The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld a Trump administration order that blacklists Anthropic’s Claude AI models after the company declined to enable certain features requested by federal agencies. In a 2‑1 decision, judges Gregory Katsas and Neomi Rao—both former Trump‑appointees—concluded that the Secretary of Defense acted within his authority under the Supply Chain Security Act and the Constitution, rejecting Anthropic’s claim that the blacklist was unlawful. The ruling highlights the tension between preventing overly constrained AI from failing in military operations and avoiding unconstrained models that could hallucinate inappropriate lethal targets. It notes that the case raises “profoundly difficult questions about the appropriate military uses of an almost unimaginably powerful new technology.” The court also denied Anthropic’s earlier emergency motion for a stay issued in April. Anthropic indicated it may seek an en banc review or petition the Supreme Court, while Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the administration and the firm have since repaired their relationship. No specific performance metrics or technical specifications of Claude were disclosed in the ruling.