Neal Katyal — the attorney who successfully argued before the U.S. Supreme Court against President Donald Trump’s sweeping global tariffs — now says it’s time for the federal government to “pay up” and refund Americans the billions of dollars collected through those unlawful tariffs.

In a Washington Post op-ed, Katyal says that in the federal government’s presentation to the courts, it made an explicit commitment: “to give refunds if President Donald Trump’s tariffs were declared illegal,” he writes. “Money collected without authority must be returned, and returned promptly.”

“Across the country,” Katyal argues, “businesses paid billions in unlawful duties. At several points along the way, government lawyers assured judges that there would be no ‘harm’ in allowing tariff collection to continue during the appeal process because duties later invalidated could be refunded — with interest. Businesses would be made whole.”

He adds that lower court judges “relied on the government’s representation that the injury was temporary and repairable. And our small businesses relied on it.”

Katyal says, now that the Supreme Court has ruled against the Trump administration, the president and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent are suggesting that refunds could take years — including possibly having to go through further litigation.

“This is wrong. The government cannot tell courts that refunds are simple and inevitable when seeking relief — and then imply they are complex and distant when the time comes to pay.”

“Those businesses are American,” Katyal concludes. “The money is theirs and should be returned to them without delay.”

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The Central Intelligence Agency has announced it is retracting certain findings that it now deems “biased,” across a range of reports on topics such as white supremacy, anti-LGBTQ attacks, and contraception.

But according to an MS NOW opinion piece, this is a case of the CIA “yet again spurning intelligence that doesn’t align with Donald Trump’s bigoted agenda.”

“Without providing any evidence,” MS NOW’s Ja’han Jones writes, a CIA news release “calls the reports ‘biased’ and gives credit to the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board — a group that is led by Trump ally Devin Nunes and includes people like far-right podcast host Katie Miller, the wife of Trump’s policy director.”

READ MORE: Trump Previews State of the Union Address in Wild and Rambling White House Remarks

Jones calls the group “a bunch of handpicked MAGA activists” who are “attempting to discredit analysis about white supremacy as the president presses forward with a racist agenda; they’re trying to discredit analysis about LGBTQ+ abuse and discrimination as he pushes policies that discriminate against some LGBTQ+ people; and they’re undermining an analysis about reproductive rights and health care access after the administration absurdly destroyed nearly $10 million worth of contraceptives for women in low-income countries.”

The CIA’s release stated that Director John Ratcliffe ordered retractions or revisions to 19 intelligence products that did not meet CIA and Intelligence Community “analytic tradecraft standards,” and “failed to be independent of political consideration.”

The release also stated that these now-retracted intelligence reports exhibited “substantial deviations from the President’s expectations that CIA’s workforce remains independent from a particular audience, agenda, or policy viewpoint.”

Ratcliffe said, “There is absolutely no room for bias in our work and when we identify instances where analytic rigor has been compromised, we have a responsibility to correct the record. These actions underscore our commitment to transparency, accountability, and objective intelligence analysis.”

According to Jones, Ratcliffe’s remarks reflect “Orwellian gaslighting.”

READ MORE: Judge Cannon Permanently Blocks Release of Jack Smith Classified Docs Report

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President Donald Trump gave angel families at the White House on Monday a small preview of Tuesday’s State of the Union address, while delivering a rambling, often off-script speech at an event where he hosted families of victims of foreign criminal organizations.

“It’s going to be a long speech because we have so much to talk about,” the president remarked.

“We have a country that’s now doing well,” he also said. “We have the greatest economy we’ve ever had, we have the most activity we’ve ever had. I’m making a speech tomorrow night, and you’ll be hearing me say that.”

During the approximately one-hour event, Trump mentioned “these crazy shooters” who go after “consequential” presidents, like Lincoln and JFK.

Trump attributed Kennedy’s being consequential to his “glamour.”

“So maybe I want to be a little bit less consequential,” he said. “Can we hold it back a little bit, please?”

“We had the greatest first term of any president in history,” Trump claimed. “Even radical left people have said that.”

READ MORE: Judge Cannon Permanently Blocks Release of Jack Smith Classified Docs Report

He also alleged that “25 million people” came into the U.S. under President Joe Biden. BBC News, which debunked Trump’s 25 million people claim in December, reported that the “number of migrant crossings at the US border did reach record highs under Biden but not to the level Trump – who has never provided a source for these claims – states.”

Claiming that he “won in a landslide,” Trump said that the “one thing that I regret, about the election and the process, ’cause it’s a much bigger, more important, you look at what we’re doing throughout the world. We’re respected like we’ve never been before.”

“But the one thing that I can’t do anything about is that [Biden] allowed 25 million people, many of these murderers, drug lords, criminals, people from mental institutions, they emptied their mental institutions,” Trump claimed in a long statement.

“All over the world?” he continued. “Not just in South America. They emptied their jails. Many of them from all over the world. Why? Why would we do this? And they walk in, nobody even asks for, like, do you have an identification? Do you have an ID? Um… It’s so crazy. You know, the mayor of New York, and he’s a very nice person. I met him, but his ideology’s not too good. But, uh.. We’re having a massive snowstorm right now. And I’ve heard that he’s asked people to come out and help shovel the snow. Okay, so you get a shovel and you start shoveling, right? What the hell you’re not gonna help too much, but you can help. And hello, darling. Are you? No, right behind you. Look, my friend, right? Are you okay? Yes, you. Are you okay? Are you okay? Good. Good. Good. Are your eyes okay? I gave her money to get her eyes fixed. A lot of money to get her eyes fixed. That doctor ripped me off, but that’s okay.”

READ MORE: ‘Did Not Rule Against Trump’s Tariffs’: Bessent Offers Alternative Interpretation

Addressing his polling numbers, Trump denied he is at forty percent approval (latest polls show even less, with a new CNN poll at 36 percent), saying his numbers were “much higher,” and insisted that he has a great deal of “silent support.”

“I’d love to run against anybody,” he continued. “The real polls say you kill everybody — wouldn’t even be close.”

He also insisted that his second term is “much more powerful” than it would have been had he won in 2020, “because there would be nothing to compare it to. Now they compare it to Biden and that horrible, horrible administration.”

“It just amazes me that there’s not more support out there,” he told the families. “We actually have a silent support, it’s silent — that’s how I won I guess — probably 85 million votes. They say 78 million, 79 million. They cheated at this election too, it was just too big to rig. Too big to rig. But they cheated like hell.”

READ MORE: MAGA Existed Before Trump — It Isn’t Going Away When He Leaves Says Op-Ed

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