The Dictatorship

Courts are hampering Trump’s efforts to cancel funding approved by Congress

Published

5 months ago

October 29, 2025

Courts are hampering Trump’s efforts to cancel funding approved by Congress

Congress has the constitutional power of the purse, but President Donald Trump’s robust assertion of executive authority is testing even that basic tenet of U.S. democracy.

His administration has already canceled or threatened to cancel billions of dollars of previously approved federal spending and now wants to go after even more funding during the government shutdown.

States, cities, nonprofits and other groups have responded with more than 150 lawsuits accusing the Republican administration of an unlawful power grab.

An Associated Press analysis shows that so far, those suits are mostly succeeding in blocking the Republican president’s spending moves, at least temporarily. But most of the legal battles are far from over, and the Supreme Court, where Trump so far has been more successfulcould have the final word on at least some of them.

The court’s conservative majority has been receptive at least in preliminary rulings to many emergency appeals from the administration. Legal experts say a pair of recent decisions by the court may bode well for the administration’s push to gain more control over government spending. Here’s a look at the current legal score and what could lie ahead:

Courts have mostly ruled against the administration so far

As of early October, court orders were at least temporarily blocking the Trump administration’s decisions in 66 of 152 lawsuits over federal spending, an AP analysis shows. In 37 of those cases, courts had allowed the administration to proceed. In 26 of the cases, a judge had yet to rule on the matter. The remaining 23 had either been dropped or consolidated.

The count reflects decisions by district courts, appeals courts and the U.S. Supreme Court and will almost certainly change as the cases progress.

The flurry of litigation reflects not only the administration’s aggressive effort to wrest control of spending, but the Republican-controlled Congress’ unwillingness to push back, said Zachary Price, a constitutional law professor at the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco.

“Congress seems to be following its partisan interests more than its institutional interests, and that puts a lot of pressure on courts,” he said.

It’s hard to say how much money the administration has withheld

Government watchdogs say the administration is blatantly ignoring a requirement in the 1974 Impoundment Control Act to report funding freezes to Congress.

Research by Democrats on the House and Senate Appropriations Committees estimated the administration was freezing, canceling or seeking to block a total of $410 billion as of early September. That’s equivalent to about 6% of the federal budget for the year that ended on Sept. 30.

The administration has disputed that number.

Since the shutdown started this month, the administration has targeted even more fundingprimarily in places represented by Democrats.

The Trump administration is taking a page from Nixon

Legal scholars say no president has attempted massive, unilateral cuts like these since Richard Nixon. The moves reflect an expansive view of executive power that is at odds with the Impoundment Control Act, court rulings and the Constitution, which grants Congress supremacy over spending, experts say.

“The power they’ve claimed is the power to delay and withhold funds throughout the year without input from Congress,” said Cerin Lindgrensavage, counsel with Protect Democracy, which is involved in multiple lawsuits against the administration. “That’s a theft of Congress’ power of the purse.”

In a message to Congress earlier this year, the White House said it was “committed to getting America’s fiscal house in order by cutting government spending that is woke, weaponized, and wasteful.”

White House budget director Russ Vought, a proponent of withholding federal funds, has argued presidents long had the power to spend less money than Congress appropriated if they could cut waste or be more efficient, and that power is needed to address the country’s massive debt.

The government shutdown opened up a new opportunity to cut spending, he said this month on “The Charlie Kirk Show.”

“If I can only work on saving money, then I’m going to do everything I can to look for opportunities to downsize in areas where this administration has thought, ‘This is our way towards a balanced budget.’”

The administration has cut entire agencies

The 152 cases the AP identified challenge the closure of government agencies and offices, the cancellation of grants and other assistance and the attachment of new conditions on federal funding.

The administration has used the cuts, or threat of cuts, to try to impose its policies on gender, raceimmigration and other issues.

But it’s not just money on the line. The funds supported jobs, school lunches, health programs, scientific research, infrastructure projects, foreign assistance, disaster preparedness, education initiatives and other programs.

Some notable rulings against the administration include the restoration of funding to 14 states that filed suit over nearly $2 billion withheld for electric car chargers and a block on potentially broad funding cuts to some of the country’s largest cities over their “sanctuary” immigration policies.

Judges have raised constitutional concerns

Judges who have ruled against the administration have often found strong reason to conclude the cuts, or threat of cuts, would violate the Constitution’s separation of powers by usurping Congress’ authority over spending.

They have also ruled the moves were most likely arbitrary under the Administrative Procedure Act, a law that governs the process by which federal agencies develop and issue regulations.

Judges who have sided with the administration have likened at least some of the legal claims before them to contract disputes that belong in a different court: the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.

That court, which traces its origins to the mid-1800s, handles lawsuits by citizens seeking money from the federal government. Referred to as “the People’s Court,” it is separate from the district courts that are handling most of the high-profile litigation against the administration.

The Supreme Court has often sided with the White House

The high court’s conservative justices have allowed the administration to move ahead for now with plans to shutter the Education Department, freeze $5 billion in foreign aid and cut hundreds of millions of dollars for teacher training and research supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Those decisions may make it harder to challenge the administration’s spending cuts, though the high court has not yet considered their ultimate legality or overturned lower court rulings.

In the National Institutes of Health case, the high court ruled 5-4 in August that lawsuits over the cancellation of grant funding generally cannot be handled entirely by federal district courts. Instead, plaintiffs must sue in federal claims court for any money and turn to the district courts if they want to challenge the guidance that led to the grant terminations.

The impact of the Supreme Court’s decision is still unfolding, but it could force plaintiffs in the grant funding cases to start over in a new courtroom. In some cases, plaintiffs might have to decide if they want to sue on two fronts.

In the foreign aid case, the Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision in September suggested the Impoundment Control Act did not give private parties the right to sue over so-called pocket rescissions.

That’s when the president submits a request to Congress not to spend approved money, but does it so late in the fiscal year that Congress doesn’t have time to act and the funds go unspent.

Trump notified House Speaker Mike Johnson in August of a pocket rescission for the $5 billion in congressionally approved foreign aideffectively cutting the budget without going through the legislative branch.

Though the Supreme Court stressed its decision was preliminary, legal experts say it could make it easier for the Trump administration to use the tactic again.

___

Associated Press writer Lindsay Whitehurst contributed to this report.

The Dictatorship

TSA lines worsen as airports face mounting strain…

Published

22 hours ago

March 24, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

TSA lines worsen as airports face mounting strain…

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s decision to order federal immigration agents to U.S. airports to help with security during a budget impasse is drawing concerns that their presence may escalate tensions among air travelers frustrated over hourslong waits and screeners angry about missed paychecks.

Trump made clear on Sunday that he was going ahead with the plan to have immigration enforcement officers assist the Transportation Security Administration by guarding exit lanes or checking passenger IDs unless Democrats agreed to fund the Department of Homeland Security. Democrats are demanding major changes to federal immigration operations and showing no sign of backing down.

Hundreds of thousands of homeland security workersincluding from the TSA, U.S. Secret Service and Coast Guard, have worked without pay since Congress failed to renew DHS funding last month.

“Bad idea,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, about the new airport security plan, which Trump said would start Monday.

“What we need to do is, we need to get the DHS issues resolved, we need to get the TSA agents paid,” she told reporters at the Capitol, where the Senate held a rare weekend session. “Do you really want to have even additional tensions on top of what we are already facing?”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs speaks at the oversight hearings to examine federal policies governing Indian water rights settlements, including S.953, to provide for the settlement of the water rights claims of the Navajo Nation, the Hopi Tribe, and the San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, March 11, 2026, in Washington, (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Senators advanced the nomination of Sen. Markwayne MullinR-Okla., to be Trump’s next homeland security secretary by a largely party-line vote, 54-37, with two Democrats joining most Republicans. A vote on the confirmation could come as early as Monday. Mullin has tried to make the case that he would be a steady hand after the tumultuous tenure of Kristi Noem, Trump’s first DHS secretary.

Border czar heads up airport security effort

White House border czar Tom Homan, named by Trump to lead the new airport security effort, has also been meeting with a bipartisan group of senators over the partial shutdown. While he characterized those sessions as “good conversations,” he said they were “not at a point yet where we’re in total agreement.”

Meanwhile, Homan said in Sunday news show interviews that the increased role of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at airports — its specific duties and numbers — was subject to discussions with the leadership of TSA and ICE. DHS spokeswoman Lauren Bis said “hundreds” of ICE officers would be deployed, but she would not disclose the airports where they would go, citing security reasons.

“It’s a work in progress,” Homan said. The priority, he said, was “the large airports where there’s a long wait, like three hours.”

White House border czar Tom Homan enters the U.S. Senate on Capitol Hill on Friday, March 20, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner)

Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens issued a statement Sunday night saying officers from ICE and Homeland Security Investigations would be deployed to the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport starting Monday morning.

At the airport on Sunday, some travelers waited in line for nearly six hours at the main security checkpoint, where only two TSA agents were on hand midafternoon to check IDs. Many missed their flights and scrambled to book later flights or add themselves to standby lists that were already dozens of names long.

Dickens said all federal personnel would report to TSA and be assigned tasks such as line management and crowd control. “Federal officials have indicated that this deployment is not intended to conduct immigration enforcement activities,” his statement said.

Homan said immigration officers, as an example, could cover exits currently monitored by TSA agents, freeing them to work screening lines. Another option, he said, was having ICE agents check identification before people enter screenings areas.

“We’re going to be a force multiplier,” Homan said, while also acknowledging there were limits.

“I don’t see an ICE agent looking at an X-ray machine, because we’re not trained in that,” he said. He pledged to have “a plan by the end of today, where we’re sending — what airports we’re starting with and where we’re sending them.”

But Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents more than 50,000 TSA employees, condemned Trump’s plan, saying in a statement that ICE agents are not trained or certified in aviation security.

“Our members at TSA have been showing up every day, without a paycheck, because they believe in the mission of keeping the flying public safe,” Kelley said Sunday. “They deserve to be paid, not replaced by untrained, armed agents who have shown how dangerous they can be.”

People wait in a TSA line at the John F. Kennedy International Airport, Sunday, March 22, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

Budget talks stall as airport worries worsen

Democrats have said they are willing to fund TSA and most other parts of DHS as they press for changes to immigration operations after the deaths of two U.S. citizens at the hands of federal agents in Minneapolis during an immigration enforcement operation. ICE officers are largely being paid during the partial shutdown, thanks to an influx of cash from Trump’s big tax breaks bill last year.

“There are lots of ideas swirling right now,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D. “The good news in all that is people realizing this has to get fixed, it has to get solved.”

As budget talks stayed behind closed doors Sunday, senators said they had few details of which airports or how many immigration officers were being dispatched. Some welcomed the effort.

“I don’t think it can hurt,” said Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D. “They can help relieve some of the pressure.”

Trump said in a social media post that on Monday, “ICE will be going to airports to help our wonderful TSA Agents who have stayed on the job” despite the partial government shutdown. He further criticized Democrats.

Travelers at some airports worried about reaching their gates Sunday.

At Atlanta’s airport, lines wrapped from one end of the airport to the other.

The scene appeared more chaotic at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. Large crowds of anxious travelers piled toward security checkpoints, and TSA staff shouted through megaphones to tell people not to push one another.

For Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, one concern is the uncertainty that passengers are facing over possible wait times at any airport on any given day.

“Do I have to come an hour and a half early? Do I have to come four hours early? They d on’t know until the day of or the afternoon of their flight,” he said. “So if we can alleviate that, again, the president wants to take away that leverage point for Democrats and make travel easier for the American people.”

Homan appeared on BLN’s “State of the Union” and “Fox News Sunday,” while Duffy was interviewed on ABC’s “This Week.’ ___

Associated Press writers Collin Binkley in West Palm Beach, Fla., Anthony Izaguirre in Lindenhurst, N.Y., Yuki Iwamura in New York, Nicholas Riccardi in Denver, Kate Brumback in Atlanta, Margery Beck in Omaha, Neb. and Rebecca Santana in Washington contributed to this report.

The Dictatorship

Trump’s shifting strategy on the Strait of Hormuz drives criticism

Published

22 hours ago

March 24, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Trump’s shifting strategy on the Strait of Hormuz drives criticism

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — At war with Iran, President Donald Trump is cycling through an increasingly desperate list of options as he searches for a solution to the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz. He has jumped from calls to secure the waterway through diplomatic means to lifting sanctions and now escalating to a direct threat against civilian infrastructure in the Islamic Republic.

Trump and his allies insist they were always prepared for Iran to block the strait, yet the Republican president’s erratic strategy has fueled criticism that he is grasping for answers after going to war without a clear exit plan. On Saturday came his latest attempt, via an ultimatum to Iran: Open the strait within 48 hours or the United States will “obliterate” the country’s power plants.

Trump’s aides defended the threat as a hard-edged tactic to press Iran into submission. Opponents framed it as the failure of a president who miscalculated what it would take to get out of a geopolitical mire.

“Trump has no plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, so he is threatening to attack Iran’s civil power plants,” said Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass, adding: “This would be a war crime.”

“He’s lost control of the war and he is panicking,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., responding to Trump’s post.

Over the course of about a week, Trump has repeatedly shifted his approach on the crucial waterway for global oil and gas transport. There is growing urgency for Trump as soaring oil prices rattle global markets and pinch American consumers months before pivotal midterm elections.

Trump and diplomacy

Trump tried his hand at a diplomatic solution last weekend when he called for a new international coalition to send warships to the strait.

Allies turned him down. Trump then said the U.S. could manage on its own. On Friday he suggested other countries would have to take over as the U.S. eyes an exit. Hours later he indicated the waterway would somehow “open itself.”

“You can’t all of a sudden walk away after you’ve kind of created the event and expect other people to pick it up,” Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C. told ABC’s “This Week.”

Trump’s Treasury Department on Friday made its latest attempt to get a handle on soaring gas prices, by lifting sanctions on some Iranian oil for the first time in decades. That relieved some of the pressure that Washington traditionally has used as leverage against Tehran.

The goal was to send millions more barrels of oil into the global market. It is not clear, however, how much of a dent that would make in lowering pump prices or how the administration could prevent Iran from cashing in on the renewed sales.

The administration earlier temporarily lifted sanctions on some Russian oil.

An ultimatum to Iran

Trump’s ultimatum, conveyed while he spent the weekend in Florida, carries a threat of remarkable aggression. His previous messaging mostly focused on U.S. success in hitting Iran’s air force, navy and missile production. This time, the threatened target is the energy infrastructure that powers hospitals, homes and more.

His social media post — 51 words, much of it in capital letters — did not have the appearance of a message that underwent the careful legal scrutiny needed to justify an attack on civilian infrastructure, said Geoffrey Corn, a law professor at Texas Tech University and a retired lieutenant colonel in the Army who served as a military lawyer.

“It certainly has a feeling of ready, fire, aim,” Corn said of Trump’s moving strategy.

“He overestimated his ability to control the events once he unleashed this torrent of violence.”

That type of widespread attack would probably be a war crime, Corn said. For military leaders, it could force a choice between obeying an order to carry out a war crime or refusing and facing criminal sanction for willful disobedience, he said.

Laws governing warfare do not explicitly forbid attacks on power plants, but the tactic is allowed only if an analysis finds that the military advantages outweigh the civilian harm, legal scholars say. It is seen as a high bar to clear because the rules of war are, at their core, designed to separate civilian and military targets.

Iran’s U.N. ambassador, in a letter to the Security Council, warned that the deliberate targeting of power plants would be inherently indiscriminate and a war crime, according to the state-run IRNA news agency.

The White House has already faced intense backlash after the U.S. was blamed for a missile strike on an Iranian elementary school that killed more than 165 people.

Trump aides justify latest attempt to rein in the crisis

Trump provided scant detail on which plants might be targeted and how. He gave Iran until Monday to reopen the strait or else the U.S. will strike “various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST!”

Trump’s team came to his defense Sunday, offering justification for striking Iran’s energy grid.

Mike Waltz, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said Iran’s Revolutionary Guard controls much of the country’s infrastructure and is using it to power the war effort. He said potential targets include “gas-fired thermal power plants and other types of plants.”

Speaking on Fox News, Waltz said he wanted to get ahead of “hand-wringing” from the global community, calling the Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization. “The president is not messing around,” he said.

NATO’s secretary-general, Mark Rutte, who has allied himself closely to Trump, tried to calm tensions. He said he understood Trump’s anger and stressed that more than 20 countries are “coming together to implement his vision” of making the strait navigable as soon as possible.

Israel’s ambassador to Washington, Yechiel Leiter, cautioned against an all-out attack like the one Trump threatened. “We want to leave everything in the country intact, so that the people who come after this regime are going to be able to rebuild and reconstitute,” he told BLN’s ”State of the Union.”

Trump’s threat could prove counterproductive: If it’s carried out, Iranian leaders said they would completely close the strait and retaliate against U.S. and Israeli infrastructure.

___

Associated Press writer Seung Min Kim in Washington contributed to this report.

The Dictatorship

Trump and his border czar say ICE will arrive at airports on Monday

Published

2 days ago

March 23, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Mar. 22, 2026, 5:08 PM EDT

President Donald Trump and top administration officials said Sunday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents will arrive at the nation’s airports on Monday to handle security at exceedingly long lines driven by a shortage of TSA workers.

“I look forward to moving ICE in on Monday, and have already told them to, ‘GET READY.’ NO MORE WAITING, NO MORE GAMES!” Trump said on Truth Social.

Tom Homan, the White House border czar who will lead the effort, provided few details but confirmed the plan on BLN’s “State of the Union,” saying, “It’s a work in progress, but we will be at airports tomorrow.” DHS spokesperson Lauren Bis said later that “hundreds of ICE officers” would be deployed to airports “adversely impacted,” but she did not specify which airports.

It was unclear whether ICE officers would be conducting pat-down procedures but Homan suggested their focus would be on security instead of screening. “A highly-trained ICE law enforcement officer can cover an exit, that relieves TSA to go to screening,” he said, adding that the priority will be on “those large airports where there’s a long wait, like three hours.”

DHS and ICE did not immediately respond to MS NOW’s request for comment on whether officers will be wearing masks at the airports to which they are deployed. But Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy suggested Sunday that Democrats are the reason why federal immigration and border officers wear masks.

“Democrats want ICE to take off their face masks. The problem with that is we know the Democrats are going to want to dox those ICE agents, go to their homes, harass their kids,” he said on ABC News.

The ongoing partial government shutdown, which began after funding for the Department of Homeland Security lapsedon Feb. 14, has forced Transportation and Security Administration workers to go unpaid —with hundreds of them quitting or not showing up for work, severely disrupting air travel.

Duffy said security lines will “get much worse” this week. He predicted more TSA agents will quit by Friday, when they’ll go without another paycheck unless lawmakers reach a deal.

Trump said on Saturday that ICE agents would “do Security like no one has ever seen before, including the immediate arrest of all Illegal Immigrants who have come into our Country, with heavy emphasis on those from Somalia.”

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, whose city has been ground zero for the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, said Sunday on MS NOW’s “The Weekend” that Trump “doesn’t actually mean that he’s going to keep people secure.”

“We all know that’s not the goal. The goal is to terrorize people,” Frey said. When asked if he thought the president was racist for his targeting of Somalis, the mayor said, “I think the answer is yes.”

Speaking on the Senate floor during a rare weekend session on Sunday, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., lambasted Trump’s plan to send ICE agents to airports, calling it “really disturbing.”

“It’s a plan that has no planning. It’s another impulsive action from Donald Trump,” Schumer said. “When he acts impulsively there’s usually trouble. Whenever Donald Trump acts impulsively with no follow through, there’s trouble.”

Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska also criticized Trump’s plan, saying that “air dropping” agents to airports is “not a fix.”

The Association of Flight Attendants said ICE officers lack the kind of specialized training that the TSA’s transportation security officers get. “Furthermore, the introduction of ICE agents into airports creates contradictory missions, as attempts to question passengers about immigration status may distract them from ensuring airport security,” the union said.

And Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employeesthe largest federal workers’ union, said, “More than 50,000 TSA employees have worked without pay for over five weeks. Hundreds have quit. And Washington’s answer isn’t to pay them. It’s to send ICE agents to do their jobs.”

Congress remains gridlocked over DHS funding, with Democrats demanding reforms to ICE operations after the fatal shooting of two U.S. citizens — Renee Good and Alex Pretti— in Minneapolis. Republicans have rejected proposalsto reopen much of Homeland Security, which includes TSA and ICE.

Airline executives from United Airlines, American Airlines, Southwest Airlines and others last week called on Congress to end the shutdownwriting in a joint letter that federal employees working without pay is “simply unacceptable.”

“This problem is solvable, and there are solutions on the table,” they wrote. “Now it’s up to you, Congress, to move forward on bipartisan proposals that will get federal aviation workers—including TSA officers, U.S. Customs clearance officers at airports and air
traffic controllers—paid during shutdowns.”

Mychael Schnell and Emily Hung contributed to this report.

Erum Salam is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW, with a focus on how global events and foreign policy shape U.S. politics. She previously was a breaking news reporter for The Guardian.