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.