This is not to say people of color aren’t getting city business. The Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) said what it calls “minority, women, and disabled business enterprises” received more than $370 million in city contracts in fiscal year 2023.
The city’s goals call for 35% of city contracts to be awarded to businesses owned by women, people of color, and people with disabilities. During the 2023 fiscal year, 31.4% of city contracts went to companies owned by people from those demographic groups.
However, Black-owned businesses only accounted for about 13.5% of all city contracts.
So why don’t participation goals work better for Black people? I believe the answer is simple. Bias and race-based exclusion are built into a system where money is plentiful but accountability is not.
Ryan Boyer, the head of the city’s building trades unions, speaks at a January news conference. Although Boyer now leads the group, the unions spent generations excluding Black people, Solomon Jones writes.
That leaves the city asking white-owned businesses with largely white workforces to meet minority participation goals set by the Office of Economic Opportunity.
According to a former manager in the OEO, who would speak to me only on the condition of anonymity, companies that don’t meet the goals rarely face consequences.
That’s been the case for years. In fact, I wrote a 2016 Inquirer column that noted that in the 2015 fiscal year, nearly 70% of city-funded construction projects with budgets over $250,000 did not reach the city’s participation goals for people of color, and 44% had no participation by people of color at all.
Very few were held accountable for it then, and very few are held accountable now.
But even if the goals didn’t deliver what they should have, it’s galling to lose them at a time when the president is pushing an anti-Black agenda, complete with policies that led to job losses for over 300,000 Black women during his first year in office. Sadly, that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
But this is about more than the president’s recent actions. This is about Trump’s long game. From Road-Con Inc. v. City of Philadelphia, which challenged the city’s minority set-asides, to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to kill affirmative action, the multipronged attack is not just meant to set precedents. This attack is meant to set us back.
That’s why, when we see our civil rights gains under attack, we want our leaders to stand and fight.
I asked Mayor Cherelle L. Parker if changing the minority participation goals to small and local business goals represented the kind of fight our community wants from her.
“I am 53 years old,” she said, “and I have been working in government and public service since I was 17 years old. I don’t know anyone in this city who knows me who has ever questioned whether or not I’m willing to fight for what I believe in. I’m a product of this city. You heard me reference the intersection of race and gender. But I thank God that I’m made and built from the kind of material that says a speech is not enough. You have to deliver tangible results.”
The mayor went on to say the community should hold her accountable. I agree, and we will.
But I am also one of those people who have known the mayor for years. She is indeed a fighter, and she’s fighting this her way. We only need one thing from her: a win.
Philadelphia stands to lose tens of millions of dollars in federal funds intended to fight homelessness under a plan issued by the Trump administrationthat advocates say could significantly disrupt permanent housing programs and return formerly homeless people to the streets.
TheU.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development releasedthe plan earlier this month,saying it would “restore accountability” and promote “self-sufficiency” in people by addressing the “root causes of homelessness, including illicit drugs and mental illness.”
Nationwide, advocates say, the HUD plan could displace 170,000 people by cutting two-thirds of the aid designated for permanent housing.
The number of individuals in Philadelphia at risk of losing stable housing hasn’t been tallied because the city’s Office of Homeless Services (OHS) is still reviewing the plan’s impact, said Cheryl Hill, the agency’s executive director.
Overall, there are 2,330 units of permanent housing, many of them financed by $47 million the city received from HUD last year, according to city officials.
A preliminary analysis by HopePHL, a local anti-homelessness nonprofit, estimates around 1,200 housing units with households of various sizes would lose federal aid and no longer be accessible to current residents, all of whom are eligible for the aid because they live with a physical or mental disability.
HUD plans to funnel most of the funding for permanent housing into short-term housing programs with requirements for work and addiction treatment. The agency also said that it’s increasing overall homelessness funding throughout the United States, from $3.6 billion in 2024 to $3.9 billion.
“This new plan is disastrous for homelessness in Philadelphia,” said Eric Tars, the senior policy director of the National Homelessness Law Center, who lives and works in Philadelphia. “The biggest immediate harm would be that those who were once homeless but are now successfully living in apartments will be forced out of their homes.”
Other critics say the policy is based on a failed model that strips away civil liberties and doesn’t address what scholars and people who run anti-homelessness agencies say is the main reason Americans are homeless: the dearth of affordable housing.
“We have broad concerns about what we’re seeing,” said Candice Player, vice president of Advocacy, Public Policy and Street Outreach for Project HOME, the leading anti-homelessness nonprofit in Philadelphia. “We are all in a very difficult position here.”
Amal Bass, executive director of the Homeless Advocacy Project, which provides legal services to those experiencing homelessness, agreed, saying the city is “bracing for homelessness to increase in Philadelphia as a result of these policy choices.”
The need to house thousands of people suddenly made homeless would force cities, counties, and states to spend money they may not have, according to a statement from the National Alliance to End Homelessness.
Asked for comment, a HUD spokesperson sent a statement saying the agency seeks to reform “failed policies,” and refutes claims that the changes will result in increased homelessness.
HUD hopes that current permanent housing shift to transitional housing will include “robust wraparound support services for mental health and addiction to promote self-sufficiency.”
The agency added that it wants to encourage the “12,000 religious organizations in Pennsylvania to apply for funding to help those experiencing homelessness.”
New restrictions on ‘gender ideology extremism’
The federal government funds local governments to address homelessness throughso-called Continuums of Care (CoC), local planning bodies that coordinate housing and other services. In Philadelphia, the CoC is staffed by the city’s Office of Homeless Services, and governed by an 18-member board, including homeless and housing service providers, and physical and behavioral health entities.
In its plan, HUD will require the local planning bodies to compete for funding, and will attach ideological preconditions that could affect how much money a community like Philadelphia receives.
For example, the new HUD plan “cracks down on DEI,” essentially penalizinga local boardfor following diversity, equity, and inclusion guidelines. HUD would also limit funding to organizationsthat support “gender ideology extremism“ — programs that “use a definition of sex other than as binary in humans.” And HUD will consider whetherthe localjurisdiction“prohibits public camping or loitering,” an anti-encampment mandate that advocates such as the Legal Defense Fund say criminalizes homelessness.
Funding for programs that keep people in permanent housing could be cut off as early as January, according to HUD documents.
Philly an early adopter of Housing First
The new HUD policy dovetails with the views of President Donald Trump, who signed an executive order in July that sought to make it easier to confine unhoused people in mental institutions against their will.
Trump has also said he wants municipalities to make urban camping illegal, helping to clear homeless encampments from streets and parks. He’s expressed a preference for moving people who are homeless from municipalities to “tent cities.”
Planners in Utah are working toward creating such a facility known as an “accountability center” that would confine people who are experiencing homelessness and force them to be treated for drug addiction or behavioral health issues.
HUD’s new direction is a repudiation of Housing First, which gives people permanent housing and offers services without making them stay in shelter and mandating treatment for drug abuse or behavioral health issues. Philadelphia was an early adopter and was the first U.S. city to use it specifically for people with opioid disorders, according to Project HOME, which was cofounded by Sister Mary Scullion, an early proponent of Housing First.
Time and again it’s been proven that “offering, rather than requiring, services to help those who are homeless, has greater effect,” said Michele Mangan, director of Compliance and Evaluation at Bethesda Project, which provides shelter, housing, and case management services to individuals experiencing homelessness in Philadelphia.
The administration’s move toward transitional housing and required treatment hasn’t worked before, according to Dennis Culhane, a social policy professor at the University of Pennsylvania who’s an expert in homelessness and assisted housing.
The people most in need of help couldn’t comply with clean and sober requirements and were evicted, he said.
“It’s a misguided approach that blames the victim and fails to address the lack of affordable housing,” Culhane said. On the other hand, Housing First has had an 85% success rate in helping to lead people out of homelessness, Culhane said.
He added that he “distrusts the administration’s motivation. It just wants people out of sight and moved into fantastical facilities with tents and alleged care because they’re seen as a nuisance.”
Ultimately, said Gwen Bailey, HopePHL’s vice president of programs, it’s not clear whether the Trump administration “thinks it’s doing the right thing. I don’t know their data.
“But in Philadelphia right now, today, I see all kinds of people facing frightening situations.”
Staff writer Sean Collins Walsh contributed to this article.
How do Ukrainians fight on when the front line is so painful, the Russian bombing of civilians so brutal, and pro-Putin President Donald Trump so eager to stab Kyiv in the back?
I put that question to Associated Press journalist and filmmaker Mstyslav Chernov, whose 20 Days in Mariupol won the Academy Award for best documentary in 2024. His new masterpiece, 2000 Meters to Andriivka, will premiere on PBS’s Frontline and also begin streaming on Tuesday, Nov. 25.
The film follows a unit of military volunteers in Ukraine’s fabled 3rd Assault Brigade who come from all walks of life, from young to middle-aged. They are trying to advance a little more than a mile along a narrow, mostly destroyed tree line between heavily mined fields,in order to liberate a small village in eastern Ukraine and help cut a Russian supply line to the then-besieged city of Bakhmut.
This is a raw film, shot from the soldiers’ point of view, not only by Chernov and his AP colleague, videographer Alex Babenko, but by the video cameras many fighters wear on their helmets.
“I wanted to be as realistic as possible,” Chernov told me. “Showing courage and sacrifice, but also how horrifying and disgusting war is at the core. We try to keep this paradox in the film.”
What Chernov also achieves, through his voice-over and brief interviews during downtime, is a portrait of why these men won’t stop fighting, no matter the odds, until the Russian aggressor is forced to recognize the sovereignty of the Ukrainian state.
Mstyslav Chernov speaks at the premiere of “2000 Meters to Andriivka” during the Sundance Film Festival at the Ray Theatre in Park City, Utah, in January.
When he started this film in 2023, Chernov said, he wanted to make a documentary “about fighting back.” That was a hopeful year, in which Ukrainians were mounting a large counteroffensive against Russia.
“I searched for hope as much as any Ukrainian,” he recounted. “Raising the flag as a symbol of victory.” He also sought to honor the sacrifice of 3rd Assault Brigade fighters who were liberating the area surrounding his hometown of Kharkiv.
By the time the film was completed, though, the counteroffensive had failed. Bakhmut had fallen, and Ukrainian forces were weary and undermanned.
Today, technology has shifted the battlefront into a war of attrition dominated by drones, which can inflict terrible casualties on anything that moves. The Russians are making small advances, and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky is fending off a corruption scandal.
Yet, says Chernov, what you see in 2023 is similar to now.
The reason Ukrainians keep fighting remains the same, even though many Americans don’t grasp it. “It is a fight for survival, not for a piece of land, but a fight for your life,” he told me. “Stop and you are dead, or fight and you have a chance to survive as a country and with your family.”
These are the basic truths President Trump and real estate mogul-turned-peace negotiator Steve Witkoff are far too blinkered to grasp.
President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff (foreground), Russian President Vladimir Putin’s investment envoy Kirill Dmitriev (second left), and Russian Presidential Aide Yuri Ushakov (left) arrive to attend the talks with Putin at the Kremlin in Moscow in April.
Russia’s war is not about real estate deals or land swaps. VladimirPutin has insisted publicly for years that Ukraine has no right to exist as a state, and that it must be returned to the Russian empire as a subordinate province.
Any peace plan that hands territory to Russia and fails to provide ironclad military guarantees to Ukraine will only encourage Putin to restart the war. Yet, Witkoff secretly devised a 28-point draft plan with Putin pal Kirill Dmitriev, without consulting Kyiv or our European allies — a plan that leaves Ukraine virtually defenseless.
This capitulation plan would hand Russia parts of Ukraine that aren’t occupied, while shrinking and largely disarming Kyiv’s forces — and banning the purchase of new Western weapons. It would also ban Ukraine’s future membership in NATO or any peacekeeping troops from NATO members.
Of course, Putin has endorsed Trump’s plan, which could have and may indeed have been, written in the Kremlin. This shameful document virtually invites the Russian dictator to rebuild his depleted forces and try to end Ukrainian sovereignty for good.
We already know what has happened in Ukrainian territory that Russia has occupied: the Ukrainian language is banned in schools and from official use, and Ukrainian books are burned. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church is banned, and its priests arrested.
Ukrainian children in areas under Russian rule are taught that Kyiv is the enemy. They are sent to military camps in Crimea or Russia, and then drafted to fight against fellow Ukrainians. Many younger children have been kidnapped and adopted by Russian families.
Kobzar, a Ukrainian serviceman, practices shooting in preparation for the next military operation of the 3rd Assault Brigade. Five months later, he would be killed.
“If Ukrainians lose,” said Chernov, “not only will Ukraine cease to exist, but it means millions of Ukrainian children will be taken, their Ukrainian identities stolen, and they will be trained to fight for Russia against Europeans. It creates the opportunities for Russia to get more people to fight.”
“Many people in the U.S. don’t grasp how destructive the Russian narrative is,” the filmmaker added, “how they say the U.S. is the archenemy. Reality can be seen in the Russian media. They laugh at the United States and love the idea of civil war in your country.
“Russian existence [under Putin] is based on an anti-American narrative. What you see is that they are already at war with the United States and Europe.”
Indeed, if Ukraine ultimately falls to Russian control — with Trump’s help — the Russian border will move westward, and many NATO countries will be in danger.
Trump doesn’t care.
Wooed by visions of U.S.-Russian business deals that have been dangled by Dmitriev, Trump and Witkoff are focused on dollar signs. Like a mafia don, Trump is blackmailing Zelensky to sign this surrender by Thanksgiving, or lose all U.S. support for the war.
Yet, unlike Trump, Ukrainian soldiers on the front don’t have the luxury of denying the harsh realities they face if Russia isn’t pushed back by force.
Every soldier I’ve met knows full well that if Russia wins, they and their families have no future. The Kremlin calls brave Ukrainian fighters “Nazis,” and regularly tortures and murders POWs. Under Kremlin rule, any veteran or army member would almost certainly be targeted for prison or death.
Ukrainian servicemen from the 3rd Assault Brigade at frontline positions near Andriivka, Donetsk region, Ukraine, in 2023.
So, as Chernov explained, the question of future international aid for Ukraine’s defense “is rarely discussed on the battlefield, because there were so many words of support but so little action. They know they have to fight for survival.”
After the first meeting of Zelensky and Trump, when the president scolded the Ukrainian leader before the cameras, all illusions were gone, said the filmmaker. “We know the truth of our situation. The only person you can rely on is right next to you or with your unit.”
The changing nature of the war means the future depends on which country — Ukraine or Russia — can beat the other in the race for technological advantage. “Until Russia feels it can lose they will not want peace, Chernov stated. ”We are bracing for a very long winter.”
And yet, despite his depiction of the brutality of an unending war in a film that left me in tears, Chernov retains a core of optimism. Drawing strength from the men whose steadfastness he captures with his camera.
“Seeing those guys, fellow students, policemen, workers being there, making that choice to fight back against all odds. When I watch them …” He paused. “Whenever I lose hope, I go to the front, and I get my hope back.”
A federal judge in Philadelphia has blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from obtaining the private medical records of youth who sought gender-affirming care at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
The decision, issued Friday by U.S. District Court Judge Mark A. Kearney, was a victory for patients’ privacy rights and for CHOP, which had waged a legal battle to limit the scope of a sweeping federal subpoena that sought the names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, addresses, and parent/guardian information of patients who had been prescribed puberty blockers or hormone therapy.
In a 54-page opinion, Kearney found that the medical records sought by the U.S. Department of Justice were “beyond the authority granted by Congress” under the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, and that “the heightened privacy interests of children and their families substantially outweighs the Department’s need to know” such confidential and sensitive information.
Neither CHOP nor the DOJ responded to a request for comment late Friday.
In addition to protecting the identities of patients, Kearney also denied the part of the DOJ subpoena seeking documents related to how doctors make decisions in prescribing medications that help patients to have a body that matches their gender identity, including details such as “clinical indications, diagnoses, or assessments.” Kearney also blocked federal investigators from obtaining documents related to “informed consent, patient intake, and parent or guardian authorization for minor patients.”
CHOP runs one of the nation’s largest clinics providing medical care and mental health support for transgender and gender-nonbinary children and teens and their families. Each year, hundreds of new families seek care at CHOP’s Gender and Sexuality Development Program, created in 2014.
Along with CHOP, five parents of transgender children also filed a motion asking the federal court to intervene on their behalf. Kearney’s ruling rendered that motion moot since it sought similar legal relief as CHOP. The motion was filed by the Public Interest Law Center, a Philadelphia-based nonprofit that advocates for the civil, social, and economic rights of marginalized communities.
Mimi McKenzie, the center’s legal director, said the judge’s ruling was “a complete rebuke” to the DOJ and an affirmation that the federal government has “no authority to root through” private medical records.
“The court recognized that the Department of Justice is using its subpoena power not as a tool for legitimate inquiry, but as a tool for intrusion, and it’s not allowing that,“ McKenzie said late Friday. ”This is an important victory. Under this court’s ruling their privacy is protected, their medical records are not going to be turned over, and this court is just not going to condone this type of government overreach.”
The CHOP case against the DOJ has become part of a broader legal battle playing out across the country. As part of an investigation into possible healthcare fraud or potential misconduct, the DOJ had issued subpoenas to CHOP and at least 19 other hospitals nationally that treat transgender youth. In September, a federal judge in Boston blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to subpoena medical records of patients who received gender-affirming care at Boston Children’s Hospital, ruling it was “motivated only by bad faith.” The DOJ has appealed the Boston ruling.
The Trump administration has said doctors who prescribe to children and teens medications commonly used for gender-affirming care, such as puberty blockers and hormones, are engaging in chemical mutilation, likening it to child abuse. Teenagers are not mature enough to make such major decisions, the administration hasargued.
The American Academy of Pediatrics and other major medical associations, citing research, widely accept such use of these medications assafe, effective, and medically necessary for the patients’mental health.
In his ruling, Kearney said the DOJ subpoena was part of the Trump administration’s strategy to end gender-affirming care for minors. Kearney noted a “charged political environment” in which the federal government views “their medical treatment to [be] a radicalized warped ideology.” He concluded that the state and not the federal government has the authority to regulate medical care, and gender-affirming care for minors is legal in Pennsylvania.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Friday met the man who had proudly proclaimed himself “Donald Trump’s worst nightmare,” but he seemed to find the opposite.
The Republican president and New York City’s Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani were warm and friendly, speaking repeatedly of their shared goals to help Trump’s hometown rather than their combustible differences.
Trump, who had in the past called Mamdani a “100% Communist Lunatic” and a “total nut job,” spoke openly of how impressed he was with the man who had called his administration “authoritarian.”
“I think he is going to surprise some conservative people, actually,” Trump said of the democratic socialist as Mamdani stood next to him in the Oval Office.
The meeting offered political opportunities for both men. For Mamdani, a sit-down offered the state lawmaker — who until recently was relatively unknown — the chance to go head-to-head with the most powerful person in the world.
For Trump, it was a high-profile chance to talk about affordability at a time when he’s under increasing political pressure to show he’s addressing voter concerns about the cost of living.
Until now, the men have been political foils who galvanized their supporters by taking on each other, and it’s unclear how those backers will react to their genial get-together and complimentary words.
“We’re going to be helping him, to make everybody’s dream come true, having a strong and very safe New York,” the president said.
“What I really appreciate about the president is that the meeting that we had focused not on places of disagreement, which there are many, and also focused on the shared purpose that we have in serving New Yorkers,” Mamdani said.
Mamdani and Trump said they discussed housing affordability and the cost of groceries and utilities, as Mamdani successfully used frustration over inflation to get elected, just as the president did in the 2024 election.
“Some of his ideas are really the same ideas that I have,” the president said of Mamdani about inflationary issues.
The president brushed aside Mamdani’s criticisms of him over his administration’s deportation raids and claims that Trump was behaving like a despot. Instead, Trump said the responsibility of holding an executive position in the government causes a person to change, saying that had been the case for him.
He seemed at times even protective of Mamdani, jumping in on his behalf at several points. For example, when reporters asked Mamdani to clarify his past statements indicating that he thought the president was acting like a fascist, Trump said, “I’ve been called much worse than a despot.”
When a reporter asked if Mamdani stood by his comments that Trump is a fascist, Trump interjected before the mayor-elect could fully answer the question.
“That’s OK. You can just say yes. OK?” Trump said. “It’s easier. It’s easier than explaining it. I don’t mind.”
Trump stepped in again when a reporter asked Mamdani why he flew to Washington instead of taking transportation that used less fossil fuels.
Mamdani, who takes office in January, said he sought the meeting with Trump to talk about ways to make New York City more affordable. Trump has said he may want to help him out — although he has also falsely labeled Mamdani as a “communist” and threatened to yank federal funds from the city.
But Trump on Friday didn’t sling that at the mayor. He acknowledged that he had said he had been prepared to cut off funding or make it harder for New York City to access federal resources if the two had failed to “get along,” only to pull back from those threats during the meeting.
“We don’t want that to happen,” Trump said. ”I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
Afterward, Mamdani’s former campaign manager and incoming chief of staff Elle Bisgaard-Church told NY1 that the pair clearly disagreed on some issues but were able to find common ground on things like reducing crime.
“We discussed that we share a mutual goal of having a safe city where everyone can move around in comfort and ease,” she said, before later adding, “We know that there have been labels thrown all around that are just simply not fair and we kept it, again, at where we could find agreement on making the city affordable.”
Trump loomed large over the mayoral race this year, and on the eve of the election, he endorsed independent candidate and former Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, predicting the city has “ZERO chance of success, or even survival” if Mamdani won. He also questioned the citizenship of Mamdani, who was born in Uganda and became a naturalized American citizen after graduating from college, and said he’d have him arrested if he followed through on threats not to cooperate with immigration agents in the city.
Mamdani beat back a challenge from Cuomo, painting him as a “puppet” for the president, and promised to be “a mayor who can stand up to Donald Trump and actually deliver.” He declared during one primary debate, “I am Donald Trump’s worst nightmare, as a progressive Muslim immigrant who actually fights for the things that I believe in.”
The president, who has long used political opponents to fire up his backers, predicted Mamdani “will prove to be one of the best things to ever happen to our great Republican Party.” As Mamdani upended the Democratic establishment by defeating Cuomo and his far-left progressive policies provoked infighting, Trump repeatedly has cast Mamdani as the face of Democratic Party.
Some had expected fireworks in the Oval Office meeting
The president has had some dramatic public Oval Office faceoffs this year, including an infamously heated exchange with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in March. In May, Trump dimmed the lights while meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and played a four-minute video making widely rejected claims that South Africa is violently persecuting the country’s white Afrikaner minority farmers.
A senior Trump administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions said Trump had not put a lot of thought into planning the meeting with the incoming mayor — but said Trump’s threats to block federal dollars from flowing to New York remained on the table.
Mamdani said Thursday that he was not concerned about the president potentially trying to use the meeting to publicly embarrass him and said he saw it as a chance to make his case, even while acknowledging “many disagreements with the president.”
Instead, both men avoided a public confrontation in a remarkably calm and cordial series of comments in front of news reporters.
Mamdani, who lives in Queens — where Trump was raised — has shown a cutthroat streak just as Trump has as a candidate. During his campaign, he appeared to borrow from Trump’s playbook when he noted during a televised debate with Cuomo that one of the women who had accused the former governor of sexual harassment was in the audience. Cuomo has denied wrongdoing.
But the tensions were subdued Friday as Trump seemed sympathetic to Mamdani’s policies to want to build more housing.
“People would be shocked, but I want to see the same thing,” the president said.
U.S. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, a Chester County Democrat, said Friday she is “profoundly disappointed” in her Republican colleaguesfor not speaking up after President Donald Trump accused her and five other Democratic lawmakers of sedition.
Houlahan was one of six Democrats in Congress — all militaryveterans or members of the intelligence community — featured in a videourging members of the military and intelligence community to “refuse illegal orders.”
In response, Trump went after the Democrats in a string of posts on Truth SocialThursday, accusing them of sedition that he said is “punishable by DEATH.”
Early Friday evening, a spokesperson for Houlahan posted on the representative’s X account that her district office in West Chester was the target of a bomb threat.
“Thankfully, the staff there, as well as the office in Washington, D.C., are safe. We are grateful for our local law enforcement agencies who reacted quickly and are investigating,” the post said.
A spokesperson for Rep. Chris Deluzio, a western Pennsylvania Democrat also on the video, posted on X late Friday afternoon that the representative’s district offices were targeted with bomb threats as well.
Houlahan lamented at a Friday news conference in Washington that “not a single” Republican in Congress “has reached out to me, either publicly or privately” since Trump’s post.
“And with this, I am profoundly disappointed in my colleagues,” she added.
In addition to calling for the lawmakers to be arrested and tried for sedition, Trump shared posts from supporters calling for retribution against the Democrats, including one that said “HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD !!” and another calling them domestic terrorists.
“This is not normal political discourse,” Houlahan said Friday alongside other veteran members of Congress. “Indeed, it is, in fact, a explicit embrace of political violence against the opposition.”
“As a member who has spent my entire career calling for civility and decency and building relationships with the other side of the aisle, I’m dumbfounded by the silence,” added the Air Force veteran.
Beyond not reaching out to her specifically, Houlahan broadly said that “not a single Republican member has condemned this call for violence, not publicly, not privately.”
When reached by The Inquirer on Thursday, U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R., Bucks), a former FBI agent, condemned Trump’s rhetoric, but he did so without naming the president
“This exchange is part of a deeper issue of corrosive divisiveness that helps no one and puts our entire nation at risk,” he said. “Such unnecessary incidents and incendiary rhetoric heighten volatility, erode public trust, and have no place in a constitutional republic, least of all in our great nation.”
When asked for clarification, his spokesperson added that “He is 100% opposed to the president’s comments and 100% stands with all men and women who wear the uniform.”
Some Republicans justified Trump’s response by saying the Democrats who made the video were in the wrong — even if the president’s rhetoric was over the top.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) said that he did not think the six Democrats committed “crimes punishable by death or any of that,” but criticized the Democrats’ video as irresponsible, Politico reported.
“The point we need to emphasize here is that members of Congress in the Senate [and] House should not be telling troops to disobey orders,” Johnson said. “It is dangerous.”
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, responded to a reporter asking if Trump wanted to “execute” members of Congress by saying “no,” and criticized the video put out by the veterans.
The video that inspired Trump’s ire did not point to any specific order from Trump as illegal, despite urging troops to resist such an order.
However, the video follows high-profile debates about the legality of Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops in U.S. cities and his ordering of strikes on boats in the Caribbean. Trump alleges that the boats are carrying drugs from Venezuela, but experts have said his claims about them are misleading.
“He has shown time and time again that when he threatens to abuse his power, he acts on it,” Houlahan said Friday at the news conference announcing a bill that would prohibit funds for military force in or against Venezuela without congressional approval.
Houlahan said Congress has not received intelligence on the strikes. She said that Trump’s administration has “repeatedly shown disregard for the military process.”
U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton(D., Mass.), one of the bill’s sponsors,said military leaders who have expressed concern about the legality of the strikes have been “sidelined.” He also pointed out that threatening a member of Congress is against the law.
“So put yourselves in the shoes of a young lieutenant or sergeant who’s in uniform right now watching the commander-in-chief threaten members of Congress to death for telling you to follow the law,” he said. “You’re watching him orchestrate legally dubious military strikes while sidelining military lawyers and commanders who say that those actions may be illegal and could therefore get you prosecuted for following those orders.”
Moulton was not one of the six lawmakers featured in the video, but he shares a similar background, having served four tours in Iraq as a Marine.
He said Congress should learn from its failure to question that war as it confronts the legality of Trump’s strikes in the Caribbean.
“I’ve seen what being in a moral and legal gray area means in war,” he said.
Staff writers Julia Terruso and Robert Moran contributed to this article.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court is meeting in private Friday with a key issue on its agenda — President Donald Trump’s birthright citizenship order declaring that children born to parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily are not American citizens.
The justices could say as soon as Monday whether they will hear Trump’s appeal of lower court rulings that have uniformly struck down the citizenship restrictions. They have not taken effect anywhere in the United States.
If the court steps in now, the case would be argued in the spring, with a definitive ruling expected by early summer.
The birthright citizenship order, which Trump signed on the first day of his second term in the White House, is part of his administration’s broad immigration crackdown. Other actions include immigration enforcement surges in several cities and the first peacetime invocation of the 18th century Alien Enemies Act.
The administration is facing multiple court challenges, and the high court has sent mixed signals in emergency orders it has issued. The justices effectively stopped the use of the Alien Enemies Act to rapidly deport alleged Venezuelan gang members without court hearings, while they allowed the resumption of sweeping immigration stops in the Los Angeles area after a lower court blocked the practice of stopping people solely based on their race, language, job or location.
The justices also are weighing the administration’s emergency appeal to be allowed to deploy National Guard troops in the Chicago area for immigration enforcement actions. A lower court has indefinitely prevented the deployment.
Birthright citizenship is the first Trump immigration-related policy to reach the court for a final ruling. Trump’s order would upend more than 125 years of understanding that the Constitution’s 14th Amendment confers citizenship on everyone born on American soil, with narrow exceptions for the children of foreign diplomats and those born to a foreign occupying force.
In a series of decisions, lower courts have struck down the executive order as unconstitutional, or likely so, even after a Supreme Court ruling in late June that limited judges’ use of nationwide injunctions.
While the Supreme Court curbed the use of nationwide injunctions, it did not rule out other court orders that could have nationwide effects, including in class-action lawsuits and those brought by states. The justices did not decide at that time whether the underlying citizenship order is constitutional.
But every lower court that has looked at the issue has concluded that Trump’s order violates or most likely violates the 14th Amendment, which was intended to ensure that Black people, including former slaves, had citizenship.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco ruled in July that a group of states that sued over the order needed a nationwide injunction to prevent the problems that would be caused by birthright citizenship being in effect in some states and not others.
Also in July, a federal judge in New Hampshire blocked the citizenship order in a class-action lawsuit including all children who would be affected.
The American Civil Liberties Union, leading the legal team in the New Hampshire case, urged the court to reject the appeal because the administration’s “arguments are so flimsy,” ACLU lawyer Cody Wofsy said. ”But if the court decides to hear the case, we’re more than ready to take Trump on and win.”
Birthright citizenship automatically makes anyone born in the United States an American citizen, including children born to mothers who are in the country illegally, under long-standing rules. The right was enshrined soon after the Civil War in the first sentence of the 14th Amendment.
The administration has asserted that children of noncitizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and therefore not entitled to citizenship.
“The lower court’s decisions invalidated a policy of prime importance to the president and his administration in a manner that undermines our border security,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in urging the high court’s review. “Those decisions confer, without lawful justification, the privilege of American citizenship on hundreds of thousands of unqualified people.”
When Lauren Vaughn, a kindergarten assistant in South Carolina, saw reports that right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk had been shot at an event in Utah, she opened Facebook and typed out a quote from Kirk himself.
Gun deaths, Kirk said in 2023, were unfortunate but “worth it” if they preserved “the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given Rights.” Following the quote, Vaughn added: “Thoughts and prayers.”
Vaughn, a 37-year-old Christian who has taken missionary trips to Guatemala, said her call for prayer was sincere. She said she hoped reading Kirk’s words in the context of the shooting might prompt her friends to rethink their opposition to gun control.
“Maybe now they’ll listen,” she recalled thinking.
A few days later, Vaughn lost her job. She was one of more than 600 Americans fired, suspended, placed under investigation or disciplined by employers for comments about Kirk’s September 10 assassination, according to a Reuters review of court records, public statements, local media reports and interviews with two dozen people who were fired or otherwise disciplined.
Some were dismissed after celebrating or mocking Kirk’s death. At least 15 people were punished for allegedly invoking “karma” or “divine justice,” and at least nine others were disciplined for variations on “Good riddance.” Other offending posts appeared to exult in the killing or express hope that other Republican figures would be next. “One down, plenty to go,” one said.
Others, like Vaughn, say they simply criticized Kirk’s politics.
In the pro-Kirk camp, at least one academic was put on administrative leave after threatening to “hunt down” those celebrating the assassination.
This account is the most comprehensive to date of the backlash against Kirk’s critics, tracing how senior officials in President Donald Trump’s administration, local Republican lawmakers and allied influencers mobilized to enforce the Trump movement’s views. The story maps the pro-Trump machinery of retaliation now reshaping American political life, detailing its scale and tactics, ranging from shaming on social media to public pressure on employers and threats to defund institutions. Earlier reports by Reuters have documented how Trump has purged the federal government of employees deemed opponents of his agenda and cracked down on law firms defending people in the administration’s crosshairs.
Americans sometimes lose their jobs after speaking out in heated political moments. Twenty-two academics were dismissed in 2020, the year George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer, most for comments deemed insensitive, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a free-speech advocacy group. In 2024, the first full year following the outbreak of the latest Israel-Gaza war, more than 160 people were fired in connection with their pro-Palestinian advocacy, according to Palestine Legal, an organization that protects the civil rights of American supporters of the Palestinian cause.
The backlash over comments about Kirk’s shooting stands apart because of its reach and its public backing from Trump, Vice President JD Vance and other top government officials. It represents a striking about-face for Republicans, who for years castigated the left for what they called “cancel culture” — the ostracism or punishment of those whose views were deemed unacceptable.
Supporters of the firings say that freedom of speech is not freedom from consequence. Standards of behavior should be high for people like doctors, lawyers, teachers or emergency workers who are in positions of public trust, they said.
In a statement, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said: “President Trump and the entire Administration will not hesitate to speak the truth – for years, radical leftists have slandered their political opponents as Nazis and Fascists, inspiring left-wing violence. It must end.” She added: “no one understands the dangers of political violence more than President Trump” after he survived two assassination attempts.
Turning Point USA, the youth movement Kirk founded in 2012, said in a statement that it supported the right to free speech, “including that of private employers to determine when a bright line has been crossed and an employee deserves to be terminated.” The organization, however, cautioned that while celebrating or gloating over Kirk’s death was “evil and disqualifying behavior, respectfully disagreeing with his ideas, statements, or values is every American’s right.”
Vaughn is challenging her dismissal in a federal lawsuit filed September 18, seeking reinstatement. As part of the case, she submitted a letter she received from the Spartanburg County School District superintendent that described her remarks as “inflammatory, unprofessional, and inappropriate.” Responding to the lawsuit, the district said Vaughn’ s post “appeared to endorse Mr. Kirk’s murder or indicate that it was ‘worth’ him losing his life to protect Americans’ constitutional rights.”
The punishments have often been driven by social media campaigns that circulate screenshots of the offending remarks, along with the names and phone numbers of employers, and appeals such as, “Internet, do your thing.” What typically follows are hundreds of angry or threatening messages, Reuters found. Several individuals who were targeted said in interviews they were inundated with phone calls. One recalled receiving a call every minute for an entire day. At least two said the harassment was so intense they plan to sell their homes.
Julie Strebe, a sheriff’s deputy in Salem, Missouri, lost her job after posting comments on Facebook about the shooting, including “Empathy is not owed to oppressors.” She later said she viewed Kirk as an oppressor because, in her words, he sought to marginalize vulnerable groups and used his platform to rally conservative white Christians behind “racist, sexist, hateful views.” She said her bosses were besieged with calls for her dismissal and that, at one point, a hand-drawn sign appeared across from her home reading, “Julie Strebe Supports the Assassination of Charles Kirk.”
Strebe said she installed five surveillance cameras at her home and now fuels her car only at night to avoid neighbors. Moving from Salem would mean leaving extended family, but she said the small city has grown too hostile to stay. “I just don’t feel like I could ever let my guard down,” she said in an interview. Strebe’s former employer, the Dent County Sheriff’s Office, declined to comment.
Many Republican officials have embraced the punitive campaign. Some have proposed extraordinary measures, including lifetime bans from social media for those deemed to be reveling in Kirk’s death. The U.S. State Department revoked visas for six foreigners who the agency said “celebrated the heinous assassination of Charlie Kirk.”
Speaking on a special episode of Kirk’s podcast on September 15, Vice President JD Vance urged his listeners to inflict consequences on those celebrating Kirk’s death.
“Call them out, and, hell, call their employer,” Vance said. Vance’s office pointed Reuters to comments made earlier this year in which the vice president said, “where I draw the line is encouraging violence against political opponents.”
Some academics compared the backlash to the “Red Scare,” the anti-Communist purge that peaked in the 1950s, when officials, labor leaders and Hollywood figures were accused of Communist ties. Thousands were investigated in a climate of fear that shaped U.S. politics and culture for a generation. There are “very disturbing parallels,” said Landon Storrs, a University of Iowa history professor.
Several prominent Republicans have voiced unease at the clampdown, especially after the Federal Communications Commission openly pressured broadcaster ABC to suspend talk show host Jimmy Kimmel following a monolog in which he suggested that Kirk’s assassin hailed from the political right. Police haven’t fully detailed the findings of their investigation into suspect Tyler Robinson and his motives. Robinson hasn’t entered a plea to the murder and other charges against him.
Republican Senator Ted Cruz warned on his podcast that letting government decide “what speech we like and what we don’t” sets a dangerous precedent. Silencing voices like Kimmel’s might feel good, he said, but “when it’s used to silence every conservative in America, we will regret it.” His spokesperson declined further comment.
Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, speaks in 2022.
‘Massive purge of these evil psychos’
The campaign to punish Kirk’s critics began almost immediately.
About 30 minutes after Trump’s announcement that Kirk had died, right-wing influencers mobilized. Among the first was Chaya Raichik, operator of the widely followed Libs of TikTok account, which had posted on X, “THIS IS WAR,” before highlighting a Massachusetts teacher who had written: “Just a reminder, We’re NOT offering sympathy.”
By night’s end, Libs of TikTok had published or reposted the professional details of 37 individuals, often accompanied by commentary such as “absolutely vile,” “Your tax dollars pay her salary,” or “Would you want him teaching your kids?”
“It’s actually terrifying how many of them are teachers, doctors and military members,” Libs of TikTok wrote the next day. “We need a massive purge of these evil psychos who want to kiII all of us for simply having opposing political views.”
In the week after the shooting, Libs of TikTok shared the names and profiles of at least 134 people accused of celebrating violence or mocking Kirk’s memory, frequently tagging Trump administration officials including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Attorney General Pam Bondi. At times, the influencer posted disciplinary actions taken against specific government employees.
“BREAKING: This marine was fired,” Libs of TikTok posted on September 12, a day after calling out a Marine Corps captain. The officer had responded to Kirk’s death by posting an emoji of clinking beer mugs, according to a screenshot the influencer shared with followers. Reuters could not verify the authenticity of the beer-mug post; the captain declined to comment. Libs of TikTok also reported similar disciplinary actions involving an Army Reserve officer and an Army colonel who had commented on the death on social media.
The Pentagon and the Justice Department issued statements condemning celebrations of Kirk’s death but did not address questions about their relationship with Libs of TikTok.
Right-wing influencer Scott Presler began posting screenshots of Kirk commentary, too.
“Take a screenshot of EVERY single person celebrating today,” he told his followers on September 10. “You bet your behind we will make them infamous.” Over the next week, Presler shared posts on X about 70 people who had commented on the killing, and wrote in one message: “Almost every person we’ve posted about — who celebrated Charlie Kirk’s assassination — has been fired.” Presler didn’t respond to requests for comment.
For many on the right, outraged by celebratory reactions from the left, the wave of firings became a form of catharsis.
“It’s good that they are shamed and humiliated and must live with the repercussions for the rest of their lives,” right-wing podcaster Matt Walsh told his audience as he discussed the firings. “It’s good if they wake up every day until they die wishing they had not said what they said.” Asked for comment, Walsh emailed back: “f**k off.”
On YouTube, video blogger and recovery coach JD Delay expressed glee as he read aloud names of those who had lost their jobs over their remarks.
“I’m having fun! This is so much fun!” he shouted, raising his hands in excitement. Delay told Reuters that he believes in “accountability and consequences” and that “if you publicly say abhorrent things and get fired from your job, I’m going to laugh at you.”
The punishment campaign sometimes veered off course. In at least five cases, people were wrongly blamed for comments made by others. In another case, a website that drew up a blacklist called “Expose Charlie’s Murderers” vanished after taking in tens of thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency donations. Attempts to identify and seek comment from the site’s creators were unsuccessful.
President Donald Trump takes the stage during a memorial service honoring conservative activist Charlie Kirk in Glendale, Arizona, on Sept. 21, 2025.
Several online influencers said they received hundreds — sometimes thousands — of tips from individuals seeking to get Kirk’s detractors fired. Reuters was unable to verify those figures. But at various points, Presler, Libs of TikTok and other right-wing personalities publicly urged tipsters to be patient as they worked through the volume of submissions.
“Can’t keep up with all of you,” Presler wrote on X on September 12. “Post your submissions below & I’ll go through them as I can.”
A day later, the post had drawn more than 2,700 replies.
The tally of more than 600 people punished for criticizing Kirk is likely an undercount. Many companies and government organizations haven’t publicly disclosed terminations or suspensions.
Those punished came from at least 45 states and represented a cross-section of society, from soldiers and pilots to doctors, nurses and police officers.
In Michigan, an Office Depot employee was fired after being filmed refusing to print a poster memorializing Kirk. In Ohio, a Starbucks barista lost her job after she was accused of writing an anti-Kirk message on a cup of mint tea.
Reuters couldn’t determine the identities of the Office Depot worker or the barista. Office Depot and Kroger — the grocery store chain that runs the Ohio Starbucks — condemned the anti-Kirk incidents and said the people involved were no longer employees.
Requests to 21 federal agencies — including Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs and the Defense Department — for the number of suspensions or dismissals tied to the Kirk assassination were either ignored or declined. When the Office of the Director of National Intelligence was contacted, its deputy chief of staff responded on social media, accusing Reuters of trying to generate sympathy “for the ghouls who celebrate his death.”
Educators among the main targets
Teachers, academics and university administrators were among those most frequently punished for criticizing Kirk. More than 350 education workers were fired, suspended or investigated in the days following the assassination, including 50 academics and senior university administrators, three high school principals, two cheerleading coaches and a theology instructor.
The prominence of educators in the backlash may stem from several factors. As leaders tasked with shaping young minds, teachers have long been cast by some conservatives as ideologues who aim to pull their students left. Their status as taxpayer-funded employees made any perceived partisan commentary especially combustible.
In interviews and public statements, at least six teachers cited another reason for speaking out: concern over the frequency of gun violence at schools nationwide — and anger at those, like Kirk, who have championed widespread access to firearms.
Vaughn, the South Carolina kindergarten assistant, said that was front of mind when she went to Facebook to quote Kirk’s 2023 remark dismissing some fatal shootings as the price to pay to protect gun rights. Like other teachers across the country, she said she regularly practiced active-shooter drills at her elementary school and saw fear on her five-year-olds’ faces as they learned how to hide from a gunman.
As she defended her post on the day of Kirk’s death, she told a Facebook friend that she felt “no satisfaction” at the assassination. “Just heartbreak for everyone and anyone affected by gun violence and the hope that one day, enough will be enough.” Speaking to Reuters later, she said, “The one thing I want people to know is that my message was out of concern for the kids.”
Many educators did celebrate Kirk’s death, including a Virginia teacher who wrote, “I hope he suffered through all of it,” and a Texas middle school intern who said the shooting “made me giggle.” Screenshots of both posts were circulated by right-wing influencers. Reuters could not locate the original posts, which may have been deleted or made private. The Virginia teacher was suspended and the Texas intern was fired. Neither could be reached for comment.
While schools that suspended or fired educators cited disruptions to the learning environment, some private employers pointed to a violation of company values or safety concerns as the basis for terminations. Corporations caught up in the backlash gave a variety of explanations: Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian said in a statement some employees’ comments were in “stark contrast” to the company’s values and violated its social media policy, while a United Airlines statement said the company had “zero tolerance for politically motivated violence or any attempt to justify it.”
At least a dozen Kirk critics who took pains to condemn the shooting also found themselves out of jobs or suspended, sometimes after Republican lawmakers got involved.
In the wake of Kirk’s death, Joshua Bregy, a climate scientist at Clemson University in South Carolina, shared another user’s Facebook post that read, in part: “No one should be gunned down — not a school child, not an influencer, not a politician — no one. But am I going to allow people to make a martyr out of a flawed human being whose rhetoric caused notable damage? Not a chance.”
The Clemson College Republicans reposted part of his message, labeling him “ANOTHER leftist professor” and calling for his termination. The post was amplified by right-wing influencers and Republican state lawmakers who threatened to defund the public university unless Bregy was fired.
Clemson initially pledged in a September 12 statement to “stand firmly on the principles of the U.S. Constitution, including the protection of free speech.”
The next day, Trump himself reposted a state lawmaker’s call to “Defund Clemson.” On September 16, after South Carolina’s House speaker and Senate president sent a letter to Clemson’s trustees demanding they “take immediate and appropriate action,” the school fired Bregy. Bregy’s Facebook post was “blatantly unprofessional” and “seriously prejudicial to the university,” Clemson said in a letter informing Bregy he had been dismissed.
Bregy is suing Clemson in a South Carolina federal court in a bid to be reinstated. His lawyer, Allen Chaney, said the academic would have kept his job “but for the really aggressive, coercive tactics of elected officials in South Carolina.”
Clemson, State House Speaker Murrell Smith and Senate President Thomas Alexander did not respond to requests for comment. Clemson has yet to file a response to Bregy’s suit.
In at least six other cases, Republican officials publicly threatened to deprive universities and schools of taxpayer funds unless specific critics of Kirk were fired.
Chaney, who serves as legal director of the South Carolina chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the threats to defund Clemson and others crossed a constitutional line. “The government can’t police speech by pressuring third parties,” he said. Last year, the Supreme Court unanimously held that government officials cannot use their authority to “attempt to coerce” private parties into punishing or suppressing speech they dislike.
The threats to defund schools that resist firing Kirk’s critics were “stunning,” said Paul McGreal, a constitutional law professor at Creighton University Law School in Nebraska. “Government officials are threatening speakers with punishment because they disagree with what they’re saying. These are core First Amendment protections that they’re violating.”
Kirk praised as Christ’s ‘13th disciple’
Since Kirk’s assassination, many Republicans have cast him as a saintly champion of free expression. Evangelical figures have likened him to Saint Stephen, revered as Christianity’s first martyr. One Republican lawmaker told Congress “he’d have been the 13th disciple” had he lived in Biblical times. Trump compared Kirk to the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates, slain President Abraham Lincoln and assassinated civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. when posthumously awarding him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Kirk’s legacy is complicated, however. He gained fame for debating college students as part of his work with Turning Point. Kirk also advocated criminalizing expression – such as pornography – that clashed with his Christian views. When Black football players started kneeling during the national anthem in protest at police brutality, he backed Trump’s call to strip the National Football League of taxpayer subsidies. The White House later said Trump was making a statement, not a proposal.
Kirk repeatedly denigrated minorities, calling transgender people an “abomination,” warning of “prowling Blacks” in cities, accusing wealthy Jews of stoking “hatred against Whites,” and declaring Islam incompatible with Western civilization. He also dismissed Pope Francis as a Marxist.
Some of those who spoke out against Kirk after his death said they were disturbed by the hagiography.
“I just felt compelled to remind people who he was and what he stood for,” Kimberly Hunt, a human resources worker in Arizona, said in an interview. She had posted a video captioned, “Save your tears for his victims, not him.”
In the video, Hunt cited Kirk’s record of using derogatory language about transgender people and Muslims, before adding that his children “are better off without him.” Hunt was fired soon after. Her employer, an Arizona construction firm, did not respond to requests for comment.
Hunt told Reuters she understood her words sounded harsh but stood by them. She said they reflected Kirk’s stance in a debate last year that if he had a 10-year-old daughter who was impregnated through rape, “the baby would be delivered.”
The retaliation has silenced many voices. Scores of people who posted anti-Kirk comments have since scrubbed or locked their accounts, Reuters found. Others said in interviews that they are pushing back.
Hunt said she has raised more than $88,000 from a GoFundMe campaign titled, “Doxxed, Fired, but Not Silenced.” She said she wants to use the money to further her education, become a content creator, and keep calling out people like Kirk.
“It’s definitely just emboldened me,” she said.
At least 19 lawsuits have been filed against employers who punished Kirk critics, state and federal court records show. At least two plaintiffs have succeeded, including an academic in South Dakota who got his teaching job back.
Karen Leader, an associate professor at Florida Atlantic University, took to social media after Kirk’s death to protest a narrative that he “was a shining inspiration to youth and a noncontroversial figure who just wanted to have open and civil dialog,” she said. “Anyone who’s in higher education knows that it’s not that simple.”
She noted that Turning Point rose to prominence through its Professor Watchlist, a site that encouraged students to report faculty for allegedly holding “radical left” views or being a “terror supporter.”
Kirk had described the Watchlist as an awareness tool, not a blacklist. Those on it have said in interviews, social media posts and public forums that it fostered harassment and intimidation. In 2023, a Turning Point reporter was accused of assaulting an Arizona professor who was on the watchlist after confronting him on camera about his sexuality and shoving him to the ground. The reporter admitted to harassment, assault and disorderly conduct and was ordered to complete a diversion program. A Turning Point cameraman admitted to harassment in the case.
On September 10, Leader began posting Kirk’s past statements on X. She said she made a mistake by incorrectly accusing Kirk of having uttered an ethnic slur and then deleted it. The rest of her posts she said she stands behind, including one highlighting Kirk’s claim that Black Americans were “better” during Jim Crow.
“None of it was me encouraging violence,” Leader said. “I was sharing evidence.”
Jordan Chamberlain, a former staffer of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, shared screenshots of several of Leader’s posts and tagged her university, asking if it approved of the content. Libs of TikTok shared Leader’s faculty headshot. The university’s president announced she had been put on administrative leave. Her address and phone number appeared online, and menacing messages followed.
In one voicemail reviewed by Reuters, the caller said: “We’re coming to get you. Karen Leader, we know where you work. We’re gonna come to your home as soon as we have your location.” Leader said she has rarely left her apartment since.
She reported the threats to Boca Raton police, which referred the case to campus officers, according to a police report. Florida Atlantic University police said their report could not be released because of an active criminal investigation.
Florida Atlantic University confirmed Leader was one of three academics who were on leave pending investigations. It declined further comment. Chamberlain also didn’t return an email seeking comment.
“Whether my career is over or not, I don’t know,” Leader said. “But my life has changed.”
President Donald Trump may no longer be a fan of Shane Gillis after listening to the comedian’s most-recent podcast.
Gillis, a Mechanicsburg, Pa., native, joked about the possibility 79-year-old Trump is beginning to show signs of mental decline on the most-recent episode of Matt and Shane’s Secret Podcast, which he co-hosts with fellow comedian Matt McCuster.
While Gillis expressed some sympathy for Lucey, he also joked about whether she deserved to be corrected by Trump and how awkward the plane flight must have been following the exchange.
“Think if you were next to her and hated her,” Gillis said.
Watch (caution: strong language):
Lucey, who has not spoken publicly about the matter, spent 12 years as a reporter at the Philadelphia Daily News covering everything from police corruption to local news. She left in 2012 and spent time reporting for the Associated Press and the Wall Street Journal before joining Bloomberg in March.
“Our White House journalists perform a vital public service, asking questions without fear or favor,” a Bloomberg News spokesperson told the Guardian. “We remain focused on reporting issues of public interest fairly and accurately.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended Trump’s insult of Lucey, telling reporters Thursday the president “calls out fake news when he sees it and gets frustrated with reporters who spread false information.”
There’s no indication Lucey was spreading false information while asking Trump about the Epstein files.
After being fired by Saturday Night Live in 2019, Gillis has risen to fame in part thanks to his unflattering yet sympathetic portrayal of Trump. Gillis has amassed a huge audience of MAGA fans, including the president himself.
Gillis, an Eagles fan, met with Trump at the Super Bowl in New Orleans alongside country music star Zach Bryan.
At the Super Bowl, Trump meets comedian Shane Gillis and country star Zach Bryan. Both are big Eagles fans. pic.twitter.com/tHlKH03zpq
“Well, he’s a very good … I mean, on our side, right?” Trump later said in an interview with the Spector editor Ben Domenech, with the president adding he was a fan of Gillis and likes “everybody that’s on my side.”
Gillis recalled the meeting during an episode of his podcast, describing the room as “intense” thanks to the heavy presence of Secret Service agents.
“I finally had the moment — quick handshake,” Gillis said, though adding that Trump “has no idea who I am.”
Joe Rogan and Theo Von not-so-quietly cooling their support of Trump
Joe Rogan at President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January.
Gillis is just the latest comedian within the so-called “manosphere” to begin to peel back their support of Trump.
Joe Rogan, host of the popular The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, mocked Trump over his handling of the Epstein files.
“I heard ‘there’s no files,’ I heard ‘it’s a hoax,’ ” Rogan said on the most-recent episode of his podcast. “And then all of a sudden, he’s going to release the files. Well, I thought there was not files.”
Rogan famously endorsed and interviewed Trump ahead of the 2024 election, with the episode reportedly drawing over 40 million listeners. He also attended Trump’s inauguration but recently has been criticizing the president over everything from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and mass deportations to his continued lies about the 2020 election.
“I feel like if you say that, you’ve got to have some, like, really good evidence that you could give out,” Rogan said on his podcast earlier this month about the 2020 election. “Either you don’t have any evidence that they stole the election, or you have evidence and you’re not telling me. Why would you not tell me? Why would you not tell me?”
Theo Von at Trump’s inauguration.
Theo Von, host of the This Past Weekend podcast, also interviewed Trump and attended his inauguration, but called out his administration after the Department of Homeland Security took a joke out-of-context and used it in a pro-deportation social media video that was later deleted.
“My father immigrated here from Nicaragua. One of my prized possessions is I have his immigration papers from when he came here. I have them in a frame,” Von said on his podcast last month.
WASHINGTON — U.S. employers added a surprisingly solid 119,000 jobs in September, the government said, issuing a key economic report that had been delayed for seven weeks by the federal government shutdown.
The increase in payrolls was more than double the 50,000 economists had forecast.
Yet there were some troubling details in the delayed report.
Labor Department revisions showed that the economy lost 4,000 jobs in August instead of gaining 22,000 as originally reported. Altogether, revisions shaved 33,000 jobs off July and August payrolls. The economy had also shed jobs in June, the first time since the 2020 pandemic that the monthly jobs report has gone negative twice in one year.
And more than 87% of the September job gains were concentrated in two industries: healthcare and social assistance and leisure and hospitality.
“We’ve got these strong headline numbers, but when you look underneath that you’ll see that a lot of that is driven by healthcare,’’ said Cory Stahle, senior economist at the Indeed Hiring Lab. ”At the end of the day, the question is: Can you support an economic expansion on the back of one industry? Anybody would have a hard time arguing everybody should become a nurse.”
The unemployment rate rose to 4.4% in September, highest since October 2021 and up from 4.3% in August, the Labor Department said Thursday. The jobless rate rose partly because 470,000 people entered the labor market — either working or looking for work — in September and not all of them found jobs right away.
The data, though late, was welcomed by businesses, investors, policymakers and the Federal Reserve. During the 43-day shutdown, they’d been groping in the dark for clues about the health of the American job market because federal workers had been furloughed and couldn’t collect the data.
The report comes at a time of considerable uncertainty about the economy. The job market has been strained by the lingering effects of high interest rates and uncertainty around Trump’s erratic campaign to slap taxes on imports from almost every country on earth. But economic growth at midyear was resilient.
Healthcare and social assistance firms added more than 57,000 jobs in September, restaurants and bars 37,000, construction companies 19,000 and retailers almost 14,000. But factories shed 6,000 jobs — the fifth straight monthly drop. The federal government, targeted by Trump and billionaire Elon Musk’s DOGE cost cutters, lost 3,000 jobs, the eighth straight monthly decline..
Average hourly wages rose just 0.2% from August and 3.8% from a year earlier, edging closer to the 3.5% year-over-year increase that the Federal Reserve’s inflation fighters like to see.
The latest reading on jobs Thursday makes a rate cut by the Fed officials at their next meeting in December less likely. Many were already leaning against a cut next month, according to minutes of their October meeting released Wednesday. Steady hiring suggests the economy doesn’t need lower interest rates to expand.
The September jobs report will be the last one the Fed will see before its Dec. 9-10 meeting. Officials are split between those who see stubbornly high inflation as the main challenge they need to address by keeping rates elevated, and those who are more concerned that hiring is sluggish and needs to be supported by rate reductions.
Hiring has been strained this year by the lingering effects of high interest rates engineered to fight a 2021-2022 spike in inflation and uncertainty around Trump’s campaign to slap taxes on imports from almost every country on earth and on specific products — from copper to foreign films.
Labor Department revisions in September showed that the economy created 911,000 fewer jobs than originally reported in the year that ended in March. That meant that employers added an average of just 71,000 new jobs a month over that period, not the 147,000 first reported. Since March, job creation has fallen farther — to an average 59,000 a month.
With September numbers out, businesses, investors, policymakers and the Fed will have to wait awhile to get another good look at the numbers behind the American labor market.
The Labor Department said Wednesday that it won’t release a full jobs report for October because it couldn’t calculate the unemployment rate during the government shutdown.
Instead, it will release some of the October jobs data — including the number of jobs that employers created last month — along with the full November jobs report on Dec. 16, a couple of weeks late.
The 2025 job market has been marked by an awkward pairing: relatively weak hiring but few layoffs, meaning that Americans who have work mostly enjoy job security – but those who don’t often struggle to find employment.
Megan Fridenmaker, 28, lost her job last month as a writer for a podcast network in Indianapolis. She’s applied for at least 200 jobs and landed just one interview. “I am far from the only unemployed person in my friend group,’’ she said. “Where the job market’s at right now – people will apply for hundreds and hundreds (of jobs) before getting one interview.’’
“Out of everything I’ve applied for, I get a response from maybe a quarter of them,’’ she said. “And the vast majority of the responses are the automated – ‘Thank you so much, but we’ve gone with another candidate.’ ‘Thank you so much, but we’ve already filled the position.’
“The whole job-hunting experience has felt so cold and so distant and so removed from who we are as humans.”
