As we approach the 100-day mark of Trump 2.0, we see, Lord knows, much to worry about. But one reassuring development has been that, by and large, the judicial branch has stood tough against the administration’s lawlessness. Federal Judges James Boasberg and Paula Xinis are early heroes of the second Trump regime. I’m sure there are more who’ve escaped my notice.

I’m old enough to remember when the name J. Harvie Wilkinson III made me shake. He was elevated to the federal bench by Ronald Reagan, was affiliated with the Federalist Society, and he always, on lists of possible Supreme Court nominees, occupied one of the hard-right slots. But now Wilkinson too has become a voice of sanity, writing the three-judge ruling handed down Thursday night that rebuked the Trump administration in the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case.

The ruling is unequivocal and, as we shall see, went out of its way to alert Americans to the constitutional threat the administration poses. But it does something more important: It returns the spotlight to the Supreme Court, and specifically to Chief Justice John Roberts, pressuring them to stand up to this madness. And so, one of the key controversies roiling our democracy, from this case to others, is this: What will Roberts do?

We’ll return to that. But first, let’s review Wilkinson’s judgment. Here are the money quotes:

"It is difficult in some cases to get to the very heart of the matter. But in this case, it is not hard at all. The government is asserting the right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order.… This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from the courthouse still hold dear."

"The government asserts that Abrego Garcia is a terrorist and a member of MS-13. Perhaps, but perhaps not. Regardless, he is still entitled to due process. If the government is confident of its position, it should be assured that position will prevail" in court.

"Now the [executive and judicial] branches come too close to grinding irrevocably against one another in a conflict that diminishes both."

Notice in that first quote the use of the word "residents." Not citizens. This is a clear recognition that the language of the Fourteenth Amendment—specifically the due process clause—extends protections not to "citizens" but to "persons." Abrego Garcia has constitutional rights. Period. His character and his immigration status are totally irrelevant.

The Wilkinson opinion will inevitably toss the matter back to the Supreme Court, which ruled on April 10 that the Trump administration must "facilitate" Abrego Garcia’s return to the United States. The court’s order was pretty mealy-mouthed. The key sentence reads: "For its part, the Government should be prepared to share what it can concerning the steps it has taken and the prospect of further steps."

Now the court will be compelled to take a stronger stand. Can the nation’s highest court possibly allow this situation to continue? The government of the United States admits Abrego Garcia was deported by mistake and then says it’s powerless to return him, that only El Salvador can do that; and El Salvador says it’s powerless to return him, that only the United States can. If the court’s six conservative justices have any shred of dignity and respect for the role they’re supposed to play in this democracy, they cannot let this stand. It’s a fundamental issue.

Other equally fundamental issues are headed the court’s way. It is weighing what to do about Trump’s ability to fire executive agency heads unilaterally. Just recently, the court blocked the reinstatement of two executive agency officials Trump had fired—but it did so only temporarily, while the court considers whether Trump had the authority to fire them. Still, that order was a temporary win for Trump—and was written by Roberts himself.

And just Thursday, we learned that the court will hear arguments on birthright citizenship on May 15. A decision will likely follow in June or July. This, again, would seem on the surface to be as open-and-shut as the Abrego Garcia matter, and for much the same reason: The Fourteenth Amendment says "persons," and it states quite plainly in its very first sentence: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."

We seem not to be confronted with legal questions. Those are settled. As U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman recently ruled, in deciding against a Trump administration motion, "No court in the country has ever endorsed the president’s interpretation."

There remain only political questions, the chief one being: What feat of originalist–unitary executive legerdemain will the court’s conservatives perform to jam the square peg of Trump’s goals into the round holes of the United States Constitution?

Whether they will do so is up to Roberts. Once upon a quaint old time, the chief justice would cajole his colleagues into consensus on matters of historical import. Earl Warren made sure that the ruling on Brown v. Board was 9–0, because he wanted the country to see that the court was united on this great historical question of segregation versus integration. One doubts 9–0 is possible on these major cases today, with these two guys hanging around. But Roberts at least should have the power to steer a majority to uphold the ideas that words mean what they say and that this is not a nation of one-man rule. Roberts’s name will live in history, either alongside brave jurists like Boasberg and Xinis or in infamy, alongside Roger Taney and, well, Clarence Thomas.

It’s admittedly hard to measure these things, which end up being awfully subjective; and it’s true that this has been a reign of madness since the very first day, when Trump signed his first batch of extralegal executive orders and his top donor and hatchet man made his infamous "non-Nazi" salute. Having so stipulated, this week felt to me like the week we truly entered Mad King territory.

The tipping point was Trump’s announcement that he’s going to strip Harvard of its tax-exempt status. That’s just a nakedly Orbánesque, even Putinesque, power move. It’s designed to cripple the school financially (donations to it would no longer be tax deductible). Tax-exempt status, under IRS rules, is conferred upon organizations that serve a function deemed to be "charitable, religious, educational, scientific, literary, testing for public safety, fostering national or international amateur sports competition and the prevention of cruelty to children or animals." Harvard University (and don’t forget its important theological seminary) surely fulfills most of those functions.

It’s absurd. But it’s also ghastly. Ghastly that Trump believes that as president, he ought to be able to do this. Ghastly that it even occurred to him (and/or his people). I can’t imagine that it ever even occurred to Barack Obama or Bill Clinton to toy with suspending the tax-exempt status of Liberty University or any of the other dozens of avowedly right-wing higher education institutions that make clear in their pedagogy and research that they are out to destroy everything those presidents were trying to do. Likewise, I can’t imagine the reverse ever even occurred to either Bush. People who have a basic education in and respect for foundational principles of American democracy would never, ever think like this.

That group does not include the current president.

And make no mistake: He’s likely to get what he wants. No, he is not allowed under law to revoke an institution’s 501(c)3 status. But the IRS can. And who’s running the IRS (on an acting basis)? As of Tuesday, this hatchet man: Gary Shapley, an infamous IRS whistleblower on the Hunter Biden probe. Shapley then alleged that mysterious, high-up political forces, as opposed to U.S. Attorney David Weiss, were really calling the shots in that federal criminal investigation. Several FBI and IRS officials gave closed-door testimony disputing his claims.

Shapley is a total MAGA toady, in other words, who supplied suspect (at best) information to a suspect House GOP committee led by an idiot Republican chairman whose investigation ended up going nowhere and who accomplished nothing except making an ass of himself (while costing the taxpayers millions). And now Shapley has the power to strip Harvard of its tax status. So, yeah, it’s probably going to happen. He’s been installed in the job to do exactly this—and more. This may be another matter on which we will ultimately take measure of the mettle of John Roberts.

On May 14, TNR’s editor, Michael Tomasky, and staff writers Matt Ford, Timothy Noah, Tori Otten, and Greg Sargent will host the next in our series America in Crisis, live and livestreamed from the Atlas Performing Arts Center in D.C.

With the new administration in place, this event will bring together influential political commentators with TNR’s most engaged readers to explore what we can do to fight back against Trump’s antidemocratic rampage.

RSVP before it sells out:

Last week’s quiz: "It might as well be …" Songs, movies, and poems about (to some extent) spring.

1. In "Springtime for Hitler" from The Producers, for whom was it winter?

A. Stalin

B. Churchill and Roosevelt

C. Marx and Engels

D. Poland and France

Answer: D, Poland and France. And "goosestep’s the new step today."

2. What notable thing does Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan) do at the Spring Fling dance in 2004’s Mean Girls?

A. Douses Regina George (Rachel McAdams) with warm beer

B. Breaks up her plastic tiara into little pieces and gives them to the less popular girls

C. Declares that she has a secret crush on Janis Ian (Lizzy Caplan)

D. Shocks everyone by slow dancing with Principal Duvall (Tim Meadows)

Answer: B, gives pieces of her tiara to the less popular girls. It’s actually quite a moving scene.

3. Who wrote these lines?:

Dear March—Come in—

How glad I am—

I hoped for you before—

Put down your Hat—

You must have walked—

How out of Breath you are—

Dear March, how are you, and the Rest—

Did you leave Nature well—

Oh March, Come right upstairs with me—

I have so much to tell—

A. Elizabeth Barrett Browning

B. Emily Dickinson

C. Matthew Arnold

D. Robert Lowell

Answer: B, Emily Dickinson. Here’s the whole poem if you’re interested (it’s not long). I’d completely forgotten that she attained no fame during her life. Her first volume was published four years after her death, when her sister discovered some 1,800 poems around the house.

4. Where did George Harrison write "Here Comes the Sun"?

A. Paul’s solarium

B. Ringo’s kitchen table

C. Eric Clapton’s garden

D. Sitting on the loo at Abbey Road

Answer: C, Clapton’s garden. George: "It seems as if winter in England goes on forever, by the time spring comes you really deserve it. So one day I decided I was going to sag off Apple and I went over to Eric Clapton’s house. The relief of not having to go see all those dopey accountants was wonderful, and I walked around the garden with one of Eric’s acoustic guitars and wrote ‘Here Comes the Sun.’"

5. Who wrote the songs for 1948’s Easter Parade, starring Fred Astaire and Judy Garland?

A. George and Ira Gershwin

B. Rodgers and Hart

C. Sammy Cahn

D. Irving Berlin

Answer: D, Irving Berlin. The greatest Jewish composer of Christmas and Easter songs!

6. T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land opens with the famous line, "April is the cruelest month." What’s the next line?

A. "Breeding lilacs out of the dead land"

B. "Stirring dull roots with spring rain"

C. "In vials of ivory and colored glass"

D. "They’re selling postcards of the hanging"

Answer: A, the one about the lilacs. Last week, I mentioned that there’s a little joke in the fake answers, which is that while A, B, and C all come from The Waste Land, D is the first line of Dylan’s "Desolation Row."

This week’s quiz:

The sound that shook the world: I’ve been eyeing up the possible purchase of a Fender Stratocaster lately, preferably gunmetal blue with a black pick guard, so it’s time to look at the history of the electric guitar.

1. The main things that make an electric guitar electric are those two or three metal bars that you see between the bottom of the neck and the bridge (the base of the strings). Those metal bars contain magnets and wire, and they convert the acoustic vibration into an electric signal. What are they called?

A. Converters

B. Signalers

C. Expressers

D. Pickups

2. These metal bars were first placed on a guitar in 1928, but it was 1932 before the world saw the first commercial production of an electric guitar. Who pioneered this?

A. C.F. Martin

B. Leo Fender

C. Orville Gibson

D. Alfred Rickenbacker

3. This guitar debuted in 1951 and became what was really the first broadly available and affordable electric guitar. Originally a staple mainly of country music players, it quickly became a rock and roll workhorse and is still wildly popular today.

A. Fender Telecaster

B. Epiphone Casino

C. Gibson SG

D. Gretsch Country Gentleman

4. Jimi Hendrix was famous for playing a white Stratocaster. His first was given to him by a woman named Linda Keith, who stole it from her then fiancé and gave it to Jimi for a gig (she would go on to date Hendrix for a time). Who was this fiancé?

A. Dave Davies

B. Jeff Beck

C. Keith Richards

D. Derek Leckenby (lead guitarist, Herman’s Hermits)

5. Match the guitarist to the axe with which he is most closely associated.

6. Who is the greatest female guitar player of all time, according a 2023 survey by Far Out (U.K.) magazine?

A. Nancy Wilson

B. Sister Rosetta Tharpe

C. Bonnie Raitt

D. Nita Strauss (lead guitarist for Alice Cooper)

Let me know if you see a gunmetal Strat anywhere for under $700. Feedback to fightingwords@tnr.com. 

—Michael Tomasky, editor 

On April 29, Norm Eisen and Jen Rubin of The Contrarian and Michael Tomasky of The New Republic will convene leading political, legal, and media minds for a major livestreamed event—assessing the authoritarian onslaught of Trump’s first 100 days.

 Update your personal preferences for _t.e.s.t_@example.com by clicking here. 

Our mailing address is:

The New Republic, 1 Union Sq W Fl 6 , NY , New York, NY 10003-3303, United States

Do you want to stop receiving all emails from ? 

Unsubscribe from this list. If you stopped getting TNR emails, update your profile to resume receiving them.