Today the Congressional Budget Office released its official analysis of the OBBBA as passed by the House several days ago, estimating that it would increase the budget deficit by $2.4 trillion over the next 10 years. This comes as unwelcome news to the Republicans, who have been asserting that the bill will not increase the deficit at all, and who have responded today by attacking the impartiality of the CBO. I’ve started working on my own summary of the CBO analysis but I think that post will need to wait until the weekend.

Three new executive actions of interest from Trump today.

First, continuing his administration’s war on Harvard, Trump has issued a proclamation that “it is necessary to restrict the entry of foreign nationals who seek to enter the United States solely or principally to participate in a course of study at Harvard University or in an exchange visitor program hosted by Harvard University,” asserting the authority to do so under provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act that “authorize the President to suspend entry of any class of aliens whose entry would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.” This action attempts to use another route to implement a policy that a federal court had recently enjoined. Harvard has issued a brief statement calling the proclamation “yet another illegal retaliatory step taken by the Administration in violation of Harvard’s First Amendment rights.”

Second, Trump issued a proclamation imposing a travel ban on citizens of 12 countries (including Haiti and Somalia) and a partial travel ban on citizens of a further 7 countries (including Cuba and Venezuela). Unlike the controversial travel ban from early in Trump’s first term, which appeared to be rooted in animus towards Muslims, this ban appears to be grounded in data on visa overstay rates as well as concerns about countries’ passport issuance capabilities and/or historical unwillingness to accept repatriation of their deportable citizens.

Third, Trump issued a memorandum asserting that “there are serious doubts as to the decision making process and even the degree of Biden’s awareness of” executive actions taken towards the end of his term (including judicial appointments and acts of clemency), and ordering an investigation into “whether certain individuals conspired to deceive the public about Biden’s mental state and unconstitutionally exercise the authorities and responsibilities of the President.” This comes in the wake of a new book last month, co-authored by CNN anchor Jake Tappen, regarding Biden’s cognitive and physical deterioration and the steps taken by close aides to keep that largely hidden from the world. (Incidentally, a couple of weeks ago Biden was diagnosed with prostate cancer that has metastasized to the bone; his prognosis remains uncertain.)

Finally, a new district court ruling today in the J.G.G. v. Trump case, which relates to the Venezuelans that were deported in mid-March under the Alien Enemies Act to a notorious prison in El Salvador known as CECOT, with the planes already in the air by the time Judge Boasberg from D.C. was able to issue a temporary restraining order against the deportations. The gist of today’s ruling is that “Plaintiffs’ ability to bring habeas challenges to their removal must be restored … Defendants must facilitate Plaintiffs’ ability to proceed through habeas and ensure that their cases are handled as they would have been if the Government had not provided constitutionally inadequate process … absent this relief, the Government could snatch anyone off the street, turn him over to a foreign country, and then effectively foreclose any corrective course of action.” Today’s decision does not address the merits of the government’s use of the AEA; that topic will be the subject of oral arguments in front of the 5th Circuit on June 30th in a separate case, the case formerly known as A.A.R.P. v. Trump but likely to be known going forward, for sake of minimizing confusion, as W.M.M. v. Trump.

Today Trump officially enacted his threatened increase in steel & aluminum tariffs, effectively tomorrow, from 25% to 50%. There is an exemption for the U.K. while the countries continue to try and implement their recently touted trade framework, one intended aspect of which was a reduction in U.S. tariffs on British steel from the 25% rate.

Musk has only been out of government for a few days, but already major cracks are showing in the Trump-Musk alliance. Today Musk called the OBBBA a “disgusting abomination” and then, hours later, posted that “in November next year, we fire all politicians who betrayed the American people.”

Senate committees are expected to release their markups of OBBBA in phases this week, with the aim for the full Senate to vote on a bill before the end of June. Encouragingly, Majority Leader Thune today appeared to rule out playing the nuclear card of overruling the Senate Parliamentarian; as such, we can expect there will be some “Byrd droppings” of non-budgetary provisions that snuck into the House’s version of the OBBBA, such as the controversial 10-year moratorium on enforcement of state AI-related laws (a provision that, today, Rep. Taylor-Greene claimed to have known nothing about, saying that said she’d have voted against the bill if she’d realized that was in it), or the controversial provision limiting federal judges’ ability to hold government officials in contempt of court when they disobey court orders (which Rep. Flood of Nebraska admitted last week was unknown to him when he voted for the bill and indicated he opposes).

Trump v. AFGE reached the SCOTUS shadow docket today. I had missed where, late last week, a 9th Circuit panel voted 2-1 to deny the administration’s request for a stay of Judge Illston’s preliminary injunction pending appeal. As such today the administration took its request for a stay to SCOTUS. The circuit justice, in this case Kagan, has given plaintiffs a week to respond to the government’s application.

Finally in political news, one-time Tea Party Republican Congressman Joe Walsh announced today he is joining the Democratic party, five years after he left the Republican party to become an independent. Walsh: “I used to be a conservative Republican. The Republican Party is no longer conservative, it’s authoritarian. I’m still a conservative, so now I’m a conservative Democrat.” The re-sorting of the electorate continues.

We’ve made it to June.

Quiet weekend. On Friday Trump did announce his intention to raise existing tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from 25% to 50%, effective this coming Wednesday (June 4th). This tariff action is unrelated to the broader tariffs that were the subject of the V.O.S. Selections case, but instead is an expansion of action Trump first took in 2018 under authority granted by Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. More recently, the E.U. has indicated it “is prepared to impose countermeasures,” perhaps waiting until mid-July, but perhaps earlier.

Speaking of V.O.S. Selections v. Trump, some of the legal analysis in the wake of the lower court decision has focused on the so-called major questions doctrine, a term of art that has loomed over much of the Roberts Court’s jurisprudence but wasn’t used in a SCOTUS majority opinion until 2022. The general idea behind the doctrine is the belief that, with respect to an issue having “vast economic and political significance,” Congress would need to clearly delegate to a regulatory agency authority to address that issue, as opposed to the regulatory agency being able to claim authority under some more general statutory provision. One distinction between V.O.S. Selections and the major questions doctrine cases is that here, with respect to tariffs, we are talking about the delegation of Congressional authority to the President himself rather than to a regulatory agency. Should that difference matter? Will SCOTUS think it matters? Stay tuned.

In other news, Ukraine successfully launched a coordinated drone attack on air bases throughout Russia, damaging as many as one-third of Russia’s long-range bomber forces. Also, Trump withdrew his nomination for NASA administrator, tech billionaire (and close friend of Elon Musk) Jared Isaacman, citing a “thorough review of prior associations.” This is believed to refer to the fact that Isaacman had previously donated to Democratic Senators Kelly and Casey, although the NYTimes’ reporting asserts that Trump was told about this back in December.