Monday, September 21, 2026
Sunday, September 20, 2026
Sunday programs chat and chew over Chump's attack on The First Amendent
KARL: Good morning. Welcome to “This Week”.
It's been a tough -- a very tough week for Donald Trump, a week of setbacks and losses, political, economic, and legal.
Let's start with the economy. Mortgage rates hit a 19-month high, oil back above $100 a barrel. Diesel hit an all-time high, raising costs on everything shipped on a truck.
And in a new Fox News poll, 63 percent of voters said the Trump administration has made the economy worse.
Then, the Federal Reserve. In defiance of Trump's repeated demands to slash interest rates, unanimously voted to raise them instead. Kevin Warsh, the man Trump himself installed as Fed Chairman, said the move was necessary to combat inflation.
The Supreme Court refused to let Trump interfere with mail-in voting in the upcoming election. He responded by lashing out at the very justices that he put on the court, calling them, quote, “merely a shell of their original selves”.
Another federal judge refused yet again to let Trump put his name on the Kennedy Center. He responded by suggesting the building may be, quote, “ripped down” if the courts don't reverse course and let him put his name on the building.
On the political front, several Republicans in the House defied Trump this week by voting to end the war in Iran. One Iowa Republican who voted for it said, quote, “Iowa has already paid a devastating price”. Another declared, “Americans do not want another forever war.”
And Republican Congresswoman Maria Salazar of Florida, a Trump supporter, put out an ad saying that Hispanic voters who voted for Trump feel he has betrayed them.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MARIA ELVIRA SALAZAR, (R) FLORIDA: Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far. The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KARL: Yet another Republican introduced a resolution to impeach Trump Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson avoided a vote on that by sending the House home early, adjourning Congress until after the midterm elections.
And then there was news that a Russian oligarch close to Putin paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for a lavish two-day wedding party for Donald Trump Jr. in the Bahamas. By Friday, Trump claimed his son has now paid him back.
At the end of this week of losses and setbacks, Trump made an extraordinary move. He banned three major news organizations from the White House. Over the weekend, journalists from CNN, MS NOW, and “Politico” had their press passes revoked, their access to the White House denied.
Trump was perfectly clear why he did it. He doesn't like their reporting. “It's sick,” Trump said. “I mean, there's something wrong with a country that can allow people to write purposely negative stories.”
A country that allows people to write, quote, “negative stuff” or anything else that may irritate those in power is called America. The freedom to do so is enshrined in the very First Amendment to our Constitution.
KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yeah, I don't think we know specifically what exactly the president was looking at or reading on Friday afternoon that led to this action. But obviously, we know the conditions that the president was operating in. He is incredibly frustrated by these losses that he experienced over the last week at the Supreme Court, at the Federal Reserve, in Congress, without war powers vote, he seems to be diminishing in his power to influence events and influence the people that he put into some very important jobs across the government. We also know who was in the White House on Friday afternoon and who wasn't. Susie Wiles, the chief of staff, was not in town on Friday. Vice President Vance was in Iowa. He doesn't have a press secretary. Karoline Leavitt left several weeks ago. And I think all of that seems to have created the conditions for the president to take the step. He's been talking about it for a long time. You know, there's no indication that if those people were in the building on Friday that he would not have taken this step. But obviously, the president is trying to distract, in a lot of ways from a series of setbacks. He feels extraordinarily frustrated about his political position at the moment, has been getting some pretty dire briefings on the state of the politics in the midterms, and that seems to have created the conditions for him to go and do this on Friday.
ZELENY: I mean, obviously, CNN and other news organizations have responded aggressively. We'll see if legal action comes. But this is just a brief part of CNN's statement here, said: We have a right under the U.S. constitution to do our reporting without hindrance or interference from the government. And this ban -- this ban is an illegal assault on this fundamental right. Carl, I was thinking back and looking back yesterday at a story in "The New York Times" from 2016 that our friend Jim Rutenberg had at the time. And candidate Trump said yes, he banned some people during the campaign, but he wouldn't do it as president. Of course, that's ten years on. Just in your history of Washington here, presidents don't like the press. They fight back and forth. How is this different?
CARL HULSE, NEW YORK TIMES CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: I mean, shutting them out, actually, you know, there's usually say, well, I'm not going to talk to the press or I'm not going to acknowledge that actually keeping them out of the building. I mean, the president seems to have forgotten this is sort of a public building, too, in a way, in the way he has treated it in numerous respects. He thinks it's his to do what he pleases. Definitely a tantrum here and a classic case of shoot the messenger. You know, one thing I've been thinking about here, though, it's funny, there's nothing that gets reporters to work harder than telling them they can't cover something. You know, it's just like once you do that. And I think we've seen that at the Pentagon, right, where they have pushed people out. We sued to get some more access, and reporters just are going to be determined to do their job anyway.
ZELENY: And, Tia, to Kevin's point earlier, if we just sort of take stock of the week, that was it was fairly extraordinarily here, the headlines tell the story. "Washington Post", gas prices are about to take a big jump. Mortgage rates are climbing a week before the midterms. Everything is getting more expensive. Do you believe that this distraction is something that voters are focusing on? Do actual rank and file voters care about press access, or are these actual issues going to drive the midterm elections?
TIA MITCHELL, ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF: I do think rank-and-file voters care about press access. I think a lot of people, as they become aware of what the president did over the weekend, they are troubled by it because rank and file voters want to protect the First Amendment. Now, is it the first thing on their agenda as they decide who to vote for in November? Probably not. However, I do think this feeds into a narrative that President Trump continues to focus on the wrong things. He continues to create distractions for himself, away from the economy, away from the cost of gas and the price of goods. And that really troubles voters. They say this is another example of him doing anything but addressing what we elected him to actually do two years ago.
ZELENY: We talked a lot about gas prices, the national average. But the reality is midterm elections are done in a state-by-state basis. Take a look at these Michigan numbers. They really caught our attention here. The -- before the Iran war, a regular gallon of gas $2.99. It's now $4.89. Before the Iran war, diesel $3.89. Now, $6.68. This is coming at a time obviously of harvest season beginning. The trade question is always looming. Carl, do you think these gas prices are the true barometer of this election?
HULSE: It's brutal, the gas prices. And it's a killer issue for the Republicans. And they know it. And they can't really sluff it off on anything other than administration actions. I've been out in the country. I was in Colorado, I did sort of a farm and trade related piece, and the diesel is just killing these guys. I mean, all their equipment runs on it. Most of their pickups run on it. And you know, you just watch the numbers on the signs at the gas station and it kind of looks a little bit like Vegas. You know, it's rolling. So, it's a -- it's a huge concern. It has decided midterms many times. It looks like it will again.
KRISTEN WELKER: Yeah, well, Yamiche, all of this is the backdrop against which President Trump announced that unprecedented ban of three major news outlets: CNN, Politico, as well as MS NOW. What has the reaction been that you’re tracking?
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Well, we have to first, I think, start with what the White House Correspondents Association is saying, which is that this is violating the First Amendment. And that the Constitution lays out that the American people, through the press, need to be able to scrutinize and hold people of power, including the president, to an account through the press. That being said, and they’re urging, by the way, the president to reverse this because they said any news outlet by these standards could be attacked and could be banned by the president, you also have inside the White House -- people were caught off guard, Kristen. When I talked to my sources, senior White House officials, a number of officials from the press office to communications where this is going to directly impact them, they just did not know this was coming. That said, a senior White House official did tell me the president did have some senior staff around him when he sent out this online post. But there wasn’t a strategy here. There wasn’t a plan here. And then you think about the fact that the president announced this, Kristen, right before an event where he was going to be talking, and wanted to talk about, trying to lower the cost of prescription drugs. So in that conversation about the economy where he was set to have this big meeting, that whole event becomes about the media ban. So there’s a real question about, and I’m asking my sources, how is this undermining what the president’s trying to do and the message on the economy? And the president is now having to deal with this and talk about this ban, and it’s a real conundrum and very problematic for the president’s messaging on the economy, Kristen.
SARA FAGEN: I think, I agree with Yamiche on this. My experience in campaign politics, the reason you might do this politically is that you’re trying to attract these Trump voters who are disengaged, only show up for him. And that could work. But I have never seen in my years in politics processed arguments motivate voters. And so on one hand, when you’re talking about substance, prescription drugs, lowering gas prices, lowering grocery prices, that appeals to most people who want to vote. Talking about this insidery process, who’s in, who’s out usually does not actually get you anything.
KRISTEN WELKER: Jamelle, how do you see this?
JAMELLE BOUIE: I see it much the same way. I just want to emphasize something. The idea that the president believes he has the authority to ban the press from the White House I think speaks to the extent to which this president does not understand himself to be a servant of the American people. For me, this is watching someone who sees the White House almost as its own personal domain. Right? You can ban whoever you want from your home. But on a fundamental level, the White House does not belong to President Trump. The Oval Office does not belong to President Trump. It belongs to the entire American people. And banning any press from the White House, from the Oval Office, is an indication that this president just does not understand that he is not some sovereign figure. He is a limited official in a constitutional democracy.
KRISTEN WELKER: Yeah, one of the big questions, it may energize the MAGA base, Sara, as you’re saying. But what, if any, impact will it have on those voters in the middle who are going to make all the difference in November? Thank you all so much for a fantastic conversation. Really appreciate it.
In a frontal assault on the First Amendment, President Donald Trump ordered reporters from CNN, MS NOW and Politico barred from the White House for publishing “negative stories” about him. He announced the ban Friday afternoon on social media. When reporters from the three outlets arrived for work Saturday morning, they were turned away at the security gate and their press passes were confiscated.
The president suggested that the two leading US newspapers, the New York Times and the Washington Post, might also be banned from the White House.
Making his hatred of press freedom explicit, Trump said, “It’s sick. I mean, there’s something wrong with a country that can allow people to write purposely negative stories. Now, if they want to write them, that’s fine. But I don’t have to let them into my—into the people’s house.”
The last verbal slip was revealing of Trump’s real attitude to the presidency: the White House is his house. It does not belong to the American people. The government exists for his own self-aggrandizement, both financially and politically. He embraces the monarchical principle going back to Louis XIV of France—L’État, c’est moi (the state, it is me).
Asked by other reporters to explain his action, Trump replied, “Because they’re fake news … You get so tired of reading and seeing fake news. When you look at CNN, it’s just fake. That’s why their ratings are no good. When you look at MS NOW … it’s fake news.”
“And when you look at Politico,” he continued, “the stories they wrote are fake. So there’s a lot of news and there may be others to join them, and maybe they can get better. But our country has to have honest news.”
This from a president who lies incessantly, claiming the US economy is booming, that the affordability crisis is a “hoax,” and that he is hugely popular, despite record mass protests and plunging poll numbers, which threaten a Republican debacle in the midterm elections, only six weeks away.
All three of the targeted media outlets issued statements of protest, and by Sunday all three were reported to be preparing legal challenges. But the giant corporations that own them are confining their response to the courts. The White House Correspondents’ Association, whose current president is a Fox News correspondent, issued a statement of support for the banned outlets and nothing more. While the exclusion was the leading topic on most Sunday television interview programs, no section of the corporate media has suggested collective action, such as a joint boycott of White House briefings and press “availabilities.” Every other outlet has kept its seat.
The day before, Trump had announced that he was banning the organizations because, he said, they report “fake news.” Others could be next, he warned.
We are well used to this kind of civic thuggery from this president and his administration. It is contrary to our Constitution, our values, our historical practices. It is alien, because we have never had a president with Trump’s anti-democratic conception of the power of that office.
The White House is his house. Access to it is his to grant. Any criticism of his performance in office is a punishable offense. The powers entrusted to the president can be used to punish the offender.
Trump’s personalization of the office collides with a much older American tradition, albeit one that was always imperfectly honored. Yes, American presidents have abused power and attacked journalists before. But there was a shared ideal of what power ought to be in America, an aspiration that began with the Founders, and especially with the magnificently republican example of George Washington.
BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST: Hey there. Yes, now that President Trump's media ban is in effect, the three newsrooms targeted by the president are preparing to defend their rights in court. Now, here's what this network, CNN, said in a statement on Saturday, quote, we have a right under the U.S. Constitution to do our reporting without hindrance or interference from the government, and this ban is an illegal assault on that fundamental right. And MS NOW said in a statement, quote, the network intends to take any and all steps necessary to defend our First Amendment rights and the essential role of independent journalism in our democracy. On Saturday, reporters from MS NOW, CNN, and Politico had their press passes confiscated, and now there are questions about whether CNN will be able to fulfill its pool responsibilities on Monday.
So, let me explain what that means. CNN is one of five members of the U.S. T.V. pool. The five major networks in the U.S. take turns providing 24/7 coverage of the president, especially when he's traveling or he's in smaller settings like the Oval Office where there's not room for the entire White House press corps. So, the pool plays a really essential role, and CNN's next turn as pool representative is on Monday. So, it's going to be interesting to see if the other four major networks show solidarity with CNN and take a stand. Based on my reporting thus far, my sense is that they will.
Throughout the day on Saturday, I heard from news outlets that usually love to compete with one another but are, in this case, standing together, showing solidarity with CNN, MS NOW, and Politico. The White House Correspondents Association also issued a strong statement on Saturday, saying that Trump's ban, quote, violates the First Amendment. I've noticed many Trump detractors on social media calling for a total boycott, saying the wider American news media should turn off the cameras and deny Trump the attention he wants. But I have to say, at the same time, White House reporters want access to Trump and his aides. They want to be able to see what's going on at the White House. They want to be able to inform the public about what's going on. So, that's what this is really ultimately all about, and press freedom groups are united in saying that Trump is trying to restrict the public's right to know, and that that's an unconstitutional and unacceptable infringement. Here's what the group Reporters Without Borders said on Saturday, saying this is all about control, quote, the president is once again spewing lies about fake news to try to control who covers him and where. And here's the National Press Club in a statement saying the president doesn't have that power, quote, the First Amendment does not permit the government to pick and choose which journalists are allowed to do their jobs. And that is what the case law indicates. Courts have ruled in the past that if the White House decides to let some reporters in, then it cannot block others because of their perceived point of view. Now, I'm told that lawyers for the three affected news organizations are working through next steps, and that there will be legal action in the days to come, because this is a very important test for free speech and First Amendment rights in the United States.
STOUT: Adam Rose is the deputy director of advocacy for the Freedom of the Press Foundation. He joins us live from Los Angeles. Adam, thank you for joining us here on the program. As reported, U.S. President Donald Trump is banning three media organizations from the White House, including CNN. Can a U.S. president do this?
ADAM ROSE, DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF ADVOCACY, FREEDOM OF THE PRESS FOUNDATION: Well, thank you for having me, Kristie. And if I look a little bleary-eyed, your viewers may know it's early in the morning here in the United States, but, really, it's the exhaustion of keeping up with the pace of press freedom violations from this administration. You ask a very practical question here about whether or not this can be done. Now, the law exists in two separate but very unequal places. The reality is that this administration has made any number of attempts to exclude press from access, whether it's to the White House or to the Pentagon, and repeatedly journalists will have lawsuits filed and win. The courts will uphold the First Amendment. They will uphold the right of press access in these situations, and as Brian was just talking about, the way that that is supposed to be applied when there's a limited amount of space. It's not supposed to be the government picking and choosing.
Now, the other place the law exists is in the street, as we say, or in this case, the White House, the people's House. The reality is journalists are not going to barge past the Secret Service. So, we potentially, in that case, could have some sort of constitutional crisis. I don't expect that imminently, but I do expect this to play out in court over the days and weeks ahead in very complicated maneuvering on both sides.
STOUT: Now, the First Amendment protects freedom of speech and press in the United States. Give us a history lesson here. Tell us more about what it's designed to protect and how.
ROSE: Sure. Well, the First Amendment is only 45 words, and that includes five different major rights, not just the freedom of the press. So, a lot of interpretation has happened over the generations since it was written almost 250 years ago. It was actually in the 1780s when pen hit paper for that particular amendment. And at that time, we need to think about who they were trying to protect. It wasn't necessarily CNN. They couldn't have envisioned CNN or MS NOW, Politico, Fox News, or the New York Times, or any of these major media outlets the way that we have mass media today. Instead, they were thinking about Thomas Paine and his pamphlets, which were periodically published. They were thinking about Benjamin Franklin and his twice weekly Pennsylvania Gazette. Not only were they thinking about these as sporadic publications, they were thinking about the content of what they are publishing. And let's not forget that that content was calling for the violent, radical overthrow of the government, which indeed happened. Now, Politico, MS NOW, and CNN are nowhere near that revolutionary or that radical. They're quite tame by comparison. So, the idea of the First Amendment is to protect speech regardless of that opinion, and in fact, especially if it is adversarial to the government. That's by design.
STOUT: Now, this latest ban from the U.S. president is likely to face constitutional legal challenges. Tell us what happens next, and what does the timeline look like for this ban to be challenged?
ROSE: Well, everything is sort of catching people off guard right now. I mean, you know, when it was announced over Truth Social the other night, you know, people didn't, even though in the administration, exactly how it would play out. And so when journalists from those outlets showed up in the last 24 hours, they were not allowed in, their credentials were seized, and people could have guessed that from the post that Donald Trump put on social media. But the reality is that there's going to be, in the next few days, and probably by first thing Monday morning, filings by these outlets and their legal representation to demand a injunction from a court or hopefully even a temporary restraining order, which would move even faster, insisting that the pool move forward as it normally does. Now, this is the sort of thing where the federal courts move at their own pace. So, it's not something that is going to necessarily happen within a matter of minutes the first thing Monday morning, but I don't think it's going to take a matter of days either. STOUT: Got it. And President Trump has also threatened to ban additional news organizations. So, are you concerned about a chilling effect that maybe other smaller media outlets would self-censor out of fear that they could be next to lose access?
ROSE: Well, even the largest of the large have self-censored in their own ways. And we can think about how this has already happened in the last year with the Associated Press and how they would not call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, which Trump wanted to rename it, and as a result, they lost access. More recently, we've seen issues with the largest companies on this planet capitulating to Donald Trump renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America. Now, there's all sorts of chilling effects that can happen here. One of the biggest concerns that we have, of course, is that this doesn't just impact you know, large outlets, but it does impact them as well. So, let's focus very, you know, seriously on CNN, which is among the largest of the large, and outlets like CBS, ABC, Fox, all of these others which will potentially have to rethink how they approach the president, lest they feel that they're targeted. And I should mention that we're talking about major corporate media, and one of the really important notes here is that CBS is currently owned by David Ellison, and his dad, of course, is Larry Ellison, briefly last year the richest human being on the planet. They are actively trying to take over CNN and to take ownership of CNN. So, this is the time for people like David Ellison, like Larry Ellison, to speak out and to say, hey, we need to protect the people we want to employ at CNN and the people we already employ at CBS. So, it's a very legitimate impact right now on CNN, but there's certainly a chilling effect, I think, on CBS employees as well.
JONATHAN KARL: At the end of this week of losses and setbacks, Trump made an extraordinary move. He banned three major news organizations from the White House. Over the weekend, journalists from CNN, MS NOW, and “Politico” had their press passes revoked, their access to the White House denied. Trump was perfectly clear why he did it. He doesn't like their reporting. “It's sick,” Trump said. “I mean, there's something wrong with a country that can allow people to write purposely negative stories.” A country that allows people to write, quote, “negative stuff” or anything else that may irritate those in power is called America. The freedom to do so is enshrined in the very First Amendment to our Constitution. And that's where we begin. I'm joined now by Conor Fitzpatrick, an attorney for FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, an organization that has consistently defended attacks on free speech from both the left and the right. Conor, thank you for being here. Is this going to fly? Is this ban on these press organizations going to fly?
CONOR FITZPATRICK, FOUNDATION FOR INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS AND EXPRESSION CHIEF SUPERVISING ATTORNEY: No, Jon. The law in this area is clear, and it's been clear for 50 years. In 1977, in a case called "Sherrill versus Knight," the courts held that the White House cannot exclude reporters simply because they don't like their reporting. That has been the law for Democratic presidents. It has been the law for Republican presidents. That law was reaffirmed just last year in the Associated Press case. So what's going on here is a flagrant violation of the First Amendment.
KARL: So how is it going to play out in the courts?
FITZPATRICK: In the courts, I would expect the courts to very quickly enjoin the -- these three organizations from being ejected from the White House. The precedent on this point is clear. It is nonpartisan. It is unequivocal.
KARL: And why should Americans care whether or not reporters are allowed to go and do their job in the building?
FITZPATRICK: A free press that feels free to criticize our leaders is core to who we are as a country. One of the reasons we split from England was because the British governors and the crown did not let us criticize King George III and his staff. It is core to who we are as a people that we allow the press and open and free press to hold the powerful to account.
KARL: And let's look at what the White House Correspondents Association, Jacqui Heinrich, who is also a FOX News White House reporter and the president, current president of the WHCA, said. She said, "This is about more than the rights of journalists. It is about the rights of the American people to receive a full and independent account of these activities, policies and decisions of whoever occupies the nation's highest office."
FITZPATRICK: That's exactly right. And the key thing here is, Jon, the government isn't supposed to like the press. The press isn't there to make the government happy. The press is there to inform the people, to provide its commentary as it deems appropriate, but it is not there to be a mouthpiece of the government. This isn't Russia, this isn't China, this is America.
KARL: There was something else that Trump said. He said it a couple of different ways, suggesting, first of all, there may be other news organizations that will be added to this ban and that he might bring back those who he has banned if they basically change their, you know, do the right thing. I mean, this seems to be not just targeted at these news organizations, but intimidating others. The chilling effect we've heard in First Amendment cases.
FITZPATRICK: That's exactly right, Jon. It seems that the very clear message here is that report the news in the way we want you to report the news about this administration, or we're going to kick you out. And for those of -- for those who are watching today who maybe don't have a lot of sympathy for the organizations that have been kicked out, I would ask think about a future Democratic administration. Ask yourself if you would be OK with them kicking out FOX News or Newsmax or the "Wall Street Journal," because once you open the Pandora's box of censorship, you can never close it again.
KARL: All right, Conor Fitzpatrick with FIRE, thank you very much for joining us.
FITZPATRICK: Thank you.
Pentagon Greatly Underestimates Cost of Iran War to Taxpayers and Families
Washington D.C. — U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (Calif.) joined Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and 44 of their colleagues, nearly the entire Democratic caucus, in sending a letter to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, demanding a full accounting of the costs of the ongoing war with Iran. The letter also criticized the Department of Defense for withholding basic budget information from Congress and the American public even as U.S. casualties and taxpayer costs continue to increase.
The United States is now more than six months into a conflict President Trump initially said would last six weeks. Eighteen American servicemembers have been killed and more than 820 wounded, and over 50,000 troops are currently deployed to the Middle East. In the letter, Slotkin and her colleagues note that deployments, including for the USS Lincoln and the 82nd Airborne, have been repeatedly extended, and that their offices have heard directly from military families worried about loved ones serving in the conflict.
“Meanwhile, at home, American taxpayers have already paid an extra $100 billion out of their pockets for higher gas and diesel prices alone and at least another $60 billion in higher costs for things like groceries, mortgages, and plane tickets as a result of the war,” wrote the Senators. “Now you are asking that they pay again to fund a war of choice that Congress never authorized and the President launched with no strategic plan.”
In their letter, the senators highlight the contrast between the current Pentagon’s transparency record with past wartime practice, noting that Hegseth has briefed Congress only seven times in six months and held just eight Pentagon press briefings or interviews since the war began, compared to more than 70 press briefings in the first month of the Iraq War alone. The senators also criticized the administration’s public supplemental funding request as a seven-page document offering only vague line items, in contrast to the detailed, hundred-page supplemental requests provided to Congress during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
Slotkin and the senators are requesting that the Department of Defense provide:
- A detailed breakdown of all direct and indirect costs of military operations against Iran to date, including damage to installations, aircraft, and equipment.
- A full accounting of the $67 billion supplemental request, specifying what covers past costs versus future operations.
- A detailed plan for how the Pentagon intends to spend the remaining $34 billion from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
“Despite asking for tens of billions of additional taxpayer dollars, you have so far failed to provide basic information on how this money has and will be spent,” continued the Senators. “Congress must have access to this information to carry out our oversight responsibilities. It is the bare minimum that any American would expect in balancing their own household budget.”
Senator Slotkin’s letter was signed by Senators Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawai’i), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Andy Kim (D-N.J.), Angus King (I-Maine), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Jon Ossoff (D-GA), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawai’i), Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), Raphael G. Warnock (D-Ga.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).
The full text of the letter is available here.
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photos from the edge 41 - A WORKING CLASS TOWN CELEBRATES LABOR DAY
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photos from the edge 41 - A WORKING CLASS TOWN CELEBRATES LABOR DAY By David Bacon https://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com/2026/09/photos-from-edge-41-working-class-town.html  Fort Bragg, a small north coast city with a history of labor activism, still uses Labor Day as an occasion to celebrate working people when other communities just treat it as a day off work. This year two parades filed down Franklin Street - one for children and one marking the start of the school year - while elsewhere people showed off their dogs and cars. And of course, demonstrators held sarcastic signs ridiculing Trump in the weekly noontime protest on the corner of Main and Laurel. Fort Bragg's radical tradition is still alive, and Labor Day was the chance to remember. One of that history's high points came in the years after World War Two, when workers in the biggest industries in the country, from auto plants to farm equipment factories, went out on strike together. The lumber industry, then Fort Bragg's economic mainstay, was no exception. From January 1946 to April 1948 the workers at the Union Lumber mill struck over the combination of low wages and huge price increases that came after the war. In addition to fighting the economic pain, their union, the Redwood District Council of Lumber and Sawmill Workers Local 2610, also wanted a closed shop. The strike swept through the north coast, shutting down mills from Eureka to Caspar. Union Lumber brought in scabs, and picket lines were filled with hundreds of strikers for 15 months. It was not Fort Bragg's first strike - the union at the mill was originally organized by leftwing CIO activists in the 1930s. Among them was Mickey Lima, born the son of a Portuguese fishing family in Usal, now a ghost town up the coast. For his activism Lima was jailed during the strike. Later, in the years of the McCarthy Red scare, he was put on trial for violating the Smith Act, as the head of the Communist Party in northern California. The Supreme Court declared the Smith Act unconstitutional in 1958 (although we hear the same calls for outlawing socialist ideas coming hot and heavy from today's White House). Lima, and his wife Helen, a health care unionist, were hardly Mendocino County's only radicals of an earlier era. Red artist Emmy Lou Packard is celebrated today as one of the founders of the Mendocino Art Center. Lima built a cabin on Route 20 to escape the stress of the Smith Act trial. To warn rambunctious children (like me) against running into its sliding glass door, he taped onto it her long print of oxen hauling redwood logs through the forest. Today Packard's art work hangs in museums and galleries. Oscar Erickson made Fort Bragg home after serving years in San Quintin for organizing Imperial Valley farmworkers in the 1930s. He was a citizen, but other organizers in that same effort were deported after prison, handed over to the migra, much as the sheriffs of counties like Sonoma still do today. Oscar also built a house on Route 20. Mexicans and Chicanos in Fort Bragg have their own history of community resistance. After families came from the Yucatan and southern Mexico to shell sea urchins in the Noyo River harbor, they faced the terror of ICE's predecessor, the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Loreto Rojas and Diana Coryat interviewed Lucresha Renteria for their Nuestro Norte, Our North podcast, about her memories of what happened one day in 1988. "Kids were coming out of the buses," Renteria recalled, "going home to empty apartments because their parents had been picked up at the sea urchin plants at the fisheries in Noyo Harbor, both north and south. Still in their rubber boots from work, they weren't able to change into regular clothes." Police and immigration agents drove around outside a local church while kids in a youth group, including Renteria, hid inside. Nevertheless, Renteria remembers that the raid produced a big change for both Latino and white families. "The white community came out in full support of their neighbors, friends, coworkers, and strangers to just say, this isn't right. So many things changed after that. One of the most significant was that the police department did go on record, maintained ever since, that they would not assist INS or now ICE in any future raids in the community." In the schools things changed as well. Renteria recalls that in the era when her parents were in school, in many communities in the west and southwest, "teachers were relentless about having to speak English in the classroom. They wouldn't let kids go to the bathroom if they couldn't ask in English." Today Fort Bragg's Latino youth show their culture openly and speak whatever language they choose. Last year they marched in protest, together with community supporters, almost as soon as the incoming Trump administration began its immigration threats. Indivisible and activist groups continue to stand on a downtown corner every Friday, condemning raids and genocide with handmade signs plastered with anger and ridicule. This Labor Day wasn't exactly a political protest, however, although it had its share of placards. In the marching contingents of soccer and football players and cheerleaders, the diversity of Fort Bragg's students was what was really on display. It is a working-class town, and as its history would dictate, a community where respect for that is a strong common bond. My thanks to MendoLatino and Nuestro Norte, Our North, and Lucresha Renteria, for the use of the podcast. The audio is here: https://on.soundcloud.com/xbV7BYUuTiLOXpukYK and the transcript is here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OwLrOlJAGx4_DtfGKB33HAa3PKJuBg_CeiVg7EvDSc4/edit?tab=t.0 For more about the 1988 raid: https://www.advocate-news.com/2025/04/17/fort-bragg-renews-support-for-immigrants-amid-ice-crackdown/ For more about the lumber strike: https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=EBLJ19460809-01.2.14&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN-------- For more about the Imperial Valley strike: https://revolutionsnewsstand.com/2024/11/25/the-story-of-the-imperial-valley-by-frank-spector-i-l-d-pamphlet-no-3-international-labor-defense-new-york-1931/                        I have a couple of photographs in this show at the California Museum HELP WANTED! / LEAVE NOW! - ¡SE SOLCITA PERSONAL!/¡FUERA! "Operation Wetback" and the Revolving Door of Mass Deportation / "Operacion Wetback" y la Puerta Giratoria de Deportaciones Masivas 8/13/26 to 1/10/27 California Museum 1020 O Street Sacramento, CA  Immigrant Workers and the Recent History of Immigration Raids A presentation by David Bacon at the UCLA Latin American Institute, with photographs and transcript. 3/11/25 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FlsyWTBWso David Bacon @photos4justice on the daily lives and ongoing struggles (both personal and political) of farmworkers - interview on Against the Grain with C.S. Soong BOOKS - LIBROS More Than a Wall / Mas que un muro El Colegio de la Frontera Norte https://david-bacon-photography.square.site/product/more-than-a-wall-mas-que-un-muro/1?cp=true&sa=true&sbp=false&q=false En Mexico: https://libreria.colef.mx/detalle.aspx?id=7864 In the Fields of the North / En los campos del norte University of California Press / Colegio de la Frontera Norte https://www.ucpress.edu/books/in-the-fields-of-the-north-en-los-campos-del-norte/paper En Mexico: https://libreria.colef.mx/detalle.aspx?id=7586 The Right to Stay Home: How US Policy Drives Mexican Migration (Beacon Press, 2013) WORK AND SOCIAL JUSTICE: The David Bacon Archive exhibition at Stanford Libraries https://exhibits.stanford.edu/bacon/browse For a catalog: (https://web.stanford.edu/dept/spec_coll/NonVendorPubOrderform2017.pdf) THE REALITY CHECK - David Bacon blog https://www.flickr.com/photos/56646659@N05/albums BROOKE ANDERSON PODCAST #8  LISTEN: https://linktr.ee/thatshowthelightgetsinpodcast (or anywhere you get your podcasts)MAS QUE UN MURO Cinco Entrivistas sobre la exposicion en el Museo Nacional de las Culturas del Mundo, CDMX: Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eix0HEStpc Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FO4IIBPs06U Part 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHtY-fgtsjs Part 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xm_MNrEX2Mw Part 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpwSuBbgAQs
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