Another Blue State Effort to Crack Down on Crisis Pregnancy Centers Heads for Likely Demise
This is your TPM evening briefing.
Crisis pregnancy centers, including the one at the heart of the case the Supreme Court heard Tuesday, operate on deception.
They use abortion rights keywords and images — the center in this case is called First Choice — to lure in pregnant women, the better to dissuade them from getting abortions. You have to scroll to the very bottom of the New Jersey center’s website to hit the disclaimer: “First Choice Women’s Resource Centers is an abortion clinic alternative that does not perform or refer for termination services.” They often set up shop nearby real abortion clinics, and peddle anti-abortion misinformation.
But recent blue-state efforts to regulate these outposts of the anti-abortion movement have run into the buzzsaw of the right-wing Supreme Court, as the crisis pregnancy centers shroud themselves in First Amendment protections. In 2018, the Court knocked down a California law that would have forced the pregnancy centers there to inform patients about their abortion options. Tuesday’s case seems headed for a similar fate.
In 2023, New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin (D) issued a subpoena to First Choice, seeking a wide tranche of information — including donor identification — in its investigation into whether the center had misled both donors and potential clients. The subpoena is not self-executing, meaning the parties would then go to state court and fight to enforce or block it.
But First Choice — represented by the now-infamous right-wing legal group, Alliance Defending Freedom — wanted to have this fight in federal court from the jump, the better dice roll for an anti-abortion judge. The Trump administration, which helped stack the federal judiciary, has since joined the case on First Choice’s side.
“Do you think there is a credible chilling effect from the state seeking full names, phone numbers, addresses, present or last known place of employment of every one of their donors who gave through any means other than the one specific website?” Chief Justice John Roberts asked Sundeep Iyer, Platkin’s chief counsel.
Even Justice Elena Kagan balked at the non-self-executing subpoena: “An ordinary person — one of the funders for this organization or for any similar organization — presented with this subpoena and then told ‘but don’t worry, it has to be stamped by a court’ is not going to take that as very reassuring.’”
The Court has been sparing in creating new abortion jurisprudence since the earthquake of Dobbs, but every right-wing justice was vehement in its defense of First Choice Tuesday. Meanwhile, red state funding continues to pour into the ruse, as crisis pregnancy centers populate like mushrooms in states cleared of all real abortion care.
— Kate Riga
Americans Want Congress to Legislate, Not Trump
New polling out today from States United, a non profit group devoted to elections and the rule of law, shows that there is substantial public opposition to President Trump’s ongoing expansion of presidential power and his unprecedented reliance on unilateral action to carry out his agenda in the first year of his second term.
States United published a report today that goes deep on Trump’s use of executive action, unmatched in modern history. From Jan. 20, 2025 to Dec. 1, 2025, Trump issued 217 executive orders. For context, per States United:
Presidents from John F. Kennedy to Joe Biden issued an average of 19.8 executive orders in their first 100 days. Most of Trump’s predecessors, from Kennedy to Barack Obama, fell within a relatively narrow band of 12 to 23 orders in their first 100 days. Biden issued 42 executive orders in his first 100 days, which itself was a record at the time among recent presidents.
The report surveys recent history to note that presidents most often use executive orders to advance their agenda when different parties control the upper and lower chamber of Congress, causing the legislative process to become deadlocked. However, Trump’s party controls both chambers of Congress, though narrowly, and Americans do not approve of Trump’s approach to governing. (As TPM has reported, Republican congressional leadership has done very little to stand up for their branch of government’s own authority this first year of Trump II, as well.)
Per States United’s polling (which involved online interviews with 1,515 U.S. adults from Sept. 30 to Oct. 6, 2025):
Most Americans want checks and balances preserved and object to Trump’s unilateral approach to advancing his agenda. States United polling has found that 74% of Americans believe the best way for public policy to change is by Congress passing a bill that becomes a law.
— Nicole LaFond
Hegseth Digs Heels In
The White House has been attempting to distance itself from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth after the Washington Post reported last week that he gave a verbal order to “kill everybody” aboard a vessel that the Trump administration lawlessly attacked in September. But Hegseth was defiant during one of Trump’s signature, televised “Cabinet meetings” on Tuesday.
“We’ve only just begun striking narco-boats and putting narco-terrorists at the bottom of the ocean because they’ve been poisoning the American people,” Hegseth said, while also suggesting he didn’t know whether the boat had any survivors after its first strike, a fact that, he said, was shrouded by the “fog of war.”
— Nicole LaFond
In Case You Missed It
Josh Marshall: Rethinking Federalism in a Time of Trump – A Response to Tom Nichols
Morning Memo: Trump White House Throws Military Under the Bus For Lawless Attack
TPM Cafe: State Leaders Aren’t Waiting for Congress to Get Its Act Together
From Hunter Walker: Bernie Sanders Definitely Doesn’t Think Trump Is the ‘Affordability President’
Yesterday’s Most Read Story
‘The Order Was to Kill Everybody’: A Savage Incident at Sea
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