts the Western Hemisphere at the center of US foreign policy and revives the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, appending it with a “Trump Corollary.”

The document invokes the legacy of the Monroe Doctrine but pushes it further. It states that the US will block “non-Hemispheric competitors” from owning or controlling “strategically vital assets” in the Americas, including ports, energy facilities, and telecommunications networks. It describes the Western Hemisphere as the top regional priority, above Europe, the Middle East, and the Indo-Pacific, and ties that status to controlling migration, drug flows, and foreign influence before they can reach US territory—clearly a fundamental and much-needed break with the foreign policies of recent presidential administrations.

Dec. 9 (UPI) — Honduras’ attorney general on Monday night announced that he had issued an international arrest warrant for former President Juan Orlando Hernandez, days after he was released from a U.S. prison following a pardon from President Donald Trump.

Attorney General Johel Antonio Zelaya Alvarez said in a statement that he had instructed ATIC, Honduras’ elite criminal investigative body housed within the Public Prosecutor’s Office, to pursue the international arrest warrant, while urging security agencies and international allies, including INTERPOL, to do the same.

“We have been lacerated by the tentacles of corruption and by criminal networks that have deeply marked the life of our country,” he said.

Hernandez is accused of money laundering and fraud in what is known as Pandora II, a corruption case in which prosecutors allege that between 2010 and 2013, a network siphoned nearly $12 million in public funds meant to alleviate extreme poverty in Honduras through abuse of authority, fraud and money laundering.

As part of the sprawling case investigating several government officials, including ministers, Honduras’ Public Prosecutor’s Office filed a criminal complaint against Hernandez in October 2023. Prosecutors accuse him of receiving at least $2.5 million of the siphoned funds through foundations, front men and fictitious contracts. The money was allegedly used to finance his political campaign.

In the United States, Hernandez was charged with drug trafficking and weapons offenses in late January 2022 during the Biden administration amid its crackdown on corruption in Central and South America.

Honduran authorities arrested him in February 2022 and extradited him to the United States, where he was convicted in March 2024 on all counts and sentenced in June of that year to 45 years in prison.

U.S. prison officials released Hernandez earlier this month after receiving a pardon from Trump, who said the disgraced Honduran president had been “treated very harshly and unfairly.”

Trump made the announcement while urging Hondurans to vote for conservative Nasry “Tito” Asfura for president ahead of the Nov. 30 elections, in which he is challenging left-leaning President Xiomara Castro, moves widely seen as opposition to her government.

The announcement of the pardon was met with criticism from both Democrats and Republicans, as well as critics of Trump’s administration, which has killed 86 people in 22 military strikes targeting alleged drug-trafficking boats in international waters.

“Hernandez once boasted at a meeting of narco-traffickers that ‘together they would shove the drugs right up the noses of the gringos.’ What message does pardoning this criminal send to parents who have lost children to narcotics, to law enforcement officers risking everything to stop the flow of deadly drugs?” Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in a Dec. 2 floor speech.

“This disgraceful pardon should be met with bipartisan condemnation as an affront to our values, our safety, our rule of law, our democracy.”

Hernandez served two terms as president, from 2014 to 2022.

The election between Asfura and Castro was still too close to call as of Monday night.

US President Donald Trump has cleared the way for tech giant Nvidia to sell its advanced H200 chip to China, in a significant easing of Washington’s export controls targeting Chinese tech.

Trump said on Monday that he had informed Chinese President Xi Jinping of the decision to allow the export of the chip under an arrangement that will see 25 percent of sales paid to the US government.

Trump said exports would be allowed to “approved customers” under conditions that protect national security, and that his administration would take the “same approach” in relation to other chipmakers, such as AMD and Intel.

“This policy will support American Jobs, strengthen U.S. Manufacturing, and benefit American Taxpayers,” Trump said on Truth Social.

Nvidia, which is based in Santa Clara, California, said the move struck a “thoughtful balance” and would “support high paying jobs and manufacturing in America”.

Nvidia shares jumped more than 2 percent in after-hours trading on the news.

Trump’s announcement marks a major departure from the policy of former President Joe Biden’s administration, which confined Nvidia and other chipmakers to exporting downgraded versions of their products specifically designed for the Chinese market.

In his Truth Social post, Trump slammed the Biden administration’s approach, claiming it had led to US tech companies spending billions of dollars on downgraded products that “nobody wanted”.

The H200, launched in 2023, is Nvidia’s most powerful chip outside of the latest-generation Blackwell series, which Trump confirmed would continue to be restricted for the Chinese market.

While not Nvidia’s most advanced chip, the H200 is almost six times as powerful as the previous generation H20 chip, according to the Washington-based Institute for Progress, a non-partisan think tank.

Under an agreement with the Trump administration announced in August, Nvidia agreed to pay the US government 15 percent of revenues from its sales of the H20, which was designed to comply with restrictions imposed on the Chinese market.

Tilly Zhang, an expert on Chinese tech at Gavekal Dragonomics, said Trump’s decision reflected “market realities” as well as intense lobbying by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.

“The priority is moving away from purely blocking or slowing China’s tech progress, more towards competing for market share and securing the commercial benefits of selling their own tech solutions,” Zhang told Al Jazeera.

As blocking China’s tech advancement becomes increasingly unrealistic, “gaining more market share and revenue is turning into a higher priority”, Zhang said.

“That’s what this US move signals to me.”

Zhang said the race between China and the US to dominate artificial intelligence had shifted from export controls towards market competition.

“That might push chipmakers on both sides towards faster innovation, and bring more market dynamics,” she said.

Trump’s announcement drew a swift rebuke from Democratic lawmakers.

US Senator Elizabeth Warren, who represents Massachusetts, accused the Trump administration of “selling out US security”.

“Trump is letting NVIDIA export cutting-edge AI chips that his own DOJ revealed are being illegally smuggled into China,” Warren said on X, referring to multiple probes into illegal chip shipments carried out by the US Department of Justice.

“His own DOJ called these chips ‘building blocks of AI superiority’.”

Chris McGuire, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said Trump’s move was a blow to US efforts to stay ahead of China in the race to dominate AI.

“Loosening export controls on AI chips will allow Chinese AI firms to close the gap with frontier US AI models, and will allow Chinese cloud computing providers to build ‘good enough’ data centres around the world,” McGuire, who worked on tech policy in Biden’s White House, told Al Jazeera.

“This risks undermining the administration’s efforts to ensure the US AI stack dominates globally.”

The Trump administration has accused ICEBlock of making federal agents vulnerable to attack and called for its removal.

The developer of a popular app used to monitor and share alerts about immigration enforcement activities has sued the administration of United States President Donald Trump for pressuring Apple to remove it.

ICEBlock, whose name refers to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), had one million users before it was dropped from Apple’s app store, according to a lawsuit filed on Monday.

Developer Joshua Aaron alleged in the complaint that the Trump administration’s campaign against the tracking app amounted to a violation of free speech.

“When we see our government doing something wrong, it’s our duty as citizens of this nation to hold them accountable, and that is exactly what we’re doing with this lawsuit,” Aaron said in the lawsuit.

The suit calls on the district court system to protect the Texas-based software company from “unlawful threats” under the Trump administration.

It also names as defendants some of Trump’s highest-level officials, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and ICE’s acting director, Todd Lyons.

First released in April, ICEBlock quickly became a widely used tool across the US as communities sought ways to share information about immigration raids.

Since returning to office for a second term, Trump has pushed a campaign of mass deportation, targeting a wide range of immigrants, many of whom are in the country legally.

Those raids, many carried out by heavily armed immigration agents in military-style attire, have also faced repeated accusations of human rights abuses.

Critics have questioned the violence used in some arrests, as well as the ICE officers’ use of face masks and plainclothes to conceal their identities.

There have also been reports of inhumane conditions once immigrants are in custody, including overcrowding, a lack of sanitation and faeces-smeared walls.

Human rights advocates have also questioned the speed with which deportations are being carried out, claiming the immigrants arrested have no opportunity to exercise their due process rights and are often prevented from contacting lawyers.

Even US citizens have been accidentally detained in the immigration sweeps. Some immigrants have been deported despite court orders mandating that they remain in the US.

The Trump administration has faced fierce criticism and judicial rebukes for its tactics.

But it maintains that software like ICEBlock puts federal immigration agents in danger of retaliation.

“ICEBlock is designed to put ICE agents at risk just for doing their jobs, and violence against law enforcement is an intolerable red line,” Attorney General Bondi has said.

In October, ICEBlock was pulled from Apple’s app store, a popular platform for downloading mobile software. The Justice Department confirmed that it had contacted Apple to push for the removal.

The lawsuit states that the tech company told Aaron the app had been removed following “information provided to Apple by law enforcement”.

Aaron has countered that the app is an exercise of essential free speech rights and is meant to help protect people from overbearing government activity.

“We’re basically asking the court to set a precedent and affirm that ICEBlock is, in fact, First Amendment-protected speech and that I did nothing wrong by creating it,” Aaron told The Associated Press news agency in an interview.

“I mean, these are people that are wearing masks — which is the antithesis of everything about this country — and they are not identifying themselves, and they’re zip-tying children, and they’re throwing women into vans.”

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court’s conservatives sounded ready on Monday to overrule Congress and give President Trump more power to fire officials at independent agencies and commissions.

The justices heard arguments on whether Trump could fire Rebecca Slaughter, one of two Democratic appointees on the five-member Federal Trade Commission.

The case poses a clash between Congress’ power to structure the government versus the president’s “executive power.”

A ruling for Trump portends a historic shift in the federal government — away from bipartisan experts and toward more partisan control by the president.

Trump’s Solicitor General D. John Sauer said the court should overturn a 1935 decision that upheld independent agencies. The decision “was grievously wrong when decided. It must be overruled,” he told the court.

The court’s three liberals strongly argued against what they called a “radical change” in American government.

If the president is free to fire the leaders of independent agencies, they said, the longstanding civil service laws could be struck down as well.

It would put “massive, uncontrolled and unchecked power in the hands of the president,” Justice Elena Kagan said.

But the six conservatives said they were concerned that these agencies were exercising “executive power” that is reserved to the president.

It was not clear, however, whether the court will rule broadly to cover all independent agencies or focus narrowly on the FTC and other similar commissions.

For most of American history, Congress has created independent boards and commissions to carry out specific missions, each led by a board of experts who were appointed with a fixed term.

But the court’s current conservative majority has contended these commissions and boards are unconstitutional if their officials cannot be fired at will by a new president.

Past presidents had signed those measures into law, and a unanimous Supreme Court upheld them 90 years ago in a case called Humphrey’s Executor vs. U.S.

In creating such bodies, Congress often was responding to the problems of a new era.

The Interstate Commerce Commission was created in 1887 to regulate railroad rates. The FTC, the focus of the court case, was created in 1914 to investigate corporate monopolies. The year before, the Federal Reserve Board was established to supervise banks, prevent panics and regulate the money supply.

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, Congress created the Securities and Exchange Commission to regulate the stock market and the National Labor Relations Board to resolve labor disputes.

Decades later, Congress focused on safety. The National Transportation Safety Board was created to investigate aviation accidents, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission investigates products that may pose a danger. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission protects the public from nuclear hazards.

Typically, Congress gave the appointees, a mix of Republicans and Democrats, a fixed term and said they could be removed only for “inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.”

Slaughter was first appointed by Trump to a Democratic seat and was reappointed by President Biden in 2023 for a seven-year term.

But conservatives often long derided these agencies and commissions as an out-of-control “administrative state,” and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said he believes their independence from direct presidential control is unconstitutional.

“The President’s power to remove — and thus supervise — those who wield executive power on his behalf follows from the text” of the Constitution, he wrote last year in his opinion, which declared for the first time that a president has immunity from being prosecuted later for crimes while in office.

Roberts spoke for a 6-3 majority in setting out an extremely broad view of presidential power while limiting the authority of Congress.

The Constitution in Article I says Congress “shall have the power…to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution…all other powers vested” in the U.S. government. Article II says, “the executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States.”

The current court majority believes that the president’s executive power prevails over the power of Congress to set limits by law.

“Congress lacks authority to control the President’s ‘unrestricted power of removal’ with respect to executive officers of the United States,” Roberts wrote last year in Trump vs. United States.

Four months later, Trump won reelection and moved quickly to fire a series of Democratic appointees who had fixed terms set by Congress. Slaughter, along with several other fired appointees, sued, citing the law and her fixed term. They won before federal district judges and the U.S. Court of Appeals.

But Trump’s lawyers filed emergency appeals at the Supreme Court, and the justices, by 6-3 votes, sided with the president and against the fired officials.

In September, the court said it would hear arguments in the case of Trump vs. Slaughter to decide on whether to overturn the Humphrey’s Executor decision.

At the time, conservatives applauded the move. “For far too long, Humphrey’s Executor has allowed unaccountable agencies like the FTC to wield executive power without meaningful oversight,” said Cory Andrews, general counsel for the Washington Legal Foundation.

In defense of the 1935 decision, law professors noted the court said that these independent boards were not purely executive agencies, but also had legislative and judicial duties, like adopting regulations or resolving labor disputes.

During Monday’s argument, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said the principle of “democratic accountability” called for deferring to Congress, not the president.

“Congress decided that some matters should be handled by nonpartisan experts. They said expertise matters with respect to the economy and transportation. So having the president come in and fire all the scientists and the doctors and the economists and the PhDs and replacing them with loyalists is actually is not in the best interest of the citizens of the United States,” she said.

But that argument gained no traction with Roberts and the conservatives. They said the president is elected and has the executive authority to control federal agencies.

The only apparent doubt involved the Federal Reserve Board, whose independence is prized by business. The Chamber of Commerce said the court should overrule the 1935 decision, but carve out an exception for the Federal Reserve.

Trump’s lawyer grudgingly agreed. If “an exception to the removal power exists,” he wrote in his brief in the Slaughter case, it should be “an agency-specific anomaly” limited to the Federal Reserve.