Executive Orders and Memorandums

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    This Is What Autocracy Looks Like

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    Since Donald Trump was elected again, I’ve feared one scenario above all others: that he’d call out the military against people protesting his mass deportations, putting America on the road to martial law. Even in my more outlandish imaginings, however, I thought that he’d need more of a pretext to put troops on the streets of an American city — against the wishes of its mayor and governor — than the relatively small protests that broke out in Los Angeles last week.In a post-reality environment, it turns out, the president didn’t need to wait for a crisis to launch an authoritarian crackdown. Instead, he can simply invent one.It’s true that some of those protesting Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in Los Angeles have been violent; on Sunday one man was arrested for allegedly tossing a Molotov cocktail at a police officer, and another was accused of driving a motorcycle into a line of cops. Such violence should be condemned both because it’s immoral and because it’s wildly counterproductive; each burning Waymo or smashed storefront is an in-kind gift to the administration.But the idea that Trump needed to put soldiers on the streets of the city because riots were spinning out of control is pure fantasy. “Today, demonstrations across the city of Los Angeles remained peaceful, and we commend all those who exercised their First Amendment rights responsibly,” said a statement issued by the Los Angeles Police Department on Saturday evening. That was the same day Trump overrode Gov. Gavin Newsom and federalized California’s National Guard, under a rarely used law meant to deal with “rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the government of the United States.”Then, on Monday, with thousands of National Guard troops already deployed to the city, the administration said it was also sending 700 Marines. The Los Angeles police don’t seem to want the Marines there; in a statement, the police chief, Jim McDonnell, said, “The arrival of federal military forces in Los Angeles — absent clear coordination — presents a significant logistical and operational challenge for those of us charged with safeguarding this city.” But for Trump, safeguarding the city was never the point.It’s important to understand that for this administration, protests needn’t be violent to be considered an illegitimate uprising. The presidential memorandum calling out the National Guard refers to both violent acts and any protests that “inhibit” law enforcement. That definition would seem to include peaceful demonstrations around the site of ICE raids. In May, for example, armed federal agents stormed two popular Italian restaurants in San Diego looking for undocumented workers; they handcuffed staff members and took four people into custody. As they did so, an outraged crowd gathered outside, chanting “shame” and for a time blocking the agents from leaving. Under Trump’s order, the military could target these people as insurrectionists.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Signs Executive Orders Intended to Jolt U.S. Drone Manufacturing

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      President Trump also eased restrictions on commercial drone flights and called for the revival of supersonic flights for nonmilitary aircraft.President Trump on Friday signed executive orders aimed at bolstering the U.S. drone industry, cracking down on unauthorized, unmanned flights and countering threats to national security and public safety.The orders sought to expand opportunities for commercial and recreational drone use, and tighten restrictions to address security threats. American officials have been concerned about foreign adversaries using drones to spy on sensitive areas, including military installations, and about China’s dominance of the drone market, which they see as a national security threat.“Building a strong and secure domestic drone sector is vital to reducing reliance on foreign sources, strengthening critical supply chains and ensuring that the benefits of this technology are delivered to the American people,” one of the orders said.Mr. Trump’s drone orders were part of a broader federal push into airborne technology. A third order he signed on Friday sought to revive high-speed commercial air travel, by repealing regulations prohibiting cross-country supersonic flights, which for decades have precluded nonmilitary air travel over land at faster-than-sound speeds.Democratic and Republican administrations, as well as Congress, have grappled in recent years with the risks posed by Beijing’s role in drone manufacturing. The United States has struggled to develop alternatives at a scale necessary to wean drone operators, including the U.S. military, completely off Chinese components.At the same time, the growing popularity of both commercial and recreational drones, and an increase in incidents of drones flying over sensitive sites, have heightened demand for regulations.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Orders Investigation of Biden and His Aides

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      The executive order is the latest effort by President Trump to stoke outlandish conspiracy theories about his predecessor and question the legality of his actions in office.President Trump ordered his White House counsel and the attorney general on Wednesday to investigate former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his staff in Mr. Trump’s latest attempt to stoke outlandish conspiracy theories about his predecessor.In an executive order, Mr. Trump put the power and resources of the federal government to work examining whether some of Mr. Biden’s presidential actions were legally invalid because his aides had enacted those policies without his knowledge.The executive order came after Mr. Trump shared a social media post over the weekend that claimed Mr. Biden had been “executed in 2020” and replaced by a robotic clone, following a pattern of suggestions by the president and his allies that Mr. Biden was a mentally incapacitated puppet of his aides.The former president called such claims “ridiculous and false” in a statement on Wednesday after the order’s release.“Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency,” he said. “I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation and proclamations.”The order comes after disclosure in recent weeks that Mr. Biden, 82, had received a diagnosis of advanced prostate cancer and in the wake of renewed scrutiny of his health during his presidency.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Some House Republicans Have Regrets After Passing Trump’s Domestic Policy Bill

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      The sprawling legislation carrying President Trump’s domestic agenda squeaked through the House with one vote to spare, but some Republicans now say they didn’t realize what they voted for.When Republicans muscled their sweeping domestic policy bill through the House by a single vote after an overnight debate, they breathed a sigh of relief, enjoyed a celebratory moment at sunrise and then retreated to their districts for a weeklong recess.Not even two weeks later, the victory has, for some, given way to regret.It turns out that the sprawling legislation to advance tax and spending cuts and to cement much of President Trump’s domestic agenda included a raft of provisions that drew little notice or debate on the House floor. And now, Republicans who rallied behind the bill are claiming buyer’s remorse about measures they swear they did not know were included.Last week, Representative Mike Flood of Nebraska admitted during a town hall meeting in his district that he did not know that the bill would limit judges’ power to hold people in contempt for violating court orders. He would not have voted for the measure, he said, if he had realized.And as lawmakers returned to Washington on Tuesday after their weeklong break, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia said that she had been unaware that the mega-bill she voted for would block states from regulating artificial intelligence for a decade.“Full transparency, I did not know about this section,” Ms. Greene posted on social media, calling it a violation of states’ rights and adding that she “would have voted NO if I had known this was in there.”The remorseful statements highlighted the realities of legislating in the modern age. Members of Congress, divided bitterly along partisan lines and often working against self-imposed political deadlines, have become accustomed to having their leaders throw together huge pieces of legislation at the very last moment — and often do not read the entirety of the bill they are voting on, if they read any of it at all. At the same time, the polarization of Congress means that few pieces of legislation make it to the floor or to enactment — and the few “must pass” bills that do are almost always stuffed full of unrelated policy measures that would otherwise have little hope of passing on their own.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Court Debates Whether a Climate Lawsuit Threatens National Security

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      The judge asked lawyers how a suit by Charleston, S.C., claiming oil companies misled people about climate risks, might be affected by a Trump executive order blasting cases like these.Two teams of high-powered lawyers clashed this week in Charleston, S.C., over a global-warming question with major implications: Do climate lawsuits against oil companies threaten national security, as President Trump has claimed?In the lawsuit, the City of Charleston is arguing that oil companies including ExxonMobil, Chevron and about a dozen others carried out a sophisticated, decades-long misinformation campaign to cover up what they knew about the dangers of climate change.There are some three dozen similar cases around the country, and recently Mr. Trump issued an executive order calling the lawsuits a threat to national security, saying they could lead to crippling damages. The hearings in Charleston were the first time lawyers had to grapple in a courtroom with the president’s assertions.Mr. Trump’s executive order was the opening salvo in a broad new attack by his administration against climate lawsuits targeting oil companies. Citing the executive order, the Justice Department this month filed unusual lawsuits against Hawaii and Michigan seeking to prevent them from filing their own climate-change suits. (Hawaii filed its suit anyway, and Michigan’s attorney general has signaled that she will also be proceeding.)In court hearings in Charleston on Thursday and Friday, Judge Roger M. Young Sr. asked each side to weigh in on the order as they sparred over the companies’ motions to dismiss the case, which was filed in 2020.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Youth Climate Activists Sue Trump Administration Over Executive Orders

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      The complaint argues that orders aimed at increasing American fossil fuel production infringe on the rights of young people to a healthy environment.Young people who sued state governments over climate change have begun a legal challenge aimed at President Trump’s spate of executive orders on climate and the environment.The lawsuit, filed Thursday in federal court in Montana, argues that three of the executive orders are unconstitutional and would cripple the clean energy industry, suppress climate science and worsen global warming.The 22 plaintiffs, ranging in age from seven to 25 years old, are mostly from Montana, as well as Hawaii, Oregon, and other states, and are represented by the nonprofit legal group Our Children’s Trust. That group has notched two important legal victories in recent years, winning cases against the state of Montana and the Hawaii Department of Transportation.“Trump’s fossil fuel orders are a death sentence for my generation,” said Eva Lighthiser, 19, the named plaintiff. “I’m not suing because I want to. I’m suing because I have to. My health, my future, and my right to speak the truth are all on the line.”The plaintiffs argue that they are already experiencing harms from a warming planet in the form of wildfires, drought and hurricanes, and that Mr. Trump’s executive orders will make conditions even worse. They say the executive orders violate their Fifth Amendment rights to life and liberty by infringing on their health, safety and prospects for the future.Further, they argue that the orders constitute executive overreach, because the president cannot unilaterally override federal laws like the Clean Air Act.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Marshals’ Data Shows Spike in Threats Against Federal Judges

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      Data gathered by the law enforcement agency responsible for judicial security showed 162 judges faced threats between March 1 and April 14.Threats against federal judges have risen drastically since President Trump took office, according to internal data compiled by the U.S. Marshals Service.In the five-month period leading up to March 1 of this year, 80 individual judges had received threats, the data shows.Then, over the next six weeks, an additional 162 judges received threats, a dramatic increase. That spike in threats coincided with a flood of harsh rhetoric — often from Mr. Trump himself — criticizing judges who have ruled against the administration and, in some cases, calling on Congress to impeach them.Many judges have already spoken out, worrying about the possibility of violence and urging political leaders to tone things down.Since mid-April, the pace of the threats has slowed slightly, the data shows. Between April 14 and May 27, it shows 35 additional individual judges received threats. Still, the total number of judges threatened this fiscal year — 277 — represents roughly a third of the judiciary.The threat data was not released publicly but was provided to The New York Times by Judge Esther Salas of Federal District Court for New Jersey, who said she obtained it from the Marshals Service, which is tasked by law with overseeing security for the judiciary.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Future of Black History Lives on Donald Trump’s Front Lawn

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      I don’t know why I was surprised when President Trump went after the Smithsonian Institution, in particular the National Museum of African American History and Culture — or as it’s more informally known, the Black Smithsonian. If anything, I should have been surprised he held off for two months. On March 27, he issued “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” an executive order that accused the Smithsonian Institution of having “come under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology.” He called out the Black Smithsonian in particular for being subject “to ideological indoctrination or divisive narratives that distort our shared history.” The federal government, he declared, will no longer support historical projects that “degrade shared American values” or “divide Americans based on race.”I think Mr. Trump’s presidency is a national tragedy. But a stopped clock is right twice a day, and I have some sympathy for the concerns he raised about the agenda of much historical thinking these days. Too often it indulges in sloppy and even childish stereotypes, depicting America’s past as one extended hit job.The boldness of the American experiment, the emergence of the Constitution, the evolution of public schooling, the expansion of the right to vote, the rise of the conservationism and the flourishing of our diverse cultural life — reducing all of this to the machinations of a sinister white cabal is, like the 1980s power ballad, seductive but vapid. That white lady at the supermarket with her 6-year-old daughter has organized her life around defending her privilege? I’m not seeing it.President Trump visited the National Museum of African American History in 2017.Doug Mills/The New York TimesI shudder at suggestions that — as a graphic on the Black Smithsonian’s own website put it a few years ago — “objective, rational, linear thinking,” “quantitative emphasis” and “decision-making” are the purview of white culture. I despise equally the idea that Black people are communal, oral, “I’ll get to that tomorrow” sorts who like to circle around the answer rather than actually arrive at it.And I am especially dismayed at how this version of history implies that the most interesting thing about the experience of Black Americans has been their encounter with whiteness. I figured that the president was being typically hyperbolic when he said that institutions like the museum deepen “societal divides and fosters a sense of national shame, disregarding the progress America has made and the ideals that continue to inspire millions around the globe” — I mean, even something as stupid as that guide to whiteness might just be an outlying mistake. But I was wary that a national museum might squander its chance to illuminate complex topics and expand people’s curiosity, instead trying to corral everyone into caricatures and oversimplifications. As I read the executive order, however, it occurred to me that after all these years, I had yet to actually visit the museum. So, on a sunny Friday afternoon, I decided to zip over to the National Mall to take a look. I will not soon forget what I saw.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      An Afrikaner Farming Family Trades South Africa for Alabama

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      Errol Langton and eight members of his family were among the first group of white South Africans to arrive in the United States this week after President Trump created an expedited path to citizenship.The Afrikaner family of nine looked around the small office space in Birmingham, Ala., feeling jet-lagged as they took in their new surroundings. Errol Langton, the patriarch of the white South African family, had spent much of his time so far with a pen in hand, signing required documents at a refugee coordinating office.His granddaughter played with toy blocks on the floor. His oldest son watched over her. They had just eaten noodles. Later, they would spend time looking for apartments.“Everybody still doesn’t believe that we’re actually standing here,” Mr. Langton, 48, said in an interview, about 40 hours after landing at Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport. His family was among the first group of 59 South Africans who arrived in the United States this week, about three months after President Trump signed an executive order establishing refugee status for Afrikaners, the white ethnic minority that ruled during apartheid.The president essentially halted all refugee admission programs on his first day in office. But he soon created an expedited pathway for Afrikaners, who claim they have been discriminated against and subjected to violence because of their race, or have reason to believe they will be.Now, the Langton family has traded its South African hometown on the beach, Hibberdene, for a southern American city thousands of miles away. But Mr. Langton said he felt much safer already, as did his extended family who had joined him: his wife, son, three daughters, son-in-law and two grandchildren.Mr. Langton has a brother in Birmingham. But he said another factor had also drawn his family to the state.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More