In today’s issue:
- Trump and courts arm wrestle
- Health issues blast back into politics
- Pope Francis died Monday at 88
- Iran nuclear talks progress
President Trump’s feud with the judicial branch is ratcheting up.
Even as the courts fire back, accusing the executive branch of defying orders, the administration continues to push forward with policies ranging from deportations to slashing the federal government, seemingly unafraid of the judicial consequences. Experts told The Hill’s Zach Schonfeld and Rebecca Beitsch that the moves signal an administration willing to be more combative with the courts, and raise concerns about whether the dynamic will escalate over the rest of Trump’s second term.
“What you’re witnessing is a kind of adversarial stance that is unusual for government lawyers to take,” said Rebecca Roiphe, a former federal prosecutor now teaching legal ethics at New York Law School. “I do think it’s a warning sign, and it’s definitely a sign that the administration just has a very different view of legal constraint than prior administrations.”
On Saturday, the Supreme Court temporarily blocked the administration’s plans to deport more Venezuelan migrants under an 18th-century wartime law, writing in an unsigned brief that “the government is directed not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this court.” The order came in response to an emergency petition filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, with Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissenting.
In response, the administration told the Supreme Court it wants the authority to remove the Venezuelans detained in Texas under other laws while the litigation over their potential deportations continues. In a court filing, Solicitor General D. John Sauer asked the high court to “dissolve its current administrative stay” issued early Saturday and to allow “lower courts to address the relevant legal and factual questions.”
▪ The New York Times: Inside the urgent fight over the administration’s new deportation effort.
▪ NBC News: Video from Friday night shows Immigration and Customs Enforcement buses full of Venezuelan migrants headed toward an airport in North Texas and abruptly turning around.
▪ The New Yorker: Trump’s deportation obsession.
▪ The Hill: A divided federal appeals court panel on Friday temporarily halted U.S. District Judge James Boasberg’s contempt proceedings against the Trump administration over its deportation flights to El Salvador last month.
Then there’s the case of Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was deported to El Salvador due to an “administrative error” and now in custody in the country’s notorious prison for gang members. The deportation, and the White House’s claims that the administration is powerless to return Abrego Garcia, is drawing criticism from both sides of the aisle.
Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” called the deportation a “screw-up,” though he stopped short of pushing for Abrego Garcia’s return to the United States. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) — who recently visited his constituent in El Salvador — said the case marks a “constitutional crisis.”
“[They are] very much flouting the courts as we speak,” Van Hollen said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “As the courts have said, facilitating his return means something more than doing nothing. And they are doing nothing. Yes, they’re absolutely in violation of the court orders as we speak.”
The Washington Post: The odyssey of Abrego Garcia begins with a defunct registry.
NATIONWIDE PUSHBACK: More than 150 groups — including civil rights organizations, labor unions, LGBTQ advocates, veterans and election activists — planned more than 1,200 “Hands Off!” demonstrations across the country over the weekend as those opposed to the Trump administration’s policies continue to protest what they see as threats to the nation’s democracy and the strength of the courts.
“Donald Trump has defied a direct, binding order from the United States Supreme Court. Let that sink in,” the protest organizing group 50501 wrote in a Thursday post two days prior to the public demonstrations. “This is not a theoretical crisis. This is not an abstract fear. This is the moment that confirms our Constitution has been crippled.”
Blake Burman’s Smart Take will return tomorrow.
3 THINGS TO KNOW TODAY
▪ Pope Francis, a reformer from Argentina who rattled the Catholic Church’s traditionalists and inspired progressives by reaching out to the poor and marginalized, died at age 88 early on Monday as the 266th pope. Now begins a centuries-old ritual — “sede vacante,” or the vacant seat — to elect a new pope. Francis, still weak after pneumonia and respiratory infections, made his last public appearance on Easter. He also met Vice President Vance at the Vatican.
▪ Questions swirl about Google’s future after antitrust losses.
▪ Want to delete yourself from the internet? Here’s how.
LEADING THE DAY
© The Associated Press | Kevin Wolf
ECONOMIC WELLNESS: Trump and Republican candidates next year expect health care policies, along with the national mood about jobs, U.S. growth and high prices, to sway voters in midterm contests.
Whether it’s a controversial GOP proposal to cut $880 billion from federal Medicaid health coverage for the poor, or insurance company efforts to dodge provisions of the now-popular Affordable Care Act, or facts vs. myths about the safety of childhood vaccines — voters experience the economy in a thousand ways that impact their wallets, their sense of health and wellbeing and their confidence in the direction of the country.
Candidates in both major parties have been buffeted by health care politics during many election cycles.
The Hill: Potential Medicaid cuts risk worsening the Black maternal health crisis.
Republican proposals to slash federal funding for Medicaid, the health program for low-income Americans shared with states, is considered so politically risky, including in red states where Medicaid enrollment is high, such as West Virginia, Kentucky and Louisiana, that the program may dodge Congress’s knife this summer.
Nearly half of Republicans said they want to expand, not cut Medicaid, according to a recent poll conducted by the University of Maryland. And that may be because the federal-state coverage is not an abstraction to many Americans who see Medicaid as a financial lifeline for low-income seniors, the disabled and even the working poor who cannot afford private health insurance.
“The public’s staunch opposition to Medicaid cuts likely reflects the fact that most people have a connection to the program,” according to independent health policy nonprofit KFF. More than half of adults, including a similar share of those living in rural areas, say they or a family member has received help from Medicaid at some point, including 4 in 10 Republicans (44 percent) and those who voted for Trump last year (45 percent), KFF found.
The Supreme Court today will hear arguments challenging a provision of the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA) that requires private insurers to cover preventive health care screenings, medical tests and checkups at no additional cost to patients.
Experts say the court’s ruling in the case Kennedy v. Braidwood Management could have sweeping consequences for affordable insurance access across the United States to prevent disease and death — not to mention lower costs for patients — through treatment techniques such as cancer screenings, mammograms, statins for heart disease and HIV prevention medications.
The Supreme Court is familiar with Obamacare’s provisions, having upheld the constitutionality of the law twice. The GOP in Congress tried dozens of times to legislate the ACA into oblivion, but failed, including during Trump’s first term. The law remains widely popular after 15 years.
The Trump administration and GOP lawmakers promised voters in 2024 that the party would lower the cost of prescription drugs, viewed by consumers as a significant economic concern.
At the same time, the Health and Human Service Department, led by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has stoked uncertainty and confusion among Americans whose suspicions grew during the pandemic about vaccines and what many scientists worry are myths about alternatives.
The Hill: Autism community sounds alarms over “harmful” Kennedy comments.
Kennedy suggests autism can be cured and he believes, contradicting research, that there’s an “environmental toxin” involved. He ordered a review of the “autism epidemic.”
“External factors, environmental exposures,” Kennedy said at a recent press conference. “That’s where we’re going to find the answer.”
In the past, he suggested a link between autism and childhood inoculations, which experts have debunked as not supported in research.
The secretary has said that vaccination against childhood measles, viewed for decades by medical professionals as the best way to prevent the disease and possible death, is “effective,” but he also told CBS News this month that the measles vaccine was “not safety tested.”
▪ The Boston Globe: The rising cost of prescription drugs is squeezing patients, health plans and employers.
▪ The Wall Street Journal: The administration wants to pull another $1 billion in federal funds from Harvard University, money that supports health research.
▪ CBS News: Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey (D) accused Trump during a Sunday interview of “giving away intellectual assets” while punishing major universities by withholding federal research funding.
Last year’s election results offered clues about voters’ focus on health policy as a subset of their rising economic angst, according to a KFF assessment of the role those issues played in Trump’s victory. “Voters … said they were worried about being able to afford many household expenses, including the cost of health care,” the research organization wrote.
SIGNAL Part II: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared detailed information about forthcoming strikes in Yemen on March 15 in a private Signal group chat that included his wife, who is a former Fox News producer; his brother, a federal employee; and his personal lawyer, The New York Times reported Sunday. The secretary shared flight schedules for the F/A-18 Hornets targeting the Houthis in Yemen — essentially the same attack plans that he shared on a separate Signal chat, which included a journalist on March 15. The administration has asserted the initial conversations between officials on Signal disclosed by The Atlantic were not classified. Several Democrats in Congress reacted Sunday to argue that Hegseth should no longer stay in his job.
STATE’S SHRINKING FOOTPRINT IN AFRICA: Trump is soon expected to sign an executive order, which is currently in draft form and was obtained by The New York Times, to impose “a disciplined reorganization” of the State Department and “streamline mission delivery” while cutting “waste, fraud and abuse.” Among the proposed changes: elimination of nearly all operations in Africa, closure of embassies and consulates on that continent, and elimination of State’s headquarter offices that deal with climate change, refugee issues, democracy promotion and human rights. The department is supposed to make the changes by Oct. 1.
EASIER TO FIRE: The administration is expected on Wednesday to move to reclassify civil service employees to make them easier to fire by removing federal job protections for an estimated 50,000 workers. The administration will issue a proposed rule, but the regulations will not officially convert any federal positions until Trump issues an executive order after the finalization of a rulemaking, as published in the Federal Register. The anticipated move will be the latest to strip away labor protections under what Trump in his first term called Schedule F, now to be classified as Schedule Policy/Career. The president on Friday explained on social media that he’s making the change to “root out corruption” and improve “accountability” in the federal workforce.
WHERE AND WHEN
- The House and Senate are out this week.
- The president and first lady Melania Trump will host the annual Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn at 10:30 a.m.
- Vice President Vance and his family arrived in New Delhi, India, this morning local time and toured Akshardham Temple. The vice president will meet with Prime Minister Narendra Modi this evening, local time.
ZOOM IN
© The Associated Press | Rahmat Gul
GOP BUDGET: Lawmakers will return to Washington next week intent on hammering out, committee by committee, the specifics of Trump’s agenda, a process aimed at cutting trillions of dollars in spending to offset up to $4.6 trillion in lower taxes over a decade while increasing the nation’s borrowing authority.
It will take months and for every option that requires scissors, there are impacted constituencies and political perils.
The Republican Party faces significant legislative and mathematical hurdles ahead. And GOP lawmakers are running out of options to pay for the costly agenda Trump pitched to voters last year, The Hill Alexander Bolton reports. Thousands of proposed policy choices that shape the ultimate budget reconciliation package will test the GOP’s relationship with the electorate ahead of the 2026 elections.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee, which has been tasked by the joint budget resolution to identify $880 billion in spending reduction, will “have to look at other things besides health care” to reach that target, said William Hoagland, a senior vice president with the Bipartisan Policy Center who previously served as the Senate Budget Committee’s GOP staff director.
“I don’t see where you can do $1.5 trillion unless you’re actually getting into Medicare and real benefits,” he told The Hill, referring to the estimated price tag of shielding Social Security benefits from taxes.
The administration is testing “the appetite” in Congress for proposed rescissions to previously approved federal spending with planned votes when lawmakers return to Washington, Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought told Fox News last week, referring to possible claw backs of discretionary appropriations. It’s a separate administration track from the upcoming reconciliation package, which can tackle the mandatory outlays in the budget, he said.
“I couldn’t be happier,” Vought said of the momentum he sees in Congress. “You’re going to see a balanced budget.”
▪ The Hill: Five men who are shaping Trump’s economic agenda.
▪ The Hill: Here’s why Trump’s tariff policies concern schools and parents.
▪ Washingtonian: Does Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D), 87, still have what it takes to fight for D.C.?
MORE POLITICS: Senate GOP primaries are returning after a two-year hiatus, reports The Hill’s Al Weaver. The midterm cycle could be littered with at least half a dozen primary battles, a big change from last year.
WHO TITHED TO TRUMP’S SECOND INAUGURATION? The Federal Election Commission, which had a filing deadline on Sunday to glean the list of donors to the Trump Vance Inaugural Committee, learned the total was $239 million, a staggering amount. Contributions of $1 million to $5 million came from major companies with interests before the government as well as business leaders eager to seek Trump’s favor. (Public Citizen also tracked the donations.)
▪ The Hill: Democrats face growing calls for generational change.
▪ The Hill: Top 10 Democratic contenders for 2028.
ELSEWHERE
© The Associated Press | Ludovic Marin, AFP
IRAN: Saturday’s nuclear talks between the U.S. and Iran were productive, officials from both sides said after meetings wrapped up in Rome. U.S. officials reported “very good progress” in the second round of talks with Tehran. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called the session Saturday “a good one.” U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Araghchi are slated to meet again next Saturday.
The talks took place as debate still rages within the Trump administration — and between the U.S. and Israel — over whether diplomacy or military strikes will be more effective in deterring Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.
▪ The Guardian: Russia could play a key role in a deal on the future of Iran’s nuclear program. Moscow is being touted not only as a possible destination for Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, but also as a potential arbiter of deal breaches.
▪ Politico analysis: Trump may get a nuclear deal — on Iran’s terms.
UKRAINE: Russia attacked Ukraine on Sunday despite the ongoing and agreed-upon “Easter truce,” according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. His post came after Russian President Vladimir Putin called for his military to temporarily pause fighting until Sunday evening.
Putin announced the brief ceasefire on Saturday during a meeting with the chief of general staff of the Russian Armed Forces. He said the fighting would be stopped and “guided by humanitarian considerations,” and Russia expected Ukraine to “follow our example.” Ukrainian leaders said that while fighting slowed overnight, the number of attacks conducted by Russia began to rise again as Sunday wore on. The Russian Ministry of Defense, in turn, accused Ukraine of breaching the ceasefire.
▪ BBC: Ukraine’s minerals deal may not buy peace after Trump’s threat.
TARIFFS & TRADE: China warned it will hit back at countries that make deals with Washington that hurt Beijing’s interests, further stoking the trade war between the world’s two biggest economies that threatens to drag in other nations as Trump pushes global tariffs.
Meanwhile, Japan will emphasize “fairness” in any discussions with the U.S. on exchange rates during bilateral trade talks, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said on Sunday.
▪ The Wall Street Journal: A breakdown in U.S.-China relations raises the specter of a new Cold War.
▪ Reuters: China has imposed sanctions on some U.S. members of Congress, government officials as well as heads of non-governmental organizations for what Beijing has deemed “egregious behavior on Hong Kong-related issues.”
OPINION
■ Former top Pentagon spokesperson: There’s a “meltdown” on Hegseth’s watch, by John Ullyot, guest essayist, Politico magazine.
■ Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) bucks Trump — and makes the case for ranked-choice voting, by Karen Tumulty, columnist, The Washington Post.
THE CLOSER
© The Associated Press | AP Photo
And finally … On this day in 1934, The U.K.’s Daily Mail sparked an international sensation with a photograph that was later revealed to be a scam. Not the first, and certainly not the last, considering today’s challenges with deep fakes and artificial intelligence-generated hoaxes.
The Loch Ness monster, in a grainy image now considered iconic, appeared as a dinosaur-like creature cruising across Scotland’s famous loch, or lake. The photo was taken by London physician Robert Kenneth Wilson and added fresh intrigue to a mystery that dated to 565 A.D., when Irish missionary Saint Columba supposedly encountered a strange water behemoth in the River Ness, which feeds the tourist-favored loch. The search by amateurs and scientists for confirmed evidence of a Nessie monster continues to stoke curiosity and conspiracy theories.
Christian Spurling, who participated in the 1934 hoax, later revealed on his deathbed at age 93 that the famous pictures had indeed been staged. A model maker by trade, he allegedly confessed that he helped pranksters by creating a petite monster built atop a tin toy submarine.
Scotland later created a Loch Ness Centre and Exhibition near the lake to display 500 years of monster mania. And to keep it afloat. 🦕
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