Trumps

On the same week that a court filing showed that construction on President Trump’s hotly contested triumphal arch could begin as soon as Nov. 5, another less reported development pointed to the possibility that the government might be misrepresenting its plans for Trump’s National Garden of American Heroes in West Potomac Park.

On Monday, the National Park Service held a meeting about a proposed redesign to the park, which is part of the National Mall and also where Trump wants to put his Garden of Heroes featuring more than 250 statues ranging from Humphrey Bogart to Kobe Bryant to Benjamin Franklin. Trump first proposed the idea in 2020, but it wasn’t until his second term — when he began a crusade to remake much of Washington, D.C.’s historic core according to his own predilections — that the plan looked as if it might manifest. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act even appropriated $40 million for the project.

The Garden of Heroes has remained largely in the background while preservationists focused on the demolition of the White House East Wing and the construction of a massive ballroom in its place, as well as the botched painting of the Reflecting Pool, and, of course, the gigantic triumphal arch.

But Monday’s NPS meeting about plans for West Potomac Park rang alarm bells for some when Judy Chesser, chair of the nonprofit conservation and preservation group the Committee of 100 on the Federal City, asked, “How does this relate to the Garden of Heroes that is being discussed in West Potomac?” to which the NPS spokesperson replied, “This is just an update to the tidal basin master plan we started before. This is not the Garden of Heroes.”

However, the Washington, D.C.-based education and advocacy organization Cultural Landscape Foundation noted that the rendering in NPS’ presentation and the illustrated “Pledge Agreement” from the National Garden of American Heroes Foundation contain similarities that “go way beyond coincidental.”

“Each includes a great lawn, a giant oval/circle, an amphitheater, a fountain, and a staircase to the Potomac River,” Charles A. Birnbaum, founding president and chief executive of the foundation, wrote in an email.

“In addition, the new design shown Monday amputates part of the FDR Memorial to accommodate the Oval. This is intentional. Clearly the Oval is meant to host something else or it would be re-scaled so as not to interfere with the FDR Memorial,” the email continued.

If this is the case, the strategy of downplaying or downright denying an intention to work on a Trump-backed project is eerily reminiscent of the strategy government lawyers used in a recent, highly publicized court battle over the removal of dozens of trees from a golf course that Trump is trying to transform into a premiere golfing destination.

In that instance lawyers repeatedly said there were no plans to renovate the golf course (thus preventing U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes from issuing an injunction against said renovations), only to chop down hundreds of trees on the course with no notice over a holiday weekend. Reyes was irate and sources familiar with the feud say that the judge expects the case to go all the way to the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, as of 2 p.m. PDT, Thursday, opponents of Trump’s arch have filed a motion for an injunction on the possible Nov. 5 construction, arguing that Congress needs to approve any plan moving forward. This head-snapping whirlwind of motions and counter motions is expected by critics to continue to be the norm as Trump tries to push through as many of his D.C.-based renovations as possible before a new Congress is seated in January.

“What better way to celebrate the nation’s 250th anniversary than to shut down the legally required review process, ignore some 100,000 negative public comments, and fast track the construction of a bloated and deeply unpopular monument that the president claims is for him,” wrote the Landscape Foundation’s Birnbaum in a statement about the arch.

I’m Arts editor Jessica Gelt pitching preservationists for my personal garden of heroes. This is your arts and culture news for the week.

The week ahead: A curated calendar

FRIDAY

American Sound Takes Flight
MUSE/IQUE explores the nation’s music from Aaron Copland to Paul Simon in a concert setting infused with storytelling and cultural context. Featuring Brandon Victor Dixon, Liv Redpath and the MUSE/IQUE Orchestra, led by Artistic and Music Director Rachael Worby.
7:30 p.m. Friday, 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday. The Wallis, 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills. thewallis.org

Bach to Broadway
The 31st annual concert, featuring Pueri Cantores SGV, the St. Andrew School Choir, Los Angeles Children’s Chorus and members of the L.A. Opera and L.A. Master Chorale benefits the restoration of historic St. Andrew Church.
7:30 p.m. St. Andrew Church, 311 N. Raymond Ave., Pasadena. saintandrewpasadena.org

Ballet Festival: Jerome Robbins at the Ahmanson Theatre

(Steven Pisano / The Joyce Theater Foundation)

Ballet Festival: Jerome Robbins
Three programs of the choreographer’s masterworks, curated by New York City Ballet principal dancer Tiler Peck, with dancers from New York City Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet and other major companies performing to live chamber music
7:30 p.m. Friday, 7:30 p.m. Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday. Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. musiccenter.org

Andrew Bird
The acclaimed multi-instrumentalist and songwriter joins with the Los Angeles Philharmonic to mark the 20th anniversary of his album, “The Mysterious Production of Eggs,” with orchestral arrangements, plus popular songs from his catalog.
8 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com

Aymeric Hainaux and François Chaignaud
The musician and choreographer team up for “Mirlitons,” a marathon vocal and dance duet.
8 p.m. Friday and Saturday. The Nimoy, 1262 Westwood Blvd. cap.ucla.edu

Museum on Haunted Hill: A Celebration of Vincent Price
The institution pays homage to its original patron, the noted actor, art collector, advocate and historian, with an evening of after-hours access to exhibitions, casual screenings of classic Price films, drinks and snacks, music, a photo booth and haunted decor.
5-8 p.m. Vincent Price Art Museum, East Los Angeles College, 1301 Avenida Cesar Chavez, Monterey Park. vpam.org

PLAY: A Play
EmIly Mast’s unscripted conceptual performance features six players, guided by a coach, working against a clock and an evolving set of rules to examine “the invisible systems that govern power, behavior and care.” With Hugo Armstrong, Gregory Barnett, Chu-Hsuan Chang, Jessica Emmanuel, Jessica Hemingway, Aramazd Stepanian and Maxwell Transue.
7:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 4:30 p.m. Sunday. The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, 152 N. Central Ave., Little Tokyo. moca.org

Sinners: Sounds That Summon
This exhibition examines the standout Club Juke scene in Ryan Coogler’s Oscar-winning 2025 film focusing on the guitar played by the character Sammie Moore (Miles Caton), costumes, objects and archival material.
Through March 14, 2027. California African American Museum, 600 State Drive, Exposition Park. caamuseum.org

SATURDAY

Grand Ave Arts: All Access
Tenth annual celebration of L.A. downtown cultural corridor with free exhibitions, tours, performances, family-friendly activities and more from participating organizations including the Broad, Center Theatre Group, Colburn School, Classical California, Dataland, Gloria Molina Grand Park, Grand Performances, L.A. Opera, L.A. Phil, Los Angeles Central Library, Metro Art, MOCA, the Music Center and REDCAT.
11 a.m.-4 p.m. Grand Ave., between Temple and 6th Streets, downtown L.A. grandavearts.org

Kabuki in Motion: The Lion Returns
U.S. Kabuki Ken Kyu Kai presents this program of kabuki dance, Nihon buyō (Japanese classical dance), and live koto and shamisen music featuring artists from Japan and California.
4:30 p.m. The Huntington, Rothenberg Hall, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino. huntington.org

Picasso Ceramics From the Rosenbaum Collection
The exhibition presents 63 original prints and limited-edition ceramics, including vessels, plates, pitchers and sculptural forms created by the artist after 1947.
Through Feb. 28, 2027. Bowers Museum, 2002 N. Main St., Santa Ana. bowers.org

SUNDAY

Lucile Dollat
The French organist performs music from the 16th century to the present.
7:30 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com

TUESDAY

Jason Moran Presents Duke Ellington: My Heart Sings
The pianist and composer performs with members of the Pacific Symphony to engage with Ellington’s work through a contemporary frame.
8 p.m. Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. scfta.org

The Music Man
Meredith Willson’s Tony Award-winning musical comedy brings smooth-talking con man Harold Hill to River City, where his schemes are curtailed when he falls for Marian, the local librarian.
Through Nov. 8. Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. centertheatregroup.org

Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal with Rafael Payare
The Canadian ensemble and its charismatic Venezuelan conductor (who also leads the San Diego Symphony) perform Dmitri Shostakovich’s “Symphony No. 10 in E minor, Op. 93,” plus Felix Mendelssohn’s “Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64” with Leonidas Kavakos.
8 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com

The 39 Steps
Patrick Barlow’s adaptation of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 spy thriller (itself an adaptation of a novel by John Buchan) about an ordinary man entangled in international intrigue. Directed by Hunter Foster.
Through Nov. 22. Laguna Playhouse, 606 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach. lagunaplayhouse.com

The Who’s Tommy
The band’s 1969 rock opera featuring “I’m Free,” “See Me, Feel Me,” “Sensation” and, of course, “Pinball Wizard,” is transformed into a Broadway musical by composer Pete Townshend and original director Des McAnuff.
Through Nov. 15. Hollywood Pantages Theatre, 6233 Hollywood Blvd. broadwayinhollywood.com

WEDNESDAY

Nedra Ryan Taylor and Sarah Scott Davis in the play “Confederates.”

(Davis Northern)

Confederates
Institutional racism, as experienced in two different eras by Black women, is the subject of Dominique Morisseau’s 2022 dramatic comedy. Best known for her three-play cycle “The Detroit Project” as well as the book for the musical about the Temptations “Ain’t Too Proud,” Morisseau juxtaposes the plight of an enslaved rebel and Union spy during the Civil War with that of a contemporary political science professor facing a threatening work environment. Fountain Artistic Director Raymond O. Caldwell directs this sharp-eyed satire examining an unbroken thread of racial and gender bias in American history. (Charles McNulty)
Previews, 8 p.m. Wednesday-Thursday, play runs through Dec. 13. Fountain Theatre, 5060 Fountain Ave. fountaintheatre.com

THURSDAY

Seasons of America With Teddy Abrams & Ray Chen
The world premiere of Abrams’ L.A. Phil commission, written especially for violinist Chen, along with Julia Perry’s “A Short Piece for Orchestra.” Charles Ives’ “Three Places in New England, S. 7” and George Gershwin’s “An American in Paris.”
8 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com

Sasha Velour: Travesty
The Season 9 winner of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” performs a new solo work that spans queer history through lip-sync performances embodying various personas including a witch burned in a field, a clown who builds a theater and patrons of an underground gay bar.
7:30 p.m. Thursday-Oct. 30. The Wallis, 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills. thewallis.org

The SoCal scene

Katie Folger gets ready at her home before her performance of “Getting in Bed With the Pizza Man” at the Elysian Theater.

(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)

ICYMI, the best of this week’s L.A. Times arts coverage:

Katie Folger moved to L.A. hoping to make it for the third time in nine years. She created a one-woman show and sold it out. Will the TV pilot sell next?

Former Times arts columnist Carolina A. Miranda wrote a fantastic profile of Todd Gray as he opens a new solo show at the Brick.

The Broad announced that it’s shipping 164 works to Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris for its most extensive exhibition ever mounted outside Los Angeles, timed to coincide with the most extensive phase of construction on its expansion.

Reggie Burrows Hodges, “Blackness in the Looking Glass and the Images of Currency: Carriage,” 2022.

(Reggie Burrows Hodges / Karma)

Artist Reggie Burrows Hodges has three concurrent shows in L.A. at the Getty, Art + Practice and California African American Museum. He prefers a low profile, but contributor Tara Anne Dalbow penned this lovely profile.

Latino Theater Company’s production of “Yamel Cucuy” is the story of a 13-year-old girl, ICE and Mexican folkloric monsters.

Times theater critic Charles McNulty headed to New York to review Billy Crystal’s “tremendously moving new Broadway show” “860.”

Culture News

Ahmanson Theatre.

(Ryan Miller / Capture Imaging)

Center Theatre Group and the YMCA of Los Angeles this week announced a new partnership called “Every Age. Every Stage,” with the aim of making live theater more accessible to a larger swath of city residents. The program includes free ticket offers for Y members as well as theater workshops and career mentorship.

A marble torso sculpted during the early Roman Empire set a new world record for ancient classical sculpture at auction earlier this week when it sold at Sotheby’s New York for $34.3 million. That was almost three times more than its pre-sale estimate of between $8 million and $12 million.

— Jessica Gelt

And last but not least

California has an adults-only train car featuring stiff drinks and great views of the redwoods.

In late August, United States President Donald Trump announced a 90-day pause on certain beef tariffs, making beef cheaper to import, particularly from Brazil.

That decision was framed as a way to bring down prices for consumers, but it landed as a betrayal for many US ranchers, who were getting ready to take their cattle to market.

It is too soon to tell how the decision will ultimately affect grocery prices, but the impact on ranchers was immediate: prices at cattle auctions plummeted, temporarily lowering ranchers’ profits. The United States Cattlemen’s Association, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and the Farm Bureau, all member organisations that represent ranchers, opposed the decision.

Rural Republican members of Congress also distanced themselves, but it is not yet clear how ranchers will vote in the midterms — or whether those votes will decide races.

Chad Basinger, a rancher in Pretty Prairie, Kansas, is sceptical that the imports will have a significant impact.

“I know there’s people that have said, ‘Well I’m just gonna vote for the other party’ or ‘I’m not gonna vote’ or ‘This administration’s really let me down’. So yes, there will be people that swing the other way in the midterms. But overall I don’t think it’ll be that much,” Basinger said.

Ranchers will also be weighing the administration’s other actions, Basinger said, such as the $8bn in farm relief announced in Kansas on October 19.

Basinger’s House of Representatives district in Kansas is expected to remain safely Republican in the midterms. But Kansas faces an unexpectedly tight Senate race and ranchers in House districts elsewhere may find themselves closer to the political fray: potential swing districts in Montana, Iowa, Texas and Colorado are all in cattle country.

Still, it is unlikely that ranchers alone will decide elections: ranchers — along with farmers more broadly — represent a shrinking percentage of rural voters and a smaller voting bloc in practice than in the public imagination.

America’s cattle herd is near its smallest size since 1951 and the number of ranchers has declined alongside the number of livestock. Observers worry that ongoing uncertainty fuelled by tariffs, fuel prices and drought may cause the ranching population to shrink further.

David Anderson, an agricultural economist at Texas A&M University who advises ranchers, said that high prices this year should have given ranchers the confidence to invest in the future and expand their herds. Making imports cheaper, however, may have helped nudge ranchers in the opposite direction.

“It really works against the market signal to expand and produce more domestically,” Anderson said. “That got a lot of people pretty angry.”

Tariff changes add volatility

This is not the first time that Trump’s tariffs have impacted cattle supplies. Last year, the president added a 50 percent tariff on Brazil, a key trade partner for beef, raising the cost of importing Brazilian lean beef, which is often mixed with fatty US beef to make hamburger patties, a staple in most homes.

In February, Trump allowed more tariff-free beef imports from Argentina. In August, he did the same for Brazil and Paraguay.

Both tariff changes led to swift price swings in cattle futures markets, which are often volatile in response to the news cycle.

Cattle prices also moved this year in response to more fundamental drivers of supply and demand: plant closures by meatpackers, labour shortages late last month related to ICE actions at Kansas packing plants, the second-largest in the country, and the reopening of the southern border after a closure due to New World screwworm disease.

Big picture, the shrinking US cattle herd has less to do with short-term price changes and more to do with drought cycles, which are growing more intense as warming temperatures increase evaporation.

Still, tariff changes add uncertainty. “This has been a hot topic for the last six weeks,” said Anderson. “It just adds a little more uncertainty or volatility — or worries or stress.”

This year, extra price volatility as many ranchers prepared to sell meant ranchers faced lower profits and more risk.

Basinger says that for many established ranchers, the tariff announcement was frustrating, but not existential.

“People are upset. They have a right to be upset. But they’re not going to change their strategy,” he said. For most ranchers, Basinger said, the imports would not be the biggest factor shaping decisions about their herds this year.

Where price volatility may matter more, Basinger said, is for the next generation. Most of today’s ranchers are eyeing retirement. Their heirs must decide whether to make a go of ranching or sell their family’s land. Other aspiring ranchers are also watching the industry.

“If you’re seeing your dad not make money, or somebody else not make money…it’s not easy work!” Basinger said. “It has to be very enticing for somebody to want to jump in and be like, ‘I’m gonna be a rancher and go break ice in the middle of winter when it’s cold and I could be inside’.”

Record revenue and record costs

This year, low US cattle supplies meant that ranchers commanded record-high cattle prices, despite added imports and other market shifts.

But high revenue doesn’t always mean huge profits: Many ranchers operate at a loss for years in a row. Then, they rely on a few good years to pay down debts or expand their herds.

This year, profits were lower than hoped, because ranchers also faced high costs.

Interest rates on loans are high and the war with Iran meant ranchers paid extra for fuel and fertiliser. A drought across much of America’s ranchland meant they paid more for feed.

In states such as Kansas and Nebraska, ranchers also faced destructive wildfires and aid groups like Farm Rescue coordinated hay donations.

Still, Basinger said, ranchers who raise cows and calves generally did well this year. In Kansas, he is seeing ranchers use profits to make repairs and upgrades. He said this year’s high cattle prices have been helping. “But it needs to help for a little longer to give them more of an edge,” he said.

More of an edge might mean, for example, enough money for bigger purchases, like buying land from a neighbouring ranch to make room for a growing herd.

Rangeland, however, is increasingly expensive. When it is up for sale, outside investors can often pay more than ranchers, which can mean less land for cattle. That’s just one more pressure shrinking the US herd decade after decade.

Ranchers had hoped that 2026 would be a turnaround year. So far, however, “we really don’t have much evidence of herd expansion,” Anderson said.

WASHINGTON — In September, just weeks before Americans were set to vote in this year’s midterm elections, a sudden panic over the dangers posed by artificial intelligence caught the White House off guard. A whistleblower had gained viral attention warning the technology could soon pose an existential threat.

President Trump was quick to dismiss concerns, evoking urgency in the U.S. race to achieve global dominance in superintelligence. He rejected calls to negotiate guardrails on the most advanced AI models with China’s leader, Xi Jinping, weeks later, during a prime opportunity to do so in Washington.

Privately, the president expressed concern that public hysteria over AI could jolt markets that have become excessively concentrated in AI-related stocks. He had already seen fresh polling that showed widespread bipartisan opposition to the boom in construction of AI data centers, a push by Trump that has cannibalized chips and energy from other sectors of the economy, driving up costs.

Now, on the campaign trail in the final days before the vote, Trump is vowing to expand a “golden age” of prosperity through the end of his presidency. But experts say his policies on AI have set the U.S. economy up for a period of tremendous risk over the next two years.

Some of the world’s leading financiers are sounding increasingly alarmed about an AI bubble. Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates, has warned that AI stocks have become detached from financial fundamentals, pushing markets to precarious highs. Ken Griffin, the world’s richest hedge fund owner, said last week that AI is “almost certainly” fueling a market bubble that could be on the verge of a burst.

Economists warn that Trump has overseen fiscal policy that would give the federal government fewer tools than it has had in the past to respond to a crisis.

“Trump could easily run into a financial crisis before his term is up,” said Kenneth Rogoff, an economist at Harvard. “It is entirely plausible to have a 30% — or more — drop in the stock market, and in the context of an economy so dependent on AI, this in turn could easily lead to a recession and widespread financial distress.”

Spending on data center infrastructure last winter and spring accounted for nearly all U.S. economic growth, according to independent analyses. Without it, growth would have slowed to a mere fraction of a percentage point, leaving the economy nearly stagnant and flirting with recession.

The Nasdaq 100 has about 70% of its index weight in companies that depend on AI, from semiconductor manufacturers and Big Tech giants to cloud platforms and software providers. Anthropic, one of the top AI industry leaders, plans an initial public offering next month, while its chief rival, OpenAI, expects to go public next year.

From left, Chris Painter, president of the Model Evaluation and Threat Research, Marius Hobbhahn, CEO of Apollo Research, Paul Ohm, professor of law at the Georgetown University Law Center, Kurt Gaudette, senior vice president of Dragos, and Daniel Kokotajlo, executive director of the AI Futures Project, are sworn in to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Disaster Management, District of Columbia, and Census hearing titled “Rogue AI: Securing the Homeland Against AI Agent Attacks,” in Dirksen Senate Office Building on Wednesday, September 30, 2026.

(Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

“Because government finances are already strained, with the national debt on a patently unsustainable trajectory, there is no guarantee of a sharp drop in long-term borrowing rates for the government,” Rogoff continued. “So the options for bailing out the financial sector, or fighting recession, could be much more constrained than during the global financial crisis.”

While doubling down on the promise of an untested, frontier technology, Trump’s other economic policies may be hobbling its growth. Tariffs have raised the costs of imported chips, servers, networking equipment, metals and electrical components, and visa restrictions have tied the hands of industry leaders trying to secure the world’s best talent. Runaway federal deficits have driven long-term bond interest rates, adding pressure on AI firms already strapped with debt.

Servaas Storm, an economist closely following the AI sector at the Delft University of Technology, said the industry is already facing severe financial headwinds that could precipitate a panic.

Prices for energy, chips and minerals are driving up the cost of doing business, while early AI adopters such as Microsoft, Meta and Walmart are scaling back its use as employees spend too much time correcting errors, cleaning up low-quality output and addressing security lapses.

Slower adoption could further complicate the search for revenue, particularly for companies already struggling to monetize the technology. For now, hyperscalers are shouldering the cost of financing frontier AI labs that, as Storm put it, “do not have a credible path to profitability.”

“There is indeed an AI bubble in the stock market and in data center construction, which could pop rather soon, as rising debt loads and elevated interest rates could prove too much to sustain it,” Storm said. “That moment is not imminent, but it is approaching — and it will very likely happen before the end of Trump’s presidency.”

An economy already under duress from Trump’s other economic policies — from tariffs and tax cuts to the Iran war — could precipitate further pain, said Darrell Duffie, a finance professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Leading AI companies are already running “day-after” drills in anticipation of an AI-related crisis within the next year, according to Axios.

Americans head into election day deeply pessimistic about the economy, with 77% rating it fair or poor, according to a Fox News poll. A separate CNBC survey found that just 34% approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, while 35% of Republicans disapprove — a record high within his own party.

Inflation has fallen sharply from its 9% peak in 2022, during a pandemic-era surge, reaching 2.9% by the end of Biden’s presidency. Under Trump, it has climbed once again to 3.7%, driven by rising energy, transportation and housing costs — among the top concerns for voters entering next month’s vote.

Persistent inflation has forced the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates elevated, squeezing borrowers. And those rates — paired with high government spending and concerns over mounting deficits — have pressured the bond market, pushing 10-year Treasury yields to levels not seen since the early 2000s.

“Financial crises, by their nature, are virtually impossible to predict,” Duffie said, asked whether he shared concerns of a potential AI bubble.

“If we know we are going to be in a crisis soon,” he added, “markets advance the crisis to now.”

Since the January 3, 2026, military strikes and kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro, the Trump administration has imposed semi-colonial rule over Venezuela, forcing dramatic shifts in the country’s domestic and foreign policies.

The capstone of the new tutelary regime is an oil deal announced in late August that Trump called “the biggest in history.” The agreement turns over 17 prime oilfields, holding over 20% of the country’s reserves, to a Pentagon-controlled corporation tasked with supplying cheap fuel to the US war machine for decades to come.

After spending years manufacturing consent for US-sponsored regime change in Venezuela (e.g., FAIR.org, 6/4/21, 1/11/23, 2/12/25), having a government in Caracas subservient to Washington represented a new scenario for the corporate media. The novel conditions have raised few significant qualms for Western outlets. Tactical objections notwithstanding, there is no fundamental disagreement with the US running the affairs of a Global South country.

Not ‘stealing Venezuela’s oil’

Working hand in glove with the Trump administration, the acting Delcy Rodríguez government has overhauled Venezuela’s hydrocarbon legislation (Venezuelanalysis, 7/13/26) to offer what oil experts consider a business environment more favorable to foreign capital than at any point in the country’s history. The new oil agreement with the White House manages to go even further.

The 17 oilfields in question will be taken over by North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP), a private company in which the Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Capital (OSC) will get a 35% stake while investing nothing—and wielding veto power over its board.

Furthermore, according to the White House, the US State Department will secure 20% of NABEP’s output at cost, and have a right of first refusal over the remaining 80%. On top of this, Venezuelan officials have already suggested Washington would be given an additional “sales discount”  (Venezuelanalysis, 9/9/26).

In summary, Trump is looking to secure cheap crude supplies at a time when his disastrous Iran debacle has thrown global energy markets into upheaval. The agreement is so blatantly skewed that US Energy Secretary Chris Wright felt he needed to clarify that Washington was not “stealing Venezuela’s oil” (AFP, 9/3/26).

Nevertheless, Western media outlets were largely unfazed by such an obvious oil grab, euphemistically referring to the deal as “highly unusual” (New York Times, 8/29/26) or “remarkable” (BBC, 9/1/26), at most as “contentious” (Guardian, 9/1/26).

Corporate journalists did raise objections over the central role played by NABEP owner Alejandro Betancourt, a shady Venezuelan businessman who faced multiple money-laundering probes before the Trump administration intervened, and pressured judicial authorities at home and abroad to drop the investigations (BBC, 9/2/26; CNN, 9/4/26; New York Times, 9/4/26).

But media seemed satisfied with Trump’s state and energy secretaries Marco Rubio and Chris Wright pledging that US oversight will keep proceedings honest (Reuters, 9/2/26; New York Times, 9/4/26), despite the fact that billions in Venezuelan oil revenues, controlled by the US Treasury Department since January, are unaccounted for (Council on Foreign Relations, 6/3/26; Financial Times, 7/22/26).

Procedurally transparent plunder

Objections to the Venezuela/NABEP/Pentagon venture were mostly procedural and out of concern for appearances, not driven by any principled opposition to US imperialist predation. Faced with outright colonial plunder of Venezuela, the political and media establishment only demands “accountability” and “transparency” (New York Times, 5/5/26; Financial Times, 9/18/26).

For months, the White House has controlled Venezuelan oil export revenues, with Trump officials openly calling them “one of the largest assets ever to go on the US balance sheet,” and a source of “leverage” over Caracas. Yet Trump’s Democratic opponents have found no issue with seizing another country’s income, raising only questions about the allocation of the funds in reference to alleged corruption on the part of Caracas and Trump insiders (The Hill, 9/30/26; Washington Post, 9/17/26). This despite the fact that the Venezuelan government has to submit a “monthly budget” to access its own funds (New York Times, 1/28/26) and is subjected to US-imposed auditors (Reuters, 4/27/26).

The other source of disappointment with Trump stomping all over Venezuelan sovereignty, but prioritizing oil over regime change, is impatience for the restoration/recovery/return of “democracy” to Venezuela (Politico, 9/2/26; Guardian, 8/30/26; CBC, 9/3/26). Despite  widely acknowledgement that Trump is eroding democracy at home (New York Times, 8/20/26, 10/14/26; Guardian, 10/8/26), somehow pundits expected him to prioritize it in an oil-rich foreign country.

In the establishment’s consensus, “democracy” does not mean a political system that meaningfully reflects the Venezuelan people’s collective will, but simply one that empowers opposition figures that have been groomed for years, like far-right María Corina Machado, their undemocratic credentials notwithstanding (FAIR.org, 10/23/25).

Eager to stay in power, Rodríguez has over-complied with every US demand, going as far as adopting language about Venezuela undergoing a “democratic transformation.” Her pliancy has earned her favorable corporate media profiles that completely contrast with the demonization of Maduro.

After securing an exclusive interview, Time (7/30/26) described the acting leader as a “disciplined operator” who “advocate[s] for greater economic openness,” in contrast to the “authoritarian” Maduro, who oversaw “economic collapse.” Along the same lines, the Guardian (9/12/26) presented Rodríguez as a “a pragmatic, witty and intelligent workaholic,” unlike her “authoritarian” and “incompetent” predecessor in the presidential palace.

Nevertheless, given the broad Beltway consensus for comprehensive regime change, it is unlikely that the Rodríguez administration’s subservience to Trump will secure any leeway in determining its political path forward, free from outside meddling—especially if, as is anticipated, the GOP lawmakers most likely to be impressed by such obsequiousness lose power in the US’s upcoming midterm elections (Axios, 9/23/26; Financial Times, 10/9/26).

Please think of the corporations!

Alongside their exceptionalist expectations about “democracy,” legacy outlets also focus on those they consider the true victims of Trump’s neocolonial offensive in Venezuela: multinational oil corporations.

According to Reuters (9/1/26), the recent oil deal “raises red flags for major producers,” who fear having their reputation sullied by being “seated at the same table with Betancourt,” as well as the prospect of the US government becoming a “competitor.”

Bloomberg (8/30/26) raised concerns that the agreement “reprises [the] neocolonial past” of Venezuela’s oil industry. The warning stems not from apprehension that the Venezuelan people’s future is being determined by a foreign nation, but from fear that the US’s “out-sized power” might lead to “popular unrest.” This could create conditions for what the business mouthpiece views as a catastrophic outcome: the nationalization of foreign-owned oil assets.

“The troubled history of Venezuela’s oil offers a cautionary tale,” Bloomberg’s Kevin Crowley and Patricia Garip wrote:

The country was once dominated by US and European operators and was among the world’s largest producers. But assets owned by ExxonMobil Holdings Corps. and ConocoPhillips were seized and nationalized during political upheaval in the 2000s.

Corporate media present companies that made massive profits in Venezuela for decades as victims, because the Chávez government wanted them to comply with new laws and accept minority stakes in joint ventures.

The New York Times (9/1/26) complains that the two corporations “have spent years trying to get the country to repay them for their seized assets, with little success.” The statement conceals the fact that the Venezuelan government, when it enacted the 2007 decree imposing state majority in all Orinoco Oil Belt projects, offered to compensate ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips for their transition to minority partners, or to buy out their assets altogether. However, both corporations rejected the offers in order to pursue international arbitration. The former has already recouped most of what it was granted, while the latter will eventually collect on a significant award.

Despite the fact that Chevron, BP, Shell and other energy giants have signed deals in recent months taking advantage of the reformed hydrocarbon law (Venezuelanalysis, 9/3/26), pundits complain that ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips remain “hesitant” (CBS, 8/31/26) and need to be “lured” (Reuters, 9/1/26). Still, the Western corporations are likely to return to the country with favorable deals (Reuters, 9/16/26).

The victor and his spoils

Faced with strategic defeat in West Asia, Trump has clung to his Venezuela success, stating on multiple occasions that “to the victor belong the spoils,” in reference to the US hijacking the Venezuelan oil industry following the January 3 attacks and presidential kidnapping (Al Jazeera, 9/24/26; Guardian, 9/26/26).

Furthermore, Trump has not been shy in boasting about the US winning a “war” against Venezuela (Financial Times, 9/18/26; New York Times, 6/26/26). Corporate journalists have rarely pointed out that this stance directly contradicts the administration’s official position that the kidnapping of Maduro and Flores was a “law enforcement” operation (New York Times, 1/6/26; PBS, 1/8/26) in order to justify bypassing congressional approval.

The US president has likewise claimed to have recovered the costs of the military operation “many times over” (Al Jazeera, 3/3/26; Guardian, 6/28/26), a fact confirmed by Luigi Pisella, a business sector spokesperson with close ties to the acting Rodríguez administration (Venezuelanalysis, 8/10/26). Pisella stated that the US has retained $4.7 billion from the Venezuelan export revenues it controls to cover the costs of its military operation.

In spite of their ostensible hostility to Trump, corporate outlets have historically been complicit with his Venezuela policies, from whitewashing a deadly sanctions program (FAIR.org, 6/13/22) to endorsing a military buildup over debunked “narcoterrorism” accusations (FAIR.org, 11/19/25). The New York Times and Washington Post went as far as to withhold information in order to not jeopardize the January 3 operation (FAIR.org, 1/13/26).

Now, with a semi-colonial regime in place, the only concerns are about procedural transparency, democratic appearances and the well-being of multinational corporations. The Venezuelan people always get the short end of the stick.

Source: FAIR

Former US president says Trump ‘chose to make a series of bad decisions’, highlighting the US-Israel war on Iran.

Former United States President Barack Obama has criticised the “cruelty and corruption” during President Donald Trump’s second term.

Obama slammed Trump’s foreign policies on Saturday during a midterm election campaign rally in Ohio to support the state’s Democratic candidates.

“The current president chose to make a series of bad decisions,” the 65-year-old Democrat said. “Most importantly, he decided to start an unnecessary war that nobody asked for,” he added, referring to the US-Israel war on Iran.

Obama urged Ohioans to vote against the Republican administration, saying: “After two years of chaos and cruelty and corruption and incompetence, the likes of which we have not seen in the modern era, you get a chance to say, ‘Enough is enough’.”

Heated Ohio races

The former president also addressed the recent controversy in Ohio’s gubernatorial race surrounding an attack advertisement by Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy against Democrat Amy Acton.

“In recent days, we’ve seen there is no line he will not cross, no low he will not sink to,” Obama said of Ramaswamy. “I don’t know what’s happened where the standards of behaviour are so low that somebody could run an ad like that.”

In the advertisement, Donna Arthur, Acton’s mother, disputes her daughter’s account of a childhood involving homelessness and ⁠⁠⁠⁠sexual abuse by her stepfather, urging Ohioans not to vote for her.

Acton says she has not seen her mother since 1978. Acton’s brother has supported her account of being sexually abused by her stepfather when she was a child. The stepfather, who died in 2004, was charged with rape.

Obama backed Acton, saying that she has “spoken movingly about her painful childhood and all she’s experienced: abuse, neglect and homelessness.”

The former president shared the rally stage with Acton and Ohio’s former Democratic senator, Sherrod Brown, who will attempt a comeback against incumbent Republican Senator Jon Husted.

Polls give Democrats a slight lead in both Ohio races, but results are expected to be close.

BLAINE, Wash. — The Trump administration’s top border official defended plans to build a wall and other infrastructure in Texas’ Big Bend region despite mounting opposition against the project and a court-ordered pause on construction, saying his goal of fortifying the country’s borders was “non-negotiable.”

In an exclusive interview with the Associated Press, Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott argued that the $46-billion wall project was justified despite a bipartisan coalition of landowners, local businesses and environmentalists who view it as a waste of taxpayer money that could be destructive to a region with historically low migrant crossings.

“Our No. 1 goal right out the gate is we have to know who and what is coming into the United States,” Scott said on Thursday. If the Big Bend region were left without a wall or other border infrastructure while other areas along the border get those fortifications, he said, “I am 100% convinced it will be completely overrun and destroyed.”

The fight over Big Bend has become a major test for how far the Republican administration is willing to go for the border wall, President Trump’s signature infrastructure project.

Scott, a former Border Patrol agent, was tapped by Trump to complete it.

His agency is responsible for executing a plan funded last summer by Republicans in Congress to line the roughly 2,000-mile border with Mexico with a mixture of 30-foot-tall steel walls, vehicle barriers, new roads and surveillance technology to prevent illegal immigration and smuggling.

The Trump administration says it is building about 12 miles a week. Scott, who gets daily progress updates, said it will be complete by the end of Trump’s second term. The primary border wall — some areas also get a secondary layer — will be done by the end of December 2027.

“We’re actually ahead of schedule,” Scott said.

1

2

1. Charlie Angell stands on an overlook of the Rio Grande river 2. Pamela Priddy, center, holds up signs with others during a weekly protest against barriers along the border in the Big Bend region, Saturday, Sept. 26, 2026, in Study Butte, Texas. (John Locher / Ap Photo/john Locher)

Big Bend is a test for the Trump administration’s plans for the wall

The wall plan has run into resistance in places like Big Bend. The Trump administration was dealt a major setback earlier this month when a judge ordered a pause on border wall construction in the region, citing what could be a likelihood that plaintiffs “will suffer serious, irreparable harm without an injunction.” The administration has asked the Supreme Court to lift the order.

The ruling included any construction in Big Bend National Park, an area that has seen a loud bipartisan outcry, including from some Republican lawmakers.

After bulldozers were spotted in the park tearing up ground in August, Scott ordered a pause on all construction-related activity there while he went to talk to people in the region. He said the agency is making other outreach to locals to discuss how to build projects so they don’t mar the park.

“We’re talking through and figuring out what is the right solution for that area,” he said.

Scott said he can’t get into specific details on what the agency’s plans are for the park because of the numerous ongoing lawsuits, but he reiterated that the project won’t include tall steel walls.

He also said that the agency’s stated goal of protecting the country and knowing what’s coming in and going out is “non-negotiable.”

He said the region’s formidable natural barriers were not enough to prevent people from entering the country illegally through other more navigable points. And he expressed concern that cartels that control smuggling from Mexico into the U.S. would exploit any opening.

CBP has come under fire for immigration enforcement tactics

Scott leads an agency of 67,000 employees responsible for controlling who and what comes into the country through official border crossings like airports or seaports and stopping illegal smuggling and migration outside those official border crossing points.

The agency came under heavy scrutiny last year when its officers were sent into cities deep inside the country to help carry out Trump’s immigration crackdown alongside Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Agents with the Department of Homeland Security, which includes Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Border Patrol and Customs Enforcement patrol in a neighborhood after apprehending a person on Jan. 31 in St. Paul, Minn.

(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)

As protests against an operation rocked Minneapolis, a Border Patrol officer and a CBP officer both fired shots in an encounter that killed a U.S. citizen, Alex Pretti. The shooting eventually prompted the Trump administration to wind down high-profile city-based crackdowns. A CBP officer who was the face of the missions, Gregory Bovino, who led a helicopter raid at a large apartment building and used chemical agents to confront demonstrators, retired earlier this year.

Scott said while CBP still helps ICE, it’s now less involved in immigration enforcement far from the country’s borders because ICE has since hired more officers to its ranks. Scott wouldn’t comment on the investigation into the Pretti killing, saying that it was being handled by the FBI and was ongoing. And when asked about Bovino’s tactics, he said the officer didn’t report to him during the operations.

Scott spoke to the AP just outside the border with Canada, where he met with border security representatives from other countries to share information about threats and trends. During his trip, he visited an operations center where he said Canadian and American law enforcement work together.

That border has far fewer threats than the U.S. border with Mexico. Scott said cartels in Mexico are increasingly sending drones into the United States to move contraband and keep tabs on Border Patrol agents. In Mexico, the cartels have been using drones to attack each other or Mexican law enforcement.

The Department of Homeland Security, which includes CBP, recently announced temporary flight restrictions targeting unauthorized drone activity in a zone extending a mile north of the U.S.-Mexico border as a way to counter cartels.

“We want to make sure,” Scott said, “that threat does not come into the United States.”

Santana writes for the Associated Press.

With the US midterm elections approaching, the balance of power in Congress is at stake, and the outcome could shape the legacy of President Donald Trump’s second term. As Republicans face growing voter dissatisfaction, Trump’s record has become a central battleground in the fight to control Congress.

Trump faces mounting challenges, including low approval ratings, an unpopular war in Iran, high inflation and petrol prices, economic uncertainty surrounding his tariff policies, and widespread backlash over his immigration crackdown.

How does Trump’s second term measure up against the promises he made on the campaign trail?

In this interview, Mehdi Hasan goes head-to-head with Steve Cortes, a former Trump campaign adviser, who defends the president’s second-term agenda, including his economic and immigration policies, and Islamophobic rhetoric.

Joining the discussion:

Olivia Troye – Former homeland security and counterterrorism adviser to Vice President Mike Pence
Mike Nellis – Democratic strategist and former senior adviser to Vice President Kamala Harris
Rob Arlett – Former Trump campaign chair and political commentator

WASHINGTON  — The Supreme Court on Wednesday turned down an appeal from President Trump and rejected his order to end hormone treatments and other gender-affirming care for transgender inmates in federal prisons.

The justices denied Trump’s appeal without comment, over dissents by Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito.

The order leaves in a place a decision by a senior judge appointed by President Reagan who had blocked Trump’s new prison policy from taking effect.

The decision is a rare win for trans rights at the Supreme Court.

In June, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, a Reagan appointee, said he would “not wade into the culture war being waged against transgender individuals” and ruled the Trump administration did not have evidence or good reasons for changing the long-standing policy for these inmates.

He cited the Administrative Procedure Act, which forbids abrupt and “arbitrary” changes in federal regulations.

Lamberth said the Bureau of Prisons’ new regulation would “arbitrarily deprive inmates of medications and other lifestyle accommodations that its own medical staff have deemed to be medically appropriate.” The evidence showed that “gender affirming care is the only effective treatment for gender dysphoria and severe harm flows from the cessation of such care,’’ he wrote.

Last month, the D.C. Circuit upheld his decision on a 2-1 vote, prompting the administration’s appeal to the Supreme Court.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which sued on behalf of three inmates, said the court should not “overturn a three decades-long status quo.” Since 1992, the Bureau of Prisons has “treated people with gender dysphoria with hormone therapy,” their lawyers told the court.

In response to Trump’s order, the “BOP overrode its own medical providers’ clinical judgment and mandated the cessation of treatment for almost 1,000 people in its custody,” they said.

At issue in this latest legal dispute over trans rights was whether the government had evidence to justify a sharp change in its prison regulations.

In the past, the court has often deferred to prison officials on their handling and treatment of inmates.

“If deference to prison administrators means anything, it means that courts cannot second-guess their eminently reasonable choice to treat the mental-health condition of gender dysphoria with psychotherapy rather than physical, sex-rejecting interventions,” Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer said in his appeal.

In what may be one of the most comical self-owns in recent politics, the esteemed attorneys of the U.S. Department of Justice announced Monday that despite the extravagant and terrifying misuse of their investigative power under the Trump administration, they have so far been able to identify only 28 people in all of California who may have voted illegally.

“The announcement today by the United States DOJ makes the point that there is no widespread voter fraud,” California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said after the news conference announcing the results of “Operation Protect the Vote.”

Twenty-eight people out of about 23 million registered voters in the state — and not all of them even tried to vote, according to the feds. That’s about 1 in 820,000 folks allegedly registering or voting illegally, a rate that roughly matches how often people in the United States get struck by lightning in a given year.

So much for Trump’s endless claims that there is a vast, organized conspiracy between Democrats and undocumented people to have them vote in large numbers to steal elections. I’ll point out here that none of those charged Monday have been accused of colluding with one another or with Democratic overlords.

All the power of the government — investigative, technological, legal — has been thrown at finding these mysterious, diabolically clever ballot baddies. And now, thanks to Bill Essayli, first assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, and his colleagues across this great state, we now know that all 28 of them will be held accountable, if the government can prove wrongdoing. And let’s be clear — people who vote illegally should be held accountable.

But wait, there’s more, because this election-stealing plot by immigrants certainly doesn’t stop at the state line. Seamus Hughes of Court Watch, an excellent site that tracks federal litigation, reported Monday that since the start of this administration, 169 people have been charged federally with illegally registering or voting.

That number includes the new California cases, so it means an additional 141 potentially illegal voters have been charged across the U.S. — all told about 1 in 1.25 million registered voters being accused of illegally registering or voting, making this crime slightly less likely than guessing a six-digit pin code on the first try.

There. Is. No. Election. Stealing.

But that’s where the funny part ends, because this attack on California elections is serious and just getting started.

The federal government, you’ve probably read, is suing California, claiming it gave the state a janky thumb drive with 20,000 names of registered voters that it sort of strongly suspects maybe aren’t legal voters. Important note here: The government has been very careful not to claim that these people voted illegally, just that it might be so based on questionable data, which I’ll get to in a minute.

The feds gave the state a silly 48-hour deadline to agree to change constitutional law, dump common sense and sequester these 20,000 ballots, if they were even returned, to double-check they were cast by valid voters.

When California rightfully refused — because elections are run by states, not the federal government — the federal government sued on the thinnest of legal grounds. It basically claimed that voting illegally is illegal, and if California doesn’t do exactly what Trump wants, it could be violating the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution by impeding the feds from enforcing the crime of voter fraud.

First Assistant U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli speaks at a news conference Monday at which officials announced that 28 people in California had been charged with voter fraud.

(David Butow / For The Times)

Which is basically arguing that if the state government fails to stop voter fraud using the flawed methods Trump likes, then the state is somehow stopping federal authorities from prosecuting voter fraud themselves. But didn’t they just enforce it with 28 cases?

Get ready, because “state-facilitated voter fraud,” is a new right-wing thing.

California is “being complicit in non-citizens voting in our elections, and as they were warned last week, not only is it a civil violation, but they could also face criminal consequences,” Essayli said, which if it happened would give Trumped-up charges a whole new meaning.

Essayli said state officials are not being “good faith actors,” but I’ll argue that shoe is on the other foot. The list of 20,000 alleged, suspected, maybe-maybe-not illegal voters was likely drawn from the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program, created by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, if you can remember that unfortunate relic.

It sought to draw data from more than a dozen government databases that were not only not compatible with such information sharing, but which had been kept separate until now for privacy reasons. Americans in general did not want the government collecting unified, know-all records of every citizen.

Luckily for us, I guess, the SAVE system can’t actually create reliable, unified records. It confuses people, convolutes them, merges records of people with similar names, and in general has been deemed unreliable by data experts.

In September, the good folks at the UCLA Voting Rights Project joined with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights to sue the federal government over its use of that system to target naturalized citizens for removal from voter rolls. Turns out, the government appears to be targeting immigrants who are now citizens with these voter fraud accusations.

As I wrote about a few weeks ago, naturalized citizens make up about 1 in 10 eligible voters, and nearly a quarter of them live in California. But they also live in swing states such as Michigan, where Democrat Abdul El-Sayed may draw such voters, and in other places such as Georgia and Nevada where races might be decided by only a few votes.

These arrests and lawsuits while voting is already underway in the midterms are a not-subtle form of voter suppression. Imagine being a naturalized citizen in the Central Valley, where ICE is driving rampant fear and where Republican Rep. David Valadao is running against Democrat Randy Villegas in California’s 22nd Congressional District — one of the nation’s most closely contested races.

Would you consider sitting this election out just in case your ballot draws the frightening eye of the federal government? Even knowing that your vote is legal, what if you lived in a mixed-status household? Would it be worth risking voting if it meant a knock at the door from immigration checking on your status, and maybe finding that family member who lacks it?

Why take the risk?

“Basically, what they’re doing now is just completely harassing and intimidating naturalized citizens who are legally eligible to vote through these actions,” said Matt Barreto, co-founder of the Voting Rights Project.

And if the vote isn’t suppressed enough to give Trump the results he wants, these prosecutions and lawsuits feed the beast of conspiracy, giving Trump fodder to claim the results are fake, the election stolen.

And round and round we go, reckoning with Trump’s claims that lightning is striking everyone, everywhere, all at once, because the vote didn’t go his way.

WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Monday questioned the Trump administration’s claims surrounding its efforts to redevelop a historic Washington golf course, challenging its contention that a recent tree-cutting spree did not indicate work was moving forward on the project, which is temporarily blocked by a court order.

“There is no universe in which all of this coincidentally happened all at the same time,” U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes said during a hearing over the fate of a project that has emerged as the latest legal flashpoint in President Trump’s campaign to leave his personal imprint on the nation’s capital.

Reyes last week ordered a halt to the golf course’s redevelopment plans until at least Oct. 26 after scolding the government for starting a large-scale tree removal at the course over a holiday weekend while providing little notice to the court or the plaintiffs trying to stop the makeover.

Then, on Sunday, Trump announced plans on social media to close the golf course for 15 months, starting on Nov. 15, and redevelop the 106-year-old park and course despite a court challenge by the D.C. Preservation League and two golfers. In a post on Monday, Trump said the work would start immediately.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys challenging the golf course renovation work have asked Reyes to extend her order that temporarily paused the work. They say the work is inflicting irreversible damage and that the redevelopment would violate the congressional act that created the park where the course is located.

The hearings on the century-old golf course have grown increasingly tense and on the eve of Monday’s hearing, Reyes rejected the administration’s request for her to recuse herself from the case. The government questioned her impartiality and accused her of engaging in “egregious” behavior from the bench during last week’s emergency hearing for the case.

Trump, a Republican, referred to Reyes as a “crazed lunatic” in his social media post on Monday.

“The United States Department of Interior wants to take a terrible and very unsafe golf course, and make it into a great, safe, and prestigious golf course. They have an absolute right to do so. It’s as simple as that!” Trump wrote.

Reyes, who was nominated by Democratic President Biden, said the government has failed “by any objective measure” to demonstrate the need for her recusal from the case.

“It is easy to weaponize selective quotations to bring a baseless recusal motion. But it is much harder to meet the demanding legal standard against a full record,” she wrote.

Trump has pledged to turn the course into a world-class golf venue — part of his grand vision for Washington, D.C., where he has torn down storied structures, remade or renamed others and deployed the National Guard for more than a year.

While it has been open to Washingtonians of all income levels, opponents of Trump’s plans for the golf course have argued it will alter the character of the space and make it less affordable to people.

Monday’s hearing started with a tense confrontation between Reyes and Justice Department official Stanley Woodward, when the judge asked if other any government attorneys in the room “as officers of the court” were willing to certify that everything within a Sunday filing was truthful and legally sound under federal rules of civil procedures.

In that filing Woodward argued that there were no final plans for the park.

“First, the plan is not final because the Park Service has not completed its review and the details of the proposal are subject to change during the review process,” the filing said.

Much of the hearing revolved around Trump’s social media posts over the weekend and his appearance last June at the golf course, accompanied by golf course architects and members of the administration and why there was such a sense of urgency for the cutting of the trees.

The witnesses at the hearing, Greg Wischer, deputy chief of staff at the Interior Department, and acting National Park Service director Jessica Bowron both acknowledged that they had only learned of the National Park Service Cultural Landscape Report in September that led to the tree cutting. That NPS report was from 2019.

Fields writes for the Associated Press.

McALLEN, Texas — On a quiet corner of downtown McAllen, past shops selling quinceañera gowns and perfumes, about 30 people trickled into a small brewery on Wednesday evening to watch James Talarico, the Democratic Senate nominee in Texas, take questions from voters in a CNN town hall.

With beers and tacos, they gathered in front of a large projector screen. Karyme Segura, 18, sat at the front, listening closely as Talarico said federal immigration agents should be going after violent criminals, not “terrorizing our communities” and breaking up families.

Segura clapped. The message was personal to her. A day earlier, her stepfather had been deported to Mexico. Since his detention, her mother has been afraid to leave the house, she said. Now Segura has turned to politics, hoping to change the conditions that have left her family fractured and rattled.

“I just have to do something,” Segura said. “I am hoping that after the election my mom will feel more secure. That if Texas turns blue, Trump will feel threatened.”

Segura is the kind of voter Democrats are counting on as Talarico, a state representative from Austin, tries to defeat Ken Paxton, the state’s Republican attorney general, to become the first Democrat to win a statewide race in Texas since 1994. The race could decide control of the Senate, and has become one of the most high-profile and bitterly fought contests this year.

Talarico, a former teacher and Presbyterian seminarian, has courted voters with a populist economic pitch blended with an overlay of Christian messaging to “love thy neighbor.” Paxton, an ally of President Trump, has focused on rallying his party’s base by portraying Talarico as too progressive for Texas, including his past opposition to transgender sports restrictions.

Since late June, Talarico has led narrowly in most polls, alarming Republicans who have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into ads meant to boost Paxton. Elon Musk, the world’s richest person with significant operations in Texas, has helped buoy that GOP political rescue mission by dropping nearly $190 million into the race, according to federal campaign finance records filed Thursday.

Alyssa Cantu and Antonio Reyna, owners of the Gremlin Bar at their club Thursday in McAllen, Texas.

(Delcia Lopez / For The Times)

Democrats have spent heavily, too. In total, ad spending in the race has surpassed $500 million, according AdImpact, an ad-tracking firm, making it one of the most expensive non-presidential contests in U.S. history.

The Wednesday town hall amounted to free national airtime for Talarico too, who showed up on stage alone despite Paxton —who had so far refused to commit to any debate — being invited. In McAllen, the owners of the brewery, Tony Reyna and Alyssa Cantu, said they bought a projector screen just for the event.

“Any information we can bring out to the community, we try to make it happen,” Reyna said. “And if there is not going to be a debate, we are showing the town hall.”

In recent weeks, conspiracy theories, leaks and attacks have been constant in the lead-up to the election.

When Talarico spent a week away from the campaign trail, conservatives promoted a story that he had been at a mental health facility in Ohio (a rumor that was later debunked). Paxton, who was impeached by the Texas House in 2023, has led a campaign beset by scandal, including a report that he partied in Dubai with fugitives wanted on federal fraud charges. One of the fugitives donated to Paxton’s campaign.

Both campaigns are courting independents and right-leaning voters, including Latinos who swung sharply toward Trump in 2024. But Trump’s unpopularity has complicated Paxton’s task. The latest polls show Trump’s approval rating at 32%, the lowest of his political career, as voters struggle with rising prices tied to tariffs and the war in Iran.

In Texas, about half of likely voters in a recent Fox News poll said they worried Paxton was too close to the president; nearly as many were concerned Talarico was too liberal.

Mario Guerrero, a 33-year-old home builder and executive director of the South Texas Builders Assn.

(Delcia Lopez / For The Times)

Along the border in the Rio Grande Valley, an overwhelmingly Latino region, there are signs that voters who backed Trump two years ago are now open to voting for Talarico — and Democrats as a whole. In interviews with more than a dozen voters across the region, many described the Trump administration’s approach to immigration enforcement as inhumane and morally wrong, as well as detrimental to the local economy.

“I didn’t think he was going to do what he is doing now. I don’t think anybody thought it would be like this,” said Mario Guerrero, chief executive of the South Texas Builders Assn. “I think they have gone too far.”

Guerrero voted for Trump all three times. Now he is voting for Democrats, he said.

Residents talked about how in July, a local nun from Nigeria was detained by federal immigration agents after walking from her home on her way to Mass. They talk about their small businesses hurting because people are afraid to be out in public shopping. Others say it is impossible to find workers in the region.

A candidate’s campaign sign marked with graffiti in McAllen, Texas.

(Delcia Lopez / For The Times)

Ariel Salinas, 50, a longtime builder in McAllen, said he has voted for Trump all three times he has been on the ballot. Now, he is voting for Democrats because he is furious at this administration’s approach to immigration, which he says has hurt the entire region’s economy.

“Everyone is hurting right now. Builders, the subcontractors, their families and their friends,” he said. “It’s a trickle effect down. If there are no homes being built, nobody gets paid and in turn no one goes to spend money at local groceries, at mom-and-pop shops, and so forth.”

On Thursday morning, at a housing development on the north edge of McAllen, about 10 homes stood unfinished, and there were no workers in sight. A house that once took four and a half months to build now takes a year, Salinas said. Laborers, whether undocumented or with work permits, have stopped showing up, afraid of being questioned by immigration agents.

“This shouldn’t be reality,” Salinas said. “It is a nightmare.”

Salinas still does not consider himself a Democrat, but said he plans to cast his ballot for them this year because he is so angered by how Republicans and Trump have handled immigration and mistreated hard-working people, many of whom are his neighbors.

“That doesn’t mean that in two years, we are going to vote Democrat again,” he noted. “We are going to vote for them and watch if they keep their promises to us.”

President Trump listens as Texas Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton, the Republican candidate for Senate, speaks at a campaign rally in San Antonio this month.

(Eric Gay / Associated Press)

Opinions on the race are “pretty baked in” by now, so the heavy spending in the final stretch may be hitting diminishing returns, said Brendan Steinhauser, a longtime Texas GOP strategist who previously worked for Sen. John Cornyn, whom Paxton defeated in the GOP primary.

“There are a few undecideds, but not many,” Steinhauser said. “And if they are undecided, the longer they go, I am guessing they are going to break away from the GOP.”

Most Texans appear to have made up their minds.

A University of Texas/Texas Politics Project poll released Wednesday showed 83% of Talarico’s supporters and 69% of Paxton’s said they were unlikely to change their minds. The poll also showed 72% of Democrats were extremely or very enthusiastic about voting, 10 points more than Republicans. In that poll, Talarico led among Latinos, women, suburban and urban voters, while Paxton had the edge with men and rural voters.

Fernando Salinas, 54, the owner of eight dress shops in McAllen, has always voted for Democrats, and after seeing how immigration raids have affected the local community, he believes this year will bring what many in the Valley call a “voto de castigo,” a punishment vote for the party in power.

“I think Texas is going to turn blue,” he said. “People are that upset.”

Republicans are already bracing for a possible loss. In a social media post Thursday, Trump blamed fellow Republicans for the struggles Paxton is facing in the race. He said Cornyn and GOP strategist Karl Rove were doing “everything possible to make it hard” for Paxton to win.

“They are hurting Texas and, more importantly, hurting the United States of America!” Trump wrote. “If Ken Paxton loses, it will be because of WEAK and INEFFECTIVE Political Hacks like John Cornyn and Karl Rove, who have ineffectively opposed me for my entire political career.”

In a September discussion during the Texas Tribune Festival, Rove said the contest “would be over” if Cornyn had defeated Paxton in the primary. Trump, who endorsed Paxton, has campaigned in Texas in recent weeks to rally the Republican base and urge them to vote. Vice President JD Vance has also stumped in the red state.

Texas state Rep. James Talarico, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, speaks Thursday at a campaign event in San Marcos.

(Eric Gay / Associated Press)

In those campaign rallies, Trump has attacked Talarico — whom he calls “Talafreako” — for being a vegan, which Talarico say he is not. Vance has also jokingly questioned Talarico’s sexuality, a comment the campaign has dismissed as irrelevant to the issues that matter to Texans.

But in the Rio Grande Valley, some voters say they feel forgotten by Republicans.

Aaron Garza, 56, a business associate of Salinas, has watched immigration raids hurt business and the community. He has voted for Trump every time he has been on the ballot. But with early voting set to begin Monday, he has not decided whom to support yet.

Garza said he feels no loyalty to either party and wishes there were a third party that showed it actually cared about Latinos and their interests. Still, one thing has him leaning toward Democrats this year: They have shown up.

“The Republicans haven’t been here,” Garza said. “How come you are not here talking to us?”

Oct. 17, 2026 8:31 AM PT

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s abrupt decision to waive sanctions on Russia days before they were to take effect drew outrage Saturday from members of Congress, which had overwhelmingly passed the legislation in a bipartisan display of American support for Ukraine in the war with Russia.

Lawmakers from both parties blasted the executive order late Friday, the latest in a series of steps that the Republican president has taken drawing the United States closer to Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Trump recently announced a diesel deal with Putin to import Russian energy in a long-shot effort to curb high gas prices in the U.S. that are roiling the midterm elections on Nov. 3.

“Beyond irresponsible,” said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), on social media, hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed hope that the sanctions that were supposed to take effect Sunday targeting Russian’s economy could be revived.

“What part of enforcing a law passed 86-11 by the Senate does the President and his advisors not understand?” Tillis said. “It’s unconscionable that this administration is capitulating to a Russian dictator who illegally invaded Ukraine.”

Tillis said that if Trump wants to actually bring down energy prices, he should resolve the Iran war, which is largely blamed for the spike at the pump, and “not by doing a solid for Vladimir Putin.”

Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said, “Lindsey would be appalled,” referring to the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who worked endlessly on the bill before he died this summer. The bill is known as the Lindsey Graham Russian Sanctions Act.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said Trump is “thumbing his nose” at Congress and “enabling Vladimir Putin to continue his war of aggression.” She urged her colleagues to take action to reverse course.

Trump’s actions come as Ukraine is bracing for a stark winter confronting Russia’s ongoing attacks on its energy infrastructure to heat homes and keep the lights on. Zelensky, who has endured a rocky relationship with Trump but stayed close to the U.S. lawmakers, urged supporters to speak out on behalf of the sanctions.

The next steps are highly uncertain with the House and Senate on recess until after election day. Trump said he was waiving the sanctions indefinitely, citing national security concerns. It is unlikely Congress would be in a position to take any action to challenge Trump’s moves until lawmakers return to Washington.

It took almost a year for Graham to persuade Trump to agree to the Russian sanctions package. It was designed to impose steep tariffs on countries that import large amounts of Russian oil and energy products and was promoted as way to halt the flow of funds fueling Putin’s four-year war against Ukraine.

But even as Zelensky had watched from the visitor gallery as the Senate advanced the package after Graham’s death, skeptics in Congress warned Trump would be unlikely to follow the bill once he had signed it into law a month ago.

Last week, a bipartisan group of senators urged the Trump administration to more quickly clamp down on Russia, particularly the “shadow fleet” of tankers that Moscow is using to transport oil and bypass America’s sanctions. The senators noted that the bulk of the new law’s provisions were to be effective Sunday.

Instead, Trump soon announced the diesel deal with Putin, saying that Russia had agreed to supply tons of fuel to the U.S., where gas prices have skyrocketed in some areas and voters saying affordability issues are a top concern.

Outraged lawmakers have pledged to stop the Trump-Putin deal.

New York Rep. Gregory Meeks, the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee who had led opposition to the Graham bill — warning that Trump would flout the law — introduced legislation Friday that would block Trump’s diesel deal with Putin.

“At a time when the United States should be increasing pressure on the Kremlin, Donald Trump is cozying up to Putin and striking self-enriching deals instead of standing with Ukraine,” Meeks said in a statement.

He called the deal “corrupt” and said it “goes against everything the United States stands for.”

Mascaro writes for the Associated Press. Associated Press writers Kevin Freking and Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.

Five days. That’s how long President Trump’s latest press secretary, Katie Zacharia, lasted before she was fired Friday.

Her stint, which was about as long as the recommended shelf life for an open can of beans (if refrigerated), broke the previous record set by Anthony Scaramucci.

During Trump’s first term, Scaramucci lasted 11 days as White House communications director — the suggested length of time before a sealed pack of hot dogs expires.

Their minuscule tenures represent an impressive race to the bottom in a once-prestigious role that was created just under a century ago, during the Great Depression.

The press secretary typically stuck in the job for years or entire terms, rather than days or weeks. For reference, Scaramucci’s dizzying 2017 arrival and departure broke a 72-year-old record.

Jonathan Daniels served just 19 days (recommended expiration time for a tub of sour cream) in 1945. He at least had a valid excuse for his short run: President Franklin D. Roosevelt died.

Trump told reporters Friday that Zacharia might continue to work for him “in some form, but maybe a more pleasant form.”

He sowed further confusion when he recounted his conversation with Zacharia, claiming that he told her, “Honestly, if I were you, I’d reconsider” and asked her, “Katie, do you need this? I don’t think you need this.”

With verbal chops like those, who needs an articulate press secretary? Apparently not Trump, judging by his appointment of someone whose debut was anything but professional.

Let’s take a trip down memory lane and recall her first day on the job. It was Monday.

Zacharia appeared wholly unprepared when she took the lectern to address the press corps. She looked down and read nervously from a script, took just three questions and embarrassingly mixed up references to “her husband” and “her president.” She abruptly exited the briefing after just 11 minutes.

Zacharia previously worked as a conservative commentator and senior communications advisor for Trump Media & Technology Group (Truth Social). She monitored the president’s social media posts to discern what was of importance to him, then would go on air to talk about those topics. In essence, she was a press secretary, just not in the White House.

She told the conservative outlet Human Events on Thursday that she had been aiming for a job within the administration, frequently appearing as an expert voice on conservative platforms such as Fox News.

“My philosophy is, I’m on TV enough where if he sees me and he likes me, then I will be recruited for the job,” she said. “I do not believe that lobbying for that job would have been successful, and I wanted to work for it. I wanted to audition for it.”

She succeeded Karoline Leavitt, who served quite a long time — 19 months — before leaving to “spend more time with my family,” then immediately signed on with Fox News as an on-air contributor.

The revolving door of Trump administration press secretaries has at least been entertaining. Most stayed on significantly longer than Zacharia (the bar is low, after all), and at least a few managed to leave a lasting impression.

Sean Spicer kicked off the parade in 2017, scolding journalists his first day on the job when defending the size of Trump’s inauguration crowd. It was record-breaking, he claimed. It was not.

Spicer became the inspiration for one of the best recurring “SNL” sketches ever when Melissa McCarthy transformed into him, embodying the new administration’s disdain toward the press: “I’m not here to be your buddy!” she screamed at befuddled reporters.

McCarthy’s “Spicy” is hard to beat, but a Zacharia parody could come in a close second should it end up as the premise for “SNL’s” cold open this weekend.

When Trump announced her appointment last week in a social media post, he referred to her as “an attorney.” She referred to herself as a lawyer.

But when a reporter asked Trump on Monday where she had passed her bar exam, the president threw the question to Zacharia, who was standing behind him on the South Lawn. She stepped up to the mic and answered, “When I moved to China.”

By Wednesday, reporting surfaced that Zacharia sat for the California bar exam after graduating from Pepperdine University’s law school in 2011, but did not pass. In China, she worked in international transaction law, which didn’t require admission to a state bar.

If history is any indicator, whoever replaces Zacharia as Trump’s press secretary should have a go bag packed and stashed directly behind the lectern.

The once-respected position has been degraded by six years of poor decisions and a volatile president who prefers to communicate with the electorate at 3 a.m. in ALL CAPS via his own social media platform.

Here’s to the next White House press secretary. May you outlast the shelf life of a carton of milk.

WASHINGTON — President Trump bypassed his White House chief of staff last week in selecting Katie Zacharia as his press secretary and chief messenger, triggering days of scathing headlines about her credentials and abilities before her ignominious resignation on Friday.

Susie Wiles, that senior-most aide ostensibly in charge of the president’s team, is facing his scrutiny over a different set of problems: widespread public anxiety over corruption in government under the Trump administration. The issue has surpassed the economy as the top concern of voters entering next month’s election, according a Fox News poll released this week.

Marco Rubio, the president’s secretary of State and national security advisor, has been silent on Trump’s decision to cut a deal with Moscow on diesel sales that could fuel Russia’s war against Ukraine. The president’s poll numbers have been below water across the board, but especially so on foreign policy, where over two-thirds of Americans disapprove of his job performance and support Kyiv’s fight for freedom.

Trump aides walk to board Air Force One on Tuesday: Natalie Harp, Trump’s executive assistant, left; Walt Nauta, director of Oval Office operations (in sunglasses); Chief of Staff Susie Wiles; and then-Press Secretary Katie Zacharia.

(Alex Wong / Getty Images)

And on Thursday, the president was forced to reverse a course set out by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the Pentagon to live-stream the execution of a convicted mass shooter by firing squad.

In the final stretch of the 2026 midterms, nearly two weeks out from election day, a White House that has enjoyed relative stability over the past two years has returned to the state of disarray that characterized much of Trump’s early political career, anticipating sweeping losses to Democrats in the House and Senate.

Staff upheaval is expected as officials brace for a blame game over Republican performance, with some distancing themselves from what they see as a fading political movement.

Polls suggest that Republicans are likely to lose control of the House, setting up two years of relentless congressional probes through the twilight of the Trump era, and that Democrats could even flip the Senate, winning in ruby red states from Ohio to Alaska.

It is historically a time for closing arguments, when politicians deliver their final pitches to voters in neat, disciplined packages.

Yet Trump’s campaign blitz across the country in recent weeks has generated a muddled message, dismissing the importance of the election itself at the risk of depressing Republican votes, overshadowing local candidates seeking distance from his record and touting an economy unrecognizable to most Americans.

President Trump walks ahead of Katie Zacharia at the White House.

(Win McNamee / Getty Images)

The president’s selection of Zacharia, who lasted just five days on the job, raised fresh questions about his message discipline in the final stretch.

And infighting within the White House has reinforced a narrative among political pundits that Democratic gains are a fait accompli, despite Zacharia, in her first and only press briefing, foretelling of Republican energy and excitement “never seen before in the history of midterms thanks to President Trump.”

Election officials across the country fear that, anticipating inevitable losses, Trump may be laying the ground to challenge the authenticity of the election results themselves.

“You know, this is the only guy that — it’s ‘promises made, promises kept,’ but he did more things than he promised,” Trump said Thursday, referring to himself in the third person. “I think we did. We did much more than we promised.”

The extent of the coming West Wing shakeup could be extensive, reaching into a Cabinet that has had far less turnover than Trump experienced in his first term.

Zacharia is the second senior official forced out by Trump in just three days, after Kimberly Guilfoyle, the former fiancée of one of Trump’s sons who served as U.S. ambassador to Greece, was revealed by the Wall Street Journal to have asked a Trump donor to pay off her $100,000 credit card bill.

Now, the president has begun asking political allies and donors about Wiles’ job performance, according to a recent Politico report, and several top administration officials are vying for her role, anticipating her resignation after the elections next month.

The conclusion of the midterms will also kick off the start of the 2028 presidential election season, when Republican hopefuls — including many from Trump’s Cabinet — are expected to launch exploratory committees.

British Defense Secretary Wes Streeting and U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stand for anthems at the Pentagon on Thursday.

(Finn Gomez / Getty Images)

“We have to get through the midterms first,” Trump said at the end of August, asked about Hegseth reportedly considering a run. “I bet there’s a lot of people considering it that you don’t know about. You have a lot of people.”

The party of incumbent presidents regularly loses seats in midterm elections, and it is common for presidents to shake up their staffs halfway through a term.

But the last time a term-limited Republican president faced voters in midterm elections, in 2006, Democrats swept into power in both houses of Congress — and President George W. Bush’s political capital never recovered.

That year, 37% of voters said they approved of Bush’s job performance. Polls published this month by AP and Reuters have found Trump already below that threshold.

In the GOP presidential primaries that followed, candidates jockeying to replace Bush distanced themselves from his legacy. He ultimately left office with an approval rating of 25%.

Gas prices are high. Diesel prices are higher — about $8 a gallon in California, $2 more than the national average.

For truckers, that’s a crisis. Their big rigs get about a paltry six miles to the gallon and filling their tanks in the Golden State now costs up to $2,500 a pop. For the guys who own a single truck or the small companies (which is the majority of trucking businesses), it can be hard to pass along those extra fuel costs to customers — which, as my colleague Nilesh Christoper wrote about, is causing a lot of pain in the industry.

Truckers everywhere are stomping mad, and it’s a problem for President Trump and Republicans heading into the midterms. Eventually, higher diesel prices are going to mean higher prices on the goods those trucks are transporting, and that’s an even bigger problem.

Trump has been throwing spaghetti at the wall trying out one limp solution after another to bring prices down — cutting taxes, brokering deals with Russia, telling us it’s just not a problem. But of course, it is.

Truck drivers fill they diesel tanks at United Oil in Long Beach on Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2026.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

One Southern California energy expert has spent recent days in Washington, D.C., trying to convince the administration that the solution lies in California, in the vast oil reserves under our cities and farms that we largely leave untapped for environmental reasons. Environment aside, it’s a long-running and compelling (to some, anyway) argument that may have found its moment, meaning California might become Trump’s next solution — or at least scapegoat — to a costly problem.

More on that, but first, a recap of where we are.

The red dye ploy

Three thousand years ago in Trump time, but which I mean earlier this month, the president signed an executive order that allowed truckers to use red dye diesel as a way to lower costs.

Red dye diesel is, you guessed it, my genius readers, diesel that has been dyed red — to differentiate it from the stuff at truck stops. Farmers and other agricultural types are allowed to buy red dye diesel without certain taxes to use in tractors and other equipment that doesn’t run on our roads.

The Trump order allows truckers to buy red dye and defer paying the roughly 25-cent-per-gallon federal tax on it. So it’s not really saving them money, just delaying payment.

“It’s a small step, but nonetheless, it’s a positive step,” said Michael Mische, a professor at the USC Marshall School of Business whose conservative-leaning take on energy policy has often raised the ire of the Newsom administration.

President Trump signs an executive order to lower the cost of diesel fuel during a campaign rally on Oct. 5, 2026, in Grand Island, Neb.

(Win McNamee / Getty Images)

But there’s a problem with Trump’s red dye plan. States have their own laws about red dye diesel, and the feds can’t change them. So even if truckers could find a place to buy red dye diesel (again, not sold at regular gas stations), and even if the incentive of paying taxes later made the search seem worthwhile, they would often be breaking state laws.

Eric Sauer, chief executive of the California Trucking Assn., a trade group that advocates for the industry, said his group has been advising members not to use the crimson fuel until it’s clear that states are going to change their rules. Some, like Missouri, have. California has not.

Either way, Sauer said, allowing truckers to use diesel dyed red really doesn’t increase the overall supply, just shifts it around — which is unlikely to bring prices down.

“It’s still the same supply of diesel fuel out there,” Sauer said.

Global supply

The global supply of crude oil, has been, shall we say, negatively affected by our war with Iran. Despite Trump’s assurances that the conflict is winding down, two container ships in the Strait of Hormuz were attacked this week, highlighting that perhaps Iran is unaware the war is over. Fears of that conflict and others sent energy prices soaring even higher.

Faced with that unpleasant reality, Trump this week also announced he was lifting sanctions on diesel exports from Russia, a move that shocked his own party and most of the world.

The PCK petroleum refinery stands illuminated at twilight on April 28, 2026, in Schwedt, Germany. The refinery, which produces gasoline, diesel, kerosene and bitumen, receives 20% of its oil from Kazakhstan through the Russian Druzhba pipeline.

(Sean Gallup / Getty Images)

That deal could bring 36 million barrels of Russian diesel, at most, to American shores, which sounds like a lot until you realize we use about 4 million barrels of the stuff every day. So Trump essentially sold out Ukraine and demolished what was left of our European standing for nine days of diesel — an amount unlikely to lower prices.

In California, that’s especially true because, as UC Berkeley professor Aaron Smith points out, about 70% of our diesel “is actually not made from crude oil and coming from oil refineries. It’s made from vegetable oils and animal fats.”

Yes, the Golden State relies heavily on so-called renewable diesel that, Smith says, “introduces, I think, another wrinkle” when trying to lower costs.

California’s fault

But let’s get back to Mische, the USC professor. For years, he’s been arguing that California’s refusal to pump more oil should be viewed as a national security concern.

California actually imports the majority of its crude oil, more than 60% from other countries, and our refineries for a number of debated reasons have been closing. Our imports have been growing in recent years. We also have no pipelines connecting us to the rest of the U.S., unlike many other states. That means we can’t easily get oil except what’s shipped in through our ports.

At the same time, the West Coast with its many military installations is undeniably pivotal to national security. Mische argues that without adequate fuel reserves for a shortage — like during a war — our military readiness could be jeopardized. He wants to see California not only pump more, but for the federal government to store more of that California crude.

A train of tank cars enters the Chevron EL Segundo refinery, one of the largest petroleum processing facilities in California, on April 8, 2026. California imports approximately 75% of its crude oil, with nearly one-third of the crude supplied from the Middle East. Prices at the pump in the state are averaging $5.93 per gallon today amid the war in Iran.

(Mario Tama / Getty Images)

These arguments haven’t gained much traction in our heavily Democratic state, which has moved forcefully away from fossil fuels and toward renewable sources in recent years and which has little interest in increasing drilling. But Mische and his colleagues may have found their moment.

Earlier this year, they wrote draft executive orders about California’s oil industry that he says the Trump administration is considering — one would attempt to force California to pump more oil using the authority of the Defense Production Act of 1950.

Trump has used that wartime act several times in the last few months, and Tuesday, Vice President JD Vance announced it would be used to expand production at a Texas oil refinery.

Mische said he spent last week in conversations with the administration on the proposed orders and is “confident” Trump will “issue additional executive orders under the Defense Production Act for California” by the end of the year.

Beyond the national security argument, such orders could please Trump because they do two things. First, if California pumps its own oil, it could free up some imported oil for other states, which could lower prices — though it would certainly take time and require more refinery capacity.

Second, and likely of more interest to the White House, it makes California — and Newsom — the villain for this sticky Republican problem. California will sue, of course, which would just help the Trump political narrative.

Kevin de León, a California Senate president emeritus and author of SB 100, California’s landmark 100% clean energy law, said he can easily envision Trump claiming that “we have lots of cheap oil in the United States that can lower your gas prices — but crazy lefty California is blocking us.”

Actually, it’s hard to imagine Trump not grabbing the chance to blame gas prices on the Golden State — or Newsom.

What else you should be reading:

The must-read: ‘Very few people out in the streets’: ICE surge rattles California’s Central Valley

The California angle: Justice Dept. demands California prove citizenship for lists of voters or withhold ballots

The L.A. Times Special: The U.S is in the death business. Newsom can change that, and win votes
Stay Golden,

Anita Chabria

—

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WASHINGTON — President Trump’s ambassador to Greece, Kimberly Guilfoyle, resigned on Tuesday after allegations of improper conduct but insisted she’ll “vigorously defend” herself.

Trump’s administration said earlier Tuesday it had asked Guilfoyle to leave her post after she faced severe criticism over allegations she engaged in improper and possibly illegal conduct before and during her tenure in Athens.

The announcement, after days of comments and speculation, came in response to a question to freshly minted White House press secretary Katie Zacharia at her first media briefing Tuesday morning. Zacharia said Guilfoyle “has been a wonderful asset to the team, and we wish her well.”

Guilfoyle’s departure comes after its possibility was previewed to the Associated Press over the weekend and Trump registered his unhappiness on Monday at reports about her alleged conduct.

“Well, we’re looking at it,” Trump told reporters at the White House when asked if he was considering firing Guilfoyle. “We’re not happy.”

Those comments came a day after the AP, citing a senior U.S. official, reported that Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are “extremely pissed off” by Guilfoyle’s reported conduct and would likely decide on her future this week.

In a series of stories dating to late last month, The Wall Street Journal has reported questionable conduct by Guilfoyle, including an alleged threat to a host country official, accepting improper gifts and services and offering to use her influence inside the Republican administration in return for the payment of a large credit card bill.

White House press secretary Katie Zacharia speaks with reporters in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026, in Washington.

(Julia Demaree Nikhinson / Associated Press)

Guilfoyle addressed the allegations directly in a post on X, saying, “These allegations are false, and I intend to vigorously defend my name, my reputation, and my integrity.”

“I have dedicated my professional life to fighting for justice, standing up for what is right, and defending the values that make America exceptional,” she said. “I will not allow false accusations to define my decades of public service.”

In a statement released late Sunday, Guilfoyle’s lawyers denied she had done anything wrong and claimed that the money she was seeking from a Trump donor was payment for services — public appearances and speaking engagements that predate her ambassadorial nomination — that had not been paid.

The lawyers, David Schwartz and Jesse Binnall, also rejected allegations of impropriety related to Guilfoyle’s travel on private planes, saying that before every such trip she “sought, obtained and followed State Department guidance and followed the Department’s travel regulations.”

The allegations began surfacing weeks ago

After defending Guilfoyle following the first report, Rubio has declined to comment publicly on the growing allegations. Last week, Rubio said: “Our ambassador has been a strong ambassador here.”

But after another report appeared later, Rubio — speaking Thursday before leaving Athens — berated journalists for asking about the allegations. He said that he didn’t know if they were true and that he would not respond if he could not confirm them.

“You guys walk around thinking that because some source told you something and you reported it, it’s the gospel. It’s not the gospel. It’s not the gospel for me. That’s not the way we do things,” Rubio said at the foot of his plane as Guilfoyle, who was there to see him depart, looked on.

A second U.S. official, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters, said the State Department’s inspector general was looking into the allegations, which first began surfacing in the Journal late last month and have since multiplied.

The second official could not say if a formal IG probe had begun. Inspectors general often conduct informal inquiries into complaints against staffers, and many times those inquiries do not result in a full-on investigation, which can result in disciplinary action up to and including dismissal.

The State Department has declined to comment on a potential IG investigation.

There was no immediate response to Zacharia’s statement from the Greek government or Cabinet members.

Ahead of Tuesday’s announcement, Greek opposition parties had called on the Foreign Ministry to summon Guilfoyle to respond to the allegations made against her. “This, most importantly, is an issue of national dignity,” Sia Anagnostopoulou, a former deputy foreign minister, said in parliament Friday. Foreign Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis responded that Guilfoyle had been treated “the same way as every other ambassador” and argued that an official summons had not been necessary.

Hours earlier, Guilfoyle had posted photos of her meeting this week with the Spanish ambassador to Athens as well as birthday wishes for Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law, accompanied by Dua Lipa’s “Dance the Night,” from the 2023 soundtrack of the movie “Barbie.”

Democrats call for an investigation

The top two Democrats on the House Foreign Affairs and Senate Foreign Relations committees, Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, as well as the ranking member on the House Committee for Oversight and Government Reform, Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., have already called for an investigation into Guilfoyle.

Since late September, the Journal has detailed numerous accounts of questionable conduct by Guilfoyle. Its first report said that she had told guests at a reception that the United States could undermine the Greek government if it chose to, promoted the business interests of one particular Greek construction and energy company and allowed its lobbyist into private diplomatic meetings.

While Rubio was in Athens, the Journal reported — citing text messages — that Guilfoyle had asked a Trump donor and supporter to pay a $100,000 credit card bill just before her confirmation hearing, promising him access to administration officials if he did.

The Journal then reported that Guilfoyle had been enraged about not being invited to a Greek-themed event at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, earlier this year and demanded to attend while boasting about luxury travel to France with energy company executives.

Another report, from the British tabloid The Daily Mail, said that Guilfoyle had alienated staff at the U.S. Embassy in Athens and had pushed the bounds of behavior appropriate for the top representative of the U.S. government to Greece.

Guilfoyle is a former Fox News Channel host and California prosecutor who was once married to California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and was engaged to Trump’s son Donald Jr.

Lee writes for the Associated Press. AP journalist Derek Gatapoulos in Athens contributed to this report.

Oct. 13, 2026 9:33 AM PT

WASHINGTON — Katie Zacharia, the new White House press secretary, faced reporters for the first time on Tuesday for a very brief turn at the lectern, taking a handful of questions before abruptly wrapping it up.

Zacharia, a conservative commentator who most recently worked for President Trump’s social media company, was named to the job on Friday, succeeding Karoline Leavitt, who left in August and is taking a job with Fox News Channel.

Zacharia told reporters her goal is to “amplify” what Trump is doing and that the president is “his own best spokesperson.”

She quickly proved that Tuesday, appearing for only 14 minutes and taking questions from just three outlets before telling reporters they could go ask the president their questions on the South Lawn of the White House as he prepared to leave for a campaign trip.

“In fact, I am going to end it because President Trump is heading out to Marine One for our historic trip to Alaska, and we can ask him all of the questions out there,” she said.

As Trump left the White House for his trip, he praised Zacharia’s performance to reporters.

“I thought she did excellent,” he said. “She did very good.”

Before taking the questions, Zacharia read slowly from an opening statement that began with a focus on Trump’s recent campaign rallies ahead of the midterm elections and his policies on energy, tariffs, immigration and more since he returned to office.

In naming Zacharia, who has a law degree from Pepperdine University, Trump described her as “a loyal and brilliant supporter, right from the beginning.” She briefly worked as a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security earlier this year and has been a commentator for Fox News and Newsmax.

She told reporters that she viewed her role as press secretary to be no different than the way she advocated for Trump while outside the government.

“I get to do what I was doing on the outside already, which was hoping to amplify, multiply and expand upon President Trump’s incredible agenda for the American people,” she said.

She also thanked Trump and said, “I have wanted to work for him for a very long time.”

She took her first question from Breitbart News, the right-wing outlet which has become more influential in the Trump era, and committed to keeping the “new media” rotation created under her predecessor to bring additional media outlets into news briefings and the White House press pool.

But Zacharia did make some big news: she said that Trump had asked for the resignation of Kimberly Guilfoyle, the U.S. ambassador to Greece, after a series of reports alleging she has engaged in improper and possibly illegal conduct before and during her tenure in Athens.

“She has been a wonderful asset to the team and we wish her well,” Zacharia said.

Price and Superville write for the Associated Press. AP writers Seung Min Kim, Josh Boak and Collin Binkley in Washington and Mike Catalini in Morrisville, Pa., contributed to this report.

Kimberly Guilfoyle has faced mounting allegations, including offering access to Trump officials in exchange for money.

United States President Donald Trump’s administration has asked the US ambassador to Greece, Kimberly Guilfoyle, to resign following a series of allegations of misconduct, including claims that she offered a political donor access to senior administration officials in exchange for money.

“We have asked Ambassador Guilfoyle to resign,” White House press secretary Katie Zacharia told reporters on Tuesday. “She has been a wonderful asset to the team, and we wish her well.”

The announcement comes after weeks of damaging reports about Guilfoyle’s conduct.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Guilfoyle asked a Trump donor to cover a $100,000 credit card bill shortly before her congressional confirmation hearing, promising him access to administration officials in return.

The newspaper also reported that she told guests at a reception that she could use US influence to undermine the Greek government, promoted the interests of a Greek construction and energy company and allowed one of its lobbyists to attend private diplomatic meetings.

Guilfoyle’s lawyers have denied any wrongdoing, saying the money she sought was payment for previous speaking engagements and public appearances that she had not received.

Trump had signalled on Monday that he was considering removing her from the post.

“Well, we’re looking at it,” he told reporters. “We’re not happy.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio initially defended Guilfoyle, calling her a “strong ambassador,” but later declined to comment on the allegations and criticised reporters for asking about them.

Guilfoyle is a former Fox News host and California prosecutor. She is the former wife of California Governor Gavin Newsom and was previously engaged to Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr.

WASHINGTON — Federal agents on Monday searched the home of Democratic U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, a startling escalation in a criminal investigation that brings renewed scrutiny to the frequent target of Trump administration derision in the final weeks of her reelection bid.

Omar said she will “not be silenced” and called the search of her home the “latest escalation” in President Trump’s ‘‘intimidation” campaign.

The search of the Minnesota congresswoman’s home so close to next month’s midterm contests that will determine control of the House and the Senate was swiftly condemned by top Democrats in Congress and raised questions about the timing given longstanding Justice Department protocol to avoid overt investigative steps involving political candidates in the direct run-up to an election.

The Justice Department confirmed in a statement that Homeland Security Investigations agents executed a judicially authorized search warrant in the Washington, D.C., area in connection with an ongoing federal criminal investigation but provided no other details.

The nature and scope of the investigation were unclear, though officials in Trump’s administration have repeatedly hinted at the existence of an inquiry targeting Omar, a Somali-born Democrat whose status as an immigrant to the U.S. and left-wing views have repeatedly drawn criticism from Republicans and senior Trump officials.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said last month that there was an “ongoing investigation” related in part to whether Omar lied on her immigration forms and that “something’s going to happen.”

Though the Republican focus on Omar’s background dates back years, the search of her home took place three weeks before the November midterms, in which Omar is on the ballot for reelection. The Justice Department has historically sought to avoid public investigative actions involving a candidate within 60 days of a primary or general election.

“For years, Donald Trump and far-right extremists have relentlessly targeted Congresswoman Omar with vile personal attacks and baseless accusations,” top House Democratic leaders said in a statement. “Now, less than 30 days until the midterm election, his violent mass deportation machine has descended upon the home of a duly elected Member of Congress and her family.”

A Homeland Security officer walks out of the Washington residence of Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., during a search, Monday.

(J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press)

Trump has frequently targeted Omar

Trump as recently as this past weekend brought up Omar at a rally in Tennessee, where he attacked her upbringing and suggested that Vice President JD Vance “and our people” were investigating her.

Vance has in the past accused Omar of committing immigration fraud — an allegation she has denied — and has said he and a top White House official were trying to figure out how to investigate her.

On Monday morning, the street
in Washington where Omar lives was blocked off as HSI agents remained near the home.

“This enforcement action is part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation,” the department said.

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, of which Homeland Security Investigations is part, referred questions about the search to the Justice Department.

Omar has long been a target for Republicans

Omar, who was first elected to the House in 2018, represents Minnesota’s 5th District, including Minneapolis. She is part of “The Squad,” progressive lawmakers who are a vibrant political force on the left wing of Congress but have also endured repeated attacks from Trump, dating to his first term. She was one of the first two Muslim American women in the House and the first African refugee to be elected to Congress.

When Republicans swept control of the House in 2023, they voted to oust Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee, citing her anti-Israel remarks.

In January, Trump lashed out at Omar during a rally in Iowa hours before an assailant sprayed the congresswoman during a town hall meeting in Minneapolis with a substance that turned out to be vinegar. The attacker was sentenced to 14 months in prison.

Republicans have raised questions about Omar’s past since before she was elected, including asserting that she had married her brother and committed immigration fraud. Omar has broadly denied the allegations as “disgusting lies.”

“It certainly seems like something fishy is there, but everybody’s entitled to equal justice under the laws,” Vance told reporters in May. “So we’re going to investigate it. We’re going to take a look at it. If we think there’s a crime, we’re going to prosecute that crime.”

In a separate interview with conservative podcaster Benny Johnson, Vance said without offering evidence that “we actually think that Ilhan Omar definitely committed immigration fraud against the United States of America.”

He said that he and deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller had been discussing it.

“That’s the thing that we’re trying to figure out,” he said. “What are the legal remedies now that we know that she’s committed immigration fraud? … How do you build the case necessary to get some, some, some justice for the American people?”

Omar’s office has defended her against past allegations

Omar’s office in March dismissed Vance’s claims as fabricated and defamatory.

“This is rich coming from someone who literally said they were willing to ‘create stories’ to redirect the media,” Omar’s chief of staff, Connor McNutt, said in a statement.

“This is a ridiculous lie and desperate attempt to distract from the pedophile protection party’s unpopular war of choice, increasing gas prices, and rapidly dropping polling numbers,” McNutt said.

Tucker and Richer write for the Associated Press. AP writers Lisa Mascaro, Michelle L. Price and River Zhang in Washington, Kathy McCormack in Concord, N.H., Mike Catalini in Morrisville, Pa., and Meg Kinnard in Columbia, S.C., contributed to this report.

President Trump has pushed Congress to pass a proof-of-citizenship law, signed an executive order seeking a national voter ID requirement and tried to limit mail voting through U.S. Postal Service changes.

None of those moves succeeded in time to affect this year’s midterm elections. It’s a different matter in the states.

More than three dozen voting laws passed in Republican-controlled states are taking effect for the first time this year, many of them containing elements of Trump’s stalled proposals. They include changes to what IDs are acceptable to register for the first time and requirements to show proof of citizenship, an issue the Republican president has tried but failed to get through Congress.

“Trump’s attacks on our elections are deeply damaging, but they are not happening in isolation,” said Sophia Lin Lakin, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Voting Rights Project. ”Across the country, states are also advancing restrictions that make it harder for eligible voters to cast a ballot.”

Republican lawmakers who support the tighter voting laws, especially around voter ID, describe them as common sense changes that help build trust in elections.

Trump and other Republicans have been pushing for more restrictive rules since the president’s false claims of widespread fraud in his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden. Trump’s false claims have resonated with Republican voters, a majority of whom believe Biden was not legitimately elected despite all evidence to the contrary. Trump lost dozens of court challenges, his own attorney general found no evidence of widespread fraud, and reviews, audits and recounts in the battleground states where he contested his loss all affirmed Biden’s victory.

Among the changes confronting voters as early voting gets underway: Students in New Hampshire can no longer use student IDs; Utah voters returning mail ballots must include more information on the envelope; and some voters in Mississippi might need birth certificates or passports to verify their identities.

Changes to voter ID requirements are challenged

New Hampshire state Rep. Donald McFarlane said he sponsored the bill to eliminate student IDs as acceptable for voting because colleges don’t have the same controls when issuing those cards as government agencies.

“The change removes a special exception and applies the same government-issued ID standard to all voters,” he said, adding that his bill had bipartisan support.

Students, he said, can still get state IDs free of charge.

The new requirements have not gone unchallenged.

In South Dakota, the ACLU has filed a lawsuit seeking to halt a new law that includes requiring voters registering for the first time to present the most common forms of ID — driver’s licenses, Tribal IDs and non-driver state IDs. They must be presented in person at places that accept registration.

“Proof of citizenship in itself is not terrible,” said Kathryn Johnson, president of the League of Women Voters of South Dakota.

Her concern is the requirement to present the IDs in person.

“We’re kind of a remote state, so sometimes it takes a drive, and you have to coordinate, you have to take off work, and all of these kinds of things,” she said.

Some Democrats also have expressed support for voter ID during recent debates. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said he was open to the idea as long as it wasn’t based on “conspiracy theories.” When legislatures change their state’s voting laws, they typically give election offices and voters time to adjust. Trump wanted federal voter ID and proof-of-citizenship legislation to take effect immediately, forcing election officials and voters to comply in the middle of the midterms.

Ohio seeks to scrub voter rolls

Ohio has a proof of citizenship requirement in effect for the first time this year for those registering to vote or updating their voter registration information at a Bureau of Motor Vehicles location. The state also eliminated its four-day grace period for mail ballots, which now must be received at local election offices by Election Day.

Yet the biggest concern for voting rights groups is an ongoing purge of the state’s voter rolls. The databases used to check citizenship against voter registration lists can be outdated, said Freda Levenson, legal director of the ACLU of Ohio, which has sued to overturn the law.

“Vast numbers of perfectly eligible voters are vulnerable to being disenfranchised,” she said.

Republican state Sen. Theresa Gavarone, one of the primary sponsors of the bill, challenged the ACLU’s legal action and said the problem it addresses is a real one.

“In the past two years, hundreds of noncitizens have been removed from Ohio’s voter rolls,” she said in an email. “Every single vote cast by a noncitizen disenfranchises a lawful Ohio voter.”

Voters have mixed views on the changes

Outside an early voting center in Wayne County, Ohio, retired steel worker Dan Walter, an independent voter, said he opposes requiring documentary proof of citizenship to vote.

“It’s to keep people from voting, it sounds to me like,” he said.

His wife, Jody, a retired aerospace executive and a Democrat, said she felt the same way about Ohio’s new requirement for registering to vote.

“A driver’s license doesn’t prove citizenship, and that’s all they ask for now,” she said. “It’s going to be an obstacle for so many people.”

Genia Fortune had a different view. A nurse, the Millersburg resident described herself as an independent and said she voted for President Barack Obama, a Democrat, and later for Trump. She believes Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen and sees requiring documentary proof of citizenship as a necessary precaution.

“I just feel like you need to be a citizen and show proof of ID,” she said.

Voting and election laws have become a regular target for legislatures

The Trump administration has pushed multiple strategies to influence this year’s midterm elections, most of them stymied by Congress or the courts.

Chris Diaz, director of legislative tracking at the Voting Rights Lab, said the group has seen several versions of the Republican president’s proposals passed by his allies in the states.

A recently released report by the group highlighted some of the key areas drawing Republican lawmakers’ attention, including mail balloting, voter ID and the hunt for noncitizens on voter rolls.

Noncitizen voting has been a focus of the Trump administration despite it being a rare problem. The U.S. Department of Justice recently announced it had brought charges in roughly 90 cases for various types of election misconduct, including 50 against people who are alleged to have voted as noncitizens. The U.S. had 227 million registered voters for the 2024 presidential election.

The Brennan Center for Justice has identified nearly 40 laws in 21 states taking effect this election season that will make it harder for eligible voters to register, stay on the rolls or cast ballots.

The report from the center, part of the New York University School of Law, found that many of the new laws target subsets of voters.

“What I want voters to take away from this is that elections are still run by the states and there are still people in many states who are trying to make it harder for you to vote,” said Sean Morales-Doyle, senior director of the center’s Voting Rights and Elections Program. “But that’s all the more reason to go make a plan to vote and participate.”

Fields and Smyth write for the Associated Press. Fields reported from Washington and Smyth reported from Wooster and Millersburg, Ohio.

New restrictions have stripped Medicaid coverage from certain legal immigrants, including refugees and victims of human trafficking, as part of broader federal changes to the health insurance program that are expected to force millions off their coverage.

The change effective Oct. 1 cut from Medicaid what is estimated to be hundreds of thousands of people who legally immigrated to the United States, many of whom work and pay taxes, in the latest Trump administration policy to target foreigners.

The move is part of sweeping changes to Medicaid under President Donald Trump’s 2025 tax cut and policy law, with many set to take effect early next year. The Medicaid changes are projected to result in 7.5 million fewer people with health insurance, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s 2025 estimate.

Advocates say that without Medicaid, people will not be able to afford private insurance and will either delay care or end up in emergency rooms, adding pressure to a strained health system. For immigrants, the cuts could be felt more acutely, compounding the effects of other administration efforts to restrict their access to public assistance as part of a broader immigration crackdown.

“This is about telling every immigrant in the United States that they are not welcome here and that they should leave,” said Ben D’Avanzo, a senior strategist at the National Immigration Law Center, which has pursued litigation against the Republican administration over its immigration agenda.

Refugees, asylum seekers, victims of human trafficking and domestic violence are among those who have lost coverage. Green-card holders were not impacted.

Lauren Bis, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement that “immigrants must be able to support themselves without taking from overburdened benefits programs paid for by hard-working American taxpayers.”

D’Avanzo said many people who have lost coverage will likely only realize when they need medical care. But for some, the change has been felt immediately.

Dwindling supplies of lifesaving medication

In Tucson, Arizona, María Chacon has been caring for her son Jesus for almost five years since a car accident at 17 left him unable to breathe on his own. He requires a ventilator, a feeding tube and daily medication, and must be turned once every two hours to stop sores from forming. Chacon said he sometimes opens his eyes.

The family is originally from Mexico and entered the U.S. on a T visa, offered to victims of human trafficking, in 2018.

Chacon said Medicaid has helped cover almost $25,000 per month of care for her son, which includes a small stipend for her and her husband as compensation for being long-term caregivers. She said doctors have explained that even if they both worked 24 hours a day, they would not be able to cover the cost of his care.

“Since that day I haven’t been able to sleep. We haven’t been able to eat or anything. We’re wondering what we’re going to do?” Chacon said.

Jesus takes medication that Chacon estimates costs $7,000 a month. The supply runs out in mid-October. Without coverage, she does not know how her son is going to survive.

Chacon found out just days before the cuts that she was losing care. She called the state’s Medicaid offices to appeal. Although she is in the process of obtaining a green card, Medicaid coverage would only kick in five years after she is approved.

Steven Camarota, research director for the Center for Immigration Studies, a right-leaning think tank that seeks less immigration, said the administration “is trying to nibble around the edges” with the Oct. 1 cuts, finding piecemeal ways to curb immigration into the U.S.

Camarota believes the government should screen legal immigrants for income potential and education, reducing the number who might rely on public benefits once they cross the border.

“You need immigrants who are unlikely to need welfare,” he said, or those with high educational attainment.

The administration recently revived a federal rule that could deny green cards to immigrants who use public benefits that could include food stamps, Medicaid, housing vouchers and others.

Chacon believes the cuts to Medicaid coverage are part of the administration’s clampdown on immigrants. She said her son is in no condition to travel.

“I know that’s what he’s doing, but, as my son is, I couldn’t go to Mexico,” Chacon said.

Millions more will be dropped from Medicaid

Medicaid, jointly funded by states and the federal government, has become a political focal point during Trump’s second term. The president has pushed to root out what he describes as fraud in the program. In July, the administration deferred over $1 billion in Medicaid payments to California and Minnesota, claiming there was suspected fraud; critics argued the move targeted Democratic-led states.

As more people are cut from Medicaid, the federal government is predicted to reduce program spending by $911 billion, according to healthcare research nonprofit KFF.

In Arizona, officials said 29,000 legal immigrants were cut from Medicaid rolls on Oct. 1. In Florida, estimates are closer to 177,000. Overall, more than 281,000 immigrants from nine states and the District of Columbia are estimated to lose Medicaid coverage, according to KFF.

As more states implement various restrictions to coverage, 7.5 million people are expected to lose coverage by 2034, according to analysis by the Congressional Budget Office.

Without coverage, people will turn to emergency rooms for care. When people delay seeing a doctor, conditions can worsen and become even more expensive to treat.

“At the end of the day, it does raise the cost for the states because once you get these people in for something that could have been prevented, they could not go to the doctor because they were uninsured; they most likely will end up at a hospital in an emergency room,” said Carmen Feliciano, the vice president of policy and advocacy at UnidosUS, a Latino civil rights organization.

UnidosUS partners with community organizations to help provide medical care, but Feliciano said they already are overwhelmed and would not be able to support the number of people who are going to lose medical coverage in the coming months.

“We are not going to have the capacity to serve all the people who need it,” Feliciano said.

Schuettler and Hussein write for the Associated Press.

US President Donald Trump has announced an immediate “energy ceasefire” between Russia and Ukraine, days after easing sanctions on Russian fuel to tackle soaring domestic and global fuel prices.

The energy truce, announced on Sunday, marks another shift in Washington’s approach to Russian energy, as the Iran-US war and recent Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy facilities disrupted global oil supplies and pushed up fuel prices. Trump has even asked Ukraine not to attack Russian oil facilities, as Moscow remains a major exporter of diesel.

The spike in diesel prices in recent weeks has particularly put pressure on Trump’s Republican Party ahead of November’s midterm elections. Surveys show Americans hold the Trump administration responsible for the soaring fuel prices amid the unpopular US war on Iran.

“Attacks on refineries and energy facilities have taken capacity out of an already stretched global fuel market, pushing up costs for transport, agriculture and businesses, with the pain ultimately passed on to consumers,” Susannah Streeter, chief investment strategist at Wealth Club, told Al Jazeera, referring to the mutual attacks on energy sites by Ukraine and Russia.

“A genuine ceasefire could help protect supplies and ease some of that pressure, particularly as winter approaches.”

However, she warned it was too early to call it a “diplomatic breakthrough”, citing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s statement that the energy truce came as a surprise to him.

Trump’s decisions have drawn criticism from US politicians and European allies, who warn that allowing Russian fuel back into global markets could provide Moscow with new revenue to finance its war in Ukraine. In March, the Trump administration gave a sanctions waiver to Russian seaborne oil.

So, why has Trump repeatedly changed his position on Russian energy, and what is behind his latest decisions?

What is the ‘energy ceasefire’ Trump announced?

On Sunday, Trump said Russia and Ukraine had agreed to immediately stop attacking each other’s energy infrastructure.

“Both parties have agreed. Do not break it!” he wrote on Truth Social, without providing further details.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he was not aware of the energy truce, saying the deal was “news to me” but welcomed the announcement nonetheless.

However, he said Russian drones continued targeting Ukrainian energy facilities, including a power plant in Kharkiv, after Trump’s statement.

“We are waiting for the details of the conditions between the Americans and Russians, ⁠⁠⁠⁠and we are waiting ⁠⁠⁠⁠to see one specific step the Americans are ready to take,” Zelenskyy said on Monday during a video address to a security conference in Warsaw.

“This ⁠⁠⁠⁠energy ceasefire, it can work, and it can become a major step towards ending ‌‌‌‌the war if the Americans truly step in now and make ‌‌‌‌sure ‌‌‌‌Russians respect it.”

Ukraine has repeatedly targeted Russian oil refineries, arguing that energy revenues help fund Moscow’s war. Russia, meanwhile, has attacked Ukraine’s electricity and heating infrastructure throughout the four-year conflict.

Academic Alexey Muriaev has urged caution over Trump’s announcement, questioning whether an agreement has actually been reached, and if so, what it entails.

“Is it about suspending attacks on oil refineries? And if that’s the case, then the situation would be inadequate, because Ukraine’s oil refineries have already been taken out by Russia’s strikes beforehand,” Muraviev, senior research fellow in Defence and Strategic Studies at Edith Cowan University, told Al Jazeera.

“So, in this sense, it would mean effectively Ukraine suspending unilateral action against Russia’s oil refinery facilities.”

Muriaev also linked the announcement to Trump’s diesel agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin, suggesting it may be a signal to Zelenskyy.

“Attacking Russian oil refinery capability would probably be interpreted by Washington as an attack on US economic interests,” he said, referring to the agreement on diesel exports through April 2027.

What’s the state of global oil prices?

The ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine have continued to keep global oil markets under pressure.

On Monday, Brent crude, the international benchmark, fell to about $103.04 a barrel following Trump’s ceasefire announcement and Russian diesel deal, while US West Texas Intermediate crude traded at about $90.96.

However, prices remain elevated because of the US-Israel war on Iran, which began on February 28, and disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway through which one-fifth of the world’s oil supplies flow.

Recent attacks on Saudi oil installations and airports by Yemen’s Houthis and the fighting around the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandeb Strait have put further pressure on oil prices.

Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries have compounded diesel shortages, affecting a fuel essential for the agriculture and trucking industries.

The crisis prompted the Group of Seven nations last week to agree to release 100 million barrels of emergency oil and diesel reserves. The G7 decision came after pressure from Trump.

How has the Trump administration zig-zagged between punishing and embracing Russian energy?

Washington’s approach to Russian energy has shifted repeatedly since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Under President Joe Biden, the US banned Russian oil and energy imports in March 2022, seeking to cut off revenue used to finance Moscow’s war.

But Washington simultaneously supported a G7 price cap on Russian oil, designed to restrict Moscow’s earnings without removing too much supply from global markets.

Moreover, the Biden administration also accepted India’s continued purchases of Russian crude to prevent global prices from rising.

After returning to power last year, Trump initially intensified pressure on Moscow. In August 2025, his administration imposed additional tariffs on Indian goods over New Delhi’s purchases of Russian oil.

Two months later, Washington sanctioned Russian energy giants Rosneft and Lukoil, accusing Moscow of failing to seriously pursue peace negotiations to end the war in Ukraine.

However, Washington’s approach took a dramatic turn this year. On March 5, Washington issued a 30-day waiver allowing India to buy Russian oil stranded at sea, as disruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz amid US attacks on Iran threatened global supplies.

A week later, the Trump administration expanded the exemption, allowing countries worldwide to buy sanctioned Russian oil and petroleum products already loaded onto tankers, with the waiver lasting until April 11.

In September, Trump urged Ukraine to stop attacking Russian refineries, blaming the strikes for global diesel shortages.

On October 9, he announced an agreement with Russian President Putin for Moscow to release more than 300,000 tonnes of diesel immediately, with another 1.5 million tonnes to follow.

Why has Trump changed his position on Russian oil frequently?

Trump’s shifting public position on Russian energy reflects ongoing, and often competing, political and economic pressures.

“Trump is caught between his geopolitical ambitions and the domestic political consequences of expensive energy,” Susannah Streeter of Wealth Club, told Al Jazeera.

She said Washington was trying to pressure Moscow over its war in Ukraine while simultaneously allowing Russian fuel sales that could generate additional revenue for the Kremlin.

“The shift may deliver a short-term political gain if supplies increase and prices ease, but it could come at a longer-term diplomatic cost,” she said, adding that the benefits appeared limited while the Middle East war continued.

US diesel prices reached a record $6.52 per gallon in September, placing Trump under pressure ahead of the November 3 midterm elections.

However, according to academic Muriev, the US president’s public rhetoric should be distinguished from his administration’s actions.

“I don’t really see inconsistency in Trump’s approach because, apart from his public rhetoric, apart from his frequent media posting, there’s been a more steady approach on behalf of his administration,” he told Al Jazeera.

He pointed to discussions between Russian and American officials in August and September, suggesting that negotiations over the latest diesel agreement may have begun well before Trump’s announcement last Friday.

Muriev suggested the timing of the announcement could be politically motivated, allowing Trump to claim a victory on energy prices before the midterms.

Moreover, Moscow also has an interest in helping Trump retain political influence because his administration appears more willing to negotiate with Russia than former President Biden was. Trump has  been relatively more accepting of the Russian position on the Ukraine war and has even blamed Zelenskyy for failing to end the war.

“For Putin, it’s not just about scoring immediate economic benefit, but also achieving longer-term political and strategic goals,” Muriev said, referring to other issues such as Iran, cybersecurity, space cooperation and nuclear arms control.

The energy crisis has also created contrasting consequences for American businesses.

While higher oil prices can boost revenues for US energy producers, they increase operating costs for businesses dependent on fuel.

Susannah Streeter said cheaper diesel could provide relief to trucking companies, farmers and manufacturers, although the additional Russian supplies were unlikely to make a significant difference while disruptions in the Middle East continued.

She also warned that frequent changes to sanctions could create uncertainty for companies making long-term investment and supply-chain decisions.

“If sanctions are relaxed, reimposed or changed at short notice, companies face greater uncertainty over sourcing, compliance and the risk of being caught on the wrong side of a policy reversal,” she said.