memeorandum: Everyone Wants a Piece of Trump's ‘Golden Dome’ Defense Plan (Wall Street Journal)

12:05 PM ET, May 4, 2025

Top Items:

Trump, asked if he has to ‘uphold the Constitution,’ says, 'I don't know' — Trump said on NBC News' “Meet the Press” that he's following lawyers' advice as he tries to execute rapid deportations, arguing that giving immigrants due process is time-consuming.

Discussion: Axios, Rolling Stone, NOTUS and The Guardian

Matt Viser / Washington Post:

Trump says, 'I don't know,' when asked if he's required to uphold Constitution — The president also downplayed fears of a recession and spoke of potential successors when his four-year term ends in an NBC interview. — WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Donald Trump …

Discussion: Politico, NPR, Axios, USA Today, NBC News, The Independent and Raw Story

Benjamin Mueller / New York Times:

Trump Administration Live Updates: President Casts Doubt on Due Process Rights — Where Things Stand — Trump on due process: President Trump said in an interview aired on Sunday that he did not know whether every person on American soil was entitled to due process …

Aamer Madhani / Associated Press:

Trump, in a new interview, says he doesn't know if he backs due process rights — President Donald Trump is circumspect about his duties to uphold due process rights laid out in the Constitution, saying in a new interview that he does not know whether U.S. citizens and noncitizens alike deserve that guarantee.

Discussion: City A.M.

Kasia Klimasinska / Bloomberg:
Trump Says He Would Give TikTok Another Extension If Needed

Discussion: Politico, Reuters, Axios, Mediaite, Washington Examiner, Raw Story and Breitbart

Nnamdi Egwuonwu / NBC News:
'I'll be an eight-year president': Trump weighs in on third-term speculation

Discussion: Axios, The Hill, NOTUS, Fox News and New York Times

Nnamdi Egwuonwu / NBC News:
Trump defends the high price tag for his military parade: ‘Peanuts compared to the value’

Discussion: One America News Network, Washington Examiner and WNYW-TV

Chloe Veltman / NPR:

Sweeping cuts hit NEA after Trump administration calls to eliminate the agency — Editor's note: NPR receives two grants totaling $65,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts. — The Trump Administration has started canceling National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) grants.

Discussion: New York Times, The Guardian, Deadline, The Wrap, AMERICAN THEATRE and The Daily Caller

Washington Post:

Trump's 48-hour scramble to fly migrants to a Salvadoran prison — The administration rounded up some of the Venezuelans two days before the flights took off, pressing forward even as Venezuela agreed to accept deportees. — The message from Secretary of State Marco Rubio …

BBC:

Eight arrested in two separate anti-terror operations — Eight men, including seven Iranian nationals, have been arrested in two separate counter-terrorism police investigations. — Five were arrested at various locations around England on Saturday as part of a “pre-planned” …

Discussion: Breitbart, Reuters, New York Times and Bloomberg

Wall Street Journal:

What It Takes to Win—or Lose—in a Meeting With Trump — Companies and institutions are honing a playbook for approaching an unpredictable president — When Ohio State University President Ted Carter visited the White House last month, he brought President Trump and Vice President JD Vance …

Wall Street Journal:

Everyone Wants a Piece of Trump's ‘Golden Dome’ Defense Plan — Lasers in space, ‘rods from God’ and a huge number of satellites are being discussed for proposed missile shield — Laser-toting satellites capable of taking out missiles have long been the stuff of science fiction.

Brian Stelter / CNN:

Voice of America's fate still in flux after appeals court pauses back-to-work orders — Less than two months ago, when the Trump administration turned off the Voice of America's networks and websites, Kari Lake, a fierce loyalist to President Donald Trump, said the agency is “unsalvageable.”

Discussion: Fox News, New York Times and The Gateway Pundit

Isabelle Taft / New York Times:
Live Updates: Trump Administration Begins Pulling Back Money for the Arts

Discussion: CNBC, CBS News, Reuters and Variety

Danielle Wallace / Fox News:

DOJ opens probe after left-wing DA requires prosecutors to consider race in plea deals — Soros-backed prosecutor in Minneapolis hit with DOJ civil rights probe — The Justice Department has opened a civil rights investigation into the Minneapolis-area Hennepin County Attorney's Office's …

Discussion: RedState and The Gateway Pundit

Washington Post:

Justice Department lawyers face skeptical judges upset by ‘shoddy work’ — As they defend against more than 200 lawsuits challenging President Donald Trump's initiatives, some government lawyers are getting scolded from the bench. — Justice Department lawyers defending …

Discussion: Raw Story

Politico:

‘Everyone knew it but him’: Tiffany Trump's father-in-law has seen role diminished since the transition — Massad Boulos' struggle to gain influence is a case study in Trump power politics. — Massad Boulos arrived at Joint Base Andrews in early April as the Trump administration's newest official …

Associated Press:

Elon Musk's Starbase on its way to becoming a Texas city after lopsided early voting results — The South Texas home of Elon Musk's SpaceX rocket company is on its way to becoming an official city with a galactic name: Starbase. A vote Saturday to formally organize Starbase as a city …

Discussion: Washington Examiner, The Daily Caller, RedState, The Hill, New York Times, Bloomberg, Al Jazeera, The Japan Times and The Texas Tribune

Maya C. Miller / New York Times:

Republicans in Congress Use Obscure Law to Roll Back Biden-Era Regulations — As G.O.P. lawmakers have largely ceded power to President Trump, they are also pushing the bounds of a little-known statute to undo federal rules — and potentially undermining the filibuster.

Micah Lee / micahflee:

Here's the source code for the unofficial Signal app used by Trump officials — Yesterday, I published an analysis of what I could publicly find about TM SGNL, the obscure and unofficial Signal app used by Mike Waltz, and presumably also by Pete Hegseth, JD Vance, Tulsi Gabbard, and other fascists in Trump's government.

Elisabeth Bumiller / New York Times:

Trump Battles Academia, but Especially the Ivy League … President Trump's attacks on Harvard and other Ivy League schools have endeared him to his base.Sophie Park for The New York Times — There it was for all to see, President Trump's tangled relationship with the Ivy League …

New York Times:

V.A. Mental Health Care Staff, Crowded into Federal Buildings, Raise Patient Privacy Alarms … At a V.A. clinic in Oakland, mental health professionals are sharing call center-style offices, such as a mailroom where supervisors had the cubby-hole mailboxes removed to install two desks.

New York Times:

How Misinformation and Partisan ‘New Media’ Changed a California Town — Residents of Oakdale, Calif., have abandoned traditional media outlets for a mishmash of online sources. These days, they're often not sure what information to trust. — As time has gone on, traditional news outlets in Oakdale …

Discussion: Breitbart and No More Mister Nice Blog

Benjamin Mueller / New York Times:

Trump Administration Slashes Research Into L.G.B.T.Q. Health — More than $800 million in N.I.H. grants canceled as of early May — nearly half of those terminated to date — covered the health of sexual and gender minority groups, The Times found. — The Trump administration has scrapped …

Reid J. Epstein / New York Times:

Biden Aides Decided Against a Cognitive Test in Early 2024, Book Says — His White House advisers considered giving him such a test to prove his fitness for a second term, but they worried it would draw new attention to his age, according to a forthcoming book.

Discussion: The Guardian