Category: Talking Points Memo

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Acting Chair Andrea Lucas has directed agency officials to compile a list of cases in line with her own personal priorities for the agency, two sources familiar with the matter tell Talking Points Memo. Those priorities include “defending the biological and binary reality of sex and related rights” and “rooting out […]

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version. Another Crossing The Rubicon Moment Let’s quickly run through the many telling and odd aspects of the still-unseen criminal case against Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-NJ) for an alleged incident that took place while conducting her […]

With no further road to kick the can down, we’ve been on the lookout this week for how exactly President Trump will get involved with badgering the House Republican conference into line behind the ridiculously named piece of legislation that will kickstart his fiscal agenda. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has set an almost comically […]

Here’s an example of the kind of compromise included in the Senate’s updated crypto bill. After bipartisan negotiations this month, the GENIUS Act will now ban stablecoins from using “United States,” “United States Government,” or “USG” in their name. In some ways, it’s important: stablecoins, typically used to purchase other, more volatile forms of cryptocurrency, […]

A judge turned the U.S. Institute of Peace back over to its unlawfully fired board members Monday, scolding the administration for using “brute force and threats of criminal process” to commandeer an organization that does not fall within President Trump’s removal powers.

For the second time in as many months, a federal appeals court declined to pause a lower court order requiring the Trump administration to “facilitate” the return of a foreign national wrongfully deported to El Salvador. 

It’s become almost commonplace in recent years, and especially in the last four months, that the divisions among Democrats are less progressives vs. “centrists” or liberals than one between institutionalists and what we might call Team Fight. There’s a separate issue which is that there needs to be a lot more elaboration or articulation about […]

Following a small rebellion last week by far-right members of the House Budget Committee — who were calling for steeper spending cuts — Republicans on the panel managed to move their reconciliation package out of the committee late Sunday night. Yet the most perilous moments for Johnson’s fraught push to pass Trump’s everything-and-the-kitchen-sink bill may […]

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version. This Is Effed Up On So Many Levels In an important federal case in Massachusetts over whether deportees can be sent to third countries rather than their countries of origin, the Trump administration admitted Friday […]

Full statement from Joe Biden’s personal office: Last week, President Joe Biden was seen for a new finding of a prostate nodule after experiencing increasing urinary symptoms. On Friday, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, characterized by a Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5) with metastasis to the bone. While this represents a more […]

This is a follow up to Friday’s piece on how to save American biomedical research. A lot of what follows assumes you’ve read that earlier piece. I realized based on responses I received that there is one point I didn’t make explicit enough. As I wrote, there are ‘disease communities’ around every major disease that […]

Hello it’s the weekend. This is The Weekender ☕️ As President Trump pushes the bounds of executive power, a few major court rulings that will decide how successful he is in the endeavor are inching closer to their finales.

Just after noon today DOGE representatives contacted the Government Accountability Office and demanded its standard level of access to analyze and ‘reform’ the agency. Not long after the GAO contacted its employees via email and explained that they had told DOGE that GAO is a legislative branch agency and not subject to executive orders or […]

Over the past four months I’ve spoken to dozens of biomedical researchers either at NIH, other government grant-making agencies or at the various American research institutions which receive US government grants. Over that time I’ve developed at least a very rudimentary understanding of the nitty-gritty mechanics of the grant-making relationship between agencies and research institutions. […]

While the conservative judges on Friday tried to find a way to overturn Supreme Court precedent before the Court itself gets a chance to do it, the sole liberal on a three-judge appeals court panel used the hearing to lay bare the ramifications of President Trump’s attempt to take over independent agencies.

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version. Everyone In Trump World Got The Same Memo The Trump administration quickly got in line Thursday to denounce, threaten, and investigate former FBI Director James Comey, whose firing by President Trump in his first term […]

First it was reported that the Trump White House was considering sending a rescissions package to Congress, a way of letting the legislature rubber stamp some of the spending cuts DOGE has already implemented. Then it was reported that Trump might delay that package, at least a few weeks, while House and Senate Republicans focus […]

You’ve seen our liveblog which provides a far more detailed and technical look at today’s birthright citizenship oral arguments before the Supreme Court. I want to focus on a broad and critical issue. The Trump administration brought this to the Supreme Court. While the underlying or substantive issue is birthright citizenship they were not seeking […]

Here’s an interesting hypothetical: the White House wins its nationwide injunction case before the Supreme Court. Judges can no longer issue these national holds on various forms of federal government action, or face an exceedingly high bar to do so. At the same time, the high court has not ruled on the core issue of […]

The right-wing justices on Thursday were amenable to the Trump administration’s bid to pare back universal injunctions, a type of relief where lower-court judges block government policies for the whole country and not just the parties who brought the case.