UNBIASED Politics (5/29/25): Does the Big Beautiful Bill Give Trump the Ability to Cancel/Delay Elections? Take Away Courts' Ability to Enforce Orders? PLUS New Trump's Tariffs on the Chopping Block, and More.
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How many people have asked you if they can tell you about their pajamas and bed sheets? Well, consider me the first because I will never be over talking about mine. My obsession started with the sheets, okay? The Cozy Earth Bamboo Sheet Set. From there, there was really no going back. I eventually had to invest in the Cozy Earth Bamboo Pajamas.

So the sheets, they completely changed my sleep. I can't wait to get in bed at night for one. Two, they're so soft. That was the first thing I noticed when I got them. But then after the first night's sleep with the sheets, you realize that the temperature regulating nature of the sheets is everything.

I'll never forget when Cozy Earth first started sponsoring the show. I got to, you know, first, it was the first time I had really expressed my love for Cozy Earth. And not long after that, one of my listeners emailed me saying he had pulled the trigger on the sheets and he was so excited.

so happy he did. He was a grad student. He said how his sleep was so important to him and that the sheets were just a game changer. The email seriously made my month, I would say, but then again, I'm still talking about it now, so maybe it made my year. Luxury should not be out of reach. Use code unbiased for 40% off best-selling sheets, pajamas, and more. Trust me, you won't regret it. That is

CozyEarth.com. Code unbiased for 40% off. Sanctuary awaits at Cozy Earth. Welcome back to Unbiased, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis.

Welcome back to Unbiased Politics. Today is Thursday, May 29th. Let's talk about some news. As a reminder, I do have another Unbiased Society newsletter going out tomorrow morning, so be sure to subscribe to my sub stack if you are not subscribed already. It's completely free. You just need an email address and every Tuesday and Friday morning, you'll get a little newsletter from me filling you in on the biggest political, pop culture, health, international, and business news headlines.

I always have a link to subscribe in the episode notes of each episode, but you can also find the newsletter by just going to substack.com or the Substack app and searching for Unbiased Society. And now, without further ado, let's talk about some news.

On Monday, Deputy Director of the FBI Dan Bongino announced a new renewed focus on three high-profile unresolved cases that have captured the public's interest. So those three cases include the 2023 discovery of cocaine at the White House, the 2022 leak of the Supreme Court's draft opinion in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization case, and then the 2021 placement of pipe bomb

near the Democratic and Republican National Committee headquarters the night before January 6th. Bongino stated that these cases are being revisited because of their implications for public corruption and national security, and that the FBI will be allocating additional resources and conducting weekly briefings to further these investigations.

So what I want to do here is quickly revisit each of these three cases and talk about what happened just so we're all on the same page. We will talk about them in chronological order. So the first case involves pipe bombs placed near the Democratic and Republican National Committee headquarters on January 5th, 2021. Now, the device has never detonated, but surveillance footage captured images of a masked and

individual, presumably a man based on the footage, placing the bombs near the DNC and RNC headquarters. To date, that suspect remains unidentified. Since the reopening of the investigation or the announcement of the reopening of the investigation, the FBI released new video footage and continues to offer a $500,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest.

The second case involves the unauthorized disclosure of the Supreme Court's draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. This is the case that overturned Roe v. Wade. So because of that leak, people kind of knew before the opinion was officially released by the Supreme Court that the court was going to be overturning Roe v. Wade.

Now, something about the Supreme Court is that it keeps its decisions very much under wraps, right? Justices and clerks have strict confidentiality rules that they have to abide by, and the number of people who have access to decisions before they are released is very much limited and controlled.

When asked in 2022, several Supreme Court historians, former law clerks, and other court watchers said that they couldn't recall any other previous instance where a draft opinion was disclosed. You know, of course, before this happened with Dobbs.

While we have seen smaller scale information leaks with items like memos or, you know, maybe indications of how one particular justice is leaning in a particular case, an entire draft decision leak had been unprecedented until the Dobbs case.

So following the leak, Chief Justice Roberts initiated this internal investigation. And after eight months of investigating, the Supreme Court released a report in January 2023 saying that they were unable to identify who was responsible. The

only real conclusion that the investigation was able to come to was that it was likely that the court's IT systems were improperly accessed by someone outside the court. So the FBI's renewed investigation aims to determine who actually leaked

And then finally, the third case involves a small bag of cocaine that was discovered on July 2nd, 2023 in a cubby near the West Wing entrance of the White House.

The incident led to a temporary evacuation of the White House and a subsequent investigation by the Secret Service, which again ended without identifying a suspect. The Secret Service said there was a lack of physical evidence like fingerprints or surveillance footage. So again, the FBI's reopening of this case seeks to identify the individual responsible.

In making the announcement on Monday, Bongino emphasized that these cases will receive heightened attention due to their unresolved nature and the potential implications for public trust in government institutions. He's also asked anyone with any relevant information to come forward.

Moving on to the next story, on Tuesday, National Public Radio, better known as NPR, filed a lawsuit against the administration over the president's recent executive order cutting funding for both NPR and PBS. So let's refresh our memories a bit as to what that executive order said, and then we'll talk about what NPR is alleging in its new lawsuit.

Earlier this month, President Trump signed an executive order titled Ending Taxpayer Subsidation of Biased Media, which directed this independent government agency called the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, or CPB, to immediately stop providing both direct and indirect funding to NPR and PBS.

The order cited the, quote, inherent political bias, end quote, of both NPR and PBS as its rationale and accused both organizations of promoting left-wing propaganda.

Because media outlets are supposed to remain neutral and objective, according to the administration, no additional taxpayer dollars should be spent on supporting NPR or PBS. Specific examples cited to in the order include NPR's reporting on the origins of COVID and its early skepticism about the Hunter Biden laptop story.

Now, the implications of this order are particularly significant for local media stations, not so much PBS and NPR as national organizations. And here's why.

Currently, the CPB receives about $535 million from Congress each year. A majority of these funds, about 70%, are used to provide grants to thousands of local stations nationwide. And this is to ensure that news and telecommunications are accessible to the public. That was the whole purpose of setting up CPB in the first place, which we'll talk about more in a minute.

So Congress appropriates funds to CPB and then CPB distributes those funds to more than 1,500 local, rural, and urban public media stations in the form of community service grants. Those stations then use those grants to either produce their own programming or they can purchase programming from services like NPR and PBS that are then broadcast to local audiences.

NPR as a national organization barely uses any direct federal funds. Less than 1% of its annual operating budget is from federal funds. However, as you can maybe see, it's the local stations that purchase programming from NPR and PBS

that would be most affected because if those local stations can't receive the federal grants since that grant money ultimately goes to NPR, that's where the damage is, right? I'll give you some real world examples just to illustrate this.

One, and I gave you these examples in a previous episode, so if you were there for that episode where I originally talked about this executive order, this may seem a little bit redundant, but for those of you who didn't catch it, this is what's going on. So one local radio station in Austin, Texas called KU2 Radio is the NPR station for Austin, Texas.

According to KUT's website, 90% of its roughly $14 million annual budget actually comes from private donations from individuals and businesses. Only 6% of its budget comes from the CPB in the form of grants. So a station like KUT wouldn't be as affected if the CPB funding were to stop, right?

Other stations, though, rely more on federal funding. So there's a PBS affiliate called KLRU. It received just over $2 million in CPB funding, which is about 12% of its total budget. KLRU would obviously see more of an impact without that 12% than KUT would without its 6%. Another station, Marfa Public Radio, it's based in West Texas. They actually said they could lose up to one third of their budget without federal funds.

So what we can see from this is that the cuts in federal funding would likely have the most impact on smaller rural public radio and TV stations. And that's just because the bigger, more urban stations have more access to private donations. So they don't rely as much on federal funds.

Because of these implications, on Tuesday, NPR, as well as three Colorado-based public radio stations, filed a federal lawsuit against Trump and his administration. The lawsuit alleges that the executive order constitutes unlawful retaliation in violation of the First Amendment. They argue that the order was issued specifically to punish NPR for its journalism and

and that this move is essentially viewpoint discrimination, which is impermissible under the Constitution.

because the constitutional protections of free speech and freedom of the press. The lawsuit also argues that the order violates the spending clause of the Constitution because it bypasses Congress's exclusive power over federal appropriations. Because remember, Congress has the power of the purse. It's Congress that decides what money gets spent and where, not the president. We know from my recent episode

episode on the legislature that the president or maybe it was the executive branch. I can't remember one of the three episodes that I just released. We talked about how the president can choose, you know, not to spend funds appropriated by Congress. But in order to do that, the president has to notify Congress.

And the withholding of funds can only be temporary. It can't be permanent. So by unilaterally altering how congressionally appropriated funds are distributed, the radio stations accuse the administration of exceeding its powers and usurping congressional powers.

The plaintiffs further argue that the order undermines the protections enshrined in the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, which is the law that actually established the CPB and specifically established the CPB to act as a buffer between public broadcasters and political interference. The whole process.

purpose of this law was to promote editorial independence and make sure that, you know, the public media was able to serve the public interest without being influenced by politics. So by conditioning funding on the political content of media organizations, the plaintiffs argue that the administration directly violates the purpose of the law that established the CPB.

In addition to the constitutional and legal issues raised, NPR warns that the executive order could severely damage the public broadcasting system, particularly local stations that provide essential news, education, and emergency communications to diverse and often underserved communities across the country.

So again, that lawsuit was just filed on Tuesday. From here, we'll likely see the judge either grant or deny a request from NPR and the Colorado-based stations for a temporary injunction, which would have the effect of either allowing the administration to enforce the president's executive order or the opposite, right? Blocking the administration from enforcing the order.

Also on Tuesday, the U.S. State Department paused all new student and exchange visa interviews at embassies and consulates around the world. This pause applies to applicants for FM and J visas, which are temporary visa categories used by international students to enter the United States for the duration of their studies at an academic or exchange program.

This pause is said to be temporary and it's intended to give the department, the State Department, that is, more time to launch social media vetting. So the State Department will be introducing mandatory social media vetting for all student and exchange visa applicants to, quote, counter extremism and foreign influence, end quote.

Last month, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced that they were going to start screening immigrants' social media for evidence of anti-Semitic activity. With that announcement, we knew that these screenings would apply to people who are applying for any type of legal status here in the United States, whether that's

permanent resident status or student visas. So we knew this social media vetting was coming. It's worth noting that social media vetting isn't necessarily new either. So when entering the United States as a foreign national,

a phone or social media check has always been on the table. The difference now is the mandatory component. So based off of what we know, it seems as if this will become a routine part of visa application interviews, whereas before it just happened on a rare case by case basis.

To briefly cover the implications of this pause, let's look at how the international student visa process currently functions. So international students who have been accepted to an American institution must apply for a visa. The exception here is for citizens of Canada and Bermuda. They have a different visa process. But for students from most countries, an interview at the American embassy is part of their application process.

Those embassy interviews are what are being temporarily paused. Consequently, international students who are looking to start their education at an American institution will likely face delays. We don't have a timeline as of now, so we don't know how long these delays will last. We do know that students who already have their student visas will not be impacted by this move, and those that have already scheduled interviews will not see their interviews canceled or postponed. That is according to the State Department.

Some more Tuesday news. The Trump administration went to the Supreme Court asking to pause an order that slowed and limited the deportation of migrants to countries other than their own. Let's back up so we have the full context here. In March, a judge in Massachusetts ruled that if an immigrant is going to be deported to a third country, meaning a country that is not their home country,

DHS needs to provide those immigrants and their lawyers written notice of what that third country is and a meaningful opportunity for the immigrant to show that if they are taken to that third country, they will likely be subject to persecution, torture, or death. After this order was issued, eight men who were convicted of violent crimes here in the United States were deported to South Sudan.

Most of these men, seven of them, were not originally from South Sudan, so they sued, arguing that this removal violated their due process rights on the basis that they didn't get that meaningful opportunity to object to their removal and prove that they faced persecution, torture, or death.

Shortly after their deportation, that same Massachusetts judge ruled that the deportations did in fact violate his earlier order. As the judge stated, the government had not provided the immigrants with enough time to raise any concerns about the possibility of torture in South Sudan. So the judge ends up clarifying that a meaningful opportunity means a minimum of 10 days and

Now, when the judge issued this clarification, the deportation flight to South Sudan had already landed in South Sudan, but the migrants were still on the plane in ICE custody. So the judge didn't order the plane to be turned around, but he did say that ICE needed to conduct interviews with these individuals in private while they were still in ICE custody to give them a chance to voice any fears about torture.

As far as we know right now, we don't know whether ICE has conducted these interviews per the court order, but we do know that the migrants are still in ICE custody at an American military base in South Sudan.

The most recent update, though, came earlier this week on Tuesday when the Trump administration went to the Supreme Court asking the justices to put the judge's order on hold while the administration appeals the judge's ruling to the proper appellate court. The administration argues that the judge's order infringes on the executive branch's power over immigration and disrupts the already challenging process of deporting violent criminals that few countries are willing to accept.

We have not received a decision from the Supreme Court, but we may see a decision soon. There's really no telling when that decision will come. And either the Supreme Court will say, yes, we're going to put the lower court's order on hold. No, we're not going to put it on hold or we're not getting involved. Just appeal this case to the appellate court. Let's take our first break here. When we come back, we'll talk about the new COVID vaccine recommendation, Trump's tariffs being blocked by a court and more.

How many people have asked you if they can tell you about their pajamas and bed sheets? Well, consider me the first because I will never be over talking about mine. My obsession started with the sheets, okay? The Cozy Earth Bamboo Sheet Set. From there, there was really no going back. I eventually had to invest in the Cozy Earth Bamboo Pajamas.

So the sheets, they completely changed my sleep. I can't wait to get in bed at night for one. Two, they're so soft. That was the first thing I noticed when I got them. But then after the first night's sleep with the sheets, you realize that the temperature regulating nature of the sheets is everything.

I'll never forget when Cozy Earth first started sponsoring this show, I got to, you know, first, it was the first time I had really expressed my love for Cozy Earth. And not long after that, one of my listeners emailed me saying he had pulled the trigger on the sheets and he was super excited.

so happy he did. He was a grad student. He said how his sleep was so important to him and that the sheets were just a game changer. The email seriously made my month, I would say, but then again, I'm still talking about it now, so maybe it made my year. Luxury should not be out of reach. Use code unbiased for 40% off best-selling sheets, pajamas, and more. Trust me, you won't regret it.

That is CozyEarth.com. Code unbiased for 40% off. Sanctuary awaits at Cozy Earth.

This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Knowing you could be saving money for the things you really want is a great feeling. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with a personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state.

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Welcome back. On Tuesday, a lot of Tuesday news today, but on Tuesday, HHS Secretary Kennedy announced that the CDC has removed the COVID-19 vaccine from the CDC's recommended immunization schedule for healthy children and pregnant women.

This announcement comes about a week after the FDA announced that it plans to limit COVID-19 vaccine approval to those over the age of 65 or those with high risk health conditions.

The announcement from the FDA meant that vaccine makers would now have to conduct placebo-controlled studies in order to expand eligibility to healthy people aged six months to 64 years. Kennedy made this announcement about removing the COVID vaccine recommendation for healthy children and pregnant women with a video posted to X.

Now, before I get into the rest of the story, I do want to clarify what the CDC vaccine schedule is. So the main purpose of the vaccine schedule is to, quote, guide health care providers in determining recommended vaccines for each age group. The CDC's vaccine schedules are also often used by most major private insurance plans, as well as Medicaid expansion programs to determine insurance coverage.

Previously, the CDC had recommended the vaccine to everyone at least six months old, including pregnant women. But the move to remove the vaccine from the vaccination schedules reflects a changing climate around the shot. So the most recent CDC data shows that only about one in eight children have received the latest COVID shot and fewer than one in four adults have received the latest COVID shot.

Additionally, the new top regulator of vaccines and gene therapies at the FDA has said that the cost benefit of the shots doesn't make sense for some groups. And he has specifically pointed to young men who he says face an elevated risk of heart inflammation. Now, typically, the CDC only updates vaccine recommendations after a panel of experts votes on the changes.

Afterwards, the CDC director has the authority to either endorse or reject those recommendations. But historically, the CDC director most often defers to the panel. A few things to note here. One, right now, we don't currently have a CDC director.

Two, the panel of experts most recently met in April, but they did not vote to update COVID vaccine guidance. So this decision was made by Kennedy. Kennedy would be the CDC director's boss if we had a CDC director, but we don't. So because we don't, essentially Kennedy is the guy in charge.

And three, the third thing I want to note is that this is not the first time that the expert panel vote has been disregarded or ignored. In fact, we saw something similar in 2021, though with the opposite result, right? In 2021, the then CDC director made a vaccine recommendation without the panel's recommendation. But that time, it was a recommendation to offer wider access to COVID boosters. And

At the time, the panel had only endorsed the booster for older adults and those with underlying health conditions, but the CDC director made the unilateral decision to overrule that endorsement to extend the booster to more people. Now, like I said, the situation we're seeing this week is a little different, obviously different in the results. It's the opposite result, but also different in that there is no CDC director currently.

And then as a final note, I think one of the biggest questions that comes with this is whether those who want the vaccine can still get it. The short answer is yes. As of now, COVID vaccines and boosters are still available. However, without the CDC's recommendation, it's unlikely that insurance will still cover the cost. So those who want the vaccine but are otherwise healthy adults or have otherwise healthy kids and you want to get your kids vaccinated, you will likely have to pay out of pocket. According to the CDC's

price list getting the vaccine privately starts at 57.50 per dose in children and then 136.75 for adults

It's also worth noting one possible implication is that the new recommendation may cause a shortage in availability of the shot. So with less people covered under the CDC recommendation, the drug manufacturers may start to make less product, which could then result in, you know, less availability.

Okay, moving on to some tariff news. Yesterday, the Court of International Trade said that the Trump administration cannot impose sweeping tariffs on imports under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which is the law that President Trump used to justify the tariffs. So I'm sure a lot of you have some questions here with one question being, what is the Court of International Trade? We don't hear about that a lot, right? The Court of International Trade or the International Court of Trade is

is a federal court based in New York City that handles cases arising from customs and international trade laws. Obviously, with tariffs being at the center of this dispute, the International Court of Trade is the appropriate court to hear this case.

So remember in the episode that I just released about the judicial branch, I talked about how we have 13 appellate courts in our country. We have 12 regional appellate courts that hear cases from specific states and then one U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that hears cases from all over the country, but only certain types of cases.

Well, that U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is the appellate court that hears appeals from the International Court of Trade. In fact, it'll almost certainly hear this case once the administration appeals it. So basically, what happened here is once Trump announced Liberation Day back in April, which consisted of the 10% baseline tariffs on every country and then the additional country-specific tariffs, several lawsuits were filed arguing that President Trump had exceeded his authority.

The law that President Trump was using to justify the tariffs is called the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. And what that law does is it allows the president to regulate imports in response to a declared national emergency.

So Trump argued that the national emergency was or is the U.S. trade deficit with other countries, which threatens the national security and economy of the United States. So to address that national emergency, that is the U.S. trade deficit, and regulate imports in accordance with that national emergency, he imposed these tariffs.

But the lawsuits that were filed against him essentially said, no, no, no, the IEPA, that law, it doesn't give you the authority to implement tariffs. You can implement sanctions on other countries because of a national emergency, but you can't issue these sweeping tariffs. The law doesn't allow for that. And the three-judge panel at the U.S. Court of International Trade agreed. So the judges agreed that Trump had overstepped his authority under the IEPA.

From here, the administration will likely take this case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, as I talked about, and try to get this ruling overturned. But as of now, those 10% baseline tariffs and the additional country-specific tariffs cannot take effect.

Notably, this court ruling does not impact the tariffs that have been implemented under Section 232, which is a different law and includes the 25% tariffs on steel, aluminum, and cars. So those 25% tariffs on steel, aluminum, and cars are still in effect. This ruling did not affect those tariffs at all. It just affected the tariffs that were implemented under the IEEPA.

Okay, now let's talk about what's going on between President Trump and President Putin or President Putin's advisors, more specifically, just like the dialogue between them. So to provide a little bit of context,

Two weeks ago, the first round of direct Russia-Ukraine peace talks took place in Istanbul. The talks didn't really result in any clear progress. Last week, though, Putin told Trump in a phone call that Russia was at some point in the future or near future was going to be sending what's called a peace memo, which would outline Russia's terms for a ceasefire and ending the war with Ukraine.

As of now, Russia has yet to provide that. Not only that, but according to estimates from officials in Kyiv, Ukraine, Russia has launched more than 900 drones and missiles into Ukrainian territory over a recent three-day period and has broken its record for aerial bombardment of Ukraine three times this month alone. So this bombardment is happening despite President Trump trying to have these peace talks between the two countries.

And that's what has Trump so riled up. So following that recent very large attack on Ukraine, Trump posted to Truth Social, quote, I've always had a very good relationship with Vladimir Putin of Russia, but something has happened to him. He has gone absolutely crazy. He is needlessly killing a lot of people. And I'm not just talking about soldiers. Missiles and drones are being shot into cities in Ukraine for no reason whatsoever. I've always said that he wants all of Ukraine, not just the

piece of it and maybe that's proving to be right but if he does it will lead to the downfall of russia

End quote. Then when a Kremlin spokesperson was asked about those remarks from Trump, the spokesperson said, and this is translated to English, but he said, quote, we are really grateful to the Americans and to President Trump personally for their assistance in organizing and launching this negotiation process. Of course, at the same time, this is a very crucial moment, which is associated, of course, with the emotional overload of everyone absolutely and with emotional reactions.

End quote. Outlets here in the United States interpreted that to mean that the Kremlin was essentially calling Trump's post an emotional reaction. More recently, on Tuesday, Trump said, quote, What Vladimir Putin doesn't realize is that if it weren't for me, lots of really bad things would have happened to Russia. And I mean really bad. He's playing with fire. End quote.

This then led the deputy chief of Russia's Security Council to write on X, quote, regarding Trump's words about Putin playing with fire and really bad things happening to Russia. I only know of one really bad thing. World War Three. I hope Trump understands this. End quote.

That post triggered Trump's special envoy to Ukraine and Russia to respond, saying, quote, End quote.

Then when asked by reporters yesterday in the Oval Office whether he still believes Putin wants to end the war, Trump said, quote, I can't tell you that, but I'll let you know in about two weeks. Within two weeks, we're going to find out whether or not he's tapping us along or not. And if he is, we'll respond a little bit differently. But it'll take about a week and a half, two weeks, end quote. Now,

Now, we're not really sure what he meant by that, but he also mentioned that until a document is signed, there's no definitive understanding of Putin's position. So it's possible Trump was just saying he expects to receive that peace memo from Russia within the next two weeks and continue discussions from there and like reassess sort of.

Trump added in those same remarks, quote, I'm very disappointed at what happened a couple of nights ago where people were killed in the middle of what you would call a negotiation. I'm very disappointed by that. Very, very disappointed. End quote. Since all of this, Putin's advisor proposed that Russia and Ukraine hold a second round of peace talks this Monday in Istanbul to exchange written proposals for a ceasefire. So that's where we're at with that. We'll have to wait and see what happens there.

Moving on to these illegal wiretapping allegations against Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. Now, this story has not been widely reported, so we'll have to see what more comes of this, if anything. But I'll tell you what we know as of now. I want to try to start reporting on some more underreported stories. I think that those can sometimes be a little more interesting than, you know, what we're constantly seeing mainstream stories.

I don't know. I just want to try it out and see how it goes. So this is what we know. Take it with a grain of salt. Like I said, it hasn't been widely reported. So remember how Hegseth fired three Pentagon employees after there were some classified information leaks? Not necessarily the signal chat ordeal, but more so information pertaining to the Panama Canal, Elon Musk meeting with foreign leaders, etc.,

Well, now it's being reported that Hegseth fired those three employees based on information that was obtained from an illegal warrantless wiretap. In the United States, it is illegal for a government official to wiretap someone without a warrant.

So these claims first came from Hegsteth's personal lawyer, who reportedly told White House advisers that a warrantless wiretap was used for the purposes of investigating whether a then-advisor had classified documents on his phone. The then-advisor was Dan Caldwell, who was fired alongside two other Pentagon employees on April 18th.

The investigation into Caldwell initially began in mid-April when a cell phone picture of U.S. military plans to reclaim the Panama Canal was leaked to reporters. The person responsible for the leak was not immediately known, but White House advisors had been told that the person was likely to have printed the documents out, taken a picture of those documents with his or her phone, and then sent those pictures of the documents to a reporter.

As I said, you know, this is all reportedly, right? Like there's some stories I tell you, take it with a grain of salt. This is just reportedly, I'm just telling you what we know.

So from what's being reported, allegedly White House advisors were becoming suspicious of how Hegseth could have known that Caldwell was involved. And this is because the group responsible for investigating the leak, the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, had only looked into mid-level aides, not top-level aides like Caldwell. So how could Hegseth have pinned Caldwell if Caldwell hadn't been investigated?

Based on that suspicion, White House advisors then reportedly went to Hegseth's lawyer to try to get some more information. And allegedly, that is when Hegseth's lawyer said that Hegseth had wiretapped Caldwell.

Hegs' lawyer has since denied that he ever said that and instead says that the information on Caldwell had been passed to him by Pentagon officials. According to The Guardian, which is one of the outlets reporting on this story, some advisors familiar with the investigation have said that they don't know which story to believe. So that's the latest on that. Like I've said a few times now, take it with a grain of salt trying to include these more underreported stories just because I can I

I don't know. I think they can be more interesting in some cases, but I will await your feedback. And as always, I will update you if more comes to light.

Moving on to some Doge news, a federal judge ruled this week that certain Doge employees can access sensitive data within the U.S. Treasury's payment systems. More specifically, the judge authorized four Doge employees to enter the Treasury's Bureau of Fiscal Service data systems. This ruling came after the Trump administration submitted detailed protocols designed to enhance the vetting,

cybersecurity training and privacy safeguards for Doge employees. The judge emphasized that while the court would not require approval for every new Doge employee seeking access, the Treasury Department must strictly enforce its existing procedures for data access and employee training to ensure that security and privacy are maintained. So this ruling effectively lifts a previous injunction that was issued earlier this year,

which had blocked Doge's access due to concerns over inadequate oversight and potential data privacy risks.

The initial legal challenges against Doge were prompted by 19 state attorneys general who argued that Doge's attempt to access sensitive treasury systems posed major risks to data security and individual privacy. The states argued that Doge's quick access lacked the necessary legislative oversight and could expose sensitive financial information to misuse or breaches.

When that lawsuit was initially filed back in February, the judge granted an injunction, which, as I said, temporarily prohibited Doge's access to treasury systems until proper safeguards were demonstrated.

After months of negotiations and the presentation of stricter vetting protocols and training programs from the administration, the court found that Doge had sufficiently addressed the concerns and therefore allowed Doge's access to the system. So again, this ruling allows Doge to proceed with its work within the Treasury Department, but under the condition that it complies with the Treasury's operational security standards. Speaking

Speaking of Doge, this next story is about Elon Musk. Musk is making headlines for saying he's quote-unquote disappointed in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. We talked a lot about the Big Beautiful Bill last episode. We'll talk about it more later on in this episode. But just to quickly recap, the bill includes $3.8 trillion in tax cuts, $3.8 trillion in

$1.5 trillion in spending cuts, $300 billion in spending on the border and on defense programs, and a debt ceiling increase of $4 trillion. The bill is over 1,000 pages, so there's a lot in it. It has not yet passed the Senate, so we could see some changes, with one of those most likely changes being the debt ceiling increase because there are a good number of Republican senators that are not happy with that provision. So there are a few aspects of the bill that Musk denies.

himself is frustrated with, which is what led him to make the comments that he did. I'll play the clip for you that's making headlines, and then I'll explain what he's frustrated with. You know, I was like disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decrease it. And I reminds the work that the Doge team is doing. I actually thought that when this big, beautiful bill came along, I mean, like everything he's done on Doge gets wiped out in the first year.

i think i think a book can be can be can be big or it could be beautiful but i don't know if it could be both

My personal opinion. Okay, so that's the clip. Now, there are really three components of this bill that Musk has voiced frustration with. The first is the debt ceiling increase, because remember, Musk's whole thing is that he wants to cut spending. That's what he's always been about. That's what Doge is all about. So for him, yes, there are going to be cuts to certain programs, but raising the debt ceiling by $4 trillion means the government has $4 trillion more to borrow and spend.

He has similarly argued that while tax cuts can stimulate the economy, the bill goes too far in reducing revenue without also implementing sufficient offsets or spending cuts.

Another component which Musk has voiced frustration with is this provision in the bill that prohibits states from regulating AI for the next 10 years. Musk has advocated for aggressive AI regulation and smaller government, so he's not thrilled about the bill's inclusion of this 10-year moratorium on state-level AI legislation because it not only hinders AI regulation, but also gives the federal government more regulatory oversight because all

Only the federal government would be able to regulate AI over the next 10 years. Following Musk's comments, Trump was asked by a reporter what his reaction was to Musk's comments. And Trump said, quote, Well, my reaction is a lot of things. Number one, we have to get a lot of votes. We can't be cutting. We need to get a lot of support. We had to get it through the House. We have no Democrats.

We will be negotiating that bill, and I'm not happy about certain aspects of it, but I'm thrilled by other aspects of it. That's the way it goes. It's very big. It's the big, beautiful bill, but the beautiful is because of all the things we have, the biggest thing being the level of tax cutting that we're going to be doing."

Okay, let's take our second and final break here. When I come back, we'll do some quick hitters, just a few, and then we'll address some viral rumors about the big, beautiful bill. At Capella University, you can learn at your own pace with our FlexPath learning format.

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Welcome back. Time for some quick hitters, just a few today because we do have a lengthy Rumor Has It segment to get to, starting with Texas's new law. So Texas's governor signed a bill into law this week that will require app stores to verify the age of users and require parental consent if users under the age of 18 try to download apps.

The Texas App Store Accountability Act will take effect on January 1st, 2026. It passed the Senate in April, passed the state house in May, and was signed into law on Tuesday.

Elon Musk will leave the Trump administration as his 130-day special government employee role comes to an end. Musk wrote on X, quote, as my scheduled time as a special government employee comes to an end, I would like to thank President Trump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending. The Doge mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government. End quote.

As a special government employee, by the way, Musk was limited to a 130-day appointment. Tomorrow will mark 130 days from Inauguration Day.

And then finally, President Trump has reportedly rejected a $15 million settlement offer from Paramount to resolve his lawsuit against CBS for allegedly deceptively editing a 60 Minutes interview with then presidential candidate Kamala Harris to paint her in a more favorable light. CBS has denied the allegations but extended the settlement offer to end the legal battle.

Notably, Paramount, which is CBS's parent company, is currently trying to get a merger approval from the FTC to allow it to merge with Skydance Media. And now it's time for Rumor Has It, my weekly segment where I confirm, dispel, and or add context to recent rumors submitted by all of you. Today we're addressing one rumor, but there are multiple components to this one rumor, so it's like eight rumors in one, really.

Rumor has it that the big beautiful bill gives the president the legal ability to cancel or delay elections and makes it so judges can't enforce their own orders.

This one stems from a viral social media post claiming that the Big Beautiful Bill will give the president the legal ability to cancel or delay elections, allow the president to ignore Supreme Court rulings for one year or more, allow the president to fire government workers for political disloyalty, make it so judges can't enforce their own orders, make it so protests can be tracked and criminalized,

does away with LGBTQ plus rights, education, health care and media, and allows the government to track VPNs, suppress votes and flag speech. So let's take this one claim at a time. Does the big beautiful bill give the president the legal ability to cancel or delay elections? No.

First and foremost, the law says nothing at all about the president gaining the ability to cancel, delay, or do anything at all with elections, for that matter. The word election is mentioned in the law about 30 times, but not one of those 30 times mentions anything about federal elections or the president. The word elections is used in all

many other contexts, but not as it pertains to federal elections or to the president's power. In fact, the terms executive and president are never mentioned once in relation to elections. So it's just not there. And you can always fact check me on this. I have the bill linked in the sources section of this episode. Just go to the bill, control F,

F, type in the word election and see what comes up. You won't find anything related to federal elections or the president, but if you want to look just for peace of mind, you are more than welcome to. So the answer is no. The big beautiful bill does not in any way give the president the ability to change or delay elections.

Next one, the bill would allow the president to ignore Supreme Court rulings for one year or more. Again, there is nothing in the bill that suggests the president could ignore the Supreme Court for a year or more. There is one provision in this bill that we'll talk about more in a minute, which pertains to court orders, but even that provision likely doesn't apply to the Supreme Court. So the answer is, again, no, there's nothing in this bill that supports the claim that the president has the ability to ignore Supreme Court rulings.

Next one, the bill would allow the president to fire government workers for political disloyalty. Again, nothing in the bill supports this. The word disloyalty is not even mentioned one time in the bill. The word fire is mentioned once. The word fired is mentioned twice. But none of those three mentions pertain to employment at all, let alone executive employment, let alone, you know, the president's powers.

Next one, the bill would make it so judges can't enforce their own orders. Okay, so this one needs context. This is partially true, but I need you to pay attention here because there's a lot of substance to this one, and I think it'll be easy to get lost. Whenever I have these very substantive stories or substantive discussions, I always want to just make sure you're really paying attention because it's just...

The legal world is crazy, okay? So there is a provision in the bill that would prohibit federal courts from enforcing contempt charges unless a security bond is paid by the party bringing the lawsuit. Now, before I read the actual provision, think back to my episode about the legislature. One of the checks and balances in our system is that the legislature makes the rules for the federal court, right? That's obviously a check on the courts, right?

But the courts can overturn laws, which is a check on the legislature. So in this case, the House is trying to create this new-ish rule for the courts, which is within their power to do. However, the courts can always overturn this provision as a check on the legislature, right? So I just wanted to make that clear really quick, but let's talk about what the provision says and what it means. The provision, as it's currently written, reads, quote,

"...no court of the United States may enforce a contempt citation for failure to comply with an injunction or temporary restraining order if no security was given when the injunction or order was issued, whether issued prior to, on, or subsequent to the date of enactment of this section."

So what this means is that plaintiffs, those bringing a lawsuit, would have to pay a security bond up front in order for a judge to be able to enforce a contempt finding down the road for failure to comply with a court order.

Contempt, by the way, is when a party to a lawsuit defies or ignores a court order. So if a judge tells an ex-husband he has to pay child support and he fails to do so, the judge can find him in contempt. If a judge tells the Trump administration that it has to return a mistakenly deported individual and it fails to do so, the judge can find the administration in contempt.

Now, current federal rules mandate that courts can only issue a preliminary injunction or temporary restraining order against a party to a lawsuit if the party seeking the injunction or restraining order gives security.

That security is to be in an amount that the court considers proper to pay the costs and damages that would be sustained by the opposing party if it turns out that the opposing party is wrongfully enjoined or wrongfully restrained by the court.

In cases against the government, though, judges will frequently waive the security bond requirement because it's usually a David versus Goliath situation, right? Those bringing cases against the government often lack the necessary resources to pay what would be considered a proper security amount to cover the cost incurred by the government if it turns out that the government was wrongly enjoined or restrained.

But to be clear, under current rules, security is already required if you want to get an injunction and or restraining order against the party you're suing. What this new bill would change is that unless that security bond is paid, the court cannot enforce a contempt finding down the road if the enjoined or restrained party violates the court's order. So I'll give you a real world example. If this bill becomes law the way that it's written.

The Trump administration was sued by some Venezuelan nationals who were about to be deported. A judge ordered the administration to not deport those individuals and ordered the planes that had already left to be turned around. Eventually, when the administration did not turn those planes around and deported more individuals the following day, the court found probable cause to find the administration in contempt. And that's a little different than an actual finding of contempt, but let's assume for purposes of this hypothetical that the judge did in fact find the administration to be in criminal contempt.

With criminal contempt, a court can impose fines or it can send those in contempt to jail. But let's say when the Venezuelan nationals asked the court for the injunction against the administration to prevent or reverse their removal from the United States, their security requirement was waived because they lacked the necessary resources.

Because that security was waived and therefore wasn't paid under the text of this bill, the judge would not be able to enforce the contempt finding against the administration for failing to abide by the court's order. The judge would not be able to impose fines against the administration. The judge would not be able to send anyone to jail. The judge would only be able to enforce the contempt finding if security was paid at the outset.

And again, all of this is assuming the bill is passed the way that it's written. A couple of things to note here, though. One, if the bill is signed into law the way that it is written currently, this provision would likely apply to all federal courts except for the Supreme Court. And that's just because Congress has the constitutional authority to make rules particularly for the lower courts, but not so much the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is a different beast in that sense. It's not subject to the same oversight.

Two, this provision would likely be challenged in the courts if it's signed into law. That's what we have checks and balances for. A court can always strike down this provision. And three, this provision may not even pass the Senate, which would mean that this provision may not make it into the final law. The Senate has something called the Byrd Rule, which prevents the inclusion of what are called extraneous provisions in budget reconciliation legislation, which is what the Big Beautiful Bill is.

Extraneous provisions are those that don't directly impact spending or revenues. So per the Byrd rule, this provision could very well be considered an extraneous provision because it doesn't directly impact spending or revenues and therefore cannot make it into the Senate's version of this reconciliation legislation. And as we know, if the Senate passes a version that's different than the House's version, the House has to then take up the Senate's version and try to pass that. So

there's a good chance that this provision doesn't even make it into the final bill. But there's still a ways to go here. That's what you need to know about the provision that pertains to courts being able to enforce their own orders. The provision, again, specifically talks about the ability to enforce contempt orders when security has not been paid and likely only applies to lower courts. But it is not a blanket ban on courts being able to enforce all orders.

Okay, that was a lot, but let's move on to the next one. The next one is that the bill would make it so protests can be tracked and criminalized.

This is false. The word protest is only found in one section of the bill, and it pertains to the Mineral Leasing Act in the context of agreements for oil and gas lease parcels. Similarly, the word track does not appear in any context related to protests or speech. The word speech only appears in sections with information on education and speech language therapy. So no, there's nothing in this bill that would allow protests to be tracked and criminalized.

Next one, the bill would do away with LGBTQ rights, education, health care and media. Well, let's talk about what the bill would do and then what it won't do. So the bill explicitly prohibits Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program funding for gender transition procedures for minors. It would also prohibit gender transition treatments from being classified as an essential health benefit under the Affordable Care Act.

There's also been an amendment to the bill that passed that bans the use of Medicare, Children's Health Insurance Program, and Affordable Care Act funds for all gender transition treatments, not just for minors, but also for adults. So this effectively bans all federally funded gender transition care. However, as for the other parts of this claim about education and media, there is nothing to support that. In fact, the word media is not mentioned at

at all in the entire bill and the word education is never mentioned in conjunction with the words gender or sex or anything else that would have to do with lgbtq

Second to last one, the bill would allow the government to track VPNs. Again, the bill doesn't mention VPNs at all. And by the way, a VPN or a virtual private network, it's an encrypted network that allows you to use data and access the internet without publicly sharing your IP address. It also allows you to access public Wi-Fi without giving up private information on your phone. But again, the bill does not mention VPNs at all. The bill does...

have a section that would require third-party settlement organizations to report information pertaining to third-party network transactions when the transaction amount exceeds a certain number. But that's a stretch to say that this somehow allows the government to track VPNs. Yes, VPNs are involved in third-party transactions, like when payments are made on devices. And overall, they make third-party transactions more secure. But that provision about third-party transactions says nothing about allowing the government to track VPNs.

OK, last two claims will lump them into one. The bill would allow the government to suppress votes and flag speech. First, nothing in the bill says anything about flagging speech. So that's false. Similarly, there's nothing in the bill that explicitly allows the suppression of votes. There is one section of the bill that some critics are arguing could implicitly suppress votes. So the section that they cite to would impose a 10 year ban on state regulation of artificial intelligence. Right. We talked about that.

This blanket ban obviously includes any type of AI regulation, including AI as it pertains to political campaigns and elections.

So critics argue that banning AI regulation at the state level and therefore removing protections against online information might discourage potential voters from voting. It might sway votes. It might cause confusion, you know, about election information. So that's the argument there. But the bill does not say anything about allowing the government to suppress votes or flag speech.

That is what I have for you today. We're coming up on an hour, I think, at this point. So I know I said we would go back to critical thinking today, but I just think, you know, today was another long episode. I'm going to push it again to Monday. We'll get back to it on Monday, I promise. Thank you so much for being here. As always, have a great weekend and I will talk to you on Monday. In honor of Military Appreciation Month, Verizon thought of a lot of different ways we could show our appreciation, like rolling out the red carpet.

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