Melania Trump will preside over the United Nations Security Council next week — a decision igniting backlash before it begins.

“First Lady Melania Trump is set to make history at the United Nations, taking the gavel as the United States assumes the Security Council Presidency to emphasize education’s role in advancing tolerance and world peace,” a press release from the Office of the First Lady reads.

“Mrs. Trump’s leadership will mark the first time a sitting U.S. First Lady presides over the Security Council as members consider education, technology, peace, and security.”

An opinion piece at The New Republic says, “While the first lady has shown an interest in children’s welfare, particularly in Russia’s war on Ukraine, it’s hard to imagine her address as any more than a symbolic gesture that will look good in a social media post.”

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U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Mike Waltz, wrote: We are thrilled to have @Flotus gavel in the US Presidency of the Security Council.”

Critics online are blasting the decision.

“Just when you thought they couldn’t disrespect professional, career U.S. diplomats, American diplomacy or international organizations more- they produce this grotesque theatre of the absurd,” wrote former U.S. Ambassador to Jamaica, Luis Moreno.

Associate professor of History Thomas Småberg commented, “I’m a social network scholar with a focus on the Middle Ages and Trump’s uses of family, friends and followers is straight out of medieval aristocracy. It’s so interesting to [see] his abuse of presidential power and his disregard for republicans.”

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President Donald Trump, who has insisted on federalizing voting and who issued an executive order last March to pressure states to require proof of citizenship to register voters, is reportedly now being urged to declare an emergency over voting.

“Pro-Trump activists who say they are in coordination with the White House are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that claims China interfered in the 2020 election as a basis to declare a national emergency that would unlock extraordinary presidential power over voting,” The Washington Post reported in an exclusive.

“President Donald Trump has repeatedly previewed a plan to mandate voter ID and ban mail ballots in November’s midterm elections, and the activists expect their draft will figure into Trump’s promised executive order on the issue.”

According to Florida lawyer Peter Ticktin, who is advocating for a presidential order on voting, “we have a situation where the president is aware that there are foreign interests that are interfering in our election processes.”

“That causes a national emergency where the president has to be able to deal with it,” Ticktin told the Post.

Claiming there is an emergency would allow the president to ban voting by mail and voting machines “as the vectors of foreign interference, Ticktin argued.”

Trump has repeatedly urged Republicans to pass the SAVE Act, which critics say could disenfranchise millions of American citizens who do not currently have a passport or access to their birth certificates. It could also disenfranchise people who have married and changed their names but did not do so on all their legal documents.

“Trump has said that if the bill fails, he will act unilaterally to impose the changes for the midterms,” the Post reported.

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Despite the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that President Donald Trump‘s sweeping global tariffs were unlawful, administration officials are strategizing ways to keep at least some of the $133 billion already collected — even after the Trump Justice Department told the courts the funds would be paid back, plus interest, if he lost the case.

“Early ideas include policies to discourage companies from claiming their refunds, prevent the government from paying the money back or otherwise preserve at least some of the tariff revenue, according to five people familiar with the conversations, granted anonymity to discuss them,” according to Politico.

Another idea would be to claim that the funds are now lawfully held, after the administration announced its would use alternate legal vehicles to support collecting the tariffs going forward.

Yet another possible plan would be to allow companies that agree to forfeit a portion of the funds to obtain faster refunds.

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“Trump is trying to paint a blurry picture that the courts haven’t decided what to do with the money,” one of the people familiar with the strategies told Politico. They added that the normal refund process takes about two-and-a-half years, which would give the Trump administration “two years before there’s real question marks that they’re being insincere in returning that money.”

Should the Trump administration attempt to slow-walk refunds, Politico reports, its attempts would be challenged in the courts — and challenged by Democrats who see the refunds as a winning issue in a consequential political year.

“Trade lawyers and customs experts are skeptical that any mechanism the administration devises would hold up in court,” Politico noted. Judges at the Court of International Trade “are likely to scrutinize any effort that appears designed to sidestep repayment.”

“Obviously courts will not like it if the government not only doesn’t honor its word, but then makes everybody file a lawsuit to get the refund,” said Jeffrey Schwab, a lawyer for one of the companies that sued the Trump administration over the tariffs.

“What is fair in this case is the people that were harmed get the money back because that money was illegal,” Schwab told Yahoo Finance. “That money that they were charged was illegal.”

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