federal government

Two federal judges told the U.S. Department of Agriculture in separate rulings Friday that it must begin using billions of dollars in contingency funding to provide federal food assistance to poor American families despite the federal shutdown, but gave the agency until Monday to decide how to do so.

Both Obama-appointed judges rejected Trump administration arguments that more than $5 billion in USDA contingency funds could not legally be tapped to continue Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits for nearly 42 million Americans while the federal government remains closed. But both also left unclear how exactly the relief should be provided, or when it will arrive for millions of families set to lose benefits starting Saturday.

The two rulings came almost simultaneously Friday.

In Massachusetts, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani stopped short of granting California and a coalition of 24 other Democrat-led states a temporary restraining order they had requested. But she ruled that the states were likely to succeed in their arguments that the USDA’s total shutoff of SNAP benefits — despite having billions in emergency contingency funds on hand — was unlawful.

Talwani gave USDA until Monday to tell her whether they would authorize “only reduced SNAP benefits” using the contingency funding — which would not cover the total $8.5 billion to $9 billion needed for all November benefits, according to the USDA — or would authorize “full SNAP benefits using both the Contingency Funds and additional available funds.”

Separately, in Rhode Island, U.S. District Judge John McConnell granted a temporary restraining order requested by nonprofit organizations, ruling from the bench that SNAP must be funded with at least the contingency funds, and requesting an update on progress by Monday.

The White House referred questions about the ruling to the Office of Management and Budget, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It was not immediately clear if the administration would appeal the rulings.

The Massachusetts order was a win for California and the other Democrat-led states, which sued over the interruption to SNAP benefits — which were previously known as food stamps — as Republicans and Democrats continue to squabble over reopening the government in Washington.

However, it will not mean that all of the nation’s SNAP recipients — including 5.5 million Californians — will be spared a lapse in their food aid, state officials stressed, as state and local food banks continued scrambling to prepare for a deluge of need starting Saturday.

Asked Thursday if a ruling in the states’ favor would mean SNAP funds would be immediately loaded onto CalFresh and other benefits cards, California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta — whose office helped bring the states’ lawsuit — said “the answer is no, unfortunately.”

“Our best estimates are that [SNAP benefit] cards could be loaded and used in about a week,” he said, calling that lag “problematic.”

“There could be about a week where people are hungry and need food,” he said. For new applicants to the program, he said, it could take even longer.

The rulings came as the now monthlong shutdown continued Friday with no immediate end in sight. The Senate adjourned Thursday with no plans to meet again until Monday.

It also came after President Trump called Thursday for the Senate to end the shutdown by first ending the filibuster, a longstanding rule that requires 60 votes to overcome objections to legislation. The rule has traditionally been favored by lawmakers as a means of blocking particularly partisan measures, and is currently being used by Democrats to resist the will of the current 53-seat Republican majority.

“It is now time for the Republicans to play their ‘TRUMP CARD,’ and go for what is called the Nuclear Option — Get rid of the Filibuster, and get rid of it, NOW!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Los Angeles Regional Food Bank Chief Executive Michael Flood, standing alongside Bonta as members of the California National Guard worked behind them stuffing food boxes, said his organization was preparing for massive lines come Saturday, the first of the month.

He said he expected long lines of families in need of food appearing outside food distribution locations throughout the region, just as they did during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This is a disaster type of situation for us here in Los Angeles County, throughout the state of California and throughout the country,” Flood said.

“5.5 million Californians, 1.5 million children and adults in L.A. County alone, will be left high and dry — illegally so, unnecessarily so, in a way that is morally bankrupt,” Bonta said.

Bonta blamed the shutdown on Trump and his administration, and said the USDA has billions of dollars in contingency funds designed to ensure SNAP benefits continue during emergencies and broke the law by not tapping those funds in the current situation.

Bonta said SNAP benefits have never been disrupted during previous federal government shutdowns, and should never have been disrupted during this shutdown, either.

“That was avoidable,” he said. “Trump created this problem.”

The Trump administration has blamed the shutdown and the looming disruption to SNAP benefits entirely on Democrats in Congress, who have blocked short-term spending measures to restart the government and fund SNAP. Democrats are holding out to pressure Republicans into rescinding massive cuts to subsidies that help millions of Americans afford health insurance.

Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, previously told The Times that Democrats should be the ones getting asked “when the shutdown will end,” because “they are the ones who have decided to shut down the government so they can use working Americans and SNAP benefits as ‘leverage’ to pursue their radical left wing agenda.”

“Americans are suffering because of Democrats,” Jackson said.

In their opposition to the states’ request for a temporary restraining order requiring the disbursement of funds, attorneys for the USDA argued that using emergency funds to cover November SNAP benefits would deplete funds meant to provide “critical support in the event of natural disasters and other uncontrollable catastrophes,” and could actually cause more disruption to benefits down the line.

They wrote that SNAP requires between $8.5 billion and $9 billion each month, and the USDA’s contingency fund has only about $5.25 billion, meaning it could not fully fund November benefits even if it did release contingency funding. Meanwhile, “a partial payment has never been made — and for good reason,” because it would force every state to recalculate benefits for recipients and then recalibrate their systems to provide the new amounts, they wrote.

That “would take weeks, if it can be done at all,” and would then have to be undone in order to issue December benefits at normal levels, assuming the shutdown would have lifted by then, they wrote. “The disruption this would entail, with each State required to repeatedly reprogram its systems, would lead to chaos and uncertainty for the following months, even after a lapse concludes,” they wrote.

Simply pausing the benefits to immediately be reissued whenever the shutdown ends is the smarter and less disruptive course of action, they argued.

During a Thursday hearing in the states’ case, Talwani had suggested that existing rules required action by the government to prevent the sort of suffering that a total disruption to food assistance would cause, regardless of whatever political showdown is occurring between the parties in Washington.

“If you don’t have money, you tighten your belt,” she said in court. “You are not going to make everyone drop dead because it’s a political game someplace.”

In addition to suing the administration, California and its leaders have been rushing to ensure that hungry families have something to eat in coming days. Gov. Gavin Newsom directed $80 million to food banks to stock up on provisions, and activated the National Guard to help package food for those who need it.

Counties have also been working to offset the need, including by directing additional funding to food banks and other resource centers and asking partners in the private sector to assist.

Dozens of organizations in California have written to Newsom calling on him to use state funds to fully cover the missing federal benefits, in order to prevent “a crisis of unthinkable magnitude,” but Newsom has suggested that is not possible given the scale of funding withheld.

According to the USDA, about 41.7 million Americans were served through SNAP per month in fiscal 2024, at an annual cost of nearly $100 billion. Of the 5.5 million Californian recipients, children and older people account for more than 63%.

This article includes reporting by the Associated Press.

Today we’re taking a tour through the mythical Land of Election Fraud, where President Trump has built a palace of lies, imprisoning both truth and democracy.

I put it in fairy tale terms because the idea that American elections are corrupt should hold about as much credence as a magical beanstalk growing into the sky. Countless lawsuits and investigations have found no proof of these false claims.

But here we are — not only do many Americans erroneously believe that Trump won the 2020 election, but the chief water-carriers of that lie are now in powerful government positions.

Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that it will send monitors to Los Angeles and other locations in California and New Jersey for next week’s balloting. Those who study voting and democracies warn that this could be a test run for how far Trump could go in attempting to impose his will on the 2026 midterms and perhaps the 2028 presidential election.

If you think that it is harmless coincidence that he’s stacked election deniers in key posts, or that once again California is the center of his attack on democratic norms, I have beans you may be interested in buying.

“The sending of the observers to the special election could very well be, and probably likely is, a precursor or practice run for 2026,” Mindy Romero told me. She’s an assistant professor and the founder of the Center for Inclusive Democracy at USC’s Sol Price School of Public Policy.

Like others I spoke with, Romero sees a larger context to the poll monitors that has the potential to end with voter suppression.

“The Trump administration is laying a foundation, and they’re being very open about it, very clear about it,” Romero said. “They are saying that they are anticipating there to be fraud and for the election to be rigged.”

Trump put it even more clearly in a social media post on Sunday.

“I hope the DOJ pursues this with as much ‘gusto’ as befitting the biggest SCANDAL in American history!,” he wrote. “If not, it will happen again, including the upcoming Midterms. … Watch how totally dishonest the California Prop Vote is!”

To understand where all this may be headed involves digging back into Golden State history. The conspiracy underpinning election fraud claims has deep roots in California’s Proposition 187 — the anti-immigrant measure that was passed by voters in 1994 but squashed by the courts.

The far right never got over the defeat. Anti-immigrant sentiment morphed into conspiracy theory, specifically that undocumented folks were voting in huge numbers, at the behest of Democrats.

This absolutely loony bit of racist paranoia spawned an “election integrity” movement that cloaked itself as patriotism and fairness, but at heart remained doused in fear-of-brown.

Calfornia Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said Monday he sees that Proposition 187 “playbook” at work today with “a targeting, unfortunately, of immigrants … because it creates fear in the eyes of some, in the minds of some, and it helps the Republican Party, MAGA and the Trump administration achieve their goals.”

Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids are just the flip side of the coin to his election fraud claims — both at heart a part of the white Christian nationalism that his administration is now openly embracing.

Let me just say here that all Americans want fair elections and many average folks involved in election integrity efforts simply want to ensure our one-person, one-vote system stays honest — regardless of race or anything else. No hate on them at all. It’s the funders and organizers of many voter witch-hunt efforts that draw my ire, because they exploit that reasonable wish for fairness for their own dark agenda.

And that agenda increasingly appears to be the end of free and fair elections, while maintaining the appearance of them — the classic authoritarian way of ruling with the seeming consent of the people. Remember, Russia still holds elections.

“To have real control, you want to rule with a velvet glove,” Romero said. “That velvet glove can come off, and the people know it can come off,” but mostly, you want them to comply because it feels like “just what has to be.”

So how exactly would we get from poll monitors, a reasonable and established norm, to something as dire as an election that is rigged, or that is so chaotic the average person doesn’t know the truth?

It starts with introducing doubt into the system, which Trump has done. To be fair, with Proposition 50, the Election Rigging Response Act, Democrats now fear rigged elections, too.

But Gowri Ramachandran, the director of elections and security in the Brennan Center for Justice’s Elections and Government Program, told me her “biggest fear” is that those election deniers whom Trump elevated to official roles “now have the platform of the federal government.”

For that reason, “information about elections [that] comes out of the federal government right now, I think everyone’s going to have to take it with a really big grain of salt,” she said.

So we come out of the California 2025 special election unable to trust the federal government’s take on it, with one year until the midterm elections that will determine whether or not Trump’s power remains unfettered.

Maybe everything turns out fine, but there’s a string of other maybes where it doesn’t.

Let’s say Trump tries to declare an end to mail-in ballots and early voting, both of which increase turnout for lower-income folks who don’t have time to line up. Trump tried that earlier this year, though courts blocked it.

What does the 2026 election look like if you have to line up in person to vote if you want to be sure it counts, with ICE potentially around the block rounding up citizens and noncitizens alike? And the government requiring that you have multiple forms of identification, all with matching names (take that, married women), and even military “guarding” the polls?

Kind of intimidating, huh?

But let’s say the election happens anyway. And let’s say Republicans lose enough congressional seats to put Democrats in control of the House. But let’s say the federal government claims there is so much fraud, it has to be investigated before any results can be considered official.

Private groups sue on both sides. Half the country believes Trump, half the country believes the secretaries of state, like California’s Shirley Weber, charged with managing the results.

In that chaos, the newly elected Democratic representatives head to Washington, D.C., to get to work, only to have House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) refuse to swear them in — no differently than he is currently doing with elected Arizona Rep. Adelita Grijalva, who has promised to vote to release the Epstein files if Johnson ever does his job.

Romero calls that scenario “not even … that big of a stretch.”

Congress comes to a halt, not enough members sworn in to function, which is just fine by Trump.

And voila! The vote is suppressed by confusion, chaos and the velvet glove, because of course it’s reasonable to want to know the truth before we move forward.

So monitor away. Watch the polls and watch the watchers, and protect the vote.

But don’t buy the beans.

As the partial government shutdown grinds on, with no end in sight, Catherine Cortez Masto stands ready to end it right now.

The lawyerly senator from Nevada is one of just two Democrats to repeatedly vote with Republicans and Maine’s independent senator, Angus King, to have the federal government up and running.

She’s not only bucking her Senate colleagues with her contrarian stance, but also placing herself squarely at odds with the animating impulse of her party’s political base: Stop Trump! Give no quarter! Now is the time! This is the fight!

Cortez Masto evinces not a flicker of doubt.

“I have been very consistent about the cost of a shutdown and the impact to Americans and the fact that I believe we need to work in a bipartisan way to find solutions to what we’re seeing right now, which is this looming healthcare crisis,” Cortez Masto said from Washington.

“And I think we can do that by keeping the government open. I don’t think we should do it by swapping the pain of one group of Americans for another.”

Unlike the Democrats’ other defector, Pennsylvania’s quirky Sen. John Fetterman, Cortez Masto hasn’t developed a reputation for partisan heresy, or antagonized party peers by playing footsie with President Trump and the MAGA movement.

Despite her temporary alliance with the GOP, she’s unstinting in her criticism of the president and the Republican stance on healthcare, the issue at the heart of the shutdown fight.

“Of course we need to stand up to Trump’s attacks on our families and our country,” she said. “I’ve been one of the most vocal opponents of Trump’s disastrous trade and tariff policies.”

Her split with fellow Democrats, she suggested, is not over ends but rather means.

It’s entirely possible, Cortez Masto insisted, to keep the government open for business and, at the same time, work through the parties’ differences over healthcare, including, most imminently, the end of subsidies that have kept insurance costs from skyrocketing.

It comes down to negotiation, trust and compromise, which in Cortez Masto’s view, is still possible — even in these rabidly partisan times.

“That’s what Congress is built on,” she said. “Congress is built on compromise, working together across the aisle to get stuff done. I still believe in it.”

Although she noted — with considerable understatement — “there are those in the administration and some of my colleagues” who disagree.

Not to mention a great many Democratic activists who believe anything short of jailing Trump and dispatching the entire GOP-run Congress to a far-off desert island amounts to cowardly capitulation.

Nevada, where Cortez Masto was born and bred, is a state that was Republican red for a very long time before turning blue-ish for a while, starting under Barack Obama in 2008. It went back to red-ish under Trump in 2024.

Cortez Masto, a former state attorney general, was first elected to the Senate in 2016, replacing the onetime Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, after the Democrat retired.

Six years later, when she sought reelection, Cortez Masto was widely considered Democrats’ most endangered incumbent. She was not nearly as powerful or prominent as Reid had been. Inflation was raging, and Nevada was still suffering an economic hangover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Her opponent was a middling Republican, Adam Laxalt, a failed gubernatorial candidate and one of the architects of Trump’s Big Lie about the 2020 election. He also seemed to harbor a soft spot for the Jan. 6, 2021, rioters.

Still, Cortez Masto barely beat him, winning by fewer than 10,000 votes out of more than 1 million cast. In retrospect, the result could be seen as a harbinger of Trump’s success in carrying the state after twice losing Nevada.

Cortez Masto next faces reelection in 2028, which is politically ages away. By then, the shutdown will be long forgotten. (And presumably long over.)

Her focus, she said, is the here and now and, especially, the shutdown’s economic effect at a time Nevada is already feeling the negative consequences of Trump’s trade and immigration policies. Las Vegas, which runs on tourism, has experienced a notable slump, and Cortez Masto suggested the shutdown only makes things worse.

That, however, hasn’t deterred Nevada’s other U.S. senator, Jacky Rosen, who has repeatedly voted alongside nearly every other Democrat to keep the government shuttered until Republicans give in.

“Nevadans sent me here to fight for them,” Rosen said in a speech on the Senate floor. “Not to cave.”

Asked about the fissure, Cortez Masto responded evenly and with diplomacy. “She’s a good friend.… Our goal is to fight for Nevada and we are doing it,” she said. “We both are doing it in different ways.”

So, negotiation. Bipartisanship. Compromise.

What makes Cortez Masto think Trump, who’s run roughshod over Congress and the courts, can be trusted to honor any deal Democrats cut with Republicans to reopen the government and address the healthcare crisis she sees?

“Well, that’s the rub, right? We know what he’s doing,” she replied. He’s “flouting the law when it comes to … taking the role of legislators and appropriating funds at his own whim…. So, of course, no, you can’t trust him.

“But he is there. What you got to figure out is how you work together with Republican colleagues to get something done.”

Cortez Masto noted, dryly, that Congress is, in fact, a separate branch of government with its own power and authority. Republicans have ceded both to Trump and if they really want to solve problems, she said, and do more than the president’s bidding, they “need to come out and do bipartisan legislation to push back on this administration.”

“We’ve got to govern,” Cortez Masto said. “We’ve got to work together.”

Wouldn’t that be something.

Federal prosecutors sued Southern California Edison, saying its equipment ignited the 2019 Saddle Ridge fire, which burned nearly 9,000 acres and damaged or destroyed more than 100 homes in the San Fernando Valley.

The complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on Tuesday claims that Edison was negligent in designing, constructing and maintaining its high-voltage transmission line that runs through Sylmar. Equipment on the line is now suspected of causing both the 2019 fire as well as the Hurst fire on Jan. 7.

Edison has acknowledged that its equipment may have ignited the Jan. 7 fire, but it has been arguing for years in a separate lawsuit brought by Saddle Ridge fire victims that its equipment did not start the 2019 fire.

Lawyers for the victims say they have evidence showing the transmission line is not properly grounded, leading to two wildfires in six years. Edison’s lawyers call those claims an “exotic ignition theory” that is wrong.

In the new lawsuit, the federal government is seeking to recover costs for the damage the 2019 fire caused to 800 acres of national forest, including for the destruction of wildlife and habitats. The lawsuit also requests reimbursement for the federal government’s costs of fighting the fire.

“The ignition of the Saddleridge Fire by SCE’s power and transmission lines and equipment is prima facie evidence of SCE’s negligence,” states the complaint, which was filed by acting U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli.

“The United States has made a demand on SCE for payment of the costs and damages incurred by the United States to suppress the Saddleridge Fire and to undertake emergency rehabilitation efforts,” the complaint said. “SCE has not paid any part of the sum.”

David Eisenhauer, an Edison spokesman, said the company was reviewing the federal government’s lawsuit and “will respond through the legal process.”

“Our hearts are with the people and communities that were affected,” he said.

The 2019 wildfire tore through parts of Sylmar, Granada Hills and Porter Ranch, killing at least one person.

The fire ignited under a transmission tower just three minutes after a steel part known as a y-clevis broke on another tower more than two miles away, according to two government investigations into the fire. The equipment failure on that tower caused a fault and surge in power.

In the ongoing lawsuit by victims of the 2019 fire, the plaintiffs argue that the power surge traveled along the transmission lines, causing some of the towers miles away to become so hot that they ignited the dry vegetation underneath one of them. Government investigators also found evidence of burning at the base of a second tower nearby, according to their reports.

The lawyers for the victims say the same problem — that some towers are not properly grounded — caused the Hurst fire on the night of Jan. 7.

“The evidence will show that five separate fires ignited at five separate SCE transmission tower bases in the same exact manner as the fire that started the Saddle Ridge fire,” the lawyers wrote in a court filing this summer.

In that filing, the lawyers included parts of a deposition they took of an L.A. Fire Department captain who said he believed that Edison was “deceptive” for not informing the department that its equipment failed just minutes before the 2019 blaze ignited, and for having an employee offer to buy key surveillance video from that night from a business next to one of its towers.

Edison has denied its employee offered to buy the video. A spokeswoman said the utility did not tell the fire department that its equipment failed because it happened at a tower miles away from where the fire ignited.

Residents who witnessed both fires told The Times they saw fires burning under transmission towers on the evening of the 2019 fire and the night of Jan. 7.

Roberto Delgado and his wife, Ninoschka Perez, can see the towers from their Sylmar home. They told The Times they saw a fire on Jan. 7 under the same tower where investigators say the 2019 fire started.

The family had to quickly flee in the case of each fire.

“We were traumatized,” Delgado said. “If I could move my family away from here I would.”

The Jan. 7 fire burned through 799 acres and required thousands of people to evacuate. Firefighters extinguished the blaze before it destroyed any homes.

WASHINGTON — President Trump rocked American politics at the outset of his first campaign when he first labeled his rivals as enemies of the American people. But the rhetoric of his top confidantes has grown more extreme in recent days.

Stephen Miller, the president’s deputy chief of staff, declared over the weekend that “a large and growing movement of leftwing terrorism in this country” is fueling a historic national schism, “shielded by far-left Democrat judges, prosecutors and attorneys general.”

“The only remedy,” Miller said, “is to use legitimate state power to dismantle terrorism and terror networks.”

It was a maxim from an unelected presidential advisor who is already unleashing the federal government in unprecedented ways, overseeing the federalization of police forces and a sweeping deportation campaign challenging basic tenets of civil liberty.

Miller’s rhetoric comes amid a federal crackdown on Portland, Ore., where he says the president has unchecked authority to protect federal lives and property — and as another controversial Trump advisor harnesses an ongoing government shutdown as pretext for the mass firing of federal workers.

Russ Vought, the president’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, plays the grim reaper in an AI video shared by the president, featuring him roving Washington for bureaucrats to cut from the deep state during the shutdown.

His goal, Trump has said, is to specifically target Democrats.

As of Monday afternoon, it was unclear exactly how many federal workers or what federal agencies would be targeted.

“We don’t want to see people laid off, but unfortunately, if this shutdown continues layoffs are going to be an unfortunate consequence of that,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Levitt said during a news briefing.

‘A nation of Constitutional law’

Karin Immergut, a federal judge appointed by Trump, said this weekend that the administration’s justification for deploying California National Guard troops in Portland was “simply untethered to the facts.”

“This country has a longstanding and foundational tradition of resistance to government overreach, especially in the form of military intrusion into civil affairs,” Immergut wrote, chiding the Trump administration for attempting to circumvent a prior order from her against a federal deployment to the city.

“This historical tradition boils down to a simple proposition,” she added: “This is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law.”

The administration is expected to appeal the judge’s decision, Leavitt said, while calling the judge’s ruling “untethered in reality and in the law.”

“We’re very confident in the president’s legal authority to do this, and we are very confident we will win on the merits of the law,” Leavitt said.

If the courts were to side with the administration, Leavitt said local leaders — most of whom are Democrats — should not be concerned about the possibility of long-term plans to have their cities occupied by the military.

“Why should they be concerned about the federal government offering help to make their cities a safer place?” Leavitt said. “They should be concerned about the fact that people in their cities right now are being gunned down every single night and the president, all he is trying to do, is fix it.”

Moments later, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that though he does not believe it is necessary yet, he would be willing to invoke the Insurrection Act “if courts were holding us up or governors or mayors were holding us up.”

“Sure, I’d do that,” Trump said. “We have to make sure that our cities are safe.”

The Insurrection Act gives the president sweeping emergency power to deploy military forces within the United States if the president deems it is needed to quell civil unrest. The last time this occurred was in 1992, when California Gov. Pete Wilson asked President George H.W. Bush to send federal troops to help stop the Los Angeles riots that occurred after police officers were acquitted in the beating of Rodney King.

Subsequent posts from Miller on social media over the weekend escalated the stakes to existential heights, accusing Democrats of allying themselves with “domestic terrorists” seeking to overturn the will of the people reflected in Trump’s election win last year.

On Monday, in an interview with CNN, Miller suggested that the administration would continue working to sidestep Immergut’s orders.

“The administration will abide by the ruling insofar as it affects the covered parties,” he said, “but there are also many options the president has to deploy federal resources under the U.S. military to Portland.”

Other Republicans have used similar rhetoric since the slaying of Charlie Kirk, a conservative youth activist, in Utah last month.

Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.) wrote that posts from California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office have reached “the threshold of domestic terrorism,” after the Democratic governor referred to Miller on social media as a fascist. And Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.) said Monday that Democrats demanding an extension of healthcare benefits as a condition for reopening the government were equivalent to terrorists.

“I don’t negotiate with terrorists,” Fine told Newsmax, “and what we’ve learned in whether it’s dealing with Muslim terrorists or Democrats, you’ve gotta stand and you’ve gotta do the right thing.”

Investigating donor networks

Republicans’ keenness to label Democrats as terrorists comes two weeks after Trump signed an executive order declaring a left-wing antifascist movement, known as antifa, as a “domestic terrorist organization” — a designation that does not exist under U.S. law.

The order, which opened a new front in Trump’s battle against his political foes, also threatened to investigate and prosecute individuals who funded “any and all illegal operations — especially those involving terrorist actions — conducted by antifa or any person claiming to act on behalf of antifa.”

Leavitt told reporters Monday that the administration is “aggressively” looking into who is financially backing these operations.

Trump has floated the possibility of going after people such as George Soros, a billionaire who has supported many left-leaning causes around the world.

“If you look at Soros, he is at the top of everything,” Trump said during an Oval Office appearance last month.

The White House has not yet made public any details about a formal investigation into donors, but Leavitt said the administration’s efforts are underway.

“We will continue to get to the bottom of who is funding these organizations and this organized anarchy against our country and our government,” Leavitt said. “We are committed to uncovering it.”

WASHINGTON — Hopes for a quick end to the government shutdown faded Friday as Republicans and Democrats dug in for a prolonged fight and President Trump readied plans to unleash layoffs and cuts across the federal government.

Senators were headed back to the Capitol for another vote on government funding on the third day of the shutdown, but there has been no sign of any real progress toward ending their standoff. Democrats are demanding that Congress extend healthcare benefits, while Republicans are trying to wear them down with day after day of voting on a House-passed bill that would reopen the government temporarily, mostly at current spending levels.

“I don’t know how many times you’re going to give them a chance to vote no,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said at a news conference Friday. He added that he would give Democratic senators the weekend to think it over.

Although Republicans control the White House and both chambers of Congress, the Senate’s filibuster rules make it necessary for the government funding legislation to gain support from at least 60 of the 100 senators. That’s given Democrats a rare opportunity to use their 47 Senate seats to hold out in exchange for policy concessions. The party has chosen to rally on the issue of healthcare, believing it could be key to their path back to power in Washington.

Their primary demand is that Congress extend tax credits that were boosted during the COVID-19 pandemic for healthcare plans offered under the Affordable Care Act marketplace.

Standing on the steps of the U.S. Capitol on Thursday, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said, “Understand this, over the last few days and over the next few days, what you’re going to see is more than 20 million Americans experience dramatically increased healthcare premiums, co-pays and deductibles because of the Republican unwillingness to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits.”

The shutdown gamble

Democrats are running the high-risk strategy of effectively voting for a government shutdown to make their stand. Trump has vowed to make it as painful as possible for them.

The Republican president has called the government funding lapse an “unprecedented opportunity” to make vast cuts to federal agencies and potentially lay off federal workers, rather than the typical practice of furloughing them. White House budget director Russ Vought has already announced that he is withholding billions of dollars for infrastructure projects in states with Democratic senators.

On Friday morning, Vought said he would withhold $2.1 billion for Chicago infrastructure projects to extend its train system to the city’s South Side.

Jeffries has displayed no signs of budging under those threats.

“The cruelty that they might unleash on everyday Americans using the pretense of a shutdown is only going to backfire against them,” he said during an interview with the Associated Press and other outlets at the Capitol.

Still, the shutdown, no matter how long it lasts, could have far-reaching effects on the economy. Roughly 750,000 federal employees could be furloughed, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, and they could lose out on $400 million in daily wages. That loss in wages until after the government reopens could drive down wider demand for goods and services.

“All around the country right now, real pain is being endured by real people because the Democrats have decided to play politics,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson on Friday.

Who will take the blame?

The American public usually spreads the blame around to both major political parties when it comes to a government shutdown. While Trump took a significant portion of the blame during the last partial government shutdown in 2018 as he demanded funding for a U.S.-Mexico border wall, this standoff could end differently because now it is Democrats making the policy demands.

Still, lawmakers were relentlessly trying to make their case to the American public with a constant beat of news conferences, social media videos and livestreams. Congressional leaders have been especially active.

Both sides expressed confidence that the other would ultimately be found at fault. And in the House, party leaders seemed to be moving further apart rather than closer to making a deal to end the shutdown.

Jeffries on Thursday called for a permanent extension to the ACA tax credits. Meanwhile, Johnson and Thune told reporters that they would not negotiate on the tax credits until the government is reopened.

Talks in the Senate

A few senators have engaged in bipartisan talks about launching negotiations on extending the ACA tax credits for one year while the Senate votes to reopen the government for several weeks. But those discussions are in their early stages and appear to have little involvement from leadership.

As senators prepared for their last scheduled vote for the week on Friday, they appeared resigned to allow the shutdown to continue at least into next week. Thune said that if the vote failed, he would “give them the weekend to think about it” before holding more votes.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), in a floor speech, called for Republicans to work with her and fellow Democrats to find “common ground” on the ACA subsidies, saying their expiration would affect plenty of people in states with GOP senators — especially in rural areas where farmers, ranchers and small business owners purchase their own health insurance.

“Unfortunately, right now our Republican colleagues are not working with us to find a bipartisan agreement to prevent the government shutdown and address the healthcare crisis,” she said. “We know that even when they float ideas — which we surely do appreciate — in the end the president appears to make the call.”

Groves and Brown write for the Associated Press. Associated Press writers Lisa Mascaro, Kevin Freking and Joey Cappelletti contributed to this report.

NEW YORK — President Trump is openly embracing the conservative blueprint he desperately tried to distance himself from during the 2024 campaign, as one of its architects works to use the government shutdown to accelerate his goals of slashing the size of the federal workforce and punishing Democratic states.

In a post on his Truth Social site Thursday morning, Trump announced he would be meeting with his budget chief, “Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent.”

The comments represented a dramatic about-face for Trump, who spent much of last year denouncing Project 2025, The Heritage Foundation’s massive proposed overhaul of the federal government, which was drafted by many of his longtime allies and current and former administration officials.

Both of Trump’s Democratic rivals, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, made the far-right wish list a centerpiece of their campaigns, and a giant replica of the book featured prominently onstage at the Democratic National Convention.

“Donald Trump and his stooges lied through their teeth about Project 2025, and now he’s running the country straight into it,” said Ammar Moussa, a former spokesperson for both campaigns. “There’s no comfort in being right — just anger that we’re stuck with the consequences of his lies.”

Shalanda Young, director of the Office of Management and Budget under Biden, said the administration had clearly been following the project’s blueprint all along.

“I guess Democrats were right, but that doesn’t make me feel better,” she said. “I’m angry that this is happening after being told that this document was not going to be the centerpiece of this administration.”

Asked about Trump’s reversal, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said, “Democrats are desperate to talk about anything aside from their decision to hurt the American people by shutting down the government.”

Project what?

Top Trump campaign leaders spent much of 2024 livid at The Heritage Foundation for publishing a book full of unpopular proposals that Democrats tried to pin on the campaign to warn a second Trump term would be too extreme.

While many of the policies outlined in its 900-plus pages aligned closely with the agenda that Trump was proposing — particularly on curbing immigration and dismantling certain federal agencies — others called for action Trump had never discussed, like banning pornography, or Trump’s team was actively trying to avoid, like withdrawing approval for abortion medication.

Trump repeatedly insisted he knew nothing about the group or who was behind it, despite his close ties with many of its authors. They included John McEntee, his former director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office, and Paul Dans, former chief of staff at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

“I know nothing about Project 2025,” Trump insisted in July 2024. “I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”

Trump’s campaign chiefs were equally critical.

“President Trump’s campaign has been very clear for over a year that Project 2025 had nothing to do with the campaign, did not speak for the campaign, and should not be associated with the campaign or the President in any way,” wrote Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita in a campaign memo. They added, “Reports of Project 2025’s demise would be greatly welcomed and should serve as notice to anyone or any group trying to misrepresent their influence with President Trump and his campaign — it will not end well for you.”

Trump has since gone on to stock his second administration with its authors, including Vought, “border czar” Tom Homan, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, immigration hard-liner Stephen Miller and Brendan Carr, who wrote Project 2025’s chapter on the Federal Communications Commission and now chairs the panel.

Heritage did not respond to a request for comment Thursday. But Dans, the project’s former director, said it’s been “exciting” to see so much of what was laid out in the book put into action.

“It’s gratifying. We’re very proud of the work that was done for this express purpose: to have a doer like President Trump ready to roll on Day One,” said Dans, who is currently running for Senate against Lindsey Graham in South Carolina.

Trump administration uses the shutdown to further its goals

Since his swearing in, Trump has been pursuing plans laid out in Project 2025 to dramatically expand presidential power and reduce the size of the federal workforce. They include efforts like the Department of Government Efficiency and budget rescission packages, which have led to billions of dollars being stalled, scrapped or withheld by the administration so far this year.

They are now using the shutdown to accelerate their progress.

Ahead of the funding deadline, OMB directed agencies to prepare for additional mass firings of federal workers, rather than simply furloughing those who are not deemed essential, as has been the usual practice during past shutdowns. Vought told House GOP lawmakers in a private conference call Wednesday that layoffs would begin in the next day or two.

They have also used the shutdown to target projects championed by Democrats, including canceling $8 billion in green energy projects in states with Democratic senators and withholding $18 billion for transportation projects in New York City that have been championed by Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries in their home state.

Dreaming of this moment

The moves are part of a broader effort to concentrate federal authority in the presidency, which permeated Project 2025.

In his chapter in the blueprint, Vought made clear he wanted the president and OMB to wield more direct power.

“The Director must view his job as the best, most comprehensive approximation of the President’s mind,” he wrote. Vought described OMB as “a President’s air-traffic control system,” which should be “involved in all aspects of the White House policy process,” becoming “powerful enough to override implementing agencies’ bureaucracies.”

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, said on Fox News Channel that Vought “has a plan, and that plan is going to succeed in further empowering Trump. This is going to be the Democrats’ worst nightmare.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson echoed that message, insisting the government shutdown gives Trump and his budget director vast power over the federal government and the unilateral power to determine which personnel and policies are essential and which are not.

Schumer has handed “the keys of the kingdom to the president,” Johnson said Thursday. “Because they have decided to vote to shut the government down, they have now effectively turned off the legislative branch … and they’ve turned it over to the executive.”

Young said the Constitution gives the White House no such power and chastised Republicans in Congress for abandoning their duty to serve as a check on the president.

“I don’t want to hear a lecture about handing the keys over,” she said. “The keys are gone. They’re lost. They’re down a drain. This shutdown is not what lost the keys.”

Colvin writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — President Trump has seized on the government shutdown as an opportunity to reshape the federal workforce and punish detractors, meeting with budget director Russ Vought on Thursday to talk through “temporary or permanent” spending cuts that could set up a lose-lose dynamic for Democratic lawmakers.

Trump announced the meeting on social media Thursday morning, saying he and Vought would determine “which of the many Democrat Agencies” would be cut — continuing their efforts to slash federal spending by threatening mass firings of workers and suggesting “irreversible” cuts to Democratic priorities.

“I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity,” Trump wrote on his social media account. “They are not stupid people, so maybe this is their way of wanting to, quietly and quickly, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

The post was notable in its explicit embrace of Project 2025, a controversial policy blueprint drafted by the Heritage Foundation that Trump distanced himself from during his reelection campaign. The effort aimed to reshape the federal government around right-wing policies, and Democrats repeatedly pointed to its goals to warn of the consequences of a second Trump administration.

Vought on Wednesday offered an opening salvo of the pressure he hoped to put on Democrats. He announced he was withholding $18 billion for the Hudson River rail tunnel and Second Avenue subway line in New York City that have been championed by both Democratic leaders, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, in their home state. Vought is also canceling $8 billion in green energy projects in states with Democratic senators.

Meanwhile, the White House is preparing for mass firings of federal workers, rather than simply furloughing as is the usual practice during a shutdown. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said earlier this week that layoffs were “imminent.”

“If they don’t want further harm on their constituents back home, then they need to reopen the government,” Leavitt said Thursday said of Democrats.

A starring role for Russ Vought

The bespectacled and bearded Vought has emerged as a central figure in the shutdown — promising possible layoffs of government workers that would be a show of strength by the Trump administration as well as a possible liability given the weakening job market and existing voter unhappiness over the economy.

The strategic goal is to increase the political pressure on Democratic lawmakers as agencies tasked with environmental protection, racial equity and addressing poverty, among other things, could be gutted over the course of the shutdown.

But Democratic lawmakers also see Vought as the architect of a strategy to refuse to spend congressionally approved funds, using a tool known as a “pocket rescission” in which the administration submits plans to return unspent money to Congress just before the end of the fiscal year, causing that money to lapse.

All of this means that Democratic spending priorities might be in jeopardy regardless of whether they want to keep the government open or partially closed.

Ahead of the end of the fiscal year in September, Vought used the pocket rescission to block the spending of $4.9 billion in foreign aid.

White House officials refused to speculate on the future use of pocket rescissions after rolling them out in late August. But one of Vought’s former colleagues, insisting on anonymity to discuss the budget director’s plans, said that future pocket rescissions could be 20 times higher.

Shutdown continues with no endgame in sight

Thursday was Day 2 of the shutdown, and already the dial is turned high. The aggressive approach coming from the Trump administration is what certain lawmakers and budget observers feared if Congress, which has the responsibility to pass legislation to fund government, failed to do its work and relinquished control to the White House.

Vought, in a private conference call with House GOP lawmakers Wednesday, told them of layoffs starting in the next day or two. It’s an extension of the Department of Government Efficiency work under Elon Musk that slashed through the federal government at the start of the year.

“These are all things that the Trump administration has been doing since January 20th,” said Jeffries, referring to the president’s first day in office. “The cruelty is the point.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) underscored Thursday that the shutdown gives Trump and Vought vast power over the federal government. He blamed Democrats and said “they have effectively turned off the legislative branch” and “handed it over to the president.”

Still, Johnson said that Trump and Vought take “no pleasure in this.”

Trump and the congressional leaders are not expected to meet again soon. Congress has no action scheduled Thursday in observance of the Jewish holy day, with senators due back Friday. The House is set to resume session next week.

The Democrats are holding fast to their demands to preserve health care funding and refusing to back a bill that fails to do so, warning of price spikes for millions of Americans nationwide.

The shutdown is likely to harm the economy

With no easy endgame at hand, the standoff risks dragging deeper into October, when federal workers who remain on the job will begin missing paychecks. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated roughly 750,000 federal workers would be furloughed on any given day during the shutdown, a loss of $400 million daily in wages.

The economic effects could spill over into the broader economy. Past shutdowns saw “reduced aggregate demand in the private sector for goods and services, pushing down GDP,” the CBO said.

“Stalled federal spending on goods and services led to a loss of private-sector income that further reduced demand for other goods and services in the economy,” it said. Overall CBO said there was a “dampening of economic output,” but that reversed once people returned to work.

How Trump and Vought can reshape the federal government

With Congress as a standstill, the Trump administration has taken advantage of new levers to determine how to shape the federal government.

The Trump administration can tap into funds to pay workers at the Defense Department and Homeland Security from what’s commonly called the “One Big Beautiful Bill” that was signed into law this summer, according to the CBO.

That would ensure Trump’s immigration enforcement and mass deportation agenda is uninterrupted. But employees who remain on the job at many other agencies will have to wait for government to reopen before they get a paycheck.

Mascaro, Boak and Kim write for the Associated Press. AP writers Chris Megerian, Stephen Groves, Joey Cappelletti, Matt Brown, Kevin Freking, and Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.

In 2007, eight years after becoming Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chávez revoked the license of the country’s oldest private television station. Eight months into his second term, President Trump suggested revoking the licenses of U.S. television stations he believes are overly critical of him.

Since he returned to office in January, Trump’s remaking of the federal government into an instrument of his personal will has drawn comparisons to elected strongmen in other countries who used the levers of government to consolidate power, punish their enemies and stifle dissent.

But those familiar with other countries where that has happened, including Hungary and Turkey, say there is one striking difference: Trump appears to be moving more rapidly, and more overtly, than others did.

“The only difference is the speed with which it is happening,” said David Smilde, who lived in Venezuela during Chavez’s rise and is now a professor at Tulane University.

Political enemies of the president become targets

The U.S. is a long way from Venezuela or other authoritarian governments. It still has robust opposition to Trump, judges who often check his initiatives and a system that diffuses power across 50 states, including elections, making it hard for a president to dominate the country. Some of Trump’s most controversial pledges, such as revoking television licenses, remain just threats.

Trump has both scoffed and winked at the allegation that he’s an authoritarian.

During last year’s campaign, he said he wouldn’t be a “dictator” — except, he added, “on day one” over the border. Last month, Trump told reporters: ”A lot of people are saying, ‘Maybe we like a dictator.’ I don’t like a dictator. I’m not a dictator.”

Even so, he has moved quickly to consolidate authority under the presidency, steer federal law enforcement to prioritize a campaign of retribution and purge the government of those not considered sufficiently loyal.

In a recent social media post, Trump complained to his attorney general, Pam Bondi, about a lack of prosecution of his foes, saying “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!” Days later, the Department of Justice secured a felony indictment against former FBI Director James Comey, whom Trump has blamed for the Russian collusion investigation that dogged his first term.

The same day, Trump ordered a sweeping crackdown targeting groups he alleges fund political violence. The examples he gave of victims were exclusively Republicans and his possible targets were those who have funded Democratic candidates and liberal causes. The week before, Trump’s Federal Communications Commission chairman, Brendan Carr, threatened ABC after a comment about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk by late night host Jimmy Kimmel angered Republicans.

ABC suspended Kimmel for five days, but Trump threatened consequences for the network after it returned his show to the airwaves: “I think we’re going to test ABC out on this. Let’s see how we do,” the president said on his social media site.

Trump has said he is repaying Democrats for what he says is political persecution of him and his supporters. The White House said its mission was accountability.

“The Trump administration will continue to deliver the truth to the American people, restore integrity to our justice system, and take action to stop radical left-wing violence that is plaguing American communities.” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said Saturday in response to a question about comparisons between Trump and authoritarian leaders.

U.S. unprepared for attacks on democracy from within

Trump opened his second term pardoning more than 1,500 people convicted of crimes during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, an attempt to overturn his 2020 election loss. He has threatened judges who ruled against him, targeted law firms and universities he believes opposed him, and is attempting to reshape the nation’s cultural institutions.

On Saturday, the president said he was going to send troops to Portland, Oregon, “authorizing Full Force” if necessary. It would be his latest deployment of troops to cities run by Democrats.

Steven Levitsky, a Harvard political scientist and co-author of the book “How Democracies Die,” said he is constantly asked by foreign journalists how the U.S. can let Trump take such actions.

“If you talk to Brazilians, South Koreans, Germans, they have better antennae for authoritarians,” he said. “They experienced, or were taught by their parents, or the schools, the danger of losing a democracy.”

Of the United States, he said: “This is not a society that is prepared for authoritarianism.”

‘America has become little Turkey’

Alper Coskun presumed the U.S. wouldn’t go the way of his native Turkey, where he served in the government, including as the country’s director general of international security affairs. He left as that country’s president, Recep Erdogan, consolidated power.

Coskun now laughs bitterly at the quip his countrymen make: Turkey wanted to become little America, but now America has become little Turkey.

“It’s a very similar playbook,” said Coskun, now at the Carnegie Foundation for International Peace. The difference, he said, is that Erdogan, first elected in 2002, had to move slowly to avoid running afoul of Turkey’s then-independent military and business community.

Trump, in contrast, has more “brazenly” broken democratic norms, Coskun said.

Erdogan, who met with Trump this past week, has had 23 years in office to increase his authority and has now jailed writers, journalists and a potential political rival, Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu.

“Trump is emulating Erdogan much faster than I expected,” said Henri Barkey, a Turkish professor and expert at the Council on Foreign Relations who lives in the U.S. and has been accused by Erdogan of complicity in an attempted 2016 coup, an allegation Barkey denies.

He said Trump is following in Erdogan’s path in prosecuting enemies, but said he has yet to use the Justice Department to neutralize opponents running for office.

“We have to see if Trump is going to go to that next step,” Barkey said.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has often been cited as a model for Trump. Orbán has become an icon to some U.S. conservatives for cracking down on immigration and LGBTQ rights. Like Trump, he lost an election and spent his years out of office planning his return.

When voters returned Orbán to power in 2010, he moved as quickly as Trump, said Kim Scheppele, who was an adviser to Hungary’s constitutional court and now is a sociologist at Princeton. But there was one difference.

To avoid resistance, Scheppele said, “Orbán had a ‘don’t scare the horses’ philosophy.” She said he spent much of his first year back working on legal reforms and changes to Hungary’s constitution that set him up to consolidate power.

In Venezuela, Chavez faced resistance from the moment he was elected, including an unsuccessful coup in 2002. His supporters complained the country’s largest broadcast network did not cover it in real time, and he eventually pulled its license.

Chavez later deployed the military as an internal police force and accelerated a crackdown on critics before he died in office in 2013.

In the U.S., Smilde said, people trust the country’s institutions to maintain democracy. And they did in 2020 and 2021, when the courts, staff in the administration, and elected officials in state and federal government blocked Trump’s effort to overturn his election loss.

“But now, here we are with a more pointed attack,” Smilde said. “Here, nobody has really seen this in a president before.”

Riccardi writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — President Trump plans to meet with the top four congressional leaders at the White House on Monday, one day before the deadline to fund the federal government or face a shutdown.

The meeting involving the top Republican leaders, House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, as well as the Democratic leaders, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, was confirmed Saturday by a White House official and two other people familiar with the planning. They were granted anonymity to discuss a meeting that has not been announced.

Trump relented after initially refusing to meet with the top Democrats.

“President Trump has once again agreed to a meeting in the Oval Office. As we have repeatedly said, Democrats will meet anywhere, at any time and with anyone to negotiate a bipartisan spending agreement that meets the needs of the American people,” Schumer and Jeffries, both of New York, said in a joint statement Saturday night. “We are resolute in our determination to avoid a government shutdown and address the Republican healthcare crisis. Time is running out.”

The meeting was first reported by Punchbowl News.

The parties have been at a standoff for days as Democrats are pushing for healthcare protections as a condition of their support for the spending plan. Senate Democrats have refused to offer the necessary votes to pass a funding measure that would keep the government open beyond Tuesday.

Absent any action, a shutdown would begin at 12:01 a.m. ET on Wednesday.

Democrats had secured a meeting with Trump until Republican leaders intervened and the president called it off. But Schumer spoke privately with Thune (R-S.D.) on Friday, pushing the majority leader to get a meeting with the president scheduled because of the approaching funding deadline, according to an aide to Schumer.

“As rank-and-file Democrats begin to question their leadership’s unsustainable position, Sen. Schumer is clearly getting nervous,” Ryan Wrasse, a spokesman for Thune, responded Saturday night. “There’s an easy way out, and they’ll get a chance to take it next week.”

Democrats, believing they have leverage, have insisted on key healthcare provisions in exchange for their votes. They want an extension of subsidies that help low- and middle-income earners purchase insurance through the Affordable Care Act. Democrats are also insisting on reversing cuts to Medicaid that were included the GOP’s signature tax measure this summer.

Republicans say that those demands are nonstarters and that they are willing to have a conversation with Democrats on those issues separate from government funding talks. The GOP is asking for a straight extension of current funding for seven weeks.

Earlier last week, Johnson acknowledged he had encouraged Trump not to meet with the Democratic leaders.

“He and I talked about it at length yesterday and the day before. I said, ‘Look, when they get their job done, once they do the basic governing work of keeping the government open, as president, then you can have a meeting” with them, Johnson said on the “Mike & McCarty Show” in his home state of Louisiana. “Of course, it might be productive at that point, but right now, this is just a waste of his time.”

And Thune had said earlier in the week that he “did have a conversation with the president” and offered his opinion on the meeting, which he declined to disclose. “But I think the president speaks for himself, and I think he came to the conclusion that meeting would not be productive,” Thune said.

Democrats have expressed confidence that voters would blame Trump and Republicans for any disruptions in federal services, even though that is uncertain.

Republicans, on the other hand, had been heading toward the work week with plans in the Senate to keep showcasing Democrats’ refusal to agree to the stopgap measure, while the House GOP planned to stay away from Washington in a show of their own unwillingness to engage Democratic alternatives.

That too, came with potential political drawbacks for House Republicans, as Democrats hammered them for being, as Jeffries said, “on vacation.”

Kim and Mascaro write for the Associated Press.

SACRAMENTO — A popular perk for California drivers of electric and low-emission cars is coming to an end.

Beginning Oct. 1, motorists with a Clean Air Vehicle decal will no longer be able to drive solo in carpool lanes because the program was not extended by the federal government, according to the California Department of Motor Vehicles.

The carpool benefit was promoted as a cost-effective incentive to encourage Californians to buy clean and zero-emission vehicles. More than a million motorists have applied for the decal since it became available more than two decades ago. There are roughly a half million vehicles in California with active decals, allowing them to use the carpool lane alone. Last month, the DMV stopped issuing new decals and warned that the program could be ending.

Extending the program would have required approval from Congress and President Trump.

“A Trump traffic jam is on its way to California and other states – all because Republicans in Congress decided to let a wildly successful bipartisan program expire,” Newsom said in a statement. “That’s Trump’s America: more traffic, more smog and a government more committed to slashing proven programs than solving real problems.”

California is one of 13 states offering the benefit. Vehicles that qualified included fuel cell electric, natural gas or plug-in electric cars.

Last year, Newsom signed a bill that extended California’s decal program until 2027, but the state will no longer be able to continue it without federal authority, the governor’s office said. According to the California Energy Commission, 25% of new cars sold in the state are zero-emission vehicles.

Drivers in electric and low-emission cars will only be able to use carpool lanes after the program expires if they meet the multiple occupant requirements. The reduced toll rates available in some areas to drivers with a decal will also end on Oct. 1.

California law indicates that drivers will not be cited for driving in the carpool lane with an invalid decal within 60 days of the program ending.

“Californians are committed to lowering their carbon footprint and these decals helped drivers be good stewards of our highways and environment,” said Steve Gordon, director of the California DMV, in a statement. “By taking away this program, hundreds of thousands of California’s drivers will pay the price. It’s a lose-lose and we urge the federal government to retain this program.”

The program ends at the same time that a $7,500 federal tax credit for new electric vehicles expires.

The University of California’s top leader has raised the “distinct possibility” that financial losses due to the Trump administration’s funding cuts could amount to billions of dollars and extend beyond UCLA to the entire 10-campus system, telling state legislators Wednesday that “the stakes are high and the risks are very real.”

In a letter to dozens of lawmakers obtained by The Times, UC President James B. Milliken said the university is facing “one of the gravest threats in UC’s 157-year history” after the Trump administration cut off more than $500 million in grants to UCLA before demanding a $1.2-billion fine over allegations of campus antisemitism.

Milliken outlined the potential losses at the nation’s preeminent public university system under Trump’s higher education agenda in his strongest and most detailed public words since starting the job Aug. 1, days after funding troubles hit UCLA.

UC “receives over $17 billion per year from the federal government — $9.9 billion in Medicare and Medicaid funding, $5.7 billion in research funding, and $1.9 billion in student financial aid per year,” Milliken wrote in the letter addressed to Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), chair of the Joint Legislative Budget Committee. If such funds were lost, Milliken wrote, “we would need at least $4-5 billion per year to minimize the damage.”

“A substantial loss of federal funding would devastate our university and cause enormous harm to our students, our patients, and all Californians. Classes and student services would be reduced, patients would be turned away, tens of thousands of jobs would be lost, and we would see UC’s world-renowned researchers leaving our state for other more seemingly stable opportunities in the US or abroad.”

Milliken, who met with lawmakers in Sacramento last month, penned his message in response to an Aug. 31 letter from Wiener and 33 other legislators, who urged UC leaders to “not to back down in the face of this political shakedown” from President Trump, whose actions the lawmakers said were “an extortion attempt and a page out of the authoritarian playbook.”

In a statement about the letter, a UC spokesperson said the university “is committed to working with leaders in Sacramento and across the country to ensure we have the resources we need to continue generating jobs, life-changing discoveries, and economic opportunity in the face of historic challenges.”

In addition to grant cuts and the $1.2-billion fine demand from UCLA, the Trump administration has also proposed sweeping changes at the Westwood campus. They include the release of detailed admissions data — the government accuses UCLA of illegally considering race when awarding seats — restrictions on protests, and an end to race-related scholarships and diversity hiring programs. The Department of Justice has also called for a ban on gender-affirming care for minors at UCLA healthcare systems.

The Trump administration accuses UCLA of violating civil rights law by not taking antisemitism seriously. Although there have been complaints of antisemitism on campus since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and Israel’s ensuing war in Gaza, a number of influential faculty members, staff and students, including many in the Jewish campus community, have said UCLA has made progress on addressing the campus climate.

“Free speech, academic freedom, scientific research, and democracy are values that have led to Jewish flourishing. These attacks on California, on our immigrant communities, on science, and on LGBTQ people stand in stark contrast to Jewish values,” Wiener wrote in the letter whose signatories included members of California Legislative Jewish Caucus, of which Weiner is co-chair.

Wiener’s letter urged UC leaders to fight the government’s demands as the university negotiates with the DOJ.

“Acceding to these reprehensible demands won’t stabilize the UC system; it will betray our values of protecting and celebrating our most vulnerable communities. Giving in will only encourage further unconstitutional behavior by this administration,” said the letter, addressed to Milliken, the UC Board of Regents and UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk.

“Concessions by UCLA would establish a damaging precedent for extorting public schools in states with leadership that does not bow down to this President,” Wiener and others wrote, who described federal demands as “extortion,” echoing statements by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

“We must resist Trump’s extortion to protect public higher education, the economy, our students and California’s values,” the lawmakers wrote.

Although the university has engaged with the Trump administration to restore UCLA funding, no settlement has been reached and there is a wide gulf between the two sides on what terms would be acceptable.

Newsom has called the government’s proposed fine “ransom,” saying he wants UC to sue the administration and not “bend the knee” to Trump.

But the decision over a lawsuit rests with the independent UC Board of Regents. The governor has appointed many but not all of the regents and sits as a voting member on the 24-person board. Newsom can exercise political sway over its moves but, aside from his vote, has no formal power over the body’s decisions.

ORLANDO, Fla. — Florida taxpayers could be on the hook for $218 million the state spent to convert a remote training airport in the Everglades into an immigration detention center dubbed “ Alligator Alcatraz.”

The facility may soon be empty as a judge upheld her decision late Wednesday ordering operations to wind down indefinitely.

Shutting down the facility for the time being would cost the state $15 million to $20 million immediately, and it would cost another $15 million to $20 million to reinstall structures if Florida is allowed to reopen it, according to court filings by the state.

The Florida Division of Emergency Management will lose most of the value of the $218 million it has invested in making the airport suitable for a detention center, a state official said in court papers.

Built in just a few days, the facility consists of chain-link cages surrounding large white tents filled with rows of bunk beds. As of late July, state officials had already signed more than $245 million in contracts for building and operating the facility, which officially opened July 1.

President Trump toured the facility last month and suggested it could be a model for future lockups nationwide as his administration races to expand the infrastructure needed to increase deportations.

The center has been plagued by reports of unsanitary conditions and detainees being cut off from the legal system.

It’s also facing several legal challenges, including one that U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams ruled on late Wednesday. She denied requests to pause her order to wind down operations, after agreeing last week with environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe that the state and federal defendants didn’t follow federal law requiring an environmental review for the detention center in the middle of sensitive wetlands.

The Miami judge said the number of detainees was already dwindling, and the federal government’s “immigration enforcement goals will not be thwarted by a pause in operations.” That’s despite Department of Homeland Security lawyers saying the judge’s order would disrupt that enforcement.

When asked, the Department of Homeland Security wouldn’t say how many detainees remained and how many had been moved out since the judge’s temporary injunction last week.

“DHS is complying with this order and moving detainees to other facilities,” the department said Thursday in an emailed statement.

Environmental activist Jessica Namath, who has kept a nearly constant watch outside the facility’s gates, said Thursday that fellow observers had seen white tents hauled out but no signs of the removal of Federal Emergency Management Agency trailers or portable bathrooms.

“It definitely seems like they have been winding down operations,” Namath said.

Based on publicly available contract data, the Associated Press estimated the state allocated $50 million for the bathrooms. Detainees and advocates have described toilets that don’t flush, flooding floors with fecal waste, although officials dispute such descriptions.

The facility was already being emptied of detainees as of last week, according to an email exchange shared with the AP on Wednesday. The executive director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, Kevin Guthrie, said on Aug. 22 “we are probably going to be down to 0 individuals within a few days,” in a message to a rabbi about chaplaincy services.

Funding is central to the federal government’s arguments that Williams’ order should be overturned by an appellate court.

Homeland Security attorneys said in a court filing this week that federal environmental law doesn’t apply to a state like Florida, and the federal government isn’t responsible for the detention center since it hasn’t spent a cent to build or operate the facility, even though Florida is seeking some federal grant money to fund a portion of the detention center.

“No final federal funding decisions have been made,” the attorneys said.

Almost two dozen Republican-led states also urged the appellate court to overturn the order. The 22 states argued in another court filing that the judge overstepped her authority and that the federal environmental laws applied only to the federal agencies, not the state of Florida.

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis ’ administration is preparing to open a second immigration detention facility dubbed “Deportation Depot” at a state prison in north Florida.

Civil rights groups filed a second lawsuit last month against the state and federal governments over practices at the Everglades facility, claiming detainees were denied access to the legal system.

A third lawsuit by civil rights groups on Aug. 22 described “severe problems” at the facility that were “previously unheard-of in the immigration system.”

Schneider and Payne write for the Associated Press.

“I am not a crook,” President Nixon said in 1973.

“I’m not a dictator,” President Trump insisted on Monday.

And with that, another famously false presidential proclamation entered the annals of memorable statements no president should ever feel compelled to make.

It took months more for Nixon’s crimes to force him to resign in 1974 ahead of his all-but-certain removal by Congress. But a half-century later, Trump is unabashedly showing every day that he really does aspire to be a dictator. Unlike Nixon, he doesn’t have to fear a supposedly coequal Congress: It’s run by slavish fellow Republicans who’ve forfeited their constitutional powers over spending, tariffs, appointments and more. Lower courts have checked Trump’s lawlessness, but a too-deferential Supreme Court gets the last word and empowers him more than not.

Americans are indeed in proverbial uncharted waters. Four months ago, conservative columnist David Brooks of the New York Times wrote — uncharacteristically for a self-described “mild” guy — “It’s time for a comprehensive national civic uprising.” It’s now past time.

Perhaps more troubling than Trump’s “not a dictator” comment was a related one that he made on Monday and reiterated on Tuesday during a three-hour televised Cabinet praise meeting (don’t these folks have jobs?). “A lot of people are saying maybe we like a dictator,” he said. Alas, for once Trump isn’t wrong. MAGA Republicans are loyal to the man, not the party, and give Trump the sort of support no president in memory has enjoyed.

A poll from the independent Public Religion Research Institute earlier this year showed that a majority of Americans — 52% — agreed that Trump is a “dangerous dictator whose power should be limited before he destroys American democracy.” Those who disagreed were overwhelmingly Republicans, 81% of whom said Trump “should be given the power he needs.” Americans’ split on this fundamental question shows the extent to which Trump has cleaved a country founded and long-flourishing on checks and balances and the rule of law, not men.

That Trump would explicitly address the dictator issue this week reflects just how head-spinningly fast his dictatorial actions have been coming at us.

The militarization of the nation’s capital continues, reinforced with National Guard units from six red states, on trumped-up claims of a crime emergency. Trump served notice in recent days that the thousands of troops and federal agents will remain on Washington’s streets indefinitely despite a federal law setting a 30-day limit — “We’re not playing games,” he told troops on Friday — and that Chicago, Baltimore, New York and perhaps San Francisco are next.

In all cases, as with Los Angeles, Il Duce is acting over the objections of elected officials. But who cares about stinking elections? Trump warned on Friday from his gilded Oval Office that Washington’s thrice-elected Mayor Muriel Bowser “better get her act straight or she won’t be mayor very long, because we’ll take it over with the federal government.” And after Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, another Democrat, slammed Trump for his threats, El Presidente replied that he has “the right to do anything I want to do.”

This is scary stuff, and it’s being normalized by the sheer firehose nature of Trump’s outrages and by the capitulation of his Cabinet, Congress, corporations and rightwing media. That’s why the remaining citizenry must take a stand, literally.

Trump’s sycophants atop the Pentagon and intelligence agencies, the equally unfit Pete Hegseth and Tulsi Gabbard, continued their purge of senior military officials and intelligence experts whose loyalties to Trump are suspect. And on Friday, the FBI raided the home of former Trump advisor John Bolton, in a chilling signal to other critics.

In a first for a president, Trump on Tuesday tried to fire a member of the independent Federal Reserve board, Biden appointee Lisa D. Cook, in apparent violation of federal law aiming to protect the Fed against just such political interference. The Fed’s independence has been central to the United States’ role as the globe’s preeminent economic power; investors worldwide believe the central bank won’t act on a president’s whims. But Trump is determined to cement a majority that will deeply cut interest rates, inflation be damned. Cook is suing to keep her job, setting up a Fed-backed showdown likely headed to the Supreme Court. Despite its partiality to a president’s power over independent federal agencies, the court has repeatedly suggested that the Fed is an exception. Let’s hope.

Trump, who regularly assails Democrats as socialists and communists, now boasts of compelling private corporations to give the government a stake. Speaking on Monday about a new deal in which the beleaguered head of chipmaker Intel agreed to give the government a 10% stake, Trump declared, “I hope I have many more cases like it.” And yet we get more crickets from Republicans who profess to be the party of free enterprise and free markets.

The president’s campaign against federal judges who oppose him continues as well. On Tuesday it was one of his own appointees, U.S. District Judge Thomas Cullen, who tossed Trump’s lawsuit against the entire federal judiciary in Maryland. To accept the president’s suit, Cullen wrote, would violate precedent, constitutional tradition and the rule of law.

Alas, such violations pretty much sum up Trump’s record so far.

He’s trying to rewrite history at the Smithsonian Institution, including whitewashing slavery, and dictating to law firms, universities and state legislatures. On Tuesday, Trump had Republican state legislators from Indiana to the White House to press them to join those in Texas and other red states who are, on his orders, redrawing House districts expressly so Democrats don’t win control of Congress in next year’s midterm elections.

Amid all this, the New Yorker was out with an exhaustive review of Trump’s finances that conservatively concluded that he’s already profited on the presidency by $3.4 billion. If he’s not careful, Trump won’t only be denying he’s a dictator; he’ll be echoing Nixon on the crook rap.

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WASHINGTON — The House Oversight Committee subpoenaed the estate of Jeffrey Epstein on Monday as congressional lawmakers try to determine who was connected to the disgraced financier and whether prosecutors mishandled his case.

The committee’s subpoena is the latest effort by both Republicans and Democrats to respond to public clamor for more disclosure in the investigation into Epstein, who was found dead in his New York jail cell in 2019. Lawmakers are trying to guide an investigation into who among Epstein’s high-powered social circle may have been aware of his sexual abuse of teenage girls, delving into a criminal case that has spurred conspiracy theories and roiled top officials in President Trump’s administration.

The subpoena, signed by Rep. James Comer, the Republican chair of the oversight committee, and dated Monday, demands that Epstein’s estate provide Congress with documents including a book that was compiled with notes from friends for his 50th birthday, his last will and testament, agreements he signed with prosecutors, his contact books, and his financial transactions and holdings.

Comer wrote to the executors of Epstein’s estate that the committee “is reviewing the possible mismanagement of the federal government’s investigation of Mr. Jeffrey Epstein and Ms. Ghislaine Maxwell, the circumstances and subsequent investigations of Mr. Epstein’s death, the operation of sex-trafficking rings and ways for the federal government to effectively combat them, and potential violations of ethics rules related to elected officials.”

The Justice Department, trying to distance Trump and Epstein, last week began handing over to lawmakers documentation of the federal investigation into Epstein. It has also released transcripts of interviews conducted with Ghislaine Maxwell, his former girlfriend. But Democrats on the committee have not been satisfied with those efforts, saying that the some 33,000 pages of documents they’ve received are mostly already public.

“DOJ’s limited disclosure raises more questions than answers and makes clear that the White House is not interested in justice for the victims or the truth,” Rep. Robert Garcia of Long Beach, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said in a statement.

Pressure from lawmakers to release more information is likely to only grow when Congress returns to Washington next week.

A bipartisan group of House members is attempting to maneuver around Republican leadership to hold a vote to pass legislation meant to require the Justice Department to release a full accounting of the sex trafficking investigation into Epstein.

Groves writes for the Associated Press.

MIAMI — A federal judge in Miami dismissed part of a lawsuit that claimed detainees were denied access to the legal system at the immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades known as “Alligator Alcatraz” and moved the remaining counts of the case to another court.

Claims that the detainees were denied hearings in immigration court were rendered moot when the Trump administration last weekend designated the Krome North Processing Center near Miami as a site for their cases to be heard, U.S. District Judge Rodolfo Ruiz said in a 47-page ruling Monday night dismissing a 5th Amendment count.

The judge granted the state defendants a change of venue motion to the Middle District of Florida, where the remaining claims of 1st Amendment violations will be addressed. Those include allegations of delays in scheduling meetings between detainees and their attorneys and an inability for the detainees to talk privately with their attorneys by phone or videoconference at the facility whose official name is the South Detention Facility.

ACLU lawyer Eunice Cho, the lead attorney for the detainees, said the federal government reversed course only last weekend and allowed the detainees to petition an immigration court because of the lawsuit.

“It should not take a lawsuit to force the government to abide by the law and the Constitution,” Cho said. “We look forward to continuing the fight.”

The judge heard arguments from both sides in a hearing earlier Monday in Miami. Civil rights attorneys were seeking a preliminary injunction to ensure detainees at the facility had access to their lawyers and could get a hearing.

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration raced to build the facility on an isolated airstrip surrounded by swampland two months ago in order to aid President Trump’s efforts to deport people who are in the U.S. illegally. The governor has said the location in the rugged and remote Everglades was meant as a deterrent against escape, much like the island prison in California that Republicans named it after. The detention center has an estimated annual cost of $450 million.

The state and federal government had argued that even though the isolated airstrip where the facility is located is owned by Miami-Dade County, Florida’s Southern District was the wrong venue since the detention center is located in neighboring Collier County, which is in the state’s Middle District.

Judge Ruiz had hinted during a hearing last week that he had some concerns over which jurisdiction was appropriate. Attorneys for the detainees had argued that Ruiz’s court was appropriate since the detainees were under the oversight of federal officials in the Miami regional office. Any transfer to another venue would cause a delay in a court decision.

Ruiz noted the facts in the case changed Saturday when the Trump administration designated the Krome facility as the immigration court with jurisdiction over all detainees at the detention center.

The judge wrote that the case has “a tortured procedural history” since it was filed July 16, weeks after the first group of detainees arrived at the facility.

“Nearly every aspect of the Plaintiffs’ civil action — their causes of action, their facts in support, their theories of venue, their arguments on the merits and their requests for relief — have changed with each filing,” the judge wrote.

The state and federal government defendants made an identical argument last week about jurisdiction for a second lawsuit in which environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe sued to stop further construction and operations at the Everglades detention center until it’s in compliance with federal environmental laws.

U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams in Miami on Aug. 7 ordered a 14-day halt to additional construction at the site while witnesses testified at a hearing that wrapped up last week. She has said she plans to issue a ruling before the order expires later this week. She had yet to rule on the venue question.

Detainees at the facility have said worms turn up in the food, toilets don’t flush, flooding floors with fecal waste, and mosquitoes and other insects are everywhere.

Civil rights attorneys also said officers were going cell to cell to pressure detainees into signing voluntary removal orders before they’re allowed to consult their attorneys, and some detainees had been deported even though they didn’t have final removal orders. Along with the spread of a respiratory infection and rainwater flooding in tents, the circumstances had fueled a feeling of desperation among detainees, the attorneys wrote in a court filing.

Fischer, Schneider and Frisaro write for the Associated Press. Frisaro reported from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and Schneider reported from Orlando, Fla.

McALLEN, Texas — A federal judge ruled Friday to deny the Trump administration’s request to end a policy in place for nearly three decades that is meant to protect immigrant children in federal custody.

U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee in Los Angeles issued her ruling a week after holding a hearing with the federal government and legal advocates representing immigrant children in custody.

Gee called last week’s hearing “deja vu” after reminding the court of the federal government’s attempt to terminate the Flores settlement agreement in 2019 under the first Trump administration. She repeated the sentiment in Friday’s order.

“There is nothing new under the sun regarding the facts or the law. The Court therefore could deny Defendants’ motion on that basis alone,” Gee wrote, referring to the government’s appeal to a law it argued kept the court from enforcing the agreement.

In the most recent attempt, the government argued it had made substantial changes since the agreement was formalized in 1997, creating standards and policies governing the custody of immigrant children that conform to legislation and the agreement.

Gee acknowledged that the government made some improved conditions of confinement, but wrote, “These improvements are direct evidence that the FSA is serving its intended purpose, but to suggest that the agreement should be abandoned because some progress has been made is nonsensical.”

Attorneys representing the federal government told the court the agreement gets in the way of their efforts to expand detention space for families, even though President Trump’s tax and spending bill provided billions to build new immigration facilities.

Tiberius Davis, one of the government attorneys, said the bill gives the government authority to hold families in detention indefinitely. “But currently under the Flores settlement agreement, that’s essentially void,” he said last week.

The Flores agreement, named for a teenage plaintiff, was the result of more than a decade of litigation between attorneys representing the rights of migrant children and the U.S. government over widespread allegations of mistreatment in the 1980s.

The agreement set standards for how licensed shelters must provide food, water, adult supervision, emergency medical services, toilets, sinks, temperature control and ventilation. It also limited how long U.S. Customs and Border Protection could detain child immigrants to 72 hours. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services then takes custody of the children.

The Biden administration successfully pushed to partially end the agreement last year. Gee ruled that special court supervision may end when Health and Human Services takes custody, but she carved out exceptions for certain types of facilities for children with more acute needs.

In arguing against the Trump administration’s effort to completely end the agreement, advocates said the government was holding children beyond the time limits. In May, CBP held 46 children for more than a week, including six children held for over two weeks and four children held for 19 days, according to data revealed in a court filing. In March and April, CPB reported that it had 213 children in custody for more than 72 hours. That included 14 children, including toddlers, who were held for over 20 days in April.

The federal government is looking to expand its immigration detention space, including by building more centers like one in Florida dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” where a lawsuit alleges detainees’ constitutional rights are being violated.

Gee still has not ruled on the request by legal advocates for the immigrant children to expand independent monitoring of the treatment of children held in U.S. Customs and Border Protection facilities. Currently, the agreement allows for third-party inspections at facilities in the El Paso and Rio Grande Valley regions, but plaintiffs submitted evidence showing long detention times at border facilities that violate the agreement’s terms.

Gonzalez writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — The Department of Homeland Security has walked back what lawyers called an illegal attempt to fast-track the deportation of a woman who has lived in the U.S. for nearly 30 years and to expel her without an immigration court hearing, her attorneys said.

Lawyers for Mirta Amarilis Co Tupul, 38, filed a lawsuit earlier this month to stop her imminent deportation to Guatemala. A U.S. district court judge in Arizona dismissed the case Wednesday after the federal government moved the woman to regular deportation proceedings and agreed in writing not to attempt expedited removal again, her lawyers said.

The judge had granted an emergency request to temporarily pause the deportation while the case played out in court.

The case highlighted broader concerns that the Trump administration is stretching immigration law to speed up deportations in its effort to remove as many immigrants as possible.

Federal law since 1996 holds that immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for fewer than two years can be placed in expedited removal proceedings which bypass the immigration court process. Longtime immigrants, however, cannot be removed until they’ve had a chance to plead their case before a judge.

In a sworn declaration, one of Co Tupul’s attorneys wrote that a deportation officer told her the agency had a “new policy” of placing immigrants in expedited removal proceedings after their first contact with immigration authorities.

“This appears to have been a test case in which the administration attempted to enforce a ‘new policy’ against Ms. Co Tupul,” Eric Lee, one of Co Tupul’s attorneys, said Thursday. “The district court quickly shut down this effort in no uncertain terms. Maybe this has slowed the government’s efforts to expand expedited removal, or maybe the government is waiting for another test case where the non-citizen lacks legal representation.”

Emails reviewed by The Times showed that Co Tupul’s lawyer provided extensive evidence of her longtime residence. Immigration officials told the lawyer that her client would remain in expedited removal proceedings anyway.

Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said that after Co Tupul’s lawyers provided documentation verifying she had lived in the U.S. for more than two years, “ICE followed the law and placed her in normal removal proceedings.”

“Any allegation that DHS is ‘testing out’ a new policy regarding illegal aliens who have been in the country for longer than two years into expedited removal is false,” McLaughlin added.

Co Tupul, a Phoenix resident, was pulled over as she drove to her job at a laundromat on July 22. She remains detained at Eloy Detention Center, about 65 miles southeast of Phoenix.

NEW YORK — As National Guard troops deploy across her city as part of President Trump’s efforts to clamp down on crime, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser is responding with relative restraint.

She’s called Trump’s takeover of the city’s police department and his decision to activate 800 members of the guard “unsettling and unprecedented” and gone as far as to cast his efforts as part of an “authoritarian push.”

But Bowser has so far avoided the kind of biting rhetoric and personal attacks typical of other high-profile Democratic leaders, despite the unprecedented incursion into her city.

“While this action today is unsettling and unprecedented, I can’t say that, given some of the rhetoric of the past, that we’re totally surprised,” Bowser told reporters at a news conference responding to the efforts. She even suggested the surge in resources might benefit the city and noted that limited home rule allows the federal government “to intrude on our autonomy in many ways.”

“My tenor will be appropriate for what I think is important for the District,” said Bowser, who is in her third term as mayor. “And what’s important for the District is that we can take care of our citizens.”

The approach underscores the reality of Washington’s precarious position under the thumb of the federal government. Trump has repeatedly threatened an outright takeover of the overwhelmingly Democratic city, which is granted autonomy through a limited home rule agreement passed in 1973 that could be repealed by Congress. Republicans, who control both chambers, have already frozen more than $1 billion in local spending, slashing the city’s budget.

That puts her in a very different position from figures such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom or Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, Democrats whose states depend on the federal government for disaster relief and other funding, but who have nonetheless relentlessly attacked the current administration as they lay the groundwork for potential 2028 presidential runs. Those efforts come amid deep frustrations from Democratic voters that their party has not been nearly aggressive enough in its efforts to counter Trump’s actions.

“Unfortunately she is in a very vulnerable position,” said Democratic strategist Nina Smith. “This is the sort of thing that can happen when you don’t have the powers that come with being a state. So that’s what we’re seeing right now, the mayor trying to navigate a very tough administration. Because this administration has shown no restraint when it comes to any kind of constitutional barriers or norms.”

A change from Trump’s first term

Bowser’s approach marks a departure from Trump’s first term, when she was far more antagonistic toward the president.

Then she routinely clashed with the administration, including having city workers paint giant yellow letters spelling out “Black Lives Matter” on a street near the White House during the George Floyd protests in 2020.

This time around, Bowser took a different tact from the start. She flew to Florida to meet with Trump at Mar-a-Lago after he won the election and has worked to avoid conflict and downplay points of contention, including tearing up the “Black Lives Matter” letters after he returned to Washington in response to pressure from Republicans in Congress.

The change reflects the new political dynamics at play, with Republicans in control of Congress and an emboldened Trump who has made clear he is willing to exert maximum power and push boundaries in unprecedented ways.

D.C. Councilmember Christina Henderson said she understands Bowser’s position, and largely agrees with her conclusion that a legal challenge to Trump’s moves would be a long shot. Trump invoked Section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act in his executive order, declaring a “crime emergency” so his administration could take over the city’s police force. The statute limits that control to 30 days unless he gets approval from Congress.

“The challenge would be on the question of ‘Is this actually an emergency?’” said Henderson, a former congressional staffer. “That’s really the only part you could challenge.”

Henderson believes the city would face dim prospects in a court fight, but thinks the D.C. government should challenge anyway, “just on the basis of precedent.”

Trump told reporters Wednesday that he believes he can extend the 30-day deadline by declaring a national emergency, but said “we expect to be before Congress very quickly.”

“We’re gonna be asking for extensions on that, long-term extensions, because you can’t have 30 days,” he said. “We’re gonna do this very quickly. But we’re gonna want extensions. I don’t want to call a national emergency. If I have to, I will.”

Limited legal options

Bowser’s response is a reflection of the reality of the situation, according to a person familiar with her thinking. As mayor of the District of Columbia, Bowser has a very different relationship with the president and federal government than other mayors or governors. The city is home to thousands of federal workers, and the mass layoffs under Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency have already had a major impact on the city’s economy.

Her strategy has been to focus on finding areas where she and the new administration can work together on shared priorities.

For now, Bowser appears set to stick with her approach, saying Wednesday that she is focused on “making sure the federal surge is useful to us.”

During a morning interview with Fox 5, she and the city’s police chief argued an influx of federal agents linked to Trump’s takeover would improve public safety, with more officers on patrol.

Police Chief Pamela Smith said the city’s police department is short almost 800 officers, so the extra police presence “is clearly going to impact us in a positive way.”

But Nina Smith, the Democratic strategist, said she believes Bowser needs a course correction.

“How many times is it going to take before she realizes this is not someone who has got the best interests of the city at heart?” she asked. “I think there may need to be time for her to get tough and push back.”

Despite Trump’s rhetoric, statistics published by Washington’s Metropolitan Police show violent crime has dropped in Washington since a post-pandemic peak in 2023. A recent Department of Justice report shows that violent crime is down 35% since 2023, reaching its lowest rate in 30 years.

Colvin writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Ashraf Khalil and Will Weissert in Washington contributed to this report.

President Trump’s decision to deploy hundreds of National Guard troops to Washington has California officials on high alert, with some worrying that he intends to activate federal forces in the Bay Area and Southern California, especially during the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

Trump said that his use of the National Guard to fight crime could expand to other cities, and suggested that local police have been unable to do the job.

Legal experts say it is highly unusual and troubling for forces to be deployed without a major crisis, such as civil unrest or a natural disaster. The Washington deployment is another example of Trump seeking to use the military for domestic endeavors, similar to his decision to send the National Guard to Los Angeles in June, amid an immigration crackdown that sparked protests, experts said.

Washington has long struggled with crime but has seen major reductions in recent years.

Officials in Oakland and Los Angeles — two cities the president mentioned by name — slammed Trump’s comments about crime in their cities. Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee said in a statement that the president’s characterization wasn’t rooted in fact, but “based in fear-mongering in an attempt to score cheap political points.” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass called it “performative” and a “stunt.”

Trump has said he would consider deploying the military to Los Angeles once again to protect the 2028 Olympic Games. This month, he signed an executive order that named him chair of a White House task force on the Los Angeles Games.

The White House has not said specifically what role Trump would play in security arrangements.

Los Angeles City Councilmember Imelda Padilla, who sits on the city panel overseeing the Games, acknowledged last week that the city is a “little nervous” about the federal government’s plans for securing the event.

Congress recently approved $1 billion for security and planning for the Games. A representative for the Department of Homeland Security declined to explain to The Times how the funds will be used.

Padilla said her concern was based on the unpredictable nature of the administration, as well as recent immigration raids that have used masked, heavily armed agents to round up people at Home Depot parking lots and car washes.

“Everything that we’re seeing with the raids was a real curveball to our city,” Padilla said during a Los Angeles Current Affairs Forum event. It dealt “a real curveball to [efforts] to focus on the things that folks care about, like homelessness, like transportation … economic development,” she said.

Bass, appearing on CNN this week, said that using the National Guard during the Olympics is “completely appropriate.” She said that the city expects a “federal response when we have over 200 countries here, meaning heads of state of over 200 countries. Of course you have the military involved. That is routine.”

But Bass made a distinction between L.A. Olympics security and the “political stunt” she said Trump pulled by bringing in the National Guard and the U.S. Marines after protests over the federal government’s immigration crackdown. That deployment faces ongoing legal challenges, with an appeals court ruling that Trump had the legal authority to send the National Guard.

“I believed then, and I believe now that Los Angeles was a test case, and I think D.C. is a test case as well,” Bass said. “To say, well, we can take over your city whenever we want, and I’m the commander in chief, and I can use the troops whenever we want.”

On Monday, Trump tied his action to what has been a familiar theme to him: perceived urban decay.

“You look at Chicago, how bad it is, you look at Los Angeles, how bad it is. We have other cities that are very bad. New York has a problem. And then you have, of course, Baltimore and Oakland. We don’t even mention that anymore —they’re so far gone,” he said. “We’re not going to let it happen. We’re not going to lose our cities over this.”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said officers and agents deployed across the District of Columbia have so far made 23 arrests for offenses including homicide, possession with intent to distribute narcotics, lewd acts, reckless driving, fare evasion and not having permits. Six illegal handguns were seized, she said.

Citing crime as a reason to deploy National Guard troops without the support of a state governor is highly unprecedented, experts said. The National Guard has been deployed to Southern California before, notably during the 1992 L.A. riots and the civil unrest after George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis in 2020.

“It would be awful because he would be clearly violating his legal authorities and he’d be sued again by the governor and undoubtedly, by the mayors of L.A. and Oakland,” said William Banks, a law professor at Syracuse University. “The citizens in those cities would be up in arms. They would be aghast that there are soldiers patrolling their streets.”

The District of Columbia does not have control over its National Guard, which gives the president wide latitude to deploy those troops. In California and other states, the head of the National Guard is the governor and there are legal limits on how federal troops can be used.

The Posse Comitatus Act, passed in 1878 after the end of Reconstruction, largely bars federal troops from being used in civilian law enforcement. The law reflects a tradition dating to the Revolutionary War era that sees military interference in American life as a threat to liberty and democracy.

“We have such a strong tradition that we don’t use the military for domestic law enforcement, and it’s a characteristic of authoritarian countries to see the military be used in that way,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley Law School and a constitutional law expert. “That’s never been so in the United States, and many are concerned about the way in which President Trump is acting the way authoritarian rulers do.”

Whether the troops deployed to Los Angeles in June amid the federal immigration raids were used for domestic law enforcement in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act is central in the trial underway this week in federal court in San Francisco.

If Trump were to send troops to California, Banks said, the only legal lever he could pull would be to declare an insurrection and invoke the Insurrection Act.

Unlike in D.C., Trump wouldn’t be able to federalize police departments in other parts of the country. There are circumstances where the federal government has put departments under consent decrees — a reform tool for agencies that have engaged in unlawful practices — but in those cases the government alleged specific civil rights violations, said Ed Obayashi, a Northern California sheriff’s deputy and legal counsel on policing.

“You are not going to be able to come in and take over because you say crime is rising in a particular place,” he said.

Oakland Councilman Ken Houston, a third-generation resident who was elected in 2024, said his city doesn’t need the federal government’s help with public safety.

Oakland has struggled with crime for years, but Houston cited progress. Violent crimes, including homicide, aggravated assault, rape and robbery are down 29% so far this year from the same period in 2024. Property crimes including burglary, motor vehicle theft and larceny also are trending down, according to city data.

“He’s going by old numbers and he’s making a point,” Houston said of Trump. “Oakland does not need the National Guard.”

Times staff writer Noah Goldberg contributed to this report.