POLITICS

When an LAPD captain stood up during a meeting this fall and asked Chief Jim McDonnell to explain the role of his most trusted deputy, Dominic Choi, other top brass in attendance waited with anticipation for the reply.

Multiple department sources, who requested anonymity to discuss the private meeting and speak candidly about their boss, said McDonnell’s answer drew confused looks.

Some officials had began to wonder how closely the 66-year-old McDonnell, who stepped into the job in November 2024 after recent work in consulting and academia, was involved in day-to-day operations. Choi is often attached to his hip, and McDonnell has privately advised other senior staff to go through the assistant chief for key matters, leaving some uncertainty about how shots are called, the sources said.

At the senior staff meeting, McDonnell joked about not wanting to talk about Choi — who was not present in the room — behind his back, and told the captain that Choi was simply his “eyes and ears,” without offering more clarity, according to the sources.

The awkward exchange reflected the uncertainty that some LAPD officials feel about McDonnell’s leadership style.

Over the last year, The Times spoke with numerous sources, from high-ranking commanders to beat cops on the street, along with recently retired LAPD officials and longtime department observers, to gather insights on McDonnell’s first 12 months as the city’s top cop.

By some measures, McDonnell has been a success. Violent crime citywide has continued to decline. Despite the LAPD’s hiring struggles, officials say that applications by new recruits have been increasing. And support for the chief remains strong in some political circles, where backers lauded his ability to navigate so many challenges, most not of his own making — from the city’s financial crisis and civil unrest to the devastating wildfires that hit just two months after he was sworn in.

At the same time, shootings by police officers have increased to their highest levels in nearly a decade and the LAPD’s tactics at protests this summer drew both public outrage and lawsuits. Some longtime observers worry the department is sliding back into a defiant culture of past eras.

“You’ve got a department that’s going to bankrupt the city but doesn’t want to answer for what it is going to be doing,” said Connie Rice, a civil rights attorney.

In an interview with The Times, McDonnell said he is proud of how his department has performed. He said his bigger plans for the LAPD are slowly coming together.

McDonnell rose through the LAPD’s ranks early in his career, and acknowledged much has changed in the 14 years that he was away from the department. That’s why he has leaned “heavily” on the expertise of Choi, who served as interim chief before he took over, he said.

“He’s been a tremendous partner for me coming back,” McDonnell said.

Dominic Choi, who served as interim LAPD chief before Jim McDonnell was hired, speaks at a 2024 news conference with federal law enforcement officials.

(Al Seib / For The Times)

McDonnell added that he has relied just as much on his other command staff, encouraging them to think and act for themselves “to get the job done.”

Retired LAPD commander Lillian Carranza is among those saying the new chief has failed to shake things up after Michel Moore stepped down abruptly in January 2024.

Instead, she said, McDonnell has lacked the decisiveness required to make real changes in the face of resistance from the police union and others.

“It appears that the chief thought he was coming back to the LAPD from 15 years ago,” she said of McDonnell. “It’s been a disappointment because of the individuals that he’s promoted — it just seems like Michel Moore 2.0 again.”

There are notable contrasts in style and strategy between McDonnell and his predecessor.

Moore, who did not respond to a call seeking comment, often used his pulpit to try to get out ahead of potential crises. McDonnell has kept a lower profile. He has largely halted the regular press briefings that Moore once used to answer questions about critical incidents and occasionally opine on national issues.

Unlike Moore, who developed a reputation as a demanding manager who insisted on approving even minor decisions, McDonnell has seemingly embraced delegation. Still, his perceived deference to Choi, who also served as a top advisor to Moore, has led to questions about just how much has really changed. Choi has represented the department at nearly a fourth of all Police Commission meetings this year, a task usually performed by the chief.

Former LAPD Chief Michel Moore attends an event at the Police Academy on Dec. 7, 2023.

(Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

It’s telling of their closeness, LAPD insiders said, that Choi occupies the only other suite on the 10th floor of LAPD headquarters with direct access, via a balcony, to McDonnell’s own office.

Choi did not respond to a request for comment.

Mayor Karen Bass chose McDonnell as chief after a lengthy nationwide search, picking him over candidates who would have been the first Black woman or first Latino to lead the department. He offered experience, having also served as police chief in Long Beach and as L.A. County sheriff.

McDonnell has mostly avoided the type of headline-grabbing scandals that plagued the department under Moore. Meanwhile, homicides citywide were on pace to reach a 60-year low — a fact that the mayor has repeatedly touted as her reelection campaign kicks into gear.

In a brief statement, the mayor commended McDonnell and said she looked forward to working with him to make the city safer “while addressing concerns about police interaction with the public and press.”

Jim McDonnell shakes hands with Mayor Karen Bass after being introduced as LAPD chief during a news conference at City Hall on Oct. 4, 2024.

(Ringo Chiu / For The Times)

McDonnell has taken steps to streamline the LAPD’s operations, including folding the department’s four homicide bureaus into the Robbery-Homicide Division and updating the department’s patrol plan to account for the department being down fewer officers.

John Lee, who chairs the City Council’s public safety committee, said the chief is the kind of experienced and steady leader the city needs as it gets ready to host the World Cup and Olympics. McDonnell, he said, deserves credit for guiding the LAPD through “unprecedented situations,” while largely delivering on promises to reduce crime and lift officer morale.

But among the rank and file, there is continued frustration with the department’s disciplinary system. The process, which critics outside the LAPD say rarely holds officers accountable, is seen internally as having a double standard that leads to harsh punishments for regular cops and slaps on the wrist for higher-ranking officials. Efforts at reform have repeatedly stalled in recent years.

McDonnell told The Times that officers have for years felt that the system was stacked against them. One of his priorities is “making the disciplinary system more fair in the eyes of those involved in it,” he said, and speeding up internal affairs investigations that can drag on for a year or more without “jeopardizing accountability or transparency.”

He said he’d like to give supervisors greater authority to quickly weed out complaints that “are demonstrably false on their face” based on body camera footage and other evidence.”

But the lack of progress on the issue has started to rankle the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union for officers below the rank of lieutenant. The League urged McDonnell to take action in a statement to The Times.

“The way we see it, the Chief is either going to leverage his mandate and implement change, much to the chagrin of some in his command staff that staunchly support the status quo, or he will circle the wagons around the current system and continue to run out the clock,” the statement read. ”There’s no need to keep booking conference rooms to meet and talk about ‘fixing discipline,’ it’s time to fish or cut bait.”

Perhaps more than anything, the ongoing federal immigration crackdown has shaped McDonnell’s first year as chief.

Although McDonnell is limited in what he can do in the face of raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agencies, some of the chief’s detractors say he is missing a moment to improve relations between police and citizens of a majority-Latino city.

The son of Irish immigrants from Boston, McDonnell drew criticism during President Trump’s first term when, as L.A. County sheriff, he allowed ICE agents access to the nation’s largest jail. As LAPD chief, McDonnell has often voiced his support for long-standing policies that restrict cooperation on civil immigration enforcement and limit what officers can ask members of the public about their status in the country.

“I get hate mail from two extremes: those that are saying we’re not doing enough to work with ICE and those that are saying we’re working with ICE too much,” McDonnell said.

U.S. Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino marches with federal agents to the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building on Aug. 14.

(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)

Deputy Chief Alan Hamilton, who runs the department’s detective bureau, said McDonnell has to tread lightly politically and can’t follow the suggestion of some people that “we should use our law enforcement agencies to fight back against the feds.”

“He can’t come out and say, ‘We oppose ICE, get out of our city,’ like some of these other clowns are doing,” Hamilton said. “I mean, what, are you just trying to bring the wrath?”

But the LAPD’s response to the protests against Trump’s agenda has repeatedly led to bad optics. Officers have stepped in to keep the peace when angry crowds form at the scene of ICE arrests, which some said created the appearance of defending the federal actions.

During large demonstrations — which have occasionally turned unruly, with bricks and Molotov cocktails hurled by some in the crowds — LAPD officers on foot or horseback have not held back in swinging batons, firing less-lethal munitions and even launching tear gas, a measure that hadn’t been deployed on the streets of L.A. in decades.

Press rights organizations and a growing list of people who say they were injured by police have filed lawsuits, potentially adding to the tens of millions in the legal bills the department already faces for protest-related litigation from years that predated McDonnell.

Attorney Susan Seager, who is suing the department over its recent protest tactics, said that McDonnell has seemed unwilling to second-guess officers, even when confronted with clear video evidence of them violating court-imposed restrictions.

“I’ve never seen LAPD so unhinged at a protest shooting people,” she said.

An LAPD officer pushes back an anti-ICE protester during a rally on “No Kings Day” in downtown Los Angeles on June 14.

(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)

McDonnell said that each use of force would be investigated thoroughly, and if necessary discipline would be imposed, but denied that his department’s response had been excessive.

What goes unmentioned by the LAPD’s detractors, he said, is how volatile and “kinetic,” protests have been, requiring officers to use all means available to them to avoid being overwhelmed by hostile crowds.

Reporters and others on the front lines should know the risks of being there, he said.

“If the journalists are in that environment, they sometimes get hit with less-lethal projectiles — as do our police officers who are in that same environment,” he said.

DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. — President Trump on Wednesday paid his respects to two Iowa National Guard members and a U.S. civilian interpreter who were killed in an attack in the Syrian desert, joining their grieving families as their remains were brought back to the country they served.

Trump met privately with the families at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware before the dignified transfer, a solemn ritual conducted in honor of U.S. service members killed in action. The civilian was also included in the transfer.

Trump, who traveled to Dover several times in his first term, once described it as “the toughest thing I have to do” as president.

The two Iowa troops killed in Syria on Saturday were Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar, 25, of Des Moines, and Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, of Marshalltown, according to the U.S. Army. Both were members of the 1st Squadron, 113th Cavalry Regiment, and have been hailed as heroes by the Iowa National Guard.

Torres-Tovar’s and Howard’s families were at Dover for the return of their remains, alongside Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, members of Iowa’s congressional delegation and leaders of the Iowa National Guard. Their remains will be taken to Iowa after the transfer.

A U.S. civilian working as an interpreter, identified Tuesday as Ayad Mansoor Sakat, of Macomb, Mich., was also killed. Three other members of the Iowa National Guard were injured in the attack. The Pentagon has not identified them.

They were among hundreds of U.S. troops deployed in eastern Syria as part of a coalition fighting the Islamic State group.

The process of returning service member remains

There is no formal role for a president at a dignified transfer other than to watch in silence, with all thoughts about what happened in the past and what is happening at Dover kept to himself for the moment. There is no speaking by any of the dignitaries who attend, with the only words coming from the military officials who direct the highly choreographed transfers.

Trump arrived without First Lady Melania Trump, who had been scheduled to accompany him, according to the president’s public schedule. Her office declined to elaborate, with spokesperson Nick Clemens saying the first lady “was not able to attend today.”

During the process at Dover, transfer cases draped with the American flag that hold the soldiers’ remains are carried from the belly of a hulking C-17 military aircraft to a waiting vehicle under the watchful eyes of grieving family members. The vehicle then transports the remains to the mortuary facility at the base, where the fallen are prepared for burial.

Iowa National Guard members hailed as heroes

Howard’s stepfather, Jeffrey Bunn, has said Howard “loved what he was doing and would be the first in and last out.” He said Howard had wanted to be a soldier since he was a boy.

In a social media post, Bunn, who is chief of the Tama, Iowa, police department, said Howard was a loving husband and an “amazing man of faith.” He said Howard’s brother, a staff sergeant in the Iowa National Guard, would escort “Nate” back to Iowa.

Torres-Tovar was remembered as a “very positive” family-oriented person who always put others first, according to fellow Guard members who were deployed with him and issued a statement to the local TV broadcast station WOI.

Dina Qiryaqoz, the daughter of the civilian interpreter who was killed, said Wednesday in a statement that her father worked for the U.S. Army during the invasion of Iraq from 2003 to 2007. Sakat is survived by his wife and four adult children.

The interpreter was from Bakhdida, Iraq, a small Catholic village southeast of Mosul, and the family immigrated to the U.S. in 2007 on a special visa, Qiryaqoz said. At the time of his death, Sakat was employed as an independent contractor for Virginia-based Valiant Integrated Services.

Sakat’s family was still struggling to believe that he is gone. “He was a devoted father and husband, a courageous interpreter and a man who believed deeply in the mission he served,” Qiryaqoz said.

Trump’s reaction to the attack in Syria

Trump told reporters over the weekend that he was mourning the deaths. He vowed retaliation. The most recent instance of U.S. service members killed in action was in January 2024, when three American troops died in a drone attack in Jordan.

Saturday’s deadly attack followed a rapprochement between the U.S. and Syria, bringing the former pariah state into a U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group.

Trump has forged a relationship with interim Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, the onetime leader of an Islamic insurgent group who led the ouster of former President Bashar Assad.

Trump, who met with al-Sharaa last month at the White House, said Monday that the attack had nothing to do with the Syrian leader, who Trump said was “devastated by what happened.”

During his first term, Trump visited Dover in 2017 to honor a U.S. Navy SEAL killed during a raid in Yemen, in 2019 for two Army officers whose helicopter crashed in Afghanistan, and in 2020 for two Army soldiers killed in Afghanistan when a person dressed in an Afghan army uniform opened fire.

Price writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Konstantin Toropin and Darlene Superville in Washington, Isabella Volmert in Lansing, Mich., and Hannah Fingerhut in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino said Wednesday that he will resign from the bureau next month, ending a brief and tumultuous tenure in which he clashed with the Justice Department over the handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files and was forced to reconcile the realities of his law enforcement job with provocative claims he made in his prior role as a popular podcast host.

The departure, which had been expected, would be among the highest-profile resignations of the Trump administration. It comes as FBI leadership has been buffeted by criticism over Director Kash Patel’s use of a government plane for personal purposes and social media posts about active investigations.

Bongino announced his planned departure in a post on X in which he said he was grateful for the “opportunity to serve with purpose.” He did not say precisely when in January he would leave or detail his future plans.

President Trump said earlier Wednesday, in response to a question about Bongino’s fate: “Dan did a great job. I think he wants to go back to his show.”

Bongino was always an unconventional pick for the No. 2 job at the FBI, a position that historically has entailed oversight of the bureau’s day-to-day operations and typically has been held by a career agent. Though he had previously worked as a New York City police officer and Secret Service agent, neither he nor Patel had any experience at the FBI before being picked for their jobs.

Nonetheless, Bongino was installed in the role in March by Trump after years as a conservative podcast host, where he used his platform to repeatedly rail against FBI leadership and to encourage conspiracy theories related to the Epstein sex-trafficking case and pipe bombs discovered in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021.

Once in the position, Bongino struggled to placate elements of Trump’s base who expected him to quickly deliver the reform he had claimed was needed at the FBI and to uncover the truths he had said had been hidden by the federal government.

On the Epstein case, for instance, he had previously challenged the official ruling that the wealthy financier had taken his own life in a New York jail soon after his 2019 arrest. But once in the FBI, he said in a Fox News interview: “I’ve seen the whole file. He killed himself.”

Bongino had separately speculated as recently as last year that the pipe bombs placed on the eve of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot were an “inside job” and part of a “massive cover-up.” But after the FBI earlier this month arrested a 30-year-old Virginia man with no evident connection to the federal government, Bongino was pressed about his prior comments.

“I was paid in the past for my opinions,” Bongino said in a Fox News interview. “One day I will be back in that space, but that’s not what I’m paid for now. I’m paid to be your deputy director, and we base investigations on facts.”

Tucker writes for the Associated Press.

A pair of blue and yellow earplugs dangle on Jose’s neck while waiting for work as a day laborer out of the Home Depot in Cypress Park.

They’ve been a necessity for laborers in the area since late November, when Home Depot installed three machines in the parking lot that emit a high-pitched tone. The noise, typically kept on all day, is a piercing sound that “penetrates your bones,” he said.

The Instituto de Educacion Popular del Sur de California (IDEPSCA), a nonprofit that supports day laborers, held a press conference at Home Depot Wednesday, calling for the company remove the machines and vocalize opposition to the ICE raids taking place in its parking lots, part of a growing number of protests targeting corporate cooperation with immigration enforcement.

Home Depot locations nationwide have been a prime target for ICE raids under President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. In early November, ICE agents detained a man at the Cypress Park location and then drove off with his toddler in the back of the vehicle.

Around 50 people have been detained at the Cypress Park location this year, said Maegan Ortiz, IDEPSCA’s executive director. The machines are an attempt to push day laborers off its lots, she said.

The machines were turned off by the company during the press conference, but were turned back on about an hour after it ended, according to workers. The noise is in earshot of the IDEPSCA’s day laborer center, one of five operated by the organization that have supported workers for over two decades.

“We have been here and remain open through global pandemics, providing services and creating community,” Ortiz said. “We’re not going to let sound machines, gates and intimidation get rid of us. Day laborers are here to stay. IDEPSCA is here to stay. The immigrant community is here to stay.”

Evelyn Fornes, a spokesperson for Home Depot, wrote to The Times that the company “has several initiatives we use to keep our stores safe, including human and technology resources.” The company did not address questions on why or when the machines were installed.

George Lane, a company spokesperson, previously told The Times that the company doesn’t coordinate with ICE or Border Patrol.

“We’re not involved in the operations. We aren’t notified that immigration enforcement activities are going to happen, and often, we don’t know operations have taken place until they’re over,” Lane wrote.

Jose’s earplugs, which IDEPSCA provided to workers, help muffle the sound, but aren’t enough to completely mask it, he said. The noise causes workers headaches, nausea and dizziness, said Jose and Andres Salazar, the center’s site coordinator.

Salazar said the noise often follows him home, still ringing in his ears long after he’s left the parking lot.

The machines were installed only days after the latest raid at the location in late November, during which day laborers were taken and IDEPSCA staff members were harmed, Ortiz said.

The machines were installed on light posts in the parking lot situated directly under the 5 freeway overpass. Hernandez and Ortiz said that portion of the parking lot is Caltrans property and not owned by Home Depot. They urged the city to look into the machine’s installations.

Home Depot also installed yellow barriers that close off access to the parking lot near IDEPSCA’s day labor center, located at the corner of the Cypress Park location.

The machines are “a deliberate choice by a multi billion dollar corporation that absolutely knew what it was doing and chose to weaponize sound literally,” said Councilwoman Eunisses Hernandez, who represents the city’s first district. “Devices like these are used as torture against our people.”

Home Depot relies on immigrant and Latino communities, Hernandez said, including customers who shop inside and day laborers, who seek work outside their storefronts.

The day laborer center is more than just a workplace, said Jose, who asked to withhold his last name for fear of retaliation by immigration agents. For many day laborers, it’s a second home, and for some, their only one. The center is bursting with greenery – plants that are cared for by the workers themselves.

“This space is something truly beautiful,” Jose said. “But, everything they’re doing with the noise and the barriers, it is affecting us…We’re here to help serve the community, not steal from the company.”

The noise is an added another layer of stress to day laborers, who are already struggling with less work opportunities and navigating lingering trauma from ICE raids. Jose was at the Home Depot when the last raid took place, only days before the company implemented the noise machines.

He watched in horror as coworkers were taken and volunteers were beaten.

“It made me angry, but I felt so impotent because, well, what do I do?” Jose said. “If I start fighting them, they’re going to knock me down, they’re going to take me.”

A trio of federal judges questioned attorneys for Gov. Gavin Newsom and the California Republican Party on Wednesday in a legal case that will decide the fate of California’s new voter-approved congressional districts for the 2026 midterm elections.

Attorneys for the California Republican Party and the Trump administration’s Department of Justice during the hearing recapped the argument they made in their legal complaint, accusing Democratic legislators and redistricting experts of racial gerrymandering that illegally favored Latinos.

The state’s legal representatives, meanwhile, argued their primary goal was not racial but political — they worked to weaken Republicans’ voting power in California to offset similar gerrymandering in Texas and other GOP-led states.

But Wednesday was the first time the public got to hear the three federal judges of the Central District of California challenge those narratives as they weigh whether to grant the GOP’s request for a temporary injunction blocking the reconfigured congressional districts approved by voters in November under Proposition 50.

The GOP has repeatedly seized on public comments from Paul Mitchell, a redistricting expert for California’s Democratic-led Legislature who designed the Proposition 50 congressional districts, that “the No. 1 thing” he started thinking about was “drawing a replacement Latino majority/minority district in the middle of Los Angeles.”

On Wednesday, District Court Judge Josephine Staton suggested that GOP attorneys focused too much on the intent of Mitchell and Democratic legislators and not enough on the voters who ultimately approved Proposition 50.

“Why would we not be looking at their intent?” Staton asked Michael Columbo, an attorney for California Republicans. “If the relative intent is the voters, you have nothing.”

Nearly two-thirds of California voters approved the new Proposition 50 congressional district map in a Nov. 4 special election after Newsom pitched the idea as a way to counter partisan gerrymandering after President Trump pressed Texas to redraw maps to shore up the GOP’s narrow House majority.

The stakes for California and the nation are high.

If the new map is used for the 2026 midterms, it could give California Democrats up to five additional U.S. House seats. That could allow them to push back against the gains Republicans make due to redistricting in staunchly GOP states and increase Democrats’ chance of seizing the House and shifting the balance of power in Congress.

A win for Democrats could also boost Newsom’s national clout and help him pitch himself as the nation’s strongest and most effective Trump critic as he enters his final year as California governor and weighs a White House bid.

During closing arguments Wednesday, an attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice argued that the race-based aspect of the redrawn districts started with the drafting of the Assembly bill that led to Proposition 50 being placed on the ballot.

Staton, however, seemed unconvinced.

“These maps have no effect,” she said, “until the voters give them effect.”

The GOP cannot challenge the map on grounds of political gerrymandering: The Supreme Court decided in 2019 that such complaints have no path in federal court. That leaves them focusing on race.

But proving that race predominated over partisanship is a challenge, legal scholars say, and paying attention to race is not, in itself, prohibited under current law. To prove that race was the key motivation, plaintiffs have to show there is another way for map makers to achieve their desired political result without a racial impact.

During the hearing, Staton stressed that the burden was on the challengers of Proposition 50 to prove racial intent.

To that end, the GOP brought to the stand RealClearPolitics elections analyst Sean Trende, who said the new 13th Congressional District in the San Joaquin Valley had an “appendage” that snaked northward into Stockton. Such contorted offshoots, he said, are “usually indicative of racial gerrymandering.” Trende produced an alternative map of the district that he said retained Democratic representation without being driven by race.

But Staton questioned whether Trende’s map was substantially different from Mitchell’s, noting they both seemed to fall within a similar range of Latino representation.

U.S. District Judge Wesley Hsu lambasted Columbo over what he called the “strawman” attempt to pick out one district, the 13th Congressional District, to make the case that there was a race-conscious effort in the attempt to flip five seats in the Democrats’ favor.

Jennifer Rosenberg, an attorney for the state, also argued that Trende’s analysis was too narrow.

“Dr. Trende failed to conduct a district by district analysis,” Rosenberg said. “And as we can see, he only addressed two tiny portions of District 13 and really only focused on one of the subparts.”

U.S. District Judge Kenneth Lee questioned Rosenberg on how much she believed Mitchell’s public statements about wanting to create a Latino district in Los Angeles influenced his redrawing.

“He was talking to interested groups,” Rosenberg said. “He did not communicate that intent to legislators.”

However, Lee said that Mitchell’s closeness to Democratic interest groups was an important factor. Mitchell “delivered on” the “wants” of the Latino interest groups he interacted with, Lee said, based on his public statements and lack of testimony.

Lee also took issue with Mitchell not testifying at the hearing and the dozens of times he invoked legislative privilege during a deposition ahead of the hearing.

Abha Khanna, who represented the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, argued there was no racial predominance in Mitchell’s statements.

She showed judges the text of Proposition 50, an official voter guide and statements from Newsom, arguing they were overt declarations of partisan intent. She also pointed out instances in which Republican plaintiffs discussed Proposition 50 in exclusively partisan terms.

If the federal judges grant a preliminary injunction, California would be temporarily blocked from using the newly drawn map in the 2026 election. Attorneys for the state would probably appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Just two weeks ago, the nation’s highest court allowed Texas to temporarily keep its newly drawn congressional districts — which also faced complaints of racial gerrymandering — after a federal court blocked the Texas map, finding racial considerations probably made it unconstitutional.

The U.S. Supreme Court indicated it viewed the Texas redistricting as motivated primarily by partisan politics. In its ruling, it explicitly drew a connection between Texas and California, noting that several states, including California, have redrawn their congressional map “in ways that are predicted to favor the State’s dominant political party.”

MEXICO CITY — President Trump has ordered a partial blockade on oil tankers going to and from Venezuela, potentially crippling the nation’s already battered economy, and accused Caracas of stealing “oil, land other assets” from the United States — a significant escalation of Washington’s unrelenting campaign against the government of President Nicolás Maduro.

Asked about Venezuela on Wednesday, Trump said the United States will be “getting land, oil rights and whatever we had.”

“We want it back,” Trump said without further elaboration. It was unclear if Trump planned to say more about Venezuela in a televised address to the nation late Wednesday night.

The blockade, which aims to cripple the key component of Venezuela’s faltering, oil-dependent economy, comes as the Trump administration has bolstered military forces in the Caribbean, blown up more than two dozen boats allegedly ferrying illicit drugs in both the Caribbean and the Pacific, and threatened military strikes on Venezuela and neighboring Colombia.

“Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America,” Trump said in a rambling post Tuesday night on his Truth Social site. “It will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before.”

Not long after Trump announced the blockade Tuesday night, the government of Venezuela denounced the move and other Trump efforts as an attempt to “rob the riches that belong to our people.”

Leaders of other Latin American nations called for calm and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, after a phone call with Maduro, called on U.N. members to “exert restraint and de-escalate tensions to preserve regional stability.”

Also Wednesday, Trump received rare pushback from the Republican-dominated Congress, where some lawmakers are pressuring the administration to disclose more information about its deadly attacks on alleged drug boats.

The Senate gave final approval to a $900-billion defense policy package that, among other things, would require the administration to disclose to lawmakers specific orders behind the boat strikes along with unedited videos of the deadly attacks. If the administration does not comply, the bill would withhold a quarter of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s travel budget.

The bill’s passage came a day after Hegseth and Secretary Marco Rubio came to Capitol Hill to brief lawmakers on the U.S. military campaign. The briefings left lawmakers with mixed reaction, largely with Republicans backing the campaign and Democrats expressing concern about it.

The White House has said its military campaign in Venezuela is meant to curb drug trafficking, but the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration data shows that Venezuela is a relatively minor player in the U.S.-bound drug trade.

Trump also declared that the South American country had been designated a “foreign terrorist organization.” That would apparently make Venezuela the first nation ever slapped with a classification normally reserved for armed groups deemed hostile to the United States or its allies. The consequences remain unclear for Venezuela.

Regional responses to the Trump threats highlight the new ideological fault lines in Latin America, where right-wing governments in recent years have won elections in Chile, Argentina and Ecuador.

The leftist leaders of the region’s two most populous nations — Brazil and Mexico — have called for restraint in Venezuela.

“Whatever one thinks about the Venezuelan government or the presidency of Maduro, the position of Mexico should always be: No to intervention, no to foreign meddling,” Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Wednesday, calling on the United Nations to look for a peaceful solution and avoid any bloodshed.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has also urged Trump to pull back from confrontation. “The power of the word can outweigh the power of the gun,” Lula said he told Trump recently, offering to facilitate talks with the Maduro government.

But Chile’s right-wing president-elect, José Antonio Kast, said he supports regime-change in Venezuela, asserting that it would reduce migration from Venezuela to other nations in the region.

“If someone is going to do it, let’s be clear that it solves a gigantic problem for us and all of Latin America, all of South America, and even for countries in Europe,” Kast said, referring to Venezuelan immigration.

In his Tuesday post, Trump said he had ordered a “complete blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers going into, and out of, Venezuela.” While potentially devastating to Venezuela’s economy, the fact that the blockade will only affect tankers already sanctioned by U.S. authorities does give Venezuela some breathing room, at least for now.

Experts estimated that only between one-third and one-half of tankers transporting crude to and from Venezuela are likely part of the so-called “dark fleet” of sanctioned tankers. The ships typically ferry crude from Venezuela and Iran, two nations under heavy U.S. trade and economic bans.

However, experts said that even a partial blockade will be a major hit for Venezuela’s feeble economy, reeling under more than a decade of of U.S. penalties. And Washington can continue adding to the list of sanctioned tankers.

“The United States can keep sanctioning more tankers, and that would leave Venezuela with almost no income,” said David A. Smilde, a Venezuela expert at Tulane University. “That would probably cause a famine in the country.”

The growing pressure, analysts said, will likely mean the diminishing number of firms willing to take the risk of transporting Venezuelan crude will up their prices, putting more pressure on Caracas. Purchasers in China and elsewhere will also likely demand price cuts to buy Venezuelan oil.

Trump has said that Maduro must go because he is a “narco-terrorist” and heads the “Cartel de los Soles,” which the While House calls is a drug-trafficking syndicate. Trump has put a $50 million bounty on Maduro’s head. Experts say that Cartel de los Soles is not a functioning cartel, but a short-hand term for Venezuelan military officers who have been involved in the drug trade for decades, long before Maduro or his predecessor and mentor, the late Hugo Chávez, took office.

In his comments on Tuesday, Trump denounced the nationalization of the Venezuelan oil industry, a process that began in the 1970s, when Caracas was a strong ally of Washington.

Echoing Trump’s point that Venezuela “stole” U.S. assets was Stephen Miller, Trump’s homeland security advisor, who declared on X: “American sweat, ingenuity and toil created the oil industry in Venezuela. Its tyrannical expropriation was the largest recorded theft of American wealth and property.”

Among those believed to be driving Trump’s efforts to oust Maduro is Secretary of State Maro Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants to Florida. Rubio has long been an outspoken opponent of the communist governments in Havana and Caracas. Venezuelan oil has helped the economies of left-wing governments in both Cuba and Nicaragua.

Christopher Sabatini, a senior fellow for Latin America at Chatham House, said Rubio has been on a long-time campaign to remove Maduro.”He has his own political project,” Sabatini said. “He wants to get rid of the dictators in Venezuela and Cuba.”

Staff writers McDonnell and Linthicum reported from Mexico City and Ceballos from Washington. Contributing was special correspondent Mery Mogollón in Caracas.