CNN’s Resident Trump Defender Doesn’t Know How the Constitution Works

Republican strategist Scott Jennings had to be reminded how the U.S. Constitution works, during an explosive CNN roundtable debate Thursday night.

Jennings, a senior political commentator at the network, argued that a federal judge had overstepped their authority Thursday by striking down Donald Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan nationals the government claims are members of the Tren de Aragua gang.

U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez ruled that TdA’s presence did not constitute an “invasion,” as the president had previously claimed. The first-term Trump appointee wrote that the administration had inappropriately invoked the law, which applies only when the nation is facing an armed, organized attack by an invading country.

CNN host Abby Phillip was forced to step in to give Jennings a humiliating civics lesson.

“Can I just ask a simple question, who gets to decide whether the United States is at war?” Phillip asked.

“The president, in my opinion—” Jennings replied.

“No, no, no, actually—” Phillip continued, but Jennings wouldn’t hear the answer.

“If we’re being invaded, I want the commander in chief—”

“Scott, Scott no. It’s actually the Congress,” Phillip said, calmly.

“You want to call Congress and see if we’re being invaded? We’ll be taken over before they ever get to the committee room!” Jennings said.

Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution specifically grants Congress the sole power to “declare War.” Jennings should be well aware of this fact, but as Josh A. Cohen pointed out in a post on X, “His Bush admin background breaking through like Venom.” (Jennings had previously worked for George W. Bush’s successful 2004 reelection campaign before joining the White House.)

While Jennings may not have sworn any oath to uphold the Constitution, Trump certainly has—and yet the president has continued to attack the checks and balances it established. Trump has repeatedly undermined Congress’s power of purse by directing the withholding of federal funds, and has also begun waging war on the Fourteenth Amendment which established birthright citizenship.

At least 11 federal judges and their families have been threatened and harassed since they ruled against President Trump on issues of deportations, federal funding, and his war on “wokeness.” 

The judges, under anonymity, told Reuters that they had received multiple intimidating calls and emails to their homes and offices. Some have been subject to the disturbing “pizza box” method, in which antagonists will anonymously send a pizza to the home of a judge or their relatives just to show that they know where they live. 

This is only compounded by the countless attacks and doxxing attempts that people like Laura Loomer and Elon Musk have made on X. When U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ruled against Trump’s illegal deportation of 137 men under the Alien Enemies Act in March, Loomer and Musk shared photos of his daughter, while their army of keyboard warriors called for the execution or arrest of Boasberg and the rest of his family. Loomer did the same to Judge John McConnell after he blocked Trump from freezing education grants, posting a picture of his daughter who had worked for the Education Department. Loomer’s post conveniently omitted that McConnell’s daughter left the department before Trump was even inaugurated.

“The reason why Judge McConnell, a Democrat donor and activist wants Trump to restore funding is because his daughter, Catherine McConnell, is currently employed by the same Department of Education that President Trump and @elonmusk want to audit and DEFUND,” Loomer wrote on X. “She was appointed by Joe Biden and now her Dad is abusing his power to protect her paycheck.”   

Reuters identified more than 600 similar posts on social media and right-leaning message boards since February, targeting family members of judges who ruled against the Trump administration. The commentators attacked everything from their physical appearance to their patriotism. Amplified on X and other platforms by some of Trump’s most prominent allies, including Musk, those posts have been viewed more than 200 million times. At least 70 posts explicitly called for judges’ family members to face violence, retaliation or arrest.

This makes the chilling effect impossible to ignore, as judges could potentially begin to rule more and more in favor of Trump out of fear of MAGA retribution.

“The attacks are not random. They seem designed to intimidate those of us who serve in this critical capacity,” said U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson at a conference on Thursday. “The threats and harassment are attacks on our democracy.”

Donald Trump has just sent Republicans in Congress a budget proposal that cuts nearly everything, and if they don’t like it, he says he’ll withhold cash that they approve, setting up a constitutional crisis.

The budget proposal, released Friday, would slash nearly every federal program by $163 billion, except for defense spending, which would remain flat. Many Republicans are already unhappy with it, but the White House may not heed their concerns. One official in the Office of Management and Budget told Politico that the administration wouldn’t rule out impoundment, or overriding Congress’s decision by withholding funding it has already approved.

“We’re working with Congress to see what they will pass, and I believe that they have an interest in passing cuts,” said the official.

Such a move would violate the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which Trump and his allies have called unconstitutional. The law prevents the president from withholding money allocated by Congress or using it for different purposes. Trump attempting to impound funds in this way would be a direct challenge to the Constitution’s separation of powers, and could result in a legal fight that ends up in front of the Supreme Court.

Trump hinted at bringing back “presidential impoundment authority” while campaigning for president, making his attempt to seize appropriated funds a real possibility, despite the Constitution clearly stating that the authority over government spending lies with Congress. The head of OMB, Project 2025 author Russell Vought, also called the Impoundment Act unconstitutional in his confirmation hearing.

So, will the president try to impound funds, and will Republicans stand up for their own constitutional authority if he does? The GOP has not shown much, if any resolve, in standing up to Trump, and Democrats have little they can do as the minority in the House and Senate. It seems that if Trump tries to seize funds, the courts may be the only check on his power.

White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller may be up next for a new position in Donald Trump’s administration: Axios reported Friday that he’s a top candidate to replace Mike Waltz, Trump’s departing national security adviser.

Miller, the ghoulish white nationalist behind the president’s anti-immigrant crusade, is already serving as the president’s adviser on Homeland Security; reportedly he runs the Homeland Security Council “like clockwork.”

Miller has already been working with the National Security Council, running what The Atlantic reported was the “most active and well-staffed” section on homeland security, which at times operated entirely independently from the leadership office previously run by Waltz. It worked so well that Alex Wong, Waltz’s deputy, expressed concerns about the perceived split between the two factions.

It’s unlikely that Miller’s work as a homeland security adviser would stop him from taking on an additional role: Right now, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has four. The secretary is also serving as the head of what remains of the United States Agency for International Development and the acting archivist at the National Archives and Records Administration—and in doing so, has found himself leading both an agency that has violated the Federal Records Act and the one that is meant to ensure that doesn’t happen.

Two White House sources told Axios that Miller’s work with Rubio made him well suited for the role. Another said that the fiery advocate had already expressed his interest in taking on the job, and another said that “if Stephen wants the job, it’s hard to see why Trump wouldn’t say yes.”

In recent weeks, Miller has been a fierce advocate for the Trump administration’s immigration policies—sometimes too fierce—and has set off on unhinged rants during multiple television interviews and addresses.

Conscience, a Freedom Flotilla aid ship aiming to break Israel’s two-month siege on Gaza, was struck by drones off the coast of Malta in the early hours of Friday. There were no casualties as a nearby tugboat helped put out the fire.

Footage shows smoke, flames, and massive, gaping holes in the ship’s hull. “Conscience has been bombed two times [just] a few minutes ago in 14 miles to the Maltese port,” one of the flotilla workers said through coughs as smoke filled his lungs.

“Armed drones attacked the front of an unarmed civilian vessel twice, causing a fire and a substantial breach in the hull,” the Freedom Flotilla Coalition said in a statement. And while the coalition stopped short of directly blaming Israel, they demanded that “Israeli ambassadors be summoned and answer to violations of international law, including the ongoing blockade and the bombing of our civilian vessel in international waters.”

“Our Flotilla is challenging not only that blockade that has kept all of the food and water and everything out of Gaza now for almost a month and a half, on the genocide that the U.S. is complicit [in]. The Israeli genocide of at least 55–60,000 Palestinians in Gaza,” said Ann Wright, a former U.S. Army colonel and diplomat who now works for the Freedom Flotilla. “Right here, we are in Malta dealing with a brutal attack on an innocent ship, a ship that was anchored or outside of territorial waters, waiting for us, the activists to come on board so that we could then head toward Gaza to say to the world, ‘Here are some citizens who are willing to take action where our government has failed to act.’ … While we cannot yet identify the source of the drones, there is no doubt in my mind that there’s a history of violence that has been directed toward the flotillas from the state of Israel.”

In 2010, Israel raided six Freedom Flotilla ships in the Mediterranean Sea, killing 10 people and wounding dozens.