Category: Washington Post

President Donald Trump has begun construction on a new White House helipad, his latest change to the historic grounds, according to three people who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the project publicly.

Construction crews worked into the night Monday on the White House’s South Lawn, with the project blocked off by a large fence. The helipad will be located near the South Portico, the traditional landing site for Marine One, the call sign for whichever helicopter is transporting the president, the people said.

The new helipad, which the White House has yet to announce, is intended to address a long-running problem: The new generation of Marine One helicopters runs the risk of burning the lawn. The VH-92A Patriot, manufactured by Sikorsky Aircraft, has exhaust vents that aim heat down, making grass-scorching likely.

Lockheed Martin, which owns Sikorsky Aircraft and has spent years trying to develop a solution to the scorching problem, will donate $5 million to help cover the cost of the helipad, according to a company official familiar with the project.

The Washington Post reported last month that a helipad was under consideration and reported earlier this month that the administration was moving forward with the project and would rely on a $5 million donation to help fund it.

The White House and the Marine Corps, which operates the presidential helicopter program, did not immediately respond to questions about the project, its timing or total cost.

Trump has faced criticism for his recent alterations to the White House, such as his plan to build an expansive ballroom, add gilding to the Oval Office, and create a “Presidential Walk of Fame” that mocked past Democratic presidents. Current and former officials characterized the helipad as a different type of project, driven by security and operational priorities.

Past administrations had also considered building a permanent helipad on the White House grounds, but the idea had been dismissed for several reasons, including that it would alter an iconic image — the U.S. president boarding a helicopter on the White House’s grassy lawn — that has persisted across administrations for nearly seven decades.

That was not a concern for Trump, who has made significant changes to the White House in his second term, including demolishing the building’s East Wing and paving over the Rose Garden. Trump also has been an avid helicopter user for much of his professional life, dating back to his time as a real estate magnate when he relied on a Trump-branded helicopter.

Ray L’Heureux, a retired Marine Corps colonel who previously oversaw the Marine Helicopter Squadron One, said it appears the installation of the White House helipad was determined to be operationally necessary.

“The new [Marine One] program is a costly one and not using the capability is bad optics all around for many reasons,” he said, adding that having helicopters to ferry the U.S. president to and from the White House is “paramount for seamless operations and security concerns.”

L’Heureux added that while he believes changing the aesthetics of the White House’s South Lawn is a negative, he hopes the impact of the helipad can be mitigated — perhaps by using green concrete, he suggested — to help it better blend in.

The VH-92A has been envisioned for more than a decade as the full-time presidential helicopter. The Marine Corps received the final VH-92A in its 23-aircraft presidential fleet nearly two years ago at a cost of about $4.95 billion, or about $215 million each, according to a 2019 report by the independent Government Accountability Office. But the helicopters have yet to ferry a president to and from the South Lawn.

Trump has used the new VH-92A Patriot for other travel, such as his recent trip to New York City for the NBA Finals, with the new helicopter ferrying the president to a helipad in Manhattan. Trump has continued to rely on older Marine One models when landing in grassy fields, including during his trip to the Group of Seven summit in France earlier this month.

White House officials last year secretly awarded a no-bid contract worth up to $500 million for the construction of the East Wing ballroom in an unusual arrangement that sidestepped typical contracting procedures designed to control costs, according to a copy of the agreement obtained by the Washington Post.

The White House routed the contract through the Executive Residence, the document shows, an office that is exempt from rules that require federal agencies to solicit competitive bids and disclose details to the public. The office is typically responsible for routine repairs, entertainment expenses, and the purchase of furniture, art, and other items for the executive mansion.

The confidential contract with Clark Construction, along with related correspondence and records obtained by the Post, reveal for the first time how the Trump administration bypassed norms last summer as it set the ballroom project in motion.

Records also show that President Donald Trump was directly involved in negotiating some costs for the East Wing project.

The East Wing contract is the latest example of the administration turning to no-bid deals to hasten a Trump-style makeover of the nation’s capital, which has included handpicking firms to upgrade Lafayette Square next to the White House and to renovate the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

Competitive bidding is generally required at most federal agencies. Experts said the Executive Residence is exempt from those rules, and the president has legal authority to hire companies of his choosing to make changes to the executive mansion and the surrounding grounds. Those experts said soliciting bids would have ensured the best price for taxpayers, especially given the size and cost of the East Wing project.

“I would certainly expect them to compete a project of this size and complexity,” said Anthony Costa, a former General Services Administration official who oversaw complex government real estate projects during a career that spanned four presidential administrations.

The estimated East Wing construction cost has tripled since last July, when the project was first announced, with half expected to come from taxpayers, the Post previously reported.

Trump has repeatedly claimed that the ballroom would be paid for by private donors and once said that Clark executives offered to build it for free.

“They said: ‘Sir, we’ll do it for nothing. This is the greatest honor,” Trump told the New York Times in January.

Clark’s internal cost projections show the McLean, Virginia-based company, the largest general contractor in the D.C. metro area, stands to make tens of millions of dollars from the work.

Clark charged a 3% profit for its early work on the East Wing, records show, a rate that experts said was typical for large government construction projects.

The records reviewed by the Post do not break out Clark’s estimated profit margin for the entire project, but a March document shows the company projected it would receive a total of $65 million in combined profit, overhead, and daily rates for on-site staff and other costs.

A White House official said in a statement that the East Wing contract was issued through the Executive Residence because that office “will be the primary support of the facility.” The Executive Residence is a division of the Executive Office of the President, which the statement said “consistently executes contracts following the law.”

A Clark spokesperson said in a statement that the firm has been a federal contractor for more than 80 years, adding: “We follow established procurement and contracting processes for each project and execute the work consistent with schedule, budget, delivery, and contractual requirements.”

The Trump administration tasked Clark with site preparation and other preliminary work last July, months before the East Wing was demolished, records show. That work was performed under a separate, existing Executive Residence contract the company had won in 2024, during the Biden administration.

The Biden-era contract covered “a wide variety of maintenance, repair, alteration, and construction type tasks” that might arise at the White House over five years. It was awarded to Clark after a competitive bidding process and had a ceiling of $500 million, according to a copy of the agreement obtained by the Post.

The White House official told the Post that Clark’s Biden-era contract was “missing various clauses necessary for construction contracts.”

By mid-August, records show, Trump administration officials began negotiating the new, no-bid agreement for Clark to “fully demolish the East Wing and East Colonnade and construct a modernized East Wing facility.”

In an email exchange in early September, White House officials explained that they could award the no-bid contract to Clark because the Executive Residence is not bound by competitive bidding requirements, although it often follows them.

The email cited a federal law that authorizes the president to freely spend for the “care, maintenance, repair, alteration, refurnishing, improvement, air-conditioning, heating, and lighting” of the White House residence.

In a court case challenging the legality of the ballroom project, the Trump administration has cited the same law as the basis for its authority to undertake the project. The litigation has not surfaced the fact that the contract was awarded without competitive bidding.

A federal judge rejected the administration’s position, concluding in March that the president’s authority to make changes to the White House does not include demolishing the East Wing and building the ballroom. The administration has appealed the ruling.

The Justice Department acknowledged in court filings in the case that the Executive Residence is overseeing contracts for the project, claiming it was “best-positioned” to do so in part because of its expertise in the use of White House for official ceremonies.

Experts told the Post that the GSA or National Park Service are better equipped to handle contracting for large construction projects at the White House, and an internal White House document shows that is the norm.

Major repairs and structural changes to the White House’s East Wing and East Colonnade are the responsibility of the GSA and Park Service, according to the document, a 2024 memorandum of understanding for the maintenance and operations of the White House obtained by the Post.

The role of the Executive Residence “does not include maintenance or repair involving structural building elements or major utility systems for those areas, which are handled by GSA or NPS,” according to the memorandum, which expires in 2029.

An Interior Department spokesperson, responding to questions sent to the Park Service, said in a statement that the Executive Residence is “best positioned to coordinate with all agencies that have equities regarding planning for and implementation of the project.” The GSA referred questions to the White House.

On Sept. 22, Clark signed the White House contract for the East Wing, which included a range of work the company would provide over a five-year period and a nondisclosure agreement.

Joshua Fisher, the director of the White House Office of Administration, indicated on the contract that the administration did not solicit bids for the East Wing work because “the disclosure of the executive agency’s needs would compromise the national security.”

In recent months, Trump has said rebuilding the East Wing is a national security issue, describing an underground military bunker and a rooftop “drone empire … to protect Washington.”

The Trump administration continued to issue work orders to advance the East Wing project under both the 2024 and 2025 agreements with Clark, records show. Clark’s internal construction cost estimates rose from $200 million in July 2025 to $600 million by March 2026, the Post previously reported.

After signing the East Wing contract, Clark officials notified the White House that the company planned to award no-bid deals to at least 11 subcontractors for demolition, abatement, excavation, fencing, and other services, according to copies of correspondence obtained by the Post. Two of those subcontractors are Clark subsidiaries.

On March 4, days after the start of the war with Iran, Trump personally negotiated the price of concrete to be provided by one of Clark’s wholly owned subsidiaries, according to a summary of the terms that notes his involvement. The summary indicates the price, initially more than $47 million, dropped $2.3 million during the negotiation.

The Supreme Court greatly expanded President Donald Trump’s control over the federal bureaucracy Monday, but stopped short of allowing him to undermine the independence of the Federal Reserve in a pair of rulings that amount to one of the largest verdicts on the scope of presidential power in decades.

In a 6-3 ideologically divided decision, the justices struck down a nearly century-old precedent that has allowed Congress to insulate the leaders of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and roughly two dozen other independent regulatory agencies from political influence by requiring the president have good reason to dismiss them.

The ruling is likely to usher in major changes to the structure of the federal government, and it fulfills a major goal of the Trump administration and many conservatives who have long argued that the president should exercise nearly unfettered authority over the executive branch.

In the other related case, a group of justices blocked Trump from removing Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, at least for now, in a 5-4 ruling that found the powerful central bank has a distinct history and structure that allows Congress to carve out protections for its governors, unlike other independent agencies.

Taken together, the cases amount to a split political decision for Trump, who has pushed aggressively in his second term to assert his authority over federal government by dismissing agency heads, restructuring departments, and firing thousands of federal workers.

Trump hailed the ruling in the FTC case as a “BIG WIN” in a post on Truth Social, while saying he would continue the fight to try to remove Cook.

“90 years of precedent has been COMPLETELY AND UNEQUIVOCALLY OVERRULED, greatly increasing Presidential Power at a time when it is most needed!” Trump wrote.

Republicans said the FTC ruling would make the government more accountable to voters who elect the president, but Democrats and some former agency officials worried it would lead to the politicization of regulations on product safety, elections, nuclear energy, and much more. The ruling in the Cook case is provisional and it will return to the lower courts for additional legal wrangling.

The majority said the Constitution’s plain language gives the president control of the executive branch, but Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by the court’s other two liberals, said in dissent that the nation’s founders clearly envisioned the existence of agencies whose independence would be protected by Congress. Sotomayor read her dissent from the bench to signal her strong disagreement with the majority.

“Today, the majority replaces 90 years of proven, workable practice with a half-baked theory of executive power that is simultaneously all encompassing yet also subject to necessary but undefined exceptions,” she wrote. “The one thing that does appear to be clear going forward is that chaos will follow.”

Sotomayor said the ruling would upset the structure of numerous agencies — such as the Federal Communications Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission — that Congress created to make decisions based on nonpartisan expertise and technical knowledge. Most are run by bipartisan, multimember commissions.

Gillian Metzger, a Columbia University law professor and expert on administrative law, said she was struck by the breadth of the FTC ruling, which could give Trump direct control over virtually all federal employees.

“There’s language in the Slaughter majority opinion that is exceptionally broad,” Metzger said, referring to the case’s name. “The president has the power to remove at will his subordinates. That is extraordinarily broad.”

Metzger said it was notable that the court cited no exceptions for the civil service protections that protect many federal workers from arbitrary dismissal or political retaliation. That could mean the court is possibly granting the president greater authority to remove federal workers, she said, although other court precedents protect them.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote the majority opinion, joined by the court’s five other conservatives. He said the congressionally-mandated protections that kept the president from firing Rebecca Slaughter, a Democratic member of the Federal Trade Commission, were unconstitutional.

“We hold that such protection from removal is contrary to the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution,” Roberts wrote.

In the Federal Reserve case, the narrow majority from across the court’s ideological spectrum ruled that Cook could keep her job while a lawsuit challenging her dismissal plays out in the courts. The case could take months or years to resolve and appear again before the justices, who said Monday that Cook is likely to prevail.

Roberts wrote the majority opinion in the Cook case as well, joined by the court’s three liberals as well as conservative Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh. Roberts wrote that Congress had created the Federal Reserve to operate with independence from the president.

“Any change in that scheme must come from Congress, not the courts,” he wrote. “That is why we cannot accept the Government’s contentions in this case. To do so would allow the President to remove a member of the Federal Reserve at any time, for any reason, without any notice before, and without any judicial check after.”

Four of the court’s conservatives objected. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., joined by Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, wrote in a dissent that the Supreme Court was premature in taking up Cook’s case. Justices Clarence Thomas and Amy Coney Barrett argued that the majority was wrong on the substance.

“Today’s decision is an unprecedented incursion on the Executive Branch,” Thomas wrote in his dissent. “Neither the parties nor the Court can point to a single time in American history that this Court has upheld an injunction against the President’s removal of an executive officer.”

Legal experts had long expected the court to rule against the decades-old precedent affirming Congress’ right to create independent agencies, known as Humphrey’s Executor, because the justices have been chipping away at it for years. Roberts called it a “dried husk” during oral arguments in December.

The Supreme Court has repeatedly backed Trump’s efforts to remove the heads of independent agencies on its emergency docket, allowing him to dismiss members of the National Labor Relations Board, Merit Systems Protection Board, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission in rulings over the last year or so.

Likewise, the ruling in the Cook case came as little surprise because some justices had signaled they were interested in carving out an exception to the president’s removal authority for the Fed.

Trump fired Slaughter and the other Democrat on the five-member FTC, Alvaro Bedoya, without giving a cause in March 2025. The dismissals were part of a broader campaign by the president to remove perceived liberal leaders from independent agencies and replace them with loyalists.

Slaughter challenged her dismissal in federal court, saying Trump had exceeded his authority under the law creating the FTC. The law says the president can fire members only for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” The agency works on antitrust and consumer protection issues.

A federal judge cited the Humphrey’s Executor precedent in reinstating Slaughter to her position. That decision was upheld by an appeals court before the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to intervene. Roberts paused Slaughter’s reinstatement in September so the high court could weigh the administration’s appeal.

During arguments in December, Solicitor General D. John Sauer said regulatory agencies like the FTC had become “a headless fourth branch insulated from political accountability and democratic control,” and that curbing the president’s power to remove agency heads infringed on his constitutional powers.

Trump has often disparaged the federal bureaucracy as a “deep state” determined to undermine his agenda. He has moved to fire thousands of federal workers, shutter agencies, and remove civil service protections to bring the government more firmly under his control.

Many in the administration support the so-called unitary executive theory, which holds that the Constitution vests direct control of the executive branch solely in the president, and he is free to fire any of its officials at will. Since the Reagan administration, conservatives have pushed to give the president greater control over hiring and firing in the government.

Trump initially nominated Slaughter to the FTC in 2018. She was unanimously approved by the Senate before President Joe Biden renominated her in 2023. Slaughter has become an outspoken critic of Trump’s efforts to cut the federal workforce.

Slaughter said she was disappointed with the ruling.

“What we have seen is a massive expansion of executive power at the expense of Congress, which has designed these agencies to work on behalf of the people and not the powerful,” Slaughter said.

The majority wrote in its Cook ruling Monday that the Fed is different from other independent agencies because its structure echoes U.S. national banks whose genesis goes back to before the Constitution.

Congress created the Fed to be independent of the president so it could make difficult decisions — such as raising interest rates — that are good for the health of the economy but may not be politically popular.

Trump is the first president in the Fed’s 112-year history to try to fire one of its board members. In August, Trump alleged that Cook claimed two homes as primary residences to get a better mortgage rate. In filings with the Supreme Court, Cook “unequivocally” denied the allegations.

The high court case revolved around whether Trump’s attempt to fire Cook complied with the Federal Reserve Act, which says Fed board members can only be ousted “for cause.”

Days after Trump announced on social media in August that he was firing Cook, she sued in federal court, arguing that Trump’s accusations did not meet the standard for “for cause” removal because the allegations occurred before she was on the Fed board and had not been proved. Her attorneys also said she had not been given due process.

A federal judge in D.C. sided with Cook, allowing her to remain on the job temporarily. A divided appeals court affirmed that decision, before the Trump administration appealed to the Supreme Court. The justices ruled in October that Cook could continue at the Fed while they considered her case.

During arguments in January, Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the justices that the mortgage allegations gave Trump reason enough to fire Cook and that the courts did not have the authority to second-guess his determination.

“The American people should not have their interest rates determined by someone who was, at best, grossly negligent in obtaining favorable interest rates for herself,” Sauer said.

Paul D. Clement, an attorney for Cook, said the justices would be rash to rule on the Trump administration’s emergency request to oust Cook from her job without the benefit of additional fact-finding and legal proceedings.

“There is no reason to abandon more than 100 years of central bank independence on an emergency application,” Clement said.

After Monday’s ruling, Trump wrote on Truth Social that “we will take appropriate action immediately to make sure that someone who has committed wrongdoing will not be making vital decisions concerning the Welfare of the United States of America!”

Cook said in a statement she was pleased.

“Today’s ruling affirms a principle that has underpinned sound economic stewardship for generations: that the Federal Reserve must make all its policy decisions guided by evidence and independent judgment, free from political interference,” Cook said. “This bedrock principle has guided the Federal Reserve since its founding.”

• The Supreme Court’s major cases during the 2025-26 term
• Supreme Court justices turn children’s books into big paydays
• There are no Supreme Court vacancies, but some judges are acting like there might be

It’s not easy to parody Alex Jones, but that’s not stopping the Onion from trying.

The right-wing conspiracy theorist behind Infowars, Jones has spent years promoting stranger-than-fiction ideas, arguing that chemicals in water turn frogs gay, the U.S. government deploys “weather weapons” against its own citizens, and that yogurt maker Chobani imports “migrant rapists.” (Chobani sued for defamation, and Jones apologized upon settling the lawsuit.)

Days after a gunman killed 20 students and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., Jones falsely claimed the massacre was staged.

The insidious lie cost him dearly: Jones was ordered to pay roughly $1.5 billion to the families of the victims in a landmark defamation case forcing him to declare bankruptcy.

The satirical news site the Onion is trying to capitalize on the rare opportunity. For Ben Collins, CEO of the Onion’s parent company, Global Tetrahedron, the idea to buy Jones’s signature site began as a bit.

On the social media site Bluesky, he saw a reposted newspaper ad marketing the Infowars assets.

“I thought, ‘huh, this would be the funniest thing of all time if we pulled this off,’” he said. “It was, and is, but it’s also become the world’s biggest pain in the ass.”

Since 2024, the Onion has been locked in a legal battle to take over Infowars and transform it into a parody site. Infowars assets are still largely tied up in bankruptcy court, preventing the Onion from absorbing the URL. Still, it’s moving forward with launching its site on Thursday, which will live at theonion.info.

“There is a whole world of like grifters and weirdos who have not been made fun of, and have taken over like the United States,” said Collins. “We need to make fun of this more efficiently, and we need professionals to do it, and what better way to do it than to do a hostile takeover of where it all started.”

As a reporter at NBC, Collins covered a unique beat in his prior life: “disinformation, extremism, and the internet.” He even wrote about Jones’s defamation trial.

Now, he’s left the confines of a real news organization to run a fake one.

Collins enlisted comedian Tim Heidecker, best known as one half of the comedy duo Tim and Eric, as the creative director of this parodic Infowars. He’s also the face of it, performing as a caricature of Jones — complete with his signature rasp, cadence, and penchant for selling questionable nutritional supplements.

Jones did not respond to a request for comment.

The Onion has faced roadblocks to taking over Infowars: In 2024, a judge prevented the Onion from buying Infowars at a bankruptcy auction. Instead, its assets were transferred to a court-appointed receiver. So the Onion struck a licensing deal with the receiver to pay $81,000 a month for the Infowars.com domain and brand. But in April, a Texas appeals court halted any transfer of Infowars assets, again thwarting the Onion.

Collins said he never expected the legal proceedings to take this long: “We thought it was going to be like Storage Wars, and it wound up being more like a dream that you have when you’ve taken too much NyQuil.”

A version of the site viewable before launch featured a video of Heidecker addressing viewers as “infowarriors,” mimicking Jones, and taking a fake call from President Donald Trump. The site’s homepage was full of fake ads imploring readers to buy oxygen capsules and another obvious troll of the embattled Jones: “Turn your gold into piss. Liquidate your assets today.”

There’s an extra motivation for Collins: helping the Sandy Hook families.

The Onion has said it’s worked closely with Sandy Hook families and is donating $100,000 to the families through proceeds from the site. The company called the gift “the first of many.”

“No one else was going to get these families money, and he owes them,” Collins said about Jones. “He still owes them 1½ billion dollars, and we want to get them some cash.”

Chris Mattei, a lawyer for the families who sued Jones in Connecticut, said the families appreciate the Onion’s commitment, though he said it’s never been about the finances for them.

“The families we represent actually never cared about money at all,” Mattei said. The verdict let them “prove to the world in an open courtroom that Alex Jones was a fraud” and “demonstrate to the world the type of real-world harm that online misinformation can cause.”

Collins emphasized that he wants the families to be at the heart of this effort — because they’re the ones who have suffered because of Jones’s false claims. “There’s a few sacred things that we really got to protect if we want to have like a society still,” Collins said. “And these [families] are some of them.”

The Trump administration took aim at the separation of church and state Friday, issuing a draft report from the president’s Religious Liberty Commission that says the separation concept is a legal error and that Americans should view religion as an “essential support” and always remember “the Creator who made us and bestows our rights.”

The 224-page report recommended the Justice Department issue guidance to promote “an originalist understanding” of how the Constitution sees the relationship between religion and government. The founders had diverse views about the topic, but recent Supreme Court rulings have suggested a more narrow interpretation of what justices considered constraints on religious freedom.

Friday’s report also said faith-based groups working with the government shouldn’t have to accommodate civil rights laws or anything that conflicts with their religious beliefs; public schools should allow religious displays (it mentioned only the Ten Commandments); and soldiers who refused to be vaccinated and were punished should have their positions restored and be financially compensated. It called for the end to the Johnson Amendment, which bars nonprofits from making political endorsements.

At an Oval Office news conference announcing the report, commission chairperson Dan Patrick, the Republican lieutenant governor of Texas, said the commission recommends that any official — in government, a school, the military, a hospital, etc. — who alleges a violation of church-state separation must in writing “point out exactly where you have violated the Constitution, because you have not, and from this day forward, that phrase should have no power over people of all faiths ever again in America.”

While the phrase “church-state” separation is not in the Constitution, the concept of space between government and religion is in the First Amendment, which calls for no government “establishment of religion.” Americans have disagreed over the meaning of establishment since the founding.

The report was issued at a time when many conservatives are aggressively working to elevate religion — particularly Christianity — into the public square, fueled by Supreme Court decisions saying that such expression is constitutional. Several states have mandated that the Ten Commandments be displayed in public school classrooms, and many are requiring schools to release students for Bible classes during the school day. Last month, the White House hosted a daylong evangelical prayer festival on the Mall for the country’s 250th birthday, featuring commission members and others preaching from the stage.

On Friday, the Texas education board approved a mandatory reading list for more than 5 million public school students in the state that includes Bible passages.

President Donald Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission, created last year, is made up of all conservative Christians and one Orthodox Jew, groups who experts say make up a minority of Americans. In February, a coalition of groups representing other religious groups, as well as nonreligious and interfaith Americans, sued the administration over the commission, saying it was put together without the transparency and diversity required of a federal commission.

The Rev. Paul Raushenbush, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit and head of the Interfaith Alliance, had applied unsuccessfully to be a member of the commission.

The draft report, he wrote in a statement, “reflects the narrow, Christian nationalist worldview of the illegitimate commission. … A betrayal of the original intention of the promise of religious freedom guaranteed in the First Amendment, the report and the commission behind it fail to represent and uplift the importance of religious diversity and tolerance for all faiths in our country — not just a special, chosen few. The report is a wish list of divisive, unpopular ideas far-right religious groups have pushed for years.”

Raushenbush also noted that while the report expresses concern about anti-Christian bias and antisemitism, it made no similar mention of growing Islamophobia around the country.

The report is a draft, and comments from the public are open until July 12.

The lawsuit against the commission had sought to stop the release of any report until the court ruled on whether the commission was illegally constituted. It also asked the court to mandate any commission recommendations include a disclaimer stating that the report was produced by a body that was not fairly balanced.

Asked about the lack of religious diversity on the commission, a Justice Department spokesperson said the group was a way for Trump to create “opportunities for Americans from all walks of life to share their testimonies, concerns, and recommendations to better support Civil Rights and religious freedom in the United States.”

“The Department of Justice’s mission is to uphold the rule of law and ensure fair and impartial justice for all Americans, which is an endeavor every American should support regardless of their political or religious beliefs,” the Justice Department statement said.

People called to testify before the commission included a worker at an Alaska women’s shelter who turned away a homeless man who later sued for gender discrimination, and foster parents in Vermont who said their religion kept them from affirming children who were undergoing gender transitions — even though the state required foster parents to do so.

Speaking at the White House, commission vice chairperson Ben Carson said Trump was doing more than anyone else in the country for religious liberty.

“Our founding document says that our rights come from our creator and not from government,” he said. “People who try to divorce us from that heritage? Do they realize that that’s our family document? Do they realize that our family just says we are one nation under God?”

Trump noted that he won the overwhelming majority of evangelicals in his elections.

The White House is facing other litigation over its religion-related actions. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, among other advocacy groups, has a total of seven lawsuits.

Some note that Trump’s Justice Department asked other federal agencies for examples of what it called “anti-Christian bias” and sought access to any complaints received as a result. Others note the proselytizing of some agency heads, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins.

Authorities in occupied Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that Russia annexed illegally from Ukraine in 2014, declared a state of emergency Friday following weeks of punishing Ukrainian drone strikes.

The Russian Defense Ministry said its air defenses intercepted 660 Ukrainian drones overnight across 13 regions, including Crimea. The peninsula, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has vowed to reclaim, has become the centerpiece of Kyiv’s campaign to demonstrate the reach of its increasingly advancing medium-range drone capabilities.

The Ukrainian military last month announced a “logistics lockdown” of Crimea, with plans to “systematically destroy Russian logistics, warehouses, equipment, command posts, and supply routes at operational depth.” In the weeks since, Ukrainian forces have targeted roads, bridges, and energy infrastructure to sever the peninsula from Russia and from Russian-occupied territories in eastern Ukraine.

The assault has disrupted fuel, electricity, and water supplies, and the Russian tourists who have traveled to Crimea each summer despite the war have rushed to leave.

Locals have not seen such disturbance to everyday life since the annexation. Gas stations have run dry, leaving motorists who have already waited hours for fuel vouchers to queue at the few stations still operating. Summer camps have been canceled and children evacuated, including from Artek — the iconic Soviet-era camp the Kremlin has used as a symbol of state prestige since 2014.

Rolling power outages have halted water supplies that depend on electric pumps.

Kyiv intends the strikes on Crimea, which is far removed from the main front line in Donbas, to erode the sense of distance from the war that President Vladimir Putin has worked to maintain since the full-scale invasion began — and to chip away at the public perception that Russian forces can contain the fighting within Ukraine.

Ukraine has also stepped up pressure on Russia’s closest ally, Belarus, which allowed Moscow to use its territory as a launchpad for attacks on Ukraine early in the invasion. Kyiv maintained diplomatic relations with Minsk. But after Russian drone strikes on northwestern Ukraine this year, Zelensky ordered strikes on relay stations in Belarus.

Zelensky warned President Alexander Lukashenko this week that he would strike them again if Lukashenko didn’t shut them down. Zelensky said Wednesday they had been switched off.

It was the latest test for Lukashenko’s long-running gamble. He has survived for years by balancing his regime’s economic and security dependence on Russia against being fully absorbed by Moscow.

Ukrainian officials say Russia might be trying to draw Belarus deeper into the war. On Friday evening, Lukashenko flew to Putin’s Valdai residence, where the Kremlin said they discussed “the implementation of joint economic projects and issues related to regional security.”

Before the trip, Lukashenko said he had recently received Zelensky’s representatives in Minsk.

“If he thinks he can talk to us like this and then drag us into a war, he must understand that the quality of the war will instantly change,” the Belarusian president said. “This will be a completely different war. So let’s come to an agreement.”

The combination of the chaos in Crimea, record drone strikes on Moscow, and fuel rationing spreading across Russia appears to be taking a toll. According to data from the Public Opinion Foundation, a polling organization with Kremlin ties, trust in Putin has fallen to 69% — its lowest point since the war began.

The emergency declaration stoked anxiety among residents that already had been building for weeks. Authorities appeared eager to manage the alarm, describing the measure as “an emergency situation” rather than a “state of emergency.” It should allow authorities to bypass normal bureaucratic procedures to mobilize resources, use emergency budgets, and coordinate evacuations where necessary.

“This does not envision restrictions on movement and the introduction of a curfew,” Sergei Aksyonov, the Russian-installed governor, wrote on social media.

Zelensky said Thursday he had authorized a 40-day strike campaign against Russian targets to “influence the aggressor state in order to press for an end to the war.” Strikes were reported to have hit oil facilities deep inside Russia.

Kyiv has been trying to reengage President Donald Trump after a monthslong effective freeze in peace talks. Trump this week had rare praise for Zelensky over the offensive, saying the Ukrainian leader is “doing pretty well.”

Trump, meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, was asked whether he believed Zelensky was winning the war.

“He’s winning now. Well, he’s doing pretty well. … At least he’s holding on,” Trump said. He also said “a lot of people are dying on both sides.”

“I have to say he’s courageous,” Trump said. “He’s got great equipment, he’s got great people, he’s got fighters.”

Whether Ukraine’s campaign can pressure Putin into yielding is another question. The Russian leader has shown a consistent willingness to absorb enormous losses in a grinding war of attrition. Analysts warn that the Ukrainian offensive could fuel anti-Ukrainian sentiment at home.

Vice President JD Vance on Thursday expressed sympathy for former President Richard M. Nixon, suggesting that Nixon was wrongly forced out as president in 1974 and comparing his political travails decades ago to those facing President Donald Trump now.

“As I joked … backstage, if Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12-hour news story,” Vance said in remarks at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in California. “The idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy.”

A spokesperson for Vance did not immediately respond to questions about whether the vice president was being facetious and how he was defining Watergate.

The Watergate scandal, which began in 1972 with a botched attempt to bug the Democratic National Committee’s offices at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, mushroomed into a wide-ranging investigation by reporters and lawmakers that revealed Nixon was aware of the break-in and directed secret White House payments in an effort to cover it up. He resigned as president two years after the scandal broke, with Nixon blaming the Washington Post for its central role in exposing his involvement in the break-in and other abuses.

The scandal also prompted a series of reforms intended to rein in presidential authority, including more independence for government watchdogs such as inspectors general, which Trump has steadily rolled back.

Historians said Thursday that the full scope of the Watergate scandal, ranging from the president’s efforts to apply pressure to his “enemies list” to asking for a census of Jewish Americans serving in government because he believed they were unpatriotic, revealed Nixon’s abuses of presidential power.

Vance “should know better as a well-educated lawyer,” said Timothy Naftali, a previous director of the Nixon library, referring to Vance’s law degree from Yale University.

Naftali, a Columbia University presidential historian, referenced tapes that contained thousands of hours of Nixon’s Oval Office conversations.

“You can hear him suborn perjury on the tapes. He’s telling an intermediary, what to tell someone who’s about to be interviewed by the FBI, what to say and what not to say,” said Naftali, who oversaw the Nixon library’s Watergate exhibit. “You can hear Nixon being told that money had been found to hire teamsters to go and break the bones of demonstrators. That’s all illegal.”

“It’s not as if it’s a matter of partisan interpretation. The evidence is overwhelming,” Naftali said, offering additional examples of Nixon’s efforts to subvert legal protections. “If he does know all of this, he’s telegraphing the kind of president he hopes to be.”

Some conservatives in recent years have reframed the scandals that ended Nixon’s presidency, arguing that government bureaucrats and the media unfairly sought to push him out.

In his remarks, Vance also repeatedly compared Nixon to Trump, pointing out the similarities in their political coalitions as well as their experiences with overseas wars.

“One of the other lessons of Richard Nixon is it’s not just that he got out of Vietnam, but that he got out of Vietnam from a position of strength. OK?” Vance said, making a comparison with Trump’s war against Iran. “It’s one thing to tuck tail and run. It’s another thing to clearly define an objective, to accomplish that objective, and then to ensure that you don’t allow mission creep to transform a victory into a defeat.”

Vance also alluded to lawmakers’ efforts to investigate both presidents. Trump was twice impeached in his first term, after first pressuring the Ukrainian government to investigate his rival Joe Biden, and then after lawmakers said he helped incite a riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as he attempted to have the results of the election overturned.

Nixon resigned as president while an impeachment process into his Watergate-related conduct was underway. Lawmakers ultimately decided to end the process given Nixon’s resignation. His former vice president, Gerald Ford, later issued a controversial pardon.

“If you look at the story of how the ‘deep state’ took down Richard Nixon, it’s not all that different from what the same groups of people, the same institutions tried to do to Donald Trump and the first Trump administration,” Vance said to applause. “There is a parallel.”

The 41-year-old Vance also mused on his own similarities to Nixon, who served as a California senator in his late 30s and became vice president when he was 40.

“Young senator, vice president, writes some best-selling books, is hated by the media,” Vance said. “It kind of sounds like JD Vance. … I’ve always liked Richard Nixon.”