Frank Langfitt
Appearances
Consider This from NPR
A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
Pastor Ben Boswell says he was determined for Myers Park Baptist Church to confront its whiteness, as he explained during an online anti-racism seminar he hosted several years ago.
Consider This from NPR
A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
Boswell says he ran into resistance from congregants who, for instance, told him to take down Black Lives Matter signs. Boswell persisted. I like to joke churches have sacred cows. Sacred cows make the best hamburgers. Myers Park is a white liberal church in a neighborhood where mansions can sell for more than $4 million.
Consider This from NPR
A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
After the November election, Boswell gave a sermon in which he likened this moment to what he called, quote, the gathering dark of Hitler's rule. He referenced Christ's resurrection and urged congregants to maintain hope.
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A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
Provocative sermons were nothing new for Boswell, who'd been at the church for nine years. But a few weeks later, the church's board of deacons, its governing body, met on Zoom. They voted 17 to 3 to ask Boswell to step down. NPR obtained the audio. It provides a rare window into the thinking of an organization when the tone of its social or political messaging clashes with its business model.
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A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
Marcy McClanahan was head of the board. In the meeting, the first reason she cited for Boswell to leave was plunging attendance.
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A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
Fellow deacon Robert Doolin was more direct.
Consider This from NPR
A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
In an email to NPR, Doolin said he personally loved what he calls Boswell's powerful prophetic preaching. The problem, he says, is that it had worn thin with others. Here's how Doolin put it in the meeting.
Consider This from NPR
A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
As people left, their contributions left with them. Since 2020, the church's budget has shrunk by nearly a quarter. Doolin says it's been one financial fire drill after another.
Consider This from NPR
A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
Myers Park Baptist is a cavernous red brick church with a big white steeple and it wears its progressive politics really right on the front of the church. You've got a giant sign here that says 80 years of inclusivity, community, spirituality, and justice. And on the other side, open to all now and forevermore.
Consider This from NPR
A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
In the meeting, Deacon Alan Davis warned that getting rid of Boswell would undermine that very message.
Consider This from NPR
A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
Davis was among three deacons who resigned in protest. In an interview, McClanahan called Boswell a fantastic and visionary preacher, and she insisted the church would continue to advance racial and social justice. But some of Boswell's supporters say the conflict at Myers Park is part of a much larger one.
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A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
Nicholas Ryan has attended Myers Park since preschool. He's now 30.
Consider This from NPR
A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
After services in December, the church leadership met with the congregation behind closed doors to discuss Boswell's departure.
Consider This from NPR
A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
Griffin wore a San Francisco 49ers jacket. He said Boswell created a wonderful open community here. Now he's bitter.
Consider This from NPR
A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
I mentioned that some white congregants felt beaten down by Boswell's continued emphasis on social and racial justice.
Consider This from NPR
A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
While Griffin was talking about leaving Myers Park, Elizabeth Peterson was returning for the first time in years.
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A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
Peterson says that for a long time, Myers Park seemed more focused on people of color and LGBTQ folks.
Consider This from NPR
A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
When you say us, who's us?
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A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
But do you think you'll come back to the church now?
Consider This from NPR
A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
Pastor Ben Boswell has heard these sorts of things before.
Consider This from NPR
A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
He says the conflict at Myers Park is part of a much bigger national trend to roll back things like diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
Consider This from NPR
A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
But church leaders say their concerns extended to Boswell's management. Others say he focused too much on social justice and not enough on tending the flock, one of the church's strategic goals. Bob Thomason is a former chairman of the Board of Deacons. He said he was speaking as a longtime member with a perspective on how the church had fared under Boswell.
Consider This from NPR
A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
The pastoral part of the job.
Consider This from NPR
A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
Boswell says he was committed to pastoral care and devoted a staffer to it full time. Boswell knows that some people think he made a mistake by focusing so much on racial and social justice. But he says he'd do it again and will continue to preach that message whatever he does next.
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New Orleans Attack, Suspect's Texas Home, Las Vegas Truck Explosion
Yeah, it was Las Vegas Metropolitan Police. They say this cyber truck pulled up to the valet parking area of the Trump International Hotel. This was somewhere around 8.40 yesterday. Sat there for maybe 15, 20 seconds. Smoke starts to come out of the truck. Then these fireworks, you can see this in the video, they're shooting out of the truck, and then the truck is sort of engulfed in flames.
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New Orleans Attack, Suspect's Texas Home, Las Vegas Truck Explosion
The driver was killed, and as mentioned, seven people nearby, they suffered minor injuries.
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New Orleans Attack, Suspect's Texas Home, Las Vegas Truck Explosion
Well, they know who rented the truck, but I'm not sure. They've not identified that person yet, at least not publicly. The truck was rented in Colorado, and what they want to make sure of, I think, is that the renter and the driver are the same person. And in terms of a motive, they haven't said anything at all.
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New Orleans Attack, Suspect's Texas Home, Las Vegas Truck Explosion
But yesterday at this news conference, Sheriff Kevin McMayhill, he said there's obviously a line of inquiry here, and this is how he put it last night.
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New Orleans Attack, Suspect's Texas Home, Las Vegas Truck Explosion
Yeah, they showed a video yesterday of the burned out bed of the truck. And you could see gasoline canisters. There were camp fuel canisters and large fireworks mortars, which explains those fireworks that burst out of the car. But police are not sure exactly how it was ignited. There's also an interesting observation.
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New Orleans Attack, Suspect's Texas Home, Las Vegas Truck Explosion
They said the bed of the truck was very sturdy, and so it partially contained the blast. And that's why the windows of the lobby of the Trump Hotel weren't actually damaged.
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New Orleans Attack, Suspect's Texas Home, Las Vegas Truck Explosion
No, they're just only superficial similarities at the moment. You know, these are apparent attacks, both by trucks, same day, these tourist cities, as you mentioned. Both vehicles were rented on the same app called Turo, and the sheriff in Las Vegas called it another coincidence worth investigating.
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New Orleans Attack, Suspect's Texas Home, Las Vegas Truck Explosion
And once I think they have the identity of the Cybertruck driver, they'll see if there's any connection with the person in New Orleans. Right. The sheriff also said there was no ISIS flag seen in the Cybertruck, which we saw in New Orleans. And Jeremy Schwartz, he's the acting special agent in charge of the FBI in Las Vegas, he added this.
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New Orleans Attack, Suspect's Texas Home, Las Vegas Truck Explosion
Yes, Steve, he praised the apparent sturdiness of the truck. Writing on Axe, he said this, the evil knuckleheads picked the wrong vehicle for a terrorist attack. Now, a reminder, of course, authorities have not designated this as a terrorist attack yet. But they did say that Tesla was helpful in the investigation.
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New Orleans Attack, Suspect's Texas Home, Las Vegas Truck Explosion
Police were able to track the vehicle from its stops at Tesla charging stations, and Tesla also supplied videos from those stops.
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New Orleans Attack, Suspect's Texas Home, Las Vegas Truck Explosion
Good to talk, Steve.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
It's a really interesting time. Orban has some big challenges. He's facing a much more energized opposition, and it's led by a former protégé who's actually ahead of Orban in the polls. And in Turkey, after more than two decades, Erdogan's competitive authoritarian model, it's under a lot of strain. In March, police arrested the Istanbul mayor. This is Erdogan's main rival in any future election.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
And this set off the largest protests in Turkey in a decade. Another Turkish scholar that I spoke to, who teaches at Middlebury College, her name is Şebnem Gamuşu. And she's actually in Turkey right now doing research, and she's been watching this all play out.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
The mayor, this guy who was arrested, he's still in prison. And Gamuchu says the country is at an inflection point because Erdogan, he can no longer keep up the pretense that this is a free and fair democratic system.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
Yeah, I mean, a competitive authoritarian system, it doesn't really work for a ruling party if it ends up losing major elections.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
Yeah, there's one particular thing, Aisha. I had arranged to interview this guy, a scholar. He's originally from an autocratic country in Asia. And at first he agreed to speak on the record. And then like a day or two before the interview, he writes me this. I want to read it to you.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
Yeah, it's a great question, Aisha. I talked to 14 scholars, and the vast majority are, I think, are very worried about an authoritarian slide. But there are some who see things differently, and I think it's worth listening to them.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
There's a guy, Todd Kent, he's a political scientist at Texas A&M, and he says, you know, the United States is so polarized today that the party out of power is always going to be kind of accusing the one in power of being anti-democratic.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
I also talked to a guy named Darren Shaw. He's a professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin. And he says the pendulum is swinging towards what he calls the imperial presidency. But he also says that Trump is raising a lot of valid questions that resonate with a lot of voters.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
Many are really worried, I think, but a few are skeptical. There's a guy that I know, a professor, his name's Kurt Whalen. He's also a professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
And Whelan points out that so far, you know, the lower courts are checking Trump and the United States is still, of course, a democracy and popular opinion really matters. And this is a point that Whelan makes. He said, you know, if you look at these autocratic leaders like Hugo Chavez, the late Venezuelan leader, and El Salvador's Nayib Bukele, they needed overwhelming popular support.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
Like, we're talking approval ratings from 65% to more than 90% to change their country's political systems.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
Because, you know, Whelan says Trump doesn't nearly have the support he'd need to change the Constitution, which, of course, if you remember, he recently said he wasn't sure he had to uphold anyway. And there's another way of looking at this moment, too. I spoke to Jeremy Pope. He's a political scientist at Brigham Young University. And he says even if the U.S.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
does not slide into some form of authoritarianism, the long-term effects of this kind of governance will be profound.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
It says, I've been following with concern the news this week and I've decided for now I don't want to be quoted in a news piece.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
Well, I sent them some emails laying out the various things that people are saying that I've interviewed, and the White House didn't have any comment. The only thing that they asked, interestingly, was the identity of one of my academic sources, and they wondered if this professor might have donated money to Democrats. I checked, and the professor had not.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
You know, I'd like to go back to that scholar at the beginning, the one who didn't want to talk with his voice or name. I think he put it really, really well. Let's give a listen.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
He'd seen this video. I'm sure you've probably seen it, too. It was widely covered in the news. There are these plainclothes Homeland Security agents. They detain a doctoral student at Tufts University. This all happens in broad daylight on a street outside of Boston. So this student, she's from Turkey. Her name is Rumesa Ozturk. And she's here in the U.S. on a student visa.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
Yeah, I kind of feel the same way. You know, I spent altogether about a decade in China. But on a daily basis, Aisha, you couldn't really tell that it was an authoritarian state, at least not the way that, you know, he describes or the way people would imagine it. If you and I right now, if we're strolling along the river in Shanghai, we'd be looking at these huge buildings.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
In my old neighborhood, there are three skyscrapers. They're taller than the Empire State Building and lovely restaurants along the river. And so when you look at it, there's no sign of the authoritarian state. But here's the part that's super creepy. I could also take you about 20 minutes from there to a public park where I did some reporting.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
And there are these little holiday cottages where the government would detain critics without any charges. They would just hold them there for days. And it would be really strange because kids would be playing in the park near the pond, around the cottages. The public had no idea what was going on inside.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
No, authoritarianism in China is mostly invisible most of the time.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
I see what's happening in the U.S. through a very different lens because like some of those folks that you were hearing from, from overseas who've lived in authoritarian countries, I too have recognized some of these things. And what I'd like to do is talk about this one human rights activist that I've been in touch with, particularly the last couple of years. Her name's Yaqiu Wang. She's Chinese.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
She grew up not too far from Shanghai. She first learned English while listening to Voice of America online. And she says that when she was a teenager, she kind of fell in love with democracy.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
Wang, she moves to America for college. And then during the Arab Spring, there was this talk of some kind of a similar Jasmine Revolution in China. So Wang, she goes on this anonymous Twitter account that she set up, and she encouraged people to go out and protest. Well, the next year, Aisha, she flies back to Shanghai, and she's almost immediately detained by police.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
And in the video, you can see these men, and it's a woman or two, come up to her. They grab her wrists. She begins to resist. She starts to yell. and then they take her phone, handcuff her, and then they lead her off to a car.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
She realized she couldn't do the activism she wanted to do in China. Eventually, she came to the U.S. for good. And then a couple of years ago, Wang became the China director at Freedom House. That's the human rights think tank here in Washington. Wang is no fan of President Trump, but obviously there are a lot of Chinese Americans who actually do like the president.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
But for Wang, the Trump presidency, it's really affected her personally. The administration has effectively shut down Voice of America, which of course is how Wang learned to speak English in the first place. And then they slashed funding for Freedom House, and that cost Wang her job working on human rights.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
Wang sees Trump as an autocrat, but she also says the United States and China are still vastly different countries. And she says there's at least one big difference, you know, between what happened to her in Shanghai and what happened to that Tufts University graduate student who, you know, federal agents just grabbed off the streets outside of Boston.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
And Aisha, here's the twist. You know, Wong learned democracy from America, and now she has advice for people here who are worried about the state of democracy in the United States right now.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
Well, Aisha, very happy to do it. But I think these are voices that lots of Americans should be hearing.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
So after she was picked up, they sent her to Louisiana. She's never charged with a crime. And a little more than a week ago, a federal judge released her, said the only evidence the government provided for holding her was that she co-wrote an op-ed in the student newspaper. urging the university to divest from companies doing business with Israel.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
Of course, this is not how Secretary of State Marco Rubio had described the whole thing. He said that the U.S. had revoked her visa, suggesting she's some kind of troublemaker. This is what he said.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
Yeah. I mean, he told me that when he saw that video, he recognized this exact tactic. And essentially what he was seeing was an abduction. And it reminded him a lot from what happens in his homeland.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
Oh, definitely. He's on a green card here. And he's worried that officials could get more aggressive and they could target him. He's also concerned, frankly, about the potential for being deported. His home government went after him some years ago because he criticized the government in a private online post.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
There is energy. We're going to drill, baby, drill. After that, I'm not going to be a dictator.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
And he's worried he could be detained if he ever ends up getting sent back to his homeland. Now, eventually, Aisha, he did agree to talk to me, but only if we didn't use his voice or his name. So we got an NPR producer to voice his answers. And so I asked the professor what he was thinking when he watched that video.
Up First from NPR
Is America becoming an autocracy?
Yeah, first, I guess I want to point out what it isn't because I don't want to overstate this. We're not talking about hardcore authoritarianism like what you would see in China. Of course, that's a one-party state. There are no meaningful elections. Instead, we're talking about a case where a leader is democratically elected and then from office reshapes the state to maximize executive power.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
And it kind of works like this. The executive fills the civil service with key appointments. And I mean, we're talking the prosecutor's office, the judiciary, fills them with loyalists. And then he or she, they'll attack the media, the universities to kind of blunt public criticism. And also will either intimidate or co-op business leaders.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
And the idea is to tilt the electoral playing field in the ruling party's favor. And that would mean, you know, elections would happen, but they wouldn't be fair, right?
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
Yeah, so it's a national survey. It's called Bright Line Watch. John Kerry, not that John Kerry, he's a Dartmouth professor, this guy, and he's co-director of this survey. And this is how he explained what they do.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
The professors consider 30 different indicators. So, for instance, whether the government interferes with the press or punishes political opponents, whether the legislature and judiciary check executive authority. Right after Trump's election, political scientists rated democracy in the U.S. at a 67. Late last month, scholars downgraded democracy here to 53. The survey started back in 2017.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
It is certainly reversible, but we are no longer living in a liberal democracy.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
And the U.S. score actually landed midway between our neighbor Canada and Russia, which, as we all know, is a hardcore authoritarian state.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
Yeah. One leader that they'll talk about is Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He's the president of Turkey. A little bit of background. Erdogan was formerly, he was the mayor of Istanbul. Then in 2002, his party won a parliamentary majority and Erdogan became prime minister. Now, under Erdogan, there was a really nice period economically, what they refer to as the golden years.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
There's a lot of strong economic growth. And he leveraged his popularity to basically take control of the levers of power.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
This is Fulya Pinarş. She's an anthropologist who studies Turkey and the Middle East at Middlebury College in Vermont. And she says she watched Erdogan slowly tighten his grip on power in her homeland.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
Pinar's sister, she worked for a major newspaper there.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
And Pinar says the government also targeted a lot of academics.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
And so Pinar, this is 2016. She moves to the U.S. She's basically seeking academic freedom. And she's also studying for a Ph.D. at Rutgers. But the U.S. has not over time proven to be the haven that she'd hoped. And since taking office, you know, Trump has withheld, as we've reported, billions of dollars from universities that he says haven't done enough to fight anti-Semitism.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
And Pinar, she's untenured. She's kind of worried and has changed actually the way that she's teaching right now.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
Before, in her lectures, she used to cite death tolls for conflicts like the war in Gaza. Now what she'll do is just direct students to readings where they can find the answers on their own. And otherwise, she's kind of worried that students who disagree with her might report her to the school administration. And Pinar says she wants to protect herself against any possible charges of bias.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
Did you think before and even during your time in the United States you'd ever have to do this?
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
Yeah, so this is an interesting story, too. Orban becomes Hungary's youngest prime minister. This is back in 1998. He's 35 years old. He was defeated four years later, but then he sweeps back to power in 2010. And his party won so many seats in the parliament, it had enough to change the constitution. And then over time, basically, he took control of the country's media, universities, and courts.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
Kim Lane Shepley of Princeton, she's studied Hungary for many years. And she offered a couple of examples of Orban's tactics that, you know, might sound a little familiar to Americans right now. For instance, Orban targeted the business models of news companies.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
Shepley says Orban also took aim at higher education.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
I think in the early years, first couple of years, there were a lot of mass protests. But I was talking to Stefania Kopperensai. She used to run the Hungarian equivalent of the ACLU. And she says those big protests, they didn't really have much impact.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
They did. They basically got out of Budapest and headed to the provinces. They opened local offices. They went to food fairs.
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Is America becoming an autocracy?
And so what they said they realized they needed to do was connect the concept of people's rights to practical issues they were struggling with. And, you know, everything from like access to social services to the things that they sort of needed in their day-to-day lives. And she says, you know, it took a few years, but they're finally working much more effectively with grassroots groups.
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Plane Crash Latest, German Far Right, Nuclear Testing
The Black Hawk's recorder, as far as we know right now, is still in the river. But the National Transportation Safety Board, they're very confident they'll retrieve it.
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Plane Crash Latest, German Far Right, Nuclear Testing
What do we know about the crew of the American Airlines jet? Yeah, we've got some confirmations here. The pilot was Jonathan Campos. He was 34. The first officer, a man named Sam Lilly in his late 20s, both based in Charlotte, really avid flyers. And Lilly is a second generation pilot. His father, Tim, used to fly for Air Wisconsin. And writing on Facebook yesterday, he said,
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Plane Crash Latest, German Far Right, Nuclear Testing
Tim Lilly wrote that Sam's career had been going very well, and he was engaged to be married in the fall. And he wrote this. He said, now it hurts so bad, I can't even cry myself to sleep. Now, later today, we should learn the identities of the three service members who were crewing the Blackhawk.
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Plane Crash Latest, German Far Right, Nuclear Testing
Yeah, this was an FAA report that's been quoted by a number of news sources. NTSB, this is one of the board members, a guy named Todd Inman spoke yesterday, and he said they had not reviewed any specific reports about the controllers, but said, of course, as a matter of course, you know, you're going to be looking at what was going on in the control room and with the controllers.
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Plane Crash Latest, German Far Right, Nuclear Testing
And, you know, A, that's not ideal, but analysts say it's also not unusual and not necessarily dangerous, depending on how much traffic is going on at the time.
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Plane Crash Latest, German Far Right, Nuclear Testing
Yeah, I mean, just more information. The NTSB yesterday down at Reagan National, during the press conference, they didn't say very much. And they're planning another briefing today. And typically, it's the second day where you learn a bit more. Yesterday was just the first day the team was on the ground. And
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Plane Crash Latest, German Far Right, Nuclear Testing
I'm actually looking at photos right now of NTSB workers opening up those black boxes from the airliner. And federal investigators, what they're really emphasizing is they want to be really careful about confirming facts before they pass them on. And there should be a preliminary report on this accident. It should be completed in about 30 days.
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Plane Crash Latest, German Far Right, Nuclear Testing
Yeah, A, I think the final conversations in the cockpit, obviously before the two aircraft collided, they'll also be able to see about the plane's performance, data points, and including, and I think this is really important, the altitude of the plane leading up to and at the time of the collision.
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Plane Crash Latest, German Far Right, Nuclear Testing
It's not yet clear how these two aircraft, who are supposed, of course, to pass at a safe distance, how they ended up in the same place at the same time. Of course, also going to need the Army Black Hawk black box to be able to compare. And a question that's really coming up, I think, particularly yesterday, talking to people at the NTSB is, was that helicopter on the right flight path?
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Zelenskyy Visits DC, Tate Brothers In Florida, USAID Standoff, AOC and DOJ
Hey, good morning, Michelle.
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Zelenskyy Visits DC, Tate Brothers In Florida, USAID Standoff, AOC and DOJ
Yeah, Trump officials at USAID, you remember, they cut off funding to thousands of aid recipients. This began January 20th when Trump took office. And the idea was they were going to review contracts to see if they were aligned with Trump's America First agenda. Now, this hit these organizations incredibly hard. They had to furlough people. Some were at the risk of going bankrupt.
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Zelenskyy Visits DC, Tate Brothers In Florida, USAID Standoff, AOC and DOJ
And so they ended up suing to get paid. Now, a lower court ordered the government to pay up and gave a deadline. Still, the government would not pay. And on Wednesday night,
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Zelenskyy Visits DC, Tate Brothers In Florida, USAID Standoff, AOC and DOJ
The Trump administration was about to blow through this deadline, so it appeals to the Supreme Court, and Chief Justice John Roberts, he pauses the case, hands the government a temporary victory, and naturally, that got a lot of attention.
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Zelenskyy Visits DC, Tate Brothers In Florida, USAID Standoff, AOC and DOJ
Yeah, definitely. These are among the first cases in front of the Supreme Court that involve the president's attempts to expand executive power, like you were just saying. And after all, in these cases, the government had effectively refused to pay money that Congress had already appropriated and the government clearly owes, and that this judge had told it to pay.
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Zelenskyy Visits DC, Tate Brothers In Florida, USAID Standoff, AOC and DOJ
And the government says in one of its filings that it thinks the lower court exceeded its authority in doing that. And so people are watching very closely now to see how the Supreme Court responds to all of this.
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Zelenskyy Visits DC, Tate Brothers In Florida, USAID Standoff, AOC and DOJ
You know, Michelle, they point out that people's interest really perked up with the Supreme Court's initial ruling in favor of the government. And now the court, of course, it's got a conservative supermajority. Trump appointed three of those justices. Now, Stephen Vladeck, he's a law professor at Georgetown. He's an expert on federal law. And he was writing about this in his substack.
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Zelenskyy Visits DC, Tate Brothers In Florida, USAID Standoff, AOC and DOJ
And he thinks Robert's you know, may have just been trying to give the justices some time to make a reasoned decision rather than one right up against the clock. And Vladek says at a superficial level, quote, it's obvious to him that the government should ultimately lose these cases. And that's because the government's, you know, not allowed to just not spend money appropriated by Congress.
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Zelenskyy Visits DC, Tate Brothers In Florida, USAID Standoff, AOC and DOJ
As we said, I think often on these shows, on the U.S. system of government, Congress has the power of the purse. However, Trump says, you know, he wants to change the law so that the president can impound money approved by Congress.
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Zelenskyy Visits DC, Tate Brothers In Florida, USAID Standoff, AOC and DOJ
Yeah, the government says it's actually changed its tune a little bit. It says it is committed now to paying what it owes, but it needs to do what it's calling a payment integrity review to make sure that all these invoices are legitimate. But remember, you know, the government did unilaterally halt these payments and it could have restarted them at any time. Where's this headed next?
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Zelenskyy Visits DC, Tate Brothers In Florida, USAID Standoff, AOC and DOJ
Yeah, the plaintiffs have to file a response to the government today. Legal scholars think the justices are going to move quickly to try to resolve the case because, you know, almost none of these age organizations, they're getting, they've been paid, it's been five weeks, and every day their financial situations are only getting a lot worse.
Up First from NPR
Zelenskyy Visits DC, Tate Brothers In Florida, USAID Standoff, AOC and DOJ
Happy to do it, Michelle.