CHICAGO — A day after former presidents, sitting governors and local Chicago residents alike attended a vibrant, televised celebration for the late Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr., the family and friends who knew him best hosted a more intimate gathering Saturday to grieve the civil rights leader at his organization’s headquarters.
The final memorial service at the Rainbow PUSH Coalition’s headquarters on the South Side of Chicago included a few hundred attendees, most of whom were family members, allies and confidants. The event served as a capstone to a week of services and a call to action.
In a series of speeches, the late reverend’s children, civil rights leaders and two presidents of African nations said the best way to honor Jackson’s legacy is to continue his advocacy for universal human rights and economic justice.
“It is appropriate that we respect this season of grief,” said Yusef Jackson, one of Jackson’s sons and president of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. “However, it is also appropriate to honor him by stepping up, to step out, and continue his work by answering his call to serve.”
The younger Jackson said that the Rainbow PUSH Coalition recently honored Jackson by deepening partnerships with activists in Minnesota, which saw mass protests after the Trump administration launched a massive immigration crackdown in the state.
U.S. Rep. Jonathan Jackson, an Illinois Democrat and a son of the late reverend, said his father taught him “that any society that will not support the many who are poor will never be able to save the few who are rich.” He said that his father’s relentless activism and charisma were rooted in a Christian call to service.
“For the children on the reservations, in the barrios, in the ghettos, he was speaking to you,” said the congressman. “My father was attacked for speaking about diversity. He was vilified for his stand on equality, and had the people who wanted to kill him had their way, we would have never seen a rainbow coalition.”
Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League, said that ambitious politicians should emulate the political strategy Jackson championed during his two presidential bids.
“Let the word go out that anyone who would like to be president of the United States in 2028, you’d better study this concept of the rainbow coalition,” Morial said.
Public visitors greet family, world leaders
In a move meant to reflect Jackson’s ethos, some members of the public who gathered outside the PUSH headquarters were allowed to enter the private service.
“Dad’s theology was rooted in the belief that every human being carries inherent worth,” said Ashley Jackson, the late reverend’s youngest daughter. “He fought for that truth in places that most people never saw, people whose names never made the news across decades and continents and causes.”
The service included musical performances by Stevie Wonder, Opal Staples, Terisa Griffin, Kim Burrell and others. Comedian Chris Tucker added some levity to the solemn services with a stand-up set.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa thanked the late reverend for his work to end South Africa’s apartheid system. Jackson was a close friend of Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s iconic anti-apartheid leader and its first Black president.
“He told the world that the struggle for dignity in the United States was inseparable from the fight against apartheid and injustice in South Africa,” said Ramaphosa, who said his nation claimed the late civil rights leader as one of their own.
“When Jesse Jackson reminded the United States that its strength as a nation lies not in exclusion, but in the beautiful diversity of its people — Black and white, rich and poor, urban and rural, workers and farmers, immigrants and the forgotten — we were hugely inspired by his message,” said Ramaphosa, who was a key negotiator in the process to the end the apartheid system.
Felix Tshisekedi, president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, praised Jackson as a peacemaker and humanitarian.
“Your mourning is also ours. You have lost a father, a husband, a brother. The world has lost a pastor, a champion, a mender of bridges. Africa has lost a faithful, loving son,” Tshisekedi said.
Since his death last month, Jackson’s family and allies have honored the late reverend with commemorations, community service and demonstrations in an effort to continue his work.
Mourners first honored Jackson as he lay in repose in Chicago last month. The late reverend then lay in state at the South Carolina Capitol. Jackson grew up in segregated Greenville, S.C. As a high schooler, he led fellow students into a protest that desegregated a local library, starting a lifetime of civil rights leadership.
Services honoring Jackson in Washington were postponed after a request for him to lie in honor at the U.S. Capitol was denied. House Republican leadership cited the precedent that only former presidents and senior generals typically receive the privilege.
Jackson’s allies have emphasized the forcefulness of his message and convictions.
“He maintained an intense relationship with the political order, not because presidents were white or Black, but the demands of our message — the demands of speaking to the least of these, those who were disinherited, the dispossessed, the disrespected — demanded not Democratic or Republican solutions, but demanded a consistent, prophetic voice,” said Jesse Jackson Jr., the reverend’s eldest son and a former congressman seeking to win back his seat in this year’s elections.
Fraternity brothers
Jackson’s mentees also organized efforts to continue his civil rights activism.
“We’re in a global moment where peace in the world is in jeopardy, where we just have bombs being dropped carelessly, killing children, innocent victims of political actions,” said the Rev. Janette Wilson, a longtime senior advisor to Jackson and executive director at the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. “When the government cuts SNAP benefits and you have millions of children and families who will be food insecure, I think you have to tell them that we’re fighting for you.”
On Thursday, the headquarters hosted a series of events that celebrated Jackson’s life, including a memorial service for several hundred members of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Inc., of which Jackson was a member. That same night, the chamber hosted a reunion for Rainbow PUSH alumni to commemorate Jackson and his years of activism.
They celebrated Jackson’s life and reminisced about his 1984 and 1988 presidential bids, his globe-trotting activism as an anti-apartheid activist and hostage negotiator, and his evangelism for a Christianity that emphasized justice for all and support for the downtrodden.
Jackson family expected at voting rights march
On Sunday, members of the Jackson family and many of Jackson’s mentees will travel to Selma, Ala., to commemorate the “Bloody Sunday” protest marches when civil rights activists were beaten by police on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965.
The Rev. Jackson often attended the same anniversary march.
“Selma has always stood for the basics of what civil rights is, what we are debating in policy,” said Jimmy Coleman, a longtime aide to Jackson and native of Selma. “He was always focused on what we needed in terms of policy in any given political moment, and that’s what the march represents.”
NEW YORK — A counterprotester demonstrating against a “Stop the Islamic Takeover of New York City” event Saturday lighted and threw a device containing nuts, bolts and screws at the protesting crowd after someone from that group used pepper spray on the counterprotesters, police said.
Police are investigating the incident that started late Saturday morning when someone from the anti-Islam protest associated with far-right activist and pardoned Jan. 6 rioter Jake Lang shot pepper spray into a counterprotesting group near the mayoral residence Gracie Mansion, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said.
Tensions continued to heighten, she said, when one of the counterprotesters lighted and threw a device she described as smaller than a football into the protesting crowd of about 20 people.
The device struck a barrier and extinguished itself “a few feet from police officers,” she said. The same person then ran, and another person gave a him a second device, which they then dropped. The devices were wrapped in black tape with nuts, bolts and screws, as well as a fuse. She said it was unclear whether the devices were functioning explosives or hoaxes.
Three people were arrested, and an investigation is underway, Tisch said.
Tisch at a news conference didn’t report any injuries and said she believed Mayor Zohran Mamdani was not at Gracie Mansion at the time.
She said about 20 people showed up to Saturday’s protest connected to Lang, and the counterprotest had about 125 people at its peak.
Lang was charged with assaulting a police officer with a baseball bat, civil disorder and other crimes before receiving a pardon as part of President Trump’s sweeping act of clemency for Jan. 6 defendants last year. Lang recently announced that he is running for U.S. Senate in Florida.
Last month, Lang staged an anti-Islam protest in Minneapolis during the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown there.
A federal judge ruled Saturday that Kari Lake, President Trump’s choice to lead the U.S. Agency for Global Media, did not have legal authority to take the actions she’s done to largely dismantle the Voice of America. The decision’s effect on VOA operations was not immediately clear.
Lake called the decision by U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth “bogus” and said it would be appealed.
Voice of America, which has transmitted news coverage to countries around the world since its formation during World War II, is operating with a skeleton staff in only a few languages after Lake terminated contracts and laid off most of its employees.
Lake had been chosen by Trump to effectively lead the agency that oversees Voice of America and other services such as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. But she has not received Senate confirmation for her role, and Lamberth said she did not have authority to act in that capacity due to laws that guard against unqualified government appointments.
“Only the Appointments Clause or the Vacancies Act’s exclusive structure may authorize service as a principal officer, and Lake satisfies the requirements of neither the statute nor the Constitution,” Lamberth wrote.
Lamberth was ruling on a lawsuit filed by Patsy Widakuswara, Voice of America’s White House bureau chief, and colleagues Kate Neeper and Jessica Jerreat. They were among the employees laid off by Lake and have been fighting the actions.
“We feel vindicated and deeply grateful,” the journalists said in a statement. They said the ruling against Lake “is a powerful step toward undoing the damage she has inflicted on this American institution that we love.” They said they are trying to determine what the action means for colleagues whose careers have been in limbo.
Proponents of Voice of America call it an example of the nation’s “soft power” that offers independent news coverage to countries where governments control the flow of information. Lake has contended that the government-run news outlets are wasteful and their outputs should promote the administration’s views.
Reporters Without Borders said Lamberth’s decision affirmed what it believed — that the administration acted unlawfully to gut the VOA. But there’s still more to be done to ensure VOA’s journalists can get back to work, said Clayton Weimers, executive director of the organization’s North American branch.
“This case is proof that fighting for press freedom matters,” Weimers said.
Lake, in a statement posted on X, said, “The American people gave President Trump a mandate to cut bloated bureaucracy, eliminate waste, and restore accountability to government.
“An activist judge is trying to stand in the way of those efforts at USAGM. Judge Lamberth has a pattern of activist rulings — and this case is no different.”
Reporting from Washington — The father of an Army captain who died a hero in Iraq looked incredulous.
Donald Trump had seemed to criticize his wife on national television, suggesting that her Muslim faith might be the reason she stayed silent during the couple’s high-profile appearance at the Democratic National Convention last week, when Khizr Khan criticized the GOP presidential nominee.
Speaking to CNN on Sunday, Khan said his wife was simply too grief-stricken to speak that night. Then the father said something that may sum up Trump’s biggest challenge between now and November: “He had to take that shot at her.”
Trump has built an unlikely presidential campaign on his combative style and language. He can’t seem to resist taking a shot or responding to an attack, even when the political fight seems unwinnable.
That instinct arguably has served Trump well so far, allowing him to win a crowded Republican primary and stay competitive in national polls with Hillary Clinton.
But it has also caused him unneeded political wounds, playing into the Clinton campaign’s argument that he lacks the temperament to lead the country and sometimes stealing attention from Clinton’s own political liabilities.
The public feud with the Khans looks to stir up the biggest self-inflicted controversy since Trump criticized a federal judge in a fraud lawsuit against Trump University. Trump repeatedly questioned the judge’s ability to be fair because his parents were born in Mexico.
The Khan flap may also linger because Trump’s words were directed at grieving parents whose son died while serving the United States, rather than the politicians he usually targets.
“It violates almost every hallmark of traditional politics, but I guess that’s Donald Trump,” said Reed Galen, a veteran Republican consultant who is not supporting Trump or Hillary Clinton. “The way to get to a guy like Trump — and the Hillary campaign is now finally understanding this — this is a guy who can’t let slights, major or minor, go by.”
Trump’s puzzling engagement with the Khans not only inspired an unusually pointed rebuke from Clinton on Sunday, it also sparked broad condemnation from many Republicans.
For much of the weekend, Trump found himself squaring off against the Khans, whose convention appearance was an emotional high point for many Democrats. During the last night of the convention, Khizr Khan, his wife, Ghazala, beside him, recounted the loss of their son, Humayun. Then he questioned Trump’s call to ban Muslims from entering the U.S., pulling out a pocket Constitution and asking whether Trump had even read the document.
Trump could have let the moment pass, or simply praised their sacrifice without confronting them, as other politicians have done when met by military families who have rendered the highest sacrifice.
Instead, Trump, in an ABC interview broadcast Sunday, said Khizr Khan looked like a “nice guy,” but he questioned why Ghazala Khan did not speak during the convention, saying “maybe she wasn’t allowed to.”
He pushed back against Khizr Khan’s assertion that Trump’s proposal to ban Muslims from entering the country would have kept his son out. “He doesn’t know that,” Trump said. Then the businessman, who avoided the draft during the Vietnam War, said he too had made “sacrifices,” citing his hiring of “thousands and thousands of people.”
After the ABC transcript from the taped interview was released Saturday, Trump’s campaign attempted to correct course. In a statement released late Saturday, Trump called Humayun Khan “a hero to our country” and said “the real problem here are the radical Islamic terrorists who killed him.”
Yet he still could not resist keeping the fight alive.
“While I feel deeply for the loss of his son, Mr. Khan, who has never met me, has no right to stand in front of millions of people and claim I have never read the Constitution, (which is false) and say many other inaccurate things,” Trump added.
On Sunday, as the controversy festered, Trump complained on Twitter that “I was viciously attacked by Mr. Khan at the Democratic Convention.”
“Am I not allowed to respond? Hillary voted for the Iraq war, not me!” he said.
The Khans proved formidable and sympathetic foes as they granted multiple rounds of nationally televised interviews. Ghazala Khan wrote an emotional essay Sunday for the Washington Post, recounting her 12 years of grief since her son died, her inability to enter a room where his picture is displayed because of the pain, and the fact that she could not even bring herself to clean out his closet.
“I don’t think he knows the meaning of sacrifice, the meaning of the word,” Ghazala Khan said of Trump on ABC. “Because when I was standing there, all of America felt my pain. Without saying a single word. Everybody felt that pain, but I don’t know how he missed that.”
While trying to remain above the partisan swamp, they looked shaken yet defiant — casting Trump as someone who lacks a moral compass and the capability for empathy. They challenged Republican leaders to denounce Trump.
As the pressure simmered, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell issued a statement of support for the Khans, saying he agreed “that a travel ban on all members of a religion is simply contrary to American values.”
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan also called out Trump’s proposed ban on Muslim travel and praised the “many Muslim Americans [who] have served valiantly in our military, and made the ultimate sacrifice. Capt. Khan was one such brave example. His sacrifice — and that of Khizr and Ghazala Khan — should always be honored. Period.”
Other Republicans were even more forceful.
“There’s only one way to talk about Gold Star parents: with honor and respect,” Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who lost to Trump in the primary and has withheld his endorsement, wrote on Twitter. “Capt. Khan is a hero. Together, we should pray for his family.” (Gold Stars are awarded to the family members of soldiers who die serving in the U.S. armed forces.)
Tim Miller, a former aide to Mitt Romney, wrote on Twitter that Trump’s words were a “grotesque slander of a dead soldier.” He contrasted them with George W. Bush’s response to an antiwar protest in 2005 by Cindy Sheehan, whose son died in Iraq.
“I grieve at every death,” an emotional Bush said at the height of the protest. “It breaks my heart to think about a family weeping over the loss of a loved one.”
Bush said he recognized and thought about the “sincere desire” of those who wanted to pull out of Iraq while laying out his case to keep troops there.
Clinton faced a similar question Sunday on Fox News. She was asked about the assertion by two parents who lost their sons in the 2012 attack on a U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya, that Clinton had come to them on the day their bodies were returned to the United States and claimed their deaths were the result of an inflammatory video, rather than terrorism.
“My heart goes out to both of them,” she said, bemoaning their loss and praising them as “extraordinary men.”
“As other members of families who lost loved ones have said, that’s not what they heard — I don’t hold any ill feeling for someone who in that moment may not fully recall everything that was or wasn’t said,” Clinton added.
Clinton spoke directly about the controversy later Sunday at a church in Ohio.
“Mr. Khan paid the ultimate sacrifice in his family, didn’t he? And what has he heard from Donald Trump?” Clinton said. “Nothing but insults, degrading comments about Muslims, a total misunderstanding of what made our country great — religious freedom, religious liberty.”
Clinton has made Trump’s reactive style central to her critique. “A man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons,” she said during her convention speech.
Even in defending against that charge, Trump showed his instinct to counterpunch, something many of his supporters admire.
“She’s a very dishonest person. I have one of the great temperaments,” he said on ABC. “I have a winning temperament. She has a bad temperament. She’s weak. We need a strong temperament.”
Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, blamed the controversy on Clinton, a tactic he has used after previous blowups.
“This is the Clinton narrative,” Manafort said on NBC, when asked about Trump’s comments about Khan. “Mr. Trump, of course, feels sorry for what the Khan family has gone through.”
The controversy came just a few days after another headline-grabbing moment, when Trump on Wednesday effectively baited Russia to hack Clinton’s old email account to try to recover more than 30,000 emails she deleted from the private server she used when she was secretary of State.
“He’s going off down these rabbit trails,” said Ron Nehring, a former national spokesman for Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign and former chairman of the California Republican Party. “Every day that is spent on these manufactured non-issues is another day he is not training fire on Hillary Clinton’s vulnerabilities.”
Such controversies tend to overshadow issues that might otherwise gain broader attention, experts say, such as Friday’s disappointing economic growth figures.
During Sunday’s interview with ABC, for example, Trump tried to sidestep questions about his failure to release his tax returns and raised concerns about the timing of three upcoming presidential debates, complaining that two dates overlap with NFL games.
Times staff writer Chris Megerian in Columbus, Ohio, contributed to this report.
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — While the U.S. Senate remains deadlocked over President Trump’s call for strict citizenship voting requirements, Republicans in some states are pressing ahead with their own measures that could require documentary proof of citizenship to join or remain on the voter rolls.
Proof-of-citizenship legislation won final approval this week in South Dakota and Utah, already has passed one chamber in Florida and received a committee hearing in Missouri. In Michigan, supporters of voter citizenship documentation submitted 750,000 petition signatures this week in a bid to get a constitutional amendment on the November ballot.
Federal law already prohibits noncitizens from voting in U.S. elections, with violators subject to fines, imprisonment and potential deportation.
When people register to vote, they affirm under penalty of perjury that they are U.S. citizens. But Trump contends that’s not enough. He wants prospective voters to show proof of their citizenship.
Democrats and voting rights advocates say the Republican measures amount to voter suppression, as they may prevent many eligible voters from casting ballots. Similar laws have been overturned by courts as an unconstitutional burden on voting rights.
What would the federal legislation do?
The federal Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE America Act, would require documentary proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote. That could be satisfied with such things as a U.S. passport, citizen naturalization certificate or a combination of a birth certificate and government-issued photo identification.
The federal bill also would require a photo identification to cast a ballot, which some states already mandate. The Republican-led House approved the legislation last month on a mostly party-line vote, but it has stalled in the Senate under a filibuster threat from Democrats.
South Dakota and Utah
Legislation passed in South Dakota and Utah would create a two-tier voting system. People who provide documentation of their citizenship could vote in all elections. Those who don’t could vote only in federal elections for president, U.S. Senate and U.S. House.
The bifurcated voting system is modeled after Arizona, where tens of thousands of voters who have not provided proof of citizenship can cast ballots only in federal elections. Arizona implemented its system after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that the state could not require citizenship documentation for federal elections.
The bills in South Dakota and Utah would take effect upon a governor’s signature, meaning they could be in place for newly registered voters ahead of the November elections.
Utah’s bill also directs election officials to use an online service from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to check the citizenship status of existing voters. Those flagged would be sent notices asking for proof of citizenship to remain eligible to vote in all elections.
Florida and Michigan
Neither the Michigan initiative nor legislation passed by the Florida House would require people to submit proof of citizenship when registering to vote. Instead, the measures would create a behind-the-scenes review that could result in some people being asked for citizenship documentation.
Under the Michigan measure, the secretary of state would review driver’s license records, juror records and federal Homeland Security and Social Security data to determine whether registered voters are citizens. Those flagged would be removed from the voter rolls if they cannot provide proof of citizenship.
The Florida legislation would require election officials to verify the citizenship of all registered voters using the state’s driver’s license database. Anyone whose citizenship could not be verified would be required to submit documentary proof.
Why are some pushing for proof of citizenship?
Trump and some fellow Republicans have complained for years about noncitizens voting in U.S. elections, although evidence of doing so is rare. The few cases found are not nearly enough to affect an election result, studies have shown, and those caught face severe penalty.
In 2024, a student from China was charged with perjury and attempted illegal voting after registering to vote by showing a University of Michigan student ID and signing a document asserting he was a U.S. citizen. He later contacted a local clerk’s office requesting to get his ballot back, and ultimately fled the country.
The case provided part of the impetus for the Michigan ballot initiative, said Paul Jacob, chairman of Americans for Citizen Voting, which is backing the measure.
“We want a system we can have confidence in,” Jacob said. “The way you avoid big problems in elections is to fix the small problems when they rise up and present themselves.”
Voting rights advocates’ concerns
Constitutional amendments limiting voting to “only citizens” have won widespread support when placed on state ballots. But voting rights advocates note that requiring documentary proof can get complicated.
During a recent debate in the Florida House, Democratic state Rep. Ashley Gantt recounted how her aunt was born in a South Carolina home at a time when some hospitals didn’t accept Black patients. As a result, she has no birth certificate and has had difficulty trying to demonstrate her citizenship, Gantt said.
A proof-of-citizenship law “would stop many thousands — if not more — U.S. citizens from voting in Florida,” said Michelle Kanter Cohen, policy director and senior counsel at the nonprofit Fair Elections Center. “It requires documentation that a lot of eligible citizens don’t have, or don’t have access to.”
Nationwide, about 21 million people — 9% of voting-age citizens — lack documentary proof of citizenship or cannot easily obtain it, according to a 2024 report by the Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement at the University of Maryland.
Other states
Legal challenges are common when states pass proof-of-citizenship requirements for voters.
After Kansas adopted a proof-of-citizenship law 15 years ago, more than 31,000 U.S. citizens ended up getting blocked from registering to vote. Federal courts declared the Kansas law an unconstitutional burden on voting rights, and it hasn’t been enforced since 2018.
Two years ago, New Hampshire and Louisiana both passed proof-of-citizenship laws, prompting lawsuits. New Hampshire’s law went to trial last month and is awaiting a ruling. Louisiana’s election commissioner acknowledged in a December court filing that the requirement has not been enforced.
A nonprofit group also filed a legal challenge to a Wyoming proof-of-citizenship law passed last year. But a federal court dismissed that case while ruling the group lacked standing to sue.
WASHINGTON — Signs of division emerged in Iran’s leadership Saturday as U.S. and Israeli strikes continued battering targets throughout the country, with Tehran sending mixed signals on whether it would keep attacking Washington’s Arab allies entering the war’s second week.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian began the day offering an apology “on behalf of Iran to the neighboring countries affected,” promising to halt the attacks that have affected nearly every nation in the Middle East. But strikes continued within hours, hitting Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, and Pezeshkian quickly issued a statement walking back his remarks.
President Trump vowed on social media to “hit Iran very hard” on Saturday, shortly before flying to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware for the dignified transfer of six service members killed in the war.
Speaking at a summit of Latin American leaders in Miami before his trip to Delaware, the president said the fallen service members were heroes “coming home in a different manner than they thought they’d be coming home.” He said it was “a very sad situation,” and he pledged to keep American war deaths “to a minimum.”
And Israel launched its own wave of fresh attacks against Iran while taking incoming fire from Hezbollah, Iran’s allied force in Lebanon, that set off sirens in Tel Aviv. Reports of a fire at a major oil refinery outside Tehran sparked fears the conflict was only escalating, marking the first attack on Iran’s energy infrastructure, if confirmed.
The burst of activity over the weekend underscored that Trump’s unexpected war with Iran, launched alongside Israel just a week ago, is continuing at full force with no sign of slowing.
Missile and drone strikes by Iran against Arab nations, targeting U.S. military assets in the region as well as civilian targets, including hotels and airports, have been an effort by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to pressure regional governments to in turn press Trump to end the U.S. air campaign. The strikes have jolted markets worldwide and sent the price of oil soaring.
President Trump salutes Saturday as soldiers carry the coffin of Sgt. Declan Coady, 20, of West Des Moines, Iowa. Coady and five others were killed in a drone strike in Kuwait.
(Roberto Schmidt / Getty Images)
While the attacks have decreased substantially over the course of the week, with U.S. Central Command recording a 90% decrease in ballistic missile launches and an 83% drop in drone attacks as of Friday, Iranian strikes are still penetrating regional air defenses. One drone hit the world’s busiest airport, in Dubai, on Saturday, dashing hopes that flights could resume from the regional hub.
Hours after Pezeshkian’s apology, Iran’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement vowing to continue strikes on territories that host U.S. offensive forces. Iran’s Defense Ministry said that its strategic stockpile of munitions was sufficient to sustain a protracted campaign. And a Revolutionary Guard spokesperson issued a statement addressing Trump, calling him “the corrupted island man,” referring to his former friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender who allegedly trafficked girls to his private island.
“The ground and the map of the war is in our hands,” the Revolutionary Guard official said. “This will continue.”
In his videotaped remarks, Pezeshkian also rejected Trump’s call for Tehran’s “unconditional surrender.” Trump later said he would be satisfied reaching a point at which Iran is no longer capable of fighting back.
“The idea of Iran surrendering unconditionally is a dream they will take to their graves,” Pezeshkian said.
A member of Iran’s Assembly of Experts, a council of 88 clerics responsible for naming the country’s supreme leader, was quoted in local state media vowing to select a new ayatollah within the next day, more than a week after U.S. and Israeli forces assassinated Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the opening salvo of the war.
Trump has said he expects a say in that decision, preemptively rejecting the late supreme leader’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, who is seen as the most likely successor.
Mojtaba Khamenei is seen as even more ideological than his father, with deep ties throughout Iran’s security apparatus — and with a potential vendetta against Trump, on the heels of U.S. forces killing much of his family.
Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council who formerly served as the late Khamenei’s top advisor, said in his first remarks since the ayatollah’s killing that his assassination was unprecedented. “The price for this is not small,” Larijani said.
“They shouldn’t think we’ll let America quickly sweep this under the rug and say, ‘We hit, now let’s move on,’” Larijani continued. “Things will only resolve when they understand they no longer have the right to violate Iran, and when they compensate the Iranian people for their losses.”
More that 1,200 people have been killed in Iran since the war began, according to Iranian officials.
“He killed and martyred our leader,” Larijani added. “We’re not letting it go.”
DORAL, Fla. — President Trump said Saturday that the United States and Latin American countries are banding together to combat violent cartels as his administration looks to demonstrate it remains committed to sharpening U.S. foreign policy focus on the Western Hemisphere even while engaged in war in the Middle East.
Trump encouraged regional leaders gathered at his Miami-area golf club to take military action against drug trafficking cartels and transnational gangs that he says pose an “unacceptable threat” to the hemisphere’s national security.
“The only way to defeat these enemies is by unleashing the power of our militaries,” Trump said. “We have to use our military. You have to use your military.” Citing the U.S.-led coalition that confronted the Islamic State group in the Middle East, the Republican president said that ”we must now do the same thing to eradicate the cartels at home.”
The gathering, which the White House called the “Shield of the Americas” summit, comes two months after Trump ordered an audacious U.S. military operation to invade Venezuela and capture its president, Nicolás Maduro, and whisk him and his wife to the United States to face drug conspiracy charges.
Looming even larger is Trump’s decision to launch a war on Iran with Israel a week ago, a conflict that has left hundreds dead, convulsed global markets and unsettled the broader Middle East.
Trump’s time with the Latin American leaders was limited: Afterward, he set out for Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to be on hand for the dignified transfer of the six U.S. troops killed in a drone strike on a command center in Kuwait. They were killed one day after the U.S. and Israel launched their war on Iran.
Trump called the American deaths a “very sad situation” and praised the fallen troops as “great heroes.”
With the summit, Trump aimed to turn attention to the Western Hemisphere, at least for a moment. He has pledged to reassert U.S. dominance in the region and counter what he sees as years of Chinese economic encroachment in America’s backyard.
Trump also said the U.S. will turn its attention to Cuba after the war with Iran and suggested his administration would cut a deal with Havana, underscoring Washington’s increasingly aggressive stance against the island’s communist leadership. “Great change will soon be coming to Cuba,” he said, adding that “they’re very much at the end of the line.”
Cuban officials have said on several occasions that they were open to dialogue with the U.S. as long as it was based on respect for Cuban sovereignty, but they have never confirmed that such talks were taking place.
Who was there
The leaders of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guyana, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, and Trinidad and Tobago joined the U.S. president at Trump National Doral Miami, a golf resort where he is set to host the Group of 20 summit later this year.
The idea for a summit of like-minded conservatives from across the hemisphere emerged from the ashes of what was to be the 10th edition of the Summit of the Americas, which was scrapped during the U.S. military buildup off the coast of Venezuela last year.
Host Dominican Republic, pressured by the White House, had barred Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela from attending the regional gathering. But after leftist leaders in Colombia and Mexico threatened to pull out in protest — and with no commitment from Trump to attend — the Dominican President Luis Abinader decided at the last minute to postpone the event, citing “deep differences” in the region.
The Shield of the Americas moniker was meant to speak to Trump’s vision for an “America First” foreign policy toward the region that leverages U.S. military and intelligence assets unseen across the area since the end of the Cold War.
To that end, Ecuador and the United States conducted military operations this week against organized crime groups in the South American country. Ecuadorean and U.S. security forces attacked a refuge belonging to the Colombian armed group Comandos de la Frontera in the Ecuadorean Amazon on Friday, authorities reported.
This joint fight against drug traffickers “is only the beginning,” said Ecuador’s president, Daniel Noboa.
Notably missing at the summit were the region’s two dominant powers — Brazil and Mexico — as well as Colombia, long the linchpin of U.S. anti-narcotics strategy in the region.
Trump grumbled that Mexico is the “epicenter of cartel violence” with drug kingpins “orchestrating much of the bloodshed and chaos in this hemisphere.”
“The cartels are running Mexico,” Trump said. ”We can’t have that. Too close to us. Too close to you.”
The challenge from China
Trump made no mention of his administration’s position that countering Chinese influence in the hemisphere is a top priority for his second term.
His national security strategy promotes a “Trump corollary” to the 19th century Monroe Doctrine, which had sought to ban European incursions in the Americas, by targeting Chinese infrastructure projects, military cooperation and investment in the region’s resource industries.
The first demonstration of the more muscular approach was Trump’s strong-arming of Panama to withdraw from China’s Belt and Road Initiative and review long-term port contracts held by a Hong Kong-based company amid U.S. threats to seize the Panama Canal.
More recently, the U.S. capture of Maduro and Trump’s pledge to “run” Venezuela threaten to disrupt oil shipments to China — the biggest buyer of Venezuelan crude before the raid — and bring into Washington’s orbit one of Beijing’s closest allies in the region. Trump is scheduled to travel to Beijing later this month to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
For many countries, China’s trade-focused diplomacy fills a critical financial void in a region with major development challenges that include poverty reduction and infrastructure bottlenecks. In contrast, Trump has been slashing foreign assistance to the region while rewarding countries lined up behind his crackdown on immigration — a policy widely unpopular across the hemisphere.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio hosted the leaders for a working lunch after Trump left for the event in Delaware. The lunch gave Kristi Noem, whom Trump fired as Homeland Security secretary on Thursday, the chance to make her debut in her new role as a special envoy for the newly formed Shield of the Americas.
“We want our hemisphere to be safer, to be more sovereign, and to be more prosperous,” Noem told the leaders.
Madhani, Goodman and Richer write for the Associated Press. Madhani and Goodman reported from Doral and Durkin Richer from Washington. AP writer Gabriela Molina in Quito, Ecuador, contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON — Visitors to the Capitol will now have a visible reminder of the violent attack against the building on Jan. 6, 2021, and the officers who fought and were injured defending it that day.
Steps from the Capitol’s West Front, where the worst of the violence occurred, workers quietly have installed a plaque honoring the officers, three years after it was required by law to be erected. The plaque was placed on the Senate side of the hallway because the Senate voted unanimously in January to install it after House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) had delayed putting it up. Many Republicans had balked at installing the plaque.
“On behalf of a grateful Congress, this plaque honors the extraordinary individuals who bravely protected and defended this symbol of democracy on January 6, 2021,” the plaque says. “Their heroism will never be forgotten.”
The Washington Post first reported the installation of the plaque, which was witnessed by a reporter about 4 a.m. Saturday.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) led the effort to install it as he commemorated the fifth anniversary of the attack and insurrection and described his memories of hearing people break into the building. “We owe them eternal gratitude, and this nation is stronger because of them,” he said of the officers who were overwhelmed by thousands of President Trump’s supporters before eventually pushing them out of the building.
The mob of rioters who violently pushed past police and broke in were echoing Trump’s false claims of a stolen election after the Republican was defeated by Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. The crowd stopped the congressional certification of Biden’s victory for several hours, sent lawmakers running for safety and vandalized the building before police regained control.
Five police officers and four protesters died as a consequence of the violence. More than 140 officers from the U.S. Capitol Police, the Metropolitan Police Department and other agencies were injured.
The fight to have the plaque installed came as Trump returned to office last year and the Republican Congress has remained loyal to him. The president, who has called Jan. 6 a “day of love,” on his first day of his new term granted pardons or commutations to nearly 1,600 people convicted or charged in the rioting.
Trump was impeached and criminally indicted for his role in the insurrection. The Senate did not convict him, and the felony charges were dropped after he was reelected in November 2024.
Congress passed a law in 2022 that set out instructions for the honorific plaque listing the names of officers “who responded to the violence that occurred.” It gave a one-year deadline for installation, but the plaque never went up.
After more than a year of silence — and a lawsuit by two of the officers who fought at the Capitol that day — Johnson said at the beginning of the year that there were technical problems with the statute and the plaque could not be erected.
Tillis went to the Senate floor shortly afterward and passed a resolution, with no objections, to place the plaque on the Senate side.
One of the officers who sued, Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges, said the lawsuit would continue. Hodges, who was crushed by the rioters in the heavy doors steps away from where the plaque is now displayed, said Saturday that the overnight installation was a “fine stopgap” but that it was not in full compliance of the law. The original statute said that all of the officers’ names should be listed, among other technical specifications.
“The weight of a judicial ruling would help secure the memorial against future tampering,” Hodges said. “Our lawsuit persists.”
Jalonick and Mascaro write for the Associated Press. AP writer Allison Robbert contributed to this report.
Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s David Zahniser, with an assist from Howard Blume and Noah Goldberg, giving you the latest on city and county government.
She’s blunt. She’s combative. She doesn’t go along to get along.
And now, Los Angeles City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez is almost certainly getting four more years in office.
On Wednesday, with the deadline past, no one filed a petition to challenge Rodriguez in the June 2 primary election. That makes her the only official at City Hall to be in that coveted position this year.
One caveat: Someone could still run as a write-in, waging a long-shot campaign. But realistically, Rodriguez has a free ride to continue representing her northeast San Fernando Valley district.
Rodriguez, who lives in Mission Hills, said she had been prepping for “another fight,” raising money and giving endorsement interviews. Now, she’s started talking about what her third and final term could look like.
“Giddyup. Everyone better buckle up,” she said, cackling.
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For an elected official, nothing can bolster one’s confidence like a reelection victory or two. Newly elected council members tend to keep a low profile their first few years. The longer they stay, the more outspoken they become.
Rodriguez, on the other hand, has been willing to speak her mind for quite some time.
She’s been a longstanding critic of Mayor Karen Bass’ Inside Safe program, which moves homeless people indoors. She has pushed, without success, for the city to yank its money from the embattled Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, or LAHSA. Last fall, she told a mayoral aide that Bass’ team “botched” the Palisades fire recovery in the first few months.
Rodriguez frequently expresses her views in vivid terms, and in ways that can annoy her colleagues.
Last year, she warned a proposal to hike the minimum wage for hotel and airport workers to $30 per hour would trigger job losses, leaving the city with “the best paid unemployed workforce in America.”
She denounced the city’s plan to upgrade the Convention Center, saying the council was continuing to “fund failure.” She regularly drops the phrase “merry go round from hell” — shorthand for her struggle to get her colleagues to pull out of LAHSA, the city-county homeless agency that’s been the subject of blistering audits.
With the election approaching, the zingers have only gotten zingier.
Six weeks ago, City Councilmember Nithya Raman launched a last-minute bid to rewrite Measure ULA, the city’s tax on high-end property sales, saying it had chilled development of much-needed apartments. Raman wanted her proposal to go on the June ballot but failed to garner support from her colleagues, who said it hadn’t been vetted.
Rodriguez, in a screed delivered on the council floor, compared Raman to “the arsonist that comes showing up as a firefighter.”
That was a not-so-veiled reference to the fact that Raman promoted Measure ULA in 2022 — and downplayed concerns that it would affect housing production.
“Ms. Raman, you supported and endorsed the false notion to voters that [Measure ULA] was going to be the panacea — without study, without any of the verified proof,” she said. “We knew that these were the implications.”
Raman, in a statement on Friday, said she endorsed Measure ULA after reading through research suggesting that the tax, which generates money for housing programs, would not affect housing production. Newer analysis, she said, found that the measure “indeed resulted in less investment in multi-family housing.”
“That is a huge concern to me and should be to everyone in L.A., a City that is still very much facing a housing shortage,” said Raman, who is now running for mayor. “I am willing to take some heat to get the best outcomes for the City and to secure support for these crucial revenues.”
Stuart Waldman, president of the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn., a San Fernando Valley-based business group, said he appreciates Rodriguez’s direct approach, even when he disagrees with her.
“A lot of councilmembers, if they don’t agree with you, they won’t even meet with you,” he said. “There are council members who say they’ll listen and take [an issue] under advisement, even though they’ve made up their mind. They just don’t want to tell someone to their face that they disagree.”
Rodriguez’s approach doesn’t always reap political dividends.
Last year, Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson removed her from a number of high-profile committees, including those that oversee homeless programs, public safety and the city budget.
Despite her warnings, the council hiked the minimum wage for tourism workers and approved the $2.6-billion Convention Center project. She championed the creation of a new youth development department, only for it to wind up on the chopping block in last year’s budget.
Rodriguez, 52, grew up in Arleta, the daughter of a U.S. Marine veteran who served in Vietnam while holding a green card, and later became one of the city’s earliest Latino firefighters in the wake of a federal consent decree on hiring. She graduated from San Fernando High School in 1992, one year after Assemblymember Luz Rivas and two years after U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla.
She worked for former Mayor Richard Riordan and former Councilmember Mike Hernandez and later ran unsuccessfully against former Councilmember Richard Alarcon. She joined the Board of Public Works in 2013, running for council a second time four years later.
With a third term looming, Rodriguez wants to take a program she launched in her district — moving homeless people out of RVs and into housing — and take it citywide. She’s excited about expanding a program for fixing sidewalks that also teaches job skills to young people.
Rodriguez acknowledged that her stances, and her remarks, can rub people the wrong way, noting that it’s “more comfortable to walk in a group than to walk alone.” Nevertheless, she doesn’t intend to change her approach.
“I know what I’m here to do, and I’m just going to continue,” she said.
State of play
— SCRAMBLE FOR SIGNATURES: The deadline for candidates for city office to turn in petitions arrived on Wednesday, and the signatures are still being counted. By Friday, 12 mayoral candidates had qualified to run against Bass, including Raman, reality television star Spencer Pratt and tech entrepreneur Adam Miller. The City Clerk’s office is still reviewing the petitions of several other mayoral hopefuls, all of them political unknowns.
— ANOTHER FREE RIDE: L.A. Unified School board member Kelly Gonez is also running unopposed in the June 2 election. On Wednesday, her one potential opponent, JP Perron, announced he was dropping out. Like Rodriguez, Gonez represents part of the San Fernando Valley.
— A HELPING HAND: For a hot minute, things were touch and go for Sylvia Robledo, a former council aide looking to unseat Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez. After filing her petitions, Robledo learned Tuesday that she was short 14 voter signatures. Raul Claros, one of her rivals in the race, stepped in to help close the gap, gathering some signatures himself. “People want options,” he said later on Instagram. “People want anybody but Eunisses Hernandez.”
Two of Robledo’s other opponents — entrepreneur Nelson Grande and nonprofit executive Maria Lou Calanche — added their own names to her petition. On Wednesday, she qualified for the ballot.
“We may have a different vision or path, but we all want new leadership,” Robledo said.
— JANISSE JETS OFF: The top executive at the Department of Water and Power, Janisse Quiñones, announced this week that she has taken a job as CEO of a privately owned electrical company in her native Puerto Rico. Quiñones, who was hired at $750,000 a year, faced criticism over the DWP’s decision to drain a reservoir shortly before the Palisades fire broke out. Her first day in the new job is March 30.
— TRUMP ON LINE 1: Bass spoke on the phone this week with President Trump to request FEMA reimbursements for the Palisades fire, KNX News reported. Bass told the station that the president was “very receptive.”
“I was reluctant to call because there are a few other things going on, like what’s happening overseas, and I didn’t think, given all that was happening internationally, that he would actually return my call,” she told the station.
— OVERDUE BILLS: The county Board of Supervisors voted this week to fund a financial review of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, after finding that the agency owes tens of millions of dollars to nonprofits that oversee interim housing for the region’s homeless population. Supervisor Lindsey Horvath said her phone was “ringing off the hook” from groups needing to get paid by LAHSA.
— TIT FOR TAT: Meanwhile, the long-running feud between Bass and Horvath continued to boil over, with the two taking digs at each other over the future of the region’s homeless programs. Bass, in a statement, said pulling out of LAHSA too quickly would bring “unintended consequences” and leave “more Angelenos to die on our streets.”
“When the County created their new Department of Homeless Services and Housing, they also created a $300 million gap, which they had to close by prioritizing bureaucracy rather than services,” Bass said.
Horvath shot back, saying she is already conferring with council members on a strategy to have the city pay the county to provide homeless services.
“I’m ready to work with the City Council and show the Mayor what locking arms actually looks like,” she said, swiping one of Bass’ signature phrases.
— PALISADES BOWL IN PERIL: The owners of a mobile home park destroyed last year in the Palisades fire are marketing the site as a potential “mixed use” project — housing plus commercial space, which would result in permanent displacement of residents. City Councilmember Traci Park said any developer looking to take the sellers up on their offer should “pound sand.”
“What we are interested in doing is restoring this property as a mobile home park for the people who were there and remain displaced,” she said.
— PURSUING POT PROCEEDS: L.A. cannabis companies owe the city more than $400 million in business taxes, late fees and interest. Hoping to recoup $30 million of that total, the council voted this week to set up an amnesty program for those pot businesses that still owe money and haven’t already shuttered.
— JAIL DEATHS: Ten people have died in L.A. County jails so far this year, putting the county on track for another record-setting year of in-custody deaths. Now, county supervisors want the Sheriff’s Department to reverse that trend by beefing up safety checks, more closely monitoring cameras and increasing access to the overdose reversal drug Naloxone.
— FOR FLOCK’S SAKE: The Police Commission wants to know how data captured by the controversial license plate reader Flock Safety are being stored and shared. Commissioner Jeff Skobinasked for the information following reports that federal agencies had repeatedly accessed Flock’s surveillance data as part of Trump’s ongoing immigration crackdown.
QUICK HITS
Where is Inside Safe? The mayor’s signature program to fight homelessness went to a stretch of Laurel Canyon Boulevard in North Hollywood, underneath the 170 Freeway. About three dozen people went inside, according to Bass’ team.
On the docket next week: The council’s Planning and Land Use Management Committee meets Tuesday to take up a proposal to hike the penalties for putting up illegal billboards and other unpermitted signs.
Stay in touch
That’s it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to LAontheRecord@latimes.com. Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.
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Friends, delegates and fellow Americans: I humbly and gratefully accept your nomination for the presidency of the United States.
U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! Who would’ve believed that when we started this journey on June 16, last year, we and I say we, because we are a team, would have received almost 14 million votes, the most in the history of the Republican Party, and that the Republican Party would get 60% more votes than it received eight years ago. Who would’ve believed this? Who would’ve believed this? The Democrats on the other hand, received 20% fewer votes than they got four years ago, not so good, not so good.
Together, we will lead our party back to the White House, and we will lead our country back to safety, prosperity and peace. We will be a country of generosity and warmth. But we will also be a country of law and order.
Our convention occurs at a moment of crisis for our nation. The attacks on our police, and the terrorism in our cities, threaten our very way of life. Any politician who does not grasp this danger is not fit to lead our country.
Americans watching this address tonight have seen the recent images of violence in our streets and the chaos in our communities. Many have witnessed this violence personally, some have even been its victims.
I have a message for all of you: The crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon, and I mean very soon, come to an end. Beginning on January 20th, 2017, safety will be restored.
The most basic duty of government is to defend the lives of its own citizens. Any government that fails to do so is a government unworthy to lead.
It is finally time for a straightforward assessment of the state of our nation.
I will present the facts plainly and honestly. We cannot afford to be so politically correct anymore. So if you want to hear the corporate spin, the carefully crafted lies and the media myths, the Democrats are holding their convention next week. Go there.
But here, at our convention, there will be no lies. We will honor the American people with the truth, and nothing else.
These are the facts:
Decades of progress made in bringing down crime are now being reversed by this administration’s rollback of criminal enforcement.
Homicides last year increased by 17% in America’s 50 largest cities. That’s the largest increase in 25 years. In our nation’s capital, killings have risen by 50%. They’re up nearly 60% in nearby Baltimore.
In the president’s hometown of Chicago, more than 2,000 people have been the victim of shootings this year alone. And almost 4,000 have been killed in the Chicago area since he took office.
The number of police officers killed in the line of duty has risen by almost 50% compared to this point last year. Nearly 180,000 illegal immigrants with criminal records, ordered deported from our country, are tonight roaming free to threaten peaceful citizens.
The number of new illegal immigrant families who have crossed the border so far this year already exceeds the entire total from 2015. They are being released by the tens of thousands into our communities with no regard for the impact on public safety or resources.
One such border-crosser was released and made his way to Nebraska. There, he ended the life of an innocent young girl named Sarah Root. She was 21 years old and was killed the day after graduating from college with a 4.0 grade point average, No. 1 in her class. Her killer was then released a second time, and he is now a fugitive from the law.
I’ve met Sarah’s beautiful family. But to this administration, their amazing daughter was just one more American life that wasn’t worth protecting. No more. One more child to sacrifice on the altar of open borders.
What about our economy? Again, I will tell you the plain facts that have been edited out of your nightly news and your morning newspaper: Nearly 4 in 10 African American children are living in poverty, while 58% of African American youth are now not employed. Two million more Latinos are in poverty today than when President Obama took his oath of office less than eight years ago. Another 14 million people have left the workforce entirely.
Household incomes are down more than $4,000 since the year 2000. That’s 16 years ago. Our manufacturing trade deficit has reached an all-time high. Think of this, think of this: Our trade deficit is nearly $800 billion last year alone. We’re gonna fix that.
The budget is no better. President Obama has almost doubled our national debt to more than $19 trillion, and growing. And yet, what do we have to show for it? Our roads and bridges are falling apart, our airports are Third World condition, and 43 million Americans are on food stamps.
Now let us consider the state of affairs abroad.
Not only have our citizens endured domestic disaster, but they’ve lived through one international humiliation after another. One after another. We all remember the images of our sailors being forced to their knees by their Iranian captors at gunpoint.
This was just prior to the signing of the Iran deal, which gave back to Iran $150 billion and gave us absolutely nothing. It will go down in history as one of the worst deals ever negotiated. Another humiliation came when President Obama drew a red line in Syria – and the whole world knew it meant absolutely nothing.
In Libya, our consulate – the symbol of American prestige around the globe – was brought down in flames. America is far less safe – and the world is far less stable – than when Obama made the decision to put Hillary Clinton in charge of America’s foreign policy. Let’s defeat her in November.
I am certain it is a decision President Obama truly regrets. Her bad instincts and her bad judgment – something pointed out by Bernie Sanders – are what caused the disasters unfolding today. Let’s review the record. In 2009, pre-Hillary, ISIS was not even on the map.
Libya was stable. Egypt was peaceful. Iraq was seeing and really a big, big reduction in violence. Iran was being choked by sanctions. Syria was somewhat under control. After four years of Hillary Clinton, what do we have?
ISIS has spread across the region, and the entire world. Libya is in ruins, and our ambassador and his staff were left helpless to die at the hands of savage killers. Egypt was turned over to the radical Muslim brotherhood, forcing the military to retake control. Iraq is in chaos.
Iran is on the path to nuclear weapons. Syria is engulfed in a civil war, and a refugee crisis now threatens the West. After 15 years of wars in the Middle East, after trillions of dollars spent and thousands of lives lost, the situation is worse than it has ever been before.
This is the legacy of Hillary Clinton: death, destruction, terrorism and weakness.
But Hillary Clinton’s legacy does not have to be America’s legacy. The problems we face now – poverty and violence at home, war and destruction abroad – will last only as long as we continue relying on the same politicians who created them in the first place. A change in leadership is required to produce a change in outcomes. Tonight, I will share with you my plan for action for America.
The most important difference between our plan and that of our opponent, is that our plan will put America first. Americanism, not globalism, will be our credo. As long as we are led by politicians who will not put America first, then we can be assured that other nations will not treat America with respect. The respect that we deserve.
The American people will come first once again. My plan will begin with safety at home – which means safe neighborhoods, secure borders and protection from terrorism. There can be no prosperity without law and order. On the economy, I will outline reforms to add millions of new jobs and trillions in new wealth that can be used to rebuild America.
A number of these reforms that I will outline tonight will be opposed by some of our nation’s most powerful special interests. That’s because these interests have rigged our political and economic system for their exclusive benefit. Believe me, it’s for their benefit.
Big business, elite media and major donors are lining up behind the campaign of my opponent because they know she will keep our rigged system in place. They are throwing money at her because they have total control over every single thing she does. She is their puppet, and they pull the strings.
That is why Hillary Clinton’s message is that things will never change. Never ever. My message is that things have to change – and they have to change right now. Every day I wake up determined to deliver a better life for the people all across this nation that have been neglected, ignored and abandoned.
(John Moore/Getty Images)
(John Moore / Getty Images)
I have visited the laid-off factory workers and the communities crushed by our horrible and unfair trade deals. These are the forgotten men and women of our country. And they are forgotten, but they’re not gonna be forgotten long.
These are people who work hard but no longer have a voice. I am your voice.
I have embraced crying mothers who have lost their children because our politicians put their personal agendas before the national good. I have no patience for injustice.
How great are our police, and how great is Cleveland? Thank you.
I have no patience for injustice, no tolerance for government incompetence, of which there is so much, no sympathy for leaders who fail their citizens.
When innocent people suffer, because our political system lacks the will or the courage or the basic decency to enforce our laws – or worse still, has sold out to some corporate lobbyist for cash – I am not able to look the other way.
And when a secretary of State illegally stores her emails on a private server, deletes 33,000 of them so the authorities can’t see her crime, puts our country at risk, lies about it in every different form and faces no consequence – I know that corruption has reached a level like never ever before in our country.
When the FBI director says that the secretary of State was “extremely careless” and “negligent” in handling our classified secrets, I also know that these terms are minor compared to what she actually did. They were just used to save her from facing justice for her terrible, terrible crimes.
In fact, her single greatest accomplishment may be committing such an egregious crime and getting away with it – especially when others who have done far less have paid so dearly. When that same secretary of State rakes in millions of dollars trading access and favors to special interests and foreign powers, I know the time for action has come.
I have joined the political arena so that the powerful can no longer beat up on people who cannot defend themselves. Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it. I have seen firsthand how the system is rigged against our citizens, just like it was rigged against Bernie Sanders – he never had a chance.
But his supporters will join our movement, because we will fix his biggest issue: trade deals that strip our country of its jobs and strip us of our wealth as a country. Millions of Democrats will join our movement too because we are going to fix the system so it works fairly and justly for each and every American. In this cause, I am proud to have at my side the next vice president of the United States: Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana. And a great guy.
We will bring the same economic success to America that Mike brought to Indiana. Which is amazing. He is a man of character and accomplishment. He is the man for the job. The first task for our new administration will be to liberate our citizens from the crime and terrorism and lawlessness that threatens our communities.
America was shocked to its core when our police officers in Dallas were so brutally executed. Immediately after Dallas, we have seen continued threats and violence against our law enforcement officials. Law officers have been shot or killed in recent days in Georgia, Missouri, Wisconsin, Kansas, Michigan and Tennessee.
On Sunday, more police were gunned down in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Three were killed, and three were very, very badly injured. An attack on law enforcement is an attack on all Americans. I have a message to every last person threatening the peace on our streets and the safety of our police: When I take the oath of office next year, I will restore law and order to our country. Believe me, believe me.
I will work with, and appoint, the best and brightest prosecutors and law enforcement officials in the country to get the job properly done. In this race for the White House, I am the law-and-order candidate. The irresponsible rhetoric of our president, who has used the pulpit of the presidency to divide us by race and color, has made America a more dangerous environment than frankly I have ever seen and anybody in this room has ever watched or seen.
This administration has failed America’s inner cities. It’s failed them on education. It’s failed them on jobs. It’s failed them in crime. It’s failed them in every way and on every single level.
When I am president, I will work to ensure that all of our kids are treated equally and protected equally.
Every action I take, I will ask myself: Does this make better for young Americans in Baltimore, in Chicago, in Detroit, in Ferguson who really in every way have as much of a right to live out their dreams as any other child in America? As any other child?
To make life safe for all of our citizens, we must also address the growing threats we face from outside America. We are going to defeat the barbarians of ISIS and we’re going to defeat them fast. Once again, France is the victim of brutal Islamic terrorism.
Men, women and children viciously mowed down. Lives ruined. Families ripped apart. A nation in mourning.
The damage and devastation that can be inflicted by Islamic radicals has been proven over and over – at the World Trade Center, at an office party in San Bernardino, at the Boston Marathon and a military recruiting center in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and many, many other locations.
Only weeks ago, in Orlando, Florida, 49 wonderful Americans were savagely murdered by an Islamic terrorist. This time, the terrorist targeted LGBTQ community. No good, and we’re gonna stop it. As your president, I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology. Believe me.
And I have to say, as a Republican, it is so nice to hear you cheering for what I just said. Thank you.
To protect us from terrorism, we need to focus on three things.
We must have the best, absolutely the best gathering of intelligence anywhere in the world. The best. We must abandon the failed policy of nation building and regime change that Hillary Clinton pushed in Iraq, Libya, Egypt and in Syria. Instead, we must work with all of our allies who share our goal of destroying ISIS and stamping out Islamic terrorism and doing it now, doing it quickly, we’re going to win, we’re going to win fast.
This includes working with our greatest ally in the region, the state of Israel.
Recently, I have said that NATO was obsolete. Because it did not properly cover terrorism. And also, that many of the member countries were not paying their fair share. As usual, the United States has been picking up the cost. Shortly thereafter, it was announced that NATO will be setting up a new program in order to combat terrorism. A true step in the right direction.
Lastly, and very importantly, we must immediately suspend immigration from any nation that has been compromised by terrorism until such time as proven vetting mechanisms have been put in place. We don’t want them in our country.
My opponent has called for a radical 550% increase in Syrian — think of this, think of this, this is not believable but this is what’s happening — a 550% increase in Syrian refugees on top of existing massive refugee flows coming into our country already under the leadership of President Obama. She proposes this despite the fact that there’s no way to screen these refugees in order to find out who they are or where they come from. I only want to admit individuals into our country who will support our values and love our people.
Anyone who endorses violence, hatred or oppression is not welcome in our country and never ever will be.
Decades of record immigration have produced lower wages and higher unemployment for our citizens, especially for African American and Latino workers. We are going to have an immigration system that works, but one that works for the American people.
On Monday, we heard from three parents whose children were killed by illegal immigrants. Mary Ann Mendoza, Sabine Durden and my friend Jamiel Shaw. They’re just three brave representatives of many thousands who have suffered so gravely. Of all my travels in this country, nothing has affected me more, nothing even close I have to tell you, than the time I have spent with the mothers and fathers who have lost their children to violence spilling across our borders. Which we can solve. We have to solve it.
These families have no special interests to represent them. There are no demonstrators to protect them and certainly none to protest on their behalf. My opponent will never meet with them, or share in their pain, believe me. Instead, my opponent wants sanctuary cities. But where was the sanctuary for Kate Steinle? Where was sanctuary for the children of Mary Ann and Sabine and Jamiel? Where was sanctuary for all of, aw, it’s so sad to even be talking about it, because we can solve it so quickly. Where was the sanctuary for the other Americans who have been so brutally murdered and who have suffered so horribly?
These wounded American families have been alone. But they are not alone any longer. Tonight, this candidate and the whole nation stand in their corner to support them, to send them our love and to pledge in their honor that we will save countless more families from suffering and the same awful fate.
We are going to build a great border wall to stop illegal immigration, to stop the gangs and the violence, and to stop the drugs from pouring into our communities. I have been honored to receive the endorsement of America’s border patrol agents, and will work directly with them to protect the integrity of our lawful, lawful, lawful immigration system. Lawful.
By ending catch-and-release on the border, we will end the cycle of human smuggling and violence. Illegal border crossings will go down. We will stop it. It won’t be happening very much any more, believe me. Peace will be restored. By enforcing the rules for millions who overstay their visas, our laws will finally receive the respect that they deserve.
Tonight, I want every American whose demands for immigration security have been denied – and every politician who has denied them – to listen very, very closely to the words I am about to say.
On January 20th of 2017, the day I take the oath of office, Americans will finally wake up in a country where the laws of the United States are enforced. We are going to be considerate and compassionate to everyone.
But my greatest compassion will be for our own struggling citizens. USA, USA, USA. My plan is the exact opposite of the radical and dangerous immigration policy of Hillary Clinton. Americans want relief from uncontrolled immigration. Which is what we have now. Communities want relief.
Yet Hillary Clinton is proposing mass amnesty, mass immigration and mass lawlessness. Her plan will overwhelm your schools and hospitals, further reduce your jobs and wages, and make it harder for recent immigrants to escape the tremendous cycle of from poverty that they’re going through right now, and make it almost impossible for them to join the middle class.
I have a different vision for our workers. It begins with a new, fair trade policy that protects our jobs and stands up to countries that cheat, of which there are many. It’s been a signature message of my campaign from Day One, and it will be a signature feature of my presidency from the moment I take the oath of office.
I have made billions of dollars in business making deals – now I’m going to make our country rich again. Using the greatest business people in the world, which our country has, I am going to turn our bad trade agreements into great trade agreements. America has lost nearly one-third of its manufacturing jobs since 1997, following the enactment of disastrous trade deals supported by Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Remember, it was Bill Clinton who signed NAFTA, one of the worst economic deals ever made by our country or frankly any other country.
Never ever again.
I am going to bring our jobs to Ohio and Pennsylvania and New York and Michigan and all of America – and I am not going to let companies move to other countries, firing their employees along the way, without consequence. Not gonna happen anymore.
My opponent, on the other hand, has supported virtually every trade agreement that has been destroying our middle class. She supported NAFTA, and she supported China’s entrance into the World Trade Organization – another one of her husband’s colossal mistakes and disasters.
She supported the job-killing trade deal with South Korea. She supported the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which will not only destroy our manufacturing, but it will make America subject to the rulings of foreign governments. And it’s not going to happen. I pledge to never sign any trade agreement that hurts our workers, or that diminishes our freedom or our independence. We will never, ever sign these trade deals. America first again. America first.
Instead, I will make individual deals with individual countries.
(Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)
No longer will we enter into these massive transactions, with many countries, that are thousands of pages long – and which no one from our country even reads or understands. We are going to enforce all trade violations against any country that cheats.
This includes stopping China’s outrageous theft of intellectual property, along with their illegal product dumping, and their devastating currency manipulation. They are the greatest that ever came about, they are the greatest currency manipulators ever.
Our horrible trade agreements with China and many others will be totally renegotiated. That includes renegotiating NAFTA to get a much better deal for America – and we’ll walk away if we don’t get that kind of a deal. Our country is going to start building and making things again.
Next comes the reform of our tax laws, regulations and energy rules. While Hillary Clinton plans a massive, and I mean massive, tax increase, I have proposed the largest tax reduction of any candidate who has run for president this year – Democrat or Republican. Middle-income Americans and businesses will experience profound relief, and taxes will be greatly simplified for everyone. And I mean everyone.
America is one of the highest-taxed nations in the world. Reducing taxes will cause new companies and new jobs to come roaring back into our country. Believe me, it’ll happen and it’ll happen fast. Then we are going to deal with the issue of regulation, one of the greatest job-killers of them all. Excessive regulation is costing our country as much as $2 trillion a year, and we will end it very, very quickly. We are going to lift the restrictions on the production of American energy. This will produce more than $20 trillion in job creating economic activity over the next four decades.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
(TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP/Getty Images)
My opponent, on the other hand, wants to put the great miners and the great steelworkers of our country out of work and out of business. That will never happen when I am president. Our steelworkers and our miners are going back to work again. With these new economic policies, trillions of dollars will start flowing into our country.
This new wealth will improve the quality of life for all Americans. We will build the roads, highways, bridges, tunnels, airports and the railways of tomorrow. This, in turn, will create millions of more jobs. We will rescue kids from failing schools by helping their parents send them to a safe school of their choice.
My opponent would rather protect bureaucrats than serve American children. And that’s what she’s doing, and that’s what she’s done.
We will repeal and replace disastrous Obamacare. You will be able to choose your own doctor again.
And we will fix TSA at the airports! Which is a total disaster. Thank you, thank you.
We’re going to work with all of our students who are drowning in debt to take the pressure off these people just starting out in their adult lives. Tremendous problem.
We will completely rebuild our depleted military. And the countries that we are protecting, at a massive cost to us, will be asked to pay their fair share.
We will take care of our great veterans like they have never been taken care of before. My just released 10-point plan has received tremendous veterans’ support. We will guarantee those who serve this country will be able to visit the doctor or hospital of their choice without waiting five days on a line and dying.
My opponent dismissed the VA scandal – one more sign of how out of touch she really is. We are going to ask every department head in government to provide a list of wasteful spending on projects that we can eliminate in my first 100 days. The politicians have talked about this for years, but I’m going to do it.
We are going to appoint justices of the United States Supreme Court who will uphold our laws and our Constitution.
The replacement of our beloved Justice Scalia will be a person of similar views, principles and judicial philosophies. Very important. This will be one of the most important issues decided by this election.
My opponent wants to essentially abolish the 2nd Amendment. I, on the other hand, received the early and strong endorsement of the National Rifle Assn. and will protect the right of all Americans to keep their families safe.
At this moment, I would like to thank the evangelical and religious community because I’ll tell you what, the support they’ve given me, and I’m not sure I totally deserve it, has been so awesome and has had such a big reason for me being here tonight. True, so true.
They have much to contribute to our politics, yet our laws prevent you from speaking your minds from your own pulpits.
An amendment which, by Lyndon Johnson, many years ago, threatens religious institutions with a loss of their tax-exempt status if they openly advocate their political views. I am going to work very hard to repeal that language and protect free speech for all Americans.
We can accomplish these great things, and so much more – all we need to do is start believing in ourselves and in our country again. It is time to show the whole world that America is back – bigger and better and stronger than ever before.
In this journey, I’m so lucky to have at my side my wife Melania and my wonderful children Don, Ivanka, Eric, Tiffany and Barron. You will always be my greatest source of pride and joy. And by the way, Melania and Ivanka, did they do a job. My dad, Fred Trump, was the smartest and hardest-working man I ever knew. I wonder sometimes what he’d say if he were here to see this and to see me tonight.
It’s because of him that I learned, from my youngest age, to respect the dignity of work and the dignity of working people. He was a guy most comfortable in the company of bricklayers and carpenters,and electricians. And I have a lot of that in me also. I love those people. Then there’s my mother, Mary. She was strong but also warm and fair-minded. She was a truly great mother. She was also one of the most honest and charitable people that I have ever known, and a great, great judge of character. She could pick ’em out from anywhere.
To my sisters Mary Anne and Elizabeth, my brother Robert and my late brother Fred, I will always give you my love. You are most special to me.
I have had a truly great life in business. But now, my sole and exclusive mission is to go to work for our country – to go to work for all of you. It’s time to deliver a victory for the American people. We don’t win anymore, but we’re going to start winning again! But to do that, we must break free from the petty politics of the past.
America is a nation of believers, dreamers and strivers that is being led by a group of censors, critics and cynics.
Remember: All of the people telling you you can’t have the country you want are the same people telling you that wouldn’t stand. I mean they said Trump doesn’t stand a chance of being here tonight, not a chance. The same people. Oh, we love defeating those people don’t we. We love defeating them. Love it, love it. No longer can we rely on those elites in media and politics who will say anything to keep our rigged system in place.
Instead, we must choose to believe In America. History is watching us now. We don’t have much time. But history is watching. It’s waiting to see if we will rise to the occasion, and if we will show the whole world that America is still free and independent and strong.
I am asking for you to support tonight so that I can be your champion in the White House. And I will be your champion. My opponent asks her supporters to recite a three-word loyalty pledge. It reads: “I’m With Her.” I choose to recite a different pledge.
My pledge reads: “I’m With You – The American People.”
I am your voice.
So to every parent who dreams for their child and every child who dreams for their future, I say these words to you tonight: I am with you. I will fight for you, and I will win for you.
To all Americans tonight, in all of our cities and all of our towns, I make this promise: We will make America strong again.
Antonio Villaraigosa is best known as the former mayor of Los Angeles. But that title will not be on the ballot when voters choose the next governor of California.
Instead, Villaraigosa will be listed as a “Public Policy Advisor,” a reference to his most recent profession.
Candidates spend time and often money on polling to determine a ballot title that paints them in the best light to voters while complying with the state’s regulations, even though in prominent races for governor or U.S. Senate, ballot designations aren’t typically a deciding factor.
State Treasurer John Chiang’s campaign protested the designation. (He will be listed as “California State Treasurer” on the primary ballot.)
“Let’s be real, the only thing Antonio Villaraigosa can currently advise on is how to best target innocent Californians,” said Chiang’s spokesman, Fabien Levy, pointing to work Villaraigosa has done for Herbalife, Cadiz and Edelman.
Critics accuse Herbalife, a nutritional supplement company, of being a pyramid scheme. Cadiz is trying to pump groundwater out of the Mojave Desert and sell it to Los Angeles consumers, a project opposed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and public lands advocates. Edelman is a public relations firm that counts oil-industry groups among its clients.
Levy said Chiang’s campaign has no plans to back up the rhetoric with a formal challenge to Villaraigosa’s ballot designation, but he left open the possibility of going to court later.
Ballot designation rules are so picayune that they dictate what types of punctuation are acceptable (commas, slashes and occasionally hyphens). Company names are verboten, as are words such as “reformer,” “activist,” “patriot” and “taxpayer.” The word “retired” cannot be abbreviated.
That has left room for some colorful ballot designations, such as Mary Carey Cook, who was listed as an “Adult Film Actress,” and Kurt E. “Tachikaze” Rightmyer, who was listed as a “Middleweight Sumo Wrestler” in the 2003 recall election. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was elected governor in that race, was listed as “Actor/Businessman.”
Some titles, such as businessman or teacher, are more popular than others, such as lawyer or the person’s political title in Congress or the Legislature.
In 2016, five congressional and legislative incumbents did not use their elected titles for ballot designations, including Rep. David Valadao. The Hanford Republican called himself a “Farmer/Small Businessman.”
In 2014, David Evans, an obscure Mojave Desert accountant who spent just $600 on his campaign to be California state controller nearly placed in the second spot in the primary. His ballot designation of “Chief Financial Officer” probably had something to do with it.
Eric Jaye, Villaraigosa’s political advisor, said that while the campaign considered other ballot designations, they went with “Public Policy Advisor” because it most accurately reflected Villaraigosa’s work after leaving City Hall.
“The company has advised a wide-range of for-profit and nonprofit companies around issues such as economic development, investment strategy, community reinvestment, healthcare, and education,” according to Villaraigosa’s filing documents. “As a public policy advisor, Mr. Villaraigosa guides clients through turning policies into action.”
Whether it matters is up for debate.
“How important ballot designations are diminishes the further up the ballot you go. So in the governor’s race, voters are going to have a wealth of information about the leading candidates from news coverage, from advertisements, etc.,” said GOP strategist Rob Stutzman. “Where ballot designations become important information is races where voters don’t know much else. Frankly, they’re most valuable at the sanitation and water district level, and then the value starts to decline the more you move up.”
In recent days, tensions over the U.S. war in Iran have steadily mounted.
Polls have shown the campaign is widely unpopular. An entire flank of Trump’s MAGA base has criticized it as a clear departure from the “America First” mantra Trump has long espoused. Leaders within the Trump administration have pushed against claims it was about regime change, framing it instead as a necessary response to imminent threats.
Trump, meanwhile, has struck a decidedly defiant tone — offering few of the reassurances or rationalizations that past presidents have offered in the initial stages of war, and sounding more unbothered than embattled.
He has lamented American casualties but also seemed to shrug them off — along with additional deaths he expects to come and potential attacks on the U.S. homeland — as the simple cost of war, saying, “Some people will die.”
He has ignored concerns the war will turn into another unending Middle East quagmire, while openly flirting with taking over Cuba too.
Undermining his administration’s own messaging that the war is not about regime change, Trump wrote in a social media post Friday that there would be “no deal” with Iran without “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER” and new Iranian leadership “ACCEPTABLE” to him.
Sticking a thumb in the eye of his “America First” defectors, he said the U.S. and its allies are going to “work tirelessly” to make Iran “economically bigger, better, and stronger than ever before,” adding, “MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN (MIGA!)”
In the last week, Trump has instigated or been forced to navigate a stunning cascade of political threats. In addition to attacking Iran, he fired his Homeland Security secretary in charge of his signature immigration campaign, faced newly detailed allegations — which he denied — that he sexually assaulted a child alongside Jeffrey Epstein, saw his attorney general subpoenaed by fellow Republicans in Congress, and watched American jobs numbers drop as gas prices spiked.
And yet, Trump has also managed to avoid complex questions about those issues — the most pressing before his administration — and despite Democrats and some of his own supporters lashing out over them.
“I’ve seen a lot of Presidents fall short of their promises but I’ve never seen any President just doing the opposite of everything promised on purpose. Prices, Epstein, wars. Just absolutely racing to betray his voters,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) wrote on X.
“This is Israel’s war, this is not the United States’ war. This war is not being waged on behalf of American national security objectives, to make the United States safer or richer,” said Tucker Carlson, one of Trump’s longtime allies.
Carlson said Trump committed U.S. forces to fighting in Iran for no other reason than because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “demanded it,” even though it “certainly wasn’t a good idea for the United States” and the Trump administration had “no real plan” for replacing the Iranian leadership it has now toppled.
The White House defended Trump’s actions across the board in statements to The Times on Friday.
On Iran, it said Trump “is courageously protecting the United States from the deadly threat posed by the rogue Iranian regime — and that is as America First as it gets.” On departing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi, it said Trump “has assembled the most talented and competent cabinet in history,” and “continues to have faith in his Administration.”
On the economy, they said the Trump administration “is doing its part to unleash robust, private sector-led economic growth with tax cuts and deregulation,” and that Trump “has already initiated robust action” to control oil prices even amid the Iran war. And on the Epstein files, they said the latest claims unveiled “are completely baseless accusations, backed by zero credible evidence.”
Trump has also spoken out in defense of his handling of the various crises facing his administration — but not nearly with the sort of detail and solemnity that wartime presidents usually speak, experts said.
At his only public event on Friday — a nearly two-hour round-table with national leaders and sporting officials about college athletics — he ridiculed members of the media who asked about Iran and Noem.
When pressed as to why he was spending so much time talking about college sports when so much else is going on in the country and the world, Trump briefly talked about Iran — saying “people are very impressed by our military” and that the U.S. is now “more respected than we’ve ever been” — before concluding the event.
Jennifer Mercieca, a political historian and communications professor at Texas A&M and author of “Demagogue for President: The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump,” said she was surprised Trump didn’t make a stronger case for going to war in Iran during his recent State of the Union speech, and that he hasn’t been more aggressive about making the case for war since, including by using traditional language about bolstering American values around the world.
“In comparison to other presidents in a similar situation trying to lead a nation into war, that is surprising to me — and unusual,” she said.
Also unusual is the low public support for the war, Mercieca said, given that, since World War II, there has generally been high public approval for U.S. war efforts at their start.
Mercieca said she wonders if there is a correlation between Trump’s not providing a more vigorous rationale for the war and the low public approval for it — or perhaps between the low approval and the brash descriptions of the war as a merciless campaign of destruction and vengeance from others in the administration, such as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.
She said Hegseth and others have shown a “lack of decorum, a lack of honor or dignity [in] their way of behaving, especially when we’re talking about warfare and human lives.”
Jack Rakove, a Stanford University professor emeritus of history and political science, said Trump’s posture is fitting with his character since he first entered politics and before, as he “can never take responsibility for anything that appears to be a mistake” and is “obsessed with the idea of appearing tough and tough-minded.”
Rakove said he does not believe, as some critics have suggested, that Trump launched the war in Iran specifically to distract from the Epstein files, which as of Thursday included newly released FBI descriptions of several interviews in which a woman accused Trump and Epstein of sexual assault in the 1980s when she was a child. Her accusations have not been verified.
But Rakove said he does wonder to what degree Trump is consciously pushing chaos in order to ensure that no one detrimental issue for him politically captures the public’s attention for too long.
Mercieca said Trump has always been “uniquely good at controlling the public conversation,” but that power has been tested recently by the Epstein files — which have held the public’s attention despite his repeatedly saying that “we should move on from that, that we should stop talking about it, that he’s been exonerated.”
She said Trump’s instinct in the current moment to push ahead aggressively despite waning support for his economic policies, his immigration policies and his war in Iran could be related to his desire to return people’s attention to his agenda, but is also in line with his long-held desire to go down in history — including by making big moves.
“I think he’s very much trying to leave his mark on the White House, I think he’s trying to leave his mark on the nation, I think he’s trying to leave his mark on the world, and I think war is a way that leaders have traditionally done that throughout history,” she said.
As the deadline approaches to file to run for office, veteran Republican Rep. Darrell Issa has decided not to run for reelection in his newly-configured congressional district in San Diego and Riverside counties, according to two GOP strategists familiar with his plans.
An Issa spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment, but the congressman’s decision was confirmed by two veteran Republican strategists who requested not to be named because they were not authorized to speak about Issa’s plans.
Issa, among the wealthiest members of Congress, began telling people earlier this week that he would retire from Congress, those sources said. The Republican congressman is backing San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond to replace him, they said.
Desmond has been running in a neighboring congressional district that straddles Orange and San Diego counties that is currently represented by Rep. Mike Levin (D-San Juan Capistrano). Desmond withdrew from that race and filed to run in Issa’s district on Thursday, according to the San Diego County registrar of voters.
Desmond’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Issa, 72, has represented various San Diego-area districts in Congress for more than 23 years. Issa’s once solidly Republican district had been trending more moderate in recent years. Then, his district was redrawn to favor Democrats in the Proposition 50 redistricting plan voters passed in November to counter President Trump’s efforts to push GOP-led states to redraw their congressional lines to favor Republicans.
Democratic registered voters outnumber Republicans by more than four percentage points in the new district, which spans San Diego and Riverside counties and was reshaped to include liberal communities such as Palm Springs, according to the nonpartisan California Target Book. Issa’s current congressional district had a 12-percentage-point GOP edge in voter registration in 2024.
As soon as the new districts were approved, speculation began swirling about Issa‘s reelection plans. Some of his supporters in Texas urged him to move there to run in a GOP-friendly Dallas-area district, but he said in December that he declined and would instead seek reelection in California.
“I believe that the people of San Diego County, who have elected me so many times, will, in fact, regardless of registration, vote for me,” Issa told the Fox affiliate in San Diego in December. “This is my home, and I’m going to fight for it.”
Several Democrats had already announced plans to challenge Issa.
The high school dropout and Army veteran made his fortune by purchasing a struggling electronics business in 1980 and transforming it into the Viper car alarm system, with Issa’s voice warning potential thieves to “stand back.”
Her gleeful cruelty was matched only by the audacity of her incompetence.
Packaged in cosplay costumes — cowgirl, solider, even firefighter and pilot — we were supposed to see her as strong. But far from the mother of dragons she seems to envision herself as, she came across as the killer of Cricket (poor pup), a childish narcissist in a deadly serious job.
From late-night talk shows to the halls of power, there was more than a bit of celebration, and some actually reasonable schadenfreude. Normally, the misfortune of others isn’t something I pile on, but oh, did that woman earn some scorn.
But while I’m not one to discourage a moment of joy in these troubling days, Noem’s unceremonious firing and what comes next likely won’t provide the relief and reset many are hoping for — or are claiming this is. For all the chaos and pain that federal agents from various departments have caused under Noem’s leadership, there’s every reason to believe Trump has plans to continue and even expand his deportation efforts, and maybe even use these poorly trained, poorly vetted troops to impose his will on the next election.
What we are witnessing, rather than any acknowledgment of policy gone awry, is spotlight envy from a petty president who doesn’t like to share attention, and a backroom concession that maybe optics do matter when you’re attempting to cram white nationalism onto a pluralist country.
It was, according to Fox News and other media, a claim under oath that Trump authorized Noem to spend more than $200 million on commercials promoting herself instead of him that got her canned. Pointing to just how deeply unpopular Noem made herself even within the Trump-verse, this death knell came courtesy of a set-up by a GOP senator, John Kennedy (R-La.), who walked Noem to her own demise with awe-inspiring political skill.
After forcing Noem to claim on the record multiple times that Trump knew about and approved the mega-spend on Noem’s ludicrously over-produced ads (while also raising questions about the contract and who benefited), Kennedy — almost certainly knowing Trump would see it — laid this dig on her with dripping Southern knife-in-the-back charm.
“To me, it puts the president in a terribly awkward spot,” Kennedy drawled, likely implanting grievance directly into the president’s brain. “I’m not saying you’re not telling the truth. It’s just hard for me to believe, knowing the president as I do, that you said, ‘Mr. President, here’s some ads I’ve cut, and I’m going to spend $220 million … running them,’ that he would have agreed to that.”
Soon after, Trump posted on social media that Noem was out. I bring this up because it wasn’t, after all, the substance of Noem’s actions that ultimately got her fired. In that same hearing on Capitol Hill, Democrats blasted Noem for the deaths of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis and her subsequent false portrayal of them as domestic terrorists; the conditions inside our ever-expanding network of detention centers that have led to deaths; and even her mile-high airplane bedroom where she may or may not be conducting an extramarital affair.
None of that seems to have bothered Trump. It was her self-promotion. And it was that same self-promotion, the constant demanding of attention, that likely also ultimately convinced those around Trump to dump her — because it was adding to the deep unpopularity of immigration roundups that have been dragging down Trump’s approval ratings and which therefore could hurt the midterm chances of down-ballot Trumpers.
Last month, a Quinnipiac poll found that 58% of voters wanted Noem removed, and almost 60% of voters disapproved of Trump’s immigration policies.
Noem was the public face of that disapproval, strutting forward with arrogance in the face of public censure, a veritable clown show of ineptitude. With her ouster, and the possible replacement by another Trump stalwart, Oklahoma first-term Sen. Markwayne Mullin, Trump removes the most visible and annoying sign of the unpopularity of his policies.
While pugnacious (he’s a former MMA fighter) and happy to create his own questionable headlines, Mullin is also far more low-key than Noem, and knows who the spotlight belongs to. He is almost certain to put a more palatable face on deportations and detentions (for some anyway) simply by not being so thirsty for press. A low bar, but there you have it.
But Mullin has made it clear that he backs the most extreme immigration policies Trump world can offer, and has little difference of opinion from Stephen Miller, the architect of this bleak moment, who seems to be running things slightly off screen.
The risk now is that Mullin can continue these policies, even expand them, with less scrutiny simply because he’s less offensive than Noem. Detention centers are being built at breakneck speed. In Arizona, ICE has begun charging legal immigrants with a Cold War-era law if they don’t carry their papers with them at all times. The Department of Justice is gutting the ability to appeal deportations, in an effort to hasten them without recourse. Nothing is changing — except the speed and force with which ICE is moving forward.
And Trump has doubled down on claims that illegal immigrants are responsible for massive voter fraud, laying the groundwork for some sort of intervention in the upcoming election. Election deniers have been installed in key positions — Mullin himself is one of them.
So far from a reset, Noem’s removal is a retrenching — an effort to remove our focus from the deeply troubling link between immigration policy and the threat to democracy while actually grinding forward on that dark path.
Because Noem was a train wreck we couldn’t help but watch, at a moment when the government would prefer we stop looking.
We’re in the early weeks of Lent, the 40 days when Christians are called to rededicate themselves to good — and the Trump administration seems to be having a good time making its war with Iran seem like a bunch of tweens playing a game of “Call of Duty.”
Where Jesus called on believers to go through life as meekly as possible, the White House keeps pumping out social media posts mixing footage of American forces blowing up the Iranian regime with everything from SpongeBob SquarePants to Iron Man to “Grand Theft Auto.” While Proverbs warned “every one that is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord,” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth — who loves to flash his bad tattoos that reference the Crusades — gives superlative-drenched speeches on the supposed glories of this war that make him sound more bloodthirsty than Count Dracula.
Even though Christ mandated that people not loudly pray in public “like the hypocrites,” President Trump gladly let a gaggle of pastors lay hands over him in the Oval Office this week as one intoned God “continue to give our President the strength that he needs to lead our nation as we come back to one nation under God.”
Which God: Yahweh or Trump?
During last month’s National Prayer Breakfast, the president bragged that because of him, “religion’s back now hotter than ever before.” Perhaps the most un-Christian man to ever serve as commander in chief has continually wrapped himself in the mantle of Jesus — and too many Christians have ignored the Good Book’s repeated warnings against false prophets and cheered him on.
Flannery O’Connor could have written an entire novel on Christian hucksters just from Year One of the second coming of the Trump administration.
As the Iran war ratchets up with no end in sight, this devotion to Trump is veering into idolatry.
Pastor Greg Laurie — most famous for holding Harvest Crusade revivals in Southern California for the past generation — wrote online that Trump’s Iran campaign “is cause for us to sit up and pay attention” because he feels it lines up with End Times prophecy about the Middle East descending into war just before the Second Coming. The nonprofit Military Religious Freedom Foundation revealed it has received hundreds of complaints from troops about their superiors claiming that what’s going on is biblically ordained.
Meanwhile, South Carolina U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham told reporters that what’s happening “is a religious war” that “will set the course of the Middle East for a thousand years” — the exact time period that the Book of Revelation stated Christ will reign until Satan returns. Some Trump supporters have even compared their savior to Cyrus the Great, the Persian king who freed the Israelites from the yolk of the Babylonians and of whom the Book of Isaiah called God’s “anointed” and would “subdue nations before him and to strip kings of their armor.”
The Bible is not all kumbaya. But from the Old Testament to the New, it consistently preaches for the faithful to humble themselves, to help the poor and downtrodden. Trump’s version of Christianity instead preaches no mercy for those against him, demands followers exalt him above everything, celebrates the gaudy instead of the godly.
This Lent is magnifying his apostasy like never before.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine speak during a press briefing at the Pentagon on Wednesday in Washington.
(Konstantin Toropin / Associated Press)
It’s a time to fast from our excesses; Trump continues to push forth a White House redesign that will make the Palace of Versailles look as flashy as a mud hut. Those of us who partake in Lent are asked to repent of our sins; Trump is doubling down on them like they’re McDonald’s fries. We are supposed to reflect on our wrongdoings and ask for forgiveness from the Almighty and those we wronged — has Trump ever done that?
We’re also supposed to practice almsgiving and assist those less fortunate than ourselves as a way of honoring Christ, who pointed out that giving so it costs you is the only way to give. Trump has always brayed that he’s ultimately looking out for the common man — but instead of helping the millions of people whom his economy was already leaving behind before the Iran campaign, he’s shrugging off their woes and asking Americans to buckle up and weather price spikes and simply believe in him.
Or is that Him?
Conservative Christian leaders have continually landed on the wrong side of American history, from slavery to imperialism, Jim Crow to women’s rights. That’s why it’s not surprising — but still disappointing — that a Pew Research Center poll released earlier this year found 69% of white evangelicals think Trump has done a good job. Fifty-two percent of white Catholics feel the same, compared with just 23% of Latino Catholics, even though Pope Leo XIV has consistently decried American foreign and domestic policy.
Lent also is the time that Christians remember that the pain of Christ’s death leads to the hope that is Easter. That’s why for this Lent, may Christians repent of Trump like never before.
War has always been a time for propaganda, of demonizing the enemy and pumping up your side. It is a sad, tragic affair, with death and carnage and endless mourning. Children die. War is not a thing to be celebrated, even if it were necessary. And there’s a big if around this latest one, even if Ayatollah Ali Khamenei deserved his downfall and Iranians in their country and abroad rightfully celebrate.
But history’s greatest warriors know — to quote the conclusion of the Oscar-winning biopic “Patton” — that glory is fleeting. Trump, Hegseth and their ilk are not them. They are the men that Psalms asked God to deliver us from, the warmongers who “imagine mischiefs in their heart” and “continually” seek violence. To see how this administration and its supporters are preening right now reminds me of what Johnny Cash once sung: sooner or later, God‘s gonna cut you down.
Let’s just hope the rest of us are spared when that happens. If you pray, please do. (And not to Trump).
WASHINGTON — President Trump said Friday that the United States would accept nothing short of Iran’s “unconditional surrender,” signaling that the possibility of regime change may be emerging as an objective as the expanding war in the Middle East entered its seventh day.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said negotiations with Iran were off the table and that he wants to have a say on who will be Iran’s next leader once they capitulate.
“After that, and the selection of a GREAT & ACCEPTABLE Leader(s), we, and many of our wonderful and very brave allies and partners, will work tirelessly to bring Iran back from the brink of destruction, making it economically bigger, better, and stronger than ever before,” Trump wrote.
The comments mark one of the clearest indications yet that Trump is contemplating regime change inside Iran even as administration officials have said that is not a goal of the war.
Mojtaba Khamenei — the son of the former leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — has emerged as a leading candidate to succeed his father. But Trump has said he would be an “unacceptable” choice, and in an interview with Politico, the president said he expects his administration will “work with them to help them make the proper choice.”
The comments come as the war continued to escalate across the region, with Israeli forces carrying out attacks on targets in Tehran and in Beirut and Iranian forces launching missile and drone attacks against Israel and Gulf countries. The Israeli military also said it hit an area in Tehran where it said Iran had secretly moved some nuclear activities to underground bunkers.
As the fighting intensified, the White House paired its policy statement on the war with an unusual online messaging campaign that featured Hollywood movies and video games to promote Trump’s war efforts.
In a 31-second video posted on the official White House account on X, a series of clips featured Russell Crowe in “Gladiator,” Mel Gibson in “Braveheart” and Tom Cruise in “Top Gun” with the caption: “JUSTICE AMERICAN WAY” with an American flag and fire emojis.
Another video montage to market the administration’s efforts in Iran used clips from the video game “Grand Theft Auto” with one of its characters saying: “Oh s—, here we go again.”
The tone of the social media campaign highlights the administration’s effort to frame the conflict in dramatic and patriotic terms as questions grow about its potential human toll.
In an interview with Time, Trump once again acknowledged the possibility of U.S. casualties — not just abroad but at home.
Asked whether Americans should be worried about retaliatory attacks at home, Trump said “I guess.”
“You know, we expect some things,”Trump said. “Like I said, some people will die. When you go to war, some people will die.”
Trump’s response drew swift criticism from congressional Democrats, a majority of whom have tried to rein in Trump’s efforts through legislative action to no avail in the Republican-controlled Congress.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was offended by the president’s “I guess” retort to the question of domestic attacks.
“You’ve got to be kidding me. We have totally unserious, completely incompetent people taking us into mindless deadly war,” Murphy said.
MADISON, Wis. — A Wisconsin man who allegedly told police he tried to set fire to a Republican congressman’s office last year because he was angry that the lawmaker backed a bill requiring TikTok’s Chinese owner to sell off its U.S. operations was sentenced Thursday to seven years in prison.
In addition to the prison time, Fond du Lac County Circuit Judge Tricia Walker sentenced 20-year-old Caiden Stachowicz to seven years of extended supervision, court records show.
Stachowicz, of Menasha, pleaded no contest to an arson charge in November. Prosecutors dropped burglary and property damage counts in exchange for Stachowicz’s no contest plea, which isn’t an admission of guilt but is treated as such for the purposes of sentencing.
According to a criminal complaint, a police officer responded to a fire outside Republican U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman’s office in Fond du Lac, about 55 miles northwest of Milwaukee, at around 1 a.m. on Jan. 19, 2025, and saw Stachowicz standing nearby.
He told the officer that he started the fire because he doesn’t like Grothman, according to the complaint. He initially planned to break into the office and start the fire inside. But he couldn’t break the window, so he poured gas on an electrical box behind the building and around the front of the building, lit a match and watched it burn, according to the complaint.
He said he wanted to burn down the office because the federal government was shutting down TikTok in violation of his constitutional rights and peace was no longer an option, the complaint states. He added that Grothman voted for the shutdown, but he didn’t want to hurt Grothman or anyone else.
Grothman voted for a bill in April 2024 that required TikTok’s China-based company, ByteDance, to sell its U.S. operation. The deadline was Jan. 19, 2025, but President Trump has issued multiple executive orders prolonging it. TikTok finalized a deal two months ago to create an American version of the social video platform. Trump praised the deal.
Danielle Gorsuch, one of Stachowicz’s attorneys, told the Associated Press after the sentencing that the incident was the culmination of a mental health crisis for her client and stressed that no one was hurt.
“Caden took every caution to make sure no one was present in the building at the time of the incident, as he only wanted to hurt himself,” Gorsuch said. “He took responsibility from night one.”
A spokesperson for Grothman’s congressional office didn’t immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department on Thursday released additional Jeffrey Epstein files involving uncorroborated accusations made by a woman against President Trump that the department said had been mistakenly withheld during an earlier review.
The department said last week that it was working to determine if any records were improperly withheld after several news organizations reported that the massive tranche of records that had been made public didn’t include some files documenting a series of interviews conducted in 2019 with a woman who made an allegation against Trump.
The accuser was interviewed by the FBI four times as it sought to assess her account but a summary of only one of those interviews had been included in the publicly released files.
On Thursday, the department said those files had been “incorrectly coded as duplicative,” and therefore were inadvertently not published along with other investigative documents related to the disgraced financier, who killed himself while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges in 2019.
“As we have consistently done, if any member of the public reported concerns with information in the library, the Department would review, make any corrections, and republish online,” the department said in a post on X.
Trump has consistently denied any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein. The department noted in January that some of the documents contain “untrue and sensationalist claims against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election.”
The new disclosures come as Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi faces continued turmoil over the department’s handling of the files released under a law passed by Congress after months of public and political pressure. Five Republicans on the House Oversight Committee joined Democrats in voting Wednesday to subpoena Bondi, demanding that she answer questions under oath in a sign of mounting frustration among members of the president’s own party.
The Trump administration has faced constant political headaches since the rollout of the files began in December, with critics accusing the department of hiding certain documents or over-redacting files, or in some cases, not redacting enough. In some cases, the department inadvertently released nude photos showing the faces of potential victims as well as names, email addresses and other identifying information that was either unredacted or not fully obscured.
Department officials have defended their handling of the files, saying they took pains to release the files as quickly as possible under the law while also protecting victims. Department officials have said errors were inevitable given the volume of the materials, the number of lawyers viewing the files and the speed at which the department had to release them. The department has said it’s entitled to withhold records that exposed potential abuse victims, were duplicates or protected by legal privileges, or related to an ongoing criminal investigation.
Some of the new records published Thursday pertained to a woman who contacted the FBI shortly after Epstein’s 2019 arrest and claimed that a man named “Jeff” living in Hilton Head, South Carolina, had raped her there in the 1980s when she was around 13 years old. The woman told the agents she didn’t know the man’s identity at the time, but decades later concluded he was Jeffrey Epstein when a friend texted her his photo from a news story.
In a follow-up interview a month later, the woman added a host of other claims, including that Epstein had schemed to have her mother sent to prison, beaten her, arranged sexual encounters with other men and once flew her to either New Jersey or New York, where she claimed to have bitten Trump after he tried to sexually assault her.
Agents spoke with the woman two more times, at one point asking her to provide more detail on her supposed interactions with Trump, but reported that she declined to answer additional questions and broke off contact. There’s no indication that Epstein ever lived in South Carolina and it was unclear whether Trump and Epstein knew each other during the time period involved.
The woman’s report was one of a number of uncorroborated, sometimes fantastical, reports that federal agents received from members of the public alleging misconduct by Trump and other famous people in the months and years after Epstein’s arrest.
WASHINGTON — Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas said late Thursday he was withdrawing from his reelection race, after having admitted an affair with a former staff member who later died by suicide, but he vowed to finish out his term in Congress.
He had faced calls from GOP leadership to end his reelection bid, and from others in Congress to resign.
“After deep reflection and with the support of my loving family, I have decided not to seek re-election,” Gonzales said in a statement posted late Thursday to X.
The move is the latest in a quickly changing situation that stunned Capitol Hill and resulted in a House Ethics Committee investigation into his conduct. Gonzales’ decision to bow out of the race appears to clear the field. On Tuesday, he had been forced into a May runoff against Brandon Herrera, a gun manufacturer and YouTube gun-rights influencer who narrowly lost to him in the 2024 primary.
House Speaker Mike Johnson and the GOP leadership earlier Thursday had called on Gonzales to withdraw from reelection after Gonzales, a day earlier, acknowledged a relationship that has upturned the political world in his home state and in Washington.
“We have encouraged him to address these very serious allegations directly with his constituents and his colleagues,” said Johnson, Majority Leader Steve Scalise, Whip Tom Emmer, and GOP Conference Chairwoman Lisa McClain in a statement.
“In the meantime, Leadership has asked Congressman Gonzales to withdraw from his race for reelection.”
Johnson, R-La., has been under enormous pressure from his own GOP lawmakers to take action, and several Republicans have already called for Gonzales to step aside. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., has introduced two resolutions to punish Gonzales. The first seeks to remove him from his assignments on the House Appropriations and Homeland Security committees, while the second seeks to censure him.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, meanwhile, said he would support expelling Gonzales from the House, a rare step that requires a two-thirds vote from the chamber.
GOP leaders notably did not call for Gonzales to resign from office as they struggle to maintain their slim majority in the House, which they hold by only a handful of seats.
Their move came after Gonzales, appearing on the “Joe Pags Show,” was asked whether he had a relationship with the aide, Regina Ann Santos-Aviles.
Santos-Aviles, 35, died after setting herself on fire in the backyard of her home in Uvalde, Texas. The Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office later ruled her death a suicide.
“I made a mistake and I had a lapse in judgment, and there was a lack of faith, and I take full responsibility for those actions,” Gonzales said.
The congressman, now in his third term, had said he would not step down in response to the allegations, telling reporters recently that there will be opportunities for all the details and facts to come out.
Gonzales, a father of six, first won his seat in 2020 after retiring from a 20-year career in the Navy that included time in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In the interview broadcast Wednesday, Gonzales said he had not spoken to Santos-Aviles since June 2024. She died in September 2025.
“I had absolutely nothing to do with her tragic passing, and in fact, I was shocked just as much as everyone else,” Gonzales said.
Gonzales went on to say he had reconciled with his wife, Angel, and has asked God to forgive him. He also said he looked forward to the Ethics Committee investigation.
Johnson and GOP leadership urged that committee to “act expeditiously.”
Under House ethics rules, lawmakers may not engage in a sexual relationship with any employee of the House under their supervision.
Mascaro and Freking write for the Associated Press.
WASHINGTON — The Republican-led Senate voted Tuesday to kill new rules that established the first federal standard for ergonomics in the workplace, and President Bush signaled he would support the regulatory rollback.
The unusually rapid Senate action, following a brief and fiery partisan debate, elated business and enraged labor. The vote to nullify the rules was 56-44. The Republican-led House could follow suit as early as today.
The rules in question, issued in the final weeks of the Clinton administration, are meant to require employers to adopt the principle of ergonomics–namely, fitting work conditions to the physical capacity of workers.
Nearly 2 million workers each year suffer from work-related conditions known as musculoskeletal disorders, caused by repetitive, awkward or stressful motions, according to estimates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that some experts call conservative. Examples are carpal tunnel syndrome, tendinitis and herniated spinal discs–but not injuries caused by slips, trips or accidents.
While most Democrats have championed the federal ergonomics rules, the idea of federal intervention was first raised in 1990 by a Republican labor secretary, Elizabeth Hanford Dole, who served under the current president’s father.
But the new Bush administration has embraced the arguments of business interests, which view the final rules produced by Clinton’s Labor Department as unworkable and unreliable.
“These regulations would cost employers, large and small, billions of dollars annually while providing uncertain benefits,” the White House said.
“If implemented, they would require employers to establish burdensome and costly new systems intended to track, prevent and provide compensation for an extremely broad class of injuries whose cause is subject to considerable dispute.”
The administration statement confirmed what congressional Republicans have said privately for several days–that Bush would support a congressional resolution to nullify the new rules.
Tuesday’s developments gave fresh evidence of the effect of the realignment of power in Washington, with Republicans controlling Congress and the White House for the first time since the 1950s.
Former President Clinton, a Democrat, repeatedly fended off attempts by the Republican-led Congress to stop action on ergonomics.
Now, participants on both sides acknowledge that the fate of the rules, along with the resolution of many other business-labor disputes, may have been sealed when Bush was declared the victor last year over Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore.
Sen. Don Nickles (R-Okla.), the assistant majority leader, mocked the rules as “the most expensive, intrusive regulations ever promulgated, certainly by the Department of Labor and maybe by any department in history.”
Nickles said the rules would allow “federal bureaucrats” to tell moving companies, grocers or bottlers, for example, how many workers they would need to unload goods. “There is no way in the world that a lot of companies could comply with this rule,” he said.
But Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) ripped Republicans for rushing the nullification through Congress using special parliamentary tactics that allowed little debate.
“It’s a major weakening in terms of the protections for American workers,” Kennedy said. “If we are not going to protect them now, there is no one that is going to protect them. . . . We know the people that are going to be constantly hurt–working families hurt, day in, day out.”
Six of 50 Democrats, mainly Southerners, broke party ranks to vote with all 50 Republicans for the resolution repealing the rule. They were Sens. Zell Miller of Georgia, Blanche Lambert Lincoln of Arkansas, Ernest F. Hollings of South Carolina, Max Baucus of Montana and John B. Breaux and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, irate at the six, said: “The votes of Democratic senators who gave cover to this assault on worker safety are especially dishonorable.”
Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer of California opposed the repeal.
Labor and business lobbyists worked the issue in full force.
Union officials, campaigning with the slogan “Stop the Pain: Start the Healing,” made a frantic, final push to save what they consider one of the most important accomplishments of the Clinton years. The AFL-CIO, noting that women suffer repetitive-motion injuries disproportionately, held news conferences that featured women who had suffered crippling disorders in a poultry plant, a public school and an Internet company.
Business groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Assn. of Manufacturers countered that the rules would overwhelm employers, forcing them to comply with vaguely worded standards at untold billions of dollars in expense. Employers circulated on Capitol Hill on Tuesday to tell senators and reporters how the rules would hurt them; one Virginia restaurant owner with 300 employees said it would cost him at least $53,000 a year.
The rules, issued by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration on Nov. 14, took effect on Jan. 16, four days before Clinton left office. With exceptions for maritime, agricultural, construction and railroad industries and some other employers, most businesses in America–including those in California covered by the state’s own, less-detailed ergonomics standard–are required to comply by Oct. 16.
As a first step, employers are required to tell employees about the risks and symptoms of common musculoskeletal disorders and set up a system to receive reports of such injuries. The government has estimated that the ailments force at least 600,000 workers each year to take time off.
When employers receive verified reports of work-related musculoskeletal disorders, the rules require further steps. Some problems, according to the rules, can be solved by “quick fixes”–presumably inexpensive–such as adjusting the height of a desk or work platform.
But other problems might require more extensive response–an ergonomics safety program including, according to the rules, “management leadership,” “employee participation,” “job hazard analysis” and “hazard reduction and control measures.”
Critics were irate over a provision that would allow employees to claim that a preexisting condition is work-related if the condition is “significantly aggravated” by the workplace.
Businesses also complained about a provision that would require employers to offer light-duty work to employees with covered disorders for at least three months with full pay and benefits, or, failing that, three months off with at least 90% of their regular pay.
The Clinton administration estimated that the regulations would cost employers $4.5 billion a year to implement but would save them billions of dollars more on workers’ compensation. Business groups scoffed at those figures and said the cost could be as much as $100 billion annually.
Normally, Democrats in the evenly divided Senate are able to threaten a filibuster to block legislation they oppose. It takes 60 votes to end such a maneuver.
But Republicans, in their action Tuesday, relied on a little-known 1996 law that enables Congress to repeal major new regulations with the approval of the president. Under its terms, debate was limited to 10 hours and Democrats were unable to filibuster.
The 1996 law, known as the Congressional Review Act, has until now never been successfully invoked. One effort to nullify a health regulation failed in the Senate in September of that year.
If, as expected, Republicans prevail on ergonomics, their use of the review act may have broader implications. For one, Democrats said Republicans could be emboldened to use the act to wipe out other rules that businesses oppose. “It can be brought to bear on agriculture regulations, on energy regulations,” said Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.). “This is not just an isolated instance.”
Democrats also charge that the language of the act would prevent future efforts to make meaningful ergonomics rules unless Congress gives permission.
But Republicans said that was not so.
Labor Secretary Elaine Chao said in a letter Tuesday to Sen. James M. Jeffords (R-Vt.) that she would continue to pursue “a comprehensive approach to ergonomics” even if the current rule is killed. Chao said she remained open to crafting a new rule that would “provide employers with achievable measures that protect their employees before injuries occur.”
WASHINGTON — Sens. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) called for the Department of Homeland Security to return a California woman with DACA who was recently deported a day after her green card interview.
DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, is the Obama-era program that since 2012 has shielded certain immigrants brought to the U.S. as children from deportation and allowed them to work legally.
Maria de Jesus Estrada Juarez lived in California for 27 years before being detained at her green card interview last month and deported within 24 hours, despite having active DACA protection and no criminal history. Her story was first reported by the Sacramento Bee.
On a call from Mexico on Thursday with reporters, Estrada Juarez, 42, said DACA was supposed to protect people like her who work hard and follow the rules.
“I did everything I could to build a stable life and give my daughter the opportunities that I never had,” she said. “But about two weeks ago, everything changed. I was wrongfully deported. In a single moment, nearly 30 years of my life were taken away from me — my home, my work, my community.”
Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment about Estrada’s case.
The detention and deportation of DACA recipients is in stark contrast to previous administrations, including the first Trump administration, and years of bipartisan support for immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. For admission into the program, they must pass background checks and meet certain educational or work requirements.
Trump has given mixed signals on DACA recipients, known as “Dreamers.” In his first term, he tried unsuccessfully to shut down the program. In December 2024 on “Meet the Press” he said that “I want to be able to work something out” on their behalf, but offered no specifics and the administration has done nothing to offer them extra protection.
The program’s fate has since remained embroiled in litigation.
Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-Texas) said Homeland Security provided conflicting data to members of Congress about how many DACA recipients have been detained and deported since Trump returned to the White House.
In a Jan. 12 letter to Garcia, then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said that between Jan. 1 and Sept. 28 of 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement had arrested 270 DACA recipients. The letter did not say how many of those 270 were deported.
Of those, 130 had criminal convictions, 120 had pending criminal charges and 14 were in violation of immigration law, she wrote. That adds up to 264, not 270.
“Please note DACA is a form of prosecutorial discretion that does not confer lawful status,” wrote Noem, who was fired Thursday.
But in a letter to Durbin and other senators last month, Noem provided smaller numbers, though she addressed a longer time period, Jan. 1 to Nov. 19, 2025. She said the agency had arrested 261 DACA recipients and deported 86.
She said that of those arrested, 241 had criminal histories, though she did not specify if that meant convictions or pending charges.
On Wednesday, Garcia wrote back to Noem, saying, “The discrepancies between your two responses demonstrate gross incompetency or intentional misdirection.”
The conflicting data from Noem came after 95 members of Congress in September demanded answers about the targeting of DACA recipients. They wrote that letter after Tricia McLaughlin, the former Homeland Security public affairs secretary, said DACA recipients “are not automatically protected from deportation.”
The lawmakers cited the case of a deaf and non-verbal DACA recipient with no criminal history who was detained last year amid the immigration raids in Los Angeles. He was later released.
As of June 2025, there were more than 515,000 DACA recipients in the U.S., a decrease since the program’s peak of nearly 800,000. With 144,000, California has the most of any state, according to federal data.
Estrada Juarez did not take questions during the call Thurday with reporters, but Ivonne Rodriguez, press director for immigration reform at the advocacy group FWD.us, explained to The Times what happened.
Around 11 a.m. on Feb. 18, Estrada Juarez arrived with her daughter Damaris Bello, a 22-year-old U.S. citizen, at the John E. Moss Federal Building in Sacramento for an interview as part of the process to obtain legal permanent residency, or a green card.
At the courthouse, immigration agents took Estrada Juarez’s fingerprints and asked her to apply a fingerprint to a form saying she had agreed to be deported, Rodriguez said. She refused.
An officer told Estrada Juarez “If you don’t sign, I will make you sign.” The officer grabbed her hand and forced her to sign using her fingerprint, Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez said federal agents cited a deportation order from 1998 during Estrada Juarez’s detention last month at the courthouse. But being a DACA recipient should mean that such orders are not acted upon while the protected status is active, so long as the person stays out of criminal trouble.
“She kept stating she had active DACA throughout the entire time and they did not care,” Rodriguez said.
By 8 a.m. the next morning, Estrada Juarez had been dropped off by bus in Tijuana, Rodriguez said.
Estrada Juarez is among many immigrants arrested for deportation at courthouses since last year, a practice that breaks from longstanding former procedure.
During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday on oversight of Homeland Security, Durbin asked Noem about Estrada Juarez and the other deported DACA recipients.
“Madam secretary, why have you deported dozens of DACA holders who had to comply with a criminal background check to be eligible for DACA?” Durbin asked.
“Sir, we follow all laws as applicable to the Department of Homeland Security,” Noem replied before Durbin cut her off.
“Why did you deport them?” he repeated.
Noem said she wasn’t familiar with the details of Estrada Juarez’s case but would look into it.
On the call Thursday with Estrada Juarez, Sen. Padilla (D-Calif.) said he met her daughter this week. He and other Democrats called for Congress to pass legislation that would permanently protect DACA recipients from deportation.
“DACA recipients did everything right and followed all the instructions laid out in the program,” he said. “They took the United States government at its word, and they’ve kept their end of the deal. But now we know that Donald Trump and Kristi Noem are breaking the government’s promise.”
Estrada Juarez said justice in her case would mean being allowed to return to the U.S.
“I’m not asking for a special treatment,” she said. “I’m asking for what is right. My deportation was wrong, and my family should not have to be torn apart. I just want to change to go home and hold my daughter again.”
If Democrats expect to flip a U.S. Senate seat in Texas, they’ll need all the stars to align. This almost never happens, because politics has a way of scrambling the constellations. But on Tuesday, the first star blinked on.
I’m referring to state Rep. James Talarico’s victory over Rep. Jasmine Crockett in the Democratic primary. Most political prognosticators agree that Talarico, an eloquent young Democrat who speaks openly about his Christian faith, is their best hope in a red state that Donald Trump won by 14 points.
The second star was Crockett’s conciliatory concession — far from a foregone conclusion after a nasty primary — in which she pledged to “do my part,” adding that “Texas is primed to turn blue, and we must remain united because this is bigger than any one person.”
The third star — a vulnerable Republican opponent — has not yet appeared over the Texas sky, although forecasters say it might.
Most observers agree that scandal-plagued Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton would be beatable in the general election, while incumbent Sen. John Cornyn would present a much tougher challenge. Cornyn is the kind of steady, conventional politician who tends to win elections, and so, of course, modern voters are extremely suspicious of him.
In the GOP primary on Tuesday, Cornyn’s 42% share of the vote edged out Paxton by about a point. Unfortunately for Republicans, neither candidate garnered enough votes to avoid a May 26 runoff election.
Conventional wisdom suggests that when a majority of Republican voters choose someone other than the incumbent in the first round of voting, an even greater majority will inevitably break toward the challenger in the runoff. If that happens, Paxton would become the nominee, and Democrats would get their third star to align.
Even better for Democrats — a fourth star, so to speak — would be for this protracted runoff to become a “knife fight,” as one Texas Republican predicted, in which Paxton staggers out of the fight as the battered GOP nominee.
The only problem is that Republicans can see these stars aligning, too.
And while the Texas Senate seat matters a lot on its own, it matters even more in the context of nationwide midterm elections, in which a Texas win would help Democrats take back the Senate.
Enter the cavalry — or, more accurately, President Trump, who is now entering a second war in the span of a week, this one a civil war in the Lone Star State.
The day after the primary, Trump announced that he would be “making my Endorsement soon, and will be asking the candidate that I don’t Endorse to immediately DROP OUT OF THE RACE!”
Reports suggest Trump may endorse Cornyn in order to save the seat for Republicans. But who knows? Trump is famously unpredictable. And it’s likely he admires Paxton’s ability to survive scandals that would have caused most normal politicians to curl up in the fetal position. As they say, “game recognizes game.”
Whomever he backs, conventional wisdom also says Trump should make his endorsement “soon,” as he promised. That would save Republicans a lot of time and money. But Trump currently has enormous leverage. Right now, people are coming to him, pleading for his support.
Do you think he wants to resolve that situation quickly?
Me neither.
With Trump, you never know what you’re going to get. In 2021, he helped torpedo Republican Senate candidates David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler in Georgia, handing Democrats control of the Senate. The following year he backed football legend Herschel Walker in another Georgia Senate race, which did not exactly work out great. Democrat Raphael Warnock won and holds that seat, though Walker is now ambassador to the Bahamas so that’s something.
This is to say: Trump’s political assistance does not always assist.
It’s unclear whether Trump’s endorsement would be dispositive — and whether he could muscle the other Republican out of the primary race.
Paxton, for example, initially vowed to stay in the race, no matter what. (He later suggested he would “consider” dropping out if the Senate passes the SAVE America Act, a bill to require proof of citizenship to vote.)
There’s also this: Trump’s endorsements tend to either be made out of vengeance or to pad the totals of an already inevitable winner, so his track record is probably overrated.
Case in point: While most of his endorsed candidates won their Texas elections, his endorsed candidate for agriculture commissioner lost reelection. And according to the Texas Tribune, “at least three Trump-endorsed candidates for Congress were headed to runoffs, one of them in a distant second place.”
Another issue is that Cornyn needs more than a perfunctory endorsement: He needs a clear, full-throated endorsement.
In a 2022 Missouri Senate race, Trump endorsed “ERIC,” which was awkward because two candidates named Eric were running.
More recently, he endorsed two rival candidates in the same 2026 Arizona gubernatorial race — like betting on both teams in the Super Bowl.
This is all to say that the only thing standing between Texas Democrats and a rare celestial alignment may be the whims of the Republican Party’s one and only star.
Sure, establishment Republicans can beg Trump to quickly step in and settle the race, and maybe he will. But it’s entirely possible the president will find a way to blow up his party’s chances for holding the U.S. Senate — and there’s nothing they can do to stop him.
