Sen. Chuck Schumer’s book tour postponed amid funding vote controversy
Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s three planned book tour events scheduled for this week have abruptly been postponed as of Monday morning.
Schumer, promoting his new book “Antisemitism in America: A Warning,” has been facing backlash over voting for the House-approved government funding bill that averted a shutdown on Friday. Many Democrats, including progressives, had wanted him to vote against the bill and to more strongly protest against President Donald Trump’s and congressional Republicans’ agendas.
Schumer had events planned in Baltimore, New York City and Washington, D.C., this week. Protests were planned outside of all three events.
A spokesperson for Schumer’s book tour told ABC News, “Due to security concerns, Senator Schumer’s book events are being rescheduled.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
John McDonnell/For The Washington Post via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump has often mused, even joked, about seeking a third term, but over the weekend he made his strongest and most serious comments yet on a move that constitutional scholars ABC News spoke with call virtually impossible.
“I’m not joking,” he told NBC News “Meet the Press” moderator Kirsten Welker in a phone interview on Sunday, before adding it was “far too early to think about it.”
“There are methods which you could do it,” Trump said, including a scenario in which Vice President JD Vance ran at the top of the 2028 ticket with Trump as his running mate, only for Trump to assume the Oval Office after the election.
Legal and election experts told ABC News any attempt to win another four years as president would be an unprecedented breach of the Constitution.
“Trump may not want to rule out a third term but the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution does,” said David Schultz, a professor at Hamline University and an expert in constitutional law.
The amendment states, in part: “No person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice.”
It was ratified in 1951, years after President Franklin D. Roosevelt broke with the two-term tradition set by George Washington and secured a third term as World War II was breaking out.
“It would be completely unprecedented for a president to openly defy the dictates of the 22nd Amendment and, even more so, to attempt to run or serve again as president,” said Michael Gerhardt, a constitutional expert at the University of North Carolina.
“The threats and insinuations no doubt thrill his base, but there is no constitutional basis for the current president to try to serve as president after two elected terms,” Gerhardt said.
The only way legal way for Trump to be able to run for a third term, experts said, would be to amend the Constitution — an incredibly unlikely outcome as it would take two-thirds of both the House and Senate, or two-thirds of the states agreeing to call a constitutional convention. Then, any change would require three-fourths of the states to sign on for ratification.
“This statement by Trump was brilliant in terms of capturing and diverting attention,” said Schultz. “His supporters love it and his detractors will rage over it. In the process, no one will talk about the price of eggs, tariffs and a shaky stock market.”
Experts break down ‘methods’ floated by Trump and his allies
As for Trump’s claim that one of the “methods” could be to run as Vance’s vice president and then be passed the baton, experts point to the 12th Amendment from 1804 as a barrier.
“The 12th Amendment states that anyone who is ineligible to be president is also deemed to be illegible to serve as vice president,” said Barry Burden, the director of the Elections Research Center at University of Wisconsin-Madison. “This means that Trump could not serve as vice president, which is the post he would need for the Vance scheme to be executed.”
Steve Bannon, a fierce Trump ally, has also floated what he’s called alternatives to allow Trump to run in 2028.
Bannon, in remarks at the New York Young Republican Club gala in December, has argued that he could run again as Trump’s two terms in office were not consecutive.
“Since it doesn’t actually say consecutive, I don’t know, maybe we do it again in ’28? Are you guys down for that? Trump ’28?” Bannon said.
Schultz said that argument doesn’t have a sound legal basis.
“The overall limit of serving as president for ten years is both textual proof on the bar to run for a third term and an indication of the intent of the congressional drafters that they did not want anyone serving for more than two terms,” Schultz said.
He added that measure “was put into place to allow for a situation where a president dies more than halfway into a term and the vice president succeeds that person. The Constitution thereby allows for the vice president to serve out the remaining term and then serve two more terms, for a total of ten years.”
What happens if Trump tries anyway?
Trump has already tested the bounds of the Constitution governing presidential power several times in the first months of his second term.
Several Democrats viewed his comments on Sunday as another escalation against the rule of law. Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin wrote on X: “This is what dictators do.”
In the past, Republicans have largely played off Trump’s musings about a third term as a joke intended to rile his opposition. But just days after his inauguration, Republican hardliner Rep. Andy Ogles introduced a resolution calling for the extension of presidential term limits to allow Trump to seek another four years in the White House.
“A crisis could arise if Trump runs for president or vice president in 2028,” Burden said. “The Constitution prohibits serving in office but not running for office. If Republicans nominated him, they would be betting that they can violate the Constitution and somehow allow him to serve if he wins.”
If Trump attempted to run, it would be up to election officials and then ultimately the courts to decide. This played out in the 2024 campaign, when several states challenged his eligibility to seek the Republican presidential nomination under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment due to his actions around the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. The legal battle went to the Supreme Court, which ruled in Trump’s favor.
“If an ineligible person such as Trump is permitted to run knowing that he is not eligible to serve, it is a dangerous collision course in which the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law would be seriously tested,” Burden said.
James Sample, a constitutional law expert at Hofstra University, said Trump would lose in court should he attempt to run again.
“Most of the Constitution is written in broad, textured, difficult to define terms. What is a speedy trial? What is cruel and unusual punishment? What is equal protection? How much process is due process? The 22nd Amendment, however, is black and white,” Sample said.
“But if you can succeed in turning questions that are that clear-cut into debates, then the overall goal of undermining the Constitution and undermining the rule of law and maximizing executive power is served even if you lose the particular battle,” he continued. “This particular battle is not a winnable battle. He is not going to serve a third term, but merely by framing this as a debate, he will succeed in further eroding respect for the Constitution.”
(WASHINGTON) — Hundreds of college and high school students representing student governments from some of the largest schools in the Washington, D.C., area will rally outside the Department of Education on Friday to oppose the administration’s gutting of the agency.
The “Hands Off Our Schools” rally is expected to turn out over 500 students, according to a spokesperson, who added that the rally has been working to increase its permit size to accommodate north of 1,000 participants.
The demonstration is organized by the student governments representing over 130,000 students at several colleges in the region, including Georgetown University, American University and Howard University, as well as along the Interstate 95 corridor up to Temple University, according to the organizers.
The coalition is a “historic alliance” standing against the “assault on education,” including campus free speech and student financial aid programs, according to a release by organizers.
It has a list of four demands for congressional leaders: preserve and strengthen the department; ensure all students are protected; oppose anti-diversity, equity and inclusion actions that restrict classroom autonomy; and reject the targeting of individual students and academics for expressing their political views.
“The recent executive orders undermine the bedrock of our nation and limit opportunities for children of all backgrounds to learn and achieve their full potential,” the organizers wrote in a statement. “By making educational spaces more restrictive and unwelcoming, these policies are set to leave lasting, harmful impacts on our generation and those who follow.”
President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to abolish the department and return education control to the states. The department has already let go of nearly half its workforce to start downsizing the agency.
Critics say college students will especially be affected if the president follows through with rehoming the Federal Student Aid Office’s responsibilities, such as the $1.6 trillion student loan portfolio, and terminating the federal workers who administer funds for higher education.
The rally is expected to run from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. and have about a dozen speakers. Organizers are also expecting Washington, D.C., high school state board of education representatives and former progressive Rep. Jamaal Bowman, a former principal, among the list of speakers. Organizers said they have reached out to additional lawmakers and are working to confirm the final list of speakers.
The event follows about a month’s worth of Friday demonstrations taking place at the department, including an “ED Matters” rally, “study-ins” and “clap-outs” for terminated federal workers.
More recently, lawmakers on Capitol Hill have been condemning the changes at the department. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., launched a “Save Our Schools” campaign this week against the administration’s attempt to dismantle the department. Her campaign will include investigations, oversight, community engagement and lawsuits, according to the senator.
“The federal government has invested in our public schools,” Warren said in an exclusive interview with ABC News. “Taking that away from our kids so that a handful of billionaires can be even richer is just plain ugly, and I will fight it with everything I’ve got.”
Meanwhile, McMahon shocked about a dozen House Democrats on Wednesday when she crashed their press conference outside the department after she met with them in a closed-door meeting at the agency.
(WASHINGTON) — In President Donald Trump’s escalating battle with the judiciary, he and his Republican allies have zeroed in on a similar message.
No single judge, they argue, should be able to use an injunction to block the powers of the country’s elected chief executive.
“That’s a presidential job. That’s not for a local judge to be making that determination,” Trump said on Fox News earlier this week as he railed against a judge who issued a limited injunction to stop deportation flights of alleged Venezuelan gang members to other countries after Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, peppered with questions after the administration did not turn the planes around, on Wednesday preemptively offered her own rebuke of judges who’ve recently ordered injunctions taking effect nationwide.
“The judges in this country are acting erroneously,” she said. “We have judges who are acting as partisan activists from the bench. They are trying to dictate policy from the president of the United States. They are trying to clearly slow walk this administration’s agenda, and it’s unacceptable.”
The White House argues that’s especially the case when it comes to immigration matters, foreign affairs, national security and the president exercising his constitutional powers as commander in chief.
Judges have, so far, temporarily blocked Trump’s efforts to ban transgender people from serving in the military, freeze federal funding and bring an end to birthright citizenship.
Supporters of nationwide injunctions say they serve as an essential check to potentially unlawful conduct and prevent widespread harm. Critics say they give too much authority to individual judges and incentivize plaintiffs to try to evade random assignment and file in jurisdictions with judges who may be sympathetic to their point of view.
In general, legal experts told ABC News an injunction is meant to preserve the status quo while judges consider the merits of the case. (Judges also issue temporary restraining orders — with similar impact — as short-term emergency measures to prevent irreparable harm until a hearing can be held.)
“Often the nationwide injunction, or universal injunction, is put in place right at the start of a litigation,” said Amanda Frost, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law.
“All of these can be appealed, and they are,” Frost said. “It’s appealed to a three-judge court and then the Supreme Court after that. So, when people say one district court is controlling the law for the nation, well maybe for a few weeks. The system allows for appeals, and the Trump administration has appealed.”
Chief Justice John Roberts said the same in a rare statement after Trump attacked the federal judge in the deportation flight case as a “Radical Left Lunatic” and called for him to be impeached.
In fact, Trump was handed a win when an appeals court last week lifted an injunction on his executive orders seeking to end diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs in the federal government.
Nationwide injunctions are also not new, though scholars agree they’ve been used far more in recent decades.
“We saw them with Obama, we saw them with the first Trump administration, and saw them with Biden,” Frost said. “And now we’re seeing them even more with President Trump but they go in lockstep with the sweeping executive orders that seek to change and upend vast swaths of our legal structure.”
According to a study by the Harvard Law Review, President Barack Obama faced 12 injunctions, the Trump administration faced 64 and President Joe Biden 14 injunctions.
Both Democrats and Republicans have either urged the judiciary to rein in injunctions or celebrated their outcomes, depending on whether they align with their political goals.
In 2023, when a federal judge in Missouri issued an injunction limiting contact between the Biden administration and social media sites, then-candidate Trump called it a “historic ruling” and the judge “brilliant.” The U.S. Supreme Court eventually sided with the Biden administration on the issue.
Now, the Trump administration is appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court to curb injunctions after three different federal judges temporarily blocked the president’s birthright citizenship order, saying it likely violated the 14th Amendment.
“At a minimum, the Court should stay the injunctions to the extent they prohibit agencies from developing and issuing public guidance regarding the implementation of the Order. Only this Court’s intervention can prevent universal injunctions from becoming universally acceptable,” Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris wrote in an application to the high court last week.
Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor and president of West Coast Trial Lawyers, said he understands the “frustration” that can stem from nationwide injunctions but ultimately “judges are there to make sure that the government doesn’t violate the Constitution.”
“Trump is really taking a sledgehammer to everything government related,” he said. “These norms have been around for decades, so you have to allow some time for the courts, particularly the Supreme Court, to weigh in and say whether this is appropriate or not.”
The White House has said Trump will comply with the courts, but his intensifying rebukes of judges and rulings have raised the question: What happens if he doesn’t?
“That would completely undermine the integrity of our system,” Rahmani said.
