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  • The Trump administration’s immigration raids are testing this sanctuary city

    The Trump administration’s immigration raids are testing this sanctuary city

    GRETNA, La. — Siomara Cruz was not troubled when she saw two Latina immigrants handcuffed earlier this month by masked immigration agents outside a restaurant in this New Orleans suburb.

    “They need to do things the proper way,” said Cruz, 59, a housewife whose parents emigrated from Cuba. “The law is the law. Every country has their law, and you’ve got to respect it.”

    Across the street, Tracey Daniels said it was “awful” to see immigration agents in an unmarked SUV detain a Latino man outside the gas station kitchen where she was preparing lunch plates of red beans, rice, and fried catfish.

    “They’re just snatching these people, snatching them away from their families,” said Daniels, 61. “Now they got people afraid to come outside, businesses closing.”

    The immigration operation, dubbed Catahoula Crunch by the Department of Homeland Security, follows similar crackdowns in Chicago, Los Angeles, Charlotte, N.C., and other cities. DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement earlier this month that 250 people had been arrested since the start of the operation.

    The mission is exposing stark divides in and around New Orleans that reflect broader national reactions to the administration’s immigration raids — and who should help enforce them.

    Across 10 national polls in November and early December, 43% approve of President Donald Trump’s handling of immigration, while 55% disapprove. The share of people who approve of Trump’s handling of immigration has dropped from about 50% in March. Last week, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, signed a law seeking to limit immigration enforcement in his state as he continues challenging the administration’s aggressive campaign there.

    New Orleans is a “sanctuary city,” where officials have historically refused to support federal immigration sweeps. But new state laws designed to penalize those who impede immigration enforcement could put officials and officers at risk if their departments do not cooperate with federal operations.

    And some surrounding police departments, including in Gretna, have signed 287(g) agreements to work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to deport people who authorities say entered the country illegally.

    Those agreements have also divided residents. Some said that immigration enforcement should fall exclusively to federal agents — that having local officers partner on the issue risks alienating immigrant communities or violating people’s rights. But police supporting the operations said they get more complaints about crime in their communities than they do about Catahoula Crunch.

    Gretna Deputy Police Chief Jason DiMarco said his 150-person force needs to serve everyone in its diverse community, but added that having so many undocumented residents in the city makes it harder to identify suspected criminals. Last month, he said, local police accompanied ICE agents on a raid that picked up four suspects, including an alleged MS-13 gang member. DiMarco noted that within the last year, Gretna police have investigated several serious crimes committed by undocumented suspects, including one who fled the country after allegedly killing an immigrant who had come to the United States legally.

    Now, because of the 287(g) agreement, officers can coordinate directly with ICE.

    “If they run across an illegal immigrant in their day-to-day patrol activities … they can actually detain the person, check their legal status, and if they aren’t here legally, we can contact ICE and they’ll come and get them,” DiMarco explained of the partnership during an interview at his office earlier this month.

    DiMarco, who is from Gretna, has watched the city of nearly 18,000 grow more diverse, to include a member of his own family who emigrated from Honduras. Like many in the New Orleans area, his family tree includes immigrants from several countries, including France, Italy, and Cuba.

    “New Orleans is the original melting pot of the world,” he said. “… People from every walk of life lived in this city. And they intertwined and managed to live together cohesively.”

    So far, DiMarco said, he hasn’t fielded any complaints about his department’s work with ICE. Even if people don’t agree, he said, officers have a duty to enforce the law, including one signed in June by Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican, that criminalized “any act intended to hinder, delay, prevent, or otherwise interfere with or thwart federal immigration enforcement efforts.”

    Anyone in violation could face jail time or fines.

    “We don’t get to pick and choose which you can and can’t enforce,” DiMarco said.

    But DiMarco also worries the ongoing raids may make immigrants even more hesitant to report crime.

    “We don’t want somebody to get victimized and get picked on, whether they be illegal or not,” he said. “Nobody deserves to be a victim of a crime.”

    Most Catahoula Crunch activity has been to the west of New Orleans in Jefferson Parish, which includes Gretna and other towns where law enforcement agencies signed 287(g) agreements. In last year’s presidential election, 55% of Jefferson Parish voted for Trump, while 82% of neighboring Orleans Parish voted for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.

    Kenner, Jefferson Parish’s most populous city, has more than 64,000 residents — about one-third of whom are Latino, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Police Chief Keith Conley said Kenner partnered with ICE at the request of local business owners, including immigrants.

    “We had members of our community pleading with us to keep our community safe,” Conley said, describing gang activity that he said had its roots in Central American countries that residents of Kenner had fled. “They saw the ways of their home countries coming here. When I have business leaders coming to me, I have to respond.”

    Conley said his city has experienced “some pretty heinous crimes” in recent years, including murder and child sexual assaults.

    “And we weren’t getting much cooperation” from federal officials, he said. “It was a failure at the top.”

    Landry requested a National Guard deployment to New Orleans in September, citing an alleged increase in violent crime, even though police and city leaders say crime has decreased and federal support is not needed. The city’s homicide rate is nearly the lowest in 50 years. Violent crimes — including murders, rapes, and robberies — have all decreased 12% through October compared with a year ago, according to New Orleans police.

    Conley and some Jefferson Parish residents, however, said they are grateful the Trump administration has sent federal agents into their region. Outside a Lowe’s hardware store in neighboring Metairie, where immigration agents were spotted this month, Howard Jones, 71, said he was supportive of local law enforcement agencies joining the operation.

    “I’m all for people being deported who are not here legally,” said Jones, a retired data warehouse analytics consultant and self-described moderate conservative who voted for Trump the last three presidential elections.

    But Gloria Rodriguez, 38, a Mexican immigrant who works in construction, said she did not like seeing local police involved. Though she is a legal permanent resident and her husband and 18-year-old son who were in the truck with her are U.S. citizens, they carried their passports and immigration paperwork in case they were stopped by federal agents.

    “They should not cooperate with immigration, just do their job and get criminals out of the streets instead of hardworking people,” Rodriguez said, adding that she has been troubled by reports of U.S. citizens being caught up in the immigration crackdown.

    “What if they take us?” she said.

    Unlike their counterparts in Gretna, Kenner, and other cities with 287(g) agreements, New Orleans officials have resisted cooperating with the Trump administration’s efforts.

    New Orleans police adopted a policy that prohibits officers from assisting federal immigration enforcement except under certain circumstances, such as a threat to public safety. The policy resulted from a 2013 federal consent decree to address a history of unconstitutional practices, including racial profiling. Last month, a federal judge ended the consent decree, but Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said last month that immigration remained a civil issue, adding that police would not enforce civil laws but instead ensure that immigrants “are not going to get hurt and our community is not in danger.”

    Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, a Republican, has since encouraged Kirkpatrick to have officers “fully cooperate” with federal immigration officials.

    Murrill warned that New Orleans police policies “appear to conflict with current state law,” referencing this year’s statute that says thwarting federal immigration efforts could be considered obstruction of justice.

    Kirkpatrick did not respond to a request for comment, but a department spokesperson said in a statement this month that “NOPD is not involved in, informed of, or responsible for any enforcement activity conducted by ICE, DHS, or U.S. Border Patrol.”

    The police department’s role, the statement added, “is to enforce state and municipal criminal laws. We do not handle or participate in federal immigration enforcement.”

    Murrill is also embroiled in a legal battle with the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office, which operates city jails under a federal consent decree and has refused to cooperate with ICE.

    Chief Border Patrol Agent Gregory Bovino has appeared in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Kenner, and other areas with agents, where he has been met with protests and signs of support. Anti-ICE protesters confronted Bovino and temporarily shut down a New Orleans City Council meeting this month, but other residents posed for photos with Bovino while holding a homemade sign that read: “Thank you ICE.”

    New Orleans Mayor-elect Helena Moreno is already pressing federal officials to prove they are targeting only immigrants with violent criminal histories. Moreno, a Democrat who will be the city’s first Latina mayor, will not take office until Jan. 12. But she said she is concerned Catahoula Crunch is creating a “culture of fear” and forcing businesses to close and workers to stay home. She created a website advising residents of their rights, and the city council launched an online portal where they can report alleged abuse by federal officers.

    Some New Orleans business owners posted “ICE Keep Out” signs this month, while others said they worried that doing so could make them targets. Antoine’s Restaurant in the French Quarter held meetings with employees — all documented — to address their fears after seeing reports of masked immigration agents conducting raids in armored vehicles.

    “It’s giving a lot of people anxiety, including our employees,” said Lisa Blount, whose family owns the restaurant, as she stood near the packed bar. “We are in a busy season, an important, celebratory time in New Orleans. We’re not going to let them bully their way in.”

    A few streets away, Dominican immigrant Diomedes Beñalo was unloading gold chairs for a wedding and said he wished local police would do more to protect residents’ rights. He questioned why federal agents are hiding their faces.

    “That seems like a thing that can make them violate people’s rights,” said Beñalo, 40, adding that undocumented immigrants’ civil rights should not be violated.

    “The police should make sure that doesn’t happen,” he said. “That’s what we pay police to do.”

  • Coast Guard enacts policy calling swastikas, nooses ‘potentially divisive’

    Coast Guard enacts policy calling swastikas, nooses ‘potentially divisive’

    The U.S. Coast Guard has allowed a new workplace harassment policy to take effect that downgrades the definition of swastikas and nooses from overt hate symbols to “potentially divisive” despite an uproar over the new language that forced the service’s top officer to declare that both would remain prohibited.

    The new policy went into effect Monday, according to written correspondence that the Coast Guard provided to Congress this week, a copy of which was reviewed by the Washington Post. The manual is posted online and makes clear that its previous version “is cancelled.”

    Spokespeople for the Coast Guard and the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the military service, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The symbols issue was expected to come up at a House committee hearing Tuesday.

    The Post was first to report on the Coast Guard’s plan to revise its workplace harassment policy last month. The Trump administration called the article “false,” but within hours of its publication the service’s acting commandant, Adm. Kevin Lunday, issued a memo forcefully denouncing symbols such as swastikas and nooses, and emphasizing that both remain prohibited.

    Lunday said at the time that his Nov. 20 memo would supersede any other language. It was not immediately clear Tuesday why publication of the new harassment policy was not paused so the “potentially divisive” language used to describe swastikas and nooses could be removed to align with Lunday’s directive.

    Lunday has been the Coast Guard’s acting commandant for several months. He was elevated to the role after the Trump administration ousted his predecessor, Adm. Linda Fagan, citing among other things her “excessive focus” on “non-mission-critical” diversity and inclusion initiatives. The Senate is expected to hold Lunday’s confirmation vote later this week.

    The Coast Guard’s policy softening the definition of a swastika — an emblem of fascism and white supremacy inextricably linked to the Nazis’ extermination of millions of Jews and the deaths of more than 400,000 U.S. troops who died fighting in World War II — comes as antisemitism is on the rise globally. At least 15 people were killed over the weekend at a Hanukkah celebration in Australia.

    Deborah Lipstadt, a historian who served as President Joe Biden’s special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, said the Coast Guard’s decision to approve the change was “terrifying.”

    “What’s really disturbing is, at this moment, when there is a whitewashing of Nazis amongst some on the far right, and Churchill is painted as the devil incarnate when it comes to World War II, to take the swastika and call it ‘potentially divisive’ is hard to fathom,” Lipstadt said. “Most importantly, the swastika was the symbol hundreds of thousands of Americans fought and gave their lives to defeat. It is not ‘potentially divisive,’ it’s a hate symbol.”

    Citing court documents, Lipstadt noted that Unite the Right marchers in Charlottesville, Va., while planning a 2017 demonstration that left a woman dead and 19 others injured, had urged one another not to use swastikas “because it will paint us as Nazis.”

    “When far-right protesters in Charlottesville were strategic enough to recognize the swastika would do them no good and now we have an arm of the U.S. military saying, ‘It’s not so bad,’ that’s frightening,” Lipstadt said.

  • Palantir CEO Alex Karp was raised in a liberal household outside Philly. Now he’s a top Trump administration contractor

    Palantir CEO Alex Karp was raised in a liberal household outside Philly. Now he’s a top Trump administration contractor

    In the first year of President Donald Trump’s administration, Palantir Technologies has secured major contracts to compile data on Americans, assist the president’s federal immigration enforcement, and play a key role at the height of the Department of Government Efficiency’s efforts to shrink the federal government.

    But just a few years ago, it seemed unlikely that billionaire Alex Karp, CEO of Palantir — a publicly traded data software company that Karp described in 2011 as “deeply involved in supporting progressive values and causes” — would ever strike such deals with Trump.

    Karp grew up in the Philadelphia area in a politically left-leaning household and was critical of Trump during his first White House term. But over time, and catalyzed by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, his opinion and habits shifted. Quickly, he went from being a major Democratic Party donor to writing a big check to Trump’s 2024 inaugural committee.

    As of May, Palantir has received more than $113 million in federal spending. The company, which builds software to analyze and integrate large data streams for major companies, including defense contractors, sees itself as a beneficial power, but critics are concerned about data being misused or people being surveilled in violation of civil liberties, according to the New York Times’ The Daily podcast.

    And some employees are opposed to the optics of Palantir carrying out the president’s controversial political agenda.

    Here’s what to know about Karp and Palantir.

    What is Palantir?

    Palantir is a publicly traded data analytics software company that was cofounded by Karp, Joe Lonsdale, Nathan Gettings, Stephen Cohen, the company’s president, and Peter Thiel, a billionaire tech investor and cofounder of PayPal. Thiel is a libertarian and is a staunch supporter of right-wing ideology.

    Palantir, based in Denver, grew out of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States and a desire to help improve national security.

    According to The Daily podcast guest Michael Steinberger, who spent six years interviewing Karp for a book, one of Palantir’s major contractors has been the CIA, which was also one of its early investors. Palantir’s technological products also played a key role in assisting Ukraine during the early months of Russia’s war on the country.

    The company started its partnership with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during former President Barack Obama’s administration, but that contract did not draw controversy until Trump’s first term in the White House, when his immigration crackdown became a key priority, Steinberger, a contributing writer to the Times, said.

    This summer, it was reported that Palantir landed a $10 billion software and data contract with the U.S. Army, months after reports showed Trump tapped the company to compile data on Americans, prompting scrutiny from privacy advocates, labor rights organizations, and student unions.

    Alex Karp, Palantir CEO, has roots in Philadelphia

    Karp was born in New York but grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs, he told the World Economic Forum in 2023. He went on to attend Central High School.

    As Steinberger describes it, “He’s a Philly kid. He grew up in Philadelphia. Grew up in a very left-wing household.” Karp is the son of a Jewish pediatrician and a Black artist. And he’s dyslexic, Steinberger said.

    “It’s like I have this weirdly structured brain,” Karp said in an interview with Steinberger. “The motor is just structured differently.”

    Karp and his younger brother spent time going to antiwar and antinuclear protests, and the older Karp attended Haverford College, Steinberger said. There, he closely identified with his Black heritage, getting involved with Black student affairs and organizing an antiracism conference at Yale University.

    Karp insists that he did not put much effort into his schooling at Haverford, but Steinberger, who was a classmate of Karp’s in college, appears to think otherwise.

    “I think his path in life would suggest otherwise. I think the library saw a lot more of him than it did of me, which may go some way to explaining why he became a billionaire and I did not,” Steinberger said.

    After Haverford, Karp attended Stanford Law School, where he met and became close with Thiel — whose political views were the opposite of Karp’s. Years later, Karp and Thiel reunited after 9/11. Thiel was looking for a CEO for Palantir.

    “Thiel interviews a couple of people for the CEO position, but then he and the other people involved in founding Palantir realized Karp is probably the right guy for the job,” Steinberger said.

    In an interview with Steinberger, Karp admitted that his background made him an unlikely choice for CEO.

    “I wasn’t trained in business. I didn’t know anything about start-up culture. I didn’t know anything about building a business. I didn’t know anything about financing a business,” Karp said.

    From a Philly liberal to a staunch Trump defender

    In Steinberger’s telling, Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, gave rise to a political environment that would solidify Karp’s rightward shift.

    Over time, Karp had become discouraged with the left’s criticisms of Palantir, but that reached a fever pitch when Palantir offered its services to Israel as the country began its military invasion of Gaza amid protests, including internal dissent from employees, Steinberger said.

    Steinberger said Karp — once a protester himself — became increasingly troubled by college campus protests against Israel’s war in Gaza.

    “He thinks the protests are riddled with antisemitism,” Steinberger said. “They’re very dangerous and he sees this as reflective of a broader rot in his mind on the left.”

    Karp continued to back then-President Joe Biden, who was supportive of the Israeli government, but in December 2023, Karp posed a sort of ultimatum at the Reagan National Defense Forum in California regarding liberals’ stance on Israel and a desire for the Democratic Party to denounce the college campus protests.

    “I’m one of the largest donors to the Democratic Party and, quite frankly, I’m calling it out, and I’m giving to Republicans. If you keep up with this behavior, I’m going to change. A lot of people like me are going to change. We have to really call this out. It is completely beyond the bounds,” Karp said.

    Over time, Karp started donating more “aggressively” to Republicans, Steinberger said, and made clear his support for Trump. Karp wrote a $1 million check to the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee and later began publicly praising Trump on national security.

    Karp, for his part, still thinks of himself as a progressive.

    “I didn’t shift my politics,” Karp said. “The political parties have shifted their politics. The idea that what’s being called progressive is any way progressive is a complete farce.”

  • Susie Wiles, White House chief of staff, criticizes Bondi and opines on Trump in Vanity Fair

    Susie Wiles, White House chief of staff, criticizes Bondi and opines on Trump in Vanity Fair

    WASHINGTON — Susie Wiles, President Donald Trump’s understated but influential chief of staff, criticized Attorney General Pam Bondi’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case and offered an unvarnished take on her boss and those in his orbit in interviews published Tuesday in Vanity Fair that sent the West Wing into damage control.

    The startlingly candid remarks from Wiles, the first woman ever to hold her current post, included describing the president as someone with “an alcoholic’s personality” and Vice President JD Vance as a calculating “conspiracy theorist.” The observations from Wiles, who rarely speaks publicly given the behind-the-scenes nature of her job running the White House, prompted questions about whether the chief of staff might be on her way out.

    Wiles pushed back after the piece’s publication, describing it as a “hit piece” that lacked context, and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the “entire administration is grateful for her steady leadership and united fully behind her.”

    As for Trump, he told the New York Post that he had not read the piece and, when asked if he retained confidence in Wiles, said: “Oh, she’s fantastic.”

    Trump also agreed that he does have the personality of an alcoholic, describing himself as having “a very possessive personality.”

    A senior White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe internal thinking, dismissed the notion that Wiles might leave because of the profile, saying if top staffers were rattled by negative news coverage, “none of us would work here.”

    Wiles’ candor was so unusual that Rahm Emanuel, who served as chief of staff to former President Barack Obama, said that when he first saw her comments, he thought he was reading a spoof. He said he could not recall a chief of staff giving such a candid interview — at least “not while you hold the title.”

    Emanuel said the role often involves public remarks that promote the president’s agenda, but not sharing personal views about “everything, everybody” in the White House.

    His advice to Wiles: “Next time there’s a meal, bring a food taster.”

    Candor from the ‘ice maiden’ who stays behind the scenes

    The interviews with Vanity Fair were themselves uncharacteristic for Wiles, who cut her reputation as someone who brought order to the president’s chaotic style and shunned the spotlight so much that at Trump’s 2024 election night victory party, she repeatedly shook her head and avoided the microphone as Trump tried to coax her to speak to the crowd.

    “Susie likes to stay sort of in the back,” said Trump, who has repeatedly referred to her as the “ice maiden.”

    Most members of his cabinet, along with former and current White House officials, posted statements praising Wiles and criticizing the media as dishonest.

    But neither Wiles nor the members of the administration who came to her defense on Tuesday disputed any details in the two-part profile, including areas where she conceded mistakes and seemed to contradict the administration’s official reasoning for its bombing of alleged drug boats in the waters off the coast of Venezuela.

    Though the Trump administration has said the campaign is about stopping drugs headed to the U.S., Wiles appeared to confirm that the campaign is part of a push to oust Venezuela’s authoritarian leader, Nicolas Maduro, saying Trump “wants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro cries uncle.”

    Wiles pushed back but without any denials

    After the comments were published, Wiles disparaged the Vanity Fair report as a “disingenuously framed hit piece on me and the finest President, White House staff, and Cabinet in history.”

    “Significant context was disregarded and much of what I, and others, said about the team and the President was left out of the story,” she wrote in a social media post. “I assume, after reading it, that this was done to paint an overwhelmingly chaotic and negative narrative about the President and our team.”

    Trump, in an interview with the New York Post, said he was not offended by Wiles’ remarks, including her description of him as someone with “an alcoholic’s personality,” which she said she recognizes from her father, the famous sports broadcaster Pat Summerall.

    The president, who is a teetotaler and had a brother who struggled with alcohol, said: “I’ve said that many times about myself. I’m fortunate I’m not a drinker. If I did, I could very well, because I’ve said that — what’s the word? Not possessive — possessive and addictive-type personality. Oh, I’ve said it many times, many times before.”

    Vance, speaking in Pennsylvania on Tuesday about the president’s economic agenda, said that he had not read the Vanity Fair piece. But he defended Wiles and joked that “I only believe in the conspiracy theories that are true.”

    “Susie Wiles, we have our disagreements. We agree on much more than we disagree, but I’ve never seen her be disloyal to the president of the United States, and that makes her the best White House chief of staff that I think the president could ask for,” Vance said.

    He said his takeaway was that the administration “should be giving fewer interviews to mainstream media outlets.”

    The chief of staff criticizes the attorney general

    Wiles, over the series of interviews, described the president behind the scenes very much as he presents himself in public: an intense figure who thinks in broad strokes yet is often not concerned with the details of process and policy. She added, though, that he has not been as angry or temperamental as is often suggested, even as she affirmed his ruthlessness and determination to achieve retribution against those he considers his political enemies.

    Wiles described much of her job as channeling Trump’s energy, whims, and desired policy outcomes — including managing his desire for vengeance against his political opponents, anyone he blames for his 2020 electoral defeat, and those who pursued criminal cases against him after his first term.

    On Epstein, Wiles told the magazine that she had underestimated the scandal involving the disgraced financier, but she sharply criticized how Bondi managed the case and the public’s expectations.

    Wiles faulted Bondi’s handling of the matter, going back to earlier in the year when she distributed binders to a group of social media influencers that included no new information about Epstein. That led to even more calls from Trump’s base for the files to be released.

    “I think she completely whiffed on appreciating that that was the very targeted group that cared about this,” Wiles said of Bondi. “First she gave them binders full of nothingness. And then she said that the witness list, or the client list, was on her desk. There is no client list, and it sure as hell wasn’t on her desk.”

    Bondi did not address the criticism when she released a statement supporting Wiles.

    Wiles also said at one point that Trump’s tariffs had been more painful than expected. She conceded some mistakes in Trump’s mass deportation program and suggested that the president’s retribution campaign against his perceived political enemies has gone beyond what she initially wanted.

  • Hegseth says he won’t publicly release video of boat that killed survivors in the Caribbean

    Hegseth says he won’t publicly release video of boat that killed survivors in the Caribbean

    WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Tuesday the Pentagon will not publicly release unedited video of a U.S. military strike that killed two survivors of an initial attack on a boat allegedly carrying cocaine in the Caribbean, as questions mounted in Congress about the incident and the overall buildup of U.S. military forces near Venezuela.

    Hegseth said members of the Armed Services Committee in the House and Senate would have an opportunity this week to review the video, but did not say whether all members of Congress would be allowed to see it as well.

    “Of course we’re not going to release a top secret, full, unedited video of that to the general public,” Hegseth told reporters as he exited a closed-door briefing with senators.

    President Donald Trump’s cabinet members overseeing national security were on Capitol Hill on Tuesday to defend a campaign that has killed at least 95 people in 25 known strikes on vessels in international waters in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. Overall, they defended the campaign as a success, saying it has prevented drugs from reaching American shores, and they pushed back on concerns that it is stretching the bounds of lawful warfare.

    Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters the campaign is a “counter-drug mission” that is “focused on dismantling the infrastructure of these terrorist organizations that are operating in our hemisphere, undermining the security of Americans, killing Americans, poisoning Americans.”

    Lawmakers have been focused on the Sept. 2 attack on two survivors as they sift through the rationale for a broader U.S. military buildup in the region. On the eve of the briefings, the U.S. military said it attacked three more boats believed to have been smuggling drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing eight people.

    Lawmakers left in the dark about Trump’s goal with Venezuela

    Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) said Hegseth had come “empty-handed” to the briefing, without a pledge to more broadly release the video of the Sept. 2 strike.

    “If they can’t be transparent on this, how can you trust their transparency on all the other issues swirling about in the Caribbean?” Schumer said.

    Senators on both sides of the aisle said the officials left them in the dark about Trump’s goals when it comes to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro or sending U.S. forces directly to the South American nation.

    “I want to address the question: Is it the goal to take him out? If it’s not the goal to take him out, you’re making a mistake,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), who defended the legality of the campaign and said he wanted to see Maduro removed from power.

    The U.S. has deployed warships, flown fighter jets near Venezuelan airspace, and seized an oil tanker as part of its campaign against Maduro, who has insisted the real purpose of the U.S. military operations is to force him from office. Maduro said on a weekly state television show Monday that his government still does not know the whereabouts of the tanker’s crew. He criticized the United Nations for not speaking out against what he described as an “act of piracy” against “a private ship carrying Venezuelan oil.”

    In a social media post Tuesday night, Trump said he is ordering a blockade of all “sanctioned oil tankers” entering and leaving Venezuela. Trump alleged Venezuela was using oil to fund drug trafficking and other crimes and vowed to escalate the military buildup.

    Trump’s Republican administration has not sought any authorization from Congress for action against Venezuela. The go-it-alone approach has led to problematic military actions, experts say, none more so than the strike that killed two people who had climbed atop part of a boat that had been partially destroyed in an initial attack.

    “If it’s not a war against Venezuela, then we’re using armed force against civilians who are just committing crimes,” said John Yoo, a Berkeley Law professor who helped craft the George W. Bush administration’s legal arguments and justification for aggressive interrogation after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. “Then this question, this worry, becomes really pronounced. You know, you’re shooting civilians. There’s no military purpose for it.”

    Yet for the first several months, Congress received little more than a trickle of information about why or how the U.S. military was conducting the operations. At times, lawmakers have learned of strikes from social media after the Pentagon posted videos of boats bursting into flames.

    Hegseth now faces language included in an annual military policy bill that threatens to withhold a quarter of his travel budget if the Pentagon does not provide unedited video of the strikes to the House and Senate Committees on Armed Services.

    The demand for release of video footage

    For some, the controversy over the footage demonstrates the flawed rationale behind the entire campaign.

    “The American public ought to see it. I think shooting unarmed people floundering in the water, clinging to wreckage, is not who we are as a people,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.), who has been an outspoken critic of the campaign.

    But senators were told the Trump administration will not release all of the Sept. 2 attack footage because it would reveal U.S. military practices on intelligence gathering, said Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. She said the reasoning ignores the fact that the military has already released footage of the initial attack.

    “They just don’t want to reveal the part that suggests war crimes,” she said.

    Some GOP lawmakers are determined to dig into the details of the Sept. 2 attack. Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley, who ordered the second strike, was expected back on Capitol Hill on Wednesday for classified briefings with the Senate and House Armed Services Committees. The committees would also review video of the Sept. 2 strikes, Hegseth said.

    Still, many Republicans emerged from the briefings backing the campaign, defending their legality and praising the “exquisite intelligence” that is used to identify targets. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) called the strike in question “certainly appropriate” and “necessary to protect the United States and our interests.”

  • Pentagon plan calls for major power shifts within U.S. military

    Pentagon plan calls for major power shifts within U.S. military

    Senior Pentagon officials are preparing a plan to downgrade several of the U.S. military’s major headquarters and shift the balance of power among its top generals, in a major consolidation sought by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, people familiar with the matter said.

    If adopted, the plan would usher in some of the most significant changes at the military’s highest ranks in decades, in part following through on Hegseth’s promise to break the status quo and slash the number of four-star generals in the military. It would reduce in prominence the headquarters of U.S. Central Command, U.S. European Command, and U.S. Africa Command by placing them under the control of a new organization known as U.S. International Command, according to five people familiar with the matter.

    Joint Chiefs Chairman Dan Caine is expected to detail the proposal, which had not previously been reported, for Hegseth in the coming days. Such moves would complement other efforts by the administration to shift resources from the Middle East and Europe and focus foremost on expanding military operations in the Western Hemisphere, these people said. Like others interviewed for this report, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the effort before it is conveyed to the secretary.

    Hegseth’s team said in a statement that it would not comment on “rumored internal discussions” or “pre-decisional matters.” Any insinuation that there is a divide among officials over the issue is “completely false — everyone in the Department is working to achieve the same goal under this administration,” the statement said.

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    The Pentagon has shared few, if any, details with Congress, a lack of communication that has perturbed members of the Republican-led Senate and House Armed Services Committees, according to two people familiar with how the panels have prepared for the proposal. Top officers at the commands involved are awaiting more details as well, officials said.

    The plan also calls for realigning U.S. Southern Command and U.S. Northern Command, which oversee military operations throughout the Western Hemisphere, under a new headquarters to be known as U.S. Americas Command, or Americom, people familiar with the matter said. That concept was reported earlier this year by NBC News.

    Pentagon officials also discussed creating a U.S. Arctic Command that would report to Americom, but that idea appears to have been abandoned, people familiar with the matter said.

    Combined, the moves would reduce the number of top military headquarters — known as combatant commands — from 11 to eight while cutting the number of four-star generals and admirals who report directly to Hegseth. Other remaining combatant commands would be U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, U.S. Cyber Command, U.S. Special Operations Command, U.S. Space Command, U.S. Strategic Command, and U.S. Transportation Command.

    Those familiar with the plan said it aligns with the Trump administration’s national security strategy, released this month, which declares that the “days of the United States propping up the entire world order like Atlas are over.”

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    The proposal was organized by the Pentagon’s Joint Staff under the supervision of Caine, and is due to be shared with Hegseth as soon as this week as the preferred course of action among senior military officials. It grew from a request made by Hegseth in the spring to look for ways to improve how troops are commanded and controlled, a senior defense official familiar with the discussion said, adding that Hegseth has kept in touch with Caine about the issue over the last several months.

    Any changes would need the approval of Hegseth and President Donald Trump. The moves would come in the Pentagon’s Unified Command Plan, which lays out the roles of the military’s major headquarters.

    Lawmakers have taken the extraordinary step of requiring the Pentagon to submit a detailed blueprint that describes the realignment’s potential costs and impacts on America’s alliances. The measure, included in Congress’ annual defense policy bill, would withhold money to enact the effort until at least 60 days after the Pentagon provides lawmakers with those materials.

    The bill has cleared the House and is expected to pass the Senate this week.

    The senior defense official said the proposed realignment is meant to speed decision-making and adaptation among military commanders. “Decay” had been observed in how the U.S. military commands and controls troops, he added, suggesting that the need for sweeping change is urgent.

    “Time ain’t on our side, man,” the senior defense official said, describing internal conversations around the plan. “The saying here is, ‘If not us, who, and if not now, when?’”

    The potential reorganization comes as Hegseth has begun broader efforts to cull the number of generals and admirals across the military. He also has fired or otherwise forced out more than 20 senior officers, threatened others with polygraph tests to determine whether they have leaked information to the news media, and told those remaining that if they do not like the administration’s policies they should “do the honorable thing and resign.”

    Chuck Hagel, who served as defense secretary during the Obama administration and as a Republican member of the Senate before that, expressed concerns about the Trump administration’s ambitions. There are different dynamics, needs, and security threats throughout the globe, he said.

    “The world isn’t getting any less complicated,” Hagel said in an interview. “You want commands that have the capability of heading off problems before they become big problems, and I think you lose some of that when you unify or consolidate too many.”

    Senior military officials considered about two dozen other concepts, the senior defense official said. At least one discussion called for a reduction to six total combatant commands. Under that plan, Special Operations Command, Space Command, and Cyber Command would be downgraded and placed under the control of a new U.S. Global Command, said other officials familiar with the discussion.

    Caine is expected to share at least two other courses of action with Hegseth, people familiar with the matter said. One concept calls for creating two commands to house all of the others, with all major geographic organizations such as Central Command and European Command placed under the control of an entity that would be called Operational Command. Other major headquarters, such as Transportation Command and Space Command, would fall under an organization called Support Command.

    One proposal suggested the creation of a new headquarters unit, Joint Task Force War, to be based at the Pentagon. It would focus on planning and strategy when the United States was not at war, and be capable of controlling forces anywhere in the world when there was a conflict, people familiar with the matter said.

    The idea didn’t “test well” in exercises with military officials and appears unlikely to be adopted, the senior defense official said. Top military officials expressed concerns that such an organization would not possess the same regional expertise and relationships inherent to the military’s current construct.

    Even if you have “some of your best people” in such a task force, the senior official said, “you don’t have a fingertip feel” for what is occurring in a region. A second official said it seemed “very confusing” to have top commanders in a region prepare for a conflict there, only to hand those plans over to another commander when something occurred.

    Another plan sought to reorganize the military by domain, with operations organized and led by whether they occurred on land or in air, sea, space, or cyberspace, people familiar with the matter said. The idea had supporters in the Space Force but had few other proponents, people familiar with the matter said. It also limited the Marine Corps’ influence, with it falling under the control of the Navy Department even as the other branches of service were elevated.

    Military officials involved in the reorganization effort also considered whether to elevate the chairman’s role to allow him to command forces, rather than serving as the senior military adviser to both the president and the defense secretary. That could have occurred through the Joint Task Force War framework, two officials said, but the concept seemed murky.

    The idea also could have been complicated by the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986, landmark legislation that reorganized the military and defined the chairman’s role. Under the law, the chairman is considered the “principal” military adviser to the president, the defense secretary, and other senior officials. Operations are controlled through a chain of command that runs from combatant commanders to the defense secretary and then to the president.

  • Trump administration says White House ballroom construction is a matter of national security

    Trump administration says White House ballroom construction is a matter of national security

    WASHINGTON — The Trump administration said Monday in a court filing that the president’s White House ballroom construction project must continue for reasons of national security.

    The filing came in response to a lawsuit filed last Friday by the National Trust for Historic Preservation asking a federal judge to halt the project until it goes through multiple independent reviews and wins approval from Congress.

    In its filing, the administration included a declaration from the deputy director of the U.S. Secret Service saying more work on the site of the former White House East Wing is still needed to meet the agency’s “safety and security requirements.” The administration has offered to share classified details with the judge in an in-person setting without the plaintiffs present.

    The government’s response to the lawsuit offers the most comprehensive look yet at the ballroom construction project, including a window into how it was so swiftly approved by the Trump administration bureaucracy and its expanding scope.

    The filings assert that final plans for the ballroom have yet to be completed despite the continuing demolition and other work to prepare the site for construction. Below-ground work on the site continues, wrote John Stanwich, the National Park Service’s liaison to the White House, and work on the foundations is set to begin in January. Above-ground construction “is not anticipated to begin until April 2026, at the earliest,” he wrote.

    The National Trust for Historic Preservation did not immediately respond to email messages seeking comment.

    The privately funded group last week asked the U.S. District Court to block Trump’s ballroom addition until it goes through comprehensive design reviews, environmental assessments, public comments, and congressional debate and ratification.

    Trump had the East Wing torn down in October as part of the project to build an estimated $300 million, 90,000-square-foot ballroom before his term ends in 2029.

    The administration argues in the filing that the plaintiff’s claims about the demolition of the East Wing are “moot” because the tear-down cannot be undone. The administration also argues that claims about future construction are “unripe” because the plans are not final.

    The administration also contends that the National Trust for Historic Preservation cannot establish “irreparable harm” because above-ground construction is not expected until April. It argues that the reviews sought in the lawsuit, consultation with the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts, “will soon be underway without this Court’s involvement.”

    “Even if Plaintiff could overcome the threshold barriers of mootness, ripeness, and lack of standing, Plaintiff would fail to meet each of the stringent requirements necessary to obtain such extraordinary preliminary relief,” the administration said.

    Trump’s ballroom project has prompted criticism in the historic preservation and architectural communities, and among his political adversaries, but the lawsuit is the most tangible effort thus far to alter or stop his plans for an addition that itself would be nearly twice the size of the White House before the East Wing was torn down.

    A hearing in the case was scheduled today in federal court in Washington.

  • Top Pennsylvania Republicans are projecting relative calm amid 2026 national party panic

    Top Pennsylvania Republicans are projecting relative calm amid 2026 national party panic

    The same week Republican National Committee chair Joe Gruters said history predicted “almost certain defeat” for his party in the 2026 midterms, Pennsylvania Republicans partying in Midtown Manhattan projected relative calm about the election cycle.

    Gruters, President Donald Trump’s handpicked chair to run the party, said on a conservative radio station last week: “It’s not a secret. There’s no sugarcoating it. It’s a pending, looming disaster heading our way. We are facing almost certain defeat.”

    He added that the goal is to win and he “liked our chances in the midterms,” but noted “only three times in the last hundred years has the incumbent party been successful winning a midterm.”

    Pennsylvania could decide which party controls the U.S. House next year, as Democrats eye four congressional districts that Republicans recently flipped while the GOP fights to maintain its majority.

    But Pennsylvania Republicans in New York City for the annual Pennsylvania Society glitzy gathering of politicos last weekend had a less hair-on-fire view.

    “At this point when I was running [for Senate in 2024], the betting market said there was a 3% chance I was going to win,” Sen. Dave McCormick (R., Pa.) said after addressing a bipartisan audience at the Pennsylvania Manufacturer’s Association luncheon on Saturday.

    “We’re a million miles from Election Day, and we’ve got a great track record of things to talk about and a great vision for how the president’s policies are going to make life better for working families,” McCormick said. “We just got to go out and make that message happen, but also continue to make the policies that are going to make that a reality happen.”

    The political environment was, of course, far more favorable to Republicans in 2024, when Trump won Pennsylvania by a larger margin than he did in 2016. But with Republicans in power and popular Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro on the ballot for reelection, the headwinds in 2026 in the Keystone State are different.

    Pennsylvania GOP chair Greg Rothman, in an interview outside the PMA event on Saturday, called Shapiro “one of the greatest politicians of my generation” but noted that upsets have happened across various political environments in state history.

    “Anything can happen and the voters are smart, and all I can do is prepare the party to ride the waves and ignore the crashes, but I’m optimistic,” he added.

    Shapiro will likely face a GOP challenge from State Treasurer Stacy Garrity, who is a popular politician in her own right and holds the record for receiving the most votes of any candidate for statewide office in Pennsylvania.

    Meanwhile, Rothman predicted that the four Pennsylvania congressional incumbents running for reelection in swing districts will sink or swim based on how Trump and his policies land with voters come November.

    “They will be judged by the national economy and by immigration,” he said, and by Trump’s ability to end some international conflicts.

    But U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan, a GOP incumbent running for reelection in Pennsylvania’s Eighth Congressional District, which includes Scranton, had a more local view of how to win in 2026.

    “Everything about our job as a member of Congress is about northeastern Pa.,” Bresnahan said.

    “Northeastern Pennsylvania has always been our North Star. We know our district. We are out in our district. We’ve done over 250 public events. Our constituency case work is, in my opinion, one of the best offices in the country.”

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    Bresnahan appeared at a rally with Trump in Mount Pocono last week. He was also one of just 20 House Republicans to sign a successful discharge petition to force a vote for collective bargaining to be restored for federal workers.

    “At the end of the day that might have been going against party leadership, but it was what’s right for northeastern Pennsylvania,” he said.

    Democrats have begun a full court press. That was evident at the Pennsylvania Society, where attendees seen mingling with other politicians included: Janelle Stelson, who is running for a second time against U.S. Rep. Scott Perry in the 10th Congressional District, as well as firefighter Bob Brooks and former federal prosecutor Ryan Croswell, both of whom are running for the Democratic nomination to take on U.S. Rep. Ryan Mackenzie in the Seventh.

    Bresnahan’s challenger, Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti, also attended the soiree and walked through the Rainbow Room atop Rockefeller Center with U.S. Sen. Chris Coons (D., Del.) on Friday night. Coons said the time is now for Democrats to get involved in these races.

    “Given the margin, if there were to be four new Democrats in the House this cycle, as there were in 2018, that’d be the difference maker for the country,” Coons added.

    Staff writer Gillian McGoldrick contributed to this article.

  • Why hasn’t Trump sent troops to Philly, the city where ‘bad things happen’? Everyone has a theory.

    Why hasn’t Trump sent troops to Philly, the city where ‘bad things happen’? Everyone has a theory.

    In the last six months, President Donald Trump has sent troops, immigration agents, or both to Democratic cities from coast to coast. The list includes Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, Memphis, Portland, Ore., Charlotte, N.C., New Orleans, and Minneapolis.

    But not Philadelphia.

    The city that seemed an obvious early target, condemned by Trump as the place where “bad things happen,” has somehow escaped his wrath. At least so far.

    That has sparked speculation from City Hall to Washington over why the president would ignore the staunchly Democratic city with which he has famously feuded. Here we offer some insight into whether that’s likely to change.

    Why has Philadelphia been spared when smaller, less prominent cities have not?

    Nobody knows. Or at least nobody knows for sure. But lots of people in government and immigration circles have ideas.

    There’s the weather theory, that it’s hard for immigration agents who depend on cars to make arrests in cities that get winter snow and ice. Except, of course, the administration just launched Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in Minneapolis, which gets 54 inches of snow a year.

    Then there’s the swing-state theory, that Trump is staying out of Philadelphia because Pennsylvania ranks among the handful of states that can tip presidential elections. But that doesn’t explain Trump’s surge into North Carolina, where he sent immigration forces last month.

    While the Tar Heel State voted for Trump three times, elections there can be decided by fewer than 3 percentage points.

    U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle, a Democrat whose North and Northeast Philadelphia district includes many immigrants, suggested a blue-state theory, that Trump has mostly targeted cities in states that voted for Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election. But Boyle acknowledged that North Carolina and Tennessee are exceptions.

    “It could just be that they’re working their way down the list,” Boyle said.

    Has Mayor Cherelle L. Parker had a hand in keeping troops out of Philadelphia?

    It depends on whom you talk to.

    For months she has passed up opportunities to publicly criticize the president, turning aside questions about his intentions by saying she is focused on the needs of Philadelphia. Some believe her more passive approach has kept the city out of the White House crosshairs.

    People close to the mayor point out that big-city mayors who land on the president’s bad side have faced big consequences. For instance, in Los Angeles, Mayor Karen Bass frequently clashed with Trump ― and faced a National Guard deployment.

    Some point out that Parker has good relationships with Republicans who are friendly with the president, including U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick of Pennsylvania, who has praised the mayor on multiple occasions.

    On the other hand, some in the city’s political class ― especially those already skeptical of Parker ― say the suggestion that she has shielded the city gives her too much credit.

    One strategist posited that the lack of overt federal action has more to do with Trump’s trying to protect a razor-thin Republican majority in the House, and that targeting Philadelphia could anger voters in the Bucks County and Lehigh Valley districts where Republicans hold seats.

    What does Trump say about his plans for Philadelphia?

    Not much. Or at least nothing specific.

    During a raucous campaign-style rally Tuesday night in Northeast Pennsylvania, Trump made no mention of his intentions ― even as he railed against immigration and accused Democrats of making the state a “dumping ground” for immigrants.

    Trump suggested there should be a “permanent pause” on immigration from “hellholes like Afghanistan, Haiti, Somalia and many other countries,” declared Washington the safest it has been in decades, and praised ICE as “incredible.”

    He also reminisced about hosting the Philadelphia Eagles at the White House earlier this year, after their Super Bowl win, hailing head coach Nick Sirianni as a “real leader” and marveling at running back Saquon Barkley’s muscles.

    “I love Philadelphia,” Trump declared. “It’s gotten a little rougher, but we will take it.”

    That was a marked change from a decade ago, when Trump called Jim Kenney a “terrible” mayor, and Kenney called him a “nincompoop.”

    Kenney fought Trump in court and won in 2018, when a U.S. District Court judge ruled that the president could not end federal grants based on how the city treats immigrants. After the ruling, the Irish mayor was captured on video dancing a jig and calling out “Sanctuary City!”

    More recently, in May, Philadelphia landed on Trump’s list of more than 500 sanctuary jurisdictions that he planned to target for funding cuts. That was no surprise. Nor was it surprising that in August, when the administration zapped hundreds of places off that list, Philadelphia was among the 18 cities that remained.

    “I don’t know why they’re not here yet,” said Peter Pedemonti, codirector of New Sanctuary Movement of Philadelphia. But the larger point is that “ICE is in neighborhoods every day, they are taking away people every day,” and he urged those who support immigrants to prepare.

    “Now is the time to get involved with organizations that are organizing around this,” Pedemonti said. “There are neighbors who need us.”

    Has Gov. Josh Shapiro helped dissuade federal action in Philadelphia?

    It’s hard to say. Shapiro has challenged Trump in court multiple times, including when he was the state attorney general during Trump’s first term.

    As governor, Shapiro sued the administration over its move to freeze billions in federal funds for public health programs, infrastructure projects, and farm and food bank contracts. He also joined a multistate suit challenging an executive order that restricted gender-affirming care for minors.

    On immigration, however, Shapiro has been careful not to directly engage in the sanctuary city debate, saying his job is to provide opportunity for all Pennsylvanians. But he has been critical of Trump’s enforcement tactics, calling them fear-inducing and detrimental to the state’s economy and safety.

    Still, Trump has not lashed out at Shapiro, a popular swing-state governor. At his rally in Mount Pocono last week, in which he criticized several Democrats, Trump didn’t mention Shapiro ― or the Republican in attendance who is running against the governor in 2026, Stacy Garrity.

    Why is the president sending troops to American cities in the first place? Isn’t that unusual?

    Highly unusual ― and fought in court by the leaders of many of the cities that have been targeted. On Wednesday, a federal judge blocked Trump’s deployment of troops to Los Angeles, saying it was “profoundly un-American” to suggest that peaceful protesters “constitute a risk justifying the federalization of military forces.”

    Trump says the National Guard is needed to end violence, to help support deportations, and to fight crime in Democratic-run cities. Last week he declared that Democrats were “destroying” Charlotte, after a Honduran man who had twice been deported allegedly stabbed a person on a commuter train.

    Two members of the West Virginia National Guard were hospitalized in critical condition ― one subsequently died ― after being shot by a gunman in Washington the day before Thanksgiving.

    That the attack was allegedly carried out by an Afghan man who had been granted asylum helped spark a wave of immigration policy changes, all in the name of greater security. For some immigrants who are attempting to legally stay in the country, that has resulted in the cancellation of citizenship ceremonies and the freezing of asylum processes.

    So what happens next?

    It’s hard to say. Immigration enforcement will surely continue to toughen.

    More immigrants are being arrested when they show up for what they expect to be routine immigration appointments, suddenly finding themselves handcuffed and whisked into detention. In Philadelphia this year, more than 90 immigrants have been trailed from the Criminal Justice Center by ICE agents and then arrested on the sidewalks outside, according to advocates who are pushing the sheriff to ban the agency from the courthouse.

    But it’s difficult to predict when or whether troops might land on Market Street.

    “I’ve heard so many different theories,” said Jay Bergen, the pastor at Germantown Mennonite Church, who has helped lead demonstrations against courthouse arrests. “It’s probably all of them ― a little bit of the way Shapiro has positioned himself, the way the mayor has positioned herself, a little bit the electoral map of Pennsylvania, a little bit, more than a little bit, Trump’s own personality.”

    That Philadelphia has been ignored to date doesn’t mean it won’t be in Trump’s sights tomorrow, Bergen said.

    “This administration thrives on being unpredictable, and on sowing as much exhaustion and pain as possible,” Bergen said. “We don’t do ourselves a favor by getting panicked in advance, but we also need to be ready.”

  • As gerrymandering battles sweep country, supporters say partisan dominance is ‘fair’

    As gerrymandering battles sweep country, supporters say partisan dominance is ‘fair’

    When Indiana adopted new U.S. House districts four years ago, Republican legislative leaders lauded them as “fair maps” that reflected the state’s communities.

    But when Gov. Mike Braun recently tried to redraw the lines to help Republicans gain more power, he implored lawmakers to “vote for fair maps.”

    What changed? The definition of “fair.”

    As states undertake mid-decade redistricting instigated by President Donald Trump, Republicans and Democrats are using a tit-for-tat definition of fairness to justify districts that split communities in an attempt to send politically lopsided delegations to Congress. It is fair, they argue, because other states have done the same. And it is necessary, they claim, to maintain a partisan balance in the House of Representatives that resembles the national political divide.

    This new vision for drawing congressional maps is creating a winner-take-all scenario that treats the House, traditionally a more diverse patchwork of politicians, like the Senate, where members reflect a state’s majority party. The result could be reduced power for minority communities, less attention to certain issues, and fewer distinct voices heard in Washington.

    Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky fears that unconstrained gerrymandering would put the United States on a perilous path, if Democrats in states such as Texas and Republicans in states like California feel shut out of electoral politics. “I think that it’s going to lead to more civil tension and possibly more violence in our country,” he said Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press.

    Although Indiana state senators rejected a new map backed by Trump and Braun that could have helped Republicans win all nine of the state’s congressional seats, districts have already been redrawn in Texas, California, Missouri, North Carolina, and Ohio. Other states could consider changes before the 2026 midterms that will determine control of Congress.

    “It’s a fundamental undermining of a key democratic condition,” said Wayne Fields, a retired English professor from Washington University in St. Louis who is an expert on political rhetoric.

    “The House is supposed to represent the people,” Fields added. “We gain an awful lot by having particular parts of the population heard.”

    Redistricting is diluting community representation

    Under the Constitution, the Senate has two members from each state. The House has 435 seats divided among states based on population, with each state guaranteed at least one representative. In the current Congress, California has the most at 52, followed by Texas with 38.

    Because senators are elected statewide, they are almost always political pairs of one party or another. Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are the only states now with both a Democrat and a Republican in the Senate. Maine and Vermont each have one independent and one senator affiliated with a political party.

    By contrast, most states elect a mixture of Democrats and Republicans to the House. That is because House districts, with an average of 761,000 residents, based on the 2020 census, are more likely to reflect the varying partisan preferences of urban or rural voters, as well as different racial, ethnic, and economic groups.

    This year’s redistricting is diminishing those locally unique districts.

    In California, voters in several rural counties that backed Trump were separated from similar rural areas and attached to a reshaped congressional district containing liberal coastal communities. In Missouri, Democratic-leaning voters in Kansas City were split from one main congressional district into three, with each revised district stretching deep into rural Republican areas.

    Some residents complained their voices are getting drowned out. But Govs. Gavin Newsom (D., Calif.) and Mike Kehoe (R., Mo.) defended the gerrymandering as a means of countering other states and amplifying the voices of those aligned with the state’s majority.

    All is “fair” in redistricting

    Indiana’s delegation in the U.S. House consists of seven Republicans and two Democrats — one representing Indianapolis and the other a suburban Chicago district in the state’s northwestern corner.

    Dueling definitions of fairness were on display at the Indiana Capitol as lawmakers considered a Trump-backed redistricting plan that would have split Indianapolis among four Republican-leaning districts and merged the Chicago suburbs with rural Republican areas. Opponents walked the halls in protest, carrying signs such as “I stand for fair maps!”

    Ethan Hatcher, a talk radio host who said he votes for Republicans and Libertarians, denounced the redistricting plan as “a blatant power grab” that “compromises the principles of our Founding Fathers” by fracturing Democratic strongholds to dilute the voices of urban voters.

    “It’s a calculated assault on fair representation,” Hatcher told a state Senate committee.

    But others asserted it would be fair for Indiana Republicans to hold all of those House seats, because Trump won the “solidly Republican state” by nearly three-fifths of the vote.

    “Our current 7-2 congressional delegation doesn’t fully capture that strength,” resident Tracy Kissel said at a committee hearing. “We can create fairer, more competitive districts that align with how Hoosiers vote.”

    When senators defeated a map designed to deliver a 9-0 congressional delegation for Republicans, Braun bemoaned that they had missed an “opportunity to protect Hoosiers with fair maps.”

    Disrupting an equilibrium

    By some national measurements, the U.S. House already is politically fair. The 220-215 majority that Republicans won over Democrats in the 2024 elections almost perfectly aligns with the share of the vote the two parties received in districts across the country, according to an Associated Press analysis.

    But that overall balance belies an imbalance that exists in many states. Even before this year’s redistricting, the number of states with congressional districts tilted toward one party or another was higher than at any point in at least a decade, the AP analysis found.

    The partisan divisions have contributed to a “cutthroat political environment” that “drives the parties to extreme measures,” said Kent Syler, a political-science professor at Middle Tennessee State University. He noted that Republicans hold 88% of congressional seats in Tennessee, and Democrats have an equivalent in Maryland.

    “Fairer redistricting would give people more of a feeling that they have a voice,” Syler said.

    Rebekah Caruthers, who leads the Fair Elections Center, a nonprofit voting rights group, said there should be compact districts that allow communities of interest to elect the representatives of their choice, regardless of how that affects the national political balance. Gerrymandering districts to be dominated by a single party results in “an unfair disenfranchisement” of some voters, she said.

    “Ultimately, this isn’t going to be good for democracy,” Caruthers said. ”We need some type of détente.”