Judge Smacks Down Trump’s Attempt to Hold States’ Disaster Aid Hostage

A federal judge on Wednesday smacked down the Trump administration’s attempt to condition federal disaster relief on states’ immigration enforcement cooperation.

A coalition of 20 Democratic state attorneys general sued the Department of Homeland Security and Federal Emergency Management Agency in May, on the grounds that they had illegally imposed “immigration conditions on billions of federal dollars appropriated by Congress to support critical emergency services and infrastructure projects.”

To be eligible for federal funds, states were directed to comply with a number of conditions. For instance, they were to provide federal immigration agents “access to detainees” and “honor requests for cooperation, such as participation in joint operations, sharing of information, or requests for short term detention of an alien pursuant to a valid detainer.” They were also forbidden from operating “any program that benefits illegal immigrants or incentivizes illegal immigration.”

Judge William E. Smith of the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island ruled in the states’ favor Wednesday, finding the administration’s conditions unconstitutional and in violation of federal law, and ordering them removed.

Smith deemed the immigration-related conditions “unlawfully ambiguous,” “overbroad,” and “unrelated to the underlying programs”—considering the grants “fund programs such as disaster relief, fire safety, dam safety, and emergency preparedness.” Tying the aid to immigration cooperation is also coercive, he said, since “states rely on these grants for billions of dollars annually in disaster relief and public safety funds that cannot be replaced by state revenues.”

This story has been updated.

Vice President JD Vance wants everyone to stop calling people who they disagree with Nazis—but some of us are old enough to remember when he called President Donald Trump “America’s Hitler.”

Speaking in Concord, North Carolina, Wednesday, Vance urged people to turn down the temperature following a deadly shooting at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Dallas.

“If you want to stop political violence, stop attacking our law enforcement as the Gestapo. If you want to stop political violence, stop telling your supporters that everybody who disagrees with you is a Nazi,” Vance said. “If you want to stop political violence, look in the mirror. That’s the way that we stop political violence in this country, and we’ve got to do it.”

One might refer Vance to a mirror. Just last week, he railed against a journalist who criticized Charlie Kirk’s legacy by calling them “soulless and evil.” That journalist immediately was doxed and received death threats. But looking back, Vance himself used “Nazi” rhetoric to describe his own boss.

“I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn’t be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he’s America’s Hitler. How’s that for discouraging?” Vance reportedly wrote in a 2016 message to his then-roommate, Georgia state Senator Josh McLaurin.

What’s actually discouraging is just how quickly Vance changed his tune on Trump, transforming from a self-described “Never-Trump guy” into the number two man of Trump’s sweeping policy agenda targeting immigrants and dissenters. Vance once warned that Trump was “leading the white working class to a very dark place.” Now that we’ve arrived in that place, he seems convinced someone else is to blame.

Meanwhile, Trump has never shown any interest in turning down the heat. The president has previously labeled his political opponents “vermin,” and those who disagree with him “the enemy within.” He called Democrats “evil,” “sick,” and “vicious” while feigning outrage over their “divisive” and “disgusting” rhetoric.

While delivering a eulogy at a memorial for Charlie Kirk over the weekend, Trump went off-script to say he wouldn’t embrace forgiveness as the right-wing activist’s own widow had done. “I hate my opponent. And I don’t want the best for them, I’m sorry,” Trump said to laughter.

Donald Trump’s big mouth is starting to bite his allies: Even Ohio Representative Jim Jordan found it difficult to defend the president’s careless remarks regarding his administration’s growing attempts to censor the press.

In an interview with CNBC Wednesday, Jordan conceded that Trump’s language regarding his administration’s handling of late-night host Jimmy Kimmel was tantamount to coercion.

“Congressman, can I just read you something? This is what the president of the United States says, and you tell me whether you think this sounds like coercion or not,” said Squawk Box host Andrew Ross Sorkin.

“I think we’re going to test ABC out on this,” Sorkin continued, quoting Trump. “Let’s see how we do. Last time I went after them they gave me $16 million. This one sounds even more lucrative.”

Jordan, in turn, attempted to deflect the criticism, pointing out that Trump’s pressure ultimately was not successful, considering Kimmel’s triumphant return to some late-night broadcasters Tuesday night. But the Ohio Republican couldn’t defend the White House from a point-blank question.

“But that does sound like pressure from the government, right? There’s pressure, it may not be successful pressure, but it’s pressure from the government?” pressed Sorkin.

After a pause, Jordan relented: “I guess you could say maybe some.” He quickly clarified that he believed it boiled down to a “business decision.”

Other MAGA allies were less protective of the administration’s recent actions, which involved FCC Chair Brendan Carr threatening government action against any broadcaster that continued to air Kimmel after the comedian made a not untrue remark about Charlie Kirk’s assassin.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz, for one, likened Carr’s behavior to a “mafioso,” and recognized that opening the door to federal censorship would only end badly for Trump and his allies.

“I hate what Jimmy Kimmel said; I am thrilled that he was fired,” Cruz said on his podcast. “But let me tell you: If the government gets in the business of saying, ‘We don’t like what you, the media, have said; we’re going to ban you from the airwaves if you don’t say what we like’—that will end up bad for conservatives.”

Trump’s MAGA influencer turned FBI Director Kash Patel is, once again, live-tweeting an active investigation.

A shooting at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Dallas on Wednesday killed two detainees and wounded a third. No ICE personnel were injured. Hours before the suspect’s identity was publicly reported, the FBI director took to X, publishing a photo of “evidence” related to the attack and speculating about the shooter’s motive, in a post with multiple grammatical errors and typos.

“While the investigation is ongoing, an initial review of the evidence shows an idealogical motive behind this attack (see photo below),” Patel wrote. The photo depicts a “recovered” shell casing bearing the phrase “ANTI-ICE.”

The suspect has since been identified in media reports as Joshua Jahn, who was found dead at the scene from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. But the investigation is still ongoing.

And despite the seeming paucity of evidence on motive thus far, Patel saw it fit to label the incident a politically motivated “attack on “law enforcement.” It was “not a one-off,” he wrote, connecting it to a July attack at an ICE facility in the nearby Texas town “Prarieland [sic].”

The FBI director published the tweet less than five hours after the attack was first reported to police. Fourteen minutes later, he edited the post to fix two grammatical errors.

Observers on social media criticized the rashness of Patel’s post.

“Posting evidence during a very live investigation where you could plausibly have co-conspirators is very stupid and the head of the FBI should know better,” wrote Anthony Michael Kreis, a constitutional law professor at Georgia State College of Law.

One would, apparently, be mistaken to expect Patel to have learned to exercise due restraint after drawing widespread criticism for his hasty, misleading communications in the immediate wake of the fatal shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk earlier this month.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent openly admitted Wednesday that the Trump administration was looking to sway the outcome of a foreign election.

Speaking on Fox Business, Bessent seemed to suggest that the U.S. government hoped to carry President Javier Milei through Argentina’s legislative election next month, where half of the seats in the country’s Chamber of Deputies will be selected, as well as a third of the Senate.

“The plan is, as long as President Milei continues with his strong economic policies, to help him—to bridge him to the election,” said Bessent.

Earlier this week, Bessent pledged that the United States was “ready to do what is needed within its mandate to support Argentina,” which was a “systemically important U.S. ally in Latin America.” The deepening relationship between the U.S. and Argentina appears to have stemmed from President Donald Trump’s personal affinity for the self-declared “anarcho-capitalist” who runs the country.

But at home, Milei isn’t so popular, suffering a double-digit loss in the provincial midterms earlier this month, as well as congressional opposition to his cuts to health care and education, and a corruption scandal involving his sister, who managed his campaign.

“People are concerned. People are skittish. It’s very hard to believe that it is different this time, but I believe with President Milei it is,” Bessent said on Fox Business.

Bessent said that he’d met with Milei and Trump on Tuesday, lauding the Argentinian president in a post on X Wednesday for his “impressive fiscal consolidation and a broad liberalization of prices and restrictive regulations.”

In his post, Bessent said that U.S. officials were in talks to establish a $20 billion swap line with Argentina’s Central Bank—an institution Milei once promised to abolish—and even purchase secondary or primary government debt.

The secretary also hinted at handouts from U.S. companies—but said they hinged on the results of October’s legislative election. “I have also been in touch with numerous U.S. companies who intend to make substantial foreign direct investments in Argentina [in] multiple sectors in the event of a positive election outcome,” Bessent wrote.

Milei’s libertarian party, La Libertad Avanza, currently holds only seven of the 72 seats in the Senate and 39 of the 257 seats in the lower chamber. That could all change in next month’s election. Milei himself won’t be up for reelection until 2027.

“The Trump Administration is resolute in our support for allies of the United States, and President Trump has given President Milei a rare endorsement of a foreign official, showing his confidence in his government’s economic plans and the geopolitical strategic importance of the relationship between the United States and Argentina,” Bessent wrote. “Immediately after the election, we will start working with the Argentine government on its principal repayments.”