Hegseth Battles Dems on Capitol Hill, Showdown at SCOTUS, Artemis II Crew at WH: AM Update 4/30

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The provision thus bars judicial review of both the Secretary's ultimate decision whether to designate, extend, or terminate, and of each antecedent step along the way to that determination. Both challengers agreeing that federal law prevents courts from second-guessing the merits of a TPS decision, but they argue the administration failed to follow the required consultation process before trying to end the program. Conservative justices, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Amy Coney Barrett pressing that position. Would you be kind enough to say what else is reviewable under, despite the jurisdiction stripping provision, because it seems pretty broad. It says there's no judicial review of any determination of the Attorney General. We have to say, look, determination is a very broad word. It's used all the time. by in many different statutory provisions. It's used all the time by this court. If we apply ordinary meaning of that term here, I really don't understand how you can prevail. I mean, if it's just kind of a box checking exercise, I mean, why would Congress permit review of the procedural aspect when really what everybody cares about much more is the substance? The lawyer for the Haitians also arguing race was a driving factor in ending TPS for the country. Liberal justice, Elena Kagan, questioning how that component fits into this case. You can argue that there was just like across the board, we have to get rid of all these TPS and the statutory requirements weren't followed and all of that. But the injection of this racial component into it, I guess I don't quite see how that operates when all of these programs went. The lawyer pointing to statements from President Trump and former Secretary Kristi Noem and contrasting them with policies favoring white migrants. Arguing that pattern shows the decision was driven by racial bias. A decision is expected by early July. We spoke with the Center for Immigration Studies, fellow in law and policy, Andrew Arthur, who says this is a clear-cut case, and the government is right. What this comes down to is this is a temporary protection. The word temporary appears 42 different times in the statute. And yet, immigrants advocates have managed to turn it into a quasi-permanent form of protection. by challenging every determination that the Trump administration has made attempting to end temporary protected status regardless of the country. You know, this is a pretty straightforward statute. Congress plainly intended that there wouldn't be any judicial review. And unfortunately, it's reflective of the highly politicized times in which we live that district court judges think that they have the ability, let alone the obligation to interpose themselves in political decisions that Congress has placed outside of their jurisdiction.

As for the Haitian plaintiffs claims that race factored into the decision, Arthur points out a flaw in that argument. They're going back to statements that President Trump has made in the past denigrating statements about Haiti generally in order to say that improper racial animus has weighed into this decision. But the argument basically goes as follows. One, the president has said that, you know, Haiti is a bad place. TPS is based upon the idea that Haiti is temporarily a bad place. And therefore, it almost defeats their argument to bring up the fact that the president has talked about issues in Haiti. So, you know, it may almost be too cute by half to make the argument, but in the public sphere, it's probably the most compelling argument that they could make. I just don't think it's a valid one. On the bigger picture, Arthur predicts the justices will side with the Trump administration using this case to send a broader message to the lower courts about their role. One of the issues that the John Roberts Court has contended with as long as Donald Trump has been president is... immigrants advocates who have used the courts as a way to stymie the president's political decisions. And I think that the John Roberts Court wants to send a message to the inferior courts, the district and the circuit courts, that when Congress says there is no review or that certain things aren't reviewable or aren't reviewable at the district court level, that Congress means what it says. so that the Supreme Court doesn't have to continually return to the issue to, you know, tell inferior courts that they don't have jurisdiction or that they've gone too far. This court wants to get itself out of political questions. Coming up, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth clashing with lawmakers on the hill over the war in Iran. And President Trump hosts the Artemis II crew at the White House following their successful mission around the moon.

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Much of the hearing focusing on U.S. military action against Iran, Democrats and Secretary Pete Hegseth clashing often on the financial toll, domestic impact, and end goals of the mission. Secretary Pete Hegseth blasting critics in Congress. President Trump, unlike other president, has had the courage to ensure Iran never gets a nuclear weapon and he's ironclad in that. We have the best negotiator in the world driving that deal. The biggest challenge, The biggest adversary we face at this point are the reckless, feckless and defeatist words of congressional Democrats and some Republicans. Two months in, I remind you, two months in to a conflict, lest I remind you, and my generation understands how long we were in Iraq, how long we were in Afghanistan. How long we were in Vietnam, two months in on an existential fight for the safety of the American people, Iran cannot have a nuclear bomb. We are proud of this undertaking. Ranking member of the committee, Adam Smith, Democrat from Washington, and the secretary in a heated exchange. You have to stare down this kind of enemy who's hell-bent on getting a nuclear weapon and get them to a point where they're at the table giving it up in a way that- So they haven't- So they haven't broken yet. Okay, we haven't gotten there yet. For all of the... Well, their nuclear facilities have been obliterated. Underground, they're buried and we're watching them 24-7. So we know where any nuclear material might be. We're watching my time for a quick second here. We had to start this war, you just said, 60 days ago, because the nuclear weapon was an imminent threat. Now you're saying that it was completely obliterated. They had not given up their nuclear ambitions, and they had a conventional shield of thousands of... So Operation Midnight Hammer accomplished nothing of substance. It left us at exactly the same place we were before. So much so that we had to start a war. Their facilities were bombed and obliterated. Their ambitions continued. Democrat Congressman John Garimendi of California accusing the Secretary of lying about the war. Secretary Pete Hegseth, you have been lying to the American public about this war from day one. And so has the president. You have misled the public about why we are at war. You've misled the public about the progress of the war. The strategy has been an astounding. incompetence. The president has got himself in America stuck in the quagmire of another war in the Middle East. When I said reckless, feckless and defeatist of congressional Democrats at the beginning, that came after watching you say the same thing on CNN this morning, a quagmire. Don't say I support the troops on one hand, and then a two-month mission is a quagmire. That's a false equivalation. Who are you cheering for here? Who are you polling for? I know the American people support that mission, despite your loose talk and words like Quagmire. Polling consistently shows declining support for the war. According to a survey from Reuters released Tuesday, just 34% of Americans approve of the U.S. conflict with Iran, down from 38% in mid-March.

The hearing comes hours after President Trump posted an AI image to Truth Social featuring a version of himself wearing sunglasses, carrying a machine gun, walking away from explosions in the background. Text on the image reading, quote, No more Mr. Nice Guy. Mr. Trump, writing, quote, Iran can't get their act together. They don't know how to sign a non-nuclear deal. They better get smart soon. On Sunday, Axios reporting the Iranians presenting the U.S. with a new plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and postpone nuclear talks until a later date. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday rejecting the idea on its face, telling Fox News Iran's nuclear program is, quote, the reason why we're in this in the first place. That fundamental issue still has to be confronted. That still remains the core issue here. From the Oval Office yesterday, President Trump, saying talks are continuing via phone. make a call or I have my people make a call and you know the answer. I always like face-to-face, you know, I consider it better, but when you have to fly 18 hours every time you want to have a meeting, and you know what the meeting is all about. And you know they're going to give you a piece of paper that you don't like before you even leave. It's ridiculous. They've come a long way. The question is whether or not they're going to go far enough. So at this moment, There will never be a deal unless they agree that there will be no nuclear weapons. President Trump welcoming the Artemis 2 crew to the White House yesterday following their successful mission around the moon and back, landing safely in the Pacific Ocean earlier this month. President Trump congratulating astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Cook, and Jeremy Hanson. It takes people like this to make our country great, and again, I've never seen anything. Everybody I knew, they wanted to see the launch, and they especially wanted to see a successful... landing. We're very proud of these people. They have unbelievable courage. Unbelievable. A lot of other things do, by the way. To get in there, you have to be very smart. You have to do a lot of things physically good. So I would have had no trouble making it physically very, very good. Maybe a little bit of a problem. We'll have to try it sometime. Is a president allowed to go up in one of these missions? We can get working on them. We have no problem, right? We'll launch more rockets, the opportunity. We'll have to try it. Congratulations very much. On a separate but possibly related point, one reporter asking about a timeline on the release of more information about UFOs. Well, I think we're going to be releasing as much as we can in the near future. For some reason, and I guess it's just a reason it's been in the minds of people for a long time, and that is such, they want to find out about the UFOs.

and anything having to do with UFO or related material. And we're going to be releasing a lot of things from that we have. And I think some of it's going to be very interesting to people. I've interviewed people, my first term primarily, but I interviewed some pilots, very solid people. And they said they saw things that you wouldn't believe. So you're going to be reading about it. Disclosure Day in coming. That'll do it for your AM update. I'm Emily Jashinsky, host of After Party. Catch the Megyn Kelly show live on SiriusXM's, the Megyn Kelly channel 111 at noon east on YouTube.com slash Megyn Kelly and all podcast platforms. Talk about regrets. We all know someone who's been in a car accident and said, I don't need to call a lawyer only to regret it after their pain and damages were worse than expected. When someone hurts you, you deserve to be compensated fairly. Morgan and Morgan is America's largest injury law firm, fighting for the people for over 35 years. Injured, visit for the people.com slash podcast. That's for the people.com slash podcast. Their fee is free unless they win.