Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., clashed Tuesday with a University of Pennsylvania law professor over the number of nationwide judicial injunctions imposed by district judges against President Donald Trump’s executive actions on matters including deportations, tariffs, and cuts to federal funding and the federal workforce. 

During the Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing titled “The Supposedly ‘Least Dangerous Branch’: District Judges v. Trump,” Hawley displayed a bar chart to argue that nationwide injunctions against the executive branch, which had not been used until the 1960s, surged when Trump came into office for his first term and then dramatically dropped again during former President Joe Biden’s time at the White House. 

“Now, you don’t think this is a little bit anomalous?” Hawley asked University of Pennsylvania law professor Kate Shaw. 

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Shaw, a Supreme Court contributor for ABC News who previously worked for former President Barack Obama’s White House Counsel’s Office, responded, “A very plausible explanation, senator, you have to consider is that [Trump] is engaged in much more lawless activity than other presidents. Right?” 

“This was never used before the 1960s,” Hawley said. “And suddenly Democrat judges decide we love the nationwide injunction. And then when Biden comes office, no, no.” 

Shaw cited Mila Sohoni, a Stanford Law School professor, as suggesting that the first nationwide injunction came in 1913 and others were issued in the 1920s. 

“The federal government was doing a lot less until 100 years ago,” she said. “There’s many things that have changed in the last hundred or the last 50 years.” 

“So as long as it is a Democrat president in office, then we should have no nationwide injunctions?” Hawley shot back. “If it’s a Republican president, then this is absolutely fine, warranted and called for? How can our system of law survive on those principles?” 

Shaw said she believes a system where there “are no legal constraints on the president is a very dangerous system of law,” but the Republican from Missouri contended that’s not what the law professor believed when Biden was president. 

“You said it was a travesty for the principles of democracy, notions of judicial impartiality and the rule of law,” Hawley said. “You said the idea that anyone would foreign shop to get a judge who would issue a nationwide injunction was a politician, just judges looking like politicians in robes. Again, it threatened the underlying legal system. People are just trying to get the result they wanted. It was a travesty for the rule of law. But you’re fine with all of that if it’s getting the result that you want.” 

Kate Shaw, professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, testifies during a Senate Committee on the Judiciary joint subcommittee hearing to examine District Judges v. Trump, on Capitol Hill, Tuesday, June 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)

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Hawley cited Shaw’s stance in a specific abortion pill ruling during Biden’s presidency. In April 2023, U.S. District Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk of the Northern District of Texas issued a nationwide injunction on the Biden Food and Drug Administration’s mifepristone rules, which Shaw described at the time as “a travesty for the principles of democracy, notions of judicial impartiality and the rule of law.” 

Hawley said she had failed to offer a legitimate principle for issuing nationwide injunctions now. 

“I understand you hate the president,” the senator told Shaw. “I understand that you love all of these rulings against him. You and I both know that’s not a principle. You’re a lawyer. What’s the principle that divides when issuing a nationwide injunction is OK and when it is not? When the Biden administration was subject to nationwide injunctions, you said that they were travesties for the principle of democracy.” 

“When it’s Biden, it’s OK. When it’s Biden, oh, it’s a travesty. When it’s Trump in office, it’s a no holds barred, whatever it takes,” the senator added. 

Senate Judiciary Committee member Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., greets University of Pennsylvania law Professor Kate Shaw before a subcommittee hearing about the unprecedented number of nationwide judicial injunctions against President Donald Trump on June 3, 2025, in Washington, D.C.  (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Hawley said Shaw and his Democratic colleagues were raising “very principled injunctions” to nationwide injunctions issued against Biden just nine months ago and “all that’s changed in nine months is the occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”

“I realize that my colleagues on this side of the aisle very much dislike that individual,” Hawley said, referring to Trump. “And I realize that you think that the rulings that he has lost are fundamentally sound.”

“I disagree with all of that, but we can put that to one side. The question we’re talking about here is, ‘Should judges, single judges, district court judges be able to bind nonparties who are not in front of them?’ And you used to say no. Now you say yes,” he said. “Let’s be consistent. I would just suggest to you our system of government cannot survive if it’s going to be politics all the way down.” 

Shaw responded that “democracy is not as simple as majority rule,” but Hawley interjected, saying, “You would have it as simple as majority rule. When you get the majority you like, you’re for the nationwide injunction. When you don’t, you’re not.” 

He openly advocated for the death of then-President-elect Donald Trump, hailing himself as an “assassin” and threatening to shoot the would-be 47th commander-in-chief shortly after the election, prosecutors say.

Those words, left on Facebook posts, are at the center of a federal grand jury indictment. On Tuesday, Yucca Valley resident Thomas Eugene Streavel, 73, pleaded not guilty to three felony counts of making threats.

The San Bernardino County man was arrested Monday just before 11 a.m. by United States Marshals and arraigned the next day inside Central District Court in Riverside.

He’s out on a $10,000 bond and is expected back in court July 28. Streavel could serve up to 15 years in prison if found guilty on all counts.

“This defendant is charged with threatening the life of our President — a man who has already survived two deranged attempts on his life,” said U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi in a statement. “The Department of Justice takes these threats with the utmost seriousness and will prosecute this crime to the fullest extent of the law.”

A number listed for Streavel was not answered, and no attorney was listed for him in court documents.

His actions were detailed in a grand jury indictment from May 29 that was unsealed Tuesday.

Streavel posted a variety of threats in the days after Trump’s electoral victory in November, according to the Justice Department.

“[T]rump is a dead man walking for the time being until a patriot like myself blows his [expletive] brains out in the very near future,” Streavel posted on Nov. 6., according to court documents.

Six days later, Streavel posted on Facebook that he was “willing to make America great again and blow his [expletive] brains out,” the indictment says.

There were similar Facebook rants on Nov. 19 and on 28.

In the earlier instance, he wrote, “Let me put a bullet right between the ears of your president-elect…That’s my purpose for living,” according to the indictment.

He later posted, “I’m praying for a successful assassination of your president-elect.” He then added, “my life’s mission is killing the worthless LOSER [expletive] and my mission starts tonight so watch yourself trump [sic], you are a dead [expletive] and I am your assassin,” court documents show.

Streavel’s posts extend to before the election, when on Oct. 15 he wrote, “today is the perfect day to blow his brains out and I’d love to be the one to pull the trigger.”

The Secret Service is also investigating the matter.

“The type of rhetoric and threats made by this defendant are similar to those that led to an attempt on the President’s life last year,” said United States Atty. Bill Essayli. “There is no place for political violence or threats of violence in the United States.”

Trump was injured in a shooting at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., on July 13. The shooting left one rally attendee dead and two critically injured, and the unidentified gunman was killed by the Secret Service, according to that agency.

At Trump’s West Palm Beach, Fla., golf course on Sept. 15, a Secret Service agent scoping out the area one or two holes ahead of him saw the muzzle of an AK-47-style weapon pointing out of the tree line on the perimeter of the course.

Trump was unharmed in the second attempt on his life in two months.

FIRST ON FOX: The Heritage Foundation released its annual Election Integrity Scorecard on Tuesday, which ranks the states it believes are strongest in terms of election integrity, in a review that resulted in Arkansas topping the list. 

Arkansas, led by GOP Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, moved up from No. 8 and earned the No. 1 ranking in the new report that was compiled by looking at factors including voter ID implementation, accuracy of voting lists, absentee ballot management, verification of citizenship and other attributes. 

In a press release, Sanders touted several accomplishments in a recent legislative session, including Act 240, Act 241 and 218, which the state said “strengthened protections on Arkansas’ ballot amendment process so that bad actors cannot influence and change the Natural State’s Constitution.”

Sanders also signed legislation to prevent foreign entities from funding state and local measures.

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“My goal this session was simple: make it easy to vote and hard to cheat,” Sanders said in a statement. “I was proud to work with my friend, Secretary of State Cole Jester, to make Arkansas ballot boxes the safest and most secure in America and end petition fraud to protect our Constitution. Today’s announcement shows that all our hard work paid off.”

In a statement, Jester said, “As Secretary of State, I have said from day one we would have the most secure elections in the country.”

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Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP via Getty Images/File)

“I’m proud of the work my team has completed implementing new procedures and technology. None of this would be possible without the great work of Governor Sanders and the men and women of the Arkansas legislature.”

Jason Snead, executive director of the Honest Elections Project, told Fox News Digital that Sanders and the state of Arkansas “deserve serious credit” for their efforts at election integrity.

“States across the country should follow Arkansas’ lead by implementing these critical election reforms that make it easy to vote and hard to cheat,” Snead said.

Red states made up the entirety of the top-10 ranking and included Tennessee, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Oklahoma. 

The last of the states on the list included Oregon, Vermont, California and Hawaii.

Earlier this year, Snead’s Honest Elections Project released a guide, first reported by Fox News Digital, outlining what it said are must-needed reforms to be taken up in states across the country to ensure election integrity. 

The report listed more than a dozen “critical” measures ranging from voter ID to cleaning up voter rolls to banning foreign influence in elections.

“Election integrity ballot issues passed with flying colors across the board on election night,” Snead said at the time. “Now that state legislative sessions are starting up, lawmakers have a duty to fulfill the mandate the American people gave to make it easy to vote and hard to cheat.”