Kristi Noem fumbles habeas corpus, denies DHS will host citizenship TV show
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(WASHINGTON) — Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem incorrectly responded to a lawmaker’s question on the definition of habeas corpus during a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on the Department of Homeland Security budget for the upcoming year on Tuesday.
Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., asked Noem, “What is habeas corpus?”
The secretary responded, saying, “Habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country.”
“Habeas corpus is the legal principle that requires, requires that the government provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people. If not for that protection, the government could simply arrest people, including American citizens, and hold them indefinitely for no reason,” she said.
“Habeas corpus is the foundational right that separates free societies like America from police states like North Korea,” Hassan added. “As a senator from the ‘Live Free or Die’ state, this matters a lot to me and my constituents and to all Americans.”
Hassan then asked, “Secretary Noem, do you support the core protection that habeas corpus provides that the government must provide a public reason in order to detain and imprison someone?”
“I support habeas corpus,” Noem responded. “I also recognize that the president of the United States has the authority under the Constitution to decide if it should be suspended or not.”
Hassan interrupted Noem, saying, “It has never been done. It has never been done without approval of Congress. Even Abraham Lincoln got retroactive approval from Congress.”
Later in the hearing, Noem denied any involvement in a reported reality television show featuring the Department of Homeland Security in which immigrants would compete for U.S. citizenship.
“We have no knowledge of a reality show,” Noem said. “There may have been something submitted to the department, but I did not know anything about this reality show until the reporter reached out.”
Noem then took aim at The Wall Street Journal’s reporting, saying, “That article — in fact, they had to change it later because they lied so bad, and they had us on the record saying I had no knowledge of a reality show. The department didn’t — there may have been something submitted somewhere along the line because there are proposals pitched to the department, but me and my executive team have no knowledge of a reality show and it’s not under consideration.”
“That article was completely inaccurate, completely inaccurate and false, and the fact that they printed it when they knew it was false was a dereliction of their work,” she added.
(NEW YORK) — Voters head to the polls on Tuesday for New Jersey’s primary elections, which will set up the state’s 2025 gubernatorial election — the results of which could be a potential harbinger for the mood of the country ahead of 2026’s critical midterm elections.
The Democratic candidates are sparring over how to best respond to President Donald Trump’s agenda in the Garden State and each hopes to keep the state’s governorship in Democratic hands. The state’s current governor, Democrat Phil Murphy, can’t run again after serving two terms.
There are six candidates in the Democratic primary. Polling has shown that Rep. Mikie Sherrill, a former Navy helicopter pilot who represents the state’s 11th Congressional District, leads the crowded Democratic field, but the race could still be anyone’s to win.
The other Democratic candidates are Rep. Josh Gottheimer, who represents the state’s 5th District; Newark Mayor Ras Baraka; Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop; New Jersey Education Association President Sean Spiller; and former state Senate president Steve Sweeney.
Republicans, meanwhile, hope to flip New Jersey’s governorship red in November and also have a crowded primary field. President Donald Trump has endorsed former state assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli, who ran for governor in 2021, narrowly losing to Murphy.
“This year’s election for governor is critical for New Jersey’s future. You’ll decide whether New Jersey is a high tax, high crime, sanctuary state,” Trump said during a rally held by telephone last week. “New Jersey is ready to pop out of that blue horror show.”
Ciattarelli faces conservative radio personality Bill Spadea, state Sen. Jon Bramnick, former Englewood Cliffs Mayor Mario Kranjac, and contractor Justin Barbera.
The contest is on track to become the priciest election in New Jersey history, with over $85 million spent on advertising as of last Wednesday, according to a report from media tracking agency AdImpact.
Among Democrats, Gottheimer has the most ad spending supporting him ($22.8 million), followed by Fulop ($17.8 million).
Ciattarelli leads among Republicans with $5.9 million in ad spending or reservations supporting him, dwarfing Spadea’s $2.2 million and Bramnick’s $1.2 million.
About 70% of broadcast ad airings have mentioned Trump, according to AdImpact.
-ABC News’ Emily Chang and Halle Troadec contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Do parents of public school children have a constitutional right to opt-out their kids from classroom lessons involving storybooks that feature LGBTQ themes or characters?
The Supreme Court will tackle that question Tuesday in a closely watched First Amendment case that comes as the Trump administration moves to empower parents and root out diversity and inclusion initiatives across the U.S. education system.
A group of parents, including Muslims, Orthodox Ukrainians, Christians and Jews from Montgomery County, Maryland, claim constitutional protections for religious exercise mean they must have an opportunity to exempt their children from any instruction on gender or sexuality that may be counter to teachings of faith.
“We’re under no illusion, they’ll learn about these things, but in the formative years, what ultimately we could not agree with [Montgomery County Public Schools], is where inclusion stopped and indoctrination started,” said Wael Elkoshairi, who is homeschooling his fourth-grade daughter because he says the books infringe on his Muslim faith.
The school board, made up of locally elected representatives, says the purpose of education is to expose children to a broad mix of people and ideas — and that the Constitution does not guarantee students the right to skip lessons inconsistent with their beliefs.
Lower courts sided with the board. The justices will now take a closer look at whether the county’s refusal to grant an opt-out to parents illegally burdens their religious rights.
“The case is a good illustration of the fact that public schools are at ground zero in the culture wars,” said Jim Walsh, a Texas lawyer who represents school boards and is a member of the National School Attorneys Association.
“We all want the school to reflect our values, but we don’t agree on our values. And certainly issues about same-sex marriage, the rights of lesbians and gays, are right at the center of that,” he said.
Starting in 2022, Montgomery County — one of the most diverse counties in the country — introduced a series of LGBTQ-themed storybooks for reading in elementary school classrooms under a statewide mandate to be more inclusive of the diversity of families and children attending the schools.
The local school board, which closely consulted with educators in approving the curriculum, maintains that the books do not take a side on issues of gender or sexuality and that teachers are instructed not to teach or enforce any particular view.
Among the illustrated titles is “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding” by Sarah Brannen, about a young girl who worries her close relationship with a beloved uncle will change after he marries his male fiance. “Prince & Knight” by Daniel Haack presents a fairy-tale narrative about a blossoming romance between the main characters after a dramatic rescue from a dragon.
“Nothing in my book is any different than most fairy tales that have some sort of romance at the center of it,” said Haack. “Nothing different than “Sleeping Beauty” or “Cinderella” or any of those.”
In the book “Intersection Allies,” a group of three sociologist authors set out to simplify complex ideas about identity, including what it means to be nonbinary.
“We wrote this to affirm kids who are left out of the stories that we often tell,” said LaToya Council, one of the authors. “This book is not saying that, you know, your child has to choose to be transgender. It’s saying respect someone who is trans and their ability to seek spaces that are comfortable for them.”
Chelsea Johnson, another of the book’s authors, insisted nothing in the text asks anyone to change their beliefs. “Schools and parents and communities are partners with each other and helping kids make sense of the world and we don’t have to opt our kids out to do that.”
Montgomery County guidelines advise educators to make the storybooks available for students to read on their own, to read aloud, or share in reading groups. Teachers are instructed not to advance a particular viewpoint about sexuality or gender with respect to the characters.
At first, during the 2022-2023 school year, the board allowed parents to opt-out their kids from any lessons involving the books, but it later changed course, denying any opt-outs.
“When I was in school, I was opted-out of sex ed because I wasn’t ready, and my parents didn’t feel it was appropriate for the teachers to talk about it, and it didn’t hurt anyone,” said Billy Moges, a mother of three and devout Christian, who pulled her kids from Montgomery County schools because of the books.
“The problem with some of these books, though, as well, is they were love stories, so it was not just exposure to LGBTQ characters. These were love stories,” said Elkoshairi.
School officials explained in court documents that administering an opt-out program became too cumbersome to manage, led to higher rates of student absenteeism, and was ultimately inconsistent with an educational mission of supporting all types of families.
“These books are representing the community that is surrounding these children,” said Emily McGowan, who mothers second- and sixth-graders with her wife Sharon in Montgomery County. “You cannot deny that we exist. We live here, our kids go to school here.”
The McGowans say opt-outs over LGBTQ stories harm the children whose family lives are represented in the books.
“The idea that 10 of their classmates get to get up and walk out because there’s two mommies in this book — What is the message that’s sent to our kid who has two mommies?” said Sharon McGowan. “That something is so offensive about this that they get to walk out and maybe they even get to go to the playground and have extra play time?”
Nearly every state gives parents the ability to opt-out their children from sex education classes but opt-outs for LGBTQ issues vary widely by community and are often decided by board members elected by local parents, Walsh said.
“We can all understand parents having strong feelings about when and how is my child going to be taught about sexual issues. So, there are more opt-outs about this than anything else. But if the Supreme Court rules in favor of the plaintiffs in this case, it’s not gonna stop with just sex and gender issues. It will cover a wide variety of things that parents may have objections to,” he said.
The case comes as the Trump administration has vowed to give more control over education to local leaders and communities. But even in places where school boards are choosing to prioritize diversity, equity and inclusion in their curriculum — like Montgomery County — some conservatives are still pushing to override policies.
“The school board has decided to disrupt the thinking of their children on an area that has long been understood as going to the core of parental authority for their children, on sex and gender,” said Will Haun, a senior attorney at Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is representing the plaintiffs before the Supreme Court. “In that area, the First Amendment absolutely protects the parents.”
“The democratic process is important, and that’s where we debate curriculum,” Haun added, “but here we’re talking about restoring an opt-out right, which is not a challenge to the curriculum.”
Wael Elkoshairi insists he harbors no ill will toward LGBTQ families and says he isn’t calling for a ban on any books. But he hopes the high court — as a matter of faith — will give parents greater control.
“When people have differences of opinion on certain things, accommodations work well to relieve everybody, and we move on,” Elkosairi said.
As for the McGowans, they are hoping the court’s conservative majority holds the line.
“The fact that the Court took the case at all — I don’t have reason to believe that they took the case to affirm the importance of inclusion in the public schools,” said Sharon McGowan. “If harm is done by their decision, we will figure out what we need to do at a personal and a community level to mitigate that harm.”
A decision in the case is expected by the end of June.
(WASHINGTON) — In a social media post on the day of Canada’s election, President Donald Trump suggested that Canadians should vote for him in order for Canada to become the 51st state.
“Elect the man who has the strength and wisdom to cut your taxes in half, increase your military power, for free, to the highest level in the World, have your Car, Steel, Aluminum, Lumber, Energy, and all other businesses, QUADRUPLE in size, with ZERO TARIFFS OR TAXES, if Canada becomes the cherished 51st. State of the United States of America,” Trump said on Monday, seeming to refer to himself as the candidate.
He added, “America can no longer subsidize Canada with the Hundreds of Billions of Dollars a year that we have been spending in the past. It makes no sense unless Canada is a State!”
Despite Trump’s suggestion, Canadians cannot vote for him since he is not on the ballot. There are 16 registered political parties in Canada — with the Liberals and the Conservatives being the most dominant. Other parties include the Green Party, the Libertarian Party, the United Party and the Canadian Future Party.
In response to the president’s post, Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre issued a sharp reply, saying Trump should “stay out of our election.”
“The only people who will decide the future of Canada are Canadians at the ballot box. Canada will always be proud, sovereign, and independent, and we will NEVER be the 51st state,” Poilievre wrote in a post on X. “Today, Canadians can vote for change so we can strengthen our country, stand on our own two feet, and stand up to America from a position of strength.”
Canadian Prime Minister and Liberal Party leader Mark Carney posted a video on X on Monday with the message: “This is Canada — and we decide what happens here.”
Latest polls show the Liberals ahead of the Conservatives, when only a few months ago the Conservatives held a 25-point lead.
Canada has a parliamentary system, meaning if the Liberals win a majority of seats in the election, or are able to form a minority government with members of another party, Carney will continue to serve as prime minister.
Nearly all of the polls for the election are expected to close by 9:30 p.m. ET on Monday.
