By MARK SHERMAN and LINDSAY WHITEHURST, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — In fewer than 500 carefully chosen and somewhat opaque words, the Supreme Court has now weighed in twice on President Donald Trump’s rapid-fire efforts to remake the federal government.

The justices did not give Trump’s administration what it sought. The court rejected the Republican administration’s position that it had the immediate power to fire the head of a watchdog office. In the other, the court slowed the effort to block the release of up to $2 billion in foreign aid.

In the end, the short-term losses for the administration may mean little, and the court’s actions arguably reflect less about whether Trump was right or wrong in either case.

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Instead, they may stand for an important, but less showy, commitment to regular order from the top of a judicial system that has emerged as a key check on Trump’s power with the Republican-controlled Congress largely supportive or silent.

Jack Goldsmith, a Justice Department official during President George W. Bush’s administration, said there may be benefits for the court in taking small steps and delaying, which “brought the court advantage by achieving emergency outcomes it wanted without having to tip its hand prematurely on the merits of the cases.”

Trump’s unparalleled flex of presidential power seems destined for several dates at a Supreme Court that he helped shape with three appointees during his first term.

But even a conservative majority that has a robust view of presidential power and granted him broad immunity from criminal prosecution might balk at some of what the president wants to do.

His push to end birthright citizenship for the children of parents who are in the U.S. illegally, for instance, would discard more than 100 years of practice and a relatively settled understanding of the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States.”

Challenges to the citizenship order are among more than 100 lawsuits that have been filed, and lower-court judges have hit pause on the administration’s plans more than 30 times.

The Supreme Court’s early forays have largely not been about the substance of what the president wants to do but about the procedures used by federal judges who have the first crack at evaluating the lawfulness of the administration’s actions.

Trump allies, most notably his billionaire adviser Elon Musk, have railed at judges slowing his agenda, threatening impeachment and launching personal attacks. The Federal Judges Association, the largest such organization, issued a rare public statement decrying “irresponsible rhetoric shrouded in disinformation” that could undermine public confidence in the judiciary.

Though Trump has said he would obey the courts, Vice President JD Vance, Musk and others have suggested the administration could defy a court order, which would spark a constitutional crisis. Trump has vowed to appeal decisions he doesn’t like, something his administration has done quickly in several cases even as some plaintiffs question whether the government is fully following judges’ orders.

“It seemed to me that they’re playing pretty fast and loose,” said Jeffrey Schmitt, a professor at the University of Dayton School of Law. “They don’t want to be seen as blatantly disrespecting the courts and refusing to follow their orders. They also don’t want to change their behavior.”

The Supreme Court, meanwhile, is getting drawn into the fray in fits and starts. That could change soon, as more lawsuits reach a stage at which they can be appealed to the high court.

“It strikes me that the court is trying to signal that the normal processes should take place,” said Kent Greenfield, a Boston College law professor who is the main author of a letter signed by roughly 1,000 scholars contending that the nation already is in a constitutional crisis as a result of Trump’s actions.

A progressive group, Court Accountability, said the court’s more recent order, in the foreign aid freeze case, may have been reported as a setback for the administration.

“But a closer look at the majority’s short order reveals that the Chief Justice actually gave Trump everything he wanted,” the group wrote on its blog, explaining that additional delays only make it harder for people and groups hurt by the freeze to recover.

Josh Blackman, a professor at the South Texas College of Law, wrote on The Volokh Conspiracy blog that the high court has ducked urgent constitutional issues it should have decided about the extent of the president’s power. Instead, he wrote, district judges “are now confident they can issue any order they wish against the executive branch, and the Supreme Court will not stop them. This is the judiciary run amok.”

But while they sparked online outrage in some quarters of the president’s base, the events of the past few days could be seen as validation for the justices’ cautious approach.

On Feb. 21, a Supreme Court order temporarily kept Hampton Dellinger, the head of the Office of Special Counsel, in his job despite efforts by Trump to fire him.

In fact, the justices didn’t rule either way on the administration’s request to throw out an order in Dellinger’s favor. The high court held the matter “in abeyance,” pending further proceedings in the lower court.

On Thursday, Dellinger ended his legal fight after a federal appeals court ruled against him — but not before he stalled the firing of 5,000 federal workers slated for layoffs.

The Supreme Court finally acted on the administration’s request, hours after Dellinger dropped out, dismissing it as moot.

The scale of the federal layoffs that the new administration wants to carry out could also put federal employment law in front of the high court. While experts say the justices appear inclined to allow the president more power to hire and fire agency heads, the outlook is less clear for civil service protections for other federal workers.

In the foreign aid freeze case, U.S. District Judge Amir Ali narrowed his payment order to require the administration to immediately pay only those organizations that had originally filed the lawsuit.

But with nearly a dozen lawsuits filed over moves to freeze federal funding abroad and at home so they can align spending with Trump’s agenda, the fight over “power of the purse” seems bound to return to the Supreme Court.

The justices have played a limited role so far, but Trump’s presidency is less than two months old.

By DANICA KIRKA Associated Press

NUUK, Greenland (AP) — Polls opened in Greenland for early parliamentary elections Tuesday as U.S. President Donald Trump seeks control of the strategic Arctic island.

The self-governing region of Denmark is home to 56,000 people, most from Indigenous Inuit backgrounds, and occupies a strategic North Atlantic location. It also contains rare earth minerals key to driving the global economy.

Unofficial election results should be available soon after polls close at 2200 GMT Tuesday, but they won’t be certified for weeks as ballot papers make their way to the capital from remote settlements by boat, plane and helicopter.

While the island has been on a path toward independence since at least 2009, a break from Denmark isn’t on the ballot even though it’s on everyone’s mind. Voters on Tuesday will instead elect 31 lawmakers who will shape the island’s debate on when and if to declare independence in the future.

Polls indicate support for Greenland’s independence

The single polling station in Greenland ’s capital city, Nuuk, is ready.

Carl Fleischer, 59, receives his ballot during an early voting for Greenlandic parliamentary elections at the city hall in Nuuk, Greenland, Monday, March 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

This big Arctic island with a tiny population holds early parliamentary elections Tuesday that are being closely watched. U.S. President Donald Trump has made clear he wants to take control of the region that occupies a strategic North Atlantic location and contains rare earth minerals key to driving the global economy.

Now, Greenlanders are debating the best way to ensure they control their future.

“I think most of us have been scared since the new year because of (Trump’s) interest,” Pipaluk Lynge, a member of parliament from the ruling Inuit Ataqatigiit, or United Inuit party, told The Associated Press. “So we’re really, really looking to Europe right now to see if we could establish a stronger bond with them to secure our sovereign nation.”

Opinion polls show most Greenlanders favor independence.

Most say they don’t dislike Americans, pointing to the good relations they have with the local Pituffik Space Base, formerly Thule Air Force Base, where U.S. military personnel have been stationed since 1951.

But Greenlanders show no sign of wanting to become Americans. Even some of Trump’s biggest fans cling to the principle that they should control their destiny. That includes Gerth Josefsen, a 53-year-old fisherman from Nuuk who sports a MAGA hat and is proud to have visited Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida home.

Their mantra is that Greenland is open for business, but not for sale.

“The situation has changed because of Trump and because of the world,” said Doris Jensen, representative of the social democratic Siumut party who said she has always favored independence, “So we have decided in our party that we have to do (it) more quickly.”

Trump’s attention has transformed the deeply local process of democracy. Suddenly, the presence of journalists from as far away as Japan and Croatia are reminders that these are far from normal times.

After candidates’ final televised debate at a school auditorium in Nuuk, Prime Minister Mute Bourup Egede was greeted by about 75 supporters who were almost outnumbered by photographers and cameramen.

“All these reporters are frightening to us,’’ said Aviaja Sinkbaek, who works at the school. “It means that something must be happening soon.”

She added: “I wonder what Trump has up his sleeve.”

A vast island draws outsize attention

Politics in Greenland have a different rhythm. Debates during campaigning rarely got heated. People who became too animated were asked to step outside. Issues included building a skilled workforce and how to decorate the new airport, which opened a runway long enough to handle jumbo jets in November.

On Tuesday, the capital’s lone polling station at the Nuuk sports hall will have political parties pitching tents outside, with campaigners offering hot drinks and Greenlandic cake — a raisin-laced bread served with butter — in hopes of swaying voters.

A bus will circle the city of about 20,000 people, offering rides.

Certifying results will take weeks as ballot papers make their way to Nuuk. That’s because there are no roads connecting communities across the island’s 2.16 million square kilometers (836,330 square miles), which make Greenland the world’s 12th biggest country.

Now the vast size has drawn outsize attention.

Greenlanders know what they have. They hope the rare earth minerals will help diversify an economy where government jobs account for 40% of employment.

But the government has imposed strict rules to protect the environment on the island, most of which is covered by ice year-round. The harsh atmospheric conditions raise questions about whether extracting them is commercially feasible.

Hurricane-strength gusts over the weekend triggered warnings for boats and building materials to be securely tied down. As the wind howled like a revving jet engine, local people retreated to their homes to play board games.

By KEVIN FREKING, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans will face a critical test of their unity when a spending bill that would avoid a partial government shutdown and keep federal agencies funded through September comes up for a vote.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is teeing up the bill for a vote as soon as Tuesday despite the lack of buy-in from Democrats, essentially daring them to oppose it and risk a shutdown that would begin Saturday if lawmakers fail to act.

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Republicans will need overwhelming support from their members in both chambers — and some help from Senate Democrats — to get the bill to President Donald Trump’s desk. It’s one of the biggest legislative tests so far of the Republican president’s second term.

“The CR will pass,” Johnson told reporters Monday, using Washington shorthand to describe the continuing resolution. “No one wants to shut the government down. We are governing, doing the responsible thing as Republicans. It’s going to be up to Chuck Schumer and the Senate Democrats to do the right thing.”

The strategy has the backing of Trump, who is calling on Republicans to “remain UNITED — NO DISSENT — Fight for another day when the timing is right.”

House Republicans said the bill would trim $13 billion in non-defense spending from the levels in the 2024 budget year and increase defense spending by $6 billion, which are rather flat changes for both categories when compared with an overall topline of nearly $1.7 trillion in discretionary spending. The bill does not cover the majority of government spending, including Social Security and Medicare. Funding for those two programs is on auto pilot and not regularly reviewed by Congress.

Democrats are mostly worried about the discretion the bill gives the Trump administration on spending decisions. They are already alarmed by the administration’s efforts to make major cuts through the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, run by billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk. And they say the spending bill would fuel the effort.

“This is not a clean CR. This bill is a blank check,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee. “It’s a blank check for Elon Musk and President Trump.”

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., the ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, joined at left by Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., answers a question from a Republican member of the House Rules Committee as they prepare a spending bill that would keep federal agencies funded through Sept. 30, at the Capitol, in Washington, Monday, March 10, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Spending bills typically come with specific funding directives for key programs, but hundreds of those directives fall away under the legislation, according to a memo released by Senate Democrats. So the administration will have more leeway to reshape priorities.

“President Trump has endorsed this full-year CR because he understands what is in it for him: more power over federal spending to pick winners and losers and devastate Democratic states and priorities,” the memo warned.

For example, the Democratic memo said the bill would allow the administration to steer money away from combating fentanyl and instead use it on mass deportation initiatives.

Normally, when it comes to keeping the government fully open for business, Republicans have had to work with Democrats to craft a bipartisan measure that both sides can support. That’s because Republicans almost always lack the votes to pass spending bills on their own.

This time, Republican leaders are pushing for a vote despite Democratic opposition. Trump is showing an ability this term to hold Republicans in line. He met with several of the House chamber’s most conservative members last week.

Now, House Republicans who routinely vote against spending bills said they would support this one. The House Freedom Caucus, which includes many of the House’s most conservative members, issued a statement of support saying “contrary to Congress’ longtime abuse of this legislative tool, this CR is a paradigm shift.”

Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., is still a holdout, though. He says he’ll vote no.

“I guess deficits only matter when we’re in the minority,” said Massie, when asked why colleagues weren’t listening to his concerns.

Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., left, talks to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., right, before President Donald Trump addresses a joint session of Congress at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, March 4, 2025. (Win McNamee/Pool Photo via AP)

Trump went after Massie on social media, calling him a “GRANDSTANDER, who’s too much trouble.”

“HE SHOULD BE PRIMARIED, and I will lead the charge against him,” Trump posted online.

Rep. Tom Cole, the Republican chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, acknowledged the continuing resolution was not the outcome he was seeking but said it was time to end the cycle of short-term extensions Congress has been passing to keep the government open. This will be the third for the current budget year.

“Congress does have other things to do,” said Cole, of Oklahoma. “It’s got a lot on its plate this year.”

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., responds to questions from the House Rules Committee as the panel prepares a spending bill that would keep federal agencies funded through Sept. 30, at the Capitol, in Washington, Monday, March 10, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Meanwhile, House Democratic leaders have come out strongly against it. Less clear is how strongly they’ll push members in competitive battleground districts to follow their lead.

“House Democrats will not be complicit in the Republican efforts to hurt the American people,” House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said.

Senate Democrats generally seem to be emphasizing patience at this stage, waiting to see if Republicans can muscle the bill through the House before taking a stand.

“No comment,” said top Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York as he rushed through the hallway outside the Senate chamber.

Still, several rank-and-file Democrats criticized the measure. Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey said he was stunned that Republicans were “trying to jam through something that is their way or the highway.”

If the bill does move to the Senate later this week, support from at least eight Democratic senators will likely be needed for it to advance to passage.

“It’ll be up to the Democrats whether they want to deliver the votes and keep the government from shutting down,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D.

Democrats also introduced an alternative bill Monday night funding the government through April 11. The bill could serve as a Plan B if the GOP-led effort falters.

The spending bill could also have major ramifications for the District of Columbia’s government. City officials voiced their concerns during a news conference outside the Capitol on Monday, and district residents later in the day flooded the hearing room and surrounding hallway where lawmakers were considering debate rules for the measure.

The bill would limit the district to last year’s funding levels, though it’s already spending at 2025 levels. Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, said the proposal would require the district to cut $1.1 billion in spending in the next six months since it has already passed a balanced budget and is midway through its fiscal year. That means, officials said, cuts to critical services such as education and public safety.

The mayor also emphasized that the district’s 2025 budget focused on boosting three priorities: public safety, public education and economic growth.

“If the Congress goes through with this action, it will work against a priority that President Trump and I share, and that is to make Washington, D.C., the best, most beautiful city in the world,” Bowser said.

Associated Press writers Leah Askarinam, Gary Fields and Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.

This might sound like a funny thing to say, but I’ve rarely read a more unconstitutional letter.

Last week, Ed Martin, the interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, sent the dean of Georgetown University Law Center, a Catholic law school, a letter that said, “It has come to my attention reliably that Georgetown Law School continues to teach and promote DEI. This is unacceptable.”

Martin said that he’d begun an “inquiry” into the school and demanded to know whether it had eliminated all DEI — which he does not define, but in right-wing circles tends to refer to any action at all designed to increase diversity or honor historically marginalized people — from the school and its curriculum. He also asked, “If DEI is found in your courses or teaching in any way, will you move swiftly to remove it?”

This short letter, which was addressed to William Treanor, the dean of the law school, continued with the declaration that “no applicant for our fellows program, our summer internship or employment in our office who is a student or affiliated with a law school or university that continues to teach and utilize DEI will be considered.”

Even a first-year law student knows that the federal government cannot dictate the viewpoint and curriculum of a private Christian school, yet here was a federal prosecutor opening an inquiry into a Jesuit school’s protected speech.

But then President Donald Trump issued an executive order that may well have been even worse. He targeted Perkins Coie — a leading law firm with prominent liberal and Democratic clients — with comprehensive sanctions, in large part because it had engaged in legal work that Trump did not like.

“Notably, in 2016 while representing failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton,” the order says, “Perkins Coie hired Fusion GPS, which then manufactured a false ‘dossier’ designed to steal an election. This egregious activity is part of a pattern. Perkins Coie has worked with activist donors including George Soros to judicially overturn popular, necessary and democratically enacted election laws, including those requiring voter identification.”

The order strips security clearances from Perkins Coie lawyers (an action that would inhibit their ability to represent clients engaged in serious disputes involving the government) “pending a review of whether such clearances are consistent with the national interest.” It also limits Perkins Coie employees’ access to federal buildings, and it blocks the federal government from hiring Perkins Coie employees.

Trump’s order was his second major attack on a private law firm. Last month, he suspended the security clearances of attorneys at Covington & Burling, a large multinational law firm, which provided pro bono legal services to Jack Smith, the special counsel who filed criminal charges against Trump for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and for his removing classified documents from the White House and obstructing efforts to retrieve them from his home.

The constitutional problem in each case is the same: The Trump administration is targeting the president’s perceived political opponents for investigation and punishment.

The attacks on free speech and the First Amendment are so numerous that it’s difficult to keep up. And the attacks aren’t just against the prominent players in the political arena. Trump will take on religious institutions as well, even though their rights are just as firmly protected by the First Amendment.

On Feb. 24, my friend Theodore Chuang, a federal district judge in Maryland, entered an injunction against a Trump administration policy that removed restrictions on immigration enforcement actions in houses of worship.

Trump had reversed a decades-old policy that protected houses of worship from immigration raids in the absence of emergency circumstances — an imminent risk of violence, for example, or the hot pursuit of a person who poses a public safety threat, or a national security risk.

The previous policy respected the religious free exercise of a number of faith groups, including Christians, who believe there are religious mandates to care for refugees and other vulnerable immigrants. The new policy, in Chuang’s words, “abruptly removed all such limitations and safeguards and instead left decisions on whether to conduct such enforcement actions to the unilateral discretion of individual officers.”

In other words, if federal agents wanted to raid a church during a worship service, under Trump’s scheme, they could.

Chuang found that the Trump administration policy’s “lack of any meaningful limitations or safeguards” on enforcement activity chilled the plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights in part by deterring believers from attending worship services.

For all of Trump’s talk about rooting out “anti-Christian bias” from the United States, one of his administration’s first executive actions violated the free speech and religious freedom rights of several Christian congregations. It turns out that Trump wants to protect only his Christian allies from government reprisals. Dissenting believers will face his wrath, and the wrath of the state.

Political and religious speech are the beating heart of the First Amendment. Protections for political speech even predate the founding of the United States. The English Bill of Rights of 1689 protected the right of British subjects to petition the king and protected free speech in Parliament.

There is a reason the founders enshrined these values first. It’s why viewpoint discrimination is the most disfavored form of government censorship.

Plaintiffs who can prove that they were targeted because of their political or religious perspective almost always win their case. And make no mistake, attacks on Georgetown Law based on its alleged advocacy of or instruction in diversity, equity and inclusion, or punishment for Perkins Coie and Covington & Burling attorneys for their work with Democrats or Smith, each represents a textbook case of viewpoint discrimination.

One of the most frustrating elements of our postelection national conversation was the insistence in some quarters that the election represented a repudiation of censorship and cancel culture. It did not.

Instead, nearly half the American people voted against the party that was actively moving away from extremism — including the far-left censorship regime that has long afflicted America’s elite campuses — and instead voted for the party that didn’t just weaponize government against dissenting voices (through book bans, various anti-“woke” bills and prohibitions against drag shows), it also created an atmosphere of fear and intimidation against its political enemies.

The MAGA movement relentlessly attacked election workers, school board members and anyone else who defied its will to power or dissented from MAGA’s version of U.S. history. Trumpian political correctness is becoming so absurd that The Associated Press reported Thursday that at the Pentagon “tens of thousands of photos and online posts” have been “marked for deletion,” including a photo of Enola Gay, the B-29 bomber that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, presumably because its name included the word “gay.”

I spent much of my legal career combating censorship and defending free speech and religious liberty. I defended people from across the political spectrum, but I was also very familiar with censorship from the left. I filed lawsuit after lawsuit against universities that, among other things, imposed speech codes, discriminated against Christian student groups and retaliated against conservative professors.

When I filed those cases, I believed the American right had a basic commitment to individual freedom. Today, it does not. It is far more committed to fighting the left now than it was to defending liberty then. As the right rejected libertarianism, it turned against the First Amendment.

When an administration blatantly attacks the First Amendment, it attacks our national identity. And now Trump’s administration and his MAGA movement are the most dangerous and powerful censors in the United States.

The First Amendment is core to the idea of the United States of America. The Supreme Court has protected it even in our nation’s darkest and most dangerous moments.

In a 1943 case called West Virginia v. Barnette, the Supreme Court upheld the right of two sisters who were Jehovah’s Witnesses to refuse to salute the flag and recite the Pledge of Allegiance at school. In defending their liberty, the court wrote, “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion or other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”

The court was far from perfect in World War II. The year after Barnette, it decided Korematsu v. United States, which upheld the internment of more than 100,000 Japanese Americans. But the Barnette decision endures, and its words resonate still today.

It is when our disagreements are sharpest that our liberties are most precious. Or, as the Supreme Court said in Barnette: “But freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom.” That’s where Trump wants his opponents — in the shadows, suffering for their failure to support the man who would be king.

If Americans don’t have to salute the flag during a war for the survival of Western civilization, then they certainly don’t have to genuflect to Trump or Trumpism as a condition for exercising their unalienable rights.

Or put another way: If our liberties can survive a world war, then they can and should survive a culture war.

David French writes a column for the New York Times.

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