Transcript
Alison Gill (0:00)
MSW Media hello and welcome to the Daily beans for Friday, May 30, 2025. Today, the International Trade Court paused Trump's tariffs, but Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily stopped the pause. Paramount has offered $15 million to settle its CBS lawsuit over the Kamala Harris interview, but Trump wants more. The White House health report included fake citations. A federal judge has extended the block on Trump's bid to block international students from Harvard. The US Says it will start revoking visas for Chinese students. Trump's Air Force One deal with Qatar is long from being finalized. Trump has clawed back about $700 million from health and Human Services that was planned to develop a bird flu vaccine. And the man who threatened Democratic election officials in Colorado has been sentenced to three years in prison. I'm your host, Alison Gill. Hey, everybody, Happy Friday. We are on a countdown clock to Dana's return. I'm so very excited. Yeah. Thank you so much for hanging out with me this week. Today, I'll be joined by John Fugelsang for Fugal Sang Fridays on the Daily Beans. Also, we got a ton of patrons buying one year subscriptions for strangers. So if you want to be the recipient of one of those gifts, head to DailyBeansPod.com and click on Patrons Helping Patrons. It's right there on the front page. And if you want to sign up to be a sustaining member and get all the perks, you can head to patreon.com mullershiro thank you so much. Also, we are on the countdown to the June 14th no Kings rally. I'll be hosting one here in San Diego along with Indivisible 50 51, Women's March SD and all sorts of other wonderful Democratic clubs down at the waterfront, the county administration building. So come and join us. And then we talk for a couple minutes and then we march, right? We march for about a little over a mile through downtown San Diego. I'm looking forward to it very much, Lee. All right. We have a lot of news to get to today. Let's hit the hot notes. Hot notes. All right. Let me see if I can break down what's happening with tariffs. Besides taco, right? Besides Trump always chickening out, which is, by the way, made me want tacos all week. I might have some tacos tonight. I'm not a lawyer, so if I get any of this wrong, please let me know. But I've read through the rulings and this is, you know, talk to some experts. This is what I've come up with. There's two cases, one filed by a bunch of state attorneys general in the Court of international trade, the SIT, the CIT, and there's one filed by four small businesses in the D.C. district Court. Now, in both cases, the judges blocked Trump's tariffs. Now, in the one brought by the state attorneys general in the Court of International Trade, a law professor at UMich named Julian Davis Mortensen explains that there's two types of tariffs at issue. The balance of trade tariffs. Those are the sweeping tariffs Trump slapped on basically everyone, including penguins, and the cartel tariffs, the ones against Mexico, Canada, and China for failure to stop fentanyl from coming into the United States. The International Trade Court says neither is authorized by the ieepa. That's the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. That is what Trump is relying on to be able to issue these sweeping tariffs. Now, it's a pretty broad statute, but the judges here in both cases don't like the fact that they broadly applied it. They didn't, you know, get into the nitty gritty of how it is applied. So in the one brought by the state attorneys general, the sit, the Court of International Trade blocked the tariffs. In the other case, this the case that's being brought by the four small businesses in the D.C. circuit, I thought surely the Trade Court is the proper venue, because I don't know anything about trade law and not the D.C. district Court. But Obama appointee Judge Rudolph Contreras says that because the IEEPA doesn't even talk about tariffs, and because Trump is trying to use the IEEPA to justify his tariffs, he actually has jurisdiction. He notes that the IEEPA doesn't even include the word tariff, and it's more for when the president needs to regulate or control imports and exports. And regulating does not equal taxing. There are tons of other laws controlling taxes, and the IEEPA is not one of them. So he issued a preliminary injunction blocking the tariffs as unconstitutional because only Congress gets to approve tariffs. And since he has jurisdiction and he thinks the plaintiffs have a good chance on the merits and there's public interest, he granted the preliminary injunction blocking the tariffs. Now, the government. Trump appealed this to the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. The Federal Circuit is different than the other circuits, like the Fifth Circuit or the Ninth Circuit or the D.C. circuit. This is the Federal Circuit, and it handles cases from the Trade Court and other federal stuff like patents. There's, like, 13 different things they handle. They consolidated both of these tariff cases together into one. For the purposes of this. Stay up. For the purposes of this appeal, I should say, and they put a seven day temporary stay on these rulings by the Court of International trade and the D.C. district Court, temporarily reinstating Trump's tariffs while they figure out what to do pending appeal. Now, the appeals court gave the plaintiffs, a group that includes state attorneys general and a handful of domestic businesses, one week to respond to the administration's bid for a stay pending appeal. The US will be able to reply to that response by June 9th. Now, again, I'm not a lawyer, so if I got any of that wrong, if we have any international trade court or tariff lawyers or judges or experts that listen to the beans, please let me know. All right. Next up, more court news from Politico. A federal judge on Thursday extended her block on the Trump administration's bid to prevent Harvard University from enrolling foreign students. This is U.S. district Judge Allison Burrows. She announced her plan during a court hearing shortly after the administration revealed that it was actually going to give the university a 30 day reprieve before canceling its authority to admit students from abroad. That reprieve does not eliminate the need for a court order barring the administration from taking action against Harvard. That's what Judge Burrows said, quote, I know you don't think an order is necessary, but I do think an order is necessary. That's what the judge told a government lawyer. I don't think it needs to be draconian, but I want to make sure that nothing changes. The hearing took place in Burrow's Boston courtroom as Harvard's annual commencement ceremonies were underway just a few miles away in Cambridge's Harvard yard. The case is the most prominent battle in a broader effort by the Trump administration to crack down on international students. On Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. plans to, quote, aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students at American universities. But the administration has singled out Harvard, threatening to cancel its federal funding and eliminate its entire foreign student population, which makes up about 27% of the student body. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem notified Harvard last week that the administration was canceling the school's certification in the Student and Exchange Visitor program, which is what allows institutions to enroll foreign students. In a May 22 letter to the university, Noem said the cancellation was effective immediately. The next day, Burrows issued an emergency order, temporary restraining order, blocking that move and scheduled the hearing for today, Thursday to consider further arguments. Shortly before that hearing, like I said, the administration filed a letter with the court revealing that it's no longer trying to immediately impose the cancellation. Instead, the administration said, we'll wait 30 days and give Harvard a chance to submit evidence to contest the cancellation. So Taco Taco Trump always chickens out. But Burroughs, the judge and Obama appointee, said during the hearing that that letter saying we'll give you 30 days was not enough to give her confidence that the administration wouldn't take other steps in the meantime. So such as holding up visas for Harvard students. So Judge Burrows indefinitely extended her temporary restraining order while the lawyers for both sides negotiate over a potential injunction that would preserve the status quo while the case moves forward. All right, next up from the Associated Press, a judge sentenced a man who blamed exposure to far right extremist content for causing his online threats to kill Democratic election officials in Colorado and Arizona. He's been sentenced to three years in prison, and that was on Thursday, saying the penalty for such keyboard terrorism needs to be serious enough to deter others from doing the same. This is U.S. district Judge Cato Cruz, who said the threats against election and other government officials are on the rise and people need to remember that differences need to be worked out through the democratic process and not violence. Quote, the public must not accept this as the norm, he said in handing down the sentence for Tei Brockbank. Brockbank pled guilty in October to making threats between September 2021 and August 2022 against Colorado Secretary of State Jenna Griswold, who's been on our show, and former Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, who's now the governor. He also threatened a Colorado judge and federal agents. So three years in prison for you. Next up from the Wall Street Journal. A month into negotiations between Paramount Global and Trump to settle his lawsuit against cbs, the parties remain far apart on the terms Paramount Global in recent days has offered $15 million to settle. According to people familiar. Trump's team wants more than 25 million and is also seeking an apology from CBS. Trump's team has threatened another lawsuit against CBS related to alleged bias of its news coverage. Wednesday is the deadline for Trump to respond to Paramount's motion to dismiss the lawsuit. Trump's lawsuit against Paramount. CBS News alleges the network deceitfully edited a 60 Minutes interview with Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris to make her sound better and seeks $20 billion in damages. 20 billion. CBS has said the broadcast was not doctored or deceitful. The parties have discussed a tentative mediation session set for yesterday. Thursday. And in other news from Reuters, the Trump administration has canceled a contract awarded to Moderna Moderna for a development of its bird flu vaccine for humans, as well as the right to purchase shots that's what the drug maker announced on Wednesday shares of Moderna were flat after the market closed. Now Moderna in January was awarded about 600 million by the Biden administration to advance the development of its bird flu vaccine and support the expansion of clinical studies for up to five additional subtypes of pandemic influenza. This was in addition to 175 million awarded by the U.S. department of Health and Human Services last year to complete the late stage development and testing of a pre pandemic mRNA based vaccine against H5N1 avian flu. HHS told Reuters earlier this year it was reviewing agreements made by the Biden administration for vaccine production. Quote the cancellation means that the government is discarding what could be one of the most effective and rapid tools to combat an avian flu outbreak. That is what Amesh Ajala said, a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins center for Health, adding that it is the opposite approach Trump took with Operation Warp speed to combat COVID 19. You're going to kill us all. All right. In a related story from the Times, the Trump administration released a report last week that it build as clear evidence based foundation for action on a range of children's health issues. But the report from the presidential Make America Healthy Again Commission cited studies that do not exist. These included fictitious studies on direct to consumer drug advertising, mental illness and medications prescribed for children with asthma. It makes me concerned about the rigor of the report if these really basic citation practices aren't being followed. That's Catherine Keyes, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University who was listed as the author of a paper on mental health and and substance use among adolescents. Dr. Keyes has not written any paper by the title of the report cited, nor does one seem to exist by the author by any author. The news outlet Notice first reported the presence of false citations, and the New York Times identified additional faulty references. By mid afternoon Thursday, the White House had uploaded a new copy of the report with corrections. Asked at a news conference on Thursday whether the report had relied on artificial intelligence, the White House press secretary, Caroline Leave it Levitt, whatever deferred to the Department of Health and Human Services. So yeah, probably. And from the Post despite claims by the Defense Department to the contrary, legal teams representing the US And Qatari governments have not finalized an agreement for transferring the luxury Boeing 7478 jetliner that Trump wants for Air Force One amid outstanding requests by Qatar for Washington to clarify the transaction's terms. That's according to officials familiar. Qatar is insisting that a memorandum of understanding between Washington and Doha specify that the aircraft's transfer was initiated by the Trump administration and that Qatar is not responsible for any future transfers of the plane's ownership. The delay reflects lingering concerns about legal liability stemming from the White House's maneuver to transform what was originally a sale between two countries into a gift that Trump continues to tout as a major deliverable from his recent trip to the Middle East. Trump initially said it was Qatar that reached out to him and offered him the luxury jet free of charge, probably with tears in their eyes. In fact, it was the Trump administration that first approached Qatar this winter about acquiring the plane through a sale after the president made clear to aides that he was upset about delays of two Boeing jets purchased during his first term for $3.9 billion. Discussion about the sale later evolved into a cutter agreeing to provide the plane as a gift, a development reported previously by CNN and the New York Times. So just pathetic. Just pathetic. All right, everybody, it's time for some good trouble. What are you guys doing getting into trouble? All right, your mission, should you choose to accept it. Avelo Airlines is one of the companies that has a government contract with ICE and to help them with their usually illegal mass deportations. Avello is also a commercial airline, but they're so embarrassed by the work that they're doing for Trump's Gestapo that they've painted over the logos on their planes so you don't know that it's them. Kind of like ICE agents wearing masks. Now, in the show notes, I've included an email address and a customer service phone number for Avelo so you can let them know how you feel about their brand being associated with this wickedness. If you do speak to a customer service representative, please remember that they are just there doing their jobs. They are not the CEO. Please be kind to them. I don't think the CEO is fielding calls. At least their number 346616, 9500 or you can email them at media hyphen inquiriesveloair.com Both of those will be in the show notes. Thanks so much everybody. Stick around. We'll be right back with John Fugelsang after these messages. We'll be right back. Hey everybody. 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