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Hello, friends. Another fun, and slightly dramatic, week on Capitol Hill.
Between pulled nominations, internal battles over changing procedural rules, leaked group chats, and heated debates over the future of public broadcasting — it’s been a colorful week. It’s also been colorful outside the halls of Congress, with cherry blossoms finally blooming here in D.C. and warm spring weather defrosting the air.
Oh, and happy opening weekend for all you MLB fans out there.
Let’s get into the news of the week.
The Big Idea
Mike Lee leads efforts to crack down on judges thwarting Trump’s agenda
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, is spearheading efforts in the Senate to crack down on judges blocking President Donald Trump’s agenda, filing a bill earlier this week that would change how judges can issue rulings related to a presidential order.
Lee introduced the Restraining Judicial Insurrectionists Act of 2025 that would establish a three-judge panel to “swiftly review” injunctions against the president and allow for quick appeal to the Supreme Court. The bill comes after a handful of judges have come under fire by Trump’s allies in Congress for temporarily halting a number of his executive orders to be reviewed by the courts.
“America’s government cannot function if the legitimate orders of our Commander in Chief can be overridden at the whim of a single district court judge,” Lee said in a statement. “They have presumed to run the military, the civil service, foreign aid, and HR departments across the Executive Branch — blatantly unconstitutional overreach. This legislation will create a judicial panel to expedite Supreme Court review of these blanket injunctions, preventing unelected radicals in robes from sabotaging the separation of powers.”
Lee has been promising to go after these judges for months, telling me earlier this year that he was drafting legislation to restrict the ability to halt Trump’s orders.
“The federal judiciary must uphold the system of checks and balances, including restraining the Executive Branch when it violates the Constitution,” he told me in February. “At the same time, separation of powers required by the Constitution is potentially implicated whenever a single district court judge issues an injunction against the entire U.S. government, with nationwide application.”
As we went through in last week’s edition of On The Trail, House Republicans are homing in on these judges — with several of them facing impeachment threats. Of course, it’s not clear if those efforts would be successful in removing judges, as they would need significant support from Democrats in the Senate. And I don’t see that happening.
What to watch for: The House Judiciary Committee will hold its first hearing on “activist judges” on Tuesday. It’s not yet clear who they will call for witnesses. The Senate Judiciary Committee will follow suit on Wednesday.
Stories driving the week
Cabinet cut off: The White House abruptly announced on Thursday it would pull the nomination of Rep. Elise Stefanik to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations after months of waiting for a confirmation hearing. A senior White House official tells me a major factor in that decision was that “debt ceiling and reconciliation are going to be tough already due to Democrats and slim margins and we can’t make it tougher on ourselves.”
The decision is no doubt a disappointment to Stefanik, who has waited months for a final confirmation hearing. And the decision certainly came as a surprise — the New York congresswoman joined Trump’s joint address last month as part of his Cabinet rather than as a member of Congress.
Senate fast-tracks reconciliation: The Senate is preparing to vote on Trump’s massive budget resolution as early as next week as Republicans push to quickly advance the president’s agenda. A remaining sticking point in the resolution, which has already passed the House is a provision to increase the debt ceiling — something some GOP senators are not too keen on.
Rebellious Republicans: An intraparty battle is forming as some Republicans prepare to buck leadership on a proposal to allow new mothers and fathers to vote remotely for the first three months after their baby is born. Reps. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., and Brittany Pettersen, D-Colo., are behind the movement and are preparing to use a procedural loophole to bypass GOP leadership to do so.
“I’m not going to just simply fall in line because (leadership) say this is a tool of the minority,” Luna says, before later adding: “I think (Speaker Johnson’s) wrong. He thinks I’m wrong. I’m right. He’s wrong.”
Congress erupts over leaked group chat detailing attack plans. Here’s what lawmakers are doing about it.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are still reeling from an apparent blunder by national security adviser Mike Waltz, who inadvertently added The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg to a group chat discussing attack plans on Houthis in Yemen.
The mistake has left several lawmakers confounded on how the mistake was made and why top national security officials were discussing such sensitive material on an unsecure messaging platform. Both Director of National Security Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, who were included in the chat, were grilled by lawmakers during unrelated hearings on Capitol Hill this week.
The White House has maintained that no classified information was shared in the group chat nor was classified material sent to the thread. That prompted The Atlantic to publish the text chain in full, which further angered some lawmakers who argue if the information had fallen in the wrong hands, the mission could have been compromised.
While the Trump administration has declined to take any action against its own officials, several lawmakers in Congress are pressing for further action. Here’s a breakdown of some of those efforts.
- Sens. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Jack Reed, D-R.I., sent a letter to the Office of Inspector General at the Department of Defense requesting an inquiry into the matter, specifically on DOD policies surrounding classification and declassification policies and whether they were followed; “facts and circumstances” on the matter; and recommendations to address “potential issues,” among other things. It’s so far the only bipartisan request.
- House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the top Democrat in the House, has called on Trump to fire Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.
- Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., wrote a letter to GOP House leadership requesting the creation of a select committee to investigate the group chat, arguing that putting war plans on “an unsecure platform and failing to come clean about it put American lives at risk and undermined national security.”
- Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in the Senate, is calling on the Trump administration to release the full text chain “including everything communicated after the journalist prudently removed himself.”
Quick hits
From the Hill: Democrats are looking for a new leader for 2028, but who? … U.S. could default on loans in next few months. … Utah Sen. John Curtis ranked one of the most effective lawmakers in Congress. … Public broadcasting at center of partisan war. … Mike Lee introduces bill to abolish the TSA.
From the White House: Trump’s Cabinet appointments have a diverse education background. … Second lady Usha Vance set to visit Greenland. … Trump overhauls voting via executive order. … HHS to cut 10,000 health-related jobs and close half of regional offices.
From the courts: Supreme Court preserves Biden-era gun control measure on gun kits. … The first-of-its-kind case putting Utah’s new religious freedom law to the test. … The Supreme Court showdown between Utah, Oklahoma and the EPA.
What’s next
Thanks for sticking through to the end of this edition. As I’m getting used to the newsletter life, I’m experimenting with different ways to present information and telling stories as I see them from up here on the Hill.
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