Letters from an American - April 25, 2025

Episode Date: April 27, 2025

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Hello, this is Michael Moss. Heather Cox Richardson is traveling today and her travel arrangements did not allow her time to read today's letter, so I will be reading it in her place. April 25, 2025. Today's major stories must be seen in the context of President Donald Trump's dramatic losses in court and his plummeting poll numbers. Yesterday, Trump told the Department of Justice to investigate ActBlue, the platform that handles the fundraising for almost all Democratic candidates and the issues Democrats support.

This targeting of Democratic infrastructure would hobble the Democrats. It also plays to Trump's base, which insists, without evidence, that ActBlue accepts straw and foreign donations, an accusation Trump repeated in his order about the investigation. This morning, FBI Director Cash Patel posted on social media, just now the FBI arrested Judge Hannah Duggan

out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin on charges of obstruction after evidence of Judge Duggan obstructing an immigration arrest operation last week. Patel quickly deleted the post, but the story had already gotten attention. FBI agents arrested Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Duggan at the courthouse this morning in what, as Josh Kavinsky of Talking Points memo notes, appeared to be an attempt to draw attention and to illustrate that judges must cooperate with the Trump administration's mass deportation campaign or else face overbearing actions from federal law enforcement.

The story appears to be that on April 18th, while Duggan was about to hear a pre-trial conference in the case of an undocumented immigrant charged with misdemeanor battery, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, agents arrived to arrest the person. They had an administrative warrant rather than a judicial warrant, and Judge Duggan asked them to produce a judicial warrant. When courtroom discussions about the man's case ended,

Judge Duggan invited the man and his lawyer to leave by way of the jury door, rather than the public exit, although both exits led back to the public hallway where ICE agents waited. The man appeared in the public hallway but got to an elevator before the agents did, enabling him to run down the street before the agents caught up and arrested him. Federal prosecutors have charged Duggan with obstructing or impeding a proceeding before a department or agency of the United States and concealing an individual to prevent his discovery and arrest. Tellingly, Attorney General Pam Bondi immediately went on the Fox News

Channel to talk about the arrest, attacking the judge. What has happened to our judiciary is beyond me, she said. The judges are deranged is all I can think of. I think some of these judges think that they are beyond and above the law. They are not, and we are sending a very strong message today. If you are harboring a fugitive, we will come after you and we will prosecute you. We will find you." Later today, news broke that the administration appears to

have deported a U.S. citizen. Chris Geidner of Lawdork reports that the administration deported a two-year-old born in the United States and thus a U.S. citizen along with her mother and her sister to Honduras, her mother's country of origin, even as the child's father tried frantically to keep her in the U.S. Judge Terry A. Doughty of the Federal District Court in the Western District of Louisiana, a Trump appointee, said that it is illegal and unconstitutional to deport a U.S. citizen instead of hearing for May 16th because he has a strong suspicion that the government just deported a U.S. citizen with no meaningful process. These actions to seize power and to hammer into place extremist MAGA immigration policies are dramatic demonstrations of the Trump

administration's attempt to destroy democracy. Indeed, the attempt to attack the judges could well be a reaction to the major losses the administration took from the courts this week. As Jacob Knudsen of Democracy Docket wrote, Trump suffered at least 11 legal setbacks this week as judges blocked Trump from gutting the voice of America media outlet, blocked the administration from removing people in Colorado and New York under the Alien Enemies Act,

ordered the administration to comply with discovery requests from Kilmar-Abrego-Garcia's lawyers, told the Department of Education not to implement anti-DEI measures, blocked Trump's executive order about elections, stopped the administration from impounding money from cities that don't comply with its mass deportation orders, and block the administration from ending collective bargaining rights for federal workers.

The dramatic actions against Act Blue and immigrants are also signs of weakness, as administration officials attempt to distract supporters not only from the disastrous tariffs, but also from the growing evidence that Trump is not functioning as a president should. As legal analyst Anna Bauer noted about Bondi's Fox News channel performance, if you're a

prosecutor who is serious about obtaining a conviction, you don't go on Fox and talk about the alleged facts of the case like this. It seems likely these extreme actions are an attempt to throw some red meat to those base voters whose support for the president is wavering and to grab power while it is still possible. In an interview with Time magazine, published today, Trump did not seem at the top of his mental game. He reiterated that the country is about to become richer than ever and that the problems in his administration can all be blamed on his predecessor, President Joe Biden. He claimed that he has already

made 200 trade deals, which could be possible if he is cutting private deals with corporations, but not if he is talking to countries. There are only 195 countries in the world. He claimed China's president Xi Jinping has called him to make a deal, although Chinese officials deny this. In the interview, Trump repeatedly deferred to his lawyers to answer questions about Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man the administration says

it's sent to an infamous terrorist prison in El Salvador because of an administrative error. He said that he did not personally approve payments to El Salvador to hold the men his administration sent there. He said when he vowed to end Russia's war against Ukraine on day one, he was only speaking figuratively. And I said that as an exaggeration, because to make a point, and you know it gets, of course, by the fake news unintelligible, obviously people know that when I said that it was said in jest, but it was also said that it will be ended. Finally, the Time interviewer asked him,

Mr. President, you are showing us the new paintings you have behind us. You put in all these new portraits. One of them includes John Adams. John Adams said, we're a government ruled by laws, not by men. Do you agree with that?" Trump replied, John Adams said that? Where was the painting? When the interviewer pointed out the portrait, Trump said, we're a government ruled by laws not by men. Well, I think we're a government ruled by law, but you know somebody has to administer the law, so therefore men, certainly men and women,

certainly play a role in it. I wouldn't agree with it 100%. We're a government where men are involved in the process of law, and ideally you're going to have honest men like me. Letters from an American was written by Heather Cox Richardson. It was produced at Soundscape Productions, Dead in Massachusetts. Recorded with music composed by Michael Moss.