Different view....

The Supreme Court has a different view of emergencies than we do

Opinion by Dahlia Lithwick and Steve Vladeck

The Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that it would keep on hold former President Donald J. Trump’s criminal prosecution arising from his alleged responsibility for the violent efforts on January 6, 2021, to prevent Congress from certifying his defeat in the 2020 election. In that same order, the high court made clear that it would hustle to hear his appeal from a pair of lower-court decisions that had rejected his claim to immunity from these charges.

The brief order was met with outrage and indignation from many — who complained that, by keeping the case from going forward immediately, the justices were almost guaranteeing that the crucially important January 6 case cannot go to trial before the presidential election this November, and that the justices were thus complicit in Trump’s transparent efforts to delay accountability. The court said it would hear arguments on the case during the week of April 22.

Trump’s lawyers had challenged a February 6 appeals court ruling that said, “We cannot accept Trump’s claim that a President has unbounded authority to commit crimes that would neutralize the most fundamental check on executive power — the recognition and implementation of election results. Nor can we sanction his apparent contention that the Executive has carte blanche to violate the rights of individual citizens to vote and to have their votes count.”

Although the court’s order accelerates the briefing and argument, so that the matter can be conclusively resolved before the justices rise for their summer recess at the end of June, most critics were quick to contrast the expedited schedule with the one the court set in Bush v. Gore in 2000, the Watergate tapes case in 1974 and other decisions in the court’s history in which the justices moved with far more dispatch. The court, the argument goes, knows an emergency when it sees one. Evidently, the insurrection trial is just emergency-ish.

Descriptively, we certainly agree that the court is capable of moving faster. Over the 2021–2022 winter break, the court agreed to resolve, heard argument in and resolved two major challenges to federal Covid-19 vaccination policies in a matter of 27 days.

A few months earlier, the court heard oral argument in challenges to Texas’ six-week abortion ban just 10 days after granting review — and it issued its ruling rejecting those challenges six weeks later. And if we include cases in which the court hands down significant decisions without even taking a beat to allow for full briefing and oral argument — through its “shadow docket” — examples abound of the court moving at light speed compared to the schedule set for a case that, on the merits, could and should have been resolved two weeks ago.

The problem, as we see it, rests in the daylight between political emergencies and legal ones. The Covid-19 vaccine cases were legal emergencies because, in the view of both sides to those cases, the continuing existence (or lower-court pauses) of those mandates were imposing massive and irreparable harm, albeit on different constituencies.

The Texas abortion case was a legal emergency because, at least while Roe v. Wade was still on the books, every day the Texas law remained in effect was a day in which abortions were effectively unavailable in the nation’s second-largest state.

Ditto Bush v. Gore, in which, whatever one thinks of the arguments on either side of the case, no one could deny that the clock was ticking toward a very real constitutional crisis that both parties needed resolved before inauguration day (if not the “safe harbor” deadline of the Electoral Count Act of 1887).

Much as both of us would like to see the January 6 insurrection trial go forward as soon as possible, this prosecution can be distinguished from these other cases — not because it’s less important (it isn’t), but because there isn’t the same kind of ticking legal clock.

Rather, the ticking clock here is political — and the very real desire on the part of a whole lot of people, including us, to see these cases run their course prior to the November election. The same can be said of the Colorado ballot disqualification case, where the court acted on a calendar that isn’t that different from the one it’s following in the January 6 case. Because of the stay issued by the Colorado Supreme Court, there was no legal emergency; the status quo was to keep Trump on the ballot. The US Supreme Court moved quickly in that case; just not as fast as possible.

We both keep wishing that the Supreme Court would treat political exigencies with at least the same expediency with which it handles the legal ones. But wish as we might, that just isn’t in the court’s job description, and indeed at its best, the court should try to ignore political clocks as much as possible.

There are good arguments for why the court ought to be moving faster in these political emergency appeals. But it’s worth emphasizing that, much as we don’t like them, there are arguments on the other side, too — for why the court ought not to be moving even this fast. Trump didn’t even ask the court to take up his appeal when he sought to keep the prosecution on hold; the court did that for him. And there have been some vocal commentators with no love lost for Trump, like Harvard law professor Jack Goldsmith, who have suggested that the court could and should not decide the case on an expedited schedule — where it wouldn’t get briefed or argued until the term that starts in October.

Thus, it’s worth at least indulging the possibility that the court’s action on Wednesday was a least-worst compromise — one that for the moment united the justices who would have kept the January 6 prosecution on hold indefinitely with those who didn’t want to take it up in the first place.

This was a grand bargain — of a sort. The court gave both Jack Smith and Trump half a win — at least compared to the outcomes that would have been wipeouts.

If that’s true, it raises a difficult question about how we should assess the Supreme Court’s actions. Is the relevant baseline how our idealized court would act in individual cases, or is it how the court we have ought to act given its prior behavior? There’s a tendency in contemporary discourse to focus on best-case and worst-case scenarios — for all of the obvious reasons: responsible contingency planning demands it, clickbait thrives on it and we have become so distrustful of those with whom we disagree that we tend to leap to the extreme explanation either for the things we like or, more often, the things we don’t.

But when it comes to the Supreme Court, we ought not lose sight of the very real history of these “middle-case” scenarios — of the justices compromising with each other, whether for their own reasons or because they think it’s the best move for the court as an institution.

Some of those compromises are apparent (and defensible) in real-time: There was all-but-overt horse-trading in the Watergate tapes case, in which the court’s more liberal justices agreed to recognize a constitutionally grounded executive privilege in exchange for the more conservative justices holding that it didn’t apply to Nixon. And there was the push for unanimity in some of the court’s most important civil rights decisions (including Brown v Board of Education), often at the expense of analytical coherence.

Some of these compromises were never a good idea —like Chief Justice Roger B. Taney’s clumsy and racist effort to ward off the Civil War in the Dred Scott case. But this is the key point: These kinds of compromises are not inherently good; but they’re also not inherently bad — even if some, or even many, of us don’t think they were necessary or appropriate. A court that is splitting the baby might not be selling out. It might be solving exigent problems in the exact ways that differentiate judges from politicians in robes.

That might be a bitter pill to swallow in this moment, in which it looks ever-more likely that Trump will be able to run out the clock before this November’s election. But the Supreme Court, for better or worse, is playing a much longer game, in which politics matters fractionally less than law. As it theoretically should.

He Comes to Regret It? No, he will be dead...

McConnell Built Today’s Supreme Court. Will He Come to Regret It?

Mitch McConnell went to extraordinary lengths to transform the federal judiciary. But did he win the day for conservatism or for Trump?

By PETER S. CANELLOS

Mitch McConnell’s legacy is now embodied by three people: Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

All three Supreme Court justices are the product of the longtime Senate GOP leader’s exertions to cut deals, delay appointments, force litmus tests and pressure allies to remake the federal judiciary. The precise contours of that legacy could become clear in quick fashion.

In the next few months, the three justices — elevated by former President Donald Trump with extraordinary assistance from McConnell — will vote whether the ex-president deserves immunity from prosecution for actions committed while in office. At the same time, they will be called upon to weigh in on other highly partisan cases, from whether states can drop Trump from the ballot for supporting an insurrection to whether Trump-allied state governments in Florida and Texas can force social media platforms to publish his missives.

How the justices come down on these cases will go a long way toward determining whether they are partisan “Trump judges,” as the former president has boastfully called them — as if holding a lien on their support — or if they are more like McConnell has portrayed them: conservative-minded independent jurists committed to judicial restraint and interpreting the law without fear or favor.

The final verdict on their tenures, whenever it comes, will also answer one of the great curiosities of recent history: Did McConnell play Trump back in 2016, when he sought assurances that the then-GOP nominee would appoint justices from a short list of highly credentialed conservatives? Or did Trump play McConnell, buying the crucial support of a man who ultimately came to loathe him?

Not for nothing did a newly minted Justice Barrett step before a luncheon crowd at Louisville’s elegant Seelbach Hotel in September 2021 and deliver a pointed message: “My goal today is to convince you that this court is not comprised of a bunch of partisan hacks,” she said, insisting that “judicial philosophies are not the same as political parties.”

The occasion was the 30th anniversary of the founding of the McConnell Center at the University of Louisville, a pet project of Kentucky’s senior senator. The center, which is dedicated to nurturing and training “the next generation of great leaders,” reflects its founder’s deep-seated belief that sharp-elbow politics can be a form of statesmanship, a gift to future generations.

And Barrett’s comments seemed aimed at reassuring McConnell that he had acted wisely in guiding her nomination.

Barrett’s confirmation to the court was the last of three unusual acts by McConnell, a University of Kentucky-educated lawyer who served in the U.S. Justice Department, that created the current 6-3 majority of Republican appointees on the court.

The first was McConnell’s audacious stance against filling the seat of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who died unexpectedly on Feb. 13, 2016. At the time, President Barack Obama had almost a year left in office, but McConnell — who commanded a 54-46 Republican Senate majority — refused to allow consideration of the president’s nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to replace Scalia. McConnell acted in defiance of those who claimed the Senate had a constitutional obligation to vote on a nominee; he argued that since the Senate was controlled by a different party than the president, they should wait for the results of the next election to fill the seat.

The 2016 election pitted Trump against the favored Democrat Hillary Clinton, and many conservatives of McConnell’s ilk despaired that a New York real estate developer and showman had seized their party’s nomination. But McConnell helped maneuver Trump into a deal with judicial conservatives to pick justices from a list of names vetted by, among others, Federalist Society leader Leonard Leo.

Ostensibly, the move assured that the unpredictable Trump would choose justices committed to values associated with the Federalist Society, including a deep skepticism of the constitutional basis for the 1973 Supreme Court decision imposing abortion rights, Roe v. Wade.

McConnell, it seemed at the time, was pushing Trump to the right, providing a powerful reason for traditional conservatives to support a man they held in suspicion. In practice, McConnell’s deal may also have curbed Trump’s instinct to appoint loyalists of sometimes dubious credentials to key positions.

Gorsuch, a respected conservative circuit court judge, took Scalia’s seat. Brett Kavanaugh, another conservative judge with a strong academic reputation, replaced departing moderate Anthony Kennedy. And, in a final blitz of action, Barrett claimed the seat of the late liberal stalwart Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

McConnell’s rush to replace Ginsburg was his third and final maneuver to remake the high court, and it pushed in the opposite direction of his efforts to delay replacing Scalia. This time, a justice died on the very cusp of a new election — Sept. 18, 2020, six weeks before Election Day — but McConnell insisted on ramming through a replacement. Republicans were trailing in the polls at the time, and Trump seemed doomed to defeat.

That warp-speed confirmation secured a robust 6-3 conservative majority on the court — one that is unlikely to be reversed anytime soon. An entire era of jurisprudence seems likely to be the product of McConnell’s political jiu jitsu.

But that era’s jurisprudence might go in directions McConnell never anticipated. When the court, in 2022, overruled Roe v. Wade, McConnell — perhaps more than Trump or any other figure — could take credit. The decision was an expression of his favored mode of judicial conservatism, a narrow reading of the Constitution based on the original intent of the framers. But since then, the conservative judicial movement has taken on a more activist bent, as “personhood” movements in many states, culminating in an Alabama Supreme Court ruling that in vitro embryos are “extrauterine” children, threaten to create a judicially imposed social order of just the sort that McConnell condemned under Roe v. Wade.

Meanwhile, Trump is counting on the Supreme Court justices he appointed to help him avoid an onslaught of legal challenges, including multiple criminal indictments.

For McConnell, whose finely decorated office is a museum to political courage and legislative mastery, the outcomes of these cases are of more than passing interest. They will weigh heavily on a man who established a leadership institute while in his early years in office — and who weathered decades of political attacks in service of his dream of remaking the judiciary. Was he acting as a statesman, a partisan or both?

Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett will write the ending to this story.

We have them too....

Putin threatens NATO with nuclear strike if it sends troops to Ukraine

Russian president delivers ominous warning to the West about “destruction of civilization.”

BY DENIS LEVEN

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday warned NATO against sending its troops to help Ukraine, in an explicit nuclear threat.

"There has been talk of sending NATO contingents to Ukraine. But we remember the fate of those who sent contingents [in the past]. Now the consequences for the interventionists will be much more tragic," Putin said in a speech to Russia's parliament.

"We too have weapons that can hit targets on their territory. This really threatens a conflict with nuclear weapons, and thus the destruction of civilization," he added.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday floated the idea of sending Western troops to assist Ukraine in fighting off Putin's full-scale invasion, which met a furious response from the Kremlin and was also shot down by other NATO allies, including the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany.

In his speech, Putin said that Russian forces have taken the initiative on the battlefield and are steadily advancing. Earlier this month, the Kremlin's troops captured the eastern town of Avdiivka after a long and bloody battle.

"[We] will do everything to finish [the war], to eradicate Nazism, to solve all the tasks of the special military operation, to protect the sovereignty and security of our citizens," he said, returning to some of the well-worn slogans which have been guiding his military ambitions in Ukraine.

Putin added that the invasion is backed by the "absolute majority" of Russian citizens and said the support was best evidenced by people working triple shifts to help provide ammo and aid to Moscow's forces.

Putin also rejected recent suggestions from Washington D.C. that Russia was planning to put nuclear weapons in space. But he did say that Russian "scientists and gunsmiths" are working on a new set of "advanced weapon systems."

Help Ukraine

‘Everything’ on table to help Ukraine beat Putin, Estonian PM says

Kaja Kallas talks boots on the ground, NATO, Donald Trump and the European election in an exclusive interview with POLITICO.

BY ANNE MCELVOY AND CLAUDIA CHIAPPA

Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said "everything" is on the table to help Ukraine beat Putin, days after French President Emmanuel Macron caused a storm by hinting that sending ground troops to help Kyiv was a possibility.

Macron's words sparked backlash from other allied governments, whose leaders rushed to insist that troops were not about to be deployed.

But Kallas said leaders must discuss all possibilities behind closed doors, including what more can be done to assist Ukraine.

“I think it is also the signals that we are sending to Russia, that we are not ruling out different things,” Kallas told POLITICO's Power Play podcast. “Because all the countries have understood that we have to do everything so that Ukraine wins and Russia loses this war.”

While most other EU countries ruled out sending troops to Ukraine — including major players such as Germany, the U.K. and the U.S. — Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said Wednesday he was grateful for the debate that Macron had initiated, adding “nothing can be taken off the table, no option can be rejected out of hand.”

Moscow reacted angrily to Macron's remarks, warning that deploying Western troops to Ukraine would inevitably lead to conflict between Russia and NATO.

Kallas, who in the past has expressed interest in becoming NATO’s next secretary-general, said she still believes the job should go to a leader whose country meets the alliance’s 2-percent-of-GDP defense spending target. But with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte positioned to get the role — now he has the blessing of several key countries — that’s unlikely to happen.

While Kallas agreed that Rutte has “positive qualities,” she noted that he would be the fourth secretary-general from the Netherlands, whereas there has never been a NATO chief from Estonia, or indeed from any of the Baltic countries. 

“There is a question whether there are first rank and second rank countries in NATO,” she said. “Are we equals or are we not equals? So these questions still remain.”

With former U.S. President Donald Trump inching closer to returning to the White House, many Western leaders worry they'll be left on their own protecting Kyiv from Moscow's aggression. The Republican candidate has long questioned Washington’s commitment to NATO and recently threatened to abandon what he considers to be NATO's freeloaders.

Kallas said Trump's views gave European countries even more reason to boost their defense spending — something she believes they should have done long ago.

"Every country chooses their own leaders, and we have to work with the leaders that these democracies choose for themselves," she said. "But we have to take into account and consider what he has been saying."

If not NATO, another option for Kallas might be to become the liberals’ lead candidate in June's European Parliament election, a possibility that has been touted.

Kallas said she is still weighing her choices.

“Right now it's up to me to really give a response whether I am able to take this up,” she said.

“[On] one side, I really want to help the liberals to do a better result than many parties around Europe,” Kallas added. “But of course I would be in the fire here in Estonia and I have a lot on my plate.”

On the Ukraine war, Kallas also said criticism of Germany’s financial and military support for Kyiv is unjust.

"If you really look into the numbers, what they have given to Ukraine, I think it is not fair that Germany has been bashed so much because they have done a lot," Kallas said.

She also defended former German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s legacy despite criticism that Germany was too dependent on Russian energy during her time in office.

"She's still a great leader. I don't necessarily agree with all of her policies, but that doesn't mean that she isn't a great leader," Kallas said.

Roll back 2019 rent changes

New York real estate lobby pushes to roll back 2019 rent changes with new data

Real estate groups contend the 2019 laws have had a “disastrous” impact on rent-regulated housing.

By JANAKI CHADHA

Five years after Albany Democrats overhauled the state’s rent-stabilization laws, real estate executives are looking to weaken the reforms — bolstered by data they commissioned that validates their case.

New findings from a survey of 781 property owners and managers covering about 242,000 units contend the 2019 changes led to disinvestment and substantial vacancies in rent-stabilized housing. A significant share of respondents said it is “economically infeasible” to invest in needed upgrades to their buildings. The study, obtained by POLITICO, was conducted by consulting firm HR&A Advisors on behalf of the Real Estate Board of New York and the Rent Stabilization Association. While the findings are unsurprising, real estate leaders are using them to fuel their argument against the 5-year-old legislative changes.

The issue is now entering the early stages of negotiations in Albany, amid broader discussions around a wide-ranging deal to tackle an acute housing shortage.

Tenant activists and progressive lawmakers are already pushing back on any attempt to reverse the reforms, which starts out as a tall order in the Democratic-led state Legislature.

“This data indicates that the 2019 rent law changes are having increasingly negative impacts on rent-stabilized apartments and tenants,” James Whelan, president of REBNY, said in a statement. “State lawmakers should follow the data and advance policies that facilitate the rehabilitation of dilapidated apartments in a manner that results in quality affordable housing without recreating the dynamics of vacancy decontrol.”

Real estate groups argue the 5-year-old changes — which eliminated or significantly curtailed avenues to raise rents on the city’s roughly 1 million rent-regulated apartments — have left landlords unable to rehab apartments and rerent them when long-term tenants move out.

The idea — called “self serving” by a leading tenant activist — has gained traction among some moderate Democrats: A bill introduced last year by state Sen. Leroy Comrie and Assemblymember Kenny Burgos would allow rent-stabilized landlords to reset rents at vacancy to facilitate renovations. The current law allows only very limited increases if an owner is making an apartment or building improvement.

Some prominent legislators see Comrie’s introduction as a non-starter and question the industry’s claims.

“They’re saying, let’s turn the rent-regulation system on its head because we have many units that are in dire disrepair — I don’t buy that,” said Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal, chair of the body’s housing committee. “Many of my colleagues oppose that vehemently, so I don’t think it will gain much traction, and it shouldn’t. This is not the time to be trying to undo tenant protections.”

The survey found that for owners with small portfolios that are primarily rent-stabilized — those under 11 units — 25 percent of their apartments are currently vacant.

That statistic is in stark contrast to a city-issued survey that found a vacancy rate of just 1.4 percent in 2023 across rental housing more broadly.

There are also fewer total vacant apartments than there were in 2018, but longer-term vacancies — defined as three years or more — have increased, the REBNY-commissioned survey found. And nearly one-third of respondents cited “economic infeasibility” of unit improvements after a long tenancy as a reason for continued vacancies.

RSA supports the bill introduced by Comrie and Burgos. REBNY is not pushing that specific legislation but said it agrees with its general goals, and sees it as one potential approach.

“There’s no way to adjust rent at vacancy anymore in the rent-stabilized universe,” Basha Gerhards, senior vice president of planning at REBNY, said in reference to landlords’ reported drop in operating income. “So do we allow some form of rent reset in exchange for the apartments being improved and the violations being cleared? It’s a question we are posing.”

State lawmakers are under pressure to take action on housing issues this year as the city struggles with the lowest rental vacancy rate in 50 years and residential construction slows amidst the absence of a key multi-family housing tax break.

The rent reforms approved in 2019 — on the heels of Democrats winning a sizable majority in the state Senate — sent shockwaves through the real estate industry and sounded a death knell for its longstanding hold on the state capitol under Senate Republicans.

After Democrats took control of the chamber, they eliminated “vacancy decontrol” — a mechanism that allowed units to leave the rent-stabilization program when they reached a certain threshold and became vacant. They additionally got rid of a provision that permitted landlords to raise rents by 20 percent when apartments became vacant, and significantly restricted rent increases attached to building and apartment improvements.

Those provisions had led to the loss of tens of thousands of rent-regulated apartments before the 2019 reforms went into effect.

The survey found owners still need to make those upgrades — things like replacing boilers or kitchen appliances — but are pursuing fewer improvements since they no longer pencil out financially. For example, RSA members filed 763 individual apartment improvements in 2023, down from 3,311 in 2019. For individual apartment improvements, the maximum landlords can spend on renovations that would be eligible for a rent increase calculation is $15,000 over 15 years.

“Whether it’s big systems like rewiring or plumbing, or bringing [units] up to code, complying to lead paint regulations — that’s well over $15,000 for an apartment, so there’s just no incentive,” said Frank Ricci, an executive vice president at RSA.

The city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development estimated last year there are only 2,500 low-cost apartments that are both in need of repairs and have been vacant for a year or more. The agency says that figure is significantly lower now, based on the latest housing and vacancy survey, though it has not yet released a specific number, according to Gothamist. Ricci argued smaller buildings are under-surveyed by the city survey.

“By and large, there are just not that many vacant rent-stabilized apartments in New York City right now,” said Cea Weaver, campaign coordinator for the Housing Justice for All coalition, pointing to HPD’s data. “It’s very politically convenient and self-serving to say, oh we’re in trouble because of the [2019 reforms.] But it’s like no, you’re in trouble because you speculated on buildings that are 100 years old and a pandemic happened and other costs changed.”

Weaver and other progressive activists said they’re nonetheless taking the push very seriously — and reject any attempts to include it in a broader housing agreement, even if that deal includes a longstanding priority known as “good cause” eviction. That measure would effectively limit rent hikes in market-rate apartments.

“For the left, we know what rollbacks have felt like — we experienced that in the bail reform fight,” said Jasmine Gripper, co-director of the Working Families Party. “We’ve been communicating to elected leaders that this is a non-starter.”

White House doctor

Biden’s physical finds him ‘healthy, active, robust,’ says White House doctor

The results from the annual exam will be closely read as the 81-year-old president seeks reelection.

By ELI STOKOLS

President Joe Biden’s physician declared him to be “a healthy, active, robust 81-year-old male, who remains fit to successfully execute the duties of the presidency,” according to a six-page report released Wednesday afternoon following a three-hour examination earlier in the day.

White House physician Kevin O’Connor found “no new concerns” during his exam. In his report, he wrote Biden is being treated for a number of ailments consistent with his age: “sleep apnea, a-fib with normal ventricular response, hyperlipidemia, gastroesophageal reflux, seasonal allergies, spinal arthritis and sensory peripheral neuropathy of the feet.”

The president’s gait, O’Connor noted, “remains stiff, but has not worsened since last year.”

On Wednesday morning, Biden took an unannounced trip to Walter Reed Army Medical Center to get his annual physical.

Biden, whose public schedule was bare when the White House first distributed it Tuesday night, left for the check-up just before 9 a.m., informing reporters of his destination as he headed for Marine One.

This is the third straight year Biden has received a physical exam in the first quarter of the year. The secrecy around the annual visit to Walter Reed was not unusual, but it underscored anew the heightened sensitivities around the subject of Biden’s age and health, a concern for many voters as the 81-year-old seeks another four years in office this November.

Recent polls have shown that Biden’s age and fitness for office are his biggest liability, with 76 percent of voters expressing concern in a recent NBC News poll earlier this month. And a Quinnipiac University survey last week showed that just 34 percent of Americans believe Biden has “the mental fitness to serve a second term.”

That data emerged just weeks after a controversial report by Special Counsel Robert Hur, who opted against charging Biden in a classified documents probe and wrote that he found the president to be an “elderly” man with a poor memory. Biden and aides slammed Hur, a Republican, for going beyond the scope of the investigation to criticize the president publicly in an election year.

Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden did not undergo a cognitive test during his exam Wednesday, explaining that O’Connor did not deem one to be necessary. She said the rigors of being president amounted to a cognitive test “every day.”

Biden’s last physical came just over a year ago, when the president’s physician, Kevin O’Connor, declared him “healthy and vigorous” in his public report. It also noted some age-related conditions the president was being treated for including foot pain, elevated cholesterol and a minor heart arrhythmia.

Appearing at the White House shortly after returning from Walter Reed, Biden responded to a question about his examination and health during a roundtable on crime. “I’m all right,” he told reporters. “Everything is squared away.”

When a reporter asked if there was “anything concerning that Americans should know about,” Biden quipped: “They think I look too young.”

Tory woes?

Is Brexit king Nigel Farage the answer to Tory woes?

Conservatives continue to look to the man who led the UK out of the EU as their poll ratings tank.

BY ANNABELLE DICKSON

Liz Truss’ latest big idea to save Britain is to rope in Nigel Farage. Not everyone is convinced.

Speaking in the United States last week, Britain’s shortest-lived prime minister suggested Britain’s Mr. Brexit — once a thorn in Tory sides — should be brought into the fold to “help turn our country around.” Her suggestion came just weeks after he turned up at the launch of her new Popular Conservatives group. 

The outspoken and controversial Farage is currently honorary president of upstart rival party Reform, having been a leading figure in the campaign for Britain to leave the European Union. A surge in support for his former UK Independence Party (UKIP) in the early 2010s was widely credited as a factor in then-PM David Cameron’s decision to hold the Brexit referendum in 2016. 

The euroskeptic former MEP quit frontline politics in 2021 claiming he had achieved what he wanted thanks to the Conservatives’ Brexit deal. 

But Farage has continued to cultivate his public profile, carving out a lucrative presenting career on Britain’s right-leaning start-up TV channel GB News, where he often uses his nightly weekday show to criticize Britain’s current political leaders for not being tough enough on issues including immigration and taxation. He also had a starring role on the popular reality show “I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here.”

Now, amid atrocious poll ratings ahead of this year’s general election, some Conservatives are actively courting the populist Farage, believing he could win back Tory voters considering defecting to his Reform UK Party or just staying home. 

It did not go unnoticed that Farage was hailed like a rock star by delegates at the Conservatives’ annual conference in Manchester last year when he gained entrance as an anchor for GB News.

“I’ve always regarded Nigel as a Tory,” said David Campbell Bannerman, a former MEP who defected from UKIP to the Conservatives in 2011. He is a “low tax, strong defense, strong law and order, small state conservative” who would “be a good fit,” he claims.

Farage could even become the party’s immigration spokesman after the election, Campbell Bannerman suggested.

The Reform president has not ruled out a return to the party he left in 1993, but has made it clear it would not be under current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s leadership. 

Risky business

Ministers, pollsters and strategists are less convinced of the merits of embracing Farage.

“While bringing Nigel Farage into the Tory fold would gain the Tories some votes on the right, he would likely lose votes on the center-right, putting seats in places like the Blue Wall at risk,” warned Luke Tryl, U.K. director of the public opinion research consultancy More in Common, referencing more affluent Conservative seats in the south of England.

“More than that it is likely that Farage’s dominant personality and tendency towards saying the inflammatory and extreme would make message discipline impossible, and risk furthering the sense of Tory division that has proved so toxic with the electorate in recent years,” he added.

One former Tory strategist involved in the 2016 Brexit referendum campaign, granted anonymity because they are not authorized to speak on the record in their new role, was even more scathing. 

“The fact there are some Tories, even those as deluded as Truss, seriously considering this, tells you how much there is a vacuum of ideas in the Conservative Party,” they said.

While some in the party would welcome his return, the former strategist warned that “for [Farage] to feel at home with the Conservative Party, it would have to look like a Conservative Party which a lot of other people don’t feel comfortable in.”

For other Conservatives, embracing an old enemy would just be too hard. 

Explaining why he would not support a Farage return, Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden, a close ally of Sunak, told the BBC: “I, like many hundreds and thousands of Conservatives up and down the country, have spent many years campaigning against parties led by Nigel Farage.”

The case for Farage

With an election looming, and Tories searching for solutions to their current electoral malaise, the Farage question is unlikely to go away. 

Current Cabinet minister and former GB News presenter Esther McVey told the channel earlier this month that Farage should have been given a seat in the House of Lords after Brexit, describing herself as a “fan” who wanted to see him being a “positive force.”

“If you’re going to say make or break the Conservative Party, of course I’d want him to make the Conservative Party,” she added.

Another GB News presenter, the former Tory Cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg, said Farage was “essentially a Conservative in most of his views.”

Focus groups suggest Farage still holds popular appeal.

“He was a mastermind over Brexit. People voted with Farage and, yeah, if they brought him back, they would get more votes,” a social worker called Ryan in the Midland market town of Wellingborough told More in Common researchers studying potential Reform voters earlier this month.

In January in Grimsby, a wind turbine technician called Jordan lamented what he described as the Tories being  “very detached” from “working class people,” adding he thought Farage “gets it a bit more.”

For all the likely drawbacks, it’s comments like this that keep Farage on the minds of Britain’s ailing Conservatives.

Food aid

Food aid reaches north Gaza for first time in weeks

The increasing alarm over hunger among Palestinians in Gaza has fueled international calls for a sustained cease-fire.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS

Aid convoys carrying food reached northern Gaza this week, Israeli officials said Wednesday, the first major delivery in a month to the devastated, isolated area, where the U.N. has warned of worsening starvation among hundreds of thousands of Palestinians amid Israel’s offensive.

The increasing alarm over hunger across Gaza has fueled international calls for a cease-fire as the U.S., Egypt and Qatar work to secure a deal between Israel and Hamas for a pause in fighting and the release of some of the hostages seized by Hamas in its Oct. 7 attack.

Mediators hope to reach an agreement before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan starts around March 10. But so far, Israel and Hamas have remained far apart in public on their demands.

Increasing the pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reach a deal, families of hostages on Wednesday launched a four-day march from southern Israel to Jerusalem to demand their loved ones be set free. Some of the around 100 hostages freed during a cease-fire in late November are joining the march, which is to end near Netanyahu’s official residence.

The plight of the hostages has deeply shaken Israelis, who see in them an enduring symbol of the state’s failure to protect its citizens from Hamas’ assault. In its Oct. 7 attack, the Palestinian militant group abducted roughly 250 people, according to Israeli authorities, including men, women, children and older adults. After the November releases, some 130 hostages remain, and Israel says about a quarter of them are dead.

Israel’s assault on Gaza, which it says aims at destroying Hamas after its attack, has killed more than 29,900 Palestinians. U.N. officials warn of further mass casualties if it follows through on vows to attack the southernmost city of Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million has taken refuge. They also say a Rafah offensive could collapse the aid operation that has already been crippled in the fighting.

Across Gaza, more than 576,000 people (a quarter of the population) are a step away from famine, the U.N. says. But northern Gaza in particular has been gutted by hunger. The north has largely been cut off and much of it has been leveled since Israeli ground troops invaded in late October. Several hundred thousand Palestinians are believed to remain there, and many have been reduced to eating animal fodder to survive. The U.N. says one in six children under 2 in the north suffer from acute malnutrition and wasting.

A convoy of 31 trucks carrying food entered northern Gaza on Wednesday, the Israeli military office that oversees Palestinian civilian affairs said. The office, known by the acronym COGAT, said nearly 20 other trucks entered the north on Monday and Tuesday. Associated Press footage showed people carrying sacks of flour from the distribution site.

It was not immediately clear who carried out the deliveries. The U.N. was not involved, said a spokesperson for the U.N.’s humanitarian coordination office, Eri Kaneko.

As of Sunday, the U.N. had been unable to deliver food to northern Gaza since Jan. 23, according to Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees that has led the aid effort during the war. On Feb. 18, the World Food Program attempted a delivery to the north for the first time in three weeks, but much of the convoy’s cargo was taken en route by desperate Palestinians, and it was only able to distribute a small amount in the north. Two days later, the WFP announced it was pausing deliveries to the north because of the chaos.

Since launching its assault on Gaza following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, Israel has barred entry of food, water, medicine and other supplies except for a trickle of aid entering the south from Egypt at the Rafah crossing and Israel’s Kerem Shalom crossing. Despite international calls to allow in more aid, the number of supply trucks entering has dropped dramatically in recent weeks.

COGAT said Wednesday that Israel does not impose limits on the amount of aid entering. Israel has blamed U.N. agencies for the bottleneck, saying hundreds of trucks are waiting on the Palestinian side of Kerem Shalom for aid workers to collect them.

U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric on Wednesday countered saying large trucks entering Gaza have to be unloaded and reloaded onto smaller Palestinian trucks, but there aren’t enough of them and there’s a lack of security to distribute aid in Gaza. Police in Gaza stopped protecting convoys after Israeli strikes on them near the crossing. There is also “insufficient coordination” from Israel on security and deconfliction, which puts the lives of U.N. staff and other humanitarian workers at risk.

“That’s why we’ve repeatedly asked for a humanitarian cease-fire,” he said. The U.N. has called for Israel to open crossings in the north to aid deliveries and guarantee safe corridors for convoys.

The director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza said the number of children who have died in recent days from severe malnutrition and dehydration had risen to four.

Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya said that operations at the hospital will shut off starting Wednesday due to fuel shortages. “Dialysis, intensive care, childcare, and surgeries will stop. Therefore, we will witness more deaths in the coming days,” he said.

But the pain from the lack of supplies extends across Gaza. Project Hope, a humanitarian group that runs a clinic in the central town of Deir al-Balah, said 21 percent of the pregnant women and 11 percent of the children under 5 it has treated in the last three weeks are suffering from malnutrition.

The Gaza Health Ministry said the death toll from Israel’s offensive had risen to 29,954 people, with 70,325 wounded. The ministry doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants, but it says two-thirds of the dead were children and women.

In its attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, Hamas and other Palestinian militants killed some 1,200 people, mainly civilians.

IVF Ruling

A ‘Stunning’ Element of the Alabama IVF Ruling

A legal historian who studies the abortion battle explains why the state Supreme Court’s decision is so momentous.

By MEGAN MESSERLY

The Alabama Supreme Court ruling effectively cutting off access to in-vitro fertilization in the state created a firestorm for Republicans. Many of their friends in the anti-abortion movement were celebrating.

The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade marked a decades-long triumph for the right. But it’s also exposed tensions in the alliance between Republican politicians, who face voter backlash, and anti-abortion activists who seek even further restrictions.

The Alabama IVF controversy is the latest part of that — and it’s bringing to the fore a larger debate over fetal personhood that has long existed at the fringes of the conservative movement.

Mary Ziegler, a leading historian on the abortion battle and a law professor at the University of California, Davis School of Law, says widespread adoption of fetal personhood laws would have far-reaching policy implications, including criminalizing people who receive abortions and banning certain kinds of contraception. Politically, she notes, it’s already straining the relationship between the anti-abortion movement and the Republicans who are eagerly trying to showcase their support for IVF.

“There’s clearly more of a divergence here between the anti-abortion movement and the GOP than the GOP is suggesting,” she says. “Part of the tension lies in the fact that there are any number of anti-abortion groups that don’t want to clarify that IVF is protected because they don’t think IVF should be protected.”

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Since the Dobbs decision came down, much has been made of this idea that Republicans are the dog who caught the car — unprepared for this moment both policy wise and politically. Is the current IVF episode an example of that?

It wasn’t just the dog that caught the car. Once Dobbs occurred, there were pretty foundational shifts in how the anti-abortion movement operated, who was calling the shots within the movement, and what the movement’s relationship to the GOP was. The terrain has shifted in ways that are somewhat unpredictable that are making it even harder for the GOP to know what to do right now.

When you say foundational shifts, what do you mean?

Historically, people thought of the anti-abortion movement, or the pro-life movement, as relying on the Republican Party, and the Republican Party would often pay lip service to the priorities of the anti-abortion movement and then not ultimately really do a whole lot to advance the movement’s cause.

In the Trump era, the GOP, and particularly former President Donald Trump, have been really heavily reliant on conservative evangelical Christians for their political fortunes. That creates a setup where the GOP relies heavily on anti-abortion voters even as it wants to distance itself from anti-abortion policies — so that balance has shifted.

Before Dobbs, there was also a sort of strategy hierarchy within the anti-abortion movement because the movement was focused, at least in the short term, on the elimination of Roe v. Wade. The groups that were viewed as the most capable Supreme Court strategists were often able to advise other groups and state legislators on what to do. There was fear that the wrong move could jeopardize the campaign to overturn Roe. Now that Roe is gone, that hierarchy isn’t there anymore, and there are any number of groups that have different pockets of influence.

For the last week, we’ve heard GOP lawmakers pledge their support for IVF. Many of them seem to genuinely support the procedure, or have even used it themselves. But the debate is really about what to do with unused embryos. How do the various facets of the anti-abortion movement and their Republican allies square the circle here?

There’s clearly more of a divergence here between the anti-abortion movement and the GOP than the GOP is suggesting. Part of the tension lies in the fact that there are any number of anti-abortion groups that don’t want to clarify that IVF is protected because they don’t think IVF should be protected — at least as it’s currently practiced, meaning no disposal of embryos, no donation of embryos and no storage of embryos.

Prior to Dobbs, people in the anti-abortion movement embraced personhood, but it was unthinkable that anyone would get it recognized in federal law — or even in enforceable ways in state law in the interim — because of Roe. I don’t think there was an entire working out of — what does it mean, and how do we enforce it? What would its implications be for IVF? Is everyone on the same page about the answers to these questions? They didn’t need to be. I think some of those questions are being worked out in very public and very messy ways as a result.

Clearly some Republicans, though not all, are really concerned about the implications of the ruling for IVF — and the implications for the Republican Party.

Do the movement and the party need to get on the same page on this?

Not really, no. There are two points of view. One point of view would say, well, for the anti-abortion movement to get anywhere, Republicans need to be in power. If they’re not in line on this and the movement is pursuing a course of action that hurts Republicans come November, that will hurt the movement.

Another point of view is that in a lot of states where the movement is operating, there is no realistic political competition. These are single party states. Regardless of what the movement does in those states, there’s not going to be any cost to Republicans come November. The movement needs to do what’s best for the movement and for its agenda and let the Republican Party figure it out.

I think increasingly that latter view is winning out. The older “You don’t want to jeopardize Republicans’ elections because Republicans are the movement’s path to power” doesn’t carry as much currency today as it once did.

Some view personhood laws as essentially valuing the life of a fetus over that of the person carrying the pregnancy. Is that a fair critique? Does it work out that way in practice?

There are other countries in other contexts that recognize both abortion rights and fetal rights. Conceptually, there’s no by-definition idea that you have to criminalize certain things in order to recognize fetal rights.

There’s also a question of what people intend with these laws versus their real-world effects. Some people in the anti-abortion movement sincerely think that they can honor women and pregnant people’s lives and fetal lives the same. In practical terms, if the instrument you use to recognize fetal rights is really harsh criminal punishment, the practical effect tends to be that you don’t value women’s lives as much. That’s what we’ve seen post-Dobbs.

If you have fetal personhood backed with the full force of criminal law, and a risk averse group of medical providers, whether you’re talking about abortion or IVF, the result is the same, which is that the personhood of one group or the rights of one group are elevated over that of another.

Are there other downsides to fetal personhood laws? What other areas of law or society could those laws complicate?

Well, there’s contraception, in part, because a lot of leading anti-abortion groups view common contraceptives as abortifacients.

Then there’s questions about the criminalization of conduct during pregnancy. To date, it’s been pretty much limited to illegal drug use and overwhelmingly targeting low-income people and people of color who’ve abused illegal drugs. But if a fetus is a person, there’s no reason that wouldn’t or couldn’t be extended to other conduct that leads to miscarriage — for example, that’s contraindicated during pregnancy but not criminal.

We’ve also seen talk within the anti-abortion movement about whether personhood would require the criminal punishment of women and other abortion seekers. There’s a self-proclaimed group of abortion abolitionists who make this argument, that if a fetus is a person it can’t be logically consistent or even constitutionally permissible to not punish women and abortion seekers. So the theory goes, if you are a woman and you’d be punished for killing a six-month-old baby or a three-year-old preschooler, you would surely be equally criminally liable for having an abortion at four weeks because that entity in the womb is a person just as much as the three-year-old or the six-month-old.

Then there are all the other ways that personhood appears in law. Would a fetus be a person for the purpose of census counts, and how would we go about determining that? Would child support be obligatory during pregnancy? Would tax deductions for dependent children apply to fetuses or zygotes? There’s a whole bunch of other questions that could come up. Part of the answer is we just don’t know. I think we’re just beginning to see how that’s going to shake out.

Many Republicans, including Donald Trump, are obviously eager to downplay this issue because it seems like a political liability. Do you think Republicans will go back to embracing fetal personhood if they gain power in November or could there be a recognition of some of the unintended consequences of these laws?

If you’re Donald Trump [and you win], you’re not able to run for reelection again. To the extent you care about what people think, it’s vis-a-vis your post presidential future, it’s not vis-a-vis future elections in which you can’t participate anyways. If you are a person running for senator or governor or even for the House in a divided, contested state, you’re absolutely going to care and have a problem with talking about personhood in ways that would seem to jeopardize IVF.

If you’re not in a contested seat, and you need to worry about a primary challenge from your right, or you’re in a politically uncompetitive state, you may have every incentive to continue pushing the envelope on personhood, including in the context of IVF. Everyone is not going to have the same incentives.

I would expect that after the election, and probably to a lesser extent before the election, we’re going to see people in the Republican Party doing what’s best for their own political futures without a lot of regard for how it’s affecting other people’s races.

As Republicans are making those decisions, how much flexibility do you think anti-abortion activists will give them?

It depends on who it is. We’ve already seen former President Trump being given a lot of grace by the anti-abortion movement because, one, there’s not much of a choice because of the hold Trump has over that part of the party, and two, I think people close to Trump fully believe that he’s going to use executive power to ban abortion without Congress, regardless of what he’s saying on the campaign trail. There’s also a pretty strong tendency to dismiss anything Trump is saying that is more moderate on abortion as, from the standpoint of the anti-abortion movement, a necessary evil on the campaign trail.

That isn’t the case with other candidates, because the anti-abortion movement can try to find an alternative to those people in the way they can’t with Trump. That’s especially true in state races, but to a lesser extent that threat is out there in congressional races, too.

What happens if activists get their wish and secure federal personhood legislation one day?

They’re not going to ever secure federal personhood legislation. It would be a judicial decision. The Supreme Court could hold that, as a matter of the original public meaning of the 14th Amendment, the word “person” applies from the moment an egg is fertilized.

What that would mean — who knows? Anti-abortion groups would maintain that pretty much all liberal abortion laws, including those that protect a right to reproductive rights in state constitutions, would violate the federal constitution by denying the due process and equal protection rights of the unborn child. Beyond that, there are a lot of unanswered questions.

Take Texas, which has a law which says you can’t punish women for abortion. Would that be unconstitutional if a fetus is a person? I don’t know. Would it be unconstitutional to have a law that permits IVF? Not only would there be no federally protected reproductive rights, there would be no opportunity for voters to secure any kind of reproductive rights, regardless of what they wanted.

Are there any broader implications you see from the fact that the Alabama Supreme Court ruling leaned so heavily on the Bible?

There have long been Christian legal organizations and defense funds and so on. But in recent years, since the aughts, groups like the Alliance Defending Freedom have tried to not just have Christian lawyers making arguments but to have a Christian legal bar that can influence elite law firms, the Supreme Court and academia, and to begin making the case that the traditions and history of the United States are avowedly Christian, and that the Constitution should be interpreted in line with Christian principles, because that’s what the nation’s history and tradition would dictate. In other words, to say there’s nothing wrong with talking about God’s glory and wrath because what you’re really doing is just talking about the history and tradition of the United States.

That argument’s been made in the Christian legal movement in training sessions, in publications, meeting minutes and correspondence for a really long time. It’s been made in state legislatures, too. What’s stunning or new is to see this in a state supreme court opinion — to see judges embracing it.

It’s worth emphasizing that groups in the Christian legal movement don’t make arguments like this publicly, or at least very often in litigation. The Alliance Defending Freedom, which is obviously embracing this ruling as an expression of fetal personhood, is currently in the U.S. Supreme Court in two independent cases on abortion this term, and they’re not talking about Scripture in either one. I don’t know if the major players in the Christian legal movement think that now is the opportune time to bring these arguments out — especially in the context of something that’s going to be unpopular, like jeopardizing IVF. To connect that to Christian teachings would probably not be the best strategic move, and I think some leaders of the Christian legal movement would recognize that.

Personhood laws

‘Scratching their heads’: State lawmakers take a closer look at personhood laws in wake of Alabama ruling

The Alabama Supreme Court ruling that granted legal personhood to frozen embryos puts a new spotlight on states with laws that confer rights on fetuses from the moment of fertilization.

By MEGAN MESSERLY

More than a third of states consider fetuses to be people at some point during pregnancy. Any one of them could be the next Alabama.

That has state lawmakers and organizations on both sides of the political spectrum scrambling to understand state statutes, some of which are nearly four decades old, as they seek to protect access to in vitro fertilization, which is overwhelmingly popular in the U.S.

“A lot of state legislators right now are scratching their heads — whether you’re a Republican, Democrat, pro-life, pro-choice — and saying, ‘What are our laws on IVF?’ A lot of politicians have spent little or no time thinking about this. The Alabama decision kind of came out of left field,” said Billy Valentine, vice president of political affairs at SBA Pro-Life America. “For us, it’s about making sure that IVF is available but that these embryos aren’t needlessly discarded.”

The Alabama Supreme Court ruling that granted legal personhood to frozen embryos puts a new spotlight on the dozen or so states with so-called fetal personhood laws that confer rights on fetuses from the moment of fertilization. Others, like Texas, have tucked in their criminal statutes definitions that specify that personhood begins at conception, or rulings that have interpreted the law as saying so.

Democrats, including President Joe Biden, have sought to tie the Alabama ruling to Republicans’ anti-abortion views and the fallout of the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Some conservatives are pushing back on progressives who say these state laws were designed to cut off access to IVF and are reaffirming their support for the procedure. But left-leaning groups that have been warning about the implications of these types of laws for years argue the latest legal dilemmas are the inevitable outcome of poorly worded — or in some cases intentionally open-ended — legislation.

“The real risk is actually not the abortion bans. It’s the other kinds of laws, like Alabama’s, that I’m more concerned about,” said Amanda Allen, deputy executive director for legal programs at the Lawyering Project, which advocates for abortion rights. “Whether or not that has immediate implications for abortion care or IVF care in that state, it is a statement of principle by the legislature that courts will credit and apply when interpreting its laws in the future.”

Some lawmakers, including in North Dakota, Missouri and West Virginia, expressed interest in the Alabama ruling and examining how they might make changes to their state laws governing frozen embryos. More than two dozen bills have been introduced in state legislatures this year that the abortion-rights-focused Guttmacher Institute considers as establishing fetal personhood.

“It is a very potentially exciting decision that actually might cause us to consider some of these questions,” said West Virginia state Sen. Patricia Rucker, a Republican, who is sponsoring multiple abortion-related bills this year.

But none have rushed to propose a bill — and lawmakers in Florida this week paused legislation they had been advancing that would have protected fetuses under wrongful death laws.

“The stunning levels of outrage about the Alabama decision are clearly having an impact on Republican legislators,” said Sean Tipton, chief advocacy and policy officer for the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. “My read is that the backlash generated by the Alabama decision is probably dampening the enthusiasm of legislators in other states to codify this kind of thing. Of course, as we’ve seen, courts can be a different matter.”

Even Alabama lawmakers are scrambling to implement a legislative fix that would allow IVF clinics that have paused operations to restart. Lawmakers on Thursday are expected to vote on legislation that would exempt doctors who perform IVF from criminal and civil liability.

The measure was significantly scaled back from a draft — which would have carved out frozen embryos from the definition of “human life” and defined them as “potential life.” Still, it attracted swift backlash from the anti-abortion movement as an imperfect fix that “fails to respect the dignity of human life,” SBA Pro-Life America and the Alabama Policy Institute said in a statement.

Anti-abortion groups point to Louisiana, which since the 1980s has banned embryos created during IVF from being discarded, as a model for states.

“It is unacceptable the Alabama legislature has advanced a bill that falls short of pro-life expectations,” the groups said. “Alabama can do both: allow the continued practice of IVF with care for those suffering from infertility and respect life created through the IVF.”

Tipton and others in the fertility space are looking at existing state laws with fresh eyes. Nineteen states have either broad personhood provisions in their law, language on personhood or defining “unborn children” in their criminal code or case law expanding the definition of child under state law to include fetuses, according to a report from the left-leaning organization Pregnancy Justice. Two states — Alabama and Arkansas — have such language in their constitutions.

“Even if we read a certain bill a way and every lawyer who reads the bill interprets it the same way, it takes just one judge to interpret something differently, or in this case, I guess, a group of judges,” said Betsy Campbell, chief engagement officer at RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association. “The concern is that IVF could truly be in the crosshairs. That’s what’s scary now versus before.”

While some states have used these laws to prosecute pregnant people for drug use, “a lot of these types of laws have passed under the radar for years,” said Jessica Arons, senior policy counsel for the ACLU.

Three of those states — Alaska, Georgia and Wyoming — specify that the fetus must be in the womb to have personhood status, and four more grant personhood status at viability. But the rest specify those rights begin at fertilization or do not specify when in pregnancy those rights should start, laws that the National Infertility Association and attorneys working in the reproductive health care space believe a court could use to impact IVF.

“A lot of times people will say, ‘This is not enforceable. This is just legislative declaration language,’” Allen, with the Lawyering Project, said. “Well, now we see how this language is being used, and it’s harming people who are trying to make these reproductive decisions for themselves.”

Kick Trump off the ballot over Jan. 6

Illinois becomes third state to kick Trump off the ballot over Jan. 6

The Supreme Court heard arguments earlier this month on a Colorado ruling that deemed Trump ineligible.

By ZACH MONTELLARO and SHIA KAPOS

Illinois on Wednesday became the third state to declare former President Donald Trump ineligible to run for the presidency because of his involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Chicago-based Judge Tracie Porter, an elected Democrat, ruled that Trump was not qualified for the presidency under an interpretation of a provision of the 14th Amendment that bars from office those who engaged in an insurrection after previously taking an oath to support the Constitution.

But she put the decision on hold until Friday, leaving Trump on the March 19 primary ballot to allow for an appeal in the case in state court.

Porter’s decision may not stand for long. The Supreme Court heard arguments earlier this month on a Colorado ruling that deemed Trump ineligible, and justices across the ideological spectrum seemed skeptical that states have the authority to disqualify presidential candidates under the so-called insurrection clause. The Supreme Court, however, has not yet issued its decision.

The Illinois decision on Wednesday overturns the decision of the bipartisan state board of elections, which voted last month to keep Trump on the ballot because it said it lacked the authority to make constitutional determinations.

The state board of elections had relied heavily on a report from Clark Erickson, a former Republican state judge who served as a hearing officer to the challenge in Illinois. Erickson’s recommendation to the board: It was not allowed to make the call on Trump’s eligibility — but if it believed it could, it should remove Trump.

“Even when giving the Candidate the benefit of the doubt wherever possible, in the context of the events and circumstances of January 6,” Trump committed an insurrection, Erickson wrote.

Porter, the judge, chided the state board for not making any “factual determinations regarding the events” of Jan. 6. Members of the board made clear that “they wanted to get as far away from this case as possible, likely given its notoriety,” she wrote.

In a statement, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung attacked the judge. “This is an unconstitutional ruling that we will quickly appeal,” he said. “In the meantime, President Trump remains on the Illinois ballot, is dominating the polls, and will Make America Great Again!”

Colorado became the first state to find Trump ineligible to run again for the presidency, with the state Supreme Court ruling in December that he was barred for stoking an insurrection on Jan. 6. Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows followed a week later by similarly disqualifying Trump from that state’s ballot.

Porter’s decision relied heavily on the proceedings in the Colorado case to establish Trump’s culpability for the attack on the Capitol over three years ago.

She also found that Trump “falsely swore in his statement of candidacy” in Illinois when he signed on the form that he was legally qualified to run for the presidency — because he had already been found to have engaged in an insurrection by the Colorado Supreme Court.

In addition to staying her own ruling to allow for an appeal, Porter explicitly ordered it to be stayed if the U.S. Supreme Court “enters a decision inconsistent” with it.

The Feb. 8 arguments at the high court largely did not touch on the factual issue of Trump’s responsibility for the Jan. 6 riot. Instead, the justices seemed to largely coalesce around the idea that states cannot make the decision on their own.

“Why should a single state have the ability to make this determination, not only for their own citizens but for the rest of the nation?” Justice Elena Kagan asked at one point.

The fallout....

How the Supreme Court just threw Trump’s 2024 trial schedule into turmoil

Trump is now unlikely to face criminal charges for election subversion until late summer or fall, at the earliest.

By KYLE CHENEY and JOSH GERSTEIN

As voters cast ballots this fall to decide whether Donald Trump should win another presidential election, a federal jury may be weighing whether he attempted to steal the last one.

That’s one of the plausible outcomes of Wednesday’s decision by the Supreme Court to take up Trump’s claim that he’s immune from prosecution for his efforts to subvert the 2020 election.

In fact, by taking up the immunity question and keeping the case on hold in the meantime, the justices have all but guaranteed that Trump cannot stand trial on the federal election charges until the waning weeks of campaign season, at the earliest.

If that happens, Trump may have to juggle courtroom appearances with debates and swing state speeches. The trial, which is expected to last several months, could even overlap with Election Day itself.

The justices’ 200-word unsigned order made no sweeping pronouncements, but it nevertheless scrambled special counsel Jack Smith’s determined, if unspoken, effort to bring Trump to trial before the election.

Here’s a look at the fallout:

Trial stays on ice, won’t be defrosted for months

Pretrial proceedings in the Washington D.C.-based federal election case — in which Trump is charged with conspiring to deprive Americans of their right to vote — have been stalled since Dec. 7 while he has litigated his novel “presidential immunity” claim. Trump contends that his attempts to overturn Joe Biden’s victory were part of his official duties as president and cannot be the basis for criminal charges.

Lower courts have resoundingly rejected the immunity claim, and many legal experts expect the Supreme Court to ultimately reject it as well. But by setting arguments for late April and keeping the case on ice in the meantime, the justices virtually ensured that the trial — which was originally scheduled to begin March 4 — cannot begin until late summer or fall.

That’s because the justices are unlikely to rule on the immunity claim until May or, more likely, June. Once they do (assuming they reject Trump’s immunity bid), the freeze will lift and pretrial proceedings can finally resume — but the trial judge, Tanya Chutkan, has indicated that she would then give Trump about three extra months to prepare for a new trial date.

The timeline sets up a series of exceedingly fraught choices for Chutkan, an appointee of former President Barack Obama who had seemed determined to move the case to trial quickly before it became frozen in December. Would she force the Republican presidential nominee into court during those politically pivotal months for a trial that could run headlong into Election Day? Would she excuse Trump from attending the trial in person so that he could campaign? Or would she postpone the trial until after the election?

Chutkan has, so far, insisted that Trump’s political campaign would have no bearing on her scheduling decisions — and she recently contemplated being in trial as late as August.

Nevertheless, Trump’s trial schedule has enormous practical consequences. If the trial spills into 2025 and Trump is elected president, he could unravel it altogether by appointing an attorney general who would dismiss the case. Trump’s detractors on the left and right seemed to recognize this prospect on Wednesday and decried the Supreme Court for allowing further delay.

“The Supreme Court is placing itself on trial,” former Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday after the court’s order.

“Delaying the January 6 trial suppresses critical evidence that Americans deserve to hear,” former Rep. Liz Cheney said.

Trump, on the other hand, made clear he welcomed the high court’s involvement, claiming that unidentified legal scholars were “extremely thankful” that the justices took up the case.

Cannon in the driver’s seat

Another consequence of the Supreme Court’s action: Suddenly, Judge Aileen Cannon has even more power than she already did.

The Florida-based federal judge, appointed by Trump in 2020, is expected as soon as Friday to reconfigure the timeline for Trump’s other federal criminal trial — on charges of refusing to return a hoard of highly classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate and obstructing an investigation into the matter.

That trial is officially scheduled for May 20, but has seemed primed for delay amid protracted fights about classified evidence. The former president is expected to be on hand in Cannon’s Fort Pierce, Florida courtroom Friday as prosecutors and defense lawyers battle over the schedule for the case.

A decision by Cannon to push back the Florida case could clog the calendar in late summer, making a 2024 trial in Washington on the federal election charges all but impossible, even if the Supreme Court lifts the freeze in the election case soon after it is argued.

New York, New York

The first criminal case against Trump could end up being the last. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is slated to put Trump on trial there March 25, a date cemented earlier this month by the judge overseeing that case, Justice Juan Merchan. Trump is charged with falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments to a porn star in the final weeks of the 2016 election.

Bragg’s trial was once considered likely to give way to Trump’s two federal trials, but the delays in the federal cases have cleared a path for it to begin on schedule. With Trump’s other criminal trials in flux, and potentially on hold until after the election, the New York case is the only one that seems certain to occur this year.

Trump’s other state-level criminal trial — a case brought by Georgia prosecutors that mirrors the federal allegations he is facing in Washington — has already been in turmoil for weeks, as defendants seek to disqualify the lead prosecutor, Fani Willis. The trial, which Willis has asked to begin in August, has not yet been scheduled by Judge Scott McAfee. And the Supreme Court’s eventual immunity ruling may have implications for that case as well.

SCOTUS takes its time

Trump opponents are already grumbling that the justices have taken their sweet time mulling their options to resolve the former president’s broad claims of immunity.

Back in December, Smith asked the justices to allow Trump’s immunity appeal to leapfrog the D.C. Circuit and be heard promptly at the Supreme Court. The justices took 11 days to consider the request before turning him down.

When the matter came back to the court earlier this month, Trump was the one asking for the justices’ intervention. The court gave Smith a leisurely week to respond to the request. He took only one day.

Then, two weeks passed, leading to speculation that the court was going to turn down the former president and decline to hear the immunity claim — an outcome that would have allowed the trial proceedings to resume right away. Perhaps the two weeks of silence, the thinking went, were the result of one or more justices writing dissents from a decision not to take up the issue.

But the court defied those expectations by announcing Wednesday that it will take up Trump’s immunity appeal after all, agreeing to hear the case during the week of April 22 — among the last oral argument of the term.

To be sure, the court is moving the case far more quickly than a garden-variety one. Petitions granted in February or later are typically set for argument in the following term, meaning October or thereafter.

But the court can move faster when it wants to. In a separate high-stakes Trump-related case — involving whether states can disqualify him from their ballots — the justices scheduled expedited arguments 36 days after Trump sought the court’s review. (Those arguments occurred on Feb. 8, and a decision is still pending.)

By contrast, in the criminal immunity fight, the court will hear arguments at least 70 days after Trump sought review.

And in the post-election fight between George W. Bush and Al Gore in 2000, the Supreme Court moved with extraordinary speed, taking just one day to block a Florida Supreme Court ruling requiring a partial recount of the ballots. Oral arguments in the case were heard two days later, and the justices took just one more day to issue their 5-4 decision handing Bush the victory.

$450M civil fraud judgment

Judge denies Trump’s bid to stave off enforcement of $450M civil fraud judgment

Earlier in the day, Trump acknowledged problems obtaining a bond to cover the full amount.

By ERICA ORDEN

An appeals court judge on Wednesday denied Donald Trump’s request to pause the enforcement of a $450 million judgment for widespread business fraud, dealing a blow to the former president’s efforts to delay payment.

In a court filing asking for the pause earlier in the day, Trump had signaled that he doesn’t have the cash to prevent the enforcement of the judgment. He asked an appeals court to put a hold on the monetary penalty as well as a series of other penalties ordered earlier this month by Justice Arthur Engoron, who found that Trump had inflated the value of his real estate holdings and his own net worth.

Following Wednesday’s interim ruling by Associate Justice Anil Singh, a full panel of the New York appeals court — known as the First Department of the Appellate Division — is expected to consider whether to halt the judgment while Trump pursues his appeal.

Though he didn’t grant Trump’s primary request, Singh did order a pause of one penalty imposed by Engoron: a three-year ban on Trump obtaining a loan from a New York bank.

That means Trump can seek to obtain an appeal bond for the full amount of the penalty, which would prevent collection efforts while the appeals process proceeds.

In his request to the appeals court, Trump’s lawyers had said that the former president would be unable to secure the full amount for an appeal bond, in part due to the loan restriction imposed by Engoron and due to the costs and fees associated with a bond. They said the full cost would come to more than $550 million.

“The exorbitant and punitive amount of the Judgment coupled with an unlawful and unconstitutional blanket prohibition on lending transactions would make it impossible to secure and post a complete bond,” Trump’s lawyers wrote.

Trump’s lawyers had instead offered that Trump could post a $100 million bond — far lower than what would typically be needed to stave off enforcement of the judgment.

Normally, when a defendant appeals a civil judgment, the defendant can prevent collection efforts while the appeal proceeds by either posting the full amount into an escrow fund or by securing a third-party bond to guarantee the full amount.

If Trump fails to obtain a full bond or post the cash himself, New York Attorney General Letitia “Tish” James, who brought the civil fraud lawsuit against the former president, can begin trying to collect the judgment, perhaps by going after Trump’s bank accounts or properties.

Engoron issued his $354.8 million verdict against Trump on Feb. 16 after a three-month trial in Manhattan. With interest, the amount Trump owes is over $450 million. Engoron also issued a three-year ban on Trump running a business in New York.

Trump is separately seeking to postpone any payment on an $83.3 million judgment he owes the writer E. Jean Carroll resulting from a defamation lawsuit. In a court filing last week, Trump asked the judge to allow him to delay payment until after the resolution of post-trial arguments he intends to make and to permit him to post a bond “ in an appropriate fraction of the amount of the judgment.”

The amount that Trump owes on the two massive verdicts climbs by tens of thousands of dollars each day, as interest on them accrues.

Strike funding deal

Top lawmakers strike funding deal, potentially averting weekend shutdown

The agreement would push two new shutdown deadlines, one on March 8 and another on March 22, as congressional leaders look to wrap up six funding bills next week.

By CAITLIN EMMA, JENNIFER SCHOLTES and OLIVIA BEAVERS

Congressional leaders struck a government funding deal Wednesday on half a dozen annual spending bills alongside a stopgap that pushes two shutdown deadlines later into March, according to a senior leadership aide.

Top lawmakers closed out negotiations on the Agriculture-FDA, Energy-Water, Military Construction-VA, Transportation-HUD, Interior-Environment and Commerce-Justice-Science bills, assigning all of those a deadline of March 8. Leaders hope to release text by this weekend and clear the spending bills next week, funding those agencies through September.

The rest of the fiscal 2024 measures, including more contentious bills that would fund the Pentagon, the Department of Homeland Security and the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and Education, will get a new deadline of March 22.

Negotiating the second tranche of spending bills before that deadline will be the true test of whether Speaker Mike Johnson and other congressional leaders can work together to fully fund the government, already five months into the fiscal year. The deal, which negates the risk of a government shutdown just as President Joe Biden is set to deliver his State of the Union address, is the final product of weeks of bipartisan, bicameral negotiations, as well as intense sparring over policy provisions. It follows the funding framework struck by Johnson and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer last month.

Both chambers only have a couple days to pass the stopgap before a partial government shutdown kicks in on Saturday. And there’s still a few hiccups on that point: Johnson will almost certainly need help from Democrats to pass the measure in the House, and all 100 senators will have to agree to speed up debate to move the stopgap through the upper chamber before the March 1 deadline.

Unsurprisingly, House Freedom Caucus Chair Bob Good (R-Va.) expressed disappointment in the deal, stressing that it amounts to "more of the same." Lawmakers should be embracing a stopgap spending bill through the end of the fiscal year that would slice $73 billion off non-defense programs, Good said. He also pushed attaching other conservative priorities like GOP border legislation.

While the agreement is sure to earn Johnson more blowback from his right flank, Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), a senior appropriator, expected the Louisiana Republican wouldn't face a serious threat to his gavel over his move to keep the government funded.

"I don't think anybody's going to take him down. I really don't," Cole said. "I don't think they'll try and I don't think they'll succeed if they do."

If Congress manages to meet its funding deadlines this time, appropriators will have to immediately pivot to the next slate of spending bills for the new fiscal year that begins on Oct. 1. Biden is set to unveil his fiscal 2025 budget request on March 11.

Senior appropriators, deeply frustrated by the partisan feuding over government funding that has consumed the better part of a year, said Wednesday that they’re ready to wrap up this chaotic cycle.

“Look, there’s no reason this shit couldn’t have been done by the end of September,” said Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), who oversees the defense spending bill. “We’re five and a half months into [the fiscal year]. … Nearly six months in and we’re still talking about whether I’m confident or not about whether it’s going to be done? We need to get this done.”

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), one of the upper chamber’s most notorious contrarians, has already signaled that he’s “open” to allowing a fast-tracked vote that would avert a partial government shutdown Saturday.

The House is expected to vote on a short-term spending bill on Thursday, according to two Republicans familiar with the planning. If successful, these people say House GOP leadership is preparing to cancel other votes, though no official announcement has been made.

Hunt down

Ukrainian forces hunt down Russian fighters worldwide

Kyiv says its actions against Russia abroad are “within the framework of international law.”

BY VERONIKA MELKOZEROVA

Ukrainian special services are hunting Russians abroad, Andriy Yusov, an official with Ukraine’s HUR military intelligence, told POLITICO.

“Ukrainian intelligence has to be present wherever there is a need to destroy the enemy, which is waging a full-scale war against Ukraine. We are present wherever it is possible to weaken the interests of Russia,” Yusov said in Kyiv.

“As for Sudan … I can neither confirm nor deny,” he added with a smile.

Earlier this month, the Kyiv Post published a video of Ukrainian special forces questioning Russian-speaking fighters captured in Sudan who said they were with the Wagner Group mercenary outfit. On the video, a Russian-speaking Ukrainian soldier that HUR identified by his call-sign, "Timur," asks one of the prisoners where he is from and why he came to Sudan.

“We are from Wagner private military company. [We came here] to overthrow the local government,” the fighter responds in Russian.

The mercenary added there were a hundred Wagner fighters in Sudan, and that they were based in the neighboring Central African Republic.

In November, the Kyiv Post obtained two videos purporting to show Ukrainian special forces operators hunting Russian mercenaries in Sudan.

Russia has a significant footprint in Africa, initially led by Wagner Group mercenaries but now called the Africa Corps and formed by the Russian defense ministry. They have a presence across Africa's Sahel region and in Burkina Faso as well as in Libya, according to a report by the Warsaw-based Centre for Eastern Studies.

"The military juntas that have seized power in many countries of the Sahel region in recent years see Russia as a protector in both the domestic and international arenas, and are keen to cooperate with it in the field of defence," the report said.

That makes attacking the Russian presence in Africa a way of combating the Kremlin's reach abroad.

“The Russian terrorist network of so-called military companies on the territory of the African continent continues to work and engage in illegal activities and support for local terrorist groups,” Yusov said.

He added: “Everything that Ukraine does [abroad] is done within the framework of international law and in cooperation with local governments and our international partners."

Ukrainian special services like HUR and the SBU intelligence agency have been playing an active part in non-conventional warfare, hitting Russia where it hurts the most, SBU Head Vasyl Malyuk said on Sunday.  

Africa is seen by Kyiv as one of those pain points.

In September CNN reported HUR was likely behind strikes on Wagner-backed forces in Sudan that launched a coup in April 2023.

Wagner was badly mauled by Ukrainian forces in the battle for control of the eastern city of Bakhmut — prompting its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, to launch his aborted drive toward Moscow last June.

Many Wagner mercenaries were sent to Africa in the wake of the battle for Bakhmut, and Prigozhin himself also showed up there before being killed in an airplane crash widely blamed on the Russian government.

Estonian PM

‘Everything’ on table to help Ukraine beat Putin, Estonian PM says

Kaja Kallas talks boots on the ground, NATO, Donald Trump and the European election in an exclusive interview with POLITICO.

BY ANNE MCELVOY AND CLAUDIA CHIAPPA

Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said "everything" is on the table to help Ukraine beat Putin, days after French President Emmanuel Macron caused a storm by hinting that sending ground troops to help Kyiv was a possibility.

Macron's words sparked backlash from other allied governments, whose leaders rushed to insist that troops were not about to be deployed.

But Kallas said leaders must discuss all possibilities behind closed doors, including what more can be done to assist Ukraine.

“I think it is also the signals that we are sending to Russia, that we are not ruling out different things,” Kallas told POLITICO's Power Play podcast. “Because all the countries have understood that we have to do everything so that Ukraine wins and Russia loses this war.”

While most other EU countries ruled out sending troops to Ukraine — including major players such as Germany, the U.K. and the U.S. — Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said Wednesday he was grateful for the debate that Macron had initiated, adding “nothing can be taken off the table, no option can be rejected out of hand.”

Moscow reacted angrily to Macron's remarks, warning that deploying Western troops to Ukraine would inevitably lead to conflict between Russia and NATO.

Kallas, who in the past has expressed interest in becoming NATO’s next secretary-general, said she still believes the job should go to a leader whose country meets the alliance’s 2-percent-of-GDP defense spending target. But with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte positioned to get the role — now he has the blessing of several key countries — that’s unlikely to happen.

While Kallas agreed that Rutte has “positive qualities,” she noted that he would be the fourth secretary-general from the Netherlands, whereas there has never been a NATO chief from Estonia, or indeed from any of the Baltic countries. 

“There is a question whether there are first rank and second rank countries in NATO,” she said. “Are we equals or are we not equals? So these questions still remain.”

With former U.S. President Donald Trump inching closer to returning to the White House, many Western leaders worry they'll be left on their own protecting Kyiv from Moscow's aggression. The Republican candidate has long questioned Washington’s commitment to NATO and recently threatened to abandon what he considers to be NATO's freeloaders.

Kallas said Trump's views gave European countries even more reason to boost their defense spending — something she believes they should have done long ago.

"Every country chooses their own leaders, and we have to work with the leaders that these democracies choose for themselves," she said. "But we have to take into account and consider what he has been saying."

If not NATO, another option for Kallas might be to become the liberals’ lead candidate in June's European Parliament election, a possibility that has been touted.

Kallas said she is still weighing her choices.

“Right now it's up to me to really give a response whether I am able to take this up,” she said.

“[On] one side, I really want to help the liberals to do a better result than many parties around Europe,” Kallas added. “But of course I would be in the fire here in Estonia and I have a lot on my plate.”

On the Ukraine war, Kallas also said criticism of Germany’s financial and military support for Kyiv is unjust.

"If you really look into the numbers, what they have given to Ukraine, I think it is not fair that Germany has been bashed so much because they have done a lot," Kallas said.

She also defended former German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s legacy despite criticism that Germany was too dependent on Russian energy during her time in office.

"She's still a great leader. I don't necessarily agree with all of her policies, but that doesn't mean that she isn't a great leader," Kallas said.