# Birthright Citizenship Again & 'Justice in Motion' Bus Tour

An episode of [Bloomberg Law](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/277975394), 11 Jul 2026, 45 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/7c892d84-801f-4c0b-b0e9-ae2b0012ff5f/70d08371-e5ea-47df-b85d-b4840001775a/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=91224201-26a6-429d-ac3c-ae2b0012ff6d

Immigration law expert Leon Fresco, a partner at Holland & Knight, discusses President Trump asking the Supreme Court to rehear the birthright citizenship case and other immigration issues. Then retired Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor discusses the “Justice in Motion” bus tour where current and retired judges will travel in a civic engagement tour. And Bloomberg Law reporter Suzanne Monyak discusses the DC appellate court ruling that Trump’s name must stay off the Kennedy Center. June Grasso hosts. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June grosseol from Bloomberg Radio.
[0:08] Speaker 2: At the end of last month, the Supreme Court upheld
[0:11] Speaker 2: more than a century of legal president by rejecting President
[0:15] Speaker 2: Trump's attempt to end automatic US citizenship for babies born here.
[0:21] Speaker 2: It was a six to three decision that cut across
[0:24] Speaker 2: ideological lines and rejected the Trump administration's contentions about what
[0:30] Speaker 2: it calls birth tourism, women traveling from countries like China
[0:35] Speaker 2: to give birth in the US to get citizenship for
[0:38] Speaker 2: their children, something Trump has long argued It wasn't for
[0:44] Speaker 2: billionaire Chinese people who have fifty seven children that become
[0:47] Speaker 2: American citizens. But now Trump says he'll ask the Supreme
[0:51] Speaker 2: Court to rehear the case, an extremely long shot move.
[0:56] Speaker 2: Joining me is immigration law expert Leon Fresco of Holland
[1:00] Speaker 2: and Knight.
[1:01] Speaker 3: Leon.
[1:01] Speaker 2: They haven't filed the papers yet, but do you have
[1:04] Speaker 2: any idea what the administration is going to base this
[1:07] Speaker 2: request for a rehearing on?
[1:10] Speaker 4: Well, the Trump administration, as you said, is asking for
[1:13] Speaker 4: a rehearing of the decision in the birth rights citizenship case.
[1:18] Speaker 4: A losing party has twenty five days to request rehearing
[1:22] Speaker 4: and Basically, what the Trump administration is saying is that
[1:25] Speaker 4: there are ads that he is pointing to, including one
[1:29] Speaker 4: from a Texas hospital aimed that expected mothers in Mexico,
[1:33] Speaker 4: and he's saying that those ads are showing that the
[1:37] Speaker 4: Supreme Court's decision has led to a surge in birth
[1:40] Speaker 4: tourism and therefore the Court's ruling is wrong, and so
[1:45] Speaker 4: he's saying that the Court needs to revisit the decision.
[1:48] Speaker 1: Now, is that actually true? Are more people coming?
[1:52] Speaker 4: I think all of these safeguards are in place to
[1:55] Speaker 4: obviously prevent people from entering the United States. Now, the
[1:59] Speaker 4: Trump administration actually has language in the Foreign Affairs Manual
[2:03] Speaker 4: that says, don't give a visitor visa to anyone who
[2:06] Speaker 4: appears is coming to give birth in the United States
[2:09] Speaker 4: unless there's very clear medical necessity for it and clear
[2:12] Speaker 4: evidence that they're sufficient money to pay for it. And
[2:16] Speaker 4: so from that perspective, I think the systems are in
[2:18] Speaker 4: place already to prevent this kind of birth tourism. But nevertheless,
[2:22] Speaker 4: the Trump administration is pushing and saying that the Court's
[2:26] Speaker 4: decision has unwittingly at leashed a new round of birth
[2:30] Speaker 4: tourism in the United States, The.
[2:32] Speaker 2: Actual number of cases of birth tourism is very low,
[2:37] Speaker 2: isn't it.
[2:37] Speaker 1: That's correct?
[2:38] Speaker 2: Do you know what the number is?
[2:40] Speaker 4: The problem is it's one of these proven negative things.
[2:43] Speaker 4: No one will actually know for sure because when people
[2:47] Speaker 4: travel to the United States, they very rarely disclose that
[2:51] Speaker 4: they're doing it for the purposes of giving birth. Very
[2:55] Speaker 4: rarely do people go through the actual formalities of getting
[2:58] Speaker 4: a visitor visa that for the purpose of getting medical
[3:01] Speaker 4: treatment to give birth. But people think at the maximum
[3:05] Speaker 4: it's in the low thousand.
[3:06] Speaker 1: So not even in the ten thousand range.
[3:09] Speaker 4: Of people who are actually coming and sort of circumventing
[3:14] Speaker 4: the US policies and giving birth while i'm visitor visas.
[3:18] Speaker 2: And the Supreme Court made its decision on constitutional grounds
[3:22] Speaker 2: that Trump's executive order on birthright citizenship couldn't be squared
[3:27] Speaker 2: with the fourteenth Amendment. So what's happening now is not
[3:30] Speaker 2: going to change a decision based on the constitution, correct.
[3:34] Speaker 4: I mean, the last time the Supreme Court agreed to
[3:36] Speaker 4: rehear a fully argued case was in nineteen sixty five,
[3:40] Speaker 4: and a full plenary rehearing hasn't been granted since nineteen
[3:44] Speaker 4: fifty six. So this is clearly a very long shot bid.
[3:48] Speaker 4: And I mean the beginning of the oral argument in
[3:51] Speaker 4: the birthright citizenship case was the Solicitor General talking about
[3:56] Speaker 4: birth tourism and saying it was a new world, and
[3:59] Speaker 4: Chief Justice Roberts says it wasn't a new constitution. And
[4:02] Speaker 4: so I think this issue, as they say in the law,
[4:05] Speaker 4: has been asked and answered, and so I don't think
[4:08] Speaker 4: that question can be re asked again because I think
[4:11] Speaker 4: that that was fully considered.
[4:13] Speaker 2: Also a bit of irony this week that the American
[4:16] Speaker 2: soccer star that President Trump intervened on behalf of is
[4:21] Speaker 2: a birthright citizen.
[4:22] Speaker 1: Correct.
[4:23] Speaker 4: The leading goal scorer for the US men's national team,
[4:26] Speaker 4: Fuller and Baligan, by all intents and purposes, should have
[4:29] Speaker 4: been born in England, but his mother was not permitted
[4:31] Speaker 4: to board a plane because she was in the eighth
[4:33] Speaker 4: month of the pregnancy, and so Fuller in Baligan was
[4:36] Speaker 4: born in the United States and because of that he
[4:39] Speaker 4: was conferred US citizenship. And a few years ago he
[4:43] Speaker 4: was becoming a very promising soccer player, and the US
[4:46] Speaker 4: Soccer Federation realized that he had this birthright citizenship, and
[4:51] Speaker 4: so they asked if he would be willing to play
[4:53] Speaker 4: for the US men's national team, and he said yes,
[4:56] Speaker 4: and so the rest is history.
[4:58] Speaker 1: And had there not been birthright citizen and Chip.
[5:00] Speaker 4: That would not be an individual who would have been
[5:03] Speaker 4: allowed to play in the United States soccer team.
[5:06] Speaker 2: Let's turn now to the growing number of shootings by
[5:09] Speaker 2: ICE agents. There was another deadly shooting on Tuesday. An
[5:14] Speaker 2: ICE officer shot a thirty nine year old Mexican national
[5:18] Speaker 2: who was in his car during an immigration enforcement stop
[5:22] Speaker 2: in Houston. He'd been living in the US for decades
[5:26] Speaker 2: without legal status. Federal officials say he weaponized his vehicle,
[5:31] Speaker 2: but they say that all the time in these cases,
[5:33] Speaker 2: and this time they've offered no evidence.
[5:36] Speaker 4: This case is already one of the more complicated cases
[5:40] Speaker 4: from the standpoint that ICE usually tries, in order to
[5:44] Speaker 4: avoid any conflagration like this, to go to an individual's
[5:49] Speaker 4: home or to at worst go to their workplace or
[5:54] Speaker 4: a specific check insite to conduct arrests. But at the moment,
[5:59] Speaker 4: the White House is really pressing, and then now the
[6:02] Speaker 4: new Secretary of Homeland Security's really pressing again to try
[6:05] Speaker 4: to get two thousand arrests per day, although he's trying
[6:09] Speaker 4: also to say, try to make these arrests as low
[6:12] Speaker 4: profile as possible, and nevertheless, when you try to get
[6:16] Speaker 4: these numbers, now they've caught this individual in traffic as opposed.
[6:20] Speaker 1: To at home or at work.
[6:22] Speaker 4: And so it's unclear if this individual was someone they
[6:25] Speaker 4: were trying to catch at home and they couldn't and
[6:29] Speaker 4: found them on the road, or whether this was an
[6:32] Speaker 4: individual that just looked suspicious to Ice who was happened
[6:36] Speaker 4: to be on the road as well. But the point is,
[6:38] Speaker 4: once Ice confronted this individual who was clearly undocumented, this
[6:43] Speaker 4: individual sort of reacted in a manner that led.
[6:47] Speaker 1: Ice to shoot them.
[6:49] Speaker 4: And we'll have to wait and see with regard to
[6:51] Speaker 4: body camera footage and other witness testimony. Was this like
[6:56] Speaker 4: the situation in Minnesota where people argued that the Ice
[7:00] Speaker 4: agents were not under thread from the vehicle and still
[7:04] Speaker 4: shot the woman in their car, or is this a
[7:07] Speaker 4: real situation where someone was trying to run over Ice
[7:11] Speaker 4: officers in order to avoid detection. I mean, anyone who
[7:15] Speaker 4: tries to comment without knowing the facts really is doing
[7:18] Speaker 4: a diservice. But the point is, when you do these
[7:21] Speaker 4: car apprehensions, that's always a risk that doesn't exist when
[7:26] Speaker 4: you do the home apprehension or the office apprehension is obviously,
[7:31] Speaker 4: no one's.
[7:31] Speaker 1: Going to run you over with a car if they're
[7:33] Speaker 1: not in their car.
[7:34] Speaker 2: According to the New York Times, as you referred to,
[7:36] Speaker 2: there's been a major surge in arrest and orders from
[7:41] Speaker 2: the top, and ICE agents have been arresting people at
[7:44] Speaker 2: check ins with immigration authorities, during traffic stops and on
[7:48] Speaker 2: the streets, and apprehensions doubled from the one thousand picked
[7:53] Speaker 2: up each day earlier this year. So in trying to
[7:58] Speaker 2: increase the numbers, they have to go outside of arresting
[8:02] Speaker 2: people at their homes.
[8:04] Speaker 4: Correct, It's basically impossible because what you need when you
[8:08] Speaker 4: go into a home.
[8:09] Speaker 1: Is you need a warrant, and you need.
[8:13] Speaker 4: A group of people because you can't just have one
[8:15] Speaker 4: person because of safety reasons, and so all of that
[8:18] Speaker 4: takes time and energy and resources and manpower, and so
[8:23] Speaker 4: if you need two thousand arrests a day, you have
[8:25] Speaker 4: to find easier ways to do that.
[8:28] Speaker 1: And to the extent ICE has.
[8:29] Speaker 4: Now been given permission to arrest anyone it deems to
[8:34] Speaker 4: be suspicious on.
[8:35] Speaker 1: The road, then there's no doubt more.
[8:38] Speaker 4: Situations like this are going to happen, whether they be
[8:41] Speaker 4: from the person that gets arrested, or whether they be
[8:45] Speaker 4: from people who are protesting the person getting arrested, because
[8:49] Speaker 4: we've seen both kinds of situations flare up where now
[8:53] Speaker 4: we've seen the person getting arrested involved in a shooting,
[8:57] Speaker 4: but we've also seen the people protesting.
[8:59] Speaker 1: The arrest get involved in the shooting.
[9:02] Speaker 4: And so, you know, this is sort of like a
[9:04] Speaker 4: push pool where when there's less of these operations, then
[9:10] Speaker 4: there's less of these incidents. But any sort of intensification
[9:15] Speaker 4: of these operations, unfortunately always seems to carry an intensification
[9:20] Speaker 4: of these incidents.
[9:21] Speaker 2: More than twenty people have been shot by ice since September,
[9:25] Speaker 2: and nearly all of them in their cars. At least
[9:29] Speaker 2: six have been killed. I mean, last year there was
[9:31] Speaker 2: a federal immigration agents shot at fatally shot a twenty
[9:35] Speaker 2: three year old US citizen during the late night traffic stop.
[9:40] Speaker 2: And in most of these cases, the federal officials said
[9:43] Speaker 2: that the actions were justified because the vehicles had been
[9:46] Speaker 2: weaponized and the agent's lives were in danger. Shouldn't there
[9:50] Speaker 2: be better procedures if they're going to do these traffic
[9:54] Speaker 2: stops to eliminate this right.
[9:57] Speaker 1: No, absolutely.
[9:58] Speaker 4: I mean, at the end of the day, the traffic
[10:01] Speaker 4: stop really should be for someone who is avoiding being
[10:05] Speaker 4: apprehended at their home or at their work where they've
[10:08] Speaker 4: sort of gotten in their car and they're trying to
[10:10] Speaker 4: run away. Now, but I think routine traffic stops for
[10:15] Speaker 4: ice where ICE is being told you have the authority
[10:18] Speaker 4: to arrest people who you if you're driving around you
[10:22] Speaker 4: think they look suspicious. That to me is impossible to
[10:27] Speaker 4: think that it's not going to continue to lead to
[10:29] Speaker 4: these situations. Because someone is in their car, they're desperate.
[10:33] Speaker 4: They now are thinking in their head, oh my lord,
[10:36] Speaker 4: I'm going to be apprehended. I'm not going to be
[10:38] Speaker 4: able to see my children or my spouse, I'm not
[10:40] Speaker 4: gonna be able to tell them where they are. And
[10:42] Speaker 4: they just flip out, and the first thing they think
[10:44] Speaker 4: to do is to drive the car away, And that
[10:47] Speaker 4: act of driving the car away can easily be seen
[10:50] Speaker 4: as a weaponization of the car. It's not justifiable, it's
[10:54] Speaker 4: just predictable, is the only point that I'm making.
[10:57] Speaker 1: And so I'm not trying to.
[10:58] Speaker 4: Justify the act of the foreign nation who's moving their car.
[11:02] Speaker 4: I'm just trying to say that in some number of cases,
[11:05] Speaker 4: if you are actuarially at analyzing this, you would say
[11:08] Speaker 4: it's predictable that the foreign national is going to try
[11:11] Speaker 4: to get away if they're inside their car.
[11:13] Speaker 2: So the Department of Homeland Security Inspectors General's Office is
[11:18] Speaker 2: conducting an investigation. The FBI has opened an investigation into
[11:22] Speaker 2: a possible assault on a federal law enforcement officer. But
[11:26] Speaker 2: once again they are excluding local authorities. So the DA
[11:31] Speaker 2: of Harris County that covers Houston said that federal authorities,
[11:36] Speaker 2: unfortunately are continuing to exclusively handle all aspects in this case.
[11:41] Speaker 2: Isn't this a problem? You have the administration investigating the
[11:45] Speaker 2: administration with local authorities always cut out well.
[11:50] Speaker 4: So we have a couple of cases recently that sort
[11:53] Speaker 4: of talk about these issues. We have these cases where
[11:56] Speaker 4: the states are trying to impose obligations on and the
[12:01] Speaker 4: courts are saying, no, you can't do that. You can't
[12:03] Speaker 4: impose obligations on how federal law enforcement officials operate and
[12:09] Speaker 4: enforce federal law. And then you have the general doctrine
[12:12] Speaker 4: on this issue, which came up when Minnesota tried to
[12:15] Speaker 4: prosecute these ICE agents which is that you have to
[12:17] Speaker 4: show that these federal agents are basically acting so far
[12:21] Speaker 4: outside of the scope of their employment that they're basically murderers,
[12:26] Speaker 4: because that's the only way that their immunity can be
[12:28] Speaker 4: taken away, and that's very hard to prove. And in Texas,
[12:33] Speaker 4: the local officials don't want to get in that business.
[12:36] Speaker 4: Maybe like in New York or Minnesota or some other places,
[12:40] Speaker 4: they're more willing to try to get into that business
[12:43] Speaker 4: of saying that the ICE agents were not acting.
[12:46] Speaker 1: Within the scope for employment and.
[12:48] Speaker 4: Were essentially murdering someone, But the local officials in Texas
[12:52] Speaker 4: don't want to go down that route.
[12:53] Speaker 2: Coming up next, the Department of Homeland Security is stuck
[12:57] Speaker 2: between two conflicting federal court rooms rulings. This is Bloomberg.
[13:03] Speaker 2: The Department of Homeland Security is stuck between two conflicting
[13:07] Speaker 2: federal court rulings. One in Florida compels it to play
[13:11] Speaker 2: ball with red states looking for information on immigration status.
[13:16] Speaker 2: The other in DC does just the opposite and compels
[13:20] Speaker 2: DHS to shut down such bulk inquiries using social security numbers.
[13:26] Speaker 2: The dispute boils down to whether federal privacy laws prevents
[13:31] Speaker 2: states from utilizing SAVE, the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlement
[13:37] Speaker 2: system to perform checks on migrant status for use in
[13:41] Speaker 2: state licensing and election registration processes. I've been talking to
[13:46] Speaker 2: Leon Fresco of Holland and Knight. He was the former
[13:49] Speaker 2: head of the Office of Civil Immigration Litigation in the
[13:52] Speaker 2: Obama administration. Leon explained the issue with this SAVE system.
[13:57] Speaker 1: So this is a little bit complex.
[13:59] Speaker 4: So I want to take your listeners through this so
[14:01] Speaker 4: that they understand everything that's going on. So there's a
[14:04] Speaker 4: database called SAFE Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements Database, and
[14:10] Speaker 4: so that actually has a meaning for entitlements, meaning that
[14:15] Speaker 4: the purpose of that database was originally for states to
[14:19] Speaker 4: determine in programs.
[14:21] Speaker 1: Like Medicare, Medicaid.
[14:23] Speaker 4: Food stamps, et cetera, whether people had the correct immigration
[14:27] Speaker 4: status to be able to collect those entitlements. You know
[14:31] Speaker 4: what people used to call welfare programs or public benefits programs.
[14:36] Speaker 1: And if you didn't.
[14:37] Speaker 4: Have the correct immigration status to collect, then you wouldn't
[14:41] Speaker 4: get it. You'd run the system. And that was required
[14:44] Speaker 4: by Congress that THEHS provide these databases to the states
[14:49] Speaker 4: in order to check for welfare benefits. Now what happens
[14:55] Speaker 4: is you have the election in twenty twenty you have
[14:57] Speaker 4: President Trump say that he was cheated from winning because
[15:02] Speaker 4: of documented people were voting on mass etc. And many
[15:06] Speaker 4: states took this too hard, and in twenty twenty four
[15:10] Speaker 4: they sued the federal government, the Biden administration, and said, look,
[15:15] Speaker 4: we want access to this saved database in order to
[15:19] Speaker 4: determine if our voter roles are filled with undocumented people.
[15:24] Speaker 4: And they argued that there were a number of statutory
[15:28] Speaker 4: requirements that basically required the states to actually do this.
[15:34] Speaker 4: So they said that there was four statutes, the National
[15:38] Speaker 4: Voter Registration Act, the Help America Vote Act, the Civil
[15:42] Speaker 4: Rights Act of nineteen sixty and there were actually already
[15:45] Speaker 4: memorandums of agreement between the states and the federal government
[15:50] Speaker 4: that all said that states had a duty to make
[15:53] Speaker 4: sure that illegal voters could not vote.
[15:57] Speaker 1: And so the state sudents said, if you don't.
[15:59] Speaker 4: Give us access to this saved database for the purposes
[16:03] Speaker 4: of clearing our voter roles of undocumented individuals, then you
[16:08] Speaker 4: are basically putting a mandate on us and not giving
[16:11] Speaker 4: us the materials we need to fulfill that mandate. And
[16:15] Speaker 4: that case didn't get adjudicated. What happened was DHS reached
[16:20] Speaker 4: a settlement with the States and said, fine, we'll give
[16:25] Speaker 4: you access to the safe database, and we'll actually add
[16:29] Speaker 4: some citizenship information in it that we know, whether it
[16:33] Speaker 4: be from passports or social security numbers and drivers licenses
[16:38] Speaker 4: and other things.
[16:39] Speaker 1: We're going to add.
[16:40] Speaker 4: All of that into the database because now they have
[16:42] Speaker 4: all this very expert IT and AI and everything else,
[16:47] Speaker 4: and we're going to give you this so that you
[16:49] Speaker 4: can then purge your.
[16:51] Speaker 1: Voter roles of undocumented people.
[16:53] Speaker 4: But then what happened is Public Interest Organization sued in Washington,
[16:59] Speaker 4: in the District of Columbia, and they said, wait a second,
[17:02] Speaker 4: this information that you're providing about citizens now not just
[17:06] Speaker 4: about foreign nationals, which was what used to be the
[17:09] Speaker 4: SAVE database. You didn't run this by the Correct Privacy Act,
[17:14] Speaker 4: Social Security Act, e Government Act of two thousand and two.
[17:19] Speaker 4: You didn't do any of that privacy protections and analysis.
[17:22] Speaker 4: And so now you're having DHS, which is supposed to
[17:25] Speaker 4: only be dealing with foreign nationals, having a database of citizens.
[17:30] Speaker 4: That's violating their privacy. That that settlement agreement violated all
[17:35] Speaker 4: these statutes violated their privacy.
[17:37] Speaker 1: And so the District Court in DC issued.
[17:40] Speaker 4: An injunction saying, stop it, stop it, Department of Homeland Security,
[17:44] Speaker 4: do not share this information with the states about the
[17:48] Speaker 4: citizenship and the voter roles and who's undocumented.
[17:52] Speaker 1: And who isn't.
[17:53] Speaker 4: And then the court where there was the settlement, which
[17:57] Speaker 4: was in Florida, came back now and said, hey, the
[18:01] Speaker 4: DC court is wrong. The government is now violating the settlement.
[18:06] Speaker 4: So the government, we're gonna hold you in content if
[18:08] Speaker 4: you don't give this information. So now THEHS is stuck
[18:12] Speaker 4: between I rock and a hard place because it's either
[18:15] Speaker 4: violating the court order in DC or it's violating the
[18:19] Speaker 4: court order in Tallahassee. Obviously, the Trump administration wants to
[18:24] Speaker 4: comply with the court order in Tallahassee, not with the
[18:27] Speaker 4: one in DC.
[18:28] Speaker 2: The Florida Federal judge, a Trump appointee, said, the court
[18:32] Speaker 2: understands that this puts defendants in a bind because they're
[18:35] Speaker 2: subject to two contradictory orders. One of the orders has
[18:39] Speaker 2: to give, and not surprisingly, the court is not persuaded
[18:42] Speaker 2: by defendants and Amiki's arguments that its order is the
[18:46] Speaker 2: one that should give.
[18:47] Speaker 4: So what happens, So the Trump administration has had a
[18:50] Speaker 4: high priority of trying to enforce these purging of the
[18:55] Speaker 4: voter rolls for undocumented people. So they're gonna comply with
[18:58] Speaker 4: the Florida Court, the Dallazi Court.
[19:01] Speaker 1: That says that at the end of the day.
[19:04] Speaker 4: You have to provide this information. So what that will
[19:07] Speaker 4: lead to is the District Court in DC holding the
[19:10] Speaker 4: federal government in contempt for violating its order, which then
[19:14] Speaker 4: the federal government will have to appeal to the DC
[19:18] Speaker 4: Circuit and then ultimately to the Supreme Court if the
[19:21] Speaker 4: DC Circuit doesn't give the government relief from that. I
[19:24] Speaker 4: don't think that anything's going to happen in the Eleventh
[19:27] Speaker 4: Circuit because what I think is going to happen is
[19:30] Speaker 4: the government is going to abide buy the Florida court order,
[19:35] Speaker 4: and so then the litigation will end up coming through
[19:38] Speaker 4: DC in order to try to get relief from the
[19:41] Speaker 4: DC order.
[19:42] Speaker 1: That's what I think is going to happen.
[19:44] Speaker 2: Another immigration case at the Supreme Court. No surprise there.
[19:48] Speaker 2: On another topic, employers looking to hire workers from outside
[19:52] Speaker 2: the US may be feeling a little whiplash about the
[19:56] Speaker 2: one hundred thousand dollars fee required for every new AI
[20:01] Speaker 2: visa petition, it's caught up in litigation. Start by giving
[20:05] Speaker 2: us the background on this leon.
[20:07] Speaker 4: We all remember, starting in twenty seventeen and working our
[20:10] Speaker 4: way through today twenty twenty six, the Trump administration has
[20:15] Speaker 4: been using what's called INA Section two twelve f, which
[20:18] Speaker 4: is a statute that says when the president thinks it's
[20:21] Speaker 4: in the national interest to ban certain foreign nationals from
[20:25] Speaker 4: coming to the United States, the president could ban those
[20:28] Speaker 4: foreign nationals. So we knew that from the context of
[20:31] Speaker 4: what was called the travel ban or the Muslim ban.
[20:34] Speaker 4: That was the original ban of six countries, and then
[20:38] Speaker 4: it got extended to other countries like North Korea, and
[20:41] Speaker 4: there was the Trump versus Hawaii case where the Supreme
[20:44] Speaker 4: Court said, yes, the banning authority is legal and it
[20:47] Speaker 4: can be used. So after that, the Trump administration started
[20:52] Speaker 4: using the ban for more things. COVID public charge that
[20:55] Speaker 4: they think that people from certain countries are going to
[20:58] Speaker 4: have welfare.
[20:59] Speaker 1: There's thirty nine countries that are currently banned.
[21:02] Speaker 4: After the shooting that happened in front of the White
[21:04] Speaker 4: House by an Afghan refugee, there's thirty nine countries that
[21:08] Speaker 4: are fully banned from getting any visa. So a new
[21:11] Speaker 4: ban like six months ago was to say instead of
[21:15] Speaker 4: a ban, what we'll do is, we'll have a ban
[21:18] Speaker 4: on all people who want to get an H one
[21:21] Speaker 4: B visa, which is a visa for high skilled immigrants
[21:24] Speaker 4: who want to perform work in the United States. We're
[21:27] Speaker 4: going to ban those people from coming in unless their
[21:30] Speaker 4: employer pays one hundred thousand dollars.
[21:33] Speaker 1: And so the question in.
[21:34] Speaker 4: This litigation is is that just a normal ban that
[21:38] Speaker 4: has an exception to it, or is that really a
[21:41] Speaker 4: tax that's not a ban, it's just a tax. And
[21:45] Speaker 4: if it's a tax, then Congress has to pass the tax.
[21:49] Speaker 4: It's not something that can be done as part of
[21:51] Speaker 4: the banning authority that the President has under I in
[21:54] Speaker 4: a section two twelve F.
[21:56] Speaker 2: How has the one hundred thousand dollars fee affected the
[21:59] Speaker 2: number of peace people getting H one B visus.
[22:03] Speaker 4: There are a lot of companies that hire foreign students
[22:06] Speaker 4: in the US, so it hasn't affected those people because
[22:08] Speaker 4: those people are inside the United States, so they can't
[22:11] Speaker 4: be banned.
[22:12] Speaker 1: Because they're already here.
[22:13] Speaker 4: But there are some companies that have a business model
[22:16] Speaker 4: that what they do is that people get educated in
[22:19] Speaker 4: the prestigious universities in India, and then they hire those
[22:22] Speaker 4: people directly from those prestigious universities in India to come
[22:26] Speaker 4: directly into the United States and provide work, whether it's
[22:30] Speaker 4: in IAI or IT or whatever else it is.
[22:33] Speaker 1: And now those individuals cannot.
[22:35] Speaker 4: Come into the US because the employers do not want
[22:37] Speaker 4: to pay this one hundred thousand dollars fee to bring
[22:41] Speaker 4: in those employees. They'll take them to Canada or somewhere else.
[22:45] Speaker 4: They won't bring them into the United States. And so
[22:48] Speaker 4: the question is for those employers and the US Chamber
[22:51] Speaker 4: of Commerce first file the lawsuit in DC and then others.
[22:56] Speaker 4: There's a lawsuit that was filed in the first Circuit,
[22:59] Speaker 4: and there's a lawsuit was filed in the Northern District
[23:01] Speaker 4: of California. But different employers have filed and have argued that.
[23:07] Speaker 1: That law was illegal.
[23:09] Speaker 4: And really what happened was the first court in the
[23:12] Speaker 4: District of Columbia said it was fine because it was
[23:16] Speaker 4: part of the ban authority. So if you could impose
[23:18] Speaker 4: a ban, then why couldn't you impose a way around
[23:21] Speaker 4: the ban, a conditional ban. And so the court said
[23:25] Speaker 4: it was fine. But then in between that decision and
[23:28] Speaker 4: the decision that happened in the district court that was
[23:31] Speaker 4: in the first Circuit. There was a case involving tariffs
[23:34] Speaker 4: that the Supreme Court said that the tyreffs were really
[23:37] Speaker 4: attacks and that the tax needed to be done by Congress.
[23:41] Speaker 4: And so then the plaintiffs changed their argument to say
[23:44] Speaker 4: that alas, this is the problem. The problem is not
[23:47] Speaker 4: that the banning authority was used improperly. The problem was
[23:52] Speaker 4: that this is actually a tax, and a tax needs
[23:55] Speaker 4: to be done by Congress. And so the District Court
[23:59] Speaker 4: agreed with that and has basically said, I'm enjoining this
[24:04] Speaker 4: one hundred thousand dollars fee. But the only problem is
[24:08] Speaker 4: that then the District Court stayed its order while it's
[24:12] Speaker 4: on appeal in the First Circuit. And so even though
[24:15] Speaker 4: there's a District of Massachusetts decision that currently says that
[24:19] Speaker 4: the fee is an illegal tax, the fee is still
[24:21] Speaker 4: being charged because that decision has been stayed and we
[24:25] Speaker 4: will see what the First Circuit says about this. And
[24:28] Speaker 4: there's also similar litigation in the Northern District of California.
[24:33] Speaker 4: So in the end, what this means is that the
[24:34] Speaker 4: Supreme Court is likely going to get involved and decide
[24:38] Speaker 4: whether not just the banning authority is.
[24:40] Speaker 1: Legal, because we know that that's legal.
[24:42] Speaker 4: But whether the president can say you're banned unless you
[24:46] Speaker 4: pay a fee.
[24:47] Speaker 1: Can they do that or does that become now a tax?
[24:50] Speaker 4: And so you could either do a ban or no ban,
[24:53] Speaker 4: but you can't do a ban with a fee to
[24:55] Speaker 4: work your way around the band.
[24:57] Speaker 2: And so yet another immigration case for this Supreme Court.
[25:01] Speaker 2: Thanks so much for covering the gamut on immigration with me. Leon.
[25:05] Speaker 2: That's Leon Fresco of Honda Knight. I'm June Grosso and
[25:09] Speaker 2: you're listening to Bloomberg. A bipartisan group of state and
[25:14] Speaker 2: federal judges, both current and retired, are hitting the road
[25:18] Speaker 2: in a first of its kind bus tour across three
[25:21] Speaker 2: states to bring judges out of the courthouses and into
[25:25] Speaker 2: the communities. The Justice in Motion Tour is designed to
[25:29] Speaker 2: promote public trust in the judiciary by explaining the role
[25:33] Speaker 2: court's play in our lives and countering disinformation. The judges
[25:38] Speaker 2: will travel through Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan, meeting with students,
[25:43] Speaker 2: civic leaders, attorneys, business owners, and others, answering their questions
[25:48] Speaker 2: and giving them the rare opportunity to speak directly with judges.
[25:53] Speaker 2: My guest is one of the judges on that bus,
[25:56] Speaker 2: Chief Justice Mourn O'Connor retired from the Ohio Supreme Court.
[26:00] Speaker 2: Thanks for joining me today, Chief Justice. So tell us
[26:03] Speaker 2: why you decided to go on this bus tour and
[26:06] Speaker 2: what you hope to accomplish.
[26:08] Speaker 3: To draw attention to the fact that the judiciary is
[26:11] Speaker 3: under attack. You know, we have obviously, I don't have
[26:14] Speaker 3: to tell you that. You know, the three branches of government,
[26:17] Speaker 3: they're supposed to be coequal, and what we at the
[26:20] Speaker 3: public seem almost daily is elected officials, usually in Washington
[26:27] Speaker 3: but other places denigrating personally demonstrating judges and attributing motives
[26:34] Speaker 3: to those judges that are just not true. You know
[26:38] Speaker 3: that they're not corrupt, they're following the law. Never is
[26:41] Speaker 3: the criticism of the opinion based on a legal analysis
[26:46] Speaker 3: by the person who is speaking. It's they don't like
[26:50] Speaker 3: the results, and so they're going to do a personal
[26:52] Speaker 3: attack on that judge. They're going to name the judge,
[26:55] Speaker 3: you know, the President, for example, the rating justices on
[26:58] Speaker 3: the Supreme Court because they weren't oil to him. You know,
[27:01] Speaker 3: I want to say, yes, mister Putin, you know, that's
[27:04] Speaker 3: exactly what it sounds like. So you know, these personal
[27:07] Speaker 3: attacks on judges are dangerous. The increase in the number
[27:12] Speaker 3: of reports for the Federal Judiciary, I think they had
[27:15] Speaker 3: almost six hundred investigations last year and at this point
[27:20] Speaker 3: in time they have I think about two hundred and
[27:22] Speaker 3: fifty two hundred and sixty trusts against judges that they
[27:25] Speaker 3: are investigating. You know about the piazza deliveries to judges addressers,
[27:30] Speaker 3: So that's the message we know where you live sort
[27:33] Speaker 3: of thing, or to their children. It's diabolical and they're
[27:37] Speaker 3: doing it because they don't want to follow the rule
[27:40] Speaker 3: of law. They want to influence and intimidate. And then,
[27:44] Speaker 3: you know, think about it, the less informed individuals would
[27:49] Speaker 3: believe that it's okay to target and judge, and there
[27:53] Speaker 3: have been attempts and there have been murders of judges
[27:56] Speaker 3: here in the United States by parties to the cases,
[28:00] Speaker 3: or parties that are interested in the cases, or somebody
[28:03] Speaker 3: who's is a zealot. And you know, they always use
[28:05] Speaker 3: the example of the Federal New Jersey a judge whose
[28:09] Speaker 3: son was killed and her husband was wounded. She was
[28:12] Speaker 3: in home at the time, and in Ohio in twenty seventeen,
[28:16] Speaker 3: a party was laying in wait for a judge, Judge
[28:20] Speaker 3: Berziz trial judge, and he had had a conversation with
[28:24] Speaker 3: his attorney, and the attorney was preparing him for losing
[28:27] Speaker 3: the case because you know, legally it was an unsounded
[28:30] Speaker 3: case and the judge was probably going to rule against him.
[28:33] Speaker 3: So he shows up in the morning as the judge's
[28:35] Speaker 3: parking his car in a parking lot. This guy's laying
[28:38] Speaker 3: in wait with a gun. The judge almost dies. And
[28:40] Speaker 3: again that was twenty seventeen. He's back on the bed.
[28:43] Speaker 3: But you know, immediately then you think, well, if that happens,
[28:47] Speaker 3: is they could inspire another koup, you know, to take action.
[28:51] Speaker 3: The rhetoric that is being thrown around now is you know,
[28:54] Speaker 3: doing just that we're under attack, and if the judiciary's
[28:57] Speaker 3: under attack, the rule of law cannot stand.
[29:01] Speaker 2: You can't stop President Trump and members of the administration
[29:06] Speaker 2: even from saying these things about judges. So what are
[29:10] Speaker 2: you trying to do specifically on this trip.
[29:13] Speaker 3: We're trying to identify whatever is being said as misinformation
[29:18] Speaker 3: and political theater. Really, and the judicial system is suffering.
[29:24] Speaker 3: So here's what judges really do. We explain that we
[29:28] Speaker 3: have just a varied audience. I just left a group
[29:31] Speaker 3: called Law and Leadership, which are high school students, minority
[29:34] Speaker 3: students primarily, and we just had a wonderful conversation with them.
[29:38] Speaker 3: So we're imparting information, you know, straight from the horse's mouth,
[29:42] Speaker 3: so to speak about the judicial system, about it, the
[29:46] Speaker 3: undertach how these personal taxs are misinformation disinformation, and you know,
[29:52] Speaker 3: we talk about the rule of law, and we talk
[29:55] Speaker 3: about if we don't have the rule of law. In
[29:57] Speaker 3: other words, if judges are making decisions based on intimidation
[30:02] Speaker 3: or party affiliation or you know, being loyal to someone
[30:07] Speaker 3: who's helped them become a judge, that's a breach of
[30:10] Speaker 3: the rule of law. And when that breaks down, society
[30:14] Speaker 3: breaks down. We don't have, you know, a law that
[30:17] Speaker 3: we can rely on. Businesses can you know, conduct their
[30:20] Speaker 3: business with certainty because they don't know what the rules are. Now,
[30:24] Speaker 3: you know, it really reverberates through society. And that's the
[30:28] Speaker 3: message and I know it's a big message. But the
[30:30] Speaker 3: way it can be done we ask these people to
[30:32] Speaker 3: be messengers. Once we explain things and say, help educate
[30:38] Speaker 3: your family, help educate, you know, your circle of friends
[30:41] Speaker 3: about this and you know, be messengers.
[30:44] Speaker 2: And how has it been going so far?
[30:46] Speaker 3: There have been some really delightful times and we're getting
[30:49] Speaker 3: prouds of people that are so sincere. We just left
[30:55] Speaker 3: the Ohio State University and we were with a group
[30:58] Speaker 3: called Law and Leadership, which is primarily minority membership for
[31:03] Speaker 3: kids in high school and the goal is to encourage
[31:07] Speaker 3: them to go to college and give them experiences. And
[31:11] Speaker 3: I have been involved with long leadership, you know, since
[31:14] Speaker 3: its infection, and we got to do a lot of
[31:17] Speaker 3: small group interaction with them. I had two young ladies
[31:21] Speaker 3: and we just had a wonderful conversation and you know,
[31:25] Speaker 3: I wish them well. They were just delightful and smart.
[31:29] Speaker 2: I'm curious about something, and I know you have both
[31:31] Speaker 2: federal and state judges on the bus tour. So the
[31:35] Speaker 2: National Center for State Courts in December of last year
[31:39] Speaker 2: did its yearly survey and it found that sixty two
[31:42] Speaker 2: percent of respondents expressed trust in the state court system.
[31:48] Speaker 2: And that's more than express trust in the federal court
[31:51] Speaker 2: system that was just fifty two percent. And I'm wondering
[31:54] Speaker 2: if you have a feel for why that's the case.
[31:58] Speaker 3: Well, they judiciary is much closer to the people in Ohio.
[32:04] Speaker 3: For example, all of our judges are elected, so judges campaign.
[32:08] Speaker 3: You know, I always have said to judges, get off
[32:11] Speaker 3: the bench and get out into the community. You know,
[32:13] Speaker 3: you come from the community, and then you isolate yourself.
[32:16] Speaker 3: You know, some judges suits, you know, don't do that.
[32:18] Speaker 3: You know, still speak to the rotaries, you know, whatever
[32:21] Speaker 3: the organizations are. Speak to high school classes. It's a
[32:25] Speaker 3: wonderful thing to do to help educate the public about
[32:29] Speaker 3: the third branch of governments.
[32:31] Speaker 2: Well, thank you so much for joining me today, Chief Justice,
[32:35] Speaker 2: and good luck on your tour. That's retired Chief Justice
[32:38] Speaker 2: Moreno O'Connor of the Ohio Supreme Court. The DC Circuit
[32:44] Speaker 2: has rejected the Justice Department's request to temporarily lift a
[32:49] Speaker 2: judge's ruling against the renaming of the Kennedy Center. A
[32:53] Speaker 2: three judge panel ruled unanimously that President Trump's name must
[32:58] Speaker 2: stay off the Kennedy's Center's facade while the administration fights
[33:03] Speaker 2: in court to reinstate it's renaming of the historic performing
[33:07] Speaker 2: arts center. My guest is Bloomberg Law reporter Suzanne Monyac,
[33:11] Speaker 2: who's been covering all these cases on the challenges to
[33:15] Speaker 2: Trump's attempts to redo DC. Suzanne start by reminding us
[33:20] Speaker 2: what the DC federal judge had ruled in May.
[33:24] Speaker 5: Judge Casey Cooper and DC ruled in May that Trump
[33:27] Speaker 5: essentially didn't have legal authority to change the.
[33:30] Speaker 6: Name of the Kennedy Center to his own.
[33:32] Speaker 5: He found that a law passed by Congress making this
[33:34] Speaker 5: a memorial for the late President John F. Kennedy was
[33:38] Speaker 5: clear and that it couldn't be named for somebody else,
[33:40] Speaker 5: and so as a result, that his name couldn't remain
[33:42] Speaker 5: on the building.
[33:43] Speaker 2: I'm recalling, if I'm correct, that at the time of
[33:47] Speaker 2: the ruling, President Trump said, Okay, they're dropping it. But
[33:52] Speaker 2: they didn't drop it. They took it to the DC
[33:54] Speaker 2: Appellate Court.
[33:55] Speaker 5: Well, it just sort of looked that way because the
[33:57] Speaker 5: judge gave them fourteen days to do something about it
[34:00] Speaker 5: before his ruling would take effect, and they didn't do anything.
[34:03] Speaker 5: So for a minute it looked like, Oh, they're going
[34:05] Speaker 5: to take his name down and they're just going to
[34:06] Speaker 5: abandon this fight.
[34:08] Speaker 6: But that at the very last minute.
[34:09] Speaker 5: They filed a request to to Washington d C's Federal
[34:12] Speaker 5: appeals Court and asked them for a ruling giving them
[34:15] Speaker 5: a relief for some temporary reprieve from this lower court.
[34:19] Speaker 6: Ruling while they appealed it. But the d C. Circuit
[34:22] Speaker 6: has now twice said no. Dice.
[34:23] Speaker 5: Initially they said no, you know, they didn't say much
[34:26] Speaker 5: about it, but I think the thought was that it
[34:27] Speaker 5: had been very last minute, and they said no, I'm
[34:30] Speaker 5: not going to lift this ruling. They initially denied what's
[34:33] Speaker 5: called it administrative stay, so just a very late temporary stay.
[34:37] Speaker 5: So they denied that, so the name came down, but
[34:39] Speaker 5: then they did brief it, and this latest has been
[34:41] Speaker 5: that they have said, no, you can't have your name
[34:43] Speaker 5: on it while the case continues.
[34:45] Speaker 2: So tell us what the Justice Department's argument was the
[34:49] Speaker 2: latest argument.
[34:50] Speaker 5: In this latest development post Casey Cooper's ruling and now
[34:54] Speaker 5: their efforts to lift it. They've been arguing that by
[34:57] Speaker 5: having his name be taken off the building that it
[35:00] Speaker 5: would irreparably harm the government. That's the standard for getting
[35:03] Speaker 5: what's known as a stay of a lower court ruling
[35:05] Speaker 5: while you appeal it. They are claiming that that's for
[35:07] Speaker 5: two reasons, one of which no longer applies. They initially
[35:10] Speaker 5: argued that it didn't make sense for them to have
[35:12] Speaker 5: to take Trump's name off the building only to have
[35:14] Speaker 5: to put it back if they were to eventually win
[35:16] Speaker 5: the case, which they think they're likely to do. Of course,
[35:18] Speaker 5: now his name's already off the building, so that no
[35:20] Speaker 5: longer applies. The other argument that they've made was that
[35:24] Speaker 5: having his name no longer be on the building. Trump's
[35:26] Speaker 5: name would hurt their fundraising efforts. They'd argued that people
[35:30] Speaker 5: give money to the center because it is named for Trump,
[35:33] Speaker 5: and that it would undermine the center financially. But the
[35:36] Speaker 5: DC Circuit, Washington's federal appeals Court, really wasn't moved by
[35:40] Speaker 5: that and found that there had not been enough material
[35:43] Speaker 5: facts or evidence to back up that claim, and that
[35:46] Speaker 5: also it hadn't been presented before in court and was
[35:48] Speaker 5: just being presented now on appeal for the first time.
[35:51] Speaker 5: But specifically just said that they didn't see any evidence
[35:54] Speaker 5: just conclusiory is the word that they used assertions of
[35:57] Speaker 5: financial harm. They just didn't think that what they had
[36:00] Speaker 5: put forward was enough to meet the standard for a day,
[36:04] Speaker 5: which is known as to be more extraordinary relief. So
[36:07] Speaker 5: that was their explanation in a relatively brief order denying
[36:10] Speaker 5: the Trump administration's request for relief.
[36:12] Speaker 2: Here, it was a unanimous ruling by a panel of
[36:15] Speaker 2: two Obama appointees and one Trump appointee.
[36:18] Speaker 6: That's correct. It was a percurium ruling, noicense.
[36:21] Speaker 2: Cooper ordered Trump's name to come down. They took his
[36:24] Speaker 2: name down, but then they put.
[36:25] Speaker 3: Up a tarp.
[36:26] Speaker 6: That's correct. This fight is not quite yet over.
[36:30] Speaker 5: They took his name down as requested and filed a
[36:35] Speaker 5: statement in the court that they had done so, but
[36:37] Speaker 5: it's been covered up by a tarp and scaffolding.
[36:39] Speaker 6: So now that issue is getting raised in the lower court.
[36:42] Speaker 5: Judge Cooper has now said that the government must submit
[36:46] Speaker 5: some kind of status report do later this month explaining
[36:49] Speaker 5: the purpose of the tarp. They are daring to do
[36:51] Speaker 5: some repairs on the center, so perhaps we'll see that
[36:54] Speaker 5: be an explanation that we've seen the challengers in this case,
[36:57] Speaker 5: that's Representative Joyce Batty of Ohio raise an eyebrow at
[37:02] Speaker 5: the use of the tarp and express concerns that perhaps
[37:05] Speaker 5: it's not actually there for any needed repairs and is
[37:07] Speaker 5: just there to cover the name. So we'll certainly have
[37:10] Speaker 5: to see what explanation the government provides when they submit
[37:13] Speaker 5: that report.
[37:14] Speaker 2: She called it in papers an act of petty defiance
[37:17] Speaker 2: to massage broken egos. Also, they had planned to close
[37:23] Speaker 2: the Kennedy Center for two years for renovations. Where does
[37:27] Speaker 2: that stand?
[37:29] Speaker 5: That was the other element of Judge Cooper's ruling. In
[37:31] Speaker 5: addition to the renaming. He blocked board vote that had
[37:34] Speaker 5: been to, like as you mentioned, close the center completely
[37:38] Speaker 5: for two years during renovations. He essentially found that the
[37:41] Speaker 5: board had not had the evidence presented before it to
[37:45] Speaker 5: have made a reasoned decision, that it was essentially a
[37:47] Speaker 5: predetermined outcome, and so he said basically that they have
[37:51] Speaker 5: to go back to the drawing board. It's not that
[37:52] Speaker 5: they can't later decide, hey, we do actually think it
[37:55] Speaker 5: makes sense to close this while we do major renovations.
[37:58] Speaker 5: It's that they have to have considered all the options,
[38:01] Speaker 5: had more materials presented before them. So they're going to
[38:04] Speaker 5: have to go back and eventually vote on this.
[38:07] Speaker 6: Again.
[38:07] Speaker 5: We've seen in the latest status report in June, government
[38:10] Speaker 5: said that they're going to present the board with a
[38:12] Speaker 5: couple of different options regarding a longer closure, a partial closure,
[38:17] Speaker 5: no closure, at all, so they'll have the opportunity to
[38:19] Speaker 5: consider that again.
[38:21] Speaker 2: So this is another loss for Trump over his efforts
[38:26] Speaker 2: to change or renovate Washington's landmark. So just remind us,
[38:31] Speaker 2: I mean the ballroom is the one that stands out.
[38:34] Speaker 2: Is work proceeding on the ballroom.
[38:37] Speaker 6: Work has been allowed to proceed on the ballroom.
[38:39] Speaker 5: The d C Circuit did grant stay in that case,
[38:42] Speaker 5: and as construction has continued, but it's currently on appeal
[38:45] Speaker 5: on the merit. So we are waiting for the appeals
[38:47] Speaker 5: court to decide it on the legal question.
[38:50] Speaker 2: And what about the arch that he wants to put.
[38:53] Speaker 6: Up, Well, that one's a little more TVD.
[38:57] Speaker 5: We haven't seen them break round, and we saw the
[39:00] Speaker 5: judge in that case when she had hearing on it
[39:02] Speaker 5: earlier this year express concerns like, hey, I don't want
[39:04] Speaker 5: to wake up to bulldozers here on this art. So
[39:07] Speaker 5: that one is, you know, kind of on hold of
[39:09] Speaker 5: it in the lower court. And we haven't seen construction yet.
[39:13] Speaker 5: I'm sure if we do the plaineiffs in that case,
[39:15] Speaker 5: we'll come stry back to court.
[39:17] Speaker 2: Let's turn now to the Lincoln Memorial, reflecting Pool, the
[39:21] Speaker 2: former Olympian who's been charged with a felony by the
[39:24] Speaker 2: DCUs Attorney's Office for alleged vandalism of the pool, was
[39:29] Speaker 2: in court.
[39:30] Speaker 5: On Wednesday morning and DC Superior Court David Hearn, the
[39:33] Speaker 5: Olympic canoeist who was charged with defacing the lining of
[39:37] Speaker 5: the pool, was arranged.
[39:38] Speaker 6: He's pleaded not guilty.
[39:40] Speaker 2: And are there any lawsuits still going on over Trump's repainting,
[39:46] Speaker 2: relining whatever it is of the pool?
[39:48] Speaker 5: It was challenged and actually is still being challenged. They
[39:51] Speaker 5: had made an initial request to a DC federal judge
[39:54] Speaker 5: to block the you know, we coloring of the of
[39:58] Speaker 5: the pool.
[39:58] Speaker 6: I don't want to stay painting.
[40:00] Speaker 5: It's not literally paint, but the relining of the reflecting pool.
[40:03] Speaker 5: The judge didn't issue a ruling really in either way
[40:06] Speaker 5: in time, and then essentially it was done, so it
[40:09] Speaker 5: was like a fat of complete So at that point
[40:11] Speaker 5: they kind of had said, you know, obviously this is done,
[40:14] Speaker 5: but they still had express an interest in proceeding to
[40:17] Speaker 5: the merits of this. Did the administration have the legal
[40:19] Speaker 5: authority to do what it did without going through review processes?
[40:23] Speaker 5: And that's been really the core of nearly all of
[40:25] Speaker 5: these challenges to Trump's different efforts to build things or
[40:29] Speaker 5: change things in DC. When he's talking about I want
[40:31] Speaker 5: to build a monument, I want to paint this building,
[40:34] Speaker 5: I want to change the color of the reflecting pool,
[40:36] Speaker 5: build a new ballroom. Did he go through the correct processes?
[40:39] Speaker 5: These are environmental reviews, historic preservation reviews, consultation requirements, things
[40:45] Speaker 5: like that that are legally required for certain types of
[40:49] Speaker 5: buildings in the district of Columbia as our nation's capital.
[40:52] Speaker 5: And so that's been really out the crux of these
[40:54] Speaker 5: cases or what are their obligations here?
[40:56] Speaker 6: Did they satisfy them? Were they required to do more?
[40:59] Speaker 5: And then there's also the secondary question when it comes
[41:01] Speaker 5: to buildings and renovations that I've already been made. Is
[41:04] Speaker 5: there anything a court can do? So these are all
[41:06] Speaker 5: cases that we're going to see play out in the
[41:08] Speaker 5: next year, and you know see how DC's skyline is affected.
[41:12] Speaker 2: I mean, except for the arch. The problem is that
[41:15] Speaker 2: he acts first and the ballroom came down, as we've
[41:19] Speaker 2: discussed before, so quickly. But the east wing is down,
[41:22] Speaker 2: so I mean, what now, what are they looking for
[41:25] Speaker 2: there since the east wing is already down.
[41:27] Speaker 5: Now that was a huge aspect of the d C
[41:30] Speaker 5: Circuit Oral arguments in the White House Ballroom case, which
[41:32] Speaker 5: were held in early June, was this idea of what
[41:35] Speaker 5: courts do they ever have authority to intervene it anywhere
[41:38] Speaker 5: in this process. The government was essentially arguing that given
[41:42] Speaker 5: that construction had begun, it would just be you know,
[41:44] Speaker 5: too harmful for them, and for a court to step
[41:46] Speaker 5: in at this point, you know, the balance of equities,
[41:49] Speaker 5: as they say in court, was just going to be
[41:50] Speaker 5: on their side.
[41:51] Speaker 6: They were going to be more hurt.
[41:52] Speaker 5: And the plainiffs obviously are arguing in that case that
[41:55] Speaker 5: that's a you know, injury of their own making. But
[41:58] Speaker 5: it was interesting to see how far the govern was
[42:00] Speaker 5: willing to take that. They had even argued that they could,
[42:03] Speaker 5: you know, knock down the statue of liberty, you know,
[42:05] Speaker 5: without warning, and that a court couldn't step in. So
[42:08] Speaker 5: I think that has been a really interesting line of
[42:11] Speaker 5: argument that we've seen from this administration, that you know,
[42:14] Speaker 5: if they have begun a project, courts can't intervene. And certainly,
[42:18] Speaker 5: I think what happened with the Ballroom is something that
[42:21] Speaker 5: looms over all of these cases, and really loomed over
[42:23] Speaker 5: the Triumphal Arch case. When Trump was posting pictures of
[42:26] Speaker 5: building an arch was like and that's as I mentioned earlier,
[42:29] Speaker 5: what you know, Judge ty and Chuckkin in that case
[42:31] Speaker 5: was what am I going to wake up to?
[42:32] Speaker 6: Bulldozers?
[42:33] Speaker 5: And I think that's just a concern that that weighs
[42:35] Speaker 5: over all of these all of these cases.
[42:37] Speaker 2: They've been reguards on the statue of liberty. I guess
[42:40] Speaker 2: let's turn to the Supreme Court for a moment. Justices
[42:42] Speaker 2: Elena Kagan and Amy Cony Barrett are going to testify
[42:47] Speaker 2: before congressional panels next week about the Court's budget. I
[42:51] Speaker 2: remember seeing Kagan and Justice Samuel Alito testify about the
[42:56] Speaker 2: budget years ago, but they haven't done that in the
[43:00] Speaker 2: long time, right.
[43:01] Speaker 6: That's right.
[43:01] Speaker 5: The last time justices appeared on the Hill to testify
[43:04] Speaker 5: about the budget was in twenty nineteen.
[43:06] Speaker 2: Did they give a reason as to why they decided
[43:09] Speaker 2: to testify this year? And I notice again it's one
[43:13] Speaker 2: Democratic appointee and one Republican appointee, so a bipartisan appearance.
[43:19] Speaker 5: A top Democratic appropriator had indicated back in the spring
[43:22] Speaker 5: that she would like to see the justices or you know,
[43:25] Speaker 5: someone from the Supreme Court talk a little bit about
[43:27] Speaker 5: the budget.
[43:28] Speaker 6: I mean on the Hill.
[43:29] Speaker 5: You know, Congress decides how much funding different parts of
[43:32] Speaker 5: the government get, and it's generally standard practice that representatives
[43:36] Speaker 5: from an agency being funded would come to the Hill
[43:39] Speaker 5: and justify the amount of money they're asking for. So
[43:41] Speaker 5: the Supreme Court isn't a bit of a unique posture
[43:43] Speaker 5: that they've been asking for increasingly more money in recent
[43:46] Speaker 5: years not necessarily unjustified. There are definitely legitimate security concerns
[43:50] Speaker 5: that the Court has been dealing with that absolutely might
[43:52] Speaker 5: merit increase funding, but they haven't had to come and
[43:55] Speaker 5: you know, testify publicly about it. Certainly they may have
[43:58] Speaker 5: been having closed door meetings, but I think it'll be
[44:00] Speaker 5: very interesting for the public to get to hear from
[44:02] Speaker 5: the justices publicly in that way on their budget, on
[44:05] Speaker 5: their resource needs for the first time in seven years.
[44:08] Speaker 2: I know I'll be watching. Thanks so much, Suzanne. That's
[44:11] Speaker 2: Bloomberg Law Reporter Suzanne Monnac, and that's it for this
[44:15] Speaker 2: edition of the Bloomberg Law Show. Remember you can always
[44:17] Speaker 2: get the latest legal news on our Bloomberg Law podcast.
[44:21] Speaker 2: You can find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and at
[44:24] Speaker 2: www dot Bloomberg dot com slash podcast Slash Law, and
[44:29] Speaker 2: remember to tune into The Bloomberg Law Show every weeknight
[44:32] Speaker 2: at ten pm Wall Street Time. I'm June Grosso and
[44:36] Speaker 2: you're listening to Bloomberg

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