Democrats

WASHINGTON — In a remarkable rebuke of Republican leadership, the House passed legislation Thursday, in a 230-196 vote, that would extend expired healthcare subsidies for those who get coverage through the Affordable Care Act as renegade GOP lawmakers joined essentially all Democrats in voting for the measure.

Forcing the issue to a vote came about after a handful of Republicans signed on to a so-called “discharge petition” to unlock debate, bypassing objections from House Speaker Mike Johnson. The bill now goes to the Senate, where pressure is building for a similar bipartisan compromise.

Together, the rare political coalitions are rushing to resolve the standoff over the enhanced tax credits that were put in place during the COVID-19 crisis but expired late last year after no agreement was reached during the government shutdown.

“The affordability crisis is not a ‘hoax,’ it is very real — despite what Donald Trump has had to say,” said House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, invoking the president’s remarks.

“Democrats made clear before the government was shut down that we were in this affordability fight until we win this affordability fight,” he said. “Today we have an opportunity to take a meaningful step forward.”

Ahead of voting, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that the bill, which would provide a three-year extension of the subsidy, would increase the nation’s deficit by about $80.6 billion over the decade. It would increase the number of people with health insurance by 100,000 this year, 3 million in 2027, 4 million in 2028 and 1.1 million in 2029, the CBO said.

Growing support for extending ACA subsidies

Johnson (R-La.) worked for months to prevent this situation. His office argued Thursday that federal healthcare funding from the COVID-19 era is ripe with fraud, pointing to an investigation in Minnesota, and urged a no vote.

On the floor, Republicans argued that the subsidies as structured have contributed to fraud and that the chamber should be focused on lowering health insurance costs for the broader population.

“Only 7% of the population relies on Obamacare marketplace plans. This chamber should be about helping 100% of Americans,” said Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.), chair of the House Ways and Means Committee.

While the momentum from the vote shows the growing support for the tax breaks that have helped some 22 million Americans have access to health insurance, the Senate would be under no requirement to take up the House bill.

Instead, a small group of senators from both parties has been working on an alternative plan that could find support in both chambers and become law. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said that for any plan to find support in his chamber, it will need to have income limits to ensure that the financial aid is focused on those who most need the help. He and other Republicans also want to ensure that beneficiaries would have to at least pay a nominal amount for their coverage.

Finally, Thune said there would need to be some expansion of health savings accounts, which allow people to save money and withdraw it tax-free as long as the money is spent on qualified medical expenses.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), who is part of the negotiations on reforms and subsidies for the Affordable Care Act, said there is agreement on addressing fraud in healthcare.

“We recognize that we have millions of people in this country who are going to lose — are losing, have lost — their health insurance because they can’t afford the premiums,” Shaheen said. “And so we’re trying to see if we can’t get to some agreement that’s going to help, and the sooner we can do that, the better.”

Trump has pushed Republicans to send money directly to Americans for health savings accounts so they can bypass the federal government and handle insurance on their own. Democrats largely reject this idea as insufficient for covering the high costs of healthcare.

Republicans bypass their leaders

The action by Republicans to force a vote has been an affront to Johnson and his leadership team, who essentially lost control of what comes to the House floor as the Republican lawmakers joined Democrats for the workaround.

After last year’s government shutdown failed to resolve the issue, Johnson had discussed allowing more politically vulnerable GOP lawmakers a chance to vote on another healthcare bill that would temporarily extend the subsidies while also adding changes.

But after days of discussions, Johnson and the GOP leadership sided with the more conservative wing, which has assailed the subsidies as propping up ACA, which they consider a failed government program. He offered a modest proposal of healthcare reforms that was approved, but has stalled.

It was then that rank-and-file lawmakers took matters into their own hands, as many of their constituents faced soaring health insurance premiums beginning this month.

Republican Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, Robert Bresnahan and Ryan Mackenzie, all from Pennsylvania, and Mike Lawler of New York, signed the Democrats’ petition, pushing it to the magic number of 218 needed to force a House vote. All four represent key swing districts whose races will help determine which party takes charge of the House next year.

Trump encourages GOP to take on healthcare issue

What started as a long shot effort by Democrats to offer a discharge petition has become a political vindication of the Democrats’ government shutdown strategy as they fought to preserve the healthcare funds.

Democrats are making clear that the higher health insurance costs many Americans are facing will be a political centerpiece of their efforts to retake the majority in the House and Senate in the fall elections.

Trump, during a lengthy speech this week to House GOP lawmakers, encouraged his party to take control of the healthcare debate — an issue that has stymied Republicans since he tried, and failed, to repeal Obamacare during his first term.

Mascaro and Freking write for the Associated Press. AP writer Matt Brown contributed to this report.

That escalated quickly. We’re barely into 2026, and events are already unfolding that could meaningfully reshape the political landscape.

The death of Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother and U.S. citizen who was shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minneapolis on Wednesday, has the potential to shake the political landscape in ways reminiscent of George Floyd’s killing in 2020.

The Trump administration initially claimed Good “weaponized her vehicle” in an act of “domestic terrorism,” an account that appears to be contradicted by video evidence. Whether the incident escalates into a broader political reckoning — or fades from public attention — may determine its lasting effect on President Trump’s popularity and his immigration policies.

Meanwhile, Trump’s decision to invade Venezuela and capture then-President Nicolás Maduro remains controversial, even among some of his fans.

The attack drew immediate criticism from Marjorie Taylor Greene, Tucker Carlson and Laura Loomer, with Carlson and Loomer going so far as to float the claim that Maduro’s ouster was really about imposing gay marriage on Venezuela (this is impressive, because it manages to combine foreign policy, culture war panic and complete nonsense into a single sentence).

But this schism isn’t limited to ex-House members, podcasters and conspiracy theorists. Inside the administration, the balance of power appears to be tilting away from the noninterventionists and toward the hawks — at least, for now.

The current beneficiary of this shift is Secretary of State Marco Rubio. As recently as last month, JD Vance, who has generally staked out an anti-interventionist posture, seemed like Trump’s obvious heir. Now, Rubio’s stock is up (if “Lil Marco” falls short, he can always settle for Viceroy of Venezuela).

That’s not to say Rubio is anywhere near being Trump’s clear successor. Venezuela could disappear from the headlines as quickly as it arrived, buried beneath the next crisis, scandal or social media outburst. Or it could go sideways and dominate headlines for years or decades.

Military adventurism has an uncanny habit of doing exactly that.

If Venezuela turns into a slow-motion disaster, Democrats will reap the benefits as will the GOP’s “America First” contingent.

But January hasn’t just presented a possible touchstone for Republicans; Democrats have been hit with their own challenge, too: the Minnesota fraud scandal, which has already pushed Democratic Gov. Tim Walz out of a reelection bid. It is the kind of story that reinforces voters’ worst suspicions about their party.

During the past five years, parts of Minnesota’s Somali diaspora became entangled in alleged fraudulent activity, reportedly submitting millions of dollars in claims for social services that were not actually rendered.

The details are complicated; the implications are not. Public programs retain support only when voters believe they are competently managed, and this story suggests the opposite.

The fact that the scandal involves the Somali community makes it even more combustible. Fair or not, it provides ready-made ammunition for those eager to stoke racial resentment, discredit refugee policies and turn bureaucratic failure into an indictment on Democrats.

The fallout extends well beyond Minnesota. Kamala Harris has been signaling interest in another presidential run, and Walz was her vice-presidential pick in what was already a truncated and awkward campaign. That decision alone won’t sink a future bid for her, but it certainly doesn’t strengthen her already dubious case that she has exceptional political judgment.

More troubling for Democrats is the fear that Minnesota is the tip of the iceberg. Walz’s exodus was sparked by a right-wing YouTuber who started doing some sleuthing — and brought attention to years-old investigations by the Walz and Biden administrations. Other influencers are already promising similar exposés elsewhere.

Right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson, for example, has announced plans to descend on California, declaring it “the fraud capital of the world.” Newsom returned fire with a vicious Trump-like retort, demonstrating once again why he became the Democratic frontrunner in 2025.

Newsom’s Twitter rejoinder aside, it’s not crazy to think that the Democrats’ recent momentum could be squandered if it turns out more of these scandals exist and have been ignored, downplayed or (worse) covered up.

It’s risky to describe anything in modern politics as a turning point, because each week reliably produces something that eclipses the last outrage. Still, the opening days of this new year already feel consequential. Seeds have been planted. Whether they mature is the question.

Buckle up. It’s only January.

Matt K. Lewis is the author of “Filthy Rich Politicians” and “Too Dumb to Fail.”

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, one of the top Republican candidates running for California governor, met a woman sprawled on the sidewalk as he walked around Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles.

“I’m waiting for the sun to come out from the clouds. I’m sunbathing,” the woman said Tuesday morning, lying on her jacket on the cold concrete, denying that any drug use was taking place in the roughly 50-block swath of downtown Los Angeles. “This is what we do here in California.”

Bianco and Kate Monroe, chief executive of VetComm, talks with a woman on the sidewalk as they walk around of Skid Row.

(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)

Bianco shook his head, and as he walked away said there was zero chance the woman was not high on methamphetamines or something else. He said it was immoral for the state’s leaders to allow people to live in such conditions, and pledged to clean up Skid Row within four years if he is elected governor in November.

“Why on God’s green earth, why would we allow this to happen?” Bianco later said. “And why would you have something that you call Skid Row, that you just accept, instead of doing something to fix … these people’s lives.”

Bianco squarely blamed the problem on waste, fraud and mismanagement under Gov. Gavin Newsom, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and prior elected leaders, who he argued failed to effectively tackle the issue. He is among the critics who points to a 2024 state audit that found the state had spent $24 billion to combat homelessness over the prior five years without tracking the results.

A spokesman for Newsom disputed such characterizations of the spending.

“There is no ‘lost’ $24 billion for homelessness. All the money is accounted for,” Newsom spokesman Izzy Gardon said. “What the report found was that not all state programs required locals to report, at the time, how those dollars improved homelessness outcomes. Gov. Newsom has since changed the law to fix this longstanding issue.”

Bianco also pledged to use existing laws against drug dealing, human trafficking, prostitution and other crimes to clean up these blocks, while offering addicts and the mentally ill who are breaking the law the option of going to jail or being placed in treatment programs.

Democrats shot back that Bianco was not offering realistic approaches to an intractable problem.

Bianco talks with Antonio Fuller, left, and John Shepar.

(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)

“Chad Bianco is the best example of an all-hat, no-cattle politician with tough talk and no solutions,” state Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks said. “That is not what California voters want in our next governor.”

Throughout his campaign, Bianco has leaned into his role as a law enforcement leader. On Tuesday, as his allies shot video after his visit to Skid Row, he pulled up the edge of his T-shirt to reveal his Riverside County sheriff badge.

Amid scenes of desperation, chaos and squalor, Bianco was surrounded by a gaggle of invited media.

Los Angeles Police Department patrol cars were frequently seen nearby as the group sidestepped feces, used condoms, sidewalk fires, open-air drug use and drug dealing, barely clothed women, and people screaming and cursing.

People make their way around Skid Row on Tuesday.

(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)

Monroe talks with Emilio Marroquin.

(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)

Bianco was accompanied by veteran and homeless advocate Kate Monroe, who handed the homeless envelopes containing $5 bills and cigarettes as encouragement to talk. Some did not take kindly to the offer.

“Get out of my face. Get out of my face. You’re offering me cigarettes,” the woman said. Monroe replied, ‘I’ll give you five bucks.” The woman repeated, “Get out of my face.”

But others were more receptive, including Emilio Marroquin.

The 42-year-old said he had started drinking as a teenager as he struggled with being gay in a Christian home. He didn’t come out until his father, a pastor, passed away. His drinking spiraled out of control, he said, leading friends and family to abandon him. After Marroquin ended up on the streets eight years ago, he said, he started using crystal meth and crack, and explained the splotchy wounds on his hand were the result of being beaten up for failing to pay drug debts.

After learning that Marroquin briefly lived in sober housing, Bianco asked him about the difficulties of transitioning from living on the streets to structured housing, and then spoke with a passing community service provider who identified herself as S.R.

“We need a new change. We need something other than what we’ve been hearing for the past, I don’t know, 20 years or longer,” she said, to which Bianco replied that she had “more courage, passion and commitment and a big heart than probably anyone to be able to come down here and do this over.”

Bianco greets a man who goes by Cigaretteman.

(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)

The Riverside County sheriff’s appearance on Skid Row comes as the 2026 governor’s race is finally starting to see some energy.

A crowded field of prominent though little-known Democrats is competing to finish in the top two spots in the June primary. If they all remain in the race, the Democrats could splinter the vote and allow one of the far smaller number of top Republican candidates to win one of the spots.

Bianco’s top GOP rival, former Fox News commentator and British political strategist Steve Hilton, held a rainy-day news conference on Monday in front of the California Employment Development Department in San Francisco to highlight alleged fraud in state government.

Saying that Newsom has turned the state into “Califraudia,” Hilton and GOP controller candidate Herb Morgan called on the U.S. Department of Justice and other federal officials to investigate waste and fraud in state spending.

“This gets to that question that every Californian is asking: How is it that we have the highest taxes in the country? They’ve doubled the budget of the state of California nearly in the last five years, and everything is worse,” Hilton said. “We have the worst outcomes in America. How is that possible, that they spend so much and we get so little? … We are going to get to the bottom of this when we are elected.”

Washington, DC – It has become a familiar pattern. United States presidents conduct unilateral military actions abroad. Congress shrugs.

On Saturday, in the hours after the US military abducted Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, Democrats in the Senate pledged to raise yet another resolution to rein in US President Donald Trump’s military actions.

Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in the chamber, has said the party will push for a vote within the week. By all accounts, the odds of its success remain long.

Since Trump took office for a second term in 2025, Congress has weighed multiple bills that would force him to seek legislative approval before initiating a military strike.

But the latest attack on Venezuela offers a stark instance of presidential overreach, one that is “crying out for congressional action”, according to David Janovsky, the acting director of the Constitution Project at the Project on Government Oversight.

Experts say it is also one of the clearest tests in recent history of whether Congress will continue to cede its authority to check US military engagement abroad.

“There are a lot of angles where you can come at this to say why it’s a clear-cut case,” Janovsky told Al Jazeera.

He pointed out that, under the US Constitution, Congress alone wields the authority to allow military action. He also noted that the Venezuela attack “is in direct contravention of the UN Charter, which is, as a treaty, law in the United States”.

“Any of the fig leaves that presidents have used in the past to justify unilateral military action just don’t apply here,” Janovsky added. “This is particularly brazen.”

An uphill battle

Since August, the Trump administration has signalled plans to crank up its “maximum pressure” campaign against Venezuela.

That month, Trump reportedly signed a secret memo calling on the US military to prepare for action against criminal networks abroad. Then, on September 2, the Trump administration began conducting dozens of strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats off the Venezuelan and Colombian coasts.

That deadly bombing campaign was itself condemned as a violation of international law and an affront to Congress’s constitutional powers. It coincided with a build-up of US military assets near Venezuela.

Trump also dropped hints that the US military campaign could quickly expand to alleged drug-trafficking targets on Venezuelan soil. “When they come by land, we’re going to be stopping them the same way we stopped the boats,” Trump said on September 16.

The strikes prompted two recent votes in the House of Representatives in December: one that would require congressional approval for any land strikes on the South American country, and one that would force Trump to seek approval for strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats.

Both resolutions, however, failed roughly along party lines. A similar resolution in the Senate, which would have required congressional approval before any more attacks, also fell short in November.

But speaking to reporters in a phone call just hours after the US operation on Saturday, Senator Tim Kaine said he hoped the brashness of Trump’s latest actions in Venezuela would shock lawmakers into action.

Republicans, he said, can no longer tell themselves that Trump’s months-long military build-up in the Caribbean and his repeated threats are a “bluff” or a “negotiating tactic”.

“It’s time for Congress to get its a** off the couch and do what it’s supposed to do,” Kaine said.

In an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, US Senator Chris Murphy also agreed that it was “true” that Congress had become impotent on matters of war, a phenomenon that has spanned both Democratic and Republican administrations.

Bash pointed to former President Barack Obama’s 2011 military deployment to Libya, which went unchecked by Congress.

“Congress needs to own its own role in allowing a presidency to become this lawless,” Murphy responded.

Republicans ho-hum about resolutions

Under the US Constitution, only Congress can declare war, something it has not done since World War II.

Instead, lawmakers have historically passed Authorizations for Use of Military Force (AUMFs) to approve committing troops to recent wars, including the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and the strikes on alleged al-Qaeda affiliates across the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

No AUMFs have been passed that would relate to military action in Venezuela.

When lawmakers believe a president is acting beyond his constitutional power, they can pass a war powers resolution requiring Congressional approval for further actions.

Beyond their symbolism, such resolutions create a legal basis to challenge further presidential actions in the judiciary.

However, they carry a high bar for success, with a two-thirds majority in both chambers of Congress needed to override a presidential veto.

Given the current makeup of Congress, passage of a war powers resolution would likely require bipartisan support.

Republicans maintain narrow majorities in both the House and Senate, so it would be necessary for members of Trump’s own party to back a war powers resolution for it to be successful.

In November’s Senate vote, only two Republicans — co-sponsor Rand Paul of Kentucky, and Lisa Murkowski, of Alaska — split from their party to support the resolution. It failed by a margin of 51 to 49.

December’s vote on a parallel resolution in the House only earned 211 votes in favour, as opposed to 213 against. In that case, three Republicans broke from their party to support the resolution, and one Democrat opposed it.

But Trump’s abduction of Maduro has so far only received condemnation from a tiny fragment of his party.

Overall, the response from elected Republicans has been muted. Even regular critics of presidential adventurism have instead focused on praising the ouster of the longtime Venezuelan leader, who has been accused of numerous human rights abuses.

Senator Todd Young, a Republican considered on the fence ahead of November’s war powers vote, has praised Maduro’s arrest, even as he contended the Trump administration owed Congress more details.

“We still need more answers, especially to questions regarding the next steps in Venezuela’s transition,” Young said.

Some Democrats have also offered careful messaging in the wake of the operation.

That included Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat who represents a large Venezuelan diaspora community in Florida.

In a statement on Saturday, Wasserman Schultz focused on the implications of Maduro’s removal, while avoiding any mention of the military operation that enabled it. Instead, she asserted that Trump owed Congress an explanation about next steps.

“He has failed to explain to Congress or the American people how he plans to prevent the regime from reconstituting itself under Maduro’s cronies or stop Venezuela from falling into chaos,” she wrote.

In December, however, Wasserman Schultz did join a group of Florida Democrats in calling for Congress to exercise its oversight authority as Trump built up military pressure on Venezuela.

What comes next?

For its part, the Trump administration has not eased up on its military threats against Venezuela, even as it has sought to send the message that Maduro’s abduction was a matter of law enforcement, not the start of a war.

Trump has also denied, once again, that he needed congressional approval for any further military action. Still, in a Monday interview with NBC News, he expressed optimism about having Congress’s backing.

“We have good support congressionally,” he told NBC. “Congress knew what we were doing all along, but we have good support congressionally. Why wouldn’t they support us?”

Since Saturday’s attack and abduction, Trump has warned that a “second wave” of military action could be on the horizon for Venezuela.

That threat has extended to the potential for the forced removal of Maduro’s deputy, Delcy Rodriguez, who was formally sworn in as the country’s interim president on Monday.

“If she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro,” Trump told The Atlantic magazine.

The administration has also said that strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats near Venezuela will continue and that US military assets will remain deployed in the region.

Constitutional expert Janovsky, however, believes that this is a critical moment for Congress to act.

Failure to rein in Trump would only further reinforce a decades-long trend of lawmakers relinquishing their oversight authorities, he explained. That, in turn, offers tacit support for the presidency’s growing power over the military.

“To say this was a targeted law enforcement operation — and ignore the ongoing situation — would be a dangerous abdication of Congress as a central check on how the United States military is used,” Janovsky said.

“Continued congressional inaction does nothing but empower presidents to act however they want,” he added.

“To see Congress continue to step back ultimately just removes the American people even farther from where these decisions are actually being made.”

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Democrats’ 2024 candidate for vice president, is ending his bid for a third term as governor amid President Trump’s relentless focus on a fraud investigation into child care programs in the state.

Less than four months after announcing his reelection campaign, Walz said Monday that negative attention and Republican attacks have contributed to an “extraordinarily difficult year for our state,” making it impossible for him to serve full time as governor while also being a candidate to keep his job.

“Every minute that I spend defending my own political interest would be a minute I can’t spend defending the people of Minnesota against the criminals who prey on our generosity and the cynics who want to prey on our differences,” Walz said at the state capitol. “So I’ve decided to step out of this race, and I’ll let others worry about the election while I focus on the work that’s in front of me for the next year.”

Walz did not take questions from reporters after speaking for about seven minutes, much of which involved repeating his earlier written statement announcing his decision.

“Donald Trump and his allies — in Washington, in St. Paul, and online — want to make our state a colder, meaner place,” Walz said, referring to the Trump administration withholding funds for the programs and the president’s attacks on Somali immigrants in Minnesota. “They want to poison our people against each other by attacking our neighbors. And, ultimately, they want to take away much of what makes Minnesota the best place in America to raise a family.”

Despite the opaque references, Walz did not explicitly acknowledge the effect of a viral video from a right-wing influencer who claimed he’d found rampant fraud at day care centers operated by Somali residents in Minneapolis. But the Trump administration has cited the video in its decision to cut off certain federal funding streams, and the video’s creator, Nick Shirley, was happy to take credit for the governor’s decision.

“I ENDED TIM WALZ,” Shirley posted Monday on social media.

Walz’s exit scrambles the contest in a Democratic-leaning state that Republicans have insisted they can win. Democrats currently hold 24 out of 50 governor’s seats nationwide, with 36 seats, including Minnesota’s, on the ballot in 2026.

The candidates to replace Walz

Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar is considering entering the Minnesota race, according to a person close to her. The person, who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the senator, who ran for president in 2020, has not made a final decision.

Around a dozen Republicans are already running. They include MyPillow founder and Chief Executive Mike Lindell, an election denier who is close to Trump. They also include Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth; Dr. Scott Jensen, a former state senator who was the party’s 2022 candidate; state Rep. Kristin Robbins; defense lawyer and former federal prosecutor Chris Madel; former executive Kendall Qualls; and former Minnesota GOP Chair David Hann.

A military veteran, union supporter and former high school educator and coach, Walz helped enact an ambitious Democratic agenda for his state, including sweeping protections for abortion rights and generous aid to families.

Kamala Harris picked Walz as her running mate in the 2024 presidential election after his attack line against Trump and his running mate, then-Ohio Sen. JD Vance — “These guys are just weird” — spread widely.

Walz continued building his national profile since his and Harris’ defeat in November. He was a sharp critic of Trump as he toured early caucus and primary states. In May, he called on Democrats in South Carolina to stand up to the Republican president, saying, “Maybe it’s time for us to be a little meaner.”

There were partisan reactions to Walz’s announcement

Reactions to Walz’s decision reflected the intense partisanship certain to spill into the campaign to pick his successor.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin, who led Minnesota Democrats when Walz was first elected governor in 2018, said Walz “entered public life for the right reasons and never lost sight of them.” Walz’s guiding principle, Martin added, “has always been showing up and doing the work that actually makes their lives better.”

Klobuchar, posting on X, praised Walz as “a true public servant” who made a “difficult decision” but said nothing about her own pending choice.

Another Minnesotan of national prominence, Republican House Majority Whip Tom Emmer was more succinct, issuing a statement that said in its entirety: “Good riddance.”

Democratic Governors Assn. Chair Andy Beshear, the second-term Kentucky governor, praised Walz as a “a national leader in fighting for the middle class” and said his organization “remains very confident Minnesotans will elect another strong Democratic governor this November.”

At the Republican Governors Assn., spokeswoman Courtney Alexander blasted Walz for “failed leadership” and argued that the eventual Democratic nominee “will need to defend years of mismanagement and misplaced priorities.”

Walz, for his part, stood by his administration’s stewardship.

“We should be concerned about fraud in our state government,” he said, adding that “a single taxpayer dollar wasted on fraud should be intolerable.” But Walz said his administration has worked diligently to address fraud and manage the state’s operations.

A look at Walz’s time as governor

Through nearly two terms as governor, Walz navigated a closely divided legislature. In his first term, he served alongside a Democratic-led House and Republican-controlled Senate that resisted his proposals to use higher taxes to boost money for schools, healthcare and roads. But he helped broker compromises.

He used the office’s emergency power during the COVID-19 pandemic to shutter businesses and close schools, prompting Republican pushback.

Republicans also were critical of Walz over what they saw as his slow response to sometimes violent unrest that followed the killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, by a white Minneapolis police officer in 2020. Walz pleaded for calm after Floyd’s death but also stood out as a white political leader who expressed empathy toward Black Americans and their experiences with police violence.

In his second term, Walz worked with Democratic majorities in both legislative chambers to chart a more liberal course in state government, aided by a huge budget surplus. Minnesota eliminated nearly all of the state abortion restrictions enacted in the past by Republicans, protected gender-affirming care for transgender youth and legalized the recreational use of marijuana. Walz and his fellow Democrats also enacted free school meals for all students and a paid family and medical leave program that went live on Jan. 1.

That record, combined with Walz’s rural background and experience representing southern Minnesota in Congress, landed him on Harris’ radar as she considered potential running mates in 2024 after replacing Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket. After a whirlwind search, she opted for Walz over other candidates including North Carolina’s Roy Cooper, Kentucky’s Andy Beshear, Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

Walz received a warm welcome from Democratic voters but drew mixed reviews for his lone debate against Vance.

More recently, Walz has been frustrated in his efforts to enact new gun control measures following a mass shooting in August at Annunciation School in Minneapolis, which left two children dead and injured dozens. He had hoped to call a special session to consider a list of gun safety proposals.

Karnowski and Barrow write for the Associated Press. Barrow reported from Atlanta.

WASHINGTON — Lawmakers are returning to Washington this week confronting the fallout from the stunning capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro — and familiar complaints about the Trump administration deciding to bypass Congress on military operations that have led to this moment.

Democratic leaders are demanding the administration immediately brief Congress. Republican leaders indicated over the weekend those plans are being scheduled, but some lawmakers expressed frustration Sunday that the details have been slow to arrive.

President Trump told the nation Saturday that the United States intends to “run” Venezuela and take control over the country’s oil operations now that Maduro has been captured and brought to New York to stand trial in a criminal case centered on narco-terrorism charges.

The administration did not brief Congress ahead of the actions, leaving Democrats and some Republicans expressing public frustration with the decision to sideline Congress.

“Congress should have been informed about the operation earlier and needs to be involved as this situation evolves,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said in a social media post Saturday.

Appearing on the Sunday news shows, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both of New York, ticked through a growing list of unknowns — and laid out plans for their party to try and reassert Congress’ authority over acts of war.

“The problem here is that there are so many unanswered questions,” Schumer said on ABC’s “This Week.” “How long do they intend to be there? How many troops do we need after one day? After one week? After one year? How much is it going to cost and what are the boundaries?”

Jeffries told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he was worried about Trump running Venezuela, saying he has “done a terrible job running the United States of America” and should be focused on the job at home.

In the coming days, Jeffries said Democrats will prioritize legislative action to try and put a check on the administration, “to ensure that no further military steps occur absent explicit congressional approval.”

As discussions over Venezuela loom, lawmakers also face major decisions on how to address rising costs of healthcare, prevent another government shutdown and deal with the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein files.

Much of the unfinished business reflects a Congress that opted to punt some of its toughest and most politically divisive decisions into the new year, a move that could slow negotiations as lawmakers may be reluctant to give the other side high-profile policy wins in the lead-up to the 2026 midterm elections.

First and foremost, Congress faces the monumental task of averting yet another government shutdown — just two months after the longest shutdown in U.S. history ended. Lawmakers have until Jan. 30 to pass spending bills needed to keep the federal government open. Both chambers are scheduled to be in session for three weeks before the shutdown deadline — with the House slated to be out of session the week immediately before.

Lawmakers were able to resolve key funding disputes late last year, including funding for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, also known as food stamps, and other government programs. But disagreements over healthcare spending remain a major sticking point in budget negotiations, intensified now that millions of Americans are facing higher healthcare costs after lawmakers allowed Affordable Care Act tax credits to expire on Thursday.

“We can still find a solution to this,” said Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Rocklin), who has proposed legislation to extend the tax credits for two years. “We need to come up with ways to make people whole. That needs to be a top priority as soon as we get back.”

Despite that urgency, Republican efforts to be the author of broad healthcare reforms have gotten little traction.

Underscoring the political pressure over the issue, four moderate House Republicans late last year defied party leadership and joined House Democrats to force a floor vote on a three-year extension of the subsidies. That vote is expected to take place in the coming weeks. Even if the House effort succeeds, its prospects remain dim in the Senate, where Republicans last month blocked a three-year extension.

Meanwhile, President Trump is proposing giving more money directly to people for their healthcare, rather than to insurance companies. A White House official said the administration is also pursuing reforms to lower the cost of prescription drugs.

Trump said last month that he plans to summon a group of healthcare executives to Washington early in the year to pressure them to lower costs.

“I’m going to call in the insurance companies that are making so much money, and they have to make less, a lot less,” Trump said during an Oval Office announcement. “I’m going to see if they get their price down, to put it very bluntly. And I think that is a very big statement.”

There is an expectation that Trump’s increasing hostility to insurance companies will play a role in any Republican healthcare reform proposal. If Congress does not act, the president is expected to leverage the “bully pulpit” to pressure drug and insurance companies to lower healthcare prices for consumers through executive action, said Nick Iarossi, a Trump fundraiser.

“The president is locked in on the affordability message and I believe anything he can accomplish unilaterally without Congress he will do to provide relief to consumers,” Iarossi said.

While lawmakers negotiate government funding and healthcare policy, the continuing Epstein saga is expected to take up significant bandwidth.

Democrats and a few Republicans have been unhappy with the Department of Justice’s decision to heavily redact or withhold documents from a legally mandated release of files related to its investigation of Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender who died in a Manhattan jail awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

Some are weighing options for holding Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi accountable.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont), who co-sponsored the law that mandated the release with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), said he and Massie will bring contempt charges against Bondi in an attempt to force her to comply with the law.

“The survivors and the public demand transparency and justice,” Khanna said in a statement.

Under a law passed by Congress and signed by Trump, the Justice Department was required to release all Epstein files by Dec. 19, and released about 100,000 pages on that day. In the days that followed, the Justice Department said more than 5.2 million documents have been discovered and need to be reviewed.

“We have lawyers working around the clock to review and make the legally required redactions to protect victims, and we will release the documents as soon as possible,” the Justice Department said in a social media post on Dec. 24. “Due to the mass volume of material, this process may take a few more weeks.”

Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, told MS NOW last week that pressure to address the matter will come to a head in the new year when lawmakers are back at work.

“When we get back to Congress here in this next week, we’re going to find out really quick if Republicans are serious about actually putting away and taking on pedophiles and some of the worst people and traffickers in modern history, or if they’re going to bend the knee to Donald Trump,” said Garcia, of Long Beach.

As we head into 2026 and Democrats try to figure out how to regain power, their New Year’s resolution should be simple: Manage egos better.

In recent years, they seem to have forgotten the time-tested necessity of placating people. In other words, doing the same basic drudgery the rest of us rely on to get through this chaotic world.

This effort cannot merely be directed toward voters, as important as they are. It must also include elite stakeholders, some of whom might (rightly) be considered kooks, weirdos and otherwise high-maintenance eccentrics.

Lest you think Dems should simply shrug off these folks and say “good riddance,” consider this: Both Trump terms might have been avoided if Democrats had been more willing to nurture the nuts in years gone by.

Let’s start with their treatment of America’s top crank: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

As journalist Michael Scherer, who profiled RFK Jr. for The Atlantic, told Alex Wagner of “Pod Save America”: Once Kennedy’s own 2024 presidential campaign started to flounder, he and his campaign manager began “to make sort of outreach to Democrats … to see if they can open a conversation with Biden to sort of trade something.”

Unfortunately, “the Democratic response [was] silence.” They wouldn’t meet with him, they wouldn’t talk to him.

Later, as Scherer recounts: “A friend of [Kennedy’s] connects him with Tucker Carlson who connects him with Donald Trump. And that night, just hours later, they’re talking, and Trump at that point wants to make a deal.”

The rest is history.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. “But Kennedy is a nut! Why should Democrats have humored him?”

How about this: Because Trump narrowly won the presidency in 2024 by forming a disparate coalition held together by duct tape, resentment and (possibly) a cursed amulet.

This motley crew included more prominent Dems than just RFK Jr. Remember when Biden basically ghosted Elon Musk for that big 2021 White House electric vehicle summit? Even Kamala Harris — who happily agreed with Biden on just about everything except her own polling numbers — called that a huge mistake.

Then again, Harris committed her own costly slight when she decided against going on Joe Rogan’s podcast.

For an entire decade now, Democrats have consistently alienated allies — with devastating results. I’m talking about the snubs that might have prevented Trump’s first presidential run entirely.

Not just the famous humiliation of Trump at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Here’s the more tragic prequel: Former “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd told the Bulwark’s Tim Miller that before Trump went full birther, he actually called the Obama White House offering “ideas on how to improve the state dinner.”

That’s right. Donald J. Trump — future leader of the free world — just wanted to talk about better parties. Shrimp trays. Tablecloths. Maybe a chocolate fountain.

Just as the world would have been better had the Washington Senators signed Fidel Castro to a huge baseball contract before he got too interested in politics, America might have been better if Obama had made Trump the White House state dinner czar.

But as Todd put it, “The last thing the Obama White House was going to do was placate a guy like Donald Trump.”

Understandable — until you consider that the alternative to humoring him was, you know … President Trump. Twice.

Look, I totally understand why a U.S. president might think he or she shouldn’t have to stoop to kissing some crank’s ring or placating some gilded, phony billionaire. But let’s be honest: It’s part of the job.

Instead of performing this sort of ego cultivation, Democrats — whether because of snobbery, elite gatekeeping, geriatric aloofness or a disciplined disdain for “time burglars” — have repeatedly alienated potential allies (or at least neutral parties). Then they act shocked when these same people drift into the MAGA solar system like space debris.

If Trump is truly an existential threat — and Democrats say this approximately 87 times a week — then maybe, just maybe, they should Return. A. Phone. Call.

Otherwise, Donald Trump will. Probably at 3 a.m., while eating a Big Mac.

So grovel if you must. Fake interest. Smile like you’re not dying inside. Do the basic humiliations the rest of us perform daily to get hired, get promoted or get a date.

It’s the least you can do. So make it your New Year’s resolution and honor it.

But if you think you’re too good to perform the basic glad-handing and ego-stroking, even for the nuttiest eccentrics, bad things will happen.

Trust me — I’ve seen this movie. And we’re only a year into his second term.

Matt K. Lewis is the author of “Filthy Rich Politicians” and “Too Dumb to Fail.”

Democrats are starting the new year on a high.

A series of 2025 victories, in red and blue states alike, was marked by a striking improvement over the party’s 2024 showing. That over-performance, to use the political term of art, means candidates — including even some who lost — received a significantly higher percentage of the vote than presidential candidate Kamala Harris managed.

That’s a strong signal ahead of the midterm election, suggesting Democratic partisans are energized, a key ingredient in any successful campaign, and the party is winning support among independents and perhaps even a few disaffected Republicans.

If history is a guide and the uneven economy a portent, Democrats will very likely seize control of the House in November, picking up at least the three seats needed to erase the GOP’s bare majority. The Senate looks to be a longer — though not impossible — reach, given the Republican lean of the states being contested.

In short, Democrats are in much better shape than all the black crepe and existential ideations suggested a year ago.

Yes, the party suffered a soul-crushing defeat in the presidential race. But 2024 was never the disaster some made it out to be. Democrats gained two House seats and held their own in most contests apart from the fight for the Senate, where several Republican states reverted to form and ousted the chamber’s few remaining Democratic holdouts.

Still, Democrats being Democrats, all is not happiness and light in the party of Jefferson, Jackson, Clinton and Obama.

Campaigning to become the party’s chairman, Ken Martin last winter promised to conduct a thorough review of the 2024 election and to make its findings public, as a step toward redressing Democrats’ mistakes and bolstering the party going forward.

”What we need to do right now is really start to get a handle around what happened,” he told reporters before his election.

Now Martin has decided to bury that autopsy report.

“Here’s our North Star: Does this help us win?” he said in a mid-December statement announcing his turnabout and the study’s unceremonious interment. “If the answer is no, it’s a distraction from the core mission.”

There is certainly no shortage of 2024 election analyses for the asking. The sifting of rubble, pointing of fingers and laying of blame began an eye blink after Donald Trump was declared the winner.

There are prescriptions from the moderate and progressive wings of the party — suggesting, naturally, that Democrats absolutely must move their direction to stand any chance of ever winning again. There are diagnoses from a welter of 2028 presidential hopefuls, declared and undeclared, offering themselves as both seer and Democratic savior.

The report Martin commissioned was, however, supposed to be the definitive word from the party, offering both a clear-eyed look back and a clarion way forward.

“We know that we lost ground with Latino voters,” he said in those searching days before he became party chairman. “We know we lost ground with women and younger voters and, of course, working-class voters. We don’t know the how and why yet.”

As part of the investigation, more than 300 Democrats were interviewed in each of the 50 states. But there was good reason to doubt the integrity of the report, even before Martin pulled out his shovel and started digging.

According to the New York Times and others, there was no plan to examine President Biden’s headstrong decision to seek reelection despite his advanced age and no intention to second-guess any of the strategic decisions Harris made in her hurry-up campaign.

Which is like setting out to solve a murder by ignoring the weapon used and skipping past the cause of death.

Curious, indeed.

Still, there was predictable outrage when Martin went back on his promise.

“This is a very bad decision that reeks of the caution and complacency that brought us to this moment,” Dan Pfeiffer, an alumnus of the Obama White House, posted on social media.

“The people who volunteered, donated and voted deserve to know what went wrong,” Jamal Simmons, a former Harris vice presidential advisor, told the Hill newspaper. “The DNC should tell them.”

In 2013, Republicans commissioned a similar after-action assessment following Mitt Romney’s loss to President Obama. It was scathing in its blunt-force commentary.

The 98-page report said a smug, uncaring, ideologically rigid party was turning off voters with stale policies that had changed little in decades and was unhelpfully projecting an image that alienated minorities and young voters.

Among its recommendation, the postmortem called on the party to develop “a more welcoming brand of conservatism” and suggested an extensive set of “inclusion” proposals for minority groups, including Latinos, Asians and African Americans. (DEI, anyone?)

“Unless changes are made,” the report concluded, “it will be increasingly difficult for Republicans to win another presidential election in the near future.”

Trump, of course, won the White House three years later doing precisely none of what the report recommended.

Which suggests the Democratic autopsy, buried or otherwise, is not likely to matter a whole lot when voters go to the polls. (It’s the affordability, stupid.)

That said, Martin should have released the appraisal and not just because of the time and effort invested. There was already Democratic hostility toward the chairman, particularly among donors unhappy with his leadership and performance, and his entombing of the autopsy report won’t help.

Martin gave his word, and breaking it is a needless distraction and blemish on the party.

Besides, a bit of thoughtful self-reflection is never a bad thing. It’s hard to look forward when you’ve got your head stuck in the sand.

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Dick Cheney predicted Thursday that the Soviet Union will withdraw all of its troops from Europe by 1995, a forecast that prompted key Senate Democrats to question whether President Bush’s new proposal for cutting U.S. forces should be faster and deeper.

As the Senate Armed Services Committee opened congressional debate on reshaping the nation’s military structure, Cheney and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Colin L. Powell, were repeatedly challenged on the Administration’s troop-reduction plans.

195,000 Force Level

Cheney, disclosing the Pentagon’s rough timetable for cuts in Europe, testified that it may take a year or two to carry out any U.S.-Soviet agreement on the issue.

Bush announced Wednesday night that he was recommending that each side cut its combat forces in Central Europe to 195,000, with the United States allowed to have an additional 30,000 elsewhere in Europe. Currently, the United States has 305,000 troops on the continent.

Sen. Alan J. Dixon (D-Ill.), sharply criticizing the pace of negotiations, declared that he would push the subcommittee he heads to legislate an immediate reduction of 50,000 American troops in Europe and 10,000 in Korea.

Dixon said events are overtaking negotiations, with NATO allies West Germany and Belgium already planning their own deep cuts and Soviet forces certain to be kicked out by new governments in Eastern Europe.

“I’m not saying we should strip until we’re naked,” Dixon said. “There are reasonable, moderate, fair reductions we can make.”

Later, Committee Chairman Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) applauded Bush for going beyond his proposal of last May and advocating the withdrawal of 80,000 U.S. troops, not just the 30,000 he called for then. He called it “much more relevant to the changes in Europe and to the budget realities here at home.”

But Nunn voiced strong concern when Cheney seemed to advocate keeping 225,000 U.S. troops in Europe indefinitely, despite his prediction that the Soviets would pull all of its forces out of Eastern Europe and the two Germanys would be reunited.

Nunn warned that unless the United States had plans to make substantial withdrawals in such a case, it could wind up supplying most of the ground forces for NATO as other allies disbanded their units.

The influential senator got Cheney to concede that the Administration would “take another look” at U.S. troop levels in the event of a sweeping Soviet pullback and German reunification.

Despite Cheney’s expression of flexibility, the defense secretary firmly defended Bush’s new plan. He asserted that any effort by Congress to make unilateral troop cuts before the conclusion of U.S.-Soviet arms control talks would undermine the NATO alliance and encourage greater instability in Europe.

“We are on the verge of winning one of the greatest victories in the history of the world without a shot being fired,” Cheney said. “We should not unilaterally bring them (U.S. troops) home before we get an agreement.”

Republicans Cautious

Several Republicans on the committee strongly backed that position.

“We cannot let the euphoria sweeping this nation drive us to unilateral and hasty reductions in these forces,” Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S. C.) said.

Although members of both parties warmly pledged to work cooperatively with Cheney and Powell in the battles ahead, several Democrats served notice that they would press for deep cuts in the Administration’s proposals for increased spending on strategic weapons programs.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) proposed a “Democratic alternative” that he said would carve a $169-billion “peace dividend” out of the defense budget over the next five years, more than quadrupling the savings proposed by Bush for the same period.

Kennedy singled out the B-2 Stealth bomber, the “Star Wars” anti-missile program and other major programs for deep slashes. He argued that Bush’s budget fails to reflect a dramatically diminished Soviet military threat and a massive upgrading of U.S. strategic weapons in the last decade.

“We have to have a modernization program,” he said, “but does it have to be at the madcap pace of the 1980s?”

Cheney, while acknowledging major changes in the world, said that the Soviets continue to modernize their own strategic arsenal. “The Soviet Union remains the only nation on earth capable of destroying the United States,” he said.

Powell likewise contended that this was no time for the nation to let down its guard.

“I never want to return to that leisurely, comfortable ‘From Here to Eternity’ attitude of the 1930s that helped invite global conflict to an unsuspecting world,” he said.

Reporting from Washington — Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) will not run for a 10th term in Congress, he announced Wednesday morning, becoming the second California Republican to retire this week as Democrats strive to retake control of the U.S. House.

On Monday, Republican Rep. Ed Royce of Fullerton also announced he would not seek reelection.

Beyond shaking up the California political landscape, the two retirements are a signal that the GOP fears a Democratic wave election that could sweep them from power this fall.

Royce and Issa represent districts that are changing, with more Latino and Asian voters, and where Hillary Clinton defeated Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election.

Democrats have made clear their path to reclaiming the U.S. House majority must pass through Southern California, and open-seat races could make that task a bit easier. On the other hand, Republicans could recruit strong and experienced candidates who might fare better against a crowded field of Democratic hopefuls, many of whom are seeking office for the first time.

With Issa’s announcement, more than 30 House Republicans have announced plans to leave Washington, and Democrats need to secure just 24 more seats to retake control.

Without incumbents in those races, it also will be more difficult for the Democrats to deploy their national strategy of tying the Republican candidate to Trump, who is widely unpopular in California.

In contrast to most of his California GOP colleagues, Issa showed a willingness to moderate his stances to placate invigorated Democrats, but perhaps found it wasn’t enough to offset his reputation as a conservative bulldog in an increasingly liberal district.

Issa, former chairman of the House Oversight Committee, won reelection in 2016 by just over half a percent — about 1,600 votes — and was widely considered the most vulnerable Republican in the House going into this year’s election. In Issa’s northern San Diego and southern Orange County district, nearly 38% of registered voters are Republicans, with 31% registered as Democrats and 26% not registered with any political party, who often lean Democratic at the polls in California.

Still, the announcement was a surprise. A source close to Issa said he was talking about his reelection campaign with friends as recently as Tuesday night. Issa’s statement on Wednesday did not say why he decided to retire, just that he had the support of family in making the decision.

“I am forever grateful to the people of San Diego, Orange and Riverside counties for their support and affording me the honor of serving them all these years,” Issa said. “Representing you has been the privilege of a lifetime.”

The richest man in Congress, Issa, 64, already had drawn a handful of well-funded Democratic opponents, including his 2016 challenger, Doug Applegate, Orange County environmental lawyer Mike Levin, San Diego real estate investor Paul Kerr and Sara Jacobs, who has drawn the endorsement of Emily’s List. Issa had $852,028 in cash on hand as of September. Levin has led in fundraising with $530,326 in the bank. Applegate and Kerr each had a bit more than $200,000.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said Issa’s retirement “means we are in a strong position to elect a Democrat to the 49th District this fall.”

But the National Republican Congressional Committee said Democrats are setting themselves up for an internal fight in Issa’s 49th District, adding, “We look forward to facing whoever limps out of the Democrats’ battle royale: black and blue, and broke.”

Hours after Issa’s announcement, GOP Assemblyman Rocky Chavez of Oceanside announced he would run for the seat. Other Republicans who could run in Issa’s place include Diane Harkey, chair of the state Board of Equalization and a former assemblywoman, and GOP Senate leader Pat Bates. All three represent significant portions of Issa’s district.

Analysts for Larry J. Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics quickly changed their appraisal of the race from a toss-up to the “leans Democratic” category, saying Issa’s close 2016 win showed voters may be more willing to consider a Democrat. The 39th District remains a toss-up because Royce won by 15 percentage points in 2016, Crystal Ball managing editor Kyle Kondik said. At least one other prognosticator moved Royce’s district to “leans Democratic” as soon as he announced his retirement on Monday.

As chairman of the committee charged with overseeing the executive branch, Issa was known as President Obama’s toughest critic because of his aggressive pursuit of alleged fraud and abuse by the administration. It made him a hero in conservative circles, and before his narrow 2016 win, Issa had gotten at least 58% of the vote in his eight previous campaigns.

But Issa walked a shakier line with the new administration. He appeared to moderate some of his rhetoric last year. Though he insisted he had not changed, he was more willing to buck his party on important votes. He voted against the tax bill in December, saying it would harm his constituents.

For a year, hundreds of activists have appeared weekly outside Issa’s Vista office to protest. At first, Issa regularly engaged with them on the street and in town halls, but his frustrations with the ongoing protests grew and he stopped talking with them.

On Tuesday, activists with a local Indivisible group huddled under umbrellas outside Issa’s office for a premature “retirement party” for the congressman, complete with festive signs and a cake shaped like a Hawaiian shirt. The song they sang seem ominous in retrospect: “Issa, you’ll retire, your situation’s dire, we will soon replace you, never fear. Now we must report, now your time is short, Issa you’ll retire this year.”

Born in Cleveland as the second of six children in a Lebanese American family, Issa dropped out of high school at 17 to join the Army. While there, he got his GED and went on to earn degrees from Kent State University and Siena Heights College before returning to the Army as an officer.

Issa bought a struggling Cleveland electronics business in 1980 and within a decade transformed it to produce the popular Viper automobile anti-theft device, with Issa’s famous voice as the warning to would-be thieves to “stand back.” In 1986, he and his wife, Kathy, moved the business to Vista, where it continued to grow. His net worth was estimated at more than quarter of a billion in 2015, according to financial disclosures.

After years participating behind the scenes in local politics, Issa’s first foray as a candidate came in 1998 when he spent $9.8 million in the Republican primary for the chance to challenge Barbara Boxer for her Senate seat, but lost to Matt Fong. He was elected to the House in 2000 with 61% of the vote, and three years later, he spent $1.7 million to get signatures for the recall election of then-Democratic Gov. Gray Davis. He had hoped to replace Davis himself, but abruptly quit during a tearful news conference when Arnold Schwarzenegger entered the race, saying he had been assured a quality candidate was running.

Assistant managing editor Christina Bellantoni contributed to this report.

sarah.wire@latimes.com

Follow @sarahdwire on Twitter

Read more about the 55 members of California’s delegation at latimes.com/politics

ALSO:

California could flip the House, and these 13 races will make the difference

Updates on California politics

UPDATES:

2:50 p.m.: This article was updated with Assemblyman Rocky Chavez’s announcement that he will run for Issa’s seat.

1:30 p.m.: This article was updated with additional biographical details.

11:15 a.m.: This article was updated with more information about Issa’s district.

9:40 a.m.: This article was updated with additional information about Issa and the battle for control of the House.

This article was originally published at 8:20 a.m.

NEW ORLEANS, La. — A National Guard deployment in New Orleans authorized by President Trump will begin Tuesday as part of a heavy security presence for New Year’s celebrations a year after an attack on revelers on Bourbon Street killed 14 people, officials said Monday.

The deployment in New Orleans follows high-profile National Guard missions the Trump administration launched in other cities this year, including in Washington and Memphis, Tennessee. But the sight of National Guard troops is not unusual in New Orleans, where troops earlier this year also helped bolster security for the Super Bowl and Mardi Gras.

“It’s no different than what we’ve seen in the past,” New Orleans police spokesperson Reese Harper said.

The Guard is not the only federal law enforcement agency in the city. Since the start of the month, federal agents have been carrying out an immigration crackdown that has led to the arrest of at least several hundred people.

Harper stressed that the National Guard will not be engaging in immigration enforcement.

“This is for visibility and just really to keep our citizens safe,” Harper said. “It’s just another tool in the toolbox and another layer of security.”

The Guard is expected be confined to the French Quarter area popular with tourists and won’t be engaging in assisting in immigration enforcement, Harper said. Guardsmen will operate similar to earlier this year when they patrolled the area around Bourbon Street following the vehicle-ramming attack on Jan. 1.

The 350 Guard members will stay through Carnival season, when residents and tourists descend on the Big Easy to partake in costumed celebrations and massive parades before ending with Mardi Gras in mid-February.

Louisiana National Guard spokesperson Lt. Col. Noel Collins said in a written statement that the Guard will support local, state, and federal law enforcement “to enhance capabilities, stabilize the environment, assist in reducing crime, and restoring public trust.”

In total, more than 800 local, state and federal law enforcement officials will be deployed in New Orleans to close off Bourbon Street to vehicular traffic, patrol the area, conduct bag searches and redirect traffic, city officials said during a news conference Monday.

The extra aid for New Orleans has received the support of some Democrats, with Mayor LaToya Cantrell saying she is “welcoming of those added resources.”

The increased law enforcement presence comes a year after Shamsud-Din Jabbar drove around a police blockade in the early hours of Jan. 1 and raced down Bourbon Street, plowing into people celebrating New Year’s Day. The attacker, a U.S. citizen and Army veteran who had proclaimed his support for the Islamic State militant group on social media, was fatally shot by police after crashing. After an expansive search, law enforcement located multiple bombs in coolers placed around the French Quarter. None of the explosive devices detonated.

In the immediate aftermath of the attack, 100 National Guard members were sent to the city.

In September, Gov. Jeff Landry asked Trump to send 1,000 troops to Louisiana cities, citing concerns about crime. Democrats pushed back, specifically leaders in New Orleans who said a deployment was unwarranted. They argued that the city has actually seen a dramatic decrease in violent crime rates in recent years.

Cline and Brook write for the Associated Press. Cline reported from Baton Rouge.

If history is a guide, Republicans stand a good chance of losing control of the House of Representatives in 2026. They have just a slim majority in the chamber, and the incumbent party usually gives up seats in midterm elections.

President Trump, whose loss of the House halfway through his first term led to two impeachments, is trying to keep history from repeating — and doing so in ways his opponents say are intended to manipulate next year’s election landscape.

He has rallied his party to remake congressional maps across the country to create more conservative-leaning House seats, an effort that could end up backfiring on him. He’s directed his administration to target Democratic politicians, activists and donors. And, Democrats worry, he’s flexing his muscles to intervene in the midterms like no administration ever has.

Democrats and other critics point to how Trump has sent the military into Democratic cities over the objections of Democratic mayors and governors. They note that he’s pushed the Department of Homeland Security to be so aggressive that at one point its agents handcuffed a Democratic U.S. senator. And some warn that a Republican-controlled Congress could fail to seat winning candidates if Democrats reclaim the House majority, recalling Trump’s efforts to stay in power even after voters rejected him in 2020, leading to the violent attack by his supporters on the U.S. Capitol.

Regarding potential military deployments, Ken Martin, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, told The Associated Press: “What he is going to do is send those troops there, and keep them there all the way through the next election, because guess what? If people are afraid of leaving their house, they’re probably not going to leave their house to go vote on Election Day. That’s how he stays in power.”

Military to the polls, or fearmongering?

Democrats sounded similar alarms just before November’s elections, and yet there were no significant incidents. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a frequent Trump antagonist who also warns about a federal crackdown on voting in 2026, predicted that masked immigration agents would show up at the polls in his state, where voters were considering a ballot measure to counter Trump’s redistricting push.

There were no such incidents in November, and the measure to redraw California’s congressional lines in response to Trump’s efforts elsewhere won in a landslide.

White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said the concerns about the midterms come from Democratic politicians who are “fearmongering to score political points with the radical left flank of the Democrat party that they are courting ahead of their doomed-to-fail presidential campaigns.”

She described their concerns as “baseless conspiracy theories.”

Susie Wiles, Trump’s chief of staff, denied that Trump was planning to use the military to try to suppress votes.

“I say it is categorically false, will not happen. It’s just wrongheaded,” she told Vanity Fair for an interview that was published earlier in December.

DNC litigation director Dan Freeman said he hasn’t seen an indication that Trump will send immigration enforcement agents to polling places during the midterms, but is wary.

He said the DNC filed public records requests in an attempt to learn more about any such plans and is drafting legal pleadings it could file if Trump sends armed federal agents to the polls or otherwise intervenes in the elections.

“We’re not taking their word for it,” Freeman said in an interview.

States, not presidents, run elections

November’s off-year elections may not be the best indicator of what could lie ahead. They were scattered in a handful of states, and Trump showed only modest interest until late in the fall when his Department of Justice announced it was sending federal monitors to California and New Jersey to observe voting in a handful of counties. It was a bureaucratic step that had no impact on voting, even as it triggered alarm from Democrats.

Alexandra Chandler, the legal director of Defend Democracy, a group that has clashed with Trump over his role in elections, said she was heartened by the lack of drama during the 2025 voting.

“We have so many positive signs we can look to,” Chandler said, citing not only a quiet election but GOP senators’ resistance to Trump’s demands to eliminate the filibuster and the widespread resistance to Trump’s demand that television host Jimmy Kimmel lose his job because of his criticism of the president. “There are limits” on Trump’s power, she noted.

“We will have elections in 2026,” Chandler said. “People don’t have to worry about that.”

Under the Constitution, a president has limited tools to intervene in elections, which are run by the states. Congress can help set rules for federal elections, but states administer their own election operations and oversee the counting of ballots.

When Trump tried to singlehandedly revise election rules with a sweeping executive order shortly after returning to office, the courts stepped in and stopped him, citing the lack of a constitutional role for the president. Trump later promised another order, possibly targeting mail ballots and voting machines, but it has yet to materialize.

DOJ voter data request ‘should frighten everybody’

Still, there’s plenty of ways a president can cause problems, said Rick Hasen, a UCLA law professor.

Trump unsuccessfully pushed Georgia’s top election official to “find” him enough votes to be declared the winner there in 2020 and could try similar tactics in Republican-dominated states in November. Likewise, Hasen said, Trump could spread misinformation to undermine confidence in vote tallies, as he has done routinely ahead of elections.

It’s harder to do that in more lopsided contests, as many in 2025 turned into, Hasen noted.

“Concerns about Trump interfering in 2026 are real; they’re not frivolous,” Hasen said. “They’re also not likely, but these are things people need to be on guard for.”

One administration move that has alarmed election officials is a federal demand from his Department of Justice for detailed voter data from the states. The administration has sued the District of Columbia and at least 21 states, most of them controlled by Democrats, after they refused to turn over all the information the DOJ sought.

“What the DOJ is trying to do is something that should frighten everybody across the political spectrum,” said David Becker, a former Justice Department voting rights attorney and executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research. “They’re trying to use the power of the executive to bully states into turning over highly sensitive data — date of birth, Social Security numbers, driver’s license, the Holy Trinity of identity theft — hand it over to the DOJ for who knows what use.”

‘Voter protection’ vs ‘election integrity’

Voting rights lawyers and election officials have been preparing for months for the midterms, trying to ensure there are ways to counter misinformation and ensure state election systems are easy to explain. Both major parties are expected to stand up significant campaigns around the mechanics of voting: Democrats mounting what they call a “voter protection” effort to monitor for problems while Republicans focus on what they call “election integrity.”

Freeman, the DNC litigation director who previously worked in the DOJ’s voting section, said his hiring this year was part of a larger effort by the DNC to beef up its in-house legal efforts ahead of the midterms. He said the committee has been filling gaps in voting rights law enforcement that the DOJ has typically covered, including informing states that they can’t illegally purge citizens from their voter rolls.

Tina Barton, co-chair of the Committee on Safe and Secure Elections, a coalition of law enforcement and election officials who advise jurisdictions on de-escalation and how to respond to emergencies at polling places, says interest in the group’s trainings has “exploded” in recent weeks.

“There’s a lot at stake, and that’s going to cause a lot of emotions,” Barton said.

Riccardi writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Penn., Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus, Ohio, and Ali Swenson in New York contributed to this report.

ANAHEIM — State Treasurer Kathleen Brown and state Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi brought their gubernatorial campaigns to a convention of Orange County Democrats on Saturday, virtually ignoring each other and instead aiming their fire at Gov. Pete Wilson.

In a straw poll taken throughout the day, Brown beat Garamendi by 140 votes to 114. The third Democrat in the race, state Sen. Tom Hayden of Santa Monica, did not attend the meeting but received 27 votes.

The convention of about 500 Orange County Democrats served as a pep rally for the political party seeking to build momentum in a county controlled by the Republican Party, which holds an 18-point voter registration margin over Democrats.

Leading off a forum for statewide candidates, Brown said that until Wilson faced the pressure of an election year he did not fight the migration of California jobs to other states, that he cut education funding without trying to improve schools, and that he “talks tough on crime at the front door while he lets dangerous parolees out the back door.”

Californians, she said, do not feel safer and do not feel more economic security than they did before Wilson took office.

“And that’s why we need a change from the Rip Van Wilson who’s been sleeping and slumbering for the last three years in the governor’s office,” Brown told the delegates.

Garamendi, who has attracted attention in local communities throughout the state by “working” side-by-side with everyday workers such as jailers, teachers and factory workers, said Wilson “does not have a clue; does not have the foggiest understanding of what’s taking place” on issues such as worker safety and California’s choked transportation system.

Garamendi grew more passionate as he spoke about health care. His own plan for California, never approved, served as a starting point for development of President Clinton’s health care plan that has run into a firestorm of criticism.

“When I hear after 25 years of my crusade to establish a national health plan, when I hear the Republicans say to me that there’s no health crisis, oh boy, I’m telling you, we are in for a fight,” Garamendi said. “We will have a national health plan that provides health care to every single American, and it will be done.”

Earlier in the day, state Democratic Party Chairman Bill Press urged Orange County Democrats to help “get rid of that cruel and that cold and that callous, incompetent and poor excuse for a governor named Pete Wilson.”

Convention organizers said the convention should serve as a reminder to Democratic statewide candidates that Orange County should not be ignored–that Democrats here can cut into the huge margins that statewide Republican candidates often rely on to carry them over the top.

Dec. 26 (Asia Today) — Lee Jun-seok, leader of the Reform Party, on Tuesday accused the Democratic Party of Korea of twisting itself “in every possible way” to avoid a special prosecutor investigation, pledging to step up talks with the People Power Party on joint action after Christmas.

Speaking to reporters after a Supreme Council meeting at the National Assembly, Lee said discussions on coordinated resistance would intensify once Christmas had passed, citing the physical toll of a near 24-hour filibuster carried out by People Power Party lawmaker Jang Dong-hyuk.

“There may be talk of hard-line measures such as hunger strikes or head-shaving protests,” Lee said. “But for now, the priority is to pressure the Democratic Party to give a clear answer.”

Lee noted that he himself had engaged in a prolonged hunger strike nearly nine years ago, adding that he was neither afraid of political confrontation nor short of ideas.

He branded the Democratic Party’s stance as “classic double standards,” arguing that while aggressive investigations had already been pursued against one political camp, similar scrutiny was being blocked when directed at the party itself. “That does not meet any reasonable standard of fairness,” he said.

Lee also pointed to the case of Kwon Seong-dong, a former People Power Party floor leader, who has been standing trial in detention for months based on testimony from the same individual. “If that measure was justified, then the special prosecutor into the Unification Church should be handled just as swiftly,” Lee argued, warning that delays could be seen as allowing time for evidence destruction or coordination of statements.

On prospects for passing the special prosecutor bill before the end of the year, Lee again pressed the Democratic Party, criticizing it for claiming time constraints while continuing to push through other legislation. He questioned whether efforts to revise laws aimed at removing National Assembly Vice Speaker Joo Ho-young should take precedence over the special prosecutor issue.

Lee dismissed suggestions from within the People Power Party to pursue the bill through a fast-track procedure, calling the idea unrealistic. “Rather than scattering the debate, this issue demands a serious and weighty response, as the public is watching closely,” he said.

–Copyright by Asiatoday

ATLANTA — Lloyd Bentsen, a tall Texan with a mission to protect the Democratic Party’s right flank, was nominated for vice president Thursday night, and he had a message for America: It is time to wake up and go to work.

“My friends, America has just passed through the ultimate epoch of illusion: An eight-year coma in which slogans were confused with solutions and rhetoric passed for reality, a time when America tried to borrow its way to prosperity,” the 67-year-old U.S. senator told the Democratic convention delegates.

‘Epoch of Illusion’ Ending

In a speech that depicted the Democrats as a new party of competence and frugality, Bentsen said: “At long last the epoch of illusion is drawing to a close. America is ready for the honest, proven, hands-on leadership of Michael Dukakis backed up by the power of a united, committed Democratic Party.”

A Texas-Size Night

It wasn’t just a big night, it was a Texas-size night for Bentsen, a dapper politician who until now has seen more of the inner sanctums of the Senate than the national spotlight. Suddenly he is in the spotlight and on the ticket with the presidential nominee, Michael S. Dukakis, in what many believe is the most united Democratic Party in 24 years.

But Bentsen was ready, striding into the gaze of a curious public with the looks, the soothing voice and the self-assurance of a senator who might have been created by Hollywood. In the audience was his 94-year-old father, “Big Lloyd,” who reared his son to shoot straight and ride fast in the Rio Grande Valley.

Also in the audience were some delegates whose concern about Bentsen reflected what an odd couple he and Dukakis make. The senator disagrees with the governor on a number of major issues, including the MX missile and aid for the Nicaraguan Contras, both of which Bentsen supports and Dukakis opposes.

“I will support Bentsen on the ticket,” said Vernice Garrison, a California delegate who held up a “No on Contra Aid” sign. “But I want him to know how I feel about Contra aid.”

Lack of Enthusiasm Noted

There was a noticeable lack of enthusiasm for Bentsen among some supporters of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who believed that their man should have been picked as vice president because he got 7 million votes, and won more than 1,200 delegates in the primaries and caucuses.

Some Jackson supporters in the New Jersey delegation wanted to stage a protest over Bentsen’s position on the Contras, but Jackson’s floor leaders were instructed to prevent that, according to Newark Mayor Sharpe James.

It was also clear that Bentsen’s plain speaking style will not upstage Dukakis in this campaign. Some delegates chatted through the entire address.

Dukakis picked the more conservative Bentsen in part to offset his more liberal Northeastern image. He also wants him to take the battle to Texas, the adopted home state of the expected GOP nominee, Vice President George Bush, where 29 electoral votes are at stake.

But Bentsen has never been known as an attacker and that was evident in his speech. He criticized the Reagan-Bush Administration without ridiculing it, zeroing in on what he believes are its flaws without dwelling too long on the downside.

And, although Bentsen has made fun of Bush on occasion and says he looks forward to challenging him on their home turf in the oil-producing states, his speech indicated that he does not intend to be overly harsh.

“Lloyd Bentsen is not going to be the hatchet man of this campaign,” said Texas political consultant George Christian, who helped Bentsen draft his speech.

‘They’re Good Friends’

“I was involved in Lloyd’s 1970 Senate race with Bush and to my knowledge he never did really attack Bush,” Christian said. “They’re good friends. But there is going to be good honest criticism of the Administration in this campaign, and it has to be done sharply.”

“Democrats agree that the American worker who has struggled for 20 years to support his or her family has earned 60 days’ notice if management plans to shut down that plant. But the Reagan-Bush Administration insists that a pink slip in the mail is notice enough,” Bentsen said in a reference to a plant-closing bill that the Reagan Administration recently opposed.

Bentsen and Dukakis believe the differences between the two political parties on that legislation could be crucial in luring back many working-class Democrats who supported Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984 and are expressing doubts about Bush in opinion polls.

Bentsen and Dukakis are aware, however, that they may have trouble convincing some middle class voters that these are difficult times, given the sustained economic growth and low unemployment under Reagan.

Targeting Specific Group

So, as Bentsen’s speech showed, they are aiming for that portion of the middle class that is struggling or is at least apprehensive about the future.

“I see the charts and numbers that suggest prosperity,” Bentsen said. “But I also talk with people and I hear what they have to say.

“I know that if you are a teacher or a factory worker, or if you are just starting a family, it’s almost impossible to buy a house–no matter how hard you work or how carefully you plan. A college education is slipping beyond the reach of millions of hard-working Americans.”

Then, in a sales job for Dukakis and his record as governor, Bentsen said: “Michael Dukakis . . . turned around the economy of Massachusetts, not by writing hot checks but by careful management of the taxpayers’ dollar and a healthy respect for the entrepreneurial system.”

Bentsen was nominated for vice president by longtime Bentsen ally Rep. Dan Rostenkowski of Illinois, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

The nomination was seconded by former Texas Rep. Barbara Jordan, a widely admired black leader whom Bentsen aides described as one of the senator’s home state heroes, and by Sen. Tom Daschle of South Dakota, one of a group of young senators elected recently by the Democrats. Daschle’s home state is where Bentsen’s Danish forebears settled in the 19th Century. His father, Lloyd Sr., moved from South Dakota to Texas in the 1920s and built a ranching and real estate empire from scratch.

Introduced by Glenn

Bentsen was introduced by Ohio Sen. John Glenn, the No. 1 “bridesmaid” among those other Democrats Dukakis was considering for vice president. “I just knew I’d be making a speech tonight about the vice presidency,” Glenn joked, and then went on to praise his Senate colleague as “a real Texan” who is “superbly qualified for the job.”

Ironically, Glenn’s short, tough speech, which cheered Bentsen and ridiculed Bush, appeared to be one of the best he has ever given, the kind that, delivered sooner, could have put to rest the doubts of Dukakis’ aides about Glenn’s campaigning ability.

Glenn received a very enthusiastic reception, better than Bentsen’s. The delegates also cheered Jordan, who described Bentsen as a man with “an instinct for doing what is right,” an allusion to his civil rights record, which is much better than that of many Southern white leaders of his generation.

With the senator’s father in the convention hall were Bentsen’s wife, Beryl Ann, their sons, Lloyd III and Lan, and their daughter, Tina Bentsen Smith.

Bentsen wrote his speech with the help of his former Senate aide Stephen Ward. Christian, former press secretary to President Lyndon B. Johnson, helped hone the address. According to Christian and Jack DeVore, Bentsen Senate press secretary, the Dukakis campaign offered little in the way of suggestions.

Defers to Senator

“Dukakis trusts Lloyd,” Christian said. Reporters following the two men in the last week have found that, despite their differences on some key issues, they seem comfortable, if not gregarious, together. Dukakis has been seen deferring to the senator in several situations involving members of the House and Senate who are attending the convention.

At the end of his speech, Bentsen, a multimillionaire, thanks to real estate and other businesses, told his audience that his forebears had started out in a sod hut in South Dakota.

“They made their way in America,” Bentsen said. “That’s the American dream we have nourished for 200 years, the dream of freedom and opportunity, the chance for a step up in life. I want to help Michael Dukakis protect that dream for the next generation.”

Staff writers John Balzar, Bob Drogin, Patt Morrison, David Lauter and Henry Weinstein contributed to this story.

ALLENTOWN, Pa. — When Idalia Bisbal moved to this Pennsylvania city synonymous with America’s working class, she hoped for a cheaper, easier life than the one she was leaving behind in her hometown of New York City.

About three years later, she is deeply disappointed.

“It’s worse than ever,” said the 67-year-old retiree, who relies on Social Security, when asked about the economy. “The prices are high. Everything is going up. You can’t afford food because you can’t afford rent. Utilities are too high. Gas is too expensive. Everything is too expensive.”

Bisbal was sipping an afternoon coffee at the Hamilton Family Restaurant not long after Vice President JD Vance rallied Republicans in a nearby suburb. In the Trump administration’s second high-profile trip to Pennsylvania in a week, Vance acknowledged the affordability crisis, blamed it on the Biden administration and insisted better times were ahead. He later served food to men experiencing homelessness in Allentown.

The visit, on top of several recent speeches from President Trump, reflects an increasingly urgent White House effort to respond to the economic anxiety voiced by people across the country. Those worries are a vulnerability for Republicans in competitive congressional districts like the one that includes Allentown, which could decide control of the U.S. House in next year’s midterms.

But in confronting the challenge, there are risks of appearing out of touch.

Only 31% of U.S. adults now approve of how Trump is handling the economy, down from 40% in March, according to a poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Yet Trump has called affordability concerns a “hoax” and gave the economy under his administration a grade of “A+++++.” Vance reiterated that assessment during his rally, prompting Bisbal to scoff.

“In his world,” Bisbal, a self-described “straight-up Democrat,” responded. “In the rich man’s world. In our world, trust me, it’s not an ‘A.’ To me, it’s an ‘F,’ ‘F,’ ‘F,’ ‘F,’ ‘F,’ ‘F.’”

Agreement that prices are too high

With a population of roughly 125,000 people, Allentown anchors the Lehigh Valley, which is Pennsylvania’s third-largest metro area. In a dozen interviews last week with local officials, business leaders and residents of both parties, there was agreement on one thing: Prices are too high. Some pointed to gas prices while others said they felt the shock more at the grocery store or in their cost of healthcare or housing.

Few shared Trump’s unbridled boosterism about the economy.

Tony Iannelli, the president and CEO of the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce, called Trump’s grade a “stretch,” saying that “we have a strong economy but I think it’s not yet gone to the next stage of what I would call robust.”

Tom Groves, who started a health and benefits consulting firm more than two decades ago, said the economy was at a “B+,” as he blamed the Affordable Care Act, widely known as Obamacare, for contributing to higher health costs, and he noted stock and labor market volatility.

Joe Vichot, the chairman of the Lehigh County Republican Committee, referred to Trump’s grade as a “colloquialism.”

Far removed from Washington’s political theater, there was little consensus on who was responsible for the high prices or what should be done about it. There was, however, an acute sense of exhaustion at the seemingly endless political combat.

Pat Gallagher was finishing lunch a few booths down from Bisbal as she recalled meeting her late husband when they both worked at Bethlehem Steel, the manufacturing giant that closed in 2003.

Now retired, Gallagher too relies on Social Security benefits, and she lives with her daughter, which helps keep costs down. She said she noticed the rising price of groceries and was becoming exasperated with the political climate.

“I get so frustrated with hearing about the politics,” she said.

A front-row seat to politics

That feeling is understandable in a place that often gets a front-row seat to the national debate, whether it wants the view or not. Singer Billy Joel’s 1982 song “Allentown” helped elevate the city into the national consciousness, articulating simultaneous feelings of disillusionment and hope as factories closed.

In the decades since, Pennsylvania has become a must-win state in presidential politics and the backdrop for innumerable visits from candidates and the media. Trump and his Democratic rival in 2024, Kamala Harris, made several campaign swings through Allentown, with the then-vice president visiting the city on the eve of the election.

“Every race here, all the time,” Allentown’s mayor, Democrat Matt Tuerk, recalled of the frenzied race last year.

The pace of those visits — and the attention they garnered — has not faded from many minds. Some businesses and residents declined to talk last week when approached with questions about the economy or politics, recalling blowback from speaking in the past.

But as attention shifts to next year’s midterms, Allentown cannot escape its place as a political battleground.

Trump’s win last year helped lift other Republicans, such U.S. Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, to victory. Mackenzie, who unseated a three-term Democrat, is now one of the most vulnerable Republicans in Congress. To win again, he must turn out the Republicans who voted in 2024 — many of whom were likely more energized by Trump’s candidacy — while appealing to independents.

Mackenzie’s balancing act was on display when he spoke to the party faithful Tuesday, bemoaning the “failures of Bidenomics” before Vance took the stage at the rally. A day later, the congressman was back in Washington, where he joined three other House Republicans to rebel against the party’s leadership and force a vote on extending Obamacare subsidies that expire at the end of the year.

Vichot, the local GOP chairman, called Mackenzie an “underdog” in his reelection bid and said the healthcare move was a signal to voters that he is “compassionate for the people who need those services.”

A swing to Trump in 2024

Lehigh County, home to Allentown and the most populous county in the congressional district, swung toward Trump last year. Harris’ nearly 2.7-percentage-point win in the county was the tightest margin for a Democratic presidential candidate since 2004. But Democrats are feeling confident after a strong performance in this fall’s elections, when they handily won a race for county executive.

Retaking the congressional seat is now a top priority for Democrats. Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat who faces reelection next year and is a potential presidential contender in 2028, endorsed firefighter union head Bob Brooks last week in the May primary.

Democrats are just a few seats shy of regaining the House majority, and the first midterm after a presidential election historically favors the party that’s out of power. If the focus remains on the economy, Democrats are happy.

The Uline supplies distribution factory where Vance spoke, owned by a family that has made large donations to GOP causes, is a few miles from the Mack Trucks facility where staff was cut by about 200 employees this year. The company said that decision was driven in part by tariffs imposed by Trump. Shapiro eagerly pointed that out in responding to Vance’s visit.

But the image of Allentown as a purely manufacturing town is outdated. The downtown core is dotted by row homes, trendy hotels and a modern arena that is home to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms hockey team and hosts concerts by major artists. In recent years, Latinos have become a majority of the city’s population, driven by gains in the Puerto Rican, Mexican and Dominican communities.

“This is a place of rapid change,” said Tuerk, the city’s first Latino mayor. “It’s constantly changing ,and I think over the next three years until that next presidential election, we’re going to see a lot more change. It’s going to be an interesting ride.”

Sloan writes for the Associated Press.

Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Noam Chomsky and Woody Allen were among the familiar faces in the latest batch of photographs released by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee in connection to the late Jeffrey Epstein. With the Justice Department preparing to make additional files public, the images underscore an uncomfortable truth for us all: The convicted sex offender moved comfortably among some of the most intelligent men in the world. Rhodes scholars, technology leaders and artists.

Also in the release was a photograph of a woman’s lower leg and foot on what appears to be a bed, with a paperback copy of Vladimir Nabokov’s “Lolita” visible in the background. The 1955 novel centers on a middle-aged man’s sexual obsession with a 12-year-old girl. Epstein, a serial sexual abuser, famously nicknamed one of his private planes “The Lolita Express.” And we are to believe that some of the globe’s brightest minds could not put the dots together?

Donald Trump, who once described himself as “a very stable genius,” included.

“I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy,” Trump told New York magazine in 2002. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

Later, the two had a public falling out, and Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. Great. But denial after the fact is only one side of this story. The other is harder to digest: Either the self-proclaimed “very stable genius” spent nearly two decades around Epstein without recognizing what was happening in plain sight — or he recognized it and chose silence. Neither explanation reflects on intelligence as much as it does on character. No wonder Trump’s defenders keep raising the most overused word in American politics today: hoax.

“Once again, House Democrats are selectively releasing cherry-picked photos with random redactions to try and create a false narrative,” said White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson. “Here’s the reality: Democrats like Stacey Plaskett and Hakeem Jeffries were soliciting money and meetings from Epstein after he was a convicted sex offender. The Democrat hoax against President Trump has been repeatedly debunked, and the Trump administration has done more for Epstein’s victims than Democrats ever have by repeatedly calling for transparency, releasing thousands of pages of documents and calling for further investigations into Epstein’s Democrat friends.”

Jackson has a point.

Democrats were cherry-picking which photos to release, even if many of the men pictured were aligned with progressives. That includes the president, who was a Democrat when he and Epstein were running together in New York in the 2000s. Trump didn’t register as a Republican until 2009. Now whether the choice of photos and timing was designed to shield political friends or weaponize against perceived enemies isn’t clear. What is clear is that it doesn’t take a genius to see that none of this is a hoax.

The victims are real. The flight logs are real. The millions that flowed into Epstein’s bank account have wire transfer confirmation numbers that can be traced. What Democrats are doing with the information is politics as usual. And you don’t want politics to dictate who gets justice and who gets vilified.

Whatever the politicians’ intentions, Americans can decide how to react to the disclosures. And what the men around Epstein did with the information they gathered on his jet or his island fits squarely at the heart of the national conversation about masculinity. What kind of men could allow such abuse to continue?

I’m not saying the intelligent men in Epstein’s ecosystem did something criminal, but the lack of whistleblowing before his arrest raises questions about their fortitude for right and wrong. And the Trump White House trying to characterize this conversation as a partisan witch hunt — a hoax — is an ineffective strategy because the pattern with their use of that word is so clear.

We saw what happened on Jan. 6, and Trump tells us the investigation is a hoax. We hear the recording of him pressuring Georgia officials to find votes, and he tells us the investigation is a hoax. Trump campaigned on affordability issues — the cost of bacon, no taxes on tips — but now that he’s in office such talk is a hoax by Democrats. As if we don’t know the price of groceries in real time. Ten years ago, Trump told us he had proof that President Obama wasn’t born in the U.S. We’re still waiting.

In his book, “Art of the Deal,” Trump framed his lies as “truthful hyperbole” but by now we should understand for him hyperbole matters more than truth — and his felony convictions confirm that some of his claims were indeed simply false.

So if there is a hoax, it is the notion that none of the brilliant men whom Epstein kept in his orbit had any idea what was going on.

YouTube: @LZGrandersonShow

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department released a library of files on Friday related to Jeffrey Epstein, partially complying with a new federal law compelling their release, while acknowledging that hundreds of thousands of files remain sealed.

The portal, on the department’s website, includes videos, photos and documents from the years-long investigation of the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender, who died in federal prison in 2019. But upon an initial survey of the files, several of the documents were heavily redacted, and much of the database was unsearchable, in spite of a provision of the new law requiring a more accessible system.

The Epstein Files Transparency Act, which passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress, unequivocally required the department to release its full trove of files by midnight Friday, marking 30 days since passage.

But a top official said earlier Friday that the department would miss the legal deadline Friday to release all files, protracting a scandal that has come to plague the Trump administration. Hundreds of thousands more were still under review and would take weeks more to release, said Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general.

“I expect that we’re going to release more documents over the next couple of weeks, so today several hundred thousand and then over the next couple weeks, I expect several hundred thousand more,” Blanche told Fox News on Friday.

The delay drew immediate condemnation from Democrats in key oversight roles.

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach), the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, accused President Trump and his administration in a statement Friday of “violating federal law as they continue covering up the facts and the evidence about Jeffrey Epstein’s decades-long, billion-dollar, international sex trafficking ring,” and said they were “examining all legal options.”

The delay also drew criticism from some Republicans.

“My goodness, what is in the Epstein files?” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who is leaving Congress next month, wrote on X. “Release all the files. It’s literally the law.”

“Time’s up. Release the files,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) wrote on X.

Already, congressional efforts to force the release of documents from the FBI’s investigations into Epstein have produced a trove of the disgraced financier’s emails and other records from his estate.

Some made reference to Trump and added to a long-evolving portrait of the social relationship that Epstein and Trump shared for years, before what Trump has described as a falling out.

In one email in early 2019, during Trump’s first term in the White House, Epstein wrote to author and journalist Michael Wolff that Trump “knew about the girls.”

In a 2011 email to Ghislaine Maxwell, who was later convicted of conspiring with Epstein to help him sexually abuse young girls, Epstein wrote, “I want you to realize that the dog that hasn’t barked is trump. [Victim] spent hours at my house with him … he has never once been mentioned.”

Maxwell responded: “I have been thinking about that…”

Trump has strongly denied any wrongdoing, and downplayed the importance of the files. He has also intermittently worked to block their release, even while suggesting publicly that he would not be opposed to it.

His administration’s resistance to releasing all of the FBI’s files, and fumbling with their reasons for withholding documents, was overcome only after Republican lawmakers broke off and joined Democrats in passing the transparency measure.

The resistance has also riled many in the president’s base, with their intrigue and anger over the files remaining stickier and harder to shake for Trump than any other political vulnerability.

It remained unclear Friday afternoon what additional revelations would come from the anticipated dump. Among the files that were released, extensive redactions were expected to shield victims, as well as references to individuals and entities that could be the subject of ongoing investigations or matters of national security.

That could include mentions of Trump, experts said, who was a private citizen over the course of his infamous friendship with Epstein through the mid-2000s.

Epstein was convicted in 2008 of procuring a child for prostitution in Florida, but served only 13 months in custody in what was considered a sweetheart plea deal that saved him a potential life sentence. He was charged in 2019 with sex trafficking, and died in federal custody at a Manhattan jail awaiting trial. Epstein was alleged to have abused over 200 women and girls.

Many of his victims argued in support of the release of documents, but administration officials have cited their privacy as a primary excuse for delaying the release — something Blanche reiterated Friday.

“There’s a lot of eyes looking at these and we want to make sure that when we do produce the materials we are producing, that we are protecting every single victim,” Blanche said, noting that Trump had signed the law just 30 days prior.

“And we have been working tirelessly since that day to make sure that we get every single document that we have within the Department of Justice, review it and get it to the American public,” he said.

Trump had lobbied aggressively against the Epstein Files Transparency Act, unsuccessfully pressuring House Republican lawmakers not to join a discharge petition that would force a vote on the matter over the wishes of House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.). He ultimately signed the bill into law after it passed both chambers with veto-proof majorities.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont), who introduced the House bill requiring the release of the files, warned that the Justice Department under future administrations could pursue legal action against current officials who work to obstruct the release of any of the files, contravening the letter of the new law.

“Let me be very clear, we need a full release,” Khanna said. “Anyone who tampers with these documents, or conceals documents, or engages in excessive redaction, will be prosecuted because of obstruction of justice.”

Given Democrats’ desire to keep the issue alive politically, and the intense interest in the matter from voters on both ends of the political spectrum, the fact that the Justice Department failed to meet the Friday deadline in full was likely to stoke continued agitation for the documents’ release in coming days.

In their statement Friday, Garcia and Raskin hammered on Trump administration officials — including Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi — for allegedly interfering in the release of records.

“For months, Pam Bondi has denied survivors the transparency and accountability they have demanded and deserve and has defied the Oversight Committee’s subpoena,” they said. “The Department of Justice is now making clear it intends to defy Congress itself.”

Among other things, they called out the Justice Department’s decision to move Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking, to a minimum security prison after she met with Blanche in July.

“The survivors of this nightmare deserve justice, the co-conspirators must be held accountable, and the American people deserve complete transparency from DOJ,” Garcia and Raskin said.

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), in response to Blanche saying all the files wouldn’t be released Friday, said the transparency act “is clear: while protecting survivors, ALL of these records are required to be released today. Not just some.”

“The Trump administration can’t move the goalposts,” Schiff wrote on X. “They’re cemented in law.”

Dec. 18 (UPI) — Congressional Democrats released 68 photos from the Jeffrey Epstein estate on Thursday, bringing the total number to more than 95,000 that have been turned over to the House Oversight Committee investigating names on a list of prominent people who were associated with the now deceased sex offender.

Epstein, the former financier and friend of the ultra-wealthy and politically powerful, was convicted of sexual behavior with minor girls. He later died by suicide in a Manhattan prison while awaiting trial.

To date, only a small fraction of the photos have been released to the public, but those that have been released featured President Donald Trump, top Republican strategist Steve Bannon, former President Bill Clinton, former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and movie mogul Woody Allen, among other high-profile people, in candid shots with Epstein.

While not dyeing their association with the convicted sex offender, all have denied wrongdoing. None have been charged.

The latest trove of photographs was released prior to a Friday deadline, when the Justice Department will be required to release all of the government’s Epstein files with a few exceptions.

Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., said the committee is reviewing materials from the Epstein estate and working with victims shown in the photographs who are not identified or threatened.

“Certainly the most disturbing photos are certainly the ones that are more sexual in nature,” Garcia said during a Thursday briefing on the Capitol steps. “We’re having a conversation about the best way to deal with those and talking to the lawyers and the survivor groups, because we want to be very cautious of the trauma that the survivors are going through.”

The new law says the photos must be published online and in a publicly searchable database.

The White House has accused Garcia and other Democrats of releasing “cherry-picked photos with random reactions to try to create a false narrative” with the intention of putting Trump in a negative light.

Folks, who was supposed to be watching grandpa last night? Because he got out, got on TV and … It. Was. Not. Good.

For 18 long minutes Wednesday evening, we were subjected to a rant by President Trump that predictably careened from immigrants (bad) to jobs (good), rarely slowing down for reality. But jumbled between the vitriol and venom was a vision of American healthcare that would have horror villainess M3GAN shaking in her Mary Janes — a vision that we all should be afraid of because it would take us back to a dark era when insurance couldn’t be counted on.

Trump’s remarks offered only a sketchy outline, per usual, in which the costs of health insurance premiums may be lower — but it will be because the coverage is terrible. Yes, you’ll save money. But so what? A cheap car without wheels is not a deal.

“The money should go to the people,” Trump said of his sort-of plan.

The money he vaguely was alluding to is the government subsidies that make insurance under the Affordable Care Act affordable. After antics and a mini-rebellion by four Republicans also on Wednesday, Congress basically failed to do anything meaningful on healthcare — pretty much ensuring those subsidies will disappear with the New Year.

Starting in January, premiums for too many people are going to leap skyward without the subsidies, jumping by an average of $1,016 according to the health policy research group KFF.

That’s bad enough. But Trump would like to make it worse.

The Affordable Care Act is about much more than those subsidies. Before it took effect in 2014, insurance companies in many states could deny coverage for preexisting conditions. This didn’t have to be big-ticket stuff like cancer. A kid with asthma? A mom with colitis? Those were the kind of routine but chronic problems that prevented millions from obtaining insurance — and therefore care.

Obamacare required that policies sold on its exchange did not discriminate. In addition, the ACA required plans to limit out-of-pocket costs and end lifetime dollar caps, and provide a baseline of coverage that included essentials such as maternity care. Those standards put pressure on all plans to include more, even those offered through large employers.

Trump would like to undo much of that. He instead wants to fall back on the stunt he loves the most — send a check!

What he is suggesting by sending subsidy money directly to consumers also most likely would open the market to plans without the regulation of the ACA. So yes, small businesses or even groups of individuals might be able to band together to buy insurance, but there likely would be fewer rules about what — or whom — it has to cover.

Most people aren’t savvy or careful enough to understand the limitations of their insurance before it matters. So it has a $2-million lifetime cap? That sounds like a lot until your kid needs a treatment that eats through that in a couple of months. Then what?

Trump suggested people pay for it themselves, out of health savings accounts funded by that subsidy check sent directly to taxpayers. Because that definitely will work, and people won’t spend the money on groceries or rent, and what they do save certainly will cover any medical expenses.

“You’ll get much better healthcare at a much lower price,” Trump claimed Wednesday. “The only losers will be insurance companies that have gotten rich, and the Democrat Party, which is totally controlled by those same insurance companies. They will not be happy, but that’s OK with me because you, the people, are finally going to be getting great healthcare at a lower cost.”

He then bizarrely tried to blame the expiring subsidies on Democrats.

Democrats “are demanding those increases and it’s their fault,” he said. “It is not the Republicans’ fault. It’s the Democrats’ fault. It’s the Unaffordable Care Act, and everybody knew it.”

It seems like Trump just wants to lower costs at the expense of quality. Here’s where I take issue with the Democrats. I am not here to defend insurance companies or our healthcare system. Both clearly need reform.

But why are the Democrats failing to explain what “The money should go to the people” will mean?

I get that affordability is the message, and as someone who bought both a steak and a carton of milk this week, I understand just how powerful that issue is.

Still, everyone, Democrat or Republican, wants decent healthcare they can afford, and the peace of mind of knowing if something terrible happens, they will have access to help. There is no American who gladly would pay for insurance each month, no matter how low the premium, that is going to leave them without care when they or their loved ones need it most.

Grandpa Trump doesn’t have this worry, since he has the best healthcare our tax dollars can buy.

But when he promises to send a check instead of providing governance and regulation of one of the most critical purchases in our lives, the message is sickening: My victory in exchange for your well-being.

Legislators have been publishing photos related to convicted sex offender as Justice Department faces Friday deadline to release more.

Democrats in the United States House of Representatives have released dozens more photos from the estate of financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The release on Thursday comes a day before the Department of Justice faces a deadline to release a more comprehensive set of files related to Epstein, who died in a New York jail in 2019 while awaiting sex-trafficking charges.

In a statement, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee said they would “continue releasing photographs and documents to provide transparency for the American people”.

“It’s time for the Department of Justice to release the files,” they said.

The latest trove includes photos of Epstein with public intellectual Noam Chomsky, as well as images of billionaire Bill Gates, filmmaker Woody Allen and former Donald Trump strategist Steve Bannon at Epstein’s compound.

One release shows a screenshot of a text exchange in which an unknown sender appears to discuss recruiting young women.

“I have a friend scout she sent me some girls today. But she asks 1000$ per girl. I will send u girls now. Maybe someone will be good for J?” the post says.

Other images show women’s passports and the body of an unidentified woman with messages written on her skin, next to Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, a novel about a man’s sexual obsession with a child.

Like a trove of images released last week, the materials released on Thursday were not accompanied by any further context or details. Last week’s images also showed Bannon, Allen, and Gates, as well as former US President Bill Clinton and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

Another image showed US President Trump surrounded by three young women, his hand clutching the waist of the woman to his right.

Trump has acknowledged a prior relationship with Epstein, but has denied taking part in the sex abuse ring that Epstein ran. He said the two men had a falling out years before Epstein’s arrest.

In emails previously released by House Democrats, Epstein said that Trump “knew about the girls”. In another, Epstein described Trump as “the dog that hasn’t barked”.

The president had initially opposed a more complete release of files related to Epstein, but faced mounting pressure, including from within his own Make America Great Again (MAGA) base.

Speculation has focused on the influential figures in Epstein’s orbit, and any involvement they made have had in his crime. The intrigue has been fueled by the murky circumstances surrounding Epstein’s death in a New York jail cell, which was ruled a suicide.

Last month, Trump pivoted on the issue, signing into law a bill requiring the Justice Department to publish materials connected to the Epstein investigation.

However, the Justice Department has remained silent on whether it will meet Friday’s deadline outlined in the law, dubbed the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

ATLANTA — Democrats will not issue a postelection report on their 2024 shellacking after all.

The Democratic National Committee head has decided not to publish a formal assessment of the party’s defeat that returned Donald Trump to power and gave Republicans complete control in Washington.

Ken Martin, a Minnesota party leader who was elected national chair after Trump’s election, ordered a thorough review of what went wrong and what could be done differently, with the intent they would circulate a report as Republicans did after their 2012 election performance. Martin now says the inquiry, which included hundreds of interviews, was complete but that there is no value in a public release of findings that he believes could lead to continued infighting and recriminations before the 2026 midterms when control of Congress will be at stake.

“Does this help us win?” Martin said in a statement Thursday. “If the answer is no, it’s a distraction from the core mission.”

Martin’s decision, first reported by the New York Times, spares top Democrats from more scrutiny about their campaigns, including former President Biden, who withdrew from the race after announcing his second-term run, and his vice president, Kamala Harris, who became the nominee and lost to Trump.

Keeping the report under wraps also means Martin does not have to take sides in the tug-of-war between moderates and progressives or make assessments about how candidates should handle issues that Trump capitalized on, such as transgender rights.

“We are winning again,” Martin said.

Martin’s announcement follows a successful string of 2025 races, both in special elections and off-year statewide votes, that suggest strong enthusiasm for Democratic candidates.

In November, Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill won races for governor in Virginia and New Jersey, respectively. In New York’s mayoral election, Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, defeated establishment Democrat-turned-independent Andrew Cuomo.

In U.S. House special elections throughout 2025, Democratic nominees have consistently outperformed the party’s 2024 showing, often by double-digit percentages. Democrats have flipped state legislative districts and some statewide seats around the country, even in Republican-leaning places.

Although the DNC’s report will not be made public, a committee aide said some conclusions will be integrated into the party’s 2026 plans.

For example, the findings reflect a consensus that Democratic candidates did not adequately address voter concerns on public safety and immigration, two topics that Trump hammered in his comeback campaign. They also found that Democrats must overhaul their digital outreach, especially to younger voters, a group where Trump saw key gains over Harris compared with previous elections.

Barrow writes for the Associated Press.