WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the U.S. military carried out three strikes Monday in the waters of the Eastern Pacific against boats suspected of carrying drugs, killing 14 and leaving one survivor.
The announcement made on social media Tuesday, marks a continued escalation in the pace of the strikes, which began in early September spaced weeks apart. This was the first time multiple strikes were announced in a single day.
Hegseth said Mexican search and rescue authorities “assumed responsibility for coordinating the rescue” of the sole survivor but didn’t say if that person would stay in their custody or be handed over to the U.S.
In a strike earlier in October which had two survivors, the U.S. military rescued the pair and later repatriated them to Colombia and Ecuador.
Hegseth posted footage of the strikes to social media in which two boats can be seen moving at speed through the water. One is visibly laden with a large amount of parcels or bundles. Both then suddenly explode and are seen aflame.
The third strike appears to have been conducted on a pair of boats that were stationary in the water alongside each other. They appear to be largely empty with at least two people seen moving before an explosion engulfs both boats.
Hegseth said “the four vessels were known by our intelligence apparatus, transiting along known narco-trafficking routes, and carrying narcotics.”
The death toll from the 13 disclosed strikes since early September is now at least 57 people.
Businesses have abandoned its once-thriving downtown. Its retail and office vacancy rates are among the highest in Los Angeles County. The crowds that previously packed the area surrounding the city’s famous pier have dwindled.
Homelessness has risen. City officials acknowledge crime incidents had become more visible and volatile.
The breadth and depth of the issues became apparent just last month when the city was forced to declare itself in fiscal distress after paying $229 million in settlements related to alleged sexual abuse by Eric Uller, a former city dispatcher.
Now, Santa Monica is trying to plot a new path forward. A significant first step could come Tuesday.
That’s when the City Council is set to consider a plan to reverse its fortunes.
A shuttered business on Broadway in Santa Monica.
(David Butow/For The Times)
The plan includes significantly increasing police patrols and enforcing misdemeanor ordinances, investing in infrastructure and new community events, and taking a more business-friendly brush to permits and fees. Officials also plan to be more aggressive in making sure property owners maintain unused properties.
The blueprint tackles many “quality of life” issues that critics say have contributed to lower foot traffic in the city’s tourist districts since the COVID-19 pandemic.
It’s far from clear the tactics will work. But given the city’s current trajectory, officials say bold action is necessary.
“We’re trying to usher in a rebirth — a renaissance of the city — by investing in ourselves,” Councilmember Dan Hall said.
Hall, 38, is part of a relatively youthful City Council majority that swept into office in recent years as voters opted for new leadership and a fresh approach. Five of the seven council members are millennials, and six members first joined the council in either 2022 or 2024.
Also new on the scene is City Manager Oliver Chi, who five months ago was hired away from the same position in Irvine.
“The city is in a period of distress, for sure,” said Chi, 45. “We’re not in a moment where the city is broke. The city still has resources. … But right now, if we do nothing, the city’s general fund operating budget is projected to run a structural deficit of nearly $30 million a year, and that’s because we’ve seen big drops” in revenues, such as from hotel taxes, sales tax and parking.
“But part of that is the private sector hasn’t been investing in the city. And we haven’t had people traveling to the city,” Chi said.
Santa Monica is far from the only city — in California or nationwide — to face the pain of a downtown in decline. Brick-and-mortar retailers have long bled business to online offerings, and the pandemic upended the cadence of daily life that was the lifeblood of commercial districts, with many people continuing to work from home at least part of the week.
Birds fly over and people walk on the Santa Monica Pier.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
But the hope is through concerted, planned investment that Santa Monica can shine once again and modernize to be competitive in the postpandemic era.
The City Council had already decided to set aside $60 million from its cash reserves to spend over the next four or five years to cover any operating deficits. But with Tuesday’s vote, Santa Monica would instead use those dollars as an investment in hopes of getting the city back on track.
“Those things really are issues related to public safety, disorder in town, the disrepair that we’ve seen in our infrastructure,” Chi said. “All of those things are preventing, I think, confidence in the local economy.”
In downtown, the city’s plan would include doubling the number of police officers assigned to a specialized unit to at least eight to 10 a day, deploying an additional five patrol officers daily, creating a new police substation, adding two workers daily to address homelessness issues, and hiring eight public safety employees to provide a more constant presence across the city’s main commercial district, parks and parking garages.
Staff in the city attorney’s office would also be augmented to boost the ability to prosecute misdemeanor cases.
An unhoused man naps on a bench in Palisades Park.
(David Butow / For The Times)
Also on the agenda: moving the city’s homeless shelter out of downtown; making a one-time $3.5-million investment to address fraying sidewalks and streets and freshen up trees and trash cans; funding monthly events at the Third Street Promenade to attract crowds; creating a large-scale “Santa Monica Music Festival” next year; upgrading restrooms near the pier and Muscle Beach; and increasing operating days for libraries.
Another proposal would require the owners of vacant properties to register with the city, in hopes of addressing lots that remain in disrepair.
The city is also looking to be more business friendly. It’s seeking to upgrade the current permit process, utilizing artificial intelligence to get nearly instantaneous permit reviews for single-family homes and accessory dwelling units, as well as reduce permit fees for restaurants with outdoor dining.
The plan also outlines strategies to boost revenue. Santa Monica is poised to end its contract with a private ambulance operator, McCormick Ambulance, in February and move those operations in house.
“It’s going to cost roughly $2.8 million a year to stand that operation up. But the reality is, once we start running it, it’ll generate about $7 million a year in new ongoing revenues,” Chi said.
“That’s part of what we’re thinking through: How do we invest now in order to grow our revenue base moving ahead?” he said.
Parking rates are also going up, which city officials estimate should generate $8 million to $9 million in additional annual revenue — though officials say they still charge a lower rate than those of nearby cities.
The city also plans more traffic safety enforcement and will cut the current 90 minutes of free parking in downtown parking structures to 30 minutes.
There’s also been talk of a new city parcel tax, though no decision has yet been made to pursue that. A parcel tax would need voter approval.
Another priority is building back the city’s cash reserves, which have dwindled over the years, largely on account of legal payments. Eight years ago, Santa Monica had $436 million in cash reserves; today, there’s only $158 million in nonrestricted reserves.
The planned $60 million in spending would further reduce the city’s unobligated cash down to $98 million.
Santa Monica’s annual general fund operating budget is nearly $800 million a year.
Beachgoers enjoying the scene near the Santa Monica Pier.
(David Butow/For The Times)
The city is also looking to redevelop some of its underutilized properties, including a 2.57-acre parcel bounded by Arizona Avenue and 4th and 5th streets, which includes branches of Bank of America and Chase bank, the leases of which are expected to expire in a few years. Also being eyed are a 1.09-acre kiss-and-ride lot southeast of the Santa Monica light rail station; the city’s seismically vulnerable Parking Structure 1 on 4th Street, which sits on 0.75 of an acre; and the old Fire Station No. 1, which sits on 0.34 of an acre and is being used for storage.
No firm plans are in place just yet. The parcels could be sold, leased long term or redeveloped as part of a joint venture. One likely possibility is that the developments would include new housing.
“When you look at any revitalization effort of any vibrant downtown core that’s eroded, there’s always been an element of repopulating the area with people,” Chi said. A smart redevelopment plan for those properties will not only “hopefully help bring back vibrancy to the downtown, but also help replenish the city’s cash reserves.”
The seeds of downtown Santa Monica’s decline actually started before the pandemic. But COVID hit the city hard, and commercial vacancies rose significantly, Councilmember Caroline Torosis, 39, said.
Santa Monica also sustained damage in 2020 from rioters who swarmed the downtown area in what appeared to be an organized attack amid a protest meant to decry the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Tourists never came back in the numbers they had before the pandemic.
Torosis said the new council majority was elected on a promise to boost economic activity in the city.
“We need to absolutely ensure that people feel safe, welcome, invited and included in our city,” said Torosis, who serves as mayor pro tem.
Hall called the plan a bold bet.
“What we’re trying to do here is move us away from a scarcity mind-set, where we’re nickel-and-diming businesses trying to stay open, restaurants trying to open a parklet, residents trying to build an ADU,” Hall said.
The council’s relative youth, he said, is a plus for a city trying to write a bright new chapter.
“I think that that’s something that millennials are finding themselves needing to do as we take ownership of society, and we see a world where past generations have been afraid to make mistakes or afraid to make decisions,” he said.
Today we’re taking a tour through the mythical Land of Election Fraud, where President Trump has built a palace of lies, imprisoning both truth and democracy.
I put it in fairy tale terms because the idea that American elections are corrupt should hold about as much credence as a magical beanstalk growing into the sky. Countless lawsuits and investigations have found no proof of these false claims.
But here we are — not only do many Americans erroneously believe that Trump won the 2020 election, but the chief water-carriers of that lie are now in powerful government positions.
Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that it will send monitors to Los Angeles and other locations in California and New Jersey for next week’s balloting. Those who study voting and democracies warn that this could be a test run for how far Trump could go in attempting to impose his will on the 2026 midterms and perhaps the 2028 presidential election.
If you think that it is harmless coincidence that he’s stacked election deniers in key posts, or that once again California is the center of his attack on democratic norms, I have beans you may be interested in buying.
“The sending of the observers to the special election could very well be, and probably likely is, a precursor or practice run for 2026,” Mindy Romero told me. She’s an assistant professor and the founder of the Center for Inclusive Democracy at USC’s Sol Price School of Public Policy.
Like others I spoke with, Romero sees a larger context to the poll monitors that has the potential to end with voter suppression.
“The Trump administration is laying a foundation, and they’re being very open about it, very clear about it,” Romero said. “They are saying that they are anticipating there to be fraud and for the election to be rigged.”
“I hope the DOJ pursues this with as much ‘gusto’ as befitting the biggest SCANDAL in American history!,” he wrote. “If not, it will happen again, including the upcoming Midterms. … Watch how totally dishonest the California Prop Vote is!”
To understand where all this may be headed involves digging back into Golden State history. The conspiracy underpinning election fraud claims has deep roots in California’s Proposition 187 — the anti-immigrant measure that was passed by voters in 1994 but squashed by the courts.
The far right never got over the defeat. Anti-immigrant sentiment morphed into conspiracy theory, specifically that undocumented folks were voting in huge numbers, at the behest of Democrats.
This absolutely loony bit of racist paranoia spawned an “election integrity” movement that cloaked itself as patriotism and fairness, but at heart remained doused in fear-of-brown.
Calfornia Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said Monday he sees that Proposition 187 “playbook” at work today with “a targeting, unfortunately, of immigrants … because it creates fear in the eyes of some, in the minds of some, and it helps the Republican Party, MAGA and the Trump administration achieve their goals.”
Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids are just the flip side of the coin to his election fraud claims — both at heart a part of the white Christian nationalism that his administration is now openly embracing.
Let me just say here that all Americans want fair elections and many average folks involved in election integrity efforts simply want to ensure our one-person, one-vote system stays honest — regardless of race or anything else. No hate on them at all. It’s the funders and organizers of many voter witch-hunt efforts that draw my ire, because they exploit that reasonable wish for fairness for their own dark agenda.
And that agenda increasingly appears to be the end of free and fair elections, while maintaining the appearance of them — the classic authoritarian way of ruling with the seeming consent of the people. Remember, Russia still holds elections.
“To have real control, you want to rule with a velvet glove,” Romero said. “That velvet glove can come off, and the people know it can come off,” but mostly, you want them to comply because it feels like “just what has to be.”
So how exactly would we get from poll monitors, a reasonable and established norm, to something as dire as an election that is rigged, or that is so chaotic the average person doesn’t know the truth?
It starts with introducing doubt into the system, which Trump has done. To be fair, with Proposition 50, the Election Rigging Response Act, Democrats now fear rigged elections, too.
But Gowri Ramachandran, the director of elections and security in the Brennan Center for Justice’s Elections and Government Program, told me her “biggest fear” is that those election deniers whom Trump elevated to official roles “now have the platform of the federal government.”
For that reason, “information about elections [that] comes out of the federal government right now, I think everyone’s going to have to take it with a really big grain of salt,” she said.
So we come out of the California 2025 special election unable to trust the federal government’s take on it, with one year until the midterm elections that will determine whether or not Trump’s power remains unfettered.
Maybe everything turns out fine, but there’s a string of other maybes where it doesn’t.
Let’s say Trump tries to declare an end to mail-in ballots and early voting, both of which increase turnout for lower-income folks who don’t have time to line up. Trump tried that earlier this year, though courts blocked it.
What does the 2026 election look like if you have to line up in person to vote if you want to be sure it counts, with ICE potentially around the block rounding up citizens and noncitizens alike? And the government requiring that you have multiple forms of identification, all with matching names (take that, married women), and even military “guarding” the polls?
Kind of intimidating, huh?
But let’s say the election happens anyway. And let’s say Republicans lose enough congressional seats to put Democrats in control of the House. But let’s say the federal government claims there is so much fraud, it has to be investigated before any results can be considered official.
Private groups sue on both sides. Half the country believes Trump, half the country believes the secretaries of state, like California’s Shirley Weber, charged with managing the results.
In that chaos, the newly elected Democratic representatives head to Washington, D.C., to get to work, only to have House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) refuse to swear them in — no differently than he is currently doing with elected Arizona Rep. Adelita Grijalva, who has promised to vote to release the Epstein files if Johnson ever does his job.
Romero calls that scenario “not even … that big of a stretch.”
Congress comes to a halt, not enough members sworn in to function, which is just fine by Trump.
And voila! The vote is suppressed by confusion, chaos and the velvet glove, because of course it’s reasonable to want to know the truth before we move forward.
So monitor away. Watch the polls and watch the watchers, and protect the vote.
SACRAMENTO — Top California health officials warned that federal cuts will deliver a devastating blow to public health, even as the state grapples with ways to mitigate the damage.
“These changes will impact our emergency departments, rural hospitals, private and public hospitals, community health centers, ambulance providers and the broader health care system that serves every community,” said Michelle Baass, director of the California Department of Health Care Services.
Baass was among several experts who spoke Monday at a briefing about the effects of HR 1, a massive tax and spending bill passed by the Republican-led Congress and signed by President Trump that shifts federal funding away from safety-net programs for the vulnerable and toward tax cuts and immigration enforcement. She said the legislation makes sweeping changes to Medi-Cal, as Medicaid is known in California.
It “will cause widespread harm by making massive reductions in federal funding and potentially cripple the health care safety net,” Baass said. “These changes put tens of billions of dollars of federal funding at risk for California and could result in a loss of coverage for millions of Californians.”
Roughly 15 million Californians — a third of the state — are on Medi-Cal, with some of the highest percentages being in rural counties. More than half of the children in California receive healthcare coverage through Medi-Cal, healthcare coverage provided to eligible, low-income residents, according to the state Department of Health Care Services.
California officials expect the state to lose billions of dollars in federal funding for Medi-Cal and other essential healthcare programs. Given that California is facing an ongoing budget deficit, it is highly unlikely that the state will be able to raise enough money to make up for the loss in funding to continue the current level of services to residents, according to a report by the state Legislative Analyst’s Office.
Baass explained the federal legislation creates new eligibility requirements for Medicaid. Starting in 2027, many individuals ages 19 to 64 will need to work for at least 80 hours a month, or perform 80 hours of community service or be enrolled in an educational program, to qualify. The law allows various exemptions, including pregnancy, disabilities, or caring for children under the age of 19.
She estimated 3 million Medi-Cal recipients could lose coverage as a result.
“This would significantly drive up the uninsured rate that raises cost for hospitals treating uninsured patients,” Baass said.
Baass said HR 1, which Republicans labeled the “Big, Beautiful Bill,” also bans abortion providers from receiving federal Medicaid funding — even for healthcare services they offer that are not related to the procedure — and reduces federal dollars for emergency medical care for undocumented immigrants. It additionally limits state funding mechanisms, such as taxes paid by managed care providers, and establishes federal penalties for improper payments.
CalFresh, the state name for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, is expecting cuts of at least $1.7 billion annually, said Jennifer Troia, director of the California Department of Social Services. About 395,000 people could lose their benefits for government food assistance.
SNAP benefits are also being hit by the current government shutdown, with payments halting in November.
At the heart of the shutdown is a political standoff in Washington over the expiring tax credits for people who get health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. Democrats said they will not vote to reopen the government until Republicans agree to renew the expanded subsidies. Republican leaders refused to negotiate until Democrats vote to reopen the government.
Covered California, the state’s Affordable Care Act health insurance marketplace, estimated over the summer that as many as 660,000 of the roughly 2 million people in the program will either be stripped of coverage or drop out because of increased cost and the onerous new mandates to stay enrolled.
Impacts from the new federal cuts and policies are already being felt across the state and nation.
A Planned Parenthood program in Orange and San Bernardino counties announced its imminent closure earlier this month due to being federally defunded. Los Angeles County’s health system has implemented a hiring freeze and is bracing to lose $750 million per year for the county Department of Health Services, which oversees four public hospitals and roughly two dozen clinics. Meanwhile, food banks nationwide are seeking donations and preparing for longer lines.
Kim Johnson, secretary of the state Health and Human Services Agency, discussed how California is fighting back.
Gov. Gavin Newsom recently announced he is deploying the National Guard and fast-tracking $80 million to support food banks, she said. This came alongside the governor’s decision to allocate $140 million in state funding to Planned Parenthood.
Johnson said Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta has filed more than two dozen lawsuits related to HR 1.
“Here in California,” she said, “we will continue to mitigate the harm of these federal changes wherever we can.”
It was one of the most dramatic protests in Los Angeles by activists who opposed Israel’s war in Gaza: a shutdown of the southbound lanes of the 110 Freeway as it passes through downtown.
In a chaotic scene captured by news helicopters, protesters sat down on the freeway in December 2013, halting traffic just south of the four-level interchange. On live television, enraged motorists responded by getting into physical altercations with demonstrators.
Los Angeles City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto’s office later charged many of the protesters with unlawful assembly, failure to disperse, failure to comply with a lawful order and obstruction of a street, sidewalk or other public corridor — all misdemeanors.
On Monday, after a lengthy legal battle, a judge agreed to put 29 protesters into a 12-month diversion program, which requires that each performs 20 hours of community service.
If they complete that service and obey the law, the charges will be dismissed in October 2026, said Colleen Flynn, the protesters’ attorney.
In court Monday, Flynn praised her clients for taking a stand, motivated by a moral duty to “bring attention to the loss of life and humanitarian crisis going on in Gaza.”
“These are people who were, out of conscience, making a decision to engage in an act of civil disobedience,” she told the judge.
Two others charged in connection with the protest were granted judicial diversion earlier this year and have already completed their community service. The charges against them have been dismissed, Flynn said.
Flynn initially asked for the 29 protesters to each receive eight hours of community service. City prosecutors successfully pushed for 20 hours, saying the political reason for the protest had no bearing on the case. Deputy City Atty. Brad Rothenberg told the judge that the freeway closure lasted about four hours.
“That affected thousands of people who come to the second largest city in the United States to work,” he said.
The hearing brought a quiet end to a furious legal battle.
Flynn spent several months pushing for the case to be dismissed, arguing that Feldstein Soto’s decision to charge the protesters was rooted in “impermissible bias” — religious or ethnic prejudice against Palestinians and their supporters.
At multiple hearings, Flynn said her clients experienced disparate treatment compared to other protesters who also disrupted traffic but were highlighting different political issues, such as higher wages for hotel workers. Flynn also pointed to social media posts by Feldstein Soto on Oct. 7, 2023, the day Hamas-led militants invaded Israel, murdering more than 1,200 people and kidnapping about 250 others.
“Every nation and every moral person must support Israel in defending her people,” Feldstein Soto wrote on her @ElectHydee page.
Last month, a judge denied Flynn’s request to dismiss the case. At that hearing, prosecutors said the protesters were charged because they shut down a freeway, creating a particular threat to public safety.
Prosecutors argued that a motorcycle traveling between traffic lanes at a high rate of speed easily could have plowed into freeway protesters who were sitting cross-legged on the pavement.
Prosecutors also defended Feldstein Soto’s social media posts, saying they were written on the day of the invasion, before Israel had launched its counterattack. At that point, Feldstein Soto was expressing outrage over a horrific day of violence, the prosecutors said.
Since then, Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 68,000 Palestinians, a majority of whom were women and children, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza.
A son of conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly has publicly revealed that he is homosexual, while at the same time defending his mother’s political views and the Republican Party’s “family values” campaign theme.
“The family values movement is not anti-gay,” said John F. Schlafly, a 41-year-old attorney who lives with his parents in Alton, Ill., and counts among his clients the Eagle Forum, the conservative group founded by his mother.
“These people are not anti-gay. They’re not gay bashers,” John Schlafly said in a telephone interview Friday. “I hold my mother in very high esteem. She’s doing good work.”
He added that he “didn’t agree with everything” he heard at the GOP convention but insisted that “efforts to convey the (Republican) Convention and the platform and speakers as bigots and gay bashers is completely inaccurate. The concept of family values should not be threatening to gays and lesbians. Most gays and lesbians have good relations with their family, as I do.”
Schlafly was “outed,” or revealed to be gay, by QW, a magazine published in New York, two weeks ago. He confirmed his homosexuality in an interview published Friday by the San Francisco Examiner.
“I thought it best to set the record straight,” Schlafly explained. “The media was trying to push the angle that there was some sort of hypocrisy going on, which I felt was inaccurate.”
Phyllis Schlafly characterized the media’s interest in her son’s revelation as “obviously a political hit against me.” She declined to say when she learned her son is gay and added that homosexuality “is not a big subject around (the Schlafly family).”
As for her stand on gay rights, Phyllis Schlafly said: “There’s nothing about my position on gay rights that should be offensive to a gay unless he’s seeking some kind of preferential status.”
While John Schlafly said he did not think it was right for someone to be fired based on sexual orientation, he said he did “not support the so-called gay-rights agenda” and was not sure what he thought of the military’s ban on homosexuals.
In his remarks to the Examiner, he disagreed with one common contention of the religious right, that homosexuality is a choice. “You can say in some sense I choose to write with my right or left hand,” Schlafly said. “But the point is that it is such an automatic decision. That’s how I see homosexuality.”
He also objected “to anyone saying that being gay constitutes not having good moral character.”
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Monday asked the Supreme Court to allow it to fire the director of the U.S. Copyright Office.
The administration’s newest emergency appeal to the high court was filed a month and a half after a federal appeals court in Washington held that the official, Shira Perlmutter, could not be unilaterally fired.
Nearly four weeks ago, the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit refused to reconsider that ruling.
The case is the latest that relates to Trump’s authority to install his own people at the head of federal agencies. The Supreme Court has largely allowed Trump to fire officials, even as court challenges proceed.
But this case concerns an office that is within the Library of Congress. Perlmutter is the register of copyrights and also advises Congress on copyright issues.
Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer wrote in his filing Monday that despite the ties to Congress, the register “wields executive power” in regulating copyrights.
Perlmutter claims Trump fired her in May because he disapproved of advice she gave to Congress in a report related to artificial intelligence. Perlmutter had received an email from the White House notifying her that “your position as the Register of Copyrights and Director at the U.S. Copyright Office is terminated effective immediately,” her office said.
A divided appellate panel ruled that Perlmutter could keep her job while the case moves forward.
“The Executive’s alleged blatant interference with the work of a Legislative Branch official, as she performs statutorily authorized duties to advise Congress, strikes us as a violation of the separation of powers that is significantly different in kind and in degree from the cases that have come before,” Judge Florence Pan wrote for the appeals court. Judge Michelle Childs joined the opinion. Democratic President Biden appointed both judges to the appeals court.
Judge Justin Walker, a Trump appointee, wrote in dissent that Perlmutter “exercises executive power in a host of ways.”
Perlmutter’s attorneys have argued that she is a renowned copyright expert. She has served as register of copyrights since then-Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden appointed her to the job in October 2020.
Trump appointed Deputy Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche to replace Hayden at the Library of Congress. The White House fired Hayden amid criticism from conservatives that she was advancing a “woke” agenda.
Supporters of Proposition 50, California Democrats’ ballot measure to redraw the state’s congressional districts to help the party’s effort to take power in the U.S. House of Representatives, raised more than four times the money as their rivals in recent weeks, according to campaign finance reports filed with the state by the three main committees campaigning about the measure.
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s committee supporting the redistricting measure raised $36.8 million between Sept. 21 and Oct. 18, bringing their total to $114.3 million, according to the report filed with the Secretary of State’s office on Thursday, which was not available until Monday. They had $37.1 million in the bank and available to spend before the Nov. 4 special election.
“We have hit our budget goals and raised what we need in order to pass Proposition 50,” Newsom emailed supporters on Monday. “You can stop donating.”
The two main opposition groups raised a total of $8.4 million during the 28 days covered by the fundraising period, bringing their total haul to $43.7 million. They had $2.3 million cash on hand going into the final stretch of the campaign.
“As Gavin Newsom likes to say, we are not running the 90-yard dash here. We’ve seen a groundswell of support from Californians who understand what’s at stake if we let [President] Trump steal two more years of unchecked power,” said Hannah Milgrom, a spokesperson for the main pro-Proposition 50 campaign. “But we are not taking anything for granted nor taking our foot off the gas. If we want to hold this dangerous and reckless president accountable, we must pass Prop. 50.”
Newsom and other California Democrats decided to ask voters to redraw the state’s congressional boundaries, which are currently drawn by a voter-approved independent commission, in a middecade redistricting after Trump urged GOP-led states to redraw their districts in an effort for Republicans to retain control of Congress in next year’s midterm election.
The balance of power in the narrowly divided House will determine whether Trump is able to continue enacting his agenda during his final two years of office, or is the focus of investigations and possibly an impeachment effort.
Major donors supporting Proposition 50 include billionaire financier George Soros, the House Majority PAC – the campaign arm of congressional Democrats – and labor unions.
Among the opponents of Propostion 50, longtime GOP donor Charles Munger Jr., the son of the longtime investment partner of billionaire Warren Buffett, and the Congressional Leadership Fund – Republicans’ political arm in the House – were top contributors.
“While we are being outspent, we’re continuing to communicate with Californians the dangers of suspending California’s gold-standard redistricting process,” said Amy Thoma, a spokesperson for the committee funded by Munger. “With just ten days to go, we are encouraging all voters to make their voice heard and to vote.”
Ellie Hockenbury, an advisor to the committee that received $5 million from the Congressional Leadership Fund, said the organization was committed to continue to raise money to block Newsom’s redistricting effort in the days leading up to the election.
“His costly power grab would silence millions of Californians and deny them fair representation in Congress, which is why grassroots opposition is gaining momentum,” Hockenbury said. “In the final push, our data-driven campaign is strategically targeting key voters with our message to ensure every resource helps us defeat Prop. 50.”
There are several other committees not affiliated with these main campaign groups that are receiving funding. Those include one created by billionaire hedge-fund founder Tom Steyer, who donated $12 million, and the California Republican Party, which received $8 million from the Congressional Leadership Fund.
These reports come a little more than a week before the Nov. 4 special election. More than 4 million mail ballots — 18% of the ballots sent to California’s 23 million voters — had been returned as of Friday, according to a vote tracker run by Democratic redistricting expert Paul Mitchell, who drew the proposed maps on the ballot. Democrats continue to outpace Republicans in returning ballots, 51% to 28%. Voters registered without a party preference or with other political parties returned 21% of the ballots that have been received.
The turnout figures are alarming Republicans leaders.
“If Republicans do not get out and vote now, we will lose Prop 50 and Gavin Newsom will control our district lines until 2032,” Orange County GOP chairman Will O’Neill wrote to party members on Friday, urging them to cast ballots this past weekend and sharing the locations of early voting centers in the county.
Assemblyman Carl DeMaio (R-San Diego) was more blunt on social media.
“Right now we’re losing the fight against Prop 50 in CA, but turnout is LOW,” he posted on the social media platform X on Friday. “If every Republican voter gets off their ass, returns their ballot and votes NO, we WIN. IT. IS. THAT. SIMPLE.”
More than 18.9 million ballots are outstanding, though not all will be completed. Early voting centers opened on Saturday in 29 California counties.
“Think of Election Day as the last day to vote — not the only day. Like we always do, California gives voters more days and more ways to participate.” said Secretary of State Shirley Weber in a statement. “Don’t Delay! Vote today!”
The U.S. Dept. of Justice announced Friday that it plans on monitoring polling sites in Fresno, Kern, Los Angeles, Orange and Riverside counties at the request of the state GOP.
“Transparency at the polls translates into faith in the electoral process, and this Department of Justice is committed to upholding the highest standards of election integrity,” Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said. “We will commit the resources necessary to ensure the American people get the fair, free, and transparent elections they deserve.”
Newsom, in a post on X on Friday, said the Trump administration is sending election monitors to polling places in California as part of a broader effort to stifle the vote, particularly among Californians of color, in advance of next year’s midterm election.
“This is about voter intimidation. This is about voter suppression,” Newsom said, predicting that masked border agents would likely be present at California polling places through the Nov. 4 election. “I hope people understand it’s a bridge that they’re trying to build the scaffolding for all across this country in next November’s election, they do not believe in fair and free elections. Our republic, our democracy, is on the line.”
WASHINGTON — The government took the first historic step toward painful enforcement of the Gramm-Rudman balanced budget law today, estimating that $11.7 billion must be cut by March 1 in almost everything from the Pentagon to the Postal Service.
The overall military budget will be reduced $5.8 billion, under the estimates from the Administration’s Office of Management and Budget and the Congressional Budget Office. The other half of the cuts will come from the rest of government, with the notable exception of Social Security and a number of programs for the poor.
The two budget agencies estimated that the deficit for fiscal 1986, which began last October, will be $220 billion if no cuts are made. That is higher than previous estimates and more than enough to trigger the cuts under the Gramm-Rudman balanced budget law.
That statute, passed in the waning days of Congress’ 1985 session, requires the deficit to be reduced in steps until it is eliminated in 1991. Under a special provision, the maximum that can be cut this fiscal year is $11.7 billion.
4.9% Cut in Military
The fiscal 1986 cuts call for a 4.3% reduction in most agencies and a 4.9% cut in the military.
Salaries of federal employees will not be cut, but the operating budgets of their agencies will fall under the knife. Budget Director James C. Miller III said there will probably not be any layoffs of federal workers, though there could be a hiring freeze.
The CBO and OMB figures showed a $62-million cut in Congress’ own budget, a $4-million slash at the office of the President, $665,000 from the CBO itself and $1.5 million from the OMB.
The across-the-board nature of the cuts means that even agencies that raise money, like the Internal Revenue Service, will be cut. The IRS will lose $140 million from its $3.2-billion budget.
In Agriculture, the required $1.3-billion cut will mean smaller payments to farmers and a reduction of the number of inspectors at meat-processing plants, officials said.
Cut in Student Aid
The OMB-CBO report estimates a $168-million cut in spending authority for the Employment and Training Administration of the Department of Labor, a $229.7-million cut in student aid and a $40.4- million cut in the federal vocational and adult education program.
Funds for the National Endowment for the Arts will be cut by $7.1 million and by $6 million for the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Spending authority for the Department of Housing and Urban Development will be cut $645 million under the Gramm-Rudman formula.
SACRAMENTO — Atty. General Rob Bonta said Monday that he anticipates the Trump administration, which last week announced plans to use federal election monitors in California, will use false reports of voting irregularities to challenge the results of the Nov. 4 special election.
Bonta, California’s top law enforcement officer, said on a call with reporters that he is “100%” concerned about false accusations of wrongdoing at the polling places.
Bonta said it would be “naive” to assume Trump would accept the results of the Nov. 4 election given his history of lying about election outcomes, including his loss to President Biden in 2020.
The attorney general also warned that Trump’s tactics may be a preview of what the country might see in the 2026 election, when control of the U.S. House of Representatives — and the fate of Trump’s controversial political agenda — will be at stake.
“All indications, all arrows, show that this is a tee-up for something more dangerous in the 2026, midterms and maybe beyond,” Bonta said.
The U.S. Department of Justice last week announced it would send election monitors to five California counties where voters are casting ballots in the Proposition 50 election to decide whether to redraw state’s congressional boundaries.
Federal election monitors will visit sites across Southern California and in the Central Valley, in Fresno, Kern, Los Angeles, Orange and Riverside counties, the Justice Department said last week.
Gov. Gavin Newsom called the move an “intimidation tactic” aimed at suppressing support for Proposition 50 and inappropriate federal interference in a state election.
While federal monitoring is routine, particularly in federal elections, it recently has been viewed with heightened skepticism from both parties. When the Justice Department under President Biden announced monitoring in 86 jurisdictions across 27 states during last November’s presidential election, some Republican-led states balked and sought to block the effort.
Democrats have been highly suspect of the Trump administration’s plans for monitoring elections, in part because of Trump’s relentless denial of past election losses — including his own to Biden in 2020 — and his appointment of fellow election deniers to high-ranking positions in his administration, including in the Justice Department.
The California Republican Party requested the election monitors and cited several concerns about voting patterns and issues in several counties, according to a letter it sent to the Dept. of Justice.
Bonta, in his remarks Monday questioned the GOP claims, and denied the existence of any widespread fraud that would require federal election monitors. He compared the monitors to Trump’s decision to dispatch the National Guard to Democratic-led cities, despite an outcry from local politicians who said the troops were not necessary.
More broadly, Bonta told reporters that the Trump administration appears to be ready to fight the Nov. 4 results if Prop. 50 passes.
“People vote and you accept the will of the voters — that’s what democracy is. But that’s not what they’re teeing themselves up to do based on everything that we’ve seen, everything that’s been said,” said Bonta, describing Trump’s recent call on social media for Republicans to “wake up.”
Bonta also said that the state would dispatch observers — potentially from his office, the secretary of state and county registrars — to watch the federal monitors at polling places.
Early voting has already started in California, with voters deciding whether to temporarily reconfigure the state’s congressional district boundaries. The Democratic-led California Legislature placed the measure on the Nov. 4 ballot in an effort to increase their party’s numbers in the U.S. House of Representatives .
Gov. Gavin Newsom and other backers of the measure have said they generally support independent redistricting processes and will push for nonpartisan commissions nationwide, but argued that Democrats must fight back against Trump’s current efforts to have Republican states reconfigure their congressional districts to ensure the GOP retains control of Congress after the 2026 election.
Natalie Baldassarre, a spokesperson for the U.S. Dept. of Justice, declined to comment on Bonta’s remarks. Baldassarre also declined to say how many election monitors would work in California.
Federal election monitors observe polling places to ensure compliance with the federal voting rights laws, and are trained to observe and act as “flies on the wall,” said David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan and nonprofit Center for Election Innovation and Research, in an interview last week.
“Generally, what you do is walk inside, stay off to the side, well away from where any voters are, and take some notes,” said Becker, an attorney who formerly worked in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.
Indiana Republican Gov. Mike Braun called Monday for state lawmakers to return to Indianapolis for a special session to redraw the state’s congressional boundaries, escalating a national fight over midcycle redistricting.
President Trump has ramped up pressure on Republican governors to draw new maps that give the party an easier path to maintain control of the House in the midterms. While Republicans in Texas, Missouri and North Carolina have moved quickly to enact new districts and California Democrats are seeking to counter with their own redistricting plan, Indiana lawmakers have been far more hesitant.
Braun called for the General Assembly to convene Nov. 3 for the special session. It’s unclear whether enough of the GOP majority Senate will back new maps.
The White House held multiple meetings with Indiana lawmakers who have held out for months. The legislative leaders kept their cards close as speculation swirled over whether the state known for its more measured approach to Republican politics would answer the redistricting call.
National pressure campaign
Vice President JD Vance first met with Braun and legislative leaders in Indianapolis in August and Trump met privately with state House Speaker Todd Huston and state Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray in the Oval Office weeks later. Vance also spoke to state lawmakers visiting Washington that day.
Vance returned to Indianapolis on Oct. 10 to meet with the governor, as well as the Republican state House and Senate members.
Braun is a staunch ally of Trump in a state the president won by 19 percentage points in 2024. But Indiana lawmakers have avoided the national spotlight in recent years — especially after a 2022 special session that yielded a strict abortion ban. Braun previously said he did not want to call a special session until he was sure lawmakers would back a new map.
“I am calling a special legislative session to protect Hoosiers from efforts in other states that seek to diminish their voice in Washington and ensure their representation in Congress is fair,” Braun said in a statement Monday.
Typically, states redraw boundaries of congressional districts every 10 years after the census has concluded. Opponents are expected to challenge any new maps in court.
State lawmakers have the sole power to draw maps in Indiana, where Republicans hold a supermajority in both chambers. Democrats could not stop a special session by refusing to attend, as their peers in Texas briefly did.
Republican opposition to redrawing the maps again
A spokesperson for Bray said last week that the Indiana Senate lacked the votes to pass a new congressional map and she said Monday that the votes are still lacking, casting doubt on whether a special session will achieve Braun’s goals.
With only 10 Democrats in the 50-member Senate, that means more than a dozen of the 40 Republicans oppose the idea. Some state Republican lawmakers have warned that midcycle redistricting can be costly and could backfire politically.
Republicans who vote against redistricting could be forced out of office if their colleagues back primary opponents as punishment for not toeing the party line. Braun’s move to call a special session could force lawmakers who haven’t commented publicly to take a stance.
Indiana’s Republican legislative leaders praised existing boundaries after adopting them four years ago.
“I believe these maps reflect feedback from the public and will serve Hoosiers well for the next decade,” Bray said at the time.
Indiana Senate Democratic Leader Shelli Yoder decried the special session and threatened legal action over any maps passed by the Legislature.
“This is not democracy,” she said in a statement. “This is desperation.”
Redistricting balloons
Democrats only need to gain three seats to flip control of the U.S. House, and redistricting fights have erupted in multiple states.
Some Democratic states have moved to counter Republican gains with new legislative maps. The latest, Virginia, is expected to take up the issue in a special session starting this week.
Republicans outnumber Democrats in Indiana’s congressional delegation 7 to 2, limiting possibilities of squeezing out another seat. But many in the party see it as a chance for the GOP to represent all nine seats.
The GOP would likely target Indiana’s 1st Congressional District, a longtime Democratic stronghold that encompasses Gary and other cities near Chicago in the state’s northwest corner. The seat held by third-term Democratic U.S. Rep. Frank Mrvan has been seen by Republicans as a possible pickup in recent elections.
Lawmakers in Indiana redrew the borders of the district to be slightly more favorable toward Republicans in the 2022 election, but did not entirely split it up. The new maps were not challenged in court after they were approved in 2021, not even by Democrats and allies who had opposed the changes boosting GOP standing in the suburbs north of Indianapolis.
Mrvan still won reelection in 2022 and easily retained his seat in 2024.
Republicans could also zero in on Indiana’s 7th Congressional District, composed entirely of Marion County and the Democratic stronghold of Indianapolis. But that option would be more controversial, potentially slicing up the state’s largest city and diluting Black voters’ influence.
A 24-year-old Honduran man who was fleeing federal immigration agents in Virginia died on a highway after being struck by a vehicle.
The death of Josué Castro Rivera follows recent incidents in which three other immigrants in Chicago and California were killed during immigration enforcement operations under the Trump administration’s crackdown.
Castro Rivera was headed to a gardening job Thursday when his vehicle was pulled over by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, brother Henry Castro said.
Agents tried to detain Castro Rivera and the three other passengers, and he fled on foot, tried to cross Interstate 264 in Norfolk and was fatally struck, according to state and federal authorities.
Castro Rivera came to the United States four years ago and was working to send money to family in Honduras, according to his brother.
“He had a very good heart,” Castro said Sunday.
The Department of Homeland Security said Castro Rivera’s vehicle was stopped by ICE as part of a “targeted, intelligence-based” operation and passengers were detained for allegedly living in the country without legal permission.
DHS said in a statement that Castro Rivera “resisted heavily and fled” and died after a passing vehicle struck him. DHS officials did not respond Sunday to requests for further comment.
Virginia State Police said officers responded to a report of a vehicle-pedestrian crash around 11 a.m. Thursday on eastbound I-264 at the Military Highway interchange. Police said Castro Rivera was hit by a 2002 Ford pickup and was pronounced dead at the scene.
The crash remains under investigation.
Federal authorities and state police gave his first name as Jose, but family members said it was Josué. DHS and state police did not explain the discrepancy.
Castro called his brother’s death an injustice and said he is raising money to transport the body back to Honduras for the funeral.
“He didn’t deserve everything that happened to him,” Castro said.
DHS blamed Castro Rivera’s death on “a direct result of every politician, activist and reporter who continue to spread propaganda and misinformation about ICE’s mission and ways to avoid detention.”
Similar deaths amid immigration operations elsewhere have triggered protests, lawsuits and calls for investigation amid claims that the Trump administration’s initial accounts are misleading.
Last month in suburban Chicago, federal immigration agents fatally shot a Mexican man during a traffic stop. DHS initially said a federal officer was “seriously injured,” but police body camera video showed the federal officer walking around and describing his own injuries as “ nothing major.”
In July, a farmworker who fell from a greenhouse roof during a chaotic ICE raid at a California cannabis facility died of his injuries. And in August, a man ran away from federal agents onto a freeway in the same state and was fatally struck by a vehicle.
Tareen and Walling write for the Associated Press.
TOKYO — President Trump opened his visit to Japan on Monday with greetings from the emperor a day before he meets new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, who is banking on building a friendly personal relationship with the U.S. leader to ease trade tensions.
One key to this strategy might lie in an idea floated by Japan’s government to buy a fleet of Ford F-150 trucks, a meaningful gesture that may also be impractical given the narrow streets in Tokyo and other Japanese cities.
It’s an early diplomatic test for Takaichi, the first woman to lead Japan. She took office only last week, and has a tenuous coalition backing her.
Trump instantly bought into the idea of Ford trucks as he flew to Asia aboard Air Force One.
“She has good taste,” Trump told reporters. “That’s a hot truck.”
Japanese Emperor Naruhito welcomed Trump at the Imperial Palace after the president’s arrival, and the two spoke for about 30 minutes. Trump straightened his jacket as he stood next to Naruhito for photos before the two sat across a round table, with flowers in the middle, for their talks.
“A great man!” he said twice while pointing to the emperor. Trump last saw the emperor in 2019, soon after Naruhito ascended the Chrysanthemum Throne, becoming the first foreign dignitary invited to the palace.
Trump and Takaichi spoke over the phone while the president was mid-flight on Saturday. Takaichi stressed her status as a protege of the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a favorite of Trump’s from his first term, and said she praised him for brokering the Gaza ceasefire that led to the return of hostages held by Hamas.
“I thought [Trump] is a very cheerful and fun person,” she said. “He well recognizes me and said he remembers me as a politician whom [former] Prime Minister Abe really cared about,” she said. “And I told the president that I extremely look forward to welcoming him in Tokyo.”
Trump spent Sunday in Malaysia, where he participated in a regional summit, and departed Monday morning for Japan. While on Air Force One on Monday, he said he planned to talk in Tokyo about the “great friendship” between the U.S. and Japan.
Resetting the trade relationship
Beneath the hospitality is the search for a strategy to navigate the increasingly complex trade relationship that Trump shook up earlier this year with tariffs.
Trump wants allies to buy more American goods and also make financial commitments to build factories and energy infrastructure in the U.S.
The meetings in Japan come before Trump’s sit-down with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Thursday in South Korea.
Both the U.S. and Japan have sought to limit China’s manufacturing ambitions, as the emergence of Chinese electric vehicles, artificial intelligence and advanced computer chips could undermine the American and Japanese economies.
“In light of the planned meeting between Trump and Xi Jinping shortly afterward, Trump may also be considering how he might strengthen his hand by demonstrating the robustness of the U.S.-Japan relationship,” said Kristi Govella, Japan chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.
Japan’s previous administration agreed in September to invest $550 billion in the U.S., which led Trump to trim a threatened 25% tariff on Japanese goods to 15%. But Japan wants the investments to favor Japanese vendors and contractors.
Japan’s economy and trade minister, Ryosei Akazawa, has said his ministry is compiling a list of projects in computer chips and energy to try to meet the investment target.
“As far as I know, I’m hearing that there are a number of Japanese companies that are showing interest,” he told reporters Friday, though he did not give further details.
Ford trucks in Tokyo would be a powerful symbol
Japanese officials are looking at the possibility of buying more American soybeans, liquefied natural gas and autos. The U.S.-China trade conflict has shut American soybeans out of the Chinese market, leading China to seek more Brazilian supply. China reported no U.S. soybean imports in September, a first since November 2018.
For Trump, the prospect of Ford trucks in the skyscrapered streets of Tokyo would be a win. The administration has long complained that American vehicles were being shut out of a market that is the home of Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Isuzu, Mitsubishi and Subaru. In a September interview on CNBC, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Japan wouldn’t buy U.S.-branded vehicles because “Chevys” were popular with Japanese gangsters.
Takaichi may arrange for Ford F-150 trucks to be showcased in a place Trump gets to see them, Japan’s Nikkei newspaper reported. The government is considering importing the trucks for its transport ministry to use for inspecting roads and infrastructure, though there are concerns that the F-150 could cause congestion on narrow Japanese streets.
“We appreciate President Trump’s advocating for American made products,” Ford spokesperson Dave Tovar said. “We would be excited to introduce America’s best-selling truck to work and government customers in Japan.”
Japanese media have reported that Toyota Motor Corp. Chairman Akio Toyoda could announce plans to import his company’s American-made cars back to Japan during a dinner with Trump and other business leaders on Wednesday.
The gestures — combined with Takaichi’s connection to Abe — should help her deal with Trump, who seems predisposed to like her.
“I think she’s going to be great,” Trump said aboard Air Force One. “She’s a great friend of Mr. Abe, who was a great man.”
In 2016, Abe gave Trump a high-end golf club to celebrate his first election, and the leaders bonded over their love of golf. Trump often expresses sadness about Abe’s 2022 assassination.
But there are risks for Takaichi in emphasizing her ties to Abe, said Rintaro Nishimura, who specializes in Japan at the advisory firm The Asia Group.
“Because it’s Takaichi’s first diplomatic engagement I think she wants to start with sort of a bang,” Nishimura said. “Succeeding the Abe-line rhetoric is definitely going to be part of this engagement, although some also suggest that leaning too heavily on the Abe line might not exactly be good for her for creating her own kind of portfolio, her status as Japan’s leader.”
Following his meeting with Takaichi on Tuesday, Trump will give a speech aboard the USS George Washington aircraft carrier anchored in Japan, then hold a dinner with business leaders. Trump plans to leave for South Korea on Wednesday.
But aboard Air Force One on Monday, he told reporters that he was also ready to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, should that be an option.
“If he wants to meet, I’ll be in South Korea,” Trump said.
Boak and Yamaguchi write for the Associated Press. AP writer Chris Megerian contributed to this report from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
WASHINGTON — The first caller on a telephone town hall with Maryland Rep. Andy Harris, leader of the House’s conservative Freedom Caucus, came ready with a question about the Affordable Care Act. Her cousin’s disabled son is at risk of losing the insurance he gained under that law, the caller said.
“Now she’s looking at two or three times the premium that she’s been paying for the insurance,” said the woman, identified as Lisa from Harford County, Md. “I’d love for you to elucidate what the Republicans’ plan is for health insurance?”
Harris, a seven-term Republican, didn’t have a clear answer. “We think the solution is to try to do something to make sure all the premiums go down,” he said, predicting Congress would “probably negotiate some off-ramp” later.
His uncertainty reflected a familiar Republican dilemma: Fifteen years after the Affordable Care Act was enacted, the party remains united in criticizing the law but divided on how to move forward. That tension has come into sharp focus during the government shutdown as Democrats seize on rising premiums to pressure Republicans into extending expiring subsidies for the law, often referred to as Obamacare.
President Trump and GOP leaders say they’ll consider extending the enhanced tax credits that otherwise expire at year’s end — but only after Democrats vote to reopen the government. In the meantime, people enrolled in the plans are already being notified of hefty premium increases for 2026.
As town halls fill with frustrated voters and no clear Republican plan emerges, the issue appears to be gaining political strength heading into next year’s midterm elections.
“Premiums are going up whether it gets extended or not,” said GOP Sen. Rick Scott. “Premiums are going up because healthcare costs are going up. Because Obamacare is a disaster.”
‘Concepts of a plan’
At the center of the shutdown — now in its fourth week with no end in sight — is a Democratic demand that Affordable Care Act subsidies passed in 2021 be extended.
Trump has long promised an alternative. “The cost of Obamacare is out of control, plus, it’s not good Healthcare,” he wrote on Truth Social in November 2023. “I’m seriously looking at alternatives.”
Pressed on healthcare during a September 2024 presidential debate, Trump said he had “concepts of a plan.”
But nearly 10 months into his presidency, that plan has yet to come. Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told NBC on Wednesday, “I fully believe the president has a plan,” but didn’t go into details.
Republicans say they want a broader overhaul of the healthcare system, though such a plan would be difficult to advance before next year. Party leaders have not outlined how they’ll handle the expiring tax credits, insisting they won’t negotiate on the issue until Democrats agree to end the shutdown.
A September analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that permanently extending the tax credits would increase the deficit by $350 billion from 2026 to 2035. The number of people with health insurance would rise by 3.8 million in 2035 if the credits are kept, CBO projected.
House Speaker Mike Johnson told a news conference Monday that the tax credits are “subsidizing bad policy.” Republicans “have a long list of ideas” to address healthcare costs, he said, and are “grabbing the best ideas that we’ve had for years to put it on paper and make it work.”
“We believe in the private sector and the free market and individual providers,” he added.
A growing political issue
With notices of premium spikes landing in mailboxes now and the open enrollment period for Affordable Care Act health plans beginning Nov. 1, the political pressure has been evident in Republican town halls.
In Idaho, Rep. Russ Fulcher told concerned callers that “government-provided healthcare is the wrong path” and that “private healthcare is the right path.” In Texas, freshman Rep. Brandon Gill responded to a caller facing a sharp premium increase by saying Republicans are focused on cutting waste, fraud and abuse.
Harris echoed a message shared by many in his party during his Maryland town hall, saying costs are “just going back to what it was like before COVID.”
But the number of people who rely on Affordable Care Act health insurance has increased markedly since before the pandemic. More than 24 million people were enrolled in the marketplace plans in 2025, up from about 11 million in 2020, according to an analysis from the health care research nonprofit KFF.
Sara from Middleville, Mich., told Rep. John Moolenaar during his town hall that if health insurance premiums go up by as much as 75%, most people will probably go without healthcare. “So how do you address that?” she asked.
Moolenaar, who represents a district he handily won last year, responded: “We have time to negotiate, figure out a plan going forward and I think that’s something that could occur.”
Some Republicans have shown urgent concern. In a letter sent to Johnson, a group of 13 battleground House Republicans wrote that the party must “immediately turn our focus to the growing crisis of health care affordability” once the shutdown ends.
“While we did not create this crisis, we now have both the responsibility and the opportunity to address it,” the lawmakers wrote.
Some Republicans dismiss projections that ACA premiums will more than double without the subsidies, calling them exaggerated and arguing the law has fueled fraud and abuse that must be curbed.
Many Democrats credited their ability to flip the House in 2018 during Trump’s first term to the GOP’s attempt at repealing Obamacare, and they’re forecasting a similar outcome this time.
About 4 in 10 U.S. adults say they trust the Democrats to do a better job handling healthcare, compared with about one-quarter who trust the Republicans more, a recent AP-NORC poll found. About one-quarter trust neither party, and about 1 in 10 trust both equally, according to the poll.
A looming internal GOP fight
Even as GOP leaders pledge to discuss ending the subsidies when the government opens, it’s clear that many Republican lawmakers are adamantly opposed to an extension.
“At least among Republicans, there’s a growing sense that just maintaining the status quo is very destructive,” said Brian Blase, the president of Paragon Health Institute and a former health policy advisor to Trump during his first term.
Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, said he’s working with multiple congressional offices on alternatives that would let the subsidies end. For example, he wants to expand the Affordable Care Act exemption given to U.S. territories to all 50 states and reintroduce a first-term Trump policy that gave Americans access to short-term health insurance plans outside the Affordable Care Act marketplace.
Cannon declined to name the lawmakers he’s working with, but said he hopes they act on his ideas “sooner than later.”
David McIntosh, president of the influential conservative group Club For Growth, told reporters Thursday that the group has “urged the Republicans not to extend those COVID-era subsidies.”
“We have a big spending problem,” McIntosh said.
“I think most people are going to say, OK, I had a great deal during COVID,” he said. “But now it’s back to business as usual, and I should be paying for healthcare.”
Cappelletti and Swenson write for the Associated Press. Swenson reported from New York.
John Dickerson, co-anchor of “CBS Evening News,” said Monday he will exit the network at the end of the year.
Dickerson will be the first major talent departure since the arrival of Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief of CBS News last month.
The veteran political journalist who joined CBS News in 2009 gave no reason for leaving in an Instagram post announcing his decision.
“I am extremely grateful for all that CBS News gave me – the work, the audience’s attention and the honor of being a part of the network’s history – and I am grateful for my dear colleagues who’ve made me a better journalist and a better human being and I will miss you,” Dickerson wrote.
Dickerson became co-anchor of “CBS Evening News” in January alongside Maurice DuBois, succeeding Norah O’Donnell. The duo were part of a revamp of the program, which put an emphasis on more in-depth stories.
The format change failed to attract new viewers as it remains in third place behind “ABC World News Tonight with David Muir” and “NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas.”
There had been talk of significant changes coming to the newscast before Weiss signed on for a senior role at the division.
Weiss has reportedly expressed interest in bringing Fox News anchor Bret Baier to CBS, but his current employer has him under contract through 2028. Baier anchors “Special Report,” a nightly newscast that like many Fox News programs is closely followed by President Trump.
Anderson Cooper, whose contract will soon be up at CNN, has also been mentioned internally as an evening news anchor candidate.
“CBS Evening News” co-anchors Maurice DuBois and John Dickerson.
(Gail Schulman/CBS News)
The changes to “CBS Evening News” were initiated by former “60 Minutes” executive producer Bill Owens, who was pushed out of the company amid the controversy over a 2024 interview with former vice president Kamala Harris.
Trump sued the network over the interview which he said was deceptively edited to help her presidential campaign. Although the case labeled as frivolous by 1st Amendment experts, Paramount settled the suit for $16 million to clear the regulatory path for its merger with Skydance Media.
A former writer for Time magazine, Dickerson came to CBS News as a contributor before taking on a variety of roles in the division. He was anchor of the Washington-based public affairs program “Face the Nation.” He moved to New York to join “CBS This Morning” after the network fired Charlie Rose over sexual harassment allegations in 2017.
Dickerson anchored a nightly prime time newscast on CBS News Streaming before being tapped for “CBS Evening News.” He could not be immediately reached for comment.
Starting Nov. 15, the progressive-leaning cable news channel will be called MS NOW — an acronym for My Source, News, Opinion and World. The famous NBC peacock will no longer be part of the channel’s logo.
Viewers started seeing spots promoting the new moniker on Monday, with the tagline “Same mission, New name.” A larger marketing push will happen in the coming weeks according to a memo from MSNBC President Rebecca Kutler that was obtained by The Times.
The rebranding coincides with parent company Comcast’s spinoff of its NBCUniversal cable channels into Versant, a new company. CNBC, USA Network, Golf Channel, Oxygen, SyFy and E! are also part of the entity.
Comcast is unloading the channels because it believes the mature outlets face a bleak future due to pay TV cord-cutting and are an albatross weighing down its stock price. Comcast Chief Executive Brian Roberts will own 33% of the shares in Versant, which will trade as a public company under the symbol VSNT on the NASDAQ.
MSNBC will soon be called MS NOW.
(AP)
While the spinoff has been in the works for months, MSNBC viewers have heard little about it on the air until now. The network held a fan festival at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York earlier this month and all of the signage used the MSNBC logo. The name change was referred to several times by the personalities who appeared on stage.
The change required MSNBC to unwind its news operation from NBC News, which supplied correspondents to the channel. A number of NBC News correspondents, including Jacob Soboroff and Ken Dilanian, chose to work for Versant.
Although MSNBC employees were initially told the network’s name would be retained, NBCUniversal decided it did not want its brand attached to a network it did not control.
NBC News correspondent Jacob Soboroff reporting on the wildfire that destroyed his boyhood home.
(NBC News)
Versant Chief Executive Mark Lazarus encouraged his staff to embrace the change in spite of the challenges of marketing a new brand in a highly fragmented media landscape.
“This gives us the opportunity to chart our own path forward, create distinct brand identities, and establish an independent news organization following the spin,” Lazarus wrote in an August memo.
MSNBC has its own Washington bureau, which has already broken a number of stories in recent weeks, including the indictments of former FBI Director James Comey and former national security advisor John Bolton.
MSNBC also has a multiyear agreement with U.K.-based Sky News to provide international coverage.
Insiders closely watching the high-stakes campaign would be shocked if Republicans pulled an upset and defeated the Democrats’ retaliatory response to red state gerrymandering.
They talk mostly about the expected size of victory, not whether it will win. The hedged consensus is that it’ll be by a modest margin, not a blowout.
Any size victory would help Newsom promote himself nationally as the Democrat whom party activists anxiously seek to aggressively fight Trumpism. It could energize grassroots progressives to back the Californian in early 2028 presidential primaries.
Propositions 50’s defeat, however, could be a devastating blow to Newsom’s presidential aspirations. If Californians wouldn’t follow him, why should other people?
Private and independent polls have shown Proposition 50 being supported by a small majority of registered voters. Not enough for an early victory dance. But the opposition is nowhere close to a majority. A lot of people have been undecided. They may not even bother to vote in a special election with only one state measure on the ballot.
As of last week, the return of mail-in ballots was running about the same as in last year’s presidential election at the same point — very unusual.
A slightly higher percentage of Democrats were casting ballots than GOP registrants. This is particularly significant in a state where 45% of voters are Democrats and only 25% are Republicans. The GOP needs a humungous turnout to beat Democrats on almost anything.
One practical importance of early Democratic voting is that the “yes” side doesn’t need to spend more money appealing to people who have already mailed in their ballots.
“It’s a bird in the hand kind of thing,” says Paul Mitchell, the Democrats’ chief data processor and principal drawer of the gerrymandered congressional maps up for approval in Proposition 50.
Mitchell believes the large recent weekend turnouts in California of “No Kings” protesters are indicative of the anti-Trump outrage that is generating Democratic enthusiasm for Proposition 50.
Republican consultant Rob Stutzman thinks that Proposition 50 could have been beaten with enough money. But not nearly enough showed up. Potential donors probably concluded it was a lost cause, he says. Don’t waste the cash.
It takes ridiculous amounts of money to win a competitive statewide race in California, with 23 million diverse voters scattered over hundreds of miles and several costly media markets.
Democrats, with their unmatched California power, have raised well over $100 million from unions, billionaire Democratic donors and other political investors.
Billionaire hedge-fund founder Tom Steyer put up $12 million. There are rumors he’s tempted to run for governor.
Los Angeles developer Rick Caruso is thinking very seriously about entering the 2026 gubernatorial race. He just paid for 100,000 pro-50 mail pieces in L.A. County, aimed at those least likely to vote.
One problem for the opposition is that it never unified behind a main anti-50 message. It ranged from “reject Newsom’s power grab” to “win one for Trump” and a purist lecture about retaining California’s current congressional districts drawn by a voter-created good government citizens’ commission.
The basic pro-50 message is simply, as Steyer says in his TV ad: “Stick it to Trump.”
This contest at its core is about which party controls Congress after next year’s midterm elections — or whether Republicans and Democrats at least share power. It’s about whether there’ll be a Congress with some gumption to confront a power-mad, egotistical president.
The fight started when Trump banged on Texas to redraw — gerrymander — its congressional districts to potentially gain five more Republican seats in the House of Representatives. Democrats need only a slight pickup to capture House control — and in an off-year election, the non-presidential party tends to acquire many.
Texas obediently obliged the nervous Trump, and other red states also have.
Newsom responded by urging the California Legislature to redraw this state’s maps to potentially gain five Democratic seats, neutralizing Texas’ underhanded move. The lawmakers quickly did. But in California, voter approval is needed to temporarily shelve the independent commission’s work. That’s what Proposition 50 does.
“He’s been trying to claim the national leadership on anti-Trump. This is a chance for him to show he can deliver,” says UC Berkeley political scientist Eric Schickler. “There’s a sense the party doesn’t know how to fight back.
“On the flip side, if he were unable to persuade California voters to go along with him, it would be a hard sell to show Democrats nationally he’s the best person to take on Republicans.”
“It’s a gamble,” says UC San Diego political science professor Thad Kousser. “If 50 wins, he’s a person who can effectively fight back against Donald Trump. If it loses, he has no hope of winning on the national level.”
But veteran political consultant Mike Murphy — a former Republican who switched to independent — thinks Newsom could survive voters’ rejection of Proposition 50.
“It would take some of the shine off him. But he’d still be a contender. It wouldn’t knock him out. The worst you could say was that he lost 50 but was fighting the good fight.
“If 50 wins, Gavin might have a good future as a riverboat gambler if he puts all the chips in.”
President Trump urged California voters on Sunday not to cast mail-in ballots or vote early in the California election about redistricting — the direct opposite of the message from state GOP leaders.
Repeating his false claim that former President Biden beat him in 2020 because the election was rigged, Trump argued that the November special election about redistricting in California would be rigged, as would the 2026 midterm election to determine control of Congress.
“No mail-in or ‘Early’ Voting, Yes to Voter ID! Watch how totally dishonest the California Prop Vote is! Millions of Ballots being ‘shipped,’” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “GET SMART REPUBLICANS, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!!!”
Proposition 50, a ballot measure proposed by Gov. Gavin Newsom and other California Democrats to redraw the state’s congressional districts to boost their party’s ranks in the U.S. House of Representatives, is on the Nov. 4 ballot.
The rare mid-decade redistricting effort was in response to Trump urging GOP-led states, initially Texas, to increase the number of Republicans in the House in the 2026 midterm election to allow him to continue implementing his agenda in his final two years in the White House.
Trump has not weighed in on the merits of Proposition 50, while prominent Democrats who support it have, including former President Obama.
More than 4 million mail-in ballots — 18% of the ballots sent to California’s 23 million voters — had been returned as of Friday, according to a vote tracker run by Democratic redistricting expert Paul Mitchell, who drew the proposed maps on the ballot. Democrats continue to outpace Republicans in returning ballots, 51% to 28%. Voters registered without a party preference or with other political parties have returned 21% of the ballots.
Early-voting centers also opened in 29 counties on Saturday.
Turnout figures were alarming Republicans leaders before Trump’s message.
“It’s simple. Republicans need to stop complaining and vote. We ask and ask and ask and yet turnout still lags,” the San Diego GOP posted on X. “To win this one GOP turnout needs to be materially better than average. It’s very doable but won’t just happen. Work it.”
Republicans historically voted early while Democrats were more likely to cast ballots on election day. Trump upended this dynamic, creating dissonance with GOP leaders across the nation who recognized the value of banking early votes. And it completely contradicts the messaging by the opponents of Proposition 50.
Jessica Millan Patterson, a former chair of the state GOP and leader of the “No on Prop. 50 — Stop Sacramento’s Power Grab” committee, has been a longtime proponent of urging Republican voters to cast ballots as early and conveniently as possible.
“Sacramento politicians rushed this costly election for partisan gain, and mistakes have been made,” she said Sunday evening. “If Californians want change from our state’s failed one-party rule, it starts by turning out to vote no on Proposition 50.”
WASHINGTON — Betty Ford reportedly said that if the White House West Wing is the “mind” of the nation, then the East Wing — the traditional power center for first ladies — is the “heart.”
That “heart” beat for more than 100 years as first ladies and their teams worked from their East Wing offices on everything from stopping drug abuse and boosting literacy to beautifying and preserving the White House itself. It’s where they planned White House state dinners and brainstormed the elaborate themes that are a feature of the U.S. holiday season.
That history came to an end after wrecking crews tore down the wing’s two stories of offices and reception rooms this month. Gone is an in-house movie theater, as well as a covered walkway to the White House captured in so many photos over the years. An East Wing garden that was dedicated to Jacqueline Kennedy was uprooted, photographs show.
President Trump ordered the demolition as part of his still-to-be approved plan to build a $300-million ballroom.
The Republican former real estate developer has long been fixated on building a big White House ballroom. In 2010, he called a top advisor to then-President Obama and offered to build one. Trump made no secret of his distaste for the practice of hosting elegant White House state dinners underneath tents on the South Lawn. The Obama White House did not follow up on his request.
Now Trump, in his second term, is moving quickly to see his wish for what he calls a “great legacy project” become reality. He has tried to justify the East Wing tear-down and his ballroom plans by noting that some of his predecessors also added to the White House over the years.
First ladies and their staffs witnessed history in the East Wing, a “place of purpose and service,” said Anita McBride, who worked there as chief of staff to First Lady Laura Bush.
“Tearing down those walls doesn’t diminish the significance of the work we accomplished there,” McBride told the Associated Press.
McBride said she supports a ballroom addition because the “large and expensive tent option” that has been used when guest lists stretched longer than could be comfortably accommodated inside the White House “was not sustainable.” Tents damage the lawn and require additional infrastructure to be brought in, such as outdoor bathrooms and trolleys to move people around, especially in bad weather, she said.
Others feel differently.
Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, who was policy director for First Lady Michelle Obama, said the demolition was a “symbolic blow” to the East Wing’s legacy as a place where women made history.
“The East Wing was this physical space that had seen the role of the first lady evolve from a social hostess into a powerful advocate on a range of issues,” she said in an interview.
Here’s a look at some of the history that came out of the East Wing and the first ladies who spent time there:
Rosalynn Carter
She was the first first lady to have her own office in the East Wing. Most first ladies before Carter had worked out of the private living quarters on the second or third floor of the residence. Carter wanted a place where she could separate work and home.
“I always need a place to go that is private, where I don’t have to dress and don’t have to put on makeup,” she wrote in her memoir. “The offices of the staff of the first lady were always in the East Wing, and it seemed a perfect place for my office too.”
In her memoir, Carter wrote about her favorite route to her office in winter months. She walked through the basement, past laundry rooms and workshops and the bomb shelter kept for the president and his staff. The thermostats in the residence above had been turned down low because of President Carter’s energy conservation program, making the East Wing so cold that she was forced to wear long underwear.
The subterranean passageway shown to her by a residence staffer provided some relief. “With Jimmy’s energy conservation program, it was the only really warm place in the White House, with large steam pipes running overhead,” the first lady wrote.
Nancy Reagan
Photos from the East Wing in the early 1980s show the first lady meeting with staff, including her press secretary, Sheila Tate. For a generation of Americans, Nancy Reagan was most closely associated with a single phrase, “Just Say No,” for the anti-drug abuse program she made a hallmark of her White House tenure.
As Reagan once recalled, the idea for the campaign emerged during a 1982 visit with schoolchildren in Oakland. “A little girl raised her hand and said, ‘Mrs. Reagan, what do you do if somebody offers you drugs?’ And I said, ‘Well, you just say no.’ And there it was born.”
Hillary Clinton
Clinton bucked history by becoming the first first lady to insist that her office be in the West Wing, not the East Wing. In her memoir, Clinton wrote that she wanted her staff to be “integrated physically” with the president’s team. The first lady’s office relocated to what is now the Eisenhower Executive Office Building while Clinton was assigned an office on the second floor of the West Wing.
“This was another unprecedented event in White House history and quickly became fodder for late-night comedians and political pundits,” Clinton later wrote.
Laura Bush
Bush wrote in her memoir about what it was like at the White House after the Sept. 11 attacks. Most of her staff members, in their 20s, “kicked off their high heels and fled from the East Wing” after they were told to “run for their lives” when reports suggested the White House was a target, she wrote.
“Now they were being asked to come back to work in a building that everyone considered a target and for a presidency and a country that would be at war.”
Michelle Obama
Obama was the first Black woman to serve as first lady, becoming a global role model and style icon who advocated for improved child nutrition through her “Let’s Move” initiative. She and her staff in the East Wing also worked to support military families and promote higher education for girls in developing countries.
Photos from the time show Obama typing on a laptop during an online chat about school nutrition and the White House garden she created.
Melania Trump
Trump pushed the boundaries of serving as first lady by not living at the White House during the opening months of President Trump’s first term. She stayed in New York with their then-school-age son, Barron, so he wouldn’t have to switch schools midyear. When she eventually moved to the White House, she and her East Wing aides launched an initiative called “Be Best,” focused on child well-being, opioid abuse and online safety.
Jill Biden
Biden was the first first lady to continue a career outside the White House. The longtime community college English professor taught twice a week while serving as first lady. But in her East Wing work, she was an advocate for military families; her late father and her late son Beau served in the military. Biden also advocated for research into a cure for cancer and secured millions of dollars in federal funding for research into women’s health.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Democratic presidential nominee Michael S. Dukakis stepped up his attacks on the ethical standards of the Reagan Administration on Saturday, offering his harshest criticism yet of the President’s role in the Pentagon procurement scandal.
Asked if he blamed President Reagan and Vice President George Bush, the presumed Republican nominee, personally for the corruption, Dukakis responded: “There’s an old Greek saying . . . The fish rots from the head first. It starts at the top.”
Dukakis said that misconduct and scandal have become “almost an epidemic” under Reagan. “It’s the guy at the top who has to be held accountable,” he added.
“If an Administration comes to Washington with a contempt for public service,” the Massachusetts governor said, “we shouldn’t be surprised if people it attracts to the government share that contempt.”
Dukakis’ acid comments at a press conference here capped a seven-state campaign swing in the industrial Midwest and Deep South targeted at Reagan Democrats–or “Bubba Democrats” as some here in Kentucky call themselves–the 18% of the electorate whose defection helped Reagan win landslide elections in 1980 and 1984.
The strategy holds the risk of alienating supporters of the still-popular President. Until now, Dukakis usually has avoided direct criticism of Reagan, aiming his sharpest barbs at outgoing Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III.
In his three-day campaign swing, his second since the convention, Dukakis repeatedly mocked Bush’s promise to put an ethics office in the White House. “In the Dukakis White House, the ethics office will be in the Oval Office, not somewhere down the hall,” he said.
He also cited testimony last week by David Packard, former head of the Reagan Commission on Defense Management and a former deputy secretary of defense, before the Senate Armed Services Committee investigating the Pentagon scandal.
Packard “testified that this Administration has helped create an environment in which, and I quote, ‘honest and efficient military acquisition is impossible,’ ” Dukakis told more than 5,000 people at an outdoor rally in this steamy Ohio River city.
“My friends, in a Dukakis Administration we’re not going to surrender our national security to greed and corruption,” he added. “We’re not going to use our defense dollars to line the pockets of Washington consultants. We’re going to pay for the tanks and equipment and training the men and women of our armed forces need and deserve.”
Dukakis has called for sharp spending cuts for Reagan’s “Star Wars” missile defense system. He opposes further deployment of the MX missile, as well as further spending on the mobile Midgetman missile system. He also would forgo two proposed Navy aircraft carrier task forces.
Dukakis focused mostly on economic development and education in his campaign visits to Secaucus, N.J.; Cleveland; Flint, Mich.; Racine, Wis.; Springfield, Ill.; Louisville, and Raleigh, N.C.
Despite sweltering weather at every stop, Dukakis encountered sizable crowds and palpable enthusiasm almost everywhere. His rally here, for example, was a sharp contrast with the visit in 1984 by then-Democratic nominee Walter F. Mondale.
Only a few hundred lonely voters showed up then. Even state Democratic leaders “mostly ducked it,” recalled Mayor Jerry E. Abramson. On election day, Kentucky, a state with twice as many registered Democrats as Republicans, gave 69% of its votes to Reagan.
This time, every top elected Democrat in the state crowded the platform in sweat-soaked shirts, waving flags and grinning for the cameras. State Chairman Jerry Lundergan happily held the candidate’s coat. A plane circled overhead, towing a banner: “Our Choice: President Dukakis!”
“He’s what America needs,” said Dale Robinson, 25, a law clerk who clutched two Instamatic cameras and a tiny U.S. flag. “He stands for what America is all about.”
“I think we need a change,” agreed Mike Johnson, 34, a high school teacher. “And I think he’ll do a better job of handling the deficit than Bush.”
Later, at an indoor state fairground hall in Raleigh, aides tried to re-create the excitement of Dukakis’ victory speech in Atlanta.
First came the now-familiar thumping beat of Neil Diamond’s “America” to warm up the crowd. Then in came the candidate, marching like a prize fighter under TV lights as the crowd roared to its feet. A singer belted out the National Anthem, the crowd faced a giant flag to chant the Pledge of Allegiance and Dukakis used a TelePrompTer to speak of an America that “cares for each other and, yes, loves one another.”
“He’s inspiring us to be Americans again,” said Janice Brady, who held her 9-year-old daughter, Amanda. “Just like Reagan.”
