WASHINGTON — The Obamas’ pet dog Sunny has died, former President Obama said Wednesday.
Sunny, a 13-year-old Portuguese water dog the Obamas got in 2013 while living in the White House, died Tuesday.
“We got Sunny at the start of our second term in the White House, and all of us — including our first dog, Bo — immediately fell in love,” he said on social media.
He remembered Sunny as athletic, full of energy and protective of Bo. Despite Sunny’s breed, she hated getting wet.
“We will miss her terribly, and imagine she’s with her big brother now, making sure he’s okay,” Obama said.
Bo died in 2021.
While many presidents have kept dogs as companions, President Trump does not have any pets at the White House.
George H.W. Bush’s English springer spaniel, Millie, “wrote” the bestseller “Millie’s Book.” President Clinton’s chocolate Labrador retriever, Buddy, was in the family as Clinton weathered the scandal over his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
George W. Bush’s Scottish terrier, Barney, had an official web page and starred in “Barneycam” videos that were filmed by a camera around his neck. Lyndon B. Johnson angered animal lovers by lifting his beagle, Him, by the ears in front of news photographers.
Harry S. Truman famously advised: “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.”
WASHINGTON — The United States has confirmed for the first time that it has deployed weapons in space.
Air Force Secretary Troy Meink told the Air and Space Cyber Conference in Maryland on Monday that the U.S. has fielded “on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the Joint Force against hostile adversary action.”
Meink did not detail what the weapons were or how they work. In 2024 the U.S. said Russia was developing a new anti-satellite weapon that could be launched from space. At the time the White House said the danger wasn’t imminent.
But reports of the anti-satellite weapon reflected longstanding worries about space threats from Russia and China, given that much U.S. infrastructure is dependent on satellite communications.
In his remarks, Meink also said the Air Force was adding more autonomous systems to its capabilities and predicted the service would look “radically different” by 2032. For example, he foresaw one-way attack drones replacing artillery as the “primary killer.”
“We are increasing readiness against existing threats,” he said.
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is promising $500 rebate checks to an estimated 1 million Affordable Care Act enrollees across 30 states, who the White House alleged were overcharged by the Biden administration for exchange fees.
The promise comes after Trump pledged Wednesday to send every American adult $5,000 if Republicans retain control of the House and Senate in the midterm elections and as affordability has become a central issue for voters heading into November.
“The relief begins with refunding everyone who was overcharged and the rebates are going out in just a few weeks,” President Trump said in a recorded address released on the White House X account Thursday. Enrollees who can expect refunds are those who do not receive premium assistance.
Critics called the move a “gimmick” that doesn’t represent a plan for addressing soaring healthcare costs.
Trump in his address accused former President Biden’s administration of “gross mismanagement” of ACA funds, without providing evidence, and said that the Biden administration collected user fees from insurance companies that consumers paid through higher premiums.
In a fact sheet, the White House claimed that Biden’s administration “accumulated a significant surplus of funds that were not used to benefit the Americans who paid these higher premiums.” It said the rebates would be sent out beginning next month.
It is unclear whether the $500 rebate represents what each enrollee may have overpaid, where the money for the rebates would come from and whether it requires congressional approval for disbursement.
Trump’s announcement comes as the price of ACA insurance has skyrocketed for many Americans during his own second term. The Trump administration opposed extending COVID-era subsidies that had helped offset the costs of health insurance for most enrollees during Biden’s term.
After the Republican-led Congress allowed the subsidies to expire this year, premiums doubled or tripled for many enrollees, prompting millions to downgrade their plans or exit the program entirely.
Brad Woodhouse, a Democratic strategist and executive director of advocacy group Protect Our Care, called the rebate plan “an absolute joke” in a statement.
“Since Republicans took away tax credits from working families, millions of people have seen their monthly premiums rise by hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars,” Woodhouse said. “At a time when people are scraping by to keep up with the high cost of groceries, rent, and healthcare, this $500 gimmick won’t even begin to dig them out of the hole that Trump and Republicans created.”
Officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services did not respond to Associated Press requests for comment, and a White House official referred back to the fact sheet.
Roughly 19 million people receive insurance through the Affordable Care Act exchange.
Hussein and Swenson write for the Associated Press.
WASHINGTON — In the real world, President Trump is struggling to stop inflation, rout the Iranian government and restore American manufacturing with tariffs.
However, it’s a different story in the fantastical vision that he shares with supporters on social media. Over Labor Day weekend, Trump and the White House unleashed an extraordinarily heavy torrent of memes that portrayed the president as singularly powerful.
One video depicted Trump as a superhero wielding Green Lantern’s ring to effortlessly build a wall to keep out migrants and erect a slew of busy factories. Another post showed him in a U.S. hockey uniform looming over Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney as Carney cowered on the ice. And another had Trump on a military ship as it bombarded an enemy fleet.
Trump’s allure has always relied on a mythical version of himself, from “The Apprentice” to the White House, but the gap between meme and reality has become glaringly stark ahead of the midterm elections. Most U.S. adults are unhappy with Trump’s handling of the economy and say the Iran war hasn’t been worth it, but Trump has responded with outlandish images of himself as unstoppable and omnipotent.
Memes risk sidestepping reality
Some of the pictures are generated with artificial intelligence, and the administration has previously defended the memes as funny and their critics as humorless. Yet the stakes right now are serious for congressional Republicans who have tied their own fate to a president with low approval numbers. Trump’s party will put him center stage at an unusual midterm convention on Wednesday and Thursday in Dallas in hopes of stoking voters’ enthusiasm.
Kevin Madden, a Republican strategist, said that Trump’s social media posts can energize his base of “Make America Great Again” followers, although the tradeoff is that he’s not talking about how to fix inflation.
The voters who are likely to determine control of Congress in the midterms “are not going to be won over with memes,” Madden said. “The affordability voter is driving this election cycle and the issues they care about are anchored in the economy.”
The White House press office did not respond to a request for comment. Trump sometimes plucks memes from a sprawling ecosystem of online conservative supporters, and sometimes his government staff produces them as part of their official messaging. Recently they created a series of old-school video games, such as a “Tetris” knockoff called “Build the Wall.”
“The memes will continue,” Kaelan Dorr, a member of the White House communications team, recently posted on social media. “The winning will continue.”
Aging presidents promote vitality online
The problem for Trump is that voters have other images they’re using to define him. Drivers can spot through their windshields that gasoline is averaging $4.15 a gallon, up nearly 30% from a year ago because of the Iran war. And social media is inundated with questions about the 80-year-old president’s health and vitality, spurred by pictures of his bruised hands or video clips of him appearing to fall asleep in meetings.
White House officials have said the bruising is caused by “frequent handshaking” and Trump’s aspirin regimen, and they’ve denied that he’s dozed off.
Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, is three years older and faced relentless scrutiny about his age while in office. His White House came to embrace a meme version of Biden with lasers for eyes, suggesting that he was powerful and focused rather than infirm.
Andrew Bates, who was a deputy press secretary for Biden, said that Trump’s memes seem to be about avoiding the actual responsibilities of governing. He said they risk angering voters who see Trump as more focused on redecorating the White House than bringing the Iran war to a successful end.
“When a president who ran on bringing gas prices under $2 a gallon is now saying, ‘You’re at four dollars, it’s OK,’ it unfortunately makes sense that he’s also posting fever dreams,” Bates said.
Some memes have caused trouble
The memes have occasionally gotten Trump into trouble. He posted an image of himself as Jesus in April, which caused a degree of consternation among some supporters. The president later claimed he thought the image showed him as a medical doctor — albeit a doctor in Biblical robes with light emanating from his hands.
In February, his account posted a racist video of former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, as primates, which he deleted after a backlash.
Last October, Trump shared a video of him in a fighter jet dumping feces on Americans who were protesting his policies.
What the memes have not done so far is boost his wider approval ratings. Only 33% of U.S. adults approve of how he is handling the job of being president, according to a July AP-NORC poll.
But the polling also hits at a reason why he might be sending the memes to rally his core supporters. Just 15% of U.S. adults strongly approve of his presidency, the poll found, a slight decline from 22% shortly after he took office.
WASHINGTON — It should have been the safest of political appearances — a group of kids gushing about their love of science and space exploration with Vice President Kamala Harris.
But for Harris, it became a controversy.
The children, it turned out, were paid actors. And the video, filmed on location at the White House and the vice president’s official residence at the Naval Observatory, was promoted on NASA’s YouTube Channel and Harris’ Twitter account last week without making that clear.
The fallout over the video, produced for YouTube’s original programming platform, is the second in recent weeks where a seemingly innocuous appearance by Harris has become modestly troublesome.
Late last month, Harris generated more serious consternation and criticism from pro-Israel Democrats and media for not pushing back when a student at a classroom encounter at George Mason University in Virginia accused Israel of “ethnic genocide.” Harris spent the next several days clarifying her longstanding support for Israel and reaching out to pro-Israel organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League.
Such stumbles have been featured extensively in conservative media, where Harris is a regular target. But they also reinforce concerns among Democrats that Harris has not yet found her political footing since taking office amid high expectations. The presumed front-runner to succeed President Biden on the Democratic ticket in 2024 or 2028, Harris recently enlisted two veteran Democrats to help stabilize her communications efforts.
Harris’ office and NASA would not discuss the decision-making process that led to her participation in the YouTube Original or the administration’s marketing of the special, which was produced by a Canada-based company called Sinking Ship Entertainment.
I love the idea of exploring the unknown. There’s so much out there that we still have to learn. As the chair of the National Space Council, I’m eager to get our young people interested in STEM and space exploration. Watch “Get Curious” at https://t.co/d7UDjdh8NGpic.twitter.com/UYvZzsNgId
Harris’s office did not select the children who participated in the YouTube Originals special, a White House official said. A YouTube spokesperson said that “the casting process for this show was no different from typical unscripted kids’ shows across other networks and streaming platforms.”
The special debuted during World Space Week. It features NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough giving five children the clues for a scavenger hunt that takes them to the U.S. Naval Observatory, where they not-so casually run into Harris, who welcomes them onto the porch of the vice presidential residence.
While sitting in a white chair alongside the children, Harris reminisces about going to the lab with her scientist mother during her childhood and says she is excited to chair the National Space Council. She offers advice to the children about showing their true selves.
“Never let anybody tell you who you are,” she tells them. “You tell them who you are.”
Like many online productions, the special has the feel of something between a kids’-oriented news segment and a scripted show. The children, who introduce themselves with their hometowns, act surprised and excited as they meet the real-life astronaut and the vice president.
Earlier this week, one of the children who appeared in the video described in detail his audition process to KSBW TV in Salinas, which sparked mockery online and news coverage. Harris’ appearance drew especially sharp critiques in conservative news outlets. Fox News, in its coverage, has tried to draw a comparison to the criticism unleashed on former President Trump after his 2015 campaign launch in which he paid people to act like supporters.
Appearing as a guest on Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s show, commentator Candace Owens falsely told viewers that Harris paid children to appear in the special.
White House officials have a long history of appearing as themselves in scripted shows, often with children. First Lady Nancy Reagan promoted her anti-drug message on the popular 1980s sitcom “Diff’rent Strokes,” and then-President Obama participated in a televised sketch alongside comedy duo Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele during the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
The difference this time was that the show’s format was ambiguous, and its presentation and promotion by Harris and NASA led commentators to believe it had been produced by the government.
Communications consultants said the vice president’s staff should have more thoroughly vetted the program and ensured it was clearly labeled as a reality show with paid actors when the U.S. government promoted it.
Ultimately, Harris’ staff let her down, they said.
“The vice president and the president can’t do their own vetting on things like this,” said Kevin Madden, who served in senior communications roles for Mitt Romney’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns.
Madden added that Harris should not have participated in the program with paid actors, especially “in an era where there is a very high quotient of fake news and misinformation, you have to expect this kind of scrutiny.”
“The criticism [here] becomes warranted,” he said.
WASHINGTON — President Trump has locked in a deal to develop Venezuela’s vast oil resources, an arrangement the White House says will bring a country battered by years of economic collapse to a “place where elections are possible.”
But the agreement — backed by acting President Delcy Rodríguez, a holdover from the Nicolás Maduro government that Washington deems “illegitimate” — is raising new uncertainty about how entrenched the unelected government may become.
In January, when the U.S. military captured Maduro, Trump did not say how long a democratic transition would take but said Rodríguez was “gracious” and “essentially willing to do what we think is necessary.”
Asked by The Times on Wednesday what was stopping him from demanding Venezuela set a firm election date, Trump was blunt: “I just don’t think they are ready yet.”
“It’s very new. We took them out of a dictatorship and we’re getting along great with the government,” Trump said. But he said an election would happen “soon.”
U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright walks alongside Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, after a news conference on the deal to develop 17 oil fields in the country.
(Jesus Vargas / Getty Images)
Under the deal, the U.S. government is partnering with an oil producer to create a new company, North American Blue Energy Partners, to develop 17 fields with a proven potential of 65 billion barrels. NABEP will have rights to the fields for 100 years.
For many Venezuelans, the lack of urgency around elections — set against a deal that gives the United States majority control over roughly a third of the country’s oil reserves — is starting to feel like a broken promise.
“They tell us we have to wait two years, maybe more, while in the meantime they do business with a government that wasn’t elected, that was imposed on us, and that we don’t want,” Carlos Pérez, a 23-year-old automotive mechanics student, told The Times.
Antonio Marchetti, a 45-year-old plumber and electrician, said that while he sees the removal of Maduro as a “good thing,” the oil deal makes it seem as though Trump’s plans were those of a “cowboy, the invader John Wayne,” all along.
“We were expecting elections,” Marchetti said. “This pact with Trump entrenched the dictatorship that he himself declared war on. But to get rid of Maduro, he left the rest and did business with them. It disgusts me.”
A man holds a sign that reads in Spanish, “Yankee out, murderers” during a protest in Caracas on Aug. 29 against President Trump’s deal giving the United States a stake in Venezuela’s oil reserves.
(Pedro Mattey / Associated Press)
The frustrations go beyond Venezuela. In Washington, Republican lawmakers have praised the oil deal, while calling Rodríguez an “interim dictator” who cannot be trusted.
María Corina Machado, the exiled leader of the Venezuelan opposition and a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, on Thursday raised her own worries about what the oil deal means for the future of Venezuela.
In a video message, Machado stopped short of criticizing Trump’s oil deal, but acknowledged concerns about a pact negotiated with an “illegitimate” government.
“Venezuelans know that there can be no development without strong institutions and a government elected by popular vote,” she said. “That is the only real guarantee of success and stability for any large-scale investment.”
A plan in the works
Trump administration officials have characterized the deal as an economic lifeline that will eventually stabilize a country and prepare it for free and fair elections.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week that the United States is facilitating talks between Venezuela’s interim government and Dinorah Figuera, an opposition figure leading Venezuela’s 2015 National Assembly, the last democratically elected legislature recognized by the United States.
Machado has been left out of those talks. They are expected to resume in mid-September.
Rubio says that for any election to be “credible,” the voting system will require an overhaul and political parties will need time to organize. Steps also must be taken to ensure the country has a free press.
Echoing Rubio’s comments, the White House said Friday that Trump wants elections held at the “right time,” but that his top priority is to bring Venezuela “back from the dead and rebuild the country after it was incompetently ruled by a nasty dictatorship.”
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright meets with Venezuelan acting President Delcy Rodríguez at Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas on Sept. 2.
(Pedro Mattey / Ap Photo/pedro Mattey)
On Wednesday, while Energy Secretary Chris Wright visited Caracas, Rodríguez declined to set a firm date for an election, but added, “I have worked tirelessly to ensure that Venezuela is ready and prepared when the time comes for its electoral process, which will take place — have no doubt about that: There will be an electoral process.”
The open-ended approach to holding an election, however, has drawn criticism from former Trump administration officials, who argue the lack of a timeline essentially lets Rodríguez govern indefinitely.
“Here’s my fear: It makes us Delcy’s partner, and gives the president a reason to want her to remain in power,” Elliott Abrams, who served as U.S. special envoy to Venezuela during Trump’s first term, told The Times.
He contended that the White House so far appears to prefer a pliant interlocutor, and Rodríguez, he says, will do “whatever Trump tells her to do.”
If an election is to take place in Venezuela, a nine-month runway for preparation is likely to be expected, Abrams said.
People shop for produce at a market in Maracaibo, the heart of Venezuela’s oil industry. .
(Ariana Cubillos / Associated Press)
In Washington, some Republican lawmakers have continued to call for elections in Venezuela, arguing that Rodríguez cannot be trusted.
“The only way we will have a prosperous Venezuela is with the end of the murderous regime and the return of democracy,” Rep. Carlos A. Gimenez (R-Fla.) wrote on social media. He also called Rodríguez an “interim dictator.”
In an interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said he does not necessarily think elections should happen before the oil agreement is finalized, but he said they “need to proceed rapidly.”
“I believe they should proceed no later than midway through next year,” he said.
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) said he is working with Trump and Rubio to ensure “free, fair and transparent elections as soon as possible.” He did not, however, say what would constitute “soon.”
Mixed views on economic hope
In the Lake Maracaibo region, an area that would see renewed investments under the oil agreement, Junior Araujo — a 47-year-old oil worker — sees a “wonderful opportunity to be reborn.”
Araujo, the father of three, is in desperate need of a better economic outlook. He works 120 hours a week and earns only $20. For his family, food alone usually costs about $150 a week.
“We have to get creative and find new ways to make ends meet through side jobs like selling clothes and making yogurt,” he said. “That’s our real financial situation.”
Venezuelans watch oil tankers anchored in Lake Maracaibo on Sept. 4. Much of the country’s oil industry is centered in the Maracaibo region.
(Humberto Matheus/Sipa USA via Associated Press)
For Araujo, the hope for a better economy does not take away his frustrations with the government.
“We’re neither happy nor dancing here, all our benefits have been taken away from us,” he said. “Our main problem is the current government; we need to restore our institutions.”
Nazareth Lezama, a 35-year-old teacher, also sees the oil deal as an economic opportunity but remains concerned that the current government may not have negotiated the best price or conditions for Venezuela. She added this has happened in the past.
“We must be clear that this regime destroyed the oil industry,” she said, adding that Venezuelans “need elections to choose leaders based on merit.”
Marchetti, the plumber from Caracas, says the oil deal is a “100-year chain” on Venezuelans imposed by Trump. He said it has become the “last straw” for him, and he has decided to leave Venezuela and emigrate to Europe.
“With all the pain in my heart, I will leave everything behind. I have a European passport; it won’t be easy to start a life from scratch, but there is no hope left here,” he said.
He does not know where he will land yet. But he knows he needs to leave Venezuela.
“This ship is sinking,” he said.
Times staff writer Ceballos reported from Washington. Special correspondent Mogollón reported from Caracas.
Free and fair elections are foundational to our representative democracy. A government intended to reflect and honor the will of the people works only if the people can express their will. That’s why we have elections.
John Lewis, the late Georgia congressman and hero of the civil rights movement, said voting is precious and “the most powerful non-violent tool we have in a democratic society.” Former President Reagan called the right to vote “the crown jewel of American liberties.”
Alas, we have a president who believes his most precious right, apart from lining his silken pockets, is nursing his over-ripened ego. Donald Trump can’t stand the fact he lost the 2020 election — which he most emphatically did — and so he’s built a carapace of lies: about illegal ballots, rigged election machinery, rampant voting by noncitizens, and so on.
Reagan, no less than Lewis, probably is turning cartwheels in his grave.
But there’s a chance to push back. In November, voters in 26 states will elect a secretary of state, choosing the officials who will oversee the 2028 presidential race throughout most of the country. What could possibly go wrong?
What really politicized the office of secretary of state, though, was Trump’s obsessive compulsion with his 2020 defeat.
Spurred by his incessant lies about supposed fraud, allies and opportunists set out to hijack the country’s election machinery and do Trump’s dirty work from the inside. In 2022, a group calling itself the America First SOS Coalition endorsed a slate of cranks and quacks who ran for secretary of state in 14 states, including the presidential battlegrounds of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin.
FILE – Tina Peters, former Mesa County, Colo., clerk, listens during her trial, March 3, 2023, in Grand Junction, Colo. (Scott Crabtree/The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel via AP, Pool, File)
(Scott Crabtree / Associated Press)
Thankfully, all of them lost, save for one candidate in Indiana. Among those defeated was Tina Peters, the former county elections chief in Mesa County, Colo., who went on to infamy, and prison, for orchestrating a security breach aimed at “proving” 2020 votes were stolen from Trump. (Never mind that he won the county by nearly 30 percentage points.)
The SOS Coalition apparently is defunct; its website address now leads to an online gambling portal.
But more than two dozen election deniers ran for secretary of state this year, according to States United Democracy Center, a nonpartisan group that works to promote fair and secure elections nationwide. Six of those candidates won their primaries and made it to November’s ballot, including in three states — Arizona, Nevada and Wisconsin — that promise to be key once more to picking the next president.
The stakes in those races are considerable, said Peverill Squire, a University of Missouri expert on state elections. “Who’s going to be administering [election] rules? How they’re going to interpret those rules?” he said, offering examples of the office’s import. “Whether they’re going to try to make it more difficult to vote, or easier to vote. Whether they’re going to try to engage in activities that will further raise doubts in some people’s minds about how fairly the election has been conducted.”
Nevada Republican Jim Marchant is among the election deniers running for secretary of state in November. He lost four years ago after promoting Donald Trump’s false claims he beat Joe Biden.
(Ricardo Torres-Cortez / Associated Press)
The contest in Nevada is a rerun of 2022, when Democrat Cisco Aguilar narrowly defeated Republican Jim Marchant. Undeterred, Marchant continues to spout gibberish about sabotaged voting machines and other far-fetched claims of election chicanery. Among the remedies he’s floated, according to the Nevada Independent, is using technology to measure voters’ heartbeat as a way to verify their identity.
Um…
Meanwhile, in Arizona, incumbent Democrat Adrian Fontes faces Republican state Rep. Alexander Kolodin, an attorney who was sanctioned by the State Bar for pursuing baseless claims of 2020 election fraud. One of his Trump-inspired lawsuits was swiftly rejected by a federal judge who noted its conspicuous lack of “relevant or reliable evidence” — thus raising doubts not just about Kolodin’s discernment but also his capacity to cover even the basics.
In Wisconsin, where elections are overseen by a six-member, bipartisan commission, Republican Jay Schroeder is running on a pledge to dismantle that fair-minded system, calling it a “failed experiment.” Had he been secretary of state in 2020, Schroeder told NBC News, he would not have certified Joe Biden’s victory in the state.
That’s all you need to know, Wisconsin.
Great amounts of time, energy and resources are being devoted this election to races for Congress and for statehouses across the country, which makes sense.
WASHINGTON — President Trump on Thursday named Adam Telle, a civilian leader in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, as the acting Army secretary following the departure of Dan Driscoll amid widespread reports of tensions with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Telle is currently the assistant secretary of the Army for civil works. But he spent more than 20 years working for Republican senators as well as in the White House during Trump’s first term, serving as the president’s chief liaison to the Senate, according to an Army bio.
“He is a Great Patriot, who is respected by all,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.
Hegseth echoed that in his own post on X.
“Huge congrats to Adam. Strong and whip smart,” Hegseth wrote. “He is indeed a great Patriot — and will be an immediate asset to the @USArmy.”
Driscoll gave no explanation for his decision to quit this week as the Army’s top civilian official. His clashes with Hegseth have been widely reported, and some of Driscoll’s allies in the Army were ousted this year by Trump’s Pentagon chief.
Telle has been at the Army Office of Civil Works since August 2025, according to Legistorm, a website that tracks lawmakers and Capitol Hill staffers. Before that, Telle worked as chief of staff for Republican Sen. Bill Hagerty of Tennessee from 2021-25.
Telle spent 18 months working in the White House during Trump’s first term and 10 years working for the late Republican Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi, according to Legistorm.
Telle also worked as the chief staff member on the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Homeland Security Subcommittee, according to Hagerty’s remarks when Telle was nominated for the civil works job in May 2025.
In his most recent job, Telle focused on matters involving commercial navigation, flood damage reduction and permitting under the Clean Water Act. Telle issued a statement in August about the approval of a company’s plans to reroute an aging oil pipeline around a Wisconsin tribal reservation. In May, he was quoted in a story in the Forum, a newspaper in Fargo, N.D., about a $3.2-billion flood control project that will protect more than 200,000 people.
Telle will now be overseeing the nation’s largest fighting force at a time when the U.S. is still engaged in conflict with Iran and significant Army forces are stationed in the Middle East.
The war has significantly contributed to the U.S. military’s shortfall in critical weapons like the Patriot and THAAD defense missile interceptors systems, which are operated by the Army.
Driscoll, an Army veteran who served in Iraq, is a friend of Vice President JD Vance and had good relationships with both Republicans and Democrats in Congress.
His allies in the Army who were ousted by Hegseth included its top uniformed leader, Gen. Randy George. Gen. Christopher LaNeve took over as the Army’s acting chief of staff and recently pulled the plug on a drone modernization program that Driscoll had championed.
Driscoll spoke with Trump on the current state of the Army before he submitted his resignation, the Associated Press has reported.
Driscoll did not allude to any problems in the only public statement on his departure, saying Tuesday that it has been “the honor of a lifetime” to serve as Army secretary under Trump and Hegseth.
Democrats and Republicans lamented Driscoll’s departure, with some blaming Hegseth directly.
Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican who is retiring and sometimes has clashed with Trump, said on social media that Hegseth “is creating a leadership void at the top of our military ranks.”
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is proposing a new rule that would strip private schools and colleges of their tax-exempt status if they provide targeted help to students based on their race, a significant escalation in the White House’s campaign to eradicate diversity programs directed at Black, Latino and other minority students.
The Treasury Department proposed the change Thursday in a new regulation that, if made final, would take effect after May 2027. The rule is broadly aimed at ending any policies or programs that help students because of their race, and it specifically says such benefits in admissions, scholarships and facilities “would be incompatible” with the rule.
It’s the latest attempt by the Trump administration to pressure schools and colleges to end diversity, equity and inclusion policies that had become common before President Trump returned to the White House with a promise to eliminate them. Trump officials have used Civil Rights-era laws to unwind the policies, saying they discriminate against white and Asian American students.
Scores of universities have shut down or rebranded their Diversity, Equity and Inclusion offices and ended scholarships and clubs designed for minority students under pressure from the White House. In a statement announcing the proposal, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggested that even policies that are no longer under the banner of DEI could be targeted.
“Schools rebranding race-based preferences as equitable, inclusive, or diversity-enhancing does not change their discriminatory nature,” Bessent said.
The Treasury Department and IRS estimate that up to 18,000 private schools, colleges and other education institutions could be affected by the proposal.
America’s private universities have been exempt from many taxes for more than a century because they provide a public good. The benefit saves many universities millions of dollars every year.
Trump has seen the tax-exempt status as a lever to pull in his pressure campaign against colleges that he describes as bastions of “wokeness.” He threatened to cut the benefit for Harvard University last year during his battle with the nation’s oldest college. In a response, Harvard officials said there was no legal basis for doing so and argued it would force cuts to financial aid and crucial medical research.
It’s incredibly rare for the federal government to go after a college’s tax-exempt status, but there’s one notable precedent. Bob Jones University, a small Christian school in South Carolina, lost the benefit in the 1970s over a ban on interracial dating and marriage on campus. The Supreme Court upheld the IRS’s decision to deny the school its exemption. The school has since ended the ban and regained tax-exempt status in 2017.
Laws forbid the IRS from targeting individuals and organizations for ideological reasons, and federal officials are not allowed to direct IRS investigations.
To maintain nonprofit status, which allows donations to be tax-deductible, organizations must follow IRS rules on lobbying, political campaign activity and annual reporting requirements, as well as other obligations.
The Trump administration describes the new proposal as a move toward restoring merit in the nation’s education systems.
The Justice Department has separately opened investigations into several medical schools that it accuses of favoring Black and Hispanic students in admissions. Trump officials say any such favoritism violates Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a federal law that forbids discrimination in education and was created to fight segregation and its impact.
A statement from IRS Chief Executive Officer Frank J. Bisignano said private schools that promote discriminatory practices will no longer be exempt from taxes.
“Today’s proposed regulations put institutions on notice and schools that continue to engage in racial discrimination should expect to lose that status,” he said.
Binkley writes for the Associated Press. Associated Press Education Writer Annie Ma contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON — Beginning on Day One, House Democrats plan to “hold the crooks accountable.”
That’s the promise House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries has made, previewing an ambitious agenda with oversight of President Trump’s administration and legislation to address the high costs of living, if Democrats seize majority control from Republicans in the midterm elections.
But first, the Democratic leaders have to ensure they can keep their own politically diverse — and sometimes rebellious — big-tent caucus in line, which was tested this week. Two go-their-own-way Democrats bucked the party on a routine procedural vote, angering colleagues and raising a red flag about potential party divisions to come.
“His greatest challenge will be governing,” Ashley Etienne, a former top aide to Nancy Pelosi during her historic tenure as House speaker, said of Jeffries.
The House majority is expected to be decided by a handful of seats in a shrinking number of competitive districts, potentially creating a similar political dynamic to the past four years under GOP control, a chaotic new era in Congress.
In the House, the size of the majority matters. When the majority is slim, any single lawmaker can become a kingmaker, determining whether a party’s agenda sinks or soars. House Speaker Mike Johnson is tested by his narrow majority almost daily, and his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, was the first in history to be booted from office, ousted by a small number of opponents from his own side.
Jeffries, who is poised to become the House speaker if his party wins power and would be the first Democrat to wield the gavel since Pelosi, faces a party at a crossroads. It has a new generation of candidates, some far-left from the Democratic Socialists of America, and they are eager for change.
The Democratic leadership team responded swiftly to the slight from the two centrist lawmakers this week over the thwarted procedural vote, sending a message that they will not tolerate the kind of disruptions that have often left Republicans in disarray.
But the damage was done.
“It was disappointing,” said seasoned Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the Rules Committee. ”It makes us look as bad as them.”
A routine procedural vote becomes anything but
The procedural rule vote, which sets the terms for debate, was long a non-issue in the House. The party in power voted for it, the minority party voted against. But conservative Republicans have routinely bucked their own GOP majority on the votes, tanking the agenda.
As the tally Tuesday was teetering, it appeared Johnson once again had a revolt on his hands. Then two Democrats, retiring Rep. Jared Golden of Maine and outsider Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, voted with the Republicans, salvaging the outcome and the week’s agenda.
Golden was working to ensure passage of his bill on the lobster industry. Gluesenkamp, often an ally as a fellow Blue Dog Democrat in a Trump-won congressional district, had joined.
Democrats were livid. Some were eager for a reprimand. Others expressed the angst coming from voters who want the party to stick together to fight Trump. The Pelosi-ism, “Unity is our strength,” was revived.
“The challenge is, that if you don’t have the numbers, all of a sudden a few people can be very decisive,” said Rep. John Larson, D-Conn., a former party leader who recently lost his own primary bid for reelection.
“You can never ask people to vote against their own interest,” he said. ”But you also have to emphasize the camaraderie and concept of working together as a team.”
A cautious Democratic leader faces new challenges
Jeffries is known as a careful leader and, as he says himself, chooses calm over chaos at a time when many Democrats prefer a quicker, attention-grabbing reaction.
The New York Democrat is singularly focused on winning back control of the House. In office since 2013, Jeffries is confronting the party’s quickly changing climate, as he works to hold together what is arguably the most diverse party caucus in U.S. history.
“We’re fighting to make healthcare affordable for every single American,” he said earlier in the week. “And we certainly will fight to hold the crooks accountable who have unleashed unprecedented corruption on the American people.”
Two weeks ago, Jeffries ran into trouble with progressives after having accepted a meeting with Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, an outside adviser to the White House.
The two New Yorkers had known each other and worked together on legislation during the first Trump administration. White House chief of staff Susie Wiles had suggested Kushner reach out. But liberals questioned why Jeffries would even meet with those close to Trump.
“He asked for a meeting, and I took it,” Jeffries said in a defiant video the next day.
The Democrats have established five working groups to tackle affordability issues — in housing, healthcare, child care, groceries and gas and utilities. The top Democrats on the Oversight and Judiciary committees are preparing to root out corruption.
Jeffries also sketched out the pillars of a Democratic legislative agenda for the coming year: repealing Republican Medicaid cuts, restoring expanded tax credits under the Affordable Care Act, repealing Trump’s tariffs and ending the Iran war.
“These are issues that we know unite Democrats,” Jeffries said. “But I don’t want to get out ahead of the caucus, because there are a whole host of things that need to be worked on.”
WASHINGTON — Army Secretary Dan Driscoll is stepping down after 18 months on the job, the White House said Monday, in the latest departure of a top military leader during the Trump administration.
No reason was given for the departure of Driscoll, who is a friend of Vice President JD Vance, but tensions with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have been widely reported. It marks the latest in a series of shakeups of the military leadership, with the Army especially seeing major upheaval.
“Secretary Driscoll has been highly effective in advancing President Trump’s agenda to Make America Strong Again at the Department of the Army by providing outstanding leadership during historic military operations, restoring an emphasis on readiness and lethality, assisting with negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, and more,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in a statement.
“The United States Army is more powerful than ever thanks to his work alongside the Commander-in-Chief and Secretary of War,” she added.
A U.S. Army official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said Driscoll spoke with President Trump on the current state of the Army and submitted his resignation. The official did not provide additional details. The Pentagon referred questions to the Army. Driscoll’s resignation was reported earlier Monday by The Wall Street Journal.
Exit follows other Army departures, rollback of drone program
Driscoll’s departure follows the ouster of one of his allies from the Army as well as the rollback of a drone program he had championed. Hegseth had suddenly ousted the service’s top uniformed leader, Gen. Randy George, in April, while the Army’s commander in Europe and Africa, Gen. Christopher Donahue, unexpectedly stepped down in June.
Gen. Christopher LaNeve, who has made a meteoric rise under Hegseth, took George’s place as the Army’s acting chief of staff. Under LaNeve, the service is pulling the plug on a drone modernization program. An Army unit based in Europe was building its own drones before LaNeve directed it to end its efforts and return to being a traditional infantry battalion, officials said in August.
Driscoll was a George ally and lamented his departure, along with both Republican and Democratic lawmakers. He told Congress in April that he and his family drove to George’s house following his resignation “and we all gave him a hug.”
“That being said, the civilian leadership, the design of our system, is that they get to pick the leaders that they want,” Driscoll added.
Republicans and Democrats respond to departure news with praise for Driscoll
Rep. Steve Womack, an Arkansas Republican who had served in the Army National Guard, said on X that Driscoll is “a transformative leader who brought common sense and discipline to the Department of the Army.”
“I had the pleasure of working with him closely, and appreciated how engaged he was from mentoring cadets at West Point to leading the Army at the Pentagon,” Womack wrote. “The Army is better equipped and prepared to tackle emerging threats because of his leadership that strengthened the force while putting our Soldiers first.”
Rep. Jason Crow, a Colorado Democrat and former Army Ranger, told reporters that he worked well with Driscoll despite their policy differences.
“It was actually nice, I will say, having somebody who was smart, that knew the policy, that wanted to do the work, that had a background in these issues,” Crow said, adding that “it’s unfortunate that somebody like that can’t last in this administration.”
Crow, who serves on the House Armed Services Committee and co-chairs the House Army Caucus, said the “Pentagon right now is, in some cases, rudderless,” with so many senior leaders gone. “So, I’m gravely concerned about it,” he said.
Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement that Driscoll “worked to transform the Army for the battlefield of the future, and he engaged with Congress candidly and consistently.”
“Secretary Hegseth is cultivating a culture where dissent is punished and competence is secondary to personal allegiance,” said Reed, a former Army officer, while noting that “hundreds of thousands of soldiers are deployed around the world, many in combat zones.”
Driscoll was an unlikely negotiator in Ukraine-Russia war
Driscoll is an Iraq war veteran, tech investor and former adviser to Vance, whom Driscoll met at Yale Law School. When nominating Driscoll in 2024, Trump called him “a disruptor and change agent.”
As Army secretary, Driscoll was tapped for the unusual role of key negotiator to try to end the war between Russia and Ukraine. He was also a major force behind trying to cut the red tape for military contractors to quickly develop more drones and counter-drone capabilities as warfare rapidly changes around the world.
The Senate confirmed him in February 2025, voting 66-28, following an Armed Services Committee hearing that was largely unconfrontational and focused on how the Army could modernize its systems, improve recruiting and beef up the military industrial base.
Driscoll noted that his father and grandfather served in the Army, and he vowed to be a secretary focused on the needs of soldiers. According to the Army, Driscoll served as an armor officer from August 2007 to March 2011, deploying to Iraq from October 2009 to July 2010.
He also ran unsuccessfully in the Republican primary for a North Carolina congressional seat in 2020, getting about 8% of the vote in a crowded field of candidates.
His departure comes after Hegseth ousted several other generals and admirals, including the head of the Navy.
The Pentagon abruptly announced in April that Navy Secretary John Phelan was leaving the job, becoming the first head of a military service to depart during Trump’s second term.
Finley and Madhani write for the Associated Press.
WASHINGTON — A divided Supreme Court has cleared the way for President Trump to finish building his new White House ballroom with mostly private money and without approval from Congress.
By a 5-4 vote. the justices granted an emergency appeal from Trump and his lawyers on Monday and set aside a judge’s order that would stop the construction.
But Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. dissented, along with the court’s three liberals.
The outcome turned on standing.
The conservative majoritysaid the National Trust for Historic Preservation and its members were not personally injured by the White House ballroom project and therefore, did not have to standing to sue Trump or the National Park Service.
They also said Trump and his appointees had stressed the new ballroom was needed for national security and said the lower courts judges should not have interfered.
The decision in effect gives a green light to Trump’s go-it-alone approach which is in keeping with his history as a hotel builder. He believed the White House needed a grand ballroom that could seat hundreds of dignitaries. And he ordered the East Wing torn down in October to make room of his larger ballroom.
He also said most of the project would be paid for by $400 million in private donations.
But the Constitution gave Congress the power to manage property belonging to the United States. A 1912 law says new buildings “shall not erected…on public grounds within the District of Columbia without express authority of Congress.”
Trump chose to ignore the law and did not seek approval from Congress which is led by Republicans.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation sued in December, contending Trump was a “temporary tenant, not the owner” of the White House.
U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ruled Trump had no authority to build a new ballroom on the White House grounds without the approval of Congress, and he ordered a halt to the above-ground construction.
The D.C. Circuit Court affirmed his decision by a 2-1 vote. “Congress has not ceded unfettered authority to the Executive Branch to dramatically redesign, reshape, and reconstruct the White House—the People’s House—to fit a particular President’s desires,” wrote Judge Patricia Millett for the appeals court.
Trump’s lawyers sent a fast-track appeal to the Supreme Court on Aug. 14.
The court’s majority allowed Trump to fend off the legal challenge by concluding the historic preservationists could not show they were harmed by a huge new ballroom that may dwarf the historic Executive Mansion.
WASHINGTON — President Trump has frequently suggested he wants to seek a third term, posting about mounting another campaign, donning 2028 caps and discussing ways to make it happen — even as he’s acknowledged the Constitution prohibits it.
But lately, Trump has begun showing signs that even he doesn’t really believe another run will happen.
During recent speeches, the Republican president has begun describing life after the White House when his term ends in January 2029, predicting he’ll be at home and agonizing as his successor claims credit for his accomplishments.
“Your next president is going to say, ‘What a great job I did,’ ” Trump told an event on Long Island, N.Y., this month. “He’ll be sitting around, watching television. A real stiff. Unless you vote Republican, of course.”
A sitting president talking about becoming a former one is always politically fraught. But with midterm elections now just nine weeks away, Trump is approaching the point of his presidency where there will be more and more reminders that his power will soon wane.
Being willing to say he’s contemplating a White House without him marks a notable shift for Trump. Going back to his first term and from virtually the moment he won a second, he’s left the door open to staying put for more than eight years.
“He is all over the place,” said Brian Kalt, a Michigan State University constitutional law professor. “And what that does is, it allows him to point to his own words to support any number of mutually exclusive things.”
Trump can say, “ ’Oh, yeah, I made it clear that I wasn’t gonna run,’ ” Kalt said. “Or, if he decides that he will, he could say, ’Well, you know, I never said I wouldn’t.’ ”
Trump suggests his post-presidency may make him cry
The White House dismissed suggestions that Trump’s thoughts are increasingly turning to the clock running out on his presidency — and the legacy he’ll leave behind. Spokesperson Olivia Wales said he “is fighting every day” to deliver on promises to reduce violent crime, crack down on the U.S.-Mexico border and lower prescription drug prices.
“The only legacy President Trump is concerned with is making America greater than ever before,” Wales said.
Still, hinting at how he’ll be remembered is something Trump is suddenly talking about a lot.
During a recent Pennsylvania rally, he said, “Whoever the next president is, he’s going to be talking about what a brilliant president he is. And I’ll be home. And I’ll be saying, ’That son of a gun,’ because we did the job.”
A week later in Georgia, Trump was predicting that once his presidency was over, “I’ll be sitting home.”
“I may be crying,” the president added, arguing that Democrats could retake the Senate and scrap filibuster rules, making it easier to move their key legislation.
Then, in Michigan, Trump injected some doubt into whether he was ready to hand over the Oval Office and move back to Florida.
“In two and a half years, you may have a different president — may,” he said, emphasizing the “may.”
“I’ll be sitting home. I’ll be reading the papers. I’ll be watching television,” Trump said, before swiping at his predecessor, President Biden. “And I’ll be having some guy — like last time, a real idiot — stand up and say, ‘We are doing record business.’ ”
Mixed Trump signals are still most common
But even as he’s begun to suggest he’ll be leaving the presidency, Trump has also continued to tease a 2028 reelection run.
Addressing the rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Assn. dinner last month, Trump joked, “Just like my presidency, the second time is always better” and that “the third time will be better yet. I’m only kidding.” He later wore a 2028 campaign cap to finish the speech.
The Constitution’s 22nd Amendment says no one can be elected president more than twice. It was ratified in 1951, six years after President Franklin Delano Roosevelt died, months into his fourth term. Until Roosevelt, no other president had defied the tradition of stepping down after two terms that George Washington started.
Still, Trump had only been back in the White House for a couple of months when he told NBC News, “There are methods which you could” use to seek a third term.
He acknowledged that one method was to be the running mate to Vice President JD Vance in 2028 — then have Vance step aside if the pair won.
“There are others, too,” Trump said then, alluding to more options. He later told Time magazine, “There are some loopholes,” while also saying he didn’t believe in using them.
The president has since often used his social media posts to promote “Trump 2028” logos featuring his slogan “Make America Great Again.”
But Trump has also at times seemed definitive about the ban on him making another run, acknowledging recently to reporters: “I’d love to run, but the law is very strong.”
Kalt wrote about a two-term president possibly getting back to office by running for vice president in “constitutional Cliffhangers: A Legal Guide for Presidents and Their Enemies.”
“People do tend to find, in Trump’s words, whatever it is that they want to hear,” he said.
Trump may be fighting the ‘lame duck’ factor
Second-term presidents typically see their power and influence wane during their last two years, particularly if their party suffers big midterm defeats. But Trump’s comments could also be a sign he’s thinking about cementing his legacy, a stage that many of his predecessors also reached.
“They all, particularly as they cross the midpoint of their second term, start thinking about legacy,” said Paul Begala, a former adviser to President Clinton.
“They all banish the word. I know Clinton and Bush, they said, ’Can’t use the L-word.’ But they do,” Begala said, referring to his old boss Clinton and to President George W. Bush. “They all think about it. And the staff thinks about it and the Cabinet thinks about it.”
In his last two years of office, Clinton threw himself into trying to broker a Middle East peace agreement. Bush used the slogan “sprint to the finish” during his presidency’s final year in 2008, and Biden adopted a “run through the tape” ethos after abandoning his reelection bid.
Trump has leaned into molding the White House and Greater Washington in his own image, harkening back to his days as a real estate developer in 1970s and 1980s New York.
He’s ordered up a towering arch near the Lincoln Memorial and restored city fountains, while constructing a Rose Garden patio area and helipad on the White House lawn and adding scores of gilded touches to the building’s stately interior and exterior.
And then, there’s the massive ballroom that Trump has crews rushing to finish in the face of legal challenges — a project the president says will only be completed late in 2028, shortly before he leaves office.
“It’s not for me, ‘cause I’m going to be here a very short period of time” when the work is finished, Trump recently told reporters in the Oval Office. “I’ll be there for four, five, six months. This is for future presidents.”
WASHINGTON — A former White House teleprompter operator accused of using inside knowledge to make bets on the prediction market Kalshi has been ordered to turn over more than $100,000 in profits and pay a $65,000 fine as part of a settlement with federal authorities.
The settlement with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, announced Friday, also dealt Gabriel Perez a three-year trading ban. Perez was placed on unpaid leave from his job at the White House after reports emerged that he used his position to make bets on what President Trump would say in speeches.
The White House did not immediately comment on the settlement. A White House official said in July that Perez was no longer in his position but did not say if he had been fired or resigned.
The commission found that Perez made $107,500 on prediction markets by betting on words and phrases that would appear in Trump’s speeches between December 2025 and February 2026.
“In his position, Perez had access to presidential speeches prior to those speeches being delivered and Perez misappropriated that information — in breach of his duty of trust and confidence,” according to a release from the commission.
Perez was ordered to repay his profits in full, along with the $65,000 civil penalty, which the commission said was a reduction because of his “exemplary cooperation.”
As details emerged July 16, then White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said it was “unfortunate” and “a disgrace.”
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche’s fidelity to President Trump nearly cost him his confirmation. Now comes Blanche’s real test.
Trump’s former personal attorney has stepped into the commanding role facing a challenge that other leaders of the Republican president’s Department of Justice could not overcome: threading the needle between Trump’s boundary-busting demands and a prosecutor’s duty to uphold the rule of law. At the same time, Blanche must try to stabilize a workforce shaken by an exodus of experienced lawyers and an erosion of trust in the judicial branch.
In a wide-ranging interview with the Associated Press during a trip to Puerto Rico this week, Blanche promised to lead the department with integrity, dismissing concerns from critics who say his actions so far — including an indictment against longtime Trump foe and former FBI Director James Comey — call into question whether Blanche is still functioning as Trump’s personal lawyer.
A slew of ongoing politically charged investigations under Blanche’s watch could force him to choose between his long-standing loyalty to the president and the foundational principles of the Cabinet agency he leads. At stake is the fate of a department already reeling under a president who has made clear his desire for retribution over the criminal scrutiny he faced.
“My integrity, my commitment to the rule of law is the same today that it was the day I graduated,” Blanche told the AP when asked where he would draw the line on requests from the White House. “I would never do anything unethical or improper or violate my oath, no matter the circumstances.”
Critics disagree.
As acting attorney general, Blanche came under fire from lawmakers, including many Republicans, for signing off on a $1.8 billion fund meant to compensate Trump’s allies who believed they were politically prosecuted. He also greenlit a deal that granted Trump, the Trump Organization, and two of his sons immunity from tax audits. Those moves, unusual steps aimed at granting the president and his allies far-reaching benefits, put Blanche’s confirmation at risk, prompting key senators to express concern.
Blanche, like Trump’s other attorneys general, walks a tightrope
In the AP interview, Blanche addressed criticism of the department under his leadership, his priorities as attorney general and losses the administration has had in high-profile cases. He also depicted the Justice Department as an institution whose independence had eroded long ago — a characterization at odds with decades of fierce autonomy that challenged the highest echelons of power in Washington and beyond.
Blanche, a former federal prosecutor in New York, is walking the same tightrope as Trump’s three other Senate-confirmed attorneys general. They found their pledges to uphold the rule of law and the department’s ethical norms at odds with the president’s demands to bend the institution to his will.
During Trump’s first term, one attorney general infuriated Trump over his withdrawal from an investigation into Trump’s winning White House campaign and was forced out. Another submitted his resignation weeks after breaking with Trump over Trump’s false claims of election fraud. Blanche’s immediate predecessor, Pam Bondi, was ousted in April after failing to deliver successful prosecutions against the president’s political enemies.
Blanche’s narrow confirmation this month over opposition from two Republican senators underscored growing concerns about the dismantling of the Justice Department’s long-standing tradition of independence from the White House, which is meant to protect the impartiality of politically sensitive investigations and prosecutions.
Concerns that the Justice Department is being weaponized
Blanche bristles at the suggestion that the Justice Department should be independent of the president and he has made clear his view that the executive has both the power and the right to shape and control the law enforcement agency.
He has staunchly defended the integrity of cases the administration has brought against the president’s perceived political opponents, often pointing to his own experience representing Trump in criminal cases brought by Democratic President Joe Biden’s Justice Department. Blanche and the president have characterized those cases as politically motivated.
“I think attorneys general and others have said, ‘Oh, we’re independent.’ I don’t think that’s actually true,” Blanche told the AP.
Blanche claimed the Justice Department was not truly independent when he was a federal prosecutor or during the Biden administration. But that characterization ignores the fact that under Biden, the Justice Department investigated Biden himself over his handling of classified documents and secured felony charges in two separate cases against his son Hunter before Biden pardoned him.
The two criminal cases filed by special counsel Jack Smith against Trump were based on allegations, supported by long-running investigations, that Trump had classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and obstructed government efforts to get them back, and conspired to overturn the 2020 election.
Growing distrust of the Justice Department among judges
Blanche has sought to highlight the administration’s focus on tackling illegal immigration, violent crime and drug-trafficking cartels, spotlighting cases such as the takedown of a Puerto Rican gang that he announced during his visit to the U.S. island territory.
But Blanche’s policy priorities are often overshadowed by a growing number of investigations that have drawn criticism that the department is being used as a weapon in the president’s campaign of retribution.
Blanche’s supporters have argued that the close relationship he developed with Trump while serving as his criminal defense lawyer can make him more effective at pushing back on or explaining the legal constraints of the president’s demands. Others wonder whether he will fare any better than Bondi up against the same skeptical court system, and factual and legal hurdles, that impeded efforts to deliver the sought-after results.
Blanche is also confronting growing distrust of the Justice Department among judges, who in multiple cases have accused government lawyers of withholding information or misleading courts. Courts in some cases have quashed subpoenas or ordered the review of grand jury transcripts, and the criminal cases against Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James were dismissed after a judge found the prosecutor who brought them was illegally appointed.
But Blanche played down concerns that the erosion of judicial trust could impede his efforts to advance his agenda.
“The isolated incidents that make the news are not reflective of the way the bench feels in my view, or the way prosecutors are doing their job around the country,” Blanche said.
Richer writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.
Air traffic controllers in Washington and the pilots of President Trump’s helicopter met to discuss communication issues one week before a jet was allowed to take off just as Marine One left the White House, federal investigators said Thursday.
Controllers reported not receiving the standard three-minute warning call ahead of Marine One flights, and both sides agreed to an alternative in those instances — but that plan to relay the radio call through someone else also was unsuccessful on the day of the Aug. 4 incident near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, the National Transportation Safety Board’s preliminary report shows.
Having both the jet and helicopter in the air at the same time seemed to violate safety procedures put in place after last year’s midair collision near the busy airport that killed 67 people, but officials stressed that the president was never in danger. The Pentagon also has a long-standing agreement with the Federal Aviation Administration to provide controllers with a three-minute warning before the president’s helicopter takes off that predates last year’s crash.
The NTSB said recordings from the tower showed that the controllers never heard the calls from Marine One’s pilot that day warning that the helicopter was getting ready to take off, but separate recordings posted by ATC.com show the helicopter did make those calls.
The helicopter pilots tried to relay their three-minute call through the helicopter facility at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling, but that also was unsuccessful.
After an airliner collided with an Army Black Hawk helicopter on Jan. 29, 2025, the FAA decided all takeoffs and landings at the airport would be halted anytime a helicopter passes by on a conflicting route. The airspace near the White House and Reagan is heavily congested with military and commercial aircraft.
The FAA acknowledged the helicopter and airliner briefly got too close before the two aircraft started to move away from each other. The airplane quickly climbed above the helicopter after Marine One’s pilots saw the plane and paused until it safely left the area.
The NTSB said preliminary estimates show the helicopter and plane were about eight-tenths of a mile apart laterally and about 700 feet apart vertically at their closest. The crew of the Envoy Air flight told investigators they received a traffic warning from their collision avoidance system right after they took off, but they never saw the helicopter.
The official FAA recordings from the tower at Reagan did not include the warnings that Marine One was getting ready to head to Andrews Air Force Base with the president aboard.
A recording posted by ATC.com showed the Marine One pilot telling the tower that the helicopter was “three minutes to life” just like the 2013 agreement between the FAA and the military calls for. But the controller seemed surprised a few minutes later when the helicopter took off.
“Uh, Marine One, you said, uh, you’re proceeding as briefed?” the controller asked before giving the helicopter directions and commenting, “OK, no three minutes, roger, proceed as briefed.”
After the controller warned the helicopter about the plane taking off, the Marine One pilot said he saw the traffic and declared, “We’ll be doing a momentary delay.”
After last year’s midair collision, it became clear that poor communication between air traffic controllers and the military had been a long-standing issue. During a congressional hearing, it came out that a hotline connecting the Pentagon to the tower at Reagan hadn’t been working for more than three years, and the FAA hadn’t even realized it.
The NTSB said that after this incident involving Marine One, FAA technicians determined there wasn’t an adequate line of sight between the radio receiver at the airport and the location where the helicopter takes off at the White House. So those radios were moved from the neighborhood where they had been located to the top of the tower at Reagan. Subsequent tests showed the radios working well after that change.
OMAHA, Neb. — “Do they still like Trump in Nebraska? I think so,” the president said during a recent event in Washington.
Given that the state easily backed Republican Donald Trump three times and hasn’t supported a Democrat for the White House since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, the answer may seem obvious.
But in Nebraska’s largest city, it’s an open question and could decide one of the country’s most-watched congressional races. Retiring Rep. Don Bacon ’s open seat pits fellow Republican and Omaha City Councilmember Brinker Harding against Democratic activist Denise Powell.
The district encompasses an increasingly Democratic-leaning Omaha metro area of 1 million-plus and its more conservative suburbs — famous for steaks and the Reuben sandwich’s birthplace, though New York disputes that.
It’s one of just eight districts nationwide that elected Republicans in House races while supporting Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris over Trump two years ago.
Harding and Powell have been making the rounds at parades and festivals where meat raffles offer oversized sausages as prizes. However, those on-the-ground appeals could be drowned out by Trump who, like most things in politics, has moved to shape November’s midterm elections in his own image.
The president is organizing a Republican midterm convention in Dallas next month that will serve as much a two-day rally for him as a boon to party candidates nationwide. Trump is also frequently visiting tightly contested districts, despite his low approval ratings and the unpopular war in Iran.
While Trump centers himself, Democrats are happy to oblige.
When Powell knocks on doors to talk to voters, she asks, “What’s keeping you up at night?” On a sweaty Saturday afternoon, John Rosseter responded without hesitation. “Well, Trump.”
“I want to see the history books written years from now,” said Rosseter, 67, who owns a carpentry business. “They won’t be pretty.”
The ‘Blue Dot’ hasn’t helped Democratic House candidates
Nebraska splits its presidential electoral votes, and the 2nd Congressional District’s delegate has gone to Democrats three out of five times since 2008, making it a “ blue dot ” in an otherwise Republican red state. But a Democrat has won the House seat just once since 1994.
Harding plays up Trump’s primary endorsement, and House Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise campaigned for him. Harding said he has “the full confidence of, not only the White House, but leadership in the Congress.”
He has also tried to appeal to swing voters and says he knows the district better than does Powell, co-founder of Women Who Run Nebraska, which supports female candidates.
Two possible Democratic 2028 presidential candidates — ex-Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Rahm Emanuel, an ex-Chicago mayor who was President Barack Obama’s first White House chief of staff — have campaigned with Powell.
She talks about how Medicare cuts have increased anxiety about affordability. Powell also points to Trump and his family’s business dealings as an example of “the choices that they have made while people on the ground are struggling” and she says that resonates with Republicans.
“Even the ones who aren’t necessarily anti-Trump,” Powell said, “understand the need for checks and balances.”
Some Democrats want a ‘Blue Dot Wave’
Jason Brown and his wife, Ruth Huebner-Brown, caused a sensation in 2024 by spray painting about 50 reused lawn signs with blue dots and distributing them around Omaha’s Dundee neighborhood. The couple has since expanded to professionally produce signs promoting a “Blue Dot Wave.”
Brown said the Republican-controlled Congress has capitulated on “every Trump nominee, every Trump policy, all the way down to putting gilding gold on statues.”
Supporters of Harding have countered with red “Brinker Dot” signs.
“We need to make sure that we keep this country on the track to being even better,” Harding said.
Jack Hosking, the 90-year-old retired former head of a title insurance company, organizes a weekly coffee to discuss political and community issues. He estimated that about 70% of attendees are Trump voters and “maybe even more so lately, because of the crap that the New York mayor started,” referring to Zohran Mamdani’s efforts at pushing the Democratic Party to the left.
Both Powell and Harding have addressed Hosking’s group, though, and he predicted that as much as half will support the Democrat.
“She spoke well enough that, my sense is, a lot of them will cross over,” Hosking said, noting that when it came to campaigning, “Brinker’s not doing much.”
The president seen as a base motivator
The Republican National Committee views Trump as a national asset, betting he can prevent complacency in a year without a presidential race, when enthusiasm for the party in power typically wanes.
The committee rebranded its “Young Guns” program for key candidates to “MAGA Majority” in deference to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement, and many congressional candidates will be at the Dallas convention with Trump.
Others aren’t waiting that long.
Republican Reps. Mike Lawler of New York and Tom Barrett of Michigan, whom Democrats are aiming to unseat, both appeared with Trump during his rallies in their districts. When the president visited Macungie, Pennsylvania, in June, he joined Republican Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, saying, “I’m here for him.”
Trump also traveled to the Wisconsin district of Republican Rep. Derreck Van Orden, as have Cabinet members.
Rep. Juan Ciscomani, facing a reelection fight, appeared with Trump during an April event in Arizona. Two Iowa Republicans in what could be toss-up reelection contests, Reps Zach Nunn and Mariannette Miller-Meeks, both were by Trump’s side when he kicked off his midterm campaign outside Des Moines.
Bacon sometimes defied the White House in his final term. He criticized Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and tried to curb Trump’s ability to impose tariffs and was the only House Republican who opposed renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.
Mary Jane Truemper, who heads the Nebraska Republican Party, said Powell and the state’s Democrats have moved too far to the left. She called Harding “a steady force” and said the nominee is not as fond of picking high-profile fights the way Bacon sometimes was.
“I think he speaks to the moderate Democrats as well as the Republicans,” said Truemper, who managed Bacon’s reelection campaign in 2018 and also worked for an unsuccessful primary challenger to him.
Even Powell said, “Don Bacon was a good representative of this district, and I think that there are a lot of people drawn to a pragmatic style of leadership in a state like ours.” But that may not be enough this year.
“People are worse off than they were before,” Powell said.
A local race may expose a wider party divide among neighbors
In the Elmwood Park neighborhood, Andy Maxwell, a 58-year-old pediatrician, said he likes to find the middle ground in politics and his community. But he recalled that, after putting up a Biden sign in his yard in 2020, his neighbors erected a Trump one.
“We don’t like all the turmoil part of it,” Maxwell said of politics nationally.
Nearby, 80-year-old Jerard Pearson called Democrats “feckless,” but said of Trump’s base supporters, “I’ve always been curious about this one-third level of crazy out there, a third of the population.” He is also no fan of a neighbor’s large “Harding for Congress” sign.
Truemper said Harding appreciates Trump’s endorsement but Nebraskans like to be wooed “person-to-person, rather than a national entity coming in.”
“Is that going to be the deciding factor?” she asked of Trump. “I don’t know.”
Reporting from Washington — Jared Kushner may finally get a win.
President Trump’s son-in-law has been a drag on the administration for his friendship with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman since the Oct. 2 killing of a U.S.-based dissident Saudi journalist. His family business continues to raise questions of conflicts of interest, he repeatedly has amended financial disclosure reports to remedy omissions, and he endured an embarrassing yearlong delay in obtaining a security clearance. Meanwhile, his chief assignment, a Mideast peace plan, is as elusive as ever.
Lately, however, Kushner has been instrumental in helping his father-in-law secure a rare bipartisan victory: a long-sought overhaul of the criminal justice system.
Both Republicans and Democrats who’ve worked on the bill in Congress credit Kushner as a key architect. He helped convince the two most powerful Republicans in Washington — his father-in-law and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, both of whom embrace the traditionally Republican tough-on-crime stance — to make the criminal justice system less punitive.
The bill cleared a procedural hurdle in the Senate on Monday evening, 82 to 12, a vote margin that belies the arduous effort to overcome initial opposition from conservatives. Final Senate passage is expected later this week and the legislation is expected to easily get through the House and to the White House for Trump’s signature.
Called the First Step Act, the legislation would undo some of the sentencing crackdowns of the 1990s and create programs to reduce prisoner recidivism.
It would allow low- and minimum-risk prisoners to earn time credits for early release to either reentry centers or home confinement; reduce some mandatory minimum sentences, including those imposed by so-called three-strikes laws that automatically result in life imprisonment; and allow reviews of sentences that reflect significant disparities between harsh punishments for crack cocaine use, which disproportionately involve minorities, and lesser penalties for powder cocaine.
Kushner, driven by the experience of his father’s 14-month prison sentence for tax evasion and other crimes, has made prison and sentencing changes a priority since the beginning of the Trump administration. But unlike loftier goals Kushner has embraced, such as peace between Israel and Palestinians, criminal justice reform is likely to be signed by the president.
Kushner helped work on policy details and knew where the political fault lines would be, according to lawmakers. He was on the phone repeatedly with other advocates to discuss strategy and next steps. He personally lobbied senators, including McConnell, who openly was not eager to make time for a Senate vote. And he served as a bridge to conservative media, which could have blown up the effort with even a whiff of opposition.
“There would be some very outspoken right-wing [opponent] and [Kushner] would tell me, ‘I called him this morning. I straightened him out and now he’s going to be OK,’” said Democratic supporter Sen. Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, declining to name the commentator. “I’m thinking, ‘Who would have dreamed that a bill I’m cosponsoring would be OK with this person?’”
Advocates of the criminal justice overhaul tried to pass a similar bill at the end of the Obama administration, only to be stymied by congressional Republicans. They had little hope of getting it through during the Trump administration given the president’s campaign rhetoric on crime, including a call to execute drug dealers, and because of the fierce opposition of his first attorney general, Jeff Sessions.
“This is a president that ran on American ‘carnage,’” said Jessica Jackson, a Mill Valley, Calif., City Council member who started the advocacy group #cut50 with liberal CNN host and commentator Van Jones. “I thought everything was over.”
“I’m a Democrat,” Jackson said, but “Jared is politically brilliant and he’s relentless and he’s also extremely loyal. If he tells you he’s going to do something, he does it.”
Kushner started early. He made his support for criminal justice changes known to the leaders of the bipartisan congressional effort — including Durbin, the Senate’s second-ranking Democrat, and Republican Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee — within weeks of Trump’s inauguration.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), another architect of the plan, knew Kushner was taking the issue seriously when Kushner started dropping “the very precise nomenclature thrown around by criminal justice reform geeks” — for example, citing the relevant U.S. criminal code lines by their numbers.
While Kushner’s initial goal was prison reform, which is an easier sell with conservatives, it quickly became clear that had to be paired with sentencing reform to get the backing of Grassley and Durbin.
Perhaps the biggest obstacle was McConnell’s reluctance to bring up a bill that would unify Democrats and divide Republicans, handing the opposition a potential political cudgel in the 2020 campaign. He told a group of Republican advocates in September that he would bring the bill to the Senate floor only if it was endorsed by Trump and they secured 65 votes — five more than the minimum number needed to overcome procedural roadblocks.
Given the goal, Kushner relentlessly lobbied reluctant Republican senators to get on board, according to sources familiar with the discussions.
He called “everybody — and often,” said Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Senate Republican, whose late endorsement was part of a groundswell that made clear that enough Republicans would support the legislation. “He was dogged.”
On numerous occasions he lobbied McConnell directly, even trying to figure out the Republican leader’s dinner companions so that he could lobby them before their meal.
Advocates of the First Step Act also rallied high-profile celebrity supporters, such as Kim Kardashian West, which demonstrated to the media-obsessed Trump the positive publicity he could get. Kushner worked with Jones, and eventually got support from celebrities including Alyssa Milano and former Fox News host Eric Bolling.
“Jared Kushner absolutely was one of the main conduits,” Bolling said.
The dam broke this month when Trump tweeted “go for it, Mitch” and several noteworthy conservatives backed the bill, including Sens. Cornyn, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Ted Cruz of Texas.
Lee, the Republican senator allied with Kushner, said: “One of the things I’ve appreciated about him is he doesn’t cut corners with this. I haven’t seen him abuse the position of trust as the president’s son-in-law. He doesn’t throw that around.”
Everyone in Washington knows Kushner’s trusted place in the Trump orbit; members of Congress return his phone calls and know he speaks for the president, at least as much as anyone can. Yet when Vice President Mike Pence came to a meeting of Senate Republicans to lobby on the bill last month, Kushner was deferential; attendees said he sat in the room but barely said a word.
The bill does have significant critics. Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and John Kennedy (R-La.) argue that it could allow dangerous criminals to get early release, and have proposed a series of amendments that could get votes this week. Still, passage is considered all but certain.
BILLINGS, Mont. — The 250th anniversary of U.S. independence was just months away when National Park Service employees received a surprising directive from Washington: Maintenance projects approved for this year at sites across the nation were being relegated to a new “low priority” list.
Work wanted by the White House was taking precedence, including repairs to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, according to documents obtained by the Associated Press and three officials from the park service and Interior Department who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.
The reflecting pool repairs and other projects tied to President Trump’s Freedom 250 initiative landed on a separate list for White House priorities, the documents show. Many of the administration-backed projects have advanced, though the Reflecting Pool repairs were botched.
Meanwhile, almost all of about 1,500 maintenance and other projects on the low priority list as of last month are expected to go undone, the officials said. That will worsen a repair backlog at national parks that doubled over the last decade to more than $24 billion even as visitor numbers surged.
The shelved projects, many already approved, span more than 200 sites and range from roof repairs at Golden Gate National Recreation Area to computer upgrades at Alaska’s Katmai National Park and bulk purchases of toilet paper and garbage bags at Yellowstone National Park.
Because of their low priority designation and with the fiscal year ending on Sept. 30, it’s unknown when they will move forward unless park staff can find a workaround, two of the officials said.
Park service employees “were told to not expect anything on the low priority list to be contracted,” one of the officials said.
“The first priority was White House priorities,” the official said. “Anywhere that is 250th-related they would have been diverting resources, some it probably planned but a lot of it pushed by the administration.”
The Interior Department said many entries on the low priority list had been “mis-prioritized and were corrected.” It declined to say how many or which ones, or how much parks are spending on projects outside Washington. Agency officials declined to answer questions about the Reflecting Pool.
Congress has pushed to fix maintenance backlog
The park service has a third list for “high priority” projects that includes more than 2,000 items, many with contracts awarded or in process, the documents show.
“In any year, the National Park Service must prioritize projects most in need,” Interior spokesperson Katie Martin wrote in a statement. “The National Park Service has not only been focused on beautifying the district for the 250th celebrations in our nation’s capital but has also been working on many deferred maintenance projects throughout the country.”
The 1,500 low priority projects had a combined cost estimate of more than $400 million.
Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), the ranking member of the Senate’s National Parks Subcommittee, said the administration’s pursuits around Washington “are more aesthetic than strictly necessary,” even as they siphon resources from sites elsewhere in the U.S.
“I don’t object to setting priorities,” King said in an interview. “I object to the White House priority list being tacked onto the top of that pyramid.”
He added it could lead to “the deterioration of America’s gems” as things like sanitation upgrades and basic maintenance don’t happen.
Congress during both Democratic and Republican presidencies has pushed to address the backlog. The bipartisan Great American Outdoors Act in 2020 included $6.5 billion for maintenance and repairs through 2025. A legislative extension is pending.
Testing the park service’s mission
The priority designations came from park service headquarters in Washington, according to documents obtained by AP and one of the unnamed officials.
The park service appears to be moving forward on at least $80 million in White House priorities, including $52 million awarded, the documents indicate. Much of that work was championed by Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, such as the reflecting pool repairs and the rehabilitation of other parks in the capital with an eye toward the 250th celebrations.
Trump announced his plans to paint the Reflecting Pool blue in April, aiming to address longstanding problems at the site before July 4. But the $16-million initiative faced immediate problems, including peeling sealant and a fierce return of green algae.
Not all of the administration’s priorities advanced: A $70-million line item for “turf maintenance” over five years at parks in the Washington, D.C., area is among more than $80 million in work marked as “canceled” in the Interior Department data.
The park service’s mission has been tested under Trump as its employees navigate new realities. It lost at least one-quarter of its permanent workforce under Trump.
Remaining employees have been ordered to revise exhibits that Trump said advanced “improper ideology,” and demolish the East Wing of the White House, which is under park stewardship, for the creation of a ballroom. Trump also reduced Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah as Republicans reshape public lands management.
Contracting officers in short supply
Pressure to deliver on administration demands for Freedom 250 was compounded by staffing cuts that made it harder to execute contracts, the unnamed officials said.
Prior to Trump’s second term, the parks had 275 contracting officers. They’ve since been consolidated into the Interior Department, which nevertheless saw its contracting workforce drop more than 20%, public records show.
About $140 million has been obligated or spent by the park service in Washington, D.C., this year, according to public data. That includes the reflecting pool work and the rehabilitation of fountains across the district.
Interior spokesperson Martin said the Trump administration is eyeing different revenue sources for maintenance including endowments and park pass sales.
Those sales rose more than $2 million, to $16.7 million, in the first quarter of 2026 compared with a year earlier, she said.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court is weighing President Trump’s claim that his new White House ballroom is urgently needed to protect him, his staff and guests from attacks by drones, terrorists and snipers.
On Friday, with a lower-court order about to go into effect halting construction on the controversial project, Chief Justice John G. Roberts decided that the court needed more time. He issued a temporary order pausing the case and allowing construction to continue while the justices decide on a pending legal challenge.
Last week, Trump’s lawyers described the East Wing ballroom as an “integrated military complex” that is “vitally required by national security.” They argued that a judge’s order blocking further construction threatened the safety of the president and must be overturned. They also said the project is nearly two-thirds completed.
At issue is whether the president acting on his own may build a huge new ballroom complex that is expected to dwarf the historic Executive Mansion.
It is a confrontation over the boundaries of executive power at a moment when Trump has repeatedly tested the ability of courts, Congress and independent institutions to constrain his agenda.
Trump bulldozed the historic East Wing before the courts had resolved whether the administration had the authority to proceed, leaving opponents to argue the project could become effectively irreversible before judicial review was complete.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation sued in December and argued that the president had overstepped his authority.
The U.S. court of appeals affirmed his order by a 2-1 vote on Aug. 7 but put the decision on hold until Friday. Roberts’ order did not explain the reason for the delay, or how soon the court might rule.
In a fast-track appeal to the Supreme Court, Trump administration lawyers sought to refocus the case as one about national security and the president’s safety.
“Given the current unprecedented levels of danger … every day the President does not have access to the vital security features of the military complex presents unacceptable risk,” Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer said Wednesday in his final brief to the court.
Construction continues on the White House East Wing ballroom on Aug. 20.
(Andrew Harnik / Getty Images)
The Constitution and federal law say new buildings may not be erected on public property in the District of Columbia “without the express authority of Congress.”
But acting on his own, Trump ordered the East Wing of the White House torn down in October and work began on a new and much larger building to replace it.
He said the new ballroom could provide safe and secure seating for 1,000 dinner guests. He did not ask Congress to weigh in or approve the massive project.
In defense, Trump administration lawyers pointed to an annual appropriation from Congress that funds “the care, maintenance, repair, alteration, refurnishing” and other such improvements at the White House.
They also said private donations would pay most of the $400-million cost of the new ballroom. One estimate placed the cost of the ballroom and the bunker at $600 million, with taxpayers covering half, the Washington Post reported.
The president, his family and White House employees would have secure underground space, Sauer said, while a “totally secure ballroom space” would provide a new level of protection for guests and foreign dignitaries.
President Trump speaks to the media as the construction of a new helipad on the South Lawn of the White House continues on Aug. 19.
(Alex Wong / Getty Images)
His solicitor general also argued it was too late to stop the project.
“A 250-person crew is working 20 hours a day, seven days a week to keep the project ahead of schedule and under budget,” he wrote on Aug. 13. “Today, the project is 65% complete in its entirety, and moving quickly toward total completion.”
Trump’s signature construction project has fueled accusations from his political opponents that he is abusing his power to build a lavish space for entertaining guests as ordinary Americans struggle with affordability.
In April, Republicans in Congress sought to put federal money behind the project, despite Trump’s earlier insistence that private donors would pay for the ballroom.
The effort never became law, faced with bipartisan opposition to a bill that would tie them to the unpopular project, leaving the administration to proceed with a privately financed effort whose legal authority was already being challenged in court.
The Society for the Rule of Law and a group of former White House lawyers warned the court against accepting Trump’s broad claims of power.
“Under the executive’s view, the President could bulldoze the entire White House and replace it with a new building of his own design, including a skyscraper. No other President has asserted such transformative power,” they wrote in a friend-of-the-court brief.
“The invocation of national security is not a magic incantation that suspends the rule of law,” they added.
The biggest hurdle facing the challengers may be the issue of standing.
The court’s conservatives are often skeptical of lawsuits if it is not clear the plaintiffs have or will suffer a distinct injury that goes beyond their opposition to a government policy.
In this case, the National Trust said its historians and preservationists will be disturbed to walk by the White House grounds if there is a massive new structure that is not in keeping with the historic Executive Mansion.
Construction continues on the East Wing ballroom at the White House on Aug. 10, 2026, in Washington, D.C.
(Andrew Harnik / Getty Images)
“The subjective displeasure of an offended observer does not amount to a concrete injury,” Sauer said.
The D.C. Circuit judges were also split on the threshold issue of standing.
Judges Patricia Millett, an Obama appointee, and Bradley Garcia, a Biden appointee, ruled the suit may proceed because the plaintiffs suffered injuries to their “aesthetic, cultural and historical interests.”
Judge Neomi Rao, a Trump appointee, dissented and said the preservationists walking by the White House would not suffer the kind of concrete injury that gives them standing.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency touched an intraday high of $79,500 on Friday, its best level in months, before easing to around $77,700 at the time of writing, leaving it up more than 25% since Monday.
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The rally caps one of Bitcoin’s most dramatic weeks in years, following a stretch in which the token had lagged well behind its 2025 highs for much of 2026.
For six straight weeks, Bitcoin had been stuck grinding between $62,000 and $66,000, having fallen over 50% from the all-time high of around $126,000 it reached last year in October, to the low of roughly $57,600 it hit early in July of this year.
That prolonged malaise had encouraged traders to build up bearish positions over the course of the year, betting the token’s underperformance would continue. When the price broke higher this week, those bets unwound violently leading to an episode of forced short covering.
Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency, and other digital assets have also surged on the same wave of positioning and momentum was reinforced by signals of extra liquidity from Washington.
The US Treasury doubled the size of its bond buybacks earlier in the week to calm a jittery bond market, and when yields climbed back regardless, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent vowed on Thursday to increase the buybacks even further.
Easier financial conditions and a softer dollar tend to favour riskier assets such as Bitcoin.
Regulatory developments also added further fuel. On Tuesday, the US Securities and Exchange Commission filed a proposal called “Regulation Crypto Assets”, offering crypto issuers lighter registration requirements.
A day later, US President Donald Trump hosted Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong, Ripple’s Brad Garlinghouse, Gemini’s Winklevoss twins and other industry leaders at the White House, pushing Congress to pass the long-delayed Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act.
The bill, which would split oversight of digital assets between the SEC and the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, cleared the House last year but remains stalled in the Senate, needing 60 votes to clear a procedural hurdle on 15 September that it is not yet assured of overcoming.
Trump’s Hyperliquid remarks send HYPE surging
Among the most striking moments of Wednesday’s summit came when US President Donald Trump said the Commodity Futures Trading Commission was working to bring Hyperliquid, a decentralised derivatives exchange, onshore “in a fully compliant legal fashion”, though the regulator has yet to publish any timeline for doing so.
The comment sent HYPE, Hyperliquid’s native token, surging 25% within 24 hours.
As it stands, HYPE is trading at around $74, up more than 30% since Trump’s remarks.
The decentralized exchange, popular with perpetual futures traders, has become something of a proxy for how far Washington’s warmer stance on crypto could extend.
WASHINGTON — President Trump played White House tour guide on Wednesday, showing off the helipad he is building on the lawn before leaning over to autograph a piece of it and bragging about the ballroom he’s rushing to complete despite legal challenges.
Trump gushed for several uninterrupted minutes about granite being laid and said the chopper landing area would leave visiting foreign leaders “very impressed” — including Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is coming next month.
At times, he sounded almost like a construction manager, singing the praises of granite over asphalt in painstaking detail and noting for reporters he brought out for the show that the stone could withstand 35,000 pounds per square inch of pressure.
“That’s stone that, if you took a hammer and you started hammering right now — all day long — you wouldn’t see a mark on it, literally, that’s the kind of power it is,” Trump said, at times straining to be heard over the thrum of ongoing work behind him.
The president also revealed for the first time that he has replaced the walkway from the White House’s diplomatic entrance along with a portion of the asphalt driveway around the South Lawn with white granite.
“One thing I know how to do is build,” he said, asserting that asphalt is “not appropriate for a great house, or a great place like the White House.” He said that, had he instead merely used “really powerful concrete,” it would have supported ”just a tiny fraction of that in terms of strength.”
Trump relishes being the builder-in-chief
The president is called upon to fill many roles as president, but embraces none with as much zeal as managing various building projects to mold the White House and large swatches of Washington in his own image, seeming happiest recalling his days as a real estate developer.
Trump also likes to show off his handiwork and having the White House press pool on hand at all times gives him a readymade audience. Last year, he made an appearance on the roof of the briefing room to survey a future work site, and earlier this summer, he took reporters for a closer look at the ballroom construction site.
It suggests Trump remains focused on such projects, even as his war in Iran nears the six-month mark, his approval ratings sink with just 2 1/2 months to go before critical midterm elections, and as voters are increasingly worried about a weakening economy.
Trump drove home just how important the construction projects are to him, calling the work “very exciting.”
“This will be here long after we’re gone,” Trump said of the projects. “No matter what happens with the world.”
But whether it will endure after he leaves office remains to be seen. Trump once suggested that his refurbishing of the Lincoln Memorial’s Reflecting Pool would last a century, only for the paint to fade and its liner to peel away in chunks just days after it was laid.
Trump again says his ballroom will have security value
The president has increasingly insisted that the $400 million ballroom will add security to the White House and include things like anti-drone technology. His administration even unsuccessfully sought $1 billion in congressional funding to make military improvements to the structure.
“This will be the greatest military complex slash ballroom anywhere in the world,” he said.
Trump also scoffed at court orders seeking to block its construction without congressional approval, saying work is continuing regardless and predicting that the Supreme Court will eventually side with him and allow the project to be completed.
The president found time to talk again about one of his favorite subjects of late — grass — and praised at length Scotts-Miracle Gro. The company’s former CEO is a Trump supporter, and it donated $1 million to repair the grass on the White House lawn after it was damaged by Trump’s UFC fight marking his 80th birthday in June and by the helipad construction.
At one point on Wednesday, Trump signed the back of one of the granite stones that was marked “Donald Trump 45-47 president” for the occasion. Its front is shaped like an eagle and will be laid into the helipad’s presidential seal once work is completed.
“I thought this would be a little different kind of a news conference,” the president said. “We were going to sign this privately and just put it in. I said, ‘This is something I think the press should see,’ and I hope you liked it.”
Trump had some of the construction workers sign the granite, too, and joked about leaving it upside-down so that his signature would be visible for future generations.
“Nice job, fellas,” he told the workers. “Does anybody know the word media?”
Trump also confirmed Wednesday that he’d delayed ongoing work on the helipad to ensure the project could be regraded to lay flatter.
He said that the granite used “has a million-year life” and predicted that it “will never break. It will never leak. It will never do anything” — which would mark a departure from the problem-plagued Reflecting Pool project.
“Nature is stronger than what the human can produce,” Trump said of the granite. “It’s really pretty amazing.”
Weissert and Binkley write for the Associated Press. AP writer Darlene Superville contributed to this report.
