Comet 220P/McNaught

Comet 220P is unexpectedly bright. Normally, periodic Comet 220P/McNaught is so dim that to see it requires a telescope. Two surprising outbursts this year, however, have made it about 20,000 times brighter than usual, so that it is now visible with binoculars and long-duration camera exposures. As expected, Comet 220P continues to orbit the Sun between Mars and Jupiter with a period of over 5 years. The featured long duration exposure, taken 10 days ago from South Africa, shows the comet's bright green head and short dust tail. Reasons for Comet 220P's impressive outbursts are unknown but could be caused by the release of built-up subsurface gas or comet quakes. Comet 220P will pass about one Earth-Sun distance from the Earth in October, after which it is expected to fade quickly as it begins its return to the far part of its orbit.

Trump can’t stop undermining this blame-Biden strategy

Trump can’t stop rocking the economy — and causing more political problems for the GOP

Analysis by Aaron Blake

The Republican Party’s response to questions about the continued economic pain ahead of the 2026 midterm elections is now essentially: A noun, a verb and “Joe Biden.”

But President Donald Trump can’t stop undermining this blame-Biden strategy — and giving his party major new headaches.

He’s made several economy-shaking moves that not only risk the GOP’s 2026 hopes, but also link the state of the economy directly to him and his party.

In recent days, Trump has doubled down on an all-out “economic D-Day” against Iran that could drag into the closing weeks of the election, announced a major intervention into the beef market that could harm the domestic industry and now launched what appears to be a real trade war with Canada.

All three appear to be giving at least some in his party heartburn about what they could mean for the 2026 election.

And the latter moves could cause the GOP problems in some key states with crucial Senate races.

The big question with the Iran strategy: Is it actually a good strategy or is it just the strategy that the administration has left, after military strikes failed to force Iran to capitulate?

Regardless, it’s a strategy that likely brings the war and its domestic harm to the US economy (read: $4 per gallon gasoline) dangerously close to when Americans will be voting. The election is just 71 days away, and it will take time to figure out whether all-out economic pressure on Iran will pay dividends.

And this is a war that the administration predicted would last four to six weeks when it began in late February. The whole thing has led to increased grumbling and uncertainty among Republicans about a prolonged war endangering their House and Senate majorities.

Adding to that political anxiety are two other recent economic moves by Trump, which could play significantly in some important states.

First came Trump’s decision to try to alleviate high beef prices by temporarily pausing tariffs on imported beef, and allowing up to 300,000 metric tons of ground beef to be imported tariff-free for the next 90 days.

The move has been pretty roundly lambasted by US cattle producers. It’s also been criticized by GOP senators in some top cattle-producing states, whose industries could suffer. And some of them feature key Senate races.

The two top cattle-producing states are Nebraska and Texas, which are both hosting significant Senate races in 2026. Nebraska GOP Sen. Pete Ricketts, who faces independent Dan Osborn in November, posted on X: “Flooding the market with lower quality beef compromises Nebraska farmers and ranchers.”

Iowa is in the top 10 in that category and also has a competitive open Senate race this year. There, GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley said he was “concerned for the cattle markets” and cited the recent closure of a Tyson beef plant just across the Iowa-Illinois border in Joslin, Illinois. And Rep. Ashley Hinson, the GOP candidate in the state’s open Senate race, added: “I want to lower prices but this is a bad idea.”

And perhaps the most unwelcome new Trump move is his ramped-up 50% tariffs on Canadian goods. This risks a pitched trade war with the US’ northern neighbor that could raise prices at a very bad time for the GOP.

It could also raise prices more in some states Republicans particularly want to keep happy — i.e. more key Senate races in states that border Canada and trade extensively in it. In fact, four of the six states rated as toss-ups by the Cook Political Report border Canada: Alaska, Maine, Michigan and Ohio.

Maine’s Susan Collins, the only GOP senator up for reelection in a state Trump lost in 2024 and therefore a top Democratic target, said Saturday tariffs “will increase costs for Maine families” and that the whiplash of trade negotiations is causing “higher costs, risk, and uncertainty for Maine businesses.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said last month when asked about the potential 50% Canada tariffs that he was “not a huge fan of tariffs as a general rule” and said he had not seen a “rationale” for them.

But even beyond the impact on specific states, the moves jeopardize the GOP’s broader economic message — trying to pass the buck onto Biden.

It’s become abundantly clear that the stock GOP talking point on questions about persistent inflation and poor jobs numbers is to cite the Biden administration and the lingering effects of its purported economic mismanagement. Inflation peaked even higher back during Biden’s term (and that was also the case throughout the world amid the Covid-19 pandemic).

The administration’s strategy of blaming economic ills on the former president dates back to last year. But it has become much more conspicuous both in the frequency of its usage and because of the large amount of time elapsed since Biden was actually president (now more than 19 months).

But Trump already undercut that message by launching his global tariffs early in his second term and then the Iran war back in February — two major actions that made it very simple for people to connect whatever happened with the economy and inflation specifically to him.

What’s more, Trump already accepted ownership of the economy. He told NBC News early this year that it was now the “Trump economy.” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in September 2025 that the “economy that Donald Trump owns starts at the end of this year” — i.e. when the calendar turned to 2026.

And voters seem to agree. A Reuters-Ipsos poll in February showed that majorities of Americans said Trump would be more responsible for major economic problems, while very few said Biden would be more responsible.

Now Trump is doubling down on the same types of major economic interventions that led people to those conclusions, with just more than two months until the midterms.

Not in a position

US is "not in a position" to limit economic relations, Iran’s top negotiator says

By Aida Karimi and Mitchell McCluskey

After US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent threatened new sanctions targeting countries with ties to Iran, top negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf argued that the US is not in an economic position to restrict its relations with other countries.

“The Americans know that no one believes their bluster. Economically, the United States is not in a position to further restrict its relations with other countries,” Ghalibaf said.

Ghalibaf, Iran’s parliamentary speaker, wrote in a post on X that “Iran’s trading partners have stated — both publicly in the media and in messages sent to us — that they attach no importance to these remarks.”

Meanwhile, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim News Agency quoted a senior Iranian intelligence source as claiming the new US measures were aimed primarily at influencing public opinion rather than imposing meaningful new restrictions.

The source said the measures were “based solely on the design of Trump’s media team” and were intended to increase “psychological pressure on the people of Iran,” Tasnim added, without naming the source.

Fully prepared

Tehran is "fully prepared" for sanctions, Iran's finance minister says

By Mitchell McCluskey

Tehran is “fully prepared” to counter US sanctions targeting countries that maintain ties to Iran, Finance Minister Ali Madanizadeh told the state-run Islamic Republic of Iran News Network (IRINN) on Monday.

United States Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the planned measures during a press conference on Monday as part of what he has dubbed an “economic D-Day” against the regime.

“Apparently, (the US) have now decided to try another failure. We have long been expecting these days and were well aware of the plans they had. The government has a two-year plan and is fully prepared, and has been prepared, for these developments,” Madanizadeh said.

The official accused the US of wanting to “ wage economic terrorism” against Iran.

“We know how to play this game. This time, they should not think our response will be purely defensive and that we will only defend ourselves. They should also expect us to go on the offensive,” he added.

Running the fuck away.........

‘The writing on the wall’: Trump’s staff departs ahead of possible turmoil

Press secretary Karoline Leavitt and his top liaison to Congress James Braid are both leaving. But the forces that made their jobs tough aren’t changing.

By Alex Gangitano, Megan Messerly and Myah Ward

President Donald Trump heads into the second half of his term with key vacancies among his senior White House staff. That means whoever comes off the bench must contend with the possibility of a Democratic-controlled Congress, a slew of subpoenas, a lingering war in the Middle East and an open Republican presidential primary.

James Braid, the top liaison to Congress, this week announced his exit. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt said she would depart the week before. Replacements for either have not been announced.

Though it’s not unusual for staff to depart around the midterms, Trump’s desire to run the country through a handful of close, fiercely loyal aides means each loss is more impactful than in a White House where power and responsibility are more diffuse.

These departures don’t guarantee a tougher road for the administration, but they inject a dose of uncertainty at an already tenuous time, when the president is facing a slew of challenges — both foreign and domestic.

“I think people are seeing the writing on the wall and thinking Republicans probably aren’t going to have the House, might not have the Senate either, and things are going to be stalled,” said an official who served in Trump’s first term, who like others in this article was granted anonymity to speak candidly.

“People are thinking, ‘what are my post administration business prospects? Is it worth taking these hits every single day, being part of these battles, and how does that hurt my prospects when I go to the private sector?’” the person said.

The president is also losing two key legal hands as he girds for an onslaught of congressional oversight and potential litigation if Democrats take control on the Hill. Trump announced Friday that his pardon attorney and longtime ally Ed Martin would leave for the private sector, coming on the heels of a similar announcement regarding White House counsel Dave Warrington.

Before these departures, Trump’s second term was notable for most aides staying in their posts and faithfully executing Trump’s desires — largely without infighting or distractions.

“President Trump has built the greatest political movement in history, staffing his administration with talented, dedicated patriots who work tirelessly to execute his agenda,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said. “This movement is bigger than any one staff member, and the President’s mission to make America greater than ever before will continue unabated.”

The optics of leaving ahead of a contentious midterms battle aren’t ideal. But White House allies concede that waiting until after the election may reduce their political capital, particularly if Republicans lose one or both chambers of Congress.

One person close to the White House framed it as an issue of “marketability.”

“If you want a decent job downtown, you need to bounce now, because there are still relationships to trade on in the majority. It might be the last time clients get anything done,” the person said.

Braid has yet to publicly announce his next steps. But his last day at the White House will be Sept. 30, according to a person familiar with Braid’s plans, granted anonymity to discuss them.

Leavitt said on X that she decided to leave the White House after returning to work after the birth of her second child. She said at the time, “I have felt in my heart that I cannot be the best mom my two young children deserve while devoting the constant time, energy, and attention required of the White House Press Secretary.”

The announcement immediately sparked questions over who could replace one of the president’s most public-facing and loyal aides.

“I’ll tell you this: I don’t know why anyone would want [the press secretary job]. To use a football analogy, it’s also like coming in after Vince Lombardi won the Super Bowl for the Packers. She was so good,” said a second person close to the White House. “It’s sort of a no-win.”

The job of press secretary and director of legislative affairs “require being on the clock 24/7,” a White House official said, adding that “Karoline’s departure is tied specifically to her recently becoming a mother of two, something no one who has held the position has experienced.”

The official, granted anonymity to speak about internal thinking, said, “people who have been here since the campaign and since day one cycle out, and other qualified individuals from inside and outside the administration come in to take their place.”

Of course, there are plenty of people auditioning, but filling her job — or Braid’s — is not the same as filling her shoes.

“If you’re working with someone for multiple years and you know they’re not a leaker and you know they’re good at the job and you know they’re loyal and they are ideologically on the same team as you — it’s not easy to find someone like that,” said Tevi Troy, a presidential historian and former Bush White House aide. “And so bringing somebody else new, there’s a learning curve and a comfort curve.”

Still, some believe the personnel changes won’t make that much of a difference if only because the challenges the administration faces would be tough for any combination of staff.

“Nothing but choppy waters ahead, treacherous waters ahead,” said Chris Whipple, political analyst and a contributing writer at Vanity Fair. “But I’m not so sure that these departures are — it’s sort of we’re talking about degrees of being dead in the water — he’s dead in the water with or without them. It’s going to be ugly and unproductive and maybe even worse over the next two years.”

50 percent tariff on Canada..........

Trump announces 50 percent tariff on Canadian vehicles, steel after trade talks collapse

The duties would not go into effect until January, leaving the door open to more negotiations.

By Jalen Beckford and Oliver Ward

President Donald Trump on Monday announced the U.S. will impose a 50 percent tariff on Canadian vehicles, steel and other items next year, after trade talks between the two countries collapsed last week.

“On January First, 2027, Tariffs on all Cars, Trucks, both large and small, Automotive Parts, and Steel, will be increased to 50" percent, he wrote on Truth Social.

“Build in the U.S. and there are ZERO TARIFFS. Canada will be treated like a State no longer!” the president wrote.

The four-month grace period is likely aimed at triggering a new round of talks, but at this point, both governments are digging in.

A 50 percent U.S. tariff on roughly $20 billion worth of Canadian imports went into effect Saturday morning after Washington and Ottawa failed to reach a trade deal to lower tariffs and other trade barriers.

In the aftermath, both countries blamed the other for the breakdown, saying they made last-minute demands and changes that tanked the deal.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Canada would retaliate dollar-for-dollar for the U.S. new tariffs that went into effect, with duties on American steel, dairy, appliances, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper, and electronics set to kick in Sept. 8.

Speaking in Quebec on Monday, Carney said he wasn’t surprised by Trump’s escalation, but warned the U.S. president to consider the economic impacts of a trade conflict on American workers, particularly in the automobile sector — a key sticking point in last week’s negotiations.

“What message does that send to the workers in Michigan and Ohio and Kentucky and Alabama, who rely on Canadian demand?” he said, pointing out that Canada is largest buyer of U.S. automobiles. But Carney also left the door open to returning to the negotiating table, if the U.S. returns “with the right attitude.”

Tempers, however, were flaring on Monday.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford promised in an interview with a local radio station in Ottawa “to throw everything in the kitchen sink at” at the Trump administration, calling the U.S. president “arrogant,” “cocky” and a “bully.”

Trump can “kiss my a--,” Ford added.

That prompted a follow-up post from the president on Truth Social Monday afternoon, in which he dismissed Ford as “less charismatic, intelligent and overall unimpressive” compared to his late brother Rob Ford — who served as Toronto mayor from 2010 to 2014.

“Someone should get these clowns to ‘fall in line’ or, the consequences for Canada will be far WORSE!” Trump wrote.

Ford wasn’t the only Canadian premier to call for resolve in the face of higher U.S. tariffs. British Columbia Premier David Eby also denounced the duties, saying in an interview Monday on CNN News Central that “Canada has to hit back” and that the policies are “going to hurt” Americans.

Eby also said that Canada hopes other countries “follow along” in pushing back on Trump.

On the other side of the border, Trump’s intensifying trade war with Canada drew criticism from at least one member of his own party.

GOP Sen. Susan Collins — who’s in the middle of a high-stakes Senate race in Maine — called the president’s decision to impose the new tariffs “a mistake,” saying she met recently with the Canadian ambassador and urged him to focus on Ottawa’s barriers to U.S. dairy products.

“We produce a lot of meat, our blueberries, our potatoes, our lobster, our lumber, that is processed across the border,” Collins told reporters Monday at an annual parade in her home state. “If it comes back with a huge tariff on it, perhaps as much as 50 percent, that increases the cost of heating, building homes, and merchants eating our best-known products.”

In a social media post over the weekend, the veteran Republican lawmaker urged “both sides to return to the negotiating table,” noting the “on-again/off-again” talks between the two North American neighbors lead to “higher costs, risk, and uncertainty for Maine businesses.”

Voter backlash is turning into a lasting political crisis

Data centers’ ‘oh shit’ moment

Some industry leaders fear voter backlash is turning into a lasting political crisis.

By Gabby Miller and Owen Dahlkamp

The intensifying late-summer backlash against data centers is inspiring panic among some corners of the tech sector — amid fears that the industry is mishandling a political crisis that will stretch into 2028 and beyond.

Those worries have deepened in recent weeks as politicians across the political spectrum embraced various curbs on data center construction, with Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, potential Democratic White House hopeful Josh Shapiro and Michigan GOP Senate nominee Mike Rogers being among the latest to sign on.

Some tech industry advocates maintain that the public pushback against the hulking artificial intelligence hubs is a fleeting storm generated by candidates seeking wedge issues for November. Tech companies’ best course, they say, is to avoid any political dealmaking until temperatures lower after the midterms.

But others call that foolish wishful thinking.

“AI is going to be a massive issue for the presidential election in a way that technology has never been an issue,” a representative from a major AI company told POLITICO, adding: “Nobody wants to lose their job and they’re already feeling squeezed while these very, very rich people who are richer than anything we have ever seen in the history of Earth are making more. And I think people are sick and tired of that.”

The person, like others quoted in this story, was granted anonymity to speak candidly about the industry’s political strategy.

The swiftness and ferocity of the backlash has caught the tech industry on the backfoot, where it’s struggled to find an effective message that assuages voters’ worries that data centers will raise their power bills, hog their water supplies and blight the landscape. One result is the growing, bipartisan push for temporary moratoriums on data center construction, a cause that just months ago was mainly associated with progressive outliers like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

The split inside the tech world is not hard to find.

“Some are viewing it as an ‘oh shit’ moment,” an AI industry advocate told POLITICO. “Others are brushing it off like it’s nothing, and those people have to get their heads out of their asses. This could go south for them, fast.”

Governors weigh in

What’s undeniable is that politicians of all stripes have decided that cracking down on data centers is in their best political interests, even if it’s a U-turn away from their previous embrace of projects they once saw as economic growth engines.

In Pennsylvania, Gov. Shapiro signed an executive order last week that would require local community approval before the state grants them permits to build, despite previously positioning his state as a hub for data center investment.

“I will not allow Pennsylvanians to be bullied by greedy developers and bulldozed by the lawyers working for these big tech companies,” Shapiro wrote on X. Some AI supporters saw that as a stunning turnaround for a governor who had earlier lured tens of billions of dollars of investments to his state from companies such as Amazon, Microsoft and Google.

Now the governor is running for reelection against Republican state Treasurer Stacy Garrity, who — unlike Shapiro — has endorsed a temporary moratorium on data centers in Pennsylvania.

In Texas, Abbott this month paused approval for new data center buildouts while state regulators and power grid operators conduct audits that will collect information including the projects’ tax breaks, ownership and proposed water use. He took that step amid complaints about the data projects from longtime conservative voters in far-flung parts of the state.

And in Michigan, Rogers came out last week in support of a one-year moratorium on building new data centers. That possibly puts Rogers on par with his progressive Democratic opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, who called for stricter standards on data center impacts throughout his campaign and later endorsed state and local moratoriums until Congress can enact national standards.

The political tide is also turning against the generous tax breaks that states had dangled for data center projects as they sought the tech industry’s presence. Even Virginia, considered the world’s data center capital, this year slapped a consumption tax on their energy usage to break a budget stalemate in a Democratic-trifecta commonwealth.

Red and blue states alike saw a flurry of activity this year looking to reel in data center incentives. Eight states in 2026 enacted legislation rolling back data center tax subsidies, while another 17 considered legislation, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which opposes tax breaks for businesses.

In some cases, states this year targeted longstanding sales-tax exemptions for materials and technologies that data centers purchase. Maine lawmakers even tried to restrict new data centers from all state tax breaks, though Democratic Gov. Janet Mills vetoed the effort.

While the backlash doesn’t have Wall Street worried about the tech giants behind the AI boom, it may be a sign that the Silicon Valley ethos of “move fast and break things” that has defined the data-center buildout to date may no longer be tenable. James Maloney, founder and managing partner of Tiger Hill Partners, which advises investment firms, said data center developers need to engage early and proactively at the local, state and federal level.

“Data centers are very clearly on the ballot box this election cycle,” Maloney said. “This is not lost on the investment firms.”

Threat or opportunity?

The turnabouts from traditionally pro-business politicians have left some AI supporters’ heads spinning.

“I actually think it’s disingenuous for governors and elected officials who pontificate about workforce and hiring and economic development to then go and basically throw a grenade to the center of what is the new industrial revolution that literally powers almost every single business on earth,” said Caleb Max, president and CEO of the National Artificial Intelligence Association.

But even the national party organizations are recognizing data centers as a salient issue in the midterms, or possibly beyond.

One striking example was a memo last week in which the Senate Republicans’ campaign arm warned that the data center backlash is hurting GOP Sen. Jon Husted in his Ohio reelection bid. It pointed the blame at tech companies, saying they have failed to get ahead of the “toxic brand” that’s taken hold of these AI factories.

The industry, which has long relied on tech’s image as a catalyst for the economy to build political support with leaders of both parties, has struggled to come up with an effective messaging strategy that resonates with the communities they want to build in. Their slow reaction was punished last November when Democrats Abigail Spanberger of Virginia and Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey both won governor’s races in part by campaigning to force data center operators to pay for their costs up front.

But with opposition to data centers reaching a new crescendo, some in the tech industry are beginning to embrace the backlash, telling POLITICO that this newfound attention — if channeled properly — can help communities and government leaders understand the positive impacts of these data facilities.

“It highlights that politicians are hearing community concerns and that they need to respond,” said Gordon Bitko, executive vice president of public sector at ITI, a tech trade group that represents Amazon, Google and Vantage Data Centers.

Bitko noted that rather than impose a blanket moratorium, Shapiro’s new directive instead created an opportunity for tech companies and local policymakers to take a step back, do smarter planning and home in on the benefits that data centers can bring to communities, such as property tax relief.

“We, the tech industry, would be thrilled if an active part of the 2028 presidential election was about how do we build the right modern infrastructure for our economy,” Bitko said. “What are the real concerns, and what are the real benefits? And what do we need to do to address the concerns and recognize the benefits?”

But many have been reluctant to take up this mantle, an AI industry advocate said. Instead, the person said, AI labs, data center developers and electric utilities have engaged in a game of finger-pointing, with each camp shunting the responsibility for the public relations battle onto the other.

‘Somebody had to do something’

Now some of Silicon Valley’s biggest dogs are entering the fight.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is positioning himself as a positive voice on AI, even as some other tech executives warn that the technology will usher in large-scale unemployment and mass societal change.

Earlier this month, Zuckerberg laid out a positive view of AI in a 6,500-word post that previewed a $1 billion Meta fund to invest in communities that host data centers. “Thank God for Mark, because somebody had to do something,” a political operative who works on AI issues said.

But there are limitations to this approach, said Adam Kovacevich, founder and CEO of Chamber of Progress, a center-left tech industry policy coalition. “People don’t generally associate data centers with a single company,” he said, “and so I think there’s an open question about whether the data centers’ reputational challenge is a collective problem or a single-company problem.”

An executive at OpenAI, one of the country’s top AI developers, acknowledged during a POLITICO forum this month that “we have real work to do” to address public concerns about data centers.

“If you think about the amazing work we’re trying to do with AI … it’s all incredible and it’s inspiring,” Ann O’Leary, OpenAI’s vice president for global policy, said during an AI policy panel at POLITICO’s The California Agenda: Sacramento Summit. “But when you have a data center in your backyard, it’s not inspiring you.”

Economic D-Day?????

Bessent’s ‘economic D-Day’ against Iran begins with a ‘warning shot’

The move marks the Trump administration’s latest attempt to force an end to an increasingly unpopular war that has stretched into its sixth month.

By Michael Stratford, Megan Messerly, Nahal Toosi and Phelim Kine

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Monday unveiled a sweeping new effort to economically isolate Iran, warning foreign governments and companies that they could lose access to the U.S. financial system if they continue doing business with Tehran.

The campaign, which Bessent dubbed “Operation Economic Outcast,” stopped short of immediately imposing penalties against financial institutions located in China and other countries that facilitate trade with Iran for oil and other commodities.

Instead, Bessent delivered what he called a “warning shot” to countries around the world that they should get in line behind the Trump administration’s efforts to isolate Iran or face significant financial repercussions.

Bessent and the Trump administration for days had signaled its plans to drastically step up economic pressure on Tehran, which the Treasury secretary had likened to an “economic D-Day” operation.

Pressed during a press conference Monday on why Treasury was not immediately imposing those penalties, Bessent said the U.S. wanted to give countries a “cure period” to comply. He said the clock “just started ticking.”

“We are giving everyone the opportunity to remedy bad behavior,” Bessent said. “Why would I want to blow up the global financial system?”

Bessent said Treasury expects to sanction a major foreign financial institution by the end of the week as part of the new effort.

The Treasury Department expanded its ability to penalize foreign companies that operate in or support five sectors of Iran’s economy: digital assets, technology, gold, aviation and shipping. Treasury also imposed fresh direct sanctions on dozens of people and entities tied to Iran and ended waivers that had permitted the flow of remittance payments to the country and allowed Iranians to access the U.S. cultural and academic universities.

Bessent said President Donald Trump was calling foreign leaders with “specific requests” to cut economic ties with Tehran. Officials from Treasury, the State Department and the Pentagon are also pressing their counterparts for “immediate action” to cut off economic ties to Tehran, Bessent said.

Bessent said every country had been given a deadline to shut down specific Iran-related activities identified by the U.S., though he declined to disclose the nature of those requests or the timelines.

“It’s no longer acceptable to operate in the gray spaces of this conflict,” Bessent said.

The move marks the Trump administration’s latest attempt to force an end to an increasingly unpopular war that has stretched into its sixth month. The war has disrupted global energy markets, raised the price Americans pay for gas and become a growing political liability for Republicans ahead of the midterm elections months away.

It also puts Bessent at the center of the administration’s war efforts after months of military strikes, a blockade of Iranian ports and diplomatic talks have failed to secure a lasting agreement to end the conflict.

The latest strategy could significantly raise tensions with China, which is a large buyer of Iranian oil. Treasury has already sanctioned smaller Chinese refineries, shipping companies and financial networks accused of helping Tehran sell oil.

But targeting larger Chinese banks or companies that facilitate Iran-linked transactions could provoke retaliation from Beijing as Trump prepares for expected talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Asked about whether the U.S. would move forward on sanctioning Chinese banks on Monday, Bessent said that “no one is above the reach of U.S. sanctions.”

Those who have been involved in past negotiations with Iran are skeptical the announcement will move the needle with Tehran — and especially Beijing.

“The announcement itself was a nothing burger,” said Ali Vaez, the International Crisis Group’s Iran project director, who helped work to bridge differences between Iran and world powers during negotiations over the 2015 nuclear agreement. “The only thing that would make a difference at this stage is the U.S. delivering on its threats, not threatening. ”

“Doubt it,” said one person close to the White House, who was asked whether the move would help end the war with Iran and granted anonymity to speak candidly on administration policy. But “I support all non-war avenues to pressure Iran.”

A second person close to the White House, who was also granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue, added, “I think it has the potential to be impactful if they actually execute. However, without addressing the China angle it leaves an economic escape route for Iran.”

Bessent’s refusal to say the word “China” during a press conference despite repeated questioning about whether the threatened sanctions would hit Beijing, underscores the administration’s aim to avoid derailing Trump’s summit with Xi next month.

Beijing provides Tehran an economic lifeline by purchasing around 90 percent of Iran’s oil exports via the “shadow fleet” of vessels that sell those cargoes to small-scale “teapot refineries” in China.

The Chinese government is likely equally skeptical that the administration will apply disruptive sanctions to its Iran trade ahead of a summit at which Trump is seeking to expand U.S. agricultural exports to China while avoiding any disruption in China’s supply of rare earths.

“Beijing is betting that Washington will be reluctant to jeopardize the current leader-level dynamic by targeting major Chinese entities before the summit, and nothing Bessent said today is likely to alter that calculation,” said Craig Singleton, senior China fellow at the hawkish Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank.

The Chinese embassy in Washington didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The embassies of the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Oman and Azerbaijan didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. Those countries contain branches or subsidiaries of Iran’s Bank Melli, which Bessent on Monday demanded to be shuttered. The Washington-based Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office also didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment regarding the status of the Bank Melli in Hong Kong.

POLITICO also reached out to Persian Gulf countries, as well as countries with substantial trade with Tehran. The embassies of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Turkey and India didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The embassy of Pakistan declined to comment.

Foreign diplomats, who were granted anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, were even-keeled in response to the new pressure campaign. Some noted that only a few countries had trade of major significance with Iran, one of the world’s most heavily sanctioned nations.

“The risk here is that the [Iranian] regime may react in a way that will further aggravate the situation. If they feel cornered, it’s a question of survival for the Revolutionary Guard,” one European ambassador said, referring to a major Iranian military institution.

A senior European diplomat said one question is how quickly the new pressure campaign will lead to results — and what results Trump wants to see.

Such sanctions campaigns take time to bear fruit, and the effort “may not be as rapidly imposed” as the president wants, the diplomat warned.

European officials, who have been reluctant to help with Washington’s war while Trump is still ordering missile strikes against Iran, are worried that the U.S. administration will make more demands to help them out with sanctioning Tehran.

“The big question now is whether Europe will be asked to match the U.S. sanctions,” said Giuseppe Spatafora, a policy analyst at the Brussels-based EU Institute for Security Studies think tank and a former NATO official. “It could cause a repeat of the spring tensions, in which [the] U.S. got angry at Europeans for not falling in line. It also depends on how serious the U.S. sanctions will be, and whether they hit China and Russia hard.”

Vaez, the former negotiator, was skeptical that other countries would accede to the U.S.’s demands because they have their own reasons to play nice with Iran.

“Iran’s neighbors cannot afford to alienate their neighbor,” he added. “Some of them do not want the United States and Israel to succeed — a country like Turkey, for instance — because it would make them a target. They would be next on the list.”

Causing civilian casualties

Ukraine widens its targets — and its tolerance for causing civilian casualties 

Unlike Moscow, Kyiv has not deliberately tried to kill civilians.

By Jamie Dettmer and Daria Zakharova

For most of Russia’s years-long war against Ukraine, Russian civilians have been relatively insulated from Kyiv’s attacks. That is changing. 

Since July, Kyiv has broadened its long-range drone campaign beyond conventional military targets, intensifying strikes on Russia’s oil and gas industry and hitting the vast warehouses of Wildberries, Russia’s answer to Amazon. 

While these are primarily intended to cause economic damage, in the words of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, “to bring the war back home – to Russia,” they also mark another important shift. Ukrainian authorities are increasingly seeing Russian civilian casualties as a price they are prepared to pay for taking the war deeper into enemy territory. 

The numbers help illustrate the change. In 2025, Ukrainian attacks inside Russia killed 253 civilians, according to the United Nations, which says it was not able to independently verify the numbers. This year, in the month of July alone, Russian authorities reported that 79 civilians were killed and 601 injured, a marked increase in the casualty rate. 

Zelenskyy has said that Wildberries is a legitimate target because it has been “used by the aggressor to ensure the supply of sanctioned components for the production of drones and navigation equipment.” Russian soldiers supplement their equipment by purchasing items from Wildberries.

Maryana Bezuhla, a Ukrainian lawmaker and one of the most outspoken critics of Zelenskyy and Ukraine’s military leadership, is unapologetic about the increased risk to civilians. “Russia’s logistics system is used to wage the war of aggression against Ukraine,” she told POLITICO. “Russia has been targeting Ukrainian civilians all the years of the war.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has denied accusations from Ukraine that Wildberries handles military supplies but conceded to journalists that “the situation is indeed difficult” for the company. 

There is no indication that Ukraine is deliberately targeting civilians — even as Russia continues to hit apartment buildings, hospitals, schools and other civilian infrastructure with ballistic missiles and drones. And yet, there is no indication that the rising civilian toll in Russia is causing Kyiv to reconsider its approach. 

“It is a very important thing to stress from the outset, that any civilian casualties resulting from Ukrainian attacks are collateral damage,” said Jaroslava Barbieri, Ukraine expert at Britain’s Chatham House. “No Ukrainian strikes have deliberately targeted civilian districts.”

“But we know that Russia has been systematically targeting Ukraine’s critical energy infrastructure and civilian districts with the deliberate intent to cause civilian casualties,” she added. “That’s an important underlying distinction to draw.”

On Friday, a Russian drone attack on a busy shopping mall in Kryvyi Rih, Zelenskyy’s hometown, left 16 people dead and more than a 130 wounded, including children. The strike was a double-tap — that’s when second attack on a target is conducted around half-an-hour later and is designed to catch first responders, a tactic used frequently in northern Syria.

Since the war began, Russian officials have consistently denied their forces intentionally target civilians and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has instead accused Ukraine of deploying troops and heavy weapons close to civilian infrastructure. 

Russia has “a clear pattern” of targeting Kyiv and other urban centers with large civilian populations, Rosemary DiCarlo, the U.N. under-secretary-general for political and peacebuilding affairs, told the U.N. Security Council in July.

The U.N. has verified that at least 16,874 Ukrainian civilians, including 820 children, have been killed since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale assault on the country in 2022. Ukrainians believe the toll is likely higher, arguing there are many unrecorded deaths near the front lines and on territory occupied by Russian forces.

DiCarlo also expressed concerns about Ukraine’s drone attacks. “Any attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure, wherever they occur, are a clear violation of international humanitarian law,” she said. 

It is an argument that infuriates Ukrainian officials, who bristle when asked about the risks to Russian civilians with the tactical switch. Even asking the question triggers accusations of echoing Moscow propagandists. “You are helping Russia by pushing this civilian stuff,” a presidential aide said. He declined to answer when asked whether Ukrainian commanders adhere to any pre-strike procedures to assess risks to civilians.

The change in tactics has alarmed some European officials, according to Adrian Karatnycky, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and author of Battleground Ukraine, who regularly meets with senior European officials and diplomats. “They have always been low-risk and fearful of Russian escalation,” he said.

The shift, he added, has been enabled by Ukraine’s growing ability to manufacture its own long-range drones and by cuts in U.S. assistance that have reduced Washington’s leverage over Kyiv. “There will be noncombatant casualties, but in an existential war you can’t fight with a hand tied behind your back,” Karatnycky said. “Ukraine’s ability to counterpunch is a relatively new phenomenon.” 

How will the Ukrainian attacks play out in Russia — will they weaken Putin politically?  Tim Willasey-Wilsey, a former U.K. diplomat now at the Royal United Services Institute, a defense think tank in London with close ties to Ukraine’s defense ministry, said Kyiv must try to minimize civilian casualties with the long-range drone campaign. 

“There are some risks,” he said. “As we know from the history of warfare, the bombing of civilians tends to actually harden people’s resistance rather than weaken it. Just think of the London Blitz, but also Ukraine now. And second, there is a danger of losing what still is a remarkable degree of Western support for Ukraine.” 

“But you cannot wage war without casualties,” he added.

 

A travesty...

Navy weighs renaming carrier slated to honor Black war hero, potentially switching it to Trump

By Haley Britzky, Pamela Brown

The US Navy is working to rename an aircraft carrier under construction that was set to honor a Black sailor hailed for his heroic actions during the attack on Pearl Harbor, three sources familiar with internal discussions told CNN.

During President Donald Trump’s first term, the Navy announced that the Ford-class carrier would be called the USS Doris Miller, recognizing an enlisted sailor who helped defend US forces from Japan’s attack.

It’s unclear what the Navy is seeking to change the name of the carrier to, though two of the sources said there have been internal conversations about renaming it to honor Trump. It would be an unprecedented move to name an aircraft carrier after a sitting president.

The Navy is looking instead to rename another warship after Miller, according to one of the sources, and is recommending him for the Medal of Honor, the highest decoration for military valor. The final authorization for the award is up to Congress and approval from Trump.

Thomas Bledsoe, Miller’s great-nephew, said Miller’s family had not been informed of the change or the renewed effort to award his great-uncle with the Medal of Honor. The family has been working to get him the Medal of Honor “for years,” Bledsoe said, and called the Navy’s move to recommend the honor “very positive.”

The family of Doris Miller unveil a plaque commemorating the future Navy ship, Ford-class aircraft carrier USS Doris Miller, at a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration event on Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, in January 2020.

The family of Doris Miller unveil a plaque commemorating the future Navy ship, Ford-class aircraft carrier USS Doris Miller, at a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration event on Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, in January 2020. Mass Communication 2nd Class Justin R. Pacheco/US Navy

The Navy directed questions from CNN to the Office of the Secretary of Defense. A Department of Defense spokesperson said they had nothing to announce at this time.

The effort to rename the USS Doris Miller has been underway since earlier this year, the sources said. Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao and his office have also been looking into updating the official guidance for how ships should be named and specifying who they can be named after, including presidents, two of the sources said.

Amid conversations over the ship’s name, the Navy has effectively stopped referring to the ship as the USS Doris Miller internally and is only calling it by its hull number, CVN-81, one of the sources said. A recent White House executive order on shipbuilding also referred to the ship only as CVN-81, tasking the Secretary of Defense and Secretary of the Navy to report back with a plan to replace the ship’s electromagnetic aircraft launch system with steam and hydraulic systems.

The Navy is under a time crunch to finalize the name of the carrier as the ship’s keel-laying ceremony is expected at the end of this year. The ceremony is a public event marking an important step in a ship’s construction. The ship is not expected to be delivered until 2034, USNI News first reported, due to shipbuilder constraints.

Former Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly announced the new carrier’s name in honor of Miller in January 2020, during a Martin Luther King, Jr. Day ceremony in Pearl Harbor.

“Dorie Miller was the son of a sharecropper,” Modly, a Trump nominee who had Navy leadership positions from 2017 to 2020, said at the ceremony, according to a Navy release. “And, he was an American sailor – so designated by the uniform that he wore — the same uniform all sailors wore, and still wear, regardless of race, ethnic background, or political persuasion.”

Doris “Dorie” Miller, from Waco, Texas, enlisted in the US Navy in 1939, according to the National Museum of the Pacific War. On the day of Japan’s attack, Miller — a Mess Attendant Third Class at the time — was retrieving laundry when bombs began falling on the US fleet. Mess attendant was one of the only jobs in the Navy open to Black men, according to the Department of Veteran Affairs. Damage by Japan’s attack kept him from returning to his assigned battle station.

Miller proceeded to aid his wounded commanding officer, and then, despite having received no training on the system, took control of an anti-aircraft gun and opened fire on the Japanese aircraft.

“Although untrained,” the VA’s website says, “he laid down effective fire and stopped firing when he ran out of ammunition and the ship began to sink. Even then, he persisted in helping his fellow sailors to safety until he finally made his way to shore.”

Miller was famously portrayed by Cuba Gooding Jr. in the 2001 film “Pearl Harbor.”

In 1942, Admiral Chester Nimitz presented Miller with the Navy Cross, and he was then sent out on a War Bond tour with several white service members, “making him the first African American allowed on the speaking tour,” according to the VA. Roughly a year later, Miller was killed during the Battle of Makin when his ship was hit by a Japanese submarine’s torpedo.

The Navy convened a renaming commission in 2025 under former Secretary of the Navy John Phelan, to review how ships and other military assets were named. Phelan believes aircraft carriers specifically should be named only after presidents, Navy admirals, and consequential Navy battles, a person familiar with his thinking said. While secretary, Phelan requested a study be done by the Naval History & Heritage Command on the issue, but he was removed as Navy Secretary before the review was complete, the source said, adding that Phelan did not weigh in officially on the Doris Miller specifically.

The Navy commission came amid broader efforts in the Pentagon under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to remove names selected for what the administration considers diversity, equity, and inclusion purposes.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, for example, immediately sought to revert the names of US Army bases honoring Confederate Army officers by finding other military personnel that shared last names with those confederate officers. And in 2025, he took a rare step and ordered the Secretary of the Navy to rename the USNS Harvey Milk, which honored the Navy veteran and gay rights activist.

It’s highly unusual for a ship to be renamed after its commissioning. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said at the time of the Harvey Milk’s renaming that Hegseth was committed to names “reflective of the Commander-in-Chief’s priorities, our nation’s history, and the warrior ethos.”

The choice of USS Doris Miller marked the first time an aircraft carrier would honor an enlisted sailor, and the first aircraft carrier to be named for an African American. Asked about his decision to name the carrier after Miller, Modly told CNN that it was recommended to him by a group of retired Black admirals, and that he believes “one of our most powerful warships should bear the name of a sailor like Miller to bring greater attention to what makes our Navy so unique — and great.”

“Ultimately, these names are meant to be symbolic and unifying for the Navy, and the nation it serves,” Modly told CNN. “When they are named for people like Doris Miller, they raise broader awareness of the heroism, patriotism and sacrifices of all American sailors — not merely their commanders.”

Many of the US’ active aircraft carriers are named after past US presidents, to including the USS Abraham Lincoln, USS George H.W. Bush, USS Ronald Reagan, and USS George Washington, though none of those ships first set sail while their namesakes were in office. But not all carriers are named after presidents. The USS Nimitz, for example, is named after the admiral who commanded the US Pacific Fleet during World War II. The USS Carl Vinson is named after a Georgia congressman who chaired the House Naval Affairs and Armed Services Committee.

He has a small dick, that's why....

Trump Enraged South Korea to Please the North. It Didn’t Work.

North Korea test-fired more ballistic missiles on Thursday—for at least the third time this month.

Alex Nguyen

North Korea launched several ballistic missiles toward the Sea of Japan on Thursday, according to South Korea’s military—just a day after the North dismissed Donald Trump’s seeming attempt at appeasement by cutting back on joint military training with South Korea. 

“The provocative, aggressive nature of the drills won’t change even though their duration and size were reduced,” Kim Yo Jong, a top figure in North Korea’s ruling party and supreme leader Kim Jong Un’s sister, said on Wednesday, pointing to other military drills the US and South Korea carried out earlier this year and to South Korea accelerating its development of nuclear-powered submarines.

Before the drills began this week, North Korea said it would retaliate with “a new level of a deterrent.” North Korea had already fired at least two ballistic missiles into the sea earlier this month before the barrage on Thursday.

While Kim Yo Jong said relations between her brother and Trump are “still excellent”, she said she was “completely unaware” of any communications between the pair following Trump’s decision to scale back the joint drills this month by about half—a claim the US president made earlier this week. 

The back-and-forth between Kim Jong Un and Trump goes back to Trump’s first term, where peace negotiations between the pair collapsed in 2019 amid disputes over how much sanctions relief North Korea would receive for partial denuclearization. Kim has since sought to further militarize and cooperate with Russia, but he said last September that he would be open to resuming talks if the US dropped its “obsession” with eliminating North Korea’s nuclear weapons.

But Trump’s decision to cut military training with South Korea looks to have had only negative consequences, angering that country to the point of President Lee Jae Myung calling to retake full control of its military operations from the US—despite Trump both claiming that the move would keep countries like South Korea and Japan safe and pushing other countries in Asia to ramp up their own defense spending and look for new allies.

I am hoping for a stroke soon.... For the fat orange turd...

Trump’s Minions Say He’s Mulling New Tax Breaks—They’re Mainly for the Rich

The guy has impeccable timing, and yep, that’s a joke.

Mike Mechanic

Donald Trump apparently wants to cut taxes for the rich yet again. Is this some kind of twisted midterms strategy? Hard to say. But as Timothy Noah points out in The New Republic, the current and former National Economic Council directors Kevin Hassett and Larry Kudlow were on Fox News last week talking about two tax proposals the president is mulling, and both are pretty misguided.

The first one, which they would likely try and sell as a middle-class tax cut, is to expand the current (fairly generous) capital gains exclusion on profits from home sales. Under current law, when a couple sells their residence for more than they paid, the first $500,000 in gains is nontaxable. Kudlow seemed to be advocating for a $2 million exclusion.

Now, some kind of means-tested relief for people who have owned their primary residence for decades may be reasonable, but a $2 million exclusion, let’s be honest, doesn’t exactly scream middle class. Especially when you consider that the rule also applies to second homes. That means the Van Doughs, after unloading their $10 million Aspen ski chalet for $12 million, won’t pay a dime on the proceeds.

We’re already paying handsomely for the smaller exclusion. I reported in June that this $500,000 tax break, combined with the mortgage interest deduction for first and second homes, will cost the government $574 billion from 2025-2029. That’s according to the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT). And since we talk about budgets in 10-year terms, we can say it will add at least $1.15 trillion to the national debt—which, in case you haven’t heard, just passed $40 trillion.

Quadrupling this real-estate tax break is not gonna help with that.

A more appropriate response to out-of-control deficits would be to repeal the ill-conceived tax giveaways in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, legislation that the nonprofit Bipartisan Policy Center calculated will cost the federal government $4.5 trillion in lost revenues over a decade. DOGE’s mindless cuts to the federal workforce, executed with Trump blessing and encouragement, will cost America a fortune as well.

And now Trump wants to double down on all the losses he’s created with his profligate policies, pet construction projects, and inept military adventures?

The second proposal, indexing capital gains to inflation, is even stupider. I wrote about this idea last summer, after none other than Reagan-era anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist told the Washington Post that he’d urged Trump to make it happen with an executive order.

Here’s the thing: Taxes on capital gains are already wildly discounted relative to taxes on labor, discounts that, based on the JCT’s numbers, will cost the government at least $2.5 trillion in lost revenue over 10 years. The current top rate for capital gains is 23.8 percent, which includes a 3.8 percent surcharge enacted to help cover the cost of the Affordable Care Act. By contrast, as I wrote previously:

A couple reporting $1,000,000 in salary income pays an effective rate of about 30 percent. That’s a huge difference, and part of why families whose money comes primarily from asset growth have amassed wealth so much faster than working families have. It’s no lefty exaggeration to say America’s economic system is rigged against workers and in favor of investors. It’s right there in the tax code.

Also…

Indexing capital gains to inflation, according to 2018 estimates from the Tax Policy Center and the Penn Wharton Budget Model, would add yet another $100 billion to $200 billion to the [deficit]—with the richest 1 percent reaping 86 percent of the benefits.

TNR’s Noah, citing more recent estimates from the Yale Budget Lab, writes that “indexing capital gains would cost $170 billion over 10 years if it applied only to assets purchased after 2025, and almost $1 trillion if it applied to all assets.”

All of which is to say that these hare-brained proposals, apart from being likely unconstitutional due to their sidestepping of Congress on tax issues, would exacerbate Dickensian wealth disparities and make our bloated federal deficit even worse, just as borrowing costs have reached a two-decade high.

Those midterms cannot come soon enough.

Not Funny

 

Balls

Gavin Newsom picks the West’s most complicated fight

His final legislative push is angering insurance companies, wildfire victims and local officials — and billions of dollars are at stake.

By Noah Baustin, Jeremy B. White and Camille von Kaenel

With just months left in office, Gavin Newsom is reopening one of California’s most bitter political fights.

At the center of it is a question the state has struggled with for years: When a power company sparks a catastrophic wildfire, who ultimately shoulders the cost?

Newsom took office in the aftermath of the deadly 2018 Camp Fire, which sent Pacific Gas and Electric into bankruptcy and threatened to destabilize the state’s electricity system. Now, as he prepares to leave office and embark on a likely presidential run, he is pushing eleventh-hour legislation that would sharply limit how much utilities can be forced to pay when their equipment sparks a wildfire, in an effort to avoid another financial collapse.

It is an extraordinarily complex — and risky — undertaking, and almost everyone with a stake in California’s wildfire fights has something to lose.

If Newsom gets his way, he’ll anger insurance firms, which argue his proposed changes would upend their marketplace. Local officials worry they won’t be able to secure enough money to rebuild after future fires. And wildfire victims, fearing that future survivors could be shortchanged, staged a recent protest on the steps of the governor’s mansion.

Utilities are making the opposite case, warning that without changes, the system could deliver a severe blow to their finances.

The fight has spurred millions of dollars in advertising blitzes from outside groups looking to sway voters and lawmakers. Opponents are already calling the proposal a corporate and utility “bailout.”

But Newsom argues that doing nothing also carries enormous risks. It may be his last chance to resolve an issue that has haunted his entire time in office, and that could disrupt the state’s power system in the years to come. California’s electricity costs are already among the highest in the nation, fueled in part by the costs of making the grid more fire-resistant.

“Here’s my response to those that don’t want change: It’s untenable,” the governor said on Wednesday. “The status quo is not going to work.”

If Newsom runs for president, his opponents will be eager to highlight the state’s most intractable issues, from homeless encampments sprawled across city sidewalks to homeowners struggling to rebuild incinerated properties — and, of course, costly electricity. Newsom now has less than five months left as governor to do something about that problem.

The controversy points to the difficulty of retaining California’s status as a pioneer in renewable energy and climate policy while also shoring up a power system increasingly strained by wildfire costs. There’s just over a week left in the legislative session, and Newsom has shared his proposal with lawmakers, but there’s still no bill in print. That’s intensified criticism, with wildfire survivors accusing the governor of negotiating an opaque, utility-friendly deal.

“There is literally nothing about this situation that does not include tradeoffs,” said Kate Gordon, who headed the state’s catastrophic wildfire commission when she led the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research under Newsom. “There is not a political win-win-win where everyone walks away with what they want.”

Baptism by fire

Newsom was elected governor just two days before Pacific Gas & Electric equipment sparked the Camp Fire, which burned the town of Paradise, then the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history. Weeks after he took office, PG&E filed for bankruptcy, setting off a scramble among the scores of people and entities the distressed company owed money. Insurance companies, financial firms, local governments and wildfire survivors all had to duke it out in court.

In the end, the heavyweight institutions secured multibillion-dollar settlements, but survivors weren’t compensated enough to cover the full cost of rebuilding, according to Newsom’s office.

That fact, they say, is animating the governor now.

Back in 2019, Newsom ultimately oversaw the creation of a ratepayer- and shareholder-funded wildfire fund, a behemoth back-up pot of money that power companies can tap to cover claims from fires they spark.

Newsom acknowledged to reporters this month that critics called that first effort a “bailout,” too. He faced similar criticism last year, when he successfully pushed state lawmakers to reup the fund to make sure it had enough money to cover the tens of billions of dollars in claims against Southern California Edison for starting the Eaton Fire in Pasadena in January 2025.

Michael Wara, a Stanford scholar who served as a consultant to the state Senate during the PG&E bankruptcy, called the episode eight years ago a “baptism by fire” for Newsom and his closest energy aides. It left such a lasting impact, he said, that it continues to shadow them as they look to the next big chapter.

“This is not easy politics,” Wara said. “But having a second utility bankruptcy while Governor Newsom is running for president would not be easy politics either.”

One last attempt at a fix

Thorny questions of who pays for what have only grown more challenging over Newsom’s tenure, as climate change’s impacts intensify and mounting costs increase the strain on utilities, homeowners, and insurers.

Power companies across the fire-prone West are increasingly shaping legislation aimed at lowering their costs and remaining solvent, while insurance companies are hiking their premiums or pulling out of fire-prone regions altogether. California Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris, a Democrat who chairs the energy committee, has warned that tinkering with wildfire costs does little to solve the larger crisis.

“If we make a bunch of changes, but we’re just shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic, that doesn’t feel like a very productive use of our time or energy,” Petrie-Norris said.

But the scale of the Eaton Fire last year, which raised the specter of a Southern California Edison bankruptcy, made clear the system is more fragile than even Newsom or lawmakers expected.

To prevent power companies from collapsing financially when they spark big wildfires, Newsom wants to stop insurers from suing them to recoup what they paid policyholders.

He also wants to bar financial firms from purchasing those claims from insurance companies, which can bring deep-pocketed competitors into a utility bankruptcy proceeding.

And he wants to create a state-run fast-pay program to get cash to wildfire survivors quickly.

Unsurprisingly, that’s drawn the ire of the insurance industry, which argues that it would have to raise rates to compensate for the loss of income.

Local governments have taken issue with a provision that would prevent them from recouping the full replacement cost of damaged infrastructure from power companies.

And prominent wildfire victim groups are against the plan because Newsom wants to limit how much survivors can recover from utilities that spark blazes.

Newsom’s proposal would bar anyone who wasn’t within the perimeter of a fire from getting compensation for emotional distress, and it would cap claims at $150,000 for anyone who fled the “zone of danger.” (People who were injured or witnessed a family member get injured could still bring an unlimited claim for emotional distress.)

“The proposal would cripple fire survivors,” said Joy Chen, executive director of the Every Fire Survivor’s Network.

Altogether, the chorus of opponents is arguing that rather than fix California’s wildfire problems, the proposal could simply shift more of the bill from now-profitable power companies onto everyday people.

“If the utilities are concerned about the cost of wildfires, and it’s untenable, they have to ask themselves, ‘What can we do to stop wildfires?’” said Chris Holden, a former California Democratic lawmaker who chaired the Assembly energy committee and wrote the 2019 bill that created the first wildfire fund. He now leads LA Fire Justice, a group of lawyers who represent wildfire survivors.

“If you do something wrong, you have to be held responsible,” Holden said.

The Newsom administration has been fending off that characterization of its proposal, arguing that it would maintain utility accountability while easing upward pressure on electricity rates.

“California is the only state in the nation that holds investor-owned electric utilities strictly liable for damages caused by their equipment, even if the company was not negligent,” Cynthia Stein, Newsom’s senior counselor for the LA recovery, wrote in a letter last week. “This would not change under this proposal.”

Looking ahead to 2028

The dicey politics of the issue haven’t factored into Newsom’s decision to elevate it in his final months in office, spokesperson Bob Salladay said. He noted Newsom has been steeped in wildfire recovery issues since the opening weeks of his term.

“This is so outside of any political calculation because of the deep damage from these wildfires,” Salladay said. “It doesn’t matter if someone is running TV ads against you or someone is mad at you. It’s too big of an issue.”

Gordon said Newsom had little choice but to tackle an issue that touches on core concerns for voters both in California and nationally as he prepares to leave office and looks ahead to a potential presidential run.

Just this month, California’s chief energy regulator called wildfire “the enemy” of energy affordability. The credit downgrades now looming over California’s utilities could drive those costs even higher. Meanwhile, high electricity rates have become a top issue for voters, driving both of the candidates to replace Newsom to make energy costs a focal point of their campaigns.

“It’s such a top-of-mind issue for people really viscerally — (energy costs) are where affordability is hitting people in a real way,” Gordon said. “That’s an issue for him as head of state now, but this is going to be an issue for him in whatever he chooses to do next, so I think he has to address it.”

Need to stop the revolving door.....

White House official’s move to oil company she aided raises ethics questions

Brittany Kelm’s departure from the White House to lead the Washington office of a Houston oil company has raised questions about the close proximity between a government official and the interests of a private corporation.

By Ian M. Stevenson, James Bikales and Scott Waldman

People milling around before a press conference in Santa Barbara, California, in early June might have mistaken Brittany Kelm, a White House staffer, for an oil company representative.

During the tour of oil facilities run by Sable Offshore Corp., a company that owns an offshore pipeline which the Trump administration had recently helped to get oil flowing through, Kelm sported a Sable-branded cap and a Sable-branded shirt with her name embroidered on it, according to a photograph she posted to LinkedIn.

“We’ve unleashed California’s offshore oil production!” Kelm, a senior energy adviser for the White House’s National Energy Dominance Council, wrote in the post.

Less than three months later, Kelm would announce her departure from her job at the council to take over Sable’s Washington policy office. The move, even by Washington’s normally swampy standards, threatens to erode the lines between public officials and the industries they interact with, according to experts and former government ethics officials.

More specifically, it gives rise to questions about how the company’s new lead at its Washington office will represent its interests while abiding by ethics requirements.

The Trump administration as late as June hailed Kelm’s work helping to restart the pipeline system off the California coast owned by Sable, despite the objections of state and local officials. Indeed, both she and the administration made her heavy involvement very publicly clear for months in official statements and social media posts.

Top administration officials even touted her work on behalf of the company on LinkedIn, the professional networking platform that’s become vital to career mobility and advancement in many industries.

“Brittany Kelm never gave up on Sable Offshore Corp.,” Jarrod Agen, executive director of the National Energy Dominance Council, wrote on LinkedIn shortly after the June visit. Her work “unlocked production in California,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, who chairs the council, said in a statement last week praising her work at the White House.

At the Santa Barbara event in June, Sable’s CEO Jim Flores thanked the Cabinet members and council for their help, saying that “you don’t get a project like this off the ground without help from everybody, top to bottom.”

“Jarrod and Brittany, thank you for your help working with that,” he said.

Kelm’s work as a government official subjects her to strict ethics laws before and after she took the job with Sable, according to five ethics experts. The rules should have barred her from doing any work related to Sable after starting to negotiate her new job and prohibited her for life from appearing before any federal agency on certain specific matters she worked on at the White House, they said.

While departing government for the private sector is not inherently improper, “the ethics concern arises when that distance between an official’s public responsibilities and the private employment is so exceptionally close together, particularly when the official moves directly to a company whose interests she personally worked on while exercising governmental authority,” said Davina Hurt, director of government ethics at Santa Clara University’s Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. “That is what sort of has red flashing lights to me about the ethical implications of that change.”

Kelm and Sable did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story.

The White House said Kelm did not work on “official” matters with Sable while negotiating a job with the company — as is prohibited by ethics laws — and Kelm does not plan to work on any “ongoing official matters” between Sable and the administration when she takes on her new role as vice president of policy and commercial. It is unclear when her first day at Sable will be; she left the White House Aug. 14 and said on LinkedIn that this week was her first in the “private sector.”

In a statement, White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said White House employees follow ethics laws.

“As is standard practice in every administration, White House employees coordinate their departures with ethics officials to ensure full compliance with all applicable guidelines and restrictions during offboarding,” Rogers said. “The media’s continued attempts to fabricate conflicts of interest are irresponsible and reinforce the public’s distrust in what they read.”

Before joining the council, Kelm worked for three months as a senior policy adviser in the Interior Department. For the seven years before that, she worked at various oil companies, including Shell.

The council has been particularly keen on wresting jurisdiction over the small oil pipeline off the coast of Santa Barbara, owned by Sable. Production had been idle for years at the offshore platforms following a 2015 oil spill, but the Houston-based company bought the infrastructure in 2024 and has worked to bring the system back online.

‘Let’s go Sable’

The company has faced pushback from California regulators, who are trying to clamp down on oil and gas activity off their coast. But its bid to turn on the spigots dovetailed with Trump’s efforts to challenge blue states’ aims to transition away from fossil fuels.

After Sable sent a letter to council leaders last September asking for assistance, help arrived from the administration, which seized oversight of the pipeline from the state. Agen said in February that his office was “working with Sable,” and then the Department of Energy in March ordered a restart of the platforms’ oil production, citing emergency powers.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, has sued the administration over Energy Secretary Chris Wright’s emergency order, joining a set of other legal challenges to the project. Earlier this week, a federal judge assigned to the case ruled that oil can keep flowing in the pipeline.

Kelm heavily touted her work with Sable on LinkedIn, writing “We are bringing more US production online ASAP 🇺🇸 let’s go Sable Offshore Corp.” In January, she highlighted on LinkedIn the administration’s work ensuring that Sable’s pipeline wouldn’t be stopped by litigation after lawsuits from the state were first filed earlier that fall.

“Thank you Sable Offshore Corp. for trusting the Trump Administration to deliver on regulatory certainty for your operations to provide Americans with affordable and reliable energy,” she wrote.

In a LinkedIn post on June 5, Kelm posted photos of her visit to Sable’s California property along with Burgum, Wright and Rogers, the White House spokesperson.

“The list of energy projects we have permitted and gotten to (final investment decisions) is too long for a LinkedIn post,” Kelm wrote in a parting post on Monday, adding that she has been referred to as a “deal closer” and had been the lead official working on oil and gas development issues at the council.

“The revolving door between government and the private sector is nothing new, but it’s troubling how brazenly and frequently it’s been on display of late,” one oil industry executive told POLITICO regarding Kelm’s move from the White House to Sable.

Anthony Martinez, a spokesperson for California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, called the council a “taxpayer-funded lobbying shop for the fossil fuel industry, dressed up to look official while it guts clean air and water protections and tramples on states’ rights.”

“It should surprise no one that a senior official from what is really Big Oil’s personal concierge service inside the White House is now heading straight to the payroll of the company she spent her time at the White House clearing a path for,” Martinez said.

Trump admin cuts ethics guardrails

Presidents since Barack Obama have issued executive orders strengthening revolving door requirements for administration officials both before and after their time in government, which have imposed requirements beyond those required by federal law.

Trump administration officials are bound by the least restrictive ethics requirements of any presidential administration in the last 15 years. While Trump in his first term implemented a similar order, last year he rescinded a Biden-era ethics order but never issued a new one.

But criminal statutes that limit former officials from taking on the same projects they advanced while in government are still in effect.

Former officials are subject to a lifetime ban on attempting to influence the government on specific matters they were “personally and substantially” involved in as an official, such as contracts and grants, according to federal law. They also face a one-year prohibition against communicating with or making official appearances before their former office.

Jessica Tillipman, associate dean for government procurement law studies at George Washington University Law School, said the statute covering post-government work, as well as another covering pre-employment discussions, are both “highly fact-specific, and both carry criminal penalties.”

“The timing question is critical: when did the employment discussions begin, and what Sable matters was she working on at the time?” Tillipman said. “At that point she had three options: recuse from the Sable matters, terminate job discussions, or obtain a waiver.”

Margaret Dylus-Yukins, who served as an attorney-adviser in the U.S. Office of Government Ethics until March, said in an email that in her new position Kelm is barred from engaging with the White House on any government matter for a year. But she can communicate with other agencies on “broad policy or regulatory issues…so long as she is careful to abide by criminal ethics laws,” said Dylus-Yukins, who is now a senior legal counsel for ethics at Campaign Legal Center.

Another key part of Kelm’s work in the White House was opening up Venezuela’s oil sector after the U.S. deposed former President Nicolás Maduro in January. She traveled to the country on the first commercial flight to Caracas in seven years and touted her work crafting policy that will make it easier for energy companies to begin operations there.

“A highlight of our work at NEDC this year has been establishing diplomatic relations with Venezuela and assisting with the bolstering of Venezuela’s natural resources, specifically with oil and gas and critical mineral development,” she wrote on LinkedIn earlier this summer.

On Tuesday, four days after concluding her White House role, Kelm was in Houston at a signing ceremony for oil contracts with Venezuela’s state-run oil company Petróleos de Venezuela, which she told POLITICO had invited her.

“Happy to be included and invited by PDVSA and the Venezuelans to see the deals we started at NEDC signed,” Kelm said.

They need to: Impeach, Put on trial, and drag if out for 2 years.....

Democrats put Trump’s ‘corruption’ front and center as they plan possible 2027 probes

Planning for a potential majority, House committee leaders say they are staying focused on “the president and the family.”

By Chris Marquette and Riley Rogerson

Democrats haven’t yet won the House majority. But top party leaders are wasting no time in preparing an all-out oversight campaign targeting President Donald Trump, his family and administration should they flip the chamber in November.

At the center of the effort are California Rep. Robert Garcia, who is poised to lead the Oversight Committee under a Democratic takeover, and Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, who is in line to lead the Judiciary Committee. They are each already planning to use their potential gavels to investigate key Trump controversies — such as his acceptance of a Qatari jet for use as his new Air Force One and his family’s massively profitable cryptocurrency investments.

Garcia and Raskin both said in interviews they have a long list of administration officials that they plan to probe and possibly bring before their committees. But each said they intend to focus intently on Trump himself.

“Ideally, it’s the president’s sons and the president and the family,” Garcia said, adding a litany of other members of the Trump inner sanctum he wants to hear from. They include chief of staff Susie Wiles, deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and son-in-law and foreign envoy Jared Kushner, as well as former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Cory Lewandowski, who served as her chief of staff.

In addition to the crypto profits and the much-criticized Qatari 747, Garcia said he planned to probe federal contracts awarded to members of Trump’s family and the series of pardons Trump has granted early in his second term.

Raskin, a veteran of the investigative onslaught that took place in the second half of Trump’s first term, said he planned to focus on allegations of self-enrichment by Trump and his family — as well as illicit foreign influence on American institutions and rising authoritarianism in government.

“We are going to be looking at systems of bribery, kickback and financial corruption and opportunities for disgorgement and restitution to the American people,” Raskin said. “That would be No. 1.”

Asked to comment on Democrats’ oversight plans, White House spokesperson Olivia Wales responded with a statement outlining Trump’s legislative achievements.

“The President will continue to draw a sharp contrast with his commonsense agenda and radical Democrats who want to massively raise taxes, defund the police, and are soft on crime,” she said. “The choice has never been more clear: doubling down on President Trump’s winning agenda or far-left liberal policies and partisan gridlock.”

Raskin and Garcia are forging ahead even as voters reject some Democrats who were at the forefront of the Trump accountability effort that unfolded eight years ago. And while the preparations Garcia, Raskin and others are making now in many ways resemble how their predecessors planned ahead of the 2018 midterms, there are differences.

Democrats in the leadup to the elections that year warily tiptoed around the prospect of impeachment in fear of alienating voters, and they laid out some investigative targets that did not implicate Trump personally.

Once in power, though, they launched a flurry of investigations aimed at Trump — including the president’s tax returns, his acceptance of foreign “emoluments” and later his effort to leverage aid to Ukraine for political favors. In virtually every case, the administration stonewalled Democratic investigators.

Now, after two impeachments that failed to remove Trump from office and with a party base intent on pulling no punches, House Democrats are reluctant to take anything off the table — while also recognizing the limitations of impeachment as a check on Trump’s power.

“Nobody on the Democratic side is afraid of impeachment,” Raskin said this week, adding that he considers it a “tool in the toolbox.”

The larger project for Democrats if they win power in November is to use subpoena power and public hearings to provide a backbone for the accountability message they intend to continue into the 2028 presidential election season.

Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries emphasized the wide-reaching scope of oversight inquiries during his campaign kickoff speech last month, in which he unveiled House Democratic midterm messaging that included a pledge to “hold the crooks accountable.”

“Anyone,” Jeffries said, “who is stealing from the American people, screwing over the American people, or shortchanging the American people is going to be held accountable beginning on Day 1.”

While the Oversight and Judiciary panels would be the leaders of the investigatory push in a Democratic House, other committees are set to target Trump as well in a bid to deliver the bold action Democratic primary votes have demanded.

Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), a member of the Ways and Means Committee, said he expected the oversight subpanel would be a highly sought-after assignment should Democrats win gavels — with a potential “big” emphasis, he said, on probing Trump family corruption.

He added he was “very concerned” about how the Trump administration has managed the IRS and Social Security, particularly after the Department of Government Efficiency upended federal agencies last year.

“We certainly will exercise our oversight responsibility,” said Rep. Richard Neal of Massachusetts, who is expected to return as Ways and Means chair in a Democratic majority.

Garcia and Raskin, meanwhile, have other pet priorities beyond the personal benefits Trump and his family have allegedly garnered in office.

Raskin said he intends to probe what he deems “fraudulent and vindictive prosecutions” including those of former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Leticia James.

“The prosecution function has been utterly tainted and the Judiciary Committee obviously can’t let that go,” he said.

He has also set his sights on Paramount Skydance’s proposed $110 billion buyout of Warner Bros. Discovery, a deal Democrats have blasted not only as an antitrust violation but also a threat to national security and free speech.

Previewing his intentions for the majority, Raskin requested a transcribed interview with Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison in a letter last week. While he cannot haul Ellison, a close Trump ally, before the committee now as a member of the minority party, Raskin said his inquiry into Paramount would be a “priority” if Democrats win subpoena power.

Garcia, meanwhile, said he is determined to fill in gaps he sees in the GOP-led investigation into the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. He said he wants to bring key witnesses back to testify under oath, potentially in public hearings “because most of them were not called under oath and most of them were not called under subpoena.”

That could include big names in the world of finance, such as Leon Black, the co-founder of Apollo Global Management, and Jes Staley, a former top executive at JPMorgan Chase — both of whom had substantial communications with Epstein and met with the committee privately.

“I think we’re going to have, in the majority, public Epstein hearings,” Garcia said.

The Epstein investigation is similar to the Trump corruption probe in that it would potentially span multiple committees, and Garcia and Raskin both praised each other and said they are planning to work in concert on both issues.

Raskin said he doesn’t envision any issues with coordination between two panels

“There’s enough Trump family corruption to go around,” he said. “I don’t think we have to worry about that. We will just be dividing it up.”