Four and one-half months into Donald Trump's second presidency, two of his prominent critics on the left — Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York), both self-described "democratic socialists" — are touring the United States together and bringing their anti-MAGA agenda to large audiences.

The fact that they come from different generations is no coincidence. Sanders, at 83, is a member of the Silent Generation, while the 35-year-old AOC is a Millennial. And Sanders views her as important to his multi-generation outreach.

During an interview with The Guardian's Zoe Williams published on June 4, Sanders laid out his recommendations for an anti-Trump game plan. And he believes that Democrats need to be much more aggressive in pushing an economic message.

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"Their weakness is, I think, that their credibility is now quite low," Sanders said of Democrats during the interview. "And they don't have much of a message for working people, other than to say Trump is dangerous. I think that's just not enough… What the Democrats have to absolutely make clear is this: We're going to take on the billionaire class. They're going to start paying their fair share of taxes."

Sanders continued, "We're going to have healthcare for all people as a human right. We're going to have a strong childcare system that every American can afford. We're going to make public colleges and universities tuition-free. We're going to create millions of jobs transforming our energy system away from fossil fuel. We're going to build housing — boy, housing is, like it is here, just a huge crisis. We're going to build millions of units of low-income and affordable housing. Do Democrats say that? No."

The Vermont senator warned that Trump is even more extreme during his second presidency than he was during his first.

"We don't usually have presidents suing the media, threatening the media if they write bad stories about them," Sanders told The Guardian. "We don't usually have presidents threatening to impeach judges. We don't have presidents suing law firms. You add all that together, it is a movement for authoritarianism. …. First time around, Trump was not as well-organized."

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Sanders continued, "They've had four years to get their act together, so to speak. And that’s what this Project 2025 document was about…. One of the frightening aspects of what's going on is the degree to which the establishment-type folks have caved in, and so quickly. That was much less the case during Trump's first term."

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Read The Guardian's full interview with Sen. Bernie Sanders at this link.

US President Donald Trump left no doubt on Saturday that a—or perhaps the—primary driver of his decision to illegally attack Venezuela, abduct its president, and pledge to indefinitely run its government was his desire to control and exploit the country’s oil reserves, which are believed to be the largest in the world.

Over the course of Trump’s lengthy press conference following Saturday’s assault, the word “oil” was mentioned dozens of times as the president vowed to unleash powerful fossil fuel giants on the South American nation and begin “taking a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground”—with a healthy cut of it going to the US “in the form of reimbursement” for the supposed “damages caused us” by Venezuela.

“We’re going to get the oil flowing the way it should be,” he added.

Currently, Chevron is the only US-based oil giant operating in Venezuela, whose oil industry and broader economy have been badly hampered by US sanctions. In a statement on Saturday, a Chevron spokesperson said the company is “prepared to work constructively with the US government during this period, leveraging our experience and presence to strengthen US energy security.”

Other oil behemoths, some of which helped bankroll Trump’s presidential campaign, are likely licking their chops—even if they’ve been mostly quiet in the wake of the US attack, which was widely condemned as unlawful and potentially catastrophic for the region. Amnesty International said Saturday that “the stated US intention to run Venezuela and control its oil resources” likely “constitutes a violation of international law.”

“The most powerful multinational fossil fuel corporations stand to benefit from these aggressions, and US oil and gas companies are poised to exploit the chaos.”

Thomas O’Donnell, an energy and geopolitical strategist, told Reuters that “the company that probably will be very interested in going back [to Venezuela] is Conoco,” noting that an international arbitration tribunal has ordered Caracas to pay the company around $10 billion for alleged “unlawful expropriation” of oil investments.

The Houston Chronicle reported that “Exxon, America’s largest oil company, which has for years grown its presence in South America, would be among the most likely US oil companies to tap Venezuela’s deep oil reserves. The company, along with fellow Houston giant ConocoPhillips, had a number of failed contract attempts with Venezuela under Maduro and former President Hugo Chavez.”

Elizabeth Bast, executive director of the advocacy group Oil Change International, said in a statement Saturday that the Trump administration’s escalation in Venezuela “follows a historic playbook: undermine leftist governments, create instability, and clear the path for extractive companies to profit.”

“The most powerful multinational fossil fuel corporations stand to benefit from these aggressions, and US oil and gas companies are poised to exploit the chaos and carve up one of the world’s most oil-rich territories,” said Bast. “The US must stop treating Latin America as a resource colony. The Venezuelan people, not US oil executives, must shape their country’s future.”

US Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said that the president’s own words make plain that his attack on Venezuela and attempt to impose his will there are “about trying to grab Venezuela’s oil for Trump’s billionaire buddies.”

In a statement, US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) echoed that sentiment, calling Trump’s assault on Venezuela “rank imperialism.”

“They have spoken openly about controlling Venezuela’s oil reserves, the largest in the world,” said Sanders. “It recalls the darkest chapters of US interventions in Latin America, which have left a terrible legacy. It will and should be condemned by the democratic world.”

American hedge fund manager and billionaire Bill Ackman took to X on Saturday to comment on President Donald Trump's claim that he would cap all credit card interest rates at 10 percent as of Jan. 20, 2026. However, a former Ronald Reagan Cabinet secretary encouraged Ackman to stop sucking up to Trump.

"I think President @realDonaldTrump’s goal of reducing credit card interest rates is a worthy and important one. My concern about capping rates at 10 percent is that doing so will inevitably cause millions of Americans to have their cards cancelled as credit card companies lose the ability to adequately price subprime credit risk," Ackman wrote.

"Consumers denied credit cards will be forced to turn to loan sharks whose rates and terms will be vastly worse for borrowers. While 20 percent or more is a high rate, loan sharks can charge multiples of these rates, and the cost of default can be physical harm or worse," Ackman continued.

There is currently no federal cap on credit card interest rates, and a Forbes reporter last year reported that the average interest rate was 28.6 percent. Trump suggested the idea during the campaign, but in his first year did nothing to make it happen. So, Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) proposed legislation on the matter in Feb. 2025. It was never passed.

Ackman swears he has no credit card investments, so he isn't an "expert," but the market for cards seems "highly competitive."

"The best way to bring down rates would be to make it more competitive by making the regulatory regime more conducive to new entrants and new technologies. I commend the President for his focus on affordability for all Americans. Mortgage spreads and rates are coming down significantly due it his actions. Finding a way to bring down credit card rates without taking credit away from many Americans would have a very positive impact on the most disadvantaged Americans," he claimed.

David Stockman, who was Reagan's Secretary of the Office of Management and Budget during the first term, told Ackman, "stop kissing his a——."

"When it comes to economics he's an unhinged whirligig of statist humbug, hoo-doo and ham-handed hammering of free markets and economic liberty," Stockman said, bashing Trump.

"The very idea of government intervention in the credit card market is neither 'worthy' nor 'important.' It's just a stupid attempt to address the real affordability problem that is caused by massive deficits and endless money-printing at the Fed — both of which the Donald wants more of. The truth is, there is absolutely nothing redeeming about the dog's breakfast of protectionism, easy money, Keynesian deficits and crony capitalism that passes for Trump-O-Nomics," he closed.

Before the end of the year, the Trump administration is planning to eliminate up to 35,000 healthcare jobs at the Department of Veterans Affairs, a chronically understaffed agency that has already lost tens of thousands of employees to the White House’s sweeping assault on the federal workforce.

The Washington Post reported over the weekend that the targeted positions—many of which are unfilled—include doctors, nurses, and support staff. A spokesperson for the VA, led by former Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.), described the jobs as “mostly Covid-era roles that are no longer necessary.”

VA workers, veterans advocates, and a union representing hundreds of thousands of department employees disputed that characterization as the agency faces staff shortages across the country.

“We are all doing the work of others to compensate,” one VA employee told the Post. “The idea that relief isn’t coming is really, really disappointing.”

Thomas Dargon Jr., deputy general counsel of the American Federation of Government Employees, said remaining VA employees “are obviously going to be facing the brunt of any further job cuts or reorganization that results in employees having to do more work with less.”

The advocacy organization VoteVets cast the job cuts as another step toward the longstanding GOP goal of privatizing the VA.

“This is outrageous,” the group wrote on social media. “It is abundantly clear that Republicans and the Trump administration want to strangle the VA until it all gets privatized.”

“We must expand the VA, not hollow it out.”

News of the impending job cuts came months after the Trump administration moved to gut collective bargaining protections for many VA employees and as recent staffing cuts continued to hamper veterans’ services nationwide.

“Wait times for new mental health appointments have increased sharply since January in my home state, Connecticut,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said during a Senate hearing earlier this month. “For example, the most recent data shows the current wait time for a new patient mental health appointment at the Orange VA Clinic in Connecticut—an outpatient facility specializing in mental health—is 208 days.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, said in a statement Sunday that “it is unacceptable that the US Department of Veterans Affairs plans to eliminate as many as 35,000 healthcare positions this month.”

“This is especially outrageous given the reality that VA facilities in Vermont and across the country already face severe staffing challenges,” said Sanders. “When someone puts their life on the line to defend this country in uniform, we in turn must provide them with the best quality healthcare available. These layoffs are unacceptable and must be reversed. We must expand the VA, not hollow it out. And I will do everything I can to make that happen.”

Six years ago, Tulsi Gabbard was competing with Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and others in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. But Gabbard took a far-right turn and became a full-fledged MAGA Republican during Biden's presidency, and as national intelligence director in the second Trump Administration, the former Democrat and ex-congresswoman is aggressively promoting Trump's repeatedly debunked claim that widespread voter fraud occurred in 2020.

Gabbard drew strong criticism from Democrats because of her presence outside an election center in Fulton County, Georgia during a recent FBI search of voter records. And now, according to Daily Beast reporter Janna Brancolini, Gabbard is drawing more criticism for taking the "extraordinary step of seizing an unspecified number of voting machines from Puerto Rico."

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), according to CNN, confirmed the Puerto Rico operation — which, Reuters reports, took place in May 2025.

Brancolini, in an article published by the Daily Beast on February 5, notes, "Sources told both Reuters and CNN that it was completely unprecedented for the ODNI, which coordinates intelligence from across the other 17 agencies in the U.S. intelligence community, to be involved in investigating a sensitive domestic matter. Election security is usually handled by law enforcement, not U.S. intelligence services."

A former intelligence official told CNN, "This is well beyond what ODNI has the authority or expertise to do. This is amateur hour."

David Becker, leader of the Center for Election Innovation, is quoted as saying that the Trump Administration's goal is to "intimidate and denigrate election officials."

"Gabbard seems to have a habit of generating headlines during politically fraught moments for Trump," Brancolini reports. "In July, as the administration was facing widespread fury over the Justice Department's failure to release the Jeffrey Epstein files, Gabbard announced she had uncovered a 'treasonous conspiracy' and 'years-long coup' against Trump involving top Obama Administration officials. Nothing ultimately came of the supposed revelations, but for a brief moment, Trump crowned Gabbard the 'hottest' person in his administration over the unfounded allegations."

Democratic and Independent lawmakers on Thursday reacted with alarm and scorn on Thursday after President Donald Trump called for a handful of Democrats to be tried and executed for sedition after they called on active duty US soldiers and intelligence officials to uphold their constitutional duty not to obey unlawful orders.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) posted a video denouncing the president’s social media posts on the matter, saying Trump’s call for the execution “is not normal” and that “we cannot allow this to feel normal.”

“As far as I know,” Murphy said, a president saying such a thing “has never happened before in the history of the country,” adding that “every Democratic member of the House and Senate, their life is in jeopardy right now” in the context of those threats.

“The president of the United States just called for members of Congress to be executed,” said Murphy, visibly angry. “If you are a person of influence in this country, maybe it’s time to pick a f------- side.”

“If you are a Republican in Congress, if you are a Republican governor,” he continued, “maybe it’s time to draw a line in the sand and say that under no circumstances should the President of the United States be calling on his political opposition to be hanged.”

Murphy said the nation “is at a very dangerous moment right now,” with President Trump “engaged in the wholesale incitement, endorsement, and rationalization of political violence in this country. This is a very slippery slope that we are on.”

The senator added that now is “a moment for people to step up,” especially those in positions of power or influence, to denounce a president who would call for the “murder of his political opposition.”

Murphy was far from alone in condemning the president’s remarks.

“Clearly, Trump has learned something from his good friend MbS: If you don’t like what your political opponents say, execute them,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), referencing the president’s meeting this week with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. “Unfortunately for Mr. Trump, that’s not what we do in America.”

Meanwhile, Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) asked the question: “Will the FBI investigate President Trump’s call for the deaths of sitting Democratic lawmakers?”

More than 10,000 people turned out for a rally with U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt), in Warren as part of his national “Fighting Oligarchy” tour.

The audience filled the main event space – the gym at Lincoln High School – and two overflow rooms, and still left hundreds more outside.

Wayne County Health Director Abdul El-Sayed, who ran for governor in 2018 and is exploring a run for U.S. Senate in 2026, said the size of the crowd is a sign of progressives’ resilience.

“They want us to step back, and today, all of you have said that we are not stepping back, we are stepping forward,” El-Sayed said. “We are recognizing that in one another, we have all we need to build that government for the people and by the people.”

Sanders compared the current political moment to various movements throughout history, including the American Revolution and the abolition movement.

“The change that we have experienced over hundreds of years of our nationhood only occurs when ordinary people stand up against oppression and injustice and fight back,” Sanders said.

But he said that the current landscape is unlike anything the country has experienced before because voters can no longer agree on a shared set of facts, which he said hampers the country’s ability to debate important issues.

“We’re up against a phenomenon that we have never seen, and that is the Big Lie,” Sanders said. “The Big Lie is not just stretching the truth; the Big Lie is not just fibbing. The Big Lie is creating a parallel universe, a set of ideas that have no basis in reality.”

Sanders said the tour is focused on areas where Republicans narrowly won seats in Congress. He called on U.S. Rep. John James (R-Shelby Twp.), to hold an in-person town hall with constituents.

“He has the right to make his case, to speak, you have the right to ask him questions,” Sanders said.

Sanders started his speech warning that “we have an administration that is leading us to oligarchy, an administration that is leading us to an authoritarian form of society, an administration that is leading us towards kleptocracy.”

He pointed to Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg being seated in the front row at Trump’s inauguration as evidence.

“Instead of a government of the people, by the people and for the people, we have now become a government of the billionaire class, for the billionaire class,” Sanders said.

United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain spoke at the rally wearing a shirt that read “eat the rich,” which he said he had not worn since the Big Three automakers went on strike in 2023.

“Billionaires don’t have a right to exist,” Fain told the crowd.

El-Sayed said that the administration of President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance “want to move fast and break things.”

“But what they’re breaking is the government that our hard earned tax dollars have been funding,” El-Sayed said. “And we’re here to say that that is our money, that is our government, take your damn billionaire hands off of it.”

Michigan Advance is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Michigan Advance maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor for questions: info@michiganadvance.com.

A leading economist and key congressional Democrat on Wednesday pointed to the Federal Reserve’s benchmark interest rate cut as just the latest evidence of the havoc that President Donald Trump is wreaking on the economy.

The US central bank has a dual mandate to promote price stability and maximum employment. The Federal Open Market Committee may raise the benchmark rate to reduce inflation, or cut it to spur economic growth, including hiring. However, the FOMC is currently contending with a cooling job market and soaring costs.

After the FOMC’s two-day monthly meeting, the divided committee announced a quarter-point reduction to 3.5-3.75%. It’s the third time the panel has cut the federal funds rate in recent months after a pause during the early part of Trump’s second term.

“Today’s decision shows that the Trump economy is in a sorry state and that the Federal Reserve is concerned about a weakening job market,” House Budget Committee Ranking Member Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) said in a statement. “On top of a flailing job market, the president’s tariffs—his national sales tax—continue to fuel inflation.”

“To make matters worse, extreme Republican policies, including Trump’s Big Ugly Law, are driving healthcare costs sharply higher,” he continued, pointing to the budget package that the president signed in July. “I will keep fighting to lower costs and for an economy that works for every American.”

Alex Jacquez, a former Obama administration official who is now chief of policy and advocacy at the Groundwork Collaborative, similarly said that “Trump’s reckless handling of the economy has backed the Fed into a corner—stuck between rising costs and a weakening job market, it has no choice but to try and offer what little relief they can to consumers via rate cuts.”

“But the Fed cannot undo the damage created by Trump’s chaos economy,” Jacquez added, “and working families are heading into the holidays feeling stretched, stressed, and far from jolly.”

Thanks to the historically long federal government shutdown, the FOMC didn’t have typical data—the consumer price index or jobs report—to inform Wednesday’s decision. Instead, its new statement and projections “relied on ‘available indicators,’ which Fed officials have said include their own internal surveys, community contacts, and private data,” Reuters reported.

“The most recent official data on unemployment and inflation is for September, and showed the unemployment rate rising to 4.4% from 4.3%, while the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation also increased slightly to 2.8% from 2.7%,” the news agency noted. “The Fed has a 2% inflation target, but the pace of price increases has risen steadily from 2.3% in April, a fact at least partly attributable to the pass-through of rising import taxes to consumers and a driving force behind the central bank’s policy divide.”

The lack of government data has also shifted journalists’ attention to other sources, including the revelation from global payroll processing firm ADP that the US lost 32,000 jobs in November, as well as Gallup’s finding last week that Americans’ confidence in the economy has fallen by seven points over the past month and is now at its lowest level in over a year.

The Associated Press highlighted that the rate cut is “good news” for US job-seekers:

“Overall, we’ve seen a slowing demand for workers with employers not hiring the way they did a couple of years ago,” said Cory Stahle, senior economist at the Indeed Hiring Lab. “By lowering the interest rate, you make it a little more financially reasonable for employers to hire additional people. Especially in some areas—like startups, where companies lean pretty heavily on borrowed money—that’s the hope here.”Stahle acknowledged that it could take time for the rate cuts to filter down to employers and then to workers, but he said the signal of the reduction is also important.
“Beyond the size of the cut, it tells employers and job-seekers something about the Federal Reserve’s priorities and focus. That they’re concerned about the labor market and willing to step in and support the labor market. It’s an assurance of the reserve’s priorities.”

The Federal Reserve is now projecting only one rate cut next year. During a Wednesday press conference, Fed Chair Jerome Powell pointed to the three cuts since September and said that “we are well positioned to wait to see how the economy evolves.”

However, Powell is on his way out, with his term ending in May, and Trump signaled in a Tuesday interview with Politico that agreeing with immediate interest rate cuts is a litmus test for his next nominee to fill the role.

Trump—who embarked on a nationwide “affordability tour” this week after claiming last week that “the word ‘affordability’ is a Democrat scam”—also graded the US economy on his watch, giving it an A+++++.

US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) responded: “Really? 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. 800,000 are homeless. Food prices are at record highs. Wages lag behind inflation. God help us when we have a B+++++ economy.”