House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, is joining President Donald Trump this weekend at the NCAA men’s wrestling championships, a source familiar with his plans tells Fox News Digital.

The White House confirmed Friday that Trump would attend the event with Jordan and Sen. Dave McCormick, R-Pa.

McCormick previously confirmed that Trump would be in attendance at the event in the senator’s home state of Pennsylvania.

‘I’m thrilled to be in Philadelphia this weekend with [Trump] for the [NCAA Wrestling] Championship,’ McCormick wrote on X. ‘I grew up wrestling in small towns across PA and at West Point. It taught me grit, resilience, and hard work.’

Jordan himself was a noted wrestling champion during his time in high school and later at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he won the NCAA Division I men’s wrestling title twice. 

He was later an assistant coach at Ohio State University’s wrestling program from 1987 to 1995.

Fox News Digital emailed Jordan’s office for comment but did not immediately hear back.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has canceled hundreds of National Institutes of Health (NIH) research grants—worth over $350 million—funding projects related to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and gender ideology, according to a department official.

The cuts included slashing projects studying ‘multilevel and multidimensional structural racism,’ ‘gender-affirming hormone therapy in mice’ and ‘microaggressions,’ among others. 

In total, there were more than 500 research grants related to DEI and progressive gender ideology that the administration terminated.

‘HHS is taking action to terminate more than $350 million in research funding that is not aligned with NIH and HHS priorities,’ HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said in a statement. ‘The terminated research grants are simply wasteful in studying things that do not pertain to American’s health to any significant degree, including DEI and gender ideology. As we begin to Make America Healthy Again, it’s important to prioritize research that directly affects the health of Americans.’ 

One of the grants cut included nearly $1 million to scientists at the University of Maryland-Baltimore for a research project titled, ‘Assessing intersectional multilevel and multidimensional structural racism for English- and Spanish-speaking populations in the US.’ The project included work to create an ‘intersectional, multilevel, and multidimensional Structural Racism Measure’ in order to ‘eliminate health disparities and discrimination’ for racial minorities.

‘There is an urgent public health need to collect valid and reliable data on structural racism before effective interventions to reduce structural racism can be designed,’ the project’s description stated. 

Multiple projects studying transgender medical treatments in mice were also among those cut. One of those grants provided close to $1 million to Emory University researchers to study how transgender hormone treatments impact the skeletal maturation of mice, titled, ‘Microbiome mediated effects of gender affirming hormone therapy in mice.’ Another project worth roughly $50,000 worked to understand ‘how chromosomal makeup and cross-sex hormone administration’ impacts wound healing in mice.

A separate research project that did not use mice got nearly $1 million ‘to study possible genomic associations with gender identity.’ 

Grants focused on recruiting scientists based on their race or ethnicity were also slashed by the Trump administration. A grant worth more than $5 million to researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center to help ‘achieve more racial and ethnic diversity among our scientific research faculty,’ included a commitment to hire at least 18 tenure-track faculty ‘from minoritized racial and ethnic groups.’

Soon after President Donald Trump was inaugurated, he directed federal agencies, including HHS, to temporarily freeze the issuance of new federal grants. The action was to ensure each agency’s funding was in compliance with Trump’s new policies and requirements, including those around getting rid of DEI and progressive gender ideology in the public sector.

A judge subsequently issued an order temporarily blocking the administration’s funding freeze, and shortly thereafter, the Trump administration rescinded its memo directing the funding halt. A short time after that, the NIH resumed important meetings and travel associated with the agency’s grant-review process.  

In addition to reviewing NIH’s grant funding to ensure it aligns with the president’s policies, Trump also implemented a 15% cap on facilities and administrative costs included in research grant awards.

The administration’s actions targeting NIH research have generated widespread backlash. Earlier this month, Trump’s pick to be the next NIH director, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, was peppered with questions from Democrats during his confirmation hearing over whether he would step in to prevent the president from slashing what they deemed critically important research projects. 

Bhattacharya would not explicitly say he disagreed with the cuts, or that, if confirmed, he would step in to stop them. Rather, he said he would ‘follow the law,’ while also investigating the impact of the cuts and ensuring every NIH researcher doing work that advances the health outcomes of Americans has the resources necessary to do their work. 

Bhattacharya also laid out what he called a new, decentralized vision for future research at NIH that he said will be aimed at embracing dissenting ideas and transparency, while focusing on research topics that have the best chance at directly benefiting the health outcomes of Americans. Bhattacharya said that he wants to rid the agency’s research portfolio of other ‘frivolous’ efforts that he says do little to directly benefit health outcomes.

 Hostage envoy Adam Boehler met in person with Taliban officials at the Kabul International Airport, Qatari sources told Fox News Digital, marking the first known time the White House has engaged with Afghanistan’s ‘interim government’ following the 2021 takeover by the terrorist organization.

While the meeting between Boehler and Afghan officials representing the Taliban’s foreign ministry met to secure the release of George Glezmann on Thursday, advisor and spokesman to Qatar’s prime minister, Dr Majed al-Ansari, told Fox News Digital that other ‘beneficial’ issues were discussed. 

‘U.S. envoy Adam Boehler came to Doha. He had meetings over here, and then we moved to Kabul, where he had meetings in the airport with the foreign minister and other Afghan officials,’ al-Ansari said. ‘That was the first meeting of its kind and opened the door for a lot of dialogue on lots of issues, including the issues of detainees.’

‘But also other issues that can be very beneficial for the Afghan people and for the people of the United States, and providing security regionally for Afghanistan, but also in general,’ he added. ‘It was a good first step that we helped facilitate.’

The White House did not return Fox News Digital’s questions on whether Boehler’s in-person meeting suggests the Trump administration may look to establish ties with the Taliban government – a subject that has been taboo among Western nations following the toppling of the democratically elected government and the subsequent severe human rights violations, including the removal of essentially all women’s rights. 

Al-Ansari confirmed that while Qatar has been working with the U.S. since 2022 to facilitate dialogue between Washington and Kabul in the more than three years since the deadly takeover, this is the first time the White House has directly engaged with the Taliban government. 

‘We always said that the way to resolve all of these issues all around the world is through dialog, is through talking, and is through beginning a mode of engagement that is positive and that would bring about more trust between the parties, and would bring about positive results,’ al-Ansari added, nodding toward Qatar’s heavy involvement in negotiations between Israel and Hamas. 

Boehler, who has not been confirmed by the Senate after he removed his nomination as special envoy to avoid divestment stipulations, serves as a ‘special government employee focused on hostage negotiations,’ according to a statement by White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly.

The freedom of Glezmann is the second major release Boehler secured this month after Marc Fogel was returned from Russia following his August 2021 arrest. 

Boehler, who helped secure the Abraham Accords as a lead negotiator during the first Trump administration, turned heads following the revelation that he met with another terrorist organization earlier this month – Hamas.

The hostage envoy met directly with Hamas officials in an attempt to secure the release of the five American hostages still held in the Gaza Strip, including Edan Alexander, who is the only remaining American hostage still alive. 

A liberal Canadian member of Parliament claimed the Trump administration has committed an ‘act of war’ over President Donald Trump repeatedly referring to Canada as the U.S.’ ’51st state’ and for leveling tariffs on the nation. 

‘Well, I think Marco Rubio probably needs to be sent back to school because when you say that someone doesn’t have a right to have a country, that’s an act of war. When you rip up, arbitrarily, trade agreements and threaten and say you’re going to break a country, that’s an act of war. And Canadians have responded in kind,’ Canadian MP Charlie Angus, who is a member of the country’s liberal New Democratic Party, said Monday during an interview with the MeidasTouch Network. 

Angus was reacting to a clip of Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaking with reporters during his recent trip to Canada for the G7 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting. Rubio was repeatedly asked by the press to weigh in on Trump referring to Canada as the U.S.’ ’51st state.’ 

‘The president has made his argument as to why he thinks Canada would be better off joining the United States… for economic purposes,’ Rubio said on March 14 when asked about Trump’s ’51st state’ comments, explaining the issue was not addressed during the G7 meeting. ‘There’s a disagreement between the president’s position and the position of the Canadian government. I don’t think that’s a mystery coming in, and it wasn’t a topic of conversation, because that’s not what this summit was about.’

Rubio further explained that the origin of the ’51st state’ rhetoric was born during a meeting between Trump and former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Trump began using the ’51st state’ title for Canada in November 2024, following his election win. 

Trump was meeting with Trudeau, ‘and Trudeau basically says that if the U.S. imposes tariffs on Canada, Canada couldn’t survive as a nation-state, at which point the president said, ‘Well, then you should become a state.’ And that’s where this began,’ Rubio recounted of the Trump–Trudeau meeting. ‘He made an argument for why Canada would be better off joining the United States from an economic perspective and the like. He’s made that argument repeatedly, and I think it stands for itself.’

Trudeau announced his resignation as the country’s prime minister in January after nine years in the position. Mark Carney was sworn-in as the nation’s next prime minister on March 14 after he was elected the new leader of Canada’s Liberal Party earlier in the month.  

During his interview, Angus said that Canada’s boycott of U.S. products over tariffs leveled on the nation would be ‘punishing’ to the U.S.

‘The boycott that Canada has launched against the United States is punishing. We were told in January a 10% drop in Canadian travel to the United States would cost 140,000 jobs,’ he continued. 

Trump leveled a 25% tariff on all imports of steel and aluminum from other nations on March 12, while Canada specifically is set to face a 25% tax on all imported goods beginning April 2. The tariffs have sparked boycotts of U.S. goods. 

Trump joined Fox News’ Laura Ingraham on Tuesday, where he railed against how the U.S. has subsidized ‘Canada by $200 billion a year.’

‘Here’s my problem with Canada,’ Trump said on Fox News. ‘Canada was meant to be the 51st state because we subsidize Canada by $200 billion a year. We don’t need their cars, we don’t need their lumber, we have a lot of lumber. … We don’t need their energy, we don’t need anything, we certainly don’t want their automobiles… millions of automobiles are sent in, I’d rather have them made in Michigan, I’d rather have them made in South Carolina.’

Fox News Digital’s Charles Creitz contributed to this report. 

A former special envoy to Haiti blames what he views as former President Joe Biden’s absentee approach to decision-making for the current woes afflicting the Caribbean nation.

Daniel Foote served as special envoy to Haiti in 2021 but resigned in protest over what he said was the administration’s failed approach of supporting unpopular and unelected leaders.

‘All of the governments that the U.S. has backed or anointed or imposed in the last 110 years have not represented the Haitian people,’ Foote said. He said the Biden administration backed the then-unelected Prime Minister Ariel Henry solely for his unwavering loyalty despite lingering questions about how Henry rose to power.

Foote has been involved with Haiti since the devastating 2010 earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people. He now believes the country has descended into near-total collapse.

‘It’s a thousand times worse now because we broke whatever weak social contract there was between the people and the government. And there has been no government since basically 2012. It’s a failed state.’

A recent U.N. report revealed that more than 1 million people have been displaced due to gang violence in Haiti, nearly 10% of the population. Another report indicated that 85% of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, is under gang control.

Foote said he never met Biden while serving as envoy, claiming that by then, Biden had ‘deteriorated to the point that they didn’t want him to see a lot of people.’ Instead, he said, Victoria Nuland, undersecretary of state for political affairs, and U.S. Ambassador to Haiti Michele Sison devised the plan to support Henry.

Foote said he recalled a remark that Biden allegedly made as a senator in 1994: ‘If Haiti just quietly sunk into the Caribbean, or rose up 300 feet, it wouldn’t matter a whole lot in terms of our interests.’

‘That explains Joe Biden’s approach to Haiti,’ Foote said.

Biden’s spokesperson and Sison did not respond to a Fox News Digital request for comment.

Nuland rejected Foote’s accusations, calling them ‘completely false’ and referred Fox News Digital to former Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Brian Nichols.

‘What I observed that there was intense coordination, and there was not one person or two people who would make a significant decision on the policy,’ Nichols said, noting that he got the job roughly a week before Foote resigned on Sept. 21 and so was not involved in earlier decisions. ‘All issues were debated extensively internally at multiple levels, all the way up to the principals, that’s the Cabinet secretary level.’

Foote said that in the past he felt no need for security while walking around Haiti because Americans were widely welcomed. Things are not the same anymore.

‘Now the Haitians are looking at China, looking at Russia,’ he said. ‘They’re like, ‘Somebody help us. The Americans just keep screwing us over,’ yet they still want the Americans to help them.’

The Biden administration committed around $600 million to fund an international security force, known as the multinational security support mission (MSS), composed of personnel from countries like Bangladesh, Kenya, Chad and Guyana. But Foote said he sees the MSS strategy as a waste of taxpayer money.

‘They don’t have the security backbone to take on the gangs,’ he said. ‘They need help. And that help is not 5,000 random police officers from a mishmash of 10 different developing countries led by the Kenyans, who have never led a security mission in history.’

Nichols defended the MSS, declaring their efforts ‘incredibly heroic.’

‘Having seen them on the ground in Haiti, it’s an extremely professional force, extremely courageous and one committed to the mission,’ he said.

Foote recommends that President Donald Trump send 60 U.S. special forces personnel to train an elite anti-gang unit in Haiti and reestablish a signals intelligence program to monitor gang communication. Without such action, he said, the consequences would extend far beyond Haiti’s borders.

‘It’s just going to continue to create chaos right off the U.S. shores and create a massive surge in migration,’ he said. ‘Because if you walk down the street in Port-au-Prince, you look around and think, ‘I can understand why people leave. Humans can’t live in these conditions.”

Jack Brewer, who played in the NFL before founding a global foundation that has been in Haiti since the devastating 2010 earthquakes, echoed Foote’s assessment.

‘People are being burned alive, police officers are getting their heads bashed into the pavement – bloody, torturous deaths,’ Brewer said. ‘One of my doctors had five of his close friends and relatives murdered. This all just happened this week.’

Brewer said that any real change can come only from within Haiti.

‘I’m talking about a culture that doesn’t accept stealing and doesn’t accept corruption,’ he said. ‘Right now, culturally, it’s acceptable to steal, and that has to change. Until you fix the moral fabric of a nation and reinstate law and order, it doesn’t matter what America does.’

President Donald Trump sent a warning late Thursday night to those who have been involved in recent attacks on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and factories nationwide since CEO Elon Musk became a part of the Trump administration.

‘People that get caught sabotaging Teslas will stand a very good chance of going to jail for up to twenty years, and that includes the funders,’ the president wrote on Truth Social. ‘WE ARE LOOKING FOR YOU!!!’

Musk has taken a lot of heat for heading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under Trump, and his closeness with the president has made Tesla vehicles and properties the target of dozens of protests and vandalism, and even a couple of shootings.

Trump’s warning comes after Attorney General Pam Bondi announced federal charges on Thursday against three people who used Molotov cocktails to attack Tesla properties in South Carolina, Oregon and Colorado in separate instances. Bondi described their actions as acts of ‘domestic terrorism.’

‘The days of committing crimes without consequence have ended,’ Bondi said. ‘Let this be a warning: if you join this wave of domestic terrorism against Tesla properties, the Department of Justice will put you behind bars.’ 

All three suspects face a minimum of five years and a maximum of 20 years in prison if convicted.

Bondi told Will Cain on his show Wednesday, ‘They’re targeting Elon Musk who is out there trying to save our country and it will not be tolerated. We are coming after you.’

This week alone, attacks were reported in Las Vegas and Kansas City, Missouri. 

Investigators in Kansas City were looking into a suspected arson case after two Cybertrucks caught on fire at a dealership on Monday, while authorities in Sin City reported at least five vehicles were damaged and two were set on fire at a Tesla collision and sales center on Tuesday.

A website called ‘DOGEQUEST’ was also activated this week and claims to have a list of Tesla owners, their addresses, phone numbers and email addresses in an apparent effort to dox them.

The site also contains a map of Tesla dealerships and charging stations.

Fox News Digital’s Peter D’Abrosca and Sarah Rumpf-Whitten contributed to this report.

TEMPE, Ariz. – Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont – champions of the left – repeatedly targeted President Donald Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk as they kicked off a three-day swing through three electorally important western states.

But Sanders, and especially Ocasio-Cortez, also trained some of their fire on the Democratic Party, with the best-known member of the so-called ‘Squad’ of diverse and progressive House members urging her own party to have ‘the courage to brawl’ against Republicans.

Trump has been on a tear since returning to the White House two months ago, flexing his political muscles to expand presidential powers as he’s upended longstanding government policy and made major cuts to the federal workforce through a flurry of executive orders and actions. 

And Sanders and Cortez took to the stage at their first stop in Las Vegas, Nevada, while Trump signed an executive order to begin the longstanding conservative goal of demolishing the Department of Education at a White House ceremony.

Ocasio-Cortez accused Trump and his GOP allies of ‘lying to and screwing over working and middle-class Americans so that they can steal our health care, social security and veterans benefits in order to pay for their tax cuts for the billionaires and bailouts for their crypto friends.’

And Sanders charged that ‘every day Trump is trying to take power away from Congress. He is trying to take power away from the judiciary.’

‘We have a message for Mr. Trump and that is, we will not allow you to move this country into an oligarchy,’ Sanders emphasized.’We’re not going to allow you and your friend Mr. Musk and the other billionaires to wreak havoc on this country.’

But the inability of Democrats in Congress, who are out of power in the White House as well as the House and Senate, to stop the majority Republicans is causing tensions within the party amid increasing calls for leaders to come up with a stronger strategy to resist Trump.

‘This isn’t just about Republicans,’ Ocasio-Cortez told the crowd in Arizona. ‘We need a Democratic Party that fights harder for us. That means each and every one of us choosing and voting for Democrats and elected officials who know how to stand for the working class…I want you to look at every level of office around and support Democrats who fight, because those are the ones who can actually win against Republicans.’

The Sanders-Ocasio-Cortez stops are drawing large crowds. The fire marshal in Tempe, Arizona said 11,300 packed the Mullett Arena on the campus of Arizona State University, with thousands in an overflow section outside the arena. 

The tour, dubbed by Sanders as ‘Fighting Oligarchy,’ continues Friday in Denver and Greeley, Colorado and concludes Saturday with a rally in Tucson, Arizona.

It comes as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in the chamber, is facing increasing fire from his own party for his support last week for a Republican-crafted federal funding bill that averted a government shutdown.

Neither Ocasio-Cortez nor Sanders mentioned Schumer during their speeches in Las Vegas or Tempe. 

And Sanders, an independent who has long caucused with the Democrats and who is part of Schumer’s leadership team in the Senate, declined in an interview with Fox News Digital ahead of the Tempe rally, to answer whether he agreed with calls for Schumer to step down from his leadership position.

‘That’s kind of inside the Beltway stuff,’ Sanders said.

But it was on the minds of some of those attending the rallies.

There were chants of ‘primary Chuck’ directed at Ocasio-Cortez at the Las Vegas rally.

And in Tempe, Cindy Garman and Pat Robinson, both of Prescott, Arizona, told Fox News that they were ‘really disappointed’ with Schumer’s move. 

And Amanda Ratloff of Gilbert, Arizona, said Schumer ‘is not the leader we need right now. We need somebody that will actually fight back and fight for the American people and not just give in to Elon Musk and Donald Trump.’

Sanders, in his speech, vowed to fight.

‘We are going to fight Trump and his oligarchy friends,’ he emphasized. ‘From the bottom of my heart I am convinced that they can be defeated.’

The recent wave of preliminary injunctions from federal judges has stymied President Donald Trump’s early agenda in his second White House term, prompting new questions as to how far the administration might go if it opts to challenge these court orders. 

Federal judges across the country have blocked Trump’s ban on transgender persons serving in the U.S. military, ordered the reinstatement of core functions of the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, and halted Elon Musk’s government efficiency organization, DOGE, from oversight and access to government agencies, among other things. They’ve also temporarily halted deportations, or attempted to, so judges can consider the relevant laws.

Combined, the wave of rulings has been met with outrage from Trump administration officials, some of whom said they plan to appeal the rulings to the Supreme Court, if needed. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has used her podium to rail against ‘radical left-wing judges,’ who she has alleged are acting with a political agenda to block Trump’s executive orders.

‘These judicial activists want to unilaterally stop President Trump from deporting foreign terrorists, hiring and firing executive branch employees, and determining the readiness of our troops,’ Leavitt said on X, expanding on remarks made Wednesday at a press briefing.

‘They MUST be reined in,’ she added.

Some of Trump’s supporters in Congress have threatened judges who block the president’s agenda with impeachment, while his critics worry the president’s attacks on the judiciary will collapse the constitutional system, bringing to the fore an impassioned debate over the separation of powers in the Constitution. 

Here’s a rundown of where things stand. 

Courts block Trump agenda 

U.S. District Court Judge Theodore Chuang, an Obama appointee, ruled on Tuesday that DOGE’s efforts to dismantle USAID ‘on an accelerated basis’ likely violated the U.S. Constitution ‘in multiple ways’ and ordered the partial restoration of the agency’s functions, including reinstatement of personnel access to email and payment systems.

Chuang’s preliminary injunction is believed to be the first to directly invoke Musk himself. It said Musk could interact with USAID employees only after being granted ‘express authorization’ from an agency official, and it blocked DOGE from engaging in any further work at USAID.

Hours later, U.S. District Court Judge Ana Reyes issued a preliminary injunction barring the Pentagon from enforcing Trump’s order on transgender persons serving in the military.

Reyes, the first openly gay member of the court, wrote in a scathing 79-page ruling that the Trump administration failed to demonstrate that transgender service members would hinder military readiness, relying on what she described as ‘pure conjecture’ to attempt to justify the policy and thus causing undue harm to thousands of current U.S. service members.  

Both rulings are almost certain to be challenged by the Trump administration. In fact, Reyes was so confident that the Justice Department would file an emergency appeal that she delayed her ruling from taking force until Friday to allow the Trump administration time to file for an emergency stay.

Reyes wasn’t wrong. Senior administration officials vowed to challenge the wave of court rulings, which they said are an attempt by the courts to unduly infringe on presidential powers.

‘We are appealing this decision, and we will win,’ Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on social media.

‘District court judges have now decided they are in command of the Armed Forces…is there no end to this madness?’ White House policy adviser Stephen Miller said later in a post on X. 

Several other high-profile cases are playing out in real time that could test the fraught relationship between the courts and the executive branch, and next steps remain deeply uncertain.

U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg warned the Trump administration on Wednesday that it could face consequences for violating his court order temporarily blocking it from invoking a little-known wartime law to immediately deport Venezuelan nationals from U.S. soil, including alleged members of the gang Tren de Aragua, for 14 days. 

Boasberg handed down the temporary restraining order Saturday evening, around the time that the Trump administration proceeded to deport hundreds of migrants, including Venezuelan nationals subject to the Alien Enemies Act, to El Salvador. He also ordered in a bench ruling shortly after that any planes carrying these individuals return to the U.S. 

But at least one plane with migrants deported by the law in question touched down later that evening in El Salvador.

‘Oopsie, too late,’ El Salvador’s president said in a post on X.

In the days since, government lawyers citing national security protections have refused to share information in court about the deportation flights and whether the plane (or planes) of migrants knowingly departed U.S. soil after the judge ordered them not to do so.

The White House has repeatedly asserted that lower court judges like Boasberg should not have the power to prevent the president from executing what it argues is a lawful agenda, though the judges in question have disagreed that the president’s actions all follow the law.

‘A single judge in a single city cannot direct the movements of an aircraft carrier full of foreign alien terrorists who were physically expelled from U.S. soil,’ Leavitt told Fox News.

Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, said in an interview on ‘Fox & Friends’ this week: ‘We are not stopping.’

‘I don’t care what the judges think. I don’t care what the left thinks. We’re coming,’ Homan said, adding, ‘Another fight. Another fight every day.’

Relief on the way?

The administration’s appeals, which are all almost guaranteed, may have a better chance of success than previous cases that reached appellate courts, including one in which the Supreme Court ruled against the president.

There are two types of near-term relief that federal judges can offer plaintiffs before convening both parties to the court for a full case on the merits: a preliminary injunction and a temporary restraining order, or a TRO. 

A TRO immediately blocks an action for 14 days to allow more time for consideration. But it’s a difficult test for plaintiffs to satisfy: they must prove that the order in question would pose immediate and ‘irreparable harm’– an especially burdensome level of proof, especially if it hinges on an action or order that has not yet come into force. 

The outcomes, as a result, are very narrow in scope. One could look to the TRO request granted by U.S. District Court Judge Amir Ali earlier this month, which required the Trump administration to pay out $2 billion in owed money for previously completed USAID projects. 

Since it did not deal with current contracts or ongoing payments, the Supreme Court, which upheld Ali’s ruling, 5-4, had little room to intervene.

The request for a preliminary injunction, however, is a bit more in depth. Successful plaintiffs must demonstrate to the court four things in seeking the ruling: First, that they are likely to succeed on the merits of the claim when it is heard later on; that the balance of equities tips in their favor; that the injunction is considered within the sphere of public interest; and finally, that they are ‘likely’ to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of court action.

This wider level of discretion granted to the district courts in a preliminary injunction ruling invites much more scrutiny, and more room for the government to appeal the ruling to higher courts should they see fit. 

It’s a strategy both legal analysts and even Trump himself dangled as a likely possibility as they look to enforce some of their most sweeping policy actions. 

Trump suggested this week that Boasberg, tasked with overseeing the escalating deportation fight, be impeached, describing him in a post on Truth Social as a ‘crooked’ judge and someone who, unlike himself, was not elected president.

‘He didn’t WIN the popular VOTE (by a lot!), he didn’t WIN ALL SEVEN SWING STATES, he didn’t WIN 2,750 to 525 Counties, HE DIDN’T WIN ANYTHING!’ Trump said.

The post earned the rebuke of Chief Justice John Roberts, who noted that it broke with 200 years of established law. And on Thursday, Trump’s deputy chief of staff, James Blair, appeared to punt the issue to Congress.

He told Politico in an interview that Trump’s remarks were shining ‘a big old spotlight’ on what it views as a partisan decision, but noted impeaching a judge would be up to Republicans in Congress, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, who he said would ultimately ‘figure out what can be passed or not’ in Congress.

‘That’s the speaker’s job. And I won’t speak for what the speaker’s opinion of that is,’ he said. ‘I think the thing that is important right now is the president is highlighting a critical issue.’

Vice President JD Vance took a shot at former Vice President Kamala Harris, suggesting her alcohol habits were responsible for her ‘word salads.’ 

Vance’s remarks came as he described the difference between how he and Harris have handled the role as vice president, and he speculated about the relationship dynamic between Harris and former President Joe Biden. 

‘Well, I don’t have four shots of vodka before every meeting,’ Vance said in an interview with radio host and Daily Caller editor Vince Coglianese in an interview that aired Thursday. ‘That’s one way I think that Kamala really tried to bring herself into the role, is these word salads. I think I would need the help of a lot of alcohol to answer a question the way that Kamala Harris answered questions.’ 

Vance then shared his suspicions that Harris and Biden didn’t have the same level of trust he and President Donald Trump share, noting his opinion was based on ‘guesswork’ since he doesn’t speak to either Biden or Harris frequently. 

‘My sense is that there wasn’t a level of trust between Biden and Harris,’ Vance said. ‘She was just less empowered to do her job. Luckily, I’m in a situation where the president trusts me, where if he asks me to do something, he believes it’s going to happen. … I feel empowered in a way that I think a lot of vice presidents haven’t been, but that’s all in the service of accomplishing the president’s vision.’ 

Harris routinely faced scrutiny for comments in which she jumbled words, including when she said, ‘I grew up understanding the children of the community are the children of the community’ in September 2024. 

Harris, who previously served as a senator from California, is now a speaker with CAA Speakers, which represents high-profile celebrities. CAA did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. 

A spokesperson for Vance confirmed the vice president made the remarks on the podcast but did not provide additional comment to Fox News Digital. Coglianese did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.

Meanwhile, Vance also poked fun at himself in the interview Thursday. 

Vance, who has become the source of thousands of memes circulating the internet after the heated Oval Office meeting between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in February, said he finds the memes entertaining. 

In particular, he said he enjoys one based off Leonardo DiCaprio pointing at the television from the 2019 film ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,’ and another swapping his face with members of the band Van Halen. 

‘I’m a personal fan of Vance Halen, but that’s because I really like the band Van Halen,’ Vance said. ‘So that’s just my personal preferences. I don’t know how it happened or where it came from, but it’s been very, very funny to watch your own face become this meme. It’s made the job a lot more fun, so I encourage people to keep doing it.’ 

Fox News Digital’s Alexander Hall contributed to this report.