The Latest: Trump says trade deals could be done within a month

After saying earlier in the day that he was “in no rush” to finish trade deals, President Donald Trump said he thought he could wrap up tariff talks “over the next three or four weeks.” That timeline would be ambitious, as Trump’s tariffs have sent nations scrambling to Washington. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni met with Trump earlier Thursday.

His remarks came as he addressed reporters in the Oval Office after signing executive orders meant to boost U.S. commercial fishing in the Pacific Ocean.

Here's the latest:

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell said he will not issue an emergency order directing the team of billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk to stop its takeover of the U.S. Institute of Peace.

In doing so Howell denied a request from former staffers and nonprofit organizations who sued Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, this month, saying the takeover is illegal and puts diplomats abroad at risk.

The plaintiffs said Congress established the institute as an independent nonprofit organization — not a government entity — so it cannot legally be taken over by DOGE. They also contend that DOGE is usurping lawmakers’ authority by preventing it from carrying out programs mandated by Congress.

DOGE attorneys counter that the institute is an executive branch agency, noting that the board members are presidentially appointed and it is required to publish certain notices in the federal register. They also say the institute is still doing the work mandated by Congress.

An official said Thursday that the U.S. will withdraw the troops, leaving fewer than 1,000 to work with Kurdish allies to counter the Islamic State group. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss details not yet announced publicly.

The troops have been critical not only in operations against IS but as a buffer for Kurdish forces against Turkey, which considers them to be aligned with terror groups.

Trump tried to withdraw all forces from Syria during his first term, but that met opposition from the Pentagon because it was seen as abandoning allies and led to the resignation of former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.

The withdrawal will return force levels to where they were for years after the U.S. and allies waged a multiyear campaign to defeat IS.

University professors and students led protests on campuses across the U.S. on Thursday against what they say are broad attacks on higher education, including massive cuts to funding, the expulsion of international students and the stifling of free speech about the war in Gaza.

Demonstrations were held at schools including Harvard, where Trump’s administration says it will freeze $2.2 billion in grants and contracts and is threatening to revoke its ability to host international students.

Rochelle Sun, a graduate student at Harvard’s Department of Government, said she came to stick up for international students because they’re integral to the school’s mission of pushing “the boundaries of human knowledge.”

“The whole point of me having this education here and for pursuing research at Harvard is to be among the best scholars that exist in the world,” Sun said after the protest in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “And so if they’re not going to be around me, then I’m not going to be able to achieve my goals of being here, either.”

▶ Read more about the protests

The two sides returned to a courtroom Thursday as part of the high-stakes battle over who can control which journalists are able to question the president.

Lawyers argued before a U.S. Court of Appeals panel about putting in place a lower court order last week that the administration stop excluding AP from events in places like the Oval Office and Air Force One. It’s not clear when a ruling may come.

On Friday they will go before the author of last week’s decision, U.S. District Court Judge Trevor N. McFadden. AP has asked him to enforce his ruling.

AP reporters and photographers have been blocked since Trump objected to the outlet’s decision not to rename the Gulf of Mexico. McFadden said the AP shouldn’t be excluded just because the president disagrees with them.

AP says the White House is ignoring that order and continuing to bar its journalists; Trump’s team says it has a new rotation system for such events and it hasn’t been AP’s turn yet.

▶ Read more about the dispute between AP and the Trump administration

The president extended the freeze through July 15 on Thursday. Under the directive, vacancies would not be filled on the civilian side for the first six months of his second term.

Excluded from the hiring freeze are members of the military and the executive office of the president, as well as possible exemptions through the government’s Office of Personnel Management.

The directive also bans contracting outside the government to sidestep the freeze.

The president said his administration is reconsidering the tax-exempt status not just of Harvard University but also environmental groups and the ethics watchdog organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW.

His remarks come as conversations have been swirling among advocacy and civil society groups about Trump’s campaign of retribution turning to them. CREW has been tracking the administration’s actions and sued over its firing of federal workers.

“It’s supposed to be a charitable organization,” Trump said. “The only charity they had is going after Donald Trump. So we’re looking at that. We’re looking at a lot of things.”

The president plans to sign the order next week. It’s not clear what it would involve, except that it could widen the range that lobster boats can travel.

Speaking in the Oval Office in front of reporters, an aide offered to get the order to Trump. The president suggested that existing laws result in a shortage of Maine lobsters.

The president is drastically shrinking the size and the mission of the agency, the latest step in an extraordinary reshaping of the federal government.

Roughly 1,500 employees will be cut from the CFPB, leaving around 200 people, according to an administration official who wasn’t authorized to disclose the figure publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. Fox Business first reported the number of layoffs.

Employees started receiving layoff notices on Thursday. Their access to agency systems, including email, ends Friday evening.

“The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau identified your position being eliminated and your employment is subject to termination in accordance with reduction-in-force (RIF) procedures,” the emails said.

The president said tax-exempt status is a “privilege” that more schools than just Harvard are abusing.

He recently targeted Harvard in a social media post, questioning whether it should remain tax-exempt “if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting ‘Sickness?’”

Harvard recently rejected Trump administration demands for changes to its curriculum and operations. The administration responded by cutting off billions of dollars in federal funding.

The IRS is said to be reviewing the university’s tax-exempt status.

“It’s something that these schools will have to be very, very careful with,” Trump said Thursday.

After saying he was in no rush to finish trade deals, the president said he thought he could wrap up talks “over the next three or four weeks.”

That timeline would be ambitious, as Trump’s tariffs have sent nations scrambling to Washington. Yet it’s still unclear what he wants, and he still seems committed to imposing tariffs.

Trump has indicated that tariff rates can change, but he said his biggest limitation is that “there’s only so many hours in the day.”

The president’s timeline was about making a deal with China and “everybody.”

The Trump administration is asking Congress to eliminate funding for Head Start, a move that would cut early education for more than half a million of the nation’s neediest children and child care for their families.

The proposal is tucked in a 64-page internal draft budget document obtained by The Associated Press that seeks deep cuts at the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees Head Start. It is still in a highly preliminary phase as the White House prepares to send Congress its budget request for the 2026 fiscal year.

It is not clear if the proposed cuts will be accepted by lawmakers. While Congress often ignores a president’s budget request, the proposed elimination of Head Start highlights the administration’s priorities as Trump seeks to overhaul education in the United States.

▶ Read more about the proposal

The president invited reporters back to the Oval Office as he signed directives meant to boost U.S. commercial fishing in the Pacific Ocean.

He was flanked by residents of American Samoa who thanked him for his efforts, saying they would boost the seafood-dependent local economy.

“It’s so horrible and so stupid, it’s so stupid,” Trump said. “We’re talking about a massive ocean, and they’re forced to travel four to seven days to go and fish.”

Talking again at the White House, the president was asked about the shooting at Florida State University.

“It’s a shame,” he said, calling himself a “big advocate” of the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms.

“The gun doesn’t do the shooting, the people do,” Trump said.

He added that he has an “obligation” to protect the Second Amendment.

The president said King Charles has invited him to visit the country later this year.

“I think we’re setting a date for September,” he told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday.

“It’s an honor to be a friend of Charles,” he said

Trump is set to go on the first foreign trip of his second term to Saudi Arabia next month.

The president said he’s “so happy” the high court will hear arguments on his plan to end birthright citizenship.

“I think the case has been so misunderstood,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

He noted that the 14th Amendment granting automatic citizenship to people born in the U.S. was ratified right after the Civil War. He suggested that means it is “all about slavery.”

“If you look at it that way, we would win that case,” Trump said.

In a letter sent Thursday by Republican Chairman James Comer and Rep. Elise Stefanik, who’s chairwoman of the House Republican Leadership, the committee accused Harvard of a “lack of compliance with civil rights laws” and directed the school to provide documents relating to hiring, admissions and diversity, equity and inclusion.

The congressional inquiry follows Harvard’s refusal to comply with demands from the Trump administration related to admissions, campus activism and hiring. The executive branch has pressured Harvard by withholding more than $2 billion in federal research funding and threatening the school’s tax-exempt status and ability to host international students.

It was on the same day he met with Ukrainian and European officials about U.S. efforts to end the war in Ukraine.

Rubio gave Sergey Lavrov the same message he conveyed to the delegations in Paris, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said.

“President Trump and the United States want this war to end, and have now presented to all parties the outlines of a durable and lasting peace,” Bruce’s statement said.

The talks Thursday were the first time since Trump took office that American, Ukrainian and European officials are known to have met to discuss an end to the war.

“The encouraging reception in Paris to the U.S. framework shows that peace is possible if all parties commit to reaching an agreement,” Bruce said.

The Trump administration’s claim that it can’t do anything to free Kilmar Abrego Garcia from an El Salvador prison and return him to the U.S. “should be shocking,” a federal appeals court said Thursday in a scathing ruling in favor of the Maryland man.

A three-judge panel from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously refused to suspend a judge’s decision to order sworn testimony by Trump administration officials to determine if they complied with her instruction to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return.

The panel said Trump’s government is “asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order.”

“Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done. This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear,” they wrote.

▶ Read more about Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s case

A hearing is underway in the nation’s capital to consider three lawsuits in federal district court challenging President Trump’s sweeping executive order on elections.

The Democratic National Committee, the League of United Latin American Citizens, the League of Women Voters Education Fund and others are seeking to block parts of Trump’s sweeping overhaul of federal election processes, including its directive to add a proof-of-citizenship requirement to the federal voter registration form.

Danielle Lang, counsel for the nonpartisan groups suing the Trump administration, said requiring citizenship proof would complicate her clients’ voter registration drives at grocery stores and other public places.

It would make them “far more cumbersome, far more difficult, and far less effective,” she said.

Dakota Meyer, a Marine who was awarded the Medal of Honor for heroism in the Afghanistan War but later became a sharp critic of the Biden administration over its chaotic withdrawal from that conflict, is reenlisting in the military and will serve in the Marine Reserves.

In a briefing with reporters Thursday before his reenlistment ceremony, Meyer said he’s returning to military service after 15 years out of uniform because he felt he “had more to give.” He’s also close to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

But Meyer said he would refrain from politics while in uniform.

“The great part about being in the reserves is I’m still a citizen when I’m not on orders,” he said. “When I’m on orders, I’ll comply obviously with whatever the standard is.”

“I’m not in a rush to do it because I think that Iran has a chance to have a great country and to live happily without death, and I’d like to see that,” Trump told reporters as he hosted Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni at the White House. “That’s my first option. If there’s a second option, I think it would be very bad for Iran.”

Trump’s latest comments on Iran’s nuclear program comes as his Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, and Iran Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi are set to gather Saturday for a second round of talks.

The New York Times on Thursday reported that Israel had recently developed a plan to attack Iranian nuclear facilities, but Trump wanted to give negotiations more time.

Asked about the report, Trump said “I wouldn’t say waved off,” while reiterating his position that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.

“It’s really simple,” Trump added. “We’re not looking to take their industry. We’re not looking to take their land. All we are saying is you can’t have a nuclear weapon.”

“No, tariffs are making us rich. We were losing a lot of money under Biden,” the U.S. president said. “And now that whole tide is turned.”

Trump took time to lavish praise on the Italian prime minister, however.

“She’s doing a great job, certainly one of our great allies,” he said. “She’s a fantastic person and doing a great job and our relationship is great.”

After Harvard defied the Trump administration’s demands, the president suggested on social media the university should lose its tax-exempt status “if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting ‘Sickness?’”

The White House suggested IRS scrutiny of Harvard’s tax status predated Trump’s post Tuesday on Truth Social. Federal tax law prohibits senior members of the executive branch from requesting that an IRS employee conduct or terminate an audit or investigation.

“Any forthcoming actions by the IRS will be conducted independently of the President, and investigations into any institution’s violations of its tax status were initiated prior to the President’s TRUTH,” White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said in an email Thursday.

But a person familiar with the matter said the Treasury Department directed Andrew De Mello, the IRS’s acting chief counsel, to begin the process of revoking Harvard’s tax exempt status shortly after Trump’s post. The person spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters.

▶ Read more about Harvard and the IRS

— Fatima Hussein

Many conservative states, including Florida, Texas and Indiana, have recently introduced bills aiming to create or expand proof of citizenship voting requirements amid legal challenges to an executive order attempting to make the mandate national.

“Even if not a single tenet of this executive order stands up to legal challenge, the goal of the executive order was and is to send clear marching orders to the states and Congress to tell them exactly what President Trump wants them to be doing,” said Liz Avore, senior policy advisor at the Voting Rights Lab. “And they’re listening.”

Avore said 22 states this year are considering or have considered bills that require proof of citizenship, which voting rights advocates say risks disenfranchising millions of Americans without ready access to the proper documents.

Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship for the children of people who are in the U.S. illegally has been halted nationwide by three district courts around the country.

The Republican administration had sought to narrow those orders to allow for the policy to take effect in parts or most of the country while court challenges play out. That’s expected to be the focus of the high court arguments.

▶ Read more about the birthright citizenship case

Trump asked Bessent to comment on the trade negotiations during the president’s Oval Office meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

Bessent noted that he and other administration officials held talks Wednesday with Japan. He said South Korean officials will be visiting next week.

The bill, which the House passed last week, aims to require proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote for federal elections. It’s one of Trump’s top election-related priorities and Democrats and voting rights advocates have warned it risks disenfranchising millions of Americans without ready access to the proper documents.

“It makes no sense,” Fontes said Thursday. “This is an alleged solution that searching desperately for a problem. And the solution is far more dangerous to the rights of American voters.”

Fontes also criticized Trump’s executive order on elections as a “nonsensical attack” on trust in elections.

“American citizens’ rights are under attack, and it’s a damn tragedy it’s coming from the White House,” he said.

After lots of false starts, the president said the U.S. is ready to deal with Ukraine on access to critical minerals in the country.

“We have a minerals deal,” Trump said in the Oval Office.

Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy were originally supposed to sign such an agreement when the Ukrainian leader visited the White House, only to have their meeting end in acrimony.

“Oh, he’ll leave,” Trump said in the Oval Office as he welcomed Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni. “If I ask him to, he’ll be out of there.”

He did not respond to a follow-up question on whether he would try and remove the Federal Reserve chairman.

The Italian premier said in the Oval Office that Trump has accepted an invitation for an official trip to her country.

No date was disclosed. Vice President JD Vance is leaving Friday for his own visit to Rome.

She flattered the U.S. leader in their meeting, saying “the goal for me is to make the West great again,” echoing Trump’s campaign slogan. Meloni said she shares his fight against “woke” ideology.

Trump also praised his Italian counterpart. “She has taken Europe by storm,” he said.

The president opened his Oval Office meeting with the Italian premier with comments on the shooting.

Trump said he’d been “fully briefed.”

“It’s a horrible thing. It’s horrible that things like this takes place,” he said.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland is in El Salvador to push for Abrego Garcia’s release after he was sent there by the Trump administration in March despite an immigration court order preventing his deportation. He said in a video posted on X that his car was stopped when he tried to enter the prison Thursday to check on Abrego Garcia’s health.

“Today’s purpose was just to see what his health condition is,” Van Hollen said in the video. He said his car was stopped by soldiers about 3 kilometers from the prison, even as they let other cars go on.

Abrego Garcia is a a Salvadoran citizen who was living in Maryland when he was deported.

▶ Read more about Kilman Abrego Garcia’s case

The official invitation came at the start of their White House meeting.

Vice President JD Vance is already scheduled to head to Rome later this week and will meet with Meloni while he’s there.

Trump visited Italy during his first term when he attended the 2017 Group of Seven summit in Taormina.

The president played down the likelihood of reaching any trade agreements as a result of his tariffs.

Trump told reporters while meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni that “at a certain point” deals would come together.

“We’re in no rush,” said Trump, saying he liked the revenues he expected the tariffs to generate for the U.S. government.

That’s according to a Treasury spokesperson who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preview the agency’s thinking on the topic.

Direct File is an electronic system for filing tax returns directly to the agency for free, developed during the Biden administration. The Associated Press reported Wednesday that the Trump administration plans to eliminate the program according to two people familiar with the decision.

The Treasury official, in an emailed statement, said the department viewed Direct File as a “very disappointing” program that costs tens of millions of dollars a year and was used by about 200,000 people out of 300 million, or less than 0.1% of taxpayers.

However, the program wasn’t available in all 50 states. It was launched as a pilot in 2024 in 12 states, then made permanent and expanded to 25 states for the 2025 filing season and was still growing. The agency accepted 140,803 submitted returns in 2024.

— Fatima Hussein

The two leaders posed for photos together before heading inside.

John Ullyot was one of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s initial communications office hires and oversaw some of its most visible but controversial moves, including a broad edict to the military services to strip away online images that were considered a promotion of diversity, equity or inclusion.

That directive led to public outcry when images of national heroes like Jackie Robinson and others were removed.

Ullyot told Politico on Wednesday he decided to resign.

A senior defense official told The Associated Press on Thursday that Hegseth’s office asked Ullyot to resign. The official familiar with the decision spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss details that haven’t been made public.

The departure isn’t tied to an investigation into unauthorized disclosures of information, which so far has led three other senior Pentagon aides to be put on leave.

President Donald Trump speaks as he signs executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House, Thursday, April 17, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

University of California, Berkeley undergraduate Eva Winter holds a sign over her head while protesting against the Trump administration during a Day of Action for Higher Education on Thursday, April 17, 2025, in Berkeley, Calif. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Demonstrations gather at the University of California, Berkeley to protest the Trump administration as part of a Day of Action for Higher Education on Thursday, April 17, 2025, in Berkeley, Calif. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

President Donald Trump holds a signed proclamation regarding commercial fishing in the Pacific as he speaks in the Oval Office of the White House, Thursday, April 17, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

President Donald Trump speaks as he signs executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House, Thursday, April 17, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

President Donald Trump meets with Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in the Oval Office of the White House, Thursday, April 17, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

President Donald Trump speaks before a luncheon with Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in the Cabinet Room of the White House, Thursday, April 17, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

President Donald Trump speaks during the Commander-in-Chief trophy presentation to the Navy Midshipman football team in the East Room of the White House, Tuesday, April 15, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

President Donald Trump speaks during the Commander-in-Chief trophy presentation to the Navy Midshipman football team in the East Room of the White House, Tuesday, April 15, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

SEATTLE (AP) — Inside a Virginia courthouse, three immigration agents in plainclothes — one masked — detained a man who had just had misdemeanor assault charges dismissed. They declined to show identification or a warrant to the man, and one threatened to prosecute horrified witnesses who tried to intervene, cellphone video shows.

In North Carolina, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed it arrested four people at a county courthouse, according to local media reports, prompting the sheriff to express concerns about a lack of communication from the agency as well as about disruption to court proceedings.

Inside a courthouse in New Hampshire, a pair of agents tackled a Venezuelan man outside an elevator, flattening an older man with a cane in the process. And in Boston, an ICE agent detained a man who was on trial. A municipal court judge held the agent in contempt over the arrest, but the order was later overturned by a federal judge.

The flurry of immigration enforcement at courthouses around the country in the past month — already heavily criticized by judicial officials and lawyers — has renewed a legal battle from President Donald Trump's first term as advocates fear people might avoid coming to court.

It's drawing further attention with last Friday's arrest of Judge Hannah Dugan in Wisconsin. The FBI arrested Dugan on charges that she tried to help a defendant evade waiting federal agents by letting him leave her courtroom through a jury door.

“Some of these judges think they are beyond and above the law and they are not, and we’re sending a very strong message today,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said during an appearance on Fox News after the arrest.

Lena Graber, senior staff attorney with the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, told The Associated Press that she’s aware of at least a dozen recent immigration arrests at courthouses around the country.

“The historical context is really important,” Graber said. “This is something that was not part of ICE’s practice until the first Trump administration, and people were shocked.”

ICE long had a general practice of not arresting people at certain locations, including schools, hospitals, courthouses and churches. But during the first Trump administration, the agency adopted a policy explicitly allowing courthouse arrests of “specific, targeted aliens,” arguing that it was especially important in “sanctuary” jurisdictions where officials do not notify the agency before releasing immigrants facing deportation cases.

Courthouse immigration arrests jumped, drawing condemnation from judicial officials and legal organizations, as well as lawsuits from some states and the adoption of bills seeking to block the practice.

Dugan’s case is similar to one brought during the first Trump administration against a Massachusetts judge who was accused of helping a man sneak out a back door of a courthouse to evade a waiting immigration officer. A judge in Oregon faced similar allegations — though not an arrest or criminal charges -- in 2017.

The chief justices of some states, including California and Washington, asked ICE to stop, saying fear of arrest would keep crime victims and witnesses from showing up in court. In one well-publicized case, agents in Texas arrested a woman while she was obtaining a protection order against an alleged abuser.

The Biden administration imposed restrictions on courthouse immigration arrests, but they were quickly undone when Trump returned to office this year.

Under guidance issued Jan. 21, ICE officials are allowed to carry out immigration enforcement in or near courthouses if they believe someone they’re trying to find will be there. Whenever possible, the agents are supposed to make arrests in nonpublic areas, to coordinate with courthouse security and to avoid disrupting court operations.

Teodoro Dominguez Rodriguez, identified by ICE as a Honduran national, was confronted and arrested by immigration enforcement officers after he left a Charlottesville courtroom April 22. It was the second immigration arrest at the court that day.

The first wasn’t recorded, but as word spread, Nick Reppucci, who heads the public defender’s office there, scrambled staff to the courthouse. They captured Dominguez Rodriguez’s arrest on camera.

The three agents, one in a balaclava-style ski mask, ignored demands from observers to show badges or a warrant, the video shows. One agent threatened to have the U.S. attorney’s office prosecute two women who tried to place themselves between the agents and Dominguez Rodriguez.

Sherriff Chan Bryant confirmed that the agents had shown badges and paperwork to a bailiff beforehand. But Albemarle County Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Hingeley criticized the officers for failing to identify themselves while making the arrest.

“Bystanders, or the person being arrested, might have violently resisted what on its face appeared to be an unlawful assault and abduction,” Hingeley said in an emailed statement.

Reppucci decried the “normalization happening here, where federal law enforcement are at this point grabbing people without being required to show that person any form of identification.”

In a written statement, ICE stood behind the actions of the officers, “who are trained to assess and prosecute apprehensions in a manner that best ensures operational success and public safety.”

The Associated Press was unable to locate relatives who might speak on Dominguez Rodriguez’s behalf, and it was not clear if he had an attorney representing him.

Repucci stressed the impact arrests like Dominguez Rodriguez's could have on people coming to court, a place he said is supposed to be where “disputes are resolved in an orderly, peaceful manner.”

“People in divorce proceedings, people with civil disputes, custody hearings, potential witnesses, all are going to be less likely to come to court,” he said.

Claire Rush in Portland, Oregon, and Rebecca Santana in Washington contributed to this report. Hollingsworth reported from Mission, Kansas.

FILE - People gather to demonstrate the arrest of Judge Hannah Dugan, outside the Federal courthouse in Milwaukee, April 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Devi Shastri, File)

FILE - A sign is posted outside of county Judge Hannah Dugan's courtroom at the Milwaukee County courthouse, April 25, 2025, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Andy Manis, File)