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In "almost Shakespearean grotesquery," our cringe Buffoon-In-Chief thrust himself into the World Cup final only to be unceremoniously booed, snubbed and cropped out of team photos. Then he again assailed Canada for smoke from their wildfires, though ours are much worse and they've often helped us with them. Still, our ever-gracious northern neighbor launched a new initiative to dutifully sweep the Rockies, vacuum the forests, hand-rake pine needles. Its acronym: F.U.C.K.O.F.F.
The headlines for Trump's Sunday gatecrash of another major sports event that really, really didn't want him there tells the vainglorious, mortifying tale: "Most Universally Hated President In History Mercilessly Booed," "Crowd Boos, Player Snub and Failed Photobomb: Trump's Big World Cup Day Out," and "Confused Old Fuckwit Imagines He's Won the World Cup." The Guardian also wins a Snark of the Year Award for the caption to its photo of FIFA's Infantino deep in conversation with a clueless Trump, both men standing under a blizzard of confetti, after he literally had to drag him off-stage: "Gianni Infantino carefully explains to Donald Trump he is not part of the Spanish team."
Some of the over 82,000 fans at New Jersey's Met-Life Stadium, where Spain trounced a listless, chaotic, often-thuggish Argentina 1-0, had earlier made their feelings clear when video briefly showed Trump ensconced in his glass-encased VIP digs and scattered boos rang out. By the time he finally lumbered stoop-shouldered onto the field at the end, it sounded like all 82,000-plus had reconsidered before joining in to jeer. Trailing behind him, looking like hostages trying to keep a safe distance to not catch any cooties, were Mexico's and Canada's leaders, the tournament's alleged, far-less-despised hosts. Illogically, thanks to Infantino's long, gross obsequiousness, Trump got to hand out awards.
And he did, though not without drama: Several players hesitated, recoiled or refused to shake his hand. Then it was time to hand out the (seductively gold) World Cup. Little needy Donnie, a malignant narcissistic lump who just can't help himself, swooped in to awkwardly "help" Infantino carry it like a five-year-old hungry for the ice-cream cone his dad is holding, "a lonely, grasping figure refusing to release a trophy he didn’t win." Once it was presented to Spain's captain Rodri, Trump, "malice wrapped in vanity," painfully lingered there in the limelight as Infantino struggled to yank him to the side for the iconic hoist photo. In the end, a patient Rodri gently nudged him out of the shot, but cringingly not off the stage.
Steve Schmidt noted the clumsy resulting image's era-defining power, its display of the "breathtaking psychological fragility" of a "President Norma Desmond...incapable of understanding that the greatest office in the world confers responsibility, not ownership." "The character has been devoured by the caricature," he wrote of "self-parody made flesh," the small man so consumed by the need for adulation that, "Every trophy is his trophy. Every triumph is his triumph. Every stage is his stage." Later, in photos released both by FIFA and the Spanish team, Trump had mercifully, miraculously disappeared from both shots, because this is why God and Al Gore invented photoshop.
The awkward bit of theater with Spain came, lest we forget, in the wake of Trump's weeks of vilifying the nation and their prime minister Pedro Sánchez - first, for their refusal to allow the U.S. military to use Spanish bases to help illegally bomb Iran, then for the alleged failure of "bad" and "hopeless" Spanish people to pay enough for NATO defense spending. Despite Trump's ugly threats to "cut off all trade" with a longtime ally unforgivably following the law, it all suddenly vanished before the cameras, where Trump congratulated "a great team," even though they speak Spanish, and claimed there was "no tension" with the country’s leadership. Actually, he smirked, "I have no tension with anybody."
Tell it to Canada, which Trump has been moronically berating for "Willful Negligence," aka inexplicably allowing smoke from over 800 wildfires raging across some of Canada's 347 million acres to drift over our pristine shores. A few days earlier, joined by equally stupid MAGA lackeys, he raged the U.S. "is being unnecessarily invaded by filthy, polluted, and unhealthy air" at an "incalculable" (a big word he probs didn't write) cost, and "maybe they should pay us some damages" or billions more in tariffs, and he'd call Carney "to find out what they are going to do about it." "We are holding Canada responsible," he thundered, "for the fact that they are not properly maintaining their Forests, and Brush therein."
Like his long-ago claim during California wildfires that Finland's president told him they rake their forests and have no such problems - Finland when asked: "WTF" - this is an idiot's fever dream. Facts owe: This year, America has seen over 40,000 fires burn roughly 3.9 million acres, 157% its ten-year average. There are now over 70 uncontained U.S. fires being fought by nearly 18,000 people, with much of the Northwest - Colorado, Oregon, Washington - at National Preparedness Level 5, the highest, and up to 58 new fires a day. Air quality alerts affecting a million Americans are due to those fires, to blazes across 70,000-plus acres in Minnesota, and to 3,600 fires across 1.8 million acres, below the five-year average, in Canada.
In the face of unnamed U.S. pols mindlessly "chirping away," notes Ontario Premier Doug Ford, he has already asked for firefighters or "anything they can send" to help fight nearly 200 fires, some of which have crossed into Canada from Minnesota, that have forced entire First Nations to evacuate and many residents to sleep in their cars. Rather than complain maybe send help, he adds, "because we have done the same thing for our American friends," again and again. Even as Canadian officials issue air quality warnings from U.S. fires drifting north, a 56-year-old Canadian helicopter pilot from B.C. just died in a crash battling a fire in Colorado, the fourth firefighter death there this summer.
Meanwhile, a science-denying MAGA has ended support for dozens of climate initiatives, dismantled our largest climate research center and pushed for more fossil fuel carnage. On Sunday, with much of his country on fire, Trump attacked the National Academy of Sciences - chartered by Abe Lincoln mid-Civil War "because even a nation shooting at itself understood it needed scientists" - because it's "run by Radical Left Dumocrats” who published costly, "fraudulent," “totally discredited” climate change manuals, which he ordered "Suspension and Debarment" officials to review. Also - cue dumbest timeline ever - Repubs jumped in to decry DEI-loving advocates who (gasp) may have tried to stop blessed oil and gas projects.
Still, Canada is a tolerant, peace-loving nation that tries to accommodate all comers, even a nitwit who's never gotten any closer to a "forest" than Central Park. It also values its natural resources, including a 270-million-acre boreal forest, much of it roadless, whose vast ecosystem serves as a global carbon sink to purify air and water, regulate climate and offer breeding ground to billions of birds. And if a nitwit neighbor to the north chides its inadequate forest management, Canada seeks to rise to the occasion - to, as it were, Be Better. Thus was born a bold new initiative from the Department of Forest Tidiness, which is now "pleased to confirm the message has been received loud and clear."
Canada's Forest Undergrowth Clearing & Kindling Operation for Foreign Friends, aka F.U.C.K.O.F.F., renders every able-bodied person ages 16 to 65 responsible for removing leaves, twigs, moss, bark, branches, pine needles, deadfall and shrubs deemed "insufficiently tidy by Congressional observers." After receiving government-issued rakes, gloves and safety vests, they must arrange all debris "into neat bilingual piles," to be inspected by forestry officials. Further actions may include sweeping the Rocky Mountains, power-washing the Canadian Shield, vacuuming deserts, raking California, installing smoke-detectors across the Yukon and mandating all fires contain and respect clearly marked provincial borders.
In Ontario, workers will be assigned 6.7 acres (40 NHL hockey rinks) of dense untracked country and a 26-hour work week; elsewhere, shifts surge to 18.3 acres (110 rinks) and 70 hours a week. Morning commutes start with a three-day canoe trip and 15-km hike through swamp; on-site, workers will hand-groom 300 billion trees, hand-rake infinite pine needles, make local beavers submit environmental impact reports and dodge grizzlies as needed. Finally, it notes, "Canada thanks Congress for sharing their extensive knowledge of forestry, wildfire behavior, climate science, geography and upkeep of a country containing 9% of the world's forests, and looks forward to receiving further practical advice from Washington."
Online, many Americans, after snorting coffee through their noses, thanked Canada "for being great neighbors and allies," and apologized profusely for - hands held hopelessly wide - "all this." "We are so, so sorry," said one. Another: "We're so incredibly sorry." Canadians joined in: "I'm in Alberta - I'll send water," "In B.C., have to get my mountaineering gear first. Sorry. eh?" and an offer to add a new organization, Canadian Undergrowth, Nature, and Tree Services: "I believe that with your cooperation, F.U.C.K.O.F.F plus C.U.N.T.S could really show Americans we take their health and well-being seriously." Organizers estimate their work will be completed "somewhere between Thursday afternoon and the collapse of human civilization."
President Donald Trump's administration on Friday paved the way for letting US corporations destroy the habitats of endangered species by rescinding a longtime interpretation of the Endangered Species Act.
As reported by The New York Times, the Interior Department and the Commerce Department announced that they were narrowing the law's definition of what constitutes harming endangered species.
Whereas the law has for decades been interpreted as protecting endangered animals' habitats from significant "modification or degradation," the administration said that offenders would have to directly injure or kill an endangered animal to be considered in violation of the law.
"The change could open the door for fossil fuel companies, agricultural interests, land developers, and others," wrote the Times, "to disturb or even destroy the habitats of vulnerable species."
The Endangered Species Act has been interpreted as protecting animals' habitats for decades, and that interpretation upheld by the US Supreme Court in 1995.
Environmental advocates expressed horror in response to the rule change, which they said would put endangered species at unprecedented risk.
Kristen Boyles, attorney for Earthjustice, vowed that the administration would face legal challenges for its rule change, which she said would jeopardize endangered animals' ability to "raise their young, or search for food."
"Let’s be clear: There is no support for the Trump Administration’s rule—no scientific support, no legal support, no public support," Boyles said. "We will see the Trump Administration in court."
Ben Greuel, wildlife campaign manager at the Sierra Club, called the rule changed "a direct attack on the foundation of the Endangered Species Act" that, if kept in place, would put species "on a path to extinction."
"This rule ignores that reality in an unlawful attempt to open the door for corporate polluters to degrade vitally important habitats, wildlife be damned," Greuel emphasized. "The Endangered Species Act is a bedrock law that must be followed."
Tara Zuardo, a senior campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity, pointed out that "habitat destruction is the number one threat to endangered species," while calling the Trump administration's new policy "a death knell for America’s wildlife."
"If animals don’t have a place to live, they can’t live," Zuardo said. "Spotted owls, Atlantic salmon, Florida panthers, and thousands of other species need protections for the wild places where they make their homes."
Andrew Bowman, president and CEO of Defenders of Wildlife, accused the Trump administration of embracing an "erroneous and nonsensical interpretation" of the Endangered Species Act that he vowed to challenge in court.
"We intend to fight back with the full force of the law," said Bowman, "to defeat this attack and innumerable others by the administration on the statutes and regulations that protect America’s cherished wildlife."
After New York’s Democratic governor enacted a temporary ban on the construction of large data centers to curb their enormous power consumption, President Donald Trump’s energy secretary, Chris Wright, made the evidence-free claim that the facilities are actually the “greatest tool” for reducing the sharp increases in energy prices.
On Tuesday, Gov. Kathy Hochul signed an executive order barring for one year the construction of "hyperscale" data centers that can consume 50 megawatts of power or more, saying that unchecked expansion "threatens to hike up utility bills, deplete our natural resources, and create uncertainty for New Yorkers."
New York was the first state to place a moratorium on data center development, and more than a dozen other states have considered enacting moratoriums as evidence has mounted that data centers tend to spike power demand and drive up costs.
But as the rapid growth of data centers has sparked furious backlash in communities of all political stripes, the industry has maintained a steadfast ally in the Trump administration, which has continued to champion rapid data center buildout by fast-tracking permits, opening federal land to developers, promoting new energy infrastructure, and offering federal financing and tax incentives to new projects.
On Wednesday morning, Wright took to Fox News to blast Hochul's block on data center development.
"Gov. Hochul has it exactly backward," he said. "Data centers are the greatest tool we have right now to stop the rise of electricity prices and ultimately to bring them back down."
Wright, a former fracking executive, protested that “Democrat green energy policies” were responsible for driving up energy prices in New York, pointing to its ban on fracking, the blocking of a major natural gas pipeline, and an “insane climate law” requiring the state to transition away from fossil fuels by 2040.
"Energy is extremely expensive in New York and now sparse because of bad Democrat policies," he said. "Nothing to do with data centers."
Wright did not elaborate on how exactly data centers could be used as a "tool" to bring down energy prices. But if this is the case, nobody has informed the energy companies themselves.
His comments came just a day after PJM, which serves 67 million customers and is the nation's largest electric grid operator, released the results of an electricity auction that added $6.3 billion in costs to consumers' energy bills in 2028-29 due to growth in energy demand.
"The primary driver of that growth is data centers," the company said in a press release. "New data center facilities and expansions of existing sites can be developed quickly, up to two to three times faster than many of the electricity generation technologies that are necessary to serve them and allow PJM to maintain the reliability customers expect."
That increase is not confined to the future. It has already begun. According to Monitoring Analytics, PJM’s independent market monitor, since 2024, the auctions have added $29 billion in costs to the customers across the 13 states plus Washington, DC, where it operates. New York is not one of the states supplied by the PJM grid.
The Natural Resources Defense Council has found that recent PJM auction increases have added as much as $20-30 to monthly bills in some parts of the company's regions, and projects that continued data-center growth could eventually add roughly $70 per month for an average household.
The labor-focused media organization More Perfect Union, which has published many pieces documenting the effects of data centers on American communities, called Wright's claim "one of the most blatant lies we’ve ever heard."
"Data centers are pushing energy prices up," the outlet said. "That is not a matter of debate, it’s a fact."
In what critics called a troubling sign of where US healthcare policy is headed, Senate Republicans on Thursday torpedoed an effort by their Democratic colleagues to block a Trump administration pilot program under which private companies will use artificial intelligence to review—and possibly deny—healthcare to patients seeking certain Medicare services.
Senators voted 50-46 along party lines against a Congressional Review Act resolution introduced by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and supported by 20 Democratic colleagues and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). The resolution was aimed at overturning the Trump administration's final rule establishing the US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) so-called Wasteful and Inappropriate Service Reduction (WISeR) Model.
"Yesterday, I voted to block [President Donald] Trump’s plan to let AI decide whether Medicare will approve or deny your medical care. Every Senate Republican supported Trump’s scheme," Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said Friday on social media. "Doctors should be deciding what care seniors need—not a computer program."
The AFL-CIO, the nation's largest labor union federation, said on X: "No senior should have to wait weeks to see a doctor because a flawed AI system won’t authorize it. The Trump [administration's] WISeR program is delaying treatment for Medicare patients and putting tech companies’ interests first. Congress must end it."
Alex Jacquez, senior vice president of policy, advocacy, and research at the Groundwork Collaborative, highlighted the "horrendous" WISeR rollout, which, according to KFF, "has created confusion, errors, long wait times, and stress" and has left many patients "ensnared in the same red tape as those with private insurance."
CMS claims WISeR “helps protect American taxpayers by leveraging enhanced technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, along with human clinical review, to ensure timely and appropriate Medicare payment for select items and services.”
However, critics warn that AI will make it easier and faster to deny or delay care and have raised concerns that AI would likely be used as a cost-cutting tool to fulfill financial incentives.
“Yesterday, we were reminded who the Republicans are: a group of millionaires working for billionaires who will rip healthcare away from those who need it most," Alex Lawson, executive director of the advocacy group Social Security Works, told Common Dreams on Friday.
"The White House leaned on the Republican senators and they folded like the cheap suits they are," he continued. "Cowards to a person."
Singling out Sen. Josh Hawley, Lawson said the Missouri Republican "pretends he would oppose Medicare delays and denials by algorithm or AI, but when the vote is called dutifully dances to the tune his master calls."
"Their goal is to destroy Medicare, to destroy guaranteed healthcare, to ensure that every facet of the 'healthcare system' serves only one purpose, profit," Lawson said of Republican lawmakers.
Private Medicare Advantage healthcare profiteers have been using AI to deny care for years. Consumers are aware of—and outraged by—the practice.
“I don’t know any senior, Republican or Democrat, who asked President Trump to let AI decide if their doctor-recommended treatment was necessary," Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said on Thursday.
US Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin on Friday threatened state election officials with prison time if they do not comply with the Trump administration's "mandatory" changes to how they run their elections.
During a press conference, Mullin said that the Trump administration was making so-called "security enhancements" to US elections "mandatory," adding that any uncooperative states will be penalized.
"If these states want a grant and they want to be reimbursed to run federal elections, they're going to have to implement security issues," Mullin said. "We're saying that your [voting] machines have to be secured and that your voter registration list needs to be scrubbed."
Later in the press conference, Mullin elaborated further on penalties states could face if they didn't "scrub" their voter rolls to the administration's specifications.
"The states that choose... not to participate in securing the elections, we will make sure we make those states a priority to look into who voted in their states, and hold then the election officials accountable," he said. "If the election officials, once we gave them the information they need to secure their elections, and they chose not to, then those individuals can also be held accountable."
Mullin added that this accountability can come "by fines, by penalties, and even, depending on how far it goes, prison time."
Mullin says that election officials in states that don’t cooperate with the Trump administration may face jail time pic.twitter.com/FvIaKmTEdc
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 17, 2026
Article 1, Section 4 of the United States Constitution explicitly gives states the power to run their own elections, while granting the US Congress the authority to implement federal regulations if needed.
The executive branch of the federal government is given no role in the administration and regulation of elections.
Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom reacted to Mullin's threats of jail time for election officials with defiance.
"California has free, fair, and secure elections and we will fight for them," Newsom wrote in a social media post. "Try us."
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) similarly vowed to fight the administration's efforts to meddle in the elections.
"They are losing, and they know it," Schumer wrote. "Election officials will not be intimidated. Senate Democrats will make sure resources are in place to fight back against any illegal activity by the Trump administration."
Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) warned that Mullin's Friday statements appear to be an escalation in the administration's tactics.
"First, they sent the FBI to seize ballots in Georgia," he wrote. "Then, they tried to get data on election workers in Fulton County. Now, they’re threatening to imprison election officials. This is escalating quickly. Every single American should be alarmed."
Government watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington also indicated it would file legal challenges to the administration's efforts to take over the elections process.
"The Constitution gives states, not the federal government, the power to administer elections," the group wrote. "That's for a good reason, but the Trump admin keeps trying and failing to grab power anyway. We're fighting back in court."
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, expressed skepticism that the Trump White House's election meddling would be successful.
The Department of Homeland Security "has literally zero power to do this," Reichlin-Melnick wrote. "The Trump admin has lost every single lawsuit on their efforts to get state voter data or change voter requirements. The power to administer elections is given to the states."
Historian Patrick Wyman similarly predicted the administration's efforts would end in failure.
"They’re going to threaten this stuff, they’ll ham-fistedly screw up the implementation, commit seven atrocities, and still lose every election that matters in November," Wyman wrote. "We’re now nearing the 'fuck you, do it, see what happens' stage of this confrontation."
The Israeli government this week stripped Nile crocodiles of their protected status in order to advance a proposal that National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said was inspired by the Trump administration's now-shuttered Alligator Alcatraz to build a prison for Palestinians surrounded by a moat full of the ravenous reptiles.
"You read that right," the liberal US Jewish group J Street said in response to the news. "When cruelty becomes a governing principle instead of an aberration within the Israeli government, something has gone deeply wrong."
Israeli Environmental Minister Idit Silman signed a directive Wednesday reclassifying Nile crocodiles as "specially managed wild animals," a novel legal category enabling the government to keep them for security purposes.
Ben-Gvir, who heads the Israel Prison Service (IPS), said he was inspired by the Trump administration's recently closed Alligator Alcatraz immigrant detention center in Florida. He is seeking to first introduce crocodiles into a moat around Ketziot Prison in southern Israel.
While it is not certain that the plan will come to fruition, Ben-Gvir celebrated Silman's decree in a social media post showing him petting a crocodile, with the caption: "Cursed terrorist, thinking of trying to escape? Think again."
Palestinians have occasionally escaped from Israeli lockups, such as in September 2021, when six men used improvised tools, including spoons, to tunnel out of the high-security Gilboa Prison. All six escapees were caught within weeks.

The move by Silman—who gained international notoriety by calling for the ethnic cleansing of all Palestinians from the Gaza Strip—came despite objections from her own ministry's legal adviser and the Nature and Parks Authority.
IPS, which sent a fact-finding mission to the Hamat Gader crocodile farm in January, argued that its employees could handle the animals, citing the agency's experience working with the attack dogs that Palestinian prisoners and human rights groups have claimed were used to maul and even sexually abuse detainees.
Silman's approval is contingent upon IPS meeting animal welfare requirements and appropriate holding conditions.
Meanwhile, Ben-Gvir has openly boasted about the dramatic deterioration in conditions endured by Palestinian prisoners since the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023 and Israel's retaliatory obliteration of Gaza, which United Nations and other experts describe as a genocide.
“We go into the prisons, and they wet themselves," Ben-Gvir said of Palestinian prisoners during a speech on Friday. "I'm not joking. They're afraid. Fear rules them, and that's how it should be.”
Ben-Gvir and other Israeli officials have worn noose lapel pins to celebrate a recently passed bill legalizing the execution by hanging of so-called "terrorists."
Former Palestinian detainees and Israeli personnel have described beatings, rape and sexual torture by male and female soldiers, routine amputations due to constant shackling, burnings, electrocutions, attacks by dogs, ice-water dousings, denial of food and water, sleep deprivation, constant loud music, and other abuse.
The Israeli military is investigating the deaths of dozens of detainees at the Sde Teiman prison in the Negev Desert, including one who died after allegedly being sodomized with an electric baton.
Ben-Gvir has defended Israeli reservists accused of torturing Palestinian prisoners, and called the reservists who allegedly gang-raped a man at Sde Teiman prison "heroes."
The minister is banned from entering a number of Western countries for his incitement to violence against Palestinians.
Several Israeli environmental groups issued a joint statement opposing the use of crocodiles in prisons.
"Crocodiles are sentient beings, with complex needs for space, water, temperature, and natural behavior," the groups said. "It is also highly doubtful that the crocodiles intended for this purpose have aggressive temperaments, and in any event, during the winter they slow their metabolism dramatically, become very sluggish, and stop eating.”
"Security should be achieved through real security measures, not through animals," they added. "We are considering filing a petition with the High Court of Justice over the matter.”
Last year, the Israeli military massacred 262 crocodiles that were being kept on a farm in the occupied West Bank near the illegal Israeli settler colony of Petzael, claiming the reptiles posed a risk to the public.
“They just slaughtered them," farm owner Danny Bitan told reporters at the time, describing the scene as "some kind of killing valley."
Ben-Gvir's plan comes amid ongoing slaughter in Gaza—where Israeli forces have killed more than 73,000 Palestinians, over 21,500 of them children, since October 2023—and accelerating colonization and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.
News of Silman's approval sparked disbelief around the world and on social media, where Reddit users called the plan "cartoonish idiocy" and "Bond villain-level lunacy."
"The fact that Israel is trying to surround a prison with [crocodiles] tells you all you need to know about these camps, which are designed to torture, rape, and murder Palestinians, often held as hostages without charges," Israeli researcher and political commentator Shaiel Ben-Ephraim said Thursday on X.
"History tells the tale of what happens when a few people have great power over markets that are central to Americans' lives: fewer opportunities for more people, worse products and services for all people," said California Attorney General Rob Bonta.
The $110 billion megamerger between Paramount and Warner Bros., widely criticized as a "disaster" by antitrust advocates, has been temporarily put on hold.
US District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín on Monday granted a temporary restraining order sought by several Democratic state attorneys general to pause the merger from going forward.
In her ruling, Martínez-Olguín found that the plaintiffs provided "compelling evidence that the combined firm resulting from the transaction will possess substantial market share in the wide-release theatrical distribution market," meaning that the merger between the two studios is "likely to violate antitrust laws."
The judge—appointed by former President Joe Biden—issued a 14-day restraining order on the merger, writing that "Paramount and Warner Bros. will continue to operate as separate, viable companies competing in the marketplace while they wait for the court to adjudicate this case."
The combination of Paramount and Warner Bros. has long been controversial because it would put control of CBS, CNN, HBO, TikTok, and other major media properties all under the control of David Ellison, the son of billionaire Larry Ellison, a major donor to President Donald Trump.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta, the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit against Paramount-Warner Bros. deal, hailed Martínez-Olguín's ruling as a "critical first win in our case to ensure this megamerger never sees the light of day."
"History tells the tale of what happens when a few people have great power over markets that are central to Americans' lives: fewer opportunities for more people, worse products and services for all people," he said. "With our lawsuit, we're fighting for a free and fair market and a thriving film and television industry that serves creatives and audiences alike."
New York Attorney General Letitia James, a co-plaintiff in the lawsuit, delivered a video statement calling the ruling "an important victory for consumers, for workers, and for fair competition."
"We are taking action to protect New Yorkers from the harms of unlawful corporate consolidation," James added, "and protecting democracy while we're at it."
We just won a court order stopping the merger of @ParamountPics and @warnerbros while our lawsuit continues.
We’re going to keep fighting to keep costs down for consumers, protect jobs, and stop this illegal merger. pic.twitter.com/yfcA0sOoLb
— NY AG James (@NewYorkStateAG) July 20, 2026
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a longtime critic of the merger, called the ruling "a WIN thanks to the state attorneys general who stood up and pushed back," and added, "Let's keep up the fight."
Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.) said the ruling was "welcome news," while warning that "we're not out of the woods yet."
"This merger would force prices up, bring wages down, and lead to people losing jobs—all to bring TikTok, CNN, and CBS under one roof," Balint observed. "Perhaps Paramount CEO David Ellison can't wine and dine his way through this one after all."
Attorney Norm Eisen, co-founder of Democracy Defenders Action, accused the Ellisons of trying to "rush" the merger over the finish line before courts could examine antitrust claims being made against it.
"Now the case gets decided on the merits," Eisen said.
"In Congress, Donavan will fight for strong union jobs, environmental justice, and for universal childcare."
As Democratic Michigan Congressman Shri Thanedar on Monday announced endorsements from party leaders in the US House of Representatives, his primary challenger, Donavan McKinney, secured more support from key progressives.
Already, McKinney counted among his backers various Michiganders, US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), and progressive congressional candidates who have recently won their primaries: Dr. Adam Hamawy in New Jersey, Melat Kiros in Colorado, and Chris Rabb in Pennsylvania.
On Monday, just over two weeks away from the August 4 primary, Congresswoman Summer Lee (D-Pa.) and the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) also backed the lifelong Detroiter's bid to oust Thanedar in Michigan's 13th Congressional District.
"Donavan McKinney is the fighter his community needs: principled, hardworking, and unafraid to speak truth to power," Lee said in a statement. "I'm proud to support his people-powered campaign, and proud to endorse him for Congress in MI-13. Detroit deserves real representation, and I know Donavan McKinney will deliver it."
McKinney welcomed her support on social media, writing that "I am honored to receive the endorsement of my sister in service, Rep. Summer Lee. Our shared commitment to standing up for our communities unites us deeply, and I am thrilled to have a fighter like Summer join our people-powered coalition."
In a Monday social media post promoted by Kiros and Rabb, DSA said that "Donavan knows what it takes to fight, and win. Now he's ready to take that fight to DC. In Congress, Donavan will fight for strong union jobs, environmental justice, and for universal childcare."
"The Motor City is ready to put working people in the driver’s seat. Let’s get Donavan across the finish line and grow our socialist bloc in Congress," the organization added.
The fresh endorsements followed a weekend rally in Detroit, where McKinney appeared with Sanders, Tlaib, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain, and Dr. Abdul El-Sayed—a progressive US Senate candidate who notably secured support from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Monday.
While El-Sayed and Congresswoman Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) battle over the seat currently held by retiring Democratic Sen. Gary Peters, McKinney is aiming to oust Thanedar, "a pharmaceutical entrepreneur who has spent millions of dollars from his personal fortune on several campaigns," as the Detroit Metro Times reported Monday. He "was first elected to Congress in 2022 after winning a nine-candidate primary with 28% of the vote. His victory left Detroit without a Black member of Congress for the first time in nearly seven decades."
After journalists noted in recent days that Thanedar "lost more than $630,000 in investment income last quarter after he put $3.7 million in campaign funds into the cryptocurrency industry," and just loaned his campaign another $650,000, Ravi Mangla, national press secretary for the Working Families Party, declared Monday that the incumbent "is panicked."
"He's emptying out his bank account and begging his AIPAC and crypto buddies to bail him out," Mangla said, referring to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee—which is also backing Stevens in the state's Senate fight. "Detroiters deserve better than an out-of-touch politician who's willing to sell them out to the highest bidder."
In a clear signal of where Democratic Party leadership stands as they try to reclaim both chambers of Congress from Republicans in the November midterms, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY), Whip Katherine Clark (Mass.), and Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (Calif.) on Monday issued a joint statement supporting Thanedar. They said that he "has always shown up for his constituents and is fighting every day to lower the cost of housing and groceries, and to make life more affordable for everyday Michiganders."
Responding on social media, Drop Site News co-founder Ryan Grim said: "I understand that Dem leaders always endorse incumbents, but this one is particularly absurd. Shri is basically a con man who spent his way into Congress. But his opponent Donovan McKinney has Bernie's backing, so the con man will have to do."
Warren praised El-Sayed for "not taking corporate money" and called out the "special interests running millions of dollars in TV ads to buy this seat."
Just over two weeks out from Michigan's Democratic US Senate primary, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed secured another key endorsement on Monday from Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Warren (D-Mass.) initially backed state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, who dropped out of the race earlier this month. Now, as a flood of big money threatens to carry the centrist Democrat US Rep. Haley Stevens across the finish line, Warren has thrown her weight behind the race's progressive anti-corporate crusader as he seeks the chance to battle Republican former Rep. Mike Rogers in November.
"The Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Michigan is now a two-way race—and I just officially endorsed Abdul El-Sayed," Warren said in an email to supporters on Monday. "Abdul is THE fighter Michigan needs in the Senate. Michigan families deserve a senator who will fight for them—not special interests running millions in TV ads to buy this seat."
Joining Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Warren is now the third US senator to endorse El-Sayed, who formerly served as Detroit's top public health official and has made Medicare for All a central campaign pitch.
In an endorsement video posted to social media, she emphasized his background as a physician and his longtime union membership.
I’m endorsing @AbdulElSayed today—because he is THE fighter Michigan needs in the Senate. pic.twitter.com/skDxiNnEtw
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) July 20, 2026
Noting his support from the state's largest union, the United Auto Workers, she credited El-Sayed with "growing a movement of working people all across Michigan."
Warren, who has long advocated for legislation to end unchecked corporate spending in elections, praised El-Sayed for "not taking corporate money" and "fighting to get money out of politics altogether."
Without naming Stevens, Warren called out the "special interests running millions of dollars in TV ads to buy this seat."
Last week, reports detailed how outside groups had spent roughly $50 million buying ads to support Stevens and bash El-Sayed over the course of the race, with nearly $30 million coming from American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and affiliated groups, who seek to stop another harsh critic of Israel from entering Congress.
Stevens, who has long trumpeted her pro-Israel bona fides, has appeared cagey about acknowledging that AIPAC, whose influence is increasingly loathed by Democratic voters, is her leading financial backer.
Asked whether she welcomed AIPAC's support, she told The Associated Press over the weekend that "anyone who supported me is supporting me because of my dedication to the people of Michigan, and the things that I have done for Michiganders."
The dark money group A Stronger Michigan—which Sludge has found to be connected to a lobbyist for the American Gas Association, Meta, and the military contractor Northrop Grumman—has also been found to have spent more than $12 million in support of Stevens.
She also has the backing of nearly 100 corporate political action committees (PACs), including those representing the health insurance industry, Wall Street Banks, fossil fuels, and Big Tech companies.
El-Sayed has outraised Stevens among small-dollar donors by more than 5-to-1 in the second quarter of 2026, according to Federal Election Commission filings.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who spent the weekend campaigning for El-Sayed in Michigan, said the race was "an opportunity to show that things other than money can win in America.”
“You deserve a government that answers to you,” Ocasia-Cortez says. “You deserve a politics that treats the disease and not just the symptoms of what brought us Donald Trump.” pic.twitter.com/8vQ2FV7skZ
— Sam Robinson (@samueljrob) July 18, 2026
It's unclear whether the flood of spending is actually helping Stevens. Since the Democratic primary became a two-horse race, poll results have been scattered.
A Detroit News/WDIV-TV survey by the Glengariff Group, released July 15, showed that Stevens had surged to a 7-point lead over El-Sayed. But a poll by Data for Progress, sponsored by the group American Priorities, released the same day, showed El-Sayed with a commanding 13-point lead.
Stevens also has the strong support of the Democratic establishment.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who had been quietly putting his thumb on the scale to boost Stevens for months, gave an effective endorsement in June, saying she had the best chance to beat Rogers. She's also gained the support of other centrist stalwarts including Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), and Chris Coons (D-Del.).
Last week, she also grabbed the endorsement of the influential former House Democratic Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC).
But after a trend of success for progressive and democratic socialist candidates in Democratic primaries across the nation, El-Sayed suggested on Monday that a political outlook closer to his and Warren's is what would win the day.
"Sen. Warren’s vision for our future—one where corporations can’t buy politicians, and people can afford to put food on the table—speaks to Americans everywhere," he said in response to her endorsement.
"She’s been a generational voice for Americans who are tired of the status quo," he said. "Michigan needs unbought, principled leadership, and with Sen. Warren’s support, we can get rid of the chokehold that corporations have on our government."
“Trump is without question the most corrupt president in American history,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
A group of Democratic US senators on Monday issued a new report outlining the unprecedented self-enrichment being carried out by President Donald Trump during his second term in office.
The report, called "The Cost of Corruption: How Trump Turns Power into Profit at Americans' Expense," accuses the president and his family of turning "the power of the presidency into eye-popping profits," with Trump himself increasing his net worth by more than $2 billion since his return to the Oval Office last year.
The report highlights how Trump's two eldest sons have invested in numerous technology start-ups that have subsequently received lavish contracts from the US Department of Defense.
According to a report published by The Washington Post last week, the Trump sons' portfolio of tech firms has collectively generated "at least $3.2 billion in direct government business" and an "additional $3.1 billion in future contract options" since their initial investments.
The report also points to the massive windfall the Trump family has scored from World Liberty Financial, its cryptocurrency venture that is nearly half owned by a fund backed by the United Arab Emirates and that helped Trump pocket more than $1 billion in just a year.
While Trump and his family cash in, the report adds, the president and his administration have dismantled the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, slashed spending on the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, and given lavish tax cuts to the richest Americans.
Trump's acceptance of a $400 million luxury jet from the royal family of Qatar also gets a mention, and the report notes that the president is using at least $1 billion in taxpayer money to renovate the plane with security upgrades.
The report also cites a number of Trump "vanity projects," including his luxury White House ballroom and his French-style arch in Washington, DC, as wastes of money and resources.
“Trump is without question the most corrupt president in American history,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) in announcing the report. “Trump has betrayed the American people by using our highest office not for the good of country, but to pad his own bank account, at the expense of working families."
The report is part of a broader initiative by Senate Democrats to hold the Trump White House accountable, which will include an anti-corruption working group composed of Schumer along with Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif,), and Andy Kim (D-NJ).
Merkley, in announcing his support for the initiative, said that "the Trump swamp of corruption is a mile deep and MEGA-wide."
"Trump and his family use his office and official connections to rake in billions for themselves at every turn," Merkley added. "Not only is this making life more expensive for hard-working Americans, it’s a threat to government 'by and for the people.'"
The report comes as Trump considers a "wider war" including a ground invasion that could require hundreds of thousands of US troops.
After months of downplaying the number of American casualties from President Donald Trump's war in Iran, The New York Times revealed that the Pentagon once again hid dozens of US military injuries from Iranian strikes on bases in Jordan last week.
As the Times reported on Monday:
In the week leading up to the Iranian attack on Friday that killed two US soldiers and left one service member missing in Jordan, Iran carried out three other strikes against US forces in the country.
Those attacks injured dozens of US service members and damaged several helicopters, according to several US officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters.
But the Pentagon did not disclose the earlier strikes, nor the casualties and damage they inflicted.
The Pentagon's failure to disclose full information about US casualties is not a new development.
In the early days of the war, Defense Department officials said fewer than a dozen American troops had been injured before abruptly acknowledging that more than 140 had been wounded after Reuters obtained the full figures.
After six American soldiers were killed during the war's opening salvo, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth derided the press's inquiries about the number of casualties, claiming they were only seeking "to make the president look bad."
The Intercept's Nick Turse found in April that US Central Command (CENTCOM) had repeatedly sent outdated and incomplete casualty figures to journalists in what one defense official referred to as a "casualty cover-up."
As of April 1, Turse reported that more than 520 US troops had been injured, including more than 200 sailors being treated for smoke inhalation, without acknowledgment from the government.
Last week—prior to the deaths of two US soldiers in Jordan—CENTCOM said that a total of 414 service members had been injured since the war began, mostly from traumatic brain injuries. In total, 17 US personnel have now been killed, according to official counts.
CENTCOM spokesperson Maj. Emma Thompson said last week that she had no update on how many troops were seriously wounded, but claimed that "almost all" of those injured had returned to duty. She also did not say how many troops had been wounded enough to be evacuated from the region.
The Times report notes that CENTCOM is not required to disclose information about injured US service members publicly. And one military official argued that doing so would provide Iran with free information that would leave the US vulnerable to further attacks.
However, it does speak to the Trump administration's ever-growing secrecy as it threatens to dramatically expand the unpopular conflict.
As the Times noted, the Pentagon has provided little information about the war in recent months, and the last major press briefing on the war took place in early May.
The administration has blown past its initial promises to end its operation against Iran in a matter of weeks and avoid a "forever war." The conflict is now into its fifth month with no end in sight.
The Washington Post and Wall Street Journal reported this weekend that in an effort to break Iran's control of the Strait of Hormuz—where it began to restrict travel in response to the US-Israeli war—Trump is planning a "wider war" that may include a possible ground invasion of Kharg Island and other Iranian territory along the strait.
Experts have estimated that efforts to capture and occupy Iran's coastline would likely require hundreds of thousands of troops.
"The Titanic is now hitting the iceberg and there are not enough lifeboats for the world economy," said one observer.
Houthi rebels in Yemen on Monday announced they were imposing a maritime embargo against Saudi Arabia in yet another threat to global petroleum supplies amid the US war on Iran.
Yahya Saree, spokesperson for the Houthis, said in a video announcement that the militia would be enforcing the shipping embargo in retaliation for last week's bombing of Sanaa Airport, which the group blamed on the Saudis.
BREAKING: Yemen's Houthis announce 'sea navigation ban' on Saudi Arabia. pic.twitter.com/HDzghEi9Ct
— Clash Report (@clashreport) July 20, 2026
After Iran shut down the Strait of Hormuz in response to US President Donald Trump's illegal war of choice earlier this year, global oil markets became even more dependent on shipping supplies through the Strait of Bab al-Mandeb, a waterway adjacent to the coast of Yemen.
According to Javier Blas, energy and commodities columnist at Bloomberg, Saudi Arabia has been shipping roughly 4.5 million barrels of oil per day through shipping channels in the Red Sea, with "most of it" traveling through the Strait of Bab al-Mandeb.
The Houthis' announcement of an embargo against the Saudis comes as the US has continued burning through its crude inventories.
Data released by US Energy Information Administration revealed that US crude inventories fell by 1.7 million barrels over the week ending July 10, leaving stocks at their lowest level since 1983.
University of Chicago political scientist Robert Pape warned that the Houthis shutting down another vital global shipping lane could be a disaster for the global economy given that it could mean a "loss of another 4 to 5 million [oil] barrels a day."
"The Titanic is now hitting the iceberg," Pape added, "and there are not enough lifeboats for the world economy."
Nicholas Grossman, professor of international relations at the University of Illinois, noted that there are now multiple factors throttling global energy shipments.
"Iran blocking Strait of Hormuz," Grossman wrote. "US blocking Iranian shipping. Iran bombing energy facilities in Gulf Arab states. US bombing energy facilities in Iran. Ukraine bombing energy facilities in Russia. Houthis disrupting Red Sea shipping. Oil and gas reserves running dry. It's a lot, and adding up."
Juliette Kayyem, senior lecturer at Harvard's Kennedy School and a former Obama administration official, wrote that the potential shutdown of global energy supplies should make US policymakers rethink what they can achieve using American military force.
"A bunch of military and conventional wisdom analysts assured the American public that our air dominance was unparalleled," wrote Kayyem. "The 'never right but always certain' crowd didn’t realize the war was going to be fought on water."
"The Trump DOJ’s grotesque retreat from corporate crime enforcement leaves Americans increasingly vulnerable to tainted food, workplace exploitation, environmental destruction, widespread ripoffs, and all-around illegal corporate predation."
US President Donald Trump's Justice Department is systematically taking a softer approach to corporate crime, letting companies and executives that have admitted to wrongdoing off the hook with no charges.
The Wall Street Journal reported over the weekend that "so far this year, 12 companies have pleaded guilty to federal criminal charges. At least six companies have reached deferred prosecution agreements, including refiner Phillips 66 and medical-waste specialist Stericycle, acquired by Waste Management in 2024." The Journal added that while Acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche and other officials have signaled that the Justice Department is "focusing on prosecuting employees rather than companies, it has also granted leniency or dropped charges against people it accused of wrongdoing."
"The Trump DOJ’s grotesque retreat from corporate crime enforcement leaves Americans increasingly vulnerable to tainted food, workplace exploitation, environmental destruction, widespread ripoffs, and all-around illegal corporate predation," said Rick Claypool, a researcher at the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen who has been tracking the fall of corporate enforcement during Trump's second White House term—which has been rife with corruption and profiteering at the very top.
Claypool called the Trump Justice Department's lenient approach to corporate criminals "an absolute outrage" and that the trend is "going from bad to worse."
The Journal lays out several examples of the Justice Department abandoning enforcement efforts against prominent companies. "In matters involving Alibaba, EagleBank, and Abbott Laboratories, the department declined to charge companies even when prosecutors thought executives or managers were involved in the wrongdoing," the newspaper reported. "In those cases, the department didn’t charge any individuals."
"The Justice Department this year dropped its long-running prosecution of Turkish state-owned lender Halkbank for allegedly evading US sanctions on Iran," the Journal added. "And last year, the Trump administration dropped charges against Boeing. The aerospace giant had been set to plead guilty to misleading air-safety regulators but instead paid a $243 million fine and received a nonprosecution agreement. That is the same form of leniency that prosecutors granted to Alibaba and EagleBank, which requires them to admit wrongdoing but spares them from being charged."
Trump's DOJ has also shown lenience toward corporate executives. "The department in January gave a deferred prosecution agreement to the chief executive of a technology contractor who had been charged with defrauding the Securities and Exchange Commission," the Journal reported.
Bloomberg reported last week that the Justice Department plans to drop charges against "alleged mastermind of a cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme that prosecutors said defrauded investors of $722 million."
According to Public Citizen's tracker, the second Trump administration has canceled or frozen enforcement actions against more than 170 US corporations so far—including dozens of companies that donated to the president's inaugural fund.
“The Trump administration is canceling accountability for corporate predators that cheat consumers, exploit workers, and illegally abuse their power at home and abroad,” Claypool said earlier this year. “The ‘law enforcement’ claims the White House uses as pretext for authoritarian anti-immigrant crackdowns, city occupations, and imperial resource seizures abroad lose all credibility when cast against the lawlessness Trump allows for the pursuit of corporate profits."
"We may be approaching the most significant escalation in the US-Iran confrontation since February," warned one analyst.
US President Donald Trump is reportedly planning to expand his illegal, historically unpopular war in Iran as the prospects of a diplomatic resolution crumble, with the American military bombarding the Middle East nation for the ninth consecutive night on Sunday.
An unnamed US official told The Washington Post on Sunday that the Trump administration is "planning for a wider war" in Iran, though the official warned that US forces likely lack the weapons capacity to "safely sustain operations." The official said they don't believe that "the White House is aware of that."
The anonymous official's comments corroborated reporting last week indicating that Trump, who has not sought or received congressional authorization for the Iran war, is leaning toward expanding the assault, possibly with ground forces.
"Trump hosted a Situation Room meeting Tuesday evening to discuss the potential seizure of Kharg Island and other territory along the Strait of Hormuz using US troops, as well as the potential bombing of a tunnel complex at Pickaxe Mountain, a nuclear-linked site the US has yet to target," The Wall Street Journal reported. "Expanding airstrikes against more targets in Iran, including energy sites, also remains a possibility."
Trump, who claimed in late March that the war was just "two or three weeks" away from being over, has repeatedly declined to rule out deploying American ground forces to Iran. Over the weekend, three US troops were killed in the region—two by an Iranian ballistic missile attack in Jordan, and another during a "controlled detonation of unexploded ordnance" in Iraq.
"We feel very badly," Trump said of the deaths, which brought the total number of US personnel killed during the Iran war to 17. Thousands of Iranians have been killed and millions displaced by the US-led assault.
Pentagon leaders have not publicly briefed the American people or the press on the status of the war in over two months. Earlier this month, Trump declared that a ceasefire deal with Iran which sought to pave the way for a negotiated resolution to the war was "over."
The US Central Command said late Sunday that American forces "targeted Iranian military command centers, air defense and coastal surveillance sites, maritime capabilities, missile and drone launch sites, and communications networks" during its latest wave of airstrikes. The US military has also targeted bridges, power facilities, and other civilian infrastructure during recent attacks, prompting Iranian retaliatory strikes on American installations in the region.
"This dynamic creates the possibility of dangerous strategic miscalculation on all sides," the National Iranian American Council warned on Sunday. "Policymakers in Washington and regional capitals may underestimate Iran’s willingness to absorb sustained losses. Conversely, Iranian leaders may underestimate the willingness of the United States and its partners to sustain a prolonged military campaign if they conclude that Tehran is deliberately regionalizing the conflict."
Hamidreza Azizi, a visiting fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, argued that recent US attacks along Iran's southern coastline "increasingly suggest a gradual but persistent US movement toward a possible ground operation in southern Iran."
"If such an approach exists, it would go well beyond earlier ideas centered on seizing Kharg Island to cut off Iran’s oil exports or occupying islands overlooking the Strait [of Hormuz] to secure maritime traffic," Azizi wrote. "However, given the length of Iran’s southern coastline—roughly 1,800 kilometers—and the country’s considerable strategic depth, establishing comprehensive control would likely require hundreds of thousands of troops."
"Current indicators suggest that we may be approaching the most significant escalation in the US-Iran confrontation since February," Azizi added.
The reported change would grant "pure impunity for ICE to do horrible things," said one journalist.
New guidance distributed to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents across the country in recent days said that the FBI will no longer investigate confrontations that officers have with protesters or people who are subjected to immigration enforcement—leaving the agency to investigate its own violent encounters with the public following at least two recent killings by ICE agents.
The guidance pertained to claims of assault against Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officers, but FBI investigations have gathered evidence that implicated agents themselves after they claimed to have been attacked.
According to the message sent to ICE officers, Homeland Security Investigations, which operates under ICE, would begin examining incidents in which an agent claimed they were assaulted.
HSI does not have jurisdiction to investigate allegations of civil rights allegations, so in cases in which a confrontation escalates to a use of force by an officer, the unit would be unlikely to investigate whether the agent violated the victim's rights, The New York Times reported.
"The fox is guarding the hen house," said American Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the reported change.
Despite the guidance that was circulated to agents, the US Department of Justice, which oversees the FBI, released a joint statement with DHS denying that the change would take place.
“The relationship between DHS and DOJ in investigating assault on federal officer cases has not changed, and FBI will continue to investigate in accordance with agency policy,” the statement said. “This administration has been clear, anyone who assaults law enforcement will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
According to a New York Times investigation, the Trump administration filed charges against more than 550 people who it said assaulted federal immigration officers. More than 400 of the cases had been resolved, and in nearly half of them, charges of assault had been thrown out or withdrawn, or the defendants had been acquitted.
As it's filed such charges, the Trump administration has frequently repeated its assertion that federal agents are regularly facing violent attacks from the public—including in cases in which agents have killed US citizens and immigrants, including Renee Good, Alex Pretti, and earlier this month, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo.
The reported change was also made public less than a week after an ICE agent fatally shot Johan Sebastián Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine.
Journalist Sam Stein said the guidance that was given to federal agents could grant "pure impunity for ICE to do horrible things."
"When the stakes are so high," said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, "is the answer to our problems to turn to the same playbook over and over again?"
Ahead of early voting in Michigan's Democratic US Senate primary, candidate and Medicare for All advocate Abdul El-Sayed was joined in Detroit Saturday evening by progressive leaders, including Sen. Bernie Sanders and Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, for a rally titled: "The People vs. The Powerful."
The senator declared to 1,600 attendees that the choice in the primary is not simply between El-Sayed and his opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens.
"In all due respect to Congresswoman Stevens, everyone knows that this is not an election between her and Abdul El-Sayed," said the Vermont Independent senator. "This is an election between Abdul and the billionaire class."
Sanders: In all due respect to Congresswoman Stevens, everyone knows that this is not an election between her and Abdul El-Sayed. This is an election between Abdul and the billionaire class. That is what this election is about.
A billionaire class which has already—and there are… pic.twitter.com/BPZ9NSar4d
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 18, 2026
The final weeks of the primary, in which Michigan voters will go to the polls on August 4, have been marked by reports of massive outside spending in favor of Stevens and against El-Sayed, who has made the refrain, "Money out of politics, money in your pocket, and Medicare for All" the central message of his campaign.
As Common Dreams reported last week, El-Sayed led the way in fundraising in the second quarter of 2026, bringing in $4.6 million while Stevens raised $2.2 million.
But Federal Election Commission (FEC) campaign finance filings showed that outside spending by people and groups supporting Stevens has soared to an estimated $50 million, according to an analysis by Punchbowl News.
"More than half of the total ($28.4 million) is coming from United Democracy Project (UDP)," said congressional reporter Ally Mutnick, referring to the super political action committee (PAC) affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which has also backed the vehemently pro-Israel Stevens in the past.
UDP acknowledged last week that it had spent nearly $15 million on the Michigan Senate primary race so far, including $9.3 million in support of Stevens and $5.7 million against El-Sayed.
El-Sayed is a strong supporter of Palestinian rights and—like a growing majority of Democratic voters after more than two years of Israel's assault on Gaza—has called for the US to end military aid to Israel.
In recent weeks he has responded to reporters' frequent questions on his views about whether Israel has a "right to exist," by asking whether Palestine has a right to exist and, in a Sunday interview with CNN's Jake Tapper, saying that a more pertinent question for American voters is whether Israel has "a right to our tax dollars."
Does Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed think there’s room in the Democratic Party for both supporters and opponents of Israel?
EL-SAYED: “There's always room in the tent for folks. And I'm for human rights. I'm for equal rights to peace, dignity, and self-determination.… pic.twitter.com/Amfvsnmx6J
— State of the Union (@CNNSOTU) July 19, 2026
At the rally on Saturday night, Sanders said that AIPAC's focus on funding Stevens' campaign "has everything to do with the fact that they understand that Abdul and I, and the vast majority of the American people, want a foreign policy that is based on morality and decency."
"This is an election that will show the nation whether AIPAC and other billionaire-funded super PACs can spend tens and tens and tens of millions of dollars to buy a US Senate seat, or whether, within a corrupt campaign finance system, the voices of ordinary Americans—the people of Michigan—can prevail," said Sanders. "That is what this campaign is all about. It is about democracy versus oligarchy, and we are on the side of democracy."
Sanders: Why is the whole country looking at this election? In fact, people all over the world are watching what’s going on here in Michigan.
And the answer is that this is an election that will show the nation whether AIPAC and other billionaire-funded super PACs can spend tens… pic.twitter.com/ALMk10YzJu
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 18, 2026
Ocasio-Cortez noted that the contest between El-Sayed and Stevens comes as Americans are struggling to afford groceries, gas, and other essentials while President Donald Trump continues his war against Iran, dismisses working families' financial struggles, and insists the federal government cannot afford to provide universal public services.
"When the stakes are so high, when more people than ever are living so close to the bone, eventually we have to ask ourselves: Is the answer to our problems to turn to the same playbook over and over again?" said Ocasio-Cortez. "A playbook that says, in order to win, Democrats must rely on the same dark money—$50 million and counting—from the same people who backed 35 election deniers to Congress who voted to overturn the 2020 election?"
"I believe Michiganders—Democrats, Republicans, and independents—believe that good leadership swings for the fences," said the congresswoman, who has been named as a potential presidential or US Senate candidate in 2028. "Good leadership gets big money out of our system. It takes on the corruption that blocks commonsense solutions that lift working people. And, by the way, it helps not to take their money in the first place."
AOC: When the stakes are so high, when more people than ever are living so close to the bone, eventually we have to ask ourselves:
Is the answer to our problems to turn to the same playbook over and over again? A playbook that says, in order to win, Democrats must rely on the… pic.twitter.com/oqIaQzSQfH
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 18, 2026
"We can choose to reward the $50 million in dark money by voting their way—which, by the way Michigan—do you think that $50 million is for free?" continued Ocasio-Cortez. "Do you think it’s an act of charity? We know how this works. There’s $50 million in this race because they’re expecting a return. It’s an investment... So we can choose that or we can choose Dr. Abdul El-Sayed for the United States Senate."
On Sunday, as El-Sayed and his high-profile supporters in Congress prepared to rally more voters in Grand Rapids and Lansing, CNN reported that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY) had confronted Sanders in a phone call, complaining about his "meddling" in primary elections.
"The candidates we are supporting are candidates who are representing working people, and I think it's a long time overdue for the Democratic Party to stop worrying about their wealthy campaign funders and start worrying about the needs of working people," Sanders told CNN.
CNN correspondent Seung Min Kim suggested that Stevens is seen by Democratic leaders as a safer bet to win the general election in Michigan in a crucial election year. But recent polls have shown her views on Israel and her support from AIPAC, as well as her donations from the for-profit health insurance industry and her opposition to Medicare for All, could harm, not help, Stevens.
Along with big spending from the pro-Israel lobby, the primary race has been characterized in recent weeks by El-Sayed's call for social media users to refrain from mocking and making personal attacks against Stevens and to focus instead on the issues at the center of the campaign, as well as recent Islamophobic vitriol against El-Sayed, including from Sen. John Fetterman (D-Penn.).
Fetterman told Fox News Saturday that El-Sayed is "essentially, a pro-Hamas candidate that's been anti-American and deeply anti-Israel," adding that "44% of Muslims, you know, they have positive views of Hamas."
Journalist Prem Thakker of Zeteo News called on Stevens to "condemn this racist and Islamophobic rhetoric coming from your allies," as El-Sayed had earlier called for civility from his own supporters.
El-Sayed pointed to the recent attacks at the rally, saying his opponents "have taken to calling me 'dangerous.'"
"If you're a worker who wants our economy to work for you, I'm not dangerous," said El-Sayed. "If you're someone sitting in medical debt, wondering what your financial future is because you deigned to see a doctor in the richest, most powerful country in the world, if you're that person, I'm not dangerous."
El-Sayed: They’ve taken to calling me dangerous.
If you’re a worker who wants our economy to work for you, I’m not dangerous.
If you’re AIPAC and want to send our money abroad, you damn well better believe I’m dangerous.
If you’re Chuck Schumer and want to keep doling out… pic.twitter.com/S7HhzThsST
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 18, 2026
"But if you're Blue Cross Blue Shield shareholders, yep, I'm dangerous!" he added. "If you’re AIPAC and want to send our money abroad, you damn well better believe I’m dangerous. If you’re Chuck Schumer and want to keep doling out corporate money to elect people who are going to do your bidding, I am so damn dangerous!"
"If you're somebody who wants government to work for you," El-Sayed said, "I aim to be the best friend you ever had."