Last week, John Thune, the majority leader in the Senate, told Breitbart News that President Trump's progress at the U.S.-Mexico border has been "mind-blowing" and "staggering."
Thune said those things in a long interview with Breitbart News that was filmed last week in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC, as Breitbart News reported.
“I think you have to—what he’s had so far, it’s hard to characterize it as anything but just a staggering success,” Thune said during his recent interview.
“It is—you look at what they were under Biden a year ago, you’re talking about 10,000 or 11,000 a day and now we’re down to 200 a day, it is almost mind-blowing in terms of how much difference the leadership of President and the White House has made over Biden’s open borders policy.
The lawmaker said he expects the president to continue to push resources toward Border Patrol agents and supply needed money for the wall and detention beds: "All of those things needed to continue to secure the border."
Senate Republicans, according to Thune, would work as "partners" with Trump to further secure the border and provide him with additional funding to do so.
In the current proposal being worked on by Congress, he assured that a "generational investment in border security" will be included in the Trump agenda.
“We are going to be partners with him. In the reconciliation bill, we’re working on—we have a generational investment in border security that the president will be able to use as a tool to continue to get that job done,” Thune said.
The measure soon to hit the Senate floor will likely include immigration restrictions, but Thune said Congress will also push for more funding to enhance energy production.
He had harsh words for Senate Democrats for unanimously opposing President Trump's emergency declaration on energy production and stated that Republicans are poised to provide Trump more money to enhance energy output.
The lawmaker said the Democrats' response to energy-related topics is an example of how the Democratic Party is being held "hostage" by the far left.
"Voting against an energy emergency in this country when we clearly have an energy emergency—you look at just as an example electricity, you have artificial intelligence, you got data centers, you got crypto mines, all of these things are incredibly power-intensive, and then of course the Democrats wanted to have everybody already driving electric vehicles,” Thune said.
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In addition to these items, Thune emphasized the Senate GOP's efforts to eliminate Biden's regulations by employing the Congressional Review Act (CRA).
“The Biden administration, as you could expect, characteristically relied heavily on the use of regulations to implement their agenda,” Thune said in the interview taped last week.
“A lot of their agenda, of course, was the Green New Deal. It was a lot of their climate agenda.
The Senate voted on Tuesday to repeal the Biden-era regulations that restricted emissions from tire manufacturing, putting a climate-focused strain on the industry.
The resolution was then sent to President Donald Trump's desk for a signature, which is expected to happen sometime in the near future, The Washington Examiner reported.
The Senate passed a resolution that would repeal the Environmental Protection Agency's standards regarding hazardous air pollutants from rubber tire facilities in a 55-45 vote.
In March, the bill was approved by the House when introduced by Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-VA) and advanced through the Congressional Review Act, which offers an expedited procedure for Congress to cancel rules, bypassing the filibuster in the Senate.
“I am happy we are one step closer to eliminating the Biden-era NESHAP rule driven by radical environmentalism that did nothing but hurt workers and businesses across the nation,” said Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC).
“Republican leadership continues to deliver for the American people by getting rid of government overreach and inefficiency and paving the way for productivity and prosperity.”
“The Biden administration forced needless regulations on American tire manufacturers and producers. Increasing the NESHAP standard puts an unnecessary financial and environmental burden on rubber manufacturing facilities," said Wicker.
"Reversing this decision will protect jobs and bring back the time-tested NESHAP rule, which has kept our environment clean and our communities safe."
On the House side, Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-VA) spoke to the bill, saying“House and Senate Republicans are acting decisively to repeal onerous regulations from the Biden EPA, like the rubber tire manufacturing rule, that do very little to serve public health.
"Like many of the regulations issued during the waning days of the Biden-Harris Administration, the rubber tire manufacturing emission standard utilized questionable emissions data and pointed to negligible health benefits as justification for the rule.
He went on to thank the "strong conservative leaders in the Senate, like Senators Tim Scott and Roger Wicker, Congress is exercising its authority to undo this harmful Biden EPA measure and provide relief to America’s rubber tire manufacturers.
Last week the upper chamber passed a resolution sponsored by Sen. Ashley Moody (R-FL) disapproving of the Biden administration’s energy conservation standards for commercial refrigerators and freezers.
After a 52-45 vote, the proposition was approved. The bill is now on its way to the president's desk after passing the House.
This Congressional Review Act resolution would repeal the rule Biden signed into law mandating energy efficiency ratings for freezers and refrigerators.
The Biden administration claims that the Department of Energy's final regulation, published on January 17th, greatly improved energy efficiency by revising the requirements for freezers and refrigerators.
Republican Senator Chuck Grassley (IA) said that he hopes the Supreme Court will rule against universal injunctions as it hears cases involving President Donald Trump, arguing that a president should not have to "ask permission" from judges to govern.
"Just this past week, a D.C. district judge issued a universal injunction blocking the president’s executive order requiring voter ID or proof-of-citizenship prior to voting in national elections."
"Judges are not policymakers," Grassley said. "Allowing them to assume this role is very dangerous."
Grassley noted that the Supreme Court will be directly addressing universal injunctions on May 15 during a hearing on a case involving Trump's order reversing birthright citizenship.
The high court "could and should take action," he said. "In the meantime, I'm continuing to work with my colleagues to advance my critical Judicial Relief Clarification Act (JRCA) and put an end to universal injunctions."
Trump has been stymied at every turn by these injunctions, which judges at the state and local levels have used far more often to block his offers than they have with other presidents.
"The President of the United States shouldn’t have to ask permission from more than 600 different district judges to manage the executive branch he was elected to lead," Grassley declared in March after his colleague Dick Durbin (D-IL) tried to pass a resolution requiring Trump to comply with all federal rulings.
"I happen to agree with some Democrats that in previous years have said some judges have gone way beyond what a judge should do on national injunctions. I hope to find a solution for that, and I hope that you and I could work on that together," he added.
The injunction, of course, failed. It's easy to see that many of these rulings are unfair and making them universal goes far beyond the power the Constitution intended to give judges.
Desperate Democrats are out of power and are using the only branch they have any significant power in--the judicial branch--to thwart Trump's agenda any way they can.
Trump needs a way to shut these judges down, or his agenda won't be able to get very far.
The Supreme Court could give him that ability, but it's far from certain what they will do.
There are at least eight major cases involving Trump happening in the near future, so he will have plenty of chances to get a favorable ruling.
We'll see if the will of the voter can prevail or whether Democrats can once again usurp it.
While the number of illegal immigrants deported by President Donald Trump since taking office in January appears to be lagging a bit behind former President Joe Biden's number of deportees in 2024, a new analysis by Just the News shows that this is not, in fact, the case.
It turns out the Biden administration counted "turnarounds"--those turned back at the border who never entered the U.S.--as removals or deportations.
These turnarounds accounted for 80% of the Biden administration's so-called removals/deportations that year.
This means that Trump's estimated 660 removals per day of illegal immigrants who were living in the U.S. interior is far beyond Biden's (less than 20% of an estimated 770 a day, or about 130 a day).
That's about five times faster that Trump is deporting migrants than Biden was, despite media attempts to portray the opposite.
This should not be surprising given that Biden was always reluctant to restrict illegal immigration in any way and did everything he could to encourage and allow it.
Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons talked up the administration's efforts on Tuesday in a press release.
“We’re just 100 days into this administration and thanks to President Trump and Secretary Noem, ICE is using every tool at its disposal to enforce our country’s immigration laws and protect our communities,” Lyons said.
The numbers given above are for ICE only; across all agencies, Homeland Security reported that 158,000 illegal immigrants have been arrested and more than 142,000 have been deported.
“Deportations have already exceeded 142,000—this is just the beginning. President Trump and Secretary Noem have jump-started an agency that was vilified and barred from doing its job for the last four years,” Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin told Just the News.
"In the face of a historic number of injunctions from activist judges, ICE, CBP, and the U.S. Coast Guard have made historic progress to carryout [sic] President Trump’s promise of arresting and deporting aliens who have invaded our country,” she continued.
An added benefit of the crackdown is that most migrants won't even try to cross the border when they know they are likely to be caught and deported.
“Additionally, illegal aliens are hearing our message to leave now or face the consequences. Thousands are using the CBP Home App to self-deport. Migrants are now even turning back before they reach our borders—migration through Panama’s Darien Gap is down 99.99%,” she explained.
Border Czar Tom Homan said that more funding is needed to make even a dent in the millions of migrants Biden let into the country, but that they are doing "great" with what they have so far.
Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the rollback of regulations that have protected journalists and allowed government officials to anonymously leak information.
Bondi's order will give federal investigators the authority to use subpoenas, court orders, and search warrants to hunt for government officials who make “unauthorized disclosures” to journalists.
This comes after numerous leaks have damaged the Trump administration as leftist federal workers and officials have coordinated with leftist media outlets to spread damaging information.
The issue of leakers was so prolific during Trump's first term in the White House that Trump administration officials spent more time putting out fires than actually advancing Trump's agenda.
So far, Trump's 2nd term has seen much of the same damaging leaks, and the DOJ is now going to crack down hard on both journalists and the leakers feeding damaging information to damage President Trump and his agenda.
The Biden-era policy was put in place to protect journalists from having their phone records secretly seized during leak investigations. This regulation was strongly advocated for by the mainstream media and journalist advocacy groups.
With those regulations being trashed, the Trump administration is now introducing new regulations that will preserve journalistic freedom but not so much as to allow leakers to blatantly sabotage the White House.
The new regulations will compel journalists to respond to subpoenas “when authorized at the appropriate level of the Department of Justice.”
Furthermore, the new rules will allow prosecutors to use court orders and search warrants to “compel production of information and testimony by and relating to the news media."
However, in order to preserve journalistic freedom, the new regulations explicitly stated that journalists are "presumptively entitled to advance notice of such investigative activities,” and subpoenas are to be “narrowly drawn."
The Trump administration is committed to toeing the narrow line that will preserve freedom of the press while cracking down on political actors dedicated to stopping the Trump agenda through nefarious tactics.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has been at the forefront of taking down leakers by announcing criminal referrals to the Justice Department against multiple individuals who were caught leaking sensitive information.
The Trump administration is going to throw everything they have at the leakers it can catch in order to dissuade other leftists in the federal government from throwing away their careers and lives to serve a political cause.
With these new regulations, the Trump administration is hoping to catch even more leakers and make more examples and stop the bleeding before it bogs down the rest of Trump's 2nd term.
Former First Lady Michelle Obama recently appeared on a podcast and suggested that Ivy League schools "scam" their students, raising eyebrows considering her own attendance at Princeton as an affirmative action student.
Obama appeared on the Diary of a CEO podcast and spoke about her experience at Princeton by saying, "Although I was an outstanding student, I wasn’t a good standardized test-taker. All those numbers said that I shouldn’t do well at Princeton."
She continued by saying, "'So I came in as an ‘affirmative action kid.' Sort of feeling like maybe I don’t belong in these ivory towers and maybe these kids coming from these other schools are really so much smarter and better than I am."
She then continued by saying her academic performance at Princeton demonstrated her right to be there, but that still didn't sit well with some observers who saw Obama's comments as papering over her status as an affirmative action student.
Affirmative action is being soundly dismantled around the nation in recognition of the racist and fundamentally flawed idea. This is in spite of the work of leftists like Obama, who want to keep affirmative action in place and further promote racial identity in academia.
Michelle Obama was clearly defending affirmative action but also openly taking shots at Ivy League schools by saying, "Do not let these people scam you. This is all a racket… That you don’t belong, that they’re smarter, that they work harder, that they know more, that they deserve this more than you do."
Obama was able to study sociology at Princeton and would later go on to study at Harvard Law School, making her a member of America's elite, but not stopping her from waging a campaign of racial grievance for decades.
Thanks to the rise of affirmative action, many students like Michelle Obama were able to enter Ivy League schools, but at the expense of more qualified students from racial groups that weren't considered disadvantaged.
This situation led to a massive backlash over the years, with lawsuits from Asian-Americans alleging that qualified students were passed over in favor of less qualified students from supposedly less advantaged groups.
Eventually, this fight led to the Supreme Court knocking down affirmative action in 2023, finding that it violated the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Of course, Michelle Obama decried that decision by saying, "My heart breaks for any young person out there who’s wondering what their future holds — and what kinds of chances will be open to them." Clearly, she didn't care about kids who had opportunities stolen from them by the scam that is affirmative action.
Michelle Obama is the last person to speak about Ivy League schools, as she represents the elite and is supported by the same people whom she accused of running a "racket." She was comfortable blasting these schools on the Diary of a CEO podcast, but is tied at the hip with these elite organizations.
Ivy League universities like Harvard and Columbia overwhelmingly supported former President Barack Obama's presidential campaigns. Numerous studies have found that the staffing at elite universities is overwhelmingly leftist.
This makes Michelle Obama's comments on Ivy League schools even more bizarre and inauthentic. Obama desperately wants to appeal to younger Americans, yet stands with those same people who have happily embraced elitist and anti-American policies that disadvantage young Americans.
A new Daily Mail and J.L. Partners poll released on Thursday showed that First Lady Melania Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. lead the pack with the highest favorability ratings in the Trump administration.
Melania Trump had a 45% very or somewhat favorable rating in the poll, while only 32% had a very or somewhat unfavorable rating. That's a +13 in the poll.
A few points behind her was Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who had similar favorable ratings of 45% combined, but had higher unfavorable ratings of 39% for a +6 rating.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt both had +3 ratings in the poll, but all the other officials and administration members included had negative numbers, including the president himself.
Vice President J.D. Vance had -1 and Trump had -5 in the survey of 1006 registered voters--both were underwater in their ratings.
Even further underwater were Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at -9 and DOGE head Elon Musk with -15. Musk will soon be mostly leaving the administration to devote himself to Tesla and other projects, but will still work with Trump one to two days a week.
The only figure with a lower rating than Musk in the poll was Russian President Vladimir Putin, who had a -59.
DOGE has been a controversial addition to the government in that it has seemed to cut government spending with a machete rather than a scalpel.
Thousands of federal employees have been laid off or offered early retirement, and most everyone knows of something they don't think should have been cut.
There is also resentment at Musk and Trump, both billionaires, cutting funding for some of the most needy in society, like Medicare, drug treatment, and mental health treatment grants and funding.
Cutting the wasteful and unnecessary spending in the government was at first popular with voters, but the extent of the cuts or temporary budget freezes has alarmed many.
DOGE claimed that it cut $160 billion from the annual budget in its first 100 days, but almost $100 billion of that is not itemized on the DOGE website, so it's hard to say what the real figures are.
Musk originally pledged to cut $2 trillion from the annual budget, but that has not materialized as planned.
Still, any cuts are better than the automatic and exponential increases we have gotten from the last few administrations, including Trump's first term.
The Supreme Court heard arguments in a landmark case out of Oklahoma after the state's Supreme Court blocked a Catholic Church from a charter school contract.
The court cited concerns that the catholic organization violated state and federal bans on government-sponsored sectarian education, as ABC News reported.
The nation's Supreme Court's conservative majority, however, seemed ready to make way for the first-ever religious charter school in the United States, directly funded by taxpayers.
A decision that overturns the state high court would have far-reaching consequences across the country, particularly in the 45 states where over 3.8 million students attend 8,000 charter schools.
According to the Republican attorney general of the state, charter schools serve as an extension of the state government that is bound by the principles of separation of church and state because they are public institutions that are accessible to everyone and closely monitored.
The justices weighed the First Amendment's ban on state establishment of religion and protection of free exercise of religious faith for over two hours.
The three liberal justices on the court agreed that, as fundamentally public institutions, charter schools cannot use public funds to promote specific ideology.
"The essence of the Establishment Clause was, we're not going to pay religious leaders to teach their religion," said Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
According to Justice Elena Kagan, the Oklahoma statute that establishes charter schools makes it clear that the schools cannot have any religious affiliation.
"These are state-run institutions," Kagan said. "With respect to a whole variety of things, the state is running these schools and insisting upon certain requirements."
Conservatives insisted they saw charter schools differently, as independent contractors providing a public good rather than an official government agency.
"The argument that St. Isidore and the board has made is that it's a private entity that is participating in a state program," noted Justice Clarence Thomas. "It was not created by the state program."
A ruling by the nation's high court against St. Isidore on First Amendment grounds could have an impact on other government contracts with religiously linked organizations, according to Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
"I think a concern here is that religiously operated senior homes or food banks or foster care agencies or adoption agencies or homeless shelters, many of which get substantial funding from the government, would potentially … become state actors and, thus, not be able to exercise their religion," Kavanaugh said.
Last year, Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself from the case without explaining why, but veteran court watchers have noted her close ties to Notre Dame and the previous relationships she has cultivated with some of the law professors participating in the case.
If the court were to become stuck at 4-4 due to her absence, the decision of the Oklahoma state Supreme Court would remain in effect. It is generally believed that Roberts will cast the deciding vote.
"Today's oral arguments made clear that states must not treat religious individuals and institutions as second-class citizens," said Carrie Severino, a former clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas and president of JCN, a conservative legal advocacy group.
"I expect the court will follow precedent and allow St. Isidore to offer educational choice for Oklahoma's students."
Those opposed to religious charter schools expressed concern that a major court decision right now could have a long-lasting impact.
"If today's arguments are any indication, the Supreme Court may be on the verge of abandoning one of the bedrock principles of our democracy," said Rev. Dr. Shannon Fleck, executive director of Faithful America, a left-leaning Christian advocacy group.
"Let's be clear, this was always a test case, and today, the constitutional protections that have guarded true religious freedom for generations are at risk."
On Tuesday, marking 100 days in office, President Donald Trump made that official with a snub to his former opponent.
Trump dismissed Doug Emhoff, former Second Gentleman, and others selected by Joe Biden from the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, as Breitbart News reported.
It is worth noting that Emhoff was appointed by the Biden administration to spearhead its "strategy" against antisemitism.
However, this plan was diluted and failed to address the root cause of anti-Jewish animosity following the terror attack on Israel by Hamas on October 7, 2023. As a result, there were antisemitic demonstrations and attacks.
The New York Times reported on the issue, noting that the current administration was firing the previous administration's appointees.
The board is one that oversees the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, and was home to not just the former second gentleman, but a number of other Biden officials.
“Today, I was informed of my removal from the United States Holocaust Memorial Council,” Mr. Emhoff said in a statement on Tuesday.
“Holocaust remembrance and education should never be politicized. To turn one of the worst atrocities in history into a wedge issue is dangerous — and it dishonors the memory of six million Jews murdered by Nazis that this museum was created to preserve.”
This is far from the first removal done by Trump of Biden officials, both functional and ceremonial, with the changes rippling through Washington like an alligator surfacing in the swamp.
The other officials removed by the Trump administration include Ron Klain, Biden’s first chief of staff; Tom Perez, the former labor secretary and senior adviser to Biden; and Susan Rice, the national security adviser to former President Barack Obama.
The former first lady didn't get off unscathed, though, as Trump also removed Anthony Bernal, a senior adviser to Jill Biden, the former first lady.
Ironically, Trump has been able to fire a large number of Biden appointees to various councils and offices largely because the Biden administration was so adamant about the same.
Biden relentlessly fired anyone Trump had appointed during his first term, including Sean Spicer, who served as the former press secretary.
That purge, which was upheld by the Supreme Court was the foundation for the change and paved the way for Trump to do the same.
The humor of that situation was not lost on those who got the ax at the start of the last administration. “Now all of these Biden appointees are paying the price for what Biden did,” Spicer said.
A federal judge ruled Friday to temporarily prevent President Donald Trump from stopping collective bargaining activity for federal employees whose jobs deal with national security, a move that could prevent hundreds of thousands of federal workers from joining unions.
The sticking point is a law passed by Congress to strengthen federal employees' collective bargaining rights, which the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) argued the Trump executive order bans.
The March order applies an exception in the law to employees in the departments of Treasury, State, Defense, Justice, Veterans Affairs, and parts of Health and Human Services, Interior, Energy, Commerce, and Homeland Security, among others.
The NTEU argued in the suit that the exception was narrow and applied to the FBI and a few other agencies, not to jobs in the agencies above.
In the NTEU's view, the president just wants to be able to fire federal employees more easily.
“The President’s sweeping Executive Order is inconsistent with the narrow exception that Congress provided,” the NTEU said. “None of the NTEU-represented agencies that the Order targets … do national security or intelligence work. Indeed, the Administration’s own issuances show that the President’s exclusions are not based on national security concerns, but instead a desire to make federal employees easier to fire and to weaken federal sector unions.”
The Department of Justice countered these arguments by saying that union negotiations could harm the readiness of federal employees to defend the nation.
After all, if union workers necessary for national security decide to strike, it could leave a gaping hole in the country's defenses.
National security is a part of many federal jobs, even if indirectly.
National president of NTEU Doreen Greenwald said after the order was issued that it was a “victory for federal employees, their union rights and the American people they serve.”
“NTEU will continue to use every tool available to protect federal employees and the valuable services they provide from these hostile attacks on their jobs, their agencies and their legally protected rights to organize,” Greenwald added.
Could Trump be trying to make it easier to fire federal workers?
It's possible he wants to expand the cuts made by DOGE so far into other areas, combine jobs, or reduce staff in certain areas to save some of the vast trillions of taxpayer dollars currently spent by agencies.
On the other hand, maybe he just wants to keep the country more secure and keep our enemies from exploiting weaknesses.