Morning. I was up until late watching the Golden State Warriors clinch an NBA playoff spot while raising my blood pressure.

…but then my friend Joe asked at 1 a.m.; “what time are you going to send your newsletter in the morning?” and so I took that as a challenge. So: Here we are on less sleep than usual, all ready to read the newspaper, huh, Joe?

Perhaps it’s even a good story today?

Oh.

That’s Adam Liptak in this morning’s lead story. Personally I don’t love it when the Times’s Supreme Court reporter is writing the front page analysis, of late. It tends to mean the Trump administration has shattered another norm.

Plenty of the evil stuff Trump wants to do has been stymied in court by lawsuits — mainly because a lot of it is illegal. He’s tried to block the Associated Press from the White House press pool, even though judges have ruled against it, for example. But Trump’s recent response to the Supreme Court’s ruling in the case of a Salvadoran immigrant is “Exhibit A in what legal scholars say is a deeply worrisome and escalating trend,” Mr. Liptak reports.

The Supreme Court ordered last Thursday that the Trump administration illegally deported Armando Abrego Garcia, who was under a court order forbidding his removal to El Salvador. That upheld a ruling by Maryland judge Paula Xinis, who has demanded more information from Trump. But the administration has “stalled, quibbled with, and ignored” those requests. In an Oval Office meeting on Monday, Mr. Trump and President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador both “made plain that they had no intention of returning Mr. Abrego Garcia to the U.S.”

Stephen Miller, Mr. Trump’s top domestic policy adviser, also said that the administration’s court filings on the issue were mistaken, “the work of a rogue lawyer,” Mr. Liptak reports. But conservative legal commentators say that the administration is “clearly acting in bad faith.”

The bad news about that is: There’s not much the Supreme Court or anyone else can do about it. Mr. Trump and his allies have also “waged rhetorical attacks on several judges who have ruled against the president, at times calling for their impeachment and at others suggesting that Mr. Trump is not bound by the law.”

It’s very important that we all read the newspaper and talk about this behavior, though. Because the facts, as they’re reported, are alarming, and it’s important to share that alarm with your friends and family, as well as to digest some of the basic facts so that you can share your concerns in some depth. That’s what I’m here for, to help you win the argument with your racist uncle at a barbecue on July 4. We can do this!

The administration also sometimes sends its lawyers to court with instructions to make arguments that are “factually or legally baseless.”

After the Supreme Court backed her, Judge Xinis has asked the government where Mr. Abrego Garcia is being held, what steps the government has taken to get him home, and what additional steps it plans to take. The administration’s lawyers slow-rolled its answers, to say the least, prompting the judge to write that they have “failed to comply with this court’s order,” calling for daily updates.

Mr. Abrego Garcia’s lawyers want Judge Xinis to hold the government in contempt and legal scholars say the administration is “certainly close to defiance.”

The legal issue at stake is that the president of El Salvador doesn’t have to send Mr. Abrego Garcia back, under the law. We don’t have jurisdiction there. And since the president of El Salvador wants to appear in the Oval Office with Mr. Trump essentially saying “I don’t wanna do it,” we don’t have a lot of sticks to shake at him. Also; This is so vulgar:

More foot dragging is likely to lead things back to the Supreme Court…

The White House, meanwhile, has shown no signs of budging on its dispute with the Associated Press. It has also “capitalized on confusion in other cases,” like when judges ordered it to unfreeze U.S. AID money, but the administration continued to drag its feet, Mr. Liptak reports.

That’s an awful lot of foot-dragging, isn’t it? You know who else dragged his foot? This guy:

In the lower courts, it seems Mr. Trump is prepared to take judicial rulings as suggestions at best. But he has said he wants to avoid a final confrontation with the Supreme Court.

Oh, well then. We can all relax. It’s just all the other courts Mr. Trump doesn’t respect. So that’s something for you to hold onto while you’re lying awake in bed, worrying that we’re going through a deepening constitutional crisis, eh?

My anger and disgust at the Trump administration grows daily. One encouraging thing I’ve noted is that the tariffs are universally unpopular, but the conversation over basketball last night inevitably turned to “third terms,” and I found my blood pressure rising even further. There are no third terms in American presidential politics and that’s my line in the sand. Then again the idea that one is even coming up with one’s “lines in the sand” suggests one is bargaining with how much horror one is willing to take before having a full-on nervous breakdown. The approach of the administration is to wear us down, daily, like Vladimir Putin has his people over decades. We must resist it.

The best news here is: We don’t live in Russia, and Trump is old enough to die soon. But that’s hardly a soothing bowl of warm soup to the soul, is it?

Thanks for letting me read the newspaper so that you don’t have to!

Say, is there a story on the front page that might make me feel better?

Oh, sure. You can read this piece by Julia Moskin about Le Creuset cookware. It includes a nice picture of the author’s parents which I’ve included below, and some very deranged people who’ve spent the price of several cars on the stuff. I suspect that it’s a uniquely American take. French people would be appalled, just as they are by everything except the idea of eating songbirds. 🤷🏻‍♂️

The author’s parents are the very picture of decent parenthood, and looking at them makes me feel better:

Matt Davis lives in Manhattan with his wife and kid.

Standard disclaimer: I read the top story in the New York Times every morning so that you don’t have to. If you were forwarded this, you can subscribe here. I’m also doing a five-minute video version of this, each weekday morning at around 9 a.m. (depending on how long it takes me to read the newspaper). If you’d like to follow me on LinkedIn (you can always watch the recording later). If you subscribe to my Youtube channel it’ll also send you a notification when I’m “going live.”