Politics Desk

One year ago, Rebecca Kutler was promoted to president of the cable news network then known as MSNBC.

Taking the helm at a major news organization is the pinnacle of a journalist’s career. But a lot changed after Kutler landed the job.

In August, MSNBC announced it was dropping its name of nearly 30 years to become MS NOW — as its now-former owner NBCUniversal wanted a clean break from the channel, which was spun off to be part of a new media company called Versant.

The spin-off, which NBCU parent Comcast initiated because its cable networks are considered slow-dying properties that weighed down its stock price, was hardly a vote of confidence in the business. Losing the moniker that had decades of brand equity among its politically progressive viewers was not going to help.

At a recent lunch near her Washington office, Kutler, acknowledged the circumstances were less than ideal. But with more than 20 years in the TV news business where she began as a production assistant at CNN, she understood the audience’s connection to her channel begins with the people on-screen, and not the logo.

“I was pretty confident the audience wouldn’t really blink because when they turn on the their television, they see Rachel Maddow, they see Jen Psaki, they see Joe Scarborough,” Kutler, 46, said. “The fact that two letters change does not change any of those audience habits.”

Still there was work to be done. Kutler no longer had the resources of NBC News at her disposal. Instead of paying $60 million annually for its newsgathering services, she chose to have MS NOW build its own newsrooms in Washington and New York. The operation was tested Tuesday as President Trump’s State of the Union address was the first major event MS NOW covered as a freestanding entity.

Kutler has some big professional challenges, but none as daunting as the one that emerged in October when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Kutler found herself watching the newly rechristened MS NOW on a TV in a hospital room as she received chemotherapy treatments every few weeks.

“If anything it just made me appreciate and love what I do even more,” Kutler said.

As she works through her recovery, Kutler’s spirits have been buoyed by data that prove her point about MS NOW’s audience loyalty. From Nov. 15 — the date of the rebrand — through Feb. 14, MS NOW’s average daily audience has grown to 613,000, up 25% compared to the same period a year ago, according to Nielsen. Weeknight prime time is up 27% to 1.2 million viewers, still a distant second to conservative-leaning Fox News but well ahead of CNN.

There was an audience exodus from MSNBC in the months following President Trump’s election in 2024 as viewers unhappy with the results typically tune out after a presidential campaign. But anxiety over the activities of the second-term Trump White House sent them back into the familiar tent to hear Maddow, Lawrence O’Donnell, Ari Melber and others weigh in.

Lawrence O’Donnell and Rachel Maddow at an MSNBC fan festival in New York City in October 2025.

(MSNBC)

When the name change to MS NOW was announced in October, the network’s internal research showed 31% of viewers found the idea somewhat unappealing or very unappealing, a warning light for what might be ahead. Two months later, that figure dropped to 17%, while the percentage of viewers who found it very appealing or somewhat appealing jumped from 30% to 44%.

A $20-million promotional campaign that focused on the network’s personalities helped. “We made sure the audience knew that it was just a name change, not a strategy change,” Versant Chief Executive Mark Lazarus said.

Programming moves Kutler implemented ahead of the switch helped. Longtime evening host Joy Reid was replaced with an ensemble program “The Weeknight,” with Symone Sanders-Townsend, Michael Steele and Alicia Menendez, and the audience level rose by 30% in February compared to a year ago.

Kutler moved Psaki, the former press secretary to President Biden, to the 9 p.m. Eastern slot Tuesday through Friday, where viewership is up 41%.

At CNN, Kutler had a strong reputation as a producer and in talent development. She was being groomed for a top job at the network before jumping to MSNBC as an executive vice president in 2022. Agents have been impressed with her swift decision-making.

“They have exceeded expectations in an especially challenged environment,” said Bradley Singer, a partner at William Morris Endeavor whose clients include Sanders-Townsend and “The Weekend” co-host Eugene Daniels. “And I would argue that Rebecca is the right leader for this moment because she’s willing to move quickly to try new things. And the business doesn’t really have time to spare.”

Jen Psaki is the host of MS NOW’s “The Briefing.”

(MS NOW)

Psaki credits Kutler for guiding her transition into TV news. “I wasn’t hired because I spent 20 years as a local news anchor, right?” Psaki said in a recent telephone interview. “I could learn those skills, but Rebecca helped me really start the task of figuring out how to ask the questions that needed to be asked, while also sharing my unique perspective as somebody who’s worked in government and politics.”

MS NOW did have to fill a major hole when political data guru Steve Kornacki chose to stick with NBC after the spin-off. Kutler tapped Ali Velshi, the network’s versatile chief correspondent, to take over the number-crunching during election nights and other big events.

While Kutler can point to ratings increases, she is aware of the long-term doomsday scenario that faces the cable TV industry as more viewers turn to streaming. The people who still have cable like MS NOW a lot — the network has three times as many viewers today as it did 20 years ago when there were far more pay-TV subscribers. But Versant needs to become less dependent on traditional TV as subscriber numbers are sliding every year.

Wall Street will get its first look at Versant’s financial performance when the new company delivers an earnings report next week, expecting to show $6.6 billion in revenue last year. While there have been declines in revenues because of cord-cutting, the company, which includes USA Network, SYFY, CNBC, Golf Channel, E! and Oxygen, says it still delivers double-digit profit margins.

MS NOW President Rebecca Kutler at Vesant’s investor day in New York on Dec. 4.

(MS NOW)

By early fall, MS NOW will launch a direct-to-consumer subscription product aimed at people who don’t have a pay-TV package. CNN launched such a service last year, while Fox News, the perennial ratings leader in cable, is available as part of Fox One, which also offers Fox Corporation’s broadcast network and sports channels.

Kutler said MS NOW‘s direct-to-consumer service will be part of a broader digital offering that can serve as a community for progressives. She describes subscriptions as “memberships.”

“We’re trying to build a product that meets the needs of people who love news, care about democracy and want to come together in a shared space,” she said.

MS NOW already has a strong presence on YouTube. In January, the network had 339 million views of its content, second only to Fox News (466 million) among cable and broadcast TV news outlets.

Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough on the set of MS NOW’s “Morning Joe.”

(MS NOW)

MS NOW also stepped up its podcast business, scoring 140 million downloads last year. The long-form interview program “The Best People with Nicolle Wallace” has been a top download onApple Podcasts, and a new entry, “Clock It” with Sanders-Townsend and Daniels, launched this month.

Kutler also is looking at outside podcast companies to supply programming. Last week, MS NOW announced a deal with Crooked Media to produce a weekly compilation of its podcasts, including “Pod Save America,” which will air Saturdays at 9 p.m. Eastern.

“If there’s content our audience is interested in, we should find a way to bring it to them,” she said.

Overall, the moves at MS NOW show a willingness to invest in growing the business, a situation that did not exist under NBCU, which has been focused on building its Peacock streaming platform. “Liberating us from that was part of the strategy of the entire spin because we now need to do all of those things in order to create a growth company,” Lazarus said.

Kutler even had the green light to enter talks with Anderson Cooper — one of the highest-paid on-air talents in TV news — about joining MS NOW before he decided to re-sign with CNN.

Kutler had her final chemo session last Friday, and doctors say her health prognosis is good. She draws inspiration from her mother, a Philadelphia-area lawyer who raised Kutler as a single parent and successfully battled the disease in her 60s.

“My hardest day would have been my mom’s easiest day,” said Kutler, who is married with three teenaged children. “I was born watching somebody power through stuff. The idea of doing a job that’s busy and demanding and loving your kids and making them a priority is the only thing I ever knew.”

It wasn’t easy to go into Lazarus’ office to break the news about her condition after just six months on the job and a massive task ahead. But Kutler said he didn’t flinch, and the new company has been “1,000%” supportive.

“She’s a tremendous leader and an example of resilience and strength,” Lazarus said.

WASHINGTON — To defend an increasingly unpopular immigration crackdown during his State of the Union speech, President Trump highlighted the victims of crimes perpetuated by undocumented immigrants.

But as Democrats pointed out, the president’s lengthy speech made no reference to the U.S. citizens, including Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, who were killed by immigration agents.

Recent polls show public approval of Trump’s immigration policies has fallen to record lows level since he returned to the White House. One poll, released Feb. 17 by Reuters and the market research firm Ipsos, showed just 38% of respondents felt Trump was doing a good job on immigration.

Another poll, published last month by Fox News, showed 59% of voters say U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is “too aggressive.”

“As President Trump brags about his immigration enforcement at tonight’s State of the Union, I can think only of Renee Nicole Good, Alex Pretti and the three dozen people who have died in ICE custody since Trump took office,” Rep. Mark DeSaulnier (D-Concord) wrote on X.

Within the first few minutes of his address on Tuesday night, Trump highlighted “the strongest and most secure border in American history, by far.” He also offered — at least momentarily — a softer tone, adding that “We will always allow people to come in legally, people that will love our country and will work hard to maintain our country.”

In reality, the administration has restricted legal immigration. It has revoked humanitarian benefits for hundreds of thousands of people, and an indefinite pause on all asylum applications filed with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Guests invited by various lawmakers to attend Trump’s speech offered dueling visions of the administration’s mass deportation effort.

Rep. Randy Feenstra (R-Iowa) said he would bring the father and brother of Sarah Root, who was killed in 2016 after a drunk driver, who was in the U.S. illegally, crashed into her vehicle. Trump held an event Monday for “angel families,” those with a relative who was killed by an undocumented immigrant, and signed a proclamation honoring such victims of crimes.

Democrats, meanwhile, invited immigrants, family members of those detained or deported, and U.S. citizens who were violently arrested by immigration agents.

Rep. Mike Levin (D-San Juan Capistrano), for example, said he was bringing the daughter of a Laguna Niguel couple deported last year to Colombia after their arrest during a routine check-in with ICE. And Rep. Jesus Garcia (D-Ill.) invited Marimar Martinez, a Chicago woman shot five times by Border Patrol Agent Charles Exum.

On X, the Department of Homeland Security shot back at Democrats with immigrant guests, saying the lawmakers are “once again prioritizing illegal aliens above the safety of American citizens.”

On Tuesday morning, Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.) held a news conference on “the state of immigration,” flanked by Christian pastors, in which she touted her Dignity Act, which would provide permanent legal status to immigrants who meet certain benchmarks.

“Throughout the Scripture, there are two kinds of leaders: those who persecute faith communities and those who protect them,” she said.

California Sen. Adam Schiff was among the Democrats to boycott Trump’s speech, and he cited immigration enforcement as one reason for his absence.

“I have not missed the State of the Union in the 25 years I’ve been in Congress, but we have never had a president violate the Constitution, the laws every day with seeming impunity,” Schiff told Meidas Touch outside the Capitol. “We’ve never had masked armed, poorly trained agents, victimizing our cities, demanding to see people’s papers.”

Trump repeated claims about immigration that have been debunked, such as his assertion that President Biden’s immigration polices allowed millions of people to pour into the U.S. from prisons and mental institutions.

Trump also highlighted a figure he has often turned to — that Democrats let in “11,888 murderers.” That number, an inaccurate description of federal data, refers to immigrants who, over the course of decades (including the first Trump administration) were convicted of homicide, usually after their arrival in the U.S. Those immigrants are listed on ICE’s “non-detained docket” typically because they are currently serving their prison sentences.

Turning to Minnesota, Trump said Somalis have defrauded $19 billion from American taxpayers and referred to them derogatorily as “Somali pirates.”

Trump went beyond Somalis to disparage many immigrants, saying “there are large parts of the world where bribery, corruptions and lawlessness are the norm, not the exception.”

“Importing these cultures through unrestricted immigration and open borders brings those problems right here to the USA, and it is the American people who pay the price,” he said.

Trump also highlighted the case of Dalilah Coleman, 6, of Bakersfield who was left with a traumatic brain injury after a 2024 car crash in California.

He called on Congress to pass the Dalilah Law, which would bar states from granting commercial drivers licenses to immigrants without lawful status. He said, without proof, that “most illegal aliens do not speak English and cannot read even the most basic road signs.”

A year after Dalilah’s accident her family met with Partap Singh, the detained Indian immigrant responsible for the crash, at the Mesa Verde ICE Processing Center in Bakersfield. Marcus Coleman, her father, told Fox26 News that the focus shouldn’t be on Singh’s legal status because similar accidents happen every day.

Also present Tuesday night were the parents of Sarah Beckstrom, the West Virginia National Guard member shot and killed in Washington, D.C. by an Afghan immigrant, as well as Andrew Wolfe, who was also shot and survived.

Trump awarded Wolfe and Beckstrom the Purple Heart. He called Rahmanullah Lakanwal, the man charged in the shooting, a “terrorist monster.” Lakanwal legally entered the U.S. from Afghanistan through a Biden administration program in 2021 and his asylum application was approved under the Trump administration last April.

Turning his attention the fall’s midterm elections, Trump warned his supporters that if allowed back into power, Democrats would reopen the borders “to some of the worst criminals anywhere in the world.”

Trump then invited legislators to stand if they agreed with him that “the first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.”

Republicans stood, offering one of the longest standing ovations of the night. Democrats remained seated.

Trump told Democrats they should be ashamed for not standing up.

“You have killed Americans!” Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) yelled from the audience. “You should be ashamed.”

Gavin Newsom and Kamala Harris have long circled one another.

The two moved in the same political slipstream, wooed the same set of Democratic donors and, for a time, even shared the same group of campaign advisors.

Harris rose from San Francisco district attorney to elected positions in Sacramento and Washington before twice running unsuccessfully for president.

Newsom climbed from San Francisco mayor to lieutenant governor to California’s governorship, where he quietly stewed as Harris leapfrogged past him into the vice presidency. While she served in the White House, Newsom tried any number of ways to insinuate himself into the national spotlight.

Now both have at least one eye on the Oval Office, setting up a potential clash of egos and ambition that’s been decades in the making.

Newsom, whose term as governor expires in January, has been auditioning for president from practically the moment the polls closed in 2024 and horrified Democrats realized Harris had lost to Donald Trump.

Harris, who’s mostly focused on writing and promoting her campaign autobiography — while giving a political speech here and there — hasn’t publicly declared she’ll seek the White House a third time. But, notably, she has yet to rule out the possibility.

In a CNN interview aired Sunday, Newsom was asked about the prospect of facing his longtime frenemy in a fight for the Democratic nomination. (California’s gallivanting governor is embarked on his own national book tour, promoting both the “memoir of discovery” that was published Tuesday and his all-but-declared presidential bid.)

“Well, I’m San Francisco now, she’s L.A.,” Newsom joked, referring to Harris’ post-Washington residency in Brentwood. “So there’s a little distance between the two of us.”

He then turned zen-like, saying fate would determine if the two face off in the 2028 primary contest. “You can only control what you can control,” Newsom told CNN host Dana Bash.

A decade ago, Newsom and Harris swerved to keep their careers from colliding.

In 2015, Barbara Boxer said she would step down once she finished her fourth term in the U.S. Senate. The opening presented a rare opportunity for political advancement after years in which a clutch of aging incumbents held California’s top elected offices. Between Lt. Gov. Newsom and state Atty. Gen. Harris, there was no lack of pent-up ambition.

After a weekend of intensive deliberations, Newsom passed on the Senate race and Harris jumped in, establishing herself as the front-runner for Boxer’s seat, which she won in 2016. Newsom waited and was elected governor in 2018, succeeding Jerry Brown.

Once in their preferred roles, the two got along reasonably well. Each campaigned on the other’s behalf. But, privately, there has never been a great deal of mutual regard or affection.

Come 2028, there will doubtless be many Democrats seeking to replace President Trump. The party’s last wide-open contest, in 2020, drew more than two dozen major contestants. So it’s not as though Harris and Newsom would face each other in a one-on-one fight.

But dueling on the national stage, with the country’s top political prize at stake, is something that Hollywood might have scripted for Newsom and Harris as the way to settle, once and for all, their long-standing rivalry.

The two Californians would start out closely matched in good looks and charisma.

Those who know them well, having observed Newsom and Harris up close, cite other strengths and weaknesses.

Harris has thicker skin, they suggested, and is more disciplined. Her forte is set-piece events, like debates and big speeches.

Newsom is more of a policy wonk, a greater risk-taker and is more willing to venture into challenging and even hostile settings.

Newson is more fluent in the ecosphere of social media, podcasts and the like. Harris has the advantage of performing longer on the national stage and bears nothing like the personal scandals that have plagued Newsom.

But Harris’ problem, it was widely agreed, is that she has run twice before and, worse, lost the last time to Trump.

“To a lot of voters, she’s yesterday’s news,” said one campaign strategist.

“She had her shot,” said another, channeling the perceived way Democratic primary voters would react to another Harris run. “You didn’t make it, so why should we give you another shot?”

(Those half-dozen kibbitzers who agreed to candidly assess the prospects of Newsom and Harris asked not to be identified, so they could preserve their relationships with the two.)

Most of the handicappers gave the edge to Newsom in a prospective match-up; one political operative familiar with both would have placed their wager on Harris had she not run before.

“I think her demographic appeal to Black women and coming up the ranks as a Black woman working in criminal justice is a very strong card,” said the campaign strategist. “The white guy from California, the pretty boy, is not as much of a primary draw.”

That said, this strategist, too, suggested that “being tagged as someone who not only lost but lost in this situation that has set the world on fire … is too big a cross to bear.”

The consensus among these cognoscenti is that Harris will not run again and that Newsom — notwithstanding any demurrals — will.

Of course, the only two who know for sure are those principals, and it’s quite possible neither Harris nor Newsom have entirely made up their minds.

Those who enjoy their politics cut with a dash of soap opera will just have to wait.

President Trump honored two storied military veterans during his State of the Union address, including 100-year-old veteran Royce Williams of Escondido, who survived what is believed to be the longest dog fight in military history.

The former Navy fighter pilot, who was seated next to First Lady Melania Trump in the Capitol during the president’s address Tuesday night, flew more than 220 missions in World War II as well as the wars in Korea and Vietnam.

Trump called Williams “a living legend” before describing his war-time heroics.

“In the skies over Korea in 1952, Royce was in the dogfight of a lifetime, a legendary dogfight,” Trump said. “Flying through blizzard conditions, his squadron was ambushed by seven Soviet fighter planes.”

Despite being outnumbered, Williams took down four of the jet fighters as his plane was hit more than 260 times and he was severely injured.

The incident was kept confidential because the Soviet Union was not officially a combatant in the Korean conflict, and American officials feared that if the air battle became known, it could compel the Soviets to formally enter the war.

Williams didn’t speak about the details of the encounter — even with family members — until records about the dogfight were declassified in 2002.

“His story was secret for over 50 years. He didn’t even want to tell his wife, but the legend grew and grew,” Trump said. “Tonight, at 100 years old, this brave Navy captain is finally getting the recognition he deserves.”

Trump then announced that Williams would receive the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military decoration. Melania Trump placed the blue-ribboned medal around his neck.

Williams was the guest of Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Bonsall), a fellow veteran.

“My friend, constituent, and lifelong hero Royce Williams is a Top Gun pilot like no other, an American hero for all time, and now, a recipient of the highest honor in the land,” Issa said in a statement. “It was many years in the making, but it is my honor to have fought all these years for Royce to gain a recognition that he has not sought, but so richly deserves.”

Trump also announced that the Medal of Honor would be awarded to Chief Warrant Officer Eric Slover, an Army helicopter pilot who was gravely wounded in the 2026 raid that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

“While preparing to land, enemy machine guns fired from every angle, and Eric was hit very badly in the leg and hip. One bullet after another, he observed four agonizing shots shredding his leg into numerous pieces,” Trump said.

Despite the gunshot wounds to his legs, with blood flowing through the helicopter he was piloting, “Eric maneuvered his helicopter with all of those lives and souls to face the enemy and let his gunners eliminate the threat, turn the helicopter around so the gunners could take care of business, saving the lives of his fellow warriors from what could have been a catastrophic crash deep in enemy territory,” Trump said.

Trump added, “Chief Warrant Officer Slover is still recovering from his serious wounds, but I’m thrilled to say that he is here tonight with his wife, Amy. Eric and Amy, come on in.”

Slover, with the aid of a walker, entered the gallery. “In recognition of Eric’s actions above and beyond the call of duty,” Trump said, “I would now like to ask Gen. Jonathan Braga to present Chief Warrant Officer Slover with our nation’s highest military award.”

Trump added that he too hopes to one day receive a Medal of Honor.

“But I was informed I’m not allowed to give it to myself,” Trump said. “But if they ever open up that law, I will be there with you someday.”

President Trump on Tuesday awarded Team USA’s hockey goalie Connor Hellebuyck the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.

The American team won the Olympic gold medal on Sunday, the first time in 46 years, on the anniversary of the team’s legendary triumph over the USSR, known as the “Miracle on Ice.” They won in a 2-1 overtime game against Canada, with Hellebuyck’s performance widely lauded throughout the tournament. He received credit for the second assist on the tournament-winning goal.

“I just want to say a … very big congratulations to Team USA,” Trump said in the opening moments of his speech, adding that he asked team members to vote on awarding the medal to Hellebuyck. “I just want to tell you that the members of this great hockey squad will be very happy to hear based on their vote and my vote — and in this case, my vote was more important — that I will soon be presenting Connor with our highest civilian honor.”

Hellebuyck, 32, plays for the National Hockey League’s Winnipeg Jets.

The Presidential Medal of Freedom has previously been awarded to politicians, religious leaders, artists, fashion designers and others who have made significant contributions to American society. Prior athletes who have received the honor include soccer legend Lionel Messi, former Los Angeles Laker Magic Johnson and Olympians Katie Ledecky, Simone Biles and Megan Rapinoe.

The men’s team visited the White House earlier Tuesday and several members attended the State of the Union address.

The team has been a source of controversy for the administration after FBI Director Kash Patel was seen chugging beer in their locker room after their victory in the midst of multiple law-enforcement emergencies, including Americans trapped in Mexico in the aftermath of the killing of Mexico’s most powerful cartel leader, Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes.

In video posted on social media, Patel appears to hold out a phone in the locker room as Trump invites the team to the White House and says he will also have to invite the U.S. women’s hockey team, which also won a gold medal, or “be impeached.”

During his State of the Union address, the president claimed that the women’s team would be visiting the White House “very soon.” The team earlier announced that it had turned down the White House’s invitation this week.

“We are sincerely grateful for the invitation extended to our gold medal-winning U.S. Women’s Hockey Team and deeply appreciate the recognition of their extraordinary achievement,” the team said in a statement. “Due to the timing and previously scheduled academic and professional commitments following the Games, the athletes are unable to participate. They were honored to be included and are grateful for the acknowledgment.”

Rapper-turned-Olympian patron Flavor Flav invited them to party with him and with other Olympic athletes in Las Vegas instead.

Energy affordability was in the spotlight during President Trump’s lengthy and at times rambling State of the Union address Tuesday evening as the president promised to bring down electricity prices in an effort to assuage voter concerns about rising costs.

The president announced a new “ratepayer protection pledge” to shield residents from higher electricity costs in areas where energy-thirsty artificial intelligence data centers are being built. Trump said major tech companies will “have the obligation to provide for their own power needs” under the plan, though the details of what the pledge actually entails remain vague.

“We have an old grid — it could never handle the kind of numbers, the amount of electricity that’s needed, so I am telling them they can build their own plant,” the president said. “They’re going to produce their own electricity … while at the same time, lowering prices of electricity for you.”

The announcement comes as polling shows Americans are dissatisfied with the economy and concerned about the cost of living. Experts on both sides of the political spectrum have said the energy affordability issue could translate to poor outcomes for Republicans in the midterm elections this November, as it did in a few key races in New Jersey, Virginia and Georgia last year.

While Trump has focused on ramping up domestic production of oil, gas and coal, residential electric bills have been soaring — jumping from 15.9 cents per kilowatt-hour in January 2025 on average to 17.2 cents at the end of December, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Through one year into his second term as president, Trump has vastly changed the federal landscape when it comes to energy and the environment, reversing many of the efforts made by the Biden administration to prioritize electrification initiatives and investments in renewable energy via the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

Among several changes, Trump’s administration has slashed funding for solar programs, ended federal tax credits for electric vehicles and canceled grants for offshore wind power — even going so far as to try to halt some such projects that were nearing completion along the East Coast.

Trump has also championed fossil fuel production and on Tuesday doubled down on his “drill baby drill” agenda, touting lower gasoline prices, increased production of American oil and new imports of oil from Venezuela.

Many of the president’s efforts are designed to loosen Biden-era regulations that he has said were burdensome, ideologically motivated and expensive for taxpayers.

Trump has taken direct aim at California, which has long been a leader on the environment. Last year, the president moved to block California’s long-held authority to set stricter tailpipe emission standards than the federal government — an ability that helped the state address historical air quality issues and also underpinned its ambitious ban on the sale of new gas-powered cars in 2035.

Trump also slashed $1.2 billion in federal funding for California’s effort to develop clean hydrogen energy while leaving intact funding for similar projects in states that voted for him. In November, his administration announced that it will open the Pacific Coast to oil drilling for the first time in nearly four decades, a move the state vowed to fight.

But perhaps no issue has come across voters’ kitchen tables more than energy affordability.

So far this term, Trump has canceled or delayed enough projects to power more than 14 million homes, according to a tracker from the nonprofit Climate Power. The group’s senior advisor, Jesse Lee, described the president’s data center announcement as a “toothless, empty promise based on backroom deals with his own billionaire donors.”

“Making it worse, Trump is continuing to block clean-energy production across the board — the only sources that can keep up with demand, ensure utility bills don’t keep skyrocketing, and prevent massive new amounts of pollution,” Lee said in a statement.

Earlier this month, Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency repealed the endangerment finding, the U.S. government’s 2009 affirmation that greenhouse gases are harmful to human health and the environment, in what officials described as the single largest act of deregulation in U.S. history. The finding formed the foundation for much of U.S. climate policy. The EPA also loosened guidelines around emissions from coal power plants, including mercury and other dangerous pollutants.

The president’s environmental record so far is “written in rollbacks that put the interests of some corporate polluters above the health of everyday Americans,” read a statement from Marc Boom, senior director of the Environmental Protection Network, a group composed of more than 750 former EPA staff members and appointees.

Further, Trump has worked to undermine climate science in general, often describing global warming as a “hoax” or a “scam.” During his first year in office, he fired hundreds of scientists working to prepare the National Climate Assessment, laid off staffers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and dismantled the National Center for Atmospheric Research, one of the world’s leading climate and weather research institutions, among many other efforts.

In all, the administration has taken or proposed more than 430 actions that threaten the environment, public health and the ability to confront climate change, according to a tracker from the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council.

The opposition’s choice for a rebuttal speaker is indicative of how seriously it is taking the issue of energy affordability: Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger focused heavily on energy affordability during her campaign against Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears last year, including vows to expand solar energy projects and technologies such as fusion, geothermal and hydrogen. Virginia is home to more than a third of all data centers worldwide.

President Trump, speaking for well over an hour, shattered the record on Tuesday for the length of a State of the Union address.

Speaking for about 100 minutes, the nation’s leader touched upon a broad range of domestic and international topics, bragged about his accomplishments and awarded the nation’s highest honors to a pilot who participated in the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, a 100-year-old Korean War veteran, and a 32-year-old goalie for the gold-medal-winning Olympic men’s hockey team.

The previous record-holder was President Clinton, famously known for his Southern-twang verbosity. He spoke for nearly 90 minutes during his final State of the Union address in 2000.

The address is prescribed by the Constitution and calls for the president to apprise Congress about the state of the union. Over time the address has become a vehicle for presidents to address the nation’s residents, claim legislative victories and foreshadow upcoming policy goals.

Just over a century ago, President Harding’s and President Coolidge’s addresses were aired on the radio. In 1947, President Truman’s address was the first to be broadcast on television. As viewership grew, the annual speech has taken on greater gravity, leading to notable and controversial moments in American politics.

Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) famously shouted “You lie!” during President Obama’s 2009 address to Congress when he spoke about healthcare policy. Then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) created a viral moment when she tore apart a copy of Trump’s text after he delivered the State of the Union in 2020.

On Tuesday night, Rep. Al Green, a Democrat from Louisiana, was escorted out of the chamber after he held a small sign that read: “BLACK PEOPLE AREN’T APES.”

The United States, President Trump said Tuesday night, is “bigger, better, richer and stronger than ever.”

“We are the hottest country anywhere in the world,” Trump said in his State of the Union address. “The economy is roaring like never before. America is respected again like never before. We’re winning so much we can’t take it.”

Not so, countered U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.).

“We just heard Donald Trump do what he does best: lie,” Padilla said.

In a Spanish-language rebuttal delivered on behalf of the Democratic Party, Padilla rebuked the president’s claim that he has brought about the “golden age of America,” accusing Trump of spurring economic uncertainty and plunging U.S. cities into violence.

President Trump gives his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the Capitol in Washington.

(J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press)

“The truth is that the State of our Union does not feel strong for everyone,” Padilla said. “Not when the costs of rent, food and electricity keep rising. Not when Republicans raise our medical costs to fund tax cuts for billionaires. And definitely not when federal agents — armed and masked — terrorize our communities by targeting people because of the color of their skin or for speaking Spanish — including immigrants with legal status and citizens.”

Padilla and Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, who delivered the Democratic rebuttal in English, countered Trump’s upbeat pronouncements by painting a starkly different picture of a country that is deeply divided months before critical midterm congressional elections.

Trump, whose approval ratings have slumped amid concerns about the economy and the harsh tactics deployed in his mass-deportation campaign, touted what he described as victories on foreign policy, including the U.S. ouster of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, and a slowing of inflation.

Padilla sought to counter those claims and rally support for Democrats, who have struggled to formulate an effective response to Trump as he has dominated national discourse in recent years.

Spanberger, speaking from Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia, questioned whether Trump is working on behalf of Americans — or in his own self-interest.

Trump, she said, repeatedly has sought to deflect attention away from accusations that he is using the Oval Office to enrich himself and his family and the scandal involving Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier and sex offender.

“We did not hear the truth from our president,” Spanberger said. “He lied, he scapegoated and he distracted.”

Spanberger, who beat her Republican opponent in the purple state of Virginia last fall by 15 points, said voters are struggling under Trump’s policies and beginning to turn on him. Political winds, she said, are shifting in favor of the Democrats.

Padilla focused heavily on the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in cities such as Los Angeles and Minneapolis, where agents this year killed two U.S. citizens who were protesting deportations.

“We see ICE agents using excessive force: entering homes without judicial warrants and shooting at cars with families still inside,” Padilla said. “We are living a nightmare that divides and destroys our communities.”

He was, he said, partly speaking from experience.

Last year, federal agents tackled Padilla to the floor and handcuffed him after he sought to question Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at a news conference in Los Angeles.

Padilla referenced the incident in his speech and encouraged others to defy Trump.

“I am still here standing. Still fighting,” he said. “And I know you are still standing and still fighting too.”

“Trump does not want us to recognize our power,” he said.

Padilla also slipped in a reference to Puerto Rican pop star Bad Bunny, who was criticized by Trump for performing in Spanish during the halftime of the Super Bowl.

“As Bad Bunny reminded us a few weeks ago: ‘Together, we are America.’” Padilla said. “Together, we rise, because our faith is stronger than any disappointment or any obstacle — including Trump. And together, we will build the future our children deserve.”

In his State of the Union speech Tuesday night, President Trump struck a confident and defiant tone — claiming huge victories tackling crime in major U.S. cities, securing the nation’s borders, deporting undocumented immigrants, bringing down costs for American households and commanding respect for the U.S. on the world stage.

“The state of our union is strong,” Trump said — at a time when he is significantly weakened politically, with a sluggish economy, shrinking support for his signature immigration crackdown and some of the lowest approval ratings of his political career.

Trump delivered his speech — the longest State of the Union on record — to a heavily divided Congress, receiving steady applause from Republicans and little other than stone-faced glares and momentary bursts of outrage and frustration from Democrats.

Trump employed his usual superlatives

Throughout his speech, Trump spoke in superlatives, as is common for him — mostly to project a rosy picture.

He said he “inherited a nation in crisis,” with a “stagnate economy” and a “wide open border,” with “rampant crime” and “wars and chaos” around the world, but that under his leadership, “we have achieved a transformation like no one has ever seen before and a turnaround for the ages.”

“Our nation is back — bigger, better, richer and stronger than ever before,” he said.

He said U.S. military forces had conducted one of the greatest military actions “in world history” when they entered Venezuela at the start of the year to depose and capture then-President Nicolás Maduro to face drug charges in the U.S.

He said U.S. enemies are now “scared.” He said the economy is now “roaring.” He said U.S. military and police are now “stacked,” and that the nation now has the “strongest and most secure border in American history,” with “zero” undocumented immigrants getting into the U.S. in the last nine months.

He said the country had seen the “biggest decline” in violent crime since 1900 despite reliable crime data not going back that far, that the military is setting “records for recruitment,” that natural gas production is at an “all time high,” and that more Americans are working than “at any time in the history of our country.”

He gave out two Medals of Honor, a Purple Heart, and a Presidential Medal of Freedom during his speech.

“We’re winning so much that we really don’t know what to do about it. People are asking me, ‘Please, please, please, Mr. President, we’re winning so much we can’t take it anymore,’” Trump said. “I say, ‘No, no, no, you’re going to win again, you’re going to win big, you’re going to win bigger than ever.”

Bullish on the economy, despite the polls

Trump was clearly working to convince Americans tuning in that the economy is strong.

Many Americans are unhappy with Trump’s handling of the economy, according to polling. A recent Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll found that 57% of respondents disapproved of Trump’s managing of the economy, and 64% disapproved of his handling of tariffs.

However, Trump pushed a bullish message on his impact on the economy, saying that President Biden had given him “the worst inflation in the history of our country,” and he had driven it down.

“We are doing really well,” he said. “Those prices are plummeting downward.”

He cited his policy to end tax on tipped wages, said mortgage rates have come down, and argued that his policies would soon bring down healthcare costs for American families substantially — despite millions of people facing higher costs due to the elimination by Republicans of healthcare subsidies in their recent “Big Beautiful Bill.”

Trump suggested that Democrats ruined the economy and drove up costs for Americans. “You caused that problem,” he told those in the room, as Republicans stood and clapped. He also suggested Democrats had picked the issue of “affordability” as a political issue to focus on for nothing.

“They just used it — somebody gave it to them,” he said.

Flexing on the global front

Trump said that, in addition to increasing safety in the U.S., he had increased “security” for Americans abroad and U.S. “dominance” in the Western Hemisphere.

He claimed to have “ended eight wars” in nations abroad, a dubious claim that Democrats in the room dismissed.

He said Secretary of State Marco Rubio will go down as “the best ever.”

Trump called Venezuela a “new friend and partner” since the U.S. deposed Maduro, from whom the U.S. has since received some 80 million barrels of oil.

“As president I will make peace wherever I can, but I will never hesitate to confront threats to America wherever I must,” Trump said.

He praised the U.S. attack on Iran’s nuclear sites in June, said the country was warned not to build new weapons capabilities, and that the U.S. is in negotiations with Iran but hasn’t heard the “secret words” that they will never have a nuclear weapon.

Four from SCOTUS

Trump criticized the U.S. Supreme Court — but not heavily, as some had expected.

Just days prior, the court ruled that sweeping tariffs Trump had imposed on international trading partners — a signature piece of his economic policy — were illegal.

The 6-3 decision, in which Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and both Trump-appointed justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett joined the court’s three liberal-leaning justices in ruling against the president, riled Trump, who said he was pleased with the three conservative justices who voted in favor of upholding his tariffs — Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas — and upset with the six others.

He said those six were “barely invited” to observe the speech. He also suggested, without evidence, that the court was under foreign influence, and not ruling in the best interests of Americans.

On Tuesday night, four justices showed up for the speech, including three who had voted against the president: Roberts, as well as Justices Barrett, Kavanaugh and the liberal-leaning Elena Kagan. Not present were Gorsuch, Alito, Thomas, and the court’s two other liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Before his speech, Trump cordially shook the hands of all four justices present. During his speech, Trump said the ruling was “very unfortunate,” but that the good news was that many of the nations who had struck trade deals with the U.S. based on the tariffs would continue with those deals. The justices sat stone faced, their hands in their laps.

Big claims and promises

Trump accented his speech with several teased programs and calls on Congress to act.

He suggested that, in the future, tariffs he would impose on trading partners might replace the income tax system in the U.S.

He said his administration would begin to provide working Americans with retirement plans similar to those held by federal workers, with the government matching up to $1,000 in contributions to such plans by those Americans each year.

He alleged that Somali immigrant “pirates” have “pillaged” and “ransacked” Minnesota through fraud, that similar fraud is occurring in California and other states, and that he was launching a “war on fraud,” to be led by Vice President JD Vance.

He also called on Congress to pass a law banning states from granting commercial driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants.

Shortly after, Trump asked everyone in the room to stand if they agreed with the statement that “the first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.”

Republicans stood and cheered. Democrats stayed seated. Trump told the latter they should be ashamed of themselves. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who was born in Somalia, screamed “Liar,” and “You have killed Americans!”

Times staff writer Ana Ceballos, in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.

Reporting from Washington — When Elizabeth Warren launched her 2012 Senate bid in Massachusetts, some Democrats there worried. Another woman had run two years earlier and failed miserably. But Warren ignored warnings that she would be “another Martha Coakley.” She beat the incumbent by more than 7 percentage points and became the first woman elected to statewide office in Massachusetts.

Now Warren is among a record number of women running for president in 2020. Again, they’re operating in the shadow of failure — Hillary Clinton’s unsuccessful White House bid in 2016 — but also the widespread successes of women in the 2018 midterm election.

Sen. Kamala Harris of California joins Warren and New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in the upper tier of candidates seeking the Democratic nomination. Each takes a different tack in navigating the powerful crosscurrents of being a woman in national politics.

Gillibrand plays the gender card most emphatically, emphasizing her record on protecting women from sexual assault and her support for female candidates. Explaining why she is running for president, she often begins, “As a young mom…”

Harris’ campaign rollout, including Sunday’s kickoff rally in Oakland, focused more on her connections with the black community and a career in law enforcement that breaks from gender stereotypes.

Warren tells her story as the daughter of an economically struggling family, putting class, not gender, at the center of her campaign.

“There is no uniform approach to how these women will navigate gender in the campaign,” said Kelly Dittmar, a scholar at the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.

2020 candidates: Who’s in and who’s on the fence? »

“While Gillibrand sees and discusses politics and policy through a gender lens, Warren’s primary focus has been on class. In her rollout, Kamala Harris has already shown that she will embrace and discuss being a black woman in power.”

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii also has announced a long-shot bid for president, with considerable focus on her status as a military veteran. The field of female candidates may grow if Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, a former prosecutor like Harris, decides to run.

“I love that fact that we have four women running, and that America gets to see what different forms of female leadership look like,” Gillibrand said.

In the aftermath of Clinton’s failure, however, some Democrats worry about a stubborn strain of sexism in the electorate.

“I don’t know if America has changed enough; hopefully they have, with the #MeToo movement,” said Brad Lego, 69, a retired teacher in Sioux City, Iowa, who supports Warren.

Women historically have had a harder time winning executive offices than legislative ones. Even with a record number of women running for governor in 2018, just nine of the nation’s 50 governors are now women.

“Solo leadership is still tougher for women and people of color,” said Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster who is an expert on women in politics. “There is still a little concern about the difficulty of electing women to executive office. That wasn’t just Hillary Clinton.”

But for Democrats in 2020, for the first time in the history of presidential campaigns, being a woman is probably more a political asset than a liability. Women —- as voters and candidates — became the vanguard of the party’s resistance to President Trump, from the 2017 Women’s March to the midterm election that drew out female candidates in record numbers.

The congressional midterm saw the largest gender gap in modern political history, as Democrats won 59% of the female vote, with just 40% voting Republican. Men, by contrast, favored Republicans by a 4-point margin, 51% to 47%, according to exit polls.

Clinton tried two very different approaches to gender as a political issue. When she sought the Democratic nomination in 2008, she essentially ran away from the subject.

“I am not running as a woman,” she would say. “I am running because I believe I am the best qualified and experienced person.”

Eight years later, she talked often about the history-making potential of her campaign to “shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling.”

The current crop of female candidates doesn’t follow either of those paths.

Gillibrand, at 52 the least known of the three female senators who have gotten into the race, is moving the most deliberately to build her identity as a defender of women.

“The future of the Democratic Party is with women,” an introductory campaign document said. She spotlights her Senate work on combating sexual abuse in the military and other issues related to sexual harassment and assault, and her political work raising money for female candidates through her political action committee, Off the Sidelines.

Pictures of children — her own and others’ — crowd her campaign website. She describes her rationale for running, offered first in her campaign announcement on Stephen Colbert’s “Late Show,” in explicitly gendered terms: “As a young mom, I’m going to fight for other people’s kids as hard as I would fight for my own.”

The approach risks delivering a message so gender specific that it alienates men. But in the short term, at least, her strategists think that any such risk is worth taking to gain purchase in a crowded field.

“My lifelong mission is for more women to have a voice and seat at the table with men, so that they can bring a new perspective to the problems facing our country,” Gillibrand says. “This vision does not exclude anyone, it brings more diverse voices into the conversation.”

Harris’ introduction to voters put more of a spotlight on race than gender: She announced her candidacy on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, gave her first press briefing at Howard University, the historically black college she attended in the 1980s, and scheduled her first campaign event in South Carolina — at a gala for a black sorority she belongs to.

During her Oakland rally, Harris spoke bluntly about racism in the criminal justice system and society at large. “I’m running to fight for an America where no mother or father has to teach their young son that people may stop him, arrest him, chase him or kill him because of his race,” Harris said.

Having advanced in a male-dominated career as a prosecutor, she offered this advice to young women in an interview with “Good Morning America”: “There are going to be many times you are going to be the only one like you in a room. It could be a meeting room, it could be a boardroom. And the thing I want you to remember is this: When you are in that room, we are all in that room with you, cheering you on.”

Harris’ tough-on-crime record has drawn skepticism from some on the party’s left, but it could appeal to public-safety conscious moms in the suburbs, including white women whose votes for Trump proved pivotal in 2016.

Warren’s campaign-launch video gave a personal window onto her life story — speaking from her kitchen, she talked about her family’s struggles, her mother’s resilience and her own rise to a law professorship at Harvard. The story spoke more to class struggle than a battle against sexism.

At other times, however, she has struck a more explicit note on gender. At an Ankeny, Iowa, campaign event with Democratic women in early January, for example, Warren relished telling how she had been warned against running for Senate after Coakley’s failure.

“It was almost as if folks were saying, ‘Hey, we tried that. It didn’t work. Come back in a generation or two, women.’ ”

She also paid tribute to how much women — especially those who were newly engaged in politics as voters and candidates — had contributed to Democrats’ 2018 midterm victories.

One of the newly engaged women was Liuba Grechen Shirley, a Democrat who ran unsuccessfully against GOP Rep. Peter T. King on Long Island, N.Y. She remembers vividly an unexpected phone call of support she got from Warren.

Shirley was in the middle of a grueling day juggling the demands of campaigning with the medical needs of a young son who had broken his leg. Warren listened to her woes and offered this tough-love pep talk that spoke to the continued challenges women face in politics:

“We moms, when we run out of milk, we make breakfast with orange juice.”

janet.hook@latimes.com

Twitter: @hookjan

Boycotts. Prebuttals. Rebuttals. Historic guests.

California members of the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives’ approach to President Trump’s State of the Union address Tuesday night are as varied as their politics and their districts.

Before the speech, Sen. Adam Schiff described Trump as an out-of-control and corrupt president who has ignored pressing issues such as climate change in order to enrich himself and punish his political enemies, including by turning the U.S. Department of Justice and the rest of the federal government into a “personal fiefdom,” unbound by the law.

“From the birth of our nation, our founders were obsessed with preventing tyranny and the emergence of another king, another despot. They created checks and balances, separation of powers, an independent judiciary. They understood that the greatest threat to liberty wasn’t foreign invasion, it was the concentration of power in the hands of one person or faction,” Schiff said on the floor of the U.S. Senate. “This president has systematically dismantled these safeguards in his second term.”

Schiff is among the Democrats boycotting the speech. Other Californians include Reps. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach), Sara Jacobs (D-San Diego), Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Los Angeles) and Julia Brownley (D-Westlake Village).

Sen. Alex Padilla, the son of immigrants who was tackled in Los Angeles last year when he attempted to ask Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem a question during the immigration raids, will deliver a Spanish-language response after Trump’s address on television and online.

California has the largest congressional delegation in the nation, so its elected officials frequently have an outsized presence in the nation’s capital. An especially memorable moment was when then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) ripped up a copy of Trump’s speech after the 2020 State of the Union address.

It’s unclear whether California elected officials plan anything as dramatic tonight. But their guests are notable.

Though Garcia is not attending the speech, his guest at the event is Annie Farmer, a woman who was abused at the age of 16 by sexual predators Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin), who is attending, is bringing Teresa J. Helm — another Epstein abuse survivor.

Others plan to bring constituents from their districts — Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Corona) is bringing Ben Benoit, the Riverside County auditor-controller who is a longtime friend.

Pelosi’s guest is the Rev. Devon Jerome Crawford, senior pastor of historic Third Baptist Church of San Francisco. And some have surprise guests who will be unveiled later tonight.

WASHINGTON — As President Trump prepares to deliver his annual State of the Union address Tuesday night, the event will unfold against the backdrop of a widening Democratic protest and mounting resistance from lawmakers who are standing by to balk at the president’s remarks.

More than 30 congressional Democrats have pledged to boycott the address altogether, while others plan to attend alternative events designed to compete with the president’s messaging.

“I think we are going to hear two different States of the Union: One from the president that is going to be full of lies and then you are going to hear the truth,” California Sen. Alex Padilla, who will deliver the Democrats’ Spanish-language response, said at a news conference Tuesday afternoon.

Democrats who plan to skip the president’s formal address to Congress have said their doing so because they do not want to give credence to Trump. Others plan to voice their opposition to Trump by inviting guests who have been affected by his agenda.

California Democrats Rep. Robert Garcia and Rep. Ro Khanna will attend alongside Annie Farmer and Haley Robson, two of the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender whose trafficking crimes have dogged the Trump since he returned to office a year ago.

“I’ve invited Annie to the State of the Union so she can join other survivors and remind the President of his refusal to release all of the Epstein files,” Garcia wrote Monday in a post on X.

The Democratic opposition highlights the tense political moment that Trump is facing early in his second term, when the stakes are high for Republican as they seek to keep control of Congress ahead of the midterm elections.

Trump, who is set to begin speaking at 6 p.m. Pacific time, is expected to frame the moment as one defined by economic successes and fulfilled campaign promises particularly as it related to his administration carrying out an immigration crackdown.

Trump is expected to make an appeal to his religious base as well. He has invited Erika Kirk, the widow of the late conservative activist Charlie Kirk, and intends to use her presence to bring attention to the “tremendous revival of faith” that has taken place since Kirk’s assassination, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on X.

“The president will call on Congress to ‘firmly reject political violence against our fellow citizens’ with Charlie Kirk’s widow in the chamber,” Leavitt said.

The president’s remarks could also shed light on the president’s thinking regarding international conflicts brewing in the Middle East and in Mexico as Trump pressures its southern neighbor to curb drug trafficking.

Another potential issue that could come up in the address is the topic of tariffs, more so after the Supreme Court ruled on Friday that Trup’s preferred tariffs policy was illegal and could not stand without the approval of Congress.

Trump has been adamant that he intends to impose new tariffs in different ways, and has suggested he should not need congressional approval to do so. If Trump insists on imposing new tariffs, his push will be at odds with Republican leaders.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told reporters on Monday that it would be a “challenge to find consensus on any path forward on the tariffs, on the legislative side.”

However Trump handled the issue of tariffs would underscore the existential moment that Congress is in as it navigates the Trump administration’s second term.

In recent months, Trump’s willingness to sideline Congress in major policy decisions — whether it is trade or national security — have exposed fractures within his own party and deepened partisan divisions.

Tuesday night’s even could highlight those tensions.

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) has been critical of the Trump’s use of military force without congressional approval since his administration began blowing up alleged drug boats on the Caribbean Sea late last year.

As Trump says he is considering a military attack on Iran, Schiff is once again raising concerns that Trump is stoking broader conflicts abroad.

“Our allies don’t trust us. Our adversaries don’t fear us,” Schiff said on the Senate floor Tuesday. “When the next crisis comes — and it will come, and it may even be caused by this president — we will find ourselves isolated.”

Trump’s push to have the federal government assert more control over elections could also expose some fractures.

In May, at the behest of Trump, the Justice Department began demanding voter registration data from states across the country. Democrats see the move as a pretext for bogus voter fraud claims down the line, as congressional Republicans tee up new barriers to voter registration through the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act.

“The Trump administration is not being shy about threatening to undermine and steal this November election,” Padilla said. “They know that their record is not just unpopular but has been so harmful to working families that their only hope to stay in power is to initiate a voter purge.”

Democrats’ concerns have been heightened by comments made by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem last week in which she outlined plans to station federal immigration agents at polling stations “to make sure we have the right people voting, electing the right leaders”

Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Jaime Moore has taken over an agency under intense scrutiny — and he’s getting paid handsomely to do it.

Moore, who was appointed by Mayor Karen Bass in October, will earn $473,600 a year, the City Council decided Tuesday — $18,000 more than his predecessor, Kristin Crowley, made when she was ousted by Bass in February 2025 for her handling of the Palisades fire.

The LAFD and the mayor continue to face intense scrutiny over their handling of the Palisades fire, which killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of homes in January of last year, as well as the watering down of the LAFD after-action report on the fire.

When Crowley started as fire chief in 2022, her annual salary was $367,100.

Soon after that, the city amended its salary ranges for department heads to keep up with inflation, said Matt Szabo, the city’s top budget analyst.

Crowley, the city’s first female and first LGBTQ fire chief, received annual merit raises, according to Szabo.

On Monday, Crowley filed a whistleblower lawsuit claiming that Bass “orchestrated a campaign of retaliation” to protect her own political future and paper over her failures during the Palisades fire.

The LAFD did not immediately comment on Moore’s salary, which was recommended by the mayor and the City Council’s Executive Employee Relations Committee before going to the full council on Tuesday.

“Investing in strong and experienced leadership fortifies public safety for residents,” said a spokesperson for council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, who chairs the employee relations committee.

Moore’s salary is fairly comparable to that of other city and county public safety leaders.

The chief of the Los Angeles County Fire Department, Anthony Marrone, made $475,000 in base pay in 2024, according to county data.

Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell was sworn in at a $450,000 salary in 2024 — less than the $507,500 the Board of Police Commissioners had initially recommended. McDonnell’s salary as of Tuesday was still about $450,000.

McDonnell’s salary was a significant jump over the initial pay of his predecessor, Michel Moore, who earned $350,000 when he first assumed the position in 2018.

The LAFD has about 3,200 uniformed fire personnel, while the LAPD has about 8,700 sworn officers.

Both McDonnell and the new fire chief make far less than Janisse Quiñones, general manager of the Department of Water and Power, who was sworn in at $750,000 a year. Salaries for DWP executives must remain competitive with those of utility company execs to retain top talent, according to the city’s Office of Public Accountability, which recommended Quiñones’ salary.

She makes much more than Marty Adams, the previous department head, who earned about $447,000 a year when he departed.

Moore, a 30-year LAFD veteran, has spent his first months as chief dealing with persistent questions about the department’s management of the Palisades fire.

A week after the fire, a Times investigation found that top LAFD officials did not fully staff up and pre-deploy all available engines and firefighters to the Palisades and other high-risk areas, despite a forecast of dangerously high winds.

Bass cited the failure to keep firefighters on duty for a second shift as one reason she dismissed Crowley.

The new chief has swerved between candid reflection over the department’s failures during the Palisades fire and lashing out at the media over what he has called a “smear” campaign against firefighters who bravely worked to put out the catastrophic blaze.

Moore appeared to be referencing a Times report that a battalion chief ordered crews to roll up their hoses and leave the area of the Jan. 1 Lachman fire, even though firefighters had complained that the ground was still smoldering and rocks remained hot to the touch. Days later, the Lachman fire reignited into the Palisades fire.

Moore has also tried to walk a fine line on the LAFD’s after-action report, which was meant to spell out mistakes and suggest measures to avoid repeating them.

The author of the report, Battalion Chief Kenneth Cook, declined to endorse the final version because of changes that altered his findings and made the report, in his words, “highly unprofessional and inconsistent with our established standards.”

The most significant change to the report involved downplaying LAFD officials’ pre-deployment mistakes.

Moore has admitted that the report was watered down to “soften language and reduce explicit criticism of department leadership,” while saying he would not look into who directed the watering down. But Moore has also said that he will not allow similar edits to future after-action reports.

Bass has repeatedly denied that she was involved in any effort to water down the report. But two sources with knowledge of Bass’ office have said that Bass wanted key findings about the LAFD’s actions removed or softened.

Bass has called The Times’ reporting “dangerous and irresponsible.”

Former Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley is suing the city, claiming in a whistleblower lawsuit that Mayor Karen Bass “orchestrated a campaign of retaliation” to protect her own political future and paper over her failures during the most destructive fire in city history.

In the lawsuit, filed Monday in L.A. County Superior Court, Crowley and her attorneys allege Bass sought to shift blame for the way the city handled last year’s catastrophic Palisades fire to Crowley amid mounting criticism of the mayor’s decision to attend a ceremony in Ghana on Jan. 7, the day the fire erupted. Bass, the suit alleges, left L.A. despite knowing of the potential severe winds and fire danger.

“She sought to avoid accountability by shifting blame and lying — including falsely claiming that she was not aware of the nationally anticipated weather event, falsely claiming that the LAFD’s budget was not cut, and falsely claiming that LAFD’s resources would have supported an additional 1,000 firefighters to fight the blaze — claims contradicted by public records and Bass’ own prior statements,” the lawsuit alleges. “These false statements were not mistakes but part of a deliberate strategy to divert scrutiny from Bass’ decisions and to avoid accountability.”

The Palisades fire took off the morning of Jan. 7, 2025 amid fierce Santa Ana winds, killing 12 people and destroying thousands of homes amounting to billions of dollars in damage. While authorities allege a Florida man started the fire, saying it was actually a rekindling of a Jan. 1 fire, decisions by both LAFD brass and the mayor before, during and after Jan. 7 have come under scrutiny.

According to records obtained by The Times, shortly before releasing an after-action review report on the Palisades fire, the Los Angeles Fire Department issued a confidential memo detailing plans to protect Bass and others from “reputational harm.” The 13-page document is on LAFD letterhead and includes email addresses for department officials, representatives of Bass’ office, and public relations consultants hired to help shape messaging about the fire.

But as questions about the fire response swirled, instead of getting in lockstep with Bass, Crowley revealed to the public that “budget cuts had weakened the department’s readiness and jeopardized public and firefighter safety” and said her repeated warnings were ignored, the lawsuit says. It alleges Bass retaliated by ousting her as fire chief on Feb. 21, 2025.

Since the fire, the city has faced criticism for an inadequate deployment of firefighters, a chaotic evacuation of Pacific Palisades and a lack of water caused in part by a local reservoir being left empty for repairs. In December, The Times revealed that the city’s after-action report had been altered to deflect criticism of LAFD’s failure to predeploy engines and crews to the Palisades, among other shortcomings.

Crowley’s lawyers claim Bass’ view of her performance shifted with political opinion — starting with initial praise before reversing course and criticizing Crowley as the mayor came under fire for being out of the country during the blaze.

The mayor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

When Crowley was ousted, the mayor said it was because Crowley failed to inform her about the dangerous conditions that day or to predeploy hundreds of firefighters just in case. She also said Crowley rebuffed a request to prepare a report on the fires — a critical part of ongoing investigations into the cause of the fire and the city’s response.

But Crowley’s lawyers, Genie Harrison and Mia Munro, allege their client “repeatedly warned of the LAFD’s worsening resource and staffing crisis” prior to the fire and warned that aging infrastructure, surging emergency calls and shrinking staff left the city at risk.

“An analysis of the 90th percentile of all incidents indicates that the overall response time of LAFD resources has increased from 6:51 (minutes) in 2018 to 7:53 in 2022. This dramatic increase is nearly double the time by national standards for first-arriving units,” the lawsuit says.

Three days after the fire, Crowley told a local TV news station that her department was “screaming to be properly funded,” which prompted Bass to summon Crowley to her office, according to the lawsuit.

“I don’t know why you had to do that; normally we are on the same page, and I don’t know why you had to say stuff to the media,” Bass told Crowley, according to the lawsuit. Bass allegedly told Crowley she wasn’t firing her then because “right now I can’t do that.”

Before Crowley was ousted, the city’s top financial analyst pushed back on her budget-cutting narrative, saying that spending on the Fire Department actually went up during that budget year — in large part because of a package of firefighter raises. Those increases added an estimated $53 million to the department’s budget.

Regardless, the day after Crowley and Bass met in her office, the lawsuit alleges, retired LAFD Chief Deputy Ronnie Villanueva began working at the Emergency Operations Center, donning a mayor’s office badge. On Feb. 3, 2025, more than two weeks before Crowley was removed from her position, Villanueva wrote a report to the Board of Fire Commissioners identifying himself as the interim fire chief — a position he held until the appointment of Fire Chief Jaime Moore last fall.

The lawsuit alleges that Bass and others in her administration defamed Crowley, retaliated against her in violation of California’s labor code and violated Crowley’s 1st Amendment rights. Crowley is seeking unspecified damages.

Bass repeatedly has denied she was involved in any effort to water down the after-action report, which was meant to spell out mistakes in the Palisades fire response and suggest measures to avoid repeating them. But two sources with knowledge of Bass’ office said that after receiving an early draft of the report, the mayor told Villanueva it could expose the city to legal liabilities.

Bass wanted key findings about the LAFD’s actions removed or softened before the report was made public, the sources told The Times this month. The mayor has said The Times’ story based on the sources’ accounts was “completely fabricated.”

Crowley and her lawyers allege the LAFD “did not have sufficient operating emergency vehicles to safely and effectively pre-deploy 1,000 (or anywhere near 1,000) additional firefighters on January 7.” The department did not have the money or personnel “to repair and maintain emergency fire engines, fire trucks, and ambulances,” the suit alleges.

“This case is about accountability,” said Harrison, Crowley’s attorney. “Public servants should not face punishment or be silenced for telling the truth about public or firefighter safety and on matters of public importance.”

Times staff writers Alene Tcheckmedyian, David Zahniser and Paul Pringle contributed to this report. Pringle is a former Times staff writer.

WASHINGTON  — The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday the U.S. Postal Service is shielded from being sued even if its employees intentionally fail to deliver the mail.

In a 5-4 decision, the court said Congress in 1946 had barred lawsuits “arising out of the loss, miscarriage, or negligent transmission of letters or postal matter,” and that includes mail that is stolen or misdirected by postal employees.

Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the court, said the law broadly bars complaints involving lost or missing mail.

“A ‘miscarriage of mail’ includes failure of the mail to arrive at its intended destination, regardless of the carrier’s intent or where the mail goes instead,” he said.

The ruliing is a setback but not a final defeat for Lebene Konan, a Texas real estate agent who is Black. She had sued contending white postal carriers refused to deliver her mail to two houses where she rented rooms.

She did not live at either property but said she stayed there “from time to time.”

She first complained to the post office in Euless, Texas, after she learned the mail carrier had changed the listed owner on a central postal box from Konan’s name to a tenant’s name.

After two years of frustration, she sued the United States in 2022 alleging the Postal Service had intentionally and wrongly withheld her mail. She sought damages for emotional distress, a loss of rental income and for racial discrimination.

Her claim of racial bias was dismissed by a federal judge and a U.S. appeals court and did not figure in the Supreme Court’s decision.

However, the 5th Circuit Court ruled she could go forward with her suit alleging she was a victim of intentional misconduct on the part of postal employees.

The Biden and Trump administrations urged the court to hear the case and to reject lawsuits against the Postal Service based on claims of intentional wrongdoing.

They said the 5th Circuit’s ruling could “open the floodgates of litigation.” They noted the Postal Service delivers about 113 billion pieces of mail per year and receives about 335,000 complaints over lost mail and other matters.

“We hold that the postal exception covers suits against the United States for the intentional nondelivery of mail,” Thomas said. “We do not decide whether all of Konan’s claims are barred.”

Joining Thomas to limit lawsuits against the Postal Service were Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr., Brett M. Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the law refers to a “loss” or “miscarriage” of the mail, which suggests negligence.

“Today, the court holds that one exception — the postal exception — prevents individuals from recovering for injuries based on a postal employee’s intentional misconduct, including when an employee maliciously withholds their mail,” Sotomayor wrote.

Joining her were Justices Elena Kagan, Neil M. Gorsuch and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Venezuela’s National Assembly has passed an amnesty law amid the political, economic, and social shifts the country has been experiencing following the removal of Nicolás Maduro by the United States. On February 5, the first debate on the amnesty bill took place, and after two weeks of consultations it was unanimously approved on February 19. Although the law includes significant changes compared to the version approved in the first stage, it still contains gaps that make it impossible to speak of genuine reconciliation.

Throughout the entire process, the ruling party’s narrative has been that chavismo “forgives” those who committed crimes, rather than acknowledging that the judicial system acted in a biased, arbitrary manner and contrary to the law. This is important to underscore because amnesty laws arise as special justice mechanisms through which the State recognizes its partial use of the justice system, especially in political contexts.

This newly approved amnesty law cannot be perceived as a sign of reconciliation. On the contrary, it seems to be a mechanism that allows the Rodríguez siblings to manage the release of prisoners without recognizing the State’s responsibility for more than two decades of political persecution. At the same time, however, we must view the consultation processes—promoted from within the structures of chavista power—as spaces where sectors of civil society and civic organizations raised their voices and, in one way or another, managed to be “heard” and “taken into account” to some extent.

To “forgive” prisoners, the presidency already has the authority to decree pardons under Article 236 of the Venezuelan Constitution. If the Executive Power is already able to order releases, what function does this law actually serve?

The answer to that question reveals the structural insufficiency of the law that was passed. It establishes no mechanisms for reparation and continues to exclude hundreds of individuals who have been persecuted. At its core, the law does not correct injustice. It merely attempts to cloak in legality the discretionary manner in which power has exercised persecution. It follows the same logic that has been used for years with pardons (the last of which came on Christmas 2025, days before the US military intervention) which are presented as gestures meant to project a “goodwill” image of the State while avoiding any acknowledgment of the harm caused.

Changes and silences

From the outset, we expected an imperfect law that would at least have room for improvement. In that regard, the law introduced important changes compared to the draft approved in the first debate, such as providing legal representation for those abroad. It also revised the list of excluded crimes, narrowing it to the crime of corruption (previously referred to as “crimes against public assets”), incorporated the possibility of appeals against court decisions on amnesty, and ordered notification to foreign bodies to lift international alerts or arrest warrants. It can even be said that it broadened the scope of acts eligible for amnesty. However, it also made significant omissions.

The statute could be amended to create a commission entirely independent from State bodies, composed of representatives of civil society, relatives of victims, and experts capable of making binding decisions.

The law must include all persecuted individuals. There can be no distinctions or exclusions, because persecution itself made no such distinctions. For this reason, any meaningful improvement of the current law must begin by eliminating the exclusion set out in Article 9 concerning “persons who are or may be prosecuted or convicted for promoting, instigating, requesting, invoking, favoring, facilitating, financing, or participating in armed or forceful actions against the people, the sovereignty, and the territorial integrity of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, on behalf of States, corporations, or foreign individuals.” If the crime of rebellion is generally defined as an uprising against authority, then it is a political act like any of the other amnestiable offenses.

Recognition, inclusion, and non-discrimination must be the minimum standards for any amnesty that seeks to be considered a step forward in the pursuit of justice.

Lacking external oversight

In transitional justice contexts, international frameworks are clear in their assessment of amnesties: they cannot be left in the hands of the very institutions that participated in the persecution. The approved law establishes that verification of amnestiable cases falls to the courts and the Public Prosecutor’s Office, whose highest-level official stated in November 2024 that there were no political prisoners in Venezuela (nor minors unjustly imprisoned), only individuals who committed crimes and were prosecuted in accordance with the law. This underscores a problem as obvious as it is serious: this amnesty law cannot, on its own, correct the very bodies responsible for human rights violations.

The final text incorporates an advisory body to monitor the law’s implementation, one of the recommendations made by experts who engaged with the Interior Policy Commission. This body takes the form of a Special Commission of the National Assembly composed of figures directly linked to the State’s control and coercive apparatus, including Nicolás Maduro Guerra and Iris Varela, the former Minister of Prisons.

To ensure impartiality and credibility, oversight of the law’s implementation should fall to an independent body. Given that Venezuela lacks a genuine separation of powers, the statute could be amended to create a commission entirely independent from State institutions, composed of representatives of civil society, victims’ families, and experts in human rights and transitional justice, with powers to review case files, request information, and make binding decisions. In other words, technical specialists must be able to effectively oversee the application of the law.

Memory and non-repetition

If we aspire for the amnesty law to contribute to Venezuela’s reconciliation process, it cannot be limited to releasing individuals. The law must repair the harm caused and guarantee that persecution will not occur again.

Article 14 maintains the elimination of records and criminal histories of beneficiaries. This provision, far from promoting reconciliation, may erase evidence necessary to reconstruct patterns of persecution. Preserving documentation is a cornerstone of transitional justice. An amnesty that erases archives risks becoming a mechanism of impunity. Thus, while cases must indeed be extinguished, the files should be preserved and made available so that the Commission responsible for verifying the amnesty can confirm that victims have been repaired.

The discussion is no longer about whether persecution occurred, but about how it will be repaired and what independent mechanisms are needed to review each case.

Moreover, the law does not prescribe any mechanism for reparation. But all of this depends on the State recognizing its victims, restoring their rights, providing both symbolic and material reparations, and adopting institutional reforms that serve as safeguards to prevent the justice system from once again being used in a partisan manner.

One element removed from the draft approved in the first debate was the extinction of administrative actions. While this may seem minor, in the Venezuelan context it is vital. Amnesty should not apply only to criminal cases. In Venezuela, administrative mechanisms—such as political bans on opposition figures—have been used arbitrarily and constantly

Without these elements, the amnesty risks becoming a clean slate rather than a commitment to truth, justice, and non-repetition.

Political signals

The US has not issued a statement on the approved law. Representatives of the Trump administration, including the president himself, have primarily insisted on the release of political prisoners and the safe return of those in exile. We will see whether there is a statement (which, in my view, will come and will amount to a “green light”) and whether this law fits within the steps announced by Washington to evaluate the conduct of those in charge of the Venezuelan government.

After the law was approved in the chamber, lawmakers immediately presented it to the Executive. Delcy Rodríguez signed it publicly and, in her speech, called for speed in evaluating cases that do not fall under the law. That call can take several paths: issuing final convictions, granting pardons, or decreeing dismissals. The difference among the three is enormous. The first would mean completely forgetting those who are not amnestiable and keeping them imprisoned; the second would amount to a simple pardon, without acknowledging injustice; and the third would be an admission that there is insufficient evidence to proceed.

Jorge Rodríguez’s statements are also important to note: he publicly acknowledged the unjust application of the Anti-Hate Law and the possibility of reforming it. He also recognized that there are more than 11,000 cases linked to political persecution. That acknowledgment, although it did not come with an admission of responsibility, dismantles the narrative that these are “isolated” incidents or that the amnesty concerns only “individual cases.” Whether this is a gesture of “democratization” or simply the result of international oversight now conditioning the government, admitting the magnitude of persecution creates a crack in the official discourse. A crack that civil society and the opposition must seize.

When we speak of reconciliation and pacification in Venezuela, we mean that it’s the State that must cease to be a violent actor. Today, with an insufficient amnesty law in place, we cannot speak of such reconciliation. But considering these signals, the discussion is no longer about whether persecution occurred, but about how it will be repaired and what independent mechanisms are needed to review each case.

Venezuela needs real reconciliation. And such reconciliation is only possible if the State acknowledges that it systematically used the justice system to persecute those who think differently. The approved law is insufficient, but it may yield partial results. That is why it is important for civil society to be present at every public forum to demand truth, reparation, and review of case files. The more contradictions those interventions induce among powerful factions, the greater the pressure to make decisions that would not be made voluntarily. This amnesty law does not resolve persecution, but it does create a space for persistence, oversight, and civil society coordination that can push for real change. As the transition advances and the political landscape shifts, the amnesty law can be adjusted, expanded, and corrected. Its enactment is not an endpoint. It is a starting point that can evolve.

A strange quirk at San Quentin state prison is that most of those incarcerated behind its towering walls are unable to see the San Francisco Bay that literally laps at the shore a few yards away.

That changed recently with the completion of new buildings — holding among other accouterments a self-serve kitchen, a library, a cafe and a film studio — and third-floor classrooms that look out over that beautiful blue expanse, long a symbol of freedom and possibility.

In the new San Quentin Rehabilitation Center, along with learning job skills and earning degrees, incarcerated men can do their own laundry, make their own meals, and interact with guards as mentors and colleagues of sorts, once a taboo kind of relationship in the us-and-them world of incarceration.

“You want to clothes wash? You wash them,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom, debuting the new facilities, including laundry machines, for reporters last week. “You want to get something to eat. You can do it, whenever.”

“All of a sudden, it’s like you’re starting to make decisions for yourself,” he said. “It’s called life.”

Listen closely, and one can almost hear President Trump’s brain exploding with glee and outrage as his favorite Democratic foil seemingly coddles criminals. A cafe? C’mon. Bring on the midterms!

March 2024 of the East Block of San Quentin’s former death row.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

But what Newsom has done inside California’s most notorious prison, once home to the largest death row in the Western Hemisphere, is nothing short of a remarkable shift of thinking, culture and implementation around what it means to take away someone’s freedom — and eventually give it back. Adapted from European models, it’s a vision of incarceration that is meant to deal with the reality that 95% of people who go to prison are eventually released. That’s more than 30,000 people each year in California alone.

“What kind of neighbors do you want them to be?” Newsom asked. “Are they coming back broken? Are they coming back better? Are they coming back more enlivened, more capable? Are they coming back into prison over and over?”

When it comes to reforming criminals, “success looks like more and more people gravitating to their own journey, their own personal reform,” Newsom said, sounding more like a lifestyle influencer than a presidential contender. “It’s not forced on you, because then it’s fake, man. If it’s coerced, I don’t buy it.”

Of course, coming back better should be the goal — because better people commit fewer crimes, and that benefits us all. But coming back over and over has become the norm.

Traditional incarceration, a lock-’em-up and watch-them-suffer approach, has dramatically failed not only our communities and public safety writ large, but also inmates and even those who guard them.

Incarcerated people come out of prison too often in California (and across the country) with addictions and emotional troubles still firmly in place, and no job or educational skills to help them muddle through a crime-free life. That means they often commit more crimes, create more victims and cycle back into this failed, expensive, tough-on-crime system.

Still, it’s a favorite trope of Trump, and the justification for both his immigration roundups and his deployment of National Guard troops in Democratic cities, that policies such as Newsom’s are weak on crime and have led to the decline of American society.

This narrative of fear and grievance goes back decades, recycled every election by the so-called law-and-order party because it’s effective — voters crave safety, especially in a chaotic world. And locking people up seems safe, at least until we let them go again.

But, as Chance Andes, the warden of San Quentin, pointed out last week, “Humanity is safety,” and treating incarcerated people like, well, people, actually makes them want to behave better.

Here’s where the tough-on-crime folks will begin composing their angry emails. Why are we paying for killers to have a view? Why should I care if a rapist has a good book to read? Our budget is bleeding red, why are tax dollars being used for prison lattes? (To be fair, I do not know whether they actually have lattes.)

But consider this: The prison guards back Newsom.

“Done right, it improves working conditions for our officers and strengthens public safety,” said Steve Adney, executive vice president of the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn., the union that represents guards, of the California model, as Newsom calls his vision.

Faced with high rates of suicide and other ills such as addiction, corrections officers have long been concerned about the stress and violence of their jobs. A few years ago, some union members traveled to Norway to see prisons there. I tagged along.

A correctional officer at Halden prison in Norway checks out the ice cream freezer in the grocery store inside the facility.

(Javad Parsa/For The Times)

The American officers were shocked to see Norwegian prisoners access kitchen knives and power tools, but even more shocked that the guards had built relationships with these criminals that allowed them to do their jobs with far less fear.

Rather than jailers, these corrections officers were more like social workers or guides to a better way of living. Of course, the corrections officers aren’t dumb. That only works with vetted inmates, such as those at San Quentin, who have proved they want to change.

But when you have officers and incarcerated people who are able to coexist with respect and maybe a dash of kindness, you get a different outcome for both sides.

“If we are capable of building this at San Quentin, then we are capable of making the workplace safe for every officer who walks in the gates,” said CCPOA President Neil Flood, a startling statement in favor of radical reform from a law enforcement officer.

But in a moment when most Democrats with ambitions for national office (or even an eye on replacing Newsom) are backing away from criminal justice reform, it would be naive to think the California model won’t be used to bludgeon Newsom in a presidential race, and provide further fuel to the dumpster-fire narrative about the state.

Soon — before the midterms — many expect Congress to move forward on Trump’s expressed desire for a crime bill that would empower police with even greater immunity for wrongdoing, create longer sentences for crimes including those involving drugs and further erode criminal justice reform in the name of public safety.

Trump is going hard in the opposite direction, toward more punishment, always the easier and more understandable route for voters fed up with crime (even though crime rates have been declining since President Biden was in office).

The California model is “a political liability in this environment,” said Tinisch Hollins, a victims advocate who worked on the San Quentin transition and heads Californians for Safety and Justice.

But she retains faith that “the majority of people don’t believe that shoving everyone into prison is how we resolve the problem.”

Newsom deserves credit for standing by that position, when simply backing away and dropping the California model would have been the simpler and safer route — it’s complicated and messy and oh-so-easy to make it sound dumb.

I refer you back to the cafe. If construction had been cut at San Quentin, the budget cited as the reason, no one would have noticed and few would have complained.

Instead, sounding a bit like Trump, Newsom said he “threatened the hell out of them if they didn’t get it done before I was gone.”

“This is not left or right,” he said. “This is just being smart and pragmatic and you know, I just … I believe people are not the worst thing they’ve done.”

Politically at least, San Quentin is a legacy for Newsom now, the best or worst thing he’s done on crime, depending on your personal views of second chances.

But it is undeniably a vision of public safety starkly at odds with Trump, one Newsom will carry into his next political fight — where it is certain to cause him some pain.

Warner Bros. Discovery said Tuesday that it was “reviewing” a revised offer from Paramount Skydance — the latest twist in the high-profile auction to claim one of Hollywood’s corporate jewels.

The company did not provide any details of Paramount’s bid. Paramount separately confirmed that it submitted a revised offer.

In a short statement, Warner acknowledged that Paramount had submitted a modified proposal to buy all of the company’s outstanding shares and that board members were evaluating the offer “in consultation with our financial and legal advisors.”

“We will update our shareholders following the Board’s review,” Warner said.

The Larry Ellison-backed Paramount had been facing a late Monday night deadline to boost its bid to claim the company that owns CNN, HBO, TBS and the storied Warner Bros. movie and film studios. Last week, the auction’s winning bidder — Netflix — agreed to allow Warner Bros. Discovery to reopen talks with Paramount for seven days to determine whether Paramount would bring more money to the table.

Warner instructed Paramount to present its “best and final” offer.

Netflix has matching rights should Warner Bros. Discovery reverse course and accept the Paramount bid.

The move comes nearly three months after Warner’s board unanimously agreed to sell HBO and studio assets, including its deep library that includes Superman, Harry Potter, Scooby-Doo, “Game of Thrones,” and “The Big Bang Theory,” to Netflix for $27.75 a share.

Netflix’s deal, valued at $82.7 billion, does not include Warner’s basic cable channels, including CNN, TBS and HGTV.

Those channels are slated to be spun off to a new company later this year.

But Paramount, managed by scion David Ellison, has repeatedly cried foul, saying its cash bid for all of Warner Bros. Discovery, including the Warner cable channels, would be more lucrative for shareholders. Paramount, which enjoys friendly relations with President Trump, has also boasted that it has a more certain path to win U.S. regulatory approval compared to Netflix.

But Warner Bros.’ board has stuck with Netflix’s bid, saying the streaming giant’s financing was more secure.

“The Netflix merger agreement remains in effect, and the Board continues to recommend in favor of the Netflix transaction,” Warner said in its Tuesday statement.

Warner Bros. Discovery told Paramount last week that it expected the billionaire Ellison to put more money into the deal.

Paramount has previously said that the tech billionaire would guarantee more than $41 billion in equity financing that was needed to pull of the more than $108-billion take-over.

Under Paramount’s previous offer, the Ellison family was planning to contribute about $12 billion. Another $24 billion was expected to come from the royal families from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

In recent weeks, Paramount agreed to cover a $2.8 billion break-up fee that Warner would owe Netflix should Warner walk away from the Netflix deal. Paramount also suggested that it would increase its offer to at least $31 a share.

The move comes amid heightened political interest in the monumental deal that would reshape Hollywood.

The Department of Justice is investigating whether a Netflix takeover, or Paramount’s alternative bid, would harm competition.

Republican lawmakers have been critical of the Netflix deal, saying it would blunt competition.

President Trump has said he didn’t plan to get involved in the investigation, but over the weekend he threatened Netflix, writing on social media that Netflix must fire Susan Rice, a former high-level Obama and Biden administration official, from its board or “pay the consequences.”

Warner Bros. Discovery is consulting with investment bankers from Allen & Company, J.P. Morgan and Evercore and the law firms Wachtell Lipton and Debevoise & Plimpton.

WASHINGTON — President Trump is set to deliver a high-stakes State of the Union address on Tuesday night at 6 p.m. Pacific time before a joint session of Congress in the U.S. Capitol.

The president is expected to emphasize economic issues, an immigration crackdown that has been central to his agenda, and tariffs in the wake of a recent legal setback to his trade agenda.

Here is what to know about the event:

How to watch

The remarks will be shown live on major broadcast networks and cable news channels. Another way to watch live is through the public affairs network C-SPAN. The White House will stream the address on its website.

What to expect in the speech

Trump is expected to focus on his immigration crackdown and his promises to go after what he says is government “waste, fraud and abuse,” as previewed in two White House videos on Monday.

One year back in office, Trump has led an aggressive deportation campaign that has involved violent arrests, troops in American cities and an uptick in detentions. The tactics used by federal immigration agents have raised concerns among lawmakers in the aftermath of the fatal shooting of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis. Those concerns are central to ongoing standoff over funding for the Department of Homeland Security.

It will also be worth watching how Trump talks about future efforts to target waste and abuse in public spending, an effort that has often roped in blue states like California.

Who will deliver responses?

Democrats have picked Gov. Abigail Spanberger of Virginia and Sen. Alex Padilla of California to deliver the Democratic responses to Trump’s speech.

Spanberger will give her remarks in English, while Padilla will deliver the Spanish-language response.

Padilla’s remarks will be live-streamed here.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who has a way of saying the quiet parts out loud in defending President Trump’s economic policies, told the truth again Friday, during a public appearance a few hours after the Supreme Court threw out most of Trump’s tariffs.

Asked about the prospects that Americans would be receiving refunds of the illegal tariffs paid since Trump imposed them in April, Bessent replied with a condescending smirk: “I get a feeling the American people won’t see it.”

A couple of things about that. One is that there doesn’t seem to be any legal question that those who paid the tariffs are entitled to refunds. In his 6-3 ruling invalidating levies imposed on imports under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977, or IEEPA, Chief Justice John Roberts made clear that those tariffs were unconstitutional and illegal from their inception.

Therefore, there’s no excuse for the government to hold on to the money it has collected — estimated at somewhere between $135 billion and $170 billion. But Roberts didn’t state whether refunds are warranted or, if so, how they should be calculated and distributed.

Trump has dangled the prospect of tariff refunds — actually, tariff “dividend” checks of $2,000 — in front of taxpayers for months. In effect, that would mean returning to taxpayers the money that his tariffs have cost them. Bessent’s comments put paid to that promise.

Today, no one is arguing seriously that checks should be cut for taxpayers — except Illinois Gov. JB Pritzer, who demanded refund checks totalling $8.7 billion for his constituents. But that has the aroma of a campaign stunt for Pritzker, who is running for a third term and may be positioning himself for a presidential run.

By not specifying a refund process, the Supreme Court decision left a vacuum that Bessent tried to fill. In his comments, he explained why refunds will be nothing but a dream for the average American — and those comments were chilling.

First, he said, Trump has the authority to reimpose the same tariffs under different laws. Indeed, Trump has already announced that he will be imposing 15% tariffs across the board.

He also signaled that although Roberts pushed refund decisions down to the Court of International Trade, the government is poised to challenge importers’ applications for reimbursement, generating litigation that “can be dragged out for weeks, months, years.”

In other words, Bessent implied that, far from resolving the economic confusion Trump has generated through his on-again-off-again tariff policies during 2025, the court’s decision provoked Trump to inject even more uncertainty into U.S. trade relations and domestic business decisions.

That dime appeared to drop for stock market investors Monday. The markets rose modestly in a relief rally Friday after the Supreme Court released its decision, but tumbled Monday as Trump doubled down on tariffs. At the close, the Dow Jones industrial average was down by 821.91 points, or nearly 1.7%, and the Nasdaq and Standard & Poor’s 500 indices both fell by more than 1%.

Bessent didn’t mention the most important reason why American consumers are unlikely to see anything resembling a tariff refund.

Tariffs on imported products are, by any measure, a tax on domestic consumers. Economic opinion is virtually unanimous on that point. As I reported in January, the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a German think tank, concluded that 96% of the 2025 Trump tariffs were paid by American importers and their domestic clients.

“The tariffs are, in the most literal sense, an own goal,” Kiel’s researchers wrote. “Americans are footing the bill.” Their conclusion was largely echoed earlier this month by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which placed the burden on American importers and consumers at “nearly 90%.”

That said, the specifics of tariff payments are in the hands of importers and retailers, which keep records of how much they’ve paid and on what products or parts. Consumers don’t normally know the numbers. (I actually received an invoice last year breaking out the tariffs charged by a Japanese retailer on a set of pens I had bought for a birthday present, but since the sum came to $12 I’m not sure that demanding a refund from the government would be worth it.)

So far, about 1,500 businesses have filed claims for refunds through the Court of International Trade. Most filed these claims to secure for themselves a position in the scrum for refunds, like music fans lining up overnight for tickets to a star’s upcoming concert.

Many of these businesses may not actually have put a number on their claim. Costco, perhaps the biggest retailer to file with the CIT, didn’t say in its Nov. 28 filing how much it thought it was owed, possibly because it was still bound to pay the tariffs until the Supreme Court issued a final decision.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which actually computes and collects the tariffs, says it will cease collecting the invalidated levies when the clock strikes 12:01 a.m. Tuesday morning.

What consumers don’t know is how much of the tariffs have been passed down to them. Some sellers decided to eat some or all of the tariffs to keep consumer prices steady. Some may have stocked up on tariff-eligible products ahead of the formal imposition of the levies.

Will retailers seek out customers who paid higher prices on products that were tariffed to hand them refunds? None has said that such an eventuality is in the cards, though it might not be surprising to see some businesses use the end of tariffs as a marketing device — you know, “We’re cutting prices on Toyotas during ‘tariff freedom month!’” etc., etc.

It’s also conceivable that retailers passed imaginary tariff costs on to their customers, putting through price increases that had nothing to do with the levies but could be blamed on them anyway.

That’s what happened after Trump imposed tariffs on washing machines, which were almost all foreign-made, in 2018. According to a 2020 survey by Federal Reserve and University of Chicago economists, the tariffs forced washing machine prices up by nearly 12%, or about $86 each. The researchers discovered, however, that prices on clothes dryers increased by about the same amount, even though they weren’t subject to the tariffs at all.

What happened? The researchers conjectured that because washers and dryers are typically sold as pairs, retailers may have simply spread the washing machine cost increase between the two products to keep their prices similar. It’s also possible that retailers, figuring that consumers would expect to pay more for tariffed washing machines and would assume the same effect held for dryers, charged more for the latter to fatten their profits. One wouldn’t expect consumer refunds in those cases.

Another imponderable is the effect of Trump’s tariffs on the U.S. consumer economy generally. The Trump tariffs cost the average American household the equivalent of a tax increase of about $1,000, the Tax Foundation has calculated.

About $600 of that sum was due to the IEEPA tariffs now struck down. But the new tariffs Trump announced after the Supreme Court ruling will raise the tariff tax for American families by $300 to $700, the Foundation reported — potentially a greater total burden than existed before the court’s action.

All of Trump’s tariffs increased the average tariff rate to 13.8%, the Foundation reckoned. The Supreme Court’s ruling reduced that to about 6% — still the highest U.S. tariff rate since 1971 — but the new 15% tariff Trump announced would raise the applied rate back to 12.1%. By law, the new tariff can remain in effect for only five months unless it’s extended by Congress. In 2022, America’s applied tariff rate was 1.5%.

Perhaps the most immediate question facing businesses is how refund claims will be administered. In his dissent to Roberts’ IEEPA decision, Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that “the refund process is likely to be a ‘mess.’”

Possibly Kavanaugh’s concern was that the Court of International Trade will have to adjudicate 1,500 claims one by one. But it need not be so.

In 1998, the Supreme Court declared a Harbor Maintenance Tax on exports, based on the constitutional provision that exports can’t be taxed. Responsibility for those refunds also fell to the Court of International Trade, which established a standardized procedure for claims. Even under the streamlined system, however, the resolution of all those claims took until 2005, or seven years. And that involved only about $1 billion in claims, not the more than $130 billion at stake today.

What remains unexplained in the miasma created by Trump’s tariff policies is why he is doing this. None of his rationales has been borne out. The tariffs haven’t restored manufacturing employment in the U.S., which have fallen throughout Trump’s current term. They haven’t eliminated America’s trade deficit with the rest of the world, which has persisted since 1975 and — despite Trump’s assertions — isn’t anywhere close to an economic crisis.

As it happens, while the overall trade deficit fell modestly last year by less than $3 billion, or about one-third of 1%, most of the reduction was in services; the deficit in goods rose by $25.5 billion to a record $1.24 trillion.

All that’s left is Trump’s inclination to wield tariffs as tools of geopolitical bullying. He has raised or threatened to raise tariffs on Brazil because of that country’s criminal pursuit of former President Jair Bolsonaro for leading a coup attempt; on Switzerland because he felt dissed by a Swiss government leader; and on several European countries for thwarting his effort to annex Greenland.

None of those actions bore fruit (Bolsonaro was convicted and is currently serving a 27-year prison sentence). America’s trading partners plainly recognize that the new tariffs must expire within 150 days and can’t be renewed without action by a Congress plainly queasy about giving Trump his tariffs back after the Supreme Court took them away. They don’t seem to be taking Trump seriously.

They can tell that on tariffs, as on many other things, Trump is increasingly behaving like a lame duck, albeit one with a whim of iron. But as the stock market seemed to be telling us Monday, even a whim of iron can be very, very costly.

WASHINGTON — President Trump will deliver his annual State of the Union address Tuesday night at a moment of unusual upheaval, confronting a cascade of crises that have left Washington unsettled and his own political standing diminished early in his second term.

When lawmakers gather to hear the president’s agenda for the year ahead, the scene is expected to reflect an undeterred president under increasing political strain.

The president is facing a partial government shutdown triggered by his administration’s aggressive deportation campaign, rising tensions over the United States’ involvement in foreign conflicts and growing domestic dissent that is fracturing the president’s political alliances and aggravating his rivals.

Adding to the turbulent atmosphere is the economic unease in an election year. The president, who a year ago promised to bring down prices for consumers, insisted Monday that America has “the greatest economy we’ve ever had” even though public polling shows economic pressures are worrying a majority of Americans.

Trump said he plans to talk about the country’s economic successes in his speech, saying “it is going to be a long speech because we have so much to talk about.”

Republicans have recently pushed Trump to focus on the push to lower costs, a message they see as crucial to help them keep control of Congress. What remains to be seen is how much of Trump’s economic message will be colored by a Supreme Court decision last week that struck down his use of tariffs, a key portion of his economic agenda. In recent days, the president has remained defiant on the issue, lashing out at the justices for delivering a legal setback on his tariffs, and looking to impose new global tariffs in a different way.

Trump said Monday he does not need to seek congressional approval to impose new levies, even though the nation’s highest court ruled his tariffs cannot stand without the approval of Congress.

“As president, I do not have to go back to Congress to get approval of Tariffs,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “It has already been gotten, in many forms, a long time ago!”

Trump’s rebuke underscores the president’s increasingly combative posture toward both the judiciary and Congress, at a time when he is heavily relying on his executive authority to advance sweeping policies on immigration, trade and national security.

His willingness to wield executive authority has been seen in the last year as the president led U.S. forces to capture former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, threatened to seize Greenland, considered an attack on Iran and eyed an armed conflict with drug cartels in Mexico.

At home, Trump has said he thinks the federal government should assert control over state elections as he continues to push false claims of a stolen 2020 election.

Whether that will happen remains to be seen as Republican leaders, and other conservative lawmakers, voice opposition to some of the president’s legislative pitches.

In recent months, Congress has tried to reassert its authority over the executive branch — in some cases led by small Republican defections by lawmakers who have grown concerned about the president’s involvement in foreign wars and his economic policies.

One of the most notable rebukes to Trump’s authority occurred late last year, when a bipartisan group of lawmakers secured legislation that forced the Trump administration to release investigative files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

While Trump maintains the release of those files cleared him of wrongdoing, the findings have so far ensnared key figures in Trump’s political orbit and reinforced a sense of scandal that continues to loom over his administration. Anger over the administration’s handling of the Epstein case has led to bipartisan backlash, even prompting some conservatives to call for U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi to resign.

Another sign of the polarized moment Trump will face Tuesday night will be led by Democrats.

About a dozen Democrats in the Senate and House of Representatives plan to boycott the president’s speech and participate in what they have dubbed the “People’s State of the Union.”

“I will not be attending the State of the Union,” U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said in a social media video over the weekend. “We cannot treat this as normal. This is not business as usual. I will not give him the audience he craves for the lies that he tells.”

In recent years, lawmakers who wished to disavow the president’s address would typically stand and shout in protest, disrupt the remarks or coordinate outfits to signal their opposition.

In 2020, for example, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) stood behind Trump at the podium as he delivered his remarks and then shredded a copy of his script. She later called it a “manifesto of mistruths.”

This year, even the president’s allies appear to be on notice.

While it is a long-standing custom for the Supreme Court justices to attend the president’s annual address, Trump told reporters on Friday that the six justices who voted against his tariffs policy were “barely” invited to the event.

“Three of them are invited,” he said.

Trump’s State of the Union remarks will be dissected to see how he intends to advance his agenda and to deal with a divided Congress that remains at a standstill over how to fund the Department of Homeland Security.

The partial government shutdown was triggered by partisan tensions over Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, where two U.S. citizens were shot and killed by federal agents.

At a White House event Monday, Trump lamented that public polling shows waning support for federal immigration agents.

“It just amazes me that there is not more support out there,” Trump said. “We actually have a silent support, I think it is silent.”

This is the Year of the Fire Horse in the Chinese zodiac — but for the White House, it’s more like the Year of Babies.

No, not the ones in the Trump administration. Actual babies.

Parents can take advantage of a larger child tax credit. July 5 will see the launch of $1,000 stock investments funded by the Treasury Department for children born in this country during President Trump’s reign. He has mulled offering $5,000 “baby bonuses” and creating a “National Medal of Motherhood” for women who have six or more children.

All this is happening even as birthrates have plummeted in this country for decades, reaching their lowest point ever in 2024. A reduced population tends to relegate countries to economic and demographic doom — look at Japan and Russia. That’s why one of Trump’s big campaign promises was to Make America Fertile Again.

“I’ll be known as the fertilization president and that’s OK,” he boasted last spring during a women’s history event at the White House.

But even as this administration urges families to grow and single people to marry and welcome little ones into their lives, it’s persecuting children in the name of Trump’s deportation deluge.

While the president told a crowd last October, “We want more babies, to put it nicely” while announcing cheaper in vitro fertilization drugs, the New York Times found his administration was keeping an average of 175 children a day in immigration detention — a 700% increase from the end of the Biden administration.

As Vice President JD Vance bragged during a March for Life rally in January that he “practices what he preaches” by expecting a fourth child this year, 5-year-old U.S. citizen Génesis Ester Gutiérrez Castellanos was adjusting to life in Honduras along with her deported mother.

On the same day last month that Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy posted on social media, “My greatest job is being a dad to my nine kids and family will always come first,” a federal judge ordered the release of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, an Ecuadorean preschooler grabbed outside his Minneapolis home along with his father in what the jurist described as a “perfidious lust for unbridled power.”

Just last week, Alaska resident Sonia Espinoza Arriaga and her sons, ages 5 and 16, were dumped in Tijuana by la migra even though the family had an active case to determine whether they qualified for asylum. And Trump’s campaign against undocumented children is just beginning on multiple fronts.

Ayaan Moledina protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement as they march toward the South Texas Family Residential Center on Jan. 28 in Dilley, Texas.

(Joel Angel Juarez / Getty Images)

The Supreme Court has scheduled hearings in April for Trump’s lawsuit seeking to end birthright citizenship for people born to parents who aren’t citizens or permanent residents. U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi is suing to end policies that protect immigrant children in custody.

Thousands more agents are expected to storm our streets in the coming weeks while the Department of Homeland Security spends billions of dollars to build or retrofit warehouses to stuff with the people they grab. Reports are already emerging from the South Texas Family Residential Center an hour south of San Antonio, which ICE uses to house children slated for removal from this country, of rancid food and overcrowded cells.

Trump’s apologists will claim there’s nothing racist or heartless about removing youngsters in this country illegally — or if their parents are in the U.S. without documentation — while asking citizens to have bigger families, even as the main proponents of the so-called pronatalist movement are white conservatives while nearly all of the kids la migra are booting are Latinos.

But an administration that can’t treat these children humanely shouldn’t be trusted with taking care of even American-born children. And one can’t separate Trump’s supposed pro-baby policies from what this country has historically inflicted on Latino families.

American authorities forced U.S.-born children to leave for Mexico with their parents during the Great Depression, arguing they would become a welfare burden at the expense of white children. Doctors were sterilizing Latinas without their consent in the name of population control as recently as the 1970s. Popular culture ridiculed large Latino families as backward and destined for poverty.

I grew up in a California where politicians railed against Mexican American kids like myself for supposedly overwhelming schools, parks, medical clinics and streets with our numbers. We were supposedly the ground troops in a nefarious conspiracy called Reconquista that sought to return the American Southwest to Mexico.

By the time I reached high school in the 1990s, voters began to pass laws that sought to make life miserable for undocumented immigrants like my father and other relatives, with a special punitive focus on their progeny. The infamous Prop. 187, which passed in 1994, would’ve banned undocumented children from attending California public schools from kindergarten to higher education. Five years later, the Anaheim Union High School District, whose schools I attended, passed a resolution seeking to sue Mexico for $50 million for educating the children of undocumented immigrants.

Board president Harald Martin — who migrated to this country from Austria as a 2-year-old — appeared on NPR to justify his actions by comparing the students he was in charge of to Tribbles, furry little aliens that starred in a famous “Star Trek” episode when they bred in such numbers that the Starship Enterprise was overwhelmed.

“They were so cute and fluffy, nice little things when there were four or five of them,” Martin said. “Then it got to the point down the road when it wasn’t so nice. They were getting in the way because there now were thousands of them on the ship.”

Martin’s example was not only wildly racist, it ignored the reality that Latinos were on the same road to assimilation as other previous immigrant groups ridiculed for their large families. While a March of Dimes study released last year shows Latinas had more children than any other ethnic group in this country as of 2023, the Latina birthrate declined by a third since 2003 — by far the largest drop of those groups.

I’ve seen this play out in my own family. I have 16 aunts and uncles who lived to adulthood and am the oldest of four children born to my parents — but my dad has just one grandchild and probably isn’t getting any more. I agree with Trump, Vance and the rest of them that children bring magic and vitality to communities — but what Latino family would want to raise a family where everything is far more expensive and the threat of deportation is never far away?

In this photo released by U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), Adrian Conejo Arias and his son, 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, are seen in San Antonio on Jan. 31 after being released from the Dilley detention center.

(U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro)

Fatherhood wasn’t in the cards for me, but I love being Tío Guti to my nephew and the children of my friends. That’s why my heart breaks when I hear them say that their classmates left the United States and my blood boils when I hear Vance, Trump and others urge Americans to have more kids. Trumpworld isn’t looking to increase the number of people who look like my loved ones — and that’s something that should frighten us all.