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As Trump locks in oil deal, Venezuelans ask: What happened to elections?
By Ana Ceballos and Mery Mogollón - Sep 7, 2026
LA Times
Link to Internet (if no paywall or limited free access):
Summary
President Trump’s deal to develop Venezuela’s oil resources with acting President Delcy Rodríguez, despite her government being deemed “illegitimate,” raises concerns about the lack of a firm election timeline. While the deal promises economic benefits, many Venezuelans, including opposition figures, and some Republican U.S. lawmakers, criticize the arrangement for potentially entrenching the unelected government. The open-ended approach to elections, coupled with the long-term oil rights granted, has sparked fears of indefinite rule by Rodríguez.
Key Points
- U.S.-Venezuela Oil Deal
- The Trump administration secured a 100-year deal creating North American Blue Energy Partners to develop 17 oil fields containing 65 billion barrels, giving the U.S. majority control over roughly a third of Venezuela's oil reserves.
- Indefinite Delay of Elections
- President Trump and the White House have refused to set a firm election date, maintaining that Venezuela needs time to rebuild its economy, reform its voting system, and restore a free press before holding credible votes.
- Continuation of the Unregistered Regime
- The agreement relies on acting President Delcy Rodríguez—a holdover from the captured Nicolás Maduro administration—raising fears among critics and former officials that Washington is cementing an unelected government in power for political convenience.
- Backlash from Venezuelan Citizens and Opposition
- Many Venezuelans and opposition figures, including exiled leader María Corina Machado, view the open-ended political timeline as a betrayal, arguing that long-term stability and economic deals require a democratically elected government with strong institutions.
- Bipartisan Concern in Washington
- While praise exists for the economic prospects, lawmakers and former envoys across the political spectrum worry that partnering with Rodríguez gives her reason to rule indefinitely without a clear timeline for democratic transition.
- Desperation and Mixed Reactions On the Ground
- Ordinary citizens face extreme economic hardship, leading some to welcome the potential jobs and investment, while others view the 100-year pact as an imperialist loss of sovereignty that destroys hope for a democratic future and drives further emigration.
Article's Full Text:
President Trump has locked in a deal to develop Venezuela's vast oil resources, an arrangement the White House says will bring a country battered by years of economic collapse to a "place where elections are possible."
But the agreement — backed by acting President Delcy Rodríguez, a holdover from the Nicolás Maduro government that Washington deems "illegitimate" — is raising new uncertainty about how entrenched the unelected government may become.
In January, when the U.S. military captured Maduro, Trump did not say how long a democratic transition would take but said Rodríguez was "gracious" and "essentially willing to do what we think is necessary."
Asked by The Times on Wednesday what was stopping him from demanding Venezuela set a firm election date, Trump was blunt: "I just don't think they are ready yet."
"It's very new. We took them out of a dictatorship and we're getting along great with the government," Trump said. But he said an election would happen "soon."
Under the deal, the U.S. government is partnering with an oil producer to create a new company, North American Blue Energy Partners, to develop 17 fields with a proven potential of 65 billion barrels. NABEP will have rights to the fields for 100 years.
For many Venezuelans, the lack of urgency around elections — set against a deal that gives the United States majority control over roughly a third of the country's oil reserves — is starting to feel like a broken promise.
“They tell us we have to wait two years, maybe more, while in the meantime they do business with a government that wasn’t elected, that was imposed on us, and that we don’t want," Carlos Pérez, a 23-year-old automotive mechanics student, told The Times.
Antonio Marchetti, a 45-year-old plumber and electrician, said that while he sees the removal of Maduro as a “good thing,” the oil deal makes it seem as though Trump’s plans were those of a “cowboy, the invader John Wayne," all along.
"We were expecting elections," Marchetti said. "This pact with Trump entrenched the dictatorship that he himself declared war on. But to get rid of Maduro, he left the rest and did business with them. It disgusts me."
The frustrations go beyond Venezuela. In Washington, Republican lawmakers have praised the oil deal, while calling Rodríguez an "interim dictator" who cannot be trusted.
María Corina Machado, the exiled leader of the Venezuelan opposition and a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, on Thursday raised her own worries about what the oil deal means for the future of Venezuela.
In a video message, Machado stopped short of criticizing Trump's oil deal, but acknowledged concerns about a pact negotiated with an "illegitimate" government.
“Venezuelans know that there can be no development without strong institutions and a government elected by popular vote," she said. "That is the only real guarantee of success and stability for any large-scale investment."
A plan in the works
Trump administration officials have characterized the deal as an economic lifeline that will eventually stabilize a country and prepare it for free and fair elections.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week that the United States is facilitating talks between Venezuela's interim government and Dinorah Figuera, an opposition figure leading Venezuela's 2015 National Assembly, the last democratically elected legislature recognized by the United States.
Machado has been left out of those talks. They are expected to resume in mid-September.
Rubio says that for any election to be "credible," the voting system will require an overhaul and political parties will need time to organize. Steps also must be taken to ensure the country has a free press.
Echoing Rubio's comments, the White House said Friday that Trump wants elections held at the "right time," but that his top priority is to bring Venezuela "back from the dead and rebuild the country after it was incompetently ruled by a nasty dictatorship."
On Wednesday, while Energy Secretary Chris Wright visited Caracas, Rodríguez declined to set a firm date for an election, but added, "I have worked tirelessly to ensure that Venezuela is ready and prepared when the time comes for its electoral process, which will take place — have no doubt about that: There will be an electoral process."
The open-ended approach to holding an election, however, has drawn criticism from former Trump administration officials, who argue the lack of a timeline essentially lets Rodríguez govern indefinitely.
"Here's my fear: It makes us Delcy's partner, and gives the president a reason to want her to remain in power," Elliott Abrams, who served as U.S. special envoy to Venezuela during Trump's first term, told The Times.
He contended that the White House so far appears to prefer a pliant interlocutor, and Rodríguez, he says, will do "whatever Trump tells her to do."
If an election is to take place in Venezuela, a nine-month runway for preparation is likely to be expected, Abrams said.
In Washington, some Republican lawmakers have continued to call for elections in Venezuela, arguing that Rodríguez cannot be trusted.
"The only way we will have a prosperous Venezuela is with the end of the murderous regime and the return of democracy," Rep. Carlos A. Gimenez (R-Fla.) wrote on social media. He also called Rodríguez an "interim dictator."
In an interview with NBC News' "Meet the Press," Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said he does not necessarily think elections should happen before the oil agreement is finalized, but he said they “need to proceed rapidly.”
“I believe they should proceed no later than midway through next year," he said.
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) said he is working with Trump and Rubio to ensure "free, fair, and transparent elections as soon as possible." He did not, however, say what would constitute "soon."
Mixed views on economic hope
In the Lake Maracaibo region, an area that would see renewed investments under the oil agreement, Junior Araujo — a 47-year-old oil worker — sees a "wonderful opportunity to be reborn."
Araujo, the father of three, is in desperate need of a better economic outlook. He works 120 hours a week and earns only $20. For his family, food alone usually costs about $150 a week.
"We have to get creative and find new ways to make ends meet through side jobs like selling clothes and making yogurt," he said. "That's our real financial situation."
For Araujo, the hope for a better economy does not take away his frustrations with the government.
"We're neither happy nor dancing here; all our benefits have been taken away from us," he said. "Our main problem is the current government; we need to restore our institutions."
Nazareth Lezama, a 35-year-old teacher, also sees the oil deal as an economic opportunity but remains concerned that the current government may not have negotiated the best price or conditions for Venezuela. She added this has happened in the past.
"We must be clear that this regime destroyed the oil industry," she said, adding that Venezuelans "need elections to choose leaders based on merit."
Marchetti, the plumber from Caracas, says the oil deal is a "100-year chain" on Venezuelans imposed by Trump. He said it has become the "last straw" for him, and he has decided to leave Venezuela and emigrate to Europe.
"With all the pain in my heart, I will leave everything behind. I have a European passport; it won't be easy to start a life from scratch, but there is no hope left here," he said.
He does not know where he will land yet. But he knows he needs to leave Venezuela.
"This ship is sinking," he said.
But the agreement — backed by acting President Delcy Rodríguez, a holdover from the Nicolás Maduro government that Washington deems "illegitimate" — is raising new uncertainty about how entrenched the unelected government may become.
In January, when the U.S. military captured Maduro, Trump did not say how long a democratic transition would take but said Rodríguez was "gracious" and "essentially willing to do what we think is necessary."
Asked by The Times on Wednesday what was stopping him from demanding Venezuela set a firm election date, Trump was blunt: "I just don't think they are ready yet."
"It's very new. We took them out of a dictatorship and we're getting along great with the government," Trump said. But he said an election would happen "soon."
Under the deal, the U.S. government is partnering with an oil producer to create a new company, North American Blue Energy Partners, to develop 17 fields with a proven potential of 65 billion barrels. NABEP will have rights to the fields for 100 years.
For many Venezuelans, the lack of urgency around elections — set against a deal that gives the United States majority control over roughly a third of the country's oil reserves — is starting to feel like a broken promise.
“They tell us we have to wait two years, maybe more, while in the meantime they do business with a government that wasn’t elected, that was imposed on us, and that we don’t want," Carlos Pérez, a 23-year-old automotive mechanics student, told The Times.
Antonio Marchetti, a 45-year-old plumber and electrician, said that while he sees the removal of Maduro as a “good thing,” the oil deal makes it seem as though Trump’s plans were those of a “cowboy, the invader John Wayne," all along.
"We were expecting elections," Marchetti said. "This pact with Trump entrenched the dictatorship that he himself declared war on. But to get rid of Maduro, he left the rest and did business with them. It disgusts me."
The frustrations go beyond Venezuela. In Washington, Republican lawmakers have praised the oil deal, while calling Rodríguez an "interim dictator" who cannot be trusted.
María Corina Machado, the exiled leader of the Venezuelan opposition and a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, on Thursday raised her own worries about what the oil deal means for the future of Venezuela.
In a video message, Machado stopped short of criticizing Trump's oil deal, but acknowledged concerns about a pact negotiated with an "illegitimate" government.
“Venezuelans know that there can be no development without strong institutions and a government elected by popular vote," she said. "That is the only real guarantee of success and stability for any large-scale investment."
A plan in the works
Trump administration officials have characterized the deal as an economic lifeline that will eventually stabilize a country and prepare it for free and fair elections.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week that the United States is facilitating talks between Venezuela's interim government and Dinorah Figuera, an opposition figure leading Venezuela's 2015 National Assembly, the last democratically elected legislature recognized by the United States.
Machado has been left out of those talks. They are expected to resume in mid-September.
Rubio says that for any election to be "credible," the voting system will require an overhaul and political parties will need time to organize. Steps also must be taken to ensure the country has a free press.
Echoing Rubio's comments, the White House said Friday that Trump wants elections held at the "right time," but that his top priority is to bring Venezuela "back from the dead and rebuild the country after it was incompetently ruled by a nasty dictatorship."
On Wednesday, while Energy Secretary Chris Wright visited Caracas, Rodríguez declined to set a firm date for an election, but added, "I have worked tirelessly to ensure that Venezuela is ready and prepared when the time comes for its electoral process, which will take place — have no doubt about that: There will be an electoral process."
The open-ended approach to holding an election, however, has drawn criticism from former Trump administration officials, who argue the lack of a timeline essentially lets Rodríguez govern indefinitely.
"Here's my fear: It makes us Delcy's partner, and gives the president a reason to want her to remain in power," Elliott Abrams, who served as U.S. special envoy to Venezuela during Trump's first term, told The Times.
He contended that the White House so far appears to prefer a pliant interlocutor, and Rodríguez, he says, will do "whatever Trump tells her to do."
If an election is to take place in Venezuela, a nine-month runway for preparation is likely to be expected, Abrams said.
In Washington, some Republican lawmakers have continued to call for elections in Venezuela, arguing that Rodríguez cannot be trusted.
"The only way we will have a prosperous Venezuela is with the end of the murderous regime and the return of democracy," Rep. Carlos A. Gimenez (R-Fla.) wrote on social media. He also called Rodríguez an "interim dictator."
In an interview with NBC News' "Meet the Press," Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said he does not necessarily think elections should happen before the oil agreement is finalized, but he said they “need to proceed rapidly.”
“I believe they should proceed no later than midway through next year," he said.
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) said he is working with Trump and Rubio to ensure "free, fair, and transparent elections as soon as possible." He did not, however, say what would constitute "soon."
Mixed views on economic hope
In the Lake Maracaibo region, an area that would see renewed investments under the oil agreement, Junior Araujo — a 47-year-old oil worker — sees a "wonderful opportunity to be reborn."
Araujo, the father of three, is in desperate need of a better economic outlook. He works 120 hours a week and earns only $20. For his family, food alone usually costs about $150 a week.
"We have to get creative and find new ways to make ends meet through side jobs like selling clothes and making yogurt," he said. "That's our real financial situation."
For Araujo, the hope for a better economy does not take away his frustrations with the government.
"We're neither happy nor dancing here; all our benefits have been taken away from us," he said. "Our main problem is the current government; we need to restore our institutions."
Nazareth Lezama, a 35-year-old teacher, also sees the oil deal as an economic opportunity but remains concerned that the current government may not have negotiated the best price or conditions for Venezuela. She added this has happened in the past.
"We must be clear that this regime destroyed the oil industry," she said, adding that Venezuelans "need elections to choose leaders based on merit."
Marchetti, the plumber from Caracas, says the oil deal is a "100-year chain" on Venezuelans imposed by Trump. He said it has become the "last straw" for him, and he has decided to leave Venezuela and emigrate to Europe.
"With all the pain in my heart, I will leave everything behind. I have a European passport; it won't be easy to start a life from scratch, but there is no hope left here," he said.
He does not know where he will land yet. But he knows he needs to leave Venezuela.
"This ship is sinking," he said.
Canada turns its critical minerals into leverage against Trump
By Mike Blanchfield - Sep 5, 2026
Politico
Link to Internet (if no paywall or limited free access):
Summary
Canada is shifting its approach to critical minerals, moving away from cooperation with the U.S. due to escalating trade tensions. Energy Minister Tim Hodgson emphasizes leveraging Canada’s resource wealth, highlighting the potential for increased electricity and mineral exports to the U.S. while asserting Canadian sovereignty. This shift comes amid concerns about U.S. pressure to secure critical minerals, potentially impacting Canada’s autonomy in resource management.
Key Points
- Canada is shifting its posture away from sharing critical minerals with the United States, actively leveraging its vast resource wealth and electricity grid as leverage in an escalating trade war driven by U.S. economic aggression.
- Instead of prioritizing American supply chains, Canadian leadership—led by Prime Minister Mark Carney and Energy Minister Tim Hodgson—is aggressively expanding domestic power infrastructure to process minerals locally and pivoting toward international partnerships, including behind-the-scenes offers to G7 allies for priority access.
- While the U.S. relies heavily on Canadian resources like potash and electricity to counter Chinese market dominance and support its tech and defense sectors, Canadian officials reject exclusive access for Washington, explicitly framing critical minerals as strategic cards to defend national sovereignty.
- This hardball strategy carries significant geopolitical risks, as U.S. security experts warn that escalating economic retaliation could pressure the U.S. to coercively leverage its power over Canada's natural resource sector, potentially threatening Canadian autonomy over its own mining industry.
Article's Full Text:
Canada is no longer talking about critical minerals as an asset to share with the United States, as it slaps back at the Trump administration in its bitterly escalating trade war.
“I don’t get mad, I get even,” Energy and Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson said Thursday, capping a tour meant to showcase the mines and electricity projects Canada is racing to build in response to President Donald Trump’s economic aggression.
In Prince George, B.C., Hodgson broke ground on the North Coast Transmission Line, set to be running by 2032 — an expansion of the provincial grid that would double electricity capacity in British Columbia, powering new critical mineral mines near the Alaskan border and liquefied natural gas shipments to Asia.
“Nothing would make me happier than when the United States asks us for more electricity to say, ‘You know what, we’ve got a lot of mines we need to develop in northern British Columbia,’” Hodgson said.
“Nothing would make me happier than just saying, ‘You know what, we’re going to use all our electricity here. We’re going to build new mines, new processing facilities.’”
Although Trump keeps insisting otherwise, the U.S. relies heavily on Canadian resources. Canada supplied more than 80 percent of U.S. electricity imports in 2025, according to the Canada Energy Regulator. U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra has singled out potash as something America needs. Shortly after arriving in Ottawa in April 2025, Hoekstra told POLITICO that Trump was “very interested” in Canada’s energy and critical minerals.
Washington views Canada’s stockpiles as a bulwark against Chinese dominance of the global market in critical minerals essential to defense, quantum computing, artificial intelligence, and virtually every piece of tech.
Canada and the United States have a cooperation agreement on critical minerals that took root in the Joe Biden administration and continues under the Trump administration.
After walking away from trade negotiations last month, Prime Minister Mark Carney signaled he was losing interest and patience in cooperating with the U.S. on critical minerals. He said he would continue finding deals and keep pursuing them elsewhere, suggesting Washington had squandered an opportunity to cooperate with Canada.
“That is something that is a missed opportunity as a consequence of what’s happened, but we didn’t cause it to them,” Carney said when POLITICO asked about the role of critical minerals at his Aug. 22 press conference, the morning after he called his negotiators back to Ottawa.
“Kind of thing you do as part of a trade deal,” Carney quipped. “One of the reasons to do a trade deal with Canada.”
Ottawa has been courting alternatives. Carney boasted of 50 deals in the past 12 months, “on the order of C$50 billion worth of transactions” including stockpiling.
Asked by POLITICO whether that included the demand for exclusive access to Canada’s minerals, Carney shot back: “We would never give exclusive access.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Ahead of this year’s G7, Canada extended a behind-the-scenes offer to alliance members for “priority access” to Canada's critical minerals stockpile, according to a letter seen by POLITICO from Hodgson.
Carney said there had been potential for cooperation based on Canada’s initiative during its G7 presidency to create a critical minerals alliance, along with American efforts led by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
British Columbia Premier David Eby, an outspoken Trump critic, noted Thursday that Americans need power from his province and at the same time, “the president continues to denigrate and insult the massive contribution that British Columbians and Canadians make to American energy security.”
Ontario Premier Doug Ford has suggested Canada should threaten to cut off critical mineral supplies.
But given their strategic importance to the U.S. — and especially in light of Trump’s reaction to the breakdown in talks, including renaming Lake Ontario — playing hardball risks further attacks on the Canadian sovereignty that Carney seeks to protect.
A research paper released this past spring by the Transition Security Project, a U.S.-U.K. nonprofit initiative that analyzes the overlap between defense spending, climate change, and geopolitics, raised the specter that the U.S. could coerce Canada into becoming an unwilling supplier of the minerals that it needs.
“The constant threat of American escalation turns mineral-rich allies like Canada into policy-takers — integrated suppliers whose investment and regulatory space narrows as the U.S. leverages its economic power over their natural resource industries,” the paper warned.
“If that trajectory continues, Canada’s status as a ‘mining nation’ might be better described as ‘mining territory’ for the larger American security economy,” it said.
But Hodgson, a former Goldman Sachs Canada CEO, is demonstrating an elbows-up defiance on leveraging Canada’s resource wealth and has repeatedly referred to critical minerals as “an incredible set of cards” in any negotiation with the U.S.
This past week, Hodgson began laying those cards on the table in his western Canadian travels that started in Saskatchewan with visits to potash, uranium, and copper producers, and rare earth processors.
At Saskatoon’s McIlvenna Bay copper and zinc mine, which delivered its first bounty of minerals this summer, Hodgson said the facility would help “underpin our sovereignty as a new source of minerals that are essential to our clean energy technologies, to our advanced manufacturing, and to our national security.”
“I don’t get mad, I get even,” Energy and Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson said Thursday, capping a tour meant to showcase the mines and electricity projects Canada is racing to build in response to President Donald Trump’s economic aggression.
In Prince George, B.C., Hodgson broke ground on the North Coast Transmission Line, set to be running by 2032 — an expansion of the provincial grid that would double electricity capacity in British Columbia, powering new critical mineral mines near the Alaskan border and liquefied natural gas shipments to Asia.
“Nothing would make me happier than when the United States asks us for more electricity to say, ‘You know what, we’ve got a lot of mines we need to develop in northern British Columbia,’” Hodgson said.
“Nothing would make me happier than just saying, ‘You know what, we’re going to use all our electricity here. We’re going to build new mines, new processing facilities.’”
Although Trump keeps insisting otherwise, the U.S. relies heavily on Canadian resources. Canada supplied more than 80 percent of U.S. electricity imports in 2025, according to the Canada Energy Regulator. U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra has singled out potash as something America needs. Shortly after arriving in Ottawa in April 2025, Hoekstra told POLITICO that Trump was “very interested” in Canada’s energy and critical minerals.
Washington views Canada’s stockpiles as a bulwark against Chinese dominance of the global market in critical minerals essential to defense, quantum computing, artificial intelligence, and virtually every piece of tech.
Canada and the United States have a cooperation agreement on critical minerals that took root in the Joe Biden administration and continues under the Trump administration.
After walking away from trade negotiations last month, Prime Minister Mark Carney signaled he was losing interest and patience in cooperating with the U.S. on critical minerals. He said he would continue finding deals and keep pursuing them elsewhere, suggesting Washington had squandered an opportunity to cooperate with Canada.
“That is something that is a missed opportunity as a consequence of what’s happened, but we didn’t cause it to them,” Carney said when POLITICO asked about the role of critical minerals at his Aug. 22 press conference, the morning after he called his negotiators back to Ottawa.
“Kind of thing you do as part of a trade deal,” Carney quipped. “One of the reasons to do a trade deal with Canada.”
Ottawa has been courting alternatives. Carney boasted of 50 deals in the past 12 months, “on the order of C$50 billion worth of transactions” including stockpiling.
Asked by POLITICO whether that included the demand for exclusive access to Canada’s minerals, Carney shot back: “We would never give exclusive access.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Ahead of this year’s G7, Canada extended a behind-the-scenes offer to alliance members for “priority access” to Canada's critical minerals stockpile, according to a letter seen by POLITICO from Hodgson.
Carney said there had been potential for cooperation based on Canada’s initiative during its G7 presidency to create a critical minerals alliance, along with American efforts led by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
British Columbia Premier David Eby, an outspoken Trump critic, noted Thursday that Americans need power from his province and at the same time, “the president continues to denigrate and insult the massive contribution that British Columbians and Canadians make to American energy security.”
Ontario Premier Doug Ford has suggested Canada should threaten to cut off critical mineral supplies.
But given their strategic importance to the U.S. — and especially in light of Trump’s reaction to the breakdown in talks, including renaming Lake Ontario — playing hardball risks further attacks on the Canadian sovereignty that Carney seeks to protect.
A research paper released this past spring by the Transition Security Project, a U.S.-U.K. nonprofit initiative that analyzes the overlap between defense spending, climate change, and geopolitics, raised the specter that the U.S. could coerce Canada into becoming an unwilling supplier of the minerals that it needs.
“The constant threat of American escalation turns mineral-rich allies like Canada into policy-takers — integrated suppliers whose investment and regulatory space narrows as the U.S. leverages its economic power over their natural resource industries,” the paper warned.
“If that trajectory continues, Canada’s status as a ‘mining nation’ might be better described as ‘mining territory’ for the larger American security economy,” it said.
But Hodgson, a former Goldman Sachs Canada CEO, is demonstrating an elbows-up defiance on leveraging Canada’s resource wealth and has repeatedly referred to critical minerals as “an incredible set of cards” in any negotiation with the U.S.
This past week, Hodgson began laying those cards on the table in his western Canadian travels that started in Saskatchewan with visits to potash, uranium, and copper producers, and rare earth processors.
At Saskatoon’s McIlvenna Bay copper and zinc mine, which delivered its first bounty of minerals this summer, Hodgson said the facility would help “underpin our sovereignty as a new source of minerals that are essential to our clean energy technologies, to our advanced manufacturing, and to our national security.”
Republicans might still lose half the seats they gerrymandered to flip.
By Andrew Howard and Aaron Pellish - Sep 6, 2026
Politico
pdf
Link to Internet if no paywall or limited free access):
Summary
Republicans are concerned their mid-decade gerrymandering efforts won’t secure their House majority. Despite gaining seats through redistricting, the expected gains are smaller than anticipated due to a challenging political environment and unexpected competitiveness in traditionally safe districts. While some Republicans remain optimistic about their chances, others acknowledge the need for significant effort to win in certain areas.
Key Points
- Republicans are concerned that their aggressive, mid-decade gerrymandering strategy will yield far fewer House seats than anticipated due to a tough national political environment marked by low presidential approval ratings and economic pressures.
- While map redraws in states like Texas, Florida, Ohio, and North Carolina were built to expand the GOP majority, many of these newly redrawn districts remain unexpectedly competitive and will require heavy campaign spending to defend.
- Recent judicial setbacks, such as the Missouri Supreme Court blocking a Republican-drawn map, have further limited potential gains, leaving the GOP's most reliable pickups concentrated in southern redraws like Louisiana, Tennessee, and Alabama.
- National party leaders maintain that the new boundaries still grant them a vital structural advantage by forcing Democrats to defend difficult territory, though local strategists worry that the heavy political capital and resources poured into the redistricting push could have been better utilized elsewhere.
Article's Full Text:
Republicans are growing increasingly worried their mid-decade gerrymandering push isn’t going to save their House majority.
The norm-breaking plan hatched by the White House last summer to draw new maps to protect the party from an unfavorable midterm environment is not on track to bear the fruits they hoped it would. Two months out from Election Day, Republicans are sweating races they thought they would win comfortably when they redrew district boundaries, according to conversations with a dozen Republican strategists on Friday.
Republicans did win the midterm mapmaking war and will likely net at least six seats via gerrymandering — but that’s less than half the number they’d initially hoped when they began the ambitious project over a year ago. That’s largely due to the same political environment threatening GOP seats once thought safe across the map, with President Donald Trump’s approval rating hovering in the high-30s as the unpopular war in Iran continues to affect Americans’ pocketbooks.
Seats designed to be safe in Texas, Florida, Ohio, and North Carolina are all still surprisingly competitive, leaving Republicans looking at smaller gains that came from southern state redraws. And on Friday, the Missouri Supreme Court delivered another blow when it blocked a one-seat GOP gerrymander from taking effect this year unless the U.S. Supreme Court intervenes.
Adam Kincaid, president of the National Republican Redistricting Trust and the cartographer of Texas’ redraw, said the mid-decade gerrymandering push still made 10 House districts more favorable for the GOP — but can’t guarantee an outcome.
“Redistricting is construction, not sales,” Kincaid said in an interview Friday. “The other thing I tell people all the time is ‘politics is not the Field of Dreams.’ Just because you build it doesn't mean they're going to come.”
And those redraws took effort and political capital that could have been spent elsewhere.
“Imagine if we had spent all of the time and energy and resources that have been spent on this redistricting war and instead focused on something like making life more affordable for Americans,” said Rep. Kevin Kiley (I-Calif.), who left the GOP after his district was redrawn by Democrats in California and who has proposed a bill that has been blocked by leaders of both parties to end mid-decade redistricting.
Republicans redrew maps in eight states — Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Alabama — while Democrats only pulled off a gerrymander in California. (They got another seat from a Utah court decision but had their Virginia gerrymander blocked in court.) In a less hostile political environment, that could have netted the GOP more than a dozen seats.
But they’re not all looking so solid. Texas Republicans are growing increasingly worried that newly drawn Latino-heavy seats Trump carried by double digits in 2024 are looking shaky, and the five-seat net they’d hoped out of the state looks increasingly unrealistic by the day.“The Texas redistricting effort will for sure yield a two-seat gain, and more than likely yield a three-seat gain,” said Alfredo Rodriguez, a Dallas-based Republican strategist. “Picking up five seats will be difficult considering the environment and headwinds Republicans face this cycle.” In North Carolina, Democratic Rep. Don Davis looks very much alive in a tough seat redrawn by the GOP to take him out.
And Florida’s new gerrymander isn’t looking bulletproof, either, with Democratic Reps. Darren Soto, Kathy Castor, and Jared Moskowitz running hard to hold onto newly red-leaning territory.
“Those are all going to be competitive races for sure,” Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis said last week in Tampa. “I think if this were 2022 and these guys were running those races, we’d win all four — no question, slam dunk. This year, they’re winnable, but I think it’s going to require some effort.”
Republicans took a more clear-cut blow on Thursday, when the Missouri Supreme Court erased a map gutting Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s seat. The U.S. Supreme Court could still undo part of that decision ahead of November, and Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway, a Republican, has said the state will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to do so.
Some Republicans are bullish that they will win that appeal, including Kincaid, but others are skeptical. A Missouri GOP strategist working on congressional campaigns, granted anonymity to speak candidly, called the appeal a “hail mary pass.”
In response to a request for comment to the White House, Republican National Committee spokesperson Ally Triolo said she lambasted the Missouri decision as “reckless and wrong.”
Republicans’ safest pickups remain in the South after Louisiana, Tennessee, and Alabama redrew their maps following the Supreme Court’s limiting of the Voting Rights Act, and Republicans responded by splitting safely blue, heavily Black districts to make them unwinnable for Democrats. National Republicans argue that the whole thing was worth it and will still lead to gains for the GOP, adding that Democrats’ California gerrymander left competitive seats, too.
The NRCC has long been bullish that redistricting will help them maintain their razor-thin House majority. In a memo obtained by POLITICO earlier this summer, the committee argued that redistricting has created “structural dynamics [that] favor Republicans” by shrinking the number of competitive seats across the map.
They point to extensive data that shows Democrats historically performing poorly in a host of the seats that were redrawn this year — including three in California and several in Texas and Florida. For example, their data shows that the newly drawn Texas 35th District has never been carried by a Democrat in any race, even though the party is targeting it in November. “The naysayers and bedwetters fail to recognize that Democrats promised the moon in California, and instead they’re being forced to fight tooth and nail across deep-red territory in states like Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Alabama,” National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Make Marinella said in a statement.
Not all Republicans are feeling as optimistic. Ohio GOP strategist Bob Clegg said the deal Republicans made with Democrats on the state’s redistricting commission to approve a more moderate gerrymander over a map that could have effectively flipped three districts means Republicans are having to use resources to compete in Ohio that could be spent elsewhere. (Rep. Max Miller’s ongoing personal scandals aren’t helping in his seat, either.)
“When the national political environment's not in your favor, you gotta spend a lot of money in these races,” Clegg said. “Now the question here in Ohio is, are we a red enough state that we can survive that?”
The norm-breaking plan hatched by the White House last summer to draw new maps to protect the party from an unfavorable midterm environment is not on track to bear the fruits they hoped it would. Two months out from Election Day, Republicans are sweating races they thought they would win comfortably when they redrew district boundaries, according to conversations with a dozen Republican strategists on Friday.
Republicans did win the midterm mapmaking war and will likely net at least six seats via gerrymandering — but that’s less than half the number they’d initially hoped when they began the ambitious project over a year ago. That’s largely due to the same political environment threatening GOP seats once thought safe across the map, with President Donald Trump’s approval rating hovering in the high-30s as the unpopular war in Iran continues to affect Americans’ pocketbooks.
Seats designed to be safe in Texas, Florida, Ohio, and North Carolina are all still surprisingly competitive, leaving Republicans looking at smaller gains that came from southern state redraws. And on Friday, the Missouri Supreme Court delivered another blow when it blocked a one-seat GOP gerrymander from taking effect this year unless the U.S. Supreme Court intervenes.
Adam Kincaid, president of the National Republican Redistricting Trust and the cartographer of Texas’ redraw, said the mid-decade gerrymandering push still made 10 House districts more favorable for the GOP — but can’t guarantee an outcome.
“Redistricting is construction, not sales,” Kincaid said in an interview Friday. “The other thing I tell people all the time is ‘politics is not the Field of Dreams.’ Just because you build it doesn't mean they're going to come.”
And those redraws took effort and political capital that could have been spent elsewhere.
“Imagine if we had spent all of the time and energy and resources that have been spent on this redistricting war and instead focused on something like making life more affordable for Americans,” said Rep. Kevin Kiley (I-Calif.), who left the GOP after his district was redrawn by Democrats in California and who has proposed a bill that has been blocked by leaders of both parties to end mid-decade redistricting.
Republicans redrew maps in eight states — Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Alabama — while Democrats only pulled off a gerrymander in California. (They got another seat from a Utah court decision but had their Virginia gerrymander blocked in court.) In a less hostile political environment, that could have netted the GOP more than a dozen seats.
But they’re not all looking so solid. Texas Republicans are growing increasingly worried that newly drawn Latino-heavy seats Trump carried by double digits in 2024 are looking shaky, and the five-seat net they’d hoped out of the state looks increasingly unrealistic by the day.“The Texas redistricting effort will for sure yield a two-seat gain, and more than likely yield a three-seat gain,” said Alfredo Rodriguez, a Dallas-based Republican strategist. “Picking up five seats will be difficult considering the environment and headwinds Republicans face this cycle.” In North Carolina, Democratic Rep. Don Davis looks very much alive in a tough seat redrawn by the GOP to take him out.
And Florida’s new gerrymander isn’t looking bulletproof, either, with Democratic Reps. Darren Soto, Kathy Castor, and Jared Moskowitz running hard to hold onto newly red-leaning territory.
“Those are all going to be competitive races for sure,” Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis said last week in Tampa. “I think if this were 2022 and these guys were running those races, we’d win all four — no question, slam dunk. This year, they’re winnable, but I think it’s going to require some effort.”
Republicans took a more clear-cut blow on Thursday, when the Missouri Supreme Court erased a map gutting Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s seat. The U.S. Supreme Court could still undo part of that decision ahead of November, and Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway, a Republican, has said the state will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to do so.
Some Republicans are bullish that they will win that appeal, including Kincaid, but others are skeptical. A Missouri GOP strategist working on congressional campaigns, granted anonymity to speak candidly, called the appeal a “hail mary pass.”
In response to a request for comment to the White House, Republican National Committee spokesperson Ally Triolo said she lambasted the Missouri decision as “reckless and wrong.”
Republicans’ safest pickups remain in the South after Louisiana, Tennessee, and Alabama redrew their maps following the Supreme Court’s limiting of the Voting Rights Act, and Republicans responded by splitting safely blue, heavily Black districts to make them unwinnable for Democrats. National Republicans argue that the whole thing was worth it and will still lead to gains for the GOP, adding that Democrats’ California gerrymander left competitive seats, too.
The NRCC has long been bullish that redistricting will help them maintain their razor-thin House majority. In a memo obtained by POLITICO earlier this summer, the committee argued that redistricting has created “structural dynamics [that] favor Republicans” by shrinking the number of competitive seats across the map.
They point to extensive data that shows Democrats historically performing poorly in a host of the seats that were redrawn this year — including three in California and several in Texas and Florida. For example, their data shows that the newly drawn Texas 35th District has never been carried by a Democrat in any race, even though the party is targeting it in November. “The naysayers and bedwetters fail to recognize that Democrats promised the moon in California, and instead they’re being forced to fight tooth and nail across deep-red territory in states like Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Alabama,” National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Make Marinella said in a statement.
Not all Republicans are feeling as optimistic. Ohio GOP strategist Bob Clegg said the deal Republicans made with Democrats on the state’s redistricting commission to approve a more moderate gerrymander over a map that could have effectively flipped three districts means Republicans are having to use resources to compete in Ohio that could be spent elsewhere. (Rep. Max Miller’s ongoing personal scandals aren’t helping in his seat, either.)
“When the national political environment's not in your favor, you gotta spend a lot of money in these races,” Clegg said. “Now the question here in Ohio is, are we a red enough state that we can survive that?”
White House faces mifepristone test
By Nathaniel Wiesel - Sep 6, 2026
The Hill
pdf
Link to Internet (if no paywall or limited free access):
Summary
The Trump administration faces a key test on abortion as the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals hears arguments in a case that could restrict the nationwide distribution of the abortion drug mifepristone. Louisiana, which has banned abortion, sued the FDA, arguing its rules undercut the state’s ban and lacked sufficient safety data. The outcome of this case, along with two others in Missouri and Texas, could significantly impact telehealth access to mifepristone nationwide.
Key Points
- An impending ruling from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Louisiana threatens to restrict nationwide telehealth access to mifepristone, the primary drug used in medication abortions.
- Louisiana initiated the lawsuit by arguing that the FDA's relaxed telehealth rules undermine its near-total state abortion ban, violate its sovereignty, and lack sufficient safety data.
- Despite strong pressure from conservative groups to settle the lawsuit and end mail-order distribution immediately, the Trump administration has taken a middle-ground approach by asking courts to pause litigation while the FDA completes a safety review.
- Attorney General Todd Blanche has publicly committed to halting mail-order abortion pills, but the administration's current strategy of delaying formal court action while conducting its safety analysis has drawn criticism from both sides and is actively being used against the Justice Department in court.
- Legal experts expect that regardless of the 5th Circuit's decision regarding Louisiana's standing or the nationwide ban, the dispute over mifepristone access is bound for the Supreme Court.
Article's Full Text:
The Trump administration is set to face another key test on abortion, with two months to go until the midterm elections.
A three-judge panel on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans is poised to hear oral arguments next week in a case that could eventually restrict the nationwide distribution of the abortion drug mifepristone.
Medication has become the most common method of abortion since Roe v. Wade was overturned in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, with much of that increase coming from telehealth prescriptions.
The Biden administration loosened telehealth regulations in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing a surge of pills to be prescribed through telehealth, in pharmacies, and through the mail.
Louisiana, which has almost completely banned abortion, objected to the policy and sued.
The state argued that the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) permissive rules undercut its near-total abortion ban and were a violation of the state’s sovereignty. Louisiana also asserted the FDA didn’t have enough safety data to roll back the in-person dispensing requirement.
According to the Guttmacher Institute, a think tank that supports abortion access, about 91,000 abortions were provided last year via telehealth prescription of abortion medication sent by mail to states with bans — including more than 9,300 in Louisiana.
“The stakes in this case are enormous,” Kelly Baden, vice president of U.S. Policy & Communications at Guttmacher, said in a statement. “Patients, providers, and communities have endured nonstop attacks on abortion access— the Fifth Circuit must reject this baseless case and affirm the status quo for nationwide access to medication abortion.”
The Louisiana case has put the Trump administration in an awkward political bind: It won’t defend moves made by the Biden administration, but Attorney General Todd Blanche has not yet settled the lawsuit, much to the disappointment of conservatives who have been pressuring him.
“The Trump administration could resolve this issue tomorrow by settling our case. Absolutely,” said Gabriella McIntyre, legal counsel of Alliance Defending Freedom, which is helping to argue the case for Louisiana and one of its residents, a co-plaintiff who says her then-boyfriend coerced her into taking abortion pills.
During his confirmation hearing, Blanche pledged to take action to stop mifepristone from being available through the mail.
“You know, I’ve seen video myself of what appears to be pills coming even from overseas to young women, and doesn’t matter who applies for it, anybody can get it. There’s no instructions; they just come dumped out of a little plastic bag, and it’s wrong,” Blanche said. “And I very much commit our resources to stopping this.”
During a private call with faith leaders, Blanche hinted that restrictions on mail-order abortion drugs are coming.
The administration is “putting practices and policies in place so that other states and other organizations” can’t send abortion pills through the mail to states where they are banned, he said.
But meanwhile, the Justice Department has been urging courts to put mifepristone lawsuits on hold until the FDA finishes a safety review.
An administration official said in June the retrospective analysis of data is likely to take six months to complete, but initial results could be released earlier. The district court judge in Louisiana set an Oct. 7 deadline for a status update, meaning some of the FDA’s efforts will be clear just weeks before the election.
Anti-abortion groups hope the review will result in restrictions on mifepristone, but they want the FDA to move faster. The administration says the work takes time, but conservative states aren’t waiting.
The Louisiana case is one of three federal lawsuits that could affect telehealth access to mifepristone nationwide. The others are being considered in Missouri and Texas.
The Texas case was paused by a federal judge on Aug. 31, while the Missouri case is still being briefed.
In Louisiana, a federal district judge said the state had a strong case but decided to pause the lawsuit while the FDA’s review was in progress. Louisiana appealed, and the 5th Circuit in May ruled in favor of the state, temporarily blocking telehealth prescriptions of mifepristone nationwide.
The Supreme Court then paused the 5th Circuit’s ruling and sent the case back after two manufacturers of mifepristone appealed. Notably, the Justice Department declined to weigh in, though other GOP states and members of Congress did.
McIntyre said the Trump administration’s silence on the merits of the case speaks volumes because it means the administration doesn’t believe the FDA’s actions were defensible.
She expects much of Wednesday’s arguments to focus on whether Louisiana has standing to argue for a nationwide ruling.
“If Louisiana wins, we’re going to see for the first time truly what it looks like for pro-life states to actually be able to enforce their pro-life laws protecting the unborn. That was the promise of Dobbs,” McIntyre said.
Katie Keith, director of the health policy and law initiative at Georgetown University’s O’Neill Institute, agreed that the administration’s attempt to thread a political needle may backfire.
“They’re not being able to have it both ways on this,” Keith said. “By trying to sort of stay out of it and just say we’re doing our review, that position has actively been used against them in court [and] could be the thing that the courts point to … to actually limit access to the drug.”
The FDA has repeatedly found mifepristone is safe and that a medication abortion regimen that includes mifepristone and a second drug — misoprostol — is a safe and effective alternative to surgical abortions.
Mifepristone has been used by more than 7.5 million people in the U.S. for medication abortion and miscarriage care since the FDA approved it more than two decades ago. A series of agency actions in 2016 and 2023 loosened access to the drug, and abortion opponents have been strategizing attacks ever since.
The first major assault began in 2022, when anti-abortion doctors and medical organizations sued to try to revoke the original approval of mifepristone.
While lower courts agreed, the Supreme Court in 2024 unanimously upheld access to mifepristone on a technicality, ruling that doctors and medical groups opposed to abortion did not have a legal right to sue.
The 5th Circuit is considered to be one of the most conservative appeals courts in the country, but Wednesday’s panel includes two judges appointed by Democratic presidents; one from former President Obama, and one from former President Biden.
Greer Donley, an abortion law expert and professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, said no matter what the appeals court eventually rules, the case is almost certainly going to the Supreme Court.
Given the FDA’s ongoing review, the other mifepristone cases around the country, and the likelihood of the high court’s involvement, “it makes me feel like this is just all political theater,” Donley said.
A three-judge panel on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans is poised to hear oral arguments next week in a case that could eventually restrict the nationwide distribution of the abortion drug mifepristone.
Medication has become the most common method of abortion since Roe v. Wade was overturned in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, with much of that increase coming from telehealth prescriptions.
The Biden administration loosened telehealth regulations in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing a surge of pills to be prescribed through telehealth, in pharmacies, and through the mail.
Louisiana, which has almost completely banned abortion, objected to the policy and sued.
The state argued that the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) permissive rules undercut its near-total abortion ban and were a violation of the state’s sovereignty. Louisiana also asserted the FDA didn’t have enough safety data to roll back the in-person dispensing requirement.
According to the Guttmacher Institute, a think tank that supports abortion access, about 91,000 abortions were provided last year via telehealth prescription of abortion medication sent by mail to states with bans — including more than 9,300 in Louisiana.
“The stakes in this case are enormous,” Kelly Baden, vice president of U.S. Policy & Communications at Guttmacher, said in a statement. “Patients, providers, and communities have endured nonstop attacks on abortion access— the Fifth Circuit must reject this baseless case and affirm the status quo for nationwide access to medication abortion.”
The Louisiana case has put the Trump administration in an awkward political bind: It won’t defend moves made by the Biden administration, but Attorney General Todd Blanche has not yet settled the lawsuit, much to the disappointment of conservatives who have been pressuring him.
“The Trump administration could resolve this issue tomorrow by settling our case. Absolutely,” said Gabriella McIntyre, legal counsel of Alliance Defending Freedom, which is helping to argue the case for Louisiana and one of its residents, a co-plaintiff who says her then-boyfriend coerced her into taking abortion pills.
During his confirmation hearing, Blanche pledged to take action to stop mifepristone from being available through the mail.
“You know, I’ve seen video myself of what appears to be pills coming even from overseas to young women, and doesn’t matter who applies for it, anybody can get it. There’s no instructions; they just come dumped out of a little plastic bag, and it’s wrong,” Blanche said. “And I very much commit our resources to stopping this.”
During a private call with faith leaders, Blanche hinted that restrictions on mail-order abortion drugs are coming.
The administration is “putting practices and policies in place so that other states and other organizations” can’t send abortion pills through the mail to states where they are banned, he said.
But meanwhile, the Justice Department has been urging courts to put mifepristone lawsuits on hold until the FDA finishes a safety review.
An administration official said in June the retrospective analysis of data is likely to take six months to complete, but initial results could be released earlier. The district court judge in Louisiana set an Oct. 7 deadline for a status update, meaning some of the FDA’s efforts will be clear just weeks before the election.
Anti-abortion groups hope the review will result in restrictions on mifepristone, but they want the FDA to move faster. The administration says the work takes time, but conservative states aren’t waiting.
The Louisiana case is one of three federal lawsuits that could affect telehealth access to mifepristone nationwide. The others are being considered in Missouri and Texas.
The Texas case was paused by a federal judge on Aug. 31, while the Missouri case is still being briefed.
In Louisiana, a federal district judge said the state had a strong case but decided to pause the lawsuit while the FDA’s review was in progress. Louisiana appealed, and the 5th Circuit in May ruled in favor of the state, temporarily blocking telehealth prescriptions of mifepristone nationwide.
The Supreme Court then paused the 5th Circuit’s ruling and sent the case back after two manufacturers of mifepristone appealed. Notably, the Justice Department declined to weigh in, though other GOP states and members of Congress did.
McIntyre said the Trump administration’s silence on the merits of the case speaks volumes because it means the administration doesn’t believe the FDA’s actions were defensible.
She expects much of Wednesday’s arguments to focus on whether Louisiana has standing to argue for a nationwide ruling.
“If Louisiana wins, we’re going to see for the first time truly what it looks like for pro-life states to actually be able to enforce their pro-life laws protecting the unborn. That was the promise of Dobbs,” McIntyre said.
Katie Keith, director of the health policy and law initiative at Georgetown University’s O’Neill Institute, agreed that the administration’s attempt to thread a political needle may backfire.
“They’re not being able to have it both ways on this,” Keith said. “By trying to sort of stay out of it and just say we’re doing our review, that position has actively been used against them in court [and] could be the thing that the courts point to … to actually limit access to the drug.”
The FDA has repeatedly found mifepristone is safe and that a medication abortion regimen that includes mifepristone and a second drug — misoprostol — is a safe and effective alternative to surgical abortions.
Mifepristone has been used by more than 7.5 million people in the U.S. for medication abortion and miscarriage care since the FDA approved it more than two decades ago. A series of agency actions in 2016 and 2023 loosened access to the drug, and abortion opponents have been strategizing attacks ever since.
The first major assault began in 2022, when anti-abortion doctors and medical organizations sued to try to revoke the original approval of mifepristone.
While lower courts agreed, the Supreme Court in 2024 unanimously upheld access to mifepristone on a technicality, ruling that doctors and medical groups opposed to abortion did not have a legal right to sue.
The 5th Circuit is considered to be one of the most conservative appeals courts in the country, but Wednesday’s panel includes two judges appointed by Democratic presidents; one from former President Obama, and one from former President Biden.
Greer Donley, an abortion law expert and professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, said no matter what the appeals court eventually rules, the case is almost certainly going to the Supreme Court.
Given the FDA’s ongoing review, the other mifepristone cases around the country, and the likelihood of the high court’s involvement, “it makes me feel like this is just all political theater,” Donley said.
Trump's Envoys Spark Fury As They Advocate For Putin While In Ukraine
By Kate Nicholson - Sep 7, 2026
Huffington Post
pdf
Link to Internet (if no paywall or limited free access):
Summary
Trump’s envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, visited Moscow and Kyiv to negotiate an end to the Ukraine war. They advocated for a “win-win” deal with Russia, despite the war’s origin in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. While Witkoff claimed progress in Moscow, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy expects the war to continue into the winter.
Key Points
- Diplomatic Strategy and "Win-Win" Framing
- US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner traveled to Kyiv after meeting with Vladimir Putin in Moscow to push for an end to the war. During a press conference, Kushner framed peace negotiations as a business-style "win-win" scenario that requires creating mutual benefits for both nations, drawing criticism for appearing to advocate for Putin's perspective while ignoring Russia's 2022 invasion.
- Pushback and Justification for Communication
- When confronted by Ukrainian journalist Dmytro Gordon about whether Putin was deceiving the US and if sitting with an international war criminal felt disgusting, Witkoff defended the approach. He argued that establishing clear, positive communication channels with both sides is essential for achieving a peaceful resolution.
- Tensions and Unresolved Negotiations
- Despite extensive closed-door talks with both Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the trip yielded no major diplomatic breakthroughs. Zelenskyy appeared visibly uncomfortable during Kushner's remarks and expressed expectations that the war will continue into the winter, though he requested follow-up peace discussions with US, European, and Ukrainian officials. Meanwhile, Witkoff maintained an optimistic tone, citing progress in Moscow and substantive dialogue in Kyiv.
Article's Full Text:
Donald Trump’s peace envoys have raised eyebrows after saying the end of the Ukraine war should be a “win-win” deal with Russia.
After his eighth visit to see Russian President Vladimir Putin, Steve Witkoff went on his first trip to Kyiv over the weekend together with Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
The two are currently trying to fulfill the US president’s demand to end the Ukraine war.
Trump vowed to end the war within 24 hours of his second term. More than 18 months later, the war continues to rage.
Witkoff and Kushner then appeared to advocate for Putin while in the Ukrainian capital, completely glossing over the fact that the war began in 2022 with Russia’s invasion of its European neighbor.
During a press conference, Kushner said: “From President Putin’s perspective, I think he has certain objectives that he expresses he wants to achieve but obviously there are different aspirations that he has for his country that can also be achieved once this is concluded.
“We will continue to have a positive dialogue in order to find a pathway to get there.”
He added that Trump comes from the “business world”, where “you think about things in the context of win-win”.
“How do you create opportunities for both sides? War is a negative sum,” he claimed. “Everyone loses from war, whereas business and peace is a positive sum, so hopefully we can find big benefits from that in a big way.”
The remarks came after Witkoff told Putin over the weekend in the Kremlin that they had made some “incredible memories” together.
Eagle-eyed social media users claimed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy looked incredibly uncomfortable while Kushner was explaining how he saw the bloody four-year conflict.
Others were just stunned by the envoys’ bizarre approach to a conflict which has outlasted World War 1.
Kushner and Witkoff were also put on the spot by Ukrainian journalist Dmytro Gordon who asked if Putin was “deceiving” the US.
“You have met with President Putin very often,” the reporter said. “Does it seem to you that Putin has been deceiving you all this time?
“And don’t you find it disgusting to sit at the same table with an international war criminal, the executioner of the Ukrainian people, who is personally responsible for the tragedy in Ukraine?”
Witkoff insisted that “you have little chance of getting to a peaceful resolution” unless you have a relationship with both sides.
He said his job is to “create good communication channels” between Russia and Ukraine, and they are “confident” there will be a good resolution here.
There was no major breakthrough following the envoys’ trips to both Moscow and Kyiv, even though they held extensive talks behind closed doors with both Putin and Zelenskyy.
After speaking to Witkoff and Kushner, the Ukrainian President said he expects the war to continue into the winter.
However, Witkoff tried to establish a more positive tone.
He said he was “encouraged” by what he described as “substantive” talks in Ukraine, while Zelenskyy said he wants a just peace with no opportunity for Russia to revive its aggression.
The Ukrainian leader also told reporters he wanted officials from Ukraine, Europe, and America to meet soon for more discussions on peace.
Witkoff also claimed they “made a lot of progress in Moscow”.
After his eighth visit to see Russian President Vladimir Putin, Steve Witkoff went on his first trip to Kyiv over the weekend together with Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
The two are currently trying to fulfill the US president’s demand to end the Ukraine war.
Trump vowed to end the war within 24 hours of his second term. More than 18 months later, the war continues to rage.
Witkoff and Kushner then appeared to advocate for Putin while in the Ukrainian capital, completely glossing over the fact that the war began in 2022 with Russia’s invasion of its European neighbor.
During a press conference, Kushner said: “From President Putin’s perspective, I think he has certain objectives that he expresses he wants to achieve but obviously there are different aspirations that he has for his country that can also be achieved once this is concluded.
“We will continue to have a positive dialogue in order to find a pathway to get there.”
He added that Trump comes from the “business world”, where “you think about things in the context of win-win”.
“How do you create opportunities for both sides? War is a negative sum,” he claimed. “Everyone loses from war, whereas business and peace is a positive sum, so hopefully we can find big benefits from that in a big way.”
The remarks came after Witkoff told Putin over the weekend in the Kremlin that they had made some “incredible memories” together.
Eagle-eyed social media users claimed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy looked incredibly uncomfortable while Kushner was explaining how he saw the bloody four-year conflict.
Others were just stunned by the envoys’ bizarre approach to a conflict which has outlasted World War 1.
Kushner and Witkoff were also put on the spot by Ukrainian journalist Dmytro Gordon who asked if Putin was “deceiving” the US.
“You have met with President Putin very often,” the reporter said. “Does it seem to you that Putin has been deceiving you all this time?
“And don’t you find it disgusting to sit at the same table with an international war criminal, the executioner of the Ukrainian people, who is personally responsible for the tragedy in Ukraine?”
Witkoff insisted that “you have little chance of getting to a peaceful resolution” unless you have a relationship with both sides.
He said his job is to “create good communication channels” between Russia and Ukraine, and they are “confident” there will be a good resolution here.
There was no major breakthrough following the envoys’ trips to both Moscow and Kyiv, even though they held extensive talks behind closed doors with both Putin and Zelenskyy.
After speaking to Witkoff and Kushner, the Ukrainian President said he expects the war to continue into the winter.
However, Witkoff tried to establish a more positive tone.
He said he was “encouraged” by what he described as “substantive” talks in Ukraine, while Zelenskyy said he wants a just peace with no opportunity for Russia to revive its aggression.
The Ukrainian leader also told reporters he wanted officials from Ukraine, Europe, and America to meet soon for more discussions on peace.
Witkoff also claimed they “made a lot of progress in Moscow”.
Donald Trump Took A Wrecking Ball To The White House. The Next President Must Do The Same.
By John Avlon - Sep 7, 2026
Rolling Stone
pdf
Link to Internet (if no paywall or limited free access):
Summary
The Trump administration demolished the East Wing of the White House without congressional approval, replacing it with a luxury ballroom. The Supreme Court ruled against the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s lawsuit, leaving the legality of the project unresolved. The author proposes that a future Democratic president should dismantle the ballroom and restore the East Wing, holding Trump accountable for his actions.
Key Points
- Unilateral Demolition and Illegal Precedent
- The Trump administration demolished the White House East Wing without congressional authorization or civic debate to build a massive, 90,000-square-foot luxury ballroom. This sets a dangerous precedent by bypassing constitutional rules that give Congress sole authority over federal property.
- Judicial Failure and Standing
- Despite Chief Justice Roberts and the Democratic justices arguing the project is likely illegal, a conservative Supreme Court majority allowed construction to continue by ruling that historic preservation groups lack standing to sue, effectively leaving the public without legal recourse while lower courts move too slowly.
- Aggressive Fait Accompli Tactics
- By employing 24/7 construction crews to bypass lower court orders, the administration aims to finish the structure before courts can make a final legal determination, using speed to render any future legal rulings meaningless.
- Escalating Public Costs and Corporate Influence
- Initial promises of full private funding have dissolved, with project costs inflating up to $600 million—partially covered by public Secret Service and White House funds—alongside proposed federal security upgrades and no-bid contracts for corporate donors and political allies.
- Erosion of Historic Preservation and Structural Standards
- The project reflects a broader pattern of altering historic public spaces for personal branding, mirror-imaged by rushed, failed renovations elsewhere, such as the Reflecting Pool, which resulted in severe structural issues and legal scapegoating.
- Call for Future Restoration and Accountability
- To restore the rule of law and historic symmetry, future presidential candidates should pledge to dismantle the above-ground ballroom while retaining necessary underground security structures, ensuring illegal unilateral modifications carry real consequences.
Article's Full Text:
Donald Trump has literally taken a wrecking ball to the White House -- and US courts seem helpless to stop him.
The East Wing was destroyed without civic debate or congressional approval - and is now in the process of being replaced by a 90,000 square foot luxury ballroom that is double the size of the current White House complex.
That is an insult to the rule of law, to American history, and to every US citizen -- because the White House ultimately belongs to us, not its current temporary occupant.
If you don't believe this is a dangerous precedent, get your head around this: The Trump administration's Department of Justice lawyers even argued in court that a president could order the Statue of Liberty demolished and there would be functionally nothing anyone could do about it because the courts would move too slowly to stop him.
The Supreme Court just proved them right. Chief Justice John Roberts joined the three Democratic-appointed justices in trying to halt the destruction of the East Wing. Roberts wrote that the construction is likely unlawful because Congress never approved it.
He's got the facts on his side. The Constitution gives Congress the power to make all rules respecting "property belonging to the United States." For two centuries, the White House has been renovated and maintained through congressional authorization and appropriation. Alteration and improvement of the executive residence has never meant unilateral demolition.
But in an assault on precedent, Roberts and the Democratic Justices were outvoted by the other five Republican court appointees, who, in an unsigned order, said nothing about whether the project was legal. They said only that the National Trust for Historic Preservation likely lacked standing to sue.
So who does have standing if they don't? The answer should be "any American citizen." This is our history and our legacy. There are laws to ensure that no president can act like a king and destroy historic public property on a whim.
The National Trust stated the principle plainly after the ruling. "We are deeply disappointed in the Supreme Court's ruling today," said its president and CEO, Brent Leggs. The order "does not resolve our fundamental argument: that each president is a temporary steward of the People's House and does not have the unilateral authority to demolish and redesign it without the approval of Congress," concluding that the Trust "will continue to advocate, with our partners, on behalf of the American people, the democratic values of our nation, and the preservation of our country's most historically significant places."
But the Trump bum rush goes on. By the government's own account in court filings, a 250-person crew has been working 20 hours a day, seven days a week, ignoring lower court riders. The administration told the courts the structure is "beyond the point of return." The goal is a fait accompli: by the time judges definitively rule on legality, the ballroom will be built.
This is an Atlantic City mob-boss tactic, and it fits a pattern. Trump has tried to remake the Kennedy Center in his own image. He paved the Rose Garden. He's building a massive triumphal arch and suggested naming it after himself. He has slapped gilded skid marks on every surface of the White House. The gilding can be scraped off. Buildings cannot be un-demolished.
If you have any doubt that this is all about Trump's endlessly needy ego, listen to the Don himself: "Nobody will do it once I'm gone. When I leave here, nobody will."
Then there's the money. Trump promised that the ballroom would be built with "ZERO Dollars of Taxpayer Money" - funded by himself and donors like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Lockheed Martin, Palantir, and Coinbase - corporations that understand every decision with this president is transactional. But the price tag swelled from $200 million to $400 million in five months. A side staircase to nowhere disappeared and then reappeared. The contractor's own estimate now puts the real cost at $600 million, with roughly half that coming from the Secret Service and the White House. That's your money. Senate Republicans proposed another $1 billion in federal money for "security adjustments and upgrades" tied to the project. The donors get naming rights. Taxpayers get the bill.
If you want to know how a mob boss runs a public works project, look at the Reflecting Pool. The job went, no-bid, to a contractor Trump said had built one of his own swimming pools. A firm with actual Reflecting Pool experience had passed because the July 4 deadline was unworkable. The blue coating peeled. Algae took over. So the boss found a guy to take the fall. The guy was David Hearn, a 67-year-old former Olympic canoeist accused of massive vandalism with a box cutter— a felony carrying up to 10 years. His crime, by his account, was stopping to look and dipping his hand in the water. Then Jeanine Pirro broke omertà and uncharacteristically told the truth. On July 31, she moved to dismiss the charges, writing that the rush produced hasty, botched work in the reflecting pool. But Roy Cohn's clients never admit making a mistake. They double down on the lie. So Trump disagreed "100 percent." He expects his lawyers to lie on his behalf. Lincoln's mirror is now a $14 million mudhole.
Republicans would be screaming bloody murder if a Democratic president tried anything remotely like this. And they'd be right to. Principles don't matter if you abandon them whenever a president of your own party does as he pleases. The guardrails that once relied on a president's common sense and common decency clearly cannot be taken for granted anymore.
So here is a modest proposal. The Democrats running for president should pledge to take down Trump's luxury ballroom and rebuild the East Wing as it was, restoring the historic symmetry of the White House. Whatever underground security structures have been built should stay: anything practical and related to national security belongs there. But the monument to one man's ego above ground should be swept into the ash-heap of history.
When the remaining Republican justices finally solve the mystery of who has standing to stop the destruction of the White House, it will be after Trump leaves office. They will conclude the demolition was illegal -- and then declare on those grounds that the next president cannot possibly demolish Trump's ballroom. But that would let the crime stand without any accountability. The purpose of this proposal is not to perpetuate Trump's cycle of destruction but to end it, by ensuring there is a consequence for breaking the law, and making sure it can never happen again.
Trump took a wrecking ball to the People's House. The people should reserve the right to take one to his ballroom.
The East Wing was destroyed without civic debate or congressional approval - and is now in the process of being replaced by a 90,000 square foot luxury ballroom that is double the size of the current White House complex.
That is an insult to the rule of law, to American history, and to every US citizen -- because the White House ultimately belongs to us, not its current temporary occupant.
If you don't believe this is a dangerous precedent, get your head around this: The Trump administration's Department of Justice lawyers even argued in court that a president could order the Statue of Liberty demolished and there would be functionally nothing anyone could do about it because the courts would move too slowly to stop him.
The Supreme Court just proved them right. Chief Justice John Roberts joined the three Democratic-appointed justices in trying to halt the destruction of the East Wing. Roberts wrote that the construction is likely unlawful because Congress never approved it.
He's got the facts on his side. The Constitution gives Congress the power to make all rules respecting "property belonging to the United States." For two centuries, the White House has been renovated and maintained through congressional authorization and appropriation. Alteration and improvement of the executive residence has never meant unilateral demolition.
But in an assault on precedent, Roberts and the Democratic Justices were outvoted by the other five Republican court appointees, who, in an unsigned order, said nothing about whether the project was legal. They said only that the National Trust for Historic Preservation likely lacked standing to sue.
So who does have standing if they don't? The answer should be "any American citizen." This is our history and our legacy. There are laws to ensure that no president can act like a king and destroy historic public property on a whim.
The National Trust stated the principle plainly after the ruling. "We are deeply disappointed in the Supreme Court's ruling today," said its president and CEO, Brent Leggs. The order "does not resolve our fundamental argument: that each president is a temporary steward of the People's House and does not have the unilateral authority to demolish and redesign it without the approval of Congress," concluding that the Trust "will continue to advocate, with our partners, on behalf of the American people, the democratic values of our nation, and the preservation of our country's most historically significant places."
But the Trump bum rush goes on. By the government's own account in court filings, a 250-person crew has been working 20 hours a day, seven days a week, ignoring lower court riders. The administration told the courts the structure is "beyond the point of return." The goal is a fait accompli: by the time judges definitively rule on legality, the ballroom will be built.
This is an Atlantic City mob-boss tactic, and it fits a pattern. Trump has tried to remake the Kennedy Center in his own image. He paved the Rose Garden. He's building a massive triumphal arch and suggested naming it after himself. He has slapped gilded skid marks on every surface of the White House. The gilding can be scraped off. Buildings cannot be un-demolished.
If you have any doubt that this is all about Trump's endlessly needy ego, listen to the Don himself: "Nobody will do it once I'm gone. When I leave here, nobody will."
Then there's the money. Trump promised that the ballroom would be built with "ZERO Dollars of Taxpayer Money" - funded by himself and donors like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Lockheed Martin, Palantir, and Coinbase - corporations that understand every decision with this president is transactional. But the price tag swelled from $200 million to $400 million in five months. A side staircase to nowhere disappeared and then reappeared. The contractor's own estimate now puts the real cost at $600 million, with roughly half that coming from the Secret Service and the White House. That's your money. Senate Republicans proposed another $1 billion in federal money for "security adjustments and upgrades" tied to the project. The donors get naming rights. Taxpayers get the bill.
If you want to know how a mob boss runs a public works project, look at the Reflecting Pool. The job went, no-bid, to a contractor Trump said had built one of his own swimming pools. A firm with actual Reflecting Pool experience had passed because the July 4 deadline was unworkable. The blue coating peeled. Algae took over. So the boss found a guy to take the fall. The guy was David Hearn, a 67-year-old former Olympic canoeist accused of massive vandalism with a box cutter— a felony carrying up to 10 years. His crime, by his account, was stopping to look and dipping his hand in the water. Then Jeanine Pirro broke omertà and uncharacteristically told the truth. On July 31, she moved to dismiss the charges, writing that the rush produced hasty, botched work in the reflecting pool. But Roy Cohn's clients never admit making a mistake. They double down on the lie. So Trump disagreed "100 percent." He expects his lawyers to lie on his behalf. Lincoln's mirror is now a $14 million mudhole.
Republicans would be screaming bloody murder if a Democratic president tried anything remotely like this. And they'd be right to. Principles don't matter if you abandon them whenever a president of your own party does as he pleases. The guardrails that once relied on a president's common sense and common decency clearly cannot be taken for granted anymore.
So here is a modest proposal. The Democrats running for president should pledge to take down Trump's luxury ballroom and rebuild the East Wing as it was, restoring the historic symmetry of the White House. Whatever underground security structures have been built should stay: anything practical and related to national security belongs there. But the monument to one man's ego above ground should be swept into the ash-heap of history.
When the remaining Republican justices finally solve the mystery of who has standing to stop the destruction of the White House, it will be after Trump leaves office. They will conclude the demolition was illegal -- and then declare on those grounds that the next president cannot possibly demolish Trump's ballroom. But that would let the crime stand without any accountability. The purpose of this proposal is not to perpetuate Trump's cycle of destruction but to end it, by ensuring there is a consequence for breaking the law, and making sure it can never happen again.
Trump took a wrecking ball to the People's House. The people should reserve the right to take one to his ballroom.
Carr: FCC ‘looking at a lot of actions’ to stop broadcasters' partisan coverage
By Ryan Mancini - Sep 6, 2026
The Hill
pdf
Link to Internet (if no paywall or limited free access):
Summary
FCC Chair Brendan Carr is considering actions to prevent networks from airing fake polls and partisan coverage before the midterm elections. This follows President Trump’s criticism of NBC News’s Kristen Welker for her comments about Trump’s influence on the elections. Critics argue Trump’s use of the FCC to target journalists is concerning.
Key Points
- FCC Action and Public Interest Framing
- FCC Chair Brendan Carr announced potential regulator guidance aimed at preventing broadcast networks from airing partisan coverage and deceptive polls ahead of the midterm elections. Carr argued that television networks are legally obligated to serve the general public interest rather than targeted political motives.
- Trump's Pressure and Specific Coverage Disputes
- The regulatory focus follows President Trump's explicit calls for the FCC to discipline NBC News anchor Kristen Welker over her reporting. Trump disputed her characterization of his primary track record as "mixed," pointing to his high success rate among endorsed candidates. While NBC News publicly defended Welker's reporting, Trump has repeatedly pressed the regulatory commission to target major media networks.
- Broader Media Landscape Initiatives
- Under Carr, the FCC has launched inquiries into diversity hiring practices at major networks like NBC and ABC. Conversely, leadership changes at CBS News under parent company Paramount Skydance have drawn praise from both Trump and Carr.
- Political Backlash and Constitutional Concerns
- Critics view the administration's actions as an attempt to suppress independent journalism through regulatory intimidation ahead of elections. Concerns have also emerged within the Republican party; notably, Senate Commerce Committee Chair Ted Cruz strongly criticized Carr’s previous threats against ABC regarding late-night broadcasting, describing such regulatory pressure as dangerous.
Article's Full Text:
Brendan Carr, chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), on Sunday said he is “looking at a lot of actions” to prevent networks from airing fake polls and partisan coverage ahead of midterm elections.
Carr appeared on Fox News’s “The Sunday Briefing” with Peter Doocy and said that networks are intended to operate in the public interest and “not some sort of narrow partisan interest.”
“I think President Trump is over the target, and we’re looking at a lot of actions,” he continued. “For instance, there’s a lot of interest right now in fake polls that are out there, and so the FCC may put guidance out soon to remind broadcasters about their obligations with respect to not airing fake polls, particularly if they’re done to suppress people heading into the fall.”
His comments come after President Trump urged the agency to punish NBC News’s Kristen Welker. She angered the president last Sunday while teasing an upcoming episode of “Meet the Press” on its Washington, D.C., affiliate earlier in the day. She said Trump is “going to loom large over” the midterm elections while also noting that Trump-endorsed candidates have had “mixed results” during the Republican primaries.
Trump has compiled a 96-percent winning record in this year’s primaries, according to Ballotpedia. Those who have lost include Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, Rep. Randy Feenstra (R-Iowa), MyPillow founder Mike Lindell, and South Carolina Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette.
“How can anyone be allowed to say this, working for freely given public airwaves?” Trump wrote last week on Truth Social. “Results are attached. Because of this purposeful inaccuracy, she will be reported to the FCC for rebuke or punishment.”
NBC News said it stands by Welker, calling her “one of the best in the business.”
Trump has frequently called on the FCC — historically an independent commission — to apply pressure on leading broadcasters throughout his second term. Carr has launched investigations into NBC and ABC’s diversity, equity, and inclusion hiring practices.
He and Trump have praised CBS News under its new editor, Bari Weiss, previously a columnist, as the network is under parent company Paramount Skydance, led by Trump ally and billionaire David Ellison.
Critics have denounced the president’s use of the FCC as a tool to intimidate journalists ahead of the midterms.
Some Republicans, however, have warned against enforcing regulatory penalties on broadcasters, particularly over ABC’s actions after Jimmy Kimmel was suspended for comments he made after conservative activist Charlie Kirk was killed last September.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, warned last year that Carr’s threats of action against ABC were “dangerous as hell.”
Carr appeared on Fox News’s “The Sunday Briefing” with Peter Doocy and said that networks are intended to operate in the public interest and “not some sort of narrow partisan interest.”
“I think President Trump is over the target, and we’re looking at a lot of actions,” he continued. “For instance, there’s a lot of interest right now in fake polls that are out there, and so the FCC may put guidance out soon to remind broadcasters about their obligations with respect to not airing fake polls, particularly if they’re done to suppress people heading into the fall.”
His comments come after President Trump urged the agency to punish NBC News’s Kristen Welker. She angered the president last Sunday while teasing an upcoming episode of “Meet the Press” on its Washington, D.C., affiliate earlier in the day. She said Trump is “going to loom large over” the midterm elections while also noting that Trump-endorsed candidates have had “mixed results” during the Republican primaries.
Trump has compiled a 96-percent winning record in this year’s primaries, according to Ballotpedia. Those who have lost include Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, Rep. Randy Feenstra (R-Iowa), MyPillow founder Mike Lindell, and South Carolina Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette.
“How can anyone be allowed to say this, working for freely given public airwaves?” Trump wrote last week on Truth Social. “Results are attached. Because of this purposeful inaccuracy, she will be reported to the FCC for rebuke or punishment.”
NBC News said it stands by Welker, calling her “one of the best in the business.”
Trump has frequently called on the FCC — historically an independent commission — to apply pressure on leading broadcasters throughout his second term. Carr has launched investigations into NBC and ABC’s diversity, equity, and inclusion hiring practices.
He and Trump have praised CBS News under its new editor, Bari Weiss, previously a columnist, as the network is under parent company Paramount Skydance, led by Trump ally and billionaire David Ellison.
Critics have denounced the president’s use of the FCC as a tool to intimidate journalists ahead of the midterms.
Some Republicans, however, have warned against enforcing regulatory penalties on broadcasters, particularly over ABC’s actions after Jimmy Kimmel was suspended for comments he made after conservative activist Charlie Kirk was killed last September.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, warned last year that Carr’s threats of action against ABC were “dangerous as hell.”
Legal veterans lead fightback against Trump’s ‘full-out assault on democracy’
By Peter Stone - Sep 7, 2026
The Guardian
pdf
Link to Internet (if no paywall or limited free access): https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/07/trump-midterm-elections-rule-of-law-democracy?CMP=oth_b-aplnews_d-1
Summary
A coalition of advocacy groups, including the Democracy Defenders Fund and the Campaign Legal Center, are challenging Donald Trump’s executive orders on voting and other presidential actions. These groups have successfully blocked Trump’s attempts to curb voting rights, end birthright citizenship, and create a slush fund for allies. They are now focusing on preventing potential federal interference in the upcoming midterm elections.
Critics argue that Trump, the Department of Justice (DoJ), and other agencies are undermining election integrity by promoting false claims of election fraud and attempting to change voting rules. The DoJ’s actions, including legal threats and plans to send lawyers to monitor voting, raise concerns about voter intimidation. Legal advocates, including former DoJ lawyers, are actively opposing these efforts to protect election integrity and ensure compliance with federal voting laws.
Critics argue that Trump, the Department of Justice (DoJ), and other agencies are undermining election integrity by promoting false claims of election fraud and attempting to change voting rules. The DoJ’s actions, including legal threats and plans to send lawyers to monitor voting, raise concerns about voter intimidation. Legal advocates, including former DoJ lawyers, are actively opposing these efforts to protect election integrity and ensure compliance with federal voting laws.
Key Points
- Legal challenges against the Trump administration's voting executive orders have intensified leading up to the midterms. Groups including the Democracy Defenders Fund, Campaign Legal Center, ACLU, and Brennan Center—alongside Democratic state attorneys general—are orchestrating coordinated litigation to block federal attempts to regulate state-run elections and curb mail-in voting.
- Central to the battle is a permanent injunction issued by a federal judge blocking new Postal Service rules that restrict mail voting, a decision the Department of Justice has repeatedly urged the Supreme Court to overturn on an emergency basis. A concurrent whistleblower complaint alleges these USPS changes are being rushed secretly and risk widespread operational failure.
- Parallel litigation is challenging broader assertions of executive power. Advocates and former officials report winning key cases to prevent the federal government from seizing sensitive state voter data, ending birthright citizenship, or allocating funds toward political allies.
- To prepare for acute time constraints and potential election disruption, nonpartisan and partisan legal organizations are expanding their legal staff, utilizing bipartisan judicial networks to file strategic amicus briefs, and aligning with state officials to protect voting access.
Article's Full Text:
A cluster of advocacy groups that boast veteran lawyers, voting experts and ex-judges have expanded legal challenges to Donald Trump’s authoritarian executive orders on voting and other presidential actions they see as a “war” on the rule of law in the US.
Heavy legal opposition to Trump’s two executive orders on elections to curb voting rights and supplant the authority of states on election matters has come from the Democracy Defenders Fund, the Campaign Legal Center, the American Civil Liberties Union and kindred groups.
These legal outfits and like-minded allies have won key lawsuits on election issues, plus litigation thwarting Trump’s moves to end birthright citizenship and a $1.8bn slush fund that could have paid money to allies including January 6 rioters he deemed were unjustly charged.
Since Trump returned to power, for instance, Democracy Defenders Fund and the Campaign Legal Center have jointly filed lawsuits against Trump’s 2025 and 2026 executive orders on voting, challenging their constitutionality to set new voting rules that by law are run by the states.
Key legal briefs they filed together include an August one on behalf of several voting rights groups and local officials in two states to block Trump’s March 2026 executive order that would restrict voting by mail and authorize the US Postal Service to implement rules to that end.
Other groups that have accelerated their legal challenges to Trump’s moves to thwart voting rights and expand his executive powers in other ways, include the Brennan Center for Justice, Democracy Forward, the Democratic Attorneys General Association and the Washington Litigation Group.
Last month, for instance, 24 Democratic attorney generals and other plaintiffs filed suit to block USPS from moving forward with rules to curb mail voting and in late August won a temporary 14-day restraining order from federal judge Indira Talwani in Massachusetts.
In response, the DoJ’s solicitor general John Sauer on Thursday appealed to the supreme court to lift the injunction, arguing in heated words that the freeze would create “serious, irreparable harm on the federal government, the states themselves, and the voting public”.
On 4 September Talwani made her injunction permanent, writing that implementing Trump’s order so close to the election “threatens disenfranchisement of millions of United States citizens who seek to vote by mail.” She also stressed that “the record includes no evidence relating to fraudulent mail voting to support the rushed implementation.”
Sauer on 6 September responded with another emergency appeal to the high court urging it permit the new USPS rules to go into effect, claiming that it “does not seize control of states’ administration of elections — it simply imposes reasonable preparation requirements for certain election-related mail.”
In a related twist, a detailed whistleblower complaint that Democratic senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut released last week alleged that the USPS has been proceeding with a “secretive, rushed” effort to implement Trump’s order that could lead to “catastrophic failure” with this year’s mail-in voting.
About 50 million Americans, the majority of whom are Democrats, vote by mail, according to reports.
With the elections about two months away, the legal groups are stepping up efforts to thwart “self-serving attempts to take over the midterms”, said a former DoJ lawyer, which experts fear may create chaos and disenfranchise millions of voters.
Anna Baldwin, director of voting rights litigation at the Campaign Legal Center, told the Guardian: “The CLC and the DDF have worked closely together on two ongoing lawsuits challenging the president’s unlawful voting executive orders that attempt to dictate election rules. We’ve teamed up in the supreme court on a brief filed by former state and federal judges, including noted conservative judges, that emphasized just how unlawful and dangerous the president’s efforts to dictate election rules are.”
Baldwin, who spent 14 years in the justice department’s civil rights division, said the CLC and the DDF have also “worked together in federal cases filed in Oregon and California to make sure that the DoJ isn’t able to seize voters’ sensitive data by making false claims about non-citizen voting. In cases around the country, the Campaign Legal Center is pushing back on the DoJ’s lawless efforts to vacuum up and aggregate sensitive data to create a national voter file of some sort.”
Further, former ambassador Norm Eisen, the executive chair of the Democracy Defenders Fund, which he co-founded in 2023, told the Guardian that since its inception the DDF has been involved in more than 300 legal cases and matters in three primary areas: elections, the rule of law and anti-corruption.
Eisen said the group, whose board boasts former federal judge and conservative stalwart J Michael Luttig and liberal-leaning ex-federal judge Nancy Gertner, likes to work in conjunction on cases with other ideologically diverse and nonpartisan groups like the CLC and the WLG because “they both have strong bipartisan credibility. It’s a big-tent approach we’ve taken with our election work.”
Eisen said Luttig and Gertner were instrumental in helping recruit dozens of former judges with bipartisan credentials to file amicus briefs on multiple matters including an August one to the supreme court opposing Trump’s 2026 executive order to curb mail voting.
For its part, the WLG this summer hired about half a dozen new lawyers to handle election-related litigation. “As the midterms approach with growing concerns about potential federal interference in elections, we’ve brought on more attorneys to be even more prepared to litigate sensitive matters under acute time pressure,” said James Pearce, a principal with the WLG.
Elsewhere, Sophia Lin Lakin, who leads the ACLU Voting Rights Project, said the group had been “pushing back” on administration efforts to seize personal voting data from states, and said the ACLU has been involved in 26 of 30 legal challenges to the administration on the issue. To date, the administration has lost 23 cases where rulings have been made.
Critics say Trump, the DoJ, the USPS and the Department of Homeland Security seem to be laying the groundwork for further attacks on the nation’s election rules, citing Trump’s false claims about election fraud and his radical plans to change voting rules.
In July in a televised speech, Trump falsely portrayed the nation’s voting system as riddled with fraud and condemned voting by mail and non-citizen voting. “Mail-in ballots are inherently corrupt,” Trump claimed without evidence, even though he voted twice by mail this year.
Trump, who continues to blame voting fraud for his 2020 loss to Joe Biden, also charged that non-citizen voting, which is illegal and historically minuscule, poses a “crisis of election security”. Trump’s fixation on noncitizen voting is belied by a database from the rightwing Heritage Foundation that only cites 100 cases over a quarter-century.
But according to documents reviewed by the New York Times, hundreds of DHS agents have been engaged in a hunt to find noncitizens among registered voters. The chief of the DHS has said ICE agents could be sent to polling places “if there is a threat to that polling place or we’re serving a warrant”.
The DoJ has helped to amplify Trump’s bogus election claims with legal threats and actions.
In July, Harmeet Dhillon, who runs the department’s civil rights division, wrote to officials in 50 states warning that “any election officer, including the chief election officer of the state, who knowingly retains noncitizens on the state’s [voter list] or facilitates noncitizens in receiving and casting ballots could be subject to criminal liability”.
In August, the DoJ announced plans to send a larger-than-usual contingent of 1,000 lawyers to monitor voting nationwide, raising concerns that such large efforts could lead to voter intimidation.
And in a harbinger of coming legal fights, Trump announced on his Truth Social platform last month that the DoJ’s Ed Martin, a key election denialist in charge of pardons, was leaving to handle election-related litigation.
Former DoJ lawyers say administration threats to voting rights make opposition from legal advocates crucial.
Stacey Young, a lawyer who left the department at the start of 2025 after 18 years to found Justice Connection, a group of more than 3,000 ex-DoJ lawyers and other alumni, denounced Trump’s moves “to interfere” with elections.
“The constitution makes clear that the president has no authority over the administration of our elections, but that hasn’t stopped this president, or those he put in power at the justice department, from trying to interfere,” Young said in a statement. “We’re taking these threats seriously and leveraging our collective strengths to protect election integrity, which is key to maintaining a functioning democracy.”
Justice Connection is working with experts in its alumni network to engage with the media, Congress and the public to highlight the justice department’s traditional role in election security and ensuring compliance with federal voting laws.
Other DoJ alumni agree that opposition to Trump’s election agenda is critical.
“These organizations are doing critical work in protecting the ability of people to vote and make their voices heard – a cornerstone of democracy,” said Michael Bromwich, a former DoJ inspector general. “The full-out assault on democracy must be addressed through the courts because Congress has proven itself unwilling and unable to check the undemocratic steps taken by the administration.”
Barbara McQuade, a former US attorney for eastern Michigan who now teaches law at the University of Michigan, said: “Large law firms sent armies of young attorneys to our nation’s airports to represent individuals caught up in Trump’s travel ban. That is not happening any more because of the ‘deals’ they negotiated with the Trump administration in his second term to support his pet causes.
“Thank goodness for groups like the Democracy Defenders Fund, which are attracting top legal talent and challenging some of Trump’s lawless activities. Their work is protecting the rights of all Americans.”
Further, Nick Brown, Washington state’s attorney general, who chairs an election protection group for the Democratic Attorneys General Association, said it has teamed up with some legal advocacy groups such as the Brennan Center, States United and the DDF to hold “strategy sessions” to prepare for potential disruptive moves by the Trump administration in the November elections.
Brown also attacked the administration’s appeal to the supreme court to move forward with Trump’s executive order on voting by mail, despite Judge Talwani’s strong concerns and Daga’s litigation against it.
He said: “As the court said, states’ compliance with this illegal order would be ‘practically impossible’ before the November elections given the unprecedented demands it would put on state and local elections officials. The chaos that would cause is exactly what Trump wants. That’s why we continue to fight for a fair and properly administered election.”
Baldwin too raised strong concerns about the DoJ’s push to get the supreme court to issue a ruling that would expedite Trump’s executive order on voting by mail.
She said: “The DoJ’s slapdash effort at getting the supreme court’s blessing to turn the USPS into a gatekeeper for mail would be a farce, if it didn’t put our fundamental right to vote in the crosshairs. Given the importance of what is at stake, the DoJ’s continued efforts are nothing more than an attempt to foist chaos on the electoral process. But they will fail.”
Other lawyers engaged in key election legal battles and other litigation voice optimism they will prevail.
Tianna Mays, the legal director of the DDF, said: “The Trump administration has declared war on the rule of law, yet our democratic guardrails are still holding. We refuse to stand by idly while this administration flouts the constitution and attempts to eviscerate our institutions.”
Heavy legal opposition to Trump’s two executive orders on elections to curb voting rights and supplant the authority of states on election matters has come from the Democracy Defenders Fund, the Campaign Legal Center, the American Civil Liberties Union and kindred groups.
These legal outfits and like-minded allies have won key lawsuits on election issues, plus litigation thwarting Trump’s moves to end birthright citizenship and a $1.8bn slush fund that could have paid money to allies including January 6 rioters he deemed were unjustly charged.
Since Trump returned to power, for instance, Democracy Defenders Fund and the Campaign Legal Center have jointly filed lawsuits against Trump’s 2025 and 2026 executive orders on voting, challenging their constitutionality to set new voting rules that by law are run by the states.
Key legal briefs they filed together include an August one on behalf of several voting rights groups and local officials in two states to block Trump’s March 2026 executive order that would restrict voting by mail and authorize the US Postal Service to implement rules to that end.
Other groups that have accelerated their legal challenges to Trump’s moves to thwart voting rights and expand his executive powers in other ways, include the Brennan Center for Justice, Democracy Forward, the Democratic Attorneys General Association and the Washington Litigation Group.
Last month, for instance, 24 Democratic attorney generals and other plaintiffs filed suit to block USPS from moving forward with rules to curb mail voting and in late August won a temporary 14-day restraining order from federal judge Indira Talwani in Massachusetts.
In response, the DoJ’s solicitor general John Sauer on Thursday appealed to the supreme court to lift the injunction, arguing in heated words that the freeze would create “serious, irreparable harm on the federal government, the states themselves, and the voting public”.
On 4 September Talwani made her injunction permanent, writing that implementing Trump’s order so close to the election “threatens disenfranchisement of millions of United States citizens who seek to vote by mail.” She also stressed that “the record includes no evidence relating to fraudulent mail voting to support the rushed implementation.”
Sauer on 6 September responded with another emergency appeal to the high court urging it permit the new USPS rules to go into effect, claiming that it “does not seize control of states’ administration of elections — it simply imposes reasonable preparation requirements for certain election-related mail.”
In a related twist, a detailed whistleblower complaint that Democratic senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut released last week alleged that the USPS has been proceeding with a “secretive, rushed” effort to implement Trump’s order that could lead to “catastrophic failure” with this year’s mail-in voting.
About 50 million Americans, the majority of whom are Democrats, vote by mail, according to reports.
With the elections about two months away, the legal groups are stepping up efforts to thwart “self-serving attempts to take over the midterms”, said a former DoJ lawyer, which experts fear may create chaos and disenfranchise millions of voters.
Anna Baldwin, director of voting rights litigation at the Campaign Legal Center, told the Guardian: “The CLC and the DDF have worked closely together on two ongoing lawsuits challenging the president’s unlawful voting executive orders that attempt to dictate election rules. We’ve teamed up in the supreme court on a brief filed by former state and federal judges, including noted conservative judges, that emphasized just how unlawful and dangerous the president’s efforts to dictate election rules are.”
Baldwin, who spent 14 years in the justice department’s civil rights division, said the CLC and the DDF have also “worked together in federal cases filed in Oregon and California to make sure that the DoJ isn’t able to seize voters’ sensitive data by making false claims about non-citizen voting. In cases around the country, the Campaign Legal Center is pushing back on the DoJ’s lawless efforts to vacuum up and aggregate sensitive data to create a national voter file of some sort.”
Further, former ambassador Norm Eisen, the executive chair of the Democracy Defenders Fund, which he co-founded in 2023, told the Guardian that since its inception the DDF has been involved in more than 300 legal cases and matters in three primary areas: elections, the rule of law and anti-corruption.
Eisen said the group, whose board boasts former federal judge and conservative stalwart J Michael Luttig and liberal-leaning ex-federal judge Nancy Gertner, likes to work in conjunction on cases with other ideologically diverse and nonpartisan groups like the CLC and the WLG because “they both have strong bipartisan credibility. It’s a big-tent approach we’ve taken with our election work.”
Eisen said Luttig and Gertner were instrumental in helping recruit dozens of former judges with bipartisan credentials to file amicus briefs on multiple matters including an August one to the supreme court opposing Trump’s 2026 executive order to curb mail voting.
For its part, the WLG this summer hired about half a dozen new lawyers to handle election-related litigation. “As the midterms approach with growing concerns about potential federal interference in elections, we’ve brought on more attorneys to be even more prepared to litigate sensitive matters under acute time pressure,” said James Pearce, a principal with the WLG.
Elsewhere, Sophia Lin Lakin, who leads the ACLU Voting Rights Project, said the group had been “pushing back” on administration efforts to seize personal voting data from states, and said the ACLU has been involved in 26 of 30 legal challenges to the administration on the issue. To date, the administration has lost 23 cases where rulings have been made.
Critics say Trump, the DoJ, the USPS and the Department of Homeland Security seem to be laying the groundwork for further attacks on the nation’s election rules, citing Trump’s false claims about election fraud and his radical plans to change voting rules.
In July in a televised speech, Trump falsely portrayed the nation’s voting system as riddled with fraud and condemned voting by mail and non-citizen voting. “Mail-in ballots are inherently corrupt,” Trump claimed without evidence, even though he voted twice by mail this year.
Trump, who continues to blame voting fraud for his 2020 loss to Joe Biden, also charged that non-citizen voting, which is illegal and historically minuscule, poses a “crisis of election security”. Trump’s fixation on noncitizen voting is belied by a database from the rightwing Heritage Foundation that only cites 100 cases over a quarter-century.
But according to documents reviewed by the New York Times, hundreds of DHS agents have been engaged in a hunt to find noncitizens among registered voters. The chief of the DHS has said ICE agents could be sent to polling places “if there is a threat to that polling place or we’re serving a warrant”.
The DoJ has helped to amplify Trump’s bogus election claims with legal threats and actions.
In July, Harmeet Dhillon, who runs the department’s civil rights division, wrote to officials in 50 states warning that “any election officer, including the chief election officer of the state, who knowingly retains noncitizens on the state’s [voter list] or facilitates noncitizens in receiving and casting ballots could be subject to criminal liability”.
In August, the DoJ announced plans to send a larger-than-usual contingent of 1,000 lawyers to monitor voting nationwide, raising concerns that such large efforts could lead to voter intimidation.
And in a harbinger of coming legal fights, Trump announced on his Truth Social platform last month that the DoJ’s Ed Martin, a key election denialist in charge of pardons, was leaving to handle election-related litigation.
Former DoJ lawyers say administration threats to voting rights make opposition from legal advocates crucial.
Stacey Young, a lawyer who left the department at the start of 2025 after 18 years to found Justice Connection, a group of more than 3,000 ex-DoJ lawyers and other alumni, denounced Trump’s moves “to interfere” with elections.
“The constitution makes clear that the president has no authority over the administration of our elections, but that hasn’t stopped this president, or those he put in power at the justice department, from trying to interfere,” Young said in a statement. “We’re taking these threats seriously and leveraging our collective strengths to protect election integrity, which is key to maintaining a functioning democracy.”
Justice Connection is working with experts in its alumni network to engage with the media, Congress and the public to highlight the justice department’s traditional role in election security and ensuring compliance with federal voting laws.
Other DoJ alumni agree that opposition to Trump’s election agenda is critical.
“These organizations are doing critical work in protecting the ability of people to vote and make their voices heard – a cornerstone of democracy,” said Michael Bromwich, a former DoJ inspector general. “The full-out assault on democracy must be addressed through the courts because Congress has proven itself unwilling and unable to check the undemocratic steps taken by the administration.”
Barbara McQuade, a former US attorney for eastern Michigan who now teaches law at the University of Michigan, said: “Large law firms sent armies of young attorneys to our nation’s airports to represent individuals caught up in Trump’s travel ban. That is not happening any more because of the ‘deals’ they negotiated with the Trump administration in his second term to support his pet causes.
“Thank goodness for groups like the Democracy Defenders Fund, which are attracting top legal talent and challenging some of Trump’s lawless activities. Their work is protecting the rights of all Americans.”
Further, Nick Brown, Washington state’s attorney general, who chairs an election protection group for the Democratic Attorneys General Association, said it has teamed up with some legal advocacy groups such as the Brennan Center, States United and the DDF to hold “strategy sessions” to prepare for potential disruptive moves by the Trump administration in the November elections.
Brown also attacked the administration’s appeal to the supreme court to move forward with Trump’s executive order on voting by mail, despite Judge Talwani’s strong concerns and Daga’s litigation against it.
He said: “As the court said, states’ compliance with this illegal order would be ‘practically impossible’ before the November elections given the unprecedented demands it would put on state and local elections officials. The chaos that would cause is exactly what Trump wants. That’s why we continue to fight for a fair and properly administered election.”
Baldwin too raised strong concerns about the DoJ’s push to get the supreme court to issue a ruling that would expedite Trump’s executive order on voting by mail.
She said: “The DoJ’s slapdash effort at getting the supreme court’s blessing to turn the USPS into a gatekeeper for mail would be a farce, if it didn’t put our fundamental right to vote in the crosshairs. Given the importance of what is at stake, the DoJ’s continued efforts are nothing more than an attempt to foist chaos on the electoral process. But they will fail.”
Other lawyers engaged in key election legal battles and other litigation voice optimism they will prevail.
Tianna Mays, the legal director of the DDF, said: “The Trump administration has declared war on the rule of law, yet our democratic guardrails are still holding. We refuse to stand by idly while this administration flouts the constitution and attempts to eviscerate our institutions.”
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