Trump Whacks the Deep State

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Last Friday the Trump Administration notified many employees of the National Security Council (NSC) that they were being dismissed, as its bloated staff of 395 is being chopped in half. This downsizing is long overdue, and the need for reductions at the NSC is recognized by even the liberal media.

But employees had already left work early for the weekend so some did not initially see these notices. This illustrates again the general lack of productivity in D.C., and how government employees there pay more attention to the media than to their jobs.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio who, since May 1, is also the National Security Advisor, has urged Trump to take control over the career government workers in D.C., and Trump is doing that. “What you’ve committed to do on Cuba, what you want to do on Cuba, is never going to come from career staff,” Rubio advised Trump.

“It’s going to have to come from the top down. You're going to have to tell them what to do,” Rubio added. Rubio holds the same position that Henry Kissinger held during the Nixon Administration, when Kissinger met multiple times every day with President Nixon.

A White House official observed that “the NSC is the ultimate Deep State. It’s Marco vs. the Deep State.” In support of this downsizing of the NSC, the White House official stated further that “we’re gutting the Deep State.”

An example of that was Ukrainian-born (then the USSR) Alexander Vindman and his twin brother Eugene, who were in key positions on the NSC during the first Trump Administration. Eugene complained about Trump’s perfect conversation with Zelensky and his brother Alexander then testified against Trump during the first impeachment hearings.

Now Eugene is a newly elected Democrat congressman in Virginia, while Alexander is reportedly considering a run as a Democrat for the U.S. Senate seat held by Republican Ashley Moody in Florida.

During the Revolutionary War in 1777, General Washington reportedly commanded, “Put none but Americans on guard tonight.” Historians clarify that Washington’s actual quote was this: “You will therefore send me none but Natives, and Men of some property, if you have them.”

Trump should have staff who are supportive and loyal to him working in his administration, as President Ronald Reagan did. California Supreme Court Justice William P. Clark turned down an opportunity to be appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court to help Reagan win the Cold War as his National Security Advisor.

But the Cold War has been over for more than a quarter-century, and the NSC has been a failure under Democrat Administrations by not keeping us out of war. Within weeks of Trump taking office, the NSC orchestrated a bombing attack that Vice President JD Vance properly opposed.

Vance explained in early March that only 3% of American trade flows through the Suez Canal, while 40% of European trade does. It was not in America’s interest to bomb anyone there, but the NSC refused to listen to Vance and instead approved an attack on the Houthis.

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wryly shouted in a column headline, “The $7 Billion We Wasted Bombing a Country We Couldn’t Find on a Map.” We lost not one but two F/A 18 Super Hornet fighter jets which cost $67 million each, one of which literally fell off its carrier, the USS Harry S. Truman.

Mike Waltz was initially appointed as National Security Advisor but quickly MAGA grassroots howled in protest over placing a neocon in this key role. On May 1, Trump astutely reassigned Waltz to be Ambassador to the United Nations, where he cannot entangle America in foreign wars.

The NSC is the nerve center of the resistance in D.C. to conservative leadership. President Reagan wisely downgraded the NSC to force it to report to his Chief of Staff, rather than allow it to continue as though it ranked above everyone else including a president.

Trump could shut down the NSC entirely and nothing would be missed. The Deep State no longer protects Americans against foreign enemies, but instead protects the bureaucracy against the will of the American People.

Trump’s bold action to fire most of the NSC staff comes at the same time that Elon Musk has announced his quiet exit from the political stage. Musk declared earlier this month that he feels he has given enough already toward elections, and instead plans to focus more on his businesses.

This creates a void, and politics abhors a vacuum. Musk was effective in framing the debate around the need to downsize the federal government, including firing thousands of employees, and he was instrumental in blocking overregulation by a new requirement that 30 million Americans register their private information with the Treasury Department’s FinCEN.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

Regulation of AI Is Not the Answer

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Government regulators are champing at the bit to enact new rules to control artificial intelligence (AI) programs. The impact will be censorship of conservative speech, particularly by Democrat judges and blue states, and harm to the competitiveness of American AI just as overregulation in Europe has hindered AI development there.

Go onto Google's AI Mode and ask, "what is birthright citizenship"? Google AI responds by falsely saying it is a guaranteed right under the Fourteenth Amendment to automatically acquire U.S. citizenship if born here; the opposite of Trump’s executive order on this topic. Google is led by a foreigner who came to the U.S. on a student visa and never left.

Google's AI misleadingly declares, "Birthright citizenship is typically granted regardless of the citizenship or immigration status of the parents." The U.S. Supreme Court has never accepted this view for children of illegal aliens and those here temporarily, sometimes for the purpose of giving birth here to assert citizenship.

When asked, “Are student visas good for America?”, Google’s AI omits how these visas displace Americans from top schools. Instead, it emphasizes that “it’s crucial to address potential challenges and ensure that international students are treated fairly and have clear pathways to success in the U.S.,” as though that should be Americans’ concern.

Only robust freedom of speech can correct such bias, which requires preventing state regulators from infringing on unfettered speech by AI bots. Trump's legislative team has proposed a 10-year moratorium against state regulation of AI, a necessary measure to protect our First Amendment right to speech.

Any AI program that suggests non-”gender-affirming” therapy to offset attempts to change a minor’s gender will be quickly prohibited, and even criminalized, by Democrat regulation of AI. Already most Democrat-controlled states prohibit providing counseling to minors against transgender transitions, and this censorship will extend to AI programs unless Congress intervenes.

When ChatGPT is asked, “Is the abortion pill reversible?”, it gives a misleading pro-abortion answer in bold highlighting that “there is no scientifically proven method to reliably reverse the effects of the abortion pill.”

ChatGPT cites the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology as support for its biased statement without disclosing that the same group adamantly opposed the overturning of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court. Omitted by the left-leaning ChatGPT is that the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends treatment to reverse the abortion pill.

Ask Google’s AI Mode, “Are transgender treatments safe?” Its misleading response is, “Generally, transgender medical treatments, also known as gender-affirming care, are considered safe and effective when provided under the guidance of qualified healthcare professionals.”

In fact, European leaders discontinued children’s transgender programs, recognizing the harm caused by transgender medical treatments to children. The Cass Review in England was critical of these treatments and was cited by Supreme Court Justice Alito in the pending Skrmetti case, which is expected to uphold a ban on transgender treatments of children as enacted in half the States.

Liberal judges will declare First Amendment protections for the speech they prefer, while upholding censorship of conservative speech on topics such as transgender treatments and abortion. A letter joined by the anti-Trump New York Attorney General Letitia James, 20 other Democrat attorneys general, and 3 territorial attorneys general opposes a proposed federal moratorium of ten years on state AI regulation.

A smaller total of 16 Republican attorneys general, with some notable absences such as conservative Texas attorney general Ken Paxton, also signed onto this pro-regulation letter. This letter is vague about any legitimate regulatory goals, and relies on meaningless platitudes to “protect consumers” or safeguard “data privacy.”

The examples provided by the letter are predominantly of legislation enacted by liberal states including California and Colorado. This letter refers to the desire of these mostly Democratic jurisdictions to ban “deep-fakes designed to mislead voters and consumers” and to prohibit algorithms “used to set rent.”

Many Democrat politicians seek to preserve their power, weaponize government against Republicans, and censor conservative speech. Under the pretext of prohibiting speech that might “mislead voters,” the regulation sought by these predominantly Democrat attorneys general will censor conservatives as Big Tech does in its AI answers.

What liberals seek today concerning AI is what they sought in the 1990s for the internet: a "gatekeeper", as Hillary Clinton put it, to prevent unfiltered information from reaching the public. Liberals control most channels of communication, and an unregulated AI is necessary for conservative political candidates and causes to have a chance.

Conservatives fought successfully against regulation of the internet, such that Trump could repeatedly win presidential elections despite the bias in the liberal media. But if allowed to regulate AI, blue states will omit or marginalize conservative responses.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

SCOTUS Can Limit Birthright Citizenship

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

When the first oral argument before the Supreme Court on a Trump policy is held on Thursday, May 15, all eyes will be on the divided nine Justices. Trump has asked the high court to rein in the power of district court judges to issue nationwide or universal injunctions against the president’s policies.

Over 100 temporary or preliminary injunctions have been issued by district judges, most of whom were appointed by Democratic Presidents Biden, Obama, or Clinton. The underlying substantive dispute is over the claim to birthright citizenship by which foreigners who give birth here then assert citizenship based on the location of the childbirth.

Our Founders would be dismayed by the theory that merely being born on U.S. soil is enough to automatically qualify for citizenship. Christians know that Jesus and his 12 Apostles were born in the Roman Empire, yet none was a Roman citizen.

Only Paul among the early Christian disciples was a Roman citizen, which he inherited from his parents who were citizens. Others earned or acquired citizenship, but no one became a Roman citizen merely by being born in the empire.

Within hours of Trump becoming president, he issued an Executive Order entitled “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship” which clarifies that American citizenship is not bestowed on people simply because they may have been born on American soil. “The Fourteenth Amendment has always excluded from birthright citizenship persons who were born in the United States but not ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof,’” Trump stated.

Trump’s brilliant executive order clarifies that children born to a mother unlawfully present in the United States and to a father who was not an American citizen or lawful permanent resident are not entitled to American citizenship. Perhaps those children can become citizens one day as other foreigners can, but merely being born here does not entitle a child to citizenship here.

Likewise, when a child’s mother’s presence in the United States was lawful but merely temporary, and the father was not an American citizen or a lawful permanent resident, then childbirth does not bestow American citizenship. This executive order took effect for anyone born 30 days after it was entered on January 20, 2025.

There has been a cottage industry of bringing pregnant Chinese mothers to California for them to give birth in a hospital here, go back to China and then claim American citizenship when their children grow up. This racket needs to stop, and the Supreme Court could end it as Trump has commanded with one of his first executive orders.

Children born to foreign diplomats in the United States are not eligible to be American citizens. Citizenship is what defines a country and its future, and must be carefully limited to those who personally or through their families have a long commitment to our values and way of life.

American Indians were not automatically citizens for nearly the first 140 years of our country, because they had not assimilated into American communities but retained loyalties to their tribes. The same is true for many of the illegal aliens brought in by Biden, Obama, and Clinton.

Children born to American parents are American citizens if they are born in the United States, and can claim citizenship here if they were born while in another country. Children born to lawful permanent residents of the United States are American citizens because they are born subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, as the Supreme Court held in 1898.

Persons temporarily present (such as tourists, workers, students, and diplomats) and persons unlawfully present (who could be removed without notice) are expected to go back home. Their children, though born here, retain the citizenship of their parents’ country of origin.

The Supreme Court is divided on the issue of birthright citizenship, and it may try to duck the issue for now. Instead it may confine itself to the procedural question presented: “Whether the Supreme Court should stay the district courts’ nationwide preliminary injunctions on the Trump administration’s Jan. 20 executive order ending birthright citizenship except as to the individual plaintiffs and identified members of the organizational plaintiffs or states.”

Several justices, including Thomas and Gorsuch, have expressed strong opposition to nationwide injunctions that extend beyond the plaintiffs in a case. But it is unclear whether they can muster a majority of the Court to end this practice that is being used frequently by liberals now against many aspects of Trump’s agenda.

Limiting the scope of the injunctions against Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order to only the plaintiffs in the lawsuits would enable his order to go into effect against everyone else. That would mean the “Secretary of State, the Attorney General, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the Commissioner of Social Security shall take all appropriate measures to ensure that the regulations and policies of their respective departments” implement this order.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

SCOTUS Victory for Trump as Lawfare Worsens

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

A 6-3 Supreme Court win for Trump’s ban on transgender soldiers came on Tuesday just as the deluge of liberal lawsuits was worsening. Improper court injunctions have been piling up like cars crashing in a fog on a crowded highway.

Under Trump’s order that the Court just allowed to go into effect, “service members who have a current diagnosis or history of, or exhibit symptoms consistent with, gender dysphoria will be processed for separation from military service.” This reverses the disastrous pro-transgender policy of Biden.

Lower courts had blocked Trump’s ban on transgenders in the military, just as liberal judges have been enjoining nearly every other initiative by Trump. “By allowing single, unelected federal judges to co-opt entire executive-branch policies at the drop of the hat, they create needless interbranch friction and perpetrate a truly lupine encroachment by the Judiciary on the President’s Article II authority,” Solicitor General John Sauer told the High Court.

By “lupine” the brilliant Sauer, who alone signs many Trump Administration briefs, refers to wolf-like behavior while disguised in sheep’s clothing. The victim of the overreaching judiciary is the American people trying to redirect our country toward prosperity.

John Sauer alerted the Supreme Court that there was “a dramatic upsurge in 2017, followed by an explosion in the last three months” of nationwide injunctions by solitary federal judges against Trump. These injunctions were nearly unheard of for the first 170 years of American history, Sauer points out.

In the short month of February alone, there were 15 nationwide injunctions entered by Democrat-appointed judges against the Trump Administration. This stymies the will of American voters who gave Trump his mandate last November to Make America Great Again.

On Monday, nearly two dozen Democrat state attorneys general filed three new lawsuits against Trump. Despite how these states span our country from coast-to-coast, they filed all of their lawsuits in federal district courts in New England where the district and appellate judges are nearly entirely Democrat-appointed, making this the most one-sided legal venue in our Nation.

The northeast venue is even more partisan than the San Francisco-based Ninth Circuit, where at least Trump was able to appoint ten of its 29 appellate judges during his first term. The lower district courts in all the Left Coast states are still reliably Democrat, but the Ninth Circuit could reverse them in up to a third of cases filed there against Trump.

One of the Democrats’ recent lawsuits is to block Trump’s executive orders protecting our environment against clanky offshore windmill boondoggles. While Democrat states refuse to allow offshore drilling for oil, as California has banned for decades, Democrats insist on constructing hundreds of wind turbines within sight of our beaches in the false promise they will produce efficient energy.

Maryland and other liberal states want to construct ugly wind turbines off their coasts, which blight the beautiful views and become a giant killing machine for birds. Trump’s executive order wisely suspends permits for these inefficient monstrosities pending review as to their high costs compared with their dubious benefits.

Twenty Democrat states filed suit in Rhode Island to block the Secretary of Health and Human Services, RFK Jr., from downsizing HHS and laying off federal employees. Rhode Island is hundreds of miles away from where the HHS employees work, and the Democrats’ selection of this court is blatant forum-shopping by the Left.

Federal workers are overwhelmingly Democrat and there is no constitutional or other right for them to be immune from layoffs common in the private sector. If laid-off federal workers cannot find another job, then it raises questions as to why taxpayers were being required to pay them to do nothing productive.

The Fourth Circuit, which presides over states including Maryland and Virginia, has issued four recent rulings in favor of Trump, each of which blocked an anti-Trump order by a separate Democrat-appointed district judge. Two of the district court judges were appointed by Obama and two by Biden.

These hopeful appellate decisions restored Trump’s power to fire probationary workers at 20 federal agencies, terminate federally funded teacher and contractor DEI programs, and reinstate much-needed oversight of USAID programs by Elon Musk and DOGE.

An Obama-appointed judge was assigned to a new lawsuit brought by Harvard University in Boston against Trump to unfreeze $2 billion in federal funds that were flowing to that institution. Harvard requested and received the appointment of this judge to its case, by citing her role in what Harvard asserted was a similar matter.

The third new case brought by many Democrat states on Monday was to block Trump’s executive order improving election integrity. Trump properly ordered that federal funding be withheld from states that count mail-in ballots not received until after Election Day, which delays counting and reporting of election results.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.