Today in Politics, Bulletin 96. 3/21/25

Ron Filipkowski Mar 21 ∙

… HHS Secretary RFK Jr. told Fox that cell phones cause cancer: “Cell phones cause electromagnetic radiation which has been shown to do neurological damage to kids who are around them all day - cause cellular damage, and cancer.”

… I posted the RFK Jr. clip on X, and got hit with a Community Note. Thanks, Junior. The Note cited the FDA: “While RF radiation from cell phones is different from other types of radiation like X-rays, which are known to be harmful, there is no consistent evidence that non-ionizing radiation increases cancer risk in humans, according to the National Cancer Institute.”

… The hearing continued today between Judge Boasberg and DOJ over the migrant flights of Venezuelans, who were alleged to be gang members, to the prison in El Salvador. It came out at the hearing per Politico that some of the people on the flight were returned from El Salvador because they either weren't Venezuelan or were women. The hard-labor prison is men-only, but the Trump Admin flew women there anyway.

… Judge Boasberg also remarked that recent filings by DOJ in the case have used "the kind of intemperate and disrespectful language I’m not used to hearing from the United States."

… NYT reported that Elon Musk was scheduled to receive a briefing at the Pentagon today about the US military’s plan for any war that might break out with China. The Times cited multiple sources who came forward because they were concerned that Musk would be receiving that info since he was extensive ties to the Chinese government with his businesses.

… When NYT tried to confirm their reporting with the Pentagon and WH, both refused to give statements prior to publication. Then after the story broke late last night and a firestorm ensued, Trump and others issued a series of denials as it appears they have walked back a plan that the public wasn’t supposed to find out about.

… The WSJ confirmed the accuracy of the NYT reporting with their own Pentagon sources.

… Trump posted: “China will not even be mentioned or discussed.”

… Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell, who refused to respond to NYT prior to publication, later posted on X: “This is 100% Fake News. Just brazenly and maliciously wrong. Elon Musk is a patriot. We are proud to have him at the Pentagon.”

… Sec Def Pete Hegseth: “This is NOT a meeting about ‘top secret China war plans.’ It’s an informal meeting about innovation, efficiencies & smarter production. Gonna be great!”

… Musk angrily posted that he wants to hunt down the people in the Pentagon who leaked info about his briefing so they can be put in prison: “The NYT is pure propaganda. I look forward to the prosecutions of those at the Pentagon who are leaking maliciously false information to NYT. They will be found.”

… So it isn’t true, but we need to find the people who leaked a made-up story and put them in prison?

… Trump posted that he wants to send anyone who vandalizes a Tesla to a Salvadoran prison for 20 years: “I look forward to watching the sick terrorist thugs get 20 year jail sentences for what they are doing to Elon Musk and Tesla. Perhaps they could serve them in the prisons of El Salvador, which have become so recently famous for such lovely conditions!

… Ron Desantis’s AG James Uthmeier wanted in on the action: "Elon Musk is trying to eliminate government. If you try to hurt one of these cars, we're gonna put you away. We're gonna have law enforcement patrolling these dealerships."

SSHHHH! ANNA! They're MAGA MORONS who bought TESLAS & can't even SELL THEM! POOR BRAIN DEAD ANNA PAULINA LUNA! 

… Rep. Anna Paulina Luna: “Leftists attack Elon Musk, meanwhile they’re shilling and paid for by Soros. They don’t hate billionaires. They hate this country. And people like Elon are in the way.”

… Fox host Brian Kilmeade falsely accused ‘Say Anything’ actor John Cusack and Rep. Jasmine Crockett of telling people to blow up Teslas: “This guy, John Cusack, who’s an actor with marginal success, is actually calling on March 29th to be the day to blow up Teslas! And Crockett too! She should be indicted!”

… Cusack responded: “What a shock! Another bootlicking pathological liar - on Swasticar State TV - spreading lies. Tesla cars blow up by themselves - they don’t need any help.”

… Business Insider reported that Musk flew to an emergency meeting of major Tesla investors in Texas with rumors swirling that some want him removed as an officer of the company. Many feel he simply does not have the time needed to devote to the running the company, and his political involvement and statements are making their brand increasingly toxic to the public worldwide.

… Employees were sent a link to watch Musk address skittish investors: “Hang on to your stock. Frankly, the car business is a tough business, so, there are times when there are rocky moments, like things are, like a little bit of stormy weather. If you read the news, it feels like Armageddon. Tesla stock goes up and it goes down, but actually it’s still the same company. I guess it’s just very emotional.”

… Reuters reported that a record number of people have traded in Teslas this month. Data from Edmunds showed that 1.4% of all the vehicles traded in through March 15 were Teslas, which is up from 0.4% in March last year. It is the highest percentage ever registered for Tesla and is expected to go up even more the second half of March.

… Fred McKinney, who traded in his 2018 Tesla Model 3: "I thought about putting a bumper sticker on my car saying, 'I hate Musk.' But selling the car feels so much better. If you are considering a new EV, under no circumstances consider buying a Tesla."

… Only 1.8% of the people surveyed last month said they were considering a Tesla for their next car, which is their lowest number in nearly three years.

… Musk just gave Don Jr’s daughter Kai Trump a Cyberbeast truck as a gift. The sales price of the vehicle is $100,000.

It has certainly been a long week of more insanity, and I am looking forward to my day off tomorrow and the end of my first winter living in Maine. My cat Luigi (who likes to go outside) is looking forward to some warmer weather soon. Hopefully. I will be back with my next Bulletin covering the entire weekend on Sunday night.

I told everyone at Meidas that the comments section is starting to resemble Parisians before they stormed the Bastille. For the first time, I think our political leaders are starting to hear us and get the level of anger that is out there. We need to make this party a bottom-up grassroots driven movement instead of a top-down DC consultant controlled party. We will call them out, we aren’t taking excuses anymore, and will not accept the same old tired approaches and strategies.

They are listening to us because of you. The size of our audience and our following on social media gives up power - clout that we do not intend to use to benefit ourselves, but to benefit the cause of resisting and defeating this toxic MAGA movement. We hear from you, then they hear from us. So keep your excellent comments going because we read them every day. Thank you for your support as we continue to grow this movement.

If you missed yesterday’s Bulletin, you can read it here.

Meidas+ is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

… AOC and Bernie Sanders kicked off their tour last night with huge and energized crowds in Las Vegas and Arizona. Some highlights:

• AOC: “Alina Habba said, ‘What intellectual thought. You were in a bar AOC - not to have a drink but to serve one.’ I don’t care what this woman says about me but I want you to understand that she isn’t just talking about me, she’s talking about all of us. Trump hired her to speak for him. Imagine what it means for our country that the President’s own lawyer cannot even conceive of a working class person

  being intelligent simply because of the job that they have.”

• Sanders: “If we were a poor country, I would say, ‘I’m sorry that you have to work 50 hours a week,’ or ‘I’m sorry that you have to do dangerous work,’ or ‘I’m sorry that you can’t afford to send your kid to college,’ or ‘I’m sorry that the elementary school your child attends is inadequate,’ but we’re a poor country, we just can’t afford that. But we are not a poor country! There is no excuse on God’s earth for people to have to choose between food and the medicine they need to stay alive.”

• AOC: “One thing I love about Arizonans is that you all have shown that if a US Senator isn’t fighting hard enough for you, you’re not afraid to replace her with one who will.” (Referring to Kyrsten Sinema).

• AOC: “Fox News and the right-wing would have you believe that these American values are something out of The Communist Manifesto. But let me tell you, Fox News - I don’t believe in healthcare, labor, and human rights because I’m a Marxist - I believe it because I was a waitress.

• AOC: “What they like to call as radical, I believe is common sense. I believe that when a person gets sick, they shouldn’t go bankrupt in the wealthiest country in the history of the world. Common sense. I believe that a minimum wage should cover the minimum cost to live. Common sense. I believe that homes are not slot machines for investors and Wall Street to extort working families out of every last dollar that they have. When your landlord jacks up your rent by half overnight or housing prices skyrocket because Wall Street treats our housing market like a casino, your government should fight for your ability to keep an affordable roof over your head.

… Elon Musk is buying votes again, just like he did during the 2024 election. Axios reported that Musk’s PAC is offering Wisconsin voters $100 to sign a petition against “activist judges." A huge election for a key Wisconsin Supreme Court seat is April 1, and Musk has been personally involved in the race. Musk’s PACs have spent $20 million to support repulsive Republican Brad Schimel, which is a staggering amount for this kind of an election.

… The Democratic candidate Susan Crawford has been able to raise millions from largely grass roots donations, but has also received larger amounts from George Soros and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker.

… The law firm of Paul Weiss caved to Trump after he signed an executive order revoking their security clearances, which would cost the firm millions in legal fees if they were unable to represent clients in sensitive cases. The firm decided to serve up tribute to King Donald instead to keep the money rolling in, instead of fighting him in court like other firms. They agreed to “dedicate the equivalent of $40m in pro bono legal services over the course of President Trump’s term to support the admin’s initiatives,” and “acknowledge the wrongdoing of Mark Pomerantz.”

… George Conway: “This Paul Weiss’ capitulation is the most disgraceful action by a major law firm in my lifetime, so appalling that I couldn’t believe it at first. Any lawyers at that firm—partners or associates—who don’t promptly resign will defile their moral and professional reputations beyond repair.”

… Attorney Mark Zaid, who handles similar cases: “I would be embarrassed if I was lawyer at Paul Weiss. To compromise principles in this way is not why I became a lawyer. It has nothing to do with representing Trumpers or their causes. I do that all the time because that's my job - not because I was bullied or intimidated.”

… Trump made Truth Social post which seems to indicate that he is serious this time about moving forward with draconian tariffs that will ignite a global trade war against the US: “April 2nd is Liberation Day in America!!! For DECADES we have been ripped off and abused by every nation in the World, both friend and foe. Now it is finally time for the Good Ol’ USA to get some of that MONEY, and RESPECT, BACK. GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!”

… Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins was asked by Maria Bartiromo on Fox about the cost of agricultural products going up because of tariffs: “When people voted in November 2024, they knew that's what they were voting for. There may be an interim period. But real change takes disruption.”

… Trump said during the campaign that he would bring prices down “on day one.” He never said anything about an interim period of disruption.

… Financial Times reported that the countries in Europe with the largest militaries have begun talks with US representatives to NATO for them to take on greater responsibilities for the defense of Europe in order to avoid chaos if Trump unilaterally and suddenly tries to pull the US out of the alliance. The countries want the framework of a plan together before the NATO annual summit in June.

… Zelensky: “Starting in the evening, Russia attacked regions of Ukraine with over 200 strike drones and decoy drones. Guided aerial bombs were also used. Odesa, Zaporizhzhia, Sumy, Kyiv, Khmelnytskyi, and Chernihiv regions came under fire. As a result, fires broke out in a shopping mall and several stores in Odessa, and a residential building was damaged. 3 children were injured. In Zaporizhzhia, 6 people were injured by Russian aerial bombs, including a 4-year-old child.”

… Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, Chair of EU’s Security and Defense Committee: "Since Trump began negotiating with Putin, attacks on Ukraine have tripled."

… Trump was asked if he was going to impose sanctions or do anything about Russia increasing attacks in recent days: "Well, they're fighting against each other. We have a ceasefire on a lot of areas, and so far that's all held very well."

… There is no cease fire anywhere. That is a lie. Ukraine also never attacks civilian population areas while Russia has done it daily for three years.

… The New Republic reported that GOP Senators Chuck Grassley and Thom Tillis signed a harshly-worded bipartisan letter with Democrats to Sec of State Marco Rubio seeking to reinstate the agency tracking Ukrainian children kidnapped by Russia: "It must remain the policy of the US to pursue accountability for the Russia’s atrocities in Ukraine. We request that you provide information regarding the decision-making procedure and justification, and immediately resume US support for this critical work."

… JB Pritzker to Meidas Touch: “You know, I was asked the other day if I could say one thing to Donald Trump, what would it be? And I said, ‘What does Putin have on you?’ Everybody rational understands that Putin is trying to rebuild the old Russian Empire. And Donald Trump is literally handing it to him.”

… Trump announced that the Small Business Administration under new Director Kelly Loeffler will now handle all federal student loans instead of he Department of Education. They will handle this massive new assignment right after the Admin cut staff at SBA by 40%.

… A Fox poll showed that 92% of Democrats disagree with Trump’s attempt to shut down the Department of Education. 81% of Independents and 33% of Republicans also disagree.

… Trump also announced that he is awarding the contract to Boeing for the next generation fighter to replace the F-35. Instead of an F-36 designation though, it will be named F-47 after Trump: “It will be known as the F-47. The Generals picked the title.”

… Right. I’m sure it was all their idea.

… Trump: "We can't tell you the price, because it would give away some of the technology and some of the size of the plane."

… SecDef Pete Hegseth: "This is a big day for our warfighters. This is a big day for our country, a big day in the world. America is going to have generations in the future of air dominance because of this 6th-generation fighter."

… Aviation Week: “Boeing has won a contract to develop the F-47 next-generation combat aircraft for the Air Force that will spearhead future air wars and throw a lifeline to the company’s struggling military aviation business. The WH announcement came after a tumultuous competition between Boeing and Lockheed Martin for the prized rights to build the aircraft. The contract offers a reprieve for Boeing, that has reported over $18 billion in losses since 2014.”

… Constituents in Rep. James Comer’s KY district dressed in chicken suits outside his office to protest the fact that he is too afraid to hold any town halls. Local WPSD spoke to the group called ‘Four River Indivisible’, who said they asked Comer and his staff weekly for a town hall meeting, but Comer refuses to do any. He won’t even respond to their inquiries in writing.

… Comer’s office issued a statement about the protest though: “Congressman Comer does not plan on holding therapy sessions for left-wing activists suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

COMER: AFRAID OF HIS CONSTITUENTS!

… Democrats on Comer’s House Oversight Committee announced they are launching an investigation into Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s comments on Fox where he told viewers that they should buy stock in Tesla.

POLITICO Nightly: How ‘owning the libs’ became White House policy

 

By Juan Benn Jr. President Donald Trump and White House Senior Advisor Elon Musk sit in a Tesla Model S on the South Lawn of the White House on March 11. | Andrew Harnik/Getty Images LIKE, FOLLOW AND SUBSCRIBE — Every White House works hard to amplify the president’s message, communicate an administration’s accomplishments and generally burnish the image of POTUS. But the Trump White House has an ambitious communications goal that reaches beyond traditional practice: Owning the libs. Through the use of an aggressive social media strategy, the White House is both highlighting its policy accomplishments and attempting to rub the left’s face in it with a stream of content designed to delight the GOP base and provoke the opposition. Their efforts to do so are frequently going mega-viral. A video of undocumented immigrants, handcuffed and shackled, boarding a deportation flight with a caption that read “ASMR: Illegal Alien Deportation Flight,” posted from the official White House account, racked up over 100 million views on X. On March 10, the White House shared a picture of Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University student and Palestinian rights activist, with the Hebrew greeting “SHALOM, MAHMOUD,” mocking his activism after his arrest. Last month, the president shared an AI-generated video from his Truth Social account of the Gaza Strip transformed into a beachside resort, where Trump and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sipped cocktails together by a pool. (The video was already circulating online before it was reposted by the president.) The posts are gleeful, irreverent and often deeply offensive to a liberal sensibility — and they’re wildly popular among young, online conservatives who are making up an increasingly large portion of President Donald Trump’s devotees. The genre used to be confined mostly to political hobbyists unaffiliated with any campaign or government official. Now, the ecosystem of the conservative meme factory has found its way into official White House channels. And while Trump isn’t splicing together sizzle reels himself, much of this growing energy on the right is thanks to the history of his own provocative online presence. Now, at the start of his second term, his administration is all but officially adopting the approach as the voice of the White House. “He is fighting against staleness,” said Joshua Scacco, director of the Center for Sustainable Democracy at the University of South Florida. “He’s fighting against approaches that he himself has now normalized.” On Valentine’s Day, the White House X account drew more than 37 millions views to its inflammatory take on a traditional Feb. 14 refrain . “Roses are red, violets are blue, come here illegally, and we’ll deport you,” read the message, which featured a pink backdrop emblazoned with hearts and the faces of Trump and his hardline border czar Tom Homan. Earlier this week, the White House shared another deportation video, using the band Semisonic’s 1998 hit “Closing Time,” to warn undocumented immigrants: “You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.” At the heart of Trump 2.0’s social media strategy is a modern interpretation of a musty job — the president as online influencer. “Social media generally is defined by trends, just like anything in culture, and understanding those trends and embracing them to deliver a message is extremely important to us,” said an administration official granted anonymity to speak candidly about White House social media strategy. The nod to ASMR, or autonomous sensory meridian response, is evidence of the embrace of those trends. An online fad for years . ASMR refers to a bodily sensation triggered by an audio or visual stimuli such as whispering, tapping nails, or crinkling paper in front of a microphone, meant to make viewers feel at peace. The White House’s deportation ASMR video was a wink at that trend, suggesting that watching people being deported can be calming. It had the additional benefit of underscoring the president’s policy goal of getting tough on immigration. Scacco likened the idea of teasing policy to musicians like Taylor Swift and Beyoncé, teasing an album before it’s released. Sometimes these artists take years between new drops and break their status quo with surprise releases or cryptic social media posts, becoming a trending topic for days. “Donald Trump similarly attempts strategies in the political sphere to gain attention ... because he understands that his political power and cultural power is tied to attention,” said Scacco. “Because of that, the ways in which he is calculating how to gain attention is by increasingly what they might perceive to be out of bounds communication.” The antagonize-and-conquer strategy has delighted a segment of the MAGA base, but it has limits. Replies to the Trump-Gaza video are full of people saying they support Trump, but not the over-the-top video. Some took issue with the golden statues of Trump and a shot of bearded belly dancers, swaying by the beach. “This may be trolling, but many of us (your supporters) are scratching our heads over this one,” read one reply . Thus far, the Trump team has paid no heed to the objections. Like all of the social media controversies of Trump’s past, the assumption is that his supporters will eventually ignore them or get on board. And they have reason to think so — every time the administration has crossed what looked like a line, they ended up just moving the window of acceptable online discourse. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight’s author at jbenn@politico.com .   Policy moves fast—stay ahead with POLITICO’s Policy Intelligence Assistant. Effortlessly search POLITICO's archive of 1M+ news articles, analysis documents, and legislative text. Track legislation, showcase your impact, and generate custom reports in seconds. Designed for POLITICO Pro subscribers, this tool helps you make faster, smarter decisions. Start exploring now .     What'd I Miss? — Trump insists Musk meeting at Pentagon wasn’t about China: President Donald Trump said Elon Musk’s meeting today at the Pentagon was about DOGE — not China — as administration officials deny the special government employee received a classified briefing on the military’s war plans. “He’s there for DOGE, not there for China,” Trump said to reporters in the Oval Office, flanked by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. “And if you ever mention China, I think he’d walk out of the room.” Trump’s response followed a report Thursday night from The New York Times that Musk was scheduled to receive a classified briefing about U.S. plans for any potential military conflict with China. The president, who was with Hegseth today to announce plans for a new stealth fighter jet, slammed the report as “fake.” ****CAN YOU TRUST STATISTICAL REPORTS?**** — Purge of data experts raises alarms over economic reports: The Trump administration has dismissed advisers to key statistical agencies behind major economic reports, s parking warnings that the cuts will jeopardize the quality of data critical to policymakers and Wall Street investors . Economists, academics and corporate officials serving on a board of unpaid advisers to the Labor Department’s statistical bureau were told this week they were no longer needed, two of the former members told POLITICO. Similar committees that advised the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Census Bureau have also been let go. And the Federal Housing Finance Authority placed workers who assisted with its widely cited home price index on administrative leave Wednesday. ***TRUMP ESCALATING WAR!***** WHEN YOU PUT INCOMPETENTS IN CHARGE, DON'T EXPECT REASONABLE SOLUTIONS! INFLAMING TENSIONS WILL HAUNT THE U.S.! — Trump sends second aircraft carrier to Middle East in ramp up against Houthis : The United States is sending a second aircraft carrier to the Middle East , a rare and provocative move as the Trump administration intensifies its bombing campaign against Houthi fighters in Yemen. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the USS Harry S. Truman carrier strike group — currently operating in the Red Sea — to extend its deployment by at least a month, according to two defense officials, who requested anonymity to discuss ongoing operations. The USS Carl Vinson and its accompanying destroyers will join the ship as escorts in the coming weeks. The Vinson has been conducting exercises in the East China Sea with the Japanese and South Koreans. ****CHINA!***** CHINA IS PROMOTING CHEAP CLEAN ENERGY & BUILDING ROADS...MAKING FRIENDS & THEIR ECONOMY IS PROSPERING WHILE MAGA CLOWNS OFFEND ALLIES.... — Trump picks Boeing to build next-generation fighter plane : President Donald Trump announced today that Boeing had won a massive, $20 billion contract for the Air Force’s next-generation fighter jet — directly challenging China’s military advances in the Pacific. The plane represents a leap ahead in stealth technologies and is designed to partner with a new fleet of drones, giving it more combat punch and surveillance capabilities to evade radars as it flies through contested airspace. The announcement came less than an hour after Elon Musk visited the Pentagon to meet with Hegseth about China’s threat to the United States. Musk has been a longtime opponent of the Pentagon building crewed fighter planes, like the one described today. AROUND THE WORLD Kaja Kallas addresses a press conference at the end of the European Council Summit at the EU headquarters in Brussels on June 28, 2024. | John Thys/AFP via Getty Images HITTING HURDLES — Europe’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, had high hopes of being able to mobilize as much as €40 billion ($43.3 billion) of military aid to shore up Ukraine’s position on the battlefield and strengthen its hand in upcoming talks with Russia. But as EU leaders wound up their gathering in Brussels this week, the plan lay in tatters — not quite dead, but dramatically downgraded from its original ambition . The problems started, several EU diplomats said, from the plan’s inception when the former Estonian prime minister failed to win prior buy-in from crucial stakeholders. The process had been “botched up,” one of the diplomats summarized. The original formulation of the “Kallas plan” had been to ship Ukraine at least 1.5 million rounds of artillery ammunition in 2025. That idea, presented last month, was shot down by a Hungarian veto. Then she tried again, banking on a coalition of willing states to dig into their weapons stores and national coffers to deliver up to €40 billion in military aid to Ukraine this year. Unfortunately for Kallas — and for Ukraine — her plan didn’t survive impact with the reality of a European Union where interest in making sacrifices for Kyiv varies dramatically from country to country. GETTING THE JITTERS — European Union governments have expressed fears that the radical spending plans announced by Germany’s chancellor-in-waiting will end up skewing the bloc’s single market and could give the country an unfair competitive edge . A month on from an election that made Friedrich Merz almost certainly the next leader in Berlin, the upper house of parliament today approved a historic change to the country’s basic law to exclude defense investment above 1 percent of economic output from the nation’s strict spending rules, along with a €500 billion fund for infrastructure and green energy, clearing the final parliamentary hurdle. While Germany’s allies in Europe have broadly welcomed Berlin’s long-awaited loosening of the purse strings, there is a sense of unease about the impact it could have at a time when economies are still struggling to recover after the twin shocks of Covid and the Ukraine conflict, and with the looming threat of a trade war with the U.S. “We’ve got to watch out when it comes to productive investments in Germany,” said a former government minister in France, the EU’s second-biggest economy after Germany, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue. “It can help us, it can pull our own economy in the right direction. What’s good for the German economy is good for us. It means more markets for French companies. But it could worsen the productivity gap between the two countries. We’ll need to keep up [with Germany].” Nightly Number 43 percent The size of the staff reduction at the Small Business Administration, as the agency said today it would be ending “the expansive social policy agenda” of the Biden administration, cutting non-essential jobs and returning to pre-pandemic staffing levels. RADAR SWEEP PASTA PUZZLES — Spaghetti might not be an obvious field of study for physicists. But sometimes, the way that they look at the universe spills over into their everyday lives. And for decades, the pasta shape has fascinated them and led to new lines of research . The first well known physics question that derived from spaghetti came from Brown University physicist George F Carrier in 1949, when he asked essentially, “Why can’t I slurp up a strand of spaghetti without getting sauce on my face”? In more recent years, physicists have attempted to figure out how thin a strand of spaghetti can get. It’s a simple pasta, but these big questions have helped us all better understand the properties of our world. Joseph Howlett reports for the BBC. Parting Image On this date in 1977: Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda of Japan, President Jimmy Carter and First Lady Rosalynn Carter waved from the Truman Balcony of the White House in Washington. Fukuda was in Washington for a three day visit which began with ceremonies on the South Lawn. | AP Did someone forward this email to you?  Sign up here .   Follow us on Twitter Charlie Mahtesian @PoliticoCharlie Calder McHugh @calder_mchugh   Follow us

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Five Questions with Supreme Court Expert Steve Vladeck

Joyce Vance Mar 21 ∙

Steve Vladeck is a return guest for “Five Questions With.” He joined us in February of 2024, to discuss Texas’ efforts to take federal immigration policy into its own hands during the Biden administration. Now, in a very different world, it’s time to visit with Steve again.

As I wrote the last time he was with us, “Steve is not an alarmist. He’s a constitutional lawyer, and he explains the issues that are at play with precision and without political spin. There is no one else I would rather have us help get all of our facts straight, so we can address the issues in the coming weeks and months.” Same, a year later.

Steve Vladeck, Girl Dad

It’s hard to keep score with so much litigation challenging the Trump administration’s efforts to decommission government moving forward simultaneously. Tonight, we take a look at how the courts are doing overall. I have a lot of questions for Steve, so we’ll get started tonight and follow up with a Substack Live Sunday night. We’re aiming for 9:15 ET/8:15 Central, but you’ll get an announcement in advance and if you’re subscribed to Civil Discourse or to Steve’s Substack, One First, you’ll get a notice when we go live and be able to join our chat. We’re looking forward to it!

Steve is the author of a book about the Supreme Court called The Shadow Docket. His Substack focuses on the Court and the litigation in front of it. We are fortunate to have him as our guest tonight!

Steve, who is the ultimate good sport, was nice enough to send this photo when I asked for “fun pictures,” so of course, I’m going to share it with you!

“Five Questions” is the only Civil Discourse column that is limited to paid subscribers, my way of thanking you for your support for the newsletter. It wouldn’t be possible to devote the time and resources necessary to put it out without you! The rest of the columns that make up Civil Discourse are available to everyone—I appreciate all of you for being here and caring for our democracy.