Thursday, July 16 — the salt in the van

0:00 Today, a Senate bill takes direct aim at the Fourteenth Amendment, a Justice Department subpoena tests whether reporters can still protect their sources, and a murder investigation confirms what everyone already suspected: the line between federal policing and fatal error is getting razor-thin, and it keeps getting crossed.

0:23 Let's start with the Constitution, and the very particular way it's being challenged today.

0:30 Senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri has introduced a bill to end birthright citizenship for the children of foreign diplomats and visa overstayers. On its surface, this looks like a narrow, technical fix.

0:44 But it is anything but. The Fourteenth Amendment has been settled law since 1898, when the Supreme Court ruled in *Wong Kim Ark* that anyone born on U.S.

0:56 soil is a citizen, with the single exception of children of foreign diplomats — people who, because of diplomatic immunity, are not fully "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States.

1:09 Schmitt's bill doesn't just exploit that exception. It expands it, effectively creating a whole new class of children who would be denied citizenship.

1:20 The Supreme Court already blocked President Trump's broader executive order on birthright citizenship just last month.

1:28 This bill is a legislative end-run around that ruling, designed to force the courts to decide just how far Congress can push the Fourteenth Amendment.

1:38 The answer, one way or another, will shape what citizenship means in this country for generations.

1:46 Then there's the New York Times, and a subpoena fight that feels like a flashback to another era — except it's happening right now.

1:56 The Justice Department subpoenaed three Times reporters, demanding they reveal their sources for a story about security defects in the new Air Force One, a plane gifted by Qatar.

2:09 The Times has filed a motion to quash the subpoenas, and the case will now test whether the First Amendment still protects reporter-source confidentiality after Attorney General Pam Bondi rescinded the Justice Department's own guidelines protecting journalists' records back in April 2025.

2:30 This is not a generic leak investigation. This is the Trump administration using federal subpoena power to hunt down the people who told the press about problems with a presidential aircraft.

2:44 If the courts allow the subpoenas to stand, the message to every potential whistleblower — on military readiness, on corruption, on anything — will be clear: talk to a reporter, and the government will come for you.

3:00 Across the country, the immigration crackdown is leaving a trail of bodies and broken systems.

3:07 The administration's deportation plan, combined with the termination of Temporary Protected Status for Haiti and other nations, could remove 274,000 immigrant direct care workers — the people who bathe dementia patients, feed the elderly, and keep disabled adults out of institutions.

3:28 These workers earn a median of $16.87 an hour. They are not "low-skilled"; they are the backbone of American elder care. And the Supreme Court's June ruling in *Mullins v.

3:42 Doe* sealed off judicial review of TPS terminations, giving the administration unchecked power to hollow out the caregiving system.

3:52 Every deportation of a care worker means an older or disabled American goes without help.

3:59 Meanwhile, President Trump personally overruled his own immigration agency's temporary suspension of vehicle stops — after two fatal shootings in less than a week.

4:11 The latest victim identified in an unsealed FBI warrant: Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a fifty-year-old Mexican immigrant and father of three U.S. citizen sons.

4:24 ICE agents pulled him over in Houston after claiming they saw a white plastic-wrapped brick in his van that they believed was narcotics. The warrant itself states the substance was "consistent with table salt."

4:40 No drugs were found. But during that traffic stop, an ICE officer shot and killed him. He was the third person killed during an ICE enforcement action in a single week.

4:52 And the House is moving a ninety-five billion dollar reconciliation package that bundles Iran war funding, farm subsidies, and strict voter-ID requirements into one bill that can pass the Senate with just fifty-one votes — bypassing the filibuster and normal committee scrutiny.

5:12 The SAVE Act would require every citizen to present a passport or birth certificate just to register to vote.

5:20 The Brennan Center estimates that 21.3 million eligible Americans do not have such documents readily available. The bill solves a problem — non-citizen voting — that studies show occurs at a rate below 0.0001 percent.

5:37 Its real effect would be mass disenfranchisement. Closer to home, residents in Southaven, Mississippi, are suing Elon Musk's xAI and SpaceX over deafening noise from gas turbines powering a new data center.

5:53 The mayor's advice: sell your house and leave. That's the cost of doing business when local zoning rules get bypassed.

6:02 And in a sign of how differently the world regulates big tech, the European Commission ordered Google to open up Android and its search data to rival AI companies by 2027.

6:16 In the United States, no such mandate exists — so American consumers remain stuck inside Google's AI ecosystem, with no right to choose a different assistant or demand access to the data that trains its competitors.

6:32 This is not just one day's news. Project 2025 is a living document, and we track every piece of it.

6:40 So far, we've read and reframed 147 of its actions, and we've mapped twelve-hundred and sixty-six distinct actions across the whole arc. The watch is constant.

6:53 Next week, the Senate will likely take up the SAVE America Act.

6:57 Todd Blanche's confirmation as Attorney General hinges on two undecided Republican senators, Cornyn and Tillis — a vote that will test whether the Senate can still demand any independence from the Justice Department.

7:12 And the Times will argue its motion to quash in federal court, setting the stage for a ruling that could define press freedom for the rest of this presidency. That's the day. We'll be back tomorrow. Stay steady.