Trump Judges Rule He Can Fire Whoever He Wants

An appeals court judge tore into her colleagues’ decision Friday to “pave the way for autocracy” by allowing President Donald Trump to summarily fire the Democratic members of independent federal agencies.

In a 2–1 ruling, Trump-appointed D.C. Circuit Court Judges Gregory Katsas and Justin Walker greenlit the president’s efforts to remove Democratic members of the National Labor Relations Board and Merit Systems Protection Board.

“Congress may not restrict the President’s ability to remove principal officers who wield substantial executive power,” Katsas wrote in the majority opinion. “As explained below, the NLRB and MSPB wield substantial powers that are both executive in nature and different from the powers that Humphrey’s Executor deemed to be merely quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial. So, Congress cannot restrict the President’s ability to remove NLRB or MSPB members.”

Humphrey’s Executor v. United States is a 1935 Supreme Court case that established Congress can pass laws limiting the president’s ability to fire executive officials of independent federal agencies.

In a scathing dissenting opinion, Judge Florence Pan warned that the decision was a disastrous consolidation of executive power behind the president. “Adoption of the government’s maximalist theory of executive power (implicitly or explicitly) threatens to fundamentally change the character of our government,” she wrote.

“Taken to its logical end, the government’s theory will eliminate removal protections for all employees of the Executive Branch and place every hiring decision and agency action under the political direction of the President. But such a radical upending of the constitutional order is not supported by the text or structure of the Constitution and is inconsistent with the intent of the Framers. And while the government claims to uphold the separation of powers, its theory instead concentrates excessive power in the President and thus paves the way to autocracy.”

The Supreme Court previously allowed Trump to oust Gwynne Wilcox at the National Labor Relations Board and Cathy Harris at the Merit Systems Protection Board—whose terms weren’t due to expire until 2029—as well as three Democratic appointees on the Consumer Product Safety Commission and Rebecca Slaughter, a Democratic commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission.

Republicans are slowly but steadily peeling away from House Speaker Mike Johnson.

The Louisiana lawmaker is facing mounting scrutiny from his caucus, who are reportedly concerned about his leadership ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

Democrats’ surprise performance in the Tennessee special election earlier this week put Johnson’s capabilities into laser focus, stressing already fraught tensions between House Republicans and their leader.

“The confluence is weakened political power by Trump, the result from the elections in New Jersey, New York, and Virginia, and people getting anxious about the election,” a senior House GOP lawmaker told NBC News Thursday. “There’s a lot of anxiety and stress about the election, and people looking at their own districts, saying, ‘I thought things were going to be different.’”

The government shutdown only exacerbated the effect, leaving Republicans in vulnerable districts without the support that they thought they could rely on.

“I just think being off for 50 days, there was no continuity. Nobody was here. There was nobody like, ‘Hey, you’re doing great. Keep it up,’” the lawmaker continued. “Everyone being back in their district, there was a loneliness. A lot of members may have felt like we’re on our own.”

Johnson shocked the halls of Congress when he catapulted into the House leadership position in late 2023, replacing former Speaker Kevin McCarthy amid a historically divided caucus. That was possible, in part, because Johnson was a relative unknown with practically zero enemies. But that’s no longer the case.

In recent weeks, Johnson has made enemies out of Representatives Elise Stefanik, Anna Paulina Luna, and Marjorie Taylor Greene on issues ranging from his reluctant release of the Epstein files to his resistance to bipartisan legislation on insider trading.

Speaking with reporters Thursday, Johnson claimed that “friction” and “vigorous debate” were “all part of the process.”

“They’re going to get upset about things. That’s part of the process. It doesn’t deter me in any way. It doesn’t bother me,” he said.

Just nine representatives of the majority party are needed to trigger a vote of no confidence against a House speaker. But for all the malcontent, exactly who could unite the conference to replace Johnson is still not clear.

“I support Mike Johnson and what he’s been doing. I think he’s in line with the president. I think he has the ear of the president,” Representative Troy Nehls, who is retiring when his term ends in January 2027, told NBC. “If it’s not Mike Johnson, well, then who?… Who could get enough votes to even replace him? And quite honestly, it’s probably nobody.”

The man who planted pipe bombs at the Republican and Democratic National Committee headquarters the day before January 6 seems to have been motivated by MAGA election denialism.  

Virginia resident Brian Cole, 30, was taken into custody on Thursday after being charged with placing the bombs on January 5, 2021, the day before Congress was to certify the 2020 presidential election. 

Cole reportedly told FBI investigators that he believed unsubstantiated theories about the 2020 presidential election being stolen from Donald Trump. Sources told CNN he made multiple statements as he spent hours with the FBI.

While the FBI has yet to declare a motive or publicly comment on the report, it’s clear that Trump’s biggest lie played a role in the incident of political violence.

California Governor Gavin Newsom has reason to be optimistic about congressional redistricting in his state after a Supreme Court ruling.

On Thursday, the court ruled 6-3 that Texas can use a new legislative map that was redrawn to benefit Republicans, with conservative Justice Samuel Alito saying in his concurring opinion that rather than racial gerrymandering, which would be illegal, “the impetus for the adoption of the Texas map (like the map subsequently adopted in California) was partisan advantage pure and simple.”

This seems to suggest that the conservative majority on the high court that approved Texas’s map will also approve California’s, which is being redrawn to give Democrats possibly five more congressional seats. When Attorney General Pam Bondi celebrated the Supreme Court ruling on X Thursday, Newsom’s press office eagerly chimed in, asking if the Justice Department would drop its lawsuit against Newsom and the Golden State.

The DOJ’s official account didn’t seem to think the ruling applied to Democrats, posting in response, “Not a chance, Gavin—we will stop your DEI districts for 2026.” But that statement may not be how the Supreme Court sees it.

President Trump began the partisan gerrymandering wars earlier this year when he urged Texas to redraw its maps, hoping to avert Republican losses in the 2026 midterms. His efforts to get other Republican-led states on board has not gone as well. Meanwhile, California isn’t the only Democratic-led state replying to Trump: Virginia is now beginning plans to redraw its maps.

FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino offered up a baffling excuse Thursday for fueling conspiracy theories about the pipe bombs planted at the Democratic and Republican national headquarters five years ago.

Following the arrest earlier Thursday of a suspect in the attempted bombing, Fox News’s Sean Hannity asked Bongino about his past claims that the government had engaged in a “massive cover-up,” and that the pipe bombs were likely an “inside job.”

“You know, listen, I was paid in the past, Sean, for my opinions. That’s clear,” Bongino said. “And one day I will be back in that space. That’s not what I’m paid for now. I’m paid to be your deputy director, and we base investigations on facts.”

The former talk radio host then launched into yet more conspiracy winding about the so-called “collusion hoax.” So, it seems Bongino’s opinion days aren’t so far behind him after all.

Hannity was referring to comments Bongino initially made on X shortly after the riot on January 6, 2021, but also as recently as this past January—just one month before being tapped to help lead the FBI. Bongino suggested that the agency had identified a suspect but “just doesn’t want to tell us, because it was an inside job.”