Justices rule that Trump cannot fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook
President Donald Trump downplayed pressure to sign a bipartisan housing bill Monday, arguing that it’s “unimportant compared to the SAVE America Act.” Affordability remains a top issue heading into November’s midterm elections, and while the president has seen national gas prices decrease in recent weeks following a ceasefire in the Iran war, he’s also made […]
Katy Perry declined an invitation to perform at President Donald Trump's America250 celebrations at Cinquantenaire Park in Belgium, prompting a public rebuke from Ambassador Bill White. According to reporting by the Daily Beast, the invite-only event featured performances by Zac Brown Band and Alexis Wilkins, FBI Director Kash Patel's girlfriend and a country music artist. Perry was already contracted to headline Belgium's Werchter Boutique festival that same weekend, which was subsequently canceled due to bad weather. Belgium's U.S. ambassador criticized Perry before the crowd, "So we were gonna have Katy Perry. Who cares?" White told the crowd. He then made a crass joke about karma. In February, White had acknowledged Perry's festival contract but indicated organizers would attempt to secure her appearance anyway. He told a Belgian news outlet, Perry's contractual obligations prevented her from discussing other Belgian events until the concert sold out, leaving open the possibility she might perform the following evening.Watch the video below. Your browser does not support the video tag.
President Donald Trump's Federal Aviation Administration is shutting down flights at Reagan National Airport for 15 hours across two days to clear the skies for his Freedom 250 celebration.The FAA posted the warning on Monday on X, saying it has been coordinating with stakeholders "for months to help ensure the safe and efficient movement of air traffic during celebrations of America's 250th birthday, including the iconic flyovers and fireworks.""Flight operations at DCA are expected to be temporarily paused from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on July 3 and from noon to 11:59 p.m. on July 4 to support Independence Day events," the FAA wrote."These times are subject to change," the post added. "Travelers should check with their airline for the latest flight status."President Donald Trump established Freedom 250, a White House-backed commission, to organize the semiquincentennial celebrations. He wrote on Truth Social that he would personally launch "the LARGEST FIREWORKS SHOW IN HISTORY."Pyrotecnico, the company behind the July 4 display, plans to fire roughly 851,000 fireworks from 10 sites — including eight barges on the Potomac River — over 40 minutes starting at 10:30 p.m. That would shatter the current Guinness World Record of 810,904 fireworks, set by a megachurch in the Philippines in 2016."Our main focus is to make this the most memorable fireworks display that this generation will have ever seen," Pyrotecnico CEO Stephen Vitale told NPR.Freedom 250 spokesperson Rachel Reisner told Axios the finale will "shatter world records and stand as the most spectacular firework display the world has ever seen."The July 4 program also includes flyovers by the Thunderbirds, the Blue Angels, the F-22 Raptor Demo Team and the Marine Corps F-35B Lightning II Demo Team — what Freedom 250 calls the first aerobatic demonstrations ever held over Washington.
CNN special correspondent Jamie Gangel didn't sugarcoat President Donald Trump's Supreme Court setback, tracing it straight back to his refusal to accept the 2020 election.The court ruled 5-4 Monday in Watson v. Republican National Committee that states may count mail ballots postmarked by Election Day even if they arrive afterward, rejecting an RNC challenge Trump's Justice Department had backed. Trump called it a "tremendous loss."Gangel agreed it was a loss, but said Trump brought it on himself."So, is this a loss for President Trump? Yes," she said. "But big picture, he's obsessed with this. It is sort of a loss of his own making, because the underlying problem here is he doesn't want to admit he lost in 2020, so he's looking for fraud and corruption where there isn't."She noted the practice isn't partisan — Trump himself has voted by mail — and said it's "not about corruption or fraud."Gangel said his fixation is holding up a major bipartisan housing bill aimed at reining in costs, which she said had reached his desk, but that he won't sign it because he's so focused on curbing mail voting and passing his stalled election overhaul, the SAVE Act.In the Oval Office moments earlier, Trump said the housing bill "hasn't been sent to me yet" but was "coming." Next to his voting bill, he said, "just about everything is a big yawn."The decision set off fury among MAGA allies and came as the justices also turned away his E. Jean Carroll appeal.Former Trump aide Hogan Gidley pushed back, calling the housing measure "a political win" the president would "take a victory lap" on.
Today, Bloomberg's Mike McKee and June Grasso break down the Supreme Court's decision to allow Fed governor Lisa Cook to stay in her role while she fights President Trump's efforts to oust her. Then, former Governor of Indiana Eric Holcomb discusses RAISE US, a joint effort with former Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo that aims to develop a strategy around AI's impact on the labor market. Plus, Kikoff CEO Cynthia Chen, breaks down how her app helps consumers build credit and improve low credit scores. (Source: Bloomberg)
The Supreme Court blocked President Trump’s attempt to remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook for now while expanding his power to fire other officials. What this means for the Fed and others, on the Big Take podcast.
Former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann fixed on a single word in Chief Justice John Roberts' majority opinion and said it left him deeply unsettled.Reacting on air to Monday's 6-3 ruling in Trump v. Slaughter, which overturned 91 years of precedent and lets the president fire members of independent agencies without cause, Weissmann said the decision extends the theory of expansive presidential power Roberts laid out in the Trump v. United States immunity case.This time, he said, the chief justice leaned on the "vitality" and "secrecy" of the executive branch."It's hard to stress enough for people the ramifications of this decision," he told MS NOW's Nicolle Wallace on her show, "Deadline: White House."Weissmann pointed to Roberts' language that indicates his views on sweeping presidential power."Saying that it's necessary, what they ruled today, that it's necessary to have the vitality, and in a word, I found chilling, the secrecy of the executive branch. That was a word that was not in the immunity decision, and should think about that. He said the ruling "unleashes political patronage" and called it "a very ahistoric decision" with "very, very long coattails.""You do not want a Republican president to come in and fire every Democrat, and you do not want every Democratic president to come in and fire every Republican," he said. "You want career people in place with experience, who are supposed to be apolitical regardless of party."The decision drew a scathing dissent from Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who wrote that the court handed Trump a power unknown even to the English Crown.Weissmann invoked Justice Robert Jackson, who returned from prosecuting Nazis at Nuremberg, to caution against expanding presidential power, and said the founders feared this outcome."We did not want to, and do not want to, have a king in the White House," he said.He also called the majority's appeal to originalism "laughable," citing the same-day decision sparing the Federal Reserve as proof of "a result-oriented court."The ruling was a win for Trump even as the court dealt him losses the same day, rejecting his challenge to late-arriving mail ballots and refusing to hear his E. Jean Carroll appeal.
Tensions between today's two major presidential removal power decisions.