Deal to Kill an Offshore Wind Project

Six States Are Suing the Trump Administration Over Its Deal to Kill an Offshore Wind Project

The $1 billion TotalEnergies payout was unlawful, attorneys general say.

Dharna Noor

Six states sued the Trump administration on Tuesday over its decision to cancel a major offshore wind lease off the coast of New York.

In March, federal officials announced they would pay nearly $1 billion in taxpayer dollars to French energy firm TotalEnergies in exchange for the company killing plans to erect two offshore windfarms off New York and North Carolina. TotalEnergies agreed to terminate the projects and pledged not to develop any new offshore wind projects in the United States, while investing hundreds of millions of dollars in oil and gas projects.

The deal was unlawful, says the lawsuit, led by Letitia James, New York’s attorney general. “The Trump administration is once again trying to kill clean energy projects and destroy good-paying jobs for New Yorkers,” she said in a statement to the Guardian.

The administration’s agreement with TotalEnergies came after federal judges repeatedly struck down the president’s executive orders and stop-work directives which aimed to halt offshore wind development, ruling them unlawful and arbitrary.

“After repeatedly losing in court, this administration cooked up a sham deal to pay a foreign energy company hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to abandon offshore wind and invest in oil and gas instead,” said James. “We are fighting back to stop this illegal agreement that threatens to erase over a thousand union jobs and cheat millions of New Yorkers out of clean, affordable energy.”

In the lawsuit, James and the attorneys general of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Vermont assert that the deal violated the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, which restricts the Interior department’s ability to cancel offshore wind leases. It also breaches the Judgment Fund Act—which regulates appropriations used to pay court judgments, awards, and compromise settlements—they said, among other allegations.

The plaintiffs are asking a court to strike down agreement, halt the lease cancellation and prevent Donald Trump officials from taking further steps to implement the deal.

In March, Doug Burgum, the Secretary of the Interior, hailed the deal as “another win for President Trump’s commitment to affordable and reliable energy for all Americans.” Burgum added that offshore wind is “expensive, unreliable, environmentally disruptive, and subsidy-dependent” and had been forced on US taxpayers.

Green groups defended the worth of offshore wind. Sam Salustro, a senior vice-president of pro-offshore wind group Oceantic Network, said: “Paying to remove affordable, homegrown energy out of the equation leaves American consumers struggling to pay their electricity bills.”

Daily Show humiliated Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner

The Daily Show mocks Ivanka Trump over Albanian island project

Story by Meera Navlakha

The Daily Show humiliated Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner for buying a “real fixer-upper”: a 1,400-hectare island in the Mediterranean. (It's not the Med... Can't even name the water it is in..)*

Anchor Michael Kosta tore into Trump’s daughter for purchasing the private island amid a spiraling economy and her father’s war on Iran.

“It seems like every day, there’s more depressing news about the economy,” Kosta said. “Gas is $5 a gallon. Raspberries are $8 a pint, which sucks because my backup plan was to fill up my car with smoothie. Now, despite all this, it’s inspiring to know that even in these tough times, there are everyday Americans out there who are still able to make it work...”

The Daily Show host panned to footage of Ivanka explaining her purchase, which sits off the coast of Albania. (The Adriatic Sea... How stupid)*

“We developed the opportunity to help realize its potential and transform it, but with a lot of restraint and care because the land is so beautiful,” she said on David Senra’s podcast on Sunday.

Kosta slow-clapped in response. “Let’s give it up for this couple.”

“And for those of you who are thinking, hey, before buying a private island, shouldn’t billionaires maybe read the room? What you don’t understand is, the island doesn’t have rooms yet. They can’t lay the foundation for those rooms until they burn down all those stupid trees, OK?”

Ivanka, 44, explained on Senra’s podcast that she and Kushner came across the island by accident. “We were on a friend’s boat, and we stopped for a swim. Effectively, that’s how we found it. We swam to the islands. We went on a hike, barefoot all the way, up to the top. And we were just captivated.”

Kosta mocked Ivanka’s “impulse buy”: “I feel ya, girl. I feel ya. Been there, done that, except instead of the Mediterranean, I was swimming in the Hudson River. And the island I hiked barefoot was Staten Island. And instead of buying it, I stepped on a needle and got HPV. But I feel you. I feel you.”

To top it off, said the Daily Show host, Ivanka is presenting her luxury eco-resort development as a spiritual journey, leading Kosta to ask, “Can you make this sound even more out of touch?”

Ivanka explained to Senra, “For me, it feels more like a challenge than anything else. The culmination of all of my experience in real estate, all of my travel, a lot of reflection on how I want to live, how I think people increasingly are wanting to live, and trying to really build something that’s a tangible manifestation of that.”

Kosta wasn’t buying it. “Come on, lady. You’re rich, and you bought an island! Just say that.”

The $1.4 billion Sazan Island project has been the subject of scrutiny for years. In the last few days, following Ivanka’s interview, thousands of local citizens and environmental activists alike have protested the proposed development, which is located on a coastal wetland area home to flamingos and sea turtles.

Albanian authorities announced on Monday they are investigating the Trump-Kushner luxury project.

Obsessed with pop culture and entertainment? Follow us on Substack and YouTube for even more coverage.

(The island was a Cold War military site with underground bunkers, it is seem as a hiding place for the rich. A place they can run too and get away when the world they created blowsup...)*

* Not part of the original story.

A good thing for him, better to leave than stay with Nazi ass-suckers...

‘60 Minutes’ correspondent Scott Pelley fired after confrontation with new boss

Nick Bilton, the show’s new top producer, said Pelley “hijacked” a staff meeting to disparage him.

By Aaron Pellish

CBS News veteran correspondent Scott Pelley has been fired from “60 Minutes” following a heated exchange with the show’s new executive producer.

Nick Bilton, who took over as the new head of the award-winning TV news magazine under the leadership of Bari Weiss, informed Pelley he is being terminated “for cause” on Tuesday, according to a letter obtained by POLITICO.

The letter detailed a tense meeting on Monday in which Bilton accused Pelley of demonstrating a “display of hostility” in a confrontation over the ouster of staff members and the direction of the program.

The New York Times reported Pelley accused Weiss, the CBS News editor, of “murdering” the show and challenged Bilton’s qualifications.

“Yesterday, you hijacked my first meeting with staff to disparage me, my qualifications, and my intentions with remarkable incivility and contempt,” Bilton wrote in his letter to Pelley.

Bilton notified “60 Minutes” staff that Pelley had been fired in an email sent Tuesday and obtained by POLITICO.

“I know how much Scott meant to many of you, and I don’t say this lightly,” Bilton wrote. “I made repeated attempts to have direct conversations with him over the weekend, and this afternoon I tried to find common ground. That was not the path Scott chose.”

Pelley did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

His dismissal is the latest disruption at CBS News since Weiss was appointed to lead the newsroom by Paramount CEO David Ellison last year.

She temporarily held back a piece by Sharyn Alfonsi about the treatment of prisoners in the maximum security prison in El Salvador that housed Venezuelan migrants deported from the U.S. — drawing accusations that she interfered with the story to appease the Trump administration.

Weiss dismissed the previous executive producer Tanya Simon, along with Alfonsi and correspondent Cecilia Vega on Thursday and appointed Bilton, who previously directed documentaries.

Eliminating a majority-Black district

Supreme Court allows Alabama to use House map eliminating a majority-Black district

A federal court had repeatedly blocked the map as an illegal racial gerrymander.

By Josh Gerstein and Andrew Howard

The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed Alabama to eliminate one of its two majority-Black districts as part of a plan to give Republicans an additional House seat in the state.

The ruling will be in effect for this year’s elections — the latest win for Republicans in the redistricting arms race that has consumed the battle for the House over the last year in states across the country.

The justices divided 6-3 along ideological lines as they lifted a lower-court order that blocked the map, devised by Alabama’s GOP-led legislature in 2023, on the grounds that it violated the Constitution by diluting the votes of Black voters. The plan is likely to give Republicans a 6-1 advantage over Democrats in Alabama’s House delegation, compared to the current 5-2 split, by dramatically altering the district held by Rep. Shomari Figures (D-Ala.).

With the court greenlighting the 6-1 map, primaries in four of the seven districts will take place on Aug. 11, after GOP Gov. Kay Ivey delayed them in order to account for a new map. The three districts that did not change under the 2023 map have already voted.

It’s the court’s first major ruling on racial discrimination in redistricting since it drastically narrowed a key provision of the Voting Rights Act in April, prompting Republicans across the South to begin the process of dismantling majority-Black districts to create GOP seats.

Since that ruling, Louisiana Republicans eliminated one of the state’s two majority-Black districts, and Tennessee’s GOP-led legislature dismantled its lone-remaining Black district last month.

In the ruling released after 9 P.M. Tuesday, the Supreme Court’s majority said the lower court “did not heed the presumption of legislative good faith” when it found the lines Alabama sought to use unconstitutionally tainted by racial discrimination.

The unsigned, four-page majority opinion also faulted the lower-court judges for not giving adequate weight to the Alabama state legislature’s “constitutionally permissible” goals of having a single district represent the Gulf Coast and avoiding forcing Republican incumbents into running against each other.

Tuesday’s decision prompted a fight on the high court over the proper interpretation of an election law principle it laid down two decades ago, which called on federal judges to avoid making late-breaking changes to voting procedures, including for district lines.

The court’s conservative majority said the lower court erred by disrupting Alabama’s plans on the eve of an election and insisted that late tinkering by a state, on the other hand, is permissible..

“While federal courts should not impose changes close to an election, states are free to decide for themselves whether last-minute changes to an election are in their best interests,” the majority wrote.

But Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s 17-page dissent accused Alabama of “weaponization” of the so-called Purcell principle by intentionally making late changes that are legally dubious and then hoping to escape federal court scrutiny.

Sotomayor faulted Alabama for taking “utterly irreconcilable positions” on the logistical challenges and risks involved in last-minute changes to voting maps. She noted that in 2022, the state claimed that changes months before an election would be too disruptive, but the state is now seeking to make similar changes in a matter of days.

“A State that once decried pulling the rug out from under voters, elections officials, and candidates now seems determined to do just that,” she wrote.

Sotomayor also repeatedly accused her court’s conservative majority of issuing rulings that cause confusion among voters and election officials.

“Just as Alabama doubled down on racial discrimination, the Court today doubles down on chaos,” Sotomayor wrote, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Alabama Republicans have sought for years to keep the congressional map to just one majority-Black district.

After the 2020 census, Alabama’s Legislature adopted a map that maintained only one so-called “opportunity” district where Black voters were likely to be able to select a candidate of their choice. The map was used for the 2022 elections, but the Supreme Court issued an unexpected, 5-4 ruling the following year that found the map likely violated the Voting Rights Act.

A federal court rejected a new map the state adopted in 2023 and imposed a court-ordered map that created a second “opportunity” district for Black voters. The state remained under an injunction blocking the legislature-drawn 2023 map, but – following the April Voting Rights Act ruling – filed an emergency appeal with the Supreme Court asking the injunction be lifted.

The justices voted, 6-3, to grant that request last month. That ruling set in motion another round of litigation before the lower, three-judge court which issued a fresh block on Alabama’s still-unused 2023 map. That’s the order the Supreme Court lifted on Tuesday.

Raising alarms on the Hill

Trump’s intel pick delights MAGA and shocks nation’s spies

Bill Pulte, the head of a housing agency, is set to take the reins as the Director of National Intelligence — raising alarms on the Hill even as it delights the MAGA faithful.

By Daniella Cheslow

With the naming of Bill Pulte to serve as acting Director of National Intelligence today, President Donald Trump offered a stick in the eye to the intelligence community and cause for celebration to his base.

“It’s a middle finger to the Senate. A fuck you to the Deep State,” MAGA loyalist Steve Bannon told POLITICO. “The White House staff hates him because they can’t control him.”

Given his scant national security credentials — and initial GOP skepticism — Pulte faces an unlikely path to confirmation in the Senate should he be nominated formally for the role. But even his ascension in an acting capacity sends a strong signal about Trump’s disdain for the office — and MAGA’s mistrust of the intel community.

For some longtime intelligence community practitioners, it was a galling move that underscored Bannon’s point. “It will cause worry amongst IC professionals that the DNI will be fully weaponized in support of going after Trump’s political enemies, given Pulte’s track record,” said Marc Polymeropoulos, a retired 26-year veteran of the CIA.

Pulte, who is serving as Federal Housing Finance Agency director, has no known background in intelligence. His appointment came less than two weeks after Tulsi Gabbard said she’ll leave her post as DNI at the end of June. The 1998 Vacancies Act allows for an acting officer to serve for 210 days, although the White House and ODNI didn’t confirm the length of Pulte’s term or when it would begin.

Speaking to reporters Tuesday, White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett defended the choice, saying, “Bill Pulte is a terrific guy, very careful person, very much in the details of things, trusted by the president and a really, really close friend to everybody in the White House. He’ll do a great job.”

Democrats offered wall-to-wall condemnation of the appointment. The news hijacked an afternoon Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, with ranking member Mark Warner (D-Va.) asking “What qualifications from my standpoint does Mr. Pulte bring to the office? Well, he has shown that he is willing to do anything that President Trump wants, legal or otherwise.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) told reporters in the Senate that Pulte had already wielded government power against Trump critics (those include Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif), New York Attorney General Letitia James and Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook). “With more access to more private information, Pulte may simply use that to do more damage to more American citizens,” Warren said.

Republicans — particularly those whose time in the Senate is running out — were cautious, if not downright skeptical, reinforcing the idea that Pulte has long odds of being confirmed.

“I don’t see any evidence of his qualifications for that job but I’m willing to listen,” said Senate Intelligence Committee member John Cornyn (R-Texas), just weeks after he lost a primary to a Trump-backed candidate.

“Doesn’t seem very qualified,” said Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who likewise fell victim to Trump’s primary revenge tour.

“I thought most of his experience was in the building industry. I didn’t know he had any national security experience,” said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who is retiring.

It wasn’t just the YOLO caucus. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Pulte would have a “lengthy road ahead” to a potential Senate confirmation. North Carolina GOP Sen. Tedd Budd called Pulte “an interesting choice, there’s a lot of talented people that I probably would have considered.”

Trump loyalist Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) was more supportive, saying, “I think Bill’s great,” but declined to elaborate on his qualifications.

The ODNI was founded after 9/11 to integrate intelligence across 18 agencies. Squabbles between ODNI and the CIA have broken open during the Trump administration, including when Gabbard revealed an undercover CIA agent in a list of 37 officers she stripped of security clearances.

“ODNI and other IC elements it oversees communicate and collaborate daily with CIA counterparts across the full spectrum of intelligence products and operations,” the ODNI told POLITICO.

The CIA has reduced its contributions to some intelligence assessments produced by the ODNI, including on the Iran war, according to a Reuters report Tuesday. The CIA did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Brian O’Neill, a former CIA senior executive, said the practical impact of Pulte’s appointment may be limited, especially as CIA Director John Ratcliffe appears to be the president’s senior intelligence adviser.

Still, O’Neill said, “it is reasonable to worry that ODNI will continue its shift from an intelligence management organization toward a political instrument.” Pulte’s thin national security resume, he added, only deepened his concern.

Long game

EU plots long game against US digital supremacy

The European Commission’s so-called tech sovereignty plan aims to boost domestic champions rather than shut out American competitors.

By Mathieu Pollet

The EU is moving to counter American dominance in technology by reaching for one of the oldest tools in its arsenal: industrial strategy.

As the European Commission unveiled a plan Wednesday to reduce Europe’s reliance on the foreign technology providers that underpin the modern economy, it was careful to stress that it was not picking a fight with U.S. digital giants.

Instead, the tech sovereignty package — motivated in no small part by U.S. President Donald Trump’s weaponization of Europe’s dependence on American firms — takes a longer-term view: boost the continent’s players so they can eventually challenge their U.S. rivals.

“We cannot afford to depend on others for the technologies that keep our hospitals running, our energy grids stable and our services secure,” Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement. “This is about protecting our citizens, defending our interests and making our own choices.”

The package’s centerpiece, the EU's Cloud and AI Development Act, includes a provision allowing the Commission to vet countries on whether they are trustworthy enough to serve Europe’s sensitive public sectors. 

But the real focus of the proposed legislation is on measures aimed at helping European companies grow into serious contenders capable of taking on U.S. Big Tech.

If adopted, the package will direct public money toward products that contribute to Europe’s economy and independence from foreign firms; cut red tape for data centers; beef up research and innovation through “leadership initiatives”; incentivize countries to share digital capacities in a new “Eurocloud” forum; and require EU governments to come up with national strategies to boost the adoption of cutting-edge tech, including AI. 

The package will also seek to ramp up the bloc’s demand for advanced chips — a response to criticism by the industry — with a series of industrial initiatives to revise a 2023 chips law.

The Commission’s proposals, which will now go to national governments and the European Parliament for negotiations on the final version, are a reply to rising concerns that relying on American technology is a vulnerability. 

Brussels itself says EU countries spend €264 billion a year on American tech, with three U.S. giants — Microsoft, Google and Amazon — dominating the cloud services market that underlies everything from email communication, the storage and processing of public and private data and many of the tools powering government services.

Some EU governments have warned that it is neither realistic nor desirable to decouple the continent from U.S. tech.

With the European Parliament in the process of finalizing a controversial trade deal with the U.S., the Commission has taken pains to insist the new measures are not aimed at American firms.

The U.S. could still retain a high level of access to the European market, given an existing data privacy pact between the EU and the U.S. and recent efforts by big U.S. companies to put safeguards in place against foreign interference. 

But whether the American tech sector can continue to serve some of the most sensitive sectors of the European economy is a politically charged question that will depend on the final form of the legislation — and crucially, how it gets implemented.

"We have defined here four levels of sovereignty. When we are coming higher in the levels … the requirements are very strict," EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen explained. "We want to make sure that nobody has a so-called kill switch possibility there," she added, later suggesting that the current Cloud Act — a sweeping U.S. law forcing U.S.-based companies to hand over data hosted on their services — makes it "difficult to reach" the stricter requirements.

As part of its proposal to keep a list of trustworthy countries, the Commission would require EU governments to run a so-called “sovereignty risk assessment” for every digital service they rely on, measuring foreign control, potential access to sensitive data and the risk of operational disruption.

Within a year, they would have to determine the appropriate level of protection for each public sector and procure digital services accordingly — unless they can prove doing so would come at a “disproportionate cost,” the proposal reads. However, the Commission reserves the right to overrule their assessment in future legislation if it believes they downplayed the risks. 

The Commission estimated that just one percent of Europe’s public services are so sensitive that they would be required under the proposed certification scheme to rely on the strict level that totally excludes foreign technology.

Stars aligning in Iowa

Democrats see the stars aligning in Iowa

With Rob Sand atop the ticket, Josh Turek as their newly minted Senate nominee and multiple House races in play, Democrats believe they have the best shot to win big in Iowa in more than a decade.

By Samuel Benson, Katherine Hapgood and Adam Wren

For Iowa Democrats, a decade-long drought may finally be coming to an end.

The economic turmoil of the past year-and-a-half has been felt acutely in Iowa, where the agriculture-heavy economy has been jolted by tariffs. Medicaid cuts in last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act are ransacking rural health facilities, Democrats say, and several clinics in the state have closed. And the Iran war has spiked prices for fertilizer and diesel — critical supplies for the farm state.

That’s all creating a dynamic that Democrats feel will propel voters their way in the midterms, giving them a shot at their first major statewide wins since the Obama era. And they’re confident that their candidates atop the ticket — a slate that was officially nominated in Tuesday’s primaries — will help carry Democrats in down ballot races.

“You go into these rural communities, the word that I hear the most is ‘betrayal,’” Josh Turek, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, told POLITICO in an interview late Tuesday night after winning his primary. “We’re leading the nation in farm foreclosures. Farm suicide rates skyrocketing. And so the Trump signs and Trump flags are coming down, because they say we’ve been betrayed.”

Even some Republicans are sounding the alarm.

“The reality is, if voters do not trust Republican elected officials and candidates with the future of the economy, they’re not going to vote for them this November,” said Drew Klein, an Iowa-based regional vice president of Americans for Prosperity. “That is what is going to decide the election in November.”

Democrats see economic issues providing an opening across rural America. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee recently commissioned polling they say shows economic dissatisfaction among rural voters, according to a memo shared first with POLITICO.

Both the Senate and governor’s seats are open in Iowa at the same time for the first time since 1968, and Democrats think they have a slate of nominees who could meet the moment.

“We’re excited about it, and this is probably the first time in a long, long time when I can say that,” said Patty Judge, a Democrat who served as Iowa agriculture secretary and was Democrats’ last lieutenant governor before her ticket lost in 2010.

Iowa Democrats and DCCC are seriously targeting three of the state’s four House seats as well — seats they swept in the last wave election, in 2018.

Turek, a Paralympic gold medalist, cruised to victory Tuesday in the primary for U.S. Senate, a victory for national Democrats who backed his campaign and will be eager to support him in November. He’ll run statewide with Rob Sand, the current state auditor and rising star within the party, who ran unopposed in the gubernatorial primary.

But winning in Iowa will still be difficult and require Democrats to overcome a party brand that has become toxic in most rural corners of the country. No Democrat in the state has been elected governor since 2006, to the U.S. Senate since 2008 and to the U.S House since 2020. The last time the state went blue at the presidential level was 2012.

Republicans admit the environment isn’t great — but argue that Democrats will still fall short given how far right the state has shifted in the Trump era.

“I think it’s a huge hill to climb for Dems,” said David Kochel, a longtime Republican strategist who has done extensive work in the state. “Yes, a lot of things are breaking towards them, but we’re talking about a state where Trump won by 13.”

“Democrats turned their backs on Iowa years ago, and their candidates prove they still haven’t learned a thing,” said National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Emily Tuttle. “Iowans want representatives who will fight for them, not lecture them or look down on them. That’s why Republicans are positioned to win across Iowa this November.”

Democrats’ optimism starts atop the ticket: Sand will take on Republican Zach Lahn, who won his primary with less than 40 percent of the vote over Trump-endorsed Rep. Randy Feenstra (R-Iowa).

Sand — an avid hunter who is the only statewide-elected Democratic official — has gained popularity in conservative Iowa for his independent, fiscally moderate streak. “They know him and trust him,” said Emma O’Brien, deputy campaign director for Sand. “He has bucked the Democratic Party and told them he disagrees where he has disagreed, and has given props to the other party when they do the right thing.”

Democrats are banking on Iowans being ready for a change after a decade of leadership from Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds. According to data from Morning Consult, she’s been the country’s most unpopular governor for two years running; 49 percent of Iowans disapproved of Reynolds’ performance as of February 2026.

“She’s had control of the legislature that whole time, and it is just inarguable that people’s lives are not better,” said Sue Dvorsky, a former Iowa Democratic Party chair. “Our health care is worse, our water is worse, the schools are in trouble. Every dimension that I think a family or a community uses to measure its health is down.”

A spokesperson for Reynolds did not respond to a request for comment.

In the Senate race, Turek will face off against GOP Rep. Ashley Hinson, a race that early polls show in a statistical deadlock. Democrats have their sights on Republican Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks in the 1st District and Zach Nunn in the 3rd District — and even think Hinson’s open seat in the 2nd District could be in play.

“Instead of standing up for Iowans, [Republicans] have put themselves, special interests, and their party bosses first,” said DCCC spokesperson Katie Smith. “Iowa families are desperate for change and after years of broken promises and failures, are ready to reject these creatures of the swamp.”

The string of strong candidates atop the ballot will help carry candidates in state legislature and local races, Democrats say.

“It feels different,” Sarah Trone Garriott, the Democratic challenger to Nunn who was elected to the state Senate in 2022 and 2024, told POLITICO on Tuesday, before winning her primary. “I have been one of the only [Democrats] to win in those years, and that felt pretty lonely. But this feels really good.”

Iowa Democrats have seen recent flashes of hope. In 2025, Democrats won four of six special elections for the state legislature, breaking Republicans’ supermajority in the state Senate.

Democrats draw a straight line between the changes to Medicaid in last year’s reconciliation bill and rural health clinic closures. In Iowa’s 1st District, a medical center ended its labor and delivery services, citing issues with government funding; in the 3rd District, clinics closed explicitly because of “expected Medicaid cuts.”

Farmers — a traditionally Republican leaning coalition — voted heavily for Trump. “[Trump] is not very good for farmers, but farmers have been pretty good to him,” said Tom Miller, a Democrat who served for 40 years as Iowa’s attorney general.

But Iowa farmers have been heavily impacted by Trump’s tariffs and trade wars — not to mention the spike in fuel and fertilizer costs.

Last fall, some farmers told former state Rep. Christina Bohannan — the Democratic nominee in the 1st District, where she will face Miller-Meeks for the third consecutive cycle — that they waited to buy fertilizer until spring because of high costs caused by tariffs. “Then we went to war with Iran, and the fertilizer prices spiked even more,” Bohannan said. “So our farmers are really struggling.”

Aaron Heley Lehman, president of the Iowa Farmers Union and a fifth-generation farmer, warned that rural voters should not be automatically counted on by any party. “People are feeling a lot of pain right now and not seeing a lot of action to match rhetoric,” Lehman said. “The degree of hurt that Iowa farmers are feeling is pretty wide.”

Feenstra loses Iowa governor primary

Trump-backed Rep. Randy Feenstra loses Iowa governor primary

It’s a blow for the president, who has seen most of his chosen candidates this cycle sail to victory or advance to runoff elections — until now.

By Samuel Benson

Rep. Randy Feenstra lost the GOP primary for Iowa governor on Tuesday, a shocking upset after he earned President Donald Trump’s last-minute endorsement.

Feenstra, who was narrowly defeated by rival Zach Lann, conceded and called to congratulate him before results were official.

The three-term representative outspent Lahn, a businessperson and former GOP operative, by nearly $1 million and leaned heavily into his MAGA credentials during the primary.

The loss is a blow for Trump, who has seen most of his chosen candidates this cycle sail to victory or advance to runoff elections — until now. He backed Feenstra just four days before the primary, a last-ditch attempt to bolster his loyal GOP ally in a race that became increasingly competitive in the final stretch. Feenstra had asked for Trump’s endorsement earlier this year and began calling himself a “Trump conservative” in ads even before receiving the president’s backing.

The race kicked off when Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds decided against running for reelection, with Feenstra, Lahn and three other candidates competing for the GOP nomination. Feenstra, who boasts a long record in the state and in Congress, was widely viewed as the front-runner, though the latest primary polling revealed he was on shaky standing.

Lahn has never held public office, but spent years working in Republican politics and running campaigns in Montana and Colorado. In this race, he positioned himself as a political outsider. “I’m my own biggest donor and I cannot be bought,” he said in one face-to-camera ad. “I’m running because career politicians, special interests and corporate giants have betrayed Iowans.”

Lahn is a native Iowan but spent many years out of the state, most recently opening a private school in Wichita, and reportedly voted in Kansas from 2018 through 2022.

Lahn will face off with Democrat Rob Sand in November in the marquee race, with Iowa Democrats eager to win the governor’s mansion for the first time since 2006. Sand, the Iowa state auditor, is the lone Iowa Democrat to hold statewide office.

Gears up for 2027 election

Pressure builds on Italy’s Meloni to shun Trump as she gears up for 2027 election

The prime minister’s adversaries say she is making a mistake by prioritizing military spending to please the U.S.

By Hannah Roberts and Jacopo Barigazzi

Italy's right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni can no longer afford to keep U.S. President Donald Trump happy when she faces a battle to win reelection next year.

In the first year of Trump's presidency, the instinctively transatlanticist Meloni styled herself as the European leader best placed to build bridges with MAGA. And over the course of 2025, she embraced a relationship in which the U.S. leader praised her as "highly respected" and a "friend."

But the bills from the war in Iran are now coming due, and a weakening economy poses a grave threat to her electoral prospects in 2027. Many Italian voters blame Trump for their households' soaring energy costs, and there is a growing political consensus that U.S. demands for increased military spending are simply unaffordable in Rome.

Facing up to her domestic political and economic realities, the Italian leader has already started to pivot away from Trump, publicly criticizing him and blocking U.S. jets from access to an Italian airbase.

Meloni understands her electorate — an Ipsos survey in May found 77 percent of Italians had a negative view of Trump — and the spurned president has grumbled she is "no longer the same person."

But Meloni's big strategic headache is military spending — and it threatens to be the decisive make-or-break factor looming over the U.S.-Italian relationship.

Italy currently spends barely 2 percent of its economic output on defense, but Trump is pressing all NATO countries to raise that to 5 percent by 2035. Meloni has signed up to the 5 percent goal, but Italy's economy is creaking, and her opponents are quick to point out that Rome has more critical spending goals than Trump's demands for NATO.

Prioritizing Trump-aligned military spending over support for companies and businesses hammered by sky-high energy bills is becoming an increasingly tough sell.

"The NATO commitment to 5 percent is completely unrealistic for Italy," said Antonio Misiani, a former deputy finance minister and a senator for the center-left Democratic Party. "For a year, Giorgia Meloni told us she was the bridge to Trump, but that bridge never existed, and now the chickens are coming home to roost."

Claudio Borghi, a senator from the far-right League in the governing coalition and a critic of high defense spending, said: “It is politically difficult to explain that you can spend on tanks and not on [helping with] bills.”

Meloni concedes there needs to be a balance in spending, but she also insists Rome cannot simply row back on military commitments.

"The truth is that if you don't know how to defend yourself, if you ask someone else to guarantee your security, you'll pay for it in terms of autonomy, in terms of sovereignty, in terms of the ability to defend your national interests," she said in a speech to Italy's main business federation this week. "Defense spending is the price of freedom, and I want Italy to be a free nation."

Cash crunch

Meloni, who has been in office for an unusually stable four years, suddenly looks vulnerable.

The almost €200 billion post-pandemic recovery program that helped sustain growth is nearing its end, productivity is weak and public finances are under renewed scrutiny from Brussels. 

This economic malaise comes as her political star is also waning. A failed justice referendum exposed new political weaknesses, and previously despondent opposition parties have now started to believe they could have a chance against her in 2027.

Meloni's government has spent much of its term pursuing fiscal prudence, hoping that economic stability would eventually create room for tax cuts and spending measures before voters return to the polls.

The fallout from the war in Iran has derailed those plans.

“Italy is in the last place in Europe for growth and more indebted than Greece," said Mario Turco, a senator for the left-populist 5Star Movement. “This shows us that Giorgia Meloni’s economic policy has failed."

In that context, Italy's efforts to increase its military spending are proving particularly tough politically.

Rome had planned to use €15 billion in EU loans from the Security Action for Europe (SAFE) scheme in order to raise its defense spending from 2 percent to 2.5 percent of gross domestic product by 2030.  

But the country's stubbornly high deficit makes it difficult to take on SAFE loans, said Enrico Borghi, a center-left opposition senator who sits on the parliament’s security committee.

“Italy is in very serious difficulty in terms of maintaining its commitments,” he told POLITICO.

Rome is now considering requesting only about €5 billion of the €15 billion initially earmarked under SAFE, according to a senior coalition figure.

But that has an immediate knock-on effect. Absent the €15 billion in loans, dozens of projects already agreed between defense companies and the Italian defense ministry will have to be reviewed, said Alessandro Marrone, head of the defense program at the Istituto Affari Internazionali think tank. 

Something's got to give

Stefano Stefanini, Italy’s former ambassador to NATO, said the country's debt and deficit levels left Meloni "no choice" but to slow the pace of military spending.

According to Stefanini, Meloni risked being seen as in the same camp as Spain, which was attacked by Trump after refusing to commit to the 5 percent defense spending target. However, the former ambassador reckoned Rome was more at risk of criticism than a full-scale rupture with the White House.

The challenge for Rome is that the debate looks very different depending on which side of the Atlantic it is viewed from. Where Rome sees it as a question of timing, Trump may well doubt Italy's commitment.

For Beniamino Irdi, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, "the debate in Rome is not between rearmament and disarmament but rather about finding a balance between strategic credibility and internal political sustainability." 

"Washington does not read nuance well when it comes to burden-sharing," he added. "For Trump, the test of an ally is measured in numbers, not in arguments."

Still, a confrontation with Trump may not be entirely unwelcome in Rome.

Marrone said criticism from the White House over military spending could even strengthen Meloni domestically, given the U.S. president's deep unpopularity among Italian voters.

"Should Trump criticize Meloni for not spending enough on defense, that will probably bolster her in Italian public opinion and with the electorate," he said.

For a leader who once positioned herself as Trump's closest ally in Europe, the irony is hard to miss. The surest way for Meloni to protect her standing with Italian voters may be to disappoint the White House.