The 47th President and the Post-Biden World

n April 9, 1865, General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to General Ulysses S. Grant of the United States Army at Appomattox Court House in Virginia. Lee’s surrender did not end the war—there were still two major armies in the field—but everyone knew the surrender signaled that the American Civil War was coming to a close.

Soldiers and sailors of the United States had defeated the armies and the navy of the Confederate States of America across the country and the seas, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives and almost $6 billion. To the northerners celebrating in the streets, it certainly looked like the South’s ideology had been thoroughly discredited.

Southern politicians had led their poorer neighbors to war to advance the idea that some people were better than others and had the right—and the duty—to rule. The Founders of the United States had made a terrible mistake when they declared, “All men are created equal,” southern leaders said. In place of that “fundamentally wrong” idea, they proposed “the great truth” that white men were a “superior race.” And within that superior race, some men were better than others.

Those leaders were the ones who should rule the majority, southern leaders explained. “We do not agree with the authors of the Declaration of Independence, that governments ‘derive their just powers from the consent of the governed,’” enslaver George Fitzhugh of Virginia wrote in 1857. “All governments must originate in force, and be continued by force.” There were 18,000 people in his county and only 1,200 could vote, he said, “But we twelve hundred…never asked and never intend to ask the consent of the sixteen thousand eight hundred whom we govern.”

But the majority of Americans recognized that if it were permitted to take hold, this ideology would destroy democracy. They fought to defeat the enslavers’ radical new definition of the United States. By the end of 1863, President Abraham Lincoln dated the birth of the nation not to the Constitution, whose protection of property underpinned southern enslavers’ insistence that enslavement was a foundational principle, but to the Declaration of Independence.

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”

The events of April 9 reassured Americans that they had, in fact, saved “the last best hope of earth”: democracy. Writing from Washington, D.C., poet Walt Whitman mused that the very heavens were rejoicing at the triumph of the U.S. military and the return to peace its victory heralded. “Nor earth nor sky ever knew spectacles of superber beauty than some of the nights lately here,” he wrote in Specimen Days. “The western star, Venus, in the earlier hours of evening, has never been so large, so clear; it seems as if it told something, as if it held rapport indulgent with humanity, with us Americans.”

So confident was General Grant in the justice of his people’s cause that he asked only that Lee and his men give their word that they would never again fight against the United States and that they turn over their military arms and artillery. The men could keep their sidearms and their horses because Grant wanted them “to be able to put in a crop to carry themselves and their families through the next winter.”

Their victory on the battlefields made northerners think they had made sure that “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

But their conviction that generosity would bring white southerners around to accepting the equality promised in the Declaration of Independence backfired. After Lincoln’s assassination, Andrew Johnson of Tennessee took over the presidency and worked hard to restore white supremacy without the old legal structure of enslavement, while white settlers in the West brought their hierarchical ideas with them and imposed them on Indigenous Americans, on Mexicans and Mexican Americans, and on Asians and Pacific Islanders.

With no penalty for their attempt to overthrow democracy, those who thought that white men were better than others began to insist that their cause was just and that they had lost the war only because they had been overpowered. They continued to work to make their ideology the law of the land. That idea inspired the Jim Crow and Juan Crow laws of the late-nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as the policies that crowded Indigenous Americans onto reservations where disease and malnutrition killed many of them and lack of opportunity pushed the rest into poverty.

In the 1930s, Nazi leaders, lawyers, and judges turned to America’s Jim Crow laws and Indian reservations for inspiration on how to create legal hierarchies that would, at the very least, wall certain populations off from white society. More Americans than we like to believe embraced facism here, too: in February 1939, more than 20,000 people showed up for a “true Americanism” rally held by Nazis at New York City’s Madison Square Garden, featuring a huge portrait of George Washington in his Continental Army uniform flanked by swastikas.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt rallied Americans to oppose fascism by emphasizing the principles that would, he said, provide “the foundations of a healthy and strong democracy: “Equality of opportunity for youth and for others. Jobs for those who can work. Security for those who need it. The ending of special privilege for the few. The preservation of civil liberties for all. The enjoyment of the fruits of scientific progress in a wider and constantly rising standard of living.” He called for “the cooperation of free countries, working together in a friendly, civilized society.”

The gulf between the ideals of democracy and the reality of life in the segregated U.S. during and after World War II galvanized Black Americans, Mexican Americans, and Asian Americans to demand equality. They successfully challenged school segregation, racial housing restrictions, state laws prohibiting interracial marriage, and anti-Chinese laws based in the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act.

As the military fought fascism in Europe, schools and churches at home emphasized that democracy depended on acceptance of racial, ethnic, and religious differences. Rallies championed diversity, and government-sponsored films warned Americans not to succumb to fascist propaganda. Posters trumpeted slogans such as “Catholics–Protestants–Jews…Working Side By Side…in War and Peace!” and reminded Americans not to “infect” their children “with racial and religious hate.” In a 1947 radio show, Superman fought a Ku Klux Klan–like gang trying to keep foreign-born players off high school sports teams, and in 1949, comic book artist Wayne Boring portrayed him on a poster urging a group of American schoolchildren to defend their classmates from “un-American” attacks on their race, religion, or ethnicity.

In the 1950s those ideas had produced a “liberal consensus,” shared by most Democrats and Republicans alike. The government should regulate business, provide for basic social welfare, and promote infrastructure: in other words, it should reflect democratic values. But when the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision tied the federal government not just to economic equality for white Americans, but also to civil rights, opponents of the liberal consensus resurrected the same argument former Confederates had used after the Civil War to couch their ideology in economic, rather than racial, rhetoric.

Rejecting the idea of equality, they argued that the government’s effort to protect civil rights was tantamount to socialism because it took tax dollars from hardworking white men to provide benefits for undeserving Black people who wanted a handout. This idea gained momentum after Congress passed the Voting Rights Act in 1965, and gradually came to include people of color and women who demanded equality. In 1980, Ronald Reagan rode the idea that the liberal consensus was simply a way to redistribute wealth to undeserving Americans of color or women—or both, like Reagan’s “welfare queen”—into the White House.

As more than $50 trillion moved from the bottom 90% of Americans to the top 1% between 1981 and 2021, Republicans deflected attention from the hollowing out of the middle class by demonizing racial, religious, and gender minorities. By 2012 they were talking of “makers” and “takers,” and by 2016 they were feeding voters ideas and images straight out of the nation’s white supremacist past.

By 2021 the idea that some people are better than others and have a right to rule—the same ideology that had driven the Confederates—created a mob determined to end American democracy. The rioters who attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election believed they were writing a new history of the United States, one that brought to life the hierarchical version of American history claimed by the Confederates before them. On that day, one of the rioters accomplished what the southern troops during the Civil War had never been able to: he carried the Confederate battle flag into the United States Capitol.

At the end of his life, General Grant recalled the events of April 9, 1865. “What General Lee's feelings were I do not know,” Grant wrote. “[M]y own feelings, which had been quite jubilant on the receipt of his letter [asking to surrender], were sad and depressed. I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse.”

President Donald Trump's post insisting it would be "great time to buy" shared hours before announcing a tariff pause has sparked concerns of possible insider trading.

In a post to Truth Social Wednesday afternoon, the president announced that he would be authorizing a 90-day pause and "a substantially lowered Reciprocal Tariff" after receiving calls from "more than 75 countries" trying to negotiate deals.

Just three hours prior to the announcement, Trump had posted to the same account, "THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!"

Stocks began skyrocketing after Trump's declaration, with the S&P 500 climbing over 5% and the Nasdaq 100 up almost 8%. Prior to the pause, the stock market had been unstable, with plunges over the last several days leading economists to worry about a possible recession.

However, the two posts' close succession were noted by social media users, who began raising concerns on whether insider trading could have occurred.

"Trump frontran his own announcement to pause tariffs by saying it's a 'GREAT TIME TO BUY!' 3 hours before huge news for stocks hit," one user tweeted. "This is levels of insanity we've never seen before."

lmao - Trump frontran his own announcement to pause tariffs by saying it's a "GREAT TIME TO BUY!" 3 hours before huge news for stocks hit.

this is levels of insanity we've never seen before. pic.twitter.com/efTsO4qlkA
— Coffeezilla (@coffeebreak_YT) April 9, 2025[/size]

"I want to know what trades were made by members of the Trump Administration before these unhinged tariff moves?" another user implored.

I want to know what trades were made by members of the Trump Administration before these unhinged tariff moves?

Who, if anyone, shorted stocks before the tariffs were first announced? Who bought back into the market before this pause was announced? Who is profiting from this? https://t.co/UrWbFxa4sh
— Ahmed Baba (@AhmedBaba_) April 9, 2025

The announcement of the pause led to several users questioning if Democrats would investigate, while others noted the on-and-off pattern of Trump implementing and pausing tariffs.

"Trump has been f--king with the markets so his wealthy friends could buy low. His behavior should be investigated as insider trading," one user commented.

"If tariffs are truly the answer, why would he be pausing them?" one user posted.

However, not all countries are included in the tariff pause. Trump noted that the tariffs on China would actually be raised to 125% in response to the country implementing 84% tariffs on the U.S., the same percentage that the U.S. initially planned to tack on the country's exports.

Trump noted in his Truth Social post that the countries included in the pause "have not, at my strong suggestion, retaliated in any way, shape, or form against the United States."

China has not yet publicly commented on Trump's new tariff hikes.

Dollar Store Goebbels speaks:

Quote:

Stephen Miller@StephenM
2h
You have been watching the greatest economic master strategy from an American President in history.

It took great courage, great courage for him to stay the course until this moment.

Scott Bessent and I sat with the President while he wrote one of the most extraordinary Truth posts of his Presidency.

When America is punched, he punches back harder.

...

Fox hosts John Roberts and Sandra Smith tried to highlight Trump’s “art of the deal” mantra when discussing the pause, which came after Trump and his administration vowed to keep the tariffs in place as countries approached him to negotiate. But in multiple appearances on Wednesday, Fox Business correspondent Charles Gasparino had to force his Fox colleagues to face the music.

“Let’s be clear about what happened, who capitulated here and why,” he said on Wednesday. “I don’t want to say this because I am a patriot, I am an American, but it is the White House who capitulated, based on everything I hear and all my sources.”

...

“To tell you right now that Donald Trump outsmarted the world,” Gasparino said. “Trust me, I’m an American, I support my president, but that’s not really what happened here.”

Gasparino highlighted how, despite the administration’s claims that 75 countries have approached the White House to negotiate, it hadn’t actually struck any deals.

“If you read between the lines, and not even with what Scott Bessent said, we have no deals, right?” Gasparino said. “There’s nobody that is really there saying this is what we’re going to do. And they paused it anyway.”

...

Still, despite Trump’s “brilliant” success in cornering China, the surrender was spurred more by the massive overnight bond sales by allies like Japan than it was by “any one conversation,” he said.

“If you have a mass sale of bonds, that means people are losing confidence in the U.S. economy, on the ability to do deals with us,” Gasparino explained.

“It’s the bond market and the sort of lending markets that’s the plumbing of the economy, and those markets were imploding last night,” he added. “That’s why we have a 90-day freeze.”

Trump’s ‘Liz Truss moment’: when economic bravado meets market reality
The president’s U-turn after his maverick plan threatened meltdown has echoes of the 2022 UK crisis

A maverick economic policy announcement from a self-styled disruptor plunges the country’s currency into freefall and puts rocket boosters behind the cost of government debt, prompting warnings of an economic nuclear winter and forcing a pretty undignified U-turn.

If, on top of general concern, there has been a nagging sense of deja vu in Britain over the past 24 hours, then the ill-fated 49-day reign of Liz Truss as the UK prime minister may well be to blame.

“This is Donald Trump’s Liz Truss moment,” tweeted Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat leader (alternatively known to followers of Elon Musk on X as that “snivelling cretin”).

When Truss’s chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, announced his “mini-budget” in the autumn of 2022, it was initially met by some with hearty cheers and backslapping. The Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph were among those made giddy by a “real Tory budget” that slashed taxes, just as in recent days some have celebrated the audacity of the US president’s decision to wage a trade war with the rest of the world.

Truss’s move was not, however, balanced with spending cuts or indeed a reassuring official forecast that gave the markets some sense that the government knew what it was doing.

A meltdown in the bond markets saw state borrowing costs rise by one percentage point in four days and an almost immediate rise in mortgage rates. The chancellor was sacked, a new one was ushered in to reverse most of the damaging policies, and Truss was out on her ear soon after.

The steadfast determination of Keir Starmer’s chancellor, Rachel Reeves, to stick to her fiscal rules despite huge spending pressures is in large part down to the Truss crisis.

For some, Trump’s gameshow host performance in the White House Rose Garden, as he unveiled the bumper tariffs on “liberation day”, had all the hallmarks of a Truss-style disaster in the making – and one on a rather grand scale.

Trump’s theatrics were, inevitably, celebrated by his most dedicated supporters as a genius move right out of his Art of the Deal book. But the bond markets gave, as they always do, the most clear-eyed view possible from people with skin in the game: they absolutely hated it.

Confidence in the US economy plummeted as investors dumped government debt, normally a safe haven. Things only got worse as China’s announcement of retaliation pushed Trump to further up the ante with tariffs of 104% on Chinese goods.

Like Truss, Trump tried to hold the line for a bit, playing chicken with the markets. The size of the US economy offered him rather more protection than that enjoyed by the then British prime minister. But there was no hiding place from the political and economic reality facing the White House.

Figures such as the former Treasury secretary Lawrence Summers warned of a financial crisis. Capitol Hill Republicans who had backed Trump to the hilt in the past were suddenly critical.

Trump ordered a 90-day pause on the highest tariffs on every country bar China, noting with uncharacteristic understatement that people were “getting … a little bit afraid”.

“I thought that people were jumping a little bit out of line,” he said. “They were getting yippy … The bond market is very tricky, I was watching it … people were getting a little queasy.”

What happens next? In Britain, Truss was doomed. The parliamentary system offered MPs an emergency lever to pull. The American system offers no such fallback option but, again, the outsized role of the US in the global economy possibly allows the Trump administration a little more leeway. A standard 10% tariff remains on imports and the White House is acting as if all is going to plan.

“This will go down in American history as the greatest trade negotiating day we have ever had,” said Trump’s senior trade adviser Peter Navarro, widely spoken of as the brains behind the tariff plan. “We’re in a beautiful position for the next 90 days”.

As ever, all the bluster will mean nothing to the markets. As Truss discovered, they will make their judgment in due course.

Has this anything to do with recent FAA cuts?

The former White House communications director, Anthony Scaramucci, slammed President Donald Trump’s recent tariff policy shift, saying that wiping out $8 trillion in stock market value in an effort to fix a $1.2 trillion trade deficit “makes no sense.”

In a viral post on X, Scaramucci reminded followers that, “firemen and police officers and other service providers have their retirement in the U.S. stock market.”

He argued that the idea of tanking market value for the sake of closing the trade gap is flat-out unreasonable.

“The notion that we would destroy $8 trillion worth of capital in the hopes of closing a $1.2 trillion trade deficit is non-sensical”

Just a reminder that fireman and police officers and other service providers have their retirement in the US stock market. The notion that we would destroy $8 trillion worth of capital in the hopes of closing a $1.2 trillion trade deficit is non-sensical.
— Anthony Scaramucci (@Scaramucci)
April 7, 2025

Market Panic and a Sudden Reversal

The backlash came amid Trump’s unexpected decision to pause higher tariffs for 90 days. This move came just days after Trump and his team dismissed reports of a possible pause as baseless.

When the pause was officially announced, markets soared. Critics immediately accused the administration of playing games with investor sentiment.

Scaramucci called the move political theater: “As predicted: the arsonist set the house on fire and is now cheering himself for bringing out the fire hose.”

As predicted: the arsonist set the house on fire and is now cheering himself for bringing out the fire hose. https://t.co/mz7j2WWmTe
— Anthony Scaramucci (@Scaramucci)
April 9, 2025

While the White House insists the pause was part of a broader strategy, many aren’t buying it. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said, “We’ve had more than 75 countries contact us, and I imagine, after today, there will be more.”

But the timing raised eyebrows. Just before the pause, there was widespread criticism from Republicans, anxiety in the bond market, and general public concern about economic stability.

As one user pointed out: “Yesterday it was leaked that the administration was gonna pause tariffs for 90 days, and stock market momentarily skyrocketed on what proved to be a rumor. Today a 90 day pause was officially announced, and stocks skyrocketed. This was by design. Who profited?”

Scaramucci’s initial tweet came before the tariff pause was announced. At the time, markets were reeling, and the administration appeared fully committed to raising tariffs across the board.

The sudden shift added to the sense of confusion among investors and trading partners.

Mixed Reactions From Public and Experts

The online debate lit up. Some argued that long-term investors would ride out the storm. One user wrote, “And if they’re not retiring tomorrow, they’ll be fine.”

Others pointed out that even those not directly invested in the market would feel the impact. “Public companies that have dramatic drops in stock prices will do layoffs,” one user noted.

“Fifty-five percent of Americans are employed by publicly traded companies.”

Still, some downplayed the concerns. “Does the stock market ever go up after it goes down?” one user asked rhetorically.

Critics of the Critics

Not everyone agreed with Scaramucci’s tone. “Don’t be a Scaramucci,” one user joked.

Still, Scaramucci doubled down, even mocking Trump directly: “Riddle: What do you call someone who is very, very stupid but thinks they are incredibly smart? Answer: Donald Trump Stupid or DTS.”

Riddle: what do you call someone who is very very stupid but thinks they are incredibly smart?

Answer : Donald Trump Stupid or DTS
— Anthony Scaramucci (@Scaramucci)
April 9, 2025

Big Picture Still Unclear

In the short term, Trump’s 90-day pause was enough to calm the markets. But a broader 10% tariff is still in place, and tariffs on China were raised to 125%.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Trump was “reeling” and called his approach “governing by chaos.”

With little clarity on what happens after the 90-day pause, many fear the volatility could return.

For Scaramucci, the concern is more than political. For the millions of Americans whose retirements depend on the stock market, that trade-off is personal.

Kennedy has offered no details on how his study will be different

@EricTrump
I wouldn’t want to be the last country that tries to negotiate a trade deal with
@realDonaldTrump
. The first to negotiate will win - the last will absolutely lose. I have seen this movie my entire life

Wow his people were really channeling the old Mike Pence creepy reverence routine..

On April 4, Trump fired head of U.S. Cyber Command (CYBERCOM) and director of the National Security Agency (NSA) General Timothy Haugh, apparently on the recommendation of right-wing conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, who is pitching her new opposition research firm to “vet” candidates for jobs in Trump’s administration.

Former secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall wrote in Newsweek yesterday that the position Haugh held is “one of the most sensitive and powerful jobs in America.” Kendall writes that NSA and CYBERCOM oversee the world’s most sophisticated tools and techniques to penetrate computer systems, monitor communications around the globe, and, if national security requires it, attack those systems. U.S. law drastically curtails how those tools can be used in the U.S. and against American citizens and businesses. Will a Trump loyalist follow those laws? Kendall writes: “Every American should view this development with alarm.”

Just after 2:00 a.m. eastern time this morning, the Senate confirmed Retired Air Force Lieutenant General John Dan Caine, who goes by the nickname “Razin,” for chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by a vote of 60–25. U.S. law requires the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to have served as the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the chief of staff of the Army, the chief of naval operations, the chief of staff of the Air Force, the commandant of the Marine Corps, or the commander of a unified or specified combatant command.

Although Caine has 34 years of military experience, he did not serve in any of the required positions. The law provides that the president can waive the requirement if “the President determines such action is necessary in the national interest,” and he has apparently done so for Caine. The politicization of the U.S. military by filling it with Trump loyalists is now, as Kendall writes, “indisputable.”

The politicization of data is also indisputable. Billionaire Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) claims to be saving Americans money, but the Wall Street Journal reported today that effort has been largely a failure (despite today’s announcement of devastating cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that monitors our weather). But what DOGE is really doing is burrowing into Americans’ data.

The first people to be targeted by that data collection appear to be undocumented immigrants. Jason Koebler of 404 Media reported on Wednesday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been using a database that enables officials to search for people by filtering for “hundreds of different, highly specific categories,” including scars or tattoos, bankruptcy filings, Social Security number, hair color, and race. The system, called Investigative Case Management (ICM), was created by billionaire Peter Thiel’s software company Palantir, which in 2022 signed a $95.9 million contract with the government to develop ICM.

Three Trump officials told Sophia Cai of Politico that DOGE staffers embedded in agencies across the government are expanding government cooperation with immigration officials, using the information they’re gleaning from government databases to facilitate deportation. On Tuesday, DOGE software engineer Aram Moghaddassi sent the first 6,300 names of individuals whose temporary legal status had just been canceled. On the list, which Moghaddassi said covered those on “the terror watch list” or with “F.B.I. criminal records,” were eight minors, including one 13-year-old.

The Social Security Administration worked with the administration to get those people to “self-deport” by adding them to the agency's “death master file.” That file is supposed to track people whose death means they should no longer receive benefits. Adding to it people the administration wants to erase is “financial murder,” former SSA commissioner Martin O’Malley told Alexandra Berzon, Hamed Aleaziz, Nicholas Nehamas, Ryan Mac, and Tara Siegel Bernard of the New York Times. Those people will not be able to use credit cards or banks.

On Tuesday, Acting Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner Melanie Krause resigned after the IRS and the Department of Homeland Security agreed to share sensitive taxpayer data with immigration authorities. Undocumented immigrants pay billions in taxes, in part to demonstrate their commitment to citizenship, and the government has promised immigrants that it would not use that information for immigration enforcement. Until now, the IRS has protected sensitive taxpayer information.

Rene Marsh and Marshall Cohen of CNN note that “[m]ultiple senior career IRS officials refused to sign the data-sharing agreement with DHS,” which will enable HHS officials to ask the IRS for names and addresses of people they suspect are undocumented, “because of grave concerns about its legality.” Ultimately, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent signed the agreement with Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem.

Krause was only one of several senior career officials leaving the IRS, raising concerns among those staying that there is no longer a “defense against the potential unlawful use of taxpayer data by the Trump administration.”

Makena Kelly of Wired reported today that for the past three days, DOGE staffers have been working with representatives from Palantir and career engineers from the IRS in a giant “hackathon.” Their goal is to build a system that will be able to access all IRS records, including names, addresses, job data, and Social Security numbers, that can then be compared with data from other agencies.

But the administration’s attempt to automate deportation is riddled with errors. Last night the government sent threatening emails to U.S. citizens, green card holders, and even a Canadian (in Canada) terminating “your parole” and giving them seven days to leave the U.S. One Massachusetts-born immigration lawyer asked on social media: “Does anyone know if you can get Italian citizenship through great-grandparents?”

The government is not keen to correct its errors. On March 15 the government rendered to prison in El Salvador a legal U.S. resident, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, whom the courts had ordered the U.S. not to send to El Salvador, where his life was in danger. The government has admitted that its arrest and rendition of Abrego Garcia happened because of “administrative error” but now claims—without evidence—that he is a member of the MS-13 gang and that his return to the U.S. would threaten the public. Abrego Garcia says he is not a gang member and notes that he has never been charged with a crime.

On April 4, U.S. District Court Judge Paula Xinis ordered the government to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S. no later than 11:59 pm on April 7. The administration appealed to the Supreme Court, which handed down a 9–0 decision yesterday, saying the government must “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s release, but asked the district court to clarify what it meant by “effectuate,” noting that it must give “due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.”

The Supreme Court also ordered that “the Government should be prepared to share what it can concerning the steps it has taken and the prospect of further steps.”

Legal analyst Joyce White Vance explained what happened next. Judge Xinis ordered the government to file an update by 9:30 a.m. today explaining where Abrego Garcia is, what the government is doing to get him back, and what more it will do. She planned an in-person hearing at 1:00 p.m.

The administration made clear it did not intend to comply. It answered that the judge had not given them enough time to answer and suggested that it would delay over the Supreme Court’s instruction that Xinis must show deference to the president’s ability to conduct foreign affairs. Xinis gave the government until 11:30 and said she would still hold the hearing. The government submitted its filing at about 12:15, saying that Abrego Garcia is “in the custody of a foreign sovereign,” but at the 1:00 hearing, as Anna Bower of Lawfare reported, the lawyer representing the government, Drew Ensign, said he did not have information about where Abrego Garcia is and that the government had done nothing to get him back. Ensign said he might have answers by next Tuesday. Xinis says they will have to give an update tomorrow.

As Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor recently warned, if the administration can take noncitizens off the streets, render them to prison in another country, and then claim it is helpless to correct the error because the person is out of reach of U.S. jurisdiction, it could do the same thing to citizens. Indeed, both President Trump and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt have proposed that very thing.

Tonight, Trump signed a memorandum to the secretaries of defense, interior, agriculture, and homeland security calling for a “Military Mission for Sealing the Southern Border of the United States and Repelling Invasions.” The memorandum creates a military buffer zone along the border so that any migrant crossing would be trespassing on a U.S. military base. This would allow active-duty soldiers to hold migrants until ICE agents take them.

By April 20, the secretaries of defense and homeland security are supposed to report to the president whether they think he should invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act to enable him to use the military to aid in mass deportations.

Has this anything to do with recent FAA cuts?