HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told podcast host Theo Von on Thursday that he used to snort cocaine off toilet seats — and that the addiction he developed as a young man still requires daily vigilance decades later.
Kennedy appeared on "This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von," where the two discussed their shared history in recovery. Kennedy and Von met in substance abuse recovery years ago, and the conversation turned to how Kennedy maintained his sobriety through the COVID-19 pandemic while much of the country shut down.
His answer was characteristically blunt.
"We still did live meetings every day during COVID. We moved from the bank. There was about 15 of us who moved from the bank and we got into the Palisades Playhouse, which now is burned down during the fire, but it was kind of a pirate group … I don't care what happens, I'm going to a meeting every day. And I said, I'm not scared of a germ. You know, I used to snort cocaine off of toilet seats. And I know this disease will kill me, right?"
No hedging. No PR-scrubbed language. The nation's top health official talked about his addiction the way people in recovery actually talk about it — directly, with the kind of gallows humor that comes from staring down something that nearly destroyed you.
There is a particular species of Beltway discomfort that surfaces whenever a public figure refuses to behave like a public figure. Kennedy's remarks will inevitably generate pearl-clutching from the same people who spent years demanding politicians be "authentic" and "vulnerable." Now they have one, and the authenticity makes them squirm.
Kennedy didn't stop at cocaine, according to the Daily Caller. He described recovery as a matter of survival — not a lifestyle choice, not a personal brand, but something that keeps the wheels from coming off entirely.
"If I don't treat it, which means, for me, going to meetings every day, it's just bad for my life. So for me it was survival. And then the opportunity to help another alcoholic, that's the secret sauce of the meetings. And that's what keeps us all sober and keeps us from self-will."
That's a man who understands his own weakness well enough to build a life around managing it. There's more moral clarity in that single paragraph than in a year's worth of congressional testimony.
This isn't Kennedy's first public disclosure about substance abuse. At HMP Global's Rx and Illicit Drug Summit 2025 in Nashville, he recounted the story of taking LSD for the first time at age 15:
"I said to the guy, 'If I take that, will I see dinosaurs?' He said, 'You might.'"
Kennedy has been open about his history of drug use and his decades-long experience in recovery programs. He has a family history of addiction. None of this is hidden. None of it is leaked. He volunteers it — at summits, on podcasts, in rooms where the cameras are rolling.
Consider the contrast. Washington is full of people who build elaborate facades, sanitize their histories, and crumble the moment a skeleton surfaces. Kennedy walks into a room, opens the closet door himself, and starts naming the bones.
The easy take is the sensational one: "HHS Secretary did cocaine off toilet seats." It'll trend. It'll generate clips. And it'll miss the point entirely.
The harder truth — the one that matters for the roughly 15 people who moved their meetings to the Palisades Playhouse rather than go virtual, the one that matters for every person white-knuckling sobriety through isolation — is that Kennedy chose physical presence over safety theater. During COVID, when the federal government was telling Americans to stay home, Kennedy and his small group decided that the disease of addiction was more immediately lethal than a respiratory virus.
For people in recovery, that wasn't reckless. It was triage.
The public health establishment spent years insisting that every in-person gathering was a potential super-spreader event. Recovery meetings, church services, funerals — all subordinated to a single-variable risk calculus that ignored every other way a human being can fall apart. Kennedy lived the cost of that calculus and rejected it in real time.
Something is fitting about a person with Kennedy's history leading HHS. Not despite the addiction — because of the recovery. The pharmaceutical industry, the institutional inertia of federal health agencies, the sheer scale of the addiction crisis in this country — none of it is abstract to him. He has skin in the game in a way that career bureaucrats simply don't.
His critics will use this interview as ammunition. They always do. But the attack requires you to believe that a man who has been sober for decades, who attends meetings daily, who speaks openly about his worst moments, is somehow less qualified than the parade of credentialed functionaries who presided over an opioid epidemic that killed hundreds of thousands of Americans.
Kennedy didn't snort cocaine off a toilet seat last week. He did it in another life — and then he clawed his way out. The people running health policy before him can't say the same about their failures. Those are ongoing.
Attorney General Pam Bondi turned a House Judiciary Committee hearing into a masterclass in political accountability on Wednesday, ripping into Democrats who spent years ignoring Jeffrey Epstein's crimes only to suddenly discover their outrage now that a Republican administration is doing the work their side never bothered to attempt.
The hearing — ostensibly about the release of files related to the Epstein prosecution — devolved into a series of clashes between Bondi and Democratic members, with Ranking Member Jamie Raskin absorbing the sharpest blow. Bondi called him a "washed-up, loser lawyer — not even a lawyer" after he accused her of filibustering during questioning.
It was that kind of afternoon.
As reported by the New York Post, the core tension of the hearing was impossible for Democrats to escape. More than 3 million pages of investigative materials on Epstein and his convicted accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell have been released under a bill co-authored by Rep. Thomas Massie and Rep. Ro Khanna, signed by President Trump last November. The release happened on this administration's watch. The silence happened on the last one.
Bondi drove that point like a nail:
"None of them asked [former Attorney General] Merrick Garland, over the last four years, one word about Jeffrey Epstein. How ironic is that? You know why? Because Donald Trump."
That framing is difficult to argue with. Democrats controlled the Judiciary Committee. They had Garland in the same chair. They chose to spend that time on other pursuits. Now they want credit for caring about Epstein's victims — the same victims the DOJ under their preferred attorney general apparently never warranted a single question about.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal tried a theatrical move, asking Epstein victims or their family members in attendance to stand and raise their hand if they had not been able to meet with the current Department of Justice. Bondi didn't take the bait:
"Why didn't she ask Merrick Garland this twice when he sat in my chair? I'm not going to get in the gutter for her theatrics."
Raskin came in swinging. He accused Bondi of siding with perpetrators and ignoring victims — not just on Epstein, but on what he called "homicidal government violence against citizens in Minneapolis," a reference the article provided no context for and Raskin apparently felt no obligation to substantiate.
"You're not showing a lot of interest in the victims. Whether it's Epstein's human trafficking ring or the homicidal government violence against citizens in Minneapolis, as attorney general you're siding with the perpetrators and you're ignoring the victims."
This is the rhetorical equivalent of throwing everything at the wall. Epstein's trafficking ring and an unrelated Minneapolis grievance crammed into a single breath, designed to create an emotional impression rather than an argument. Raskin then complained that Bondi was filibustering — a rich accusation from a man who used his own time to deliver a two-topic indictment with no connective tissue.
When Raskin demanded that Chairman Jim Jordan restore time to Rep. Jerry Nadler and warned Bondi about speaking on "our time," her response was clean:
"You don't tell me anything."
The retiring New York Democrat didn't fare much better. Bondi confronted him directly over past claims that President Trump conspired with foreign actors in the 2016 election:
"You said the president conspired, sought foreign interference in the 2016 election. Robert Mueller found no evidence, none, of foreign interference in 2016. Have you apologized to President Trump?"
The hearing record does not reflect an apology. What it reflects is an attorney general unwilling to let Democrats use their time without being reminded of how they spent the last decade.
"You all should be apologizing. You sit here and you attack the president, and I am not going to have it. I'm not going to put up with it."
Perhaps the most damning detail of the hearing wasn't a quote from the dais — it was a fact about one of the members' colleagues. According to reporting, US Virgin Islands Delegate Stacey Plaskett texted with Jeffrey Epstein during a 2019 House Oversight Committee hearing to get tips about questioning ex-Trump legal fixer Michael Cohen.
A sitting member of Congress was taking advice from a man who had already pleaded guilty to soliciting a minor for prostitution and was registered as a sex offender. A representative for Plaskett previously acknowledged Epstein had contacted her among other "staff, constituents, and the public at large, offering advice, support, and in some cases partisan vitriol."
Former Bondi chief of staff Chad Mizelle connected the dots:
"Jerry Nadler attacking Attorney General Bondi over Epstein, while his colleague Rep. Plaskett was using Jeffrey Epstein as a confidant and adviser, is the height of hypocrisy."
Democrats want to be the party of accountability on Epstein. Their own members were in his text messages. That contradiction doesn't need editorial commentary — it speaks fluently on its own.
The hearing wasn't exclusively a left-right affair. Rep. Thomas Massie, one of the co-authors of the very legislation that produced the document release, turned his fire on Bondi over how the DOJ handled redactions. He showed three documents he described as "emblematic of the massive failure of the DOJ to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act" and argued that potential co-conspirators' names had been blacked out while some victims' identities were exposed.
"Literally the worst thing you could do to the survivors, you did."
Bondi addressed the redaction issue directly, committing to correct errors in both directions:
"If any man's name was redacted that should not have been, we will of course unredact it. If a victim's name was unredacted, please bring it to us, and we will redact it."
She also told Chairman Jordan that Massie "has Trump Derangement Syndrome" and called him a "failed politician" — a notable choice of words aimed at a Republican ally of the legislation. The redaction question is legitimate. The process of releasing 3 million pages of investigative materials is massive, and errors in a release of that scale are correctable. What matters is whether the administration fixes them — and Bondi committed on the record to doing so.
Strip away the theatrics, and what Wednesday's hearing revealed is simple. The Trump administration released more than 3 million pages of Epstein-related materials. The previous administration released none. Democrats who had four years and a willing attorney general to demand transparency on one of the most significant sex trafficking cases in American history chose instead to focus on partisan investigations. Now they want to interrogate the people who actually opened the files.
Mizelle summarized it without excess:
"The Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee did nothing to bring justice and transparency to the Epstein saga. Attorney General Pam Bondi has."
Epstein's victims were in that hearing room. They didn't come to watch Democrats perform outrage they never felt when their own party held the gavel. They came because someone finally released the files — and it wasn't Merrick Garland.
The 9th U.S. Court of Appeals handed the Trump administration a major legal victory Monday, striking down a lower court ruling that had blocked plans to revoke deportation protections for citizens of Nicaragua, Nepal, and Honduras. The three-judge panel found the government will likely prevail on the merits — clearing the path to end Temporary Protected Status designations that were never meant to last forever but somehow did.
The decision reverses an August ruling from a California judge who had blocked the administration's plans, citing "sufficient racial animus." The appeals panel dismantled that reasoning in a single, clinical sentence:
"We conclude that the government is likely to succeed on the merits of its appeal either by showing that the district court lacked jurisdiction or by prevailing on plaintiffs' arbitrary-and-capricious APA challenge."
Translation: the lower court either shouldn't have taken the case at all, or got the law wrong when it did.
Temporary Protected Status does exactly what the name says — or at least, it's supposed to. The program grants foreign nationals a reprieve from deportation when conditions in their home countries make return dangerous. War, natural disaster, civil unrest. The keyword is right there in the title.
Yet for tens of thousands of people from Honduras, Nepal, and Nicaragua, "temporary" stretched into years, then decades. Approximately 50,000 Hondurans, 7,000 Nepalis, and 3,000 Nicaraguans — roughly 60,000 people total — have lived under rolling TPS extensions that transformed emergency relief into something functionally permanent.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem framed the ruling as long overdue, The Hill reported. She called the decision a:
"Win for the rule of law and vindication for the US Constitution."
Noem didn't stop there. She aimed the program's drift from its original purpose:
"Under the previous administration, Temporary Protected Status was abused to allow violent terrorists, criminals, and national security threats into our nation."
She described what TPS had become in practice — a:
"De facto amnesty program."
That phrase lands because the math supports it. When a "temporary" designation persists for a generation, the word has lost all meaning. The program stops being an emergency shelter and starts being a side door around the immigration system that millions of others try to navigate lawfully.
The California judge's original reasoning deserves scrutiny. The court blocked the administration's decision to end TPS by finding "sufficient racial animus" behind the policy — a claim that treats enforcement of immigration law as inherently suspect when it affects non-white populations.
This is a legal strategy the left has refined into muscle memory. Any restriction, any enforcement action, any attempt to apply the plain text of immigration law gets filtered through a racial lens until the policy question disappears entirely. The debate stops being about whether conditions in Honduras have improved enough to end temporary protections. It becomes about whether the people making that determination harbor secret bigotry.
The 9th Circuit — not historically a friendly venue for conservative policy — wasn't buying it. The panel's ruling suggests the lower court either overstepped its jurisdiction or failed to demonstrate that the administration's decision was arbitrary under the Administrative Procedure Act. Neither path vindicates the racial animus theory.
Noem grounded the decision in the simplest possible terms:
"Given the improved situation in each of these countries, we are wisely concluding what was intended to be a temporary designation."
This is the argument opponents of TPS termination never want to engage with directly. If conditions improve — and at some point over the course of decades, they inevitably do to some degree — then the legal basis for the designation evaporates. Continuing protections after the triggering conditions have subsided isn't compassion. It's policy inertia dressed up as humanitarianism.
The left's position requires you to believe that "temporary" means "until we decide to make it permanent through sheer repetition." That every TPS extension is justified by the same emergency that prompted the original designation, no matter how many years pass. Ending the program is cruel, but the program never ending is just fine.
Sixty thousand people built lives under a designation that told them, from the very first day, that it would end. That's a real human cost, and it's worth acknowledging. But the blame for that cost falls on the administrations that kept extending a fiction rather than creating a real pathway — or an honest timeline for departure. Kicking the can for decades and then calling the person who finally stops kicking a bigot is not governance. It's cowardice on an installment plan.
The 9th Circuit siding with the administration on immigration enforcement marks a meaningful moment. This is the court that became synonymous with blocking Trump-era immigration policy during his first term. That a three-judge panel from this circuit found the government likely to prevail — and on merits, not a technicality — signals that the legal ground beneath TPS challenges is shifting.
The ruling doesn't finalize anything. It allows the administration to move forward while litigation continues. But the trajectory is clear. Courts are increasingly unwilling to treat immigration enforcement decisions as presumptively unconstitutional, and the "racial animus" framework that powered so many injunctions is running into its limits.
For 60,000 people, what comes next is uncertain. For the rule of law, Monday brought clarity. Temporary means temporary — and a court finally said so.
Dr. Jeff Johnson, a Republican running for governor of Minnesota, has suspended his campaign after his 22-year-old daughter, Hallie Marie Tobler, was found dead from multiple stab wounds in a St. Cloud apartment Saturday night.
Tobler's husband was found at the same apartment with what St. Cloud police described as self-inflicted injuries. Police stated he will be taken to jail for suspected homicide once his injuries are treated. No formal charges have been announced.
The Republican Party of Minnesota shared a Facebook post on Monday identifying Tobler as Johnson's daughter. Johnson, a former St. Cloud city council member, suspended his gubernatorial campaign in the wake of her death.
The details are sparse, and the investigation is still unfolding. Officers responded to an apartment on 40th Avenue South in St. Cloud on Saturday night. Inside, they found Hallie Marie Tobler dead from multiple stab wounds. Her husband — who has not been publicly named — was also at the scene, injured in what police described as self-inflicted wounds, according to NBC affiliate KARE11.
Tobler was publicly identified on Monday. She was 22 years old.
The medical examiner confirmed the cause of death. Police have signaled that the husband is the suspect, stating he will be jailed for suspected homicide after receiving medical treatment. But as of the latest reports, no formal charges have been filed.
Dr. Jeff Johnson is not the same Jeff Johnson who twice sought the governor's mansion as a former Hennepin County Commissioner in 2014 and 2018. This Jeff Johnson was building a campaign from his base in St. Cloud — a city he served on the council — when the worst thing that can happen to a parent happened to him.
There is no political spin to apply here. No policy debate makes this moment easier to process. A young woman is dead. A father buried his child. The campaign he was building stopped mattering the instant he got the call.
Johnson suspended his campaign. That word — "suspended" — carries a technical meaning in political language, leaving the door open for a future return.
Domestic violence doesn't belong to a political party. It doesn't care about ideology, income, or geography. It strikes across every demographic in the country, and when it ends in death, the devastation radiates outward — through families, communities, and in this case, the political life of a state.
What makes cases like this particularly haunting is the proximity. Police found the suspect in the same apartment. The injuries were self-inflicted. The contours of this tragedy — a young wife, a husband now facing suspected homicide — trace a pattern that law enforcement and victim advocates encounter with grim regularity.
Hallie Marie Tobler was 22. She had a father who served his community and was trying to serve his state. Whatever the full circumstances turn out to be, nothing will restore what was taken Saturday night in that apartment on 40th Avenue South.
The investigation remains active. Formal charges against Tobler's husband have not been announced, and the public knows very little about the circumstances or motive behind the stabbing. St. Cloud police have committed to jailing the suspect once his medical treatment concludes, but the legal process from here will determine what charges he ultimately faces.
For the Minnesota governor's race, one less candidate is in the field — not because of polls or fundraising or political miscalculation, but because of violence that no amount of ambition or public service can shield a family from.
Dr. Jeff Johnson asked for nothing from the public except, presumably, the space to grieve. That request deserves to be honored.
A father shouldn't have to bury his daughter. He certainly shouldn't have to do it in the middle of a campaign for public office. But the calendar doesn't negotiate, and grief doesn't wait for a convenient moment. Johnson stepped away from the race because the only thing that mattered was the thing he lost.
Rep. Mark Amodei of Nevada announced Friday that he will not seek reelection, bringing the total number of House Republicans stepping away from Congress this year to 30. Twenty-one Democrats have also opted not to run again, pushing the chamber toward what could be historically significant turnover heading into the midterms.
Amodei, a member of the House Appropriations Committee and the House Natural Resources Committee, has served in the House since 2011. He framed his departure as a matter of timing, not frustration.
"After 15 years of service, I believe it is the right time for Nevada and myself to pass the torch."
The announcement lands at a moment when more than 10% of House incumbents plan to leave — the highest percentage at this point in the calendar since at least the Obama administration, according to an Associated Press analysis of retirements going back to 2013.
Amodei's language was classically valedictory, Mediaite reported. He spoke of listening to Nevadans, fighting for values, and passing the torch. Nothing in his statement suggests internal conflict or disillusionment.
"Serving the people of Nevada has been the honor of my lifetime. Nobody is prouder of our Nevada Congressional District than me. Thank you for the honor. Every achievement worth doing began with listening to Nevadans and fighting for our values."
President Trump endorsed Amodei for reelection back in November on Truth Social:
"Mark Amodei has my Complete and Total Endorsement for Re-Election — HE WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN!"
Amodei thanked him publicly on X. Whatever prompted his change of heart came after that exchange — and Amodei isn't saying what it was.
The number 30 is large enough to demand attention but too blunt an instrument to tell you much on its own. Retirements happen for dozens of reasons — age, redistricting risk, the pull of private life, frustration with governing in a razor-thin majority where every vote is a hostage negotiation. Lumping them all under one narrative is lazy.
Some departures this cycle have been more conspicuous than others. Marjorie Taylor Greene left her seat this year amid reported tensions with the party. That's a different story than a 15-year veteran from Nevada deciding the work is done.
What the number does reveal is this: the GOP's House majority, already slim, faces a serious structural challenge in the midterms. Every open seat is a seat without the incumbency advantage. Every retirement creates a primary, and every primary creates a window for Democrats to compete in districts they otherwise couldn't touch. Republicans don't have the margin to treat 30 open seats as routine housekeeping.
It's who replaces them.
Open-seat primaries are where the direction of the party actually gets decided — not in cable news debates about the soul of conservatism, but in district-level races where voters pick the person who'll cast votes on spending, immigration, and oversight for the next two years. If the GOP recruits strong candidates who can hold these seats and govern effectively, the retirements are a natural generational shift. If they don't, the retirements become a gift to Democrats who need to flip only a handful of seats to reclaim the gavel.
The conservative project in the House — DOGE-aligned spending reform, border enforcement, accountability for federal agencies — doesn't survive a Democratic majority. Every one of these 30 seats is a line that has to hold.
Twenty-one Democratic retirements deserve more attention than they're getting. The media's fixation on Republican departures treats them as evidence of a crisis while Democratic retirements barely register as news. The imbalance in coverage is revealing — not because 30 isn't a larger number than 21, but because the framing is always "Republican party in chaos" and never "Democrats fleeing a weak brand."
Both parties are bleeding incumbents. Only one party's bleeding gets treated as a symptom of dysfunction.
Amodei says he'll finish his term. Nevada's second congressional district will have an open primary. The state's political landscape — competitive but right-leaning at the congressional level — means this seat is holdable for Republicans, but not automatically.
The broader midterm picture is the one that matters. Thirty retirements don't doom a majority, but they demand a seriousness about candidate recruitment and resource allocation that leaves no room for complacency. The majority was built seat by seat. It can disappear the same way.
Nancy Pelosi is throwing her weight behind Jack Schlossberg, the 32-year-old grandson of President John F. Kennedy, in the Democratic primary for New York's 12th Congressional District. The 85-year-old former House Speaker's endorsement lands in a crowded field vying for the Manhattan seat vacated by Rep. Jerold Nadler, who announced his retirement after more than three decades in Congress.
The district stretches from Union Square to the Upper West Side and Upper East Side — some of the most expensive real estate in America, populated by some of the most reliably Democratic voters in the country. And yet the primary way to represent them has turned into something genuinely entertaining.
Pelosi's statement, obtained by The Post, was prepared by Schlossberg's own campaign — a detail worth pausing on. The statement highlights Schlossberg's:
The language reads less like an independent endorsement and more like a press release the candidate wrote about himself and handed to a famous person to sign. That's not unusual in politics, but it tells you something about how much of this race runs on brand rather than substance, as New York Post reports.
Pelosi served in Congress alongside several members of the Kennedy family — the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, former Rep. Patrick Kennedy, former Rep. Joe Kennedy, and former Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy III. The dynasty connection runs deep, and Pelosi is betting it still means something to Manhattan Democrats.
Schlossberg has been branded a "nepo baby" since launching his run, and it's not hard to see why. His mother is Caroline Kennedy, former U.S. ambassador to Japan and Australia. His political résumé consists largely of being a political commentator and delivering a speech at the Democratic National Convention. He is 32 years old, running for a seat held for decades by a 78-year-old career legislator, in a district where name recognition is currency.
The Kennedy name is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Strip it away, and you have a young commentator with no legislative record, backed by an octogenarian former Speaker, competing in a primary against candidates who have actually held office or built careers outside their family trees.
Among the other contenders: state Assemblyman Micah Lasher, former journalist Jami Floyd, and — in one of the more surreal entries — George Conway, described as a former Republican and the ex-husband of former Trump White House counselor Kellyanne Conway. Manhattan Democrats now get to choose between a Kennedy scion, a man whose chief public identity for years was opposing his own wife's boss, and an assemblyman who probably wonders how he ended up as the boring option.
The most interesting subplot isn't the primary itself — it's the family fracture the campaign spotlights. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Schlossberg's cousin, serves as Health and Human Services Secretary. Schlossberg called him:
"A rabid dog."
The White House pushed back on the remark. So here is the Kennedy family in 2026: one member running for Congress as a Democrat with Pelosi's blessing, another serving in a Republican administration, and the candidate publicly savaging his own relative to prove his partisan bona fides.
This is what happens when a political dynasty outlives its unifying figure. The Kennedys no longer represent a coherent political vision. They represent a last name that different family members cash in from opposite sides of the aisle. Schlossberg needs Democratic voters to see him as the "real" Kennedy — the one who stayed loyal to the party — while RFK Jr. charts his own course entirely. The family Christmas must be something.
Schlossberg's family also suffered a genuine tragedy in late December when his sister, Tatiana Schlossberg, died at age 35 from leukemia. That loss is real and deserves recognition regardless of political disagreement.
The NY-12 primary is a miniature portrait of the modern Democratic Party. The establishment — embodied by Pelosi — rallies behind legacy and celebrity. The progressive base hasn't coalesced around an alternative. And the field is cluttered with candidates whose qualifications range from "state legislator" to "famous last name" to "divorced a Republican."
For conservatives watching from the outside, the race offers a useful reminder: Democrats don't run on policy in districts where policy differences between candidates are negligible. They run on pedigree, endorsements, and who can most convincingly perform outrage at the other side. Schlossberg's signature policy contribution so far is calling his own cousin a rabid dog.
Pelosi's endorsement won't decide this race, but it reveals who the Democratic establishment wants carrying the torch — someone young, photogenic, and named Kennedy. Whether Manhattan voters want the same thing, or whether they've finally grown tired of dynasties, is the only interesting question left.
The Kennedys once inspired a generation. Now they're splitting Thanksgiving over cabinet appointments.
A unanimous federal appeals panel ruled Friday that President Trump's executive orders eliminating Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs across federal agencies and contractors can go into effect — vacating a preliminary injunction that had kept the orders on ice.
The New York Post reported that the three-judge panel at the Richmond-based Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals didn't mince words: the president has the authority to set his own policy priorities, and DEI isn't one of them.
The ruling marks the second time this same panel has swatted down attempts to block the orders. It won't be the last legal battle. But it is the clearest signal yet that the judiciary isn't going to serve as a shield for the institutional left's favorite patronage system.
Chief Judge Albert Diaz, who wrote the panel's opinion, framed the matter with unusual directness:
"President Trump has decided that equity isn't a priority in his administration and so has directed his subordinates to terminate funding that supports equity-related projects to the maximum extent allowed by law."
"Whether that's sound policy or not isn't our call. We ask only whether the policy is unconstitutionally vague for funding recipients."
The answer, evidently, was no. All three judges — Diaz, Judge Pamela A. Harris, and Judge Allison Jones Rushing — concurred that Trump has the power to do exactly what he did. The panel stated plainly that the president:
"may determine his policy priorities and instruct his agents to make funding decisions based on them."
That's not a radical legal proposition. It's the basic architecture of the executive branch. A president sets priorities. Agencies execute them. Funding follows policy. The only thing unusual here is that anyone tried to argue otherwise.
Maryland federal judge Adam B. Abelson had granted a nationwide injunction blocking the orders, which were struck down in March 2025 by the same three-judge panel. Undeterred, Judge Abelson then granted a preliminary injunction. The Fourth Circuit has now vacated that one too, finding that Abelson "erred in granting a preliminary injunction blocking the order."
The pattern is worth noting. A single district judge issued sweeping, nationwide relief against a sitting president's policy directives — not once, but twice — and was reversed both times by the same appellate panel.
The lower court didn't just disagree with the administration's policy preferences. It attempted to substitute its own judgment for the president's on a question of executive priority-setting. The Fourth Circuit said that's not how it works.
The plaintiffs challenging the executive orders included Baltimore's mayor and city council, the American Association of University Professors, and the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education. They claimed Trump's orders violated provisions of the First and Fifth Amendments.
Consider the plaintiff list for a moment. A city government, an academic lobbying organization, and a trade association for the very bureaucrats whose jobs depend on DEI's continued existence. These aren't disinterested constitutional scholars. They are the ecosystem — the people who staff, fund, and benefit from the programs the president ordered dismantled.
Justice Department attorneys argued that the DEI programs and initiatives ran afoul of federal civil rights legislation. The Fourth Circuit didn't need to reach that question to rule in the administration's favor, but the DOJ's framing underscores a deeper point: these programs were never the neutral, benign initiatives their defenders claim. They sorted Americans by race. That has a name in law, and it isn't "equity."
Here's the detail the left would prefer you skip over: Chief Judge Albert Diaz was appointed to the bench by President Barack Obama. This wasn't a panel of Trump-appointed judges running interference for their benefactor. It was an Obama appointee reading the law and concluding that the president of the United States can, in fact, direct how the executive branch spends money.
Diaz even wrote a brief concurring opinion consoling "those disappointed by the outcome," urging them to "keep the faith" and "depend on the Constitution, which remains a beacon."
It's a gracious note, and it reveals something important. Diaz clearly has personal misgivings about the policy. He described the administration's approach in pointed terms:
"The Administration's obsession over so-called 'woke' DEI programs appears to know no bounds."
And yet he ruled the way the law demanded. That's what judicial restraint looks like — deciding cases based on what the Constitution permits, not on what a judge wishes it said. The left spent years celebrating judicial activism when courts blocked policies they opposed. Now they're learning what happens when even sympathetic judges refuse to play along.
Diaz included a lengthy footnote about Secretary of State Marco Rubio's directive ending the use of Calibri font in official State Department documents. Diaz noted that Rubio had adopted Times New Roman for what the judge considered sound reasons:
"for the entirely defensible reasons that (1) his preferred choice … present a more professional and formal typography for diplomatic correspondence, and (2) use of the Calibri font had … not meaningfully improved reader accessibility."
Diaz even added, with dry humor, that the court itself favors Rubio's font choice. But Diaz took issue with what came next — Rubio's characterization of the prior font selection as an "illegal, immoral, radical [and] wasteful [diversity initiative]." Diaz wrote:
"Had the Secretary left it there, I would applaud him, particularly since our court favors his font choice." "But leave it there, he couldn't. Instead, the Secretary lashed out at his predecessor for imposing yet another 'illegal, immoral, radical [and] wasteful [diversity initiative]' before ordering Calibri's demise."
It's a footnote about fonts. It's also a window into how thoroughly DEI had metastasized through federal agencies — to the point where even typeface selections carried ideological freight. When everything becomes a diversity initiative, nothing is safe from becoming one.
Trump signed the first of these orders on Day One, directing federal departments to cut equity-related grants and contracts. A subsequent order mandated that federal contractors certify they don't promote DEI. Both orders now stand unencumbered by judicial intervention from the Fourth Circuit.
The plaintiffs will almost certainly seek further review. The DEI industry — and it is an industry, with trade associations, dedicated officers, and billions in federal funding — doesn't surrender quietly.
But the legal terrain has shifted. Two rulings from the same appellate panel, both unanimous, both finding that the lower court overstepped. That's not a close call. That's a pattern of judicial correction.
For years, DEI programs operated in a zone of institutional untouchability. To question them was career suicide in academia, corporate America, and the federal bureaucracy. The programs multiplied not because they proved effective, but because no one with authority was willing to say stop.
Someone finally said stop. And the Fourth Circuit — led by an Obama appointee — just confirmed he had every right to say it.
Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson sat in the audience of the 68th Annual Grammy Awards last weekend as performer after performer turned the ceremony into a rally against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
She was reportedly smiling and applauding throughout the show — an evening that featured acceptance speeches denouncing immigration law, pins reading "ICE OUT," and a standing ovation for open defiance of federal enforcement.
Jackson was nominated for Best Audiobook, Narration, and Storytelling for her memoir Lovely One, according to Just the News. She didn't win. The Dalai Lama did. But what she did do — attend, sit front and center with her husband, and participate visibly in an event saturated with political messaging — has raised pointed questions about judicial impartiality that she has so far declined to answer.
The Grammys have never been a bastion of political restraint, but last weekend's ceremony dispensed with even the pretense of subtlety. Puerto Rican singer Bad Bunny, accepting the award for Best Música Urbana Album, opened with this:
"Before I say thanks to God, I'm going to say, ICE out."
The audience gave him a standing ovation.
Billie Eilish used her time at the microphone to deliver a different kind of message:
"I feel so honored every time I get to be in this room. As grateful as I feel, I honestly don't feel like I need to say anything but that no one is illegal on stolen land."
Meanwhile, performers Joni Mitchell, Brandi Carlile, and Justin Bieber were all seen wearing pins that read "ICE OUT." The theme wasn't incidental. It was the event's throughline — a coordinated, unmistakable political statement against federal immigration enforcement.
And in the middle of it all, a sitting Supreme Court Justice.
There is no rule barring justices from attending award shows. There is no statute that says a nominee for Best Audiobook must skip the ceremony if the host cracks political jokes or the performers wear protest pins. But the Supreme Court doesn't operate on the bare minimum of what's technically permissible. It operates — or it's supposed to — on the appearance of impartiality. That standard exists precisely for moments like this.
New York Post columnist Miranda Devine argued that Jackson's visible presence at the ceremony, combined with the performers' political messaging, could raise legitimate questions about her impartiality — particularly with immigration-related cases pending before the Court. The argument isn't that Jackson endorsed any specific statement from the stage. It's that her enthusiastic participation in an event defined by one political message creates a reasonable perception of alignment.
Viral clips from the evening showed Jackson clapping during her nomination announcement. None specifically captured her responding to the anti-ICE statements. But that distinction, while worth noting, doesn't resolve the underlying problem. She wasn't ambushed by political content at a music event. The entire ceremony was drenched in it. She stayed. She smiled. She applauded.
Imagine for a moment a conservative justice attending a nationally televised event where speaker after speaker denounced, say, abortion or gun control — wearing pins, giving speeches, earning standing ovations. The calls for recusal would be deafening before the credits rolled. Every legal commentator on cable news would frame it as a constitutional crisis. The double standard isn't subtle. It's structural.
Eilish's remark deserves a moment of its own, because it captures something important about the current state of progressive rhetoric on immigration. The phrase "no one is illegal on stolen land" isn't a legal argument. It isn't even really a moral one. It's a bumper sticker that collapses two entirely separate debates — immigration enforcement and indigenous land claims — into a single slogan designed to make any enforcement of any border seem inherently unjust.
It's also a line that, taken to its logical conclusion, invalidates the authority of every federal institution in the country — including the Supreme Court on which Jackson sits. That's the kind of ideological territory a justice should want distance from, not proximity to.
Tea Party Patriots founder Jenny Beth Martin didn't mince words in a post on X:
"Kentanji Brown Jackson has been a disgrace to the Supreme Court, and her latest appearance at the Grammy's shows her loyalty is to the liberal elite, not the law. She should stick to audio books."
Martin's tone was sharp, but her underlying point landed with a wide audience: a Supreme Court Justice's presence at a politically charged spectacle isn't neutral, no matter how it's spun. Conservatives across social media echoed the concern — not because attending an award show is inherently disqualifying, but because the context made neutrality impossible.
The Supreme Court derives its legitimacy from the perception that its members rule on law, not vibes. That perception is fragile. It requires active maintenance — the deliberate avoidance of situations that could suggest a justice has already made up her mind on the questions before her.
Immigration enforcement is not an abstract policy debate. It is an active, contested legal battleground. Cases involving ICE authority, deportation procedures, and executive enforcement power cycle through the federal courts constantly. Some will reach the Supreme Court. Some may already be on the docket. For a sitting justice to attend — and visibly enjoy — an event organized around the premise that ICE should be abolished is, at minimum, a failure of judgment.
Jackson offered no public statement about the evening's political content. No clarification. No distancing. The silence is its own statement.
This isn't really about one award show. It's about a growing comfort among progressive-aligned institutions — and now, apparently, members of the judiciary — with treating opposition to immigration enforcement as a cultural consensus rather than a political position. When Bad Bunny says "ICE out" and gets a standing ovation, that's entertainment exercising its right to be political. When a Supreme Court Justice is in the room applauding, that's something else entirely.
The left has spent years insisting that the Court's legitimacy depends on public trust, that justices must avoid even the appearance of partisanship. They said it about Clarence Thomas attending conservative events. They said it about Samuel Alito's flag. They built entire news cycles around it.
Now a liberal justice sits beaming in the audience while millionaire performers chant for the abolition of a federal law enforcement agency — and the standard suddenly doesn't apply.
The rules never change. They just stop mattering when the right people break them.
In a stunning courtroom finale, Ryan Routh, the man who plotted to take down President Donald Trump, was handed a life sentence plus seven additional years by a Florida judge on Wednesday.
On Wednesday, U.S. Judge Aileen Cannon sentenced Ryan Routh to life in prison for his attempt to assassinate President Trump at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach back in September 2024. After a swift conviction on five felony counts, including attempted assassination and assault on a federal officer, following a two-and-a-half-week trial, Routh faced the full weight of justice.
Cannon also praised law enforcement and witnesses for their role in securing his conviction, while imposing an additional seven-year term on a second count.
Judge Cannon didn’t hold back, calling Routh’s actions outright “evil” during sentencing, as reported by a local ABC affiliate. Her words cut to the core of a nation weary of threats against its leaders, especially one as pivotal as Trump.
She also shut down Routh’s attempt to ramble about unrelated issues like Ukraine, keeping the focus squarely on his heinous act. This isn’t a platform for personal crusades—it’s a court of law.
“Despite all the evil we see, there is a sliver of hope, a sliver of light,” Cannon remarked, pointing to the courage of those who brought Routh to justice. Her faith in the system shines through, a reminder that accountability still holds.
Routh’s scheme was chilling—hiding in bushes at Trump’s golf course, allegedly aiming a military-grade rifle at both the President and a Secret Service agent. Prosecutors painted a picture of months-long planning, with no regard for human life, as detailed in court filings.
Even after conviction, Routh showed no remorse, with writings cited by prosecutors hinting at justifications tied to foreign conflicts or domestic politics. This kind of twisted reasoning is exactly why the justice system had to act decisively.
FBI Director Kash Patel nailed it in his statement, calling Routh’s actions a “despicable attack on our democratic system.” His sentencing, Patel added, proves that such threats won’t be tolerated, reinforcing trust in our institutions.
Routh’s defense, now led by an appointed attorney after he foolishly represented himself at trial, plans to appeal, arguing he couldn’t get a fair shake. They claim he never meant harm, framing his actions as mere protest—hardly convincing given the rifle and the bushes.
Let’s be real: self-representation in a case this grave, despite warnings, was a reckless choice, not a systemic failure. The jury saw through his excuses, convicting him on all five counts with speed and clarity.
This raises broader questions for law-abiding Americans—how do we protect our leaders when ideology drives such dangerous acts? Routh’s psychiatric evaluations, pointing to personality disorders, only deepen the concern about mental health intersecting with political violence.
As a Trump-appointed judge, Cannon faced scrutiny from Routh’s camp over a supposed conflict of interest, a claim she rightly dismissed. Her track record, including tossing out a separate case against Trump, shows a commitment to legal principle over political noise.
For those of us who value strong leadership, this case is a wake-up call about the threats facing Trump and others who dare to challenge the status quo. It’s not just about one man—it’s about safeguarding the voices that fight against overreach and woke dogma.
The fight isn’t over; Routh’s appeal looms, and his lack of regret signals a deeper cultural battle. We must stand firm, ensuring that justice prevails over excuses, and that our nation’s defenders aren’t silenced by those who reject our values.
Americans are standing firmly behind President Donald Trump’s tough stance on immigration enforcement, according to fresh polling data released by the White House.
On Monday, the White House shared results from two separate surveys, the Harvard-Harris Poll and the Cygnal Poll, showing strong public backing for Trump’s policies with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The Harvard-Harris Poll, conducted on Jan. 28–29 with 2,000 registered voters, reported 73% support for deporting criminal illegal aliens and 67% opposing sanctuary policies by states and cities. The Cygnal Poll, taken on Jan. 27–28 among 1,004 likely midterm voters, found 73% agreeing that illegal entry into the U.S. is breaking the law and 61% supporting deportation to home countries.
Supporters contend that these numbers reveal a clear mandate for law and order, rejecting the left’s push to obstruct federal efforts. This data is a slap in the face to those who champion defiance against ICE, showing that everyday folks prioritize safety over political posturing. It’s not just a poll; it’s a wake-up call.
Newsmax reported that the Harvard-Harris findings are crystal clear: 67% want jails to transfer criminal illegal aliens for swift federal deportation. Meanwhile, 60% point the finger at Democrat influence for fueling resistance to ICE. This isn’t just numbers on a page; it’s the voice of a nation tired of excuses.
Over at the Cygnal Poll, 58% of respondents outright reject calls to defund ICE, and 54% back the agency’s role in upholding federal immigration laws. If that doesn’t scream public approval for Trump’s agenda, what does?
The White House didn’t mince words in its Monday release, declaring that Trump’s border security is at historic highs with encounters at record lows. They’re framing this as proof that criminals are being swept off the streets daily, a claim that resonates with anyone who values safe communities.
“The Trump administration will not relent in its pursuit of secure borders, safe streets, and an agenda that puts America First,” the White House stated. That’s not just rhetoric; it’s a commitment to the rule of law over the chaos peddled by the far left.
RNC Deputy Rapid Response Director Soni Patel echoed this on Tuesday, emphasizing the public’s overwhelming support for cooperation with ICE. “President Trump has been working tirelessly to Make America Safe Again,” Patel declared. That’s the kind of leadership people are craving.
Patel didn’t stop there, pointing out that despite Democrat obstruction, Trump has delivered on border security like no other. This isn’t blind partisanship; it’s acknowledging results when the data backs it up.
Let’s talk methodology for a moment, because transparency matters. The Harvard-Harris Poll, conducted for the Harvard Center for American Political Studies, has a margin of error of ±1.99 percentage points, while Cygnal’s survey carries a ±3.09 margin. These aren’t back-of-the-napkin guesses; they’re solid stats.
What’s glaringly obvious here is how disconnected the left’s narrative is from reality. When 57% of Americans oppose calls to defy ICE, as Harvard-Harris found, it’s a stark reminder that pandering to lawlessness doesn’t win hearts or minds.
The White House argues these polls expose the extremism of those pushing reckless obstruction. They’re not wrong—when over half the country rejects defunding ICE, it’s clear who’s on the fringe. This isn’t about ideology; it’s about common sense.
Looking ahead, these numbers could embolden the administration to double down on deportations and ICE empowerment. Why wouldn’t they, when the public is so clearly in their corner? It’s a green light to keep the pressure on.
Democrats, meanwhile, might find themselves scrambling to justify their stance as out-of-touch with the average voter. Their obsession with resisting federal law enforcement risks painting them as soft on crime, a label that sticks like glue in today’s climate.
In the end, Trump’s team is playing a winning hand with these polls, and the left’s playbook looks increasingly tattered. If safety and sovereignty are what Americans want, then the message is loud and clear: keep the course, Mr. President. The people have spoken.