Correction: Due to an error in the original report, an earlier version of this newsletter included a misattributed quote. The quote was said by Obama-appointee U.S. Circuit Judge Patricia Millett. This article has been updated to accurately reflect the speaker.
Today’s notice: Trump celebrates Paul Weiss as the legal world spirals. Conservatives are worried about declining birth rates, but don’t have a clear baby-making agenda. The Trump administration has “one of those learning moments.”
What Comes After a ‘Craven Surrender’?
Donald Trump is taking a victory lap on his deal with law firm Paul Weiss. “I just think they have to behave,” Trump said at a Monday event.
Trending
Paul Weiss, which exchanged $40 million in pro bono legal work on Trump’s causes to keep its security clearances, has been facing backlash ever since. In a Monday letter, 140 former employees — including influential professors, as well as high-profile public and private sector attorneys — lambasted the agreement by firm chair Brad Karp, NOTUS’ Taylor Giorno reports.
“Instead of a ringing defense of the values of democracy, we witnessed a craven surrender to, and thus complicity in, what is perhaps the gravest threat to the independence of the legal profession since at least the days of Senator Joseph McCarthy,” the letter states.
This isn’t the first time a major company caving to Trump has thrown an industry into chaos. The media industry is still reeling from CBS settling Trump’s $20 billion lawsuit against “60 Minutes” and ABC’s $16 million settlement, which experts warned could stoke an industry-wide chilling effect.
Now the question for the legal world is whether top firms will take up cases against the Trump White House, or whether a widespread fear of retribution will take root. Trump has signed similar orders targeting other major firms. Perkins Coie sued, saying the firm “cannot allow its clients to be bullied.” But it’s unclear which way the winds are generally blowing.
“The analogy is not far from a mob boss coming to a business and saying, ‘Hey, pay me some protection money or your business is out of business,’” Eric Orts, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and former associate attorney at Paul Weiss, told NOTUS.
“Once you pay that person, what happens next time?” Orts said. “Do you think the person goes away and never comes back again?”
The Conservative Baby Conundrum
Declining birth rates in America have long been a conservative bugaboo — just ask Elon Musk, JD Vance or Sean Duffy, who have all expressed concern about the cultural and fiscal consequences of fewer American babies.
Yet, NOTUS’ Emily Kennard reports, conservatives don’t have a coordinated plan to promote baby-making. Republicans have floated promoting in vitro fertilization, expanding grants in places with higher birth rates and exploring new tax incentives as potential solutions. But as Utah Rep. Blake Moore told NOTUS: “Congress can’t wave its magic wand and tell people to have more kids. You have to move to Utah for that.”
“That’s a joke,” he added.
Even if Moore is kidding — Utah does have one of the highest fertility rates in the U.S. — the Hill GOP’s pronatalist strategy is so disjointed that outside conservative advocates are raising the alarm. “It seems unlikely right now that we’ll see a really big push from this Congress,” said Patrick T. Brown, a fellow at the conservative think tank Ethics and Public Policy Center.
Front Page
- Republicans Are Shrinking the Voter Registration Gap in New Jersey: Democrats still have more registered voters in the state, but the GOP is making gains.
- HHS Pulled Funds for HIV Research at 22 Universities: The Trump administration terminated around $34 million in HIV-related grants.
- A Judge Insists the Trump Administration Prevent ‘Mistaken’ Deportations, Noting Torture Concerns: Judge James Boasberg is keeping his stay on deportations under a wartime law in place.
In NOTUS News…
If you didn’t catch the exclusive in Oliver Darcy’s Status newsletter last night, we’re getting a new, first, chief executive officer. Arielle Elliott is joining NOTUS from Bloomberg Industry Group, where she most recently led the global corporate sales and service teams and was the president of Bloomberg Government. Elliott will develop and implement business and revenue strategies to support our work — and Allbritton Journalism Institute’s broader mission of training the next generation of great journalists.
Republicans Dub Signal-Gate ‘A Learning Moment’
Many Republicans lawmakers told NOTUS Monday that the 👊🇺🇸🔥read around the world isn’t cause for concern. A couple of highlights from Capitol Hill, courtesy of NOTUS’ Ben T.N. Mause, Katherine Swartz and John T. Seward:
- “A mistake was made. It happens,” Sen. John Kennedy said.
- “This is one of those learning moments,” Rep. John Moolenaar, chair of the House select committee on the CCP, told NOTUS.
- Should Congress take action? “No, I don’t see why,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Brian Mast said.
It’s worth noting that a few GOP lawmakers, including Senate Majority Leader John Thune, say accidentally inviting The Atlantic’s editor in chief into a confidential group chat about bombing Yemen deserves scrutiny.
- “Somebody fucked up,” Sen. Tim Sheehy said.
Quotable: A Judge’s Scathing Rebuke
“There were plane loads of people. There were no procedures in place to notify people. Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemies Act than what happened here … and they had ‘hearing boards’ before people were removed.”
That was Judge Patricia Millett — a President Barack Obama appointee — responding to the Trump administration’s continued defense of quickly removing Venezuelan migrants and sending them to a foreign prison by plane, NOTUS’ Jose Pagliery reports.
The Department of Justice’s new deputy assistant attorney general overseeing immigration litigation, Drew Ensign, responded, “We certainly dispute the Nazi analogy.”
A few hours later, the administration invoked “state secrets privilege” to stonewall a federal judge seeking more information on the deportations.
Number You Should Know
42%
That’s the percentage of surveyed voters who had a favorable view of DOGE, according to a survey by North Star Opinion Research for Defending Democracy Together, shared early with NOTUS’ Katherine Swartz. Another 42% of respondents said they had an unfavorable view of it. The survey of 1,000 registered voters was taken from March 13 to March 17.
While public opinion on DOGE seems to be deadlocked, the survey found a quarter of Trump voters agreed or somewhat agreed that Musk’s involvement in government reform is a conflict of interest.
Not Us
We know NOTUS reporters can’t cover it all. Here’s some other great hits by… not us.
- Universities Sprint from ‘We Will Not Cower’ to Appeasing Trump by Maggie Severns at The Wall Street Journal
- They were fired in the name of efficiency based on ‘a lie.’ Now the VA is paying them not to work by Orion Donovan Smith at The Spokesman Review
- The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans by Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic
Be Social
A little window into the NOTUS newsroom.
So Leonardo DiCaprio dated Vanessa Trump, and she also dated Prince Khalid bin Bandar bin Sultan Al Saud before marrying Donald Trump Jr., who dated Kimberly Guilfoyle, who was married to Gavin Newsom… pic.twitter.com/r0ePtF2tg2
— Matt Fuller (@MEPFuller) March 24, 2025
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