Trump proves that he has no idea what the Constitution is—again

Posted on May 5, 2025 by Oliver Willis

Attempting to deflect from courts repeatedly ruling against his immigration policy, President Donald Trump lied to reporters on Monday, claiming that the courts fabricated the need for cases to be heard—despite the right to a trial being a constitutional law for more than 234 years.

“The courts have all of a sudden, out of nowhere, they said, ‘maybe you have to have trials.’ Trials, we’re going to have 5 million trials? Doesn’t work, doesn’t work. You wouldn’t have a country left,” he said.

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Trump has been under fire for denying detainees due process. Students like Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk have been abducted for their pro-Palestinian advocacy, and legal U.S. resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia was wrongly captured and deported to El Salvador.

On April 30, a court ordered the release of Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian immigrant who was held by the Department of Homeland Security while it tried to find a reason for his deportation.

Contrary to Trump’s statement, the U.S. Constitution explicitly lays out the right to a trial in the Sixth Amendment:

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

Similarly, the Seventh Amendment notes:

In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

These rights were part of the ten amendments ratified in 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights, and nothing in U.S. law or Trump’s executive orders have nullified them. The Sixth Amendment ensures that accusations leveled by the government against people have to be proven in a court of law and not just by royal fiat, as was done by the British government in the colonial era.

Trump’s unconstitutional remarks come just one day after he told NBC “I don’t know” when asked if the president needs to uphold the Constitution. Like every president before him, Trump took an oath of office, making it clear that this was a core element of his presidential duties.

The presidential oath of office states:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

The oath is not ambiguous, and defense of the Constitution is not optional.

Trump’s ignorance of U.S. law and history was also on display when he recently argued that the Declaration of Independence was a “declaration of unity and love and respect.” The document famously severed the relationship between colonists and England, leading to the bloody Revolutionary War where hundreds of thousands died.

Of course, Trump is the only president who has been impeached twice. In both instances, he was found to be in violation of the Constitution.

No wonder he thinks the right to a trial came “out of nowhere.”

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Here’s how Democrats can take back the House

Posted on April 25, 2025 by Andrew Mangan

Democrats face hard math in retaking the Senate. But in the House, it’s another story.

Democrats hold 213 House seats to Republicans’ 220, with two vacancies in safely Democratic districts that will be filled through special elections later this year. If all goes as expected, Democrats will have 215 seats, three shy of a majority in the chamber.

Three also happens to be the exact number of Republican-held districts that Democrat Kamala Harris won in the 2024 presidential election, according to a Daily Kos analysis of data from The Downballot, the election-tracking site formerly known as Daily Kos Elections. This shows a promising path for Democrats to retake the House in next year’s midterm elections.

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Though Harris won two of those districts—New York’s 17th and Pennsylvania’s 1st—by less than 1 percentage point, she was also the first Democratic presidential candidate in 20 years to lose the popular vote. In fact, according to The Downballot, President Joe Biden pretty handily won both districts in the 2020 election, taking Pennsylvania’s 1st by 4.6 points and New York’s 17th by a whopping 10.1 points.

That said, because Republicans still won those seats last year, they are by no means a sure flip for Democrats in 2026. The party will also have to defend Democratic-held seats in 13 districts that President Donald Trump won last year, four of which he won by more than 5 points—a ticket-splitting feat that Harris didn’t manage to pull off anywhere.

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But there was one feat that Democrats did manage last year: They picked up two House seats on net, despite Harris’ shoddy performance at the top of the ticket. Better yet, they are very likely to improve in 2026.

How do we know that? Historically, the party not in the White House picks up seats in a midterm. In only two midterm elections since 1946 has a president’s party gained House seats: 1998 and 2002. Both midterms were rocked by major news events: one by Republicans’ overreach in their impeachment of President Bill Clinton, and the other by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks under President George W. Bush.

Excluding those two midterms, the worst result since 1946 for the party not in the White House was a gain of just four House seats, according to 538. And flipping four seats next year would put Democrats back in the majority.

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In all likelihood, Democrats will flip more than four seats. The Trump administration has been chaotic and destructive, leading to mass protests and GOP lawmakers getting viciously booed during their rare town halls.

The Democratic Party has also become very good at overperforming in low-turnout elections. In 2025 special elections so far, Democrats have beaten Harris’ 2024 margin in those seats by an average of 11 points, according to data from The Downballot.

Democrats are unlikely to outperform Harris by 11 points in every House district in the 2026 midterms, which will have higher turnout than these special elections. But if they somehow managed it, Democrats would flip 30 seats.

The last time Trump faced a midterm, in 2018, Democrats flipped 40 seats on net. While there are many reasons why the 2018 and 2026 midterms will be different—for one, district maps were redrawn between those elections—Democrats don’t need to pick up an additional 40 seats. Or even 30.

They need three.

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Get your popcorn: Republicans are set to rip each other apart in Texas

Posted on April 20, 2025 by Alex Samuels

Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas is staring down the biggest political threat of his career: a MAGA-fueled primary challenge from state Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Paxton kicked off his Senate bid on April 8, announcing it on Fox News with host Laura Ingraham and blasting Cornyn’s “lack of production” in more than two decades on the job.

“We have another great U.S. senator, Ted Cruz, and it’s time we have another great senator that will actually stand up and fight for Republican values, fight for the values of the people of Texas, and also support [President] Donald Trump in the areas that he’s focused on in a very significant way,” Paxton said. “And that’s what I plan on doing.”

The thing is, Cornyn has been reliably conservative and loyal to Trump. But that won’t stop this from likely turning into one of the ugliest, most expensive GOP primaries in recent Texas history—a full-on proxy war between the Republican establishment and the MAGA wing. Trump hasn’t endorsed yet, but he’s teasing that he’ll tip the scales before the March 2026 primary.

Cornyn has all the usual advantages: establishment backing, a deep bench of donors, and nearly $1.6 million raised in just the first quarter of this year alone. Paxton jumped in after the first-quarter fundraising filing deadline, so we’ll have to wait until July to see how much he’s raised.

But what Paxton may lack in cash, he makes up for in chaos.

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Last week, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, endorsed Cornyn with a barely veiled jab at Paxton, who’s been dogged by legal drama for years.

“John Cornyn is a leader who delivers on President Trump's agenda and for the people of Texas in the U.S. Senate,” Scott said. “He’s a proven fighter, man of faith, and essential part of the Republican Senate Majority.”

Indeed, Paxton has faced securities fraud charges, was impeached by the GOP-led Texas House of Representatives for abuse-of-power allegations, and allegedly cheated on his wife. One brutal Cornyn campaign statement put it plainly: “Ken claims to be a man of faith but uses fake Uber accounts to meet his girlfriend and deceive his family.”

While Cornyn may not be a saint, next to Paxton, he sure looks like one. Paxton—whom Trump once called “a very talented guy”—attended the Jan. 6, 2021, rally that preceded the Capitol riot. He also tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, and more recently, he oversaw Texas’ first arrests under the state’s post-Roe v. Wade abortion ban. In general, he’s a walking ethics violation.

Still, Paxton has built a loyal following among the Texas GOP’s far-right base, which stood by him during his Republican-led impeachment in 2023. A January poll from the University of Houston, for instance, showed 36% of Texas GOP voters would “definitely” consider voting for him, edging out Cornyn (32%). And some polling has been even starker: A February poll from Fabrizio, Lee & Associates had Paxton up more than 20 percentage points over Cornyn—and, unfortunately, winning in a general election.

Even Texas’ other senator isn’t backing Cornyn. Instead, Cruz is playing neutral, likely because he’s read the same surveys.

“Both John and Ken are friends of mine,” Cruz said to reporters recently. “I respect them both, and I trust the voters of Texas to make that decision.” (Translation: Cruz is hedging.)

Republican voters nominating Paxton isn’t without risks, though.

Axios reports GOP strategists are warning Paxton could give Democrats their best shot at flipping the seat, even though Democrats haven’t won a Senate race in Texas since 1988. In 2024, former Texas Rep. Colin Allred lost to Cruz by over 8 points. (Allred is reportedly also considering a Senate run in 2026.)

Republicans are nervous enough that Senate Majority Leader John Thune is privately pushing Trump to endorse Cornyn, according to CNN.

But Cornyn’s got vulnerabilities that MAGA world loves to exploit, like how he backed aid to Ukraine and supported a bipartisan gun-reform bill after a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers at Uvalde’s Robb Elementary School. That alone might be enough for Paxton to slap him with the dreaded “RINO” label and ride away with the base.

Cornyn may have the donors, the party brass, and the resume—but in today’s GOP, that may not be enough. If Trump backs Paxton, Cornyn’s long Senate career could be toast. And if Paxton wins? Democrats may finally have a (narrow) shot at flipping a Senate seat in Texas.

Either way, this primary is shaping up to be a MAGA-fueled circus. Pass the popcorn.

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How the GOP becoming more MAGA could be bad for the GOP

Posted on April 16, 2025 by Emily Singer

A new poll commissioned by NBC News finds that 71% of Republican voters now identify with President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement—a massive jump from the 40% who identified as MAGA a little over a year ago.

Trump is, unsurprisingly, crowing about the poll. “A just out NBC Poll says that MAGA is gaining tremendous support. I am not, at all, surprised!!!” he wrote in a Truth Social post.

Of course, Trump is exaggerating the poll’s results, suggesting in his Truth Social post that the entire country is becoming MAGA—and not primarily Republicans, as NBC’s poll found.

“All of that shift is coming from Republicans,” Bill McInturff, a Republican pollster who helped conduct NBC’s poll, told the outlet.

Ultimately, the fact that Trump's MAGA movement is steadily taking over more of the Republican Party could be a major problem for the GOP in upcoming elections. While Republican voters may support Trump, voters more broadly—including independents—do not.

A new poll by YouGov for the University of Massachusetts at Amherst found just 31% of independents support Trump. A Quinnipiac University poll from last week had similar findings, with just 36% of independents approving of the way Trump is handling his job as president, compared with 58% who disapprove. What's more, 51% of those independents in Quinnipiac’s survey “strongly disapprove” of Trump.

Of course, in swing districts, Republicans need to win over independents and possibly even some Democratic voters to get elected. Since the party has been taken over by MAGA, Republican candidates now have to embrace Trump and his movement to win primaries. And that could hurt them in a general election.

In fact, this dilemma has been a problem for Republicans in the past.

For example, in the 2024 election, MAGA Republican Joe Kent—an election-denying white nationalist now in Trump's administration—lost a House race in Washington State in 2024 to Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, even though Trump carried the district.

Kent was the GOP nominee after he ousted a normie Republican, Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, who had voted to impeach Trump for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

And in 2022, MAGA hurt Republicans in the midterms, with Trump's hand-picked candidates losing races Republicans should have won in a typical midterm year when a Democrat was in the White House.

Trump’s picks sank Republicans' chances at holding the Senate that year, with nominees Mehmet Oz, Blake Masters, and Herschel Walker losing winnable Senate races in Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Georgia, respectively.

What’s more, the MAGA candidates whom Trump endorsed in competitive House seats lost as well. That includes Trump superfan J.R. Majewski, who lost in Ohio’s Republican-leaning 9th District, as well as former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who lost in Alaska’s at-large House seat.

Now, in 2025, even fairly normal Republicans are defending and embracing Trump, which will make it hard for them to shy away from him and the MAGA movement in the midterms. Indeed, since Trump was sworn in in January, Republicans have lost winnable state-legislative special elections and severely underperformed in a pair of House races in Trump country—a sign the backlash to Trump is already here.

Polling shows that non-MAGA Republican Susan Collins, a senator in Maine, is caught between a rock and a hard place. Collins is running for reelection in a state Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris won in 2024. But her penchant for caving to Trump on certain issues, while standing up to him on things like tariffs, has made her unpopular with both Democrats and Republicans.

From a Public Policy Polling survey in March:

The feeling from both sides that Collins is letting them down leads to a rare poll finding in these polarized times where voters across the aisle agree about something. Asked whether they consider Collins to be a strong or weak leader majorities of both Harris (19/66) and Trump (28/51) voters call her weak. Overall just 24% characterize her as strong with 59% calling her weak.
These findings are putting Collins in a position where she could be vulnerable next year both in a Republican primary and the general election. 69% of Trump voters think Collins is ‘too liberal,’ presumably leaving her vulnerable to a challenge from someone to her right. But 69% of Harris voters think she’s ’too conservative,’ suggesting she may also struggle to win the sort of crossover support from Democratic leaning voters that’s fueled her success in the past.

As Collins would say, all signs say Republicans should be very “concerned” about elections over the next two years.

Thank you to the Daily Kos community who continues to fight so hard with Daily Kos. Your reader support means everything. We will continue to have you covered and keep you informed, so please donate just $3 to help support the work we do.

Here’s how Trump could pull off an authoritarian third term

Posted on April 6, 2025 by kos

The 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says, “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.”

Seems pretty clear-cut, right?

But read carefully—”no person shall be elected” to the office. And therein lies the keys to Donald Trump’s fantasies of a third term, saying to NBC’s Kristen Welker on Sunday, “There are methods which you could do it.”

So how exactly would Trump become president without being elected president?

Is Vance loyal enough to give up his hard-earned power were he to win the presidency?

One way, Trump said, would be to swap tickets with Vice President JD Vance. He would run on a ticket with Vance and get elected vice president. Then, Vance would give up the office out of the goodness of his heart and resign, or maybe Trump would just shiv him, who knows. Trump wouldn’t care either way. Regardless, he would then become president.

Except that won’t work.

The 12th Amendment says, “no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.”

Well, that seems pretty clear-cut, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, that’s not the only avenue for Trump to try and sneak in.

The current order of presidential succession is:

Vice President

Speaker of the House

President Pro Tempore of the Senate

Secretary of State

We’ve already noted that the first is clearly off the table. However, the rest are not.

The Constitution doesn’t actually set requirements for speaker of the House, saying only, “The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.”

While every speaker has been a member of the House, it’s clear that there’s nothing requiring that to be the case. Hence, a Republican House could simply elect Trump as speaker, and then elevate him after both the president and the vice president resigned to pave his return to power.

A plain text reading of the Constitution makes this absolutely possible, though the courts would have to wrestle with the intent of both the 12th and the 22nd Amendments—which collectively make clear that really, two presidential terms is enough. But in this case, Trump wouldn’t be elected to the presidency, he would be elevated to the job.

The more practical impediment to this scenario is that two people would now need to surrender their chances to be president of the United States so fucking Trump could continue trashing the country and the world. People don’t want that, not even Republicans, and that’s before Trump’s policies really do a number on our economy.

Not to mention, those two people will both have gone through a grueling national campaign, won the votes of tens of millions, and for what? To quit and give it all up right after taking the oath to office?

Moving down the list, president pro tempore of the Senate is supposed to preside over the Senate in the absence of the vice president (hence the Latin “for the time being”), which the Constitution pretends is the president of the Senate (and in practice, just means a tie-breaking vote if necessary).

Like the House speaker, the Constitution doesn’t provide any qualifications for the role, so by tradition, the majority party picks its oldest member for the mostly ceremonial position. It is currently Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley.

Presumably a Republican Senate could pick Trump as president pro tempore. But that would require the House to be in Republican hands as well, otherwise a Democratic speaker would ascend to the top. At that point, assuming the whole Republican Party is singing from the same choir book, it would just be easier for the House to make him speaker.

And finally, there’s that secretary of state job. Imagine Trump as secretary of state? Dear god. In any case, it would be a short-term charade. But now you’re talking about four people giving up their chance to be president—the elected president, the elected vice president, the speaker of the House, and the president pro tempore of the Senate. Trump may be deluded enough to think that many people would clear the path for him, but that would fly in the face of human nature. A not-president Trump would have zero leverage over an actual president.

And of course, that’s still assuming that the effort would survive legal challenges based on the 22nd Amendment. After all, it’s clear what the framers of that amendment intended—to prevent another Franklin D. Roosevelt from happening. That is, to prevent another president from entrenching themselves in the Oval Office.

But it does say a lot about Trump that rather than focus on the job at hand, he’s obsessing over a third term. He wants power for the sake of power itself, jealous of despots like Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. Of course, he’s going to indulge in these sorts of fantasies.

Trump calls himself a king. But we know we are not a nation of kings—and we never will be. Get your Daily Kos T-shirt or hat to spread the message and wear it with pride: No Kings.

Team Trump runs to friendly media to spin damaging war plan leak scandal

Posted on March 26, 2025 by Oliver Willis

Donald Trump, senior members of his administration, and his congressional Republican allies are struggling to contain the political fallout from the leaked war plan chat scandal.

In multiple media appearances on friendly right-wing media outlets, they offered multiple excuses to spin what happened and promoted an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory for how Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic was able to get access to the chat.

Appearing on Newsmax Tuesday, Trump inaccurately referred to the text chain as a “call” and professed ignorance as to how the leak occurred.

“What it was, we believe, is somebody that was on the line with permission, somebody that worked with Mike Waltz at a lower level, had Goldberg's number or call through the app, and somehow this guy ended up on the call,” he told host Greg Kelly.

“I can only go by what I’ve been told—I wasn’t involved in it,” Trump added.

Meanwhile, Vice President JD Vance tried to dismiss the scandal altogether, claiming on social media it was “very clear Goldberg oversold what he had.”

Fox News devoted the opening segment of all three of its prime-time shows on Tuesday night—“Hannity,” “The Ingraham Angle,” and “Jesse Watters Primetime”—to hosting Republican officials to spin the story.

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Speaking to Laura Ingraham, national security adviser Mike Waltz, who invited The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief to the chat, saw a sinister motive behind Goldberg’s reporting.

“I’m not a conspiracy theorist,” he said, “but of all the people out there, somehow this guy who has lied about the president, who has lied to Gold Star families, lied to their attorneys, and gone to Russia hoax, gone to just all kinds of lengths to lie and smear the president of the United States, and he’s the one that somehow gets on somebody’s contacts and then gets sucked into this group.”

Trump has attacked Goldberg over many years for reporting that Trump called deceased military veterans “suckers” and “losers,” but Trump’s own former chief of staff John Kelly from his first administration verified that story.

Waltz also claimed to Ingraham that he has enlisted multibillionaire Trump financier Elon Musk to investigate the leak.

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White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, led on by host Jesse Watters, echoed Waltz’s conspiracy theory that Goldberg had done something "mischievous" to end up in the secret text chain to which he was invited by Waltz.

She also compared Democratic anger about the leak to the Russia “hoax”—which was not a hoax and led to Trump’s first impeachment.

“The Democrats, there’s nothing that they’re better at than spinning a sensationalist story out of a basic set of facts,” Leavitt said.

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Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin, a Trump ally, led off the opening segment of “Hannity” by praising chat participants for speaking “just like they do to the American people.” Mullin then argued that Democrats were raising the issue to distract from “disastrous decisions that the Democrat (sic) Party is having.”

The Trump administration’s argument—that Goldberg or some other outside actor had done something devious to access the chat—wasn’t far off from pro-Trump conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who argued on his Infowars site that the leak to Goldberg was a “CIA Vault 7 style operation.” Vault 7 was a leak of classified CIA documents to the WikiLeaks site in 2018.

The full-throated defense and attempt to spread disinformation surrounding the story across multiple outlets raises doubts about the administration’s claim that the leak was not a big deal. In fact, the high-level spin raises more questions about the chat and what the administration may be hiding as it refuses to be more forthcoming about what occurred.

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Why Republicans plan to impeach judges who haven’t done anything wrong

Posted on March 23, 2025 by Emily Singer

Congressional Cowards is a weekly series highlighting the worst Donald Trump defenders on Capitol Hill, who refuse to criticize him—no matter how disgraceful or lawless his actions.

Republicans in the House and Senate were quick to follow Donald Trump's March 18 orders to impeach federal judges who ruled against his illegal actions.

But when pressed about which high crimes and misdemeanors the judges committed to warrant such an extreme measure, Republicans had no good answer.

Instead, the only "crime" they came up with was that the judges didn't let the lawless president trample over the Constitution to do whatever he wants, whether that be deporting immigrants without due process; letting co-President Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency bros access sensitive government systems, shut down federal agencies, and chaotically fire federal employees; or remove health data from government websites because it was tangentially related to “gender identity.”

For example, CNN host Kasie Hunt asked Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio what “high crimes or misdemeanors” these judges committed.

Jordan replied with what can only be described as verbal diarrhea.

“All I’m saying is, if you’re acting in a political fashion and not just following the law, the ruling on the law, and I would argue that frankly just his ruling in and of itself, remember the Constitution is pretty clear, Article II Section I, very first sentence, says the power in the executive branch shall be vested in a president of the United States. The president has the authority,” Jordan said.

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Of course Jordan left out that Article III of the Constitution says that judicial power extends to “all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States”—which is what the judges were doing when plaintiffs argued that the Trump administration was violating U.S. laws while carrying out its destructive agenda.

Rep. Brendan Gill of Texas, who filed articles of impeachment against the judge who tried to stop Trump’s illegal deportations of Venezuelan immigrants (an order the Trump administration ignored), was also asked which impeachable offenses the judge committed—and had a terrible response.

“This is for usurping the executive's authority, for demeaning the impartiality of the court by making a politicized ruling, and forcing a constitutional crisis,” Gill said on Newsmax. “That is a high crime and misdemeanor.”

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Other Republicans also backed Trump and Musk’s call to impeach judges who rule against the administration.

“America is a Republic, not a dictatorship of the judiciary. It's time to get rid of the political activists masquerading as judges and re-establish proper separation of powers,” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida wrote in a post on X. “That's why I'm proud to announce that I will be joining my colleagues in impeaching ALL the activist judges who are unconstitutionally blocking President Trump's agenda.”

And Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri said he was going to introduce a law that would ban judges from being able to order nationwide injunctions.

“District Court judges have issued RECORD numbers of national injunctions against the Trump administration - a dramatic abuse of judicial authority. I will introduce legislation to stop this abuse for good,” Hawley said, without acknowledging that maybe it’s because no other administration has ever initiated so many lawless actions that violate the Constitution.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley didn’t explicitly say he supported impeaching the judges, but he made it clear he believes what the judges did was wrong—and will use his powerful committee to go after those judges.

“Another day, another judge unilaterally deciding policy for the whole country. This time to benefit foreign gang members,” Grassley wrote in a post on X. “If the Supreme Court or Congress doesn’t fix, we’re headed towards a constitutional crisis. Senate Judiciary Cmte taking action.”

And it seems that Musk read Grassley’s comment as being supportive of impeachment, because after Trump’s demand to impeach the judges, Musk donated to Grassley and six other Republicans who have supported the effort to boot them, The New York Times reported.

From the Times’ report:

Mr. Musk contributed on Wednesday to Representatives Eli Crane of Arizona, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Andy Ogles of Tennessee, Andrew Clyde of Georgia, Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin and Brandon Gill of Texas. He also donated to Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, according to two of the people briefed on the matter.

“This is a judicial coup,” Musk wrote on X of a court ruling that blocked Trump from banning transgender people from the military. “We need 60 senators to impeach the judges and restore rule of the people.”

Of course, it takes 67 senators to impeach—a fact you’d think Musk, who Trump and Republicans have framed as a genius, would know.

Ultimately, this impeachment effort is futile.

Even if House Republicans somehow succeed in impeaching these judges, there is no way that Democratic senators would vote to convict and remove them in an impeachment trial.

The end result of this ridiculous posturing: making judges fear for their own safety as they receive death threats for their legally sound rulings, thanks to Republicans’ vile rhetoric.

Judges fear for their safety as GOP melts down over legal losing streak

Posted on March 20, 2025 by Oliver Willis

Federal judges are receiving death threats and have expressed serious concerns about their safety, following attacks on the judiciary by President Donald Trump, the Republican Party, conservative activists, and right-wing media.

The climate is so hostile, even right-wing judges are being targeted.

For instance, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s sister received an emailed threat that a pipe bomb had been placed in her mailbox. The email turned out to be a hoax. The threat came after the conservative majority on the Supreme Court ruled against the Trump administration, who was attempting to withhold payments from the U.S. Agency for International Development for work that had already been completed.

Federal judges are receiving pizza deliveries at their homes as part of an intimidation campaign, to let the judges know that their private home addresses are known. A bulletin from the U.S. Marshals Service noted, “We assess that these incidents are related to high-profile cases that have received extensive media coverage and public interest.”

Judge John C. Coughenour, who ruled against Trump’s attempt to abolish birthright citizenship, told The New York Times he had been targeted for a “swatting” attack—a false police report of a crime at his residence that led to a police response. Coughenour also said he received a mailbox bomb threat, which was a hoax.

The Trump administration is on a losing streak in multiple federal courts, as judges again and again say the actions of Trump, the Department of Government Efficiency, and figures like GOP financier Elon Musk are breaking the law or overstepping their legal authority. An analysis by the Washington Post determined that since Trump was sworn in for his second term, he has lost a case every four days.

Trump has gone on the attack instead of accepting his losses like other leaders.

“If a President doesn’t have the right to throw murderers, and other criminals, out of our Country because a Radical Left Lunatic Judge wants to assume the role of President, then our Country is in very big trouble, and destined to fail!” Trump wrote Thursday on Truth Social.

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts

Trump has also promoted conservative influencers who have targeted judges ruling against the administration.

He isn’t alone. House Republicans have begun the process to impeach judges for insufficient devotion to Trump, while Musk has said it is “necessary” to remove those officials. Conservative media like Fox News has amplified the crusade, with attacks on the judiciary in service of Trump.

Chief Justice John Roberts, who leads the Supreme Court’s conservative bloc and has been a reliable pro-Trump vote, nonetheless expressed concerns about the right’s actions (without directly naming Trump).

“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose,” he wrote in a statement.

Trump’s team has been ignoring rulings and defying orders at a pace that the courts are struggling to keep up with, and now those judges are in the conservative movement’s crosshairs.

In all likelihood, the situation will continue to escalate.

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House Republicans rally around ‘idiotic’ plan to punish judges

Posted on March 19, 2025 by Emily Singer

Egged on by wannabe dictator Donald Trump, House Republicans are pushing GOP leadership to let them embark on impeachment proceedings against federal judges who dare to rule against their Dear Leader—a time-consuming and destined-to-fail effort that harms the rule of law and could even wound the Republican Party in elections moving forward.

Multiple Republican lawmakers have filed articles of impeachment against four federal judges who recently ruled against the Trump administration.

“Congress has the constitutional power to impeach rogue activist judges—and we intend to use it,” Republican Rep. Brendan Gill of Texas, who filed articles of impeachment against a federal judge who ordered the Trump administration to turn around planes that were deporting alleged Venezuelan immigrants to a gulag in El Salvador, wrote in a post on X.

House Republicans are pushing for the impeachments to move forward even as Politico reported that some GOP lawmakers view the effort to be “idiotic.”

“You don’t impeach judges who make decisions you disagree with, because that happens all the time,” Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas told Politico in early March. “What you do is you appeal, and if you’re right, then you’re going to win on appeal.”

Even Chief Justice John Roberts warned that impeachment is not the way to handle disagreements with judicial decisions.

“We are going to keep the impeachments coming,” Republican Rep. Andy Ogles Tennessee wrote in a post on X. Ogles himself filed articles of impeachment against a judge who ordered the Trump administration to restore websites it had taken down to comply with Trump's executive order targeting “gender ideology extremism.”

But complicating things for Republican leadership is that Trump blessed the impeachment efforts on Tuesday, saying that the judge who tried to block his effort to deport immigrants without due process is a "Radical Left Lunatic of a Judge, a troublemaker and agitator who was sadly appointed by Barack Hussein Obama."

“This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!! WE DON’T WANT VICIOUS, VIOLENT, AND DEMENTED CRIMINALS, MANY OF THEM DERANGED MURDERERS, IN OUR COUNTRY. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!” Trump wrote in a deranged Truth Social post.

Co-President Elon Musk, who has threatened to fund primary challenges to Republicans who don’t do what Trump says, also wants judicial impeachments.

“This is a judicial coup. We need 60 senators to impeach the judges and restore rule of the people,” Musk wrote in a post on X on Tuesday after another federal judge ruled against the Trump administration, this time on its attempted ban of transgender troops.

Given that GOP leaders acquiesce to all of Trump's wants, no matter how immoral or unconstitutional, his demand puts them in a difficult place of having to choose what’s right or to make their Dear Leader happy.

“Everything is on the table,” Russell Dye, a spokesperson for House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, told Politico. An unnamed spokesperson to House Speaker Mike Johnson also told Politico that judges “with political agendas pose a significant threat” and that Johnson "looks forward to working with the Judiciary Committee as they review all available options under the Constitution to address this urgent matter.”

But as aides for Johnson publicly said all options are on the table, top GOP aides privately admitted the impeachment route is stupid and will take up time the House needs to pass the rest of Trump’s destructive and unpopular agenda.

“It’s never going to happen,” an unnamed senior Republican aide told Politico. “There aren’t the votes.”

Plus, forcing Republicans to vote on impeachment could be politically damaging for the GOP.

Polling from February—when Republicans began crowing about impeaching judges who ruled against Trump—showed that voters want Trump to follow court orders.

"This court issue is a big loser for Trump," CNN's Harry Enten wrote in a post on X, referring to a Washington Post poll from February. "The belief that Trump must follow court orders is more popular than Mother Teresa: 84% of all adults, 92% of Dems, 82% of Indies & 79% of the GOP."

Other polls have similar findings, including an NBC News survey released Wednesday. It found that a plurality of voters (43%) believe the president and executive branch have too much power, as opposed to the 28% who believe the Supreme Court and judicial branch have too much.

The cherry on top of this for GOP leaders is that their members would be taking potentially damaging votes on impeachment for nothing. The charges would be disposed of in the Senate, where there is no way on earth that two-thirds of the chamber would vote to convict and remove judges. Republicans have just 53 votes there. To impeach a judge, they’d need 14 Democrats to also join in.

But never put it past Republicans to do stupid things in the name of subservience to Trump.