By The Free Press | Created at 2025-03-31 10:15:16 | Updated at 2025-04-02 00:51:01
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It’s Monday, March 31. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Coming up: A hate crime hoax. A Canadian’s ICE ordeal. Trump threatens to bomb Iran. And more.
But first: Donald Trump and the rule of law.
Yesterday, President Trump said, “I’m not joking” about trying to serve a third term, telling NBC news via telephone “there are methods which you could do it.” When NBC’s Kristen Welker asked Trump if one potential avenue to a third term was having Vice President J.D. Vance run for the top job and “then pass the baton to you,” the president said, “Well, that’s one. But there are others too.” He didn’t elaborate about what those methods might be.
The Twenty-Second Amendment says “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.”
From talking of a third term, to the administration using immigration law to crack down on campus unrest, to DOGE dismantling congressionally created agencies like USAID, the Trump administration has made a habit of testing the boundaries of, and in some cases disregarding, the rule of law.
Consider another example:
Today in The Free Press, Yale constitutional law professor Jed Rubenfeld looks at Trump’s legally shaky war against Big Law. Over the past month, the White House has issued five executive orders targeting white-shoe law firms that employed or otherwise associated with anti-Trump lawyers, revoking security clearances held by their employees, ordering “reviews” and possible terminations of government contracts with their clients, prohibiting their lawyers from “engaging” with government employees and perhaps even from entering federal buildings, which of course includes courthouses.
The sins of one firm include engaging in “partisan representations to achieve political ends,” litigating in favor of affirmative action, doing pro bono work for illegal immigrants, and employing Robert Mueller, among other constitutionally protected activities.
“Trump is sending a message,” writes Rubenfeld. “Don’t tell me about due process and the First Amendment, not after Democrats for years threw due process out the window, systematically suppressed speech online, and sought to bankrupt and lock up the leading Republican presidential candidate through unconstitutional prosecutions.”
But two wrongs don’t make a right, and Rubenfeld worries about the consequences: “a spiral into ever-increasing unconstitutionality, first by one administration, then the next.”
Read: “Jed Rubenfeld: Donald Trump’s War on Big Law.”
“My Two Weeks in ICE Detention Hell”
Earlier this month, Jasmine Mooney, a Canadian worker at an American health and business brand, walked into an immigration office in San Diego to renew her work visa, something she had done with little difficulty one year earlier. This time, however, because of a previous discrepancy involving her company’s letterhead, she was shackled and held in an ICE detention center for two weeks despite her offer to return to Canada voluntarily at her own expense. If a friend hadn’t connected her with a sympathetic journalist who reported on her plight, she might still be there.
Today in The Free Press, Jasmine tells her chilling story, exposing the bureaucratic nightmare that is ICE detention, and the pernicious profit motives that prop it up.
Read: “ ‘I Applied for a Work Visa—and Was Thrown in Prison for Weeks’. ”
He Protested Hamas. They Killed Him for It.
Last week, the largest Palestinian protests against Hamas since October 7, 2023, erupted all over the Gaza Strip. For three straight days, thousands of courageous Gazans took to the streets—from Beit Lahia and Jabalia in the north to Deir al-Balah and the Nuseirat refugee camp in the center, and even in the Hamas stronghold of Khan Younis—openly defying the terrorist group they blame for the brutal 18-month-long war.
In partnership with the Center for Peace Communications, The Free Press obtained exclusive footage from across the Gaza Strip and spoke to the participants. (Since we published the video on Friday, one of the protests’ leaders, 22-year old Odai Saadi, was tragically tortured and killed by Hamas.) Watch the video here:
Pennsylvania Mom Wins Lawsuit over School’s DEI Records
In 2020, Ann Trethewey, a Pennsylvania mom who raised three kids in suburban Philadelphia, learned that her local school district was phasing in a new curriculum focusing on DEI and “trauma-based learning.” Concerned, Ann filed a “Right to Know” request—a local version of the Freedom of Information Act—to find out exactly what DEI materials the school was using. The school district responded by saying its DEI training materials were “trade secrets,” and refused to hand them over. So she sued. Now, after two years, she’s finally won a ruling in Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court.
Today in The Free Press, reporter Frannie Block sits down with Ann to discuss the case, how Trump’s win changed the tide, and why, even after last month’s ruling, Trethewey still doesn’t have the documents she asked for.
Read: “Mom Who Sued School for DEI Records Told They’re ‘a Trade Secret’ ”
How One Town Turned a Child’s “Cry For Help” Into a Hate Crime
Speaking of Frannie Block, on Saturday we published her explosive piece about Mike Klotz, whose family was driven out of their hometown in Evanston, Illinois, after his son was falsely accused of helping perpetrate a supposed hate crime—which was actually a child’s cry for help. Many of you were as shocked by this story as we were and wanted to learn more. Now you can.
Tomorrow, exclusively for paid subscribers of The Free Press, Frannie will sit down with Klotz for a livestream about his family’s ordeal.
Come to our website on Tuesday, April 1, at 5 p.m. ET to watch the conversation. If you aren’t a paid subscriber, that’s easily remedied: Click the button below to sign up.
In an NBC interview yesterday, Trump threatened to bomb Iran if it doesn’t make a deal with the United States over its nuclear program. Tehran rejected direct negotiations with Trump last week. “If they don’t make a deal, there will be bombing,” Trump said. “It will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before.” The president also said he was “very angry” and “pissed off” at Vladimir Putin for attacking Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenky’s credibility, and threatened a 50 percent tariff on countries buying Russian oil if Russia did not agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine.
On Friday, a 7.7 magnitude earthquake hit near Mandalay, the second-largest city in civil war–stricken Myanmar, killing more than 1,600 people and leaving countless others buried underneath the rubble. The same earthquake killed 18 people in nearby Thailand. Foreign aid from China, India, Russia, and other nations has been dispatched, but amid the dismantling of USAID, so far the United States has sent nothing—despite a promise from the U.S. embassy in Yangon to provide up to $2 million in aid. On Friday, USAID staffers, who were preparing a response to the earthquake, received an agency-wide email announcing the administration’s plans to lay off all but 15 legally required positions.
For the next several days severe storms are predicted to ravage the country from Texas to the East Coast, putting millions at risk for tornadoes, hail, flash flooding, and destructive winds across two dozen states.
Multiple Republicans, including Oklahoma senator James Lankford and Mississippi senator Roger Wicker, have joined Democrats in calling for an investigation into last week’s Signal fiasco, in which National Security Adviser Mike Waltz added Atlantic editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg to a group chat where top officials discussed plans to bomb Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Yesterday, Wisconsin’s attorney general Josh Kaul asked the state’s top court to block Elon Musk from giving away $1 million checks to two voters at his town hall later in the day—which Musk is holding to rally support behind a conservative candidate for Wisconsin’s Supreme Court. The Supreme Court rejected the AG’s request. The AG argued that Musk is using his money to persuade people to vote in the Supreme Court election—in violation of state law. Two lower courts also declined to intervene.
The Final Four is set and there isn’t a Cinderella team in the bunch. In fact, all four teams are the number-one seeds. Why? Because the big teams from the powerful leagues like the SEC, the ACC, and the Big 12 all have consortia that see to it that their players make money from their name, image, and likeness, something the Supreme Court allowed in 2021. Indeed, good players from smaller schools are increasingly transferring to schools like, well, Auburn, Florida, Duke, and Houston, the Final Four teams. Consider: Cooper Flagg, Duke’s top player, has $4.8 million in NIL deals, according to On3. Houston star L.J. Cryer transferred from Texas and now has $769,000 worth of NIL deals. Walter Clayton Jr.’s NIL money is undisclosed—but he did turn down $6.9 million to stay with the team. And while Auburn star Johni Broome’s NIL fees are also unknown, he has deals with Thayers Skin Care, Freddy’s Steakburgers, and C4 Energy, among other companies. So he’s also likely doing just fine. As for those Cinderella teams who once made the NCAA men’s basketball tournament so exciting, the glass slipper just doesn’t fit anymore.
