congress

ST. CLOUD, Fla. — Florida chef Elijah Button was chopping onions in June when his knife slipped and sliced his middle finger to the bone.

It was his worst kitchen accident to date. But having given up his Affordable Care Act health insurance plan in January because of a $100 monthly premium hike he couldn’t afford, the 21-year-old in St. Cloud didn’t have the money for emergency care.

“Going to the hospital for it wasn’t even an option,” he said, gesturing toward his finger before preparing a pot roast for his aunt and uncle in their suburban home. “My first thought was, ‘how am I going to fix this?’”

After Republicans in Congress let enhanced federal subsidies for Affordable Care Act health plans expire in January, millions of Americans including Button had to decide whether to keep insurance that often doubled or tripled in cost — or risk going without it.

Months later, with no action from lawmakers to replace the lost funds, they’re facing the consequences. Some are dealing with strained budgets and exorbitant medical bills, while others avoid the doctor in fear of the cost.

Florida, whose large population of gig workers, entrepreneurs and small business owners relies heavily on the federal health insurance marketplace, has become one of the nation’s most visible epicenters of that impact.

Figures first reported by The Associated Press showed that about 440,000 Floridians dropped their Affordable Care Act plans this year — more than in any other state. Thousands more who kept coverage are struggling to get by, as prices of necessities like groceries and gasoline remain steep, and health insurers project another year of double-digit premium hikes.

While Florida had the most affected residents, its struggles are reflective of broader nationwide concerns over rising healthcare costs and a lack of meaningful policy to address them.

In the deep-red state where congressional districts were recently redrawn to strongly favor Republicans, the cost of healthcare is a major campaign issue. Republican midterm candidates have been promoting fraud crackdowns to protect federal health programs, while Democrats have been urging voters to help Congress change hands so they can restore subsidies.

Button, who is estranged from his parents, asked his uncle for help with his bloodied finger. With a butterfly bandage, splint and daily cleanings and dressings, it healed. But the scar still gnaws at Button as a symbol of what else could go wrong.

“It just feels like I’m living in a house of cards,” he said.

Florida’s population and politics make it ground zero for ACA fallout

Last fall, debate over the expiring subsidies consumed Congress, resulting in a record 43-day government shutdown as Democrats insisted on extending the COVID-era assistance and most Republicans refused.

Fast forward almost a year and lawmakers rarely reference the topic anymore. The administration says it is addressing affordability with fraud-busting efforts and deals with drug companies, but Congress hasn’t passed any significant legislation to lower health costs.

In part due to its large number of construction, hospitality and small business workers — and also because its Republican-led legislature never expanded the Medicaid safety-net health program — Florida has the largest Affordable Care Act enrollment in the country. At just over 3.8 million enrollees, it represents about a fifth of the nation’s total enrolled population.

Of the roughly 443,000 Floridians who left the marketplace, most are likely going without insurance, according to Cynthia Cox, a vice president at the healthcare research nonprofit KFF. She said that’s because it is typically a “place of last resort” to get coverage.

The data doesn’t tell the stories of those who kept insurance. Tracy Rand, a licensed mental health counselor in Leesburg, Florida, is one of them.

Ever since getting her ovaries removed last year due to benign but painful tumors, she has had severe menopause symptoms that require medication, including an overactive bladder and hot flashes that cause piercing headaches.

She uses clear plastic containers to organize the more than 30 medicines and supplements she takes daily, their bottles crammed into a living-room drawer and a tray on her kitchen counter.

The 51-year-old’s Affordable Care Act plan was going to surge in price this year from $55 a month to $1,100 a month, so she downgraded. Her new plan, with higher deductibles and copays, costs $160 a month.

To make that work in her budget, Rand quit a doctoral program she was working toward, started buying groceries at cheaper stores, gave up once-monthly dinners out with her husband and stopped meeting friends regularly at a paint-your-own pottery studio.

It’s been a difficult adjustment, but a necessary one for her health.

Rand said the prospect of insurers raising rates again fills her with dread.

“I don’t know what else we can get rid of,” she said, covering her face with her hands. “I don’t know if we’re going to have to file bankruptcy.″

Clinics for the uninsured are a saving grace — but they can’t take everyone

In Orlando’s leafy, brick-paved neighborhood of Colonialtown South, Tarsha Watson found her lifeline. A clinic there called Grace Medical Home provides low-income, uninsured Floridians with comprehensive care for a $5 per-visit fee.

Watson, 54, has a master’s degree in business administration, but she hasn’t been able to find work since losing her job two years ago. That means she doesn’t have health insurance. When she explored Affordable Care Act coverage, she was quoted $600 per month, far out of her reach.

At Grace, Watson learned her blood sugar is high and that she needed to lose weight. Now, she walks laps around her backyard pool and does Tai Chi YouTube tutorials to focus on fitness. She said she wishes everyone could have her experience.

“It’s very hard out here,” she said. “It’s not enough.”

At the clinic, patients cycle in and out of a wide hallway lined with appointment rooms as doctors scan supply shelves for complimentary over-the-counter medications. The expansive building has separate areas for dental, mental health, vision and pediatric care.

CEO Stephanie Garris said it’s one of 110 free or charitable clinics in Florida, but that’s not enough to handle demand. To treat more people in response to the Affordable Care Act changes, it recently started hosting a mobile acute care clinic for walk-in patients.

Garris said Grace Medical Home treated about 1,350 people last year. Every year, they take about 350 new patients.

“Would I love to double that, triple that? Of course,” Garris said. “I just think in the reality, with the huge number of uninsured that we have, it’s just not possible.”

Health costs become an issue in midterm campaigns

For U.S. Rep. Darren Soto, a Democrat defending his seat in a sprawling — and now much redder — redrawn district south of Orlando, health costs are a campaign focal point.

He said his district, which is near various theme parks, had the second-largest Affordable Care Act enrollment in the nation, in part because many small tourism businesses can’t offer employees health insurance.

“I just hear it everywhere I go,” he said. His Republican opponent, Navy veteran and former Trump administration official Dan Green, did not answer emailed questions about the subsidies but has emphasized affordability of groceries and property insurance as campaign priorities.

Soto voted with Democrats and some Republicans — including a few from Florida — to save the subsidies last year. The Republican majority declined and suggested other ideas, including funding Americans’ health savings accounts. No law along those lines has passed yet.

Button, a Democrat in Soto’s district, said he is open to different reforms for health costs, but said politicians aren’t acting fast enough.

“They keep trying to make excuse after excuse,” he said. “I don’t have six months to a year to wait for you guys to pass this through the hoops that you need to.”

Swenson and Martin write for the Associated Press.

OMAHA, Neb. — “Do they still like Trump in Nebraska? I think so,” the president said during a recent event in Washington.

Given that the state easily backed Republican Donald Trump three times and hasn’t supported a Democrat for the White House since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, the answer may seem obvious.

But in Nebraska’s largest city, it’s an open question and could decide one of the country’s most-watched congressional races. Retiring Rep. Don Bacon ’s open seat pits fellow Republican and Omaha City Councilmember Brinker Harding against Democratic activist Denise Powell.

The district encompasses an increasingly Democratic-leaning Omaha metro area of 1 million-plus and its more conservative suburbs — famous for steaks and the Reuben sandwich’s birthplace, though New York disputes that.

It’s one of just eight districts nationwide that elected Republicans in House races while supporting Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris over Trump two years ago.

Harding and Powell have been making the rounds at parades and festivals where meat raffles offer oversized sausages as prizes. However, those on-the-ground appeals could be drowned out by Trump who, like most things in politics, has moved to shape November’s midterm elections in his own image.

The president is organizing a Republican midterm convention in Dallas next month that will serve as much a two-day rally for him as a boon to party candidates nationwide. Trump is also frequently visiting tightly contested districts, despite his low approval ratings and the unpopular war in Iran.

While Trump centers himself, Democrats are happy to oblige.

When Powell knocks on doors to talk to voters, she asks, “What’s keeping you up at night?” On a sweaty Saturday afternoon, John Rosseter responded without hesitation. “Well, Trump.”

“I want to see the history books written years from now,” said Rosseter, 67, who owns a carpentry business. “They won’t be pretty.”

The ‘Blue Dot’ hasn’t helped Democratic House candidates

Nebraska splits its presidential electoral votes, and the 2nd Congressional District’s delegate has gone to Democrats three out of five times since 2008, making it a “ blue dot ” in an otherwise Republican red state. But a Democrat has won the House seat just once since 1994.

Harding plays up Trump’s primary endorsement, and House Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise campaigned for him. Harding said he has “the full confidence of, not only the White House, but leadership in the Congress.”

He has also tried to appeal to swing voters and says he knows the district better than does Powell, co-founder of Women Who Run Nebraska, which supports female candidates.

Two possible Democratic 2028 presidential candidates — ex-Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Rahm Emanuel, an ex-Chicago mayor who was President Barack Obama’s first White House chief of staff — have campaigned with Powell.

She talks about how Medicare cuts have increased anxiety about affordability. Powell also points to Trump and his family’s business dealings as an example of “the choices that they have made while people on the ground are struggling” and she says that resonates with Republicans.

“Even the ones who aren’t necessarily anti-Trump,” Powell said, “understand the need for checks and balances.”

Some Democrats want a ‘Blue Dot Wave’

Jason Brown and his wife, Ruth Huebner-Brown, caused a sensation in 2024 by spray painting about 50 reused lawn signs with blue dots and distributing them around Omaha’s Dundee neighborhood. The couple has since expanded to professionally produce signs promoting a “Blue Dot Wave.”

Brown said the Republican-controlled Congress has capitulated on “every Trump nominee, every Trump policy, all the way down to putting gilding gold on statues.”

Supporters of Harding have countered with red “Brinker Dot” signs.

“We need to make sure that we keep this country on the track to being even better,” Harding said.

Jack Hosking, the 90-year-old retired former head of a title insurance company, organizes a weekly coffee to discuss political and community issues. He estimated that about 70% of attendees are Trump voters and “maybe even more so lately, because of the crap that the New York mayor started,” referring to Zohran Mamdani’s efforts at pushing the Democratic Party to the left.

Both Powell and Harding have addressed Hosking’s group, though, and he predicted that as much as half will support the Democrat.

“She spoke well enough that, my sense is, a lot of them will cross over,” Hosking said, noting that when it came to campaigning, “Brinker’s not doing much.”

The president seen as a base motivator

The Republican National Committee views Trump as a national asset, betting he can prevent complacency in a year without a presidential race, when enthusiasm for the party in power typically wanes.

The committee rebranded its “Young Guns” program for key candidates to “MAGA Majority” in deference to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement, and many congressional candidates will be at the Dallas convention with Trump.

Others aren’t waiting that long.

Republican Reps. Mike Lawler of New York and Tom Barrett of Michigan, whom Democrats are aiming to unseat, both appeared with Trump during his rallies in their districts. When the president visited Macungie, Pennsylvania, in June, he joined Republican Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, saying, “I’m here for him.”

Trump also traveled to the Wisconsin district of Republican Rep. Derreck Van Orden, as have Cabinet members.

Rep. Juan Ciscomani, facing a reelection fight, appeared with Trump during an April event in Arizona. Two Iowa Republicans in what could be toss-up reelection contests, Reps Zach Nunn and Mariannette Miller-Meeks, both were by Trump’s side when he kicked off his midterm campaign outside Des Moines.

Bacon sometimes defied the White House in his final term. He criticized Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and tried to curb Trump’s ability to impose tariffs and was the only House Republican who opposed renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.

Mary Jane Truemper, who heads the Nebraska Republican Party, said Powell and the state’s Democrats have moved too far to the left. She called Harding “a steady force” and said the nominee is not as fond of picking high-profile fights the way Bacon sometimes was.

“I think he speaks to the moderate Democrats as well as the Republicans,” said Truemper, who managed Bacon’s reelection campaign in 2018 and also worked for an unsuccessful primary challenger to him.

Even Powell said, “Don Bacon was a good representative of this district, and I think that there are a lot of people drawn to a pragmatic style of leadership in a state like ours.” But that may not be enough this year.

“People are worse off than they were before,” Powell said.

A local race may expose a wider party divide among neighbors

In the Elmwood Park neighborhood, Andy Maxwell, a 58-year-old pediatrician, said he likes to find the middle ground in politics and his community. But he recalled that, after putting up a Biden sign in his yard in 2020, his neighbors erected a Trump one.

“We don’t like all the turmoil part of it,” Maxwell said of politics nationally.

Nearby, 80-year-old Jerard Pearson called Democrats “feckless,” but said of Trump’s base supporters, “I’ve always been curious about this one-third level of crazy out there, a third of the population.” He is also no fan of a neighbor’s large “Harding for Congress” sign.

Truemper said Harding appreciates Trump’s endorsement but Nebraskans like to be wooed “person-to-person, rather than a national entity coming in.”

“Is that going to be the deciding factor?” she asked of Trump. “I don’t know.”

Weissert writes for the Associated Press.

Reporting from Washington — Jared Kushner may finally get a win.

President Trump’s son-in-law has been a drag on the administration for his friendship with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman since the Oct. 2 killing of a U.S.-based dissident Saudi journalist. His family business continues to raise questions of conflicts of interest, he repeatedly has amended financial disclosure reports to remedy omissions, and he endured an embarrassing yearlong delay in obtaining a security clearance. Meanwhile, his chief assignment, a Mideast peace plan, is as elusive as ever.

Lately, however, Kushner has been instrumental in helping his father-in-law secure a rare bipartisan victory: a long-sought overhaul of the criminal justice system.

Both Republicans and Democrats who’ve worked on the bill in Congress credit Kushner as a key architect. He helped convince the two most powerful Republicans in Washington — his father-in-law and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, both of whom embrace the traditionally Republican tough-on-crime stance — to make the criminal justice system less punitive.

The bill cleared a procedural hurdle in the Senate on Monday evening, 82 to 12, a vote margin that belies the arduous effort to overcome initial opposition from conservatives. Final Senate passage is expected later this week and the legislation is expected to easily get through the House and to the White House for Trump’s signature.

Called the First Step Act, the legislation would undo some of the sentencing crackdowns of the 1990s and create programs to reduce prisoner recidivism.

It would allow low- and minimum-risk prisoners to earn time credits for early release to either reentry centers or home confinement; reduce some mandatory minimum sentences, including those imposed by so-called three-strikes laws that automatically result in life imprisonment; and allow reviews of sentences that reflect significant disparities between harsh punishments for crack cocaine use, which disproportionately involve minorities, and lesser penalties for powder cocaine.

Kushner, driven by the experience of his father’s 14-month prison sentence for tax evasion and other crimes, has made prison and sentencing changes a priority since the beginning of the Trump administration. But unlike loftier goals Kushner has embraced, such as peace between Israel and Palestinians, criminal justice reform is likely to be signed by the president.

Kushner helped work on policy details and knew where the political fault lines would be, according to lawmakers. He was on the phone repeatedly with other advocates to discuss strategy and next steps. He personally lobbied senators, including McConnell, who openly was not eager to make time for a Senate vote. And he served as a bridge to conservative media, which could have blown up the effort with even a whiff of opposition.

“There would be some very outspoken right-wing [opponent] and [Kushner] would tell me, ‘I called him this morning. I straightened him out and now he’s going to be OK,’” said Democratic supporter Sen. Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, declining to name the commentator. “I’m thinking, ‘Who would have dreamed that a bill I’m cosponsoring would be OK with this person?’”

Advocates of the criminal justice overhaul tried to pass a similar bill at the end of the Obama administration, only to be stymied by congressional Republicans. They had little hope of getting it through during the Trump administration given the president’s campaign rhetoric on crime, including a call to execute drug dealers, and because of the fierce opposition of his first attorney general, Jeff Sessions.

“This is a president that ran on American ‘carnage,’” said Jessica Jackson, a Mill Valley, Calif., City Council member who started the advocacy group #cut50 with liberal CNN host and commentator Van Jones. “I thought everything was over.”

“I’m a Democrat,” Jackson said, but “Jared is politically brilliant and he’s relentless and he’s also extremely loyal. If he tells you he’s going to do something, he does it.”

Kushner started early. He made his support for criminal justice changes known to the leaders of the bipartisan congressional effort — including Durbin, the Senate’s second-ranking Democrat, and Republican Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee — within weeks of Trump’s inauguration.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), another architect of the plan, knew Kushner was taking the issue seriously when Kushner started dropping “the very precise nomenclature thrown around by criminal justice reform geeks” — for example, citing the relevant U.S. criminal code lines by their numbers.

While Kushner’s initial goal was prison reform, which is an easier sell with conservatives, it quickly became clear that had to be paired with sentencing reform to get the backing of Grassley and Durbin.

Perhaps the biggest obstacle was McConnell’s reluctance to bring up a bill that would unify Democrats and divide Republicans, handing the opposition a potential political cudgel in the 2020 campaign. He told a group of Republican advocates in September that he would bring the bill to the Senate floor only if it was endorsed by Trump and they secured 65 votes — five more than the minimum number needed to overcome procedural roadblocks.

Given the goal, Kushner relentlessly lobbied reluctant Republican senators to get on board, according to sources familiar with the discussions.

He called “everybody — and often,” said Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Senate Republican, whose late endorsement was part of a groundswell that made clear that enough Republicans would support the legislation. “He was dogged.”

On numerous occasions he lobbied McConnell directly, even trying to figure out the Republican leader’s dinner companions so that he could lobby them before their meal.

Advocates of the First Step Act also rallied high-profile celebrity supporters, such as Kim Kardashian West, which demonstrated to the media-obsessed Trump the positive publicity he could get. Kushner worked with Jones, and eventually got support from celebrities including Alyssa Milano and former Fox News host Eric Bolling.

“Jared Kushner absolutely was one of the main conduits,” Bolling said.

The dam broke this month when Trump tweeted “go for it, Mitch” and several noteworthy conservatives backed the bill, including Sens. Cornyn, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Ted Cruz of Texas.

Lee, the Republican senator allied with Kushner, said: “One of the things I’ve appreciated about him is he doesn’t cut corners with this. I haven’t seen him abuse the position of trust as the president’s son-in-law. He doesn’t throw that around.”

Everyone in Washington knows Kushner’s trusted place in the Trump orbit; members of Congress return his phone calls and know he speaks for the president, at least as much as anyone can. Yet when Vice President Mike Pence came to a meeting of Senate Republicans to lobby on the bill last month, Kushner was deferential; attendees said he sat in the room but barely said a word.

The bill does have significant critics. Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and John Kennedy (R-La.) argue that it could allow dangerous criminals to get early release, and have proposed a series of amendments that could get votes this week. Still, passage is considered all but certain.

The latest from Washington »

jennifer.haberkorn@latimes.com

@jenhab

Big-city mayors are giving poll workers panic buttons in case election skeptics question their work. County and state officials are gaming out responses to immigration raids near voting centers.

Lawyers for Democratic states and civic groups are pre-writing legal challenges to ballot seizures. And Democratic aides in Washington are preparing members of Congress to push back in the court of public opinion against any baseless claims of voter fraud in competitive districts.

Across California and the nation, civic organizations, voting rights advocates and Democratic leaders are preparing for a raft of potential actions by the Trump administration to interfere in, subvert or deny November’s midterm vote.

President Trump, an election denier for years, has without evidence described the U.S. election system as badly corrupted by fraud and dangerously vulnerable to both domestic and foreign interference.

He has said he would do “anything necessary” to have “honest elections,” and has tried since returning to office to unilaterally rewrite the rules for voting nationwide and wrest control of elections from the states through executive orders and other administrative measures.

Now, he has declined to rule out additional and unprecedented steps to force his will on the November election, including through emergency declarations and military deployments, and in February suggested Republicans should simply take over voting in blue states.

Election experts say there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in American elections, despite Trump’s allies searching for years.

A worker looks through ballots at a Los Angeles County Ballot Processing Center on Monday, June 8, 2026 in City of Industry, CA. Counting continues on ballots cast for the state’s primary election held June 2.

(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)

Much of the work to resist any Trump interference or power grab is being done quietly to avoid revealing too much of the strategy to the Trump administration or stoking unnecessary fear among voters.

It is designed to match what Trump’s opponents see as his three-part “interference playbook” — to “deceive” voters before the election, “disrupt” the vote itself and “deny” any unfavorable results after, said Justin Vail of Protect Democracy, a prominent litigant against the administration.

“The threats are real,” Vail said, “but the preparation is larger and more coordinated than ever before.”

The scenarios being planned for include the president deploying troops or immigration agents to polling sites to intimidate voters, fomenting unrest as a pretext to declare a national emergency, claiming fraud in the ballot counts of key congressional races or commanding the U.S. Postal Service to intervene in mail ballot delivery.

All told, the efforts amount to an unprecedented exercise to ensure the nation’s elections are safe from its own federal government.

They also reflect a deterioration in trust between states and counties overseeing elections, voting rights and pro-democracy advocates and a federal administration that has denigrated their work and tried to take control of voting away from states.

As public frustration with the economy mounts and Trump’s approval rating sinks, Democrats have become hopeful their party will retake power in Congress. Trump, meanwhile, has suggested that alleged election integrity problems will be the culprit if Republicans lose.

In California, 61% of voters recently identified federal inference in November as a “major concern,” according to a UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll co-sponsored by The Times.

“We are taking this threat really seriously,” said Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who helped form a Senate task force to prepare. “Politically, I’m very optimistic about the midterms. But I’m also deeply concerned with the president’s willingness to interfere with them — and the fact that, unlike even in 2020, where there were at least some people around him to try to constrain what he was doing, all those people are gone.”

President Donald Trump is seen on a screen as his supporters cheer during a rally on the National Mall on January 6, 2021 in Washington, DC. Trump supporters gathered in the nation’s capital today to protest the ratification of President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory over President Trump in the 2020 election.

(Samuel Corum / Getty Images)

Much of the work is legal preparation among Democratic state attorneys general and lawyers with leading civic organizations. Nothing is being ruled out after Trump’s supporters, at his goading, violently attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, following his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden.

Other preparation is political, as members of Congress, mayors and other elected officials position themselves to use their bully pulpits and legislative powers to punch back. And grassroots campaigns are also unfolding, as community leaders recruit voters to defend their local elections, including online.

“This is an all-hands-on-deck task,” said Skye Perryman, president of the nonpartisan legal organization Democracy Forward. “We’re anticipating scenarios we haven’t seen before in the United States.”

Trump, who has never accepted his 2020 loss to Biden despite scores of reviews and audits confirming the result, has consistently sought to undermine Americans’ trust in elections, telling the nation in a prime-time speech last month that the voting system was “broken” and claiming that the SAVE America Act, a strict Republican-proposed voter ID and citizenship measure, is necessary to fix it.

The White House said it wouldn’t respond to hypothetical questions about the midterm election, but said anyone who breaks voting laws will be held accountable. Lauren Bis, a White House spokesperson, blamed “extreme liberal Democrats” for undermining U.S. confidence in elections by blocking the SAVE America Act, which Trump has failed to push through Congress.

Bis claimed voters support such changes, and said “President Trump is absolutely right: We fix this now, or we lose our country.”

Causes for concern

The fears of interference are driven by Trump’s long record of election denial; his recent insistence that the midterms are vulnerable to both domestic fraud and foreign interference; his success installing loyalists and fellow election deniers in powerful positions throughout his government; and his current administration’s many attempts to usurp control over state voting processes, including through executive orders, lawsuits and legislation.

Trump and his allies have sued to compel blue states to turn over voter rolls; seized ballots in Georgia; tried to limit mail voting via new U.S. Postal Service rules; pushed stricter citizenship and voter ID requirements via executive order and in Congress; diminished independent agencies tasking with helping states secure elections; kicked off a nationwide gerrymandering effort to boost Republican chances in the House; and threatened to imprison Democratic leaders who stand in their way.

Sen. Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) (C) departs after a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump and Republican senators at the U.S. Capitol on June 24, 2026 in Washington, DC. President Trump is visiting Capitol Hill to attend a closed-door luncheon with the Republican Senate Steering Committee to push his SAVE America Act, which would impose strict voter ID and proof-of-citizenship requirements in federal elections.

(Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images)

Some analysts saw Trump’s speech last month as laying the groundwork for greater intervention in November, and he raised further alarm this month by entertaining a suggestion from conservative radio host and election conspiracy theorist Wayne Allyn Root that the president has “the right to declare a national security emergency” to unilaterally enforce new voting restrictions.

“Stranger things have happened,” Trump responded.

The White House has previously downplayed the likelihood of immigration agents being deployed to polling locations, but Trump has refused to rule it out. Legal experts say such a move would probably be swiftly blocked by courts, as would any unlawful deployment of military troops to polls.

Some voting experts said Trump’s efforts shouldn’t be blown out of proportion, particularly given federal courts’ dim view of them to date.

David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research, noted Trump’s executive orders on elections were blocked, the Justice Department is 0 for 23 in cases demanding state voter rolls, and the primaries have run smoothly with high turnout — showing the president is “having very little effect.”

Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, said it is “important that people be aware that there are threats, but to not let those threats be debilitating” or prevent them from voting.

Civic experts are urging regular voters to help debunk misinformation about voting within their communities. Democracy Forward has asked people to take one civic-minded action per day leading up to the election, while Indivisible, a progressive grassroots organization, is training volunteers nationwide to mount public push-back to any interference.

Coordination in Congress

A Senate aide who spoke with The Times on condition of anonymity said members of the Senate task force meet regularly to plan for as many potential forms of interference as possible — and that there is “no bottom” to what they’re considering.

Task force members are studying nuanced local election laws to understand how Congress members should respond to any federal interference in their home states, and working on “coordinated messaging” that all members can use in response to immigration raids or other broad interference, the aide said.

National Guard troops stand in the shade at The Park at LeDroit in Northwest on August 12, 2026 in Washington, DC. U.S. President Donald Trump is claiming credit for Washington’s dramatic crime decline a year after Trump sent thousands of National Guard troops to the nation’s Capitol, but the evidence shows crime was already falling before his federal intervention and the extent to which his policies accelerated that decline remains disputed.

(Andrew Harnik / Getty Images)

They are also reading “line by line” through recent legal decisions limiting National Guard deployments and other federal actions to identify any “loopholes” the administration might exploit.

They are paying particular attention to districts with competitive congressional races and where past problems have arisen. In California, they’ve studied the recent seizure of ballots by Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and the criticism of slow ballot counting statewide, the aide said.

Schiff said the scenario he is “most concerned” about is one in which the president or his allies “seed” unrest in big cities to “give the president a pretext, Reichstag fire-like, to call out the military or invoke the Insurrection Act or call out ICE or Border Patrol.”

The Reichstag fire erupted in the German parliament four weeks after Adolf Hitler was sworn in as chancellor in 1933, and was used to justify a sweeping crackdown on political opponents and the suspension of civil liberties — ushering in Nazi rule.

Schiff said lawsuits will be a necessary but “very imperfect remedy” in such a scenario, and Democrats will need to develop a more robust response combining “litigation with mobilization” and legislative oversight.

Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, which has election oversight, is helping to create an election observer program for hotly contested races, and has warned his colleagues that he will call a vote on any election-related emergency Trump declares, so that they must co-sign or resist it.

Separately in the House, staffers have been building their own “road map” for how to deal with a laundry list of “terrible things that bad-faith actors who seek to subvert the election could do,” with a principal focus on any ways they might disrupt the Jan. 3 swearing in of new Congress members, said a House aide involved in the preparations there, who spoke with The Times on the condition of anonymity.

The U.S. Capitol, on July 20, 2026 in Washington, DC.

(Tom Brenner / Getty Images)

House staffers are also looking at how court imposed limits on Trump’s emergency powers might be “exploited, weaponized [or] ignored” by the administration, including the Justice Department.

A Justice Department spokesperson said the department is “working diligently” to fulfill the demands of Trump’s election-related executive order purporting to “strengthen the integrity of our elections,” which courts have blocked, and has “statutory authority to enforce our nation’s election laws, including through requesting state voter rolls,” which courts have also blocked.

Assistant Atty. Gen. Harmeet Dhillon, who heads the department’s civil rights division and has threatened local elections officials with legal consequences if they don’t comply with her voter roll demands, said her division “has a statutory mandate to enforce our federal voting rights laws, and ensuring the voting public’s confidence in the integrity of our elections is a top priority of this administration.”

State and local preparations

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said attorneys from his office and similar Democratic ones across the country are “hard at work planning, preparing, strategizing, researching, getting ready for all the different ways the Trump administration can break the law.”

California Attorney General Rob Bonta, right, holds a press conference at the Ronald Reagan State Building in downtown Los Angeles on Thursday, May 14, 2026.

(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)

That includes any attempts to seize ballots, deploy federal law enforcement or the military, or command the U.S. Postal Service to interfere with mail ballots, he said. “The right to vote is the right from which all other rights flow. It’s fundamental. We need to protect it.”

Dean Logan, registrar-recorder and county clerk for Los Angeles County, said he has a responsibility to ensure that “election operations remain secure and uninterrupted” no matter the threat, and is taking steps to do so, though he declined to address potential acts by Trump. Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson said big cities are also preparing, including to prevent harassment of voters or election workers.

“Cities are where we host vote centers. It’s where the volunteers come from, where people go with their questions,” Richardson said. “We have to pay attention to national rhetoric. We have to be aware of anxiety that might — tensions that may — arise.”

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court is weighing President Trump’s claim that his new White House ballroom is urgently needed to protect him, his staff and guests from attacks by drones, terrorists and snipers.

On Friday, with a lower-court order about to go into effect halting construction on the controversial project, Chief Justice John G. Roberts decided that the court needed more time. He issued a temporary order pausing the case and allowing construction to continue while the justices decide on a pending legal challenge.

Last week, Trump’s lawyers described the East Wing ballroom as an “integrated military complex” that is “vitally required by national security.” They argued that a judge’s order blocking further construction threatened the safety of the president and must be overturned. They also said the project is nearly two-thirds completed.

At issue is whether the president acting on his own may build a huge new ballroom complex that is expected to dwarf the historic Executive Mansion.

It is a confrontation over the boundaries of executive power at a moment when Trump has repeatedly tested the ability of courts, Congress and independent institutions to constrain his agenda.

Trump bulldozed the historic East Wing before the courts had resolved whether the administration had the authority to proceed, leaving opponents to argue the project could become effectively irreversible before judicial review was complete.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation sued in December and argued that the president had overstepped his authority.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon agreed and ordered a stop to the above-ground construction — that is, on the ballroom. He said the work on the underground bunker may proceed.

The U.S. court of appeals affirmed his order by a 2-1 vote on Aug. 7 but put the decision on hold until Friday. Roberts’ order did not explain the reason for the delay, or how soon the court might rule.

In a fast-track appeal to the Supreme Court, Trump administration lawyers sought to refocus the case as one about national security and the president’s safety.

“Given the current unprecedented levels of danger … every day the President does not have access to the vital security features of the military complex presents unacceptable risk,” Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer said Wednesday in his final brief to the court.

Construction continues on the White House East Wing ballroom on Aug. 20.

(Andrew Harnik / Getty Images)

The Constitution and federal law say new buildings may not be erected on public property in the District of Columbia “without the express authority of Congress.”

But acting on his own, Trump ordered the East Wing of the White House torn down in October and work began on a new and much larger building to replace it.

He said the new ballroom could provide safe and secure seating for 1,000 dinner guests. He did not ask Congress to weigh in or approve the massive project.

In defense, Trump administration lawyers pointed to an annual appropriation from Congress that funds “the care, maintenance, repair, alteration, refurnishing” and other such improvements at the White House.

They also said private donations would pay most of the $400-million cost of the new ballroom. One estimate placed the cost of the ballroom and the bunker at $600 million, with taxpayers covering half, the Washington Post reported.

The president, his family and White House employees would have secure underground space, Sauer said, while a “totally secure ballroom space” would provide a new level of protection for guests and foreign dignitaries.

Otherwise, they would be seated outside in tents on the lawn, Trump said, which was neither appealing nor safe.

President Trump speaks to the media as the construction of a new helipad on the South Lawn of the White House continues on Aug. 19.

(Alex Wong / Getty Images)

His solicitor general also argued it was too late to stop the project.

“A 250-person crew is working 20 hours a day, seven days a week to keep the project ahead of schedule and under budget,” he wrote on Aug. 13. “Today, the project is 65% complete in its entirety, and moving quickly toward total completion.”

Trump’s signature construction project has fueled accusations from his political opponents that he is abusing his power to build a lavish space for entertaining guests as ordinary Americans struggle with affordability.

In April, Republicans in Congress sought to put federal money behind the project, despite Trump’s earlier insistence that private donors would pay for the ballroom.

The effort never became law, faced with bipartisan opposition to a bill that would tie them to the unpopular project, leaving the administration to proceed with a privately financed effort whose legal authority was already being challenged in court.

The Society for the Rule of Law and a group of former White House lawyers warned the court against accepting Trump’s broad claims of power.

“Under the executive’s view, the President could bulldoze the entire White House and replace it with a new building of his own design, including a skyscraper. No other President has asserted such transformative power,” they wrote in a friend-of-the-court brief.

“The invocation of national security is not a magic incantation that suspends the rule of law,” they added.

The biggest hurdle facing the challengers may be the issue of standing.

The court’s conservatives are often skeptical of lawsuits if it is not clear the plaintiffs have or will suffer a distinct injury that goes beyond their opposition to a government policy.

In this case, the National Trust said its historians and preservationists will be disturbed to walk by the White House grounds if there is a massive new structure that is not in keeping with the historic Executive Mansion.

Construction continues on the East Wing ballroom at the White House on Aug. 10, 2026, in Washington, D.C.

(Andrew Harnik / Getty Images)

“The subjective displeasure of an offended observer does not amount to a concrete injury,” Sauer said.

The D.C. Circuit judges were also split on the threshold issue of standing.

Judges Patricia Millett, an Obama appointee, and Bradley Garcia, a Biden appointee, ruled the suit may proceed because the plaintiffs suffered injuries to their “aesthetic, cultural and historical interests.”

Judge Neomi Rao, a Trump appointee, dissented and said the preservationists walking by the White House would not suffer the kind of concrete injury that gives them standing.

Progressive state Sen. Aisha Wahab will replace former Rep. Eric Swalwell in Congress and finish his current term.

Wahab (D-Hayward) defeated Melissa Hernandez, the president of the Bay Area Rapid Transit Board and the former mayor of Dublin who was seen as the more moderate candidate. The two faced off in a special runoff election on Tuesday, and the Associated Press declared Wahab the winner Thursday afternoon.

The two Democrats will face each other again in the Nov. 3 general election to determine who will represent a slightly redrawn district in the East Bay for a full term beginning in 2027.

Following a Thursday update from Alameda County elections officials, Wahab led with 53.1% of the vote to Hernandez’s 46.9%, according to the secretary of state’s website. The additional ballots widened the slim lead Wahab held on election night.

“This victory belongs to the voters who made clear that our district cannot be bought,” Wahab posted on Facebook Thursday after the race was called. “Through one of the ugliest, most expensive elections we’ve ever seen, we never took the bait or went negative. We stayed focused on the people, and I will fight for this district that raised me. From foster care to Congress, this journey shows the possibility of the American Dream. Today this district made history by electing the first Afghan American to Congress.”

In an email to supporters, Hernandez said the November election “will be in the new district lines, adding 26,000 Dublin voters who didn’t have the chance to vote for me in August. We’re looking forward to winning this on November 3rd with a more favorable district and a much larger electorate. Game on!”

Swalwell, a Dublin Democrat, resigned from the seat and dropped his bid for California governor in April after multiple women accused him of sexual assault and misconduct, which he denies.

Though Wahab was favored to win the seat and finished first in both the regular and special election primaries, the race became more competitive after the pro-Israel group American Israel Public Affairs Committee spent millions of dollars on ads attacking her. Though the war in Gaza was not a central campaign issue, Wahab has criticized Israel’s military actions in Gaza and described it as a genocide. Hernandez has defended Israel’s right to defend itself.

Progressives celebrated Wahab’s victory despite the heavy spending against her.

Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of Our Revolution, a group founded by progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), said her campaign “should be studied by every progressive running for office in America.”

“The lesson from CA-14 is simple: Democrats do not have to surrender to the biggest checkbook in the race,” Geevarghese said. “Big money can buy television ads, mailboxes and endless attacks. It cannot buy the trust built through thousands of conversations between neighbors. That is the model: Unite the movement, organize everywhere, and make billionaire money fight us on our terrain.”

A wonderful Oval Office perk is what Thomas Jefferson dubbed “The President’s Own.” At the president’s beck and call is the United States Marine Band, created by an act of Congress in 1798.

But for an acquisitive current occupant of the White House, the oldest continuously active musical organization hasn’t seemed enough. In his appropriating the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, also created and officially named by Congress, the president obtained the National Symphony Orchestra. Unlike its “President’s Own” sibling, which is supported by the Defense Department annual allotment of some $400 million for military bands, the NSO is administered, funded (between a third and half of its $35-million budget) and lately threatened by what are now the whims of the Kennedy Center.

The NSO appeared at the Hollywood Bowl on Tuesday night, however, with a collective sigh of relief. A week earlier the Kennedy Center Board, without congressional input or legal approval, approved an imminent, two-year closure of the venue for repairs and remodeling, with little word about the homeless or economic future of its artist affiliate. By early August, no new NSO season, which would begin in September, had been announced.

But Tuesday morning, the NSO, in fact, did lay out a full and musically substantial season, the 10th for its music director, Gianandrea Noseda. Not taking a chance on the courts preventing a Kennedy Center closure, the NSO will become next season a peripatetic ensemble performing in various venues in and around D.C., as well undertake a national tour in the spring. Uncertainty remains, but for now all is as well as can be expected.

The NSO, however, offered little of what to expect. I can only find one program next season as unimaginative as Tuesday’s at the Bowl. The orchestra looks forward to several premieres of new works by lively composers and a variety of significant guest conductors, including the venturesome Teddy Abrams (who will lead the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s season-opening gala) and eclectic former NSO music director Leonard Slatkin (who is also the former L.A. Phil principal guest conductor for the Hollywood Bowl). Noseda’s only other bland program will be the one he brings on tour to The Soraya in April.

Hearing the NSO at the Bowl, moreover, is an act of guess work. With the new immersive sound system, orchestra impact becomes a matter of technology, giving individual instruments paranormal prominence and turning full orchestra glory into a sensual sound bath. Still, with its smooth strings, creamy brass, pungent winds and friendly percussion, Noseda’s NSO came across as a gracious orchestra meant to please, and, consequently, a seemingly marvelous anomaly in an otherwise divisive present-day D.C.

But that offered few favors for Leonard Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from “West Side Story” or Gershwin’s “An American in Paris,” where the Bowl has regularly hosted far more idiomatic, swinging performances. Dvorak’s “New World Symphony” in the second half was, on the other hand, satisfyingly full-bodied. While Noseda sometimes practices likability to a fault, his sense of drama is ever sure, and it is hard to get enough of the lyrical sweetness he conveys. As an encore, Noseda led the overture to Bernstein’s “Candide” with real flair.

But why commonplace “Candide” and “West Side Story,” when Bernstein wrote “Slava! A Political Overture,” for the NSO as tribute in 1977 to its Russian music director, Mstislav Rostropovich? Might not the NSO make a point with “Three Mediations” from “MASS,” Bernstein’s multimedia masterpiece that controversially opened Kennedy Center in 1974. Bernstein also wrote a major late work for the NSO, “Songfest.” Bernstein, himself, conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic in the West Coast premiere at the Bowl in 1983, which had special significance because his collaborator on “Songfest,” Tom Cothran, who happened to have grown up in Pasadena.

For his part, Noseda has done an exceptional job in championing major Black composers at home and on record. Carlos Simon has been the NSO’s composer in residence for the last five years, and Noseda has revived and recorded an essential album of works by George Walker. In October, Noseda and the NSO will release a recording of two symphonies by William Grant Still, who lived in L.A. Deeply evocative of a post-Dvorak new world, they are beautifully played on the new recording and would have been ideal for the Bowl.

The NSO has given up on the Kennedy Center, but must we? There are many questions that have not been considered. The current plan for infrastructure improvements and slapdash redecorating at the cost of $250 million. In fact, the facility’s playhouse, opera theater and concert hall are due for major renovations. But that requires significant planning, the hiring of a major architecture firm with concert hall experience, a first-rate acoustician and, ideally, four times the allotted budget.

This is clearly a long-term job for Congress and consultants who would do well to study the approach of the Salzburg Festival. It has been planning for several years to rehabilitate its large concert hall (which is of similar vintage to the Kennedy Center), which will require five years and a cost of around $600 million. It is also carefully examining alternate performance sites to be used during construction.

The Kennedy Center is a memorial, and before another new idea is allowed out, let the Kennedy Center board visit Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool for a moment of reflection on how and why to bring the NSO, America’s Own, back home. In the background, the U.S. Marine Band could offer its kin moral support by playing in the background Ives’ mysteriously transcendental “Unanswered Question.”

A federal investigation into former Rep. Eric Swalwell appeared to gain steam this week after agents seized his electronic devices and raided his Washington home over the weekend, even briefly holding the former lawmaker at San Francisco International Airport, a person familiar with the inquiry told The Times.

Swalwell dropped out of the California governor’s race and resigned from Congress in April after allegations that he sexually assaulted a former staffer and acted inappropriately with other young women, which he denied at the time. Before dropping out of the race, polls indicated that Swalwell was the front-runner.

The source said Swalwell was held on Saturday at SFO and released the same day he was detained for search purposes. Federal prosecutors are using civil rights law to pursue a probe of his conduct as a member of Congress. Authorities in New York and Los Angeles County are conducting separate investigations.

His home was searched on Sunday by federal agents, the source added, based on a search warrant in connection with a civil rights investigation concerning the sexual assault allegations.

Swalwell has denied any wrongdoing, but the accusations upended the California governor’s race and shook Capitol Hill, where both parties reckoned with a culture of secrecy and silence around sexual impropriety.

Another accuser, Lonna Drewes, said at a news conference that she was drugged and raped by the one-time politician in 2018 in Beverly Hills. Drewes said she met Swalwell three times as she was growing her fashion software company and toying with the idea of a political career.

On the third occasion, Drewes said she believes that Swalwell drugged her glass of wine. She said they were supposed to go to a political event and stopped by his hotel room to retrieve some paperwork.

She said she found herself incapacitated despite having had only one drink.

“He raped me and he choked me and while he was choking me I lost consciousness and I thought I died,” she said. “I did not consent to any sexual activity.”

Sara Azari, an attorney for Swalwell, denied Drewes’ characterization of the incident at the time. “Two adults consenting, which is our position, is not against the law,” she said.

The former staffer for Swalwell told the San Francisco Chronicle that Swalwell began sending her nude pictures on Snapchat and messages after she was hired by his office in 2019. She was 21 at the time.

In September of that year, she said she had drinks with the congressman, blacked out and woke up naked in Swalwell’s hotel bed, according to the Chronicle.

In 2024, when she no longer worked for Swalwell, she said she attended a charity event honoring the congressman and met him for drinks afterward. She was intoxicated but recalled Swalwell forcing himself upon her, and pushing him away and saying, “No,” according to the Chronicle.

Azari said in April that he denied all allegations of sexual misconduct and assault and would pursue “every legal remedy” against those making the claims.

“These accusations are false, fabricated and deeply offensive — a calculated and transparent political hit job designed to destroy the reputation of a man who has spent twenty years in public service,” Azari said.

Winton reported from Los Angeles, Smith from Sacramento and Wilner from Washington.

WASHINGTON  — The Supreme Court was urged Tuesday to block construction of President Trump’s huge new ballroom until Congress weighs in. A decision, perhaps only temporary, is likely by Friday.

Acting on his own, Trump had the East Wing of the White House torn down in October and ordered work to start on a massive new building that would dwarf the old executive mansion and seat 1,000 guests for dinner.

But a federal judge in Washington ruled that Trump had overstepped his authority, and the U.S. Court of Appeals agreed in a 2-1 ruling on Aug. 7.

Those judges would stop the above-ground construction but put their decision on hold until this Friday. This gave the administration time to appeal to the Supreme Court.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation had sued, arguing that the president has no authority to erect new buildings on government property.

Federal law protects “historic buildings, parks, and places, including perhaps the most revered site in our nation: the White House and President’s Park,” the group told the court Tuesday. It is “more than the President’s residence” and “is owned by American people.”

The historic trust said Trump is moving quickly so as to bypass the law.

“Rather than obtain permission from Congress,” Trump and his appointees “have instead decided to try to outrun judicial review,” it said.

Meanwhile, Trump’s lawyers have taken to describing the ballroom as a national security project.

Last week, Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer told the justices they should throw out the “extraordinary and unlawful injunction that will halt the ongoing construction of the integrated military complex” because “a totally secure ballroom space … is vitally required by national security.”

He also contended it is too late for judges to intervene.

“Today, the project is 65% complete in its entirety, and moving quickly toward total completion. A concrete-and-steel superstructure stretches five stories deep and 70 feet high, and occupies nearly 50,000 square feet, with construction on and above the second-story level above ground.”

While the plans have changed, the “work has followed a single coherent design,” he wrote. “By now, it has passed the point where major changes to [that] design are feasible.”

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, a George W. Bush appointee who ruled on the lawsuits, agreed the White House may proceed with the underground work to create a safe and secure location for the president, his family and White House employees.

The solicitor general said a new and secure ballroom is also crucial for social gatherings and foreign dignitaries.

He said that if Leon’s ruling is “allowed to go into effect, the injunction would wrongfully install a single district judge as sole arbiter of what further construction is strictly necessary to protect the safety of the President, his family, staff members, and visitors to the White House, including foreign dignitaries, and presidents and prime ministers of other countries.”

Sauer also argued the lawsuit should be thrown out on the grounds that National Trust for Historic Preservation and its members have no standing to sue because they have not suffered a particular injury.

The D.C. Circuit judges split on that issue. Judges Patricia Millett, an Obama appointee, and Bradley Garcia, a Biden appointee, ruled the plaintiffs had standing to sue. Judge Neomi Rao, a Trump appointee, dissented and said the members of the historic trust did not have standing.

Three members of Congress sent a letter on Monday to Major League Baseball and the players union requesting that they tighten policies so an incident last month involving Bryce Harper, FanDuel and an admitted gambling addict cannot reoccur.

Harper, an All-Star with the Philadelphia Phillies, said on Instagram that he created a troublesome, personalized 21-second video on behalf of FanDuel. But he would not have done so had he known the online sportsbook allegedly intended to use it to entice VIP customer Terry Thompson to continue gambling.

The incident triggered the three-page letter signed by Senator Richard Blumenthal, Congressman Paul Tonko and Congresswoman Valerie Foushee that demands an end to the policies that enabled “this type of predatory promotion.”

The letter states that although Harper said he was unaware of the true purpose of the video, the incident “raises broader concerns that players are not prohibited from such endorsements and highlights a systemic failure rooted in the deep enmeshment between leagues, teams, and sports books.

“In fact, MLB rules currently allow players to enter endorsement deals with sportsbooks so long as they do not encourage betting on baseball. Partnerships that do not violate this rule can even use personalized content from players to drive vulnerable fans into debt and addiction.”

The letter suggests that MLB and the players union must confront this “failure” during collective bargaining negotiations that began in May and likely will continue through the expiration of the current agreement Dec. 1.

The letter posed the following five questions and requested that MLB and the players union provide answers by Aug. 24.

1. As MLB and MLBPA renegotiate their collective bargaining agreement, what is your current position on allowing MLB players to seek endorsements and partnerships from sportsbooks? Note: The MLBPA has publicly announced their intention to seek greater freedom for players to have relationships with gambling companies.

2. How will MLB and the MLBPA guarantee that fan safety and well-being take precedence over revenue from gambling partnerships?

3. Do you believe MLB and MLBPA policies on sportsbook endorsements and partnerships are adequate to prevent engagement with predatory VIP programs?

4. Will the MLB and MLBPA undertake any player education to ensure that players understand the risks their participation in sportsbook promotions poses to fans?

5. Will the MLB and MLBPA prohibit players from participating in personalized marketing campaigns by sportsbooks as part of VIP or tier programs?

Harper said he received a request on Cameo in November 2024 to read a message provided by FanDuel VIP host Bryttanni Morgan for a personal “holiday video for Terry.”

“Hey, Terry? What’s up, brother? Hey, man, your host Bryttanni from FanDuel wanted to make sure your Thanksgiving was extra special,” Harper says in the video.

Thompson sued FanDuel, Morgan, DraftKings and the NFL in March, alleging that the sportsbooks caused him to lose about $1.6 million while betting an estimated $18.5 million over a four-year period.

“Had I known FanDuel’s true intent, I would not have made the video,” Harper said. “The same is true had I known anything about Terry or his situation, or about any alleged ‘partnership’ between Cameo and FanDuel.”

The lawsuit filed by the nonprofit Public Health Advocacy Institute on behalf of Thompson and fellow gambler Christopher Sage alleges that FanDuel and DraftKings intentionally fostered addiction by providing enticements such as Super Bowl tickets, hotel accommodations and access to athletes and celebrities.

FanDuel issued a statement after the Harper video came to light in an investigative story published July 9 in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

“We are committed to fostering a culture of responsible gaming and protecting our customers,” the statement said. “Unlike illegal offshore sportsbooks, FanDuel employees are trained to recognize and flag signs of problem gambling and offer resources and tools, and we continue to review and strengthen our policies to ensure we have the industry’s strongest consumer protection initiatives.”

FanDuel and DraftKings, the leading sportsbooks since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that states could legalize sports betting, have developed lucrative partnerships with leagues in all major sports. The 2022 MLB collective bargaining agreement opened the door for players to do promotional work for sportsbooks.

Ben Jones, the actor best known for portraying trusty mechanic Cooter Davenport on “The Dukes of Hazzard” before serving two terms in Congress as a representative from Georgia, has died. He was 84.

Jones died Sunday of a heart attack at his home in Virginia, his wife, Alma Viator, said on social media.

“I lost the love of my life today,” Viator wrote on Facebook. “Ben passed from a massive heart attack. He was home resting in his favorite chair waiting for the Braves to come on and whoop the Yankees. Ben had the most amazing rich full life. He loved and was loved by so many. He will be missed. I loved him so so much.”

A character actor whose earliest credits include films such as “Together for Days” (1972) and “Moonrunners” (1975), Jones’ break came when he landed the role of “Crazy Cooter” Davenport on the CBS action comedy “The Dukes of Hazzard.” The series, which aired from 1979 to 1985, primarily followed close-knit cousins Bo (John Schneider) and Luke Duke (Tom Wopat), as well as those in their orbit in the fictional Hazzard County, Georgia.

“The Dukes of Hazzard lost another integral part of their cast today,” Wopat wrote in his tribute to Jones on Instagram. “Ben Jones was a fine friend and a fierce advocate of all the best things we can offer in the entertainment business. He will be sorely missed… Denver Pyle frequently said to Ben, ‘I’m not your Uncle Jesse!’ But I feel like we lost a Duke cousin today.”

Initially introduced as a gruff wild man without much regard for the law, Davenport eventually settled into a loyal, fun-loving “honorary Duke” beloved by fans. The mechanic would often help repair the show’s signature vehicle, an orange 1969 Dodge Charger known as General Lee.

Despite mixed reviews from critics — former Times television critic Howard Rosenberg denounced it in 1980 as “a spittoon of a series about hotrod-speeding, card-carrying hicks somewhere in the South” — “Dukes” was one of the most-watched television shows of its time. Jones would return to play Davenport after his political career in the TV films “The Dukes of Hazzard: Reunion!” and “The Dukes of Hazzard: Hazzard in Hollywood,” where the character was also revealed to have ventured into politics as a congressman.

Born Aug. 30, 1941, in Tarboro, N.C., Jones grew up in Virginia and North Carolina before eventually attending the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, to study writing. He was open about his struggles with alcohol and told The Times in 1993 that he had been sober since 1977.

After his time on “Dukes,” Jones was persuaded to run for office, challenging a popular Republican incumbent, Pat Swindall, for his seat representing Georgia in the U.S. House of Representatives. Though he lost his first attempt in 1986, Jones won their rematch two years later after Swindall had been indicted for perjury in relation to a money-laundering scheme. (Swindall was later convicted.)

Jones, a Democrat, served two terms representing Georgia’s 4th Congressional District before redistricting took his seat. He later attempted to challenge then-Rep. Newt Gingrich for his seat but lost in the primary. He ran for office again after moving to Virginia, challenging Republican incumbent Eric Cantor for his seat in 2002 but was again unsuccessful.

“I think there are a lot of similarities between politics and entertainment, even more so with the advent of television,” Jones told The Times in 1993, shortly after leaving office. “It’s all about communication.”

Proud of his Southern heritage, Jones was also known for his controversial defense of the Confederate flag, which he described in a 2015 essay published by the New York Times as “a symbol of a non-racist Southern spirit” that had been “appropriated and desecrated” by racists.

Jones is survived by Viator, his fifth wife; his three children, Rachel, Jeanne and Walker; three stepchildren and 10 grandchildren, according to the New York Times.

Esther Kim Varet has gotten a lot of questions recently from “depressed” liberals wondering whom they should vote for in November to represent them in the redrawn 40th Congressional District, which covers a large swath of inland Orange County and portions of San Bernardino and Riverside counties.

The Democratic art gallery owner placed third in last month’s closely watched primary for the seat, behind Republican incumbent Reps. Ken Calvert of Corona and Young Kim of Anaheim Hills. Calvert and Kim were pushed into the same district by last year’s Proposition 50 and will be the only two candidates facing off for the seat in November.

Kim Varet said her supporters have “obviously put a lot of thought into” which of the incumbents to support, but they have had a hard time swallowing the idea of voting for either. So she tells them why, “if we’re playing a kind of longer game,” they should vote for Kim.

She says Calvert is favored to win, so supporting Kim will “force both sides to spend more on this race” and reduce Republican spending on other races where Democrats still have a shot at beating a GOP incumbent. She says Calvert is “much more senior” than Kim, so ousting him would be “more significant.” And Calvert, as chair of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, has funded Trump’s war in Iran and would be “morally the better target.”

In last month’s primary, Kim Varet and other Democratic candidates collectively won 42.9% of the district vote, compared with Calvert’s 34.9% and Kim’s 20.6%. If enough of those Democratic voters coalesced behind Kim, they could end Calvert’s 33-year run in Congress.

Whether they will, however, is unclear. Such “orphaned” voters — those left without a candidate of their party in a general election — are historically just as likely to abstain from voting or to vote based on far less strategic considerations. Californians created that dilemma more than a decade ago when they approved the top-two primary system that puts all candidates on the same ballot and only allows the top-two finishers to advance to the general election, regardless of their party affiliation.

Paul Mitchell, a Democratic redistricting expert who devised California’s new congressional map under Proposition 50, said the backers of California’s primary system sold it years ago as a moderating force, where those orphaned voters would be encouraged to select the least partisan general election candidate.

But in reality, Mitchell said, “it doesn’t work that way.”

Voter decisions

Mitchell said intraparty matchups in the past have shown 35% of orphaned voters or more simply abstain from voting in that race.

A recent analysis Mitchell conducted of races, including for seats in the state Legislature, showed such undervoting among orphaned voters in every intraparty race for a state Senate seat in 2024 — one clear example being the competitive and costly battle between two Democrats, Laura Richardson and Michelle Chambers, in South Los Angeles.

Many others vote based on “tertiary things,” he said, such as a candidate’s race or gender, or whether they seem local or a Washington insider.

“Traditionally, it isn’t so much about somebody being more moderate,” he said, in part because voters can’t always discern moderation among candidates of an opposing party. “Republicans might be able to tell the difference between a moderate Republican and a conservative Republican, but Democrats can’t tell the difference.”

Incumbency can also be a drag on a candidate if orphaned voters dislike their track record, even if their opponent is even further from those voters politically. As one example, Mitchell pointed to rural, more conservative parts of the state going for Kevin de León over Sen. Dianne Feinstein when he challenged her in 2018, despite his running to her left.

“You’re like, how in the hell did these rural counties vote for Kevin de León? And it was because there were a lot of Republicans who, if they were going to vote in the U.S. Senate race, just wanted to vote against Feinstein,” Mitchell said.

Katelyn Stauffer, an associate politics professor at University of Georgia who has studied voter behavior in top-two races in California, said people “like to make decisions that are easy,” and “for most people, the ultimate cue is, does this person share my party?”

When party doesn’t differentiate candidates, voters tend to rely on other “simple cues or heuristics,” Stauffer said.

For example, based on her research, she said, women regardless of party and Democrats regardless of gender are more likely to vote for a woman in such scenarios.

Candidate messaging

Candidates could consider moderating their message to attract orphaned voters, though that can be perilous.

In a statement to The Times, Calvert accused Kim of trying to woo orphaned voters with a more bipartisan message, as evidence she is untrustworthy.

“Young Kim has bragged to some voters that she’s a moderate who censured President Trump. She’s then claimed to others that she [is] a 100% Trump Republican. It’s obvious Young Kim will say anything to try and hold on to her job, which is why voters from every party just can’t trust her,” Calvert said.

He said he has “been a consistent conservative in Congress for many years and that’s not going to change.” He also claimed to be “one of the most effective members of Congress,” saying he has secured funding to reduce traffic congestion, fight fires and improve water infrastructure in his district — things “voters from all parties want.”

Chris Pack, a spokesman for Kim, denied that Kim is changing her tune depending on her audience, and dismissed Calvert’s claims of serving his constituents well, calling him a “do-nothing dinosaur” who has failed to improve his constituents’ lives for decades.

“The truth is he’s had more than enough time to deliver for the people of California, and he hasn’t,” Pack said.

Similar intraparty battles are playing out in other congressional races between Democrats.

In the 4th Congressional District, which stretches through the Napa and Sacramento valleys, Republican voters could help decide between incumbent Rep. Mike Thompson (D-St. Helena) and his challenger from the left, venture capitalist Eric Jones.

Thompson — who has been in Congress since 1999 and sits on the powerful Ways and Means Committee — won 41% of the vote in the primary, while Jones won 22.2%. A slate of six Republican candidates collectively won 36.1%.

Jones, who backs progressive measures to expand Medicare and cut working-class taxes, said he hopes voters of all stripes look beyond political labels and see that he is the only candidate in the race who will take on big utilities, healthcare lobbyists and other big-business interests who fund Thompson’s campaigns.

“I want voters to realize that there’s a real choice in front of them,” he said.

Thompson said he is focused on doing his job, introducing himself to voters in the new parts of his district, reconfigured under Proposition 50, and “figuring out how I can work with them” to address their concerns. He said there is “a lot of commonality” among voters of all parties who want “good roads, clean air, water, strong [agriculture], safe communities,” and that he’s been endorsed by local Republicans and Democrats alike.

Thompson also rejected Jones’ criticism of his fundraising, saying he has “done a lot of good work that’s not necessarily in the interests” of those who have contributed to his campaign. He also said fundraising is necessary in a race against a wealthy opponent like Jones, who donated millions of dollars to his own campaign.

In the 7th Congressional District, Republican voters will help decide between incumbent Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Sacramento) — who has been in Congress since replacing her late husband there in 2005 — and her challenger from the left, progressive Sacramento City Councilmember Mai Vang.

Vang won 31.2% of the primary vote. Matsui won 29.1%. Two Republican candidates together won 37%.

In a statement to The Times, Matsui said November’s general election “will be a significantly different race because there will be many more voters that didn’t vote in the primary,” and that she will “work harder to court voters by meeting them where they are and informing them how I’ve delivered on my promises,” including on healthcare, public safety and jobs.

Vang did not respond to a request for comment but has previously accused Matsui of not delivering on her promises for decades.

“After 20 years, families are living paycheck to paycheck, people of my generation are no closer to owning a home, and you still can’t afford a doctor visit,” Vang said last month.

Party involvement

Political parties have traditionally shunned meddling in races where they lack a candidate of their own, experts said. They sometimes endorse in races where two members of their own party are facing off against each other, but not always.

Nick Poche, a Republican National Committee spokesperson, said his organization is largely focused on three races in which Republicans are either looking to hold or win seats from Democrats: the 13th Congressional District, where Republican Kevin Lincoln is challenging Rep. Adam Gray (D-Merced); the 22nd Congressional District, where Rep. David Valadao (R-Hanford) is trying to fend off Democrat Randy Villegas; and the 48th Congressional District, where Republican Jim Desmond is facing off against Democrat Marni von Wilpert for the seat of retiring Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Bonsall).

He called the Democrats in those races “radical socialists and emblematic of California’s far-left failures,” and said his party would be campaigning against them. But he declined to speak to the Calvert-Kim race, or the races in which two Democrats are facing off.

The California Republican Party did not respond to a request for comment.

Rusty Hicks, chair of the California Democratic Party, said his party is focused on “fulfilling the promise of Proposition 50” to flip five seats to help his party win control of the House, and is also focused on three competitive races: those for Valadao’s and Issa’s seats, and one in the 6th Congressional District, where Democrat Richard Pan is taking on Republican-turned-independent Rep. Kevin Kiley of Rocklin.

Hicks said the party will not endorse Calvert or Kim, whom he called “two rotten choices,” but has endorsed incumbents Matsui and Thompson in their races against fellow Democrats because they have “been leading” on issues of affordability and access to healthcare and “are best positioned to be reelected.”

Jones scoffed at his party endorsing his opponent. “Are we really excited that the Democratic machine keeps trying to choose our electeds for us?” he said.

Aug. 2 (UPI) — Sen. Bernie Moreno on Sunday said his former son-in-law, Rep. Max Miller, should not be serving in the U.S. House of Representatives amid mounting allegations of domestic abuse made by Miller’s ex-wife.

Moreno, R-Ohio, broke his silence on the subject of Miller, R-Ohio., in a statement issued on social media in which he said his daughter Emily’s former husband “should not serve in the House of Representatives.

“I believe Max Miller needs to seek professional help to end the clear pattern of abuse he has left in his wake,” Moreno wrote. “I believe he should not be free to continue endangering others until he does.”

Miller, the Republican incumbent from a district in northeastern Ohio and a staunch ally of President Donald Trump, has been locked in a bitter custody battle with Emily Moreno over their 2-year-old daughter following the finalization of their divorce last year.

During their legal fight, Emily Moreno, a conservative policy adviser, has accused Miller of incidents of domestic violence such as scalding her with hot water and hitting and threatening her while they were married.

While those claims were previously known, they came back into the foreground last month when new court filings and police reports released by Mother Jones magazine detailed new information that their daughter had suffered a broken collarbone.

Miller has denied all of Emily Moreno’s allegations and on Sunday again pleaded his innocence and reiterated he would not withdraw as a GOP congressional candidate in the upcoming midterm election.

In a video posted on X, he blamed the “left-wing media” for his predicament and called his ex-wife a woman with “mental health challenges” while linking to a cache of documents he claimed refute all of her charges.

However, his former father-in-law — another vocal supporter of President Trump — nonetheless ended his strategy of avoiding comment on the situation, instead calling Miller unfit to hold office.

“As he has admitted privately, Max Miller needs serious psychological help,” Bernie Moreno said. “He is a danger to my daughter, and I hold my breath every minute he has custody of my granddaughter.”

The GOP senator asserted that “If there are any basic standards of character required to hold elected office, Max Miller fails them. He should not serve in the House of Representatives.

“I believe Max Miller needs to seek professional help to end the clear pattern of abuse he has left in his wake. I believe he should not be free to continue endangering others until he does.”

His remarks came after some Democratic House members called on the Ethics Committee to investigate Miller over what they called “deeply disturbing” reports of “domestic violence and child abuse.”

The deadline for Ohio Republicans to replace Miller on the November general election ballot is Wednesday, and his troubles are leading some Democratic strategists to view his seat as a possible political opportunity.

Caracas, July 28, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodríguez hosted a US Congress delegation in Caracas on Friday. 

The team of US politicians was led by Florida Republican Representative Brian Mast, a military veteran who also served voluntarily in the Israeli armed forces. It also included Florida Republican representatives Randy Fine and Kat Cammack alongside Illinois Democratic representative Jonathan Jackson. 

According to Venezuelan state media, the high-level meeting saw the two sides “assess progress in bilateral relations and the joint agenda in strategic areas.”

“Both sides reviewed bilateral cooperation schemes geared toward fighting transnational organized crime and border security,” the official report said.

For his part, Fine wrote on social media that he was “honored” to take part in the first congressional delegation to Venezuela in a decade. He added that the US’ January 3 kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro “set Venezuela on a trajectory to be a key ally” of the US. 

Fine, like Mast, is a major advocate of Israeli interests in the US legislature and has the backing of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). He has publicly called for starving and dropping nuclear bombs on the Gaza Strip. 

Also participating in the summit were US Chargé d’Affaires in Venezuela John Barrett, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Félix Plasencia, and Vice Minister for Europe and North America Oliver Blanco.

Blanco, who comes from the ranks of the opposition Democratic Action (AD) party, has been the main government liaison with US officials in the country. He was recently appointed First Vice Minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in order to “strengthen Venezuela’s foreign policy and peace diplomacy around the world.”

In addition, the US Congress members held talks with National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez, who described the meeting as “fruitful” and said discussions focused on “the legislative agenda and international investment.” Rodríguez added that Venezuela took the opportunity to “thank the United States for its support” following the June 24 twin earthquakes.

The US lawmakers held subsequent meetings with officials from Venezuela’s Ministry of Defense and the National Anti-Drug Superintendency (Sunad), according to reports.

Following the January 3 US military strikes and Maduro kidnapping, the Rodríguez-led acting government fast-tracked a diplomatic rapprochement with Washington following seven years of severed ties. Both administrations have opened their respective embassies.

Venezuela’s acting president has hosted a number of US officials in Caracas in recent months, including Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, and CIA Director John Ratcliffe.

Last March, Rodríguez had already received a delegation from the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee as part of the ongoing “peace dialogue” between Washington and Caracas.

At that time, the presidential press office said the Senate delegation had traveled to Caracas for a “technical and political” visit intended to continue the bilateral “roadmap” focused on “direct communication to manage historical differences and strengthen energy cooperation in light of global challenges.”

Venezuela and Peru Move Toward Restoring Relations

Caracas’ foreign policy shift has likewise seen authorities mend ties with regional US allies that had sought to isolate the Caribbean nation.

On Friday, the governments of Venezuela and Peru announced the start of a gradual process to fully restore diplomatic relations, which were severed in 2024 after the Peruvian government refused to recognize Venezuela’s official electoral results that saw Maduro secure a third term in office.

“In a first stage, both countries have agreed to reactivate consular relations as an initial step toward the full restoration of bilateral ties,” the foreign ministries of Venezuela and Peru said in a joint statement.

The immediate objective is to guarantee protection and consular services for Venezuelan and Peruvian citizens residing in each country. The diplomatic rapprochement comes days before a change of government in Peru, where conservative leader Keiko Fujimori is set to replace interim President José María Balcázar after a narrow and disputed electoral triumph.

Edited by Ricardo Vaz in Caracas.

CHICAGO — After leaders of the Southeastern Conference spent last week warning of a Plan B to potentially “break away” from the NCAA, Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti tried to steer away from that conversation and toward a Congressional solution on Tuesday.

But if Congress can’t pass the Protect College Sports Act in the coming weeks? Well, the conference is already talking contingency plans, Petitti said.

“Breakaway is a word that creates a lot of emotion,” Pettiti said during his annual Big Ten media day address on Tuesday. “Is there another path where if you can’t solve it in the bill and if you can’t solve it with your colleagues, is there some path where you have to have conference-based rules? That’s not necessarily breaking away. It doesn’t mean you’re not going to play anybody else. But is there a path to have rules that we can at least operate from the conference?

“We absolutely have to do everything we can to prepare for every one of those things.”

The future of college football continues to hang in the balance as Congress works to get the two power conferences on board with a bill that has not received their full support. Petitti said on Tuesday morning that he’d yet to see the new language of the Protect College Sports Act, which added revisions to appease the SEC and Big Ten, but expected to see it later Tuesday.

The commissioner said he didn’t expect the bill to be “perfect for us in every one one of those places,” but he expected concessions to be included in the newest version, including potential provisions around a super league, pre-enrollment inducements for high school prospects and a carve-out for up to $20 million in additional cap space to retain players.

Whether those concessions will be enough to get the two power conferences on board remains to be seen. Time is running out for a bill to be passed before Congress takes a lengthy recess, significantly delaying any meaningful reform in college athletics.

“If Congress is going to be involved in deciding who can be in what conference and when you can move and how you move and how you schedule based on certain things happening, we just need to get that right,” Petitti said. “And so we want to make sure that the productive conversations we’ve had the last couple of weeks on that section specifically are reflected in the drafting of the bill.”

Petitti said that the Big Ten would’ve preferred “a much skinnier bill” than the current version, but “that is not the reality right now.”

“Is there more good here than not, right?” Petitti said. “That’s the way to look at it.”

Passing that bill is the primary focus for now. It’s why Petitti has been to Washington 21 times, he said, during his tenure as commissioner. But other uncertainty still looms over the sport.

The Big Ten is still also pushing for a 24-team College Football Playoff, but Petitti said that the conference’s stance has evolved since he first started pushing the idea a year ago.

“We’ve made adjustments in our league,” Petitti said. “We were focused on automatic qualifiers. We’re not focused on that anymore. We’re looking at the committee picking the field of 24. We feel that ultimately will still unlock the power of scheduling that we want.”

Tech scion David Ellison for months projected confidence that his blockbuster Hollywood merger was on a glide path to completion.

His media company Paramount Skydance’s pitch early this year was that its proposed $111-billion acquisition of rival Warner Bros. Discovery could easily clear regulatory hurdles — unlike Netflix’s competing bid.

Ellison has heavyweights in his corner: his billionaire father Larry Ellison, co-founder of software giant Oracle, is bankrolling the deal, and President Trump is eager for the Ellison family to own CNN and other Warner assets, including HBO and the Burbank film and TV studios behind “Batman,” Harry Potter, Wile E. Coyote, and “The Pitt.”

“We could technically close [the deal] tomorrow,” Ellison told business new channel CNBC during a March interview. “There is nothing in this transaction that trips anything that would create cause for concern.”

But Paramount made a dramatic retreat Friday after two weeks of legal setbacks. The firm had been aiming to close the deal by September but agreed to table its takeover — perhaps until next spring — to allow a fiercer than expected challenge from California Atty. General Rob Bonta and 11 other Democrat state attorneys general to advance to trial before an Oakland-based federal judge.

The state prosecutors allege Paramount’s proposed merger with Warner Bros. violates a century-old antitrust law by giving the combined company too much heft in theatrical movie distribution and cable television.

The delay could saddle Paramount, the smallest of the major media companies, with substantial legal fees and hundreds of millions of dollars in added deal costs. In February, Paramount offered Warner investors a sweetener, so-called “ticking fees,” to win the auction.

Those fees, which begin accruing in October, will cost Paramount an extra $7 million a day — until the purchase is finalized. And if Paramount fails to close the merger, it would owe Warner Bros. Discovery a $7-billion breakup fee.

“Anyone who thinks they know how this deal ends should think again,” Forrester Research analyst Mike Proulx said in a statement. “This deal may still close or it may not. … The path to either outcome just got longer, messier, and likely more expensive.”

Paramount now must strengthen its case for a high-stakes trial while fortifying Paramount’s existing businesses and holding together a coalition of financiers, which includes the royal families of Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi and Qatar which jointly agreed to contribute $24 billion for equity stakes in the combined company.

Paramount reversed course after U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín dealt the company a blow on Monday when she temporarily blocked Paramount from finalizing the acquisition until mid-August. Looming was a key Aug. 3 hearing for the judge to determine whether the moratorium should be extended.

Paramount was concerned the judge would block the deal for the foreseeable future.

“They saw the writing on the wall,” Bonta said in an interview.

Columbia Law School business professor Eric Talley added: “This doesn’t constitute Paramount Skydance coming out and waving a big white flag — but it is a small white flag of surrender.”

Paramount, in a statement, said heading straight to trial would prove advantageous.

“This is the fastest and clearest way to prove that this transaction is good for competition, good for consumers, and good for creators,” Paramount said. “We look forward to proving our case at trial.”

Last week, the Writers Guild of America separately filed a lawsuit seeking to stop the merger, alleging that writers would encounter less work and lower pay should Paramount buy Warner Bros.

Now the merger won’t close until after a resolution in the litigation or by June 1, 2027, whichever date comes first.

“This is what we’ve been asking for from the start,” Bonta said. “We just wanted the court to have sufficient time to review our case without the threat of the companies merging.”

Ellison, through a Paramount spokesperson, declined an interview request.

The delay brings a different set of challenges, Talley said, including pushing the date of the takeover until after November’s pivotal mid-term elections when control of Congress might change hands.

“That itself could be disruptive,” Talley said. “Suppose we get a flip of the House of Representatives or the Senate, then we may see testimony in Congress.”

Prominent Democrats, including Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) have expressed alarm over the potential consolidation, which would shrink the number of legacy film studios and bring CNN in addition to CBS News under Ellison control.

Attempts to get Ellison to testify in Congress have fallen short. The Paramount chief declined an invitation to appear before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights in February, as well as a subsequent request from Booker to appear during an April spotlight hearing.

“To what extent was the rush to get the deal done related to the midterms, and what press coverage was going to look like in the upcoming election season?” Talley asked. “CNN is not a huge money-making asset but it is a prominent asset of Warner Brothers Discovery.”

On Friday night, Trump extolled his friendship with the Ellison family during the White House Correspondents Assn. dinner while also criticizing prominent CNN anchors.

David Ellison is “going to make, I think, fantastic changes and keep some of the great stuff going,” Trump said.

CBS News has been roiled since shortly after the Ellisons acquired Paramount in August, and installed Bari Weiss as editor in chief of CBS News. She has overseen a series of controversial moves, including shaking up the evening news and sacking several “60 Minutes” correspondents.

Paramount scored one victory: the European Commission gave its blessing for the merger to go forward in the European countries it represents. The company now has gained clearances from more than 60 jurisdictions, including from the U.S. Justice Department, which found the merger would likely boost competition — not harm it.

Now, Paramount’s biggest obstacle is winning the case against Bonta and the other state attorneys general.

The states plan to request a trial in 2027, after the two sides conduct months of discovery to prepare their cases.

“We want to take depositions of employees. We want to take depositions of customers and competitors in these marketplaces that are impacted [and] we want documents,” Bonta said.

“We want to depose their experts and probe and test their experts’ opinions,” he said. “That all takes time.”

Bonta and the other state attorneys sidestepped the political landscape in making their lawsuit arguments.

“This is just a straight-up meat-and-potatoes antitrust case,” Bonta said. “The main point here is that antitrust enforcement is important because monopolies that lessen competition hurt everyday people.

“Once we have a trial, we’re going to win,” Bonta said. “So we think and we hope there will never be a merger.”

The White House has formally registered its opposition to a move by Congress to block work on the nuclear-powered Trump class battleship unless the U.S. Navy provides assurances that key weapon systems are “sufficiently mature.” The House Armed Services Committee has already demanded a report from the Secretary of the Navy outlining the steps the service is taking to ensure the battleship program won’t exacerbate existing construction delays on aircraft carriers and submarines.

Earlier this week, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a Statement of Administration Policy regarding the latest draft of the annual defense policy bill, or National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), for Fiscal Year 2027 that is now making its way through the House of Representatives. The document offers support for and opposition to various sections of the proposed legislation, which is also known as H.R. 8800.

“The Administration appreciates that H.R. 8800 would provide authorization of the 18 ships requested in the Budget. These ships are a direct commitment to restoring America’s maritime dominance and maritime industrial base,” OMB’s statement, which was published on July 21, declares. “In addition, the Administration appreciates the bill’s support of the Battleship program by fully authorizing the $1 billion in advance procurement necessary to accelerate the delivery to the Fleet.”

“However, the Administration opposes the bill’s excessive reporting requirements in section 131 regarding the Administration’s priority Battleship program,” it continues. “The Administration strongly opposes any reporting requirements that delay the Battleship program without supporting national security requirements.”

On July 21, USNI News also reported that OMB was pressing members of Congress to include funding to start work on the first Trump class battleship in a proposed temporary spending bill, or Continuing Resolution. A temporary funding package could be needed if legislators cannot pass a more formal budget by September 30, when the current fiscal year ends.

When it comes to Section 131 of H.R. 8800, the provision is brief, but pointed. At the time of writing, it reads, in full:

“The Secretary of the Navy may not enter into a contract or other agreement that includes a scope of work for the construction of the lead ship of the Battleship program until the date on which the Secretary certifies to the congressional defense committees that the weapon systems planned for inclusion in such lead ship are at a sufficiently mature technology readiness level.”

The section does not name any particular weapon systems or define what level of technological readiness would be deemed sufficient. To date, the Navy has described the planned Trump class battleship as a 35,000-ton-displacement warship with a diverse array of weapons. The ship is set to be able to fire nuclear and conventional missiles, including hypersonic types, from several very large Vertical Launch System (VLS) arrays. It will also have an electromagnetic railgun, a pair of traditional 5-inch naval guns, various laser directed energy weapons, and additional weapon systems for close-in defense.

TWZ previously reported on this provision, which has been in the proposed legislation since at least May. As we wrote in the past:

“In terms of technological maturity, the railgun presents particular questions. Between 2005 and 2021, the Navy had an active railgun program. Despite promising developments, plans for an at-sea test were repeatedly pushed back before the entire effort was shelved. Major technical hurdles were cited as a key factor in that decision. The railgun itself was effectively placed in storage at White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) in New Mexico.“

“However, it emerged earlier this year that the Navy had conducted a new round of testing of the railgun at WSMR in February 2025. Whether the Navy has any plans to pick up where it left off with this prototype design, which was developed by BAE Systems, or pursue a new one remains unclear. General Atomics, which previously supported U.S. Army railgun efforts, has publicly expressed interest in being involved in arming the Trump class.”

“While the Navy has been very active in developing and fielding laser directed energy weapons, this is another area where the service has faced continued challenges in expanding their operational use. The plans for the Trump class specifically call for a 300-kilowatt-class laser, which is far more powerful than any of the designs the Navy has integrated on its warships to date. The service currently has eight Arleigh Burke class destroyers with the Optical Dazzling Interdictor, Navy (ODIN), as well as another one of those warships with the High Energy Laser with Integrated Optical-dazzler and Surveillance (HELIOS). HELIOS is a 60-kilowatt-class design, though there has been talk about scaling up its power rating to 150 kilowatts. ODIN’s power rating does not appear to be officially confirmed, but it is understood to be significantly lower than that of HELIOS. You can read more about all of this here.”

“The Intermediate Range Conventional Prompt Strike (IRCPS) hypersonic missile, another key component of the future Trump class arsenal, is also still in development. The first test launch from a warship, the stealth destroyer USS Zumwalt, is expected to come next year. IRCPS is the Navy half of a joint program with the U.S. Army, which is working to field a land-based version of the same missile. The Army refers to its complete weapon system as the Dark Eagle. The Army had suffered significant setbacks in the past with the Dark Eagle, but the service had blamed those issues on the launcher rather than the missile.”

For its part, OMB’s July 21 statement does not respond to any particular concerns that might be raised by Section 131, either.

Section 131 represents just one small portion of the questions, concerns, and criticism that members of Congress have leveled at the Trump class battleship program. The first one of these ships, currently set to be named the USS Defiant, has an estimated price tag of $17 billion. This would make the vessel more expensive than each of the next three Ford class aircraft carriers. The future USS Defiant is also not currently expected to enter service until 2036. The Navy has already outlined plans to order 14 more of these battleships between Fiscal Years 2029 and 2055, as well.

With this in mind, as noted, the House Armed Services Committee has separately asked for a report from the Secretary of the Navy, to be delivered no later than March 1, 2027, on the potential industrial impacts. A particular issue is the strain that work on the Trump class could have on America’s limited nuclear shipbuilding enterprise. Currently, there are only two U.S. shipyards qualified to build nuclear-powered vessels and only one supplier of naval reactors. Currently, the only nuclear-powered ships in the Navy are aircraft carriers and submarines. The service has not operated a nuclear-powered surface combatant in decades, and it has been even longer since one was built in the United States.

TWZ has repeatedly raised questions about the basic industrial capacity to support the battleship program since it was first rolled out to the public in December 2025. It is worth noting here that third, fourth, and fifth Ford class carriers now under construction – the future USS Enterprise (CVN-80), USS Doris Miller (CVN-81), and USS William J. Clinton (CVN-82) – have all suffered delays. Concerns are also regularly voiced about potential setbacks in the construction of new Virginia class and Columbia class submarines. Navy officials have been saying for years now that there is little, if any, margin left in the Columbia class delivery timeline, which is a critical matter of national security. It is essential for those boats to be delivered on a tight schedule to ensure there is no gap in the ability of the leg of America’s nuclear triad to meet operational requirements.

The battleship effort is of particular significance to President Donald Trump and has been presented as a signature program for his administration. At the same time, the schedule that has been laid out so far means that major decisions about how to proceed in acquiring these ships, if at all, will run into the next administration. Any delays will only push that timeline further to the right at a time when there are already major competing priorities for defense spending. Some members of Congress have openly questioned whether the battleship effort is the best use of available resources already.

The annual NDAA is still far from being finalized. The House’s version will need to be reconciled with the one being advanced in the Senate before the bill can be put to a vote, let alone sent to Trump’s desk to be signed into law (or vetoed). This is a process typically marked by lengthy negotiations, and Section 131, as well as other provisions, could change in the future or be removed entirely.

Whether or not a larger political fight around the Trump class battleship emerges remains to be seen. However, OMB has now made clear publicly that the administration is against the inclusion of the guardrails around the program that the current version of H.R. 8800 proposes to establish.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

The US says it has spent more than $37.5 billion on the Iran war so far, and the Secretary of Defense is requesting an additional $67 billion more. One analyst tells Al Jazeera’s ‘This is America’ that Congress may face political trouble voting against it.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and other Democratic attorneys general are suing the Trump administration over imposing what they contend are “unlawful” conditions on federal grants intended to help states prepare and respond to disasters.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Rhode Island on Thursday, argues that the Department of Homeland Security and Federal Emergency Management Agency have been using their control over billions of dollars in federal grants to operate what the attorneys general see as an aggressive “campaign of coercion” to adopt the Trump administration’s preferred voting and immigration policies, according to the complaint.

“Congress never gave DHS or FEMA authority to rewrite state election law, require cooperation with federal immigration agents, or terminate federal funding streams at any time and for any reason,” the lawsuit stated. The legal action was filed by a coalition of 24 attorneys general and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, both Democrats.

A spokesperson for the White House did not respond to a request for comment.

At the crux of their legal complaint are two federal programs: the Homeland Security Grant Program, which was established by Congress as a response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and the Emergency Management Performance Grant Program, which helps states pay for emergency management staff who plan for and respond to natural disasters and mass casualty events, as well as software programs used by state emergency operations centers.

For the homeland security grant, the Trump administration has attached “radical” new terms based on Trump’s preferred policies, the states contend.

These terms include verifying the citizenship of all individuals in state voter databases, transitioning their voting systems to equipment that reads hand-marked paper ballots and conducting post-election audits “according to nonexistent guidelines to be set by the Secretary of Homeland Security,” according to the complaint.

And the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA have threatened to make states “promise to devote their scarce resources to the federal government’s own task of civil immigration enforcement” in order to receive both the homeland security and the emergency management grants, according to the complaint.

At a news conference Thursday, Bonta laid out the stakes.

“These grants help communities prepare for emergencies before disaster strikes,” he said. “They support emergency management personnel, strengthen disaster response capabilities, improve coordination among first responders, and help protect our residents when they need government the most.”

The Trump administration restrictions would mean “our communities would have fewer resources to prepare for wildfires, earthquakes, floods, terrorist threats, and other emergencies,” Bonta stated.

“Time after time, courts have told Trump’s corrupt administration that it can’t coerce California into doing its bidding by threatening to withhold public safety funding,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement. “Yet, they’re coming back for more. This time they’re demanding states rewrite their own election laws to access money that pays for public safety readiness and response, and that Congress already approved. We simply won’t allow it.”

WASHINGTON — The House on Wednesday passed a defense policy bill that incorporates President Trump’s request for a historic $1.15 trillion in spending for national security and would designate the Department of Defense as the Department of War.

It also would provide for a pay raise next year ranging from 5% to 7% for service members, depending upon their rank.

The National Defense Authorization Act is generally one of the more bipartisan bills that Congress takes up on an annual basis. That’s not the case this year. The vote was 216-212.

Democrats took issue with steep spending increases for the Pentagon as Republicans attempted to cut numerous non-defense programs through other bills. They also opposed some of the conservative social policy riders that were included.

For example, the bill includes a prohibition on gender-related medical care under the military health program known as TRICARE. It also eases hurdles for service members to carry a privately owned firearm on base, following Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s lead on the issue.

Republican leaders’ decision to attach Trump’s elections overhaul bill to the defense bill upon its passing also amplified the partisan divide. Speaker Mike Johnson is working to accommodate Republican lawmakers who are angry that the Senate won’t pass the SAVE America Act and are insisting that it be included in must-pass bills until the Senate relents.

House bill tests a normally bipartisan process

Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama, the Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said he knows there were areas of disagreement, but emphasized that Wednesday’s vote was a step in a long process. He promised to work in a bipartisan manner on a final product that can pass both chambers and be signed into law.

Rogers said the United States needs to reverse decades of underinvestment and neglect in the nation’s armed forces and defense industrial base.

“This bill will do that and much more,” he said. “It will build the ready, capable and lethal fighting force we need to deter China and other adversaries.”

Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, the ranking Democratic lawmaker on the Armed Services Committee, said the defense spending the administration has asked for this year is approaching $1.6 trillion including separate efforts to pay for the war in Iran and boost weapons stockpiles.

“The American people are struggling to pay their bills and we’re going to put $1.6 trillion into the defense budget. It’s not a reasonable thing to ask,” Smith said.

Smith also expressed concern about the war with Iran and that in supporting the defense bill, lawmakers are “de facto supporting this war with no end in sight.”

“We are in an incredibly, incredibly dangerous time,” Smith said. “I want to maintain the bipartisan nature of this bill. I do. And I know that the chairman does. But if we’re going to do this, we’re going to need some Republicans to stand up to the president of the United States and say, ‘No. No, we’re not going to get you $1.6 trillion. No, we’re not just going to give you a blank check for a war that is totally out of control.‘”

White House backs parts of the legislation

The spending increases authorized in the bill would not take effect until Congress follows up with a separate defense appropriations bill. The Senate has not yet approved its version of the defense measure. It’s possible a final product won’t be ready until after the midterm elections.

The White House applauded the spending levels authorized in the House bill and the Department of War designation that it says recognizes the “willingness to fight and win wars on behalf of our nation.”

The president issued an executive order last year renaming the Defense Department, but it’s up to Congress to make the change official. The Congressional Budget Office has projected that the renaming could cost taxpayers as much as $125 million.

The White House’s statement also said that the administration has a number of concerns with certain provisions in the bill and would work with Congress before a final bill is presented to the president. Among those concerns was a section of the bill it said would limit or undermine the president’s ability to name military installations and property.

In 2023, during a national reckoning on issues of race in America, seven Army bases’ names were changed because they honored Confederate leaders. Last year, those bases reverted to their original names, but with different namesakes who share Confederate surnames. The Army found other service members with the same last names to honor.

Freking writes for the Associated Press.

More than 16 congressional Democrats accused the Federal Communications Commission this week of running a license-review process “tainted by animus and ideology,” demanding the agency back off its early scrutiny of Disney stations, including Los Angeles’ KABC-TV and San Francisco’s KGO-TV — while alleging the FCC has politicized its power.

The lawmakers signed letters to FCC Secretary Marlene H. Dortch to register their dismay and question the legitimacy of the FCC’s review protocol.

The letter campaign is a response to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr’s decision in April to order an early review of Disney’s licenses for the eight ABC television stations that it owns. The review is entering its home stretch; public comments are due to the FCC by July 29.

Calling a station’s licenses for an early review is rare, and it’s been four decades since the FCC revoked a TV station license.

Carr’s move requiring Disney to submit to an early review came after President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump expressed outrage over a joke by ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel that referenced the first lady.

“This early renewal process is merely a smokescreen to pursue President Trump’s vindictive agenda to silence minority voices and punish companies that decline to do his bidding,” according to the letter signed by Reps. Laura Friedman (D-Glendale), Kevin Mullin (D-South San Francisco), Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), Ro Khanna (D-Fremont), Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) and others.

The FCC maintains the ABC station review sprung from concerns about Disney’s internal diversity, equity and inclusion programs, but the lawmakers said there was no evidence that Disney’s personnel policies violate any laws.

Instead, they said, Trump has made it clear that he sees TV license renewals as a means to squeeze media outlets whose coverage he dislikes.

The FCC separately has taken aim at ABC’s daytime discussion show, “The View,” which delves deeply into politics.

Disney has pushed back against the early evaluation of its TV station licenses, which were originally up for review between 2028 and 2031. The Burbank giant filed its renewal applications “under protest.”

“The Commission had not demanded early renewal in over five decades,” Disney’s WABC-TV station, based in New York, wrote in a May filing with the commission. “And it has never before demanded simultaneous license renewal applications from a group of stations commonly owned with a network as it has here. The order has no legitimate purpose.”

California congressional Democrats have strongly condemned Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr’s decision to mandate early, unprecedented license renewals for eight Disney-owned ABC stations, including KABC-TV in Los Angeles.

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The FCC maintains that Disney is the one politicizing the station review.

“Contrary to Disney’s claim that the FCC called in their broadcast licenses for early renewal for no reason, the record shows something very different,” Carr said in a May statement. “Broadcast licensees have a unique obligation to operate in the public interest. The FCC will follow the facts and law wherever they may lead.”

In the tussle over whether “The View” qualifies for an exemption to the so-called equal time rules for politicians, an FCC spokesperson said in a statement: “ABC should focus on complying with its public interest obligations, rather than misleading the public about them.”

The lawmakers, in the two letters, did not wade into the controversy over “The View.”

Instead, they stressed the importance of the two stations — KABC and KGO — to their local communities.

“KABC is an important local television station that millions of our constituents rely on for daily news, traffic, emergency weather alerts, and programming that serves our local community,” according to the letter spearheaded by Friedman, whose district includes Disney’s headquarters.

“Any refusal to renew this license would be strongly against the public interest,” the group wrote.

Congresswoman Laura Friedman is leading a letter campaign by Democrats in Congress to defend Disney’s KABC-TV.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

A second letter highlighted the importance of Disney’s San Francisco station, which serves nine counties in that region.

“For over 75 years, KGO has been operating in the public interest in our region, offering reliable journalism, indispensable emergency information, and steadfast community engagement that our constituents and viewers rely on,” according to the letter headed by Mullin.

The station also serves as a broadcast partner to the San Francisco Chinese New Year Parade, the city’s Pride parade, the Oakland Black Joy parade and the Bay to Breakers race. It also raises awareness for organizations including Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired and Bay Area Autism Collective, the lawmakers said.

“KGO’s operations reflects the television station’s deep investment and commitment to viewers in the Bay Area,” the lawmakers wrote. “KGO is a community partner. … We urge the FCC to reconsider its unlawful censorship campaign against ABC and all other political opponents of President Trump.”

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration urged Congress on Tuesday to approve roughly $70 billion in emergency defense funding to sustain U.S. military capabilities amid its escalating war against Iran, warning that without it the Pentagon could face “critical shortfalls” disrupting its readiness.

The request comes as the United States and Iran have traded strikes for 10 consecutive days in a renewed conflict, deepening concerns in Washington over an expanding war that could inflame the global economy and trap the president in a quagmire.

The collapse of a ceasefire agreement and the sudden resumption of war have raised alarms within the Pentagon over its ability to protect U.S. forces and assets in the Middle East over a prolonged conflict, with defensive munitions in dangerously short supply, two Defense Department officials told The Times.

Yet the administration is facing bipartisan skepticism from lawmakers over the continuation of a war unpopular with a vast majority of Americans, over which they have had little oversight, and that in recent days has led to deaths of U.S. soldiers.

Those tensions became clear as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified before the Senate Appropriations Committee to make their case for the tens of billions of dollars and offer their first in-depth public remarks about the war since May.

Hegseth told senators the United States is at a “moment where we cannot afford inaction,” while Caine argued the funding request is coming to Congress “while time is still on our side.”

“It is critical that we stay ahead of our adversaries and we must have the funds before we are out of time,” Caine said.

Hegseth said the war is now expected to cost Americans $37.5 billion, up from a $29-billion estimate from early May. The war, initially projected by President Trump to last four to five weeks, is now entering its fifth month.

With no end in sight, senators from both parties signaled frustrations with the administration’s plans.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said Democrats will not support more funding for the war.

“This administration’s refusal to explain what it is doing, or how this war is protecting Americans, its refusal to seek authorization from Congress, and its expectations that Americans will just pay for it all without any explanation or transparency is disrespectful,” she said.

Republican lawmakers also confronted Hegseth and Caine on several fronts.

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) told the Pentagon leaders that lawmakers “need some proper answers and some straight talk” about the administration’s plans to ensure Iran does not choke traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.

Asked whether Iran would impose tolls on merchant vessels passing through the vital waterway, Caine said it was a “hypothetical” scenario — a response Kennedy rejected.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) also put pressure on Hegseth, as she asked him whether the administration was still taking the position that it needed no authorization from Congress to continue hostilities against Iran.

“Senator, I know there’s a long-standing legal debate on this particular topic, but we certainly at the department share the position with the White House that we have all the necessary authorities at this moment,” Hegseth said.

Murkowski’s remarks come just weeks after Republicans joined Democrats in both the House and Senate in voting to reassert Congress’ constitutional role over the war, underscoring the simmering tensions over Trump’s decision to sideline Congress in the matter.

Hours before the hearing, Trump downplayed concerns over the war’s effect on the midterm elections and further threats in the war, as Houthis, the Iran-backed militia in Yemen, declared a maritime blockade Monday on Saudi Arabia.

“So far, it hasn’t happened. It might happen but we take care of things, if something like that happens,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

Trump maintained that Iranian leaders are “desperately” trying to reach a deal to end the war but said he has no interest in meeting with them until he is convinced the talks will be “meaningful.”

“If we left right now, it would take Iran 20 to 25 years to rebuild. We are not finished at all,” Trump said. “We are not leaving right now.”

A protester interrupts Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as he testifies at Tuesday’s hearing.

(Jacquelyn Martin / Associated Press)

Asked if he thought Iran was trying to have an effect on the midterm elections by threatening the Strait of Hormuz, Trump said, “probably.”

“It won’t have any impact on me,” he said. “The election, I can’t think about that having to do with this.”

An agreement reached in June between the United States and Iran proposed an end to a U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports and to U.S. sanctions on Iranian oil exports in exchange for Tehran allowing unfettered commercial shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. But the agreement fell apart, with Iran firing on commercial vessels and pursuing a toll system for transit that had not existed before the war started.

The deal was supposed to set up a structure for more detailed negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program, a prime target of the U.S. campaign launched in February in partnership with Israel.

Much of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure was degraded in a U.S. strike conducted last year that targeted three major facilities. But the fissile material required to build nuclear weapons remains in the country, under the watch of U.S. satellite surveillance. Iran has vowed to continue pursuing civilian nuclear work.

“How about these people? They’re in this because of nuclear weapons, and they’re trying to possibly reconstitute a site? We’ll hit that site. Any site where they’re even thinking about nuclear — we’ll be hitting it very, very powerfully,” Trump said.

As the war expands, there’s been heightened concern about the infrastructure that civilians in neighboring countries rely on for water and power.

Iranian officials said U.S. strikes hit the Bunji desalination plant on Iran’s southeastern coast, leaving 20 villages — where some 10,000 people reside — without water, according to reports from Iran’s semi-official news agency Tasnim.

Meanwhile, the Kuwaiti government said its power plants and desalination plants were struck by Iran on Monday — the fourth consecutive day of attacks on a key source of drinking water for the small desert nation.

The attacks spurred the Kuwaiti government over the weekend to launch an ad campaign calling on residents to reduce their water and power usage, especially during peak hours between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m.

A concerted campaign targeting desalination plants would be devastating both for Iran and the Persian Gulf nations it has peppered with drones and missiles since the start of the war.

Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the Emirates and Saudi Arabia are among the world’s eight most water-stressed countries. Israel ranks 9th, while Iran is 14th, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Water Resources Institute.

All of them suffer from “absolute water scarcity,” according to metrics used by the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture organization.

Times staff writer Nabih Bulos in Beirut contributed to this report.