Chaos for cities and cost them millions.

ICE deployments created chaos for cities and cost them millions, NPR analysis finds

Jaclyn Diaz

IImmigration and Customs Enforcement deployments to American cities are a central part of President Trump's immigration crackdown. Yet, according to data analyzed by NPR — and interviews with law enforcement and city officials — these actions stretched local police departments thin, disrupted businesses and left city budgets struggling to absorb the fallout.

In Los Angeles and Minneapolis, the immigration enforcement surge resulted in ballooning overtime costs for local police. In Portland, Ore., decreased police manpower contributed to longer call response times.

Amid what the Trump administration has dubbed Operation Metro Surge, businesses in cities like Bloomington and St. Paul, Minn., lost revenue, experienced unrest, and were similarly left with high bills.

What unifies these ICE actions is they were all sustained over several weeks, in communities where local law enforcement isn't authorized to assist with federal immigration efforts. Still, these deployments resulted in knock-on effects that required the use of local police to bring about or preserve order.

Police overtime surged as departments were forced to deploy officers for demonstrations, extra patrols, security around federal facilities and emergency responses tied to the raids — often at overtime pay rates.

In cities already struggling with staffing shortages, like Los Angeles and Minneapolis, those extra hours quickly added up.

In Los Angeles, where the financial situation is already dire, LAPD overtime spending climbed to $41 million in June 2025, when immigration raids sparked weeks of protests — well above the department's typical monthly range of $18 to $30 million, according to the city controller's office.

In Minneapolis, the police department reported more than $6 million in overtime and standby pay in less than a month, from Jan. 7 to Feb. 8, according to the city's police chief. That's more than double the city's entire annual police overtime budget of $2.3 million.

The full financial picture is still not fully known. City leaders are reviewing their budgets and expect costs to continue to go up.

In response to NPR's questions about how the immigration crackdown has affected city budgets, Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, provided a statement and included source links: "Illegal aliens cost American taxpayers over $150 billion in 2023 alone and expenditures for benefits provided to the illegal aliens who entered during the Biden surge will add $177 billion in mandatory federal spending through 2034."

NPR has not independently verified these figures.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to NPR's questions for this story.

What happened in Los Angeles?

In early June 2025, ICE agents began a series of aggressive immigration sweeps in Southern California.

"The first three weeks of it, we were really balancing and teetering on martial law," LA councilwoman Eunisses Hernandez told NPR. She said the city didn't expect "such a heavy-handed and militarized and war-like response from the federal government to people expressing their First Amendment rights."

The LAPD spent around $17 million between June 8 and 16 responding to the anti-ICE protests that broke out that month. Close to $12 million of that went to overtime costs, according to a report from the LA City Administrative Office.

These figures do not include the costs of potential lawsuits or liability claims from residents and protesters injured during the demonstrations, and from aggressive policing by the LAPD that the city expects to face, Hernandez said.

To meet these financial needs, the city has had to tap into its reserve funds. 

In response to questions from NPR, the LAPD did not provide any information about what types of activities officers were engaged in when they incurred the overtime hours.

The city controller's office pointed NPR to the public database of city funding for more information. But the data lacked specifics. Overtime costs for the LAPD for the entire month of June 2025 ballooned to more than $40 million. Overtime hovered between $22 million to a little over $33 million from January 2025 through May 2025.

The LAPD, the country's third-largest police department, has struggled with short staffing – contributing to the need to spend millions on overtime in prior years, according to the LAist. 

LA Mayor Karen Bass did not answer questions about the financial repercussions on the city from the police response to the raids or on local businesses.

Portland's story: 'We are understaffed, under-resourced'

Not long after the unrest in Los Angeles, Portland Police Bureau Chief Robert Day says protesters and federal agents began to converge on the city's ICE facility in June.

"The bulk of our overtime investment, and demands on our time have been at the [federal ICE] facility," Day told NPR.

Like LA, Portland's police department has dealt with staffing shortages for years.

From June until November 2025, Portland police officers were staffed at the ICE facility nearly every day, according to the city data provided to NPR. There were other times when officers were actively monitoring but weren't at the facility.

In 2025, the Portland Police Bureau recorded 38,213 overtime hours categorized as "event response," according to data provided to NPR. For context, Portland police racked up 19,166 overtime hours for event response for all of 2024.

The overtime hours accrued in 2025 are nearly half of what was accrued when police responded to major protests in 2020 and 2021 following the death of George Floyd. Those protests lasted months, and the at-times chaotic demonstrations damaged property and sometimes turned violent.

Police worked between 70,000 to more than 80,000 hours of overtime to respond to those events, according to the data.

Local law enforcement's role at the ICE facility this summer and fall was to maintain order. Protests got out of hand at times. "The facility was badly damaged. It was heavily attacked. Windows broken and graffiti," Day said.

During now-outgoing DHS Secretary Kristi Noem's October visit, Portland police were tasked with providing even more security to the center – 456 officers, resulting in close to 3,000 hours of overtime hours worked, according to data provided to NPR, and equating to "a few hundred thousand bucks," according to Day.

"Cops were working long days, long weeks, over an extended period of time," Day said. "We are understaffed, under-resourced, and the rest of the city suffers because of that."

In the summer and fall, that meant calls for service took much longer, according to Day. "Our average response time to priority calls has grown to 17,18 minutes … and it should be more like six to eight," he confirmed.

Minneapolis police report PTSD symptoms 

At the peak of the immigration enforcement surge, there were around 3,000 ICE and Customs and Border Protection agents in the Minneapolis area. There are only around 600 cops in the Minneapolis Police Department, and statewide, there are around 10,000 law enforcement officers.

"I cannot imagine any other city going through the intensity and the sheer amount of chaos that happened here. It was terrible," Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara told NPR. "Minneapolis is a small city. This is not Chicago. It's not LA, I don't think it would be possible for them to overwhelm those cities in the way that this city was really overwhelmed by that surge."

There is still a presence of ICE agents in the city, but far fewer than at its peak.

Early on, O'Hara made big changes to respond to the deployments of federal agents to Minneapolis. He changed operational procedures and created a full-time position for a lieutenant to be available to monitor ICE-related calls. He also staffed the department's operation center with civilian community service officers to help monitor social media and the city's camera feed to see action in the streets in real time, he explained.

By early January, O'Hara was instructing all sworn officers to be in uniform at all times while on duty.

"I was afraid there was going to be a need for an emergency situation that would require a massive deployment. And the next day is when Renee Good was killed," he told NPR. "From that moment, until about a day or two after the third shooting that we had when Mr. Pretti died, I would say it just continued to escalate."

When the police were responding to and protecting active crime scenes in the aftermath of the shootings, ICE agents continued with immigration stops and arrests. In response, demonstrations of thousands in opposition to the raids continued.

Minneapolis police had to respond to all of it.

O'Hara compared that chaos to the unrest after the 2020 killing of Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, which led to major protests and riots.

After Good's death, all days off for officers were canceled. Police were tasked with handling marches, protests at hotels and monitoring vigil sites. Specialized units were activated and police generally tried to maintain order.

As a result, overtime costs skyrocketed. O'Hara said the department spent about $6.4 million on overtime costs from Jan. 7 through Feb. 8.

"It was, honestly, an overwhelming situation that for most of it, it felt like there was just no end in sight," he said.

By the third week of January, O'Hara said he received reports that officers were experiencing symptoms of PTSD, "which scared me," he said.

The 2020 Floyd protests had a huge impact on the department – so much so it led to a mass exodus of officers reporting symptoms of PTSD. "As emotionally charged as things were on the street, it was difficult for them. It took them back to the feelings and things that they had experienced in 2020. That was really tough for a lot of the cops."

O'Hara continued, talking about staffing concerns: "It was my fear that we were going to wind up having this cycle again and just wind up losing more people. Unlike in 2020…there's absolutely no buffer. We're at bare bones here."

With police pulled to respond to keep public order, officers were being pulled off of active investigations. Crimes weren't being solved or investigated as quickly as they could have, he added.

The financial cost of the deployment to the city as a whole is also pronounced. Minneapolis issued a report on Feb. 13 that estimated the total economic fallout in one month during these operations was more than $203 million.

The report lists a host of consequences from the raids, including residents detained, job losses and business closures.

"The impact was both extraordinary and it was devastating for those months, while this invasion was taking place," Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey told NPR. "People were afraid to go out. Afraid to go to the grocery store. Terrified that their families were going to get ripped apart."

He said, "ICE is clearly to blame."

NPR asked the White House to respond to this criticism.

Jackson, the White House spokeswoman, said in her statement: "When will NPR ask sanctuary cities if they will reimburse the American people for expenses incurred by illegal aliens? Or if they will apologize to the victims of violent criminal illegal aliens?"

Chief O'Hara said the problem was not that immigration enforcement was happening. The problem is the "unsafe and questionable methods" of the federal agents and "questionable leadership."

Noem, the head of DHS at the time of this surge, was recently fired in part because of the political fallout from these operations.

Consequences of ICE deployment spread beyond city borders

St. Paul, the capital of Minnesota and close neighbor to Minneapolis, loaned some officers to Minneapolis to deal with the crush of Operation Metro Surge, according to Rebecca Noecker, the president of St. Paul's City Council.

"This was a problem that we did not make and it's a problem we don't have the resources to solve," said Noecker.

Following the shooting of Macklin Good in Minneapolis, St. Paul police spent $46,000 in overtime in just one day to assist the neighboring police department, Noecker said.

From Jan. 7 to Feb. 5 St. Paul police shared with NPR that 4,679.75 employee overtime hours were worked in response to Operation Metro Surge. That cost $372,341.38. They didn't tell NPR how many officers worked the additional hours or provide additional data beyond early 2026.

"The line between physically intervening with ICE to keep protesters safe and physically intervening with ICE in a way that prevents a lawful enforcement action is a really fine one," Noecker said. "What I heard mostly from our police was: 'We're really in an impossible situation.'"

Noecker says the numbers her city is seeing now are not the end of the story. She expects these bills to go up.

In nearby Bloomington, Minnesota, 10 minutes south of Minneapolis, the city's police Chief Booker Hodges told NPR protests against ICE spilled into his community. He said, for example, demonstrations broke out in front of hotels where it was rumored that ICE agents were staying.

In January, when the White House deployed federal law enforcement to Minneapolis "all hell broke loose," Hodges said.

Border Patrol and other federal agents were seen following residents to nearby schools, which triggered emergency calls to the department. There were also racial profiling incidents targeting the city's large Latino and Somali population, Hodges told NPR.

He also said officers of color were subjected to racist abuse by anti-ICE protesters.

Hodges said his officers were exhausted, but that his department is fully staffed so didn't require as much overtime as other agencies.

His department spent more than $32,000 in overtime costs in response to immigration protests and activities, he told NPR. That covered 60 police officers and totaled 415.5 hours.

The work for these officers involved extra patrols in retail and at the city's more than four dozen hotels. It also required the deployment of the department's Public Order Group (a group trained to respond to public disorder). It was deployed once all of last year. This year, as of mid February, the group was deployed four times.

He would like to see reimbursement from the federal government, but said, "it's pointless to even ask them for it."

He says time would be better spent pushing for comprehensive immigration reform: "Because even though the surge has ended here, the laws that allowed it to take place are still in place."

Things are so good.....

Iran fires more missiles at Israel and rejects Trump's talk as 'fake news' for markets

By NPR Staff

Israel and Iran exchanged more missile strikes Tuesday, including one that hit central Tel Aviv, according to Israeli authorities.

The latest exchanges come as Washington and Tehran send conflicting messages about the war's future and possible talks to end it. On Monday, President Trump said the U.S. and Iran have had "productive" conversations about ending the war. He postponed a threatened attack on Iran's energy infrastructure until the end of the week, contingent on talks' progress. Iranian officials, meanwhile, have dismissed the idea of negotiations as "fake news," but Iran's foreign ministry said it was responding to requests through intermediaries of friendly countries.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard also said Tuesday on Telegram that a gas supply line feeding a power station in southwest Iran was struck overnight.

Despite the continued strikes, an Israeli official told NPR on Tuesday that the U.S. is planning talks with Iran in Pakistan in the coming days. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they did not have the authorization to speak about the matter.

Here's what else to know about the latest developments in the conflict.

Tel Aviv hit as Iran fires new wave of missiles at Israel 

The Israeli military said Iran fired missiles at Israel at least eight times on Tuesday, with impacts reported in at least four sites across the country. At least six people were injured in Tel Aviv, according to Israeli health officials.

NPR visited the site of the blast, an upscale residential neighborhood, and identified a crater in the middle of the road where the missile fell. The facade of an apartment building next to it was badly damaged, and cars in the surrounding area were crushed.

Israeli police estimate the Iranian missile contained a warhead with about 220 pounds of explosives. Israel's defense systems did not intercept it.

Earlier on Tuesday, an explosion was reported in northern Israel, injuring at least one person. Other blasts were reported in southern Israel.

— Daniel Estrin

U.S. says talks are being planned as Iran continues to deny negotiations

The latest missile exchanges come after Trump repeatedly suggested Monday that the conflict could be heading toward a diplomatic off-ramp, saying U.S. and Iranian officials have held "productive" conversations about ending the war. Iran's leadership, meanwhile, has rejected that characterization.

Still, an Israeli official told NPR that planning was underway for talks in Pakistan later this week. Regional intermediaries – including Egypt, Turkey and Pakistan – have been relaying messages and were playing a role in efforts toward de-escalation.

In a post on Truth Social Monday, Trump said he would postpone earlier threats to attack Iran's energy infrastructure in hopes of reaching a deal by March 27.

Iran's Foreign Ministry denied entering talks with the U.S. The parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, alleged that reports of talks are "fake news" that are "intended to manipulate financial and oil markets and to escape the quagmire in which America and Israel are trapped."

NPR speaks to Iranians at the Turkish-Iranian border

NPR has spoken to more Iranians fleeing Iran, as the war nears its one month mark.

Many said they were relieved that Trump said he would postpone his initial threat to target Iran's power plants, but worried the U.S. would reach an agreement with Iran that would keep the current government in place.

Speaking from the eastern Turkish-Iranian border Tuesday, Iranians spoke about hearing heavy bombardments, especially in Tehran. They also told reporters about a large Iranian security presence on the streets.

All asked not to be identified by name over fears of government reprisal.

One man, speaking out against the war, said he believed Israel's motive for bombing the country is to expand its borders into Iran.

The vast majority of Iranians NPR spoke to said they supported the strikes on Iran from the U.S. and Israel.

"We needed a foreign military intervention to save us," one person said. "The [U.S./Israel] already killed the former supreme leader [Ali] Khamenei and I hope they kill the rest [of the leadership] soon."

Another man, whose hometown was very active in a wave of anti-government protests in January, said he felt Iranians had gone through enough suffering under the current leadership.

He said "everything is gone" from my hometown – and that "what is left is the bitterness of 47 years that is strangling us [Iranians]."

The man said a turning point for him was the bloody government crackdown. The Human Rights Activists News Agency, a U.S.-based human rights monitoring group, says it has confirmed that Iran killed more than 7,000 of its own citizens in the protests.

— Emily Feng 

Israeli airstrike kills two in Beirut 

Lebanon's Health Ministry said that an Israeli airstrike killed at least two people southeast of Beirut.

The strike was one of several explosions heard across the Lebanese capital overnight. In a post on X, Israel's military said it was targeting Iran-backed Hezbollah militants.

Israel has issued multiple evacuation orders across Lebanon since the start of the war, leaving over 1 million people displaced, according to the Lebanese government.

Monday's strike, southeast of the capital, came without warning from the Israeli military. Footage shows flames and smoke billowing from a residential building.

This week, Israel's defense minister, Israel Katz, threatened to use the so-called "Gaza model," in Lebanon, which razed many residential areas. He also said he's accelerating the destruction of Lebanese homes in border villages, from which Iran-backed militia Hezbollah, fired rockets.

In its latest report, Human Rights Watch said forcible displacement and deliberate targeting of civilians constitute war crimes.Israel has also struck gas stations across Lebanon that are known to have business ties with Hezbollah.

Stooge....

How Matt Floca went from being ‘in charge of HVAC and toilets’ to leading the Kennedy Center

By Sunlen Serfaty, Betsy Klein

The new director of the Kennedy Center is a young, well-liked facilities manager who most recently was “in charge of HVAC and toilets” — as one former colleague put it — at the renowned performing arts institution.

Moments after the Kennedy Center board voted to rename the institution the “Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts,” Matt Floca was outside in the December cold directing the crew installing the letters of Trump’s name on the building’s facade.

Three months later, Floca has been unexpectedly thrust into a pivotal role at the nation’s preeminent arts institution as it prepares to undergo a renovation that will see it close for two years. He is well-liked by Trump, with whom he has bonded over a shared passion for building and construction, according to people familiar with the dynamic.

The president suddenly announced earlier this month that he would replace Ric Grenell, a longtime ally, with Floca, whose background is rooted in facilities and construction.

While Kennedy Center insiders say Floca is a capable hand who can steady the ship in the short term, he is being seen as a “Band-Aid” for the institution’s ills who can oversee renovations but not much else.

“He really will just be overseeing the facility, the renovation, because Matt’s expertise does not lie in marketing, it does not lie in artistic programming, it doesn’t lie in fundraising, it doesn’t lie in literally any other category of arts management other than the facility itself,” a source close to the Kennedy Center told CNN.

“During the two-year renovation there will no doubt need to be a leader in charge of the everything else,” the person added.

“He was in charge of HVAC and toilets. He’s deeply an operations guy, he wants to talk about structural engineering and load capacity,” a former colleague at the Kennedy Center said of Floca.

Still, within the Kennedy Center, Floca is trusted and seen as apolitical. Many see him as a stabilizing force following a tumultuous year with Grenell at the helm, during which the institution saw high-profile performance cancellations and plunging ticket sales.

Floca’s promotion reflected Trump’s urgency to replace Grenell, another source close to the Kennedy Center said. As Trump grew increasingly unhappy with Grenell, having him continue to lead felt untenable, and Floca was put in place as a “stopgap” measure, another person said.

On Monday, Floca penned a “Dear Colleague” letter to Kennedy Center staff. The email, obtained by CNN, acknowledged the changes and promised an open-door policy to answer questions ahead.

“I deeply appreciate the trust placed in me during this pivotal time and am committed to carrying out the physical restoration of the Center with the same care and attention to quality as you bring to work every day,” he said in the email.

CNN asked Floca and the Kennedy Center for comment.

A spokesperson for the White House, echoing earlier statements from Trump, said that “Matt Floca is a construction professional and he is well-suited to lead the Trump-Kennedy Center into its historic next phase.”

Before arriving at the Kennedy Center during the Biden administration a little over two years ago, Floca worked for a decade for the DC government on capital construction and facilities. Before that, he was a project engineer at a construction company. According to his LinkedIn profile, he graduated from Louisiana State University in 2009.

At the Kennedy Center, his role has been managing “standard issue facilities,” overseeing upgrades to the building and security, a former colleague said. The role has been more limited than that of a predecessor who reported directly to the Kennedy Center president, the person added.

But he caught Trump’s eye after the president took a personal interest in the Kennedy Center’s renovations. During a walkthrough of the building months ago, Trump was impressed with the young facilities manager who briefed him on the needed renovations for the aging building.

“Trump is, at the end of the day, a builder and developer,” the source close to the Kennedy Center said, noting that the feeling of admiration was mutual between Trump and Floca, who was impressed with the president’s knowledge of the building and the construction that lies ahead.

Their relationship has grown fast.

Many at the Kennedy Center say Floca is now perceived as Trump’s guy, and the president calls Floca often, multiple sources said.

When Trump suggested covering the iconic Kennedy Center columns in marble, it was Floca who steered him away from the idea, a former colleague told CNN.

“He seemed to definitely understand the administration,” the source close to the Kennedy Center told CNN.

Challenges ahead

The Kennedy Center is expected to close to the public two days after its annual Fourth of July party, when it hosts picnics on the lawn and well-heeled donors watch fireworks from the roof.

What happens next behind the shuttered doors will be pivotal for the financial health and direction of the institution — and some insiders told CNN they feared Floca will not have the experience to manage all that needs to be done.

“There is a lot that will need to happen during this closure, including communications, donor management, artist recruitment, patrons — if he’s myopic in focusing on the architecture and these upgrades, who is doing the other 80% of the job?” asked one source, a former colleague.

Theater companies book out two years in advance, for example, and the center is “already beyond behind the eight ball,” a source close the Kennedy Center said of the programming plans.

During the closure, an already skeleton staff at the Kennedy Center will be trimmed even more: An estimated 75 to 175 out of the center’s roughly 300 employees will be cut, according to meeting minutes from a board subcommittee obtained by CNN.

Perhaps the biggest quality going for Floca, a Kennedy Center source said, is the perception that he is “not going to make waves” for Trump since he is in the president’s good graces.

But that will be a test for Floca, who has not had to navigate a boss who is also the president.

“Being beholden to the president of the United States doesn’t necessarily mean that Matt’s going to be able to make the best decisions for the building,” the source with knowledge of the dynamic said.

“He’s never been the person that’s running an organization. He has had no experience with that. He’s always had a buffer,” the source familiar with the dynamic said. He pointed out that, in the past, when Grenell was at the helm and drew Trump’s criticism, it acted as a shield for Floca, who could use his “relatively junior” position and good relationship with the president to deflect the heat.

“He could always sort of be the good guy that has all of this stuff in common with Trump, like construction,” the person said.

At the same time, there is an implicit recognition that he may not equipped to address all the challenges the Kennedy Center is facing, another source said. Discussions are taking place to potentially appoint an additional leader alongside Floca who could fulfill the broader needs of an arts institution — as soon as within six months, the person said.

But another source familiar with the plans pushed back on that notion, adding there is strong support and confidence in Floca.

Appearing at the White House with Trump and the rest of the members of the Kennedy Center board last week, Floca was seated next to Grenell, who only days before had been ousted by the president.

“I think he’d do a good job,” Trump said of Floca at the meeting, before adding: “But if I don’t think he will do a good job, I’ll say, ‘Matt, you’re fired. I’m getting somebody else.’”

Don't cave.......

Top Senate Republicans coalesce behind plan to end DHS shutdown

By Sarah Ferris, Morgan Rimmer, Ted Barrett, Alison Main

Top Senate Republicans on Capitol Hill believe their party is unified behind a plan to reopen the Department of Homeland Security. Now, they need to sell the plan to Democrats.

Republican lawmakers emerged from a White House meeting on Monday night with a plan to fund DHS — all except a small portion of the immigration enforcement budget, in a concession to Democrats. Then, once that’s passed, Republicans plan to muscle through a partisan bill without Democratic votes to fund the rest of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency — as well as new policies in President Donald Trump’s long-sought voter ID bill.

That plan, which was described to CNN by a person familiar with the talks, has not yet been accepted by Democrats. But key Democrats said they were pleased with the direction, even without knowing all of the details. And the top Senate GOP spending leader, Sen. Susan Collins, told reporters she was “optimistic we’re on a good track.” While Trump had previously rejected a similar idea, Republicans now feel the president is on board, that person and another source familiar said.

A White House official expressed optimism in a statement to CNN on Tuesday, saying, “Conversations are ongoing but this deal seems to be acceptable.”

Trump has in recent days said that he does not want to make a deal on DHS funding unless Democrats back the voter ID bill known as the “SAVE America Act” – despite the fact that supporting the bill is a nonstarter for Democrats.

Trump was presented Sunday with a proposal to fund every part of the department except enforcement operations by ICE, two sources familiar with the conversations told CNN, but Trump rejected the idea as he took to Truth Social to attack Democrats for not backing the voter ID bill.

If Senate Democrats do agree, it could put Congress on a path to ending the nearly 40-day shutdown of DHS that has left federal workers, like TSA officers, without pay. The funding deal would still need to go to the House, where GOP leaders would need to navigate a tight majority. Then Republicans would face an arduous few weeks crafting another major immigration bill — with both ICE funding and pieces of Trump’s contentious voter ID bill — all just months before a critical midterm election.

Sen. Chris Murphy, a senior Democrat, said he believed funding DHS without that money for ICE enforcement would be the “easiest way” forward.

“Let’s keep working on ICE [reforms] and let’s open everything else up,” Murphy said. “As I leave tonight, that still seems like the most likely path this week.”

“I don’t know the details, but I really like the direction we’re heading. Okay? Good to get this resolved,” Democratic Sen. Peter Welch told CNN about the emerging deal on DHS.

He said Democrats have already made significant strides by helping to force former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem out of a job as well as other changes.

“The fact is, we’ve made significant progress. Noem is gone. That’s a big deal. She was reckless, lawless, corrupt. That’s big progress. Number two, ICE is out of Minneapolis. We owe that basically, to the brave citizens in Minneapolis who, in the face of enormous violence, stood up to protect their neighbors. And then you’re seeing out of the White House an acknowledgement that this mass roundup policy is way over the top.”

The Democrats’ top spending leader, Sen. Patty Murray, declined to speak on the potential deal, saying only: “I want to see the language.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, leaving the Capitol Monday night, would only say “both sides are talking in a serious way.”

Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Senate Democrats, told reporters that he needs to see precise details before agreeing to a deal. But his understanding of the deal, he said, is that it would fully fund DHS except for a specific branch of ICE called Enforcement and Removal Operations.

“I want to see exactly what that means and how its language is, and there may be some negotiation on exactly how to define that,” King said, adding that he wants to “see the actual proposal” in writing.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune was upbeat but cautious as he came off the Senate floor about the possibility of getting a deal to soon to end the shutdown. He said he “feels good” about the emerging agreement but said he’s a bit of a “naysayer” until everything is nailed down.

“All I can say is that the discussions have been very positive and productive and I hopefully headed in the right direction.”

GOP Sen. Katie Britt said, “I am going to be working through the night so hopefully we can figure out how to land this plane.”

Makes Trumpworld Dumber

A Dumb War Makes Trumpworld Dumber

Tracking the inane MAGA responses to the White House’s war frivolity.

David Corn

War is an extreme action and, thus, triggers extreme reactions. Including extreme stupidity. It’s always disheartening—or ought to be—to see what should be a last resort comes to pass. It’s worse when a war is accompanied by cruelty, callousness, recklessness, and idiocy, though for obvious reasons that might be unavoidable. As for Trump’s war in Iran—which could well be an immense blunder—it has been enveloped in layers of excessive dumbness.

I’m not talking about the strategic wisdom—or lack thereof—of this attack, which could precipitate calamities throughout the region and beyond. Or the madness of impulsively launching such a war without planning for what comes afterward. I’m referring to how it has prompted imbecility among its supporters, including at the White House.

At 1600 Pennsylvania, the belief seems to be that war is the continuation of trolling by other means. First, the White House released a video intercutting scenes of bomb strikes with video game footage. (Look how fun it is to slaughter people!) Then it posted a video featuring movie clips to hype the awesomeness of this war—a military action that opened with a strike, probably American in origin, on a girls’ elementary school that massacred scores of students.

This White House video moves quickly from Iron Man 2 to Gladiator to Braveheart to Top Gun to Better Call Saul to John Wick to Breaking Bad to other fare, including Tropic Thunder, Superman, and Transformers, and ends with a sound clip from the Mortal Kombat video games declaring, “Flawless victory.” Then a fade to the White House emblem. In the middle of all this, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth intones, “F.A.”—as in “fuck around, find out.”

It’s juvenile and demonstrates a lack of somberness about the nasty and brutal business of war. Kudos to Ben Stiller, who directed, co-wrote, and starred in Tropic Thunder, for demanding the White House remove the clip from his film: “We never gave you permission and have no interest in being part of your propaganda machine. War is not a movie.” Or a video game.

Making light of warfare that’s killing hundreds, perhaps thousands, and creating potential environmental and health disasters and perhaps a humanitarian crisis shows an utter disregard for human life and dignity.

The video is also pretty dumb. Several of the characters featured, such as Saul Goodman and Walter White of Breaking Bad, are ethically challenged criminals, not the types you want to hail as role models or heroes. Russell Crowe (Gladiator) and Mel Gibson (Braveheart) are from New Zealand and Australia, respectively, and each play a rebel who opposes an invasionary and imperial force. That’s not quite the current storyline.

Making light of warfare that’s killing hundreds, perhaps thousands, and creating potential environmental and health disasters and perhaps a humanitarian crisis shows an utter disregard for human life and dignity. But, hell, pop open a Red Bull and let’s have a ball. There’s no better way to convince the public this war is being run by adults who care about the sanctity of life, respect the Iranian people, and went to war only because there was absolutely no other choice.

We also saw what might be called war frivolity at the Free Press, where Nellie Bowles, who created the site with spouse Bari Weiss, found lots of fun in the latest war news, joshing that Trump will pick Iran’s new leader “via swimsuit competition,” celebrating the torpedoing of a ship (“Welcome back to water warfare, baby!”), and joking that it was a good thing a downed American pilot “didn’t land in Minneapolis.”

Curtis Yarvin, a self-proclaimed political theorist of the far right who denigrates democracy and celebrates monarchy, got into the act. He blamed the United States’ problem with Iran on the American left, tweeting, “The Iranian Revolution was a diplomatic crime of the American left. The Islamic Republic, like its proxy Hamas, is a client power of the American left. Trump is only bombing Tehran because he can’t bomb Brooklyn.”

There is so much inanity in those three sentences.

The Islamic Revolution was a product of 26 years of repressive rule from the Shah, who was installed by the United States after Washington and London orchestrated the coup that overthrew Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, a democratically elected leader who dared to nationalize the British-controlled oil industry. Moreover, the fundamentalists of Tehran have more in common with anti-woke Trumpists than they do with NPR listeners in Park Slope. (Ask them about queer people, abortion, and secular relativism.) And it’s swell of Yarvin to suggest that fellow Americans deserve to be bombed.

Such nonsense from him is not surprising. After all, he has called for liquidating democracy, the Constitution, and the rule of law and handing power to a CEO-ish leader who would turn the US government into “a heavily-armed, ultra-profitable corporation.” Sounds like a nutball, right? Yet he’s pals with JD Vance and Peter Thiel. So be afraid.

For outright ignorance, we have Rep. Rick Crawford (R-Ark.). On Fox News, he proclaimed, “We have been at war with Iran since 1947.”

Nope. As noted above, from 1953 to 1979, Washington was pals with the Shah, helping him run his authoritarian regime. And here’s the kicker: Crawford is the chair of the House intelligence committee. Ponder that.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) probably knows the United States has not been at war with Iran for 79 years. But he sure doesn’t know how to talk to a skeptical public about Trump’s war. One recent poll found that only 36 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s actions in Iran and that a majority believes Iran poses a minor threat or no threat to the United States.

Yet with public sentiment tilted against this war, Graham believes it’s fine to turn up the warmongering dial to 11. On Fox News—of course—he bellowed, “We’re going to blow the hell out of these people.”

Performances like that are sure to settle the nerves of worried Americans. Even Republican pundit Meghan McCain saw how counterproductive such rhetoric can be for the fans of this war. She tweeted, “I’ve known Lindsey Graham since I was a child. I am imploring anyone who will listen in the Trump administration to stop sending this man out as a surrogate. He is scaring people and doing damage to whatever message you’re trying to sell to the American public about the Iran war.”

Daniel Pipes, a longtime Islamophobic foreign policy analyst, expressed his disappointment and surprise that the Iranian people last week did not mount a revolution against the regime: “The populace now appears cowed into near-silence.”

When bombs are raining down, many people might prefer to seek shelter and protect their families rather than hit the streets in protest. Also, given Trump’s erratic signals—first he suggested the US would support an uprising, then his team drew back from that—Iranians opposed to the regime might be a tad reluctant to move on the government, while the 200,000-member Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is still intact. Perhaps they can apologize to Pipes for letting him down.

The biggest dunderhead move, though, was Trump’s. As the war raged, with reports of new American casualties and US embassies in the region being ordered to evacuate, Trump this weekend showed the nation and the world that he was on top of things by…golfing. Nothing says you’re serious about protecting the troops and ending a war as soon as possible as zipping about in a golf cart at Trump National Doral in Miami and then signing autographs in the clubhouse. (Look, a buffet!)

You might think that a demagogue keen on imagery and PR stunts would realize the value in creating the impression that he’s a committed and engaged commander in chief during wartime—even if he was only faking that—by spending the day in the Situation Room with military brass or in the Oval Office on the phone talking to world leaders about the various crises being triggered by his war. Instead, he’s devoting hours to swinging a stick at a tiny ball.

Didn’t any of Trump’s brilliant advisers suggest that for just this weekend he skip the links? This decision demonstrated tremendous lack of judgment. It suggested Trump views himself as an emperor who can do whatever he pleases and need not worry about consequences. Anyone who pulls such a dumb move cannot be trusted to run a war—or a country.

End Mail Voting

Trump Wants to End Mail Voting. The Supreme Court’s Conservative Justices Appear Eager to Assist.

The Republican National Committee and the Trump administration want to overturn mail ballot deadlines in 29 states.

Ari Berman

President Trump has claimed he is “going to lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS” and is currently lobbying the US Senate to effectively outlaw the practice as part of his push to pass the Save America Act.

The conservative justices on the US Supreme Court appear eager to assist with Trump’s crusade.

On Monday, the justices heard a challenge from the Republican National Committee and the Trump administration to a Mississippi law allowing mail-in ballots to be counted up to five days after Election Day as long as they are postmarked by the day of the election. Sixteen states have similar grace periods on the books, and 29 states accept ballots from overseas and military voters sent before or on Election Day but received after. The New York Times found that during the 2024 election “at least 725,000 ballots were postmarked by Election Day and arrived within the legally accepted post-election window.”

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, the most right-wing appellate court in the country, struck down Mississippi’s law in the run-up to the 2024 election in what UCLA law professor Rick Hasen called a “bonkers opinion.”

But at least several Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices want to turn that bonkers decision into settled law—at the very moment that Trump is trying to eliminate mail ballots nationwide and “take over” elections.

During the two-and-a-half-hour oral argument in Watson v. Republican National Committee, several of the conservative justices spread conspiracy theories and crazy hypotheticals about mail-in ballot deadlines and the use of the practice more broadly.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch suggested that mail-in ballots could be given to a neighbor or a notary, then submitted after Election Day but still be counted if they arrived within five days of the election.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, echoing Trump’s complaints about “vote dumps” during the 2020 election, claimed that if ballots arriving after Election Day changed the outcome of a race it would undermine voter confidence in the result.

Mississippi Solicitor General Scott Stewart, who defended the law for the state, replied that his opponents “haven’t cited a single example of fraud from post-Election Day ballot receipts.” He argued that “states have broad powers over elections” and that allowing mail-in ballots to arrive during a brief grace period did not change the meaning of Election Day since ballots were still cast by or before that day.

But Justice Samuel Alito bemoaned that “we don’t have Election Day anymore. We have election month.”

The complaints from Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh suggested that at least four of the court’s conservative justices were hostile to Mississippi’s mail-in ballot law and shared Trump’s broader goal of limiting access to mail-in ballots.

The liberal justices noted that if ballots must be cast and counted on Election Day, that would also imperil early voting, which 47 states currently use.

“Every time you try to state what your rule is, it seems to me it’s a rule that prevents early voting,” Justice Elena Kagan said to conservative lawyer Paul Clement, who represented the RNC.

Clement and Trump administration solicitor general John Sauer claimed that early voting would not be impacted by a decision in their favor, since voting happened in advance of the election. But Trump himself, along with top officials in his administration, have called for all voting to take place on a single day, which would end both mail-in and early voting.  

The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that states should not change voting laws in the middle of an election. Kavanaugh asked Clement if that would be an issue in this case if the court ruled in his favor by June. Clement said states would have “plenty of time” to prepare for the general election.

In reality, however, changing mail-in ballot deadlines months before the general election could disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters who could be unaware of the stricter rules or have their ballots thrown out because of postal delays or because they live in remote, rural locations. And any decision narrowing voting access would embolden Republicans to go even further in their attempts to restrict voting rights. The Supreme Court is also weighing another case that could kill the remaining protections of Voting Rights Act and turbocharge Republican gerrymandering efforts. These two cases have the potential to throw the midterms into chaos.

Many court experts expected the RNC and Trump administration to lose the Watson case given how far-fetched their arguments were. Justices John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett did not tip their hand as much as the other conservative justices, so it’s possible that Mississippi will still prevail. But the fact that a majority of justices or close to it appeared sympathetic to the arguments against mail-in voting is a reminder that the Republican Party’s war on voting isn’t confined to Trump and that even if the Save America Act appears doomed in the Senate, the GOP’s push to limit access to the franchise will continue full steam ahead.  

High-speed rail builds out

As high-speed rail builds out Central Valley section, more money is needed elsewhere

By Anabel Sosa

For every step forward and track laid, California’s high-speed rail project seems to face continuous money hurdles and controversies, leading the public to question when the state — and arguably country’s — biggest infrastructure project will be built. Until then, only time will tell if it is really on a train to nowhere.

Railway officials and legislative analysts are aware that the project is going to take a lot more time and cost much more than originally planned if they want to keep up with deadlines.

They are strategizing ways to get more money and faster, so that incoming funds can arrive at the same time as expenses. This month, during an oversight hearing in the Assembly Transportation Committee, those financial risks were addressed, along with potential paths forward to complete the first installment of tracks in the Central Valley by the 2032 deadline.

These conversations are becoming even more dire as the project is now leaning on private investors since losing $4 billion in federal funding last year, a move done at the behest of the Trump administration. The president and Republicans have long used the railway as ammunition to criticize the Democratic Party’s ineptitude.

In order to secure investors, the railway also needs to jump over a legislative hurdle.

State Sen. Henry Stern, a Democrat from Los Angeles, is proposing revising Senate Bill 198, a 2022 law that prioritized funding to first go toward the construction of the Central Valley segment, which at the time was seen as a critical initial part of the railway.

That law did this by capping the amount of money the railway could invest outside of the Valley to $500 million until 2030, or if the Central Valley route gets fully funded first. But the railway and the lawmakers argue those limitations have prevented them from developing other areas of the project, like in Los Angeles, and from seeking private investors, which proponents say is critical to help move things expeditiously. This bill is making its way through the Legislature and comes as the railway is negotiating a private investor deal by this summer.

About 119 miles of railway are under construction between Merced and Bakersfield, the project’s first phase, which includes a 22-mile southern section that is already finished and ready for rail later this year. That will cost $17.8 billion, and the entire 171-mile Central Valley segment is reportedly going to cost $31 billion to finish, according to updated figures from the 2026 business plan. Railway officials said this month they were trying to figure out a $2 billion gap in funding based on last year’s funding figures.

This section of track is the first installation of the entire railway, which was envisioned to span a 494-mile stretch of tracks from San Francisco all the way to Los Angeles.

Earlier this month at the Assembly committee hearing, Ben Belnap, the inspector general of the railway, addressed a $2 billion funding gap for the Valley section alone, which is slated to run through Madera, Fresno, Tulare, Kings and Kern counties. He speculated in the meeting that with the high cost of construction, the railway finances were not moving at “at the pace” needed to finish on time. 

He said that the project depends on a $1 billion annual pool of money from California’s cap-and-invest program, but the money doesn’t always come in on time, which may require the rail authority to resort to relying on funding elsewhere, like private investors. The total estimated cost of the project is now $120 billion.

“That doesn’t mean that there are not future funds coming in,” he said in the meeting, according to Cap Radio. He clarified that the money would be coming into the accounts but “not at the pace we’d need to keep up with project expenditures.” 

Belnap went on to say that if the state does not resolve its financial structure, it could result in a delay in the construction schedule, and the rail authority would then be in a “weaker” position when it comes to negotiating with private investors. 

Many controversies

Fuck Kash Patel

SFGATE columnist Drew Magary opines on the current FBI director and his many controversies

By Drew Magary

As we no longer have a functional journalism industry in the United States, it has fallen to me, a man who’d really prefer to be filling out an NCAA bracket right now, to alert you to the various criminal losers who serve as the face of Trump 2.0. I’ve introduced you to Vice Asshole JD Vance, of course. I’ve also given you a primer on War Department chief Pete Hegseth, who’s hard at work triggering World War III while also frantically searching for the nearest open liquor store. Who else have I had to take notice of against my will lately? Oh right: alleged dognapper Pam Bondi, newly deposed Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem, and Noem’s would-be successor Markwayne Mullin, whose confirmation hearings are going swimmingly as I type this.

I wish that was the end of the list, because that would mean I’ve introduced you to all of these scumbags. It would mean that the evildoers running this country into the ground are finite in number. But you and I both know that Trump 2.0 has a near endless supply of crooks, Nazis and Duke graduates to draw from. So here’s the latest one:

Those are the shoes of Kash Patel, current FBI director and a man who couldn’t find Nancy Guthrie even if the woman called him directly. You might remember last month, when Patel used taxpayer resources to fly himself to Milan so he could pretend that he was a member of the gold medal-winning U.S. hockey team. It’s hard to make chugging beer uncool, but Kash Patel managed it. Astounding.

And yet that’s hardly the only way that Patel has managed to embarrass his country before or since. We’re talking about a leading innovator in the field of wanton douchebaggery here, and it’s my reluctant duty to illuminate why that is. Christ.

A quick sketch: Patel rose up through the state of Florida’s “justice” system, after which he moved up to the federal government, where he served as a national security prosecutor under President Barack Obama and then, during President Donald Trump’s first term, worked all the way up deputy director of national intelligence. After Trump was voted out of office in 2020, Patel turned to podcasting (they all end up having a podcast), where he spewed pro-Trump, Joe Rogan-grade conspiracy theories. He also started up the Kash Foundation, a nonprofit entity that gave some of its money away, including to Jan. 6  insurrectionists, but largely existed to elevate Patel’s personal brand. Here is the merch shop to prove it. Take note of all the logos on display at that link, including an altered Punisher emblem, as they’ll factor into the end of our story.

Once Lazy Hitler moved back into the Oval Office in 2025, he appointed Patel head of the FBI. After being confirmed by the Senate, the New Yorker reports that Patel used his position to fire FBI agents who were looking into the Jan. 6 riot, to fire more agents looking into GOP efforts to futz with the 2020 election results, and to fire one agent who had a Pride flag on his desk. While making all of those cuts, Patel treated the bureau’s remaining resources as if he owned them. He had agents serve as an unofficial security detail for his civilian girlfriend. He kept an FBI jet on call for himself in Florida instead of dispatching it to Providence, Rhode Island, after a mass shooting at Brown. He couldn’t even be bothered to investigate Charlie Kirk’s killing properly. In between all of that negligence, Patel also made frequent, unwelcome excursions into the sports world, including that disgraceful trip to the Winter Olympics. This is not a man who knows how to earn his beer.

That brings us to last week, when Patel decided that the best way to train the bureau’s young starlings was by inviting UFC fighters to come train them. His statement:

“This is a tremendous opportunity for our FBI agents to learn and train with some of the greatest athletes on earth—helping the world’s premier law enforcement agency be even better prepared to protect the American people.”

Good to know that, should one of my loved ones ever be abducted, the FBI agent tasked with avenging them will know how to execute a flawless rear naked choke on a CPR dummy.

This workshop served no practical utility for rookie agents, or for the citizens those agents have been hired to protect. It was just a crosspromotional event designed to benefit UFC CEO Dana White. White is friends with Donald Trump, so much so that he got Trump to host a UFC event right on the White House lawn later this year. This explains how the UFC and FBI have joined forces to waste everyone’s time. It also explains the shoes. Let’s have a look at those bad boys one more time.

These are undeniably better kicks than the oversized Florsheims that Trump is forcing the rest of his Cabinet to wear, but that’s the last nice thing I’ll say about them. Because Kash Patel’s shoes are wack. The Punisher skull isn’t just a longtime fascist signifier, but also a hackneyed one. The 9 on the side to connote Patel’s standing as the Bureau’s ninth-ever director is the nerdiest s—t I’ve seen since Elon Musk’s last tweet. And Patel’s personal K$H logo is so embarrassing that even Tom Brady’s marketing team wouldn’t have conceived of it. I bet those shoes don’t even give Kash decent arch support.

I’m so tired of this s—t. I’m tired of having to learn about any of these awful people. I’m tired of them starting wars, shooting innocent people, and frittering away billions of tax dollars that you and I pay to have a functional government. I’m tired of them wearing ugly shoes, paying each other empty compliments, and pretending like they’re anything but mediocrities. And I’m REALLY tired of them ruining things that you and I might otherwise enjoy. That includes the Olympics, but it also includes things like medicine, education, transportation, surfing around on the internet, and not dying in a nuclear holocaust. 

In theory, a powerful official like Kash Patel would also want you and me to enjoy such things. He might even work to protect that enjoyment, as a true professional might. Instead, he’s just another needy loser like the rest of them. So as far as I’m concerned, he can take those custom shoes of his and stick ‘em right up his Ka$hhole.

ICE agents seen 'terrorizing' woman and child

ICE agents seen 'terrorizing' woman and child at SFO, Calif. senator says

The widely circulated footage has since caused furor online

By Ariana Bindman

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents caused outrage at the San Francisco International Airport on Sunday night after appearing to restrain a crying woman in front of her child, footage shows.

In one video posted on social media, a crowd of people hold up their phones while others shout at a row of San Francisco Police Department officers who appear to be standing guard and aiding the ICE agents as they conduct the enforcement. Behind them, two men in plainclothes can be seen dragging the woman into a blue wheelchair while she visibly struggles. Handcuffs appear to dangle from her wrist.

“Leave her alone,” one bystander yells.

“What the fuck are you doing?” a man shouts. 

In another widely circulated video captured from another angle, the two men in plainclothes restrain the woman on the ground as she wails and cries. A person in the crowd repeatedly demands to hear the agents’ badge numbers; in the background, a young girl with braided hair sobs.  

The Department of Homeland Security identified the woman and child as Angelina Lopez-Jimenez and Wendy Godinez-Lopez of Guatemala in post on X on Monday afternoon.   

“We understand federal officers were transporting two individuals on an outbound flight when this incident occurred,” SFO spokesperson Doug Yakel told SFGATE on Monday. “We believe this is an isolated incident and have no reason to suspect broader enforcement action at SFO.”

Yakel added that the airport was not involved or notified of the enforcement in advance.

“The airport’s role is to ensure the safe and efficient operation of the facility for all passengers and staff,” he said.

“Consistent with our City Charter, state law, and SFPD department policy, we do not assist in the enforcement of civil federal immigration laws,” SFPD’s media relations unit told SFGATE Monday.

“On Sunday, March 22, at approximately 10:00 p.m., SFPD officers responded to a 911 call at San Francisco International Airport. Officers arrived on scene and determined the incident involved federal immigration officials,” it said, adding that police officers were present to maintain public safety. 

California state Sen. Scott Wiener reposted the video on X, condemning the agency and demanding that ICE leave California. “ICE was at SFO airport last night, terrorizing a mother while her daughter watched,” he wrote. 

Toward the end of one of the videos, amid shouts and boos, the two men in plainclothes haul the woman off, while an officer escorts the young girl by her side. Crowd members beg them to stop.

“We’ll remember your faces,” one person says. About 10 officers surround the woman and child as they exit the gate, ignoring the heckling crowd behind them.

“This is the face of America,” one man shouts at them. “Congratulations.”

ICE agents to airports

‘The pressure is untenable’: Trump's deployment of ICE agents to airports ramps up shutdown fight

ICE agents have arrived at airports in Illinois, New York, Texas and New Jersey.

By Cheyanne M. Daniels and Finya Swai

ICE agents have been deployed to airports across the country as the partial government shutdown continues, officials at multiple airports confirmed Monday.

Airport and city officials at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport and William P. Hobby Airport, New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, New Jersey’s Newark Liberty Airport, Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport and Phoenix’s Sky Harbor International Airport all confirmed to POLITICO that immigration agents were there. Agents have also been seen at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the world’s busiest airport.

Border tzar Tom Homan told reporters Monday that ICE agents are present at “14 airports right now, and there will be more.”

The agents’ arrivals come amid a more than a month-long, ongoing partial government shutdown, with congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump squabbling with Democrats over funding the Department of Homeland Security.

Democrats have demanded major changes to the Trump administration’s immigration tactics as a prerequisite to funding the DHS, while congressional Republicans have rejected Democratic bids to fund most of DHS — save for immigration-focused agencies — while talks continue.

“The laws haven’t changed. It’s about the execution of our mission,” Homan said.

Trump on Sunday evening also threw a wrench into congressional negotiations over the shutdown, stating on Truth Social he may not make a deal unless Democrats back his SAVE America Act, the GOP’s partisan elections bill that Democrats are unlikely to support.

But as negotiations continue, TSA agents have gone without pay, leading some to call out of work and triggering hours-long wait times at some airports.

A spokesperson for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey — which operates the three major airports in and around New York City — said in a statement “the Port Authority expects that any such personnel assigned to assist with passenger processing functions will be appropriately trained and focused on supporting screening operations, consistent with maintaining the safety, integrity, and efficiency of the security process at our airports and protecting the flying public.”

Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport will also have an estimated 75 federal agents patrolling the airport to perform non-screening support functions, according to Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, including monitoring exit lanes, making announcements, assisting with queue management and related activities intended to allow TSA officers to remain focused on passenger and baggage screening.

Johnson, a Democrat, said in a statement he has “concerns” over the agents’ arrival.

“We will closely monitor the deployment and use every tool we have to ensure that people, no matter their immigration status, can travel to and from Chicago safely and without harassment from the federal government,” Johnson said.

Lauren Bis, a DHS spokesperson, confirmed in a statement that agents were being deployed but declined to share at which airports, blaming Democrats for the shutdown. She said over 400 TSA agents have quit their jobs, and highlighted call-out rates that sometimes topped 40 percent at the country’s major airports on Sunday.

One industry official familiar with the political dynamics of the funding stalemate, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said the ICE deployment is largely “performative,” with the agents not having certain badges to get into secure parts of airports and not being trained to check documents and bags.

However, helping “with queue management, I think that’s a real thing. They can help staff exit lanes,” the official added. “There could be some operational benefit.”

They said they hadn’t yet seen an official list of where ICE agents are being stationed, but had heard they will be at more than a dozen airports.

The official said “the pressure is untenable” and if lawmakers don’t cut a deal by Friday, “there’s probably a world where they stay” in Washington until there’s a resolution. “I think the chessboard is kind of set for this week,” they said.

Trump first threatened to deploy the agents on Saturday, writing in a post on Truth Social that “if the Democrats do not allow for Just and Proper Security at our Airports, and elsewhere throughout our Country, ICE will do the job far better than ever done before!”

He continued: “I look forward to moving ICE in on Monday, and have already told them to, ‘GET READY.’ NO MORE WAITING, NO MORE GAMES!”

As ICE agents began to arrive at airports on Monday, Trump announced he was also considering sending in National Guard troops to assist the agents.

“I want to thank ICE because they stepped in so strongly,” Trump told reporters at Palm Beach International Airport Monday. “They’ll do great. And if that’s not enough, we’ll bring in the National Guard.”

Trump stated in a separate Truth Social post on Monday that though he supported ICE agents wearing masks while conducting their regular duties, he would make an exception for inside the airports.

Among their list of demands for ICE reform, Democrats have called for agents to be prohibited from wearing masks while on duty.

“I would greatly appreciate, however, NO MASKS, when helping our Country out of the Democrat caused MESS at the airports,” the president wrote.

Democrats have condemned the federal agents’ deployment to airports.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said in an interview with CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that agents at airports are “the last thing that the American people need ... potentially to brutalize or in some instances, kill them.”

“We’ve already seen how ICE conducts itself,” the New York Democrat added. “These are untrained individuals when it comes to doing the current job that they have for the most part, let alone deploying them in close exposure and highly sensitive situations at airports across the country.”

The sentiment was echoed by New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill, who accused Trump of creating “chaos.”

“Trump’s ICE has a track record of making communities less safe, and sending untrained ICE agents to staff our airports is not an acceptable solution,” Sherrill said in a statement Sunday.

Would cede Hormuz to the enemy..........

Ending Iran war now would cede Hormuz to the enemy, Trump’s former Defense secretary says

"You’d see a tax for every ship that goes through" Hormuz if Trump quits now, Gen. Jim Mattis said.

By Ben Lefebvre

The Trump administration ending its war against Iran now would essentially cede control of the key energy choke point of the Strait of Hormuz to Tehran, President Donald Trump’s former secretary of Defense said Monday.

The assessment from former Gen. Jim Mattis comes as President Donald Trump declared a five-day pause on military strikes against Iranian energy infrastructure after the U.S. and Israeli attack against Iran enters its fourth week. Iran’s retaliation has forced the de facto closure of the narrow passage, where 20 percent of the world’s oil and seaborne gas supplies move from the Middle East to the wider market.

“Iran right now, if we declared victory, they would now say they own the strait,” Mattis said during the CERAweek by S&P Global conference. “You’d see a tax for every ship that goes through.”

“We’re in a tough spot, ladies and gentlemen,” Mattis said. “I can’t identify a lot of options.”

A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to questions on Mattis’s remarks.

Oil prices retreated to $90 a barrel Monday after Trump declared a five-day pause on attacks against Iran to pursue negotiations. Prices have swung between nearly $120 and below $90 since the United States and Israel first struck Iran on Feb. 28.

Despite the pause, it’s unlikely that the United States or Iran will be able to find compromise for a solution, Mattis said. While U.S. missiles have laid waste to military targets in Iran, they haven’t done anything to cement U.S. strategic interests in the war, he said.

“Neither side has the ability right now to move the other side off of where they’re at,” Mattis said. “Never in history has air power alone changed a regime.”

Oil industry executives attending the conference have said they were hoping to hear from the administration about how long it would pursue the attacks against Iran. Some executives had privately begun to lean toward the U.S. establishing a permanent presence in the Strait of Hormuz to remove Iran’s ability to attack oil tankers in the strait — only to be caught off-guard by Trump saying he would start negotiating with the Iranian regime.

“Industry as of last week was thinking, let’s find a permanent solution,” said one oil industry executive granted anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the media. “The solution being discussed was, is there a permanent presence we can build in the Strait Of Hormuz to take that big bargaining chip, to take away Iran’s presence there once and for all? To hear a ceasefire — that’s what it sounds like — it’s a pretty remarkable change of direction.”

The pause is not likely to lead to a lasting peace, Suzanne Maloney, director of foreign policy at the Brookings Institution think tank, said from the CERAWeek stage. Iran and the United States are too far apart in their objectives to guarantee an agreement, Maloney added.

Iran’s goals in negotiations “would include reparations,” Maloney said. It would include end of U.S. military presence and support in the region. Those are probably untenable objectives from the point of view of Washington or from the point of view of their neighbors in the Persian Gulf, she said.

“I’m not optimistic about negotiations under the current circumstances,” Maloney said.

Cement nuclear status

North Korea's Kim vows to ‘irreversibly’ cement nuclear status

Kim Jong Un also said whether his adversaries “choose confrontation or peaceful coexistence is up to them, and we are prepared to respond to any choice.”

By Associated Press

 North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has pledged to irreversibly cement his country’s status as a nuclear power while maintaining a hard-line stance toward South Korea, which he called the “most hostile” state, state media said Tuesday.

In a speech Monday to Pyongyang’s rubber-stamp parliament, Kim accused the United States of global “state terrorism and aggression,” in an apparent reference to the war in the Middle East, and said the North will play a more forceful role in a united front against Washington amid rising anti-American sentiment. But Kim didn’t call out U.S. President Donald Trump by name and said whether his adversaries “choose confrontation or peaceful coexistence is up to them, and we are prepared to respond to any choice.”

His comments largely aligned with his statements at last month’s ruling Workers’ Party Congress, where he vilified Seoul but left open the door for dialogue with the Trump administration, urging Washington to drop its demands for the North’s nuclear disarmament as a precondition for talks.

State media said the Supreme People’s Assembly, which concluded its two-day session Monday, passed a revised constitution but did not specify the changes. There had been expectations the revisions would codify South Korea as a permanent enemy and remove references to shared nationhood. That’s in line with Kim’s hard-line stance after he declared in 2024 that the North would abandon its long-term goal of a peaceful unification with the South.

Analysts say Kim’s vilification of South Korea reflects his view that Seoul, which helped arrange his first meetings with Trump in 2018 and 2019, is no longer a useful intermediary with Washington but an obstacle to his push for a more assertive regional role. He has also shown sensitivity to South Korean soft power, driving aggressive campaigns to block the influence of its culture and language among North Koreans as he seeks to tighten his family’s authoritarian grip.

In his speech, Kim expressed pride in the country’s rapid expansion of nuclear weapons and missiles in recent years, calling it the “right” choice to counter future threats and “hegemonic pursuits” by “gangsterlike” imperialists, a term the North often uses for the United States and its allies.

“The dignity of the nation, its national interest and its ultimate victory can only be guaranteed by the strongest of power,” Kim said. “The government of our republic will continue to consolidate our absolutely irreversible status as a nuclear power and will aggressively wage a struggle against hostile forces to crush their (anti-North Korean) provocations and schemes.”

Kim has suspended all meaningful dialogue with Washington and Seoul since the collapse of his second summit with Trump in 2019 over U.S.-led sanctions on the North.

Kim has recently been prioritizing Russia in his foreign policy, sending thousands of troops and large amounts of military equipment to support Moscow’s war in Ukraine, possibly in exchange for aid and military technology. Facing the possibility of the war winding down, analysts say Kim may try to keep his options open by taking a more measured approach toward Washington to preserve future dialogue, with the long-term aim of securing U.S. sanctions relief and tacit recognition as a nuclear state.

However, some experts believe that the United States and Israel’s joint attacks on Iran and the killing of Tehran’s previous supreme leader may have raised Kim’s bar for reviving dialogue with Washington.

Media will be restricted

Media will be restricted to a new Pentagon annex under new policy

The Pentagon announced the policy in response to a court ruling that found the previous restrictions were unconstitutional.

By Jacob Wendler

The Department of Defense responded Monday to a court ruling on press access by saying it would issue credentials to news organizations that objected to Trump administration restrictions on the media — but that journalists will be confined to a Pentagon annex.

In a statement on social media, Defense Department spokesperson Sean Parnell said journalists would need an official escort to enter the Pentagon and the press area known as the “Correspondents’ Corridor” would be eliminated.

The announcement comes after a federal judge ruled in a lawsuit brought by The New York Times that press restrictions adopted under President Donald Trump were unconstitutional.

The newspaper said it would challenge the new press access policy as well.

“The new policy does not comply with the judge’s order,” Charlie Stadtlander, a Times spokesperson, said in a statement. “It continues to impose unconstitutional restrictions on the press. We will be going back to court.”

The Times brought the lawsuit in December after nearly the entire Pentagon press corps walked out, surrendering their credentials instead of signing onto stringent new guidelines that required them to only publish information approved for public release by DOD officials.

“A new and improved press workspace will be established in an annex facility outside the Pentagon, but still on Pentagon grounds, and will be available when ready,” Parnell said in a statement on X.

Under the revised guidelines, organizations that agreed to the original Pentagon’s press restrictions would also be confined to the external annex.

In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman acknowledged the Pentagon’s argument that it must protect national security, war plans and the security of American troops.

“But especially in light of the country’s recent incursion into Venezuela and its ongoing war with Iran, it is more important than ever that the public have access to information from a variety of perspectives about what its government is doing,” he wrote.

United front against......

Former political rivals take on Trump’s push to nationalize voting

GOP lawyer Ben Ginsberg and former Obama White House counsel Bob Bauer aim to present a united front against the Trump administration’s efforts to oversee election administration

By Daniel Barnes

A pair of former political rivals is teaming up again to fight against President Donald Trump’s effort to impose federal control over state election functions ahead of the midterms.

The Bipartisan American Election Project is the latest effort by Ben Ginsberg and Bob Bauer to advocate for the nonpartisan administration of elections and push back on federal encroachment over an area delegated by the Constitution to the states.

Ginsberg has represented the Republican National Committee and served as legal counsel on the presidential campaigns of George W. Bush and Mitt Romney. Bauer has represented the Democratic National Committee and served as former President Barack Obama’s White House counsel.

The pair came together to study election administration in the U.S. more than a decade ago as co-chairs of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration, which called for elections to be treated as a matter of nonpartisan “public administration.” Since then, they have worked on efforts to build public trust in elections and provide free legal help to election workers.

“The challenge to proper election administration has never been greater,” Ginsberg told POLITICO on Monday. “The purpose of this project is because of the onslaught that courts have been under in a variety of unique cases challenging many of the bipartisan constitutional principles and the traditional ways of administering elections.”

The group’s first action, filing amicus briefs in two ongoing legal fights over the Trump administration’s efforts to obtain state voter rolls, aims to provide a counterargument to the Justice Department’s assertions that the federal government needs to play a larger role in election administration.

“The Constitution divides power between the state and federal governments to secure Americans’ liberty,” they write in briefs filed in lawsuits brought by the Justice Department against Georgia and Massachusetts.

Trump has called for Republicans to “nationalize the voting” and continues to assert claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

Whether the federal government can demand copies of state voter rolls is a question that seems destined to be answered by the Supreme Court, Ginsberg and Bauer say. But they say the Justice Department’s lawsuits against 29 states and the District of Columbia are creating confusion during a midterm election year.

“While the resolution of this case eventually may be down the road, the immediate impact is significant,” Bauer said. “Which is why it’s really important for the views, which we hope will ultimately prevail, to be put as forcefully to the courts as possible.”

Ginsberg and Bauer are joined in their effort by several other notable names in election law. Former Biden campaign lawyer and White House counsel Dana Remus is participating as a board member, along with former Obama Solicitor General Donald Verrilli and Biden-Harris lawyer John Devaney. Prominent Republican litigator Michael Carvin and former George W. Bush administration official Daniel Troy will serve a senior advisory group.

The BAEP is initially focused on the voter roll lawsuits, but Ginsberg and Bauer anticipate growing their team and being involved on the state and local level.

“There’s a lot going on around the country that does not dominate the headlines quite the way Department of Justice litigation does,” Bauer said.

Starmer’s economic comeback

Iran shock puts Starmer’s economic comeback on ice

The U.K.’s politicians are only beginning to grapple with the long-term effects of conflict in the Middle East — and have little room for maneuver.

By Esther Webber

Keir Starmer’s keeping Britain out of the war in Iran — but he can’t duck the conflict’s grave economic consequences.

In a sign of growing fears about the impact of the war on Britain, the prime minister chaired a rare meeting of the government’s emergency COBRA committee Monday night, joined by senior ministers and Governor of the Bank of England Andrew Bailey.

Starmer’s top finance minister, Rachel Reeves, will update the House of Commons on the economic picture Tuesday, as an already-unpopular administration worries that chaos in the Middle East is shredding plans to lower the cost of living and get the British economy growing.

For Starmer’s government — headed for potentially brutal local elections in May — the crisis in the Gulf risks a nightmare combination of a rise in energy prices, interest rates, inflation and the cost of government borrowing that threatens to undermine everything he’s done since winning office.

Economists are now warning that even if Donald Trump’s promise of a “complete and total resolution of hostilities” with Iran were to bear fruit, the effects on the British economy could still last for months.

Already there are signs of a split within Starmer’s party over how to respond. Labour MPs want the government to think seriously about action to protect households — but Starmer and Reeves have long talked up the need for fiscal responsibility, and economists are warning that there’s little room for maneuver.

Jim O’Neill, a former Treasury minister who served as an adviser to Reeves, told POLITICO the government should “not get sucked into reacting to every external shock” and “concentrate on boosting our underlying growth trend.”

Why the UK is so hard hit

Just before the outbreak of war, there was reason for Starmer and Reeves to feel quietly optimistic about the long-stagnant British economy. The Bank of England had expected inflation to fall back sustainably toward its two percent target for the first time in five years, giving the central bank the space to carry on cutting interest rates. 

With the Iran war in full flow, it was forced to rewrite those forecasts at the Monetary Policy Committee’s meeting last week — and now sees inflation at around 3.5 percent by the summer.

The U.K. is a big net importer of energy and also needs constant imports of foreign capital to fund its budget and current account deficits. That’s made it one of first targets in the financial markets’ crosshairs. The government’s cost of borrowing has risen by more than half a percentage point over the last month.

That threatens both the real economy and Reeves’ painstakingly-negotiated budget arithmetic. Higher inflation means higher interest rates and a higher bill for servicing the government’s debt: fiscal watchdog the Office for Budget Responsibility estimates a one-point increase in inflation would add £7.3 billion to debt servicing costs in 2026-2027 alone.

The effect on businesses and home owners is also likely to be chilling. Britain’s banks are already repricing their most popular mortgages, which are tied to the two-year gilt rate. Hundreds of mortgage products were pulled in a hurry after the MPC meeting last week, something that will hit the housing market and depress Reeves’ intake from both stamp duty and capital gains.

Duncan Weldon, an economist and author, said: “Even if this were to stop tomorrow, the inflation numbers and growth numbers are going to look materially worse throughout 2026.

“If this continues for longer… it’s an awful lot more challenging and you end up with a much tougher budget this autumn than the government would have been hoping to unveil.”

Decision time

The U.K.’s economic plight presents an acute political headache for Starmer, as he faces a mismatch between his own party’s expectations about the government’s ability to help people and his own scarce resources.

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband has promised to keep looking at different options for some form of assistance to bill-payers hit by an energy price shock. A pain point is looming in July, when a regulated cap on energy costs is due to expire and bills could jump significantly.

One left-leaning Labour MP, granted anonymity to speak frankly, said: “They [ministers] need to be treating this like a financial crisis. They need plans for multiple scenarios with clear triggers for government support.”

A second MP from the 2024 intake said “it’s right that a Labour government steps in, particularly to help the most vulnerable.”

This demand for action is being felt in the upper echelons of the party too, as Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy recently argued Reeves’ fiscal rules — seen as crucial in the Treasury to reassure the markets — may need to be reconsidered if prices continue to rise and a major support package is needed. 

One Labour official said there are clear disagreements with Labour over how to go about drawing up help and warned “the fiscal approach is going to be a massive dividing line at any leadership election.” The same official pointed to recent comments by former Starmer deputy — and likely leadership contender — Angela Rayner about the OBR, with Rayner accusing the watchdog of ignoring the “social benefit” of government spending.

Despite the pressure, ministers have so far restricted themselves to criticizing petrol retailers for alleged profiteering, and have been flirting with new powers for markets watchdog the Competition and Markets Authority. The government said Reeves would on Tuesday set out steps to “help protect working people from unfair price rises,” including a new “anti-profiteering framework” to “root out price gouging.”

But Starmer signaled strongly in an appearance before a Commons committee Monday evening that he was not about to unveil any wide-ranging bailout package, telling MPs he was “acutely aware” of what it had cost when then-Prime Minister Liz Truss launched her own universal energy price guarantee in 2022. 

O’Neill backed this approach, saying: “I don’t think they should do much… They can’t afford it anyhow. The nation can’t keep shielding people from external shocks.”

Weldon predicted, however, that as the May elections approach and the energy cap deadline draws nearer, the pressure will prove too much and ministers could be forced to step in.

The furlough scheme rolled out during the pandemic to project jobs and Truss’s 2022 intervention helped create “the expectation that the government should be helping households,” he said.

“But it’s incredibly difficult. Britain’s growth has been blown off-course an awful lot in the last 15 years by these sorts of shocks.”

Iran war as illegal

German president slams Trump’s Iran war as illegal

The comments by Frank-Walter Steinmeier mark some of the sharpest criticism yet of the U.S. strikes on Iran from a high-ranking German politician.

By Nette Nöstlinger

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Tuesday condemned U.S. President Donald Trump for going to war with Iran, calling the conflict a violation of international law and warning of a transatlantic rupture comparable to Germany’s break with Russia.

Steinmeier’s role in German politics is largely ceremonial, but his sharp criticism of the war and the U.S. president is likely to put additional pressure on German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who has stopped short of other European leaders in calling the war illegal even as he has grown increasingly critical of what he sees as the lack of an exit strategy on the part of the U.S. and Israel.

“This war violates international law,” said Steinmeier, who is a member of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), which rules in a coalition with Merz’s conservatives and has been more critical of the ongoing attacks. “There is little doubt that, in any case, the justification of an imminent attack on the U.S. does not hold water,” he added.

Steinmeier, speaking in front of an audience of German diplomats in Berlin, criticized Trump for withdrawing from the nuclear deal with Iran during his first term in office. The president, who served as Germany’s foreign minister from 2013 to 2017, had helped negotiate that deal.

“This war is also — and please bear with me when I say this, as someone directly involved — a politically disastrous mistake,” said Steinmeier. “And that’s what frustrates me the most. A truly avoidable, unnecessary war, if its goal was to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.”

Despite the president’s largely symbolic role, his strident criticism is likely to fuel a growing domestic debate over Germany’s stance on the Iran war and its relationship with the U.S.

Merz and his fellow conservatives were initially far more supportive of the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran than many other EU countries, arguing that Germany shares the goal of regime change in Tehran. But as the conflict has expanded and the economic and security effects on the EU’s biggest economy have become clearer, the chancellor has become far more openly critical, saying the war has raised “major questions” about Europe’s security.

Steinmeier, who refrained from criticizing Israel directly, also compared the transatlantic rift during Trump’s second term to Germany’s divorce from Russia in the wake of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

“Just as I believe there will be no going back to the way things were before February 24, 2022 in our relationship with Russia, so I believe there will be no going back to the way things were before January 20, 2025 in transatlantic relations,” Steinmeier said, referring to the day of Trump’s second inauguration. “The rupture is too deep.”

Steinmeier then urged his country to become more independent of the U.S., both in terms of defense and technology, arguing that such autonomy is necessary to prevent Trump administration interference in his country’s domestic politics.

The German military “must become the backbone of conventional defense in Europe,” he said. “In the technological sphere, our dependence on the U.S. is even greater. This makes it all the more important that we do not simply accept this situation.”