Politics
Trump asks U.S. Supreme Court to keep him on the ballot in Colorado
Former President Trump appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday to quickly reverse a Colorado state court decision that would keep him off the ballot there on the grounds that he engaged in insurrection against the United States.
Trump, who is the front-runner in polls for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, argued that the voters should decide who is elected to the nation’s highest office, and that state judges should not decide his eligibility. His lawyers wrote that the Colorado decision “would unconstitutionally disenfranchise millions of voters in Colorado and likely be used as a template to disenfranchise tens of millions of voters nationwide.”
While they did not propose a timetable, the lawyers said it was crucial that the court take up the issue urgently.
Trump’s team offered several reasons for overturning the Colorado court. One would be to rule that the president was not covered by Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, an argument that was adopted by a lower-level Colorado trial judge.
“Nothing that President Trump did ‘engaged’ in insurrection,” they said in defending his actions before the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. “President Trump never told his supporters to enter the Capitol, either in his speech at the Ellipse or in any of his statements or communications before or during the events at the Capitol.”
The Colorado Supreme Court became the first in the nation to hold that Trump is disqualified from holding office again. By a 4-3 vote, the state judges said Trump “engaged in insurrection” in a failed bid to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election.
But the state judges agreed to put their ruling on hold while Trump appealed to the U.S. high court. As a result, his name will appear on the state’s Republican primary ballots.
At issue more broadly is whether the former president may be disqualified from holding future office because he violated a provision of the 14th Amendment adopted after the Civil War.
The amendment, which is best known for having extended equal rights and liberties to all Americans, also sought to prevent ex-Confederates from holding office again. Section 3 says, “No person shall … hold any office, civil or military” who, “having previously taken an oath … to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same.”
For the last year, law professors and judges have been debating whether that provision applies to the Jan. 6 mob attack on the U.S. Capitol, and if so, how.
Trump has not been indicted for inciting an insurrection, although he faces other lesser criminal charges, including conspiring to obstruct an official proceeding.
Two years ago, he was impeached by the House for his role in the Jan. 6 attack, and 57 senators found him guilty. That was 10 votes short of the two-thirds of the Senate required for a conviction, which meant Trump was found not guilty of insurrection.
Acting on a suit brought by several Colorado Republicans, a state trial judge and the state Supreme Court majority said the evidence clearly demonstrated the former president used false claims of vote fraud to persuade his most fervent followers that the election had been stolen.
At his urging, tens of thousands came to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, and then marched to the Capitol seeking to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s victory.
“The record amply established that the events of January 6 constituted a concerted and public use of force or threat of force by a group of people to hinder or prevent the U.S. government from taking the actions necessary to accomplish the peaceful transfer of power in this country,” the Colorado judges wrote. “This constituted an insurrection.”
Moreover, the insurrection was fomented by the former president, they said. “President Trump’s direct and express efforts, over several months, exhorting his supporters to march to the Capitol to prevent what he falsely characterized as an alleged fraud on the people of this country were indisputably overt and voluntary. Moreover, the evidence amply showed that President Trump undertook all these actions to aid and further a common unlawful purpose that he himself conceived and set in motion: prevent Congress from certifying the 2020 presidential election and stop the peaceful transfer of power.”
Finally, they dismissed the legal claim that the presidency is not covered by Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
“President Trump asks us to hold that Section Three disqualifies every oath-breaking insurrectionist except the most powerful one and that it bars oath-breakers from virtually every office, both state and federal, except the highest one in the land. Both results are inconsistent with the plain language and history of Section Three,” they said.
Maine’s secretary of state said last week that she agreed with the Colorado ruling and would remove Trump’s name from her state’s primary ballot.
The United States and Iran traded missile fire and accusations on Thursday as tensions in the Strait of Hormuz ratcheted up, threatening an already fragile cease-fire.
U.S. Central Command said that American forces had “intercepted unprovoked Iranian attacks and responded with self-defense strikes” while U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyers were traversing the strait to the Gulf of Oman on Thursday.
In a statement, Central Command said Iranian forces launched multiple missiles, drones and small-boat attacks as three U.S. warships were transiting the strait. None of the American naval vessels were hit, Central Command said.
The U.S. vessels that were traversing the strait were the U.S.S. Truxtun, the U.S.S. Rafael Peralta and the U.S.S. Mason. The warships had steamed into the Persian Gulf earlier in the week as part of the Navy’s short-lived effort to guide merchant ships stranded in the Persian Gulf through the strait.
In response, U.S. forces struck targets on Qeshm Island and Bandar Abbas along the Iranian coast in the strait, U.S. officials said.
It was the latest twist in a head-spinning week in the region, as President Trump, searching for an off-ramp in the war that he started Feb. 28, has contradicted his senior administration officials on the state of the war, the state of American efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and the status of peace talks with Iran.
After the exchange of fire on Thursday, the president said the cease-fire was still in effect and downplayed the Iranian attacks.
“They trifled with us today,” Mr. Trump told reporters late Thursday. “We blew them away.”
The president added, however, that Iran needed to sign on “fast” to a proposal from the United States that would have both sides reach an agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and refrain from fighting for 30 days while they try to reach a comprehensive deal.
Even as the president and senior officials described peace negotiations that they said were advancing, Central Command has forcefully hit Iranian vessels that it says have violated an American-imposed blockade of the strait.
Central Command “eliminated inbound threats and targeted Iranian military facilities responsible for attacking U.S. forces, including missile and drone launch sites; command and control locations; and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance nodes,” the command’s Thursday statement said. It added that Central Command “does not seek escalation but remains positioned and ready to protect American forces.”
Iran, for its part, accused the United States of launching “unprovoked” attacks as the U.S. ships traversed the strait.
In a statement carried by state media, Iran’s armed forces said the U.S. military had violated the month-old cease-fire by carrying out airstrikes on Qeshm Island and two other cities on the country’s southern coast. Central Command said the ship attacks had emanated from those sites.
When asked if the U.S. response to the Iranian drone, missile and small-boat attacks went beyond self-defense, a senior U.S. military official said that an effective defense sometimes involves a carefully calibrated offense.
Erica L. Green contributed reporting.
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President Donald Trump praised White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles as “winning it decisively” in her battle with cancer after she revealed she was diagnosed nine weeks ago while accepting a major award Thursday night.
“It’s been especially inspiring to see her courage and toughness in recent weeks, and she’s been winning a battle with cancer and winning it decisively,” Trump said in a pre-recorded video message. “It was an early diagnosis, so she’s going to be in great shape.”
Wiles said during an onstage conversation that she would continue to work following the diagnosis.
“I come to work every day. I do my job, I don’t complain, and I think that sets an example, too, for the people I work with,” Wiles said.
WH CHIEF OF STAFF SUSIE WILES DIAGNOSED WITH EARLY STAGE BREAST CANCER, PROGNOSIS ‘EXCELLENT,’ TRUMP SAYS
President Donald Trump hosts a lunch with Kennedy Center Board members as Chief of Staff Susie Wiles looks on at the White House in Washington, D.C., on March 16, 2026. (Annabelle GORDON / AFP via Getty Images)
Trump surprised Wiles with the video as she accepted the Independent Women’s Forum Barbara K. Olson Woman of Valor Award at a gala in Washington, D.C.
He praised her as “the first female chief of staff in American history” and “one of the best White House chiefs of staff ever in history.”
“I say the best, actually,” Trump said, adding that he was “tremendously grateful” for her “friendship, loyalty and support every single day.”
TRUMP CHIEF OF STAFF PLEDGES NO ‘DRAMA’ OR SECOND-GUESSING IN WHITE HOUSE
White House chief of staff Susie Wiles listens as President Donald Trump announces the creation of the U.S. strategic critical minerals reserve in the Oval Office of the White House on Feb. 2, 2026, in Washington, D.C. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Wiles said she did not know the video was intended for the gala, despite briefly walking in while Trump was recording it.
“I walked in when he was filming it, but I didn’t know what it was for, and I kind of ducked out the back door,” she said.
Trump credited Wiles with playing a key role in each of his presidential campaigns, “especially in 2024,” and said his administration’s accomplishments have come with “her help and her leadership.”
TRUMP CHIEF OF STAFF SUSIE WILES RECOUNTS BUTLER ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT, THOUGHT PRESIDENT WAS DEAD AT FIRST
President Donald Trump and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles participate in an Invest America roundtable in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Monday, June 9, 2025. (Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“Susie, we have a problem. I say go to Susie,” Trump said. “We owe her a tremendous debt and what she’s done is just incredible for our country.”
Wiles, who described herself as a lifelong Republican, said her decision to back Trump in 2016 was one of the biggest risks of her career.
“I wanted a disrupter,” Wiles said. “I looked around at the disrupters in the field and said, I think Donald Trump’s the one.”
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Asked about her role now, Wiles said, “This is the path God chose for me. And I’m here, and I’m doing the best I can every day.”
The gala was held Thursday at the Waldorf Astoria in Washington, D.C.
Fox News Digital’s Ashley Carnahan and Alex Nitzberg contributed to this reporting.
SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom said his administration is “moving forward aggressively” to continue laying the groundwork for a giant tunnel beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to replumb the state’s water system.
“We got to move faster. Move faster,” Newsom said to regulators during a speech Thursday at a conference held by the Assn. of California Water Agencies. “We all have to be held to a higher level of accountability.”
California’s 40th governor provided a chronological look back at his water policies since taking office in 2019 and asserted the need to continue his effort to modernize state infrastructure to provide for cities and farms into the future.
Newsom cast the tunnel as a “climate adaptation project,” noting that climate change is projected to shrink the amount of water the state can deliver with its current infrastructure.
With his term expiring at the end of the year, Newsom acknowledged that he will soon “pass the baton” on water policy to the next governor. Democrat or Republican, that person could decide the fate of his signature water project.
“The Delta Conveyance, if we had it last year alone, would have provided enough water, in terms of what we could have captured with an updated system, enough water for 9.8 million Californians’ needs for over a year,” Newsom said. “We’ve got to get that done.”
Water has been a focus of the Newsom administration since his first day in office, when the governor took his cabinet to Monterey Park Tract, a rural Central Valley community that lacked access to safe drinking water.
Described by Newsom as “the forever problem” in California, water policy is also among the most politically contentious issues in the state.
The tunnel would create a second route to transport water from new intakes on the Sacramento River to the south side of the Delta, where pumps send water into the aqueducts of the State Water Project.
The project is particularly acrimonious, drawing out geographical battles between north and south and thorny fights between officials who want to build the tunnel and environmentalists and Delta residents seeking to protect the local ecosystem and their way of life.
Newsom and other supporters have said the tunnel would protect the state’s water system as climate change intensifies severe droughts and deluges. Opponents call the project a costly boondoggle, arguing it’s not necessary and would destroy the Delta.
It’s been mired with regulatory hurdles and other challenges for years.
The State Water Resources Control Board is considering a petition by the Newsom administration to amend permits so water could be tapped where the tunnel intakes would be built.
There have also been other complications. A state appeals court in December rejected the state’s plan for financing the project, and the California Supreme Court in April declined to take up the case. The state Department of Water Resources said it still plans to issue bonds to finance the project.
Other court challenges by Delta-area counties and environmental groups are also pending.
Whether the project is ultimately built may hinge on whether large water agencies, including the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, decide to participate and pay for its building.
State officials have said that the tunnel, called the Delta Conveyance Project, ultimately would be paid for by participating water agencies.
The state estimated in 2024 that the tunnel would cost $20.1 billion, while opponents say it could cost three to five times more than that.
In the last seven years, California has invested $11 billion in water infrastructure, Newsom said.
The Democratic governor reflected on other parts of his water policies, saying he has prioritized securing funds to provide clean drinking water to more communities where Californians live with contaminated tap water.
He said while there has been progress in bringing safe drinking water to more communities, there is still “a lot more work to be done.”
Newsom touted his administration’s investment in replenishing groundwater in the Central Valley and its efforts supporting plans to build the Sites Reservoir near Sacramento.
Newsom said the Sites Reservoir is critical for the state’s future, and he indicated some frustration about the pace at which it’s advancing.
“We’ve got to do the groundbreaking at Sites,” he said. “If you can’t agree to an off-stream investment in this world of weather whiplash, we’re as dumb as we want to be.”
He said his administration has also made progress on environmental projects including restoring wetlands around the shrinking Salton Sea, removing dams on the Klamath River, and developing a strategy to help salmon, which have suffered major declines in recent years.
Touching on issues that generate heated debate, Newsom talked about a controversial plan for new water rules in the Delta that relies on so-called voluntary agreements in which water agencies would contribute funding for wetland habitat restoration projects and other measures.
Newsom described the approach, called the Healthy Rivers and Landscapes program, as a solution to break away from the traditional conflict-ridden regulatory approach and improve the Delta’s ecological health.
“Got to maintain the vigilance on these voluntary agreements. At peril, we go back to our old ways,” he said.
Environmental advocates argue that the proposed approach, which is widely supported by water agencies, would take too much water out of the Delta and threaten native fish that are already in severe decline.
Newsom said climate change is increasingly driving “weather whiplash” in California and that the state must prepare. He noted that his tenure included the extreme drought from 2020-22, followed by extremely wet conditions in 2023, which revived Tulare Lake on thousands of acres of farmland.
He said the state needs to manage water differently because the effects of climate change have been apparent over the last several years: “The hots were getting a lot hotter, the dries were getting a lot drier, and the wets were getting a lot wetter.”
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