Supreme Court Rules Against Trump For Second Time, The Worst First 100 Days Ever, Every State Needs A Few Cory Bookers Now

Catch my new interviews with Anna Bower, Senator Tim Kaine, AZ AG Kris Mayes, and Justice Allison Riggs

Morning all. We wake to the news of a 1am (!!!!!) emergency order from the Roberts Court stopping Trump from sending more people to his new Salvadoran gulag. From the NYTimes (gift link):

The Supreme Court temporarily blocked the Trump administration early Saturday from deporting another group of Venezuelan migrants accused of being gang members under the expansive powers of a rarely invoked wartime law.

“The government is directed not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this court,” the court said in a brief, unsigned order that gave no reasoning, as is typical in emergency cases.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. dissented. The White House did not issue any immediate response.

More than 50 Venezuelans were scheduled to be flown out of the country — presumably to El Salvador — from an immigration detention center in Anson, Texas, according to two people with knowledge of the situation. The A.C.L.U. in recent days had already secured court orders barring similar deportations under the law, the Alien Enemies Act, in other places including New York, Denver and Brownsville, Texas.

What is important to note is that this case is separate from the Abrego Garcia case, and marks now the 2nd time the Supreme Court has ruled against Trump, Steven Miller and their band of traitorous saboteurs.

To go deeper into all this I strongly recommend watching yesterday’s discussion with Lawfare’s Anna Bower, where she does a terrific job walking us through the details of each of these now two historic cases. I would also strongly recommend watching Senator Van Hollen’s press conference upon his return from El Salvador yesterday. I shared it yesterday but am doing again this morning for it is very much worth your time this weekend. Like Senator Cory Booker’s speech a few weeks ago, Senator Van Hollen’s courageous actions and powerful eloquence has become an inspiration for us all.

Some related work from Hopium for your consideration this weekend…..

Fighting The Tariffs - Catch Senator Tim Kaine talking to us about his legislation challenging Trump’s authority to levy tariffs, a fight Gavin Newsom and the state of California joined this week. As these tariffs effect every American, and every person in the world, the fight to challenge this unconstitutional power grab remains one of our most important battles and the American people are on our side……

Rallying The States - Watch Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes discuss how 23 State Democratic Attorneys General are fighting and beating Trump in court, again and again. Review yesterday’s Hopium post about how we need to work together to ensure Federalism itself and states/localities become an ever more powerful bulwark against Trump. As we discussed this week leaders in every state can pen their own Letter to America tailored to their state, hold townhalls, debate and pass “resolutions of condemnation.” Each state needs 3-4 Cory Bookers now to step up and make the case for the harms Trump is doing to their communities, and rally people to fight. Let us keep encouraging our state and local leaders to rise up, find their voice and help rally their constituents to join this essential fight.

The Worst First 100 Days in American History/100 Days of Weakness, Failure And Betrayal - Unprecedented lawlessness. Torching our alliances. Bending the knee to Putin and lowering the nation’s guard. Sending people to foreign gulags. Disappearing students. Defying the Supreme Court. Allowing millions of the world’s poorest to die. Unceasing lying. Devastating attacks on science, learning and public health. Making measles great again. Plummeting polls numbers. 2nd lowest confidence sentiment reading in last 73 years. Turning the strongest economy in the world into this:

The chaos, fanaticism and incompetence we are witnessing is unprecedented. There has never been such a ridiculous band of fuck-ups running our country. Abrego Garcia was sent to El Salvador by mistake. Trump’s early tariff plan was also a mistake. People are being re-hired by the federal government all the time because firing them was a mistake. Yesterday a brand new IRS Commissioner was fired because hiring him was a mistake. The top 4 political staff at the Pentagon have been fired in recent days for what was clearly another series of extraordinary mistakes. Trump is having to publicly argue that trusting Putin was not another mistake. And now this morning, we have this, via the NYTimes (gift link):

Trump Officials Blame Mistake for Setting Off Confrontation With Harvard

Harvard University received an emailed letter from the Trump administration last Friday that included a series of demands about hiring, admissions and curriculum so onerous that school officials decided they had no choice but to take on the White House.

The university announced its intentions on Monday, setting off a tectonic battle between one of the country’s most prestigious universities and a U.S. president. Then, almost immediately, came a frantic call from a Trump official.

The April 11 letter from the White House’s task force on antisemitism, this official told Harvard, should not have been sent and was “unauthorized,” two people familiar with the matter said.

The letter was sent by the acting general counsel of the Department of Health and Human Services, Sean Keveney, according to three other people, who were briefed on the matter. Mr. Keveney is a member of the antisemitism task force.

It is unclear what prompted the letter to be sent last Friday. Its content was authentic, the three people said, but there were differing accounts inside the administration of how it had been mishandled. Some people at the White House believed it had been sent prematurely, according to the three people, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about internal discussions. Others in the administration thought it had been meant to be circulated among the task force members rather than sent to Harvard.

Trump has dropped 15 points in job approval on G. Elliot Morris’ new tracker, and is on a path to beat his own 2017 record for worst job approval rating in the first 100 days of an American Presidency:

Watch my new video, We Are Stronger, He Is Weaker for my latest comprehensive take on things. My talk this week with Stuart Stevens and Rick Wilson of Lincoln Square is also worth your time.

Now, lets get to work everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Recommended Hopium Actions and Campaigns - Let’s focus on four current actions to channel our love of country and our frustrations into even more progress today:

1 - Demand Congress Take Back Their Tariff Authority From Trump - Call/contact your Senators and House Members today and demand they override and roll back these incredibly dangerous and destructive tariffs. Insist they sign on to the new resolution introduced by Senator Tim Kaine and others. Watch my new interview with Senator Kaine to learn more.

2 - Fight The Trump-Musk Attack On Our Government, Our Privacy And Our Constitutional Order - Encourage your Senators and Representatives to follow Senator Booker’s lead and let Facts be be submitted to a candid world in a joint Senate-House Letter to America; to hold their own hearings; to file criminal referrals for Musk and his malicious posse to DOJ/FBI and amicus briefs in the court cases regarding the usurpation of their Constitutional authorities or file suits of their own (House Dems began doing this several weeks ago). Encourage them to hold a daily morning press conference to more aggressively challenge Musk’s wild ransacking of the US government that is making America less prosperous, less healthy, less safe and far less respected in the world. Call to demand the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

Watch my new discussion with Stuart Stevens and Rick Wilson of Lincoln Square and/or my new video, We Are Stronger, He Is Weaker, to learn more about why Congress must craft A Letter To America.

3 - Loudly Protest Trump’s Embrace of Russia and Abandonment of NATO and Europe - Let your electeds know you are outraged by traitorous Trump’s selling out of Zelenskyy, abandonment of Europe and embrace of Putin; and that we cannot accept this level of appeasement of someone who is a clear enemy of America and the West, and certainly not an ally. Demand that Trump not let his Saudi meeting w/Putin become our Munich; demand that he not become our Neville Chamberlain; demand that we rejoin our European and NATO allies in support of Zelenskyy and democracy here and everywhere. The country is not with Trump’s embrace of Putin and we must be very loud, very, very loud now. See my new essay on the need to support our allies and not surrender to Putin, and my new interview with Rep. Adam Smith, the Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Committee, one of the most important foreign policy voices in our party.

4 - Rallying The States, The Spring Offensive - I am going to rework this section as so much has happened since we called on our community members to organize in the 17 most vulnerable Republican House seats a few months ago. Rallies and protests have exploded across the country and the “Hands Off” events and Bernie/AOC tour have drawn extraordinary crowds. The DNC/House Dems/State Parties have kicked off People’s Town Halls in all 50 states. I have come to believe that we should be leaning on our state and local electeds to pursue these organized “condemnations” of the Trump regime and their betrayal of America. Let’s start talking now about what we are going to do on July 4th, a day with all of a sudden much more importance.

Here are the current list of People’s Town Halls folks can attend and support during the coming Easter recess:

• Pennsylvania’s 8th Congressional District “Good Trouble Festival” on April 22nd, represented by Republican Rep. Rob Bresnahan

• Colorado’s 8th Congressional District on April 24th, represented by Republican Rep. Gabe Evans

• North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District on April 24th represented by Republican Rep. and NRCC Chair Richard Hudson

• Missouri’s 2nd Congressional District on April 25th, represented by Republican Rep. Ann Wagner

Paid subscribers should self-report their actions today in our daily chat. So inspired by how hard so many of you are working. I want to make a special plea to all Hopium readers in states with Republican Senators - please make your calls, every day. Even 50 to 100 people calling every day in every red state can make a difference. We have hundreds of Hopium subscribers in every state in the country and it’s critical that we all do our part now.

For those wanting to do more traditional political/campaign work, we have the following Hopium-backed efforts we're rallying behind:

Help Abigail Spanberger Win Virginia - Virginia will be one of the big battlegrounds of the November, 2025 elections and we have a great candidate for Governor, Abigail Spanberger. Watch my interview with Abigail, donate, volunteer, and learn more here. Given how many federal employees live in Virginia, this race is also now on the front linesof the Trump/Musk assault on the federal government.

We’ve raised more than $81,000 so far towards our June 30th goal of $250,000 - thank you all. Let’s keep working it for Abigail!

Help Allison Riggs, Anderson Clayton And The NC Dems Stop The GOP’s From Stealing A Supreme Court Seat - A few weeks ago we began a campaign to raise $50,000 for Justice Allison Riggs, Anderson Clayton and the NC Dems. These funds will help the NC Dems get off to a great start in 2025 and help cover the costs of their fight to prevent the Republicans from stealing a Supreme Court seat we won together in 2024.

If you want to go deeper into the GOP’s rancid effort to steal a Supreme Court seat watch my new interviews with Justice Riggs and Anderson Clayton, the inspiring Chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party.

We’ve raised $41,000 so far towards our June 30th goal of $50,000 - thank you everyone!

Support The Hopium House 7 - We’ve begun our work to help flip the House next year by supporting and shoring up the 7 newly-elected battleground House Dems we helped elect last year. Catch our interviews with Derek Tran and Janelle Bynum and give to all 7 through a single donation on our new ActBlue page. Learn more about this important effort here.

We’ve already raised over $65,000 towards our $250,000 June 30th goal - thank you all!

Thank Senator Booker For Standing Up For America - Senator Booker is up for re-election next year and many of you asked if they could channel their support and appreciation for him through Hopium. So I’ve set up an ActBlue fundraising page for him with a goal of raising $100,000 by June 30th. We’ve already raised $25,000 - thank you all. Let’s be there for Senator Booker as he been there for us at this critical time.

Keep working hard all. Proud to be in this fight with all of you. We made progress this week but have so, so much work to do - Simon