Today’s notice: Implausible deniability about Trump’s executive actions from Congress. A novel spin on the Jan. 6 pardons. Lawyers get busy. The attorney general of New Jersey on birthright citizenship and Joe Biden not being helpful.
Pardon Me?
Every Hill reporter remembers Printing The Tweet.
During Trump 1.0, reporters would actually walk around Congress with physical copies of Donald Trump’s latest tweets, ready to hand lawmakers a printout whenever a Republican — and it was almost always a Republican — said they hadn’t “seen the tweet.” (Democrats, strangely, had almost always “seen the tweet.”)
But the printout trick is significantly harder to pull off when it’s thousands of pages of executive orders.
And so, on the first full day of Trump 2.0, reporters were hearing a similar but distinct defense as they sought comment on many of Trump’s sweeping actions: “I haven’t read it yet.”
“I haven’t seen it,” Sen. Rick Scott said, as a reporter sought comment on Trump’s mass pardon of Jan. 6 rioters. “I haven’t gone into the detail.”
“I would have to look at the EO,” Sen. Joni Ernst told NOTUS, when asked about the Trump administration freezing foreign aid. “So, yeah.”
Sen. Mike Rounds said he had “read a couple of them” but hadn’t seen “many of the 200 or whatever that he issued.”
Republicans are, of course, familiar with much of Trump’s most controversial actions. It was hard to miss that he pardoned almost every Jan. 6 rioter. But ducking the question by saying you simply haven’t read The Original Text makes lawmakers sound downright serious, even if the intention is to stall until the question is no longer relevant.
We saw this coming. Newsletter co-author Riley Rogerson published a story about this coming dynamic back in August. And NOTUS’ Reese Gorman had a piece earlier this month on senior Republicans predicting that more junior colleagues were in for a rude awakening when they have to comment on Trump’s near-daily controversies.
—Evan McMorris-Santoro and Ben T.N. Mause
Republicans Say Jan. 6 Is Over — And So Is the Discussion
Don’t ask about Jan. 6 anymore.
Republicans spent the month leading up to Trump’s inauguration saying Trump should review Capitol rioters on a “case-by-case” basis before issuing pardons. That didn’t happen.
“It’s not ideal, but I’m not overly concerned about it either,” Sen. Kevin Cramer said. “I think that the gift is that it’s all behind us now, we can stop talking about it.”
Still, there were some pardons Republicans were happy to discuss. “We should be focused on why did he pardon Anthony Fauci,” Sen. Roger Marshall said, referring to Joe Biden.
—John T. Seward | Read the story.
Front Page
- Johnson and Thune Emerge From White House Meeting Without Consensus on Reconciliation: “It’s very much settled in the House,” Rep. Max Miller said of the reconciliation debate. “It doesn’t seem like it’s settled in the chamber right next to us.”
- Trump’s TikTok Extension Flouts the Law. Republicans Say That’s Just Fine.: “That was in the law, and so he’s following the law,” Sen. Deb Fischer said.
- Democrats Are Deciding How Much to Campaign on Trump. Virginia Is Their First Test: “We’ll see what strategy campaigns take and whether they work,” Rep. Suhas Subramanyam said.
- Elise Stefanik Is Already Answering for Trump’s Skepticism of the U.N.: Trump’s pick for U.N. ambassador was quick to stand by the blitz of executive orders the president signed immediately after taking office.
The First Trump 2.0 Legal Fight Begins in Earnest
Trump’s pile of executive orders Monday served two purposes: to signal the vast changes he hopes to make and to challenge every lawyer within 3,000 miles to brush up on how to file a lawsuit.
NOTUS’ Jose Pagliery reports that the first major case stems from arguably the most radical of Trump’s executive orders, the one seeking to end birthright citizenship. Democratic AGs from across the country jointly filed suit in Massachusetts on Tuesday to shut that order down. Experts tell Jose, “The policy change is likely to be halted in the short term,” before arriving at the Supreme Court.
Northeastern law professor Dan Urman said he believes “there are 7 to 9 votes on the court” for the position that birthright cannot be changed without amending the Constitution.
Q&A: The Rule of Law and the Last 48 Hours
New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin is one of the Democrats leading the lawsuit against Trump’s birthright executive order. He spoke with NOTUS on Tuesday about the legal road ahead and his thoughts on the current justice system.
On why he’s suing over Trump’s order on birthright citizenship:
Presidents have a lot of power, but they are not kings. He cannot rewrite the Constitution and the laws of this nation with the stroke of a pen. That’s what he did yesterday, which is something that I think people need to understand is extraordinary and extreme.
On how he sees the legal landscape under Trump:
I watched him yesterday take a similar oath, and then a few hours later I watched him sign an executive order that threw out a 157-year-old provision in our Constitution that has been upheld twice by the Supreme Court. … If the president wants to carry out threats against our state, threatening funding because he doesn’t like that, my colleagues and I who are standing up for the rule of law, we’re prepared for that fight too.
On Biden’s family pardons:
I was publicly critical of President Biden’s pardons of his family. When the wealthy and well-connected get treated differently, whoever does it, people see it and it feeds a cynicism about our government that has helped to erode trust in our institutions and the people that serve them.
—Evan McMorris-Santoro | Read the story.
Passports and the ‘Only Two Sexes’ Rule
Before yesterday, passport applicants were allowed to select their preferred gender or mark the space with an “X.” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told NOTUS the president’s executive order on gender will eliminate that option for future applications. Current passports will remain valid as they are, but things get more complicated if they expire.
“They can still apply to renew their passport, they just have to use their God-given sex, which was decided at birth,” Leavitt told Oriana González. Transgender rights advocates have won on this in court before and are looking at new challenges to the Trump rule.
Not Us
We know NOTUS reporters can’t cover it all. Here’s some other great hits by… not us.
- From prime inauguration perch in chilly Washington, Canadians sweat Trump tariff threats by Sam Brodey at The Boston Globe
- Files detail bid to contain fallout from Tulsi Gabbard meetings with Assad by Jon Swaine and Ellen Nakashima at The Washington Post
- She got her first Trump shirt at age 2. Now she’s celebrating Trump’s inauguration at a Newtown party. By Aliya Schneider at The Philadelphia Inquirer
Be Social
So is it Dark Lummis now?
So great to meet with David Bailey. The future for Bitcoin and digital assets in America has never been brighter. pic.twitter.com/m2apTVpFVO
— Senator Cynthia Lummis (@SenLummis) January 21, 2025
Tell Us Your Thoughts
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