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Reclaiming America: Constitutional Victories Under Trump
The American constitutional system is showing remarkable resilience as the judicial branch returns to its proper role within our system of government. This episode breaks down several significant Supreme Court decisions that aren't merely victories for any particular administration but represent the restoration of constitutional order.
We explore how lower courts have frequently overstepped their authority by issuing nationwide injunctions from district court benches, effectively making national policy decisions. The Supreme Court is now systematically reining in this judicial activism, sending a clear message about the importance of proper jurisdiction and constitutional boundaries.
The conversation dives deep into federal employment reform, examining how government jobs have too often become permanent entitlements rather than positions of public service. We analyze court decisions that now allow the executive branch to appropriately manage its workforce, just as private sector employers must do. This shift represents a fundamental return to constitutional principles of limited government and fiscal responsibility.
Perhaps most encouraging is the recent shuttering of USAID, a $40 billion agency that had strayed far from its original purpose. When taxpayer dollars fund transgender operas in Colombia and electric vehicles in Vietnam instead of genuine humanitarian needs, it's clear that bureaucratic mission creep has gone too far. The State Department's decision to close this agency while maintaining essential functions elsewhere exemplifies the kind of government reform many Americans have long demanded.
These developments point to a broader restoration of constitutional governance where each branch respects its limitations and where government serves the people rather than entrenched bureaucratic interests. Join us as we celebrate these victories for limited government and the rule of law, and consider what further reforms might strengthen our constitutional republic.
Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to Intersection of Faith and Culture. Thanks for joining us on this Good News Friday. We love Good News Fridays around here, WallBuilders, even though every day seems like Good News, Friday, with all the good news, not only from Washington, DC, but now we're getting victories at the state level. We've had some great interviews and we've got some good ones coming up the next couple of weeks with state reps that have had victories. So just a lot of great stuff going on. Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton, and they've got a stack of good news. So I'm going to stop talking. Let's jump in. David, first piece of good.
David Barton [00:00:32] Well, this is gonna be one that really covers some time in the sense since Trump's been elected. One of the things we've noted is that there's been more than 100 lawsuits filed against Trump. The things he's doing, virtually everything he's doing is getting a lawsuit from somebody for some reason. And those early lawsuits that have been filed, he's losing nearly every one of them. And we talked about that this is going to work its way up the ladder, it's going to work its way to the Supreme Court, et cetera. And we think that over time, that stuff is gonna get overturned. A whole bunch of it has reached the Supreme Court this week. And this week, the Supreme court has made a lot of decisions. Now I've seen the news report these decisions as Trump wins, Trump wins Trump wins. And I'll tell you, that's not the case. It's not that Trump's winning. It's that the court has slapped down the lower courts and said, you're not doing this the right way.
Tim Barton [00:01:22] Which actually is in favor of Trump. So Trump kind of is winning by stopping what these judges have done. And, dad, obviously you are giving detail, but not to be misunderstood by people listening. No, those, all of these decisions benefit Trump, but the judges didn't say, oh, Trump's the winner on this. The judges said, lower courts, you need to get your business together.
David Barton [00:01:45] Yeah. And the lower courts have been acting like their national legislatures and they've been saying, hey, and for example, the two I'm going to start with, there was a federal judge in San Francisco and a federal judge in Maryland and the plaintiffs, that is the people protesting what Trump is doing went to those judges and those judges, rather than giving an injunction that said, Hey Trump, you can't do this to these people until after trial, they said, hey, nobody in the United States, Trump, you can't this for anybody. But you can't do that. The lower courts don't have the right to make national policy. And so what the Supreme Court did is say, hey, you guys get back in your box. All you can do is put an injunction on the very people that came and asked for help. You can't a nationwide injunction. And so, what the supreme court has done is turned over a whole bunch of these injunctions and they wanted to work through the process. Well, now it has gone back and it is working through the processes and the process is striking down these judges. What the Supreme Court in essence has done is slap down some of these lower court judges and said you got to let it play out and you got let the Court of Appeals look at it. And right now the Court Of Appeals are breaking clearly in Trump's favor. So it's not that the Supreme court is is ruling in Trumps favor. The Supreme Court is ruling on the process and said we don't want judicial activists in the judiciary. Do it the way you're supposed to, and right now Trump's winning on that. So let me take the one I mentioned that goes back to San Francisco and the one in Maryland. When Trump went in, he said, we're gonna downsize government. And so one of the easy ways to do that was they offered these buyouts for any agency, any people that wanna get out of government, we'll give you 10 months of pay and a severance pay, severance package, et cetera. And there were what, 100,000, you guys remember how many was it? 100,00 government employees that left taking that package, I think. But then he went further and said, okay, now. Let's start getting even thinner. And so he took the people that are called probationary employees. And that's, that means essentially they've been working for the federal government less than two years. They're the new ones. They're still learning their job. And he said, okay, all of you are gone because we're trying to pair down what, what we've got here. And you guys, you don't have all the vested retirement. You don't to have all of the other stuff that some of these senior people do, so you're all gone. And then you had, and we talked about this earlier, one of the things the unions just came in on behalf of the federal employees to say, hey, this is really a bad deal because it hurts unions. Well, that doesn't explain why it's illegal for him to fire them. That doesn't give you any ground to say that he has no authority as president to decide who works in his executive branch. I mean, that, that does make any sense. And so that's the kind of claims that were being filed and the judge like in Maryland said, okay. all the agencies, you can't fire anybody in the agencies until every one of them individually gets a hearing and a justification. And you're talking several hundred thousand that are supposed to get hearings now, individually. Hey, that's not the way the employment thing works. If Amazon says, hey, we're laying off 10,000 people, you don't get 10,00 people going to the courts and saying, hey they can't lay me off. You can't get laid off. And so Trump is handling this the way it should be handled. What happened was this judge in Maryland went out and said, you can't do that for the whole nation. And the judge in San Francisco did the same thing. And so the Supreme Court overturned the injunction from the San Francisco judge. And they did not overturn the injuction from the Maryland judge because they said, that one is in the court of appeals. What is it? The first circuit court of appeal, I think it is. and we're gonna wait to see what the Court of Appeals does. Well, the Court Appeals just came out with their decision and the Court Of Appeals ruled in favor of the Trump administration, struck down what the Maryland judge was doing, and so it's now worked through the process. So the Supreme Court didn't give Trump a victory. The Supreme Court just slapped their own people back in line, and now the first Federal Circuit Court of appeals says that the Trump Administration has the right to resume the mass termination of newer workers. And this involved, the injunctions involved 19 states. And the judges said, hey, these 19 states, you can't fire any people out of those states. Well, now guess what? He can, he can fire people out all 50 states because it's overturned those injunctions that were given in San Francisco and in Maryland. So that is a huge, massive ruling. It's kind of what we thought was going to happen is that it's gonna work its way through the system. And at this point hat means that Trump is going to continue being able to downsize the government. And I just got to tell you guys, I still vehemently object to the whole concept that because I work for the federal government, you owe me a job. I'm not like the private sector where I have to earn a job or I might get laid off and have to find a different job. This whole mentality that I'm suing because you can't take my job away from me because I worked for the Federal Government, that is part of the swamp that has to go and all these these litigants these plaintiffs that are filing suit just because they don't want to be fired i'm sorry get get used to real life in America the free enterprise system and hopefully the free enterprises is coming back to the federal government as well
Tim Barton [00:07:04] You know, it's interesting, dad, as you're commenting on that, one of the problems we have seen and criticisms we have with some of what's happened in welfare is there are so many people taking welfare who are not necessarily people that have become super grateful and thankful for the help. They've become people that not just are expectant, but demanding that the government or taxpayers help pay those bills. And it's interesting that same level of ungrateful attitude, even though some of these people have a job, quote unquote, you know, the level of productiveness in their job. If your boss says, Hey, tell me three things, five things you did this last week, and you're like, that's too much work. I can't do it. And then I even have to question if you have been working at that job at all. I mean, for all of us, for producer Justin, Rick, dad, you and I, if somebody said, give me five things, you did, this week. We can pick five things from the last hour that we did, not to mention if we considered everything in the week, there's plenty of things we could add. And so when you have some of these employees who were saying, no, it's too much for me to have to identify doing a job, it similar to some of what we've seen with the ungrateful attitude with some individuals highlighted in the welfare state when they really have an expectation that, that just because they're alive, somebody owes them something. And obviously that's not the way that businesses should run. It's not that way that employees should think or feel. It's the way the welfare should run, but it certainly is the kind of attitude that we have unfortunately seen become much more prevalent in the government bureaucracy and government programs, but on the good news front, it's great that that those individuals are not going to win in this case saying, give us our jobs back because we want you to keep paying us money. even though we're not doing things that are beneficial for the American people, or maybe not even productive in our employment. It is good news that there's a better resolution than those people just complaining and keeping in their jobs.
David Barton [00:09:11] Hey, Tim, I've got one other piece of good news to add to that because Tim, you and I, this week, WallBuilders had the pastors conference in Washington, D.C. And so we had a boatload of pastors there. And I guess that depends on how big the boat is, but we had a lot of pastors their and one of the folks who talked to them. I.
Tim Barton [00:09:27] Let me, let me clarify. We had a Mayflower boatload.
David Barton [00:09:31] There you go. Full of pastors who were there. That's right. That's correct. It was, it was one of those size posts and that's limited by we're always limited by the size of the rooms we get the capital. But nonetheless, they they heard from a lot of senators and reps. And Tim, with what you were saying, even about the attitude toward welfare, instead of being grateful for it, you owe me this. And Senator Ted Cruz was talking to the pastor and said, you know, that where we are in Medicare right now, he said, Medicare was set up to help the poor, help the needy, help those that are below the poverty level. He said, right now. There are more people getting Medicare right now that are above the poverty level than are below the poverty level. So there's more people getting government assistance right now than those that it was designed for and it was designed to help those that were at the poverty level or below. And this is that thing is well, it's the government government owes it to me. No, it doesn't. And by the way, it is not the government's money. Even though they print it you're taking my money because the government charges me more and raises costs and fees and taxes everything else. So it's not free money, it comes out of my pocket and your pocket and everybody's pocket, but it goes to that same mentality that we're not grateful for what we have, but we think the government should owe us or pay us stuff and we just can't exist at that level and hopefully Trump's gonna be able to get this done. And again, they did get the budget passed, reconciled between the House and the Senate, which looks like about a trillion and a half in cuts is gonna be coming and that will help us for sure.
Rick Green [00:11:01] I think this might be only, I could probably count on one hand, the number of times over 20 years of doing this radio program that I am going to disagree and correct David Barton. So is everybody ready? Here it goes. The David Barton and just said a couple of times, Trump keep, winning keeps winning these lawsuits. Trump's winning these laws. Trump winning these law suits. I just want to say David, the constitution is winning these lawsuits where, where it's on the side of the constitution. I know what you're saying. Of course. It's so true though right man that that they were we're actually seeing these decisions where they're going back to well What does the constitution say about the executive power versus the congressional power or the legislative power or these agency powers? So anyway, I was just thinking about that because you you said trump trump. I it wasn't even what you said It wasn't trump's winning. It was something they're finding on the side of trump and that's true He's the party to these cases. But oh man, what a big win for the for the constitution
David Barton [00:11:57] And that is such an important distinction, Rick. You're exactly right. The Constitution won, and that's the process being followed by the courts at this point. And that results in a favorable ruling for Trump. But Trump didn't win the Constitution one. You're exact right.
Rick Green [00:12:10] Hey, did you guys see also the, uh, you were, you're mentioning the budget bill passing, but also the I can't remember what they titled it, but the requirement to prove citizenship in order to vote it passed out of the house. Now the Senate still has to get it, you know, to the 60 vote, I guess, to, to get past the filibuster. But, I think it was a pretty close vote. I think almost every Democrat actually voted against the idea of you have to be a citizen to vote. But anyway, I thought that was a great vote as well this week.
Tim Barton [00:12:38] It really was. And there were four Democrats, I think it was 220 to 208. There were four democrats that voted in favor of saying you should be a U S citizen to vote in US elections. And the fact that four Democrats came over made me semi-optimistic and hopeful that you know what, they might be able to pick up a few Democrats in the Senate. And if they were able to pick up a few Democrats.
Rick Green [00:13:02] Oh, that's true.
Tim Barton [00:13:04] That might actually be something that this is not, obviously we're seeing people vote down party lines, things that should not be that controversial. Like, hey, boys shouldn't be playing in girls sports. Shouldn't be controversial, but every Democrats like, well, if Republicans are for it, then we're clearly against it. So it would not be surprising to see in the Senate, them hold together as a unit and vote uniformly against it. However, the fact that Democrats came over and supported this in the house does make me semi-optimistic. We might pick up a few, now, is it enough to reach 60? I think that's a lot harder to do because you'd have to pick up at that point seven Democrats, moderate, independent, whoever, right? We're kind of calling on that squish area. I think it's difficult, but certainly it does seem possible on something like this, but the fact it passed the house is really impressive.
David Barton [00:13:56] And Tim, I want to add to that, because you pointed out those four Democrats said that there's a shout out that needs to go to Democrat U.S. Congressman Jared Golden up in Maine. Jared Golden is the only Democrat who voted in favor of the tariffs that Trump is using. And we've already seen those tariffs be such a great bargaining chip. We've already see so many good things happening. and we talked about how the trade imbalances started to change. So Jared Golden, Democrat, broke ranks with all the Democrat Party in the House, and he was the only one who said no. Tariffs are good for America. I'm going to support that because it's good for American. And some people said, well, it's because he's in a close election, a real marginal seat. Well, I don't care what it is. He did the right thing. And that's worth noting. So I'll commend Democrat Congressman Jared Golden for standing up and doing the thing economically in those tariffs.
Rick Green [00:14:52] Tim's going to have his first chance at a piece of good news when we come back. Stay with us, folks. You're listening to the WallBuilders show.
Rick Green [00:16:06] Welcome back to The WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us on this Good News Friday. Tim, your turn, man. Now you get to take the whole second half of the program. David and I aren't gonna say anything. No, I'm kidding.
Tim Barton [00:16:16] Yeah, well, this one actually will not be that long, because we've mentioned it before. There's so many things that have happened. It's been hard not to talk about some of them along the way. This is an article, though, that we have not used on Good News Friday, and it does give some details, some context. This is the article that identifies it. The title is State Department Formally Shudders USAID After Trump Court Victory. There were challenges. Dad, as you mentioned, some of these things have been happening in court. where Trump was trying to say, we're not funding any of that stuff anymore. And there were people, Democrats, attorneys, there was lawsuits, challenges saying you can't shut this down. But, they were able, this is now several weeks ago, well, I guess two weeks ago is when this article came out, but this has been several weeks since this has happened. But the state department, or excuse me, Marco Rubio from the state department, they announced that they are formally closing the U.S. Agency for International Development, which is USAID, and part of what he said is foreign assistance done right can advance our national interests, protect our borders, and strengthen our partnerships with key allies. Unfortunately, USAID strayed from its original mission long ago. As a result, the gains were too few and the costs were too high. Now, speaking of the cost being too high, one of the things, and there's a lot more from Rubio, he gives some more thoughts and context, but one of things worth note is The annual budget of USAID, in this article, it points out it was $40 billion, and they're supposed to be responsible for funding critical healthcare, foreign aid programs, but as Republican law makers, as DOGE has pointed out, that's really not what they've been doing. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast is highlighted in this article, has quotes from him where he called out USAID grants over a month ago, including 2.5 million for electric vehicles in Vietnam. And guys, as we go down the list of things, where this funding is gone, we've all scratched our heads. We've been on social media. We've seen the memes in the post, but still some of these, the more we find out, some of what's been going on, the, more I scratched my head and just go, what, what are we thinking? Right? If we're looking at Vietnam and we're like, Hey, you know what they really need? You know, you don't where they're really lacking electric vehicles. That's, that's what they REALLY need in communist Vietnam.
David Barton [00:18:45] Have you heard of Vietnam has electricity yet?
Tim Barton [00:18:49] Well, yeah, my second thought about why this is so dumb is where are they going to charge those? Right when when you do not have a in many places a reliable power grid I mean like the whole thing isn't saying they point out again one that we've talked about $47,000 for a transgender opera in Colombia Because you know if you're really trying to help Colombia develop their arts You know who the best people are to perform an opera? Transgenders. Right? Like that that's when people go to the big performances. They pay all this money that you know, not not like these famous tenors these famous. No, no, no. We want to see the transgenders perform the opera and just going down this list. It is just bonkers the things that USAID was funding and so overall it's really good. One of the things we've talked about with like Department of Education is there are some things that some of these agencies some of these departments have mandates from Congress that they're supposed to do certain things. The benefit of, of something like this is the state department has taken the things that need to be done. And they said, Hey, we're going to take care of the important things. And we're just, we'll shutter USAID because we don't really need them anymore. It's part of what Trump has done with the department of education saying we're in dismantle at first, because it does take some legislative action. But when you look at what is actually required, they certainly don't need this massive department for it. And there are other agencies that can fulfill some of what those tasks are. So as part of what's happening with USAID, but just it's super, super awesome to see what's happened. Dad, as you mentioned, we were in Washington DC just a couple of days ago. We had a meeting at the White House and actually we saw Marco Rubio walk in the hall. He was on his phone, so we didn't wanna interrupt him and bother him. We've known Senator, well, I guess not Senator. The secretary of state, Rubio, we knew him when he was a senator, when he, was, back at a smaller level of government, when he was first running in Florida. I know dad, you did a lot of events, uh first campaign back in the day where you were going to speak and teach in history. And, and talking about some of those constitutional principles that need to be restored and he was somebody promoting those ideas. Anyway, all that to say is we actually did see him in the hall just a day or two ago. So super cool that being in the place where so much is happening. And then... It's awesome to see these leaders who are willing to be the disruptors who are willing to put themselves in the frontline where they know they're going to take the arrows and nobody's going to take more than Trump has, the media is going to focus on Trump and criticize and demonize him the most, but I think he is, he's not just embrace some of that, right? I even think in Ephesians six where it says, you know, you raise up the shield of faith to quench all the fiery arrows, the fiery darts of the Trump has shown what that looks like that he's just embraced so much and kept going but I think it's emboldened so many of the people he's appointed now that they recognize let's just get in there and get the job done Let's not listen to what anybody says. Let's ignore it Let's let's get our our nose down and keep going and certainly Marco Rubio has done that so kudos to him But the overall good news is that USAID is formally shuttered and the State Department's taken over much of that stuff
Rick Green [00:22:09] I wonder if Trump is like this weird comic book hero, where when you shoot a fiery dart at him and he goes in, it just energizes him, you know, just like gives him more fuel, right? It makes him go even harder and faster. I had a visitor to the campus today that was saying to him about this whole, like the USAID thing he was going. He said, you, know, probably like 30 years ago, there was, oh, we need to help these people in Cambodia or somewhere, and it made sense and Congress appropriated, you to go fix it. But then they just kept giving them the money every year and the problem was solved. And then like you're saying, it's like, well, what are we gonna spend the money on? Well, how about transgenders and opera? You know, it is just crazy instead of just zero and out and doing zero based budgeting. All right, David, next piece of good news, man.
David Barton [00:22:52] Well, this is another one that's kind of a complicated one. So go back to when Trump sent out, what was that? The 232 different terrorists, he sent them out to El Salvador, the prison there. And it was Venezuelan gangs, et cetera. And so what happened was they were taken out of Texas, holding areas sent to El Salvatore. And here, instead of dealing with this in Texas, a group went to a judge in Washington, DC, a federal district judge. His jurisdiction is only over Washington, DC and got him to say, hey, Texas, you can't let people go out of Texas back there. You can't these terrorists go out. And so he gave an injunction from Washington, D.C. about Texas and he's not a Supreme Court justice, he's a lawyer judge, and he said, you can do that. And so, he struck it down. Of course, that made lots of people mad. And so the Supreme Court came out and basically slapped him down in decision this week and they said, look. You lower judges don't be taking cases that you don't have jurisdiction over. This should have been heard in Texas. It should have gone to a court in Texas, and that's also sending a message to all these attorneys. You quit forum shopping. You quit looking for judges that are gonna give you the opinion you want. This is supposed to be the rule of law. And you go to the right courts and follow the right process and do this. And so the Supreme Court struck that judge's ruling down. Those people are gonna stay in El Salvador. There is one caveat to that. The Supreme Court didn't say, hey, there was one person that was sent there inadvertently, you bring that person back and do the rule of law, do the process. And I agree with that. If you don't know for sure that he wasn't a terrorist and there's questions about it, then you come back and run the legal process. And so the Supreme Court did do that, which is, and the Trump administration admitted they sent a guy there that shouldn't have been there. And so that's been the other part of the lawsuit. And so, the court ruled in his favor. Now you got to go through the rule. but I love the fact they're upholding the rule of law, and that's terrific.
Rick Green [00:24:50] Alright Tim, we've got time for one more if you've got a quick good news.
Tim Barton [00:24:53] All right, yeah, very, very quick, TurboSpeed, the headline says Trump issues order to eliminate improper device of ideology, Smithsonian museums. Part of it is this order directs Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to restore federal parks and monuments that have been improperly removed in the past five years. We certainly have heard some of this happening. Actually, we talked about this a little bit when we were up in DC with some individuals with the White House. And one of the things we didn't know at the time Is it's actually Chief Justice Roberts, that is the chair of the committee that is over the Smithsonian. So it will be interesting to see how some of this unfolds, but when it comes to some of the national parks, when it come to some of these monuments, certainly there are things that President Trump can do, even giving directives in this case to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. So there are positive things and to see a president reject the wokeness. And,the obvious, like, Hey, we're not going to cancel George Washington. We're not gonna cancel Thomas Jefferson, even though we are seeing this. And we, for another time, we can get into the fact that while we were up there, I was at the Jefferson Memorial and they are redoing the lower level of the Jefferson memorial underneath it, where there's kind of this, little tourist area and they're showing how racist and bad Jefferson was in the area underneath the Jefferson's Memorial. Not to derail this, there's a lot of issues going on, but the fact that we now have a president who is working to restore and honor those founding fathers, super encouraging and impressive.
Rick Green [00:26:30] Good stuff, guys, I know you got a lot more. We'll save it for next Friday. Folks, you can get more of our radio programming at our website, wallbuilders.show. There's also more of the good news programs there as well. Have a great weekend and we'll be back with you next week. You've been listening to the wallbuilders show.
