UNBIASED - UNBIASED Politics (2/10/25): NIH Cuts Funding, DOGE Unable to Access Treasury Records, Trump's Anti-Christian Bias and Second Amendment Orders, IRS Agents to Enforce Immigration Laws, and More.

Episode Date: February 10, 2025

Get the facts, without the spin. UNBIASED offers a clear, impartial recap of US news, including politics, elections, legal news, and more. Hosted by lawyer Jordan Berman, each episode provides a recap of current political events plus breakdowns of complex concepts—like constitutional rights, recent Supreme Court rulings, and new legislation—in an easy-to-understand way. No personal opinions, just the facts you need to stay informed on the daily news that matters. If you miss how journalism used to be, you're in the right place. In today's episode: Federal Buyout Offer Update (0:36) Judge Says DOGE Can't Access Treasury Records At All and Must Destroy All Downloaded Data (4:37) Trump Administration Sued Over Rule Requiring "M" or "F" Sex Designation on Passport (8:14) National Institutes of Health Cuts Indirect Funding Rates; 22 States Sue (13:02) Trump Instructs Treasury Dept. to Stop Minting Pennies (20:05) DHS Secretary Tasks Treasury Secretary with Deputizing IRS Agents to Help With Immigration Enforcement (24:53) Trump Signs "Protecting Second Amendment Rights" Order (27:38) Trump Signs "Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias" Order (29:48) Quick Hitters: Trump Declares 'Gulf of America' Day, Set to Impose Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum, Judge Says Migrants Can't Be Sent to Guantanamo (35:45) Listen/Watch this episode AD-FREE on Patreon. Watch this episode on YouTube. Follow Jordan on Instagram and TikTok. All sources for this episode can be found here.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You hear that? Ugh, paid. And done. That's the sound of bills being paid on time. But with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card, paying your bills could sound like this. Earn rewards for paying your bill in full and on time each month. Rise to rewards with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card.

Terms and conditions apply. Welcome back to Unbiased, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis. Welcome back to Unbiased Politics. Today is Thursday, February 10th. Let's talk about some news. The theme of today's episode is really administration changes and the lawsuits that have followed. I realized in writing out all of these stories that was just the general theme. administration changes and the lawsuits that have followed. I realized in writing out all of these stories,

that was just the general theme. You will see as we go, most of the stories today are about changes, modifications, memos, et cetera, that the Trump administration has recently issued, and then the lawsuits that have been filed in response to those things. So without further ado, let's get into today's stories, starting with this update to the federal buyout offer. And more so it's really just a heads up

because a judge is supposed to be issuing a ruling today. As of 3 p.m. Eastern time, that ruling had not been released, but I wanna catch you up to speed just so you know what's going on when that ruling does ultimately come out. About two weeks ago, I told you that the Office of Management and Budget had sent out this email to roughly two million federal employees titled Fork in the Road, and it essentially offered them

full pay and benefits through September if they accepted this deferred resignation by February 6th. Well then, this past Thursday, in the Quick Hitter segment, I quickly mentioned that a judge had pushed that February 6th deadline to today so he could consider what's called a temporary restraining order in the meantime. And like I said, today the judge is supposed to decide whether that temporary restraining order is issued. And if it is, it would essentially block the administration from terminating the employment of the individuals that have accepted the offer. But if the temporary restraining order is not issued, then the administration can carry on with its plan and terminate the employment of those individuals that have accepted the

offer. So all of this stems from one, that fork in the road offer, and two, a subsequent lawsuit that was filed by the American Federation of Government Employees and several other unions. In that lawsuit, they asked the judge to block the February 6th deadline. And instead of this fork in the road offer, they wanted the judge to order the government to put forth what they call a lawful policy rather than what they call this arbitrary short-fused ultimatum, which goes beyond the scope of the president's authority, lacks congressionally appropriated funding, and doesn't offer the employees reassurance

that the president would actually follow through with the offer if something were to happen to government funding in March. So to break those arguments down just a little bit, we're not going to spend too much time here, but I do want to break those down just a little bit. The arbitrary argument goes back to what's called the Administrative Procedure Act, which among other things says that the federal agencies can't take actions or can't create rules that are arbitrary and capricious or lack sound and justified reasoning and backing. And this is the law that usually all agency actions are challenged under, regardless of who's in office. You'll hear me talk about it

in many other stories today. The congressional funding argument stems from this idea that the executive branch doesn't have the authority to promise payments without explicit congressional authority because certain laws prohibit financial commitments without allocated funds from Congress. And then finally, the argument that the president may not follow through on the offer ties back to the fact that current funding deadlines are approaching on March 14th, which means that if certain agencies have to shut down until more funding is appropriated by Congress, there's no guarantee that their salaries will be funded during this time if they do accept this deferred resignation offer.

So ultimately, the judge, like I said, put the fork in the road offer on hold until today so that he could review these arguments more in the interim. And today he is supposed to decide whether to issue that temporary restraining order, which would stay in effect until both parties appear before the court for actual oral arguments. And at that point, the judge would make a final decision on the matter that could take weeks,

it could even take months. So now at least you know once that decision comes out, you know where this case stands, you know what we're kind of expecting, and therefore if I don't publish an episode for the next two days, which I won't, you won't hear from me again until Thursday, at least you'll understand the gist of what's going on. Moving on to another federal agency update from the weekend. Remember when we talked about DOJ's access to Treasury Department payment systems? And then on Thursday, I told you that a judge had signed off on an agreement between the Trump administration and federal labor union employees, which said that two Treasury Department employees who are affiliated with DOGE could retain access

to Treasury Department payment systems, but that they couldn't share any sensitive information with anyone outside of the department. Well, then on Saturday, a judge in a separate lawsuit went a step further and blocked even those two Treasury Department employees from accessing the Treasury Department payment system. So I wanna talk about what this new ruling means

and also highlight the fact that there are multiple lawsuits against Doge challenging Doge's access to these Treasury Department payment systems and that each of these two updates that we've talked about in the last week or so, including the one we're gonna talk about today, are out of two different courts, yet they both still have binding effect.

So one lawsuit was filed by three federal employees unions against the Trump administration to prevent the Treasury Department from sharing confidential information with Doge. That's the lawsuit where we saw the agreement signed by the judge last week. And again, under the terms of that agreement, two Treasury Department employees, who are both affiliated with Doge, were allowed to retain read-only access to the Treasury Department payment systems, but could not share that information with anyone outside the department. The other lawsuit was filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James and 18 other Democratic State Attorneys General. That lawsuit was filed against President Trump, Doge, the Treasury Department, and the Treasury

Secretary, and it alleges that Doge's access to Treasury Department payment systems is both unconstitutional and unlawful. That is the case in which we just got the ruling over the weekend, which says Doge cannot access Treasury Department payment systems at all, even the two Treasury Department employees that were previously allowed to retain read-only access, and that any information downloaded off the system since January 20th, Inauguration Day, has to be destroyed. A couple of things to keep in mind here.

Like I said, these updates stem from two different cases out of two different courts. With that said, whichever order or ruling is more extensive is the one the parties have to abide by. So while last week's agreement said that the two Treasury Department employees can still retain access to Treasury Department payment systems, this more recent ruling goes further and says, no, no, no, even those two Treasury Department employees cannot access Treasury Department records due to their affiliation with DOGE and any information that's been downloaded off the Treasury Department payment systems since Inauguration Day has to be deleted. Now it's unclear what if any information has been downloaded off the payment systems because

like I've said, those two Treasury Department employees were given read only access. So we don't even know if they were able to download anything, but if they were able to, it has to be deleted per this new ruling. So that's the update there, no access to Treasury Department payment systems, at least until one of the two judges issues a, you know, a contradictory ruling or a ruling,

whether it's contradictory or not. And we know that there is another hearing coming up on Friday, so we'll see what happens there. But it is looking like the judge will uphold the block on Doge's access to Treasury Department payment systems. In some other news, the Trump administration has been sued over one of the president's recent executive orders, which says that the State Department cannot issue passports with an ex-gender designation. As we know, the president recently signed various executive orders regarding gender identity and sexual orientation,

and one of those orders, titled Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government, says that the government is to recognize two sexes, male and female, and that the government is to use the word sex rather than gender for government purposes. Among the various directives laid out in the order, one of those directives was for the State Department, which said that the State Department had to assign either a male or female sex designation on an individual's passport and that the designation has to be consistent with that person's biological sex. And additionally, the State Department could not use the ex-designation as the department

had previously allowed. So in 2021, the State Department began allowing passport applicants to self-identify as either male or female without needing medical certification or any sort of additional documentation. And shortly thereafter, the State Department began issuing ex-gender markers for intersex or non-binary applicants. Trump's new order, though, does away with both of those changes. So the new lawsuit filed by seven individuals says that the passport policy is unlawful and unconstitutional. It discriminates against individuals based on their sex and as to some their transgender status.

It is motivated by impermissible animus. It cannot be justified under any level of judicial scrutiny and it wrongly seeks to erase the reality that transgender, intersex, and non-binary people exist today as they always have. And in saying this, the plaintiffs allege that the rule, this new passport policy, violates the First and Fifth Amendments of the Constitution, as well as the Administrative Procedure Act, which is that law we just talked about that basically tells the government how it can create new rules. So to dive a little deeper, the lawsuit says that the passport policy violates the First Amendment because the First Amendment says that the government cannot require a person to convey a message with which they disagree. But according to the plaintiffs, the passport policy forces transgender people and people who do not identify as either male or female to either forgo having a passport or express

the government's message, which is a message they strongly disagree with. The Fifth Amendment claim stems from the Equal Protection Clause of the Fifth Amendment, as well as the right to travel and the right to privacy. When it comes to the Equal Protection Clause, the plaintiffs say that they are being treated differently than everyone else based on their sex and transgender status. The right to travel argument stems from the fact that these people may identify with a sex that is different than what's on their passport due to this new rule, and therefore the authenticity of their passports may be questioned in other countries,

or worse, their passports may be confiscated or they may face arrest and imprisonment in countries where it is illegal to be transgender. Because of this, this rule violates the right to travel and to move freely. The right to privacy issue stems from the idea that the plaintiffs have a right to maintain intimate information as private and that requiring transgender, non-binary, and intersex people to be

identified as either male or female when that's not the sex that they live as and express themselves as reveals private intimate and sensitive information about them to others without their consent. And then finally, the argument that the new passport policy violates the APA or the Administrative Procedure Act originates from the idea that federal rules cannot go against the Constitution. They cannot be arbitrary and capricious, otherwise unfounded, and that they have to provide a 60-day notice and public comment period before they actually take effect. In other words, the plaintiff say that

because this new rule violates the Constitution, because there's no real basis for it, and because the government didn't provide that 60-day notice and comment period before putting the rule into effect, the rule must be struck down. So from here, the Trump administration will have to file a response with their own arguments

as to why the rule should be upheld and we'll likely see this move up through the courts over the next few months and potentially make its way to the Supreme Court. But let's take our first break here. When we come back, we still have a lot more to get to. Welcome back. Moving on to yet another administration announcement and subsequent lawsuits, the NIH or National

Institutes of Health announced over the weekend a reduction in funding for what is called indirect funding. And today, 22 states filed a lawsuit against the administration. So I want to talk quickly about what the funding cut means because a lot of people have concerns about these funding cuts specifically when it comes to health and research related issues. But I also wanna then get into why this lawsuit was filed

by the 22 states and what they allege. Quick reminder, the NIH is a federal agency within the Department of Health and Human Services. It serves as the country's medical research agency. In it there are 27 institutes and centers and each focus on a specific area of medical research. As examples, the National Cancer Institute is one of the 27. The National Eye Institute is another. The National Institute on Aging is another one. Each of these institutes receives a separate appropriation from Congress, and a good chunk of the money they receive

goes to what's called intramural research, which is research within the NIH. But actually about 80 to 85% of the NIH budget supports extramural research, which is research conducted outside the NIH. To put numbers into perspective, in fiscal year 2023, the NIH issued $34.9 billion through just under 60,000 grant awards, which supported research at roughly 2,700 universities, hospitals, small businesses, and organizations. So what happens is these universities, hospitals, small businesses, and organizations

will apply for grants for particular research through one of the 27 institutes that relates most closely to their research topic. And from there, the director of each institute will decide which grants that that particular institute will fund. Now, when these places or entities receive a federal NIH grant, let's say it's a million dollars per year, the place that houses the research, whether it be a hospital or a university, whatever, will receive an additional percentage for what are called indirect costs. And this is things like administrative support, IT infrastructure, accounting, building maintenance, et cetera. And these rates are negotiated between the granting institute and the university or research institution that's housing the research. Up until now, these indirect funding rates would

be on average around 27% of the total grant award but could get as high as almost 70% for certain universities and hospitals like Harvard and Yale. So this new announcement that was made over the weekend caps the rate for indirect funding at 15% of the total grant award. Currently about 9 billion of that roughly 35 billion number I gave you for grants in fiscal year 2023 was allocated to indirect costs. So the NIH is saying that the new cap of 15% will save about $4 billion annually, which means that indirect funding will be closer to 5 billion of the total grant awards rather than nine billion. But again, it all depends on what the total grant

award amount is. And again, keep in mind that indirect funding covers operational expenses that are needed for research, but not directly tied to the actual research, right? So again, things like IT infrastructure, building maintenance, administrative support, et cetera. Whereas direct funding, which was not affected by this memo at all, covers costs directly related to the research project.

So salaries for researchers and lab assistants, equipment, materials, travel expenses, etc. In coming to this decision, the NIH's Office of Policy for Extramural Research Administration, or OPRRA, said that it arrived at the 15% indirect rate by looking at the indirect cost rates at various private foundations that fund research grants. Things like the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the John Templeton Foundation, and the Gates Foundation, which all have maximum indirect cost rates of between 10 to 15 percent. In its memo, the NIH wrote, quote, The United States should have the best medical research in the world. It is accordingly vital to ensure that as many funds as possible go towards direct scientific

research costs rather than administrative overhead. And this change took effect today. Now, to quickly give you the other perspective, the University of Connecticut released a statement following the NIH's decision, which says in part, quote, NIH is reducing its indirect recovery rate to 15% on current and future grants effective Monday, which represents a substantial decrease from our current negotiated rate of 61% for the university and 66.5% for the hospital. If implemented as announced, this change will impair our ability to produce innovative research that benefits all parts of society and place a significant financial strain on the university. There are still many unknowns, like whether there will be any actions to pause implementation

and whether other federal agencies will follow suit. We, along with our colleagues across the country, are quickly assessing the full impact of this change and anticipate this change likely will be legally challenged. The Association of American Medical Colleges also released a statement saying this decision by the NIH was harmful and counterproductive and would diminish the nation's research capacity. So, in line with these perspectives, 22 states filed a lawsuit today, arguing that the rate cap violates the Administrative Procedure Act, which we should be familiar with at this point in the episode. For one, the states argued that the rate change is arbitrary and capricious because the notice

from the NIH failed to identify a basis for the rate cap, because it failed to account for the substantial reliance interest grant recipients have in terms of grants awarded, because it failed to recognize the practical consequences of the cap, and more. The lawsuit also says that the rate cut goes against federal law because there's a 2024 law called the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2024, which says that in making federal financial assistance, the provisions related to indirect costs shall continue to apply to the NIH to the same extent and in the same manner as such provisions were applied in the third quarter of fiscal year 2017.

In other words, Congress would need to pass a new law that revokes the current law in order for the NIH to modify provisions related to indirect costs, something Congress has not done yet, and therefore the plaintiffs say this new rate cut is unlawful. As with any lawsuit, and as we talked about in the previous lawsuits we've talked about in this episode, the Trump administration will now have to file a response explaining why the rate cut should stand and this, like all the other lawsuits, will have to play out in the courts. Now for the next story, President Trump said last night that he has directed the Treasury Department to stop minting new pennies. So last night the president wrote on Truth Social, for far too long the United States has

minted pennies which literally cost us more than two cents. This is so wasteful. I have instructed my secretary of the US Treasury to stop producing new pennies. Let's rip the waste out of our great nation's budget even if it's a penny at a time." Last month, Doge shared a similar message on X, writing, The penny costs over three cents to make and costs. taxpayers over $179 million in fiscal year 2023. The Mint produced over 4.5 billion pennies in fiscal year 2023, around 40% of the 11.4 billion coins for circulation produced. And we'll touch on those numbers a bit more in a minute, but going back to 1989, lawmakers and presidents have been saying the same thing. In 1989, a law was introduced to round cash transactions to the nearest nickel, though

that did not pass. And more recently in 2013, President Obama said that anytime we're spending more money on something that people don't actually use, that's an example of something we should probably change, referring to the penny. So here's the thing. The mint loses money on the penny and the nickel, for that matter, to the penny. So here's the thing. The mint loses money on the penny and the nickel, for that matter, and the penny remains the highest share of coins minted. In 2024, the number of pennies minted accounted for 57% of all coins produced that year. And while

it's true that the penny is the third largest annual revenue generator when it comes to coin revenue, penny revenue is really not much when compared to the quarter which is the biggest revenue generator. The penny generates roughly 32 million dollars in annual revenue for the mint. The dime, which is the second largest annual revenue generator, generates about 84 million in annual revenue. And the quarter generates almost all coin revenue, bringing in just over $400 million annually. In its 2024 annual report, the US Mint reported losing $85.3 million on nearly 3.2 billion pennies that it produced in fiscal year 2024. It noted that every penny costs almost 4 cents to produce, which is up from 3 cents the year before. The

nickel, which obviously isn't too relevant to the story, but it's an interesting fact, cost nearly 14 cents to make, despite it only being worth 5. If the United States were to discontinue the penny, and we'll talk about what would have to happen, but it would join many other countries who have done away with their 1 cent coins. Canada stopped minting its one cent coin in 2012. Australia stopped minting its one and two cent coins in 1992. Switzerland stopped producing its one cent coin in 2006. The Bahamas stopped in 2020. Basically the only countries still using a one cent coin are us and the UK.

In fact, when Canada stopped producing its penny in 2012, its production cost was 1.6 cents per penny, which is obviously way lower than what the production cost currently is here in the United States. And for the last 19 years, the cost of producing the penny has exceeded the actual value of the penny. So to many people, the idea of eliminating the penny makes total sense. You know, why produce a coin that costs more to make than it's actually worth. But for purposes of sharing both sides of the coin, get it, if you're watching on YouTube, you saw the wink that I just threw in there.

But basically, the arguments for keeping the penny stem really from charitable concerns. Charities often rely on people giving their spare change for a cause. You know, these charity boxes we see at store checkouts or the buckets that are held by the on-street collectors. And without spare change, the charities would suffer. There's also the importance of spare change to those that are homeless. As we know, people are more likely to give their coins to a homeless person rather than giving bills. But

these arguments actually more so apply to coins generally, not necessarily specific to pennies, because even without pennies, we'd still have spare change, but just not as much. Spare change would still exist though. But some say too that eliminating the penny wouldn't actually save money, but instead make it so more nickels would have to be produced to compensate for the elimination of pennies. And as we talked about, nickels cost more to produce than pennies do. So the argument is that eliminating pennies would actually cost more due to an increased demand for nickels.

Now, as far as what would have to happen for penny production to actually come to a halt, it's possible that the Treasury Secretary has the authority to pause new penny production, but full discontinuation of the penny would most likely require an act of Congress. So stay tuned there. If anything develops, you know, I'll keep you updated.

But for now, let's take our second and final break of the episode and I'll be right back to discuss a few new executive orders and some quick hitters. Welcome back. In some other Treasury Department news, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has asked the Treasury Secretary Scott Besant to deputize law enforcement workers from the IRS, including IRS criminal investigators to assist in immigration enforcement. In a memo, Noem requested Besant provide IRS criminal investigators who typically help

investigate things like financial flows involving human trafficking networks, investigate criminal tax evasion, investigate businesses that employ illegal immigrants, and more to now help arrest, detain, and transport individuals. The memo to the Treasury Secretary follows an earlier similar memo to the DOJ which granted immigration enforcement authority to agencies within the DOJ like the DEA, the ATF, and the U.S. Marshals Service. So the IRS Criminal Investigation Division has about 2,300 special agents, and that's according to the most recent annual report. This is up about 10% from 2022 when Congress expanded the IRS and gave it more resources, a move that Republicans opposed at the time of passage. Now, IRS criminal investigators are

actual law enforcement officers. They're different than the IRS revenue agents and revenue officers, which we typically think of when we think of the IRS. IRS criminal investigators can actually make arrests and carry firearms just like other federal agents. And this is because they're investigating crimes like criminal tax evasion, and they often work very closely with the FBI. But you might be wondering, how do federal agents just obtain immigration enforcement authority? Well, under federal law, the DHS, Department of Homeland Security, can enter into agreements with state, local, and federal law enforcement agencies, which deputize selected officers to perform certain functions of federal immigration agents.

As of December 2024, ICE, which is an immigration enforcement agency within the DHS, had agreements with 135 state or local law enforcement agencies across 21 states for those law enforcement agencies to act as immigration enforcement agencies. Since Trump took office last month, the DHS has expanded the immigration enforcement authority to federal agencies as well, like the DOJ and now the Treasury. Notably though, the recent memo to the Treasury Secretary did not actually deputize the specific IRS agents as the administration has done with other federal agents, but instead left the deputizing task for the Treasury Secretary, which means that the Treasury Secretary will determine which agents will inherit this immigration enforcement authority and then provide that authority accordingly.

Okay, now let's talk about a few recent executive orders that many of you had had questions, have had questions about. The first is titled, protecting second amendment rights, and the second is titled, eradicating anti-Christian bias. We'll start with the second amendment rights order, and then we'll talk about the anti-Christian bias order. Remember, and I can't say this enough,

an executive order consists of directives for officials, agencies, and departments within the executive branch. It's not a law in the sense that it's binding on citizens. As we've talked about, each executive order comes with a purpose and then a directive or directives for the federal government to carry out that purpose. In this case, the purpose of the protecting Second Amendment rights order is to protect Second Amendment rights and ensure that the right to keep and bear arms is not infringed.

To carry out that purpose, the order directs the attorney general to review all orders, regulations, guidance, plans, international agreements, and any other actions of executive departments and agencies to determine whether they infringe upon the Second Amendment. And then once that review is done, present a plan to the president to protect the Second Amendment rights of Americans.

To give you some more specific things though that the Attorney General is to review, these things include all presidential and agency actions from January, 2021 through January, 2025. So, you know, the time that President Biden was in office, reports and related documents issued by the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, agencies classifications of firearms and ammunition,

the processing of applicants to make, manufacture, transfer or export arms and more. So once that review is done, once all of these things are looked at and the findings are presented to the president, the administration will likely work to undo the regulations and rules that it finds to violate the Second Amendment.

And we will likely see lots of lawsuits stem from that, but only time will tell. This is just what we know from the order as of now and what the order directs the attorney general to do. The second executive order, which was signed on the same day as the one we just talked about, is the eradicating anti-Christian bias order. Again, the order presents a purpose and then directives.

So the purpose of the order is to protect the religious freedoms of Americans and end the anti-Christian weaponization of the government. And we'll get into the directives in a second, but this order actually came with a bit more context than the Second Amendment order, so I do want to take a second to explain the rationale a bit more. In writing the order, President Trump cited to a few instances by the Biden DOJ, which he calls anti-Christian weaponization of government. The first example that was given in this order is this. There were a few individuals who were arrested and charged for protesting outside of abortion clinics. Now, these people were charged under

what's called the FACE Act or the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. And what this law does is it prohibits threats of force, obstruction, and property damage intended to interfere with reproductive health care services. And despite the intended effect of this law being to protect abortion clinics, this law can actually apply not only to abortion clinics, but also pro-life pregnancy resource centers as well. And that's because the law simply says, wherever reproductive health care services are provided, you cannot threaten forced obstruction or property damage. So while Biden was president, multiple people faced charges for participating in a blockade outside a Tennessee abortion clinic, as well as in DC. And Trump says that these arrests were politically motivated and he has since pardoned these individuals. So

that was the first example cited too in this executive order. The order also claims that religious freedom on college campuses were targeted by the Biden Department of Education, that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission aimed to force Christians into affirming radical transgender ideology and that the Department of Health and Human Services tried to force Christians out of the foster care system if they did not conform to certain ideas of gender and sexuality. And this references a September 2023 HHS proposed rule that it was never finalized, but it would have required child protective agencies to place LGBTQ children in homes that were free from harm and hostility based on their identity. And there's a lot of other instances of what Trump refers to as anti-Christian

bias from the Biden administration, but I'm just covering a few to give you the general gist because like I said, this is context that we didn't get in the second amendment order. The second amendment order was relatively short. This one's a little longer. There's a bit more of a rationale. So I'm just trying to give you the general gist. Now, as far as the directives go, President Trump says to carry out the order's purpose of eradicating anti-Christian bias, he is establishing a task force within the DOJ, which is to be chaired by the Attorney General and made up of other cabinet members and appointed officials. And that task force will have to evaluate agencies and identify and revoke any policies and practices that they deem to be anti-Christian. This task force is also directed

to create reports of their findings within 120 days and in two years the task force will dissolve unless extended by the president and at that time the task force will submit a final report of its findings. The ultimate goal is to do away with any policies and practices that the task force finds to be anti-christian. Now a lot of people have written in to me with questions specifically about the separation of church and state and how that might come into play here. And there are a couple of things worth noting. One, the principle of separation of church and state actually is not in the constitution. Many people don't know that. But the separation of church and state is a principle that stems from the first amendment, which prohibits the establishment of religion, it prohibits actions that unduly favor

one religion over another, and it protects the free exercise of religion. So over time, courts have interpreted the First Amendment to carry this idea of separation of church and state, which is the principle that the government should not interfere with religion, whether that's by establishing a national religion, whether that's by favoring one religion over another, or whether that's by excessively involving itself in religious practices. Now the reason I say that it's not explicitly in the Constitution is because that means there is no bright line rule for when it comes to what religious practices

are allowed in the government and how far the government is able to entangle itself with religion. Even the founding fathers disagreed as to the exact meaning of no establishment under the First Amendment. It's why there are religious phrases all over government buildings, including the Supreme Court, yet teaching from the Bible in public schools is not allowed, though that's also something being challenged right now too.

The lack of a bright line rule essentially means that it is up to the courts to determine on a case-by-case basis what crosses that unspoken threshold of too much entanglement. So all this to say that if this executive order were legally challenged, it would be up to the courts to decide whether the order is permissible under the First Amendment or whether the order goes too far in favoring Christianity over other religions. In other words, whether establishing this anti-Christian biased task force favors Christianity over other religions to the point where the task force itself violates the First Amendment. What we could also see happen is depending on what the task force comes back with and

what policies and practices are ultimately done away with, maybe those specific actions would be legally challenged and then the courts would have to decide on a case by case basis which actions violate the Establishment Clause of the Constitution and which do not. But all of this will play out in time just like everything else. Now let's finish with some quick hitters. President Trump signed a proclamation today announcing the first ever Gulf of America Day. Note that this is not a federal holiday because the establishment of a federal holiday requires

an act of Congress. Presidents often sign these proclamations announcing these kinds of public holidays, but really not much changes. Other public holidays that have been created by presidential proclamation include Religious Freedom Day, National Maritime Day, Loyalty Day, Transgender Day Visibility, Family Day, the list goes on. In other news related to President Trump, he has said that he intends to impose 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, as well as some reciprocal and retaliatory tariffs. But we don't know that much as of 2 p.m. Eastern time today.

So I will refrain from making it a full story until there's more to cover. I just wanted to give you the heads up. And finally, a federal judge in New Mexico has blocked ICE from sending three Venezuelan migrants to Guantanamo Bay. As we've talked about in recent weeks, the Trump administration has been sending migrants to Guantanamo Bay, the holding facility there for purposes of detainment. However, the lawyer for these three migrants told a court that while the detainees fit the profile for those that the administration has prioritized for detention in Guantanamo, that being Venezuelan men with quote unquote false charges of connections

to a Venezuelan gang, the mere uncertainty surrounding the availability of legal process and counsel access is sufficient to block ICE's attempt to send the migrants to Guantanamo. The judge ultimately agreed with the attorney and issued a temporary injunction, but the judge will hear more arguments in the weeks to come and make a more permanent determination. And this applies to those three migrants, by the way, it's not a total ban on sending migrants to Guantanamo. That is what I have for you today. Thank you so much for being here.

As always, have a fantastic next couple of days and I will talk to you again on Thursday.