Homeless Population Declines in Los Angeles for a Second Straight Year

A key survey of homelessness in Los Angeles determined that the number of people sleeping without shelter fell again. More than 72,000 people remain homeless in Los Angeles County

By Shawn Hubler

Reporting from Los Angeles
Published July 14, 2025Updated July 15, 2025, 11:03 a.m. ET


Homelessness declined in Los Angeles for the second year in a row, a key survey showed on Monday, marking a sustained drop in the number of people sleeping outdoors amid a yearslong push to bring people out of street encampments.

The results of the regional count, conducted in February, were viewed as generally positive news in the nation’s second-largest city, which saw a spike in homelessness after the Covid-19 pandemic and has been vexed by a severe housing shortage.

Even with the declines, more than 72,000 people remain homeless in Los Angeles County, a sprawling and fragmented metropolis with a population of about 10 million people.

In particular, the number of people sleeping in vehicles, abandoned buildings, sidewalk camps and other places unfit for habitation declined from the year before by 9.5 percent in Los Angeles County and by 7.9 percent in the City of Los Angeles.

Over two years, the count showed that unsheltered homelessness fell cumulatively by 14 percent in Los Angeles County and by a record 17.5 percent in the city, as thousands of people moved indoors.

Local officials attributed the trend to a regionwide barrage of initiatives and to billions of dollars in public spending over the past several years, including countywide taxes to help fund affordable housing and a state of emergency on homelessness declared by Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles after her 2022 election.

Los Angeles County has spent nearly $2.5 billion over the past eight years on rent subsidies, programs to add housing units and on mental health and addiction outreach. A program launched by Mayor Bass, Inside Safe, has moved thousands of people out of tent camps and into motels and permanent housing.

“These results aren’t just data points — they represent thousands of human beings who are now inside, and neighborhoods that are beginning to heal,” said Mayor Bass, who campaigned in 2022 on a vow to address squalid encampments that had spread to more sidewalks, driveways, parks and underpasses during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Supervisor Hilda L. Solis, who represents some of the most economically disadvantaged parts of the county, said that the numbers “represent real progress.” But she said that with more than 72,000 people still unhoused, “there is more work yet to be done.”

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The progress on homelessness, which a year ago seemed to be the most pressing of Los Angeles’s problems, came as Southern California has fought to rebound from a string of natural disasters, economic disruptions and political disputes with the federal government.

When It Comes to Undermining America, We Have a Winner

July 15, 2025
Credit...Aleksey Kondratyev for The New York Times

By Thomas B. Edsall
Mr. Edsall contributes a weekly column from Washington, D.C., on politics, demographics and inequality.

Capitalizing on Democrats’ weakness, President Trump is winning his battle to undermine democracy in this country.

But he has not won the war.

A host of factors could blunt his aggression: recession, debt, corruption, inflation, epidemics, the Epstein files, anger over cuts in Medicaid and food stamps, to name just a few. Much of what Trump has done could be undone if a Democrat is elected president in 2028.

But for federal workers, medical and scientific researchers, lawyers in politically active firms, prominent critics of Trump — thousands of whom have felt the sting of arbitrary firings, vanished paychecks and retracted grants, criminal inquiries and threatened bankruptcies — the 2028 election may prove too late to repair the damage.

And that’s before we even begin to talk about the anti-immigration crackdown.

Trump’s assaults are aimed at targets large and small, some based on personal resentments, others guided by a more coherent ideological agenda.

The brutality of Trump’s anti-democratic policies is part of a larger goal, a reflection of an administration determined to transfer trillions of dollars to the wealthy by imposing immense costs on the poor and the working class in lost access to medical care and food support, an administration that treats hungry children with the same disdain that it treats core principles of democracy.

Trump has succeeded in devastating due-process protections for universities, immigrants and law firms. He has cowed the Supreme Court, which has largely failed to block his violations of the Constitution. He has bypassed Congress, ruling by executive order and emergency declaration. He is using the regulatory power of government to force the media to make humiliating concessions. He has ordered criminal investigations of political adversaries. He has fired innumerable government employees who pursued past investigations — and on and on.

He has moved with determination toward the destabilization of American democracy.

“Our institutions are not acting as if American democracy is under threat,” Donald Moynihan, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan, contended in an email. It has become routine, Moynihan wrote: 

for Trump to fire people in independent agencies or civil servants, or to impound funds and even close agencies. All of these things were widely assumed to be illegal. While the courts are not making definitive rulings on such powers, they are allowing Trump to exercise them. Maybe they will clip Trump’s wings later, but in the meantime enormous damage will be done and undoing that damage will be extraordinarily difficult. For example, ending U.S.A.I.D. without congressional action is illegal, but it is happening, and millions will die as a result.

Many Democrats and liberals have been banking on economic forces to press Trump to back down, but the administration is not paying the price many on the left and center expected to emerge in response to his tariffs and the immense expansion of the national debt resulting from his “One Big Beautiful Bill.”
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Instead, the economy remains strong: Unemployment is at 4.1 percent; the stock market has reached record highs; the rate of inflation increased by a modest 0.1 percent from April to May for an annual 2.4 percent rate.

“I am worried Trump is seemingly wearing down the opposition,” Brendan Nyhan, a political scientist at Dartmouth, wrote by email in response to my queries about Trump’s successes and failures. “His political position is objectively weaker — he’s a lame duck who is more unpopular than he was at this point in his first term — but he’s using the powers of the presidency more effectively in pursuit of his authoritarian goals.”

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Trump, Nyhan argued, is pushing the boundaries of his institutional powers in ways that are less likely to catalyze opposition, especially as they become more familiar. I am most concerned about the direction of the Supreme Court. The lower courts have held up well in challenging the administration, but the nationwide injunction decision (among others) suggests that SCOTUS is becoming a key enabler.

Plan to Indefinitely Displace Palestinians Threatens to Derail Gaza Truce

An Israeli proposal to force much of Gaza’s population into a small enclave is now overshadowing negotiations over a truce.

A tent camp housing displaced Palestinians in Rafah, southern Gaza, last year.Credit...Hatem Ali/Associated Press

By Patrick Kingsley and Aaron Boxerman
Reporting from Jerusalem
July 14, 2025


Israel’s defense ministry has promoted a plan to force much of Gaza’s population into a small and largely devastated zone in the territory’s south, a proposal that threatens to derail the latest efforts to forge a truce between Israel and Hamas.

In recent weeks, Israeli officials have briefed journalists and foreign counterparts on a loose plan to force hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians into an area controlled by Israel’s military close to the Gaza-Egypt border. Legal experts have warned that the plan would violate international law because the civilians would be barred indefinitely from returning to their homes in other parts of Gaza, a restriction that would constitute a form of ethnic cleansing.

While the Israeli government has yet to formally announce or comment on the plan, the idea of a new encampment in southern Gaza was first proposed last week by Israel Katz, the Israeli defense minister. He discussed it at a briefing with Israeli correspondents who focus on military affairs, and The New York Times reviewed readouts of the briefing written by its attendees. Several attendees also wrote articles that attracted widespread attention among both Israelis and Palestinians.

A spokesman for Mr. Katz declined to comment on the reports, as did the office of Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister.

Now, Hamas has cited Mr. Katz’s proposal as one of the latest obstacles to a new truce. During a cease-fire, in exchange for releasing roughly 25 hostages, Hamas wants Israeli troops to withdraw from much of Gaza. The new Israeli plan makes such an outcome far less likely, since it would ensure that Israeli troops remained in charge of a large area over which Hamas seeks to reestablish control.

Husam Badran, a senior member of Hamas, described the establishment of the encampment as a “deliberately obstructive demand” that would complicate the fraught negotiations.

“This would be an isolated city that resembles a ghetto,” Mr. Badran said on Monday in a text message. “This is utterly unacceptable, and no Palestinian would agree to this.”

Hopes for an imminent truce rose last week after Mr. Netanyahu went to Washington for meetings with President Trump that many expected would result in an Israeli compromise. Instead, Mr. Netanyahu — who has previously slow-walked negotiations for personal and political reasons — returned to Israel without a breakthrough.

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The negotiations remain stuck on issues including the permanence of any truce: Israel wants to be able to return to war, while Hamas wants guarantees that any cease-fire would evolve into a full cessation of hostilities. Israel also wants Hamas to commit to disarmament, an idea that the militant group has rejected. There are also disagreements over how aid will be delivered during a truce.

According to some of the readouts of the briefing by Mr. Katz, the defense minister described the proposed new encampment as a “humanitarian city” that would, at first, house at least 600,000 Palestinians. Mr. Katz said it would later hold the entire population of Gaza, or roughly 2 million people, according to the readouts and reports. Israeli critics likened it to a modern-day “concentration camp” because its residents would not be allowed to leave the area’s northern perimeter in order to return home.

Image
Palestinians crossing from northern to southern Gaza in March 2024.Credit...Mohammed Saber/EPA, via Shutterstock


That could constitute “forcible transfer,” a crime under international law, according to a group of Israeli international law experts who wrote an open letter on the matter to Mr. Katz and the head of Israel’s military, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir.

If implemented,“the plan would constitute a series of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and under certain conditions, could amount to the crime of genocide,” the letter said.

Israel’s military declined to comment on whether it had been ordered to implement the plan.

Because the plan has yet to be formally detailed or announced, some Israelis have speculated that it is mainly a negotiating tactic aimed at either persuading Hamas to make more concessions in truce talks, or at convincing Mr. Netanyahu’s far-right coalition allies to support a cease-fire.

Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right minister who supports the depopulation of Gaza and opposes a permanent truce with Hamas, said in a statement that the displacement plan was unlikely to be enacted and had simply been publicized by his colleagues to make it easier for him to stomach a cease-fire deal.

“The debate around establishing a humanitarian city is basically spin aimed at hiding the deal being cooked up,” Mr. Ben-Gvir said. “Spin is not a substitute for absolute victory,” he added.

Gabby Sobelman contributed reporting from Rehovot, Israel.


Patrick Kingsley is The Times’s Jerusalem bureau chief, leading coverage of Israel, Gaza and the West Bank.
Aaron Boxerman is a Times reporter covering Israel and Gaza. He is based in Jerusalem.

Cuomo to Fight On in Mayor’s Race

Former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced he would run as a third-party candidate against Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for New York City mayor.

Former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo lost the Democratic primary to Zohran Mamdani, a state assemblyman, by more than 12 percentage points.Credit...Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

By Jeffery C. Mays and Emma G. Fitzsimmons
July 14, 2025

Former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has decided to run in the general election for mayor, urged on by supporters anxious that his withdrawal would nearly guarantee Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani’s victory and put New York City in the hands of the far left.

The decision by Mr. Cuomo, who had been questioning whether to run after his crushing Democratic primary defeat by Mr. Mamdani, a state assemblyman and a democratic socialist, was announced Monday afternoon in a 90-second video.

“I am truly sorry that I let you down. But as my grandfather used to say, when you get knocked down, learn the lesson and pick yourself back up and get in the game. And that is what I’m going to do,” Mr. Cuomo said. “The fight to save our city isn’t over.”

Mr. Cuomo has pledged that if the polls show that he is not the highest-ranked challenger to Mr. Mamdani by mid-September, he will drop out of the race, according to a letter he sent to supporters.

He will encourage Mr. Mamdani’s other challengers — Mayor Eric Adams, who is running as an independent; Curtis Sliwa, the Republican nominee; and Jim Walden, an independent — to do the same. Mr. Walden hatched the plan recently, and former Gov. David A. Paterson endorsed the idea last week.

Mr. Cuomo was the prohibitive favorite for much of the Democratic primary for mayor, leading in most polls until the very end. A super PAC spent more than $22 million to promote his candidacy and launch a late-stage attack on Mr. Mamdani, once it became clear that he posed a threat to Mr. Cuomo.

Mr. Mamdani, who had been a relatively unknown assemblyman from Queens, was a distant second in most polls, but closed the gap after the race’s two debates, capitalizing on his engaging social media campaigns, an extensive ground effort by volunteers and a single-minded focus on affordability. He ultimately defeated Mr. Cuomo by more than 12 percentage points.

Democrats outnumber Republicans six to one in New York City, and the winner of the Democratic primary is usually a heavy favorite to win the general election.

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The primary defeat seemed to temporarily humble Mr. Cuomo, who credited Mr. Mamdani with running a better race and openly questioned whether he still had a viable path to becoming mayor. His rededication to running as an independent on his “Fight and Deliver” ballot line was first reported by NewsNation, a news network where Mr. Cuomo’s brother, Chris Cuomo, hosts a show.

Image
Mr. Cuomo accepted blame for his primary defeat, acknowledging that he had “played it safe” and pledging to “run a very different kind of campaign” in the general election.Credit...Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times


Mr. Cuomo’s defeat was attributed, at least partially, to a lackluster campaign in which he assumed an air of inevitability around his nomination. The former governor drove to events in his Dodge Charger, lived in an $8,000-per-month rental apartment in Sutton Place and avoided appearing onstage at forums with his primary opponents, pursuing a so-called Rose Garden strategy.

Even some of the governor’s supporters questioned whether he wanted the job.

Mr. Cuomo addressed some of those concerns in a letter to his supporters, acknowledging that he had “made mistakes” in the primary.

“All my life I’ve been known for pushing too hard, but this time I played it safe, believing in the polls that said our campaign was way ahead, and not giving New Yorkers the campaign they deserved,” he wrote in the letter.

“I was not aggressive enough in communicating my vision for a fairer, safer, more affordable New York, or in debunking and exposing Zohran Mamdani’s unrealistic proposals and divisive agenda. I promise you, I will not make that mistake again,” he added.

Mr. Cuomo pledged in the letter to “run a very different kind of campaign” than he did in the primary. “I will be out there, every day in every corner of this city, meeting you where you are to talk about the struggles you face, and the solutions to address them,” he wrote.

His video on Monday also seemed like a nascent attempt to showcase that approach. Mr. Cuomo was shown walking on the Upper East Side in a casual, white short-sleeved shirt, shaking hands, taking selfies and speaking with New Yorkers. At one point, he carried an iconic symbol of the city, a Greek-styled blue-and-white coffee cup.

But Mr. Cuomo also mispronounced Mr. Mamdani’s name as “Mandani” — a habit that gave Mr. Mamdani a viral moment in the second debate when he chastised Mr. Cuomo onstage for repeatedly making the error.

Jeffrey Lerner, a spokesman for Mr. Mamdani, said that Mr. Cuomo’s renewed interest in the race, as well as the potential deal with other challengers, did not serve New York City’s interests.

“While Andrew Cuomo and Eric Adams are tripping over themselves to cut backroom deals with billionaires and Republicans, Zohran Mamdani is focused on making this city more affordable for New Yorkers,” Mr. Lerner said in a statement. “That’s the choice this November.”
Image
Mayor Eric Adams, who is running for re-election as an independent, said he intends to stay in the race.Credit...Andres Kudacki for The New York Times

In the wake of his shocking defeat, much of the city’s Democratic establishment has abandoned Mr. Cuomo, with elected officials and unions defecting to endorse Mr. Mamdani.

Others, especially in the business and real estate communities, are more focused on trying to prevent Mr. Mamdani’s victory and would like to clear the field for either Mr. Adams or Mr. Cuomo.

“I’ve seen the math,” Mr. Walden said. “If the four of us split the vote in any form or combination, all we’re doing is electing this 33-year-old, paper-thin-résumé socialist, which will be terrible for New York.”

But Mr. Adams, who faced record low poll numbers even before he was indicted on federal corruption charges (which were later dropped by the Trump administration), and Mr. Sliwa have said they have no intention of dropping out of the race.

Mr. Adams is holding fund-raisers with unlikely allies for a Democratic mayor of New York City, including many Republicans. He has also sought to secure the support of the city’s business leaders. Before hiring a new campaign manager, Mr. Adams had the job candidate meet with the billionaire financiers Bill Ackman and Daniel S. Loeb, among other wealthy leaders.

Speaking at a news conference on Monday, the mayor said that he did not trust Mr. Cuomo to abide by any deal to drop out of the race, adding that voters have already made their rejection of him clear in the primary.

“Andrew is a double-digit loser in the primary,” Mr. Adams said, adding, “He had his opportunity.”

Rich Azzopardi, a spokesman for Mr. Cuomo, said that Mr. Cuomo received more votes in this year’s primary during his second-place finish — roughly 440,000 votes — than Mr. Adams did in the 2021 primary and argued that Mr. Cuomo still had an opportunity to win. (Mr. Adams received about 404,000 votes when he won the primary in 2021.)

“This is a primary that the mayor didn’t participate in,” Mr. Azzopardi said, adding that Mr. Cuomo received “more votes three weeks ago than the mayor got four years ago, when he was at the height of his popularity and people actually wanted to give him a chance.”

Image
Zohran Mamdani said that his victory in the Democratic primary demonstrated a “hunger for a new kind of politics.”Credit...Vincent Alban/The New York Times

Mr. Mamdani said Monday at a rally in Manhattan, where he received the endorsement of a union representing musicians, that Mr. Cuomo was having a difficult time accepting his loss.

“I think he’s struggling to come to terms with what Tuesday meant,” Mr. Mamdani said. “We spent an entire campaign being told that it was inevitable for Andrew Cuomo to be the next mayor, and he believed that himself.”

Mr. Mamdani said that the primary was a “repudiation of the politics” that Mr. Cuomo had practiced and that his own victory reflected a “hunger for a new kind of politics — a politics focused on working people.”

ICE Set to Vastly Expand Its Reach With New Funds

After the passage of President Trump’s domestic policy law, the Department of Homeland Security is poised to hire thousands of new immigration agents and double detention space.


By Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Hamed Aleaziz
Reporting from WashingtonPublished July 12, 2025Updated July 13, 2025


Thousands of new deportation agents deployed into American cities. A doubling of detention space to hold tens of thousands of immigrants before they are expelled. Miles of new border wall, along with surveillance towers equipped with artificial intelligence.

That is the expansive plan that President Trump’s top immigration officials now intend to enact after months of struggling to overcome staffing shortages and logistical hurdles that have stymied his pledge to record the most deportations in American history.

After weeks of pressuring members of Congress into supporting his signature domestic policy legislation, Mr. Trump has secured an extraordinary injection of funding for his immigration agenda — $170 billion, the vast majority of which will go to the Department of Homeland Security over four years.

The annual budget of Immigration and Customs Enforcement alone will spike from about $8 billion to roughly $28 billion, making it the highest funded law enforcement agency in the federal government.

The new resources will fuel an intense initiative to recruit as many as 10,000 new agents who will have a presence in cities like New York City and Los Angeles, and throughout the United States. And the money comes as a windfall for private prison companies, who have already rushed to pitch the administration on new contracts to run detention facilities.

“You’re going to see immigration enforcement on a level you’ve never seen it before,” Tom Homan, Mr. Trump’s border czar, said in an interview.

The massive infusion of funds is raising worries that in the rush to make good on Mr. Trump’s pledged immigration crackdown, his administration could cut corners on the careful vetting needed to hire deportation officers. And immigration advocates say they are bracing for more masked agents to descend upon local communities with heavy-handed tactics.

“There’s an incredible sense of dread, frankly,” said Chris Newman, the legal director and general counsel for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, which represents day laborer groups across the country.

So far, he said, Mr. Trump has tried to expand his power over immigration through executive actions, some of which have been blocked by the courts. “But this is legislation, signed into law, and gives people an impression of a sense of permanence, which is ominous,” Mr. Newman said.

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No matter what, the budget increase will leave a Trump imprint on the American immigration system for years to come, according to current and former immigration officials.

“This is the missing piece in mass deportations that the administration needed,” said Andrea Flores, who directed border management for the National Security Council in the Biden White House. “What this signals is a new level of funding for immigration enforcement nationally that likely changes it forever even if Democrats come into power.”

Even with the new funding, Mr. Trump’s aides are still hedging on whether they can deliver on their goal to deport 1 million undocumented immigrants this year and millions more before he leaves office. They are aware that it could take months to scale up new detention facilities and recruit, conduct background checks of and train thousands of immigration agents.

“It’s going to take some time,” Mr. Homan said. “We’re already about six months in the game. We just got this money, so we’re going to do the best we can.”

ImagePresident Trump shaking hands with Tom Homan, the administration’s border czar, during an event last month at the White House.Credit...Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times

The legislation sets aside roughly $30 billion to bolster immigration enforcement through 2029, money that the administration says will fund the hiring of 10,000 ICE agents. That would bring the total number of deportation officers to 16,000, surpassing the roughly 13,700 special agents at the F.B.I.

“You’re going to see more agents on the street,” Mr. Homan said, adding that the administration planned to ramp up migrant arrests in cities, in immigration courts and at work sites.

With the surge of agents, he added, the administration could also target more foreigners who overstay their visas, who immigration experts have said account for a significant portion of those without legal status in the United States.

Identifying and hiring thousands of qualified agents will not be easy. Some former immigration officials warn that the administration could feel pressure to cut corners on safeguards like background checks and training to speed the process. When the United States has rushed in the past to surge hiring to federal law enforcement agencies, such as the Bush administration’s quick expansion of the Border Patrol, the government was plagued with cases of misconduct, they noted.

“There’s going to be a lot of people who are ill-suited to be a law enforcement officer and apply for one of these jobs,” said John Sandweg, a former acting director of ICE in the Obama administration. “I think you’re going to see them pushing and bending every rule they can to get them on the streets as soon as possible.”

Tim Quinn, a former senior official in Customs and Border Protection, said the rapid expansion of the immigration agencies makes accountability mechanisms even more essential. But the administration earlier this year took steps to dismantle the watchdog agencies inside the Department of Homeland Security, the parent agency of ICE.

“You got now an agency that has a high influx of resources; what are the oversight capabilities?” said Mr. Quinn, who resigned in protest of one of Mr. Trump’s anti-D.E.I. directives earlier this year. “Where does that come from?”

Mr. Homan said that the administration planned to move both quickly and responsibly.

“We want to try to speed up as quickly as we can without sacrificing any of the rules that we have in place that are necessary,” Mr. Homan said, adding that officials were already planning on expanding the footprint of the ICE academy. “We don’t want to hire the wrong people.”
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“You’re going to see more agents on the street,” Mr. Homan said, as a result of the new funding for the Department of Homeland Security, the parent agency of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.Credit...Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times


Mr. Homan says one of his top priorities is an expansion of detention capacity, an issue that has long been a challenge for the federal government. ICE often has to hold immigrants for weeks or even months given a limited number of deportation planes, backlog in immigration courts and inconsistent diplomatic agreements with other nations who take deportees.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement was funded in recent years to hold over 41,000 immigrants in custody, primarily in private facilities and some county jails. The agency is already buckling under the pressure of increased enforcement this year, holding around 58,000 immigrants as of earlier this month, according to internal data. Immigration advocates have raised concern over the overcrowded detention facilities, with some immigrants going a week or more without showers and others sleeping on bare floors.

On a recent day, Mr. Homan said, the agency only had around 200 open beds to hold detained immigrants.

The new law includes $45 billion for immigration detention, allowing ICE to expand its footprint to 100,000 beds across the United States. Mr. Homan said he hoped to reach that mark by the end of the year.

Private prison companies stand to benefit greatly from the expansion, with the ability to ramp up detention quickly. Mr. Homan said the administration had already received outreach from companies interested in new contracts.

Joe Gomes, managing director of equity research at Noble Capital, said that the two biggest companies working with ICE, CoreCivic and Geo Group, each have beds available in existing facilities that they could immediately contract to the agency for tens of millions of dollars.

Spokespeople for both Geo Group and CoreCivic noted that their companies do not lobby for immigration legislation.

“We stand ready to continue to help the federal government meet its expanded immigration enforcement priorities,” a spokesman for Geo Group said in a statement.

Other companies could also get in the mix by quickly standing up tent facilities, which have often been used to hold migrants at the border before turning them away.

Immigrant advocates say the swift upscaling in detention could lead to dangerous conditions.

“They don’t have the beds to detain the numbers this funding equates to, so there is going to be a rush to set up hasty, makeshift prisons, with subpar conditions and infrastructure,” said Robyn Barnard, senior director of refugee advocacy at Human Rights First. “A humanitarian calamity in waiting.”

Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, pushed back on any criticism of the potential surge in ICE deployments and said more attention should be paid to the challenges that agents face. She also defended the standards of ICE detention facilities. “ICE is regularly audited and inspected by external agencies to ensure that all ICE facilities comply with performance-based national detention standards,” Ms. McLaughlin said.

The law also includes more than $4 billion to hire and train Customs and Border Protection officials, even though Mr. Trump has already deployed the military to the border and illegal crossings remain low.

In addition, Mr. Trump will have more than $46 billion for border wall construction and billions more to finance new applications of artificial intelligence.

The law requires that border authorities integrate technology “including artificial intelligence, machine learning, and other innovative technologies, as well as other mission support, to combat the entry or exit of illicit narcotics at” the border.

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The new law includes more than $4 billion to hire and train Customs and Border Protection officials and more than $46 billion for border wall construction.Credit...Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times

The administration is also getting a more than $3 billion boost for the immigration courts, a system that has long been riddled with delays and staffing shortages. Both Democrats and Republicans have agreed over the years that the small work force of judges needs support for the overall immigration system to truly be repaired. But immigration experts question whether the extra funding for additional judges and support staff will be enough to help a system overwhelmed with more than 3.5 million cases.

In order to pay for the investments in Mr. Trump’s domestic agenda, Congress imposed cuts to Medicaid and the social safety net. Immigrants will now have to pay a 1 percent tax in order to send money back to family and friends in their home countries and $100 to apply for asylum. Those asylum seekers will have to pay an additional $100 annually while they wait for a decision on their application. They would pay roughly $800 more than they pay now to appeal a rejection of their application. Entire classes of legal immigrants, including refugees, will also now be ineligible for Medicare and food stamps.

Ms. Flores, the Biden-era immigration official, said all of the changes would bolster Mr. Trump’s priorities, but at the risk of upending America’s role as a sanctuary for immigrants across the globe.

“This formalizes that America’s immigration policy is primarily about enforcing, removing and reducing the size of the immigrant population in the United States,” Ms. Flores said. “It’s a signal that Congress has embraced immigration restrictionism and has made enforcement a national priority.”

Catie Edmondson contributed reporting.
Zolan Kanno-Youngs is a White House correspondent for The Times, covering President Trump and his administration.
Hamed Aleaziz covers the Department of Homeland Security and immigration policy for The Times.

Supreme Ct Expands Pres Power Allowing Trump to Dismantle Dept of Educ.

The right-wing majority on the Supreme Court yesterday granted a stay on a lower court’s order that the Trump administration could not gut the Department of Education while the issue is in the courts.The order by the court was unsigned and gave no reasoning, as is typical in such emergency applications. No vote count was given, which is usual for emergency orders. The majority thus throws the weight of the Supreme Court behind the ability of the Trump administration to get rid of departments established by Congress—a power the Supreme Court denied when President Richard M. Nixon tried it in 1973.

The Trump administration has announced plans to fire more than 1,300 workers, a move that would effectively gut the department, which manages federal loans for college, tracks student achievement and enforces civil rights laws in schools.

The Education Department began the year with more than 4,000 employees. The administration also fired some probationary workers and offered employees the ability to resign. Altogether, after the terminations, the Education Department will have a work force of about half the size it did before Mr. Trump returned to office.

The move by the justices represents an expansion of presidential power, allowing Mr. Trump to dismantle the inner workings of a government department created by Congress without legislators’ input. The firings will hobble much of the department’s work, supporters argued in court filings. Particularly hard hit was the department’s Office for Civil Rights, which had seven of its 12 offices shuttered.

It comes after a decision by the justices last week that cleared the way for the Trump administration to move forward with cutting thousands of jobs across a number of federal agencies, including the Departments of Housing and Urban Development, State and Treasury.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a dissent, joined by the court’s other two liberals, Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

The three argued that Mr. Trump had overstepped his authority with his “unilateral efforts to eliminate a cabinet-level agency established by Congress nearly half a century ago.”

“Only Congress has the power to abolish the department,” Justice Sotomayor wrote in her 19-page dissent.The court’s decision, she wrote, would have severe consequences for the country’s students by unleashing “untold harm, delaying or denying educational opportunities and leaving students to suffer from discrimination, sexual assault and other civil rights violations without the federal resources Congress intended.”

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The order is technically temporary, in effect only while courts continue to consider the legality of Mr. Trump’s move. In practice, fired workers whom a Boston judge had ordered be reinstated are now again subject to removal from their jobs.

This is a major expansion of presidential power, permitting the president to disregard laws Congress has passed, despite the Constitution’s clear assignment of lawmaking power to Congress alone.

President Donald J. Trump has vowed to eliminate the Department of Education because he claims it pushes “woke” ideology on America’s schoolchildren and that its employees “hate our children.” Running for office, he promised to “return” education to the states. In fact, the Education Department has never set curriculum; it disburses funds for high-poverty schools and educating students with disabilities. It’s also in charge of prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race and sex in schools that get federal funding.

Trump’s secretary of education, professional wrestling promoter Linda McMahon, supports Trump’s plan to dismantle the department. In March the department announced it would lay off 1,378 employees—about half the department. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia sued to stop the layoffs, and Massachusetts federal judge Myong Joun ordered the department to reinstate the fired workers. The Supreme Court has now put that order on hold, permitting the layoffs to go forward.

Another Trump power grab is before Congress today as the Senate considers what are called “rescissions.” These are a request from the White House for Congress to approve $9.4 billion in cuts it has made in spending that Congress approved. By law, the president cannot decide not to spend money Congress has appropriated, although officials in the Trump administration did so as soon as they took office. Passing this rescission package would put Congress’s stamp of approval on those cuts, even though they change what Congress originally agreed to.

Those cuts include ending federal support for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helps to fund National Public Radio (NPR), the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), and local stations. The Trump administration says NPR and PBS “fuel…partisanship and left-wing propaganda.”

Congress must approve the request by Friday, or the monies will be spent as the laws originally established. The House has already passed the package, but senators are unhappy that the White House has not actually specified what will be cut. Senators will be talking to the director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought—a key architect of Project 2025—today in a closed-door session in hopes of getting more information.

In June, Vought told CNN that this package is just “the first of many rescissions bills” and that if Congress won’t pass them, the administration will hold back funds under what’s called “impoundment,” although Congress explicitly outlawed that process in the 1974 Impoundment Control Act.

In D.C. no one is really in charge exc Trump—which means that on most days, and regarding many issues, no one is in charge.”

A week ago, Jason Zengerle of the New York Times suggested that the real power in the Oval Office is deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller, who is driving the administration’s focus on attacking immigrants. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem defers to Miller, a Trump advisor told Zengerle. Attorney General Pam Bondi is focused on appearing on the Fox News Channel and so has essentially given Miller control over the Department of Justice. White House chief of staff Susie Wiles is “producing a reality TV show every day” and doesn’t care about policy.

On the same day Zengerle was writing about domestic policy decisions, Tom Nichols of The Atlantic was making a similar observation about international policy. He notes that Trump has only a fleeting interest in foreign policy, abandoning issues he thinks are losing ones for others to handle. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth keeps talking about “lethality” and trans people but doesn’t seem to know policy at all. Secretary of State Marco Rubio—who is also the national security advisor—appears to have little power in the White House.

Apparently, Nichols writes, American defense policy is in the hands of Elbridge Colby, the undersecretary of defense for policy, who made the decision to withhold weapons from Ukraine and who ordered a review of the U.S. defense pact with the United Kingdom and Australia in an attempt to put pressure on Australia to spend more on defense.

“In this administration,” Nichols writes, “the principals are either incompetent or detached from most of the policy making, and so decisions are being made at lower levels without much guidance from above.” This is a common system in authoritarian regimes, Nichols notes, “where the top levels of government tackle the one or two big things the leader wants done and everything else tumbles down to other functionaries, who can then drive certain issues according to their own preferences (which seems to be what Colby is doing), or who will do just enough to stay under the boss’s radar and out of trouble (which seems to be what most other Trump appointees are doing). In such a system, no one is really in charge except Trump—which means that on most days, and regarding many issues, no one is in charge.”

Dilemma of city biz bigs: They don’t like Zohran, but they are uncertain whom they do favor

New York’s richest are unnerved by Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani (below). But they are debating whether Mayor Adams (r.) or Andrew Cuomo is best bet to defeat the democratic socialist in November. Getty; Gardiner Anderson/ Nydn 

By Josephine Stratman New York Daily News

The city’s wealthy powerbrokers are opening their pocketbooks to try to stop Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani from reaching City Hall — but it’s still not clear which alternative is the best bet for their cash.

This year’s mayoral race is shaping up to be the first competitive general election in years, with incumbent Mayor Adams running as an independent and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo still in the mix.

The stakes have been ratcheted up as members of the business community, taken by surprise at Mamdani’s upset victory in the primary, scramble to defeat him. But it’s unclear whether Cuomo, who lost by double digits to Mamdani in the primary, or Adams, whose first term was marred by a federal corruption indictment, is the better bet.

Basil Smikle, a Democratic strategist, called the current situation a “solution looking for a problem” with the potential to backfire and wind up helping Mamdani.

“There’s a strong possibility that instead of using those resources to defeat him, they’ll just encourage his base even more,” Smikle said.

A new political action committee against Mamdani, called New Yorkers for a Better Future Mayor 25, formed Tuesday. It’s not yet clear who, if anyone, it will back. Fix the City, a pro-Cuomo super PAC, has continued to rake in donations as it looks to pursue supporting a “free-market candidate,” according to a rep.

Meanwhile, Adams has collected more than $1 million in just the past two weeks, as he’s fundraised from the Hamptons to Midtown, according to his campaign. At a fundraiser hosted by real estate giant SL Green, he raked in nearly $1 million.

Mamdani is a democratic socialist running on proposals to make buses and child care free and to freeze rents for tenants of stabilized apartments. To pay for that agenda, Mamdani proposes raising taxes on the city’s top 1% as well as jacking up the corporate tax rate. Those priorities have unnerved city business leaders while generating enthusiasm among younger New Yorkers.

The Democratic nominee has focused his

campaign on populist messaging, emphasized door-to-door outreach and built up his campaign coffers with small-dollar donations. On the campaign trail, he slammed Cuomo for sharing a donor base with President Trump and said the ex-governor would be beholden to those donors once in office.

Cuomo collected larger donations; Fix the City raised roughly $24 million for his primary run, a record-shattering amount.

The ex-governor’s primary donor base now appears to be split, with some sticking by their candidate and others, like Bill Ackman, announcing a pivot to supporting Adams.

Cuomo and Adams are widely seen as sharing a similar base of older, more moderate voters who oppose Mamdani’s progressive agenda. Both men have also sharply criticized Mamdani over his views on Israel and Gaza, accusing him of taking antisemitic positions.

It’s possible Cuomo and Adams could split the opposition to Mamdani if they both remain in the race until November. That’s created some uncertainty among donors as they decide who, if not Mamdani, to throw their money to in the already high-spending race.

“Another tactic they could take is … find a way to work with him,” Smikle suggested.

“You may have disagreements, but you know, if you see that organized labor is getting behind him, you have electeds joining him ... that should tell you everything you need to know about the importance of engaging Mamdani voters.”

Mamdani is making his own appeals to the city’s business community. “My vision of this city is not one where any business leader leaves this city, where any real estate developer feels as if they have no place,” Mamdani said Thursday. “It is a vision of this city where everyone stays, everyone thrives, and we actually make enough room for more to join us.”

Since Mamdani’s primary win, labor and many elected officials have endorsed him. Powerful labor unions including 32BJ, the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council and the United Federation of Teachers have backed Mamdani. Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-Manhattan, Bronx), who is hugely influential among many of the city’s Latino voters, threw his weight behind Mamdani on Thursday.

It’s No Bluff: The Tariff Rate Is Soaring Under Trump

The president has earned a reputation for bluffing on tariffs. But he has steadily and dramatically raised U.S. tariffs, transforming global trade.

President Trump argues that low tariffs have left the country at a disadvantage in the past, allowing Americans to import cheap products that put U.S. factories out of business and left the country dependent on foreign nations.Credit...Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times

By Ana Swanson


President Trump’s on-again, off-again tariffs have prompted investors to bet that he will “always chicken out” and given businesses and foreign leaders hope that the leader of the world’s largest economy will ultimately back down from his threats if they prove too economically disruptive.

Events of the past week have cast serious doubt on that bet. As Mr. Trump renews trade threats against more than two dozen trading partners, he is once again proving his fondness for tariffs, and embracing import taxes in a way that no other president has since the Great Depression.

A self-described “tariff man,” Mr. Trump has continually extolled the virtues of heavily taxing imports as a way to raise revenue and cajole factories to relocate to the United States. While the president may ultimately give way on some of his most recent threats, he has still steadily and dramatically raised tariffs to levels not seen in a century.

Over the past week, Mr. Trump has threatened 25 trading partners with punishing levies on Aug. 1 unless they sign trade deals that Mr. Trump finds acceptable. The list of countries he plans to raise tariffs on include some of America’s biggest sources of imports, including the European Union, Japan, Mexico, Brazil, South Korea and Thailand. Those countries had been in active talks with the United States about resolving Mr. Trump’s concerns in an effort to avoid tariffs.

Several may still reach deals to avert some of the levies, including India, the European Union, Taiwan and Japan.

But even if some deals are reached, American tariffs on trading partners are still likely to rise significantly. That was the case with the two trade agreement frameworks that the Trump administration has so far announced, with Britain and Vietnam, both of which leave double-digit tariffs in place.

On social media on Monday morning, the president wrote that the United States “has been ripped off on TRADE (and MILITARY!), by friend and foe, alike, for DECADES.”

Since Mr. Trump came into office in January, the average effective U.S. tariff rate has soared to 16.6 percent from 2.5 percent, according to tracking by the Budget Lab at Yale University, a nonpartisan research center. That’s a dramatic increase compared with the president’s first term, when it rose to 2.5 percent from 1.5 percent, primarily as a result of Mr. Trump’s trade war with China.

If all the tariffs that the president is now threatening on trading partners go into effect on Aug. 1, that average tariff rate would rise to 20.6 percent, the highest since 1910. According to the Yale Budget Lab’s calculations, that would also top the level of the Smoot-Hawley tariffs, which worsened the Great Depression.

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“What happened in his first term is not nearly in the ballpark of what is happening now,” said Ernie Tedeschi, the lab’s director of economics.

Image
Mr. Trump announcing sweeping new tariffs at the White House in April.Credit...Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times


Some Trump advisers had projected a flurry of deals by July 9, after Mr. Trump imposed steep global tariffs in April but then quickly paused them for 90 days to carry out trade talks. Despite the efforts of foreign countries and his trade advisers to negotiate deals, few have emerged.

Mr. Trump’s advisers have portrayed the lack of agreements as a negotiating tactic. Speaking on ABC Sunday morning, Kevin Hassett, the director of the U.S. National Economic Council, said that the president had seen “some sketches of deals” negotiated by his advisers, but that he thinks they “need to be better.”
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“These tariffs are real if the president doesn’t get a deal that he thinks is good enough,” Mr. Hassett said. “But, you know, conversations are ongoing, and we’ll see where the dust settles.”

But foreign governments are puzzled about what, exactly Mr. Trump wants, given that the negotiations have not produced the kind of deal he finds acceptable. The administration also appears to lack the time or bandwidth to make deals with more than a handful of the trading partners Mr. Trump is now threatening. As a result, there is a growing sense that what the president actually wants are tariffs that would block foreign products from the United States, rather than deals that could boost trade and open markets.

Besides the tariffs it is threatening on foreign nations, the administration appears set to roll out a variety of levies on critical sectors like semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, airplanes, lumber and other products, with some tariffs potentially coming later this month.

Mark Diplacido, who served at the Office of the United States Trade Representative during the first Trump administration, said that the current administration’s posture was that “they are fully comfortable letting these rates and these letters kick in.”

“The implication at this point is it’s time to make your final pitch, and if we’re not happy with this, we’re ready to let these go into effect,” said Mr. Diplacido, now a policy adviser at American Compass, a conservative think tank.

Kelly Ann Shaw, a partner at Akin Gump and a former Trump administration official, said that attitude was likely to translate into higher tariffs overall. It was clear that tariffs were “one of the pillars of the second Trump administration’s economic policy,” she said. For most foreign products, tariffs appeared to be settling somewhere between 10 and 25 percent.

“At least for the rest of the Trump administration, and likely beyond, we’ll see some of those tariff rates go up pretty significantly than where they were on Jan. 19 of 2025,” the day before the president’s inauguration, Ms. Shaw said.

One remaining factor that could significantly lower Mr. Trump's tariffs are the challenges that are now proceeding through the legal system. Federal courts have called into question the legal authority that Mr. Trump has used to threaten his global tariffs, and they are expected to rule on that question this fall.

Mr. Trump’s advisers have said that they have other legal channels to impose tariffs if the courts rule against them, but those methods were not likely to give the Trump administration as much scope and flexibility as it currently has asserted.

The president and many on his team argue that low tariffs have left the country at a disadvantage in past decades, allowing Americans to import cheap products that put U.S. factories out of business and left the country dependent on foreign suppliers. While some open-market Republicans and business owners privately oppose tariffs, they have been reluctant to speak out publicly against a president who often seeks retribution for his critics.

A White House official, who declined to be named because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said that the administration did not view high tariffs and trade deals as mutually exclusive, and that it had purposely crafted trade deals, for example with Britain, that had left high tariffs in place.

Mr. Diplacido said that one reason the administration had put high tariffs on many trading partners globally was related to China. In the first term, the Trump administration imposed hefty tariffs on Chinese exports. But while the U.S. trade deficit with China fell, trade deficits with many other partners started to grow. The United States began importing more products from factories in Mexico, Vietnam and elsewhere that were either run by Chinese companies or used lots of Chinese inputs and raw materials.

Mr. Diplacido said that China was “the biggest offender,” but that “targeting them directly wasn’t enough to bring down the overall U.S. trade deficit, so this wider global approach has been necessary to address that problem.”

“Until third markets are willing to coordinate to rebalance trade globally,” he added, “I think that additional pressure and the higher tariffs are going to be necessary to get the overall U.S. trade deficit down, which I think is the principal goal.”

Expanding tariffs from China to the entire world also significantly increases the burden for U.S. importers. But in the United States, the full economic effect of tariffs has yet to be felt. While economic data shows that tariffs have begun to push up prices for some goods, overall consumer price inflation has remained muted.

Economists caution that tariffs have only been in place for a short time, and more noticeable price increases could be on their way in the coming months. Mr. Tedeschi said it was “wrong” to say there was no evidence of negative economic effects, pointing to a significant rise in recent prices for appliances, electronics, furniture, used cars and auto parts, categories of goods for which prices typically fall year-to-year overall, he said.

“It takes time for tariffs to work their way through the economy,” Mr. Tedeschi said.

But Mr. Trump and his advisers have seized on recent data to argue that tariffs have little effect on prices. The lack of broad price increases so far also appears to be encouraging the president to double down on his policies.

Mr. Hassett said Sunday that consumer inflation was low and that Mr. Trump’s predictions that foreign suppliers would bear the cost of tariffs had been borne out.

“I think that that’s probably affecting his negotiating position because we’ve got all this empirical evidence that his position has been proven correct in the data,” he said.

Ana Swanson covers trade and international economics for The Times and is based in Washington. She has been a journalist for more than a decade.

MAGA fury over Justice Department Claiming Jeffrey Epstein did not keep an “incriminating ‘client list.’”

MAGA fury over the Justice Department’s statement that accused sex trafficker of young girls Jeffrey Epstein, who died in his prison cell in 2019, did not keep an “incriminating ‘client list.’” It also said it would not release additional evidence the department’s investigators have accumulated, evidence that includes photographs and more than 10,000 videos.

MAGA influencers, egged on by media figures like Dan Bongino, insisted that the Justice Department under Biden was hiding information about Epstein’s clients to cover up for Democratic leaders they insisted it would implicate. In February 2025, Attorney General Pam Bondi told the Fox News Channel that the list was sitting on her desk awaiting review. Now, though, the department has done a 180.

MAGA is furious. Bongino, who fed the frenzy, is now the deputy director of the FBI, and reports say he has turned on Bondi over the change, threatening to quit. Philip Rotner at The Bulwark makes the astute observation that wording of the announcement from Department of Justice is “deliberately opaque”—as many of their obfuscating documents are—and leaves open the possibility that there is, in fact, incriminating evidence, just not in the form of a specific document with the words “INCRIMINATING ‘CLIENT LIST’” at its top.

Bondi is a ferocious Trump loyalist, and for all that MAGA is pinning the blame for the cover-up on her, she is almost certainly following Trump’s instructions. While MAGA focused on the idea that the people on an Epstein client list would be Democrats, in fact the person most closely associated with Epstein in popular culture was Trump himself. The two men were photographed and filmed together a number of times. In 2002, according to New York magazine, Trump said: “I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy…. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

Last night, Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the top-ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said he will "be asking Chairman [Jim] Jordan [R-OH] to call for a hearing where we subpoena the Attorney General and Dan Bongino and [FBI Director] Kash Patel to come in and tell us everything that we know" about the Jeffrey Epstein files, “because this thing is really spinning out of control at this point and there’s one way to put it to rest, which is to come clean, as President Trump promised he would during the campaign.”

Just before 10:00 this morning, Trump lashed out in what seemed to be an attempt to regain control of the narrative, hitting as many MAGA talking points as he could with an attack on comedian and talk show host Rosie O’Donnell, who has relocated from her native U.S.—she was born in New York—to Ireland out of concern for her family in Trump's America. “Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship. She is a Threat to Humanity, and should remain in the wonderful Country of Ireland, if they want her. GOD BLESS AMERICA!”

The president’s suggestion that he has the power to revoke the citizenship of a natural-born American—he does not—escalates his authoritarian claims. It comes after a federal judge on Thursday barred the administration from denying citizenship to U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants, giving the administration time to appeal.

For years now, Trump and his loyalists have claimed Epstein was murdered to protect the rich and powerful men who were preying on children. This theory dovetailed with the QAnon conspiracy theory that Trump was combating a secret ring of cannibalistic child molesters who included Democratic politicians, government officials, film stars, and businessmen. MAGA influencers, including Kash Patel and Dan Bongino, pushed the Epstein theories, and MAGA followers believed them, hoping to bring down Democratic politicians like the Clintons.

Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) called for Americans to vote for Trump in 2024 because “Americans deserve to know why Epstein didn’t kill himself.”

The announcement that the DOJ would not provide further information and that Epstein had died by suicide set off a firestorm among MAGA. Far-right influencer Jack Posobiec wrote: “We were all told more was coming. That answers were out there and would be provided.”

On Tuesday, when a reporter asked about Epstein during a press opportunity at a cabinet meeting, Trump responded: “Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This guy’s been talked about for years. Are people still talking about this guy? This creep? That is unbelievable.”

Trump’s attempt to turn attention away from the story only drew attention to it.On June 5, after a falling-out with Trump, billionaire Elon Musk posted on social media: “Time to drop the really big bomb: [Trump] is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!” He followed that post up with another saying: “Mark this post for the future. The truth will come out.” He later deleted the posts and said they had gone too far.

After Trump tried to downplay the story last week, it gained momentum. MAGA influencers began to call for Bondi to be fired, and Bongino began to talk of resigning from the FBI over Bondi’s memo and handling of the issue.

Tucker Carlson was furious. “The whole thing that this tape shows that he didn’t kill himself is, like, a joke, but worse than that, it’s a joke that we all get,” he said. “I feel like we’re at a dangerous point now.”

Alex Jones said the Trump administration was now “part of the cover-up.” On X, Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote, “RELEASE THE EPSTEIN CLIENT LIST!!!!”

Laura Loomer
A lot of people who work for President Trump are pissed with Blondi. They know she Fkd up. Now it’s a matter of what happens next. She is an embarrassment to Donald Trump and his administration and we need to protect Trump from people who want to DRAG HIM DOWN. Blondi needs to be fired.

Then, at 5:21 Saturday evening, Eastern Daylight Time, Trump posted a long, incoherent screed on social media. In it, he defended Attorney General Pam Bondi—who is, of course, doing his bidding concerning the files—and tried to bring MAGA together again, warning that “selfish people” were trying to hurt his “PERFECT administration” by focusing on Epstein. In apparent contradiction to the story Bondi had told, he suggested the Epstein files existed, but then nonsensically said they were “written by Obama, Crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, and the Losers and Criminals of the Biden Administration, who conned the World with the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, 51 ‘Intelligence’ Agents, ‘THE LAPTOP FROM HELL,’ and more? They created the Epstein Files, just like they created the FAKE Hillary Clinton/Christopher Steele Dossier that they used on me, and now my so-called “friends” are playing right into their hands. Why didn’t these Radical Left Lunatics release the Epstein Files? If there was ANYTHING in there that could have hurt the MAGA Movement, why didn’t they use it? They haven’t even given up on the John F. Kennedy or Martin Luther King, Jr. Files,” he wrote.

“The Left is imploding! Kash Patel, and the FBI, must be focused on investigating Voter Fraud, Political Corruption, ActBlue, The Rigged and Stolen Election of 2020, and arresting Thugs and Criminals, instead of spending month after month looking at nothing but the same old, Radical Left inspired Documents on Jeffrey Epstein. LET PAM BONDI DO HER JOB—SHE’S GREAT! The 2020 Election was Rigged and Stolen, and they tried to do the same thing in 2024—That’s what she is looking into as AG, and much more.

“One year ago our Country was DEAD, now it’s the ‘HOTTEST’ Country anywhere in the World. Let’s keep it that way, and not waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

For the first time ever, Trump got ratioed on his own platform, meaning that there were more comments on his post than likes or shares, showing disapproval of his message. According to Jordan King of Newsweek, by 10:45 this morning (Eastern Time) it had more than 36,000 replies but only 11,000 reposts and 32,000 likes.

Trump sounds panicked, not only over the Epstein issue itself, but also because he cannot control the narrative his followers are embracing.

Over the weekend, attendees at a conference held by the right-wing Turning Point USA booed the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein case. MAGA influencers kept up the drumbeat; Matt Walsh called the administration’s about-face on releasing information “obvious bullsh*t.” Natalie Allison of the Washington Post reported that even the Fox News Channel warned this morning that “[t]here has to be some explanation” and that questions about the way the administration is handling the Epstein files were “very valid.”

Musk, who controls the X social media platform preferred by the right wing, is amplifying the story. After Trump’s Saturday post, Musk wrote to his 222 million followers: “Seriously. He said ‘Epstein’ half a dozen times while telling everyone to stop talking about Epstein. Just release the files as promised.”

Mike Flynn, who served as Trump’s first national security advisor until forced to resign for lying about his contact with Russian operatives, posted on social media: “[President Trump] please understand the EPSTEIN AFFAIR is not going away. If the administration doesn’t address the massive number of unanswered questions about Epstein, especially the ABUSE OF CHILDREN BY ELITES (it is very clear that abuse occurred), then moving forward on so many other monumental challenges our nation is facing becomes much harder.”

Flynn concluded: “We cannot allow pedophiles to get away. I don’t personally care who they are or what elite or powerful position they hold. They must be exposed and held accountable!!!”

-----------------

This afternoon, Dhruv Mehrotra of Wired noted that the video from a camera near Epstein’s prison cell that the Department of Justice released as “raw” footage had approximately 2 minutes and 53 seconds cut out of it.

Journalist Garrett M. Graff, a former editor of Politico, commented: “Okay, I am not generally a conspiracist, but c’mon DOJ, you are making it really hard to believe that you’re releasing the real full evidence on Epstein….”

When Silence Speaks Volumes. Something important about the second Trump era.

A New York Times investigative reporter explains how a problem he encountered while reporting reveals something important about the second Trump era.
Credit...Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times


Trump’s retribution campaigns have been more sophisticated and more wide-ranging in his second term.

By Michael S. Schmidt
July 11, 2025


This week, my colleague Eileen Sullivan and I reported that the Secret Service took the extraordinary step in May of surveilling the former F.B.I. director James Comey, a day after he posted a photo that President Trump’s allies claimed contained an assassination threat.

The story raised questions about whether Comey was tailed not because he was a legitimate threat but as part of a retribution campaign Trump has promised to wage against those he sees as his enemies.

To nail down the story, we had to do one of the most challenging tasks we face as reporters: pry loose details from the inside of a federal investigation.

But there was also something unexpectedly difficult about that story, compared with similar stories I’ve reported over 20 years at The New York Times. Some of the people we’ve previously called on to provide outside expertise refused to speak with us this time.

Tonight, I’m going to take you behind the scenes of our reporting, and explain why the speed bump we hit may be a sign of something more significant.

A chill in Washington

When we write a story like this, we reach out to experts who can put what we are writing about in context. Drawing on their work experience or academic expertise, they can help us — and our readers — understand whether and why an incident we are covering is unusual, or which laws might apply to it.

These individuals are often more than willing to share what they know. Being publicly identified as an expert can bolster someone’s professional standing.

But in this case, people we had quoted previously about important matters related to Trump, refused to speak with me about Comey.

This appeared to be the latest development in what my colleague Elisabeth Bumiller described in March as “a chill spreading over political debate in Washington and beyond.” It reflects a growing reluctance to speak publicly that my colleagues and I have noticed this year from voters, federal employees and many others.

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It’s not the kind of thing that would usually make headlines because, after all, we’re talking about people not talking. But it’s worth remarking upon as we watch the culture in Washington change before our eyes.

An escalating campaign of retribution

I’ve spent much of the past eight and a half years covering Trump’s retribution campaigns. During his first term, he tried, both privately and publicly, to pressure the Justice Department, the F.B.I. and the I.R.S. to investigate his enemies. He sometimes succeeded.

In Trump’s second term, those efforts have been more sophisticated and more wide-ranging. He has pulled security details from or opened investigations into former officials he does not like, while turning the powers of the federal government against institutions that were once seen as above the fray, like universities and law firms.

The administration’s attacks on Harvard University and the law firm Paul, Weiss have sent a lasting message to professors and lawyers wanting to criticize the administration: Your school could be stripped of critical federal funding or your firm could be hit with a potentially crippling executive order that would make it really difficult to represent your clients. On top of that, Trump’s supporters have trolled and, at times, harassed or even swatted those who have opposed the president.

The reluctance that we’ve seen suggests that even people not yet within the administration’s direct sightlines are becoming worried about speaking freely.

New fears

One of my first calls was to a well-respected former federal prosecutor who works at a large law firm and has been quoted about matters related to Trump before. I hoped he would be able to tell me whether or not it was unusual for the Secret Service to deploy invasive surveillance tactics on someone like Comey. He told me that he was interested in commenting for our article. But shortly thereafter, he called to say that his firm did not want him to be quoted on the sensitive topic of Comey.

Speaking to me later on the condition of anonymity, he said that it was not worth the potential hassle to his law firm for him to opine on something related to Trump. The climate now, he said, is very different from what it was during Trump’s first term, or when Trump was out of office and facing four indictments.

The next legal expert I consulted ultimately refused to be quoted, too.

Finally, I reached Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney and a professor at the University of Michigan Law School, who argued that the surveillance of Comey was deeply unusual.

Today, she told me that she thought it was worth saying so.

“As a former U.S. attorney, I feel a duty to speak out about violations of D.O.J. norms. As a professor, I have the freedom to speak candidly in a way that perhaps lawyers in law firms or private companies cannot,” McQuade said.

It can be hard to show the tangible effects of a vengeful government, particularly because concerns about retribution often spur people not to do something they normally would. But the quiet in Washington is noticeable, and meaningful. Silence, particularly around something fairly innocuous like explaining the law, reflects a level of fear that feels new.

This is not something that I saw during the first Trump administration, when much of the country seemed to be lining up to take on Trump or opine about what he was doing.

In a small way, the entire experience showed how things have changed.

Netanyahu’s War

Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington, D.C. Eric Lee for The New York Times

By Jodi Rudoren

I covered two prior Gaza wars and was Jerusalem bureau chief from 2012 to 2015.

Why has the Gaza war lasted so long? In a blockbuster investigative profile published this morning, the Times Magazine explains how Benjamin Netanyahu prolonged it partly for personal political reasons. Our Jerusalem bureau chief, Patrick Kingsley, and his colleagues Ronen Bergman and Natan Odenheimer spent six months interviewing more than 110 people and reviewing scores of military and government documents.

I spoke to Patrick — who is leaving his role this summer after four and a half years in what many have called the hardest job in journalism — about Netanyahu, the war and how they got people to share so many secrets.

Today is the 643rd day since the Oct. 7 attacks. Nobody imagined the war would go on this long. Why is it still going?

The strategic argument was that it gave Israel a better chance of defeating not only Hamas but also Hamas’s regional allies, Hezbollah and Iran. Whether you buy that argument or not, our reporting shows that Netanyahu was clearly often motivated by his personal interest instead of only by these national priorities.

There were key turning points when Netanyahu chose to continue the war to prevent the collapse of his coalition government. Fearing a domestic backlash, Netanyahu also refused to finalize a clear postwar plan for Gaza, leading to an aimless battlefield strategy that killed tens of thousands, stained Israel’s reputation — and still allowed Hamas to survive.

North of Gaza City. Saher Alghorra for The New York Times


The article opens on a remarkable scene at an April 2024 cabinet meeting. A truce was on the table — almost. What happened?

After months of stalling, Netanyahu had softened his negotiating position, raising the chances of a cease-fire and hostage release deal. His aides were preparing to present this new position to government ministers. Then a hard-right minister threatened to bring down the government if the deal went ahead. Netanyahu chose to continue the war rather than see his government collapse.

You, Ronen and Natan uncovered so many things that have never been reported before. People should read the whole story, but can you tease them here with a few of the most telling tidbits?

There’s a moment in a hospital when Netanyahu was in pajamas after being fitted with a pacemaker, and a security chief called to warn him of a looming attack. There’s the phone call, minutes into the Oct. 7 attack, when he first learns about the scale of the raid. There’s the attempt by his team to alter the official record of that phone call. There’s a surprise appearance by the Saudi crown prince, fraught conversations between Netanyahu and President Joe Biden, and a decisive meeting where he tells the military leadership to bomb Gaza with even more intensity.

When I covered Netanyahu a decade ago, he was universally assessed as risk-averse, letting conflicts simmer rather than embark on all-out wars like the ones we’ve seen the last two years. What changed?

In some senses, he is still the same Netanyahu that you knew — he still keeps lots of options open, avoiding key decisions until the last moment. We see that in his monthslong deferral of all-out confrontation with Hezbollah and Iran last year. But he has gradually taken more risks. Ultimately, he did choose to invade Lebanon, assassinate Hezbollah’s leadership, invade Syria and brazenly bombard Iran.

These choices are partly about a shift in the Israeli psyche. To Israel’s critics, the Hamas attack was an inevitable reaction to Israel’s blockade of Gaza and occupation of the West Bank. But to many Israelis, the attack was the result of Israel’s timidity, its failure to deal pre-emptively with the threat that Hamas posed.

Our colleague wrote recently that Israel has managed over the last two years to vanquish its enemies but also alienate its friends. What does that portend for its future?

In diplomatic terms, Israel has a foot in two parallel realities. In the first, Israel’s global standing has rarely been lower. In the second, Israel is edging closer to breakthroughs with longtime foes, defying the logic that the war in Gaza has left it irrevocably isolated. Even as Israel’s reputation worsens within American and Arab societies, Israeli envoys are simultaneously engaged in back-channel talks with officials in Syria that could firm up Israel’s standing in the Middle East. It’s a bizarre and confusing situation.

Netanyahu is 75 and Israel’s longest-tenured prime minister, serving nearly 18 years in three stints. Yet there is no hint of him being ready to retire.

A few longtime Netanyahu watchers think he might bow out if he establishes formal ties with Saudi Arabia and other Arab states. Coupled with the Iran campaign, he might then have secured enough military and diplomatic triumphs to restore his domestic legacy, even as his global reputation is in tatters.

But for years, Netanyahu has refused to resign despite being prosecuted for corruption (a charge he denies). He has not given the impression of ever wanting to call it a day.

Read the full story here.


Takeaways From the Times Investigation Into Benjamin Netanyahu

By Patrick Kingsley, Ronen Bergman and Natan Odenheimer

Prolonging the Gaza war helped the Israeli prime minister forestall a political reckoning.

For this article, the reporters spoke with more than 110 officials in Israel, the United States and the Arab world and reviewed scores of documents, including meeting minutes, war plans and court records. Read the full investigation.July 11, 2025


When Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, setting off the war in the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political career seemed doomed. Nearly two years later, the war is still going, and Netanyahu has assumed a position of rare domestic strength.

Our six-month investigation, containing many details that have never been previously reported, tells the behind-the-scenes story of how Netanyahu survived and then prospered as the war dragged on. The article brings readers to Netanyahu’s hospital ward in July 2023, to his home in the minutes after the Oct. 7 attack began, to the Israeli military headquarters in the days that followed and inside several cease-fire negotiations and Israeli cabinet discussions throughout 2024 and 2025.

Through interviews with more than 110 officials in Israel, the United States and across the Arab world, as well as a review of dozens of government records and other documents, we reveal how Netanyahu’s actions first made Israel more vulnerable to the October disaster and then helped to prolong and expand the ensuing war. Unexpectedly, the war’s expansion allowed Israel to defeat Hezbollah and bruise Iran. But its extension in Gaza brought relentless misery for Palestinians, led to the deaths of Israeli hostages and allowed Netanyahu to defer a political reckoning.

Here are five takeaways from the investigation.

Before Oct. 7, Netanyahu ignored repeated warnings about a potential attack.

As Netanyahu convalesced in his pajamas in the hospital in July 2023, a senior general brought him a troubling intelligence assessment. The report warned that Israel’s enemies, including Hamas, had taken note of the country’s domestic turmoil, set off by Netanyahu’s divisive plan to weaken the judiciary, and were preparing an attack.

Netanyahu ignored this and other warnings, and his government went ahead with the overhaul, passing a law hours later that limited the judiciary’s power, setting off more unrest. Two days later, Hamas’s leaders once again noted the turmoil in Israel — and decided the time was right to proceed with a long-planned attack.

Netanyahu deflected responsibility and tried to blame defense officials.

Minutes after the attack began in October 2023, at the nadir of his political career, Netanyahu was already planting the seeds for his personal survival act. “I don’t see anything in the intelligence,” Netanyahu said in one of his first phone calls that day. It was his first deflection of blame and an early hint of how Netanyahu would try to prolong his political life by blaming the security and intelligence chiefs for failing to prevent the attack.

As fighting still flared in southern Israel, Netanyahu’s team then briefed sympathetic influencers, telling them that it was the generals who were at fault for Israel’s worst-ever defense failure. At the same time, they moved to prevent the leak of conversations that might prove problematic to Netanyahu, stopped the military from creating official recordings of their meetings with Netanyahu and arranged for the searching of generals — including Herzi Halevi, the army chief — for hidden microphones.

Later in the war, Netanyahu’s team ordered archivists to alter the official records of his earliest phone calls on Oct. 7. Then they leaked a sensitive document to a foreign newspaper — circumventing Israel’s military censorship system — in order to discredit Netanyahu’s critics, including distraught families of hostages still in Gaza.

To avoid alienating far-right allies, Netanyahu dragged out truce negotiations.

In the opening hours of the war, Netanyahu turned down an offer from Israel’s opposition leader to form a unity government, preferring to remain in a coalition with far-right extremists who were more likely to let him remain in power after the war. That decision made him beholden throughout the war to the far right’s demands — in particular on the question of whether and when to reach a truce with Hamas.

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When momentum toward a cease-fire seemed to grow, Netanyahu ascribed sudden significance to military objectives that he previously seemed less interested in pursuing and that top military officials told him were not worth the cost, such as the capture of the southern city Rafah and later the occupation of the Gaza-Egypt border.

Saudi Arabia and the United States were willing to make a landmark Israeli-Saudi peace deal. Netanyahu demurred.

During intense talks with American counterparts in May 2024, the Saudi leadership took the risky step of signaling it was ready to form formal ties with Israel — as long as the Gaza war ended, the United States made concessions to Saudi Arabia and Israel began the process of recognizing Palestinian statehood. “Let’s finish this,” Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, said in one late-night meeting about the U.S.-Saudi parts of the deal.

Netanyahu’s resistance to taking that path was among the many issues that strained U.S.-Israeli relations under President Joseph R. Biden Jr. As the death toll in Gaza rose in December 2023, Biden grew so frustrated during one call with Netanyahu that he abruptly ended the conversation. As cease-fire talks stalled months later, American officials cited polls showing that more than 50 percent of Israelis now supported a hostage deal rather than continued war.

“Not 50 percent of my voters,” Netanyahu replied.

Conflict in Lebanon, Syria and Iran helped restore Netanyahu’s lost prestige.

At the start of the war, Netanyahu avoided steps that might expand the conflict into an all-out war with Hezbollah and Iran, key allies of Hamas. He called off a major attack on Hezbollah in the war’s opening days and avoided uncontrollable escalations with Iran.

But nearly a year into the war, a sequence of unforeseen intelligence successes led Israel to kill several senior Hezbollah commanders. Now emboldened, Netanyahu ordered the assassination of Hezbollah’s leader and the invasion of its heartland in southern Lebanon, destroying much of its arsenal.

Then, Israel managed to wipe out much of the Iranian air-defense system — significantly undermining the Iranian threat. Now neither Iran nor Hezbollah could protect President Bashar al-Assad of Syria against a rebel advance, prompting the ouster of another longtime nemesis of Israel.

With Tehran unusually vulnerable, Netanyahu then proceeded with an attack on Iran that became the greatest episode of his political career. Celebrated in Israel as a victory, the military campaign left Netanyahu’s party in a stronger polling position than at any point since October 2023.

How Netanyahu Prolonged the War in Gaza to Stay in Power
Secret meetings, altered records, ignored intelligence: the inside story of the prime minister’s political calculations since Oct. 7.
July 11, 2025

Patrick Kingsley is The Times’s Jerusalem bureau chief, leading coverage of Israel, Gaza and the West Bank.

Ronen Bergman is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, based in Tel Aviv.


Natan Odenheimer is a Times reporter in Jerusalem, covering Israeli and Palestinian affairs.