Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Julia Carrie Wong in San Francisco (now) and Tom McCarthy in New York (earlier)

Judge orders Trump administration to clarify position on census – as it happened

Immigration activists gathered outside the US supreme court as the justices ruled on the census on 27 June.
Immigration activists gathered outside the US supreme court as the justices ruled on the census on 27 June. Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA

Thanks to everyone who tuned in as we – and the government’s attorneys – tried to figure out what the government’s position on the census is! Here’s a rundown of the day’s biggest stories:

  • The acting head of DHS opened an investigation into a Facebook group in which border patrol officers made abusive and hateful statements about migrants and members of congress.
  • Trump contradicted his own commerce secretary, who announced yesterday that the government was no longer seeking to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.
  • Joe Biden released his fundraising numbers, which were good, but not as good as Pete Buttigieg’s.
  • The American Academy of Pediatrics released drawings made my children being held in detention centers. The drawings depict children in cages.
  • An Ohio judge blocked the state’s six-week abortion ban from going into effect next week.
  • Attorneys for the justice department told federal judges that they, too, were surprised by Trump’s census tweet. They now say they are seeking a “path” that is consistent with the supreme court’s ruling but will still allow them to add the question.

Have a happy fourth of July!

ACLU attorney Dale Ho, who argued the case before the Supreme Court, has this response to the government’s reversal on the census citizenship question today.

The Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration’s effort to add a census citizenship question was illegal because it was based on a ‘contrived’ rationale. Despite that, and despite DOJ’s repeated statements that the census questionnaire cannot be changed after June 30, the administration is now examining whether it can concoct a ‘new rationale’ for its citizenship question. The answer is no, it cannot — at least not a legal one. Any attempt at an end run around the Supreme Court’s decision will be unsuccessful, and will be met swiftly in court.

Or, as Ho put it on Twitter:

To further elucidate what is happening with the census, here’s a very basic timeline of recent events:

Thursday 27 June: The Supreme Court blocks the Trump administration from including a citizenship question on the 2020 US Census.

Tuesday 2 July: The Justice Department and the Commerce Department both confirm that a citizenship question will not be included on the 2020 census. Commerce secretary Wilbur Ross says that it has begun the process of printing census forms.

Wednesday 3 July:

  • At 8:06am Eastern, Trump called news reports citing official announcements by his own cabinet secretary “FAKE!” in a tweet, and says “we are absolutely moving forward, as we must, because of the importance of the answer to this question.”
  • Plaintiffs in the case quickly demanded a hearing to clarify the government’s position in light of the president’s tweet.
  • At 3:30pm Eastern, the conference call with Judge Hazel took place. During the call, one government attorney, Joshua Gardner, said that Trump’s tweet was the “first I had heard of the president’s position” and that he had confirmed that the census bureau was continuing to print forms without the citizenship question. “That process has not been stopped.”
  • Later in the call, however, another government attorney, Joseph Hunt, revealed that the DOJ was now looking into a “path” toward including the citizenship question.
  • At 6:00pm Eastern, government attorneys filed a letter to a different judge providing slightly more detail on the new “path”: attorneys for the commerce and justice departments are now performing an “analysis” to determine whether they have any legal case to continue pushing for the citizenship question.

What’s next?

Judge Hazel has given the government attorneys a deadline of 2pm Friday to either stipulate once and for all that there will not be a census question on the census – or move forward with discovery for another aspect of the litigation related to equal protection.

Asked whether the government could delay the deadline until Monday in light of the July 4th holiday, the judge responded “No.” Twice.

Judge Hazel also offered this analogy for the peculiar situation:

If you were Facebook and an attorney for Facebook told me one thing, and then I read a press release from Mark Zuckerberg telling me something else, I would be demanding that Mark Zuckerberg appear in court with you the next time because I would be saying I don’t think you speak for your client anymore.

DOJ attorneys: administration may seek "new rationale" for citizenship question

Following their 3:30pm conference call with Judge Hazel, attorneys for the Trump administration sent a letter to another federal judge involved in the census question, Judge Jesse Furman, which provides a bit more detail on the government’s current position, such as it is:

The Departments of Justice and Commerce have now been asked to reevaluate all available options following the Supreme Court’s decision and whether the Supreme Court’s decision would allow for a new decision to include the citizenship question on the 2020 Decennial Census. The agencies are currently performing the analysis requested, and, if they determine that the Supreme Court’s decision does allow any path for including such a decision, DOJ may file a motion with the Supreme Court seeking further procedural guidance for expediting litigation on remand. In the event that the Commerce Department adopts a new rationale for including the citizenship question on the 2020 Decennial Census consistent with the decision of the Supreme Court, the Government will immediately notify this Court so that it can determine whether there is any need for further proceedings or relief.

DOJ: We're looking for "path forward" to include citizenship question on census

A lawyer for the Department of Justice told a federal judge on Wednesday that the agency has “been instructed to examine whether there is a path forward” to include a citizenship question on the census in 2020.

Joseph Hunt, assistant attorney general for the civil division, made her remarks on a conference call with Judge George Hazel that was convened to address Trump’s tweets this morning contradicting his administration’s own announcement yesterday that it would concede on the citizenship question and begin printing the census forms without it.

If you’re confused, you’re not alone.

On the call, responding to queries from the plaintiff’s attorneys as to whether the court could prevent various representatives of the administration from issuing confusing and contradictory statements, the judge expressed some consternation at the situation, saying: “ I assume, although maybe I’m wrong about this, that the parties aren’t suggesting I can enjoin the President of the United States from tweeting things. Maybe you are suggesting that. But I will say my initial reaction to that is to have some concern.”

Later he added: “This is an odd place for the judiciary to be.”

Updated

Judge blocks Ohio six-week abortion ban

Hello everyone! This is Julia Carrie Wong picking up the politics blog in San Francisco, where the holiday weekend hasn’t started yet.

A federal judge in Ohio has issued a preliminary injunction preventing Ohio’s six-week abortion ban from going into effect as scheduled, next week.

The Ohio measure was signed into law by Republican governor Mike DeWine in April, amid a spate of similar laws from Republican-controlled statehouses around the country. Such laws aim to criminalize abortions as early as six weeks after conception, when electrical activity can be detected in an embryo.

Anti-abortion activists refer to this activity as a “fetal heartbeat” but such language is not medically accurate. An embryo at that stage does not have a heart and is not a fetus.

The activists and legislators who have pressed for these extreme abortion restrictions are well aware that the laws are unconstitutional under current Supreme Court precedent. They hope to create test cases for the newly conservative court to reconsider Roe v Wade.

In his ruling, Judge Michael R Barrett nodded to that strategy and passed the buck, writing: “To the extent that the State of Ohio ‘is making a deliberate effort to overturn Roe [v.Wade] and established constitutional precedent,’ ... those arguments must be made to a higher court.”

Summary

Here’s a summary of where things stand:

  • A district judge in New York has told the government to clarify its position on including a citizenship question on the 2020 Census by 6pm ET after Donald Trump contradicted government lawyers Wednesday by saying he was still pushing for inclusion.
  • Trump was criticized for planning a military spectacle on the National Mall to mark July 4th, estimated to cost the Pentagon and Park Service millions, and for distributing tickets to Republican donors.
  • The acting homeland security secretary said he has opened an investigation into a secret Facebook group on which border agents allegedly posts threats and abuse against migrants and members of Congress.
  • Trump dismissed documentation of squalid conditions inside migrant detention camps by blaming Democrats and saying the conditions could act as a deterrent.
  • Trump congratulated a Navy SEAL acquitted on murder charges in the killing of a wounded Islamic State captive under his care in Iraq in 2017.
  • The latest national political polling showed Joe Biden ahead of the field but slumping after the first Democratic debate, while a poll in Iowa had Biden third behind senators Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris.
  • Republicans celebrated the announcement that Marianne Williamson, the self-help author, had qualified for the second Democratic debate.

Donald Trump is responding to the recent damning documentation of horrible conditions at migrant border detention centers by blaming Democrats, arguing that the migrants were accustomed to squalor and insecurity worse than at the centers, and arguing that the filthy conditions are not a problem because they act as a deterrent to asylum claims. It’s all here in his Twitter feed if you want to read it.

Trump concludes, bafflingly:

Judge in census question case orders government to clarify its position

Seemingly accepting the assertion that Trump’s tweet about the Census citizenship question has created confusion, District court Judge Jesse M Furman in the Southern District of New York has ordered the government to state its “position and intentions” in the Census question case by 6pm ET.

Furman ordered:

The Court is aware that there is a telephone conference scheduled for 3:30 p.m. today before Judge Hazel in the District of Maryland. Promptly after that conference, but no later than 6:00 p.m. TODAY, Defendants shall file a response to Plaintiffs’ letter. The response shall include an account of what transpired during the conference before Judge Hazel and a statement of Defendants’ position and intentions. After reviewing Defendants’ letter, the Court will decide whether there is a need for a conference.

New York plaintiffs ask for immediate hearing after Trump tweet on Census

Plaintiffs in a New York cases challenging the Trump administration plan to add a question about US citizenship to the 2020 Census have requested an immediate conference with a federal judge to resolve the contradiction between the Trump administration’s representations in court yesterday, that the citizenship question is not going on the Census, and Trump’s tweet of today, calling that “fake news.”

The filing quotes Trump’s tweet and says:

“Because this statement is not consistent with the representations Defendant’s counsel made to Plaintiffs and a federal court yesterday, and because proceeding with a citizenship question at this point would violate this court’s injunction – which the Court retains jurisdictions to enforce – Plaintiffs request an immediate status conference so the court and the parties can determine Defendants’ current position and whether any emergency relief is needed.”

Updated

As you ease into your holiday weekend, a PSA:

Republicans celebrate Williamson's inclusion in second debate

Republicans are celebrating the news that Marianne Williamson, the self-help author, has made it into the second round of Democratic presidential debates by clearing benchmarks for money raised and polling strength.

Williamson’s far-out performance in the first debate led GOP strategist Jeff Roe to call on Republicans to keep the show going:

On Wednesday, Roe and others were celebrating with the hashtag #harnesslove:

Updated

Former Michigan governor Rick Snyder says he has turned down a fellowship at Harvard University following social media backlash over his administration’s role in the Flint water crisis, the Associated Press reports:

He tweeted Wednesday that being a senior research fellow would have been too “disruptive” because of “our current political environment and its lack of civility.”

Harvard announced last week that Snyder would begin his appointment this week. It drew criticism from critics of Snyder who cited his involvement in the 2014-15 lead contamination of Flint’s drinking water while the city was under state emergency management.

Snyder, who is credited with helping to turn around Detroit, says it would have been exciting to share his experiences at Harvard, “both positive and negative.”

The Republican left office in December due to term limits.

In a statement, the Kennedy school dean said “we anticipated that students would have learned from engaging with and questioning Governor Snyder” but “we and he now believe that having him on campus would not enhance education here in the ways we intended.”

Children detained at border draw themselves in cages

The American Academy of Pediatrics, which was an early and vocal critic of the Trump administration’s family border separation policy, has released drawing by children recently held in migrant detention centers, the news networks report:

The AAP has warned that family separation harms children’s short- and long-term health.

Separately, the Trump administration is shopping for potential permanent sites to hold unaccompanied migrant children, Reuters reports:

Department of Health and Human Services spokesman Mark Weber said Wednesday that property is being assessed in and around Atlanta; Phoenix; Dallas; Houston; and San Antonio, Texas.

Bidding documents request properties that can accommodate up to 500 children. Buildings must have up to 100,800 square feet (9,400 square meters) of space and the properties must include about 2 acres (0.8 hectares) for outdoor recreation.

The plan for the Georgia facility calls for 125 bedrooms, with each of them housing up to four children.

Weber says the search for permanent facilities is being pursued to reduce the possible need for temporary shelters in the future.

Biden’s fundraising numbers in the last quarter don’t measure up to South Bend, Indiana, mayor Pete Buttigieg’s. This is not quite academic at this point but it’s very early days and perceived fundraising performance by a candidate like Buttigieg, who has been a national figure for five minutes, is more important in terms of demonstrating viability than how Biden might perform in any given quarter.

Trump and the Republican national committee reported raising $105m in the second quarter. But for the moment he’s running, practically speaking, a one-person race.

Trend in Iowa poll bad for Biden, good for Warren, Harris

Polling analysts counsel that not much information about a race can be gleaned from a single poll, a single data point. Where possible it’s better to look at polling averages and trends.

And so a new poll of likely Democratic caucus-goers in Iowa, and the seemingly bad news it has for former vice president Joe Biden, should be taken with a pinch of salt. That’s perhaps doubly true considering that the pollster, David Binder Research, works for the campaign of California senator Kamala Harris.

And yet. Binder’s polling in the field predated the advent of the Harris campaign, and the polling reflects a clear negative trendline for Biden.

Here’s the trend: in six months, Biden drops from 30 to 17, while senator Elizabeth Warren jumps from 9 to 20 and Harris jumps from 7 to 18:

Read more about the latest Binder poll over at Iowa Starting Line.

The elections analyst Daniel Nichanian points out that it’s the first poll out of Iowa with Warren in the lead. For a broader look at polling of likely caucus-goers in Iowa – the first state to vote – we can glance at FiveThirtyEight’s Iowa poll tracker.

A poll conducted by Suffolk University at the same time as Binder’s poll paints a very different picture of the race, with Biden leading at 24, followed by Harris at 16 and Warren at 13. The last polling published out of Iowa from the gold standard Selzer & Co is a month old but likewise had Biden leading.

With insufficient polling in Iowa to have much confidence in the state of the race there, we can swoop out to the national picture, where polling is more regular.

The national picture ain’t great for Biden, either:

CNN polling analyst Harry Enten summarizes the national picture: “Biden in a clear first, though less so than before...”

Updated

Trump contradicts Ross on Census concession

Donald Trump has contradicted commerce secretary Wilbur Ross, in addition to officials in the justice and commerce departments and the White House, about whether the administration had accepted there will be no question about citizenship on the 2020 US Census following a Supreme Court ruling denying the administration’s request to include one.

On Tuesday, Ross said:

The Census Bureau has started the process of printing the decennial questionnaires without the question.

Not so fast, tweets Trump:

Reactions:

Updated

Trump congratulates acquitted murder defendant

Donald Trump has tweeted congratulations to Navy SEAL Edward Gallagher, who was acquitted Tuesday by a military jury of murder in the killing of a wounded Islamic State captive under his care in Iraq in 2017.

It’s not clear how Trump thinks he helped in the jury trial.

The same military jurors who acquitted Gallagher returned to court Wednesday to decide whether he should serve any jail time for the single charge he was convicted of: posing with the 17-year-old militant’s corpse.

Gallagher could face up to four months imprisonment for the single conviction along with a reduction in rank, forfeiture of two-thirds of his pay and a reprimand, the Associated Press reported:

Having already served seven months in confinement ahead of the trail, the Bronze Star recipient is expected to go home a free man, his defense lawyers said. In the military justice system, the jury decides the sentence.

After the verdict was read, the defense attorneys jumped up from their seats as Gallagher turned and embraced his wife over the bar of the gallery.

Gallagher, dressed in his Navy whites sporting a chest full of medals, told reporters outside court that he was happy and thankful.

“I thank God, and my legal team and my wife,” he said

Navy Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher celebrates with his wife Andrea after being acquitted of premeditated murder at Naval Base San Diego July 2, 2019 in San Diego, California.
Navy Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher celebrates with his wife Andrea after being acquitted of premeditated murder at Naval Base San Diego July 2, 2019 in San Diego, California. Photograph: Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images

Associated Press reporters Mark Sherman and Jessica Gresko have taken a look back at last term’s Supreme Court rulings, including one that went against the Trump administration’s effort to include a question about citizenship on the 2020 US Census.

The reporters flag an interesting question: Did Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg hint at the census outcome in a public appearance in June? Sherman and Gresko write:

Many of us wrote that based on arguments in late April, the court’s five conservative justices would allow the Trump administration to go forward with a citizenship question on the 2020 census.

That turned out not to be true when Chief Justice John Roberts joined with the court’s four liberals, in a decision announced last week, to keep citizenship off the census questionnaire , at least for the time being. The administration said Tuesday it would drop its effort to put its question on the form.

But perhaps we did not focus enough on a hint dropped by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in early June. In a speech to lawyers and judges in New York, Ginsburg described those predicting the administration would win the case as “speculators.” The Merriam-Webster dictionary says a speculator may take something “to be true on the basis of insufficient evidence.”

Justice Ginsburg at the Georgetown University Law Center on Tuesday.
Justice Ginsburg at the Georgetown University Law Center on Tuesday. Photograph: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

“Speculators about the outcome note that last year, in Trump v. Hawaii, the court upheld the so-called ‘travel ban,’ in an opinion granting great deference to the Executive,” Ginsburg said in prepared remarks distributed by the court.

It’s fair to, ahem, speculate that the 86-year-old justice could have idly dropped the word into her speech without intending to signal the case’s outcome.

But this year’s speech was not the first to offer some evidence that Ginsburg knows precisely what she is doing.

In 2012, with the whole world waiting for the court’s verdict on President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, Ginsburg told the same groups of lawyers and judges that that the term had been especially “taxing.” Weeks later, with Roberts and the four liberals forming a majority, the Supreme Court upheld the heart of the Affordable Care Act as a valid exercise of Congress’ taxing power.

Problem is, Ginsburg’s handiwork is typically only evident in hindsight. And to be fair, she denied to a reporter that she intended to foreshadow the health care decision in her speech.

Read further.

Trump touts Fourth of July 'show'

Trump is barking about his upcoming circus

Read further:

Homeland security chief opens investigation of border patrol Facebook group

Following the revelation on Monday that potentially thousands of customs and border patrol officers belong to a secret Facebook group in which users have made abusive statements toward members of congress as well as migrant detainees including sexual threats, acting homeland security secretary Kevin McAleenan tweeted on Wednesday that he is opening an investigation into the “disturbing” matter and that employees would be held “accountable”.

The announcement came after Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who was the target of some of the abusive posts, and other Democratic members of congress visited migrant detention centers in Texas Monday and confirmed reports that migrants were being held in overcrowded, filthy and inhumane conditions.

McAleenan last week called reports of such conditions “unsubstantiated,” but that claim was undercut by the publication on Tuesday of an inspector general’s report warning that facilities in the Rio Grande Valley in southern Texas face “dangerous overcrowding” and require “immediate attention”.

One image from the report showed a man squashed in a crowd pressing a cardboard sign to a cell window with the word “help” written on it. He was one of 88 men in a cell meant for 41.

Ocasio-Cortez and colleagues have declared that the secret Facebook group and the abuse of detainees pointed to a system-wide crisis in border law enforcement, going beyond a lack of resources which border officers blame for the squalid detention centers.

As part of the growing Democratic push on the issue, House speaker Nancy Pelosi sent a letter to Donald Trump urging the administration to guarantee proper hygiene, sanitation and water for detained migrants, and a separate letter to her caucus.

“Every day that goes by, we have even greater cause for concern and urgency to enact the protections for children and families,” Pelosi wrote to Democrats.

Citizen “Close the Camps” protests were held on Tuesday nationwide, meanwhile. The rallies were organized by the progressive activist group MoveOn joined by the ACLU, the Center for Popular Democracy, and others. Organizers announced at least 184 events across the country.

Hello and welcome to our pre-holiday politics coverage. Former vice-president Joe Biden’s support among African American voters has been halved since the first Democratic debate, according to a new Reuters-Ipsos poll, while support for the California senator Kamala Harris has risen.

Biden fell from about 40% to about 20% support among African Americans in the poll. Harris rose from 6% support to 10% support among all voters in the poll – the largest rise of any candidate.

But Biden was still ahead of the pack in that poll and a second set of numbers released Wednesday by the Washington Post and ABC News.

“When asked to identify their preferred candidate, without being prompted with a list of names,” the poll found, Biden was named by 21 % of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, up eight points from April. Senator Bernie Sanders was second at 13%, and Harris and Senator Elizabeth Warren were tied at 7%.

Washington is preparing for the nation’s birthday tomorrow; in other words, everyone has left town for someplace nicer.

Everyone, that is, except Donald Trump, who tomorrow will become the first president in memory to take part in the Fourth of July celebration on the National Mall.

As with all things Trump, the move is controversial. His critics accuse the president of seeking to turn the national holiday into a campaign event. The criticism is buoyed by the fact that the Trump administration has distributed VIP tickets to the event to the Republican National Committee, which is using them to reward donors, but not the Democratic National Committee, NBC News has reported.

Trump also has ordered up some military pomp, including a flyover by bombers and fighter jets and some in situ tanks. The National Park Service has diverted $2.5m to gratify Trump’s wishes, the Washington Post has reported.

Thanks for joining us!

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Woman sees her favorite singer started following her on Instagram and jumps with excitement. Then she opened their account: ‘This is humiliating’
TikTok creator Paloma (@whor3chata_) is sparking a massive wave of sympathy (and second-hand embarrassment) on TikTok with her recent grwm story. The creator shared the “before and after” of being followed by one of her favorite singers on Instagram. Sadly, the “after” is humiliating.
The Mary Sue
The Mary Sue
Harry Styles, fake stage invaders and a censored Peter Mandelson joke: the biggest moments at the Brit awards
The ITV censors had their work cut out in a protest-filled, relatively edgy ceremony that hosted ultra-expressive performances from Rosalía, Wolf Alice and more
The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Meet the Gen Z college students who turned Excel into a competitive esport—they’re competing in spreadsheet challenges and it’s helping them land jobs
Microsoft-backed spreadsheet competitions are turning Gen Z college students into job-market standouts.
Fortune
Fortune
As Jennifer Lopez’s Kids Turn 18, An Insider Drops Claims About Their ‘Atypical’ Childhood
The kids are alright.
Cinemablend
Cinemablend
I Somehow Forgot That One Devastating Harry Potter Book Scene Wasn't Shown In The Movies
I remember the scene from the book so clearly ... too clearly.
Cinemablend
Cinemablend
Fans Accuse Kelly Osbourne Of Buccal Fat Removal As Her Brit Awards Look Goes Viral
“Looks like it'd be painful to smile. Good Lord. Scary thin," wrote one user.
Bored Panda
Bored Panda
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.
Download on the AppStore Get it on Google Play