Politics
Supreme Court sounds ready to give Trump power to oust officials of independent agencies
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court’s conservatives sounded ready on Monday to overrule Congress and give President Trump more power to fire officials at independent agencies and commissions.
The justices heard arguments on whether Trump could fire Rebecca Slaughter, one of two Democratic appointees on the five-member Federal Trade Commission.
The case poses a clash between Congress’ power to structure the government versus the president’s “executive power.”
A ruling for Trump portends a historic shift in the federal government — away from bipartisan experts and toward more partisan control by the president.
Trump’s Solicitor General D. John Sauer said the court should overturn a 1935 decision that upheld independent agencies. The decision “was grievously wrong when decided. It must be overruled,” he told the court.
The court’s three liberals strongly argued against what they called a “radical change” in American government.
If the president is free to fire the leaders of independent agencies, they said, the longstanding civil service laws could be struck down as well.
It would put “massive, uncontrolled and unchecked power in the hands of the president,” Justice Elena Kagan said.
But the six conservatives said they were concerned that these agencies were exercising “executive power” that is reserved to the president.
It was not clear, however, whether the court will rule broadly to cover all independent agencies or focus narrowly on the FTC and other similar commissions.
For most of American history, Congress has created independent boards and commissions to carry out specific missions, each led by a board of experts who were appointed with a fixed term.
But the court’s current conservative majority has contended these commissions and boards are unconstitutional if their officials cannot be fired at will by a new president.
Past presidents had signed those measures into law, and a unanimous Supreme Court upheld them 90 years ago in a case called Humphrey’s Executor vs. U.S.
In creating such bodies, Congress often was responding to the problems of a new era.
The Interstate Commerce Commission was created in 1887 to regulate railroad rates. The FTC, the focus of the court case, was created in 1914 to investigate corporate monopolies. The year before, the Federal Reserve Board was established to supervise banks, prevent panics and regulate the money supply.
During the Great Depression of the 1930s, Congress created the Securities and Exchange Commission to regulate the stock market and the National Labor Relations Board to resolve labor disputes.
Decades later, Congress focused on safety. The National Transportation Safety Board was created to investigate aviation accidents, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission investigates products that may pose a danger. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission protects the public from nuclear hazards.
Typically, Congress gave the appointees, a mix of Republicans and Democrats, a fixed term and said they could be removed only for “inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.”
Slaughter was first appointed by Trump to a Democratic seat and was reappointed by President Biden in 2023 for a seven-year term.
But conservatives often long derided these agencies and commissions as an out-of-control “administrative state,” and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said he believes their independence from direct presidential control is unconstitutional.
“The President’s power to remove — and thus supervise — those who wield executive power on his behalf follows from the text” of the Constitution, he wrote last year in his opinion, which declared for the first time that a president has immunity from being prosecuted later for crimes while in office.
Roberts spoke for a 6-3 majority in setting out an extremely broad view of presidential power while limiting the authority of Congress.
The Constitution in Article I says Congress “shall have the power…to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution…all other powers vested” in the U.S. government. Article II says, “the executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States.”
The current court majority believes that the president’s executive power prevails over the power of Congress to set limits by law.
“Congress lacks authority to control the President’s ‘unrestricted power of removal’ with respect to executive officers of the United States,” Roberts wrote last year in Trump vs. United States.
Four months later, Trump won reelection and moved quickly to fire a series of Democratic appointees who had fixed terms set by Congress. Slaughter, along with several other fired appointees, sued, citing the law and her fixed term. They won before federal district judges and the U.S. Court of Appeals.
But Trump’s lawyers filed emergency appeals at the Supreme Court, and the justices, by 6-3 votes, sided with the president and against the fired officials.
In September, the court said it would hear arguments in the case of Trump vs. Slaughter to decide on whether to overturn the Humphrey’s Executor decision.
At the time, conservatives applauded the move. “For far too long, Humphrey’s Executor has allowed unaccountable agencies like the FTC to wield executive power without meaningful oversight,” said Cory Andrews, general counsel for the Washington Legal Foundation.
In defense of the 1935 decision, law professors noted the court said that these independent boards were not purely executive agencies, but also had legislative and judicial duties, like adopting regulations or resolving labor disputes.
During Monday’s argument, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said the principle of “democratic accountability” called for deferring to Congress, not the president.
“Congress decided that some matters should be handled by nonpartisan experts. They said expertise matters with respect to the economy and transportation. So having the president come in and fire all the scientists and the doctors and the economists and the PhDs and replacing them with loyalists is actually is not in the best interest of the citizens of the United States,” she said.
But that argument gained no traction with Roberts and the conservatives. They said the president is elected and has the executive authority to control federal agencies.
The only apparent doubt involved the Federal Reserve Board, whose independence is prized by business. The Chamber of Commerce said the court should overrule the 1935 decision, but carve out an exception for the Federal Reserve.
Trump’s lawyer grudgingly agreed. If “an exception to the removal power exists,” he wrote in his brief in the Slaughter case, it should be “an agency-specific anomaly” limited to the Federal Reserve.
Politics
Trump stirs GOP primary drama with visit to Massie’s Kentucky home turf
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President Donald Trump is taking his feud with Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., to the libertarian lawmaker’s home turf on Wednesday.
Trump is expected to hold an event in Hebron, Kentucky, on Wednesday, the Republican Party of Kentucky announced on social media Monday. It’s located in the northern part of the state’s 4th Congressional District, which Massie represents.
Massie’s primary rival, Ed Gallrein, will attend the Hebron event, his campaign confirmed to Fox News Digital on Tuesday, while deferring all other questions on the matter to the White House.
Massie himself will miss the event due to a previously scheduled official engagement, his spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
KHANNA AND MASSIE THREATEN TO FORCE A VOTE ON IRAN AS PROSPECT OF US ATTACK LOOMS
President Donald Trump will be visiting Rep. Thomas Massie’s congressional district on Wednesday. (Win McNamee/Getty Images; Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)
When asked about the visit, White House spokeswoman Liz Huston told Fox News Digital, “President Trump will visit the great states of Ohio and Kentucky on Wednesday to tout his economic victories and detail his Administration’s aggressive, ongoing efforts to lower prices and make America more affordable.”
The president has thrown his considerable influence behind Gallrein to unseat Massie after the GOP lawmaker publicly defied Trump on multiple occasions.
MASSIE, KHANNA TO VISIT DOJ TO REVIEW UNREDACTED EPSTEIN FILES
Massie most recently was one of two House Republicans to vote to stop Trump’s joint operation in Iran with Israel, though the legislation was successfully blocked by the majority of GOP lawmakers and a handful of Democrats.
Ed Gallrein, left, seen with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House. (Ed Gallrein congressional campaign)
He was also one of two Republicans to vote against Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” last year.
Trump in turn has hurled a slew of personal attacks against Massie, including calling him “weak and pathetic” in a statement endorsing Gallrein in October.
“He only votes against the Republican Party, making life very easy for the Radical Left. Unlike ‘lightweight’ Massie, a totally ineffective LOSER who has failed us so badly, CAPTAIN ED GALLREIN IS A WINNER WHO WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN,” Trump posted on Truth Social at the time, one of numerous criticisms targeting the Kentucky Republican through the years.
He called Massie the “worst Republican congressman” in July amid Massie’s bipartisan push to force the Department of Justice (DOJ) to release its files on Jeffrey Epstein.
Then-Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, Rep. Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, and Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California, during a news conference outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025. (Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
But Massie has so far appeared to defy political gravity despite making political enemies out of both Trump and House GOP leaders.
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He handily defeated multiple primary challengers in 2024 and 2022, despite public feuds with Trump, and has served his district since 2012.
Gallrein is a retired Navy SEAL and farmer who launched his campaign days after Trump made his endorsement. Their primary election day is May 19.
Politics
California Democrats launch pricey polling effort to winnow crowded gubernatorial field
As anxiety mounts among California Democrats about the potential of a Republican being elected governor, the state party will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on polling to assess the viability of the sprawling field of candidates hoping to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom, according to plans released Tuesday.
The move comes after nearly every Democratic candidate refused party leaders’ call last week to withdraw from the race to avoid splitting the vote in the June primary — an outcome that could lead to a Republican being elected to statewide office for the first time in two decades.
“Candidates have filed, and now they’ve got the opportunity to showcase their viability, their path to win. I want to simply ensure that everybody has information to fully understand the current state of the race,” said Rusty Hicks, the leader of the California Democratic Party.
As campaign season ramps up, the series of six polls will allow “candidates, supporters, the media, voters, anyone and everyone to have a clear understanding of what is or is not happening in this particular race,” he said.
The filing deadline to appear on the June 2 ballot was Friday. Three days earlier, Hicks released an open letter urging candidates who did not have a path to victory to withdraw from the race. Of the nine prominent Democrats who had announced runs for governor, only one heeded his call: former state Assembly Majority Leader Ian Calderon.
That means the eight other candidates’ names will appear on the ballot, regardless of whether they decide to later drop out. And that creates the possibility of a Republican winning the race because of how California elections are decided.
The state has a voter-approved top-two primary system, under which the two candidates who receive the most votes in the June primary advance to the November general election, regardless of party.
Two prominent Republicans will appear on the ballot: former conservative commentator Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco. Even though Democratic voters outnumber Republicans nearly 2 to 1, and the state’s electorate last elevated Republicans to statewide office in 2006, it is mathematically possible for Democrats to splinter the vote, allowing the two GOP candidates to advance.
Under such a scenario, not only would Republicans be guaranteed the leadership of the nation’s most-populous state, but Democratic voter turnout also would probably be depressed in November, potentially affecting down-ballot races such as those that could determine control of Congress.
Hicks’ call last week prompted concerns among candidates of color, including former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and state Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, that the effort was aimed at every nonwhite candidate in the race.
The state party chairman responded that his letter was not aimed at any specific candidate.
“It’s not something I lose sleep over,” Hicks said when asked about the racial claims. But he added that the voter surveys will be conducted by Los Angeles-based Evitarus, the state’s only Black- and Latino-led full-service polling firm, and will oversample historically underrepresented communities: Latino, Black and Asian American voters.
Hicks said the polling will cost “multiple six figures” but did not specify the exact amount.
The first poll will be released on March 24, and then five additional surveys will come out every seven to 10 days until voters start receiving mail ballots in early May.
“We’re putting this forward to ensure everyone is armed with the information they need to clearly have an eyes-wide-open assessment of where the state of the race currently is between now and when ballots land in the mailboxes of voters,” Hicks said.
Politics
Trump reveals top issues GOP should focus on to secure midterms victory: ‘I’ve never been more confident’
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President Donald Trump outlined five key items he believes will tip the upcoming midterm elections in the GOP’s favor — if Republicans can muscle them through Congress.
“No transgender mutilation surgery for our children,” Trump told an audience at the Republican Members’ Issues Conference. “Voter ID, citizenship [verification], mail-in ballots, we don’t want men playing in women’s sports.”
“It’s the best of Trump. Those are the best of Trump. This is the number one priority, it should be, for the House,” Trump said.
Trump’s exhortations to Republican lawmakers come as the GOP wages an uphill campaign to hang on to a controlling majority in the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. He framed his legislative priorities as a way for Republicans to capitalize on popular demands within the GOP base that would increase their chances of preserving a Republican governing trifecta.
President Donald Trump gestures as he boards Air Force One before departing Palm Beach International Airport in West Palm Beach, Florida, on March 1, 2026. (Mandel Ngan / AFP via Getty Images)
HOUSE REPUBLICANS PUSH ELECTION OVERHAUL WITH VOTER ID, MAIL-IN BALLOT CHANGES AHEAD OF MIDTERMS
Currently, Republicans hold just four more seats than Democrats in the House of Representatives.
The GOP holds six more than Democrats in the Senate.
To keep the numbers in their favor, Republicans will need to beat historical trends. In the vast majority of past cases, parties that capture the White House in presidential elections face blowback in the midterms. Notably, the last time a majority party gained seats in both chambers of Congress in the midterms came under the Bush administration in 2002, following devastating attacks on the World Trade Center.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, left, and President Donald Trump shake hands during an Invest America roundtable in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, District of Columbia, on June 9, 2025. (Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
REPUBLICANS, TRUMP RUN INTO SENATE ROADBLOCK ON VOTER ID BILL
Trump said he believes Republicans have a shot at bucking the trend come November if they focus on his list.
“It’ll guarantee the midterms,” Trump said of his legislative priorities.
Republicans have already taken strikes towards two of them through the SAVE America Act, a piece of legislation that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote and cast a ballot. That bill cleared the House last month for a second time in the 119th Congress.
Its future is uncertain in the Senate, where Republicans would need the assistance of seven Democrats to overcome the 60-vote threshold to defeat a filibuster. Democrats, for their part, believe the legislation would disenfranchise voters who cannot readily provide documented proof of citizenship through a passport, REAL ID, or birth certificate.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D. has promised a vote on the package despite its long odds.
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, talks with a guest during a “Only Citizens Vote Bus Tour” rally in Upper Senate Park to urge Congress to pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act on Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2025. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
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Several members have introduced bills on transgender issues, although none of them have cleared either chamber.
“I’ve never been more confident that if we keep these promises and deliver on this popular agenda, the American people will stand with us in overwhelming numbers, just as they did in 2024,” Trump said.
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