President Donald Trump waves as he arrives on Sept. 7, 2026, at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. (Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump has posted numerous memes on social media over the long weekend appearing to propose renaming the state of New Mexico to “New America.”
The posts come as the president has repeatedly taken aim at bodies of water bearing the names of other countries and foreign provinces, including the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Ontario, seeking to change those names to include “America” via executive orders.
The president can unilaterally change a geographic name for official U.S. federal government use, but he can’t dictate what other countries or international bodies call it. However, the president cannot unilaterally change the name of a state. New Mexico’s state constitution explicitly states: “The name of this state is New Mexico.”
Congress passed the Enabling Act of 1910, which authorized the territory of New Mexico to form a constitution and state government in preparation for admission to the Union. New Mexico officially became a state on Jan. 6, 1912.
While in Bedminster, New Jersey, Trump continued posting on social media Monday, including at least seven posts related to his proposal to rename New Mexico “New America,” drawing fierce backlash from the state’s leaders.
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham criticized Trump’s posts Sunday, saying in a post on X that the state’s name is not “up for debate.”
“It’s been ours since before the United States existed,” the governor said. “What is up for debate? Who’s showing up for working families. While the President tries to distract Americans from his disastrous war in Iran, gas prices keep soaring. Americans are also spending more at the grocery store, losing access to health care and wondering if they’ll ever be able to afford a home.”
“Under Democratic leadership here in New Mexico, we’re providing families with free childcare and college, protecting access to health care and investing in housing. While the White House wastes time coloring on maps, Nuevo México is busy doing the work,” the governor stated.
Both senators from New Mexico also responded to Trump’s posts Sunday.
“Three things I will always call by their actual names… The Gulf of Mexico Lake Ontario New Mexico,” Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico stated in a post on X.
Sen. Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico also posted on X, “It’s New Mexico, always has been and always will be. Just like how you’ll always be a sinvergüenza and corrupt.”
The Kennedy Center on Sept. 2, 2026, in Washington, D.C. (Finn Gomez/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — One month after the board of the Kennedy Center voted to add President Donald Trump’s name to the historic building, a judge has blocked the leadership of the performing arts center from adding a tribute to Trump on the facade of the building.
The ruling came less than an hour before the board was scheduled to meet Tuesday to consider whether to close the center indefinitely.
U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, following a conference Tuesday morning, issued a written order blocking the attempt to add Trump’s name to the building, concluding it violated a previous court order and congressional statute.
“Simply put, Defendants cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress’s blessing. The board resolution bucks a federal court order and a statute Congress enacted,” Cooper wrote.
Judge Cooper previously blocked Trump from renaming the Kennedy Center after himself, but the board voted last month to add Trump’s name to the building nonetheless, in order to recognize him as the person who “renovated and restored” the iconic structure.
“Linguistic gymnastics cannot extricate the Kennedy Center’s Board from an operative judicial order or the governing statute it was designed to enforce,” Cooper wrote in Tuesday’s ruling.
Judge Cooper’s ruling blocks the Trump administration from adding Trump’s name to the building — along the lines of “The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts renovated and restored by President Donald J. Trump” — as well as renaming the site of the center “President Donald J. Trump Plaza.” The judge did not decide about another proposal to say the Kennedy Center is “endowed by the Trump Kennedy Center Fund,” because the money has not yet been raised for the fund.
Cooper also pushed back on the assertion that the future of the Kennedy Center relies on Trump’s fundraising. He noted that Congress also already appropriated $257 million for the center’s renovation, and suggested that the president’s allies manufactured the Kennedy Center’s financial problems.
“The renaming of the Center coincided with declines in revenue and contributions, as artists cancelled performances, the Washington National Opera ended its 50-year residency, and ticket sales and viewership of the Kennedy Center Honors broadcast dropped precipitously,” Cooper wrote.
Judge Cooper also said that the Kennedy Center has failed to provide any evidence to demonstrate that “current or future donations hinge on President Trump’s name being on the building.”
“The Court may not license a violation of those authorities under threat that some unidentified donors will withhold their largesse if the Board is not allowed to have its way. It can even less reward a decision by Board members, including the Chair, to curb the Center’s fundraising efforts because they cannot abide statutory restrictions on displaying his name,” the ruling said. “Predictions of future actions by the Board in response to being told no therefore cannot concern the Court.”
The Board of Trustees was scheduled to meet Tuesday afternoon, though the Trump administration overnight said the meeting would be “focused exclusively on the necessary closure” of the center, and not on additional ways to honor President Trump. Trustees were expected to vote on a measure declaring that the Kennedy Center’s main building is “unsafe for continued occupancy” and must be closed for a two-year renovation.
Kennedy Center leadership had previously argued that adding the president’s name to the structure would be necessary to save the center from “certain fiscal collapse within weeks.”
“The Board understands that without such appropriate recognition it is unlikely that President Trump will provide the fundamental oversight of the renovation of the main building and lead the fiscal rescue of the Center,” said a resolution initially scheduled to be introduced today before it was delayed for a future meeting.
In their late-night court filing, Justice Department lawyers included an email sent to the board at 7 p.m. Monday by Kennedy Center official Joe LaFauci, indicating that a separate draft resolution proposing ten new ways to honor Trump would not be considered, and that the board “stands by” its earlier vote to recognize the president.
LaFauci in his email said the update to Tuesday’s agenda was due “to the recently exacerbated structural emergencies” at the center, the court filing said.
Late on Monday night, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick separately posted security video of a partial ceiling collapse that occurred during a rainstorm earlier this month. The video shows a chunk of debris crashing onto an empty red carpet.
“If a performance had been underway, patrons could have been killed,” Lutnick said in his post on social media. “People cannot be allowed to go into this building any longer.”
The center voted in December to add Trump’s name on the outside of the building before a federal judge, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, ordered its removal in May.
The board voted 23-3 last month on a resolution to close the facility for two years as part of a $285 million renovation plan, according to a court filing. The board, members of which were largely appointed by Trump, also voted to add Trump’s name back onto the Kennedy Center building as many as two more times, according to the filing.
While Congress already appropriated $257 million for the project, the board has argued that Trump would raise another $100 million for the center.
The board as it voted last month said it would re-add Trump’s name to the building as the man who “renovated and restored” the center, adding, if a fundraising goal is hit, that it had been endowed by the “Trump Kennedy Center Fund.”
But Cooper is currently weighing whether that would violate a statute prohibiting additional memorials at D.C.’s only memorial to former President John F. Kennedy. Cooper is set to hold a 10 a.m. ET scheduling conference on the future plans for the center and the board is preparing to meet privately at 12:30 p.m. ET.
Trustees are expected to vote on Tuesday afternoon on a measure declaring the Kennedy Center’s main building “unsafe for continued occupancy,” and ordering that it be “closed to patrons forthwith.”
Cooper is also positioned to eventually decide whether the board can move forward with its latest plans to close the center, plans that have taken on new urgency following the ceiling collapse and the new claim of center officials that the entity is quickly running out of money to remain operational.
An attorney for Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), who has filed a lawsuit challenging the planned closure and renaming, praised the decision not to move forward with another resolution honoring the president.
“Trump & cronies back down on HALF of the crazy,” lawyer Norm Eisen wrote on social media on Tuesday. But Eisen added that the plan to immediately close the center amounts to “foolishness” that he said Beatty’s legal team will fight.
Programming at the Kennedy Center, which normally funds its operations, effectively ended in early July. Ticket sales had reportedly been dropping off for months prior, following the board’s vote last December to rename the facility. Cooper ruled that move unlawful in May.
Despite Congress-approve funding that’s already on the table, center officials last weekend again underscored the need to honor Trump so that he might be enticed to lead additional efforts at raising money and oversee the renovation.
“The Board understands that without such appropriate recognition it is unlikely that President Trump will provide the fundamental oversight of the renovation of the main building and lead the fiscal rescue of the Center,” read the text of a draft resolution that is — according to LaFauci — no longer up for consideration today.
The U.S. Supreme Court reconvenes Monday on the eve of the midterm elections to begin a new term that will confront a fresh wave of appeals from President Donald Trump and the prospect of explosive legal challenges to 2026 election results.
The first case for oral argument involves climate change and a blockbuster bid by local governments to sue energy companies for financial damages over alleged harms from fossil fuels — the first-of-its-kind dispute to reach the justices. Potentially billions of dollars are on the line.
This year the court will also decide whether states can ban semi-automatic weapons like the AR-15; deny federal ballots to voters who don’t provide proof of citizenship on state registration forms; and block religious schools from taxpayer-funded programs when they discriminate against LGBTQ+ families.
It is also considering whether to weigh in on state laws mandating display of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms; legal shields for medical providers who mail abortion pills out of state; and, regulation of prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket.
These cases are not expected to be decided before the midterms in November.
“Is the court a Republican court? Is it resolving disputes in the name of justice or some broader set of principles? I think it’s a very live question,” said Genevieve Lakier, a constitutional scholar at the University of Chicago Law School. “This term, like the last, is going to provide fuel to the fire of that question.”
The justices will decide the legality of the Trump administration’s rapid deportation of immigrants to third countries — without giving them a chance to raise fears of persecution — and the indefinite detention of immigrants awaiting deportation proceedings without a chance for release on bond.
The president also has personal appeals before the court. He wants the justices to invalidate an $83 million civil judgment against him in the E. Jean Carroll defamation suit; revive a conspiracy claim against Hillary Clinton and the DNC from the 2016 campaign; and allow defamation claims against CNN from the 2020 election to go forward.
“The Supreme Court’s term is, in part, going to involve a lot of election drama,” said William Baude, a prominent conservative law professor at the University of Chicago and member of the Federalist Society. “The 2026 midterm elections are upon us, and the court has already had several pieces of litigation related to that, and has more to come at any moment.”
A majority of Americans believe that the justices are motivated mainly by politics in their decision-making and that this court — with a 6-justice conservative supermajority — rules often for Trump, a Marquette University poll found last month.
But many scholars, and the justices themselves, argue that public perception is not matched by reality.
On dozens of other matters that reached the court on the emergency docket, however, the conservative majority has been much more deferential to the president. By one analysis, he has won about nine times out of ten.
“I don’t see this as a court that is just like, ‘We’re just going to rubber stamp what the current administration does.’ You know, quite the opposite,” Justice Elena Kagan, a member of the court’s liberal minority, told a judicial conference over the summer. “I think that that is a bad rap.”
Former Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, who served in the Obama administration, said the Court has been deliberate in asserting its independence from the president.
“It’s doing so at a time in which there really is a pretty darn serious constitutional clash going on,” Verrilli said last month. “Though, I think it’s certainly right it is not a MAGA court.”
Veteran court watchers note, however, that every term comes with surprises.
“Will the court continue to hold the line against the president’s never-ending assault on the rule of law? Will the court otherwise break down 6-3 in favor of conservative positions?” said Irv Gornstein, executive director of the Supreme Court Institute at Georgetown Law Center.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche attends a Cabinet Meeting at Camp Davaid, the presidential retreat, July 31, 2026, in Camp David, Maryland. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Under pressure from two Republican senators blocking his confirmation as the next attorney general, Todd Blanche said he is formally rescinding his establishment of President Donald Trump’s so-called “Anti-Weaponization Fund.”
Blanche posted two separate orders on X Sunday night, one rescinding the nearly $1.8 billion fund, as well as another clarifying language regarding the scope of an arrangement that had shielded Trump from facing further IRS audits of his past tax returns.
The move prompted Republican Sens. John Cornyn and Thom Tillis, who had been holding up Blanche’s nomination, to announce Monday that they are ready to move forward.
The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on Blanche’s nomination on Tuesday at 9 a.m. Blanche will likely need the support of every Republican on the committee to advance to the floor.
He is expected to be voted out of committee, setting up a final confirmation vote later this week.
“We are pleased that the Department of Justice has issued a formal order terminating the anti-weaponization fund,” Cornyn and Tillis said in a joint statement. “Additionally, the Department has acknowledged in a binding written order that the audit settlement is limited to the plaintiffs and the scope does not extend beyond the defendants in the lawsuit, the IRS and the Treasury, addressing concerns that multiple of our Republican colleagues share.”
“We want to express our gratitude to Mr. Blanche and his staff for working with us on this, and we look forward to voting to advance his nomination out of the Senate Judiciary Committee soon,” they said.
As part of Trump’s settlement with the IRS in his $10 billion lawsuit against the agency, the DOJ issued an addendum, signed by Blanche in his role as acting attorney general, that would bar the government from continuing any existing audits of tax returns filed by Trump, his family and their companies.
Cornyn said last week that he did need the DOJ to modify the language of the settlement, but that he wants written documentation that the settlement won’t provide tax audit immunity that extends to affiliated organizations for Trump and his family that weren’t part of the lawsuit.
Blanche’s post on Sunday is a signal that he had secured approval from Sens. John Cornyn and Thom Tillis, who had been key holdouts on his nomination. The GOP senators had been working behind closed doors and in private talks with Blanche and his team to craft statements they’d find acceptable to alter the language of the controversial settlement.
“Sen. Cornyn has reached an agreement with the Department of Justice, which will be issuing a formal order permanently terminating the anti-weaponization fund and making clear in a binding written document that the scope of the audit settlement is limited to only the plaintiffs, including the President, and the IRS,” Cornyn spokesperson Natalie Yezbick said in a statement late on Sunday.
Some legal experts and even MAGA supporters of the fund, however, have already begun questioning whether it precludes DOJ from giving mass payouts to pro-Trump rioters or the clarification that Cornyn had initially sought to the IRS immunity clause.
The order dealing with IRS immunity notably states that DOJ would interpret the order to mean that it only applies to plaintiffs in Trump and his son’s initial $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS — but that interpretation doesn’t appear to be similarly binding on Trump’s personal lawyers or his family.
And some previous vocal supporters of the so-called “Anti-Weaponization Fund” are already cheering on the language of the order rescinding it — noting that there’s nothing specifically barring DOJ from payouts to pro-Trump supporters who may have attacked police during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
Blanche’s orders on Sunday come after Trump floated the possibility of temporarily withdrawing Blanche’s nomination to permanently lead the Department of Justice because of the resistance from the two outgoing Republican senators.
Both senators’ terms will end in January. Cornyn lost a primary battle in Texas earlier this year after Trump endorsed his opponent, Ken Paxton. Tillis announced last year he would not seek reelection after Trump threatened to field primary challengers.
Withdrawing Blanche’s nomination is a decision that would have no consequence in terms of Blanche leading the DOJ.
Blanche can continue to serve as acting attorney general. Acting department officials can serve in the role for 210 days, according to the Federal Vacancies Reform Act — however, that resets if a nomination is withdrawn.
