dellinger. okay. we're going to have to wait and hear when the supreme court if it will take up this case. and that's supposed to be decided, i think, this week. right. whether they'll take it up and how soon. okay. larry gerston, thank you so much. raj. let's move on to some other headlines tonight. all-star weekend has come and gone. san francisco basking in the international spotlight. but away from the spotlight. an update now from the warriors about their partnership with local prisons. the twinning project started in the uk five years ago. it paired premier league soccer teams with local prisons for a six week camp. the program came here to the u.s. after the warriors decided to partner with those organizers. the goal is to teach inmates how to become basketball coaches, which will give them skills to be leaders and role models. my mentor keith honestly did for me. i'm doing it for other people. and it's not. it's not just because i'm a samaritan. i just feel like it's my responsibility. i've be

procedural issues with the dellinger case that might encourage. the court simply to send it back and let it get, you know, developed further before they decided on the merits. however, president trump is on stronger legal ground in the dellinger case than he is on many of the others that are floating around at the moment. for just this reason, there has been a movement in the conservative world for a long time that any head of a department should be removable by the president, with or without cause. now the statute says it has to be with cause some sort of misconduct. but the conservative legal movement has said it doesn't matter. and there may be five votes on the court. and it's not just important for the office of special counsel, which is this obscure corner of the government, the national labor relations board, um, the securities and exchange commission, federal trade commission, all these so-called independent agencies have officials that can't be removed by the president if the law changes, if trump wins this case, all those people could ha

and now we have this case, the dellinger case that's come before the supreme court on whether or notresident can fire the head of an independent agency. that is a debate that has been going on for for decades. in fact, this office of special counsel, which was the one in question here, dellinger office when jimmy carter created it, his own lawyers thought it was unconstitutional, that the president couldn't remove this head. so this is not a new debate, and i think it's actually healthy that we're getting to have this debate about something that's been in doubt for quite a while. >> so so, ashley, you know, brad put it interesting in an interesting way that we're being trolled here. the democrats ran against donald trump as being a strong man, a threat as a strong man, a dictator. on day one, they used a quote that he had made. they ran against that and they lost. so how effective is it for democrats to sort of focus on this? >> well, i mean, i think this notion that. >> donald trump isn't. >> fulfilling his promise to be a dictator on day one is actually laughable. if you recall, in

one thing morning to say about this herbert dellinger the head of the office special counsel. guy put forward on this. and they said when you think back to the fund founding fathers, the first congress didn't say you have to go to congress to say you get to provided a vice and consent to someone who is an executive officer of the president? i mean it takes a ton of sense. this is once again the lawfare just the left going after each and every decision meticulously. >> lawrence: kayleigh, as you point to, it's clear that's going to be the tool that the democrats use assistance of the medias well is using the courts to litigate. this and i think that the president is going to be found in reason with the actions is he taken taking going to slow down the process. ask the democrats the question what was happening the last four years when the president couldn't essentially do his job. we heard what the special counsel said. it was essentially a white house full of staff members that was running the country. and so if it was good for the prior administration, why isn't it okay right

now, trump attempted to fire hampton dellinger earlier this month in dellinger leads the office of thepecial counsel. but there are protections put in place by congress that require an administration to show cause for firing someone from the role if it is before their five year term has ended. dellinger is less than one year into his term. now, the federal district court temporarily blocked trump's move while it considers the case, and an appeals court declined to overrule that decision over the weekend. all that, prompting the justice department to take its appeal to the supreme court, arguing that the law is unconstitutional. now, last week, trump was asked about the legal fights his administration is facing. >> we're being hindered by courts where they file in certain courts where it's very hard to win, and a judge will stop us and a judge will say that it doesn't make any difference what you find. you just keep paying the money. that's a hell of a way to be. and i follow the courts. i have to follow the law. all it means is that we appeal. but that gives people time to cover their

dellinger was appointed for a five year term. he has some protections awarded by congress. i think that is because of the nature of the work he does. he's essentially there to ensure they're there. the whistleblowers are protected. he's investigating government misconduct. he's. investigating prohibited actions against federal employees. so i think for all of those reasons, um, it certainly was in trump's crosshairs. and trump wanted him out. but there are certain protections. he has limited protections against his firing. and we'll see what the supreme court does with that. >> we'll be watching for sure. sarah kristof, thank you so much. well, the nation's top diplomat, secretary of state marco rubio, arriving in saudi arabia, head of pivotal talks with russia over ending the war in ukraine. what ukraine's president is saying this morning about ukraine's participation or lack thereof, i should say. >> it's the news. >> welcome back. >> but it's also kind of not the news. >> we don't fact check. you do. we don't care, man wants all the information on this show. so terrible.

what it means bottom line hampton dellinger stays in the job until at least february 2 #th.cks in and we will see what happens there. bret? >> bret: you know, the trump administration has had some wins on doge, on firings, these are lower court judges. you wonder how many are going to bubble up all the way to the supreme court. >> shannon: this is the first one to get there it's sort of a draw. we will have to see what happens from here. but the supreme court not getting actively involved in this particular dispute just yet. >> bret: shannon bream as always, thank you. >> shannon: thank you, bret. >> bret: president trump reassigning ice the dhs spokesperson confirming to fox that caleb vitiello is no longer an administrator but will oversee all field and enforcement operations. the "wall street journal" reporting the administration is not happy with the pace of deportations and arrests of illegal immigrants. president trump's border crackdown is forcing smugglers to find different methods of bringing drugs and people into the u.s. tonight correspondent danamarie mcnicole ta

a court blocked the firing of hampton dellinger, who leads the office of special counsel.job performance, and that was not cited in his dismissal email earlier this month. >> our time now. 638 well, the trump administration plans to change k through 12 schools all over the country, but the experts say it's still too soon to know if this will affect california's schools. the president, trump says he wants to dismantle the department of education, legalized school vouchers so parents can send their children to private and religious schools, withhold funding from schools that have race or ethnicity curriculums, or offers protections for transgender students, and also change title nine, which bans discrimination based on gender. some of those executive orders and efforts have already been blocked by the courts. >> one of the san francisco art sculptures is now headed to vacaville. the bright red heart now sits on the corner of main and parker street in downtown vacaville. it was all made possible by san francisco general hospital foundation and genentech. the heart sculptures

a court blocked the firing of hampton dellinger, who leads the office of special counsel.nger argued the law only allows him to be fired over problems with his job performance, and that was not cited in his dismissal email earlier this month. time now 757. an arts organization in san francisco's chinatown celebrated the end of the lunar new year with everything from music to candy making. >> and you see, the white powder is the cornstarch to make sure the molasses won't stick together. >> now, three different organizations and artists gathered at edge on the square over the weekend. candy artist derek tam was there. he's making what's called dragon beard. it's one of the few remaining candy makers making that traditional sweet. >> i'm the fifth generation to make this candy in my family. i learned this from my dad. those dragon beard with the long life. so in the past, this thing was only served to the emperor. i want to show this traditional arts to the others. oh. >> there were also craft opportunities for some hands on paper lantern making. and the city of oakland is ge

special counsel hampton dellinger enforces federal whistleblower laws that protect civil servants who report problems within agencies. he was appointed by former president joe biden for a five year term. the saturday ruling allows dellinger to temporarily remain in his post, likely teeing up a fight over similar dismissals for the supreme court. the justice department had already indicated in court documents that it plans to appeal. well, joining us now is thomas gift, director of the center on u.s. politics at university college london. thomas, great to have you with us. thank you so much. and there's so much that is going on. and i just want to start off with the firing and then rehiring of the team at the national nuclear security administration. reports are that there were 300 people. the trump administration disputes this, saying it was only 50. but i want you to give me a sense of how this reflects the broader tension within the trump camp and their approach to national security. >> well, thanks so much for having me. it's great to be with you. there really is nothing like firin

law requires presidents to show cause before dismissing officials like dellinger. if the supreme court chooses to hear the case, it would be the first of potentially many appeals to the top court in president trump's second term. well, earlier i spoke with larry sabato, the director of the university of virginia center for politics. and i asked him about donald trump's rapid push to downsize the u.s. federal government and how he posted this ominous statement on social media. quote, he who saves his country does not violate any law. here is larry's response. >> rahel solomon. that is one of the most disturbing posts he has ever made. and remember how many disturbing posts he's made? uh, that really, if you read it literally, it suggests that he who is saving the country, meaning donald trump, can violate any law. and it isn't really a violation because the means justifies the end. now, look, donald trump trolls us a lot. he always has. this could be just another troll, or it could be the introduction to a completely new approach to the presidency and an approach th

the person that trump fired, his name is hampton dellinger. he was reinstated into the office by the courts about a week and a half ago, and since then, the justice department, trump's justice department, has pushed this through the appeals courts very, very fast. so now they have to convince the supreme court of two things. one, that it's time to take this case, even if it's premature to get to the supreme court. they're saying that the supreme court needs to step in about this and make sure they look at trump's authority here in firing a federal official, because if the supreme court doesn't, they warn of, quote, interbranch trench warfare. whenever someone new comes into the presidency. the second thing that they're arguing to the supreme court, the justice department, is they're saying that it's concrete harm on the president not to allow him to do what he wants with his powers of the presidency, to fire people who work within the executive branch, like hampton dellinger, the special counsel. but this is just one of many cases that are tes

district judge is forcing the president to continue allowing a principal officer that's hampton dellinger to exercise executive power. when the president believes that officer should be removed. that sort of harm to the executive branch, to the separation of powers and to our democratic system is. transparently irreparable. so they're really framing this up as a big fight, one of many to come over executive powers. they want to say, even if congress was trying to give some independence to this. we want to tell them to pound sand because we think that everything within the executive branch under the trump administration should be dealt with by just the president and the executive branch. stay out of it, congress, and stay out of it. courts as well. >> yeah. pound sand. that's i'm sure, a very technical legal term. thank you so much, caitlin. really appreciate that. i'm joined here by some really terrific reporters. npr's ayesha rascoe, cnn's isaac dovere and dave weigel of semafor. hello. happy president's day. it's very thematic with what we're talking about today. and on that, i just i t

. >> fellow by the name of hampton dellinger. >> this is a court that has it has.> has tended to recognize more and more power of the presidency of the executive branch. of the president. as the leader of all agencies in the executive branch. >> and part of that is. >> having the power not. only to. >> appoint people. >> to positions that are vacant in the executive. >> branch, but to make them vacant by forcing people to resign. >> what's interesting about. >> this particular fight is. >> it is a. statute that. >> set up the special. >> counsel's office that says he can only be removed for reasons of neglect or malfeasance. >> some kind of. >> incompetence in office. and the trump white house has not tried to. >> make that case. >> they're simply saying. >> the. >> president has. >> the power. >> to remove him, regardless. >> of what the. >> statute that. >> congress passed and that. >> president carter signed almost 50 years ago might say. >> if they do allow donald trump to fire this, this special counsel, again, not like a jack smith or robert mueller different

circuit appeals court declined to overrule the lower court's decision to block dellinger dismissal. the trump administration called the ruling, quote, an unprecedented assault on its power. joining me now is cnn's senior legal analyst, elie honig. all right. this is supposed to be independent. the president is arguing. what? >> well, so, sara, the president fired the head of the office of special counsel. important to note that is not a prosecutor. that is not like what we got used to with robert mueller or jack smith. this is the head of. >> an independent. >> agency that's supposed to be in charge of whistleblower complaints. now, the problem is that that special counsel argued that. >> under the. >> law establishing the position, he. >> can. >> only be fired for what we call good cause, meaning for misconduct or for poor performance on the job. but trump offered no such cause. he simply said, i'm the president. you're fired. so that's the nature of the dispute. now, up until this point, that firing has been put on hold by the lower courts. and so now the trump administration is g

dellinger leads an independent agency charged with safeguarding government whistleblowers and enforcinginted by the justice department. barrett. just give us the legal analysis of what both sides will argue and what we believe the supreme court to be sort of inclined to do. >> yeah. so right now. >> the. posture of. this is the supreme court is. >> reviewing, ultimately a temporary order that the district court entered. so this temporary order said that basically the trump administration would not be able to dismiss the special counsel for. >> at least two weeks. >> that went up to the d.c. appeals court. and in a 2 to 1 decision, the appellate court said, you know, we are going to uphold this temporary order for right now. you can't dismiss this person for at least two weeks because these temporary orders are typically not appealable. so that's the specific issue. that's actually before the court right now. it's not clear whether the court will actually reach the merits of this ultimate case. but if they don't right now, certainly they will later, or in one of the myriad other cases th

. >> hampton dellinger. who headed the office. >> of the special counsel.his firing. a lower court then ordered to temporarily. reinstate him. and now the trump. >> administration is. appealing that ruling. >> to. >> the. >> supreme court. >> the administration. >> asking the court to. overturn the. >> ruling, saying. >> in a filing that. >> lower courts should. >> not be. >> allowed to. >> dictate to. >> the. >> president how. >> long he must employ. an agency head. so as of. >> this morning, the. >> case. >> now officially. >> on the. supreme court's docket, dellinger. >> is set to respond. >> to the. >> administration by 2 p.m. tomorrow. >> and a lot to watch. >> there about presidential. >> power, guys. >> yeah. >> across the board. megan. >> a lot to watch. >> thank you. >> for keeping track of it. turning back to the broader markets. >> our next guest predicts 2025. >> will be a year of two halves, warning. >> that the latter. >> half of the. >> year. >> could see mild. stagflation and as much as. >> a 10%. >> sell off in the. >> s&p 500. >> barry ban

already funded and could get an order from the supreme court at any time special counsel hampton dellingerting to keep his job overseeing the agency that protects federal whistleblowers. he says he was fired last week without cause who the president can fire and under what circumstances, bret? >> david, thank you. >> the president's pick to run the labor department took some tough questions today up on capitol hill about her positions on unions, the minimum wage and data protection. also tonight, president trump is urging the house and senate to get together and pass his called big beautiful budget deal one of them. right now law firms are not on the same page concerning the president's agenda. at least so far. senior congressional. >> president trump undercutting senate republicans he is going to get what he want. he wants one bill senate republicans own plan bolster and military but lacks tax cuts. >> i just hope that leadership is going to sort this out and not just. >> top brass not budging. >> are you defying the president by going ahead with your own budget plan we believes the presi

hampton dellinger.ighting keep his job agency that protects whistleblowers, he says he was fired last week without cause. >> this the first major case of the current administration to make to the supreme court, the cuterring ruling will set a path forward on hot president can fire and under what circumstances. bret? >> bret: david spunt, thank you. up next, the panel returns to discuss my interview with the treasury secretary, scott bessent and the progress on president trump's first 100 days as we head to break fresh air secretary. >> outside the white house right next door is the treasury department and we're here with treasury secretary scott bessent. >> this is the first time this door is opening? >> first time it's been open since march 2020. since covid. >> bret: wow. why did you want to do this. >> i thought it was important for everybody to come back to the office. and i think reopening the front door of the treasury building, what better symbol than we are open for business again and everybody

his name is hampton dellinger. the birthright citizenship executive order. a judge said, yeah, we're going to also block that. it's been blocked by other courts. but a third judge piped up, there were cuts to public health research funding that the nih was planning to do. a judge overnight said nationally, that's not going to happen. the nih and the department of human health and human services is not going to curtail the research dollars for medical systems and academia across the country. there also was an exit plan for federal workers that they were supposed to take by a deadline last thursday. that deadline keeps getting extended by the courts. and then finally, there are there's money, kate, that is being frozen in different ways by the federal government. and judges keep stepping in and saying, you can't do that. and so all of this is happening on a daily basis. we expect much more court activity today. >> all right, caitlin, we'll stick. we'll stick by stand by and wait for you to bring it to us. thank you so much, sarah. >> all right. ahead, the new

in one case, the firing of the head of the office of special counsel, hampton dellinger., that's not the jack smith special counsel. he is essentially in charge of dealing with whistleblower complaints from within the federal government. so whether trump was confused or he just doesn't like whistleblowers, he fired him. even though the law states that he can only be removed for cause. no cause was given already. that appeal has landed today at the door of the us supreme court. it's in the form of a temporary restraining order, which usually the supreme court doesn't get involved at that very preliminary stage. but i'll be watching it here. if they take any action, such as issuing an administrative stay to have him removed from office, that's a big signal that the supreme court would be leaning toward ruling in trump's favor. but if they stay out of it for now, which i think is probably the most likely scenario, we will have to continue and wait and see, let that case play out in a lower court before it gets to the supreme court to decide if trump was right in this sense,

prosecutor kind of special counsel, but an internal watchdog position held by someone named hampton dellingerd trump tried. >> to fire that was blocked by a court. the d.c. circuit just upheld the blocking of that or the dismissal of the challenge, i should say, by the department. of justice to that, to that action. and that may go to the supreme court relatively quickly. but there are a number of these cases, including, by the way, the one you mentioned earlier about immigration judges. so i think there's a bucket of cases that involve personnel that we need to keep our eye on. the other big bucket is the spending of money and the efforts to impound funds, essentially to donald trump to say, well, that's great, congress. you told me to spend the money on this. i'm not going to spend on that. i'm going to spend it. >> on. >> something totally different. and i think that is the second big bucket. and then the third is, and i'm glad you mentioned it is, you know, the department of justice is not going to prosecute anyone that. >> donald trump. >> doesn't want. >> prosecuted. >> and he's not goi

overnight fighting back against a court order that prevents them from firing a man named hampton dellinger. he was the head of the office of special counsel, not to be confused with the special counsels that we are traditionally used to thinking of. like jack smith, it's a government agency that oversees whistleblower complaints and also has a role to play in federal civil service employment disputes. but they are pushing back on that and saying, no, no, no, no, no, you can't even restore him for two days. we're going to appeal that immediately. so the fact that they are turning back to courts, though, should give. people comfort that instead of flouting these. court orders, they're doing what a litigant should do, which is using their appellate rights. >> and so how many times can they appeal? i mean, how quickly could this end up at the supreme court? all of these many, many cases? i think it's, you know, it's. >> a parlor game right now among legal experts to determine which of these disputes is going to happen before the supreme court. first, i. >> think we're. >> not talking about a m

hampton dellinger argues in the suit that he can only be removed for inefficiency, neglect of duty orance in office, and sony is giving playstation plus members five extra days of service following a network outage this weekend. the company said the playstation network had fully recovered as of sunday from an operational issue. players had issues with logging into their accounts, visiting the playstation store and launching online games. hopefully, it was back by the second half of the super bowl. a lot of people turned away. >> good point bertha. thank you very much. bertha coombs first chatgpt came along and disrupted the entire internet's business model. now its owner, openai, is looking to disrupt the semiconductor space as well. the company, according to reuters, is getting closer to creating its own in-house custom ai chip. deirdre bosa has more in today's tech check. deirdre. >> hey, kelly. so this is really a strategic move designed to give openai more choice for training and running their ai models and reduce their reliance on nvidia. but reading between the lines, this may h

the trump administration fired hampton dellinger.k, saying that he was improperly fired. a court said temporarily, yes, you can have the job back. that was appealed by the administration, a court over the weekend, the appeals court said they would not overturn that decision from the lower court. now, we expect through filings that nbc news has been able to obtain, that the white house will go to the supreme court to try to get that reinstatement overturned. this is really the first time that we're seeing any of these challenges to the white house's actions over the last several weeks, really getting all the way up to the supreme court. and this case, the justice department expected to argue that the court is seizing power, that is, that is assigned to the executive branch to the president, and that the supreme court should not allow the judiciary, jose, to govern. >> aaron gilchrist, thank you so very much. appreciate it. so, brennan, now, doge moves or focus, it's trying to reshape the federal government is now into the irs, not par

the trump administration has requested an emergency hearing on their firing of hampton dellinger, the head of the office of special counsel, an independent agency charged with safeguarding government whistleblowers and enforcing certain ethics laws. so we will soon find out if john roberts and leonard, leo's other friends in the conservative majority on the supreme court, meant it when they effectively gave donald trump kinglike powers in the absolute immunity case. staying on the legal front, trump's former attorney from the hush money criminal trial where he became a felon, emil bove, who is currently the acting deputy attorney general, triggered multiple resignations from the southern district of new york last week by forcing prosecutors to rescind the indictment of new york mayor eric adams, which was described by some of the s.d.n.y prosecutors who resigned en masse as a quid pro quo to make adams help the administration boost their lagging deportation numbers. despite trump's almost cartoonishly villainous border czar tom homan, ratcheting up the theatrical cruelty by making sch

this first case that will go up to the supreme court, though, involves hampton dellinger, and he's thenited states. it's a little bit confusing. he's not a special counsel in the sense that jack smith was. he's actually the special counsel for the country. he's tasked with overseeing certain kinds of fraud, waste and mismanagement, and also with protecting whistleblowers in the federal civil service in the government. so he i think when he reached out to dodge was quite sincere. his mission is to prevent the sort of waste that they say that they are seeking. and his dismissal by the president would seem to violate the rules set down for his appointment, which say that he can only be fired for cause. but this case reaches the supreme court in a very early posture. the judge has issued a temporary restraining order that will keep him in place for just a couple of weeks, while she begins to consider the substantive issues. i don't think we'll be able to read too much into the supreme court's decision here, whatever it is, and it's very likely that they will simply take a hands off posture

this is about hampton dellinger, who is an appointee from the biden administration, who is to. his job was to prevent the civil service being politicized. but it's not just him. you know, we're seeing this bigger scope of when it comes to the 14th amendment, trump's power to to fire civil service employees, trying to fire watchdogs without notifying congress. what does it tell you about trump's view, just how he is in his second term so far? >> so donald trump had four years basically as a white house in waiting down in mar-a-lago on his post-presidency. and some folks thought that he was stewing and he was mad, and he was focusing on his court cases, and that was part of it. but he was also, as you know, planning for what is next administration would be like. and a lot of those plans dealt with the roadblocks that he felt like he encountered in the first term. and every new piece of news that i see of, like, what piece he's trying to remove or who he's trying to take some authority away from, i see as ways for him to kind of clear the deck, to be able to get more of his agenda