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Top campaign staffers for Bernie Sanders held a press call Monday, and the message was positive. The senator, they said, is doing well and won the last debate. And polls show, they added, that the country cares about his favored issues, particularly health care.
But that's not always, his staff noted pointedly to listening reporters, reflected in the coverage.
"It seems like there's a direct correlation," said senior advisor Jeff Weaver, who was on the call alongside campaign co-chair and Ohio state senator Nina Turner and pollster Ben Tulchin. "The better [Sanders] does, the less coverage he receives. The worse he does, the more."
Sanders still can't walk in a straight line without attracting negative press. A New York Times story this week about Bernie's trip to the Iowa state fair dinged him for having "power-walked by the Ferris Wheel" and "gobbled a corn dog" during a journey in which he "spoke to almost no one." This, reporter Sydney Ember concluded, underscored the peril of a campaign based on ideas rather than "establishing human connections."
The Times wrote the same story four years ago, when Bernie's crime was walking down 6th Avenue, "swinging hands with his wife, Jane," and "talking as little as possible to people." Observing that Bernie signed the cast of a 9 year-old girl without schmoozing her undecided-voter father, reporter Patrick Healy concluded he was "surprisingly impersonal." Headline: "Bernie Sanders does not kiss babies. That a problem?"
While Sanders can't eat a corn dog without taking a hit, frontrunner Joe Biden is testing the limits of editorial slack. Biden struggles constantly with bizarre or flat-out inappropriate statements, an issue that goes beyond the speech impediment he had as a child. This year he's putting together a George W. Bushian mashupof goofs,with "We choose truth over facts!" and the more troubling "poor kids are just as talented as white kids!" the latest. Tweeting about Biden's lack of a "full deck" seems among Donald Trump's favorite things to do of late, an ominous sign for a potential general election.
Biden's gaffes have earned press, some negative (he's "raising questions" about "electability," says The Hill), but some defiant (the idea that gaffes are important in the Trump age is "particularly offensive," says aWashington Post columnist). The question of whether Biden's verbal fumbles deserve censure, laughter, or a break has become the prevailing controversy around the front-runner.
Meanwhile the larger issue of what Biden's politics are, and whether they're an improvement over the platform that lost to Trump four years ago, recedes. Even Sanders has seemed unsure if he should or shouldn't throw his trademark vituperation at his old Senate colleague.
A Hill/HarrisX poll from last week had Bernie as the second choice of 27% of Biden voters, with Kamala Harris second at 15%, Beto O'Rourke third, Pete Buttigieg fourth, and Elizabeth Warren fifth at 8%. An April Morning Consult survey likewise had Sanders as the second choice of 31% of Biden voters, again followed by Harris (13%), with Warren third at 10%.
The second choice of most Sanders voters, meanwhile,is Biden, not Warren.
Basically, Biden is taking working-class votes away from Sanders, and Sanders has seemed slow to grasp this.
The strength of Bernie Sanders as a politician has always been his believability as a bringer of change. His unsparing attitude on the stump has always been a part of this formula. Whether or not you feel Bernie has the right policy prescription, there's no doubt what side of things he's on. His distaste for insurance companies, tech plutocrats like Jeff Bezos, fast food chains, Disney, bankers, the "mainstream media," corporate cash-gobbling pols in both parties, and other vermin is too visceral and obvious to miss.
In 2016, Bernie's disagreements with Hillary Clinton were profound. He stressed he was a different kind of person than Clinton, not just someone who clashed on policy.
"The first difference is I don't take money from big banks," he said. Another oft-quoted line: "I am proud to say Henry Kissinger is not my friend," a reference to Hillary Clinton saying she was "flattered" by Kissinger's praise.
2020 is different. Sanders has long referred to Biden has his friend. In 2016, Biden was one of few conventional Democrats to make an effort to say nice things about Sanders, even in contrast with Clinton.
This exchange with CNN's Gloria Borger in January of 2016 was an example:
BIDEN: Bernie is speaking to a yearning that is deep and real, and he has credibility on it. And that is the absolutely enormous concentration of wealth in a small group of people with the middle class being left out...
CNN: But Hillary is talking about that as well?
BIDEN: Well, it is relatively new for Hillary to talk about that...
Sanders, raised by Jewish immigrants in Brooklyn, grew up in much meaner circumstances than Biden, but their backgrounds aren't dissimilar. Biden is the son of a down-on-his-luck car dealership manager from Scranton, and has a reputation as an old-school church-and-factory man, who enjoys hanging out in diners and bowling alleys.
While reporters who cover Biden have long understood the "Scranton Joe" image to be as much caricature as reality, voters don't see it that way.
The Malcolm Gladwell/Blink response many Democrats, particularly older ones, have to Biden is that he's an affable, try-hard representative of the little guy. Biden sells himself as a "union man" who eschews the Martha's Vineyard-and-Davos image of neoliberal Democrats.
Intellectually, the Sanders campaign has pushed back. In April, after Biden displaced him from the poll lead, Bernie went on TV to talk about his policy differences with Biden.
He seemed put out that Biden kicked off his campaign with an endorsement from the International Association of Fire Fighters. Sanders, who's described his campaign as a Trade Unionist revolution, pointed to Biden's support of trademark union betrayals like NAFTA, Most Favored Nation trading status for China, and the Trans Pacific Partnership.
But Bernie hastened to remind everyone he and Biden were friends, and he would run an "issue-oriented campaign, not based on personal attacks." He has since tried repeatedly to draw civil distinctions between himself and Biden, including a July clash over health care.
In a typical example of how Biden's political style works, he trashed Bernie's Medicare for All plan in a rambling, inscrutable speech that asked audience members who'd lost loved ones to terminal illnesses to raise their hands. Then he said:
Every second counts. It's not about a year, it's about the day, the week, the month, the next six months. It's about hope. And if you have these hiatuses, it may, it may -- this may go as smooth -- as my grandpappy said -- smooth as silk. But the truth of the matter is, it's likely to be a bumpy ride...
Underneath all the homespun "grandpappy" verbiage, Biden seemed to be suggesting the Sanders plan would create coverage "hiatuses" for people who might literally die any second. Underneath the oddball messaging, it was a classic corporate scare-tactic talking point.
The Sanders camp pushed back, but Bernie still didn't name Biden when he countered soon after in a speech at George Washington University blasting "half-truths, misinformation and in some cases outright lies that are being spread about Medicare for All."
Sanders has a million volunteers, 2.5 million contributors, and a campaign-leading $27.3 million in cash on hand. His campaign is correct this week to point out that rumors of his demise are absurd. Still, he's not wildly outperforming expectations the way he did in 2016.
Some of his issues are due to coverage, like the insistence that Sanders and Warren are fighting over the same finite patch of votes, when polls increasingly show Sanders and Warren are succeeding with different groups.
Warren has made inroads among traditional Democrats and older female voters who eluded Sanders last time, suggesting that there's more support for progressive policy ideas out there than commonly believed. While Warren has votes to win among the supporters of Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg (whose supporters view Warren as a second choice), Bernie's immediate challenge is Biden, in particular his grip on low-income voters.
Biden's appeal is that he's a vote for a return to a kind of status quo, which should be a pitch in Bernie's wheelhouse. Sanders' campaign is based on the notion that a return even to pre-Trump norms is unsustainable - for the underinsured, for the climate, for union and non-union workers, for customers of banks, for holders of student debt, and so on.
Hillary Clinton, with her defiant "that's what they offered" response to questions about bank-funded speaking fees, made finding outrage on this front easy for Sanders. The conundrum of "Scranton Joe" is no less real, but it's been politically more difficult, and Sanders is running out of time to solve it.
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Top campaign staffers for Bernie Sanders held a press call Monday, and the message was positive. The senator, they said, is doing well and won the last debate. And polls show, they added, that the country cares about his favored issues, particularly health care.
But that's not always, his staff noted pointedly to listening reporters, reflected in the coverage.
"It seems like there's a direct correlation," said senior advisor Jeff Weaver, who was on the call alongside campaign co-chair and Ohio state senator Nina Turner and pollster Ben Tulchin. "The better [Sanders] does, the less coverage he receives. The worse he does, the more."
Sanders still can't walk in a straight line without attracting negative press. A New York Times story this week about Bernie's trip to the Iowa state fair dinged him for having "power-walked by the Ferris Wheel" and "gobbled a corn dog" during a journey in which he "spoke to almost no one." This, reporter Sydney Ember concluded, underscored the peril of a campaign based on ideas rather than "establishing human connections."
The Times wrote the same story four years ago, when Bernie's crime was walking down 6th Avenue, "swinging hands with his wife, Jane," and "talking as little as possible to people." Observing that Bernie signed the cast of a 9 year-old girl without schmoozing her undecided-voter father, reporter Patrick Healy concluded he was "surprisingly impersonal." Headline: "Bernie Sanders does not kiss babies. That a problem?"
While Sanders can't eat a corn dog without taking a hit, frontrunner Joe Biden is testing the limits of editorial slack. Biden struggles constantly with bizarre or flat-out inappropriate statements, an issue that goes beyond the speech impediment he had as a child. This year he's putting together a George W. Bushian mashupof goofs,with "We choose truth over facts!" and the more troubling "poor kids are just as talented as white kids!" the latest. Tweeting about Biden's lack of a "full deck" seems among Donald Trump's favorite things to do of late, an ominous sign for a potential general election.
Biden's gaffes have earned press, some negative (he's "raising questions" about "electability," says The Hill), but some defiant (the idea that gaffes are important in the Trump age is "particularly offensive," says aWashington Post columnist). The question of whether Biden's verbal fumbles deserve censure, laughter, or a break has become the prevailing controversy around the front-runner.
Meanwhile the larger issue of what Biden's politics are, and whether they're an improvement over the platform that lost to Trump four years ago, recedes. Even Sanders has seemed unsure if he should or shouldn't throw his trademark vituperation at his old Senate colleague.
A Hill/HarrisX poll from last week had Bernie as the second choice of 27% of Biden voters, with Kamala Harris second at 15%, Beto O'Rourke third, Pete Buttigieg fourth, and Elizabeth Warren fifth at 8%. An April Morning Consult survey likewise had Sanders as the second choice of 31% of Biden voters, again followed by Harris (13%), with Warren third at 10%.
The second choice of most Sanders voters, meanwhile,is Biden, not Warren.
Basically, Biden is taking working-class votes away from Sanders, and Sanders has seemed slow to grasp this.
The strength of Bernie Sanders as a politician has always been his believability as a bringer of change. His unsparing attitude on the stump has always been a part of this formula. Whether or not you feel Bernie has the right policy prescription, there's no doubt what side of things he's on. His distaste for insurance companies, tech plutocrats like Jeff Bezos, fast food chains, Disney, bankers, the "mainstream media," corporate cash-gobbling pols in both parties, and other vermin is too visceral and obvious to miss.
In 2016, Bernie's disagreements with Hillary Clinton were profound. He stressed he was a different kind of person than Clinton, not just someone who clashed on policy.
"The first difference is I don't take money from big banks," he said. Another oft-quoted line: "I am proud to say Henry Kissinger is not my friend," a reference to Hillary Clinton saying she was "flattered" by Kissinger's praise.
2020 is different. Sanders has long referred to Biden has his friend. In 2016, Biden was one of few conventional Democrats to make an effort to say nice things about Sanders, even in contrast with Clinton.
This exchange with CNN's Gloria Borger in January of 2016 was an example:
BIDEN: Bernie is speaking to a yearning that is deep and real, and he has credibility on it. And that is the absolutely enormous concentration of wealth in a small group of people with the middle class being left out...
CNN: But Hillary is talking about that as well?
BIDEN: Well, it is relatively new for Hillary to talk about that...
Sanders, raised by Jewish immigrants in Brooklyn, grew up in much meaner circumstances than Biden, but their backgrounds aren't dissimilar. Biden is the son of a down-on-his-luck car dealership manager from Scranton, and has a reputation as an old-school church-and-factory man, who enjoys hanging out in diners and bowling alleys.
While reporters who cover Biden have long understood the "Scranton Joe" image to be as much caricature as reality, voters don't see it that way.
The Malcolm Gladwell/Blink response many Democrats, particularly older ones, have to Biden is that he's an affable, try-hard representative of the little guy. Biden sells himself as a "union man" who eschews the Martha's Vineyard-and-Davos image of neoliberal Democrats.
Intellectually, the Sanders campaign has pushed back. In April, after Biden displaced him from the poll lead, Bernie went on TV to talk about his policy differences with Biden.
He seemed put out that Biden kicked off his campaign with an endorsement from the International Association of Fire Fighters. Sanders, who's described his campaign as a Trade Unionist revolution, pointed to Biden's support of trademark union betrayals like NAFTA, Most Favored Nation trading status for China, and the Trans Pacific Partnership.
But Bernie hastened to remind everyone he and Biden were friends, and he would run an "issue-oriented campaign, not based on personal attacks." He has since tried repeatedly to draw civil distinctions between himself and Biden, including a July clash over health care.
In a typical example of how Biden's political style works, he trashed Bernie's Medicare for All plan in a rambling, inscrutable speech that asked audience members who'd lost loved ones to terminal illnesses to raise their hands. Then he said:
Every second counts. It's not about a year, it's about the day, the week, the month, the next six months. It's about hope. And if you have these hiatuses, it may, it may -- this may go as smooth -- as my grandpappy said -- smooth as silk. But the truth of the matter is, it's likely to be a bumpy ride...
Underneath all the homespun "grandpappy" verbiage, Biden seemed to be suggesting the Sanders plan would create coverage "hiatuses" for people who might literally die any second. Underneath the oddball messaging, it was a classic corporate scare-tactic talking point.
The Sanders camp pushed back, but Bernie still didn't name Biden when he countered soon after in a speech at George Washington University blasting "half-truths, misinformation and in some cases outright lies that are being spread about Medicare for All."
Sanders has a million volunteers, 2.5 million contributors, and a campaign-leading $27.3 million in cash on hand. His campaign is correct this week to point out that rumors of his demise are absurd. Still, he's not wildly outperforming expectations the way he did in 2016.
Some of his issues are due to coverage, like the insistence that Sanders and Warren are fighting over the same finite patch of votes, when polls increasingly show Sanders and Warren are succeeding with different groups.
Warren has made inroads among traditional Democrats and older female voters who eluded Sanders last time, suggesting that there's more support for progressive policy ideas out there than commonly believed. While Warren has votes to win among the supporters of Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg (whose supporters view Warren as a second choice), Bernie's immediate challenge is Biden, in particular his grip on low-income voters.
Biden's appeal is that he's a vote for a return to a kind of status quo, which should be a pitch in Bernie's wheelhouse. Sanders' campaign is based on the notion that a return even to pre-Trump norms is unsustainable - for the underinsured, for the climate, for union and non-union workers, for customers of banks, for holders of student debt, and so on.
Hillary Clinton, with her defiant "that's what they offered" response to questions about bank-funded speaking fees, made finding outrage on this front easy for Sanders. The conundrum of "Scranton Joe" is no less real, but it's been politically more difficult, and Sanders is running out of time to solve it.
Top campaign staffers for Bernie Sanders held a press call Monday, and the message was positive. The senator, they said, is doing well and won the last debate. And polls show, they added, that the country cares about his favored issues, particularly health care.
But that's not always, his staff noted pointedly to listening reporters, reflected in the coverage.
"It seems like there's a direct correlation," said senior advisor Jeff Weaver, who was on the call alongside campaign co-chair and Ohio state senator Nina Turner and pollster Ben Tulchin. "The better [Sanders] does, the less coverage he receives. The worse he does, the more."
Sanders still can't walk in a straight line without attracting negative press. A New York Times story this week about Bernie's trip to the Iowa state fair dinged him for having "power-walked by the Ferris Wheel" and "gobbled a corn dog" during a journey in which he "spoke to almost no one." This, reporter Sydney Ember concluded, underscored the peril of a campaign based on ideas rather than "establishing human connections."
The Times wrote the same story four years ago, when Bernie's crime was walking down 6th Avenue, "swinging hands with his wife, Jane," and "talking as little as possible to people." Observing that Bernie signed the cast of a 9 year-old girl without schmoozing her undecided-voter father, reporter Patrick Healy concluded he was "surprisingly impersonal." Headline: "Bernie Sanders does not kiss babies. That a problem?"
While Sanders can't eat a corn dog without taking a hit, frontrunner Joe Biden is testing the limits of editorial slack. Biden struggles constantly with bizarre or flat-out inappropriate statements, an issue that goes beyond the speech impediment he had as a child. This year he's putting together a George W. Bushian mashupof goofs,with "We choose truth over facts!" and the more troubling "poor kids are just as talented as white kids!" the latest. Tweeting about Biden's lack of a "full deck" seems among Donald Trump's favorite things to do of late, an ominous sign for a potential general election.
Biden's gaffes have earned press, some negative (he's "raising questions" about "electability," says The Hill), but some defiant (the idea that gaffes are important in the Trump age is "particularly offensive," says aWashington Post columnist). The question of whether Biden's verbal fumbles deserve censure, laughter, or a break has become the prevailing controversy around the front-runner.
Meanwhile the larger issue of what Biden's politics are, and whether they're an improvement over the platform that lost to Trump four years ago, recedes. Even Sanders has seemed unsure if he should or shouldn't throw his trademark vituperation at his old Senate colleague.
A Hill/HarrisX poll from last week had Bernie as the second choice of 27% of Biden voters, with Kamala Harris second at 15%, Beto O'Rourke third, Pete Buttigieg fourth, and Elizabeth Warren fifth at 8%. An April Morning Consult survey likewise had Sanders as the second choice of 31% of Biden voters, again followed by Harris (13%), with Warren third at 10%.
The second choice of most Sanders voters, meanwhile,is Biden, not Warren.
Basically, Biden is taking working-class votes away from Sanders, and Sanders has seemed slow to grasp this.
The strength of Bernie Sanders as a politician has always been his believability as a bringer of change. His unsparing attitude on the stump has always been a part of this formula. Whether or not you feel Bernie has the right policy prescription, there's no doubt what side of things he's on. His distaste for insurance companies, tech plutocrats like Jeff Bezos, fast food chains, Disney, bankers, the "mainstream media," corporate cash-gobbling pols in both parties, and other vermin is too visceral and obvious to miss.
In 2016, Bernie's disagreements with Hillary Clinton were profound. He stressed he was a different kind of person than Clinton, not just someone who clashed on policy.
"The first difference is I don't take money from big banks," he said. Another oft-quoted line: "I am proud to say Henry Kissinger is not my friend," a reference to Hillary Clinton saying she was "flattered" by Kissinger's praise.
2020 is different. Sanders has long referred to Biden has his friend. In 2016, Biden was one of few conventional Democrats to make an effort to say nice things about Sanders, even in contrast with Clinton.
This exchange with CNN's Gloria Borger in January of 2016 was an example:
BIDEN: Bernie is speaking to a yearning that is deep and real, and he has credibility on it. And that is the absolutely enormous concentration of wealth in a small group of people with the middle class being left out...
CNN: But Hillary is talking about that as well?
BIDEN: Well, it is relatively new for Hillary to talk about that...
Sanders, raised by Jewish immigrants in Brooklyn, grew up in much meaner circumstances than Biden, but their backgrounds aren't dissimilar. Biden is the son of a down-on-his-luck car dealership manager from Scranton, and has a reputation as an old-school church-and-factory man, who enjoys hanging out in diners and bowling alleys.
While reporters who cover Biden have long understood the "Scranton Joe" image to be as much caricature as reality, voters don't see it that way.
The Malcolm Gladwell/Blink response many Democrats, particularly older ones, have to Biden is that he's an affable, try-hard representative of the little guy. Biden sells himself as a "union man" who eschews the Martha's Vineyard-and-Davos image of neoliberal Democrats.
Intellectually, the Sanders campaign has pushed back. In April, after Biden displaced him from the poll lead, Bernie went on TV to talk about his policy differences with Biden.
He seemed put out that Biden kicked off his campaign with an endorsement from the International Association of Fire Fighters. Sanders, who's described his campaign as a Trade Unionist revolution, pointed to Biden's support of trademark union betrayals like NAFTA, Most Favored Nation trading status for China, and the Trans Pacific Partnership.
But Bernie hastened to remind everyone he and Biden were friends, and he would run an "issue-oriented campaign, not based on personal attacks." He has since tried repeatedly to draw civil distinctions between himself and Biden, including a July clash over health care.
In a typical example of how Biden's political style works, he trashed Bernie's Medicare for All plan in a rambling, inscrutable speech that asked audience members who'd lost loved ones to terminal illnesses to raise their hands. Then he said:
Every second counts. It's not about a year, it's about the day, the week, the month, the next six months. It's about hope. And if you have these hiatuses, it may, it may -- this may go as smooth -- as my grandpappy said -- smooth as silk. But the truth of the matter is, it's likely to be a bumpy ride...
Underneath all the homespun "grandpappy" verbiage, Biden seemed to be suggesting the Sanders plan would create coverage "hiatuses" for people who might literally die any second. Underneath the oddball messaging, it was a classic corporate scare-tactic talking point.
The Sanders camp pushed back, but Bernie still didn't name Biden when he countered soon after in a speech at George Washington University blasting "half-truths, misinformation and in some cases outright lies that are being spread about Medicare for All."
Sanders has a million volunteers, 2.5 million contributors, and a campaign-leading $27.3 million in cash on hand. His campaign is correct this week to point out that rumors of his demise are absurd. Still, he's not wildly outperforming expectations the way he did in 2016.
Some of his issues are due to coverage, like the insistence that Sanders and Warren are fighting over the same finite patch of votes, when polls increasingly show Sanders and Warren are succeeding with different groups.
Warren has made inroads among traditional Democrats and older female voters who eluded Sanders last time, suggesting that there's more support for progressive policy ideas out there than commonly believed. While Warren has votes to win among the supporters of Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg (whose supporters view Warren as a second choice), Bernie's immediate challenge is Biden, in particular his grip on low-income voters.
Biden's appeal is that he's a vote for a return to a kind of status quo, which should be a pitch in Bernie's wheelhouse. Sanders' campaign is based on the notion that a return even to pre-Trump norms is unsustainable - for the underinsured, for the climate, for union and non-union workers, for customers of banks, for holders of student debt, and so on.
Hillary Clinton, with her defiant "that's what they offered" response to questions about bank-funded speaking fees, made finding outrage on this front easy for Sanders. The conundrum of "Scranton Joe" is no less real, but it's been politically more difficult, and Sanders is running out of time to solve it.
"Bureau of Labor Statistics data is what determines the annual cost-of-living adjustment for Social Security benefits," said Rep. John Larson. "It should alarm everyone when a yes-man determined to end Social Security is installed in this position."
U.S. President Donald Trump's pick to replace the top labor statistics official he fired earlier this month has called Social Security a "Ponzi scheme" that needs to be "sunset," comments that critics said further disqualify the nominee for the key government role.
During a December 2024 radio interview, Heritage Foundation economist E.J. Antoni said it is a "mathematical fiction" that Social Security "can go on forever" and called for "some kind of transition program where unfortunately you'll need a generation of people who pay Social Security taxes, but never actually receive any of those benefits."
"That's the price to pay for unwinding a Ponzi scheme that was foisted on the American people by the Democrats in the 1930s," Antoni continued. "You're not going to be able to sustain a Ponzi scheme like Social Security. Eventually, you need to sunset the program."
Trump's choice for the Commissioner of the Bureau Labor Statistics called Social Security a "Ponzi scheme" in an interview:
" What you need to do is have some kind of transition program where unfortunately you'll need a generation of people who pay Social Security taxes, but… pic.twitter.com/MXL7k1C644
— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) August 12, 2025
Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.), one of Social Security's most vocal defenders in Congress, said Antoni's position on the program matters because "Bureau of Labor Statistics data is what determines the annual cost-of-living adjustment for Social Security benefits."
"It should alarm everyone when a yes-man determined to end Social Security is installed in this position," Larson said in a statement. "I call on every Senate Republican to stand with Democrats and reject this extreme nominee—before our seniors are denied the benefits they earned through a lifetime of hard work."
Trump announced Antoni's nomination to serve as the next commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) less than two weeks after the president fired the agency's former head, Erika McEntarfer, following the release of abysmal jobs figures. The firing sparked concerns that future BLS data will be manipulated to suit Trump's political interests.
Antoni was a contributor to the far-right Project 2025 agenda that the Trump administration appears to have drawn from repeatedly this year, and his position on Social Security echoes that of far-right billionaire Elon Musk, who has also falsely characterized the program as a Ponzi scheme.
During his time in the Trump administration, Musk spearheaded an assault on the Social Security Administration that continues in the present, causing widespread chaos at the agency and increasing wait times for beneficiaries.
"President Trump fired the commissioner of Labor Statistics to cover up a weak jobs report—and now he is replacing her with a Project 2025 lackey who wants to shut down Social Security," said Larson. "E.J. Antoni agrees with Elon Musk that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme and said that middle-class seniors would be better off if it was eliminated."
"This sends a chilling message that the U.S. is willing to overlook some abuses, signaling that people experiencing human rights violations may be left to fend for themselves," said one Amnesty campaigner.
After leaked drafts exposed the Trump administration's plans to downplay human rights abuses in some allied countries, including Israel, the U.S. Department of State released the final edition of an annual report on Tuesday, sparking fresh condemnation.
"Breaking with precedent, Secretary of State Marco Rubio did not provide a written introduction to the report nor did he make remarks about it," CNN reported. Still, Amanda Klasing, Amnesty International USA's national director of government relations and advocacy, called him out by name in a Tuesday statement.
"With the release of the U.S. State Department's human rights report, it is clear that the Trump administration has engaged in a very selective documentation of human rights abuses in certain countries," Klasing said. "In addition to eliminating entire sections for certain countries—for example discrimination against LGBTQ+ people—there are also arbitrary omissions within existing sections of the report based on the country."
Klasing explained that "we have criticized past reports when warranted, but have never seen reports quite like this. Never before have the reports gone this far in prioritizing an administration's political agenda over a consistent and truthful accounting of human rights violations around the world—softening criticism in some countries while ignoring violations in others. The State Department has said in relation to the reports less is more. However, for the victims and human rights defenders who rely on these reports to shine light on abuses and violations, less is just less."
"Secretary Rubio knows full well from his time in the Senate how vital these reports are in informing policy decisions and shaping diplomatic conversations, yet he has made the dangerous and short-sighted decision to put out a truncated version that doesn't tell the whole story of human rights violations," she continued. "This sends a chilling message that the U.S. is willing to overlook some abuses, signaling that people experiencing human rights violations may be left to fend for themselves."
"Failing to adequately report on human rights violations further damages the credibility of the U.S. on human rights issues," she added. "It's shameful that the Trump administration and Secretary Rubio are putting politics above human lives."
The overarching report—which includes over 100 individual country reports—covers 2024, the last full calendar year of the Biden administration. The appendix says that in March, the report was "streamlined for better utility and accessibility in the field and by partners, and to be more responsive to the underlying legislative mandate and aligned to the administration's executive orders."
As CNN detailed:
The latest report was stripped of many of the specific sections included in past reports, including reporting on alleged abuses based on sexual orientation, violence toward women, corruption in government, systemic racial or ethnic violence, or denial of a fair public trial. Some country reports, including for Afghanistan, do address human rights abuses against women.
"We were asked to edit down the human rights reports to the bare minimum of what was statutorily required," said Michael Honigstein, the former director of African Affairs at the State Department's Bureau of Human Rights, Democracy, and Labor. He and his office helped compile the initial reports.
Over the past week, since the draft country reports leaked to the press, the Trump administration has come under fire for its portrayals of El Salvador, Israel, and Russia.
The report on Israel—and the illegally occupied Palestinian territories, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank—is just nine pages. The brevity even drew the attention of Israeli media. The Times of Israel highlighted that it "is much shorter than last year's edition compiled under the Biden administration and contained no mention of the severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza."
Since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, Israeli forces have slaughtered over 60,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to local officials—though experts warn the true toll is likely far higher. As Israel has restricted humanitarian aid in recent months, over 200 people have starved to death, including 103 children.
The U.S. report on Israel does not mention the genocide case that Israel faces at the International Court of Justice over the assault on Gaza, or the International Criminal Court arrest warrants issued for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The section on war crimes and genocide only says that "terrorist organizations Hamas and Hezbollah continue to engage in the
indiscriminate targeting of Israeli civilians in violation of the law of armed conflict."
As the world mourns the killing of six more Palestinian media professionals in Gaza this week—which prompted calls for the United Nations Security Council to convene an emergency meeting—the report's section on press freedom is also short and makes no mention of the hundreds of journalists killed in Israel's annihilation of the strip:
The law generally provided for freedom of expression, including for members of the press and other media, and the government generally respected this right for most Israelis. NGOs and journalists reported authorities restricted press coverage and limited certain forms of expression, especially in the context of criticism against the war or sympathy for Palestinians in Gaza.
Noting that "the human rights reports have been among the U.S. government's most-read documents," DAWN senior adviser and 32-year State Department official Charles Blaha said the "significant omissions" in this year's report on Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank render it "functionally useless for Congress and the public as nothing more than a pro-Israel document."
Like Klasing at Amnesty, Sarah Leah Whitson, DAWN's executive director, specifically called out the U.S. secretary of state.
"Secretary Rubio has revamped the State Department reports for one principal purpose: to whitewash Israeli crimes, including its horrific genocide and starvation in Gaza. The report shockingly includes not a word about the overwhelming evidence of genocide, mass starvation, and the deliberate bombardment of civilians in Gaza," she said. "Rubio has defied the letter and intent of U.S. laws requiring the State Department to report truthfully and comprehensively about every country's human rights abuses, instead offering up anodyne cover for his murderous friends in Tel Aviv."
The Tuesday release came after a coalition of LGBTQ+ and human rights organizations on Monday filed a lawsuit against the U.S. State Department over its refusal to release the congressionally mandated report.
This article has been updated with comment from DAWN.
"We will not sit idly by while political leaders manipulate voting maps to entrench their power and subvert our democracy," said the head of Common Cause.
As Republicans try to rig congressional maps in several states and Democrats threaten retaliatory measures, a pro-democracy watchdog on Tuesday unveiled new fairness standards underscoring that "independent redistricting commissions remain the gold standard for ending partisan gerrymandering."
Common Cause will hold an online media briefing Wednesday at noon Eastern time "to walk reporters though the six pieces of criteria the organization will use to evaluate any proposed maps."
The Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group said that "it will closely evaluate, but not automatically condemn, countermeasures" to Republican gerrymandering efforts—especially mid-decade redistricting not based on decennial censuses.
Amid the gerrymandering wars, we just launched 6 fairness criteria to hold all actors to the same principled standard: people first—not parties. Read our criteria here: www.commoncause.org/resources/po...
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— Common Cause (@commoncause.org) August 12, 2025 at 12:01 PM
Common Cause's six fairness criteria for mid-decade redistricting are:
"We will not sit idly by while political leaders manipulate voting maps to entrench their power and subvert our democracy," Common Cause president and CEO Virginia Kase Solomón said in a statement. "But neither will we call for unilateral political disarmament in the face of authoritarian tactics that undermine fair representation."
"We have established a fairness criteria that we will use to evaluate all countermeasures so we can respond to the most urgent threats to fair representation while holding all actors to the same principled standard: people—not parties—first," she added.
Common Cause's fairness criteria come amid the ongoing standoff between Republicans trying to gerrymander Texas' congressional map and Democratic lawmakers who fled the state in a bid to stymie a vote on the measure. Texas state senators on Tuesday approved the proposed map despite a walkout by most of their Democratic colleagues.
Leaders of several Democrat-controlled states, most notably California, have threatened retaliatory redistricting.
"This moment is about more than responding to a single threat—it's about building the movement for lasting reform," Kase Solomón asserted. "This is not an isolated political tactic; it is part of a broader march toward authoritarianism, dismantling people-powered democracy, and stripping away the people's ability to have a political voice and say in how they are governed."