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There were several things to like about Trump’s initial executive order. It noted that today’s media market “is filled with abundant, diverse, and innovative news options,” and it declared that “government funding of news media in this environment is not only outdated and unnecessary but corrosive to the appearance of journalistic independence.”

These are good points, and my colleagues at Reason have been making a similar case for many, many years. On the merits, there was never a good argument for taxpayer funding of public media.

But as Reason’s Jesse Walker wrote last year, there were some genuine legal questions about whether Trump had the authority to defund public media through executive order.

And Trump’s criticism of NPR’s coverage of him made the executive order look like an act of personal pique rather than a speech-neutral decision not to fund a government program. Moss wrote that the text of the executive order, along with other public statements, made it “difficult to conceive of clearer evidence that a government action is targeted at viewpoints that the president does not like and seeks to squelch.”

As is sometimes the case, Trump did the right thing—but not in the ideal way.

Practically, however, the ruling won’t have much of an impact. Shortly after Trump’s order was issued, Congress pulled about $500 million from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which then shut down. So at least in the short term, the ruling is moot.

Strictly ballroom. That wasn’t the only loss Trump faced in court yesterday. Separately, a federal judge said that Trump could not proceed with the construction of his planned White House ballroom until the $400 million project was approved by Congress.

The project is being funded with private donations that have been routed through the National Park Service. But even still, Judge Richard Leon said, Trump had exceeded his authority to proceed with the project unilaterally. Congress, he said, must explicitly authorize construction.

As I noted yesterday, Trump’s ballroom plans have been criticized, with multiple media reports saying that some mostly unnamed architects are worried the ballroom plan was rushed through with insufficient review and oversight. Some of the stated concerns had merit, like stairs going nowhere and oddly placed windows and bathrooms.

But while this project isn’t exactly typical, and public buildings are obviously different than private developments, it’s at least a little bit telling that one of the chief complaints about the project was that it was insufficiently bogged down in bureaucratic process and public review. It’s almost like the delays are the point.

In any case, the judge says the ball, or rather the building, is now in the legislature’s court: “The President,” the judge wrote, “may at any time go to Congress to obtain express authority to construct a ballroom and to do so with private funds.”

Congress? Act? I suppose there’s a first time for everything.

Scenes from Washington, D.C.: For years, Tail Up Goat was hailed as one of D.C.’s best restaurants. But the Adams Morgan establishment closed and is now set to reopen with a new name and new concept from the same owners. The new restaurant will be called Rye Bunny—and instead of a full-service, sit-down restaurant, it will be a counter-service spot, almost like your local deli, except with high-end fare.

There’s reason to suspect that this is a response to escalating labor costs in the District. The owners have talked about how dicey Tail Up Goat’s finances were, even with the good reviews. The new establishment is designed to be different. “From the restaurant’s perspective, the model is far more economically viable because they need nearly half as many front-of-house employees as they did before,” reports Washingtonian. (Front-of-house employees are waiters, bussers, and the like.)

D.C. has a great food scene, but restaurants have struggled in recent years, with a record number of closings last year. And at least part of the struggle has been the costs imposed by the city via changes to the way restaurants are required to compensate tipped workers. Yes, some of those changes have been paused, though not fully rolled back. But owning and operating a restaurant is tough in the best of times, and D.C.’s government has mostly made it more expensive and more onerous.

For more, watch Justin Zuckerman’s excellent 2024 documentary on why some D.C. restaurant workers prefer a lower minimum wage.