As President Donald Trump openly embraces Project 2025, mainstream media outlets are facing criticism for their role in helping him downplay his ties to the wildly unpopular far-right governing playbook in the lead-up to his reelection last year.

After she became the Democratic nominee in July, former Vice President Kamala Harris made the Heritage Foundation’s over 900-page manifesto for “the next conservative president” central to her case against Trump during the 2024 election, often referring to it as “Trump’s Project 2025.”

She and other Democrats warned that if he retook power, he would swiftly enact many of its most extreme and unpopular proposals and dramatically expand executive power while doing it.

Among those proposals were steep cuts to social safety net programs like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the “mass deportations” of millions of immigrants, the elimination of the Department of Education, new restrictions on abortions, the gutting of climate protections, and the replacement of career civil servants with political appointees, among many others.

Democrats amplified the plan’s danger at the Democratic National Convention and in campaign ads, and Trump began to distance himself from the platform. Despite the fact that as many as 140 people who’d worked in his first administration—including Paul Dans, Heritage’s director of Project 2025—had a hand in its creation, Trump said: “I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it.”

This was demonstrably untrue, even at the time. Media Matters for America dug up a clip from as far back as May 2023 of Dans stating that “President Trump’s very bought in with this,” speaking of the program.

Project 2025 was almost inconceivably unpopular. An NBC News poll from September 2024 showed that while 57% of registered voters viewed the plan negatively, just 4% viewed it positively.

But in the critical months leading up to the election, many media outlets took Trump’s denial at face value, publishing fact checks and other commentary that painted Democrats’ warnings about his connection to the plan as alarmist or misleading.

Responding to a social media post in July stating that “Trump has made his authoritarian intentions quite clear with his Project 2025 plan,” a fact check by USA Today rated the statement “false,” because, as the headline said, “Project 2025 is an effort by the Heritage Foundation, not Donald Trump.”

In September, after Harris confronted Trump about Project 2025 at the first and only debate between the two, the paper published another fact-check with the headline: “Harris repeats claim that Project 2025 is Trump’s plan. That’s still not right.”

In response to Harris’ claim during the debate that Project 2025 was “a detailed and dangerous plan... that the former president intends on implementing if he were elected,” Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler, whose coverage received a fair bit of criticism during the 2024 cycle, reported in bold text that “Project 2025 is not an official campaign document.”

A CNN fact check of the Harris campaign’s social media in September remarked that one account “frequently invokes Project 2025,” before caveating that “Project 2025 is not Trump’s initiative, and he has said he disagrees with some of its proposals.”

In an October interview on CBS‘s “Face the Nation,” anchor Norah O’Donnell, Harris attempted to warn about Project 2025, before O’Donnell responded: “You know that Donald Trump has disavowed Project 2025. He says that is not his campaign plan.”

After nine months back in power, the website Project 2025 Tracker estimates that Trump has already implemented approximately 48% of the objectives outlined in the policy document.

In addition to his key campaign promises many of his second administration’s policies are highly specific to Project 2025, such as his pledge to abolish the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), his efforts to privatize the National Weather Service (NWS), his reconfiguration of Title X funding to promote pregnancy, and his elimination of the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.

Trump is no longer hiding his connection to Project 2025, having brought in many of its hiring picks and authors to staff his administration almost immediately after his victory last November.

This week, he began to boast about it openly. As his Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director, Russ Vought, one of Project 2025’s architects, began using the current government shutdown to unilaterally cut off funding to infrastructure projects in blue states and cities, Trump lauded him as “he of PROJECT 2025 Fame.”

“This was always the plan,” Harris responded on social media.

While many commentators expressed outrage that Trump blatantly lied about his connections to Project 2025, others dredged up old clips of newspapers and anchors taking him at his word.

“All those 2024 media fact checks that said, ‘Donald Trump and the Trump campaign deny any connection to Project 2025’ look pretty ridiculous right now,” said MeidasTouch editor-in-chief Ron Filipkowski. “A Trump denial is not a fact. You just used his lies to ‘debunk’ a reality that was obvious to anyone paying attention.”

Mehdi Hasan, the founder of the independent media company Zeteo, highlighted the CBS interview, saying Trump’s embrace of Project 2025 was “embarrassing not just for Norah O’Donnell but a whole host of leading American anchors and reporters who echoed Trump’s false denials.”

“Nothing showed the difference between mainstream and independent media better than the response to Trump’s obvious lie about not knowing anything about Project 2025,” said David Pepper, author of the book Saving Democracy: A User’s Manual. “Most mainstream media started fact-checking those who claimed a connection to be somehow false. Others ‘both sides’ed’ it. Far more in independent media called it out as a whopping lie.”

After the Trump administration successfully pressured ABC to kick Jimmy Kimmel off the air last week, hundreds of artists signed an open letter Monday denouncing the government’s campaign to “pressure” entertainers and journalists into silence.

The letter, organized by the ACLU, was signed by numerous household names, including Jason Bateman, Jamie Lee Curtis, Ariana DeBose, Jane Fonda, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Regina King, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Diego Luna, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Natalie Portman, Olivia Rodrigo, Martin Short, and Ramy Youssef.

“Jimmy Kimmel was taken off the air after our government threatened a private company with retaliation for Kimmel’s remarks. This is a dark moment for freedom of speech in our nation,” the letter says. “This is unconstitutional and un-American. The government is threatening private companies and individuals that the president disagrees with. We can’t let this threat to our freedom of speech go unanswered.”

Kimmel’s suspension came hours after the Federal Communications Commission chairman, Brendan Carr, threatened to revoke the broadcast license of ABC News affiliates unless the network pulled the comedian’s late-night show off the air following comments he made criticizing the President Donald Trump’s reaction to the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.

Major entertainment unions have condemned Kimmel’s suspension, including SAG-AFTRA and the Writers Guild of America, which organized demonstrations in Times Square and outside ABC’s parent company Disney over the weekend that drew hundreds of protesters, while some actors have pledged to stop working with Disney until Kimmel is reinstated.

In subsequent days, Trump continued to issue threats to the media, suggesting that he would seek to strip the broadcasting licenses of networks that give him “bad press,” saying, “They’re not allowed to do that.”

The letter says that “In an attempt to silence its critics, our government has resorted to threatening the livelihoods of journalists, talk show hosts, artists, creatives, and entertainers across the board. This runs counter to the values our nation was built upon, and our Constitution guarantees.”

Members of the Trump administration, including JD Vance, have also promoted a wide-ranging campaign to have private citizens reported to their employers over critical comments they made about Kirk following his assassination.

Students for Trump National Chair Ryan Fournier created a database with tens of thousands of social media accounts and has boasted of having gotten dozens of people fired over their posts, many of which simply state disagreement with Kirk even without endorsing his assassination.

“We know this moment is bigger than us and our industry. Teachers, government employees, law firms, researchers, universities, students, and so many more are also facing direct attacks on their freedom of expression,” the letter says. “Regardless of our political affiliation, or whether we engage in politics or not, we all love our country. We also share the belief that our voices should never be silenced by those in power—because if it happens to one of us, it happens to all of us.”

Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the ACLU, described these blacklisting efforts as the dawn of “a modern McCarthy era” with Americans “facing exactly the type of heavy-handed government censorship our Constitution rightfully forbids.”

Noting that former Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis.) “was ultimately disgraced and neutralized once Americans mobilized and stood up to him,” Romero said that “we must do the same today because, together, our voices are louder and, together, we will fight to be heard.”

President Donald Trump doubled down on his threats to silence his critics Thursday, telling reporters aboard Air Force One that outlets that give him “bad press” may have their broadcast licenses taken away.

The threat came just one day after his Federal Communications Commission (FCC) director, Brendan Carr, successfully pressured ABC into pulling Jimmy Kimmel’s show from the air by threatening the broadcast licenses of its affiliates over a comment the comedian made about the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.

“I read someplace that the networks were 97% against me,” Trump told the press gaggle. “I get 97% negative, and yet I won it easily. I won all seven swing states, popular vote, I won everything. And they’re 97% against, they give me wholly bad publicity... I mean, they’re getting a license, I would think maybe their license should be taken away.”

“When you have a network and you have evening shows and all they do is hit Trump, that’s all they do,” the president continued. “If you go back, I guess they haven’t had a conservative on in years or something, somebody said, but when you go back and take a look, all they do is hit Trump. They’re licensed. They’re not allowed to do that.”

He said that the decision would be left up to Carr, who has threatened to take away licenses from networks that air what he called “distorted” content.

It is unclear where Trump’s statistic that networks have been “97% against” him originates, nor the claim that mainstream news networks “haven’t had a conservative on in years.”

But even if it were true, FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez says “the FCC doesn’t have the authority, the ability, or the constitutional right to revoke a license because of content.”

In comments made to Axios Thursday, Gomez—the lone Democrat on the five-member panel—said that the Trump administration was “weaponizing its licensing authority in order to bring broadcasters to heel,” as part of a “campaign of censorship and control.”

National news networks like ABC, CBS, and NBC do not have broadcasting licenses approved by the FCC, nor do cable networks like CNN, MSNBC, or Fox News. The licenses threatened by Carr are for local affiliates, which—despite having the branding of the big networks—are owned by less well-known companies like Nexstar Media Group and the Sinclair Broadcasting Group, both of which pushed in favor of ABC’s decision to ax Kimmel.

Gomez said that with Trump’s intimidation of broadcasters, the “threat is the point.”

“It is a very hard standard to meet to revoke a license, which is why it’s so rarely done, but broadcast license to the broadcasters are extremely valuable,” she said. “And so they don’t want to be dragged before the FCC either in order to answer to an enforcement complaint of some kind or under the threat of possible revocation.”

Fox News host Brian Kilmeade is facing calls to resign after suggesting earlier this week that the state should execute homeless people who decline help during a live broadcast.

Kilmeade made the comments during a Wednesday episode of Fox & Friends, during which the panel discussed the recent shocking video of the murder of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska aboard a train in Charlotte, North Carolina, by a mentally ill homeless man, which has ignited a flurry of often racist vitriol on the right toward Black Americans and homeless people.

Another of the hosts, Lawrence Jones, claimed that the government has “given billions of dollars to mental health, to the homeless population,” but that “a lot of them don’t want to take the programs, a lot of them don’t want to get the help that is necessary.”

Jones continued: “You can’t give them a choice. Either you take the resources that we’re going to give you, or you decide that you’re going to be locked up in jail. That’s the way it has to be now.”

Kilmeade then interjected with his suggestion that instead of jail, they should be given “involuntary lethal injection, or something. Just kill ‘em.”

As one X user noted, Jones and co-host Ainsley Earhardt, “[didn’t] even blink an eye” in response to this call for mass murder.

While the claim that homeless people often “refuse” abundant services is a common talking point, it is not borne out by data. According to a report by the National Alliance to End Homelessness in 2023, more than three-fourths of direct service providers reported that they were forced to turn away homeless people due to staffing shortages.

But even in cases where homeless people are offered services—such as temporary shelter beds—and decline them, they often do so not because they prefer to be on the street but because shelters are often overcrowded and poorly maintained, or have restrictive rules that require them to separate from their families, pets, and belongings.

When homeless people are offered permanent shelter, they are comparatively much more likely to accept it. According to one 2020 study from UC San Francisco, 86% of “high-risk” chronically homeless people given access to permanent supportive housing were successfully housed and remained in their housing for several years, a much higher rate than those given temporary solutions.

But as Melanie D’Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health, wrote on X, “Universal healthcare, housing, and anti-poverty programs are considered more ‘radical’ on Fox News than mass murder.”

Kilmeade’s calls to execute the homeless were met with horror and disgust from advocates. Donald Whitehead, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, called for Kilmeade to resign.

“It is dangerous. It shows a lack of human compassion and it is really the worst possible time for that kind of language to be expressed,” Whitehead told the Irish Star.

Jesse Rabinowitz, communications and campaign manager with the National Homelessness Law Center in Washington, DC, noted in The Independent that Kilmeade’s comments come as the Trump administration “is proposing government-run detention camps and massive psychiatric asylums” to house the homeless.

In August, the president launched a crackdown against homeless encampments in DC that advocates say has left hundreds of people with nowhere to go and dependent on overwhelmed city services. Meanwhile, his administration and recent Republican legislation have introduced massive cuts to housing funding for homeless people across the United States.

“America’s homeless population includes over a million children and tens of thousands of veterans, many of whom served in Iraq or Afghanistan,” said Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.). “Nobody deserves to be murdered by the government for mental illness or poverty. These Fox hosts are calling for mass murder—it’s sick.”

Kilmeade apologized for his comment on Sunday, describing it as an “extremely callous remark.” There is no indication from Fox News that Kilmeade will be subject to any disciplinary action over his remarks, which critics found noteworthy given the punishments other figures in mainstream media have faced for saying far less.

Photojournalist Zach D. Roberts pointed out that earlier this week, MSNBC fired contributor Matthew Dowd for criticizing the “hateful” and “divisive” rhetoric of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk shortly after he’d been assassinated.

“On MSNBC, a contributor got fired for lightly criticizing Charlie Kirk,” Roberts said. “Meanwhile, on Fox News, Brian Kilmeade calls for the murder of homeless people for being homeless. Nothing has happened to him. I don’t know if there can be a more obvious divide in politics.”

The Wall Street Journal and other media outlets are facing widespread criticism after publishing a false report that the assassin who shot right-wing activist Charlie Kirk in Utah this week had left behind symbols of “transgender ideology” at the scene of the crime.

On Thursday, with the assassin still at large, the Journal published a news update stating that “investigators found ammunition engraved with expressions of transgender and antifascist ideology inside the rifle that authorities believe was used in the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk.” The report did not identify what these markings were nor the source of the report, instead attributing it to “an internal law enforcement bulletin and a person familiar with the investigation.”

The New York Times reported hours later that the bulletin came from the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), but noted that “a senior law enforcement official with direct knowledge of the investigation cautioned that the report had not been verified by ATF analysts, did not match other summaries of the evidence, and might turn out to have been misread or misinterpreted.”

It was later revealed that the Wall Street Journal‘s source of the initial unconfirmed bulletin was Steven Crowder, another far-right influencer known for his antagonism of transgender people.

On Friday, officials revealed the identity of the suspect, a 22-year-old cisgender white man named Tyler Robinson, and Utah Gov. Spencer Cox (R) described the marked engravings in detail.

As Erin Reed, a transgender journalist who reports on LGBTQ+ rights, explained, “none were ‘transgender’ or ‘LGBTQ’ symbols”:

The bullet that killed Charlie Kirk was engraved with the phrase “notices bulges owo what’s this”—a furry and anime meme that has circulated online for a decade, generally meant as a joke about something unexpected. Three other unfired casings were recovered: “hey fascist! Catch! ↑ → ↓↓↓,” a reference to the Helldivers 2 video game code used to drop the 500kg bomb; “O bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao, ciao,” the Italian anti-fascist folk song; and “If you read this you are gay lmao,” a trolling insult common in meme subcultures. In other words: internet detritus. Not a single engraving had anything to do with “transgender symbols,” let alone the trans community.

Data shows transgender people are no more likely to commit acts of gun violence than any other group. According to data from the Gun Violence Archive from the past decade analyzed by The Trace in July, out of more than 5,300 mass shootings, just four of them were committed by a person who identified as transgender or nonbinary.

Despite this, many right-wing activists online have attempted to foment the narrative of a “transgender violence epidemic,” often preemptively blaming trans people for shootings that turn out to be perpetrated by others.

This narrative has reached the Trump administration, with the Department of Justice reportedly considering a policy to strip transgender people of the right to own firearms following a school shooting in Minneapolis in August, that was carried out by a transgender person.

Following Kirk’s assassination, Donald Trump Jr. said in a Fox News interview, “I frankly can’t name a mass shooting in the last year or two in America that wasn’t committed by a transgender lunatic that’s been pumped up on probably hormones since they were 3-year-olds.”

Even after law enforcement and the Journal had begun to walk back the initial report that “transgender ideology” had influenced Kirk’s murder, Reed wrote, “the damage was already done, with the falsehood ricocheting across the internet.” By this point, numerous media outlets, including the Daily Beast, the New York Post, The Telegraph, and others, had already repeated the claim.

As Reed noted, “conservative influencers flooded social media blaming the killing on transgender people,” in some cases using dehumanizing rhetoric.

One conservative activist, Joey Mannarino, who has nearly 640,000 followers on X, and often interacts with elected Republicans, wrote: “If the person who killed Charlie Kirk was a transgender, there can be no mercy for that species any longer. We’ve already tolerated far too much from those creatures.”

The falsehood even reached Capitol Hill. Even as law enforcement said Thursday it still had no identity for the shooter, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) told reporters, “It sounds like the shooter was a tranny, or pro-tranny.”

Trump Jr., meanwhile, continued to assert that there was “trans paraphernalia written on the cartridges of this rifle that killed one of my dearest friends in life.” He described being transgender as “an absolute sickness.”

The Journal is now facing harsh criticism for spreading an unverified report that has further fueled the right’s demonization of transgender Americans.

“The FBI and Wall Street Journal doing a ‘whoops, our bad’ after spending a day saying they had evidence it was a trans antifa shooter is so deeply messed up,” wrote Ryan Grim of Drop Site News on X.

Charlotte Clymer, a transgender writer, called it a “truly disgusting week for American journalism.”

“Nearly 48 hours of relentless anti-trans propaganda and news reports over the murder of Charlie Kirk, and all of that for not a single shred of evidence that trans people or trans rights had anything to do with it,” Clymer said. “When do we get a retraction from the Wall Street Journal for erroneously claiming the assassination was related to trans people? When do we get apologies from every journalist who spread that disinformation?”

As criticism has continued to mount, the Journal added an editor’s note to the initial article, acknowledging that Cox “gave no indication that the ammunition included any transgender references.”

Jeet Heer, a columnist for The Nation wrote in response that the Journal’s reporting on this issue was “a scandal.”

“The news section of the Wall Street Journal has tarnished its great reputation,” Heer wrote. “The only way to recover is to appoint a public editor to review this and explain how it happened to readers.”

As she gears up for a tough midterm race against a progressive challenger in 2026, Sen. Susan Collins is struggling to shake her reputation as a sellout to corporate interests. A new report out Wednesday may make that even more difficult.

Collins (R-Maine) was one of just three Republican senators not to vote for President Donald Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill" Act in July, which slashes over $1 trillion from Medicaid to help pay for tax cuts for the rich and is expected to result in over 10 million people losing health insurance coverage.

But Collins did cast a crucial vote to advance the legislation to the Senate floor. An exclusive report from Tessa Stuart in Rolling Stone gives us damning insight into a possible reason why:

[Collins] cast that vote just one day after private equity billionaire Steve Schwarzman, the chair of the Blackstone Group and a man who will personally reap huge rewards from the bill, kicked in $2 million toward her reelection effort.On June 27, Schwarzman gave $2 million to Pine Tree Results PAC, a Super PAC backing Collins; on June 28, Collins cast a decisive vote allowing Trump's bill to advance to the floor. The vote was 51-49. Vice President JD Vance was present at the Capitol, on hand to break a tie, but was not needed after Collins voted in favor of the bill.
The bill went on to pass the Senate just a few days later, to Schwarzman's presumed delight, since the legislation both extended the pass-through business deduction—treasured by the owners of private equity firms—and made it permanent, allowing partnerships to deduct 20% of their pre-tax income.

Collins' office has strongly denied that Schwarzman's influence had anything to do with her vote to advance the bill. As press secretary Blake Kernen noted, a tie in the Senate would have been broken by Vance, so "the motion to proceed would have passed without her vote."

However, Stuart notes that this was not Collins' first conspicuous donation from Schwarzman or the private equity industry at large.

According to OpenSecrets, Collins' campaign committee and leadership PAC received over $715,000 from private equity and investment firms—more money than any other person elected to Congress during the 2020 election cycle. It included maximum individual contributions from both Schwarzman and his wife.

That number does not include an additional $2 million that Schwarzman donated to her reelection super PAC in 2020. As Stuart points out, this donation came after Collins dropped a proposed amendment to Trump's 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, opposed by private equity. That amendment would have "[made] childcare more affordable, by making changes to the private equity industry's beloved carried interest loophole," Stuart wrote.

While Collins denies that her votes are influenced by the piles of money gifted to her by private equity, one of her most formidable challengers in 2026, oyster farmer and Marine veteran Graham Platner, has often seized on her extensive industry ties to hold her up as the poster child for the "oligarchy" he is trying to unseat from power.

"I believe that input from working people is far more important than input from someone who simply has money," Platner thundered during a Labor Day speech in Portland alongside Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). "I believe that we shouldn't be settling for crumbs while billionaires eat the cookie we baked. I don't think private equity deserves more time with a senator than someone who works two jobs to get by."

If Democrats are going to regain the Senate in 2026, Maine will be an essential state to win, something that looks increasingly possible as approval ratings for Collins have plummeted over the first half-year of Trump's second term.

Nearly 7,000 attended Platner's speech, during which he railed against the five-term senator Collins' long history of casting "symbolic" dissenting votes against her party, like opposing Trump's tax legislation, or voting to codify Roe v. Wade, to posture as a "moderate" without actually disrupting their agenda.

"Susan Collins' charade is wearing thin," Platner said Monday. "No one cares that you pretend to be remorseful as you sell out to lobbyists. No one cares while you sell out to corporations, and no one cares while you sell out to a president, who are all engineering the greatest redistribution of wealth from the working class to the ruling class in American history."

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In what Public Citizen called "the greatest corruption in presidential history," US President Donald Trump and his family added $5 billion in cash to their fortunes this Labor Day as his new cryptocurrency was opened to the public market.

The currency, known as WLFI, is owned by World Liberty Financial, a company founded by the president's sons, Donald Trump, Jr., and Eric Trump. A Trump business entity owns 60% of the company and is entitled to 75% of the revenue from coin sales.

As the Wall Street Journal reported Monday:

The trading debut was most likely the biggest financial success for the president's family since the inauguration...WLFI is likely now the Trumps' most valuable asset, exceeding their decades-old property portfolio. While the president's family has continued to pursue property deals around the world since taking office, the fast-moving crypto business has had the biggest early impact.

Crypto is now the dominant source of Trump's wealth. As an investigation by the anti-corruption group Accountable.US found last month, "President Trump's net worth could roughly be $15.9 billion, with about $11.6 billion in uncounted crypto assets," meaning that the digital currencies now make up 73% of his total net worth.

In addition to the tokens owned by World Liberty Financial, it found that two Trump-affiliated companies owned 80% of the $TRUMP meme coin as of May and had collected over $324 million in fees since Trump took office in January.

Meanwhile, Trump Media, which owns his online platform Truth Social, bought $2 billion worth of Bitcoin in July and reserved another $300 million in Bitcoin options.

As America's self-proclaimed "first crypto president," Trump has sought to curb regulations against the volatile financial assets.

In July, Trump signed the GENIUS Act, which purports to establish the US's first regulatory framework for crypto. However, critics noted that the law designated so-called "stablecoins," of which Trump owns many, as "commodities" rather than "securities," allowing them to face much looser oversight.

Though the bill passed with support from over 100 Democrats, Rep. Maxine Waters (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, warned that the bill "legitimizes Trump actively building the most corrupt self-dealing crypto environment this country has ever seen."

Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) described Trump's latest $5 billion windfall as "blatantly corrupt and a brazen abuse of power."

"The current occupant of the White House," she said, "is putting personal profit above the people, using his power to illegally line the pockets of his family and billionaire friends while hanging everyday families out to dry by ripping away their healthcare, food assistance, raising the cost of consumer goods, gutting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and more."

While cryptocurrency is often billed as an asset available to everyone that levels the playing field of the finance world, in practice, its ownership is largely concentrated among the wealthiest Americans. According to a Harris poll published in April, nearly half of all crypto owners have a yearly income of over $150,000, putting them in the wealthiest 10% of the country.

"Your family gets higher energy prices and cuts to healthcare. [Trump's] family gets billions," said Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. "Corruption, plain and simple."

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash), a strong advocate for crypto regulation, said that such blatant profiting from the presidency makes Trump "easily the most corrupt president in our country's history," and emphasized that "Republicans in Congress are not lifting a single finger to exercise basic oversight."

According to data from OpenSecrets, just three crypto industry-backed political action committees (PACs) poured over $133 million into the 2024 election. Though they spent the majority of that money supporting Republicans, nearly 40% of it went to Democrats.

But although all this money helped to buy what Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong called "America's most pro-crypto Congress ever," according to Reuters, just 3% of legislators in the US House of Representatives and Senate own these assets themselves, including Sens. Dave McCormick (R-Pa.) and Tim Sheehy (R-Mon.), as well as Reps. Nick Begich (R-Ark.) and Mike Collins (R-Ga.).

But Trump's profiteering far exceeds the crypto holdings of every congressperson put together.

"We have only seen the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the damage that this corruption will inflict on the American people," said Bartlett Naylor, a financial reform advocate with Public Citizen. "The impact of attempts by the Trump family and others to buy and sell politics and politicians will continue to ricochet."

An executive order signed Monday by US President Donald Trump may permit "random fascist vigilantes" to help him crack down on protests across the country, according to one prominent civil rights lawyer.

The new order, which comes amid wider concern about Trump's militarized takeover of Washington, DC, directs Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to ensure that each state's National Guard is equipped to "assist Federal, State, and local law enforcement in quelling civil disturbances and ensuring the public safety."

To that end, it orders the secretary to create a "standing National Guard quick reaction force" that "can be deployed whenever the circumstances necessitate," not just in the nation's capital but in "other cities where public safety and order has been lost."

Monday's order calls for the creation of "an online portal for Americans with law enforcement or other relevant backgrounds and experience." Agency heads then "shall each deputize the members of this unit to enforce federal law."

Alec Karakatsanis, the executive director of the Civil Rights Corps, described it in a post on X as "an online portal to permit random fascist vigilantes to join soldiers," adding that it was "one of the scariest things I've seen in US politics in my adult life."

Earlier this month, the Washington Post reported on an internal memo discussing the creation of a "quick reaction force," which outlined its objectives in clearer detail.

It called for 600 National Guard troops to be "on standby at all times so they can deploy in as little as one hour," to "American cities facing protests or other unrest." It did not specifically mention the involvement of civilians.

Lisa Gilbert, co-president of the pro-democracy advocacy group Public Citizen, said on Monday that the executive order represents a dangerous expansion of Trump's authoritarian takeover.

"Freedom of speech and the right to assembly are foundational constitutional rights, and the Posse Comitatus Act prevents the use of the military domestically," Gilbert warned in a statement. "The moves outlined in this overreaching and unnecessary executive action undercut those foundational rights and are egregious steps by a wanna-be-dictator who is placing the pursuit of power above the well-being of our country."

During his second term, Trump has maintained friendly relations with far-right militia groups. He pardoned over a thousand people involved in the violent insurrection of January 6, 2021, including members of the militant Proud Boys group, which Trump infamously told to "stand back and stand by" amid 2020's racial justice protests in American cities.

He has also met with its leader, Enrique Tarrio, who, along with Oath Keepers militia leader Stewart Rhodes, had previously suggested after his pardon that their groups could help Trump serve "retribution" upon his enemies.

The Oath Keepers also notably used the same term "quick reaction force" to refer to its efforts to transfer weapons across state lines to have them ready in DC to help with efforts to overturn Trump's election loss on January 6.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration—attempting to swell the ranks of Immigration and Customs Enforcement—eliminated degree requirements for new recruits, lowered the minimum age to 18, and introduced a fat $50,000 signing bonus, along with student loan relief.

In The Atlantic, technology reporter Ali Breland noted that members of the Proud Boys he'd been monitoring "seemed to be particularly pleased by the government's exciting career opportunity."

Since Trump took over law enforcement in Washington, DC, onlookers have described and documented countless egregious civil rights violations.

Jesse Rabinowitz of the DC-based National Homeless Law Center has described the dystopian scene on the ground in a post on X.

"There are full-on police checkpoints most nights," he said. "Every day, multiple friends see ICE kidnapping people. Daycares are scared to have kids go on walks due to ICE."

According to research by the libertarian Cato Institute published earlier this month, one in five people arrested by ICE have been Latinos with no criminal past or removal orders against them from the government, which they called a "telltale sign of illegal profiling."

Karkatsanis warns that through his latest order, Trump has created a "vigilante portal" where anyone can "sign up to be a Brownshirt to brutalize poor people, immigrants, people of color, and anyone else who might dare to, say, go to a protest."

He says that it "should be a nonstop emergency news alert," but that "instead, mainstream news and Democrats are barely mentioning it."

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Another horrific mass shooting that left multiple children dead and injured has once again ignited a wave of fury at Republican lawmakers who refuse to take action to stop gun violence.

Two children—ages 8 and 10—were killed when a shooter fired through the windows of a church at the Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis on Wednesday morning. Another 17 people, including 14 more children, were also injured in the attack before the shooter died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Minneapolis police say the shooter carried out the attack, which is now being investigated as an act of domestic terrorism, using three weapons: a rifle, a shotgun, and a pistol.

According to the Gun Violence Archive, not even eight months into 2025, there have already been 286 mass shootings—defined as cases in which four or more people are shot or killed—in the United States just this year, averaging more than one per day.

Gun violence is the number-one killer of children in the US, causing more deaths each year than car accidents, poisonings, and cancer. The victims of the shooting in Minneapolis join the more than 800 children killed and more than 2,200 injured by firearms this year.

Like dozens of mass shootings before it, Wednesday's deadly attack has stoked calls in Minnesota and around the country from Democratic lawmakers and gun control advocates for stricter gun laws, which have been repeatedly shot down by Republicans in Congress.

"We need better laws on the books nationally," said Minnesota's Democratic senator, Amy Klobuchar. "When you have so much access to guns right now and so many guns out there on the streets, you're going to continue to see these kinds of mass shootings."

"Don't just say this is about thoughts and prayers right now," said Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. "These kids were literally praying. It was the first week of school. They were in a church."

"They should be able to go to school or church in peace without the fear or risk of violence, and their parents should have the same kind of assurance," Frey said. "These are the sort of basic assurances that every family should have every step of the day, regardless of where they are in our country."

Congress has not passed a significant piece of gun legislation since 2022, when it passed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act in the wake of the horrific school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

That law, which was supported by just 15 Republicans, introduced some modest reforms—including extended background checks for firearm purchasers under 21, funding for state red flag laws, and the closure of gun purchasing loopholes.

However, then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) only agreed to negotiate the bill if Democrats abandoned more ambitious reforms, such as bans on high-capacity magazines and universal background checks.

Since its passage, even this watered-down piece of legislation has been fought aggressively by Republican lawmakers backed by the gun industry's lobbying arm, the National Rifle Association, who have attempted to have it repealed.

Earlier this year, President Donald Trump ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to present an action plan to reverse any law that the Department of Justice determines has "impinged on the Second Amendment rights of our citizens."

Through executive orders, Trump has rolled back efforts under the Biden administration to regulate ghost guns and enhance background checks.

The administration has also choked off more than $800 million in grants to local gun violence prevention groups and pushed for "concealed carry reciprocity" legislation, which would require all states to honor concealed carry permits issued by other states.

Instead of stricter gun control measures, Trump has personally advocated for schools to arm teachers and focus on improving mental healthcare—even as he's rolled back rules ensuring Americans have access to that care.

"Until we have more elected officials willing to place gun safety over allegiance to the gun lobby, more and more families will face unbearable suffering from random acts of violence," said Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) on Wednesday. "Congress could—and should—pass stricter gun safety laws, but continues to cave to the gun lobby."

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) added: "The United States continues to be the only country where school shootings are a regular occurrence. We must stop this epidemic of gun violence and finally put the lives of our kids first."

Other advocates noted the contrast between Trump's response to the imaginary "crime wave" in Washington, DC, where he has initiated a militarized takeover, and his lack of interest in fighting America's endless wave of gun violence.

"Guns are the leading cause of death for kids in the US," said Melanie D'Arrigo, the executive director of the Campaign for New York Health. "Trump will send the military into DC to pick up litter and arrest homeless people, but won't do a damn thing to end the gun violence epidemic killing our kids."

Charles Idelson, a former communications director for National Nurses United, said: "If Trump wants to pretend he is 'fighting crimes,' stop protecting the pro-gun violence cabal."

Update: This report, which originally referred to the shooter as a "gunman" has been corrected to accurately reflect new information about the gender identity of the shooter, who has been identified as Robin Westman, a transgender woman.

As Hurricane Erin batters the East Coast, North Carolina has been left in the lurch by a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) badly battered by the Trump administration.

WRAL reported Tuesday that the Tar Heel State is still waiting on $13 million in federal disaster preparedness grants from FEMA.

This is on top of the hundreds of millions of dollars in recovery funds for last year's devastating Hurricane Helene, which the agency has promised but not yet delivered.

North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein told reporters Tuesday that $85 million would begin flowing from FEMA to the state to fund recovery from Helene.

That announcement came after Stein sent US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem a letter in July asking why she had not signed off on the disbursal of the desperately needed funds.

"Applications submitted as far back as February 2025 remain without a final decision," Stein wrote in the letter, which laid out $209 million worth of Helene recovery projects still awaiting her sign-off. "Further delay of these funds keeps communities and families in limbo, all while we are in another dangerous hurricane season."

Even though some funds are reportedly flowing, Stein says the government has yet to reimburse North Carolina for over $100 million.

"It creates real financial strain, especially on local governments, but also the state," Stein said in a press conference.

Noem's leadership of FEMA came under severe scrutiny earlier this summer after it was reported that her policies hampered the agency's ability to respond to the devastating flooding that killed at least 138 people in Texas.

In June, Noem introduced a new policy requiring all FEMA expenditures over $100,000 to be personally approved by her, which officials within the agency said led to the deployment of search and rescue teams being delayed for days.

Two-thirds of the phone calls from desperate Texans to FEMA also went unanswered after Noem allowed hundreds of contractors to be laid off just a day after the storm hit.

The Trump administration, meanwhile, has implemented massive staff cuts to the agencies responsible for hurricane preparedness.

It laid off hundreds of employees at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) storm laboratory, including hurricane hunters and researchers.

Nearly half of the National Weather Service (NWS)'s forecasting offices have been left critically understaffed, with around a quarter lacking a meteorologist-in-charge.

On the ground, there are about 20% fewer permanent FEMA staff responsible for responding to hurricanes and other disasters. Emergency training for those who remained on the job was also rolled back.

Sarah Galvez, Climate Power's senior adviser for climate urgency, says that communities in the path of Hurricane Erin "are being put at risk thanks to the Trump Administration gutting the forecasting that people rely on during extreme weather."

Since 1980, as the planet has warmed, the number of significant hurricanes (classified as Category 3 or greater) has doubled. In recent years, they have also begun to intensify more rapidly as they approach landfall, giving forecasters less time to catch them and residents less time to respond.

But as part of a multi-pronged assault on climate science, Trump has also made it harder to track these and other disasters. In May, NOAA announced that it would no longer track the number of disasters resulting in over $1 billion in damage.

"Fueled by the climate crisis," Galvez says, "major hurricanes are only becoming more frequent and severe, but Trump's reckless actions have left Americans vulnerable and unprepared."

On Tuesday, Reps. Greg Casar (D-Texas) and Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) introduced legislation aimed at rolling back Trump's cuts to these agencies.

"As we continue to face increasing numbers of natural disasters across our country—wildfires, floods, hurricanes—it's critically important that we equip our communities with the resources they need," Neguse said. "Whether it's the preparedness programs run by NOAA and NWS, or the response and recovery initiatives managed by FEMA, our federal agencies play a crucial role in addressing the increasing frequency of disasters."

Facing threats from Republicans who have called for her deportation this week, U.S. Rep. Delia Ramirez has refused to back down.

The progressive Guatemalan-American congresswoman from Illinois has become a punching bag in right-wing media this week after comments she made in Spanish were apparently mistranslated by The Blaze, which claimed she said: "I'm a proud Guatemalan, before I'm an American."

It was quickly revealed that the Democrat had, in fact, said she was "very proudly Guatemalan," but "First, I am American."

But this did not stop Republican officials—including Reps. Andy Ogles (Tenn.) and Byron Donalds (Fla.); Trump border czar Tom Homan; and even the official social media account for the Department of Homeland Security, from threatening to strip Ramirez—who is a U.S.-born citizen—of her citizenship and throw her out of the country.

In her first public appearance since the attacks began, at the annual progressive gathering Netroots Nation in New Orleans, Ramirez was defiant.

In an interview with Emily Topping for Current Affairs magazine, she called the three men who attacked her "cowards."

Of Ogles, who said Ramirez should be kicked off the House Homeland Security Committee, she said, "This is a man that wants to talk about 'oath of office' but violates it every single day."

"I was born in this country just like he was," she added, "and therefore calling for me to be denaturalized and deported is not constitutional, and it's illegal."

She accused Donalds—who said he "never had a chance to meet Ramirez"—of being too afraid to face her directly: "If you don't know me, why are you talking about me? Why don't you pick up the phone and ask me what I think?"

"Because I show up to Congress," she said. "I show up every single week defending Medicaid, Social Security, education, collective bargaining, and the Constitution, something that perhaps he should think about instead of attacking a colleague on Twitter."

The congresswoman said her other Republican attackers were using her as a distraction from the mounting inquiry into President Donald Trump's involvement with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

"They don't want you to think about the Epstein files and how their number one job is to protect the pedophile and not protect the American people," Ramirez said. "But I think this is the moment we are living in."

In a keynote speech at the Netroots conference Thursday evening, Ramirez addressed that moment with ferocity.

She called out Homan, who has complained that the immigrants in Ramirez's hometown of Chicago are "very difficult" for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to arrest because they are "educated" about their rights.

"He hopes that we don't know our rights so they can violate them," Ramirez said. "We will continue to stand up for our rights, and we will continue to call out the terrorist organization that is ICE."

Attacks on immigrants were just one prong of what she called "the Trump administration's heartless, inhumane, brutal campaign of control all around us."

She said Israel's war on Gaza, which she later described as a "genocide," is also part of this campaign, as are the administration's attacks on transgender people, the homeless, unionized workers, and safety net programs like Medicaid.

"Their campaigns of starvation, displacement, and death, at home and abroad, are meant to break us," she said. "They want our resources. They want our land. They want our freedoms. They want our lives so that they can advance their imperialist authoritarian agendas across the world."

In June, Ramirez led a group of 18 congresspeople who introduced the Block the Bombs Act, which would restrict the transfer of offensive weapons to Israel.

In May, she also introduced the Born in the USA Act, which asserts that the 14th Amendment unequivocally grants citizenship to anyone born in the United States, and declares any attempts to restrict birthright citizenship unconstitutional.

Though neither bill has passed out of the Republican-controlled House and restrictions on weapons sales to Israel have struggled to receive even Democratic support, Ramirez said she still feels cause for optimism—despite what she called "dark times"—by looking at the future she hopes to build.

"It is not enough to simply protect the rights and freedoms we have now," she said. "We will create a future in which working people have every single damn thing they deserve and more."

She spoke of renewing the push for Medicare and housing for all, the Green New Deal, and an increased minimum wage. She also previewed a piece of legislation she plans to introduce in September that would increase taxes on the rich.

"In a time where they attempt to silence us, where they attempt to paralyze us, may we never normalize this moment," she said. "Yes, war is destruction, but we are creation people in a creation movement, and we are building forward."

Watch a video of her appearance below or at this link.

- YouTubeyoutu.be

In what has been described as a "barrage of attacks on workers," the U.S. Department of Labor under President Donald Trump is planning to overhaul dozens of rules that protect workers from exploitation and wage theft.

The administration announced this month that it planned to change over 60 regulations it deems "unecessary" burdens to businesses and economic growth.

According to an analysis released Tuesday by labor policy experts at the Century Foundation—senior fellows Julie Su and Rachel West and director of economy and jobs Andrew Stettner—most of the changes "reverse critical standards that ensure workers get a just day's pay and come home healthy and safe."

In one of the most sweeping changes, the department plans to reverse a 2013 rule that extended minimum wage and overtime protections to home healthcare workers.

These workers, who care for elderly and other medically frail individuals, already make less than $17 an hour on average.

Stettner told Common Dreams that the changes will "suppress wages" and allow agencies to "put the screws on workers to work 50- or 60-hour weeks."

The Trump administration is also rolling back a Biden-era rule that banned bosses from paying subminimum wages to disabled employees.

This discriminatory practice has been on the wane due to state-level bans in 15 states. But in the absence of a federal ban, nearly 40,000 employees—most of whom have intellectual disabilities—still received less than the federal minimum wage as of 2024.

The Century Foundation report says that by ending the rule, the Trump administration would be once again "relegating workers with disabilities to jobs that pay as little as pennies per hour."

The department is also taking a hatchet to workers' rights and safety. Another major change it proposed would do away with protections for seasonal migrant farmworkers under the H-2A visa program who raise complaints about wage and hour violations.

It was commonplace for farm owners to take advantage of these seasonal employees, whose legal status was tied to their work, and who therefore risked deportation if they lost their jobs.

Cases of exploitation, however, declined to an all-time low after the Biden administration introduced the rule, which banned employers from firing, disciplining, or otherwise retaliating against workers who attempted to participate in collective bargaining.

"These reforms protected the rights of farmworkers in the H-2A program to speak out individually and collectively against mistreatment and prevented employers from arbitrarily firing them from their jobs," the report says.

The department also proposed weakening the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) general duty clause, which allows businesses to be punished for putting their employees in dangerous situations. The proposed change would exempt many jobs that are deemed "inherently risky" from protection.

The administration described it as a way to prevent OSHA from cracking down on workplace injuries among athletes and stuntmen.

However, Stettner suggested that the broad language could allow the administration to go much further in defining what is considered "inherently risky." The report notes that the administration is "crowdsourcing" suggestions from employers about what other occupations to exempt.

"The employer community, they're jumping onto this," Stettner said. "They're telling their members to write in to the Department of Labor about other inherently dangerous occupations they should accept from the general duty clause."

The authors pointed out that the administration has previously rolled back restrictions meant to protect workers from heat-related stress on the job, which results in more than 600 deaths and over 25,000 injuries each year.

As the administration pushes to expand coal mining, it is also weakening protections for the miners themselves. After laying off most of the employees at OSHA's research arm—which monitors cases of black lung disease—earlier this year, it is now weakening safety requirements to prevent roof falls, mine explosions, and exposure to toxic silica.

"The DOL's role should be to protect the most vulnerable workers: farmworkers, people with disabilities, people that have suffered discrimination," Stettner said. "They're showing their true colors as an anti-worker administration."

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U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna said he will attempt to force a vote in Congress to release all the government's files pertaining to the notorious financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

"On Tuesday, I'm introducing an amendment to force a vote demanding the FULL Epstein files be released to the public," Khanna (D-Calif.) tweeted Saturday night. "Speaker [Mike Johnson] must call a vote and put every Congress member on record."

The administration of President Donald Trump has been accused in recent days of covering up information about the extent of the financier's crimes and his connections to powerful individuals, including President Donald Trump himself.

"Why are the Epstein files still hidden? Who are the rich and powerful being protected?" Khanna asked.

Since Epstein's death in 2019 in federal custody following charges of child sex-trafficking, the billionaire investor has been the subject of rampant speculation.

Though his death was officially ruled a suicide, some have speculated that Epstein was murdered to prevent him from implicating other elite "clients" in his sex-trafficking ring. Epstein had relationships with powerful individuals, including former President Bill Clinton and the U.K.'s Prince Andrew.

Trump also has a well-documented history with Epstein. They have been extensively photographed together. And last year, an audio tape was released in which Epstein described himself as "Donald Trump's closest friend."

In June, amid a public falling-out with the president, billionaire Elon Musk said that the Trump administration, which he'd just departed, was covering up the files to protect Trump.

"Time to drop the really big bomb: @realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files," he wrote. That is the real reason they have not been made public."

During the 2024 campaign, Trump said he would "probably" release the so-called "Epstein files" to the public. Meanwhile, many members of his Department of Justice—including FBI Director Kash Patel—rose to prominence in part by accusing Joe Biden's administration of covering up secrets about Epstein to protect powerful Democrats and other elites.

During his confirmation hearing, Patel said he would "do everything if confirmed as FBI director to make sure the American public knows the full weight of what happened."

In February, Attorney General Pam Bondi said the DOJ would be "lifting the veil" on "Epstein and his co-conspirators." She said she had Epstein's client list "sitting on my desk right now to review" and promised that "a lot of names" would be revealed. Though in subsequent days, little was released beyond information that was already public.

A memo released July 7 by the DOJ later stated that there was "no incriminating client list" and that Epstein indeed committed suicide. It also said that "no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted."

This reversal resulted in widespread anger, including from many Trump supporters directed at Bondi, who they accused of covering up information that might damage the president.

"Pam Blondi [sic] is covering up child sex crimes that took place under HER WATCH when she was Attorney General of Florida," wrote one of Trump's closest confidantes, Laura Loomer. "Bondi needs to be fired."

The following day, Trump chastised a reporter for continuing to ask about Epstein.

"Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This guy's been talked about for years… Are people still talking about this guy? This creep? That is unbelievable," the president said.

He would later write a long Truth Social post in which he defended Bondi and urged the public to "not waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about."

The post received an almost totally negative response on Trump's own social media app.

The administration's dismissive response to the mysteries surrounding Epstein has led to suspicion across the political spectrum, including from some of Trump's closest allies.

"He said 'Epstein' half a dozen times while telling everyone to stop talking about Epstein," wrote Musk on X. "Just release the files as promised."

Khanna is now hoping to wield the widespread backlash to force the administration to come clean about what it knows.

"This is about transparency and restoring trust, not partisan politics. The public outcry is apparent," he said. "The files should be fully released and can be done so consistent with DOJ principles of protecting victims and the innocent."

Outrage continues to grow against U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem over her response to the deadly floods that ravaged Texas last week.

According to a Friday report from The New York Times, more than two-thirds of phone calls to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) from flood victims went unanswered after Noem allowed hundreds of contractors to be laid off on July 5, just a day after the nightmare storm.

According to The Times, this dramatically hampered the ability of the agency to respond to calls from survivors in the following days:

On July 5, as floodwaters were starting to recede, FEMA received 3,027 calls from disaster survivors and answered 3,018, or roughly 99.7 percent, the documents show. Contractors with four call center companies answered the vast majority of the calls.

That evening, however, Noem did not renew the contracts with the four companies, and hundreds of contractors were fired, according to the documents and the person briefed on the matter.

The next day, July 6, FEMA received 2,363 calls and answered 846, or roughly 35.8 percent, according to the documents. And on Monday, July 7, the agency fielded 16,419 calls and answered 2,613, or around 15.9 percent, the documents show.

Calling is one of the primary ways that flood victims apply for aid from the disaster relief agency. But Noem would wait until July 10—five days later—to renew the contracts of the people who took those phone calls.

"Responding to less than half of the inquiries is pretty horrific," Jeffrey Schlegelmilch, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University, told The Times.

"Put yourself in the shoes of a survivor: You've lost everything, you're trying to find out what's insured and what's not, and you’re navigating multiple aid programs," he added. "One of the most important services in disaster recovery is being able to call someone and walk through these processes and paperwork."

The lapse is a direct result of a policy introduced by Noem last month, which required any payments made by FEMA above $100,000 to be directly approved by her before taking effect. Noem, who has said she wants to eliminate FEMA entirely, described it as a way of limiting "waste, fraud, and abuse."

Under this policy, Noem allowed other critical parts of the flood response to wait for days as well. Earlier this week, multiple officials within FEMA told CNN that she waited more than 72 hours to authorize the deployment of search and rescue teams and aerial imaging.

Following The Times' piece, DHS put out a statement claiming that "NO ONE was left without assistance, and every call was responded to urgently."

"When a natural disaster strikes, phone calls surge, and wait times can subsequently increase," DHS said. "Despite this expected influx, FEMA's disaster call center responded to every caller swiftly and efficiently, ensuring no one was left without assistance. No call center operators were laid off or fired."

This is undercut, however, by internal emails also obtained by The Times, which showed FEMA officials becoming frustrated and blaming the DHS Secretary for the lack of contracts. One official wrote in a July 8 email to colleagues: "We still do not have a decision, waiver, or signature from the DHS Secretary."

Democratic lawmakers were already calling for investigations into Noem's response to the floods before Friday. They also sought to look into how the Trump administration's mass firings of FEMA employees, as well as employees of the National Weather Service (NWS) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) may have hampered the response.

Following The Times' revelations, outrage has reached a greater fever pitch.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) called it "unforgivable and unforgettable" and an "inexcusable lapse in top leadership."

"Sec. Noem shows that dismantling FEMA impacts real people in real time," he said. "It hurts countless survivors & increases recovery costs."

In response to the news, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) simply wrote that "Kristi Noem must resign now."

Others pointed out that Noem has often sought to justify abolishing FEMA by characterizing it as slow and ineffectual. They suggested her dithering response was deliberate.

"She broke it on purpose," said Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) in an interview on MSNBC. "So that when it fails this summer, she can say, 'Oh, see, we told you—FEMA doesn't work.'"

"It's not really incompetence because they know what they are doing," said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.). "They are intentionally breaking government—even the parts that help us when we are deep in crisis."

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The Supreme Court is taking up another Republican legal case seeking to erode campaign finance law and give more power to the wealthy donors seeking to influence elections.

On Monday, the court agreed to hear a challenge to campaign finance restrictions w limit the ability of party committees to directly coordinate spending with individual candidates. The anti-corruption group Public Citizen argues that this provision was put in place to "guard against the corrupting effect of large campaign contributions."

The challenge was brought by the National Republican Senatorial and Congressional Committees, as well as the 2022 campaigns of two Ohio Republican congressmen: former Sen. JD Vance, who has since become vice president, and former Rep. Steve Chabot, who lost his re-election bid in 2022.

The case seeks to overturn rules implemented in the Federal Election Campaign Act in 1971, which put strict limits on the ability of party committees to spend money in coordination with specific candidates. The Democratic National Committee will defend the rule before the court after filing a motion to intervene.

The rules were put in place, in part, to stop wealthy donors from using parties to get around rules about coordinating individual spending with candidates.

Under current law, how much coordinated spending parties can undertake is limited by the population of the state or district in question. At most, parties can coordinate nearly $4 million worth of spending for a single Senate candidate and $127,200 for a single House candidate.

The Republicans bringing the challenge have argued that the limits on coordinated spending violate the First Amendment.

The Campaign Legal Center, which has argued before the court against weakening these rules, has described them as a powerful bulwark against corruption.

"Since the party coordinated spending limits were enacted in the 1970s, these limits have checked the corruptive effect of large contributions flowing through party committees to candidates and prevented the quid pro quo exchanges that such contributions would otherwise facilitate," they wrote last year in a policy page arguing against the GOP challenge.

"Because the limits allow political parties to spend only a prescribed amount of their money in direct coordination with a candidate," the Campaign Legal Center continued, "they moderate the risk that a party committee could effectively pass on every big donation—or six-figure check collected via joint fundraising—to the donor’s chosen candidate in the form of coordinated expenditures."

"This case has nothing to do with the First Amendment and everything to do with Republicans' obsession with creating a government by and for billionaires," said Brett Edkins, a spokesperson for the progressive advocacy group Stand Up America.

In 2001, the Supreme Court upheld coordination limits in another case brought by Republicans: FEC v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee.

In that case, often described as the Colorado II decision, the majority ruled 5-4 that "a party's coordinated expenditures, unlike expenditures truly independent, may be restricted to minimize circumvention of contribution limits."

Since then, however, the Supreme Court has helped the Republican Party chip away at laws that kept powerful donors in check.

Most notably, in the 2010 Citizens United v. FEC case, they ruled that political spending is a form of protected speech and that individuals could spend unlimited amounts of money influencing the election process, so long as it was not directly coordinated with candidates and instead done through "independent expenditure only" committees, more commonly known as super PACs.

"In the 15 years since the Supreme Court's abysmal Citizens United decision opened the floodgates to unlimited corporate and billionaire campaign spending, the corruption of American politics has gone from bad to worse," said Jon Golinger, a spokesman for Public Citizen.

Despite the supposed wall of separation, most candidates now rely on super PACs for large amounts of their political communication and organizing. In 2015, a report by Public Citizen titled "Super Connected" found that 45% of super PACs spending over $100,000 directed that spending toward a single candidate.

The amount of election-related corporate spending directed to these largely unaccountable entities has exploded in recent years. According to OpenSecrets, outside spending reached an unprecedented $4.5 billion in the 2024 election, compared with just $555 million in 2008, the last presidential election year before Citizens United.

The top three individual spenders—the Mellon family, Elon Musk, and the Adelson family—spent a combined $369 million to help Donald Trump win the presidency.

"The right-wing supermajority on the Court already dismantled decades of campaign finance protections in Citizens United, and now they’re poised to gut what few remain, inviting billionaires to bankroll candidates through political parties with no limits," Edkins said.