WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court announced Friday it will rule on President Trump’s ban on asylum claims at the southern border, testing a key part of his hard-line policy on immigration.
At issue is a clash between the promise of asylum for those fleeing persecution and the reality of a border overwhelmed by hundreds of thousands who arrived seeking to apply.
Trump’s lawyers said his ban on asylum claims in January 2025 was his “single most effective policy” in ending the chaos along the border.
“Over preceding four years, at least eight million illegal aliens were encountered along the southern border,” Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer told the court, “and countless millions more evaded detection and illegally entered the United States.”
The sheer numbers of people coming to the border had “overwhelmed the system,” making it impossible for U.S. officials to screen and interview asylum seekers, he said. Lacking facilities to detain applicants, most were released into the country.
The law authorizes asylum for people who can demonstrate they are fleeing persecution based on race, religion, nationality or belonging to a particular social or political group.
Federal judges in Washington agreed that asylum must be preserved. They said immigration officials were free to reject claims for asylum but they could not eliminate the right for the entire category of potential applicants.
However, their ruling was put on hold while the administration appealed to the Supreme Court.
“The president does not have the right to unilaterally override the protections Congress has afforded those fleeing danger,” said Lee Gelernt, lead counsel and deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project. “The courts are right to reject this unprecedented power grab that would put countless lives in danger. We look forward to making our case before the Supreme Court.”
Keren Zwick, executive director of the National Immigrant Justice Center, said the plaintiffs in the case “fled persecution and torture, including political imprisonment and threats from the Taliban. Yet, the Trump administration refused to honor its obligation to consider them for asylum.”
Instead, some of them “were removed to third countries and then pushed back to the very place they fled. This vicious attack on due process and human rights has put thousands of lives in danger.”
Federal immigration law gives the president broad authority to close the border to most migrants.
It says he “may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.”
Texas Democrat Senator-elect James Talarico has urged his party to work with President Trump. He contends the Dems could help Trump make his final two years in office the most productive in US history.
MINNEAPOLIS — Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested and deported more people during the last fiscal year than at any time in its 23-year history, the Department of Homeland Security said Wednesday, as President Trump followed through on promises of mass deportations that helped win back the White House but also fueled the political blowback that led to Democrats’ overwhelming victory in last week’s midterm elections.
ICE said it deported 483,200 people in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, the highest number since 2014, when 405,090 people were deported under then-President Obama, and some activists labeled him the “deporter in chief.”
The 2026 numbers were up 9% from its previous high of 442,640 in the same period a year earlier and up 78% from 271,480 in 2024, the last year of Joe Biden’s presidency.
ICE had not released such counts since Trump returned to the White House, including for 2025.
“Thanks to President Trump’s leadership, ICE has been unleashed to target and remove illegal aliens so that we can save American lives,” said Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin.
Yet much remained unsaid in the Homeland Security news release, including how many deportees had criminal histories and a detailed breakdown of the statistics. In addition, deportation numbers can be notoriously fuzzy, with totals counted in different ways in different years.
“It is accurate that ICE is making record numbers of arrests,” said Marc R. Rosenblum, a visiting fellow at the Migration Policy Institute and a former top official overseeing statistics at the Department of Homeland Security. “They have record resources. They’ve doubled their staffing. They’re getting a lot of support from other law enforcement agencies.”
But the sparse data in Wednesday’s announcement means “we can’t really see what’s going on in any kind of detailed way.”
Trump had campaigned on ridding America of criminal migrants, saying he’d be targeting the “worst of the worst.”
But that is rarely the case. In July, for instance, only roughly one-quarter of deportees had criminal convictions, according to the Deportation Data Project. More than half weren’t even facing charges.
The numbers released Wednesday also fell well short of the White House goal of 1 million deportations annually, a promise it made when it received billions in additional funding from Congress, supercharging the government’s immigration bureaucracy.
Trump returned to power last year promising to end illegal crossings at the southern border. His administration has pushed through restrictions on both legal and illegal immigration and sped up deportations. Immigration crackdown operations are often purposefully high-profile, in part to frighten migrants into leaving of their own accord.
But the crackdown hasn’t always gone as planned.
The biggest shift came this year in Minneapolis, when more than 2,000 federal officers were deployed to the city and thousands of protesters turned out to confront masked and often heavily armed agents spilling from convoys of unmarked vehicles.
Two U.S. citizens — Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both 37 — were killed in confrontations with agents, and the administration quickly backed away from high-profile operations.
Although arrests dropped after the killings, they quickly returned to record numbers, albeit in quieter immigration sweeps.
By last week’s elections the White House’s immigration message had splintered, with even some deeply Republican rural areas voting Democratic after people saw longtime migrant neighbors, many of them key workers on farms, ranches and meat-processing facilities, taken in arrests.
The highest recorded number of deportations came during President Eisenhower’s crackdown on illegal immigrants from Mexico. The often-chaotic policy saw deportation numbers spike dramatically in the early 1950s, cresting at 1.1 million in 1954.
It’s business as usual for President Trump’s deportation offensive despite the Republican wipeout in the midterm elections.
In Los Angeles, masked immigration officers in body armor blocked a hospital emergency room driveway in a heavily Latino neighborhood early Saturday. In central Alabama, twin 19-year-old brothers from Venezuela were arrested while driving back to college a day after the election.
Advocates reported arrests from California to Michigan to Massachusetts. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has not released numbers.
After Democrats trounced the GOP and won control of the next Congress, Trump said his immigration crackdown may have been “too tough” and suggested it was time to sit down with the rival party.
“I’d love to do something on immigration,” he said in an interview with CBS “60 Minutes” recorded Friday.
Hours later, he named Stephen Miller, the architect of his hard-line immigration agenda, as his new chief of staff. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, meanwhile, said his orders had not changed.
“Deportations will continue,” Mullin wrote in an online post the day after the election, warning that ICE takes no days off and that “this includes on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Election Day.”
María Bilbao, a campaign coordinator for the American Friends Service Committee in Miami, said she has received at least one call a day from someone detained in South Florida since the election.
“Everything remains exactly the same. The arrests have not ceased at all,” Bilbao said.
Florida Highway Patrol officers and ICE agents have detained people in their cars, as well as places including supermarkets, pharmacies and gas stations. Immigrants under supervision have also been arrested when they showed up at ICE’s Miami office for their appointments.
Officers assembled outside a Los Angeles hospital
Erick Gasca, 31, got home Friday night after an evening playing board games with friends. He lives near Adventist Health White Memorial Medical Center in Los Angeles.
An “unprecedented” number of vehicles with tinted windows and no license plates were parked near the hospital’s emergency room entrance, he said.
“I thought they were going to raid the hospital or something,” he recalled.
The Department of Homeland Security declined to explain the officers’ presence there, though Bill Essayli, the top Justice Department prosecutor in Los Angeles, said they were bringing a detainee for medical treatment. Essayli said two people were arrested for assaulting federal agents.
“ICE does not target hospitals, schools, or churches,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.
The agents’ presence attracted some 30 residents and passersby. Footage shot by Gasca’s cousin, Michelle Rivera, shows protesters shouting and officers pinning someone down.
The hospital said it wasn’t involved.
“White Memorial does not participate in immigration enforcement,” hospital president Daniel Fontoura said in a statement, adding it would not let such activities “compromise our commitment to patient care and safety.”
A couple is arrested at the Phoenix airport
A married couple from Orlando, Fla., was arrested Saturday at the airport in Phoenix while traveling to a funeral.
Gustavo Romanello and Agustin Baccega, both from Argentina, have work permits while they seek asylum after entering the United States about six years ago, according to Jonathan Batchelor, a family friend.
Batchelor was on the phone with them at the time. A mutual friend died Friday and the couple was visiting for the funeral Saturday. As the couple left the airport, two casually dressed officers asked if one was Agustin Baccega. Batchelor heard the officer say, “Asylum seekers are not in the United States legally.”
Batchelor said he could hear Romanello walking alongside his husband during the arrest and asking the officers how to collect his things. Batchelor said they then asked what his name was, “and then the guard said, ‘Oh, do you have another set of handcuffs? This is another one.’”
The voices grew distant, and the call then ended.
Both men remain in detention centers. They worked as acrobats in Florida and had no criminal record, Batchelor said.
“This is just taking good people who have been following the rules out of their lives and out of the lives of those who rely upon them and care about them,” Batchelor said.
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the arrests.
Twin brothers seized while driving back to college
The brothers were headed back to college after visiting their parents when they were stopped in a small city in central Alabama.
Luis and Carlos Orta-Santoro, 19-year-olds born in Venezuela and living in the U.S. for four years, are soccer players at Wallace State Community College in Hanceville, Ala.
Relatives say they have pending asylum applications, valid work permits, and no criminal records. Both are now in an immigration detention facility.
“Our family is devastated,” said their aunt, Carolina Orta.
Homeland Security said that while they had entered the country legally, they had “overstayed in defiance of our laws,” and their case would be heard by an immigration judge. It said pending asylum applications do not confer legal status in the U.S.
The school said in a statement, “Both young men are valued members of the Wallace State community, and our thoughts are with them during this difficult time. We sincerely hope for a positive resolution to their situation.”
A Haitian boy is taken into custody, drawing protests in San Diego
An 8-year-old Haitian boy had been living with his uncle in San Diego since his father was deported last year. The uncle, who is not a legal guardian, took him to an ICE office when the boy was summoned Nov. 4 and taken into custody.
That left the boy “without the support of their family, community and their school,” according to a letter to top administration officials from San Diego Unified School District Superintendent Fabi Bagula and school board members.
“Children should not lose access to education simply because of circumstances unfolding around them,” they wrote.
ICE has defended its actions.
Johny Oxeda, pastor of the Fairmount Haitian Community Church, which helped get legal representation for the boy, said he’ll ultimately benefit by going through legal channels.
Activists, though, were furious.
“This is not child protection,” said Guerline Jozef of Haitian Bridge Alliance, adding, “this is state-inflicted trauma.”
Gonzalez and Sullivan write for the Associated Press. AP reporters Gisela Salomon in Miami and Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed to this report.
Nine family members of the Kennedy political dynasty asked a judge Tuesday to block President Trump’s plan to build a towering memorial arch, saying the 250-foot structure would cast a shadow over their relatives’ gravesites at Arlington National Cemetery.
The shadow would “fundamentally alter the experience of visiting the gravesites,” the relatives argued. They filed a motion to intervene in two existing lawsuits seeking to block construction of the arch.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan last week prohibited the Trump administration from breaking ground on the structure for 14 days.
The nine Kennedy family members who filed suit are children and grandchildren of Robert F. Kennedy and Edward M. Kennedy, brothers of the slain U.S. president John F. Kennedy, both of whom served in the U.S. Senate. They are buried close to the eternal flame that marks JFK’s gravesite, a trio of memorials that are a major draw for the millions of people who visit the Arlington cemetery each year.
Building the arch would be a “permanent denigration” of the gravesites, and the Kennedy offspring “would never again be able to appreciate both sites as they always have before, and as the Kennedy family always intended,” lawyers for the relatives wrote. They are represented by veteran Washington lawyer Norm Eisen and Democracy Defenders Fund.
“It is unfortunate to see that some members of the Kennedy family have joined the litigation against the Arch as the project is intended to honor our heroes who rest in Arlington Cemetery,” said White House spokesperson Davis Ingle. “The judiciary should not be abused to politicize a structure designed to unite our nation.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s health and human services secretary who has a fractured relationship with many of his relatives, did not join the lawsuit.
The arch is one of several projects around Washington that the Republican president has undertaken as he alters the capital to his tastes — from renovating one of its storied public golf courses to threatening to demolish the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Those projects could soon face intense scrutiny after Democrats gained control of Congress in the midterm elections.
The White House last week unveiled a glitzy new website to showcase the arch, which is slated to rise in a mass of gold ornamentation and stately gray granite between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery.
United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that Washington’s economic pressure campaign against Iran is proving so effective that a resumption of large-scale military operations is unnecessary.
His remarks are the latest in an often-evolving series of messages from US President Donald Trump’s administration on the conflict with Iran. They also come after a crushing midterm defeat for Trump’s Republican Party, which the president acknowledged was likely partly driven by public opposition to the war.
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So how do Rubio’s latest remarks compare with the positions of other administration officials, and what do they say about the state of the conflict?
What have Trump, Rubio and Vance said about the conflict?
Rubio made his latest comments on Tuesday after meeting with foreign ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) forum in Paris.
He said he told G7 allies that “the economic campaign [against Iran] is so devastating that right now there is no need for major combat operations”.
“We don’t need to conduct military strikes if we’re achieving the same objective through economic means and economic pressure. That’s not stalemate,” Rubio said.
“The economic pressure on Iran is going to get even worse,” he added.
Rubio also pushed G7 allies to help “protect shipping” around the embattled Strait of Hormuz, where he said US forces would stay.
The secretary of state’s remarks were largely in line with Trump’s comments on Monday, when the president said further strikes against Iran were “quite unlikely”.
Writing on his Truth Social platform, Trump said the US’s Gulf allies preferred a continuation of the “status quo”, referring to the US’s blockade of Iranian ports. Trump added that there appears to be “positive momentum” towards ending the conflict, but that the US remains “locked and loaded” should circumstances change.
Vice President JD Vance, who has been more critical of the war and recently wrote a lengthy social media post blaming the Republican Party’s midterm defeat on the conflict, favours a deal with Iran, which Trump does not believe is possible right now, the Reuters news agency cited an informed source as saying.
Between sanctions and diplomacy: What are the divisions on Iran war strategy?
Negotiations to end the US-Iran conflict have been largely stalled for months, as Iran continues to target vessels it claims are violating its conditions for transit through the Strait of Hormuz and the US ramps up sanctions against Iran and continues to blockade Iranian ports, with plans to block Iran’s land-based supply routes as well.
Back in September, Iran proposed a seven-day plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and restart talks. Tehran has since said that timeline could be brought down to two days. Tehran’s demands for the US include lifting sanctions Washington imposed after the collapse of a June memorandum of understanding (MoU), reducing the US military presence in the region, reinstating oil waivers and releasing frozen Iranian funds.
Trump, torn between restarting an unpopular war or pushing harder for a deal with Tehran, has for now settled on a middle ground: doubling down on the pressure campaign against Iran while avoiding a return to full-scale military action, according to officials quoted by Axios.
That strategy is backed by several key administration officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, as well as Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, Axios cited US officials as saying.
However, several US allies in the region, including Pakistan, Iraq and Turkiye, are concerned that a drawn-out US pressure campaign against Iran could hurt their own business interests, said one official cited by the news outlet.
Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said that a long-term US policy of intensive sanctions and a blockade against Iran would only prolong an “unstable status quo” that would eventually escalate into more military confrontation.
However, he said one “walk-away” option for Trump could be to quietly relax the sanctions and blockade while maintaining them “on paper”.
In this case, “Trump walks away and claims to retain the blockade and sanctions infrastructure, but in reality, allows it to imperceptibly wither away,” Parsi told Al Jazeera. “The blockade begins to loosen, sanctions enforcement begins to decay, and slowly but surely, Asian and Middle Eastern countries begin trading with and investing in Iran.”
“A new equilibrium emerges in which sanctions enforcement is strong enough for the US to claim the restrictions are still in place, yet weak enough to prevent Tehran from challenging the new status quo,” Parsi said.
Have the midterm election results impacted Trump’s strategy?
Yes, according to analysts.
Negar Mortazavi, senior non-resident fellow at the Center for International Policy in Washington, DC, said the Republicans’ resounding election defeat “dramatically raised the political cost of more escalation” and gave the Democrats a stronger mandate to challenge the war.
“If Democrats unite and use their new power aggressively, they can make it increasingly difficult for Trump to continue the war, pressuring him to end it,” Mortazavi told Al Jazeera.
“A diplomatic breakthrough is not guaranteed, but the political and strategic costs of escalation keep growing, making another round of war less likely,” she added.
Both Trump and Vance have acknowledged that the Iran war was partly to blame for the Republicans’ loss, with Trump saying voters were not ready for petrol prices to rise.
According to a poll by Reuters/Ipsos completed on Monday, 71 percent of Americans – including 93 percent of Democrats and 51 percent of Republicans – favour congressional legislation that would halt the Iran war.
What is Iran saying?
Iranian officials have upped their rhetoric even as Washington appears to be moving away from military escalation.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Tuesday said the war will “not end either through military means or by increasing sanctions”, but only through “using the language of respect”.
In comments carried by Iran’s IRNA news agency, he urged the US “to act on Iran’s demands and conditions”, adding that Trump “should have realised much earlier that he has not achieved, and will not achieve, any of his goals in the war with Iran”.
Iran’s top security chief Mohsen Rezaei, in a social media post on Monday, said the US government had been “wrecked” by the war and that it was time for it to “surrender” to Iran’s demands.
Al Jazeera’s Mohamed Vall, reporting from Tehran, noted that Iran’s language has become “more confident than ever before”.
“They’re trying to convey to the public, internally, and also to the Americans, that there is no way this war can be declared over without responding to those conditions presented by Iran during the negotiations,” said Vall.
What is the current status of diplomacy?
There are mixed messages.
The Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday said that Doha is “working tirelessly” in its ongoing mediation efforts, and has received positive reactions from both sides.
Trump, the day before, after hosting Qatar’s prime minister at the White House, also spoke of “momentum towards the end of this conflict”, adding that “Iran is talking to us, and they’re talking very politely”.
Rubio, for his part, said the US remains “open to diplomacy”, but called Iran’s current demands “totally unrealistic”.
“We expect that could change – and if it does, we’re prepared for diplomacy,” he said.
Iranian officials, meanwhile, have appeared more sceptical of the latest reports of mediation, insisting that the US must accept their demands.
Rezaei on Tuesday said there were no negotiations taking place between Tehran and Washington and that Iran would retaliate against any new US attack by targeting US bases “far away”. He also said Iran would not let any of its enriched nuclear material leave the country, ruling out a concession the US has sought in potential nuclear talks.
In a social media post, Rezaei went on to accuse the US of “manufacturing FAKE NEWS about imaginary talks”.
Kennedy dynasty has filed a motion to stop Trump’s arch from obscuring JFK Eternal Flame and slain family gravesites.
Published On 11 Nov 202611 Nov 2026
Members of the prominent Kennedy family have filed a legal motion to halt the construction of US President Donald Trump’s 76-metre (250ft) “triumphal arch” in Washington, DC, arguing it mars the area near the graves of the family’s famous forebears.
On Tuesday, the nine plaintiffs, children and grandchildren of former Senators Robert F Kennedy and Edward M Kennedy, filed a motion to intervene and an accompanying complaint in two existing federal lawsuits to block the arch’s construction.
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The project would sit near the final resting places of the late senators, buried alongside their brother, former President John F Kennedy, and the Eternal Flame commemorating him at Arlington National Cemetery.
Plaintiffs argued the proposed arch would “fundamentally alter the experience of visiting the gravesites”, a site that draws millions of visitors each year.
The intervention motion was filed by veteran Washington lawyer Norm Eisen and Democracy Defenders Fund, a centre-left legal advocacy group.
It contends that the National Park Service and the Department of the Interior authorised the granite, gold-ornamented structure, dubbed the “Arc de Trump” by critics, without required congressional approval.
The plaintiffs also argue the megastructure would destroy the intentionally designed, century-old line of sight between the Lincoln Memorial and the cemetery’s Arlington House across the Memorial Bridge.
Many plaintiffs
The high-profile intervention adds to an already sprawling roster of plaintiffs who have launched legal challenges against the polarising monument, including Vietnam War veterans, a historian, and the governments of the District of Columbia, Virginia and Arlington County.
Last week, District Judge Tanya Chutkan prohibited the Trump administration from breaking ground on the structure for another 14 days following the string of lawsuits.
Building the arch would be a “permanent denigration” of the gravesites, and the Kennedy offspring “would never again be able to appreciate both sites as they always have before, and as the Kennedy family always intended”, lawyers for the relatives wrote on Tuesday.
But with Democrats seizing control of Congress in last week’s midterm elections, the overhauls may be set for heightened scrutiny.
Speaking on behalf of the Kennedy family, Rory and Maxwell Kennedy, children of the late senator Robert F Kennedy, said the action is about “protecting sacred spaces that belong to the American people”. They said several members of their slain family are “among the more than 400,000 veterans and family members buried or honored on this hallowed ground”.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, a Trump appointee who is estranged from much of his family, did not join the litigation.
President Trump, who for years disputed his loss in the 2020 election and publicly decried the the outcome of the vote that he said was stolen from him by Democratic forces, privately lauded incoming President Biden as someone he believed “will be true to yourself and the American people.”
That sentiment, along with others, was part of the letter Trump left for Biden upon leaving office in January 2021. Biden showed the note to some members of his staff after his inauguration in 2021 but didn’t let anyone read it, describing it later that day as “very generous” but otherwise saying he considered it to be private.
Inclusion of the letter in Biden’s “Promise Me, America,” his White House memoir slated for release Nov. 17, was first reported Tuesday by the New York Times. The Associated Press has reviewed a photocopy of the two-page letter, handwritten in Trump’s trademark black Sharpie on White House stationery and addressed “To ‘46,’” denoting Biden’s place as the 46th U.S. president.
“Many presidents have come and gone who simply governed as Republicans or Democrats,” Trump wrote. “Largely, they did not change history, they were just swept along in its relentless tide. This will not happen to you because I know how much you love the American people.”
At the time of transition, Biden was said to have been surprised by how gracious he thought the letter was, given the animosity between the political rivals. Trump had opted out of other presidential traditions, such as attending Biden’s inauguration or hosting the incoming president and first lady for tea at the White House.
Trump has said he thought it was up to Biden to share the letter, calling it “a nice note” during a September 2023 interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” adding, “I took a lot of time in thinking about it.”
Elsewhere in the memoir, the first excerpt of which was published Monday by the Atlantic, Biden wrote of the deep damage Trump has inflicted, with an administration determined to “tear down institutions and inflame hatreds.”
Lamenting Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency and his aggressive reversal of many of Biden’s policies, the former president wrote of Trump’s “dismissive and destructive nature,” describing his predecessor and successor as someone “who seemed unable to tolerate the idea that someone else’s accomplishments might be worth building on rather than tearing down.”
But Biden’s harshest characterization so far was focused on Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, as Congress met to certify the 2020 election, which Biden had won. Writing that Trump “led an insurrection,” Biden said Trump’s ”goal was to remain in power after the American people had voted him out of office.”
“What Trump did on January 6, 2021, should never be forgotten,” Biden wrote. “It should follow him to his grave.”
Asked for comment on both the letter and Biden’s memoir, White House communications director Steven Cheung called the former president “a disgrace” who “should have heeded the President’s wise words, but instead he tried to destroy this country and weaponize the justice system against his political enemies.”
WASHINGTON — As it became clear on election day that Republicans would lose the House of Representatives, House Homeland Security Committee Democrats posted a three-word message on social media to Markwayne Mullin, who leads the agency: “clear your calendar.”
After affordability and the Iran war, immigration was a defining issue in the midterm elections, and now that Democrats won majorities in the House and Senate, they plan to increase agency oversight and attempt to rein in the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement policies.
Come January, Democrats will control every House seat along the U.S.-Mexico border. But while they will have wider leeway to investigate alleged wrongdoings of the last two years, how much they can advance their immigration agenda will likely depend on how much Republicans will collaborate with them. Any advances would also require the approval of President Trump, who on Friday appointed Stephen Miller, the architect of many of his administration’s most stringent immigration policies, as his new chief of staff.
Democrats have already started outlining their goals for next year and preparing to staff up. Job listings posted last week seek investigators, lawyers and law clerks whose duties would include immigration.
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach), who is poised to lead the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said one of his major focus areas would be the Department of Homeland Security and abuses by immigration agents. Garcia specifically named former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and her advisor Corey Lewandowski, saying they would face accountability and justice.
“When people are being kidnapped and detained, thrown to the ground, arms broken, people snatched up on their way to immigration appointments that we the government gave them, that’s inhumane, it’s wrong, and I think the American public — regardless of party — are sick of it,” Garcia said Wednesday at a news conference in Huntington Beach.
Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, sent a letter to Mullin the same day demanding that his department preserve all documents, including emails and contracts, and prepare to hand them over.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the investigations subcommittee of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, made a similar request. Blumenthal said he has written Homeland Security leaders more than a dozen times and received no records.
But that was when Republicans controlled the subcommittee. Last week, he wrote, “Please also note that failure to voluntarily produce the requested records and information by January 4, 2027, will leave the Subcommittee with no choice but to consider alternative measures to obtain compliance.”
Republicans, too, have begun preparing for the coming power shift. House Majority Leader Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) told GOP committee chairs to identify possible targets of Democratic scrutiny and to consider how recent Supreme Court decisions will factor into oversight moving forward.
“They will use their oversight authorities to harass the President, his family, cabinet officials, and they will seek to destroy our allies,” Scalise said in a letter Thursday. “You will all be a key line of defense in this fight, and we must maximize our remaining days in power to prepare for what is coming.”
Planning by companies that operate immigrant detention facilities for Immigration and Customs Enforcement is already factoring in Democratic control of Congress. During a call with investors on Thursday, Lucibeth Mayberry, the chief executive of CoreCivic, was asked whether election results will affect future sales of privately run detention facilities to Homeland Security.
“We would urge the ICE administration to move quickly,” she said, adding that “there’s no reason to wait.”
Asked if the election results would affect ICE activity, Mayberry did not anticipate any immediate change, noting that ICE has already increased enforcement and expanded the number of detainees, currently around 69,000.
While immigration enforcement is unlikely to change, the administration signaled an openness to modifying some tactics. In a statement on social media the day after the election, Vice President JD Vance said he’s “open to the idea that we should change enforcement — by focusing more on businesses that hire illegal labor, for instance.”
Trump, speaking to reporters Friday in Florida, said that immigration is one Democratic-led initiative he could get behind.
But in tapping Miller as his chief of staff, Trump signals a desire to continue the aggressive tactics of the last two years, said Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.).
“Voters demand lower costs, an end to the chaos, and a government that works for them,” he wrote in a statement Friday. “I know Trump heard them, but sadly and predictably, he’s choosing to double down, handing the keys of the West Wing to the man most responsible for this Administration’s failures and most harmful policies.”
A majority of voters support a path to citizenship for longtime immigrants, banning immigration agents from wearing masks, mandating use of body cameras and limiting use of force, according to a poll by the Los Angeles-based analytics firm BSP Research of more than 10,000 midterm voters.
Most poll respondents also support redirecting billions of dollars appropriated by Congress for immigration enforcement to other government programs.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security and Enforcement, acknowledged Trump may not sign a comprehensive immigration reform bill. But she said Trump would be going against the will of American voters.
“Especially now that Stephen Miller has become the chief of staff, we will have to pass our comprehensive reforms on immigration and send it to Trump’s desk,” she said. “If he and Stephen Miller want to veto it and continue their cruel sweep, we can hold them accountable, not give them any money for it and show them what a real solution looks like.”
Blumenthal said the investigations subcommittee will focus not just on enforcement, but alleged corruption, such as the airplanes reportedly purchased at inflated prices from a political donor to Noem when she was Homeland Security secretary.
Blumenthal said he’s hopeful that a handful of Republican senators up for reelection in 2028 will work with Democrats on legislation that would require immigration agents to wear badges and identify themselves, bar them from wearing masks, and hold them to account when they kill people.
“We don’t have 60 Democratic votes,” he said, referring to the threshold needed to stop a filibuster, “but I’m hopeful Republicans will insist on decency and humanity.”
Chris Tausanovitch, a political science professor who studies Congress and the federal government, said it’s very unlikely Democrats can overcome a presidential veto, which requires two-thirds votes in both chambers.
That leaves the budget process as their main vehicle for change, Tausanovitch said. Trump could veto a budget passed through a simple majority, but he’d face the prospect of a government shutdown.
Similar budget negotiations have taken place in the second half of the second term of recent presidents, he said. The party that won the midterms usually got something they wanted by making a narrow change in the budget. But Trump is unlikely to give ground on immigration.
“Part of the problem is that, unlike before the Biden administration, when there were a lot of proposals to pair citizenship for undocumented people with border security in some sort of grand compromise, the Republicans have gotten a lot of what they wanted on immigration,” he said. “There’s not an opportunity for a bargain like that, because the enforcement part of the bargain is already done.”
Instead, Tausanovitch said, Democrats will probably focus their political capital on healthcare and affordability — issues where they have the greatest popularity and can create a winning message for 2028.
President Trump and his Department of Justice are taking a combative stance toward Democrats after their election victories in the midterms, signaling intense conflict to come as lawmakers prepare aggressive investigations into the executive branch next year over alleged corruption and other issues.
Trump declared on social media that investigative requests already made by Democrats are “extortion at the highest level, and they should be held accountable.” Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche echoed the Republican president and said criminal investigations of Democrats are possible.
“They are not allowed to just go around threatening existing members of the administration, to go around threatening companies, and that’s what President Trump is extremely worried about and he should be,” Blanche said as he and congressional Democrats appeared on the Sunday news shows to discuss the repercussions from last week’s elections.
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach), who is poised to chair the powerful House Oversight Committee in the next Congress, is preparing investigations into what he calls the “Trump crime family.” He said Democrats are not going to be intimidated.
“The days of us not fighting back are over,” Garcia said.
The early rhetoric sets up a showdown ahead that is likely to define Trump’s remaining two years in office and test the power of Congress to put a check on the White House.
About 7 in 10 voters nationally say Congress is not doing enough to provide checks and balances on the presidency, according to the AP Voter Poll, a survey of more than 100,000 midterm voters. Voters in several polls during the campaign identified corruption among their top issues.
Democrats have made clear that impeachment is an option.
If there are people who have been “shortchanging the American people, screwing over the American people, or stealing from the American people, then they need to be held accountable in a manner consistent with Congress’ role, constitutionally,” said Democratic House leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York.
Some Democrats worried about overreach
But the investigative onslaught is also a source of tension for Democrats, with many warning that delivering on their central promise to voters — actions to lower the cost of living — must take precedence.
Some are concerned that their resounding wins Tuesday that have given them healthy majorities in the House and Senate will prove fleeting if conflict with Trump defines the agenda.
Sen.-elect Adam Hamilton, the first Democrat elected to the chamber from Kansas in 94 years, expressed skepticism about impeachment, saying his campaign was about trying to bring people together. He said he does not want the next two years to be spent “dividing our country further.”
“I’m not as interested in impeachment as setting up guardrails,” Hamilton said. Still, he said he understands that some investigations are necessary, and Democrats “have to look at what’s happened in Washington.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who caucuses with Democrats, said he wants to hold Trump accountable, but warned that there was only so much time.
“We cannot spend all of our time investigating Trump,” Sanders said. “We’ve got to stand up for working-class families, make a real difference in their lives.”
Jeffries casts doubt on working with Stephen Miller
Jeffries, who is on the cusp of becoming the nation’s first Black House speaker, was asked on election night about the prospects of working with Trump. He said he would be ready to work with Republicans “whenever and wherever possible to deliver real results.”
Jeffries on Sunday criticized Trump’s choice of longtime advisor Stephen Miller to succeed Susie Wiles as his chief of staff, calling him an “awful choice” and casting doubt on the prospect of working with him.
“There’s not going to be an opportunity, certainly, to work with Stephen Miller and what he represents. And we’re committed to forcefully pushing back against the extremism that they may try to continue to unleash on the American people,” he said.
Democrats across the ideological spectrum have been critical of the appointment of Miller, a primary force behind Trump’s mass deportation machine that became an issue in the midterm elections. Nationally, about 6 in 10 voters said the administration’s actions on immigration enforcement had “gone too far,” according to the AP Voter Poll.
Jeffries also said he supports a pending resolution from Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Jeffries said Democrats would be discussing it when they return to the Capitol this week. “Hegseth has got to go,” he said.
“I’m a hard yes on the Hegseth resolution,” Jeffries said.
Hegseth in a video dismissed the impeachment push as “all about the politics of personal destruction.” He said it “won’t work with me.”
New senators express skepticism about Schumer
At least two new incoming Democratic senators expressed some reservations Sunday about Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, who’s expected to be reelected to his post after leading his party back to the majority.
Hamilton said he’s told Schumer, who is currently running unopposed, that he means no disrespect but that the New Yorker is a polarizing figure in Kansas and Hamilton is aiming for someone less divisive.
“What I’d be looking for is a leader who can lead from the center, somebody who can bring Republicans and Democrats together,” Hamilton said. “It feels like it is a time for fresh and new ideas and somebody who can unite us instead of dividing us.”
Hamilton said he wants to get to know the other Democratic senators better before he makes any recommendations.
Sen.-elect Abdul El-Sayed of Michigan, whom Schumer did not back in the Democratic primary, said he had been committed to Sen. Chris Van Hollen, but acknowledged that the Maryland Democrat does not appear to be running for the post.
El-Sayed said he and Schumer, who put $67 million into El-Sayed’s general election campaign, “figured out how to work together” after the primary.
“The question to me is, who wants to be the leader who’s going to make sure that we deliver on the mandate that we just got?” El-Sayed said.
Blanche was interviewed on “Fox News Sunday” and CNN’s “State of the Union.” Garcia also was on CNN, Jeffries spoke on ABC’s “This Week,” Hamilton and Sanders were on CNN and NBC, and El-Sayed appeared on ABC.
Catalini writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Mary Clare Jalonick and Lisa Mascaro in Washington contributed to this report.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis described last week’s elections as an “extinction-level event” for the GOP. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas likened it to a “Watergate-level repudiation.” Former Vice President Mike Pence called it a “reckoning.”
For all the apocalyptic talk emerging from a midterm that relegated Republicans to their thinnest ranks on Capitol Hill in decades, there’s little agreement on how the party should move forward.
A return to the bedrock fiscal and national security conservatism that defined Republicans under President Reagan risks alienating the more hard-line conservatives welcomed into the party under President Trump under the “Make America Great Again” banner.
But leaning even further into Trump’s coarse brand of politics could lead to more voter rejection.
“We have soul-searching to do,” Alex Latcham, the executive director of the Senate Leadership Fund, which spent $810 million to support Republicans, said in an interview. “We need to first understand and honestly admit why we just endured a wipeout of this magnitude. And then we have to regroup and agree to a path forward.”
Questions about Trump’s future role
As has been the case for the last decade, the central question is the role Trump will play in shaping the party’s future. His insistence on loyalty reached a zenith this year as he intervened in GOP primaries and pressed voters to make the elections a referendum on his second term. He held dozens of rallies in the final weeks of the campaign for candidates, most of whom lost their races.
Since Tuesday’s election, he’s refused to acknowledge any responsibility, placing blame on the candidates. His public events have focused on his pet projects in Washington, which have proved unpopular with voters. On Friday, he elevated Stephen Miller, the advisor behind some of his most contentious policies, to White House chief of staff.
In an interview, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican, said that the election results were “shocking” but that Trump could still steer the conversation around issues such as immigration. The governor described the GOP’s current dynamic as a natural process for a party whose leader is deep into his second term.
“It just tells you that the American people, after 10 years, they’re pretty much tired of whoever’s in office,” Stitt said. “I think people want a little more stability. They want people to be nice to people, to say, ‘Hey, we’re all Americans.’”
Others were more blunt.
Longtime conservative commentator Tucker Carlson — for many years a Trump acolyte — said the midterms marked “the end of the Trump era.” John Sununu, a Republican who lost his bid for a Senate seat in New Hampshire, blamed Trump.
“It seems like he or his family is in on every transaction and deal that goes on in Washington,” Sununu told John Kasich, a Republican former governor of Ohio and onetime presidential candidate, on SiriusXM. “Those two things, I think, caused people to say, ‘You know, I just can’t vote for a Republican while he’s still in office.’”
Republican infighting likely to intensify
The GOP infighting is poised to intensify quickly.
When Republicans return to Capitol Hill this week, they’ll have to choose between Reps. Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Jim Jordan of Ohio to lead the new minority in the House. They may weigh whether to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. There could also be tough votes on defense spending and keeping the federal government open after Dec. 11.
Already a leadership fight is brewing at the Republican National Committee, where there are early conversations about limiting Trump’s influence in picking the next chair. KC Crosbie, the co-chair, circulated a letter last week calling the midterms a “serious setback” and announcing plans to run for chair at the committee’s January meeting in Arizona.
Trump announced his support Friday for the party’s current chair, Joe Gruters.
That’s to say nothing of the emerging contest for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination. Vice President JD Vance, seen as a leading contender, will probably face a broad range of opponents if he enters the race. Stitt is among the Republicans calling for a “big open primary.”
“I don’t think we should crown anybody,” he said.
There will be pressure to revive the coalition of voters, particularly Latinos, who have lifted the party to success in previous elections but swung to Democrats on Tuesday. Former Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.) said he thought Secretary of State Marco Rubio is best positioned to win back Latinos.
“The two main constituencies that Republicans have to quickly regain are white suburban voters and Hispanic voters,” Curbelo said in an interview. “Vance was out on the campaign trail this year, and it doesn’t appear that he was able to move the needle in terms of Hispanic voters.”
A representative for Vance didn’t comment on that characterization.
Broad election fallout
Still, the fallout for the GOP is broad, according to the AP Voter Poll, an expansive survey of about 80,000 voters in all 50 states.
Younger Republican voters who supported the Republican candidate in their House race were less likely to approve of the way Trump is handling his job as president, and more likely to say he worsened the economy with his policies.
About two-thirds of Republican voters under 30 said they approved of how Trump was handling the presidency, compared with about 9 in 10 Republican voters age 65 and older. About one-third of younger GOP voters said Trump had worsened the country’s economic conditions, compared with about 2 in 10 older Republican voters.
The war with Iran also appeared to divide Republican voters, with about 6 in 10 Republican voters under 45 saying the U.S. made the right decision in taking military action against Iran. That rose to about 8 in 10 among Republican voters who were 45 and older.
Young Republican voters were more likely to say U.S. support for Israel was “too strong.” Roughly half of Republican voters under 30 said the country’s backing of Israel was “too strong,” compared with about 1 in 10 voters 65 and older.
Despite rosy outlooks from top Republicans including Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) in the final weeks of the campaign, Republican strategists had long seen the country’s confidence in the party unraveling.
In late August, the Senate Leadership Fund convened a donor retreat in Laguna Beach, where Latcham told the group that Republicans had lost the confidence of voters on handling the cost of living and the economy, according to two Republican Senate campaign sources who attended the event. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a private meeting.
In defeat, Republicans are trying to take a broader view, knowing that it may take several election cycles before they one day return to power.
Rep. Christopher Smith was reelected to his 24th term last week and will soon be New Jersey’s only Republican in Congress. He took a long view on the party’s current struggles.
“The pendulum swings back and forth,” he told reporters. “These are cycles.”
Sloan and Beaumont write for the Associated Press. AP writers Steve Peoples, Kevin Freking and Linley Sanders contributed to this report.
Michigan Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed has criticised Trump’s trade war with Canada, warning that US consumers pay the price through higher costs on Canadian goods. Speaking on Pod Save America, he mocked the tariffs days after becoming the first Muslim elected to the US Senate.
Stephen Miller, US President Donald Trump’s incoming chief of staff, praises the president, crediting him with saving America and pledging unwavering loyalty.
Donald Trump and the Republicans struggle to spin a historic defeat in the US midterms.
It was the most expensive election in American history: nearly $12bn spent, much of it on advertisements, with the majority of that money going to Republican candidates. But most voters weren’t buying it. The result: a Democratic sweep on a scale not seen in half a century.
In the aftermath of the vote, United States President Donald Trump – who has long revelled in his ability to turn controversy and crisis into spectacle – appeared to lose control of the narrative. The scale of the Republican defeat amounts to a repudiation of Trump’s politics and the US-Israel war on Iran. Meenakshi Ravi and Richard Gizbert examine the political and media fallout.
Contributors: Alex Shephard – Senior editor, The New Republic Rob Arlett – former Trump state campaign chair & Republican strategist Maya Berry – Executive director, Arab American Institute
On our radar
Serbia’s new political leadership has yet to form a government, but the country’s media institutions are already being purged of voices who gave former president, Aleksandar Vucic, years of favourable coverage. Tariq Nafi looks at the news outlets being held to account.
Equator: a magazine for a post-American world
Equator magazine is the brainchild of a group of writers and editors – some of them ex-mainstream media – who came together during a “moment of moral despair” as they witnessed Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza unfold. One year after its launch, Equator has produced some quality stories and essays on global politics, culture and art – all presented with an eye for design. We speak to cofounder and former Guardian editor, Jonathan Shainin, about the magazine’s vision and how it’s going.
Featuring: Jonathan Shainin – Founding Editor, Equator magazine
WASHINGTON — In his first public appearance after an election that soundly repudiated his policies, President Trump turned to a topic both familiar and, given the context, surprising: not his policies or politics but his efforts to remake pieces of the city that is the backdrop to his presidency.
Despite Trump’s affinity for project management, though, with Democrats taking control of Congress, the work his administration is doing to change the physical face of the District of Columbia is sure to encounter far more roadblocks than it did for the first two years of his second term.
From the renaming of and renovation plans for the Kennedy Center to remaking a public golf course and erecting an arch 100 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty without its pedestal, Trump has been deeply involved in how D.C. looks. Democrats have voiced opposition but, in terms of power, have been in the wilderness.
The potential collision point between opposition oversight from Democrats and the Republican president’s preoccupation with the projects was evident in his last message to the American public before the election — and in his first afterward, too.
Both focused to some degree on his projects. On Monday, it was the reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial; on Wednesday, it was a tour of the under-construction White House ballroom, where he talked columns and steel beams and Corinthian designs.
The clouds of scrutiny are already gathering
Rep. Jared Huffman of California, the top Democrat on the Natural Resources Committee with jurisdiction over the Interior Department that is involved with operations at parks and federal lands, spent much of the past year probing and questioning Trump’s projects, laying the groundwork for this moment.
“We’ve pushed back against vanity projects that seek to transform treasured public spaces into gaudy tributes to Trump. We exposed corruption, uncovered the efforts to hijack America’s 250th birthday, demanded accountability, and offered a compelling alternative governing vision grounded in science, fairness, environmental responsibility, and the rule of law,” Huffman said in a letter to colleagues seeking their support to be chairman.
As chairman with a strong Democratic majority, “I will ensure that the Committee’s full investigative and oversight authority is leveraged to uncover wrongdoing, demand accountability, and protect the public interest,” he said.
Trump has been rushing the various projects, a point Virginia Democratic Rep. Don Beyer made Thursday at a public hearing when he opposed construction of the memorial arch the president has planned in Memorial Circle directly across the Memorial Bridge from the Lincoln Memorial.
“The appropriations process beginning Jan. 3 will be controlled by Democrats. That will be one of the ways Congressman Beyer will step in,” said Beyer’s spokesman Aaron Fritschner.
A less appreciated impact will be the change in who names the general counsel of the House. The House Speaker has that role, presumably Rep. Hakeem Jeffries.
While Democrats have joined in lawsuits opposing the various projects, their filings don’t carry the weight of Congress as the minority. “You’ll see the new majority pulling back the balance of power that (House Speaker) Mike Johnson was willing to cede,” Fritschner said.
A planning commission hearing for the arch featured dozens of witnesses
Beyer has already been a critic, Fritschner said, and cited other members who have signed on in amicus briefs. More than 120 witnesses were on hand for the National Capital Planning Commission meeting, which ran for 9 ½ hours late into Thursday night.
The commission gave the 250-foot (76-meter) arch its final approval on an 8-4 vote, before a federal judge stepped in before midnight to block the Trump administration from breaking ground for 14 days.
The remote, call-in commission hearing — which crashed repeatedly and was accompanied by a nearly universally negative comment section — drew witnesses who gave impassioned, three-minute comments opposing an arch they said will destroy the solemnity of nearby Arlington National Cemetery.
The Trump-appointed chairman of the commission, however, launched into a gushing appraisal of the towering monument and lauded Trump for wanting to build it.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan is considering a motion from three veterans and an architectural historian to stop any work until the lawsuit is resolved. A separate lawsuit filed Saturday by the District of Columbia and Virginia has been consolidated with the existing one. D.C. and Virginia have asked for a temporary restraining order, which Chutkan granted late Thursday with her 14-day delay.
At Wednesday’s ballroom construction site tour, Trump spoke about the ballroom, the East Potomac Golf Links and the National Garden of American Heroes proposed for West Potomac Park and the arch. All four have been, or are currently in, litigation.
One of them, the golf course, has turned into an undertaking beyond the potential construction. U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes has said she plans to open a “formal inquiry” to investigate if attorneys for the Trump administration violated ethical boundaries during a legal dispute about that project.
Beyond the courts, Congress is now an added bulwark
Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, which is representing the plaintiffs in several of the lawsuits, said the switch of control means the organizations that have filed lawsuits and challenged the administration will now be joined by Congress.
Organizations like hers will continue challenging the administration in court, she said, but “the important thing now is that the American people now have a tool that’s not just in the courts.”
Added Perryman: “We hope and we anticipate Congress will fulfill its constitutional duty of checking executive branch excesses.” That includes hearings and investigations into funding plans and sources, she said.
Information about estimates for work on the projects has been slim, even in court, with assessments trickling out during testimony in some cases. One number, for example, revolves around the seawall at the golf course, which would exceed $300 million. Congress appropriated $257 million for the renovation of the Kennedy Center.
The White House did not respond to requests for comment.
Another area that could impact the District of Columbia is the change in governorships. Texas, Georgia, Iowa and Nevada all have Democrats coming into power as a result of Tuesday’s elections. They account for more than 600 National Guard members who are part of the mobilization that Trump ordered in August 2025.
Democrats who provided troops during the celebration of the United States’ 250th anniversary were roundly criticized for their participation and removed their troops and airmen months ago. Nearly 3,100 are stationed in the city now, up slightly from last month.
Fields and Mascaro write for the Associated Press.
WASHINGTON — A federal judge late Thursday blocked the Trump administration from breaking ground on a towering memorial arch for 14 days.
The temporary restraining order by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan halting the work represents a major setback for one of President Trump’s most prominent projects in his vision to remake Washington.
The decision followed a series of steps taken earlier Thursday by the government, including the final approval of the arch by the National Capital Planning Commission in an 8-4 vote after a 9 ½ hour hearing where scores of witnesses opposed the construction.
The administration said the work could begin as soon as the approval and the Interior Department issued a final decision authorizing construction and the proper notification was published by the National Park Service.
In approving the temporary stop, Chutkan said Virginia and the District of Columbia had shown that the immediacy of the construction would cause real harm to the plaintiffs.
“The harm is certain,” she wrote. “Defendants initially notified the court that construction could begin as early as November 5, 2026, if the NCPC approves the project at its meeting that day and the Department of the Interior authorizes construction.” In their filing, Virginia and D.C. warned of traffic pattern distortions as well as concerns about the impact on mutual aid emergency calls if the arch were to proceed.
“Second, the District and Virginia will incur significant unrecoverable costs. As soon as construction begins, DDOT will need to expend staff time and operating resources to affirmatively and proactively manage temporary detours, crashes or disabled vehicles,” Chutkan wrote.
The judge ordered the government to provide a status report next Monday to ensure they are complying with the order.
The judge’s decision came just over an hour after the National Capital Planning Commission hearing ended. The vote by the commission broke along federal and local lines. Those in favor work for the administration or are connected to the president, who was pushing for the immediate construction. Opponents represented the city of Washington.
The remote, call-in hearing — which crashed repeatedly in the first few hours and was accompanied by a nearly universally negative comment section — drew witnesses who gave impassioned comments opposing an arch they said will destroy the solemnity of the nearby Arlington National Cemetery, where hundreds of thousands of fallen service members and military veterans are buried.
The panel’s Trump-appointed chairman launched the meeting with a gushing appraisal of the towering monument and lauded Trump for wanting to build it.
“President Trump understands as president and a superb builder that it’s important to our national identity to display who we are through grand monuments,” said Mark Paoletta, the commission’s chairman.
As Trump has often remarked, “the great cities around the world have arches: Paris, Rome, London,” said Paoletta, who also serves as general counsel for the White House Office of Management and Budget.
Commissioner Paul Ingrassia, a lawyer for the General Services Administration, said the arch was “not about politics. It’s about remembrance. It’s about celebrating our history. It’s about commemorating veterans. And it’s really something that’s a noble tribute to our nation and something that we can all rally behind.”
But D.C. City Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, who also serves on the planning panel, said the project has not received required approval from Congress, nor has Congress appropriated any money for it. The plan submitted to the commission does not include a reference to military use cited by Trump and other administration officials, Mendelson said.
“We cannot approve final site and building plans until we have the final site and building plans,” he said.
The commission oversees construction on federal land in the city and began reviewing the arch plan in June.
The arch is one of several projects around Washington that the Republican president has undertaken as he alters the capital to his tastes — from renovating one of its storied public golf courses to threatening to demolish the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Those projects could soon face intense scrutiny after Democrats gained control of Congress in the midterm elections this week.
Rep. Jared Huffman, a California Democrat who is set to chair the House Natural Resources Committee, called the project ill-advised and illegal.
“This arch would dishonor America,” Huffman told the commission. He called the proposed arch “a tribute to Donald Trump,” not veterans as Trump administration officials claim. The monument is similar to those built for emperors or kings, Huffman said, adding that Trump was using veterans as a pretext to build a memorial to himself.
Other critics, including the plaintiffs, argue that the Trump administration must seek congressional approval. The administration maintains that Congress cleared the way for a monument at Memorial Circle decades ago.
Several members of the Planning Commission used that logic in approving the project. Paoletta said it was a “national disgrace” that a memorial arch had not been placed there, despite a 1925 law that designated such a memorial, he said.
Chutkan rejected that argument in her ruling: “The sheer improbability that a 100-year-old statute would contain authority, unknown to every previous administration, to erect a 250-foot arch at a principal location in the Nation’s capital indicates how far defendants must stretch to justify this project.”
Daly and Fields write for the Associated Press. AP videographer Nathan Ellgren contributed to this report.
NEW YORK — New York appeals judges grilled President Trump’s lawyers and prosecutors Thursday about his bid to erase his historic hush money conviction, but the court didn’t signal how or when it would rule.
The judges delved into legal theory, presidential immunity and some evidence in Trump’s 2024 trial. Convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to obscure a $130,000 payment to adult film performer Stormy Daniels, Trump denies any wrongdoing. He has turned to state and federal courts in hopes of unwinding the verdict.
Trump, who denounced the case on social media as recently as September, didn’t attend Thursday’s court session.
Much of the back-and-forth focused on prosecutors’ theory that the hush money was meant to keep unflattering information about Trump away from the electorate before the 2016 vote, and that it amounted to an illegal campaign contribution under the Federal Election Campaign Act.
Trump lawyer Robert Giuffra Jr. told the judges that Manhattan Dist. Atty. Alvin Bragg’s office has no place tying a case to a federal election law.
“We think it’s the most obvious ground for reversal,” he said.
Prosecutors argued that they weren’t prosecuting an alleged federal campaign finance offense, but rather presenting it as a factor underlying what they claim was a Trump-orchestrated conspiracy.
“So are you relying upon FECA in order to prove your falsifying business records [charge]?” Justice Troy Webber asked.
“Only partially,” replied Bragg’s appeals chief, Steven Wu, adding that it was “important only to show that the purpose for the falsifying business records here was to conceal that conspiracy.”
Judges drill down on question about White House conversations
The appeal also concerns whether jurors should have been allowed to hear testimony about supposed White House workflow and conversations — some with then-Communications Director Hope Hicks — and even Trump social media posts during his first term. His lawyers cite presidential immunity for official acts, and they argue his official conduct included responding to the Daniels drama once it became public in 2018.
“Ms. Hicks was serving as a White House official,” talking with the president about how to respond to press inquiries that implicitly concerned his fitness for office, Giuffra told the appeals judges.
Wu countered later: “In this conversation, they were not speaking about a press response. … The president was talking to her about his private opinion.”
The appeals judges pressed both sides about the matter and the specifics of Hicks’ testimony. She told jurors that she asked Trump how he wanted to respond, but as for what he said, she testified only that he expressed relief that the Daniels story hadn’t emerged during the campaign.
Bragg’s office contends that all the White House-related evidence was fair game. The conversations were “unofficial conduct,” some of the other evidence was public record, and some was a general description of office practices, prosecutors say. They maintain that even if some of the evidence should have been excluded, its admission was a “harmless error” that doesn’t warrant overturning a conviction that rested on “a mountain” of other proof against Trump.
Justice Bahaati E. Pitt-Burke wondered aloud about that.
“If you take all of those things cumulatively, right, and there’s a problem with this evidence, there’s a problem with this evidence, at what point … does it stop being harmless error and turn into something else?” she asked.
“It would have to be a lot more than there was in this case,” Wu responded.
Trump’s lawyers also have argued the case was political
While the appeal turns on complex legal disputes, political overtones aren’t hard to find. The very first paragraph of one of the Trump team’s court filings contended that the case was the flimsy product of “immense political pressure” on a Democratic prosecutor to go after Trump — rhetoric that echoes the Republican president’s own oft-repeated claims in the court of public opinion.
The May 2024 verdict made Trump the first former — and now current — U.S. president with a criminal conviction. Though historic, it didn’t impede his return to the White House or subject him to any punishment.
The trial involved $130,000 that Daniels got from Trump’s then-fixer and lawyer, Michael Cohen, weeks before the 2016 election. The money bought, for a time, her silence about an alleged sexual encounter with the married Trump a decade earlier. He says that nothing sexual happened between them.
Trump’s lawyers argue there’s only “weak” evidence that he even knew about Cohen’s dealings at the time. His trial attorneys also said that payments to Cohen were indeed legal expenses, and that any hush money expended on Trump’s behalf wasn’t hidden campaign spending, just an effort to avoid embarrassing his family.
The distinction matters because, under New York law, falsifying business records isn’t a felony unless it’s done with an intent to commit or conceal a separate crime.
While pursuing his state appeal, Trump also has been trying to shift the case to federal court and have it dismissed on immunity grounds. A federal judge said no — for the third time — in August. Trump’s attorneys are appealing that decision, with arguments set for Nov. 16.
WASHINGTON — A federal panel was expected Thursday to approve President Trump’s proposed memorial arch in Washington at the end of a meeting that drew dozens of opponents to a key part of the president’s push to leave his imprint on the nation’s capital.
The approval would clear a hurdle on the road to breaking ground on the project, and the administration has said it could launch construction within a day of the vote. But the proposed 250-foot tall gilded arch still faced legal challenges.
The remote, call-in hearing — which crashed repeatedly and was accompanied by a nearly universally negative comment section — drew witnesses who gave impassioned, three-minute comments opposing an arch they said will destroy the solemnity of the nearby Arlington National Cemetery.
The Trump-appointed chairman of the commission, however, launched into a gushing appraisal of the towering monument and lauded Trump for wanting to build it.
“President Trump understands as president and a superb builder that it’s important to our national identity to display who we are through grand monuments,” said Mark Paoletta, the commission’s chairman.
As Trump has often remarked, “the great cities around the world have arches: Paris, Rome, London,” said Paoletta, who also serves as general counsel for the White House Office of Management and Budget. In addition to Paoletta, the arch received support during the hearing from Republican lawmakers and a veteran who praised the administration’s efforts to build the monument.
The commission oversees construction on federal land in the city and began reviewing the arch plan in June.
Trump is working to remake Washington
The arch is one of several projects around Washington that the Republican president has undertaken as he alters the capital to his tastes — from renovating one of its storied public golf courses to threatening to demolish the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Those projects could soon face intense scrutiny after Democrats gained control of Congress in the midterm elections this week.
Many of the plans are being challenged in the courts, and three lawsuits have been filed opposing the arch. A judge has been asked to block the construction so long as lawsuits are still being litigated, and she could rule as early as Thursday.
Rep. Jared Huffman, a California Democrat who is set to chair the House Natural Resources Committee, called the project ill-advised and illegal.
“This arch would dishonor America,” Huffman told the commission. He called the proposed arch “a tribute to Donald Trump,” not veterans as Trump administration officials claim. The monument is similar to those built for emperors or kings, Huffman said, adding that Trump was using veterans as a pretext to build a memorial to himself.
Opponents argue the arch is too big for the skyline and would disrupt carefully designed sight lines between landmarks in and around the capital — most prominently the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery — that were meant to symbolize the reunification of the North and the South after the Civil War.
But the opposition has done little to influence the members of the commission, which is led by some of Trump’s closest allies. Trump appointed Paoletta to chair the 12-member panel. Two other commissioners are also White House aides.
Trump wants an arch, but it faces legal challenges
Still, a federal judge on Monday complicated Trump’s efforts to move quickly on the project.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s plans, said she must be told of any decision by the planning commission within an hour. The order set the same time limits for any decision by the National Park Service and the Department of the Interior.
Before Thursday’s hearing began, attorneys with the Justice Department filed a notice with Chutkan informing her that a contractor had already done site prep work on Oct. 31, with what she said appeared to be no authorization from the National Park Service.
The plaintiffs in the three lawsuits are calling for a halt to work on a monument that is set to be built on a patch of grass off a bridge that spans the Potomac River and connects Washington with Arlington National Cemetery, in Arlington, Va. When complete, the monument would be 100 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty without its pedestal.
Critics, including the plaintiffs, argue that the Trump administration must seek congressional approval. The administration maintains that Congress cleared the way for a monument at Memorial Circle decades ago.
Paoletta said it was a “national disgrace” that a memorial arch had not been placed there, despite a 1925 law that designated such a memorial, he said.
Last week, the government submitted a 106-page plan for the arch that envisions a massive structure more than 12 stories high that includes a huge bronze statue of Lady Liberty with wings and carrying a torch with an eternal flame. The structure would include an observation deck with views to the east and the west and two mezzanines.
Inside the arch are rooms for program space, offices, a staff lounge, circular staircases, multiple elevators and a fire command center. The project proposes significant traffic changes in the area, including rerouting traffic on nearby roads. Administration officials have said the arch also will have a national security function.
In a recent hearing, Chutkan asked why the Trump administration was so keen on moving ahead quickly with the arch despite the ongoing lawsuits, aside from Trump’s “desire to bedazzle the city.”
Administration lawyer Robert Stander said the arch was “absolutely a high-priority project” and that any ruling delaying construction would impede the work of the government.
WASHINGTON — Corruption topped the list of concerns for voters who ousted Republicans and handed Democrats control of Congress in the midterm elections. Now, the newly empowered Democratic Party is putting the issue front and center as its leaders chart their course for investigations and policymaking.
Senior Democrats in both chambers of Congress have vowed to marshal the subpoena powers and larger investigative staffs that come with their soon-to-be majorities to probe what they say is the self-enrichment that President Donald Trump and people in his orbit have done at the public’s expense. The Republican president and his White House have long denied any wrongdoing.
House Democrats are preparing a vast oversight agenda to look at how Trump and his family have become wealthier since he returned to office — and Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, who’s in line to become House speaker, has not ruled out trying to impeach Trump for a third time.
Months ago, Jeffries tasked the ranking Democrats on the Oversight and Judiciary committees, Rep. Robert Garcia of California and Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, with leading the effort, as Democrats work to link the costs of public corruption to the affordability concerns hitting Americans’ pocketbooks.
“Lawyer up,” Garcia posted on X as election results favoring Democrats began coming in on Tuesday night.
The Senate is expected to conduct similar investigations.
“Americans want us to clean up corruption in government,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who is poised to return as Senate majority leader next year. “No American should have to make tradeoffs at the supermarket while Trump is making inside trades on the stock market.”
Investigation targets could include ICE raids, Epstein and DOGE
Garcia, the top Democrat on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has outlined five priorities, including Trump family business dealings, the administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation and Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations. Rep. Jared Huffman of California, the ranking Democrat on the Natural Resources Committee, said he wants to dig into Trump’s White House ballroom and other construction projects, as well as the Trump family’s role in mineral deals.
With the House majority comes an infusion of congressional committee staff and resources, and the effort is expected to be sprawling, involving House committees with authority to conduct oversight on Cabinet officials and the agencies they lead.
In the Senate, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who is expected to become the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, said his panel will want to look into Trump’s real estate projects around the nation’s capital and his crypto dealings with special envoy Steve Witkoff. Witkoff is a longtime ally who partnered with Trump on the president’s family cryptocurrency venture, World Liberty Financial.
“The tentacles of corruption reach deep in this administration, and they have added costs to everyday Americans,” Blumenthal said in an interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday. The senator added that he also wants hearings on ICE raids, the actions of the Department of Government Efficiency and Medicare plans he says are too restrictive and have cost some patients care.
Meanwhile, Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, who is in line to become Senate Finance Committee chairman, ticked off several investigative targets that he describes as part of an “accountability” agenda, including banks that he contends ignored red flags about the financial dealings of Epstein and pharmaceutical companies that have profited from their ties to the Trump administration.
“When I am chair, they will be forced to answer to the Senate Finance Committee for their role in hurting the American people and enabling Trump’s corruption,” Wyden said in a statement Wednesday.
The issue of corruption resonated for voters, The AP Voter Poll shows
Many U.S. voters in Tuesday’s elections expressed deep concerns about government corruption and the state of democracy, according to The AP Voter Poll, which surveyed more than 100,000 voters nationwide.
While roughly 4 in 10 voters said the economy was the top issue facing the country, about 3 in 10 said that “the state of democracy” was the top issue. About half of U.S. voters said government corruption was “crucial” to their vote for Congress, and most of those voters supported the Democratic candidate in their local U.S. House race, while about one-third said they voted for the Republican.
About 8 in 10 voters who said “the state of democracy” was the top issue facing the country supported the Democrat, while about 2 in 10 supported the Republican.
Older voters, those age 65 or older, were more likely than voters under 65 to say “the state of democracy” was the most important issue facing the country. About 4 in 10 older voters pointed to this as the nation’s top problem, compared with about 3 in 10 who said the economy. That view was reversed with younger voters, who were more likely to call the economy the top issue.
That explains why anti-corruption played such a central role in Democratic campaigns this cycle, with candidates accusing their Republican opponents of looking out for themselves or their donors rather than a broader constituency. They embraced stock trading bans and bans on former members of Congress becoming lobbyists and promised to be part of an effort to root out corruption.
Democrats’ challenge: Focusing on corruption without ignoring cost-of-living issues
In his public comments since his party lost the elections, Trump has taken a conciliatory tone toward Democrats, conceding that they “did a good job” in their campaigns as he’s tried to skirt personal blame for the GOP’s midterm thrashing. That could change as investigations ramp up.
“As the president has said, he’s willing to work with anyone to continue delivering victories for hardworking Americans,” White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said Wednesday. “If Democrats choose to pursue sham investigations and radical left policies, they are choosing to work against the American people.”
Schumer insisted that congressional Democrats will be able to balance legislating on key issues, such as affordability, while launching investigations to target “rampant corruption.”
In a letter to Democratic lawmakers announcing his candidacy for House speaker, Jeffries said the “days of the House functioning like a wholly owned subsidiary of the Trump administration are over.”
“The massive corruption the country has experienced from the Trump Cartel explains why very little is getting done to help everyday Americans,” Jeffries wrote as he promised to target price gouging and push for a stock trading ban for lawmakers. “That changes immediately.”
The challenge for Democrats will be to continue to tie corruption to the affordability issues that topped the list of concerns for voters.
The Congressional Integrity Project, an advocacy group initially created to combat Republican investigations into President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration, is now shifting its focus to help Democratic lawmakers make that connection. In a memo, the group urged congressional Democrats to trace the Trump administration’s actions to people in and outside government, as well as corporations, who may be profiting from those moves.
“Corruption is not just corruption,” said the group’s senior adviser, Jack Miller. “It is costing taxpayers and costing Americans in their everyday lives.”
Some Democratic lawmakers are already stressing that congressional investigations have to be directly tied to affordability issues, while urging restraint.
Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., said that Democrats need to earn voters’ trust, and while investigations are an important part of the Democratic agenda, “we can’t turn this into just a vengeance tour.”
“We have to be careful, cautious and judicious about that,” Welch said.
Kim and Jalonick write for the Associated Press. Associated Press writer Lisa Mascaro and polling writer Linley Sanders contributed to this report.
The Democratic Party’s historic blowout of its Republican opponents in yesterday’s mid-term elections is extremely likely to result in a slew of high-profile Trump administration programs and initiatives getting put under the microscope and slashed. In the defense arena, the nuclear-powered Trump class battleship is likely the biggest target of opportunity for the new majority in the House and Senate.
A rendering of a Trump class battleship. White House/USN
To provide some quick additional context, Democrats are now set to take firm control of both chambers of Congress in January. This will give the party immense sway over how defense and other federal spending is authorized and appropriated, as well as how broader policy is set.
Control of key committees that oversee the U.S. military and its budgets will also change hands. Rep. Adam Smith, a Washington state Democrat, could be in line now to become chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Rep. Joe Courtney, a Democrat from Connecticut, may be similarly poised to head up the Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee. Smith and Courtney have both been particularly outspoken critics of the Trump class battleship already.
President Donald Trump speaks at the rollout of the Trump class battleship program at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in December 2025. Daniel Torok/White House
“We need an appropriate mix of high-end survivable systems and lower-cost attritable capabilities, not a fleet of nuclear-powered battleships as proposed by the President,” Rep. Smith wrote in a letter to Democratic Party colleagues just today, which has now leaked online. The missive’s main thrust was to call for support for him returning to the role of Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee in January.
“I think the Democrats will make a broad effort to remove Trump branding from Washington,” Mark Cancian, a retired U.S. Marine Corps colonel who is now a senior adviser with the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) think tank, also told TWZ. “The Trump battleship is likely doomed both because of the branding and because the program is extremely expensive and weakly justified.”
“The battleship program was in stormy seas before the midterm elections, because it was premised on a strategy that ran counter to a decade long bipartisan effort to distribute maritime lethality,” Mark Montgomery, a retired U.S. Navy rear admiral who is now a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) think tank, told us, as well. “Compounding this challenge was the fantastically high cost per battleship, equating to as many as 10 Arleigh Burke class Destroyers for one battleship – a terrible trade off.”
Montgomery is of the view that, “given the midterm election results, the battleship program is now aground and taking on water.”
The current state of the Trump class battleship plan
As it stands now, the Trump class battleship design is a 35,000-ton-displacement warship that is expected to boast a wide array of weapons, as well as advanced sensors and other systems. From what the Navy has said so far, the ship will be able to fire nuclear and conventional missiles, including hypersonic types, from several very large Vertical Launch System (VLS) arrays. Its armament package is also set to include an electromagnetic railgun and a pair of traditional 5-inch naval guns. Several classes of laser directed energy weapons, as well as other weapon systems for close-in defense, are to be fitted, as well.
An annotated graphic highlighting various capabilities set to be found on the Trump class design. Note that the mention here of “28 Mk 41 VLS” cells appears to be a typo, as other official information from the US Navy says the ships will have 128 such cells. USN via USNI News
The Navy has previously outlined plans to order at least 15 Trump class battleships between Fiscal Years 2029 and 2055. The first one, currently set to be named the USS Defiant, is not expected to enter service until 2036.
A look at the future USS John F. Kennedy, the second Ford class carrier for the US Navy. HII
From the start, TWZ has raised detailed questions about the actual viability of the Trump class design, as it has been described to date. This includes the ability of these warships to conduct independent operations, as well as the value of employing them in this way. At least right now, the Navy only plans to acquire a very small number of these ships, each of which can only be in one place at one time, and that would be top targets for adversaries in future conflicts.
The Arleigh Burke class destroyer USS Jack H. Lucas, which was the first example of the latest Flight III subclass to be commissioned into US Navy service. USN
Nuclear shipbuilding presents additional challenges. There are currently only two shipyards qualified to build nuclear-powered vessels of any kind in the United States, and only one supplier of naval reactors. This part of the naval industrial base is already heavily committed to building aircraft carriers and submarines. This includes new Columbia class nuclear ballistic missile submarines, the on-schedule delivery of which is critical to national security, but that also faces potential risks.
Naval nuclear reactor components for the future Ford class aircraft carrier USS Doris Miller. BWXT
Bipartisan pushback already to Trump’s battleships
For its part, the Republican-controlled House Armed Services Committee has already demanded that the Secretary of the Navy outline what the service is doing to ensure the battleship program will not disrupt carrier and submarine production. Rep. Courtney was the one to call for this report, which is due no later than March 1, 2027.
Earlier this year, the Republicans in the House also allowed the passage of a version of the annual defense policy bill, or National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), for Fiscal Year 2027, with a key provision related to the Trump class battleship. Section 131 would block any work on the future USS Defiant until the Navy provides assurances that key weapon systems are “sufficiently mature.” Efforts to pass a final version of the Fiscal Year 2027 NDAA have since stalled in the Senate over non-battleship-related issues.
A rendering of the first planned Trump class battleship, the USS Defiant, firing a variety of different missiles, guns, and other weapons. USN
In July, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget issued a formal Statement of Administration Policy regarding the House’s version of the NDAA that included explicit opposition to Section 131 among other criticisms of the bill’s contents.
TWZ has pointed out on several occasions in the past that plans for the Trump class battleships could change dramatically given the lengthy schedule for the program. As mentioned, the USS Defiant is not expected to be delivered until 2036, well after the end of Trump’s second term, which will come to an end in January 2029.
There is still the possibility the battleship program could be reformulated in various ways rather than outright cancelled. Work on specific components, such as the railgun, might potentially be redirected to other programs.
A picture showing the prototype electromagnetic railgun at the White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) in New Mexico being fired during a test. USN
“Any money allocated to the program will be for research or long term parts ordering that could just as easily support a next generation destroyer effort rather than the battleship,” FDD’s Montgomery also told us. “The battleship program itself probably can’t be killed until Trump leaves office, but all involved need to ensure that it does minimal damage to other Navy program efforts as it sinks to the bottom.”
“The Navy still needs the capabilities resident in the proposed battleship,” Brent Sadler, Senior Research Fellow for Naval Warfare and Advanced Technology at the Allison Center for National Security within The Heritage Foundation think tank, also argued in response to queries from TWZ. “The name – Trump class – likely won’t survive but the ship will.”
Sadler added that, in his view, what is really “needed is a national shipbuilding industrial plan that includes upgrading shipyard capacity to build the needed large surface warship.”
New pressure from Congress likely to go beyond battleships
The future prospects of other high-profile Trump administration defense initiatives are also very likely to at least see new scrutiny in the next year. Beyond battleships, the President has notably injected himself directly into other aspects of future naval shipbuilding plans as part of a larger effort dubbed the Golden Fleet.
In August, Trump released a memo titled “Rebuilding the United States Navy and America’s Shipbuilding Industrial Base” that called for, in part, the drawing up of plans for installing steam-powered catapults and hydraulic elevators on the future Ford class aircraft carrier USS Doris Miller. The President has long been a critic of the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) catapults and Advanced Weapons Elevators (AWE) that are central to the Ford class design. EMALS and AWE have been a persistent source of reliability and maintenance issues over the years, but going back to steam and hydraulics would be a costly and risky undertaking, as TWZ has previously explored in detail.
President Donald Trump descends to the hangar deck of the US Navy’s Nimitz class aircraft carrier USS George Washington during a visit to the ship in October 2025. White House
Reports later in August also said Trump was pushing the Navy to physically reposition the island superstructure on the Ford class on aesthetic grounds. The President has been very vocal over the years about what he thinks warships should and should not look like.
The Golden Dome missile defense initiative is another potential area where the new Democrat-led Congress could clash with the administration. The full scale and scope of the Golden Dome plan, as well as its cost, remain very murky. In August, U.S. Space Force Gen. Michael Guetlein, the top officer in charge of the initiative, warned that work could come grinding to a halt if key budgetary hurdles were not overcome.
Lockheed Martin
The leaked letter from Rep. Smith makes clear that many more programs and policy issues, as well as defense spending writ large, are set to be put under the microscope when the Democrats take control of Congress in the new year. The Trump administration continues to pursue a roughly $1.5 trillion defense budget for Fiscal Year 2027, which includes some $350 billion that would come from outside normal defense spending streams via a process called reconciliation.
“We must thoroughly review our national defense strategy and develop a more realistic and sustainable approach that does not require a defense budget in excess of $1 trillion or paid for through draconian cuts to critical domestic programs,” Rep. Smith wrote in his ‘dear colleagues’ letter today.
“President Trump has outlined a bold vision to restore American maritime dominance and construct a Golden Dome to protect our homeland and our citizens,” Deputy White House Press Secretary Anna Kelly told TWZ when asked about concerns about the fate of certain defense programs following the mid-term election results. “President Trump will work with anyone to protect the United States from threats abroad – if Democrats oppose these critical projects, they are playing politics at the expense of our national security.”
Asked to confirm her comments included the Trump class ships, Kelly added that these remarks also extended to the realm of “maritime dominance.”
It is still far too early to know the full extent of the fallout from this year’s mid-term elections on the U.S. government’s defense and other priorities. When it comes to the Trump class battleship, the program’s course had already looked increasingly uncertain before this massive shift in the political winds, and it looks one heck of a lot more precarious now.
In the weeks leading up to the midterms the deployment of US forces and Trump’s own, often belligerent, statements ramped up talk that the US was getting ready to go back to war with Iran.
Before he was hospitalised with a stroke, the US Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat, went to a classified briefing about potential military options for renewed war with Iran.
Without going into detail, he condemned the plans as “insane”, warning that they would trigger a “devastating escalation”.
There has been speculation that the Americans have plans to bomb civilian infrastructure.
Not only would that be likely to constitute a war crime, it might also be answered by devastating Iranian strikes on equivalent targets on US allies in the Gulf. Its list of potential targets could start with the United Arab Emirates, which is as close to Israel as it is to the US.
The regime in Tehran watches political developments in the US closely. It has not concealed its satisfaction that the consequences of its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz have become a domestic political issue in the US.
Tehran is aware of the damage caused to Trump and the Republicans by the sustained rise in the prices of everything (from petrol and diesel to agricultural fertilisers) caused by the war and its attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
The Speaker of Iran’s parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, posted a warning on social media.
He said: “Conscience or the cost of living, Americans said NO TO WAR, and we endorse this message. If the US govt betrays their public will to serve international paymasters and blackmailers, it will learn our NO comes with a Nightmare.”
Benjamin Netanyahu, now acting prime minister of Israel after its election last week, and manoeuvring hard to form a new government, has repeated that he wants to bring down the Islamic regime in Tehran.
Reports in Israel and the US say that he is pushing Trump to go back to war.
Netanyahu does not have the seats to form a new government with his outgoing coalition.
But if a major war restarted and was sustained, and if Israelis came under direct fire, he could have new options of forming a unity government that he would use his considerable political skills to dominate.
US President Donald Trump’s foreign policy agenda faces new constraints after midterm losses. Chatham House’s Laurel Rapp says Congress may seek to limit the Iran war, but the president retains significant powers to continue military action.
