Federal judge temporarily blocks Trump administration’s attempt to restrict mail-in voting
Election workers sort ballots at Contra Costa County’s election operations facility on May 27, 2026, in Martinez, California. (Benjamin Fanjoy/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge on Thursday night blocked the Trump administration from implementing key provisions of a new rule restricting mail-in voting.
U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani issued a temporary order preventing the United States Postal Service from increasing its oversight of mail-in voting, following an executive order from President Donald Trump that would effectively employ the Postal Service as the primary enforcer of mail-voter eligibility.
Talwani blocked the newly finalized rule for at least 14 days.
The same judge had previously blocked Trump’s executive order but lifted that decision on Wednesday after the Supreme Court ruled Monday she had initially acted too quickly.
With the judge’s latest order, it is likely the legal battle over the USPS rules will eventually make its way back to the Supreme Court.
Dozens of Democratic state attorneys general sued the Trump administration over the USPS directive in April, arguing it is unconstitutional since states — not the federal government — have primary authority for administering elections.
The Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision ruled Monday that the states lacked standing to challenge Trump’s order at that stage since nothing had formally impacted how they will administer elections, but the high court did not weigh in on the legality of Trump’s order.
The judge’s order Thursday comes after state attorneys general brought a new challenge after USPS published a finalized rule governing steps states must take to print ballots to be carried and tracked by mail carriers.
In her order Thursday pausing the now finalized USPS plan, the judge wrote: “Plaintiff States face irreparable harm where they are required to comply with a likely unconstitutional regulation for which compliance is practically impossible as to the 2026 midterm elections, now little more than two months away,” she wrote.
The new rules finalized by the USPS last week add verification requirements to all mail-in ballots, falling short of Trump’s expectations but providing additional scrutiny.
Under the proposed change, states would be required to collect and report basic voter information, such as a voter’s name and home address, attached to a unique barcode on every mail-in ballot distributed. Currently, there is no standardized requirement or method for states to track this information, instead letting each state independently decide how its mail-in voting system operates.
State election authorities would then be required to input this information into a “federal ballot mail portal” before the ballot is accepted into the mail stream.
The USPS said it would not deliver ballots to any state not in compliance with these changes.
In a statement Thursday night, New York Attorney General Letitia James said: “This rule is a clear attempt by the federal government to interfere in elections it has no power to control. Today, a federal court halted it before this administration could wreak havoc on our elections. The USPS does not have the authority to decide who can and cannot vote by mail. My office will keep fighting to ensure this rule cannot disrupt our midterm elections.”
Trump issued an executive order in March seeking to restrict mail-in voting, directing the Department of Homeland Security to build a federal citizenship list and give it to the states; the Department of Justice to target state officials who give ballots to noncitizens; and the USPS to direct states to abide by certain mail-ballot design and tracking requirements.
US President Donald Trump speaks to reporters after landing in Air Force One on July 19, 2026 in Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The new Air Force One will be “maxed out” with security features, undergoing an upgrade that’s expected to put the Qatari-gifted jet out of commission for about a month, President Donald Trump said on Sunday.
“Well, it has, it has a lot, and you know it has a lot of capability, but as I understand it, in about a month or so, they’re going to send it to have it be maxed out,” the president said of the newly retrofitted jet. “So they’re going to be sending it, and they’ll have it be maxed out.”
The jet had faced security concerns in the weeks since its first operational flight on July 1, when Trump flew on it to North Dakota. The plane, a Boeing 747-8 that was gifted from Qatar, later carried Trump to the NATO summit in Turkey this month.
As Trump prepared to depart the summit, the Secret Service urged the president to take the older Air Force One jet as a precaution, due in part for the differences in security capabilities, ABC News learned at the time.
The New York Times reported that the new jet did not have the same anti-missile capabilities as the previous model. Trump’s comment on Sunday followed a reporter’s question about those claims, which ABC News has not independently confirmed.
“Mr. President, this plane does not have antimissile defense systems on it,” the reporter asked. “Why are you flying on it?”
Trump in response said the plane would be “maxed out,” a process that he expected would “take about a month.” The president did not detail exactly when the upgrades were expected to begin.
The Qatari royal family’s donation of the luxury jet valued at approximately $400 million, an unprecedented foreign gift, raised questions from some lawmakers and ethics experts. Ahead of his first flight, Trump gave credit to the Qatari government.
“Frankly, we couldn’t build a plane like this because we wouldn’t be willing to spend the kind of money necessary,” he said on July 1. “They spent top dollar.”
“I said to Boeing, ‘What’s the best one?’ They said this is the best plane ever built, and you’re going to have the privilege of flying it, and I have a privilege also of flying it,” Trump said that day.
The U.S. Air Force said it had been modifying the jet Texas since September to meet the security, communications and other needs to transport the president.
The Air Force last year originally estimated it would cost less than $400 million to retrofit the gift, though it’s unclear how much exactly has been spent so far. Many of the details of the retrofitting on the new plane are considered classified.
The gifted plane is expected to be used as the new Air Force One until shortly before Trump leaves office, at which time ownership of the plane will be transferred to the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Foundation, sources familiar with the proposed arrangement have told ABC News.
ABC News’ Emily Chang, Sarah Kolinovsky and Michelle Stoddart contributed to this report.
John Galligan, attorney for Major Nadal Hasan, as he arrives at the military courthouse at Fort Hood, TX for the preliminary Article 32 hearing for Major Nadal Hasan, accused of killing 13 at the sprawling military base last November. (Robert Daemmrich Photography Inc/Corbis via Getty Images)
The execution of Nidal Hasan, the former Army major who killed 13 people and wounded 32 others in a 2009 shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, will be live-streamed, a Pentagon official told ABC News on Thursday.
Hasan, who described the attack as an act of jihad, is scheduled to executed by firing squad on Dec. 3 at the same base where he committed the attack.
Public executions were once common in the U.S., but states began restricting and abolishing the practice in the mid 19th and early 20th centuries. The last widely recognized public execution was carried out in Kentucky in 1936.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a media interview that Fort Hood was chosen because that was where Hasan carried out the attack and that the 1 p.m. execution time was selected to roughly coincide with when the shooting began.
President Donald Trump ordered the Army to execute Hasan, which would be its first execution since 1961, and to do so by firing squad. The military has not used that method since 1945 and no longer has a modern procedure for administering it.
The choice of a firing squad forced the Army to abandon months of planning built around a very different kind of execution. Internal documents reviewed by ABC News show that officials had been preparing to use lethal injection if Trump authorized the execution of one of the four prisoners on the service’s death row.
Trump’s approval last Friday came only days after the botched lethal-injection execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee, who survived. Pike had been sentenced to death for her role in a 1995 murder.
John Galligan, a retired Army colonel and former military judge at Fort Hood, has represented Hasan for years as a civilian attorney and said he spoke with him Wednesday.
Hasan represented himself during his court-martial but Galligan remained involved in his legal counsel. He told ABC News that Hasan was notified late at night that Trump had approved the execution and that no defense attorney was present when he received the notice.
Last year, the Supreme Court declined to review Hasan’s court-martial conviction. However, Hasan could still seek habeas corpus relief in federal court, potentially delaying the execution.
Following his conversation yesterday with Hasan, Galligan said filing for a habeas petition is “a distinct possibility,” but that they have not yet made a final decision on how they will proceed.
Galligan criticized the Army for scheduling the execution close to the earliest date allowed under its regulations saying officials are, “pushing to get this done at earliest time possible.”
He was especially critical of the decision to carry out the execution at Fort Hood, citing medical concerns for how Hasan, who is paralyzed and in a wheelchair as a result of military officers who subdued him during the shooting, will be transported to the facility. Hasan is currently imprisoned at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
Army rules require an execution to be scheduled between 60 and 150 days after presidential approval, placing Hasan’s execution almost as early as the rules permit.
Galligan said that Hasan’s demeanor was calm after receiving the news of Trump’s approval of his execution Monday, but that he was surprised when Galligan told him that the execution would take place at Fort Hood.
“I’m surprised and shocked that they want to bring him back to Fort Hood. I think it’s more of a public spectacle, closely akin to almost, I see it more as political theater,” Galligan said, adding that making the execution public is, “not great for the confidence in our system of justice.”
Hegseth’s push for Hasan’s execution
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, meanwhile, has pushed for Hasan’s execution for much of his tenure, according to two U.S. officials, but his focus on the case predates his time at the Pentagon.
In 2015, during an appearance on Fox News making the case that troops should be permitted to carry weapons on military bases, Hegseth invoked the Fort Hood shooting. “We are at war. Islamics are at war with us,” he said.
A decade later, in his role as Pentagon chief, Hegseth made his position on Hasan more explicit. “I am 100% committed to ensuring the death penalty is carried out for Nidal Hasan,” he told The Hill in September last year. “The victims and survivors deserve justice without delays.”
Internal documents reviewed by ABC News show that, since at least February, Army officials were developing a plan dubbed “Operation Resolute Justice.”
That plan envisioned lethal injection if the president authorized an execution in Terre Haute, Indiana, at the same prison complex where a series of federal executions happened during Trump’s first term.
From the mid-1980s until 2023, lethal injection was the default method of Army executions, until their rules were rewritten to give the Army secretary broad authority as to execution methods.
A military court can impose a death sentence, but carrying it out requires a separate chain of civilian approval. The service secretary, in this case acting Army Secretary Adam Telle, who has been in the job for about a month, must first sign off. The decision then goes to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth before ultimately reaching the president, who has the final authority to approve the execution.
How the Army has conducted firing squad executions
Among the unanswered questions are how the Army will select the soldiers who would serve as executioners and how it will train them for a task the military has not carried out in more than a half-century.
The Army’s most detailed procedures for carrying out an execution by firing squad date to 1959 and have not been updated since. The Army is quickly developing a new procedure on conducting firing squad executions, according to a service official.
But under those old execution rules, a condemned prisoner would be given consistent access to a chaplain, and, when practical, reasonable final requests, according to documentation reviewed by ABC News.
The execution itself called for eight riflemen led by a senior enlisted soldier armed with a pistol. The firing squad would take up position in a straight line, 15 paces from the prisoner, whose wrists and ankles would be restrained. A chaplain could remain with the prisoner up until the final moments before the shooting is ordered.
Between one and three of the eight rifles would be loaded with blanks, and the shooters would select their weapons at random. The prisoner would be dressed in a military uniform stripped of awards, insignia and other markings.
After being given an opportunity to make a final statement, the prisoner would be hooded and a medical officer would place a four-inch target over the heart. The chaplain and medical officer would then move away.
The firing squad would be ordered to aim and fire simultaneously. If the prisoner survived, the rules called for the senior enlisted leader of the firing squad to approach with their pistol, aim above the prisoner’s ear and fire 12 inches from the head.
It is unclear how closely the Army will adhere to those decades-old procedures in Hasan’s case, or how they might be adapted for a prisoner who is paralyzed and uses a wheelchair.
