Tangle - Fact vs. freakout on the SCOTUS universal injunctions ruling.

Episode Date: June 30, 2025

On Friday, the Supreme Court voted 6–3 to partially pause rulings by federal judges blocking President Donald Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship. The decision did not weigh the constitutionality of the executive order but dealt solely with federal courts issuing universal injunctions, which prohibit the government from enforcing a law or policy anywhere in the country. The court’s majority repudiated such orders but left open the possibility that lawsuits brought by states could challenge Trump’s executive order. Ad-free podcasts are here!Many listeners have been asking for an ad-free version of this podcast that they could subscribe to — and we finally launched it. You can go to ReadTangle.com to sign up!You can read today's podcast⁠ ⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠, our “Under the Radar” story ⁠here and today’s “Have a nice day” story ⁠here⁠.Take the survey: What do you think of the court’s decision? Let us know!Disagree? That's okay. My opinion is just one of many. Write in and let us know why, and we'll consider publishing your feedback.You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Our Executive Editor and Founder is Isaac Saul. Our Executive Producer is Jon Lall.This podcast was written by: Isaac Saul and edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Senior Editor Will Kaback, Hunter Casperson, Kendall White, Bailey Saul, and Audrey Moorehead.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode is sponsored by the OCS Summer Pre-Roll Sale. Sometimes when you roll your own joint, things can turn out a little differently than what you expected. Maybe it's a little too loose. Maybe it's a little too flimsy. Or maybe it's a little too covered in dirt because your best friend distracted you when you dropped it on the ground. There's a million ways to roll a joint wrong, but there's one roll that's always perfect. The pre-roll. Shop the Summer Pre-Roll and infuse pre-roll sale today at ocs.ca and participating retailers.

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From executive producer, Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening. And welcome to the Tangle podcast, a place to get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Saul. And on today's episode, we're going to be talking about the Supreme Court's ruling on Friday in Trump-Vicasa, where they basically limited the use of nationwide or universal injunctions. We're gonna talk about exactly what happened, what the case does and doesn't do,

which there seems to be quite a bit of misconceptions about. And as always, I'll share a bit of my take here. Before jumping though, one quick heads up. First of all, for those of you who missed it on Friday, our newly minted editor-in-large, Camille Foster, published his debut essay, An Exploration of the 2020 Racial Reckoning,

a criticism of what it wrought for the country, and a vision for how to navigate race in the future. The piece generated the most comments of anything we published this month. And it's a healthy mix of praise and criticism and questions. And to that end, we're gonna experiment a bit with a new format and do a live stream with Camille on Wednesday night at 8 p.m. Eastern.

Hopefully across all of our platforms, probably the easiest place to follow along will be on YouTube. So if you're not subscribed to our YouTube channel, make sure you do that. And for those of you guys who are exclusively podcast listeners, Camille has recorded a read down of the essay that should be coming out on the podcast pretty shortly.

So keep an ear out for that. All right, with that, I'm going to send it over to John for today's main topic and I'll be back for my take. and I'll be back for my take. Thanks, Isaac, and welcome everybody. Hope you all had a wonderful weekend. It is a new week, which means a fresh start. Think about a positive difference that you could make for somebody today, and then take action,

because even those small actions can lead to ripples far beyond what we imagine. Here are your quick hits for today. First up, the Senate voted 51-49 to advance the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, setting up a final vote on the bill's passage this week. Senators Tom Tillis, the Republican from North Carolina, and Rand Paul, the Republican from Kentucky, joined all Democrats in voting against the procedural motion. Separately, Senator Mike Lee, the Republican from Utah, withdrew a provision from the bill that would have allowed for the sale of federal lands for development, citing opposition from

his colleagues. Senator Tillis announced that he would not seek re-election in 2026. Tillis will serve out the remainder of his term. Number 3. On Friday, President Donald Trump said he was terminating trade negotiations with Canada over the country's digital services tax on American technology companies. On Sunday, Canada said it was rescinding the tax in anticipation of a trade deal with the United States. Separately, President Donald Trump announced that he had found a group that intends to buy TikTok's U.S. assets and that he would reveal their identities in about two weeks.

Trump added that China would likely need to approve that deal. Number four, two firefighters in Idaho were killed and another was injured while responding to a brush fire in what authorities called an ambush. The suspected shooter was later found dead. At number five, the Israel Defense Forces said that it killed Hakim Alisa, one of the founders of Hamas and an architect of the October 7th attacks in an air strike in Gaza City.

["Spring Day", by The Bachelorette plays in background.] Coming on the air because the Supreme Court has just released a potential landmark decision impacting the future of birthright citizenship in the U.S. The justices were asked to roll back nationwide injunctions against the president's attempt to redefine the 14th Amendment, which states that anyone born in the U.S. is automatically a U.S. citizen regardless of their parent's citizenship status. It's been in place for more than 150 years, but now in a six to three split, the conservative majority rule that President Trump

can move forward with implementing his birthright citizenship change except for those who brought the case, the 22 states and a group of pregnant immigrant women who brought that case. So it's not directly getting at the 14th Amendment here, but this will have a nationwide impact. On Friday, the Supreme Court voted 6 to 3 to partially pause rulings by federal judges blocking President Donald Trump's executive order ending birthright citizenship. The decision did not weigh the constitutionality of the executive order, but dealt solely with

federal courts issuing universal injunctions, which prohibit the government from enforcing a law or policy anywhere in the country. The court's majority repudiated such orders, but left open the possibility that lawsuits brought by states could challenge Trump's executive order. For context, on the first day of his second term, President Trump issued an executive order declaring that children born in the United States whose parents were not legal permanent residents are no longer entitled to automatic citizenship. Multiple district judges blocked the order before it took effect, issuing universal injunctions

that prevented it from being enforced even in states not involved in the challenge. The Trump administration appealed the three district court injunctions to the Supreme Court, which represented the case by the challenge issued from CASA Inc. and expedited it through its emergency docket. We covered oral arguments in the case in May, and there's a link in today's episode description. Writing for the majority, Justice Amy Coney Barrett said that district courts had likely exceeded their statutory authority by issuing rulings that do not apply solely to the plaintiffs bringing lawsuits.

The universal injunction was conspicuously non-existent for most of our nation's history. Its absence from 18th and 19th century equity practice settles the question of judicial authority, Barrett wrote, that the absence continued into the 20th century renders any claim of historical pedigree still more implausible. Although the court's ruling significantly narrows the use of universal injunctions, it also instructed lower courts to determine if an injunction would be appropriate for states

challenging the order. A patchwork injunction could be overly onerous to apply, Barrett wrote for the majority, as it would require states to track and verify the immigration status of the parents of every child, along with the birth state of every child for whom they provide certain federally funded benefits. Barrett added that universal injunctions were not necessary to provide complete relief to the parties challenging the order. Justice Clarence Thomas extended this argument in a concurring opinion, writing, "...in some circumstances, a court cannot award complete relief, as the court today affirms, any relief must fall within traditional limits on a court's equitable powers.

Justices Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh also filed concurring opinions, which discuss the open legal question of whether states can bring suits on behalf of their residents and the court's responsibility to rule on future cases on district courts granting or denying requests for preliminary injunctions respectively. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Katanji Brown Jackson authored dissenting opinions. Sotomayor noted that every court to evaluate

Trump's executive order has deemed it patently unconstitutional, making a universal injunction appropriate. Jackson called the decision an existential threat to the rule of law, patently unconstitutional, making a universal injunction appropriate. Jackson called the decision an existential threat to the rule of law, suggesting that the Trump administration had effectively requested this court's permission to engage in unlawful behavior. Barrett notably rebuked Jackson's dissent in her opinion, writing,

Justice Jackson decries an imperial executive while embracing an imperial judiciary. Today, we'll share perspectives from the left and the right on the court's rulings, and then Isaac's tape. We'll be right back after this quick break. This episode is sponsored by the OCS Summer Pre-Roll Sale. Sometimes when you roll your own joint, things can turn out a little differently than what you expected. Maybe it's a little too loose, maybe it's a little too flimsy, or maybe it's a little too covered in dirt because your best friend distracted you and you dropped it on the ground.

There's a million ways to roll a joint wrong, but there's one roll that's always perfect. The pre-roll. Shop the summer pre-roll and infuse pre-roll sale today at ocs.ca and participating retailers. Some things just take too long. A meeting that could have been an email, someone explaining crypto, or switching mobile providers. Except with Fizz. Switching to Fizz is quick and easy. Alright, first up, let's start with what the left is saying. The left criticizes the ruling, arguing that it removes a key check on Trump's administration. Some suggest it will permanently shift the balance of power in government.

Others claim the decision is not as damaging as some are making it out to be. In The New Yorker, Ruth Marcus said, the Supreme Court sides with Trump against the judiciary. The courts cannot protect us from President Donald Trump's unconstitutional overreach. That is the terrifying lesson of Friday's 6-3 Supreme Court ruling, Marcus wrote. Friday's decision means that courts are now hobbled from stopping any of the administration's actions, no matter how unconstitutional they may be, nor how much damage they will inflict. Once again, the court's conservative supermajority abandoned its constitutionally assigned role and dangerously empowered the president.

It remains unlikely that the court, when it finally gets around to deciding the merits of the dispute, will uphold Trump's effort to undo birthrights' citizenship. But imagine the harms that can ensue in the meantime. Parents unable to obtain social security numbers for their children, infants denied healthcare coverage or nutritional assistance, Marcus said. Given Congress's abdication of its constitutional rule,

the courts remain the best media vehicle for combating Trump's excesses. With Friday's ruling, though, they are unnecessarily handcuffed. In New York Magazine, Eli Honig wrote, the Supreme Court just gave the president more power. The Supreme Court's decision is about the presidency more than the current president or any particular chief executive. Objections to nationwide injunctions cross party lines. Whoever is in the White House at any given moment hates them.

The Obama and Biden administrations oppose nationwide injunctions that block several of their key executive initiatives, from Biden's student loan program to Obama's path to citizenship initiatives," Honig wrote. In fact, the Biden administration specifically argued in the courts against nationwide injunctions, raising the same core arguments made by the Trump administration here.

While the outcome is surely a win for Trump, he and his top brass have overstated the decision by claiming that district courts can no longer stop presidential action at all. In fact, district courts still have the power to block presidential initiatives with respect to the actual parties in any given lawsuit and potentially more broadly, Hoenig wrote. So what happens next? I'd expect to see a rush to the courthouse doors as people who may be harmed by Trump's policies come to realize that they cannot free ride on broad-based judicial declarations in favor of other plaintiffs.

In Bloomberg, Noah Feldman argued the ruling is being overhyped. In the short term, the decision is a win for the Trump administration, which has faced multiple such orders issued by lower courts blocking a range of unprecedented and illegal actions, but the opinion by Justice Amy Coney Barrett left room for those courts to use other legal techniques to achieve the same end. And the Supreme Court will continue to be able to block executive actions nationwide with precedent-based rulings, Feldman said. The real-world outcome therefore may not be as bad as it appears on the surface. Jackson, in her dissent, claimed that the majority was repudiating the rule of law by

allowing unconstitutional actions to stand. Barrett replied that while accusing the majority of enabling an imperial executive, Jackson was embracing the idea of an imperial judiciary, Feldman wrote. Both are partly right and partly wrong. If Trump can, in practice, issue plainly unlawful executive orders and get away with it, that would indeed undermine the rule of law as Jackson charged. But Barrett's decision need not spell the end of judicial action to constrain a law-flouting executive. Alright, that is it for what the left is saying, which brings us to what the right is saying.

The right mostly praises the court's decision, saying it limits the power of activist judges. Some criticize Justice Jackson's dissent as harmful to court norms. Others call on Congress to add further clarity to the use of nationwide injunctions. The Washington Examiner editorial board called the ruling a welcome check on activist judges. Federal courts have always had the power, and have exercised it, to enter injunctive relief between the named parties in a given suit. Federal civil procedure also has a well-developed body of law, Rule 23 class actions, allowing

for similarly situated possible plaintiffs to be covered by one case. But universal injunctions go far beyond class action jurisdiction, enforcing remedies on everyone, not just smaller groups which, by rule, must have something in common, the board wrote. Barrett methodically reviewed the historical record, establishing that universal injunctions did not exist in the High Court of Chancery in England, and did not exist for decades after until 1963. As the legislative and executive branches have become increasingly incapable of working together to pass legislation, the executive branch has increasingly taken it upon itself to assert new powers or use older grants of

power in novel ways, and federal courts have been forced to step in and adjudicate which actions are legal and which are not. But this does not empower Congress to step beyond the power granted to them by Congress, the board said. Barrett wisely advised judges that they should not seek to set national policy and should instead cabin their injunctive relief as narrowly as possible. In the New York Post, Jonathan Turley criticized Justice Jackson's activist opinion. The tenor of Jackson's language shocked not just many court watchers, but her colleagues.

The court often deals with issues that deeply divide the nation, yet it tends to calm the waters by engaging in measured, reasoned analysis, showing the nation that these are matters upon which people can have good faith disagreements. But the culture of civility and mutual respect has been under attack in recent years," Turley wrote. Hyperbole seemed to border on hysteria in the Jackson descent. The most junior justice effectively accused her colleagues of being toadies for tyranny. Liberals who claim democracy is dying seem to view democracy as getting what you want

when you want it. It was therefore distressing to see Jackson picking up the No Kings theme, warning about drifting toward a rule of kings governing system," Turley said. She said that limiting the power of individual judges to freeze the entire federal government was enabling our collective demise. At the very least, I lament that the majority is so caught up in the minutiae of the government's self-serving, finger-pointing arguments that it misses the plot. The minutiae dismissed by Jackson happen to be the statutory and constitutional authority

of federal courts. It is the minutiae that distinguish the rule of law from mere judicial impulse." In National Review, Charles C.W. Cook said, Congress and the Supreme Court must fill the hole left by Trump v. Casa. As a matter of law, I am persuaded by the majority opinion in today's Casa decision. As a matter of constitutional balance, however, I am less thrilled. This is not a contradiction. There's a difference between a court's decision being legally correct

and a court's decision yielding perfect outcomes, and, from my perspective, this one is stronger on the first criterion than on the second, Cook wrote. Like everyone else, I can of course see enormous upsides to the reduction in national injunctions, among them stability, democratic accountability, and the neutering of activists wearing robes. But I can also see a good number of downsides. them stability, democratic accountability, and the neutering of activists wearing robes. But I can also see a good number of downsides. Given that we all ought to wish to prevent the flowering of illegal presidential acts, this ruling does have a bearing on the other tools that we have at our disposal.

The first of these is the legislative power itself. That being so, Congress should get busy removing a whole host of the delegations that have accreted since the New Deal, Cook said. If Congress wishes, it can lay out exactly when and where those lower courts are permitted to issue national injunctions. In some circumstances, that is probably wise, but not in all. Now that the ball has returned, Congress ought to think carefully about where it wishes to make exceptions. All right, let's head over to Isaac for his take.

That is it for the left and the right are saying, which brings us to my take. I'll start by posing a simple question. What exactly did the court do here? President Trump has called the ruling a monumental victory that will streamline his agenda and validates his framing of universal injunctions as an attack on the administration by activist judges. Meanwhile, the left has framed it in equal and opposite terms, a catastrophic ruling that will allow

Trump to do whatever he wants while sidelining the entirety of the judicial branch. But neither reaction seems accurate. On the podcast Advisory Opinions, legal experts Sarah Isker, William Baude, and Daniel Epps spent much more time explaining what the ruling didn't do rather than what it did, breaking down how much more narrow its impact is than a lot of people think. The court completely ignored the basic question of birthright citizenship, but it barred the administration from enforcing its order for 30 days, which gives more time for new challenges to arise,

including presumably those that will meet the new standards to trigger a universal injunction, which I'll talk more about in a second. My frustration over this case boiled over a bit when we initially covered it in May, and I want to repeat what I wrote then because I still think it is the central story. The Trump administration knows that it will lose the birthright citizenship case on the merits, so it is avoiding that fight altogether. That simple reality that the administration is basically finding a way not to argue the real case here is perpetually lost in all the noise.

Both this strategy from the administration and the fact that we are all getting distracted by the other arguments are so frustrating to me that I'm going to keep repeating this over and over today just to make the most salient detail as clear as I possibly can. The Trump administration knows it will lose the birthright citizenship case on the merits, so it is avoiding that fight altogether. That was all from my piece in May. Now, I don't want that to get lost in the noise again, but it inevitably will. Although in this case, it makes a little more sense because the universal injunction ruling

is a story unto itself. Still, Trump is trying something blatantly unconstitutional, and I'm confident the Supreme Court will not allow it. Yet, it is allowing the administration to use a little court gamesmanship to fight the fights they can win. Basically, the administration is not asking whether they overstepped the line, but whether the courts are using the right tools to pull them back. I understand why this is happening, but it doesn't make it any less frustrating or alarming that it's working. With all that said, here's my lukewarm and not entirely

unique take. I think this ruling is actually pretty sensible, and I think its outcome will be positive. Using my typical two-part examination of the legal arguments and likely practical outcomes of Supreme Court cases, I think this ruling is a win on both counts, precisely because it doesn't do what the Trump administration or its opponents are claiming. I've stipulated previously that universal injunctions create all kinds of obvious problems

for both Republican and Democratic presidents. An administration could exercise its power in a way that 99% of federal judges approve of. But if opponents can find one judge in 1,000 to disagree, they can stop the administration in its tracks, not just for a day or two, but potentially months or years. At the same time, barring all universal injunctions would open the door to authoritarian action

and legal trickery that could invite more lawless presidencies. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor floated in oral arguments, one could imagine a president ordering the military to seize everyone's firearms under the guise of addressing gun violence. Was the administration really arguing that a single plaintiff or judge doesn't have the power to block such an order with a timely universal injunction? And would citizens who lost their firearms have to wait until their individual cases made their way to the Supreme Court? The majority found a reasonable answer, which seems to limit universal injunctions without stopping them altogether. In the immediate term, the majority

left open the possibility that federal judges can issue universal injunctions when their absence would create what Justice Brett Kavanaugh called an unworkable or intolerable patchwork across states, such as conveniently with birthright citizenship. Barrett sent the case at hand back down to the lower courts to determine whether a narrower injunction here is appropriate. The court further clarified that it still sees other kinds of challenges, like class action lawsuits, as appropriate ways to trigger universal injunctions. These lawsuits have more procedural hurdles to clear, but they're still quite common, and until the 21st century, they were the most common way to trigger the kind of universal injunction we are discussing now.

On top of that, though, Justice Kavanaugh said explicitly that the Supreme Court could pick up some of the authority it limited to district courts by hearing more direct appeals for universal injunctions itself. Specifically, Kavanaugh said that when the Supreme Court is asked to intervene, it quote, should not and cannot hide in the tall grass, end quote,

but must grant or deny relief as a form of nationwide guidance until the issue is resolved. Whether his colleagues share that perspective remains unclear, but it would be a notable open door for plaintiffs to seek complete relief. As Charles C.W. Cook laid out in the National Review under what the right is saying, the ruling may also trigger some longer-term fixes. Congress could start by wresting some of its power back by scratching out the reams of references to the judgment of the president or the opinion of the secretary and replace them with its own concrete

terms," he wrote, specifically using its power to regulate federal courts and define when they can issue national injunctions. I know how hard it is to imagine Congress actually doing its job right now, but spurring that kind of action wouldn't be a bad long-term outcome of this ruling. Remember, the Supreme Court did not say federal courts can't issue these injunctions. It said universal injunctions likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has given to federal courts. In other words, courts likely don't have this power, which is granted by Congress. This ruling had a lot more to unpack, from Barrett's surprisingly

scathing and probably deserved criticism of Justice Jackson to the highly unusual six opinions written for this case. But I think the real takeaway is this. The court has narrowed but not stripped the power of U.S. district courts to issue universal injunctions. It has not unleashed presidential lawlessness, and in the future, its decision will benefit a lot of the people who are screaming from the rooftops now about executive power. We obviously can't declare this ruling's lasting impact on executive power, but the Supreme Court gave Congress, state solicitors general, and even itself plenty of avenues to shape that impact in the future. Most interestingly, the order at the heart of this case,

Trump's blatantly unconstitutional attempt at ending birthright citizenship, is ripe for just the kind of universal injunction that the court has said it is open to considering. And I wouldn't be at all surprised that that challenge comes in the near future. We'll be right back after this quick break. We'll be right back after this quick break. This episode is sponsored by the OCS Summer Pre-Roll Sale.

Sometimes when you roll your own joint, things can turn out a little differently than what you expected. Maybe it's a little too loose, maybe it's a little too flimsy, or maybe it's a little too covered in dirt because your best friend distracted you and you dropped it on the ground. There's a million ways to roll a joint wrong, but there's one roll that's always perfect. The pre-roll. Shop the summer pre-roll and infuse pre-roll sale today at ocs.ca and participating retailers. Some things just take too long.

A meeting that could have been an email, which brings us to your questions answered. This one's from an anonymous reader in Syracuse, New York, who said, we hear so much about the humanitarian situation going in Gaza, but so little about other global conflicts. I know that there's a dire situation in Sudan, but I don't know how bad it is or what is causing it. Can you explain what is going on in Sudan? Okay, so we're gonna do something a little different here. This is a really big question, what's happening in Sudan.

This is a decades old conflict, but we also didn't wanna shy away from it. So we thought we would do something a little different where we devoted the next three reader questions to explaining the current civil war in Sudan. So today is part one of our response to this question. So let's start with some context. Sudan was under an international condominium

ruled by Egypt and the United Kingdom from 1899 to 1956, when the state was eventually granted independence. The Arabic and Muslim North and the predominantly Christian and African South were ruled separately, deepening divisions in the country leading to the country's first civil war, a preemptive rebellion in 1955 from the South, whose population feared marginalization as the new country's power centers were being gathered in the North, where the country's capital Khartoum and its seat of international trade, Port Sudan, are located.

The First Indonesian Civil War lasted from 1955 to 1972 and resulted in an estimated 500,000 to 1 million deaths, the majority of which were civilians. The war ended with the government agreeing to autonomy for the South, leading to decades of peace and prosperity, but setting the stage for a future war. After the discovery of oil in central Sudan in the late 1970s and following a period of war among Southern tribes,

the Islamic fundamentalist president, Ghaffar al-Numayri, established Sharia law in 1983. The act put an end to the Southern autonomous region and prompted the South to declare war. What followed was one of the longest civil wars on record, one of the deadliest wars since World War II, and the disruption that the region is still feeling to this day. Approximately two and a half million Sudanese died during the 22-year war due to violence, famine, and disease, and roughly four million more South Sudanese civilians were displaced. Partway through the war in 1989,

military officer Omar al-Bashir seized power in Sudan through a coup, beginning one of the most infamous dictatorships of the late 20th century. And in 2003, a separate conflict within Sudan's north broke out, the Darfur War. Al-Bashir's government attacked the non-Arab population in Darfur, starting with the Iashir's government attacked the non-Arab population in Darfur,

starting with the ICC has determined to be a genocide. The Darfur War did not officially end until 2020, though violence persists today. The Second Sunni Civil War ended with a peace agreement in Kenya in 2005 with oil sharing and job sharing agreements between the two sides. Furthermore, the North agreed to allow the South to once again self-govern and opt out of the North Sharia law, granting the South a six-year autonomous period before an independence vote. Then, in 2011, South Sudan voted for independence. However, the region has continued to be plagued by violence.

All right, that's the part one of our three-part series on this question. Tomorrow, we're gonna look at how Sudan's current war began. And on Wednesday, we will discuss how the war has progressed. All right. That is it for me today. I'm going to send it back to John for the rest of the pod. Remember to keep an ear out for Camille's piece, and I'll see you guys tomorrow. Have a good one. Peace.

Thanks, Isaac. Here's your under the Radar story for today, folks. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said arrests of Iranian nationals living illegally in the United States increased in June, including 130 arrests last week. Furthermore, 670 Iranian nationals are currently being held in ICE detention centers. The uptick comes amid heightened concerns about a potential sleeper cell attack following the United States' airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, and the recent arrests reportedly include a former Iranian army sniper and another Iranian national who Department of Homeland Security officials say has admitted ties to Hezbollah. ICE Director Todd Lyon said that the aftermath of the US strikes has prompted an increased focus

on migrants from Iran, and he expects this targeted enforcement approach to continue. NewsNation has this story, and there's a link in today's episode description. ["The Daily Show Theme"] All right, next up is our numbers section. The number of nationwide injunctions issued during the first 100 days of the second Trump administration is 25, according to a May 2025 CRS report.

The number of executive orders issued by President Donald Trump in the first 100 days of his second administration is 142. The number of nationwide injunctions issued under the first Trump administration was 86, according to a March 2025 CRS report. The number of injunctions issued during the first Trump administration that dealt primarily with immigration was 36,

the most of any topic. The number of injunctions that came from district courts in California was 23. The number of nationwide injunctions issued under the Biden administration was 28. The number of injunctions issued under the Biden administration that dealt primarily with immigration was 8, the most of any topic. And the number of those injunctions that came from district courts in Texas was 10. And last but not least, our Have a Nice Day story. from district courts in Texas was 10. And last but not least, our have a nice day story. E. coli is probably best known as an illness causing bacterium, but scientists at the University of Edinburgh

recently discovered it has another surprising ability. A compound of genetically modified E. coli transformed 92% of broken down plastic waste into acetaminophen, the active ingredient in pain relieving medications like Tylenol, in just 48 hours. Stephen Wallace, an engineering biologist at the University of Edinburgh, called the study an exciting sort of starting point for plastic waste upcycling. Science News has this story and there's a link in today's episode description. All right everybody, that is it for today's episode. As always, if you'd like to support our work,

please go to reetangle.com where you can sign up for a newsletter membership, podcast membership, or a bundled membership that gets you a discount on both. We'll be right back here tomorrow. For Isaac and the rest of the crew, this is John Law signing off. Have a great day, all. Peace. to the crew. This is John Law signing off. Have a great day, all. Peace. Our executive editor and founder is me, Isaac Saul, and our executive producer is John Law. Today's episode was edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Our editorial staff is led by managing editor Ari Weitzman with senior editor Will K. Back and associate editors Hunter Kaspersen, Audrey Morehead, Bailey Saul, Lindsay Knuth, and Kendall White. Music for the podcast was produced by Dyett75.

To learn more about Tangle and to sign up for a membership, please visit our website at retangle.com. This episode is sponsored by the OCS Summer Pre-Roll Sale. Sometimes, when you roll your own joint, things can turn out a little differently than what you expected. Maybe it's a little too loose. Maybe it's a little too flimsy. Or maybe it's a little too covered in dirt because your best friend distracted you when you dropped it on the ground. There's a million ways to roll a joint wrong, but there's one roll that's always perfect. The pre-roll. Shop the summer pre-roll and infuse pre-roll sale today at ocs.ca and participating retailers.

Some things just take too long. A meeting that could have been an email, someone explaining crypto, or switching mobile providers. Except with Fizz. Switching to Fizz is quick and easy. Mobile plans start at $17 a month. Certain conditions apply. Details at fizz.ca.