There’s a scene in Aaron Sorkin’s The American President where widower President Shepherd (Michael Douglas) has invited Sydney Ellen Wade (Annette Bening) over to the White House, and it quickly becomes clear that his knowledge of the historical china on display is fairly limited. My recollection was that Shepherd says “I’m not really an East Wing President.” (As it turns out, I misremembered Sorkin’s prose: He actually says “I’m more of a West Wing President.”)

I was reminded of that scene this week when news broke that, with no advance warning, the East Wing of the White House was completely demolished. Trump had previously signaled his intention to build a new ballroom at the White House, modeled after his ballroom at Mar-A-Lago; however, early indications were that the East Wing would remain intact. The new ballroom is now expected to cost $300 million, to be funded by President Trump and a long list of corporate and personal donors. A new poll this week has 53% of respondents disapproving of the East Wing demolition, versus only 22% approving.

The government shutdown continues, with no end in sight. The House of Representatives has remained out of session through the entire shutdown, with Speaker Johnson still refusing to seat Rep.-elect Grijalva, who would be the 218th vote in favor of the Massie-Khanna discharge petition relating to the Epstein files. A new poll has voters blaming Republicans over Democrats for the shutdown, 45-39.

There has been a lot of action lately in the three distinct cases relating to Trump’s federalization of the National Guard.

Out in California, the 9th Circuit just denied Newsom’s request for an en banc rehearing of the panel’s 2-1 decision to stay Judge Breyer’s temporary restraining order, although 10 active Judges joined Judge Berzon’s 38-page statement arguing that the court should have taken it up en banc (I think technically Berzon’s opinion is a “statement” rather than a “dissent” because, as a judge in senior status, she didn’t actually get a vote). However, Trump’s appeal on the merits of Breyer’s decision is still before the 9th Circuit panel, and oral arguments occurred this week. It seems plausible that if the panel were to rule in favor of Trump on the merits, there would be sufficient support for an en banc rehearing on the merits — i.e., that some of the people who voted against rehearing the stay did so for procedural rather than substantive reasons.

The Chicago case, discussed in my last post, now sits on the SCOTUS shadow docket. With the 7th Circuit having upheld the restraining order issued by the lower court judge, Trump now seeks a stay of that order, as he has on so many other issues this year. Both sides have submitted their briefs; and so we wait.

In the Oregon case, this week a (different) 9th Circuit appeal voted 2-1 in favor of the administration. I had previously mentioned that the recent 7th Circuit opinion focused on the question of whether there was a “danger of a rebellion against the authority of the government of the United States,” which is one of the 3 statutory reasons permitting the federalization of the National Guard. The per curiam 9th Circuit opinion doesn’t reach that issue, instead focusing on one of the other reasons, namely that the President is “unable with regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.” However, both the dissent and a solo concurrence take dramatically different views of the situation. Per the concurrence, an 1827 SCOTUS precedent called Martin v. Mott forecloses the possibility of judicial review of the President’s determination on these matters; legal scholars are very skeptical of that view. And then the dissent takes a point of view more similar to what we’ve seen from the Illinois rulings and the lower court judge in Oregon.

Probably the next domino to fall here is that SCOTUS will need to do something with the administration’s request for a stay in Trump v. Illinois. Nobody has gotten rich betting against this SCOTUS issuing a 6-3 opinion in favor of this administration’s request for a stay of a restraining order; but maybe this time will be different?

Moving on: In a continuation of his war on the war on financial crimes, today Trump issued a pardon to cryptocurrency magnate Changpeng Zhao, founder of Binance, who very recently had completed his 4-month prison sentence on money laundering charges.

And finally, in a story that defies all sense but is all too possible to believe in these times, there was reporting this week that Trump has submitted demands to the Department of Justice that it pay him $230 million as compensation for legal expenses he incurred in his various federal legal cases. Some of the DOJ officials who would need to sign off on this request, including Deputy Attorney General Blanche, were Trump’s defense lawyers in one or more of the cases involved.

….well, my own personal fiscal year-end, that is.

Sticking with the “summary of developments” approach from my last post, almost two weeks ago:

Government Shutdown. It’s still going on, with no end in sight. Pain is starting to be felt, in the form of missed paychecks.

The administration has started to issue reduction-in-force notices during the shutdown, affecting thousands of employees across dozens of agencies. A lawsuit had been filed in the Northern District of California, AFGE vs. OMB, to prevent these layoffs. That suit was transferred to Judge Illston, who had been handling the related lawsuit (AFGE vs. Trump) around DOGE-related workforce reductions. Two days ago Illston issued a temporary restraining order to prevent these layoffs, and today she expanded the scope of that TRO.

Military in Cities. Shortly after my last post, a Trump-appointed federal judge in Oregon ruled against the administration’s efforts to sidestep her previous ruling (against the deployment of federalized California National Guard to Portland) by instead deploying federalized Texas National Guard to defend an ICE facility in Portland. Since then, there has been a 9th Circuit oral argument on the administration’s efforts to overturn Judge Immergut’s ruling. The 3-judge panel included two Trump appointees, and the oral argument seemed to go well for the government; however, 8 days have now passed with no ruling from the 9th Circuit.

Meanwhile in Chicago, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order against the administration’s desire to federalize the Illinois National Guard to defend an ICE facility in the Chicago suburb of Broadview. Although this case started later than the Portland case, here the 7th Circuit has already issued its opinion upholding the TRO.

There is a federal statute that, among things, permits the President to federalize the National Guard if “there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States,” in order to “suppress the rebellion.” As such a major issue in both Oregon v. Trump and Illinois v. Trump is whether the administration’s determination that there is the requisite “danger of a rebellion” in Portland and Chicago is subject to judicial review, and if so whether there actually is such danger at the present time. To that latter point, the unanimous per curiam opinion authored by the 3-judge 7th Circuit panel in Illinois v. Trump spoke eloquently:

“Political opposition is not rebellion. A protest does not become a rebellion merely because the protestors advocate for myriad legal or policy changes, are well organized, call for significant changes to the structure of the U.S. government, use civil disobedience as a form of protest, or exercise their Second Amendment right to carry firearms as the law currently allows. Nor does a protest become a rebellion merely because of sporadic and isolated incidents of unlawful activity or even violence committed by rogue participants in the protest. … The spirited, sustained, and occasionally violent actions of demonstrators in protest of the federal government’s immigration policies and actions, without more, does not give rise to a danger of rebellion against the government’s authority.”

War Against Anti-Corruption. Today President Trump commuted the sentence of former Republican Congressman George Santos. He had served less than 3 months of an 87-month sentence for fraud, after having pled guilty in August 2024.

Politicization of DOJ. In my last post I noted the recent departure of the U.S. District Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, apparently over his unwillingness to pursue cases against political enemies of President Trump. His replacement, after having indicted former FBI Director Comey on paper-thin charges of perjury, has now indicted New York Attorney General Letitia James on paper-thin charges of mortgage fraud. And we all know, thanks to a public Truth Social post that Trump made but apparently had intended as a private direct message to Attorney General Bondi, that these indictments were directed by the President.

More recently, charges of mishandling classified information have been brought against Trump’s former National Security Advisor, John Bolton. There may be more merit to the Bolton indictment than is present in the Comey or James indictments. Nevertheless, this action is pretty rich coming from the administration of a President who objected vociferously to the charges brought against him in the Mar-A-Lago documents case, the allegations from which appear more substantive than the allegations against Bolton.

Demonization of Political Opponents. Tomorrow is the 2nd scheduled series of “No Kings Day” protests against President Trump in communities throughout the country, following up on a successful day of protests four months ago. Republicans have attempted to prebut tomorrow’s protests by making ridiculous allegations about the participants. Speaker Johnson referred to the No Kings Day protests as “hate America rallies,” while the White House Press Secretary recently said that “the Democrat Party’s main constituency are made up of Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens and violent criminals.”

War on Free Press. Defense Secretary Hegseth recently announced a new series of rules that would apply to journalists embedded in the Pentagon. In response, almost all news organizations linked arms and turned in their Pentagon press passes, the only exception being ultra-right-wing TV channel One America News.

As I write this, we’re in the second day of the MLB Division Series (round-of-8). My beloved Blue Jays, the #1 overall seed in the American League, have pounded the favored Yankees in each of the first two games of their best-of-five series. I am starting to dream of a Blue Jays – Brewers World Series later this month, which would be so much fun. Elsewhere, my Broncos had a stunning come-from-behind win today at the undefeated Eagles, while my eldest son’s Illini had a nice win yesterday and are once again ranked in the top 20.

So, you might think I’d feel like all was well in world. But that’s not exactly how I feel these days. There’s just so much going awry, it’s basically impossible to keep track.

Recent developments in a number of areas about which I had been blogging:

Kimmel. In a rare piece of good news, public pressure got Disney to put Jimmy Kimmel’s show back on the air within a week of them having “indefinitely suspended” him over what were really rather mild comments about the Charlie Kirk assassination. A few days after that, the two groups of ABC affiliates who led the move against Kimmel relented and put his show back on their airwaves. There has been no new news that I’ve seen over the past couple of weeks about the alleged assassin’s motivations.

H-1B. Shortly after my last post, the administration clarified that the new $100,000 fee for H-1B visa applies only to new applications, and is a one-time rather than annual fee. The first lawsuit challenging the executive order, which appears to be captioned Global Nurse Force v. Trump, was filed on Friday in the Northern District of California.

Alien Enemies Act. The 5th Circuit voted to have an en banc rehearing of its recent decision in W.M.M. v. Trump, around whether the administration can assert that the activities of Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua constitute an “invasion” for purposes of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. A dissent argues that it would have been more appropriate to just let SCOTUS reach the merits of the issue as soon as possible, given that the 3-judge panel had released lengthy opinions covering both sides of the controversy. It is not yet clear when the 5th Circuit en banc will hear the case.

Military. Three different things to discuss here.

First, in a very unusual action, Secretary Hegseth summoned all U.S. generals around the world to come to a publicly announced meeting in Quantico, Virginia, for purposes of hearing speeches from both Hegseth and Trump in front of a Patton-esque flag. To the attendees’ credit, they reportedly remained stony-faced throughout, notwithstanding the overt political nature of some of the speakers’ comments. The most controversial part of Trump’s remarks was his suggestion that U.S. cities should be used as military training grounds.

Second, the administration has now made four separate military strikes against boats in the Southern Caribbean, having “now summarily killed 21 people it says were smuggling drugs as if they were not criminal suspects but enemy soldiers in a war zone” (per the NYTimes). The administration has reportedly argued to Congress that the U.S. is engaged in a “noninternational armed conflict” with certain drug cartels, justifying the military strikes. Legal pundits Marty Lederman and Ben Wittes each think that this legal argument is invalid, with Wittes going further to argue that the strikes are clearly criminal acts of murder under U.S. law. Not that Trump could ever be prosecuted for this, thanks to the SCOTUS ruling in Trump v. U.S.; but perhaps Hegseth and other officials could be, in time.

Finally, Trump continues to persist with his ambitions of sending military troops into Democratic-controlled cities, even when (unlike in Memphis) contrary to the wishes of the local governor. A week ago Trump wrote a social media post talking around “war-ravaged Portland,” much to the confusion of locals. He followed that up with an order federalizing 200 Oregon National Guard troops so that they could be sent into Portland. Local officials sued to block the move, receiving a court order preventing it. Now Trump has pivoted to deploying previously federalized California National Guard troops, to which Governor Newsom is expected to object. Meanwhile, Trump appears to be federalizing 300 Illinois National Guard troops for use in Chicago, against the wishes of Governor Pritzker.

Cook. In a rare shadow docket setback for the administration, SCOTUS has deferred the government’s application for a stay of an appellate court decision preventing Trump from firing Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, instead indicating that the Court will hear oral argument in Trump v. Cook in January.

In a thematically related shadow docket action, SCOTUS recently granted the administration a stay in Trump v. Slaughter, a case about Trump’s firing in March of two FTC commissioners, and scheduled that case for oral argument in December 2025. At that point the Court is widely expected to formally overrule a relevant 1935 precedent, Humphrey’s Executioner. Kagan’s dissent, joined by the other two liberals, criticized the majority for using the shadow docket “to permit what our own precedent bars,” arguing instead that the stay should have been denied until such time as Humphrey’s is actually overruled.

New York Mayoral Race. With Mamdani consistently polling in the mid-40s in the four-way, first-past-the-post mayoral race in NYC, there had been speculation in recent weeks about trying to get Mayor Adams to drop out of the race. He did finally drop out, about a week ago. Even so, prediction markets are still assessing the young socialist’s likelihood of winning the race as being in the mid-80s.

Politicization of DOJ. A couple of weeks ago, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia resigned under extreme pressure. It seems that his district had been investigating whether federal charges should be filed against former FBI Director James Comey, in connection with purported perjurious testimony Comey provided to Congress in late September of 2020. The 5-year statute of limitations for such charges was about to expire, and the U.S. Attorney had apparently concluded that no charges were warranted.

Trump apparently did not like that answer. Pressure was brought to bear, and that U.S. Attorney was replaced by a 36-year-old insurance lawyer with no prosecutorial experience, but who had been part of Trump’s legal team in the Mar-a-Lago documents case and more recently had served as a special assistant to the president. The new U.S. Attorney (who had never before been involved in a grand jury proceeding) promptly indicted Comey, days before the statute of limitations would have expired. His first court appearance will be later this week.

War Against DEI. This week the administration announced that $18 billion of federal funding for the Hudson Tunnel and Second Avenue Subway infrastructure projects in New York City were being put on hold, “to ensure funding is not flowing based on unconstitutional DEI principles.” Not to make Chicago feel left out, days later the administration put $2 billion of federal funding for the Red Line Extension project on hold “to ensure funding is not flowing based on race-based contracting.”

War Against Universities. Notwithstanding Harvard’s recent legal win, Trump asserted this week that a settlement with the university was imminent, suggesting that Harvard would pay $500 million. Days later, there has been no further news. Meanwhile, Governor Newsom suggested this week that California universities who enter into settlements with the federal government would see their state funding pulled.

Birthright Citizenship. Last week the administration petitioned SCOTUS for certiorari in Trump v. Washington, a case out of the 9th Circuit relating to the birthright citizenship executive order. By doing so, Solicitor General Sauer honored the promise he had made in the Trump v. CASA oral argument, namely that even if the administration keeps losing on this issue in each and every case, it would nonetheless seek certiorari in order to achieve a definitive nationwide answer to the controversy. Underscoring that point, days after the cert filing the administration lost a similar case in another circuit, this time the 1st Circuit.

Foreign Students and Speech. A Reagan-appointed district court judge recently ruled against the administration in a case, AAUP v. Rubio, arising out of various immigration-related actions the administration took in the spring with respect to foreign students for purportedly antisemitic speech. Summarizing the judge’s view of the case: “nothing in the text, history, or tradition of the First Amendment suggests that persons lawfully present here may be subject to adverse action based on their political speech, where that speech is primarily concerned with the actions of foreign nations with whom the United States is not at war and Congress has not made a specific determination that a specific organization threatens the violent overthrow of the government.”

Arizona By-Election. As expected, the daughter of recently deceased Democratic Representative Raul Grijalva easily won the by-election to replace her father. In principle she should provide the 218th vote for the discharge position that would force an up-or-down House vote on the release of the Epstein files. However, Speaker Johnson has repeatedly delayed the swearing-in of the newest Congresswoman. I wonder why.

Rescission. Basking in the success of his legislative rescission this summer, Trump recently attempted a so-called “pocket rescission” in which he informed Congress, less than 45 days before the end of the fiscal year, that he did not intend to spend a few billion worth of previously appropriated foreign aid funding. The legality of this type of action is questionable, and as such the pocket rescission announcement led to a SCOTUS shadow docket case called Department of State vs. AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition. Predictably, at this point, the majority allowed the administration to proceed with its desired course of action (i.e., not spending the money), while taking pains to note that this was not a final ruling on the legality of that government action. It was Kagan’s turn to pen the dissent for the three liberals, writing the following in conclusion:

“[T]he standard for granting emergency relief is supposed to be stringent. The Executive has not come close to meeting it here. And the consequence of today’s grant is significant. I appreciate that the majority refrains from offering a definitive view of this dispute and the questions raised in it. But the effect of its ruling is to allow the Executive to cease obligating $4 billion in funds that Congress appropriated for foreign aid, and that will now never reach its intended recipients. Because that result conflicts with the separation of powers, I respectfully dissent.”

In addition to all of these ongoing items, we now have an important new topic: Government Shutdown.

Six months ago, a faction of moderate Democratic Senators had declined to endorse a government shutdown, perhaps fearful that a shutdown would allow Trump and his DOGE to do even more damage to the federal government than he was doing. The way things have gone since then, neither party seems particularly willing to cooperate with the other. Not that the Democrats have given a clear vision for what they seek to achieve from this shutdown, mind you, although they having been talking a lot about the Republican’s failure in OBBBA to extend the Biden-era increases to the ACA’s premium subsidies via advance premium tax credits.

At this point we’re only 5 days into the shutdown and the pain hasn’t really hit yet; we’ll see what happens, and who the populace blames.