A spending bill to be debated in Congress this week includes a provision to allow sales of a gasoline blend that includes up to 15% ethanol nationwide throughout the year. (Getty Images stock photo)

A spending bill U.S. House appropriators released Tuesday evening to keep the government open into next spring includes a provision to allow sales of a gasoline blend that includes up to 15% ethanol nationwide throughout the year.

After years of prohibiting the blend, known as E15, from being sold at gas stations during the summer months, the Environmental Protection Agency this year allowed year-round sales in eight Midwestern states. The provision in the stopgap funding bill would allow E15 sales in all states throughout the year.

The provision is a major win for corn producers and their allies in Congress from both parties. Supporters of ethanol, which is derived from corn, say it boosts U.S. production and lowers gas prices.

Sen. Deb Fischer, a Nebraska Republican who sponsored a bill to make the blend available all year, said the move was part of the GOP agenda to “unleash American energy.”

“My bill puts an end to years of patchwork regulations and uncertainty — year-round, nationwide E15 will now be a reality,” Fischer said. “This legislation also delivers on the mandate we received in November to unleash American energy. Not only will my bill lower gas prices and give consumers more choices, but it will also create new opportunity for American producers, who are especially hurting right now from lower prices.”

House Energy and Commerce ranking Democrat Frank Pallone of New Jersey applauded inclusion of the measure, saying it would help reduce gas prices and bolster U.S. energy production.

“By allowing for a higher blend of ethanol in our gasoline, Americans can rely more on homegrown biofuels that save drivers money at the pump and help insulate Americans from dramatic global price fluctuations,” Pallone said in a statement.

U.S. Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., one of a handful of farm-state House Republicans pushing for the E15 provision, said in a statement, “Year around E-15 is the most important policy we can embrace for Midwestern farmers and ranchers. I was glad to advocate for this on the Agriculture Committee and to our Speaker, and glad to see it embraced. I also know our entire Nebraska delegation was pulling for this. It is a team win.”

At a U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing last year, Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat who chairs the Senate Agriculture Committee, and Sen. Pete Ricketts of Nebraska promoted E15 availability as a way to lower greenhouse gas emissions and lower prices.

The EPA issued a waiver in May 2022 to allow the blend to be available nationwide throughout the year, as President Joe Biden’s administration sought to tame gas prices.

The stopgap measure, known as a continuing resolution, would keep the government funded at current levels through mid-March. It includes a few additional provisions, including funding to rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Maryland.

The House and Senate are expected to pass the catch-all measure before members depart for their holiday break on Friday. Biden is expected to sign the bill.

Nebraska Examiner reporter Aaron Sanderford and D.C. Bureau senior reporter Jennifer Shutt contributed to this report.

White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby, accompanied by White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, left, speaks during a news conference in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on Dec. 12, 2024, in Washington, D.C., during which they discussed drone sightings in New Jersey and other areas along the East Coast and other topics. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

Members of Congress are among those calling for greater transparency from the federal government as a spate of reported drone sightings concentrated in New Jersey and New York has raised questions beyond the Northeast.

Reported sightings of drones, officially known as unmanned aerial systems, or UAS, have spiked since Nov. 18, when authorities received several reports of suspicious drone activity near critical infrastructure in New Jersey, according to an FBI official in the state who briefed reporters over the weekend.

The increased activity has worried some and led to calls from lawmakers for the federal agencies to provide more information on drone activity, even as security officials urged caution.

In a statement that described an “epidemic of non-stop drone sightings,” U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called for the federal government to deploy more drone-detection systems and to share information with local authorities.

“I want it deployed widely across New York and New Jersey to help give us concrete answers on what is going on, and from where,” Schumer, a New York Democrat, said of a drone-detection system that the federal government uses. “What we need right now is data. The briefings I have had tell me there is no evidence that this is a government or foreign activity, and so, we have to answer the logical of question of: who?”

Schumer called on Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to deploy the drone-detection system and said he would cosponsor a bill that would give local law enforcement more authority to respond to drone sightings.

Drones, like planes and other users of the national airspace, are regulated by the Federal Aviation Administration.

“We still have very few answers on where some of these drones come from and who may be operating them,” Schumer said Monday on the Senate floor. “The people of New York and New Jersey have a lot of questions and haven’t gotten many answers. We know one thing, though. Local officials now don’t have the resources nor the authority to get to the bottom of what’s happening.”

On CBS’ Sunday morning news show “Face the Nation,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat who is a senior member of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee with jurisdiction over the FAA, called for federal officials to brief U.S. senators.

“We need more transparency,” she said.

‘No evidence’ of threat, says DOD

U.S. Defense Department spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters Monday that there was “no evidence at this time that the reported drone sightings pose a national security or public safety threat or have a foreign nexus.”

Regardless, he said he wanted to take the public’s concerns seriously, but also offered further context.

The drone industry is expanding, with more than 1 million hobbyist and commercial drones licensed by the FAA and 8,000 in use daily.

He likened the drone sightings, even those near military installations or other important sites, to drivers who may get lost and turn up in their cars at places they are not supposed to be, something he said happens regularly without incident.

“The point being is that flying drones is not illegal,” he said. “There are thousands of drones flown around the U.S. on a daily basis. So, as a result, it’s not that unusual to see drones in the sky, nor is it an indication of malicious activity or any public safety threat.”

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, noted Monday that federal investigators had not found any malicious activity and urged residents to “calm down” about drone sightings.

Many recent reports of drones, noted by non-experts, turned out to be commercial planes flying regularly scheduled nighttime routes.

More than 5,000 tips

The New Jersey-based FBI official said that the vast majority of the more than 5,000 tips his office received in the past month related to unidentified objects in the night skies have not been “actionable.”

The official, who briefed reporters along with officials from other agencies on the condition their names not be used, said the FBI was working to identify the 100 or so tips that did warrant further investigation.

“I don’t want to cause alarm and panic, but you can’t ignore the sightings that have been there, and we are concerned about those just as much as anybody else is,” the FBI official said. “We’re doing our best to find the origin of that specific — of those drone activities. But I think there has been a slight overreaction.”

Federal wildland firefighters earn as little as $15 per hour, with entry level positions earning just less than $27,000 per year, according to Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, an advocacy group. (Photo by U.S. Forest Service)

The $20,000 salary increase for wildland firefighters in the 2021 infrastructure law could be coming to an end next week if Congress doesn’t act.

The infrastructure law included $600 million to boost salaries for the nearly 11,200 wildland firefighters for two years, giving the Interior Department or Forest Service employees a raise of either $20,000 each or 50% of their base salary.

Federal wildland firefighters earn as little as $15 per hour, with entry level positions earning just less than $27,000 per year, according to Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, an advocacy group. Those rates are well below those of some state employees in similar roles.

The problem is Congress provided the higher pay rate would expire with the rest of government spending, which is set for Dec. 20.

Lawmakers are likely to once again pass a continuing resolution prior to that deadline to keep the government open at current spending levels into the new year.

But because the firefighter pay boost was part of the infrastructure law instead of a yearly spending bill, it would require additional legislation to keep being paid out beyond Dec. 20.

Firefighters, their advocates and some members of Congress are now pushing to have the pay raise made permanent, as lawmakers enter the final days of this session of Congress.

Disaster bill

President Joe Biden asked for a disaster relief spending bill after hurricanes Helene and Milton to include $24 billion for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Biden called for the bill — which is expected to be attached to the continuing resolution — to include “statutory language to support permanent, comprehensive pay reform for Federal wildland firefighters.”

The disaster aid bill appears the best chance of addressing the issue this year.

And appropriators are looking at fixing the issue in their annual funding bills, even as work on those bills is likely to be paused as Congress instead looks to pass a stopgap measure past Dec. 20 to keep the government funded for the next few months.

A House proposal included in Republicans’ spending bill covering the Interior Department, the Environmental Protection Agency and other agencies would direct $330 million for a pay increase to replace the expiring infrastructure law salary increase. It would be a permanent pay fix.

Setting a baseline in an annual spending bill would help keep the salaries consistent and avoid the uncertainty that comes with the expiration of the one-time infrastructure law funding, supporters say.

“Rather than continuing temporary and uncertain Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) supplemental payments, the funding in this bill will permanently address Federal wildland firefighter pay and capacity,” the funding bill’s chief sponsor, Idaho Republican Mike Simpson, and Oregon Republican Lori Chavez-DeRemer wrote in an August op-ed in the Idaho Statesman.

Simpson is the chair of the subcommittee responsible for writing the bill. Chavez-DeRemer, who represents a purple district in Central Oregon, lost her reelection bid this fall but won a nomination to join President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet as secretary of Labor.

The Musk-Ramaswamy cost-cutting drive

The effort comes amid an atmosphere favorable to funding cuts in Washington. Republicans, who will soon have unified control of Washington as Trump returns to the Oval Office, have blamed the inflation of the past four years on high government spending.

Trump has tasked entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy with looking at ways to reduce federal spending. The pair of wealthy Trump backers has estimated $2 trillion could be trimmed from the $6.75 trillion annual budget, though they have been vague about what exactly would be chopped.

The Musk-Ramaswamy organization, which has not been formally created but is dubbed the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, is not expected to be an official government entity. A Trump spokeswoman did not return a message seeking comment about whether wildland firefighter pay would be a target for funding cuts.

Finding the political will to increase spending for any purpose in such an environment could be challenging, though increasing the pay of wildland firefighters — who work to manage the increasingly severe and costly fires that particularly ravage the rural areas known as the wildland-urban interface — has support from across the political spectrum in Congress, including leading GOP members.

The House funding bill authored by Simpson that included the pay raise passed the House nearly along party lines.

In a video message to constituents this month, Simpson sounded broadly supportive of Musk and Ramaswamy’s mission, but indicated there were areas he would fight to avoid cuts. He did not explicitly mention firefighter pay.

“It will be an interesting debate,” Simpson said of the effort to identify funding cuts. “I don’t mind having outside eyes look at how Congress does their job and how the money is spent. It could be spent more efficiently and more effectively, thus saving the taxpayer money.”

He added he was “excited” to see recommendations from the pair.

“There will be some I suspect I disagree with and a lot of them I probably agree with,” he said. “So that will be a debate for Congress.”

Senate bill

The Senate, which generally requires a much more bipartisan approach than the House, has not passed the Simpson-authored bill that Democrats opposed because of its drastic cuts to the Interior Department and EPA.

But the Senate companion spending bill, sponsored by Oregon Democrat Jeff Merkley, who chairs the corresponding spending panel in the Senate, also includes a permanent raise for wildland firefighters, as well as funding for a firefighter health and wellness program and a fund for housing.

“This bill honors the courageous work our federal wildland firefighters do by establishing a permanent fix to prevent a devastating pay cut,” Senate Appropriations Chair Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat, said in a statement after the committee passed the bill 28-1 in July.

A U.S. law that would force the Chinese parent company of social media giant TikTok to either sell the service or face a U.S. ban is constitutional, a panel of federal appeals judges ruled Friday. In this 2020 photo illustration, the TikTok app is displayed on an Apple iPhone.  (Photo Illustration by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

The law Congress passed this year to force the Chinese parent company of social media giant TikTok to either sell the service or face a U.S. ban is constitutional, a panel of federal appeals judges ruled Friday.

The order from a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals preserves the bipartisan law President Joe Biden signed in April forcing ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, to cease operations in the United States over concerns the platform’s data gathering could be obtained and used by the Chinese Communist Party.

TikTok, ByteDance and a handful of users sued the administration to block enforcement of the law, saying it violated the First Amendment right to free speech and other rights.

The panel on Friday rejected that argument, saying that although the short-form videos produced on the service constitute speech and the shuttering of U.S. operations would limit that speech, that was the result of the Chinese government’s “hybrid commercial threat to U.S. national security,” not the U.S. government’s actions.

“The First Amendment exists to protect free speech in the United States,” Senior Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg wrote for the panel. “Here the Government acted solely to protect that freedom from a foreign adversary nation and to limit that adversary’s ability to gather data on people in the United States.”

Ginsburg, who was appointed to the court by Republican President Ronald Reagan, and Neomi Rao, a Donald Trump appointee, formed the court’s main opinion. Chief Judge Sri Srinavasan, whom Democrat Barack Obama appointed, wrote a concurring opinion.

TikTok has the option to appeal Friday’s ruling to the full D.C. Circuit or the U.S. Supreme Court. The law is set to go into effect Jan. 19, the day before Trump — who has said he opposes the law even after trying his own TikTok ban during his first presidency — retakes office.

Free speech concerns

Those challenging the law are likely to appeal directly to the Supreme Court and to seek an emergency temporary stay, “given the urgency of the situation,” Jacob Huebert, who represents a plaintiff in the case, said in a Friday interview.

Huebert is the president of Liberty Justice Center, a nonprofit that has litigated high-profile free-speech cases and is representing the libertarian news and commentary channel BASEDPolitics in the TikTok case, arguing that the law unconstitutionally restricts the channel’s reach to its intended audience of Gen Z users.

The government’s national security argument should not have overridden the First Amendment concerns, Huebert said.

“This national security justification that the court relied so heavily on isn’t enough,” he said.

The law would set a dangerous precedent that could be applied in the future to other social media, he added.

“It should trouble you regardless of what you think about TikTok or China in particular because it’s really a threat to Americans’ free speech rights online, across the board,” Huebert said.

Bill sponsors from both parties praise ruling

The bipartisan leaders of the U.S. House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, where the bill was introduced, cheered the decision Friday in a joint statement.

“Today’s ruling is a victory for the American people and TikTok users, and a loss for the Chinese Communist Party, which will no longer be able to exploit ByteDance’s control over TikTok to undermine our sovereignty, surveil our citizens, and threaten our national security,” Chairman John Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican, wrote. “I am optimistic that President Trump will facilitate an American takeover of TikTok to allow its continued use in the United States and I look forward to welcoming the app in America under new ownership.”

Ranking Democrat Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois said there is no solution other than a sale of TikTok.

“With today’s opinion, all three branches of government have reached the same conclusion: ByteDance is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, and TikTok’s ownership by ByteDance is a national security threat that cannot be mitigated through any other means than divestiture,” he said. “Every day that TikTok remains under the Chinese Communist Party’s control is a day that our security is at risk.”

The bill was introduced in March by then-Chair Mike Gallagher, a Wisconsin Republican who has since left Congress, and Krishnamoorthi.

It has dozens of co-sponsors from each party and passed the House 352-65. The Senate cleared the bill in April as part of a larger funding package.

Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz.,  speaks during a news conference regarding the separation of immigrant children at the U.S. Capitol on July 10, 2018 in Washington, D.C.  (Photo by Alex Edelman/Getty Images)

Raúl Grijalva, the top Democrat on the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee, will not seek to remain in that position in the next Congress, he said in a written statement Monday.

The announcement from Grijalva, an Arizona progressive who has led Democrats on the committee overseeing environmental, public lands and tribal issues for a decade, paves the way for California’s Jared Huffman to take the ranking member role.

Meanwhile, in another major development among Democrats in the House, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland said he would challenge Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York as ranking member on the powerful House Judiciary Committee.

“This is where we will wage our front-line defense of the freedoms and rights of the people, the integrity of the Department of Justice and the FBI, and the security of our most precious birthright possessions: the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the rule of law, and democracy itself,” Raskin said in a “Dear Colleague” letter to lawmakers on Monday.  “I respectfully and humbly ask for your support for my candidacy.”

Grijalva to focus on recovery

Grijalva disclosed in April that he had been diagnosed with lung cancer. He returned to Congress last month. His Monday statement noted he would continue to focus on his recovery.

“After much thought, I have decided that it is the right moment to pass the torch as top Democrat” on the House Natural Resources Committee for the 119th Congress, he said. “I do not make this decision lightly, as being elected Ranking Member stands as the honor of my professional career. I will continue to focus on improving my health, strengthening my mobility, and serving my district in what is likely to be a time of unprecedented challenge for our community.”

Grijalva was reelected to the House in November. He plans to serve his full term as a rank-and-file member, a spokeswoman said.

In a statement, Huffman said if he is made ranking member, he would ask the House Democratic Caucus to give Grijalva the title of ranking member emeritus “in recognition of his distinguished career and the enduring importance of his leadership.”

Grijalva was first elected to the House in 2002. He became the Natural Resources Committee’s ranking Democrat in 2015.

Inflation Reduction Act

Grijalva chaired the committee while his party held the majority from 2019 to 2023.

The first half of his chairmanship was marked by investigations of the first Trump administration, including a criminal referral of former Interior Secretary David Bernhardt.

The second half, which occurred during the first two years of the Biden administration amid unified Democratic control of Washington, saw the passage of the climate-focused Inflation Reduction Act that Democrats passed along party lines.

With hundreds of millions available in tax breaks for renewable energy projects, the law represented the largest federal investment in addressing climate change to date.

“I am so deeply proud of the progress that my colleagues and I have achieved in protecting our nation’s rich natural and cultural heritage, advancing justice for communities overburdened by pollution, elevating Indigenous voices and honoring tribal sovereignty, fighting for the decolonization of the U.S. territories, and securing a cleaner, safer climate and energy future for all Americans,” Grijalva said Monday.

Avoids race among Dems

Grijalva, who is also a chair emeritus of the Congressional Progressive Caucus after he co-chaired that group from 2009 to 2019, thanked “colleagues, tribal nations, and environmental organizations” who had supported him in his brief bid to fend off the challenge from Huffman.

Huffman, 60, said last month he would seek to unseat Grijalva, 76, a rarity among House Democrats, who do not use term limits for committee positions and normally strictly adhere to seniority.

Huffman is the top Democrat on the panel’s Water, Wildlife and Fisheries Subcommittee. He is also a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

A statement from Huffman Monday was full of praise for the outgoing leader and said he would seek to work closely with him in the period of transition.

“For the past twelve years, Rep. Raul Grijalva has been my friend and ally on the Natural Resources Committee,” Huffman wrote. “Working alongside him, I’ve seen his grit, determination, and passion for protecting our nation’s treasured natural resources, and his iron-clad commitment to lifting up frontline and indigenous communities.  He has inspired me and countless others with his passion and the clarity of his values.”

“Future generations will benefit from all that he has fought for and accomplished during his remarkable career,” the statement continued. “Rep. Grijalva leaves big shoes to fill, and I will now dedicate myself to building on his legacy of principled and productive leadership as Ranking Member of the Natural Resources Committee.”

Grijalva’s statement did not name Huffman.

A spokesman for Chairman Bruce Westerman, an Arkansas Republican, did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

Raskin and Nadler

Raskin in his letter said he was announcing his challenge to Nadler, a longtime top member of the panel, with “respect and boundless admiration,” but also said the upcoming session of Congress would be crucial for the nation’s future and House Judiciary would play a major role.

“We face an administration that would essentially put the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 on steroids. They want to turn the Justice Department and FBI into weapons of not only mass immigrant roundup and deportation but political revenge and prosecution. They would collapse the system of separated powers into an all-powerful monarchical Executive, and convert America from being a defender of democracy and human rights to being an open collaborator with autocrats and authoritarian oppression,” wrote Raskin, a former professor of constitutional law at American University’s Washington College of Law and a member of the Jan. 6 investigative committee in the 117th Congress.

“They want to align us with Putin’s Russia, Kim Jong Un’s North Korea, Xi’s China and Orban’s Hungary. In the 119th Congress, the Judiciary Committee will be the headquarters of Congressional opposition to authoritarianism and MAGA’s campaign to dismantle our Constitutional system and the rule of law as we know it. I hope to be at the center of this fight and—as someone who has battled cancer and chemotherapy—I can tell you that I will never, never surrender.”

Nadler told colleagues last month he would like to continue in his role as ranking member of the committee, Axios reported.

President-elect Donald Trump says on his first day in office he would impose 25% tariffs on all imports from Canada and Mexico and 10% tariffs on goods from China until those countries stop the flow of illegal drugs and migrants into the U.S. (Getty photo illustration by Olivier Le Moal)

President-elect Donald Trump’s announcement Monday that he would impose harsh tariffs on the United States’ closest trading partners will work against his pledge to bring down consumer prices, Democrats in Congress and economists are warning.

In a pair of posts to his social media platform, Truth Social, on Monday evening, Trump said on his first day in office he would impose 25% tariffs on all imports from Canada and Mexico and 10% tariffs on goods from China until those countries stopped the flow of illegal drugs and migrants into the U.S.

“Thousands of people are pouring through Mexico and Canada, bringing Crime and Drugs at levels never seen before,” Trump wrote. “On January 20th, as one of my many first Executive Orders, I will sign all necessary documents to charge Mexico and Canada a 25% Tariff on ALL products coming into the United States, and its ridiculous Open Borders. This Tariff will remain in effect until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country!”

While Trump has not always followed through on threats of stiff tariffs — generating doubts about how severe the next round will actually be — the executive branch does have wide latitude to impose the taxes on foreign goods without congressional approval, meaning it is likely Trump will act in some way.

“We are going to get several tariff threats via rage-posts over the next four years,” Brendan Duke, a senior director for economic policy at the liberal Center for American Progress, said in an interview. “Unclear what exact levels on what exact countries he is going to pursue.”

What about inflation?

Tariffs are consistent with Trump’s preference for a protectionist trade policy, but may actively hurt in an area that was key to his election win over Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris this month: taming inflation.

An analysis from the Center for American Progress said the tariffs Trump announced Monday would raise annual costs for the average U.S. family by $1,300.

Democratic members of the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee, which oversees tax and trade policy, estimated tariffs favored by Trump would increase consumer costs by up to $4,000 per year.

According to CBS News exit polling, 78% of voters said inflation was a moderate or severe hardship. Trump won voters who rated the economy as bad by 40 points over Harris.

Cars, ag and energy to be hardest-hit

About 15% of goods consumed in the United States are imported, Gary Hufbauer, a nonresident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, an economics research center, said.

Adding across-the-board tariffs on those imports would contribute to consumers’ overall cost of living, even without considering related economic consequences.

“You’ve added to inflation, and that’s assuming that U.S. producers of similar products don’t jack up their prices,” he said. “But experience shows that if the economy is strong, they’ll do just that.”

The U.S. automotive sector, which is heavily integrated with Mexico and Canada with parts of a single vehicle produced in all three countries, could see “pretty startling” price increases, Hufbauer said.

Additionally, the U.S. imports Mexican fruits and vegetables and Canadian oil, complicating Trump’s campaign promise to bring down prices specifically of groceries and gas, Duke said.

“Americans have obviously been frustrated with the cost of food and the cost of gas,” he said. “Some parts of the United States are heavily reliant on Canadian oil, even though we’re a net exporter … So, one would expect price increases, especially in places like the Midwest that are heavily dependent on Canadian oil.”

Tariffs on Chinese goods would increase the costs of electronics, clothing and other consumer goods, Duke said.

Democratic legislation

Ways and Means Democrats, led by Washington’s Suzan DelBene and Virginia’s Don Beyer, and also joined by Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, Terri Sewell of Alabama, Steven Horsford of Nevada, Dan Kildee of Michigan and four others, introduced a bill Tuesday to rein in the executive’s ability to implement tariffs, citing the added cost to American families.

“The American people have clearly and consistently said that costs are one of their top concerns,” DelBene said in a statement. “Imposing sweeping tariffs on imported goods would raise prices on consumer products by thousands of dollars a year according to estimates. Not only would widespread tariffs drive up costs at home and likely send our economy into recession, but they would damage our trade relationships with allies and likely lead to significant retaliation, hurting American workers, farmers, and businesses.”

Trump’s promises of dramatic tariffs go beyond the intent of the law that gave the president the power to enact tariffs, the Democrats said. Congress wanted a president to be able to quickly impose tariffs on hostile foreign countries, but did not intend “to allow a president to indiscriminately impose tariffs without Congress’ approval.”

Tariffs can be an important tool for conducting foreign policy, but the range Trump is proposing is 10 to 20 times beyond what even he did in his first term, Duke said.

He cautioned that the final form of new tariffs may not be exactly what Trump proposed Monday night, though they could be similar.

“He’s gonna do something on tariffs. I don’t know what. It’s probably not these exact levels on these exact countries,” he said. “But it rhymes with it.”

President-elect Donald Trump on stage with former first lady Melania Trump during an election event at the Palm Beach Convention Center early on Nov. 6, 2024 in West Palm Beach, Florida. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

A New York state judge officially postponed President-elect Donald Trump’s sentencing date Friday for the 34 felonies a jury convicted the former president of in May.

The order from Judge Juan Merchan indefinitely postponing a sentencing hearing that had been scheduled for next week was something of a formality after New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg said Tuesday he would not oppose Trump’s motion to suspend the criminal case during Trump’s upcoming term in the Oval Office.

Trump’s attorneys and prosecutors jointly asked for a delay on Nov. 12 as Bragg’s office determined how and if they would proceed following Trump’s election victory, which created an unprecedented situation for the court as Trump became the first convict to win a presidential election.

Legal experts have held for decades that a sitting president cannot face criminal prosecution.

In a statement Friday afternoon, Trump campaign communications director Steven Cheung asserted the election result this month showed voters rejected the criminal charges against Trump.

“President Trump won a landslide victory as the American People have issued a mandate to return him to office and dispose of all remnants of the Witch Hunt cases,” Cheun wrote. “All of the sham lawfare attacks against President Trump are now destroyed and we are focused on Making America Great Again.”

Merchan also granted the Trump defense team’s request to file a motion to dismiss the charges altogether. He set a Dec. 2 deadline for Trump’s brief arguing to dismiss the case, with prosecutors’ response due a week later on Dec. 9. Bragg said Tuesday he would fight Trump’s attempt to dismiss the entire case.

A jury convicted Trump of falsifying business records by paying hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels to conceal an alleged tryst. Trump sought to keep disclosure of the affair, which he denies took place, from voters during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Each of the 34 convictions is punishable by up to four years in state prison.

The case was the only one of four prosecutions against Trump to reach the trial stage in the nearly four years since he left the White House.

U.S. Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith is winding down the two federal cases against the president-elect, consistent with longstanding department policy not to prosecute sitting presidents. Smith is reportedly planning to resign before Trump takes office.

President-elect Donald Trump speaks at a House Republican Conference meeting at the Hyatt Regency on Capitol Hill on Nov. 13, 2024 in Washington, D.C.  (Photo by Allison Robbert-Pool/Getty Images)

President-elect Donald Trump ordered congressional Republicans on Wednesday to block a broadly popular bill to protect press freedoms, likely ending any chance of the U.S. Senate clearing the legislation.

The measure would limit federal law enforcement surveillance of journalists and the government’s ability to force disclosure of journalists’ sources, codifying regulations the Department of Justice has put in place under President Joe Biden.

The House Judiciary Committee unanimously approved it last year and it passed the House by voice vote in January.

“REPUBLICANS MUST KILL THIS BILL!” Trump wrote on his social media site, Truth Social, in all capital letters on Wednesday, linking to a PBS segment about the measure.

Substantial floor time is generally required in the Senate to bypass the process that allows a single member to hold up the chamber’s business. With Democrats prioritizing confirmation of Biden’s judicial nominees before they lose their majority in January, it is unlikely they would bring a vote on the measure without the unanimous consent of all 100 senators.

Trump’s influence within the Senate Republican Conference makes reaching unanimous consent exceedingly unlikely.

The bill’s House sponsor, California Republican Kevin Kiley, accepted the bill’s defeat in a statement Thursday.

“Based on the feedback we’ve received from Senators and President Trump, it’s clear we have work to do to achieve consensus on this issue,” he said. “I’m looking forward to working with the new Administration on a great many areas of common ground as we begin a new era of American prosperity.”

A Kiley spokesperson declined to provide further details about senators’ feedback on the measure. A spokesperson for U.S. Senate Judiciary ranking Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina did not respond to a message seeking comment.

In the House, 19 members from both parties, including Republicans Barry Moore of Alabama, Darrell Issa of California, Russell Fry of South Carolina and Kelly Armstrong of North Dakota and Democrats Jamie Raskin of Maryland, Ted Lieu of California and Rashida Tlaib and Dan Kildee of Michigan, signed on as cosponsors.

Protection for local journalists

Jon Schleuss, the president of The NewsGuild-CWA, a national journalists’ union that has supported the bill, noted in a Thursday statement it would protect news sources across the political spectrum.

“Americans would not know about the corruption of former Democratic Senator Bob Menendez or former Republican Representative George Santos without the hard work of local journalists holding power to account,” he said. “All of us depend on journalism, especially local journalism, to shine a light and protect Americans from threats, both foreign and domestic. The PRESS Act protects all voices: news sources, whistleblowers and the journalists they talk to from media outlets across the spectrum.”

In a Thursday statement to States Newsroom, Gabe Rottman, policy director at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, called the bill a “reasonable and common-sense measure” that enjoyed broad bipartisan support.

“Its passage would put an end to actions the Justice Department has taken under past administrations of both parties to target reporters’ confidential communications when investigating and prosecuting disclosures of government information,” he wrote. “We urge Congress to recognize that there is still a need for a legislative remedy here.”

Press advocacy groups have expressed worries about Trump’s return to the White House, citing a record in his first term that included surveillance of and legal threats against journalists and news organizations.

Seeking retribution

In the closing days of the presidential race, Trump fantasized aloud about reporters being shot.

Press freedom groups also worry that Trump’s promises to use the federal bureaucracy to seek retribution against perceived enemies would extend to journalists.

“In his second term, Trump will make good on these anti-press threats to try to destroy any news outlet, journalist, or whistleblower who criticizes or opposes him,” Seth Stern, the director of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, wrote in a Nov. 6 blog post.

Stern added that Trump would “almost certainly repeal” the protections against surveillance the Department of Justice had put in place during President Joe Biden’s term.

President-elect Donald Trump said Tuesday he would tap Linda McMahon as Education secretary in his second administration. In this photo, McMahon, at the time the head of the Small Business Administration, speaks during a rally with GOP lawmakers at the U.S. Capitol Nov. 28, 2017 in Washington, D.C.  (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

President-elect Donald Trump said Tuesday night he plans to nominate Linda McMahon, the co-chair of his transition team, to lead the Education Department in his second administration.

“We will send Education BACK TO THE STATES, and Linda will spearhead that effort,” Trump said in a statement, referring to his pledge during this campaign to abolish the Department of Education.

McMahon, a decades-long executive with World Wrestling Entertainment and the head of the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first presidency, has served on the Connecticut Board of Education. The statement said she has also served as a member of the Board of Trustees at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut, for two stints totaling over 16 years.

She twice ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in Connecticut and has been a major fundraiser for Republicans, including Trump.

McMahon led the SBA from 2017 to 2019 and took a position with a Trump political action committee ahead of his 2020 reelection bid. She later became chair of the board of the America First Policy Institute, a pro-Trump think tank.

McMahon and her husband, Vince McMahon, the founder and longtime leader of WWE, grew the professional wrestling company into a multi-billion-dollar enterprise. A recent lawsuit also alleges that WWE and Vince McMahon failed to stop the sexual abuse of underage “Ring Boys,” Axios recently reported. Linda McMahon is a co-defendant in the suit.

Trump’s Education secretary in his first term was Betsy DeVos, another wealthy donor. DeVos resigned from the administration on Jan. 7, 2021, the day after a pro-Trump mob attacked the U.S. Capitol.

In a statement, National Education Association President Becky Pringle said McMahon is unqualified for the post.

“During his first term, Donald Trump appointed Betsy DeVos to undermine and ultimately privatize public schools through vouchers,” Pringle said. “Now, he and Linda McMahon are back at it with their extreme Project 2025 proposal to eliminate the Department of Education, steal resources for our most vulnerable students, increase class sizes, cut job training programs, make higher education more expensive and out of reach for middle class families, take away special education services for disabled students, and put student civil rights protections at risk. ”

FEMA Disaster Survivor Assistance Team members conduct outreach to provide local and FEMA resources to Charlotte County residents in Punta Gorda, Florida, on Oct. 22, 2024. (Photo courtesy of FEMA)

Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell told two U.S. House panels Tuesday that there is no evidence that an order to deny emergency relief to Donald Trump supporters went beyond a single rogue employee — though Criswell said she welcomed a robust investigation to confirm that.

A long line of Republicans denounced the action of a low-level agency supervisor working in Florida following Hurricane Milton. The supervisor told her team to avoid canvassing houses that displayed support for Trump, at the time the Republican nominee in the 2024 election and now the president-elect.

Republicans on the House Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee with oversight of FEMA and the House Oversight and Accountability Committee were largely congenial toward Criswell. They thanked her for terminating the employee while still questioning if a larger culture of political targeting plagued the agency.

Criswell repeatedly told the panels the incident appeared to be isolated. She added that the agency was conducting an internal investigation to determine if any other employees were involved.

The fired employee, Marn’i Washington, was not named during the morning’s Transportation and Infrastructure hearing but has openly discussed the matter with news media. Members of the Oversight Committee did name Washington during the afternoon hearing.

“The actions of this employee are unacceptable, and it is not indicative of the culture of FEMA, and I do not believe that there is a widespread cultural problem,” Criswell said at the Transportation and Infrastructure hearing. “I have directed ongoing investigations, working with the (Homeland Security inspector general), working with the Office of the Special Counsel, and if we find any other acts of similar behavior, we will take appropriate disciplinary measures.”

Criswell said the employee directed about 11 subordinates to skip houses with Trump signs. About 20 homes in Florida were passed over, she said.

Larger problem?

Pressed by Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee Chair Scott Perry, a Pennsylvania Republican, Criswell said she would request an inspector general investigation.

Perry and other GOP members said they would continue to probe allegations from Washington that her directions to avoid canvassing homes with Trump signs were part of a larger directive within the agency.

“If that is the case, more people at FEMA must be held accountable,” Perry said.

At the afternoon hearing of the Oversight Committee, Chair James Comer of Kentucky said a politicized civil service workforce was a problem throughout the federal bureaucracy.

“While today’s hearing will focus on FEMA, the issue at hand is part of a larger problem: the urgent need to hold the unelected, unaccountable federal workforce accountable to the American people and to the duly elected president of the United States,” he said. “In his first term, President Trump faced not only open insubordination from federal employees who refused to help implement his policies, but also subtler practices intended to thwart elements of his agenda.”

While the internal FEMA investigation is ongoing, Criswell could say only that she had “seen no evidence that this was anything beyond one person’s specific instructions to her team.”

She added that investigators had questioned “other personnel” in the employee’s chain of command and had found “no information at this point that there was anything beyond her direction to her employees to skip and bypass a home.”

She told House Oversight member Byron Donalds, a Florida Republican, that she would comply with any requests for information or agency communications the committee requested.

Republicans on both panels praised Criswell’s handling of the immediate situation.

“I think you did your job, and I think you did it well,” Minnesota Republican Pete Stauber told Criswell. “You terminated that employee who weaponized the federal government as quickly as you can. And I think we need to do more of that.”

Democrats warn of misinformation

Democrats on both panels also denounced Washington’s actions, while warning that misinformation has made FEMA workers’ jobs more difficult.

Nevada’s Dina Titus, the ranking Democrat on the Transportation and Infrastructure panel, said she was “very upset” to learn about the incident.

“I condemn the employee’s decision,” she said. “That should never be the case and Administrator Criswell immediately did the right thing when she learned about this incident, by firing the employee and referring the case to the Office of Special Counsel.”

Washington has defended her action partially by saying the agency has a policy to avoid confrontations when canvassing in the wake of a disaster.

Oversight ranking Democrat Jamie Raskin of Maryland called the judgment “a bad mistake, legally and constitutionally, which violated the core mission of FEMA and every federal agency to work on behalf of all Americans.”

“It’s plainly wrong and divisive to use a presidential campaign lawn sign as a proxy for someone’s dangerousness,” he said.

Democrats on both panels decried an environment of misinformation that could foment hostility toward federal aid workers.

“I was disgusted with the ridiculous rumors that were floating around cautioning people that government was going to bulldoze over their communities, seize their homes and divert disaster aid to other programs,” Titus said.

Raskin said FEMA aid workers encountered “a cloud of propaganda and lies concocted to erode public trust in FEMA.”

“Because of this disinformation, many victims of hurricanes have rejected federal assistance, and others have even harassed and threatened FEMA workers,” he said.

Trump retribution

New Jersey’s Jeff Van Drew, a Republican member of Transportation and Infrastructure, told Democrats to be wary about FEMA aid being denied to opponents of a presidential administration.

“People on the other side of the aisle should know: If it happened to us, it could happen to them,” he said.

Democrats noted that Trump had threatened to withhold FEMA aid based on political affiliation during his first term.

Rep. Maxwell Frost, a Florida Democrat, criticized “hypocrisy” from Republicans on the Oversight panel who denounced political targeting of Trump supporters without acknowledging Trump reportedly had to be convinced to send aid to disaster-struck areas he thought were heavily Democratic. 

President-elect Donald Trump said Monday he would nominate former Congressman Sean Duffy as Transportation secretary. In this photo, Duffy and his wife, Rachel Campos-Duffy, speak onstage during the 2023 FOX Nation Patriot Awards at The Grand Ole Opry on Nov. 16, 2023 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Terry Wyatt/Getty Images)

President-elect Donald Trump will nominate former U.S. Rep. Sean Duffy, a Wisconsin Republican, to be the next secretary of Transportation, Trump said in a statement Monday evening.

Duffy, who earned praise from both parties during his House tenure for helping to pass legislation funding a bridge connecting Wisconsin and Minnesota, won five elections to the U.S. House but resigned his seat in 2019 to care for a daughter born with a heart condition and Down syndrome.

Duffy appeared on MTV’s “The Real World” before running for Congress. He met his wife, Rachel Campos-Duffy, on the show.

After leaving Congress, Duffy returned to TV, appearing as a commentator on CNN, a contributor for Fox News and later a co-host on Fox Business.

A former member of the House Financial Services Committee, he also led the financial services practice at the Republican-leaning lobbying firm BGR Group.

In the written statement from the presidential transition, Trump highlighted Duffy’s years in Congress.

“Sean will use his experience and the relationships he has built over many years in Congress to maintain and rebuild our Nation’s Infrastructure, and fulfill our Mission of ushering in The Golden Age of Travel, focusing on Safety, Efficiency, and Innovation,” Trump wrote. “Importantly, he will greatly elevate the Travel Experience for all Americans!”

Trump and Duffy appear to enjoy a warm relationship, with the former president encouraging Duffy to run for Wisconsin governor in 2022, bypassing the front-runner for the GOP nomination, former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch.

DOT portfolio

Congress passed, and President Joe Biden signed, a $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law in 2021. That law authorizes highway and transit programs through the end of September 2026.

The law increased several sources of transportation funding, including some grant programs that are awarded at the secretary’s discretion.

If confirmed, Duffy would also oversee the Federal Aviation Administration, which is monitoring Boeing after a series of safety mishaps involving the manufacturer’s jets.

New standards for rail safety, following a disastrous derailment last year of a train carrying hazardous materials near East Palestine, Ohio, and autonomous vehicles could also be on the next secretary’s agenda.

Trump’s Transportation secretary in his first term was Elaine Chao, who was the Labor secretary under former President George W. Bush. Chao, who is married to outgoing Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, announced her resignation from the administration on Jan. 7, 2021, the day after a pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol.

Trump’s record on transportation during his first term was marked by a series of false starts on a massive infrastructure package that never materialized. Some inside the administration sought to boost private-sector involvement in infrastructure, while others favored more direct federal spending.

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum on Friday was tapped by President-elect Donald Trump as both Interior secretary and head of a new National Energy Council. In this photo Burgum, center, and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., right, and Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., left, watch as Trump walks towards the courtroom for his hush money trial at Manhattan Criminal Court on May 14, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

President-elect Donald Trump’s announcement Friday afternoon that his pick for Interior secretary, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, would also coordinate a new council on energy policy is a sign the incoming administration will make energy production a core part of its domestic policy.

Few details of the new National Energy Council were available Friday, as activists and lawmakers processed the surprise 4 p.m. Eastern announcement. But the move likely reflects a focus by Trump and his next administration on energy production, including fossil fuels.

“They’re signaling ahead of time that this is one of their priority areas,” Frank Maisano, a senior principal at the energy-focused law and lobbyist firm Bracewell LLP, said in an interview.

Burgum “will be joining my Administration as both Secretary of the Interior and, as Chairman of the newly formed, and very important, National Energy Council, which will consist of all Departments and Agencies involved in the permitting, production, generation, distribution, regulation, transportation, of ALL forms of American Energy,” a written statement from Trump said.

“This Council will oversee the path to U.S. ENERGY DOMINANCE by cutting red tape, enhancing private sector investments across all sectors of the Economy, and by focusing on INNOVATION over longstanding, but totally unnecessary, regulation.”

Trump said the council’s objective to increase U.S. energy supply would benefit the domestic economy and allies overseas and help power “A.I. superiority.”

“The National Energy Council will foster an unprecedented level of coordination among federal agencies to advance American energy,” Burgum said in a written statement. “By establishing U.S. energy dominance, we can jumpstart our economy, drive down costs for consumers and generate billions in revenue to help reduce our deficit.”

It was unclear what the role of the Department of Energy would be in such an arrangement. The current secretary in the Biden administration is Jennifer Granholm, a former governor of Michigan.

‘Drill, drill, drill’

Throughout the presidential campaign, Trump frequently pledged to expand oil and gas production. The issue was one of two he told Fox News host Sean Hannity he would seek to address as a “dictator” on the first day of his administration.

Trump told Hannity during an Iowa appearance in December that he would not be a dictator, “except for day one. I want to close the border, and I want to drill, drill, drill.”

Comments like that foreshadowed something like a new council to oversee energy policy, said Lisa Frank, executive director of the advocacy group Environment America.

“President Trump has been very clear that one of his top priorities is to ‘drill, baby, drill,’” Frank said. “I’m not surprised. It was such an important part of his campaign, and it is the case that energy decisions are made by all sorts of different agencies in different ways, and that can be kind of a difficult thing to manage if you’re trying to drive an agenda.”

Under outgoing President Joe Biden, the administration promoted an “all-of-government approach” to climate change, with several departments and agencies across the federal bureaucracy tasked with addressing the issue. White House National Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi was tasked with coordinating a consistent climate approach across the executive branch.

Burgum’s role could be similar, though the aim likely will be much different. 

“This is similar to what the previous administration did, but the previous administration focused on climate,” Maisano said. “It’s just energy instead of climate.”

Another key difference is that Burgum will also be tasked with running an entire, separate Cabinet-level department with a nearly $18 billion annual budget.

Balancing the priorities of the Interior Department — which includes public lands management, protecting endangered species, maintaining national parks and overseeing tribal relations — with an initiative to vastly expand fossil-fuel production could be difficult, Frank said.

“The really tough decisions about balancing those two agendas will lie, to some extent, with Secretary Burgum, if he’s confirmed,” she said. “Do we want more drilling at our national parks? Do we want it on our families’ ranches? Do we want it where you want your kids to hunt? Do we want fracking near the best trout streams? Those are going to be very difficult questions for both him and the American public.”

All of the above

Burgum is seen across the political spectrum as favoring an all-of-the-above approach to energy, meaning he wants to expand both fossil-fuel and sustainable-energy sources. Environmental groups see his record on climate as mixed.

His state ranks ninth in wind-energy production, Frank said, but also last in reducing carbon emissions over the last two decades.

“He’s familiar with all aspects of energy, because as governor of an all-of-the-above energy state, he has to be,” Maisano said.

Some Democrats and left-leaning groups voiced immediate opposition to the selection of Burgum. The U.S. House Natural Resources Committee Democrats sent a series of tweets Friday dubbing the governor “Big Oil Burgum” over ties to the oil and gas industry.

But others were more tempered in their reaction to Burgum’s selection as Interior chief than some of Trump’s other picks for Cabinet positions.

Patrick Donnelly, the Great Basin director for the environmental group Center for Biological Diversity, tweeted Thursday evening that it did not seem likely the Trump administration would roll back expansion of renewable energy.

Trump’s first term saw an expansion of clean-energy projects, Donnelly wrote. Burgum is “not a climate denier” who doesn’t have a record of stifling renewable energy, he added.

“Burgum sucks but he’s not a complete lunatic that I’m aware of,” Donnelly said in an earlier tweet. “Could have been worse.”

President-elect Donald Trump has said he plans to nominate Pete Hegseth as secretary of Defense. In this photo, Hegseth speaks onstage during the 2023 Fox Nation Patriot Awards at The Grand Ole Opry on Nov. 16, 2023 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Terry Wyatt/Getty Images)

President-elect Donald Trump says he plans to nominate Pete Hegseth, a U.S. Army National Guard veteran and a weekend host on Fox News’ morning show, as secretary of Defense.

Trump also announced on Wednesday afternoon he would nominate Florida Sen. Marco Rubio to be secretary of State and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard to be the director of national intelligence, as he rounds out his national security team.

The Hegseth pick, announced late Tuesday, immediately drew more scrutiny than some more conventional choices Trump announced for other Cabinet-level positions.

Outside of his time in the Army, Hegseth, 44, has no government experience. He was the CEO of the veterans’ advocacy group Concerned Veterans for America, according to a bio on his personal website. He served in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. He was awarded two Bronze Stars and a Combat Infantryman Badge for his combat service.

“Pete is tough, smart and a true believer in America First,” Trump said in a statement from his transition team. “With Pete at the helm, America’s enemies are on notice – Our Military will be Great Again, and America will Never Back Down.”

No women in combat

On Fox, in several books he’s written and in other public forums, Hegseth has been vocal about his socially conservative views.

He told a podcast host last week that “women should not serve in combat roles.”

“It hasn’t made us more effective, it hasn’t made us more lethal, has made fighting more complicated,” he said on the Shawn Ryan Show podcast.

He’s also criticized the DoD’s work under Democratic Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama to pursue diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

“Unfortunately, the incentives for generals under the Biden administration and the Obama administration was to conform to ideologies of leftist politicians who were ramming stuff into the Pentagon that has nothing to do with winning wars,” he said during a Fox News appearance to promote a book on the military. “What is your gender? What is your race? DEI, (Critical Race Theory).”

Hegseth’s focus on culture war issues has won praise from some conservatives, including the influential think tank The Heritage Foundation.

“At a time when bloat and woke initiatives detract from the core warfighting mission of our armed forces, we need a secretary like Pete who has both served in combat and advocated for veterans on Capitol Hill. Under President Biden and Secretary (Lloyd) Austin, our military has grown weaker while foreign conflicts have increased. President Trump and Secretary Hegseth will make our military great again while continuing to put America First,” the foundation said in a statement.

Inexperience a factor?

But Democratic members of Congress voiced unease with the nomination, and even Republicans withheld full-throated endorsements.

Adam Smith, a Washington Democrat and ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, said in a statement on X that the Senate should give the nomination “the utmost scrutiny.”

“The job of Secretary of Defense should not be an entry-level position, and I question President-elect Trump’s choice of a television news host to take on this immensely important role,” Smith said. “While I respect and admire Mr. Hegseth’s military service, I am concerned about his inexperience given the security challenges we face around the world.”

Even Sen. Tommy Tuberville, an Alabama Republican and close Trump ally, voiced skepticism over the pick, Fox News congressional correspondent Chad Pergram reported.

“Really?  I’d have to think about it,” Tuberville, who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee that will manage the confirmation process, reportedly said.

The ambivalence toward Hegseth stands out from Trump’s other early picks.

Indiana Republican Sen. Todd Young sent a series of posts on X this week praising the selections of Rep. Elise Stefanik as United Nations ambassador, former Rep. Lee Zeldin for Environmental Protection Agency administrator, Rep. Mike Waltz to be national security adviser, former National Intelligence Director John Ratcliffe to lead the CIA and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee to be the ambassador to Israel.

He did not communicate on X his support of Hegseth.

Similarly, the official X account for the House Armed Services Committee, which is chaired by Alabama’s Mike Rogers, posted praise for Stefanik and Waltz on X, but did not comment on Hegseth.

Tattoos raised red flags

Hegseth grew up in Forest Lake, Minnesota. He attended Princeton University as an undergraduate and received a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard University.

He sought the 2012 Minnesota Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, but withdrew after the state convention backed the eventual nominee, Kurt Bills. Incumbent Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar easily defeated Bills in the general election.

Hegseth served in the Army National Guard until 2021, when he says he was taken off a detail to work Biden’s inauguration due to questions about a tattoo.

“Ultimately, members of my unit in leadership deemed that I was an extremist or a white nationalist because of a tattoo I have, which is a religious tattoo, it’s a Jerusalem Cross, everybody can look it up,” he said in the June appearance on Fox. “It was used as a premise to revoke my order to guard the inauguration.”

He speculated that there was another reason for his removal, possibly that he was a Trump supporter, Fox News host or a “patriot extremist.”

Hegseth has a chest tattoo depicting the Jerusalem Cross, a symbol of the crusaders that fought against Muslims and Jews during the Middle Ages.

Broad support for Rubio

Trump’s selections of Rubio and Gabbard came Wednesday, although media reports for days had said Rubio would be named.

“Marco is a Highly Respected Leader, and a very powerful Voice for Freedom,” a statement from Trump read. “He will be a strong Advocate for our Nation, a true friend to our Allies, and a fearless Warrior who will never back down to our adversaries.”

Cabinet designees from the Senate often have an easier path to confirmation through that chamber due to the personal connections they’ve established.

That appears likely to be the case with Rubio, who quickly secured votes of confidence from Democrats John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Mark Warner of Virginia.

Gabbard, a former Democratic member of Congress from Hawaii who sought the party’s presidential nomination in 2020, campaigned for Trump this year.

“I know Tulsi will bring the fearless spirit that has defined her illustrious career to our Intelligence Community, championing our Constitutional Rights, and securing Peace through Strength,” Trump wrote. “Tulsi will make us all proud!”

 

The Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump, holds a campaign rally at Gastonia Municipal Airport on Nov. 2, 2024 in Gastonia, North Carolina.  Trump won the election on Nov. 5 and now federal prosecutors are winding down an election interference case against him related to the 2020 election. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Special counsel Jack Smith, the prosecutor in the federal criminal cases against President-elect Donald Trump, asked a D.C. federal judge on Friday to suspend deadlines in the election interference case that centered on Trump’s supporters’ Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

To allow the government time to mull the “unprecedented circumstance” of a former president under indictment returning to the White House after Tuesday’s election, Smith’s team, writing in an unopposed motion to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, called for upcoming deadlines in the case to be cleared.

Under U.S. Justice Department precedent that dates to the Watergate era, the department may not prosecute a sitting president. 

“As a result of the election held on November 5, 2024, the defendant is expected to be certified as President-elect on January 6, 2025, and inaugurated on January 20, 2025,” the prosecutors wrote.

“The Government respectfully requests that the Court vacate the remaining deadlines in this pretrial schedule to afford the Government time to assess this unprecedented circumstance and determine the best appropriate course going forward consistent with Department of Justice policy.”

A 1973 Justice Department memo concluded that criminally prosecuting a sitting president would diminish the president’s capacity to perform the office’s functions. That conclusion was affirmed in a 2000 memo dealing with the question.

The four-sentence brief filed Friday said prosecutors would let the court know by Dec. 2 what route they planned to take.

Chutkan granted the motion shortly after Smith filed it.

Reversal of Trump’s fortunes

The legal development marks another milestone in Trump’s remarkable comeback.

The former president ended his first term, shortly after the Jan. 6 attack and amid a worldwide pandemic, with fewer than 39% of voters holding a favorable opinion of him and nearly 58% disapproving.

Over the next few years, the U.S. Justice Department and state prosecutors in New York and Georgia launched investigations into allegations that resulted in four felony indictments.

But in part thanks to his electoral victory in which he won or led in as of Friday afternoon every battleground state and could win the popular vote for this first time in his three White House runs, Trump appears likely to escape culpability in any of the cases.

Smith, whom Trump railed against and promised to fire — and possibly deport — appears ready to drop the election interference case.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee in South Florida, already dismissed charges related to Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents that prosecutors said he illegally took from the White House and brought to his Mar-a-Lago estate after his 2020 election loss. Prosecutors have appealed that decision.

The Georgia election interference case that charged Trump as part of a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election results in the state has sputtered amid revelations Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who is prosecuting the case, had an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate in her office.

A New York jury did find Trump guilty earlier this year of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to hush money payment promised to adult film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign.

But sentencing for that case was postponed following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling granting presidents the presumption of criminal immunity for any acts conducted in their official capacity.

The Nov. 26 sentencing could be further delayed as Trump prepares to return to the White House.

The Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, gives her “closing argument” of the campaign in a speech on the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 29, 2024. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

The fallout from a comedian’s racially charged joke at a rally for former President Donald Trump continued Wednesday as the campaign for the presidency raced toward its final weekend, with Democrats on the defensive about President Joe Biden’s reaction to the joke.

Republicans claimed Biden labeled Trump supporters as “garbage,” while Democrats insisted Biden was being misinterpreted, and a battle over the placement of an apostrophe in Biden’s comment spread from the White House briefing room to campaign stops.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Wednesday further clarified Biden’s comment, made on a Tuesday evening call to rally Latino voters. Biden brought up comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s remark at a Trump rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday that Puerto Rico was a “floating island of garbage.”

“They’re good, decent, honorable people,” Biden said Tuesday of Puerto Ricans who live in his home state of Delaware. “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter’s — his — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American.”

An initial White House transcript of the call placed an apostrophe after the word “supporters,” making its meaning about multiple Trump supporters. A later transcript placed the possessive inside the word, so it read as “supporter’s,” making it about a single supporter, Hinchcliffe.

Biden posted on X Tuesday evening that was his intent.

“Earlier today I referred to the hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico spewed by Trump’s supporter at his Madison Square Garden rally as garbage—which is the only word I can think of to describe it,” Biden’s post read. “His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable. That’s all I meant to say. The comments at that rally don’t reflect who we are as a nation.”

Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, also told reporters early Wednesday that it was wrong to disparage people over political affiliation, while noting Biden clarified he referred only to Hinchcliffe. The flap over Biden’s comments came just as Harris was giving her “closing argument” speech on the Ellipse on Tuesday night before a crowd in the tens of thousands.

“Let me be clear,” she said. “I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for.”

Latino voters in general and Puerto Ricans in the key battleground state of Pennsylvania in particular are seen as a crucial voting bloc in the closing days of the campaign, and both campaigns are trying to get their support.

Jean-Pierre said from the White House briefing room Wednesday that Biden does not think Trump supporters are “garbage.”

“What I can say is that the president wanted to make sure that his words were not being taken out of context,” she said. “And so he wanted to clarify, and that’s what you heard from the president. He was very aware. And I would say I think it’s really important that you have a president that cares about clarifying what they said.”

Trump repeatedly has said the United States is the “garbage can of the world” as a result of Biden’s immigration policies.

Rubio: Harris camp should apologize

But Trump and other Republicans jumped on Biden’s remark, immediately comparing it to 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s comment that many Trump supporters comprised “a basket of deplorables.” That comment was seen as damaging to Clinton’s campaign against Trump.

At a Tuesday evening Trump rally in Pennsylvania, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida disclosed news of Biden’s statement.

“I hope their campaign is about to apologize for what Joe Biden just said,” Rubio said. “We are not garbage. We are patriots who love America.”

“Wow, that’s terrible,” Trump added. “Remember Hillary, she said deplorable, and then she said irredeemable, right? But she said deplorable. That didn’t work out. Garbage I think is worse, right?”

Harris brings closing argument in N.C.

At a Wednesday afternoon rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, Harris echoed some of the themes she sounded in the “closing argument” speech she gave Tuesday night.

She urged voters in the battleground state to “turn the page on a decade of Donald Trump, who has been trying to keep us divided and afraid of each other.”

She said Trump was focused on personal grievances and seeking revenge on political opponents, while she would work toward improving voters’ lives.

“There are many big differences between he and I,” she said. “But I would say a major contrast is this: If he is elected, on day one, Donald Trump will walk into that office with an enemies list. When I am elected, I will walk in with a to-do list.”

First on her list would be lowering the costs of health care, child care and other expenses for families, she said.

Harris appealed directly to disaffected Republicans, saying she would seek common ground with those she disagrees with. That approach, she said, was also in contrast to Trump, who used charged language to describe his opponents and pledged to retaliate against them.

“Unlike Donald Trump, I don’t believe people who disagree with me are the enemy,” she said. “He wants to put them in jail. I’ll give them a seat at the table. And I pledge to be a president for all Americans, and to always put country above party and self.”

Harris won another endorsement from a nationally known Republican Wednesday, with former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger saying he would vote for her despite policy disagreements.

Trump also campaigned in North Carolina on Wednesday, in Rocky Mount, a town in a more rural part of the state about 50 miles east of Raleigh.

He said his campaign was a welcoming one to all races and religions and said Harris was the one running “a campaign of hate” toward Trump and his supporters, while lobbing an insult at the vice president.

“Kamala, a low-IQ individual, is running a campaign of hate, anger and retribution,” he said, repeating a term he has used for her before.

Election integrity

The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee said Wednesday they won a court case in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, over early voting hours, RNC officials said on a call Wednesday afternoon.

A judge in the key swing county extended the deadline to apply for a mail-in ballot after some voters said that long lines forced them to miss the 5 p.m. Tuesday deadline.

On the press call, Trump campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said a Trump supporter had been arrested after telling people in line near the deadline to remain in line.

Party officials, including Trump’s daughter-in-law, RNC Co-Chair Lara Trump, said the result bolstered their confidence in a free and fair election.

“We want to make people all across this country feel good about the process of voting in the United States of America,” Lara Trump said. “It is so foundational to who we are as a country that we trust our electoral process and this type of work allows exactly for that.”

Lara Trump said the party was “incredibly confident” in its staffers dedicated to ensuring the election is fair.

The issue has been a major priority for Republicans since Donald Trump and others claimed, without evidence, that election fraud caused his 2020 re-election loss.

That claim was rejected in scores of courts and a federal grand jury indicted Trump on four felony counts for using the election fraud lie to inspire the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Trump and allies have also speculated that his political opponents would seek to use illegal means, including voting by noncitizens, this year.

But in a departure from that rhetoric Wednesday, the RNC officials voiced confidence that the 2024 results would be trustworthy.

“I think it’s really important that we get the word spread loud and clear that we are taking this seriously, that you can trust American elections,” Lara Trump said. “In 2024, we want to re-establish any trust that may have been lost previously.”

Ashley Murray contributed to this report.

Rivian Electric Delivery Vehicles (EDV) are seen connected to electric chargers during a launch event between Amazon and Rivian at an Amazon facility on July 21, 2022, in Chicago, Illinois. (Mustafa Hussain | Getty Images)

This is one in a series of States Newsroom reports on the major policy issues in the presidential race.

Highlighted in Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign as one of the major crises facing the country, climate change has received much less attention in the 2024 race for the presidency.

The candidates, Republican former President Donald Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, share the twin goals of lowering energy costs and increasing U.S. jobs in the sector, but diverge widely in their plans to get there.

On the campaign trail, each has spent relatively little time detailing their own plans, instead criticizing the other as extreme.

Harris favors an expansion of renewable energy, which supplies power without the carbon emissions that are the primary driver of climate change.

She has touted her tie-breaking vote in the U.S. Senate to pass the Inflation Reduction Act, the broad domestic policy law Democrats pushed through along party lines that includes hundreds of millions in clean-energy tax credits.

Trump supports fossil fuel production, blaming policies to support renewable energy for rising energy prices. He has called for removing prohibitions on new oil and gas exploration to increase the supply of cheap fuel and reduce costs.

Promise: Promote fossil fuels

Both candidates promise to lower the cost of energy.

For Trump, that has involved hammering the Biden-Harris administration for encouraging renewable energy production.

Inflation was caused by “stupid spending for the Green New Deal, which was a green new scam, it turned out,” Trump said at a Sept. 26 press conference. “Do you notice that they never mention anything about environment anymore? What happened to the environment?”

The former president said at a Sept. 25 campaign stop he would “cut your energy [costs] in half,” by reducing regulations and cutting taxes.

He has not produced a detailed plan to achieve that goal.

Implicit in Trump’s argument is that the Biden administration’s focus on renewable energy has hampered oil and gas production, limiting supply and driving up prices.

But Harris has presented her support for renewable energy modes as part of a broader portfolio that includes fossil fuels.

Harris has highlighted the Inflation Reduction Act opened up new leases for oil and gas production while providing incentives for wind and solar power.

“I am proud that as vice president over the last four years, we have invested a trillion dollars in a clean energy economy while we have also increased domestic gas production to historic levels,” she said at a Sept. 10 ABC News debate with Trump.

A report this month from the U.S. Energy Information Administration showed that U.S. fossil fuel production reached an all-time high in 2023.

Promise: Promote renewables

Harris has also pointed to provisions of the IRA that provide consumers with tax benefits for green technology, such as home heat pumps, as a way to bring down costs.

“Thanks to tax credits on home energy technologies in the Inflation Reduction Act, more than 3.4 million American families saved $8.4 billion in 2023,” her campaign’s 82-page economic plan reads.

Trump also says he supports some climate-conscious technology, including megadonor Elon Musk’s Tesla brand of electric vehicles, but that Democrats have overinvested in non-fossil fuels.

He has called elements of the Inflation Reduction Act “giveaways,” and has singled out spending on electric vehicle charging infrastructure as wasteful.

Promise: Restore jobs

Biden has long talked about a transition away from fossil fuels as a benefit to U.S. workers, positioning them on the cutting edge of a growing industry.

Harris has similarly framed the issue in economic terms, saying the Inflation Reduction Act and other climate policies have created jobs.

“We have created over 800,000 new manufacturing jobs while I have been vice president,” she said at the Sept. 10 debate. “We have invested in clean energy to the point that we are opening up factories around the world.”

At a campaign stop in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, this month, Harris said Trump’s focus on fossil fuels would hamper job growth, saying he would “send thousands of good-paying clean energy jobs overseas.”

Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, have said Democrats’ focus on renewable energy sources has limited existing energy jobs.

“We’ve got great energy workers in Ohio and all across our country,” Vance said at an August campaign stop in his home state. “They want to earn a reasonable wage and they want to power the American economy. Why don’t we have a president that lets them do exactly that?

“Unleash American energy,” he said. “Drill, baby, drill and let’s turn the page on this craziness.”

Promise: Repeal Democrats’ climate law

Trump has had harsh words for Democrats’ climate law, blaming its spending for rising inflation.

“To further defeat inflation, my plan will terminate the Green New Deal, which I call the Green New Scam. Greatest scam in history, probably,” he told the Economic Club of New York in a Sept. 5 speech.

He said as president he would redirect any unspent funds in the law.

Trump has sought to distance himself from the policy blueprint Project 2025, written by the Heritage Institute.

But there is some overlap between what the conservative think tank has laid out and what Trump said he plans to do in a second term in the White House.

Project 2025 calls for repealing the Inflation Reduction Act, describing it as a subsidy to special interests.

Harris often mentions her tie-breaking vote for the law and has described her plans as president to expand on the law’s objectives.

Harris’ policy plan said she “proudly cast” the tie-breaking vote for the climate bill and that, as president, she would “continue to invest in a thriving clean energy economy.”

She added she would seek to improve that spending by cutting regulations “so that clean energy projects are completed quickly and efficiently in a manner that protects our environment and public health.”

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The Democratic National Committee announced Friday it plans to send $2.5 million to state parties. In this photo, signs marking states’ seating sections are installed and adjusted ahead of the Democratic National Convention at the United Center on Aug. 15, 2024 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

The Democratic National Committee will send $2.5 million to more than 30 of its state and territorial parties in the closing weeks of the 2024 election cycle, the DNC said in a Friday statement.

With the new grants, national Democrats will have contributed to all 57 state and territorial chapters for the first time in a presidential cycle, according to the party.

“From the school board to the White House, the DNC is doing the work to elect Democrats to office at all levels of government,” DNC Chair Jaime Harrison said in the statement, given to States Newsroom ahead of a wider announcement.

“We are the only committee responsible for building Democratic infrastructure to win elections across the map, and with a new $2.5 million in grants, the DNC is delivering a multi-million dollar investment across all 57 state parties this cycle – a historic first for our committee.”

The new grants go beyond the seven swing states considered ultra-competitive in the presidential election that have gotten the lion’s share of attention and spending at the national level — and the handful with key U.S. Senate races that have also attracted a national focus.

Though some grants are relatively small, they represent a commitment by the national party to states across the country, including traditionally red states, Democrats said.

Field workers in Idaho

In Idaho, where Democrats hold just 18 of the 105 seats in the Legislature, a more-than $70,000 commitment from the national party will fund two field workers to reach Hispanic voters in two rural counties and tribal members on the Nez Perce Reservation, state party chair and state Rep. Lauren Necochea said.

Necochea, who spoke with States Newsroom in a Thursday interview ahead of the official announcement, said the funding was significant both for the symbolism of the national party’s investment in the overwhelmingly Republican state and for campaign operations this fall.

“We’re just gratified to see that this investment hit all 57 states and territories for the first time … so that no state is left behind,” she said. “We’re a traditionally red state, and that means we need the funding to fight back.”

The two organizers funded by the national money will help boost turnout in the state’s four battleground state legislative districts, Necochea said.

“This level of investment is also meaningful when it comes to winning races and getting out the vote,” she said, noting that a race in the last cycle was decided by 37 votes.

The outcomes in those races could determine which faction of the state’s Republican Party — either the hard right or the more moderate wing — will control the legislative agenda next session, she said.

The Democratic minority in the Legislature sometimes partners with moderate Republicans on legislation to fund education and health care programs, including maintaining the state’s Medicaid expansion, Necochea said.

“It is essential for state government to continue operating that we have a critical mass of Democrats in the Idaho Legislature,” she said.

Other grants

The DNC provided a partial list of the spending included in Friday’s announcement. State parties are free to use the funds as they wish, a DNC spokesman said. The national party noted some state organizations had already determined how to allocate the money.

Many state organizations planned to pursue outreach to voters of color, including in tribal communities.

Some examples of the spending and objectives, according to the DNC:

• Florida: More than $400,000 for statewide programs targeting “key coalitions.”

• Oregon: $125,000 to help the state party’s efforts in three key U.S. House races.

• Pennsylvania: $100,000 “to supercharge voter outreach” in the only presidential battleground state on the new list. A portion of the funding will target the state’s large Puerto Rican community, the DNC said.

• Minnesota: At least $100,000 to boost the state’s paid canvassing campaign. The new funding brings the total DNC allocation to the state to about $630,000, according to the party. The canvassing effort will help protect Democrats’ slim majorities in both legislative chambers.

• Missouri: “Nearly $100,000” for new organizing staff focused on breaking GOP supermajorities in both statehouse chambers and passing an abortion ballot measure.

• Maryland: $75,000 for the state party’s mail program, with a focus on reaching Asian American and Pacific Islander voters, a growing segment of the state’s voting base, the DNC said. The DNC noted its support for U.S. Senate candidate Angela Alsobrooks, calling her race against former GOP Gov. Larry Hogan critical to protecting reproductive rights.

• South Carolina: More than $70,000 for a get-out-the-vote staffer, focusing on outreach to new voters.

• Maine: $61,250 for three staffers to focus get-out-the-vote efforts in rural parts of U.S. Rep. Jared Golden’s swing district.

• Arkansas: Nearly $60,000 to hire six coalition directors targeting young, Black and Latino voters, including Spanish-speaking organizers. It’s the first DNC spending in Arkansas this cycle.

• Louisiana: $55,000 for an organizer to help the state party reach voters in the new majority-Black 6th Congressional District.

• Kansas: $50,000 for paid canvassing efforts to break GOP supermajorities in both legislative chambers.

• Oklahoma: $50,000 to help the state party’s outreach to tribal communities.

• Virginia: $50,000 for the state party’s get-out-the-vote and voter contact programs, focusing on two competitive U.S. House races.

• West Virginia: $50,000 for get-out-the-vote and paid mail programs targeting “youth and minority voters” who could affect four competitive state legislative races.

• North Dakota: Nearly $40,000 for get-out-the-vote efforts and organizing in tribal communities.

• New Jersey: “Five figures” will go to get-out-the-vote operations in all state races, with a particular focus on Rep. Andy Kim’s U.S. Senate race against Republican Curtis Bashaw. It’s the first DNC spending in the Garden State this cycle.

• Tennessee: An unspecified amount to help the state party “build on the organizing momentum” it has seen in the past year.

Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., on Wednesday posted to X, and later deleted, a comment that invoked racist stereotypes about Haitians. In this photo, Higgins speaks during a press conference on the National Defense Authorization Act with members of the House Freedom Caucus on July 14, 2023 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Steven Horsford of Nevada took to the U.S. House floor Wednesday night to condemn an “overtly racist” tweet against Haitians and Haitian Americans by Louisiana Republican U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins.

Hours before members were scheduled to depart for a recess through the November elections, Higgins posted to X a comment that invoked racist stereotypes about Haitians and said Haitians in the United States should leave the country before Jan. 20, the date the next president will be inaugurated.

Higgins’ post included a link to an Associated Press story about a nonprofit representing Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, that has brought charges against former President Donald Trump and Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, whose campaign for president and vice president has centered on criticism of immigration.

“These Haitians are wild. Eating pets, vudu, nastiest country in the western hemisphere, cults, slapstick gangsters… but damned if they don’t feel all sophisticated now, filing charges against our President and VP,” Higgins wrote. “All these thugs better get their mind right and their ass out of our country before January 20^th.”

Haitians are generally not among the immigrants living in the country illegally, as they have been granted Temporary Protected Status due to conditions in their home country. Trump and Vance have amplified disproven rumors about the Haitian community in Springfield, leading to hoax bomb threats against schools, government buildings and local leaders.

Horsford, a Democrat, and other members — reportedly including Florida Republican Byron Donalds – approached Higgins on the House floor after the tweet. Higgins deleted the post shortly after.

Democrats condemn post

After a brief period of confusion about the proper process to introduce a censure resolution, Horsford — surrounded by members of the Congressional Black Caucus and other Democrats — spoke on the House floor to condemn the tweet and called for a vote to censure Higgins when the House returns from recess.

“Rep. Higgins used his official account on X to publicly slander, insult and demean all Haitians and Haitian Americans in an overtly racist post,” Horsford said.

Rep. Troy Carter, the lone Democrat and only Black member of Louisiana’s congressional delegation, blasted Higgins’ post in a written statement.

“I am appalled by the racist and reprehensible remarks made by Rep. Clay Higgins about the people of Haiti,” he wrote. “We all owe each other better than this, but as elected officials we should hold ourselves to an even higher standard. We have a solemn responsibility to represent and respect all races of people. Hate-filled rhetoric like this is not just offensive — it is dangerous. It incites division, perpetuates harmful stereotypes, and undermines the core values of our democracy.”

Johnson, Scalise defend Higgins

Two of Higgins’ fellow Louisiana Republicans in House leadership defended him Wednesday.

Talking to reporters, House Speaker Mike Johnson said he’d spoken to Higgins, who told the speaker he regretted the language of the tweet.

Higgins “was approached on the floor by colleagues who said that was offensive,” Johnson. “He said he went to the back and he prayed about it, and he regretted it, and he pulled the post down. That’s what you want the gentleman to do. I’m sure he probably regrets the language he used. But, you know, we move forward. We believe in redemption around here.”

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana briefly defended Higgins on the floor before the chamber took a short recess.

Scalise noted the post had been taken down and suggested censure was inappropriate because he could find examples of Democratic members making divisive comments.

“If we want to go through every comment, tweet from the other side, we’ll be happy to do it and you’ll be appalled,” Scalise said.

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The Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump, leaves the stage after speaking during a campaign rally at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum on Sept. 18, 2024 in Uniondale, New York. Trump held his first rally after Saturday’s apparent assassination attempt, the second one in two months after being injured at a rally in Butler, Penn. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

Former President Donald Trump said Wednesday he will depart from the presidential swing-state map with visits to Ohio and Colorado in the coming weeks to continue to promote debunked viral stories smearing immigrant communities in those states.

At a Wednesday evening rally in New York, Trump said he would visit Springfield, Ohio, and Aurora, Colorado, towns that he and his running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, have singled out as being harmed by immigration.

Trump falsely claimed during the Sept. 10 presidential debate that Haitian migrants in Springfield ate residents’ pets. Debate moderators corrected the statement, which has also been disputed by officials including the state’s Republican Gov. Mike DeWine. But Trump continues to cite the town to support his hardline immigration position.

Speaking to supporters in Uniondale, New York on Wednesday, he falsely claimed that migrants in the town were there illegally and said 32,000 arrived in a matter of weeks.

Estimates from official sources based on government data range from 12,000 to 20,000 Haitian arrivals since 2020. Most are in the country legally, with many given Temporary Protected Status that allows migrants from certain countries affected by violence and other circumstances to live in the United States.

Trump described Springfield and Aurora — where a separate viral rumor imagined Venezuelan gangs took over an apartment building —  as dangerous places, without evidence to support that claim, from which he might not escape.

“They’ve got to get much tougher,” he said of Springfield city leaders. “I’m going to Springfield and I’m going to Aurora. You may never see me again, but that’s OK. Gotta do what I gotta do. ‘Whatever happened to Trump?’ ‘Well, he never got out of Springfield.’”

Neither Ohio nor Colorado are among the seven competitive states that will decide the presidential election, but the stops would serve to highlight Trump’s focus on immigration as his core campaign issue.

Hispanic heritage

The Trump campaign framed immigration in a different way during a call with reporters Thursday morning celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month.

On the campaign call, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican whose parents emigrated from Cuba, said life was better for all Americans, including Hispanic Americans, during Trump’s presidency than under President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee.

Rubio focused on economic factors and fear of crime.

“That impacts everybody,” he said. “I think it has special meaning in the Hispanic American community because you have to understand that whether it was your parents, your grandparents or yourself, you came here because you wanted a better life. They weren’t happy with their life somewhere else. It was unsafe. You couldn’t get ahead. And so they came to the United States in hopes of fulfilling their dreams and their hopes for themselves and for their families.”

In a White House event for Hispanic Heritage Month Wednesday, Biden touted job numbers for Hispanic Americans, saying his administration oversaw the “lowest Hispanic unemployment rate on record.”

Biden criticized Republican rhetoric on immigration, celebrating the United States’ identity as “a nation of immigrants,” calling on Hispanic Americans to vote for Harris against Trump in November.

“This is the single most consequential election in maybe the lifetime of anyone standing here, because it matters,” he said. “The other team doesn’t see the world like we see it. They don’t have the same attitude we have. They are the most close-minded people I’ve ever dealt with.”

White dudes

A pro-Harris group representing a different demographic launched a $10 million ad campaign in battleground states Thursday.

White Dudes for Harris released a one-minute video ad, the first in the eight-figure campaign, targeting white male voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, according to a news release from the group.

White men vote more Republican than other groups, and have backed Trump by wide margins in his previous White House runs. His successful 2016 campaign won white men nationwide by a 62% to 32% margin, according to the Pew Research Center. Trump carried Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin by a combined 80,000 votes in 2016.

The ad opens by bemoaning that Trump had damaged white men’s reputation. A male narrator then compliments Harris’ and vice presidential candidate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s approach.

“They’re actually talking to guys like us — no lectures, no BS,” the voiceover says. “Just real solutions that protect our freedoms and help us take care of the people who matter.”

Oprah and Adelson

The Harris campaign is scheduled to hold a virtual event with famed actress, producer and former talk show host Oprah Winfrey on Thursday evening.

Organizers expect the event to reach more than 200,000 people in real time, with additionally tens of millions likely to see clips shared afterward.

Trump is scheduled to appear with conservative megadonor Miriam Adelson in a Washington event titled “Fighting Anti-Semitism in America.” Adelson is Jewish and a vocal advocate of U.S. support for Israel.

Friday, Harris will campaign in Georgia and Wisconsin.

Trump is scheduled to hold a rally Saturday in North Carolina.

Polling snapshot

Polls published Wednesday and Thursday showed a mixed view of the race.

Harris and Trump were tied nationally at 47% in a New York Times/Sienna College poll that surveyed likely voters from Sept. 11 to Sept. 16. Harris led, though, in the key state of Pennsylvania, 50% to 46%, in the same poll.

A separate poll, conducted by the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, showed the Keystone State deadlocked at 49%.

Marist found Harris led by 1 point in Wisconsin, 50% to 49%, and by  5 points in Michigan, 52% to 47%.

Those states, along with Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina, will likely decide the election.

Nebraska pushed to adopt winner-take-all

Two other races, though, could be competitive.

Maine and Nebraska both allocate two electoral votes to the winner of the state popular vote, and the rest by congressional district.

Purple districts in each state will likely go to the candidate who loses the state overall, though some Republicans are pushing  Nebraska to adopt a winner-take-all system.

Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen discussed the issue Wednesday with state senators, and the state’s all-Republican congressional delegation endorsed a winner-take-all approach in a Wednesday letter posted to X.

Nebraska’s statewide electoral votes are nearly certain to go to Trump, whose campaign has pressured state officials to nix the current system.

Ariana Figueroa contributed to this report.

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President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Sean O’Brien speaks on stage on the first day of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on July 15, 2024. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters declined to endorse a candidate for president Wednesday, although both parties sought the support of the nation’s largest union.

The group’s General Executive Board voted Wednesday to abstain from an endorsement, citing a split among members and a lack of firm commitments from either major party candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, on labor issues.

In Wisconsin, however, the Teamsters’ statewide organization broke with the parent union and unanimously endorsed Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Teamsters Joint Council 39 represents 15,000 Teamsters in Wisconsin in three locals.

In endorsing Harris they joined with Teamsters groups in Michigan, Nevada and Philadelphia as well as local unions across the country with more than half a million members, according to the Harris-Walz campaign.

“As Vice President of the most pro-union administration ever, Kamala Harris worked with the Teamsters and other union workers to pass the historic Butch Lewis Act which has saved the pensions of over a million retirees to date,” the Wisconsin council stated in a press release Wednesday afternoon. Wisconsin Teamsters retirees were among those active in the campaign to salvage the pension fund.

The national union’s refusal to endorse can be viewed as a loss for Harris, the Democrat. The union has endorsed the Democrat in every presidential election since 2000, including Trump’s opponents, Joe Biden in 2020 and Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Each campaign sought the endorsement of the 1.3-million-member union, hoping it would buoy their candidate in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — the closely contested industrial states considered crucial to an Electoral College victory in November.

And the union’s leaders held in-person meetings with each candidate, seeking to extract policy commitments. But those commitments were not forthcoming, according to a statement from the union explaining the decision not to endorse.

“Unfortunately, neither major candidate was able to make serious commitments to our union to ensure the interests of working people are always put before Big Business,”  Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien said in the statement.

“We sought commitments from both Trump and Harris not to interfere in critical union campaigns or core Teamsters industries — and to honor our members’ right to strike — but were unable to secure those pledges.”

The Wisconsin council’s announcement contrasted sharply with O’Brien’s statement. Bill Carroll, council president, expressed confidence that Harris would work with Congress to pass the PRO Act, legislation removing barriers to union organizing, “ending  some of the most egregious union busting tactics once and for all,” Carroll said in a statement.

Carroll lashed out at Trump’s first-term record as hostile to labor and proposals in Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation agenda whose authors have included numerous Trump advisors, which he said would attack union organizing further. He tied the Wisconsin Teamsters to union supporters who have signed on to organize and campaign for Harris and Walz this fall.

O’Brien, meanwhile, encouraged the union’s politically diverse membership to remain active during the election season.

“Democrats, Republicans, and Independents proudly call our union home, and we have a duty to represent and respect every one of them,” O’Brien added. “We strongly encourage all our members to vote in the upcoming election, and to remain engaged in the political process. But this year, no candidate for President has earned the endorsement of the Teamsters’ International Union.”

However, by Wednesday night, locals in the battleground states Nevada and Michigan, in addition to Wisconsin, announced they would back Harris, along with other locals that had earlier issued endorsements. “Along with these locals, the Vice President has received the overwhelming support of organized labor because, while she has spent her entire career championing labor, Donald Trump celebrated firing striking workers and his Project 2025 agenda would fundamentally undermine the right to organize,” the campaign said in a statement.

Teamsters Joint Council 32 representing members in Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin also endorsed Harris.

Trump preferred in member poll

In an electronic poll the union released Wednesday, rank-and-file Teamsters preferred Trump, the Republican, over Harris 59.6% to 34%.

In a statement, the Trump campaign touted the poll results.

“While the Executive Board of the Teamsters is making no formal endorsement, the vast majority of rank-and-file working men and women in this important organization want President Donald Trump back in the White House,” the unsigned statement read.

The electronic poll’s results were a reversal from a previous straw poll that showed members supported President Joe Biden to Trump 44.3% to 36.3%. Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed Harris in July.

The mere question of whom Teamsters would endorse marks a significant shift toward Republicans. Unions, including Teamsters, have historically backed Democrats.

Trump’s populist appeal appears to have upset that tradition.

O’Brien had a prime-time speaking role at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this summer, though he did not endorse Trump. It was the first appearance by a Teamsters president at a Republican National Convention in the group’s 121-year history.

Harris’ running mate Walz was a teachers union member before entering politics.

This report has been updated with the endorsement of the Harris-Walz campaign by local and state Teamster organizations, including in Wisconsin.

The Wisconsin Examiner’s Erik Gunn contributed to this report.

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