president obama

On Tuesday, I voted for the first time. Not for a president, not in a midterm, but in the California special election to counter Texas Republicans’ gerrymandering efforts. What makes this dynamic particularly fascinating is that both parties are betting on the same demographic — Latino voters.

For years, pundits assumed Latinos were a lock for Democrats. President Obama’s 44-point lead with these voters in 2012 cemented the narrative: “Shifting demographics” (shorthand for more nonwhite voters) would doom Republicans.

But 2016, and especially the 2024 elections, shattered that idea. A year ago, Trump lost the Latino vote by just 3 points, down from 25 in 2020, according to Pew. Trump carried 14 of the 18 Texas counties within 20 miles of the border, a majority-Latino region. The shift was so significant that Texas Republicans, under Trump’s direction, are redrawing congressional districts to suppress Democratic representation, betting big that Republican gains made with Latinos can clinch the midterms in November 2026.

To counter Republican gerrymanders in Texas, Gov. Gavin Newsom and California Democrats pushed their own redistricting plans, hoping to send more Democrats to the House. They too are banking on Latino support — but that’s not a sure bet.

Imperial County offers a cautionary tale. This border district is 86% Latino, among the poorest in California, and has long been politically overlooked. It was considered reliably blue for decades; since 1994, it had backed every Democratic presidential candidate until 2024, when Trump narrowly won the district.

Determined to understand the recent shift, during summer break I traveled in Imperial County, interviewing local officials in El Centro, Calexico and other towns. Their insights revealed that the 2024 results weren’t just about immigration or ideology; they were about leadership, values and, above all, economics.

“It was crazy. It was a surprise,” Imperial County Registrar of Voters Linsey Dale told me. She pointed out that the assembly seat that represents much of Imperial County and part of Riverside County flipped to Republican.

Several interviewees cited voters’ frustration with President Biden’s age and Kamala Harris’ lack of visibility. In a climate of nostalgia politics, many Latino voters apparently longed for what they saw as the relative stability of the pre-pandemic Trump years.

Older Latinos, in particular, were attracted to the GOP’s rhetoric around family and tradition. But when asked about the top driver of votes, the deputy county executive officer, Rebecca Terrazas-Baxter, told me: “It wasn’t immigration. It was the economic hardship and inflation.”

Republicans winning over voters on issues such as cost of living, particularly coming out of pandemic-era recession, makes sense, but I am skeptical of the notion that Latino voters are fully realigning themselves into a slate of conservative positions.

Imperial voters consistently back progressive economic policies at the ballot box and hold a favorable view of local government programs that deliver tangible help such as homebuyer assistance, housing rehabilitation and expanded healthcare access. In the past, even when they have supported Democratic presidential candidates, they have voted for conservative ballot measures and Republican candidates down the ticket. Imperial voters backed Obama by a wide margin but also supported California’s Proposition 8, banning same-sex marriage. This mix of progressive economics and conservative values is why Republican political consultant Mike Madrid describes Latino partisanship as a “weak anchor.”

The same fluidity explains why many Latinos who rallied behind Sen. Bernie Sanders in 2020 later voted for Trump in 2024. Both men ran as populists, promising to challenge the establishment and deliver economic revival. For Latinos, it wasn’t about left or right; it was about surviving.

The lesson for both parties in California, Texas and everywhere is that no matter how lines are drawn, no district should be considered “safe” without serious engagement.

It should go without saying, Latino voters are not a monolith. They split tickets and vote pragmatically based on lived economic realities. Latinos are the youngest and fastest-growing demographic in the U.S., with a median age of 30. Twenty-five percent of Gen Z Americans are Latino, myself among them. We are the most consequential swing voters of the next generation.

As I assume many other young Latino voters do, I approached my first time at the ballot box with ambivalence. I’ve long awaited my turn to participate in the American democratic process, but I could never have expected that my first time would be to stop a plot to undermine it. And yet, I feel hope.

The 2024 election made it clear to both parties that Latinos are not to be taken for granted. Latino voters are American democracy’s wild card — young, dynamic and fiercely pragmatic. They embody what democracy should be: fluid, responsive and rooted in lived experience. They don’t swear loyalty to red or blue; they back whoever they think will deliver. The fastest-growing voting bloc in America is up for grabs.

Francesca Moreno is a high school senior at Marlborough School in Los Angeles, researching Latino voting behavior under the guidance of political strategist Mike Madrid.

Bilateral meetings between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his U.S. counterparts were a regular occurrence early in his 25-year tenure.

But as tensions mounted between Moscow and the West following the illegal annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and allegations of meddling with the 2016 U.S. elections, those meetings became increasingly less frequent, and their tone appeared less friendly.

Here’s what to know about past meetings between Russian and U.S. presidents:

Putin and Joe Biden

Putin and Biden met only once while holding the presidency –- in Geneva in June 2021.

Russia was massing troops on the border with Ukraine, where large swaths of land in the east had long been occupied by Moscow-backed forces; Washington repeatedly accused Russia of cyberattacks. The Kremlin was intensifying its domestic crackdown on dissent, jailing opposition leader Alexei Navalny months earlier and harshly suppressing protests demanding his release.

Putin and Biden talked for three hours, with no breakthroughs. They exchanged expressions of mutual respect, but firmly restated their starkly different views on various issues.

They spoke again via videoconference in December 2021 as tensions heightened over Ukraine. Biden threatened sanctions if Russia invaded, and Putin demanded guarantees that Kyiv wouldn’t join NATO –- something Washington and its allies said was a nonstarter.

Another phone call between the two came in February 2022, less than two weeks before the full-scale invasion. Then the high-level contacts stopped cold, with no publicly disclosed conversations between them since the invasion.

Putin and Donald Trump

Putin met President Trump six times during the American’s first term — at and on the sidelines of G20 and APEC gatherings — but most famously in Helsinki in July 2018. That’s where Trump stood next to Putin and appeared to accept his insistence that Moscow had not interfered with the 2016 U.S. presidential election and openly questioned the firm finding by his own intelligence agencies.

His remarks were a stark illustration of Trump’s willingness to upend decades of U.S. foreign policy and rattle Western allies in service of his political concerns.

“I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today,” Trump said. “He just said it’s not Russia. I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be.”

Since Trump returned to the White House this year, he and Putin have had about a half-dozen publicly disclosed telephone conversations.

Putin and Barack Obama

President Obama met with Putin nine times, and there were 12 more meetings with Dmitry Medvedev, who served as president in 2008-12. Putin became prime minister in a move that allowed him to reset Russia’s presidential term limits and run again in 2012.

Obama traveled to Russia twice — once to meet Medvedev in 2009 and again for a G20 summit 2013. Medvedev and Putin also traveled to the U.S.

Under Medvedev, Moscow and Washington talked of “resetting” Russia-U.S. relations post-Cold War and worked on arms control treaties. U.S. State Secretary Hillary Clinton famously presented a big “reset” button to Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at a meeting in 2009. One problem: instead of “reset” in Russian, they used another word meaning “overload.”

After Putin returned to office in 2012, tensions rose between the two countries. The Kremlin accused the West of interfering with Russian domestic affairs, saying it fomented anti-government protests that rocked Moscow just as Putin sought reelection. The authorities cracked down on dissent and civil society, drawing international condemnation.

Obama canceled his visit to Moscow in 2013 after Russia granted asylum to Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor and whistleblower.

In 2014, the Kremlin illegally annexed Crimea and threw its weight behind a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine. The U.S. and its allies responded with crippling sanctions. Relations plummeted to the lowest point since the Cold War.

The Kremlin’s 2015 military intervention in Syria to prop up Bashar Assad further complicated ties. Putin and Obama last met in China in September 2016, on the sidelines of a G20 summit, and held talks focused on Ukraine and Syria.

Putin and George W. Bush

Putin and President Bush met 28 times during Bush’s two terms, according to the Russian state news agency Tass. They hosted each other for talks and informal meetings in Russia and the U.S., met regularly on the sidelines of international summits and forums, and boasted of improving ties between onetime rivals.

After the first meeting with Putin in 2001, Bush said he “looked the man in the eye” and “found him very straightforward and trustworthy,” getting “a sense of his soul.”

In 2002, they signed the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty -– a nuclear arms pact that significantly reduced both countries’ strategic nuclear warhead arsenal.

Putin was the first world leader to call Bush after the 9/11 terrorist attack, offering his condolences and support, and welcomed the U.S. military deployment on the territory of Moscow’s Central Asian allies for action in Afghanistan.

He has called Bush “a decent person and a good friend,” adding that good relations with him helped find a way out of “the most acute and conflict situations.”

Putin and Bill Clinton

President Clinton traveled to Moscow in June 2000, less than a month after Putin was inaugurated as president for the first time in a tenure that has stretched to the present day.

The two had a one-on-one meeting, an informal dinner, a tour of the Kremlin from Putin, and attended a jazz concert. Their agenda included discussions on arms control, turbulence in Russia’s North Caucasus region, and the situation in the Balkans.

At a news conference the next day, Clinton said Russia under Putin “has the chance to build prosperity and strength, while safeguarding that freedom and the rule of law.”

The two also met in July of that same year at the G8 summit in Japan, in September — at the Millennium Summit at the U.N. headquarters in New York, and in November at the APEC summit in Brunei.

In an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson last year, Putin said he asked Clinton in 2000 if Russia could join NATO, and the U.S. president reportedly said it was “interesting,” and, “I think yes,” but later backtracked and said it “wasn’t possible at the moment.” Putin used the anecdote to illustrate his point about the West’s hostility toward Russia, “a big country with its own opinion.”

“We just realized that they are not waiting for us there, that’s all. OK, fine,” he said.

Litvinova writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Yuras Karmanau contributed to this report.

The two-dimensional version of President Obama wearing a red and green Santa hat in California Rep. Grace Napolitano’s office draws a crowd.

Random visitors, and occasionally members of Congress, filtered past the door wrapped like a present, to snap a selfie with the commander-in-cardboard.

Rep. Grace Napolitano (D-Norwalk) shows off Christmas decorations in her office. She said staff and visitors stop in to have their photo taken with the cutout of President Obama in a Santa hat.

(Sarah D. Wire)

Rep. Grace Napolitano shows off Christmas decorations in her office. (Sarah D. Wire/Los Angeles Times)

“They just decide they want to come in and stand next to him and get a picture taken,” Napolitano said, laughing.

At the White House Christmas party one year, the nine-term Democrat from Norwalk just had to let the president know how much action his doppelganger was getting in her office.

Napolitano said she showed Obama a photo of her staff posing with the cutout. The president pulled it out of her hands and showed it off to other attendees.

Her office on the sixth floor of the Longworth House Office Building is bustling around the holidays, a little cheer that helped as Congress bickered in the final days of the year on spending and world problems.

Decorations appear around the Capitol and House and Senate office buildings in December — Capitol police have a small tree, some office doors hold wreaths or feature entryway stockings — but Napolitano’s is one of the more elaborate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xc7PtrltNeY

“It makes it nice to walk into an office and see the cheerfulness,” Napolitano said.

Each door to her office suite is covered in shiny red or green colored wrapping paper and in the hallway, lit candy cane lawn ornaments lead visitors to the office. Lights shaped like chili peppers frame a mirror in the entryway and tinsel or garland line nearly every available surface. Chinese lanterns hang from the ceiling while Santa, reindeer and angel figurines peek out from shelves.

Napolitano began decorating the space when she took office in 1999, but it gained steam in 2011 when she received some of the 3,000 ornaments made by California children that had adorned the 63-foot-tall Capitol Christmas tree from Stanislaus National Forest.

Many of those ornaments still hang from the branches of an artificial pine reaching 6-feet high, not far from framed citations and awards for her public service. Napolitano said that next year, she plans to ask schools in her district to send new ornaments for the tree.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAimBoSGeIY

The wood-paneled office is traditionally more sedate, decorated with pictures from events in California or of her family and maps of the district. Brochures for tourist activities in Washington line a shelf.

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Staff have to wait all month to find out what’s inside the wrapped boxes at the foot of the tree next to the picture of a fireplace decorated with lights. Eventually she’ll buy a faux fireplace with fake crackling flames to replace the photo, said Napolitano, who pays for the decorations herself.

Feels like family

Staff members do the decorating the week of Thanksgiving, she said, as a way to make Washington seem more like home during the hectic final weeks Congress is in session.

“It’s part of the family feeling” in the office, Napolitano said.

She tries to maintain the sentiment year-round.

Staff cook in the office weekly, practicing Napolitano’s recipes for dishes like enchiladas or migas — a mixture of scrambled eggs, vegetables and strips of corn tortillas.

Male staffers sport holiday ties she buys them and joke about the amount of food they eat at work. A staff member opened a cabinet to show off the seven bags of avocados ripening in preparation for “thank you” guacamole that Napolitano will make for staff who worked on the federal highway funding bill.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ust3nhq32PE

In recent years, Napolitano’s office has hosted a “hall party” for other members and staff.

Her Longworth neighbor, Rep. Juan Vargas (D-San Diego), said he loves having the decorations next door. He tries to spread his own holiday joy.

“I walk in there now every time I go by … and I sing a little Christmas song with them and they all laugh, but I love it,” Vargas said. Then he belted out the lyrics for “Holly, Jolly Christmas.”

The decorations inspired him.

“They put us in the Christmas spirit, so much so that I went out and got a tree myself, carried it down the street and put it in my office,” he said. “If you go into my office you’ll see a real tree with the real smells. It’s terrific.”

What’s it like to have Christmas cheer the next office over?

“Honestly, I don’t know if she is going to like this, but it’s like having my mom down the hall,” Vargas said. “If I really need anything I can go to her. She’s as helpful as anybody I’ve ever met, she’s as kind and nice and sweet as anyone I’ve ever met, and she always wants to help, but I’ve gained a few pounds because of her.”

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With new legal muscle, the nonprofit Freedom of the Press Foundation is upping pressure on Paramount Global to abandon efforts to settle President Trump’s $20-billion lawsuit targeting CBS and “60 Minutes.”

Respected Washington litigator Abbe David Lowell this week joined the team representing the New York advocacy group, which has vowed to sue Paramount should it settle with Trump. The group owns Paramount shares.

Lowell, who has represented Hunter Biden, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, is working on the case with attorney Norm Eisen, a Trump critic who helped House Democrats with strategy during Trump’s first impeachment hearings in 2019.

Eisen is a former ambassador to the Czech Republic who served as White House ethics advisor under President Obama.

Late Thursday, the two attorneys sent a strongly worded letter to Paramount’s chairwoman and controlling shareholder Shari Redstone and other board members arguing that a Trump settlement would cause “catastrophic” harm to the embattled media company.

Hunter Biden (left) with his attorney Abbe Lowell (right) at a House committee hearing last year.

(Jose Luis Magana / Associated Press)

1st Amendment experts have labeled Trump’s lawsuit frivolous. But Paramount leaders are desperate to end the Trump drama and some believe a truce could clear a path for the Federal Communications Commission to approve the company’s $8-billion sale to David Ellison’s Skydance Media.

Paramount needs the FCC to authorize the transfer of the CBS station licenses to the Ellison family.

The prospect of a Trump settlement has carved deep divisions within Paramount, which includes CBS News and “60 Minutes.”

“Trading away the credibility of CBS’s news division to curry favor with the Trump Administration is an improper and reckless act that will irreparably damage the company’s brand and destroy shareholder value,” Lowell said in a statement late Thursday.

“The board is legally and morally obligated to protect the company, not auction off its integrity for regulatory approval,” Lowell said.

The FCC review of Skydance’s proposed takeover of Paramount has become a slog. Skydance and Paramount face an October deadline to finalize the sale or the deal could collapse.

Paramount, in a statement, said that it is treating the FCC review and the Trump lawsuit as separate matters. “We will abide by the legal process to defend our case,” a corporate spokesman said.

Paramount’s lawyers entered mediation with the president’s legal team in late April, but no resolution has been reached. Paramount offered $15 million to Trump to end his suit, according to the Wall Street Journal, but the president rejected the overture and asked for more.

On Thursday, Redstone disclosed that she has been diagnosed with thyroid cancer and is receiving treatment. Last month, doctors removed her thyroid but cancer cells had spread to her vocal chords.

In their seven-page letter, Lowell and Eisen told Paramount’s leaders that, should they approve a Trump settlement to gain traction at the FCC, they would be violating their fiduciary duty to shareholders and potentially breaking federal anti-bribery statutes.

“We believe [a settlement] could violate laws prohibiting bribery of public officials, thereby causing severe and last damage to Paramount and its shareholders,” Lowell and Eisen wrote.

“To be as clear as possible, you control what happens next,” they said.

The admonition follows a similar warning from three U.S. senators — Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) In a May 19 letter, the senators wrote that paying money to Trump to help win clearance for the Paramount sale could constitute a bribe.

“It is illegal to corruptly give anything of value to public officials to influence an official act,” the three senators wrote in their letter.

In addition, two California Democrats have proposed a state Senate hearing to examine problems with a possible Trump settlement.

The senators invited two former CBS News executives — who both left, in large part, because of the controversy — to testify before a yet-unscheduled joint committee hearing in Sacramento.

The California lawmakers, in their letter, said a Trump settlement could also violate California’s Unfair Competition Law because it could disrupt the playing field for news organizations.

Earlier this week, Paramount asked shareholders to increase the size of its board to seven members at the company’s annual investor meeting next month.

The Freedom of the Press Foundation was created in 2012 to protect and defend public interest journalism.

This spring, Lowell left his former major law firm, Winston & Strawn, where he had been a partner for years. He formed his own boutique firm, Lowell & Assoc., with a focus on “public interest representation in matters that defend the integrity of the legal system and protect individuals and institutions from government overreach,” according to its website.

Lowell’s firm also includes lawyer Brenna Frey, who made a high-profile exit from another prominent law firm, Skadden Arps, after it cut a deal with Trump to avoid becoming a target. That law firm agreed to provide $100 million in free legal services.

Last month, Frey appeared on CBS’ “60 Minutes” to air her decision to resign from Skadden Arps.

“I was able to tell my story on CBS’s ’60 Minutes’ because of the independence of a courageous news division, which is what’s at risk now,” Frey said in a statement.

In the aftermath of Democrats’ widespread electoral failures last year, party activists in California who gathered for their annual convention this weekend struggled with balancing how to stick to their values while also reconnecting with voters who were traditionally part of their base — notably working-class Americans.

California’s progressive policies and its Democratic leaders were routinely battered by Republicans during the 2024 election, with then-vice president and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris taking the brunt of it. Harris ultimately lost the election to Trump, partly because of shrinking support among traditional Democratic constituencies, including minorities and working-class voters.

“We got to be honest in what happened, because losing elections has consequences,” said Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Harris’ running mate, during a rousing speech Saturday afternoon. “We’re in this mess because some of it’s our own doing. … None of us can afford to shy away from having hard conversations about what it’s going to take to win elections.”

Walz, a potential 2028 presidential candidate, said Democrats don’t need to retreat from their ideals, such as protecting the most vulnerable in society, including transgender children. But they need to show voters that they are capable of bold policy that will improve voters’ lives rather than delivering incremental progress, he said.

“The Democratic Party, the party of the working class, lost a big chunk of the working class,” he said. “That last election was a primal scream on so many fronts: do something, do something, stand up and make a difference.”

California is home to the most Democrats in the nation as well as a large number of the party’s most deep-pocketed donors, making the state a popular spot for presidential hopefuls from across the country.

In addition to Walz, another potential 2028 White House candidate who addressed the 4,000 delegates and guests at the Anaheim Convention Center was New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker. Booker argued that Democrats must remember the courage of their ancestors who fought for civil and voting rights and created the social safety net for the most vulnerable Americans as they try to fight Trumpism.

“Real change does not come from Washington. It comes from communities. It comes from the streets,” he said in a Saturday morning speech. “The power of the people is greater than the people in power.”

Harris, who is weighing a 2026 gubernatorial run and is also viewed as a potential 2028 presidential candidate, addressed the convention by video. Gov. Gavin Newsom, also viewed as a possible White House contender, did not appear at the convention.

Delegate Jane Baulch-Enloe, a middle school teacher from Pleasant Hill in the Bay Area, said she wasn’t sure that California’s particular brand of liberalism will sell on the national stage.

“I don’t know if a California Democrat can win a presidential election,” she said as she and her daughter sorted through swag and campaign fliers in the convention cafe. “California is thought of as the crazy people. … I don’t mean that in a bad way — though I know some people do — but we do things differently here.”

She said she learned from President Obama’s memoir, “Audacity of Hope,” that most, if not all, Americans “want the same things,” but talk about them differently and have different approaches for getting there. California Democrats, Baulch-Enloe said, “need to get people on our side and help them understand that we aren’t just wacko liberals, and teach people that it’s okay to want things” like healthcare for all and high union wages.

But the 2028 presidential race was not the focus of this year’s California Democratic Party convention. Delegates were more concerned about last year’s presidential and congressional losses — though California was a rare bright spot for the party, flipping three districts held by the GOP — and preparing for next year’s midterm elections. Delegates hope Democrats will take control of Congress to stop Trump from enacting his agenda.

Aref Aziz, a leader of the party’s Asian American Pacific Islander caucus, said the party needed to sharpen its messaging on economic issues if they want to have a chance of victory in coming elections.

“When it comes to the affordability issue, when it comes to economics, those are the things that across the broad spectrum of our coalition, all those things matter to everybody,” Aziz said. “And what really is, what really is important is for us to focus on that economic message and how we’re going to improve the quality of life for everyone in these midterm elections and future presidential elections.”

He noted he was in France on his honeymoon recently, and was strolling through a grocery store and buying half a dozen eggs for 1.50 euros (the equivalent of $1.70) when the news broke that California’s economy had grown to the fourth largest in the world.

“When you look at a lot of our economies, California and New York, by all accounts, GDP, the numbers that you look at, they’re doing great,” he said. “But when it comes to the cost that consumers are paying in these places, they’re so high and so far above other countries that we end up diminishing whatever value there is in our GDP, because everything’s so expensive.”

Some Democrats questioned the impact of the weaponization of California’s liberal policies, including defending transgender rights, on voters in battleground states in 2024.

But delegates and party leaders largely argued that the state needs to continue to be on the vanguard of such matters.

“People like to point a finger somewhere, and I think California is an easy target, but I disagree,” said delegate Melissa Taylor, president of our local Foothill Community Democrats. “Because I think that California is standing up for values that the Democratic Party believes in, like we believe in labor, we believe in healthcare, we believe in women’s rights, we believe in rights for LGBTQ people.”

Jodi Hicks, the president of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, said issues such as reproductive healthcare access also have an economic impact.

“We have to walk and chew gum at the same time,” she said, adding that the party’s 2024 losses were likely prompted by multiple factors, including Harris’ being the Democratic nominee for a little over three months after then-President Biden decided not to seek reelection.

“We’re going to be analyzing 2024 for a very long time,” Hicks said. “It was such unique circumstances.”

Times staff writer Laura J. Nelson contributed to this report.