Judge Gives Trump Just 2 Months to Shut Down Alligator Alcatraz

A federal judge ruled Thursday night that the government could no longer send people to Alligator Alcatraz and that the ramshackle detention facility must be dismantled, Politico reported.

U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams gave the government 60 days to remove the facility’s fencing, lighting, and generators—rendering the facility unusable and forcing it to clear out its detainee population.

The ruling was in response to a lawsuit from Friends of the Everglades, the Center for Biological Diversity, and the Miccosukee Tribe alleging that construction on the new facility was greenlit without providing time for public notice and comment, or conducting proper environmental reviews required by the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, and state and local land-use laws. The facility was built on a defunct Miami-Dade airstrip adjacent to the Big Cypress National Preserve and several tribal villages.

“Every Florida governor, every Florida senator, and countless local and national political figures, including presidents, have publicly pledged their unequivocal support for the restoration, conservation and protection of the Everglades,” Williams wrote. “This order does nothing more than uphold the basic requirements of legislation designed to fulfill those promises.”

Earlier this month, Williams had ordered Florida to halt construction at the Trump administration’s premier wetland-themed concentration camp, where both detainees and former employees have alleged horrific living conditions.

The judge also weighed a long-standing question about the hastily constructed facility: Who exactly runs it? Williams rejected the federal and state government’s claim that Alligator Alcatraz was run by the state of Florida and was therefore not subject to NEPA’s requirements.

“That the deputized officers’ regular salaries are paid, required uniforms are bought, and standard work hours are controlled by their state agency supervisors is not germane because their status there as deputized officers and their activities at the camp are controlled by ICE,” she wrote.

The purposeful ambiguity about whether the facility is managed by ICE has resulted in an erosion of detainee rights, as immigration attorneys watch their clients disappear from the ICE detainee tracker and have no idea how to contact them once they’re inside the camp.

Elon Musk will face a lawsuit accusing him of defrauding voters with his shady, pre-2024 election lottery—in which the billionaire dangled a chance for a million-dollar payday over voters who signed a pro-Constitution petition by his America PAC.

“We are going to be awarding $1 million randomly to people who have signed the petition, every day, from now until the election,” Musk told a Pennsylvania crowd in October. But amid a failed attempt by Philadelphia’s district attorney to halt the giveaway, America PAC revealed that the $1 million recipients were not chosen by chance but handpicked, with their personal stories being a factor in the selection process.

This was news to Jacqueline McAferty of Arizona, who had signed the petition and, on Election Day, proposed a class action, claiming that Musk and America PAC had defrauded voters. Musk, McAferty said, induced voters with false statements to sign the petition and submit “personal, private information” in the process.

Musk in January sought to get the case dismissed, insisting that people who signed up for the chance to win $1 million weren’t harmed by sharing their personal information and were told—despite his apparent statements to the contrary—that America PAC staffers would review their cases rather than leave their selection up to chance.

But on Wednesday, a federal judge in Texas ordered Musk to face the lawsuit.

“It is plausible that plaintiff justifiably relied on those statements to believe that defendants were objectively offering her the chance to enter a random lottery—even if that is not what they subjectively intended to do,” wrote U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman, per Reuters.

Pitman also suggested that a political data expert could testify and help determine the value of the information that McAferty and other signatories provided to Musk.

Musk’s presence in the political sphere has shrunk in recent months. He funneled millions into the Trump campaign and led the president’s efforts to gut the federal government before the two had a very public falling out over the administration’s sweeping tax and spending plan.

But the world’s richest man remains interested in politics: When The Wall Street Journal reported this week that Musk had given up on his plans to start a political party, which he first cooked up during his feud with Trump, Musk suggested that this wasn’t true.

Vice President JD Vance on Thursday baselessly dismissed a recent report that exposed the regressive nature of the administration’s economic agenda.

During a Thursday visit to Georgia, a reporter with Atlanta News First asked the vice president to justify the fact that, according to a new report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, Trump’s spending plan will exacerbate the wealth gap.

According to the report, the so-called One, Big Beautiful Bill Act will cost the poorest Americans an estimated $1,200 per year from 2026 to 2034, while furnishing the richest with an extra $13,600.

Vance’s reply?

Sometimes, he said, the CBO’s reports are “absolutely atrocious, and I think this is a good example of a very atrocious report.”

To defend the claim, he pointed to the bill’s temporary no-tax-on-tips and no-tax-on-overtime provisions (which were, according to the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, “designed in ways that limit their benefits for less affluent taxpayers”).

Most importantly, Vance said, Trump’s policies will keep jobs in the United States. But rather than explain how, he provided a quite circular argument: “That is the very best thing for the people at the bottom of the income ladder, and that’s why we have the economic policies that we do.”

The vice president went on to tout the president’s mass deportation campaign.

Last month, when Vance was rallying for the bill’s passage, he described its impact on the federal budget (as measured by the CBO) and its historic cuts to the social safety net (“the minutiae of the Medicaid policy,” as he put it) as “immaterial,” in light of the billions it puts toward Trump’s draconian immigration agenda.

Far-right Freedom Caucus member Chip Roy—whom President Donald Trump once described as “weak and ineffective”—is now running for Texas Attorney General.

Roy adds his name to a large group of conservatives looking to replace current Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is now running for Senate. Roy and Paxton were close, with Roy even working as assistant attorney general for Paxton in 2014.

That all changed when Roy called on Paxton to resign in 2020 on allegations of bribery and abuse of office.

Roy has also been a constant agitator within the GOP, as he most recently opposed Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” on fiscal grounds. But Roy chose to leave the past conflict out of his campaign announcement ad.

“Today, we draw a line in the sand. Texans’ next attorney general must have a proven record of fighting to preserve, protect, and defend our legacy—an attorney general unafraid to fight, unafraid to win,” Roy said. “That’s why I fought to secure our border and help President Trump deliver results.”

Roy will be running against state Senators Mayes Middleton and Joan Huffman, and former Paxton aide Aaron Reitz.

California’s Supreme Court has struck down the state GOP’s attempt to delay Governor Gavin Newsom’s redistricting plan, clearing the runway for the measure to reach the November referendum vote. 

The GOP lawmakers who filed the challenge argued that Newsom had moved forward too quickly, and violated the state’s independent redistricting commission. 

On Wednesday, the justices disagreed.

Newsom’s plan, which is contingent upon Texas passing its initial redistricting effort, has some California Republicans incensed.

“We have a governor, we have political insiders, we have legislators who are breaking California’s Constitution by drawing congressional maps behind closed doors, with no transparency,” California state Senator Suzette Martinez Valladares told CNN’s Brianna Keilar on Wednesday. 

“The new maps that Democrats in your state want to pass … they include a trigger, that they would only go into effect if Texas’s redistricted maps go into effect.… Do you hold Texas Republicans at all responsible for what you’re facing in your state?” Keilar asked. 

“Well, that actually—Governor Newsom said that this would only happen if Texas redrew their maps, however that’s not what the bill language they presented said,” Vallardares said. “It says if any state redraws their maps, that this would go into an effect.” 

“OK. But that’s the effect of this. There is a trigger. This isn’t happening in a vacuum. There’s a contingency. And in this case, it is Texas. So let’s just be clear. If it says other states, well, it’s Texas,” Keilar said. “So do you have any criticism from members of your own party in Texas?” 

Vallardares avoided the question, instead insisting that what Newsom was doing was wholly illegal.

“If you can’t criticize Republicans in Texas for their approach, which is so different from the one that you’re advocating for in California, how should voters see California Republicans … opposed to a move like this only when it doesn’t favor them?” the CNN reporter asked.

“Listen, I was elected, and the 120 legislators that were elected this past November in California, to uphold the California Constitution. This isn’t a Republican issue. This isn’t a Democrat issue. This is an issue of political elitists in California silencing and taking the power away from California voters,” Valladares said, once again avoiding Keilar’s question. 

California’s redistricting referendum is set for November 4.