Trump set back on voting, Kennedy Center, Anthropic

The cases have widespread implications across the United States

Federal courts on Thursday dealt President Donald Trump setbacks in several ongoing legal battles with broad implications. U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston issued a new block on the U.S. Postal Service carrying out Trump's executive order to limit mail voting. In Northern California, U.S. District Judge Rita Lin ordered the Pentagon to end its "illegal and baseless" blacklisting of Anthropic. And U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper in Washington, D.C., stalled administration plans to quickly inscribe Trump's name back on the Kennedy Center.

Who said what

After Anthropic said it didn't want its AI used for domestic surveillance or autonomous killing, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth labeled it a supply-chain risk using an "obscure government-procurement statute" designed to thwart "foreign sabotage," Reuters said. The administration's "contemporaneous words and deeds confirm" it was actually acting to "make a public example out of Anthropic," Lin wrote. The "empty invocation of national security is not a blank check to punish and retaliate against government critics."

Talwani issued a 14-day block of USPS mail voting action a day after lifting an earlier hold in response to a Supreme Court ruling. The "whipsaw of action" could "confuse voters," The New York Times said. But "each delay has reduced the administration's chances of clearing the legal hurdles to execute" Trump's order before the midterms. Now that the USPS' "likely unconstitutional regulation" is finalized, Talwani wrote, "compliance is practically impossible" before ballots go out "as early as next week."

What next?

After Cooper threatened to block the Trump inscription if the Kennedy Center stuck to its Sept. 8 start date, the Justice Department last night said it would delay action until at least Oct. 8.