Friday, April 04, 2025
Judge Orders Trump Administration to Return Maryland Man Deported to El Salvador - The New York Times
Trump Administration Is Ordered to Return Migrant Deported to El Salvador
"A federal judge said officials had acted without “legal basis” last month when they arrested the migrant, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, and put him on a plane to a notorious Salvadoran prison.
A federal judge gave the Trump administration until the end of Monday to return to the United States a Maryland man who was inadvertently deported to El Salvador last month despite a court order allowing him stay in the country.
In a brief ruling issued on Friday, the judge, Paula Xinis, said that federal officials had acted without “legal basis” last month when they arrested the man, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, and put him on a plane — with no due process — to a notorious Salvadoran megaprison.
The decision by Judge Xinis, which came during a hearing in Federal District Court, was a sharp rebuke to the Trump administration. In court papers filed this week, administration officials had said there was little they could do to get Mr. Abrego Garcia back from El Salvador, even after acknowledging that his deportation on March 15 had been a mistake.
The judge’s ruling could put her on a collision course with the White House. President Trump and some of his top aides have repeatedly and aggressively attacked other federal judges who have questioned their attempts to carry out their deportation policies.
Hours after the hearing on Friday, the Justice Department said that it intended to appeal the decision.
The case of Mr. Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran migrant whose wife and three children are U.S. citizens, has become the latest flashpoint in a multifront battle between immigration lawyers and the White House, which has been ramping up deportations using both traditional and unusual methods.
The case has also highlighted the Trump administration’s efforts to accuse migrants of being members of violent street gangs as a way to accelerate their removal from the country.
In court filings, the Justice Department has accused Mr. Abrego Garcia, 29, of belonging to a transnational gang with roots in El Salvador called MS-13. But officials have offered only limited evidence to support their claims, and Mr. Abrego Garcia has denied them.
During the hearing on Friday, Judge Xinis expressed skepticism about any ties Mr. Abrego Garcia has to MS-13, noting there was little proof that he belonged to the gang.
“In a court of law, when someone is accused of membership in such a violent and predatory organization, it comes in the form of an indictment, complaint, criminal proceeding — a robust process, so we can address the facts,” Judge Xinis said. “I haven’t yet heard that from the government.”
Outside the courthouse, Jennifer Stefania Vasquez Sura, Mr. Abrego Garcia’s wife, celebrated the decision with a cheering crowd of supporters.
“We will continue fighting for Kilmar, for my husband,” she said.
In the hearing, the Justice Department appeared to recognize that it had a weak hand.
Erez Reuveni, a department lawyer, admitted to the judge that Mr. Abrego Garcia should not have been deported in the first place, and told her that he had been frustrated with the case after it landed on his desk.
Mr. Reuveni sought what appeared to be a compromise, asking for 24 hours to persuade his “client” — the Trump administration — to begin the process of retrieving Mr. Abrego Garcia from the prison, which is known as the Terrorism Confinement Center.
“Good clients listen to their lawyers,” Judge Xinis told him.
But she ultimately rejected his request by imposing a deadline of 11:59 p.m. on Monday for Mr. Abrego Garcia to be brought back to the United States.
Wendy Ramos, a spokeswoman for El Salvador’s president, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether the government intended to turn Mr. Abrego Garcia over to U.S. authorities.
Mr. Abrego Garcia came to the United States illegally in 2011, court papers say, in order to be near his older brother in Maryland. He lived quietly, starting a family with Ms. Sura, until March 2019, when he was taken into custody by the local police while looking for casual labor outside a Home Depot.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement quickly took control of his case and began an effort to deport him, based in part on accusations that he was a member of MS-13.
But in October 2019, Mr. Abrego Garcia persuaded an immigration judge that he might face violence, even torture, if returned to his homeland. The judge granted him a special status called “withholding from removal” that permitted him to avoid being deported.
Last month, after nearly six years had passed, Mr. Abrego Garcia was stopped again by immigration agents who incorrectly told him that his protected status had changed.
He was arrested, and within three days had been placed on one of three flights to El Salvador that the Trump administration had hastily arranged using a rarely invoked 18th-century wartime statute, the Alien Enemies Act, to deport a group of Venezuelan men accused of being members of a different gang, Tren de Aragua.
Two of the planes were sent to El Salvador under the authority of the wartime act, administration officials have said. But the third flight — the one on which Mr. Abrego Garcia was traveling — was supposed to have been transporting only migrants with formal removal orders signed by a judge.
Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, a lawyer for Mr. Abrego Garcia, told reporters after the Friday hearing that he hoped a victory in the case would set a precedent in the cases of other men deported to the Salvadoran prison, by showing that the government had the ability to return them to the United States.
Mr. Sandoval-Moshenberg added that he appreciated that Mr. Reuveni, the Justice Department lawyer, “recognized the seriousness of the case.” But he rued the fact that the Trump administration had not been cooperative so far in bringing his client back.
“This wasn’t the evil of ill intent toward Kilmar,” Mr. Sandoval-Moshenberg said. “It was the evil of apathy as to whether or not they deport the right person.”
Annie Correal contributed reporting from Mexico City.
Aishvarya Kavi works in the Washington bureau of The Times, helping to cover a variety of political and national news. More about Aishvarya Kavi
Alan Feuer covers extremism and political violence for The Times, focusing on the criminal cases involving the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and against former President Donald J. Trump."
IBRAHIM TRAORÉ SHOCKS TRUMP BY SUPPLYING RICE TO AFRICAN COUNTRIES, REPL...
Federal judge finally LOSES ALL PATIENCE with Trump
Thursday, April 03, 2025
Wednesday, April 02, 2025
Eric Adams’s Charges Were Dropped, but His Re-Election Chances Remain Dim - The New York Times
Charges Dropped Against Adams, but Re-Election Chances Remain Dim
"Even with the dismissal of a five-count federal corruption indictment, Mayor Eric Adams faces an uncertain future.
Mayor Eric Adams got his best case scenario on Wednesday, when Judge Dale E. Ho dismissed his federal corruption indictment.
In the stroke of a pen, the prospect of a trial-turned-media circus had been eliminated, along with the prospect of prison time. And because the indictment was dismissed with prejudice, prosecutors can no longer revisit the charges after the November mayoral election.
But that does not mean Mr. Adams’s path to winning a second term this year will be any easier.
In the roughly six months since a grand jury indicted him, Mr. Adams has seen his fund-raising crater and a platoon of contenders join the Democratic primary, including several who are well-positioned to win the support of Black voters outside Manhattan who make up Mr. Adams’s base.
Despite the headwinds and the absence of a discernible campaign infrastructure, Mr. Adams insists that he is still running for a second term. He has also left open the door to running as an independent, possibly forgoing a bruising Democratic primary battle in June and enabling him to build up and conserve his campaign funds for the general election.
And even though his case has been dismissed, how it played out did him no favors with voters. Mr. Adams has had to watch as the Trump administration’s effort to quash his case devolved into a sordid soap opera, with respected federal prosecutors in Manhattan forfeiting their jobs rather than carry out orders that they considered corrupt.
Mr. Adams, the outgoing interim U.S. attorney argued, had effectively offered to exchange his freedom from prosecution for his help administering the president’s deportation agenda.
Although the mayor routinely denies this, the judge overseeing the case, Judge Ho, wrote in his ruling: “Everything here smacks of a bargain: Dismissal of the indictment in exchange for immigration policy concessions.”
Mr. Adams has also had to witness his case mushroom into a national symbol of President Trump’s politicization of the Justice Department, with several officials at the agency in Washington also choosing to resign rather than move to dismiss his charges.
The spectacle of it all has perhaps irreparably damaged Mr. Adams’s standing with New Yorkers, most of whom are not particularly fond of Mr. Trump.
“You can’t un-ring the bell,” said Basil Smikle, the former executive director of the New York State Democratic Party. “Any concerns that voters had about Eric Adams being able to serve the city with the investigation continuing and a potential trial only get amplified by their dismissal.”
Mr. Adams has steadily lost the confidence of New York City’s voters. In December 2023, well before he was indicted, only 28 percent of them approved of his job performance. At the time, it was the lowest approval rating for any New York City mayor in the nearly 30 years that Quinnipiac University has polled New York City voters.
After Mr. Adams’s indictment in September, he fell below his own polling nadir: Only 20 percent of New York City voters approved of his job performance, according to a poll Quinnipiac released last month.
“Eric Adams is politically toast,” said David Schwartz, who worked as the Jewish community outreach coordinator for Andrew Yang, a 2021 mayoral candidate. He added that the dismissal of charges “doesn’t matter” at this point.
If Mr. Adams stays in the Democratic primary, the city’s ranked-choice voting system, which allows voters to rank up to five candidates in order of preference, may benefit him.
If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of first-choice votes, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated. Voters who ranked that eliminated candidate first, now give their votes to the candidate they ranked second. The process repeats itself until there are only two candidates left. The candidate with the most votes then wins.
“The mayor could go across the city and say: ‘Look, I know you may be looking at someone else. Vote me No. 2,’” Mr. Smikle said. “If he can rake up enough No. 2s, it actually may be helpful to him.”
He could be, Mr. Smikle continued, “the common backup” for candidates as varied as the former comptroller Scott Stringer, former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, or State Senator Zellnor Myrie.
And much as voters may be willing to overlook the sexual harassment allegations that prompted Mr. Cuomo to resign from the governorship in 2021, some may also be willing to overlook Mr. Adams’s scandal-ridden tenure. They may be susceptible to the candidates’ shared argument, one also voiced by Mr. Trump, that they were victims of a politicized justice system.
“There are a lot of voters that have a real distrust in the criminal justice system,” Mr. Smikle said. “That explains partly some of Trump’s support among Black and brown voters.”
And Mr. Adams may be able to frame Judge Ho’s dismissal as evidence that the charges were weak, a contention that some voters may already believe.
“I don’t think the political winds necessarily favor Eric Adams, but he’s not dead politically,” said Christina Greer, an associate professor of political science at Fordham University.
“He is wounded, he is definitely behind the eight ball, he is in a less-than-ideal position as an incumbent. But in a ranked-choice, low-voting, low-information election” nearly three months from now, she continued, “I would not discount him completely.”
The Untold Story of Benzodiazepine Dependency | The Epoch Times
The Untold Story of Benzodiazepine Dependency
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"As a freshly minted physician’s assistant, Nicole Lamberson was nervous to start seeing patients, struggling with residual stress from her studies, anxiety, and a lack of confidence. A colleague prescribed her Xanax (alprazolam).
The pills worked like a charm for the first couple of weeks, but then they lost their power.
What started as a simple prescription spiraled into a medical nightmare that nearly claimed her life–and revealed a little-known truth about one of America’s most commonly prescribed classes of drugs.
Across the United States, over 30 million adults take benzodiazepines, medications like Xanax, Klonopin (clonazepam), and Ativan (lorazepam). Most believe, as Lamberson did, that following their doctor’s orders keeps them safe.
Yet a growing body of evidence suggests these medications can create devastating physical dependence, even when taken exactly as prescribed, leaving patients trapped between the terror of continuing and the danger of stopping. In 2019, approximately 92 million prescriptions for benzodiazepines were dispensed to outpatients in the United States. About half of the patients took these medications for two months or more. Long-term use typically refers to taking them regularly for more than a few weeks.
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Benzodiazepine-related problems are often mistaken for addiction. However, dependence is neurological in nature and happens even when patients take the medication as prescribed.
Many people who experience benzodiazepine withdrawal say they had no idea what was happening to them.
Director and producer Holly Hardman experienced this firsthand. In the mid-1990s, her gynecologist prescribed her 0.5 to 1 milligram of Klonopin (clonazepam), which she took a few times a week for more than 15 years. She stopped once while preparing for a documentary film festival.
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“On the fourth day after stopping, I started experiencing frightening symptoms. I felt like I should go to an emergency room,” Hardman said in an interview with The Epoch Times.
A quick Google search led her to a Wikipedia page alerting readers to the dangers of benzodiazepines.
“I rushed to my bathroom cabinet and took a 1 mg Klonopin tablet, then continued a deep dive into a shocking world of suffering, medical ignorance, and big pharma malfeasance,” she added.
“Benzodiazepines act on the GABA-A receptors in the brain. Gamma-aminobutyric acid is a chemical messenger that helps reduce feelings of anxiety and stress. The binding to these sites depresses and slows down our nervous system. In return, our brain signals to counteract the drug and produces less GABA on its own,” Witt-Doerring said.
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Nicole Cain, a clinical psychologist and naturopathic doctor specializing in benzodiazepine withdrawal, describes this process of receptor desensitization in detail in her book “Panic Proof.” She emphasizes that dependence “can occur in as little as two weeks of benzo use.” “Benzo belly” refers to gastrointestinal symptoms many people experience during benzodiazepine withdrawal, including abdominal pain, nausea, appetite changes, and diarrhea or constipation. Good nutrition plays a key role in the taper process.
Cain says that increased intake of probiotics, fiber, and appropriate herbal and natural supplements can alleviate the symptoms. She knows this after conquering her own crisis.
Running a private practice, and treating patients with anxiety, Cain found herself “caught in a panic-anxiety loop,” she told The Epoch Times in an email.
“At my lowest point, I had lost significant weight, my menstrual cycle stopped, I couldn’t sleep, and I experienced involuntary muscle movements,” Cain added. She tried numerous alternative treatments, but after all those failed, she turned to prescription medication. Diazepam provided the most relief. However, her medical training pushed her to find a deeper solution.
Cain successfully tapered off benzodiazepines over 18 months–10 years ago. Since then, she has supported thousands of patients, emphasizing the importance of treating not just the symptoms but also the underlying cause of anxiety. Interdose withdrawal—withdrawal symptoms that occur between doses—and the loss of drug effectiveness often lead to misdiagnosis and additional prescriptions. Patients find themselves on cocktails of drugs, as was the case with Lamberson, whose side effects—insomnia, irritability, and increased anxiety—were mistaken for mental health issues.
Cain recalls a patient who was prescribed one benzodiazepine (Zoloft) by her primary care physician and another (Lexapro) by her psychiatrist. “This combination is contraindicated and can potentially lead to serious issues such as serotonin syndrome,” she said, emphasizing the importance of collaboration and clear communication across specialties to ensure patient safety.
In total, nearly 56 percent of the nursing home patients used benzodiazepines, with 28 percent in amounts higher than recommended for geriatric populations. Overall, 75 percent took benzodiazepines long-term. Problems surrounding benzodiazepine use are an ethical dilemma, Cain said. The main problem is in the current medical system, which is not designed to “consistently prioritize patient safety and well-being,” she told The Epoch Times. “Should we limit access to these medications, which can be life-saving in some cases (like mine), because doctors may lack adequate knowledge to manage the associated risks?”
Many medical professionals graduate from top programs without training in benzodiazepine tapering, she noted. Cain calls for enhanced education, increased resources, and the development of “comprehensive protocols for prescribing and tapering” for medical professionals and patients. Practitioners should know the difference between short-acting and longer-acting benzodiazepines and their effects, she added.
Witt-Doerring agrees that patient-centered care is lacking.
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“I noticed that there was a problem of how we prescribed psychiatric care medications when the treatment of patients started looking like a conveyer-belt,” Witt-Doerring said in a phone interview with The Epoch Times.
Witt-Doerring sees a positive shift in the declining numbers of new benzodiazepine prescriptions nationally since 2019.
“However, that doesn’t help the fact that hundreds of thousands of patients have taken them for decades and that there is no official guidance on how to get these people off these medications.” A “patient-guided” taper refers to a process in which a physician closely monitors a patient’s symptoms and gradually decreases the medication in small increments. This tapering process can take months or even years.
However, this poses another problem for physicians and patients—some benzodiazepines only come in pill form and cannot be broken into small enough pieces to regulate an appropriate taper.
“We often taper patients with liquid formulations. Tablets don’t allow people to safely come off the medication,” Witt-Doerring said. However, compounding pharmacies are rare, and custom preparations can be costly.
Additional Resources
- ASAM Guidelines: The American Society of Addiction Medicine’s Benzodiazepine Tapering Guidelines provide evidence-based tapering protocols that patients can share with their health care providers.
- Benzodiazepine Information Coalition (BIC): Highlights the importance of peer support and offers a comprehensive list of national and international support services, including social media support groups and tapering coaches.
- The Alliance for Benzodiazepine Best Practices: An Oregon-based nonprofit that provides educational resources for both providers and patients.
- The Inner Compass Initiative: Explores psychiatric medications, including benzodiazepines, and founded “The Withdrawal Project,“ which amplifies personal experiences and shares practical strategies for coping with withdrawal symptoms.
- The Ashton Manual: Published by Newcastle University in the UK, this comprehensive guide explains how benzodiazepines work and how to withdraw safely. A PDF version of the manual is available through BIC.
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It took Holly Hardman 22 months to free herself from what she calls the “Benzo Beast.” She still manages lingering effects but sees light at the end of the tunnel. “Good things are happening. More doctors are listening to updated information about benzodiazepines,” said Hardman, adding that “As Prescribed” is now supported by clinicians researching benzodiazepine withdrawal and what many refer to as Benzodiazepine-Induced Neurological Dysfunction (BIND).
Cain advises patients to find a health care provider who views anxiety as more than a condition to be managed indefinitely.
“Remember, hope is a key part of the healing process. Don’t let anyone, institution or individual, take that away from you.”
N.Y. Lawmakers Fight Trump With a Proposal Targeting Elon Musk - The New York Times
Inside Elite Law Firms, Protests and Quitting After Trump Deals
"The discontent does not appear to be resonating with leaders at Paul Weiss and Skadden, but it could hamstring their recruitment efforts.
Ever since the elite law firms Paul Weiss and Skadden reached deals with President Trump to scuttle executive orders that could have crippled their businesses, the firms’ top partners have closed ranks in support of the agreements.
But there is discontent among the vast army of lawyers who may not have much sway in decision-making at the two firms but who do much of the work: their associates.
Some of these young lawyers are saying both privately and openly that their leaders betrayed their firms’ principles with deals that could undermine a commitment to provide free legal work to public interest groups and causes at odds with the White House.
In recent days, associates at Paul Weiss and Skadden have written emails to their leadership in protest, and a few have quit their jobs.
One Skadden associate who resigned is Thomas Sipp.
A Columbia Law School graduate, Mr. Sipp, 27, said in an interview that he had been attracted to Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom because of its “pay and prestige,” but also because of the firm’s “commitment to pro bono work.” On Monday, he wrote an email to his colleagues about why he was leaving after less than two years.
“I am sure some of you will question my decision and chalk it up to me being a young attorney too eager to throw his career away,” he wrote. “I am sure there will also be those of you who will think of me as naïve.”
But he added: “Skadden is on the wrong side of history. I could no longer stay knowing that someday I would have to explain why I stayed.”
So far, it does not appear that the associates’ complaints are resonating with their firms’ leadership.
The decision-making at many large firms is controlled by a small group of partners who are annually paid as much as $20 million each because of their relationships with lucrative corporate clients. At large firms, starting associates tend to make more than $220,000 a year plus a bonus.
At Paul Weiss, the top partners have argued that their deal with Mr. Trump was necessary to keep the firm afloat. The executive order, they said, would have prevented the firm from representing clients before the federal government could have cost partners and associates their jobs.
Skadden appears to have taken steps to prevent the internal dissent from spreading. Mr. Sipp and another associate there, Brenna Frey, who quit on Friday, said they had been blocked from announcing their resignations widely on Skadden’s email channels.
Two other associates said Skadden’s email system had not allowed them to send messages about their concerns about the deal to broad groups of lawyers. Those associates spoke on the condition of anonymity because they still work at Skadden.
The lawyers had often used internal group email lists to circulate questions, such as asking about colleagues’ experiences with judges or mediators.
Skadden declined to comment, and a spokesperson for Paul Weiss did not respond to a request for comment.
Objections to the deals could have other implications for the firms as they try to retain talented associates and recruit new ones from top law schools. On Monday, a student-run group at Georgetown University’s law school sent a letter to Skadden saying it would not participate in a recruiting event the next day at the firm’s Washington office.
The letter, from several of the more than 150 members of the Georgetown Energy Law Group, said the organization had decided not to participate in response to Skadden’s “pre-emptive acquiescence to pressure from the Trump administration.”
At Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, a group of 43 associates emailed Brad Karp, the firm’s longtime chairman, in the days after the deal last month, asking for a staff meeting with senior leadership to address concerns about the “firm’s commitment to longstanding principles,” according to a copy of the note reviewed by The New York Times.
Some of the most vocal protests are coming from former Paul Weiss lawyers.
Elizabeth J. Grossman, a former Paul Weiss associate who is executive director of Common Cause Illinois, said she had chosen the firm after law school because of its commitment to democracy defense, among other issues.
“Paul Weiss recruited on the basis that they were different,” she said.
Ms. Grossman, who helped organize an open letter to Mr. Karp that called the decision to settle “cowardly,” said she was still fielding calls from lawyers interested in signing the letter.
Last month, one former Paul Weiss associate even organized a virtual shiva — the weeklong mourning period in Jewish tradition — where lawyers could gather to commiserate.
The deals focused heavily on Paul Weiss’s and Skadden’s pro bono programs, in which young lawyers provide many hours of free legal services to nonprofit groups that are often at odds with Mr. Trump’s policies. The deals require that the firms’ lawyers devote substantial work hours to causes favored by Mr. Trump.
Even before the president issued the executive orders, Paul Weiss had begun to take down some references to its public interest work that conflicted with the administration.
Last month, Paul Weiss removed a web page that had highlighted its “leadership in a court-ordered effort to find parents deported by the Trump administration and to reunify families.” Visitors to the page now get an error message, as do users looking for any mention of Paul Weiss’s pro bono work on behalf of L.G.B.T.Q. people.
Mr. Karp has long been a supporter of Democrats and their causes; he positioned Paul Weiss as a bulwark against many of the policies that the party objected to during the first Trump administration.
Other large law firms, like WilmerHale and Jenner & Block, have opted to go to court to fight Mr. Trump’s executive orders targeting them.
But Mr. Karp sought to strike a deal with the White House only hours after Paul Weiss was hit with an order, two people briefed on the matter said. He was prepared to offer pro bono work on causes supported by Mr. Trump, including helping the administration launch a sovereign wealth fund, one of the two people and another who was briefed on the matter said.
After meeting with Mr. Trump, Mr. Karp and a lawyer he had hired in Washington to deal with the executive order, Bill Burck, engaged in a back-and-forth with Mr. Trump’s advisers over the wording of the agreement.
Mr. Trump’s team wanted Paul Weiss to agree to not engage in “weaponization” of the law or “diversity, equity and inclusion” in hiring, two of the people briefed on the matter said.
Mr. Karp won the battle over the word “weaponization,” which was not mentioned in the version of the deal published on the White House website. But a general prohibition on policies that promote D.E.I. in the firm’s hiring did appear.
The agreement “will have no effect on our work and our shared culture and values,” Mr. Karp said in an email to his firm. “The core of who we are and what we stand for is and will remain unchanged.”
Susan C. Beachy contributed research
Jessica Silver-Greenberg is a Times investigative reporter writing about big business with a focus on health care. She has been a reporter for more than a decade. More about Jessica Silver-Greenberg
Michael S. Schmidt is an investigative reporter for The Times covering Washington. His work focuses on tracking and explaining high-profile federal investigations."
‘Big Psychological Boost’ for Democrats in String of Elections - The New York Times
‘Big Psychological Boost’ for Democrats in String of Elections
"The party’s position remains dire. But a judicial victory in Wisconsin and closer-than-expected losses in Florida suggest a once-demoralized Democratic base is animated again.
news analysis
Democrats this week achieved their biggest gains to date in the second Trump era, winning a fiercely contested State Supreme Court race in Wisconsin, while also landing relatively strong showings despite losing two Florida special elections.
Maybe, just maybe, it’s a start.
The results on Tuesday do not erase the long list of harsh realities for Democrats, who remain locked out of power in President Trump’s Washington and severely limited in their efforts to constrain him.
Their party’s popularity is at a generational low, activists are furious with their leaders, and, as Democrats have learned the hard way, victories in obscure and off-year races do not always translate into national success.
But winning is better than losing, and Democrats have indeed been doing some significant winning.
At minimum, the Wisconsin results are a stinging rebuke to Elon Musk, the billionaire and top Trump adviser who spent millions in Wisconsin in support of the conservative candidate. The outcomes made clear that a once-demoralized Democratic base is animated again, on the same night that Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey delighted the party by completing the longest Senate speech on record, a 25-hour tirade and cri de coeur against the president and his administration.
And a substantial victory for the liberal candidate in Wisconsin — a state Mr. Trump won in November, where races are often nail-biters — instantly reverberated nationally.
“When Democrats are outperforming or winning, it’s a big psychological boost in a time when Democrats are feeling pretty low,” said John Anzalone, a veteran Democratic pollster, noting that Tuesday’s results would be closely watched in Virginia, home to a marquee governor’s race later this year.
“They’re going to be dealing with the political environment that Trump has created, which is not good right now for Republicans,” he added.
Democrats recently flipped Republican-held state legislative seats in special elections in Iowa and Pennsylvania. In Louisiana on Saturday, voters rejected four proposed constitutional amendments backed by the Republican governor, Jeff Landry.
Last week Mr. Trump announced he was withdrawing his appointment of Representative Elise Stefanik of New York as his United Nations ambassador, saying the move was partly done to avoid a special election for her seat, which she had won by 24 percentage points in November.
And on Tuesday, House contests in Florida helped explain that Republican uneasiness.
In the state’s conservative Sixth District, State Senator Randy Fine, a Republican, had won by 14 percentage points as of early Wednesday. In November, when turnout was much higher, then-Representative Michael Waltz — now the embattled national security adviser — won the same seat by more than 30 points.
And in the First District, a Democratic House candidate appeared to have won a county that Mr. Trump had carried last fall by 19 percentage points, though she lost the seat overall.
The results were striking.
But the bigger question is whether there is a real backlash brewing beyond the highly engaged, highly motivated and in many cases highly educated voters who reliably turn out for Democrats in races big and small — but who are not numerous enough to win a national election, as November’s results showed.
“What this election is about is turnout, and so while Democrats are a very small percentage of this area, they’re really, really, really mad,” Mr. Fine of Florida said in an interview on Tuesday morning.
His campaign, he said, had “to try to create the same level of intensity there than what Democrats are feeling. But if you survey everybody, I think they’re where they were in November.”
Democrats, however, are betting that broader momentum is building, as the Trump administration, led by Mr. Musk, moves to gut the federal government, slashing programs and creating chaos that Americans across the political spectrum are experiencing and feeling personally.
“They are watching how Donald Trump is empowering a billionaire who is unelected to cut their veterans’ services programs, and yet their representatives, these Republican congressional members, aren’t showing up,” said Sarah Godlewski, the Wisconsin secretary of state. “So they’re like, I can make my voice heard in this Supreme Court election.”
In Wisconsin, the race effectively became a referendum on Mr. Musk, who spent heavily and campaigned for the conservative judicial candidate, Brad Schimel, who lost to the liberal candidate, Susan Crawford.
“We didn’t want to go looking for a fight with the richest man in the world, but when the fight comes to you, you don’t back down. That’s also a big lesson,” said Patrick Guarasci, a senior adviser to Ms. Crawford’s campaign. “People need to hear that. There’s so much wilting going on around the country and I think Susan has shown people that you can stand up and fight back and win.”
Democrats are taking the outcome as evidence of the unpopularity of Mr. Trump’s and Mr. Musk’s platform, and a sign that their Musk-focused message is effective.
“The amount of money there for a Supreme Court race there was astounding, and the fact that people spoke loudly — this wasn’t a close race,” said Representative Suzan DelBene of Washington, who chairs the House Democratic campaign arm. For Republicans, she went on, “The Trump-Musk agenda is a liability for them. They’re hurting the American people, and people across the country are speaking out.”
How Mr. Musk may respond and proceed is uncertain. And of course, in a political environment in which upheavals seem to come every hour, it is far too early to know what the voter mood on Tuesday will mean for the next round of national elections in which Democrats could reclaim some power: the midterms.
“It’s indisputably good for Democrats to win special elections, and those results are clear indicators, they’re like the barometric pressure in a midterm environment,” said former Representative Steve Israel of New York, who led the House Democratic campaign arm roughly a decade ago. “They are not necessarily dispositive.”
Still, such outcomes can be meaningful for fund-raising and momentum. And sometimes they are harbingers of where the national environment is headed.
In 2017, Jon Ossoff, now a Georgia senator, ultimately lost what was then the most expensive House race ever. But he established himself as a powerhouse fund-raiser and his race was an early signifier of rising Democratic energy.
A year later, the Democrat Conor Lamb won a stunning upset in a special House election in Pennsylvania, a moment that Republicans later saw as the beginning of the end of their House majority in 2018.
“The anxiety and concern on our side is very real, and people are looking for ways to translate that into action,” Mr. Lamb said in an interview this week. “The potential for a strong 2026 is there to be actualized, but it still has to be organized and channeled in the right direction. We can’t take it for granted.”
Mr. Anzalone, the pollster, noted that Democrats had become skilled at capitalizing on frustration.
But that, he said, is no substitution for an affirmative, economic-focused message and other efforts to connect with working-class voters.
“Anytime that we’ve been winning is because they’ve been losing,” he said. “Republicans screwing up is not a Democratic strategy.”
Reid J. Epstein contributed reporting from Madison, Wis., Emily Cochrane from Daytona Beach, Fla., and Dan Simmons from Milwaukee."