• Trump can fire agency heads: Donald Trump has won a judicial victory in his efforts to exert greater executive authority over the heads of executive branch agencies. On Friday, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Trump’s removal of the heads of the National Labor Relations Board and the Merit Systems Protection Board, both of whom were Joe Biden appointees, is within his power as head of the executive branch. The DC Court rejected the claim that the Supreme Court’s 1935 Humphrey’s Executor decision applied, contending that it dealt only with non-executive-functioning federal agencies. The problem is that this notion of an executive agency independent of the head of the executive branch appears to run counter to the Constitution. This ruling effectively tees up the question of presidential authority over so-called independent executive branch agencies for the Supreme Court. The dubious Humphrey’s precedent should be overturned.

• Musk homes in on wealthy members of Congress: The annual salary for rank-and-file members of Congress is $174,000. That’s a healthy salary in most of the country — less so in big cities — but it’s not enough to amass millions of dollars. So how is it that so many members of Congress seem to gain millions of dollars across their terms in office? That’s a question Elon Musk is going to be investigating. He said as much Sunday in response to a question at a Wisconsin town hall: “Let’s just say that there’s a lot of strangely wealthy members of Congress where I’m trying to connect the dots of, ‘How do they become rich?’” Will he uncover proof that lawmakers are lining their own pockets? Perhaps, but we won’t be holding our breath.

• Harvard federal funding under review after rampant anti-Semitism: “This administration has proven that we will take swift action to hold institutions accountable if they allow anti-Semitism to fester,” an official with the General Services Administration (GSA) said about a new review of Harvard’s federal funding. Harvard currently receives $255.6 million in contracts and another $8.7 billion in grants spread over several years from the federal government. The GSA will work with the Departments of Education and HHS to review the Harvard funding and report back to Trump’s Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism. This is an excellent next step after the administration canceled funding for UPenn and Columbia over the past few weeks and now reportedly Princeton. The Trump administration should keep up the pressure and encourage a return to form for these once-great institutions.

• DOJ dismisses lawsuit against GA’s “Jim Crow 2.0”: Georgia passed an election integrity law, SB 202, in 2021. The law reformed absentee voting, early voting, ballot drop boxes, and vote counting rules, so naturally, Democrats howled that it was racist. Joe Biden infamously labeled the law “Jim Crow 2.0,” and his Justice Department filed a lawsuit alleging voter suppression against black voters. Well, on Monday, the Trump administration dropped the lawsuit. “Contrary to the Biden Administration’s false claims of suppression, black voter turnout actually increased under SB 202,” Attorney General Pam Bondi explained. “Georgians deserve secure elections, not fabricated claims of false voter suppression meant to divide us.” Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley celebrated the decision, stating, “This is a victory for election integrity and a defeat for every Democrat who lied about Georgia’s election law.”

• Trump follows Carter’s lead on deporting students: While Democrats objected to the deportation of several foreign students involved in fomenting anti-Semitic protests and riots on university campuses, Donald Trump’s actions aren’t unprecedented. In the wake of Islamic extremists’ takeover of the Iranian government in the ‘70s, President Jimmy Carter ordered the review of roughly 50,000 Iranian students in the U.S. and whether they should be deported. His administration determined that 7,000 were deportable. The Carter administration was sued and initially lost in the lower courts but eventually prevailed at the appellate level, which the Supreme Court let stand. The appeals court’s rationale was that the executive, as head of the nation’s immigration enforcement, has the power to deport, and “it is not the business of courts to pass judgment on the decisions of the president in the field of foreign policy.” Therefore, Trump has a strong case.

• Trump’s love-hate relationship with TikTok continues: TikTok is the viral video app that has inspired dance trends and raised ChiCom security concerns for the last few years. It was briefly shut down under the Biden administration for mere hours before the incoming Trump administration negotiated to have it restored. Now, the April 5 deadline for selling TikTok to a U.S.-based company is closing in. “We have a lot of potential buyers,” said Trump on Sunday. “I’d like to see TikTok remain alive.” The intent is to divest ByteDance, a Singapore-based, Chinese-controlled company, and replace it with a U.S.-based company. Many Americans have expressed interest in the acquisition, from Kevin O'Leary to Mr. Beast. An announcement about the sale is expected by Saturday.

• Zeldin shutters EPA museum: In a cost-cutting decision, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced Monday that the agency is closing the National Environmental Museum and Education Center. The EPA’s new museum, which opened last year, saw fewer than 2,000 people visit from May 2024 to February 2025. Zeldin noted that shuttering the 15,000-square-foot museum, which cost $4 million to build, would save taxpayers $600,000 annually in operating costs. Furthermore, Zeldin criticized the museum’s exhibit messaging, referencing politically loaded terms like “environmental justice” while avoiding the climate-related policy changes made during Donald Trump’s first term. The original EPA museum was a one-room exhibit near the EPA Credit Union that was first opened near the end of the Obama administration. For those few people interested in seeing the museum’s artifacts, they have been moved to the EPA headquarters, where some will be on display.

• Cultural victory — transgenderism replaced by prayer: The Walt Disney Company has perhaps unwisely waded into the culture wars in recent years. We’ve written and talked about this extensively, and now it seems that the message “get woke, go broke” may finally be getting through to the C-suite at Disney. Certainly, that’s the message “Snow White” is receiving at the box office. Perhaps that’s why Disney opted to ditch a storyline about a transgender character in its show “Win or Lose” and instead have the character “Laurie” offer a prayer: “Dear Heavenly Father, please give me strength. … I just want to catch a ball or get a hit.” It’s a signal moment for Disney, which hasn’t had an openly Christian animated character since “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” in 1996.

Headlines

• Bodies of three missing U.S. soldiers recovered after vehicle sank in Lithuanian bog (Not the Bee)

• Iran, facing Trump threats, says it positioned “launch-ready missiles” to strike “U.S.-related positions” (Washington Free Beacon)

• Russia says it won’t accept U.S. ceasefire proposal “in its current form” (NY Post)

• Panama ports deal touted by Trump to miss April 2 deadline (WSJ)

• Rubio says 17 more “foreign gang terrorists” deported to El Salvador (Daily Wire)

• Judge blocks Trump admin from ending temporary legal protections for Venezuelans (National Review)

• France’s Marine Le Pen found guilty of embezzling public funds, barred from running for office (Fox News)

• Satire: Touching: Libs spell out “Coexist” with burning Teslas (Babylon Bee)

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