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Trump Agenda Mirrors Founders’ Grievances Against ‘Mad King’: Legal Experts
President Donald Trump’s key signature policies—the ones that will define his second administration’s early and perhaps entire tenure—echo the very abuses America’s founders listed in the Declaration of Independence as grievances against King George III, legal experts are warning.
“On Thomas Jefferson’s birthday, let’s recall the grievances he wrote in the Declaration of Independence against the abuses of the Mad King,” wrote George Mason University Professor of Economics Alex Tabarrok on Sunday.
“For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world”
“For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent”
“For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury”
“For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences”
“Sound familiar?” he asked. “Makes me angry. Should make you angry too.”
READ MORE: ‘Call It What It Is’: Trump’s Latest Moves Are ‘Full Blown Fascism’ Experts Warn
Similarly, attorney Tristan Snell, who successfully prosecuted the $25 million Trump University case for the State of New York, wrote that Trump is “literally re-creating the list of grievances from the Declaration of Independence.”
Tabarrok, Snell, and others, including retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, who served as Commanding General of United States Army Europe, have all listed several of those grievances that they suggest apply to today’s Trump administration.
“One of the complaints that we had in the Declaration of Independence, at the beginning of the American Revolution was that King George was sending criminals to faraway prisons,” Georgetown Law Professor Steve Vladeck told CNN Tuesday morning (video below). “It’s almost like history doesn’t repeat but it rhymes.”
“There’s no legal authority to send a U.S. citizen to serve a U.S. criminal sentence in a foreign prison,” he continued, saying that “it would be pretty striking if there was, because that would mean any of us could be effectively ‘disappeared’ into a prison with no U.S. legal constraints, with no potential human rights limits.”
Those last two grievances in the list were underscored on Monday, when President Trump and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele—appearing to act in a pre-arranged, tag-team fashion in the Oval Office—framed the situation as if returning a U.S. legal resident, whom American courts had explicitly barred the government from deporting, was now impossible. The individual, 38-year old Kilmar Abrego Garcia, had been sent to a Salvadoran maximum-security prison reserved for terrorists, in what legal experts suggest is a direct defiance of the U.S. Supreme Court.
U.S Senator Chris Murphy, one of the most outspoken anti-Trumpism activists, explained the situation.
“Bone chilling,” the Connecticut Democrat begins. “A court ordered Kilmar Abrego Garcia to stay in the United States. The Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that he was illegally removed. Trump is pretending he won the ruling 9-0. You may not think this case means anything to you. But let me tell you why it does.”
Indeed, Trump and his White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, Stephen Miller, falsely claimed the Supreme Court’s unanimous opinion, ordering the administration to “facilitate” the return of Abrego Garcia to the U.S., was in their favor.
RELATED: ‘Dystopian’: Miller Makes ‘Outrageous’ Claim as El Salvador Refuses to Return US Resident
“Abrego Garcia came to the U.S. over 10 years ago. He married a U.S. citizen and has three U.S. citizen children,” Murphy continues. “He denies any gang affiliation.”
Trump and Bukele both said or suggested he is a terrorist, of which they have provided no evidence.
“You can think whatever you want about the merits of him staying (his U.S. family, his steady job) or being deported (the alleged gang affiliation), there’s really only one key fact: A court ruled he CANNOT be deported to El Salvador bc he would face threat of death there,” Murphy continued. ” In the United States, the executive is REQUIRED to follow a court ruling. Trump did not. He put Abrego Garcia on a plane to El Salvador. And worse, despite no allegation of criminal behavior, Abrego Garcia was put in a heinous El Salvador prison.”
He charges Trump’s team with being “engaged in nuclear grade gaslighting.”
“They say it’s up to El Salvador if they want to send him back. Bullshit. We bring people back all the time when we wrongfully remove them. They could get this guy in a hot second if they wanted to.”
“You may not think this case matters to you. But Abrego Garcia was legally in the U.S., just like all the rest of us. His status as an immigrant doesn’t matter as a matter of law. If Trump can lock up or remove ANYONE – no matter what the courts say – we are all at grave risk.”
Senator Murphy warns: “This is a watershed moment, as Trump thumbs his nose at a Supreme Court ruling, gaslighting the public by pretending his won 9-0 when he lost 9-0. If we normalize this, there’s no end. He can lock up or remove anyone. We will no longer exist in a democracy.”
Watch the video below or at this link.
President Trump has “no legal authority” to deport U.S. citizens.@steve_vladeck adds, “One of the complaints that we had in the Declaration of Independence…was that King George was sending criminals to far away prisons. It’s almost like history doesn’t repeat but it rhymes.”… pic.twitter.com/kqafBUnWmg
— CNN News Central (@NewsCentralCNN) April 15, 2025
READ MORE: Trump Rages Against Critics, All But Silent on Alleged Terror Attack on Dem Governor
Image via Reuters
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
