President Donald Trump speaks as he meets with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi in the Oval Office of the White House, Thursday, Aug. 20, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
By Mark Sherman
President Donald Trump is asking the Supreme Court to allow him to block critics from his personal Twitter account.
The administration said in a high-court filing Thursday that Trump's @realdonaldtrump account with more than 85 million followers is his personal property and blocking people from it is akin to elected officials who refuse to allow their opponents' yard signs on their front lawns.
"President Trump's ability to use the features of his personal Twitter account, including the blocking function, are independent of his presidential office," acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall wrote in urging the justices to review the case.
The federal appeals court in New York ruled last year that Trump uses the account to make daily pronouncements and observations that are overwhelmingly official in nature. It held that Trump violated the First Amendment whenever he blocked a critic to silence a viewpoint.
A decision about whether even to hear the case is not likely before the November election.
The case grew out of a challenge brought by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, which sued on behalf of seven individuals blocked by Trump after criticizing his policies.
Jameel Jaffer, the Knight Institute's executive director, said the justices should decline to take up Trump's appeal.
"This case stands for a principle that is fundamental to our democracy and basically synonymous with the First Amendment: government officials can't exclude people from public forums simply because they disagree with their political views," Jaffer said in a statement.
The administration argued in its appeal that the Supreme Court, not lower courts, "should decide where to draw the line between the President's personal decisions and official conduct."
The pace of the case was slowed by the coronavirus pandemic as well as Trump's decision to ask the full 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to review the ruling by a three-judge panel. The court refused to do so by a 7-2 vote in March. Two Trump appointees, Judges Michael H. Park and Richard J. Sullivan, were the only members of the court to side with the president.
The Supreme Court extended its deadline to file an appeal from 90 days to 150 days when it shut the building to the public and abandoned in-person meetings in favor of telephone conferences because of the virus outbreak.
Russian forces escalated their attacks on populated urban areas Tuesday, bombarding the central square in Ukraine’s second-largest city and Kyiv’s main TV tower.
A bipartisan group of 43 representatives joined forces in a letter to President Joe Biden to remind the executive branch that it must seek the approval of Congress before authorizing a war — whether or not its in Ukraine as Russia continues its invasion. Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore. 4th District) led the effort and joined Cheddar News Wrap to explain. "It's time for Congress to get back the authority, which is vested to us in the constitution, not in the executive branch," he said. "The president. once we're at war, we speak with one voice with the commander in chief. But before that, it's up to the American people and Congress whether or not we're going to become engaged in a war."
Chris Konstantinos, Chief Investment Strategist at RiverFront Investment Group, explains why he remains encouraged about the S&P and the state of the market despite the major indexes closing mostly lower on Monday.
President Joe Biden will be delivering his first State of the Union address on Tuesday night, and with so many issues from Ukraine to inflation, everyone will be focused on what he might say. Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y. 11th District) joined Cheddar News to discuss what she thinks the president should address. "I think what he hasn't done yet is go after the gas, the oil, the minerals, the mining industries, that is incredibly important," she said. "There's still some banks there that are not sanctioned. He needs to go after all the banks, but I also think that providing the equipment that Ukraine needs to continue to protect its capital and its country are incredibly important."
As Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, one of its few big allies remaining appears to be China. Gordon Chang, Asian affairs expert and author of "The Coming Collapse of China," joined Cheddar News to discuss what might be behind China's support for Putin's current strategy. “I think China is looking at what Putin did yesterday, which is to raise his nuclear forces on a higher alert level,” Chang stated, “If they see that Putin gets away with his nuclear threats, which he's been making over the last three or four days, then I'm sure that Beijing is going to ramp up its threats as well, and it could ramp them up against any number of different countries with which it perceives it has a problem with"
Joel Rubin, president of the Washington Strategy Group and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, joins Cheddar News to discuss the Russia-Ukraine tensions and the new sanctions President Biden placed on Russia.
