(Image from (vcresearch.berkeley.edu)

Robert Reich

Nov 3, 2025

Friends,

Where the hell are the Democrats? Tomorrow, we may find out. It’s not a national election, of course, but it will tell us something about where Democrats are heading.

A handful are leading the fight against Trump’s regime. But the party’s leadership has been asleep at the wheel. Neither Chuck Schumer nor Hakeem Jeffries has been able to claim the airtime and trust necessary to become the spokesperson for the Democratic Party at this dark time in the nation’s history. Both must go.

If Democrats won’t act like a real opposition party, it’s up to us to pressure them. As I note in the accompanying video, here are 7 things Democrats must do. (Please watch and share the video.)

1. Stop treating Trump’s authoritarianism like it’s business as usual.

Some Democrats think the party should just “roll over and play dead” as Trump and his MAGA cronies run roughshod over the Constitution and erode checks and balances.

Rubbish. Voters want to see Democrats fight back, not capitulate to a tyrant.

Dems must throw a wrench in the works any way you can. Stop approving Trump’s nominees. Sue the regime over its unconstitutional actions, like violating due process. Keep building pressure to release the Epstein files.

To do the opposite is to normalize what Trump is doing — and fail to take advantage of his tanking approval rating.

2. Don’t let Trump and MAGA get away with lies.

Trump and his sycophants baselessly smear their political opponents and suppress dissent.

They say most political violence is coming from the left. Wrong!

Dems should broadcast the research highlighting the rise in far-right political violence, some of which Trump’s Department of Justice is trying to erase.

Trump and his regime also lie about American cities as a way to justify deploying troops into the streets. Trump says: “Americans have been forced to put up with Democrat-run cities that set loose savage, blood-thirsty criminals.”

Utter bullsh*t. Dems must let Americans know that while crime happens everywhere, red states consistently have higher murder rates than blue ones. If we want real solutions, we need to address the actual causes.

Make sure the truth gets out by repeating it over and over. Go on podcasts. Make videos. Hell, appear on TikTok (I do).

If the truth is not reported in the media, find out why and make sure the record is corrected.

3. Mount independent investigations into Trump’s corruption.

Trump was elected on the promise of ushering in a “new golden age” for America. So far, all he’s done is usher in a new golden age for his family’s bank account.

Dems should hold public hearings and press conferences about the billions of dollars Trump is adding to his family’s net worth while everyday Americans struggle to get by.

Investigate the shady crypto deals he’s made while deregulating the industry.

Beat the drum on the concessions corporations like Skydance and Paramount are giving him in order to get mergers approved.

Inform the public about the stock Trump holds in corporations like Apple and Nvidia, both of which have received special concessions from him that have boosted their value.

Trump’s profiting off the presidency is unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. Americans need to know about it. Tell them!

4. Create a safe haven for whistleblowers and defectors of this regime.

Trump has decimated federal agencies tasked with protecting the public. Some of America’s courageous civil servants are speaking out about the damage being done.

We need to protect them.

We also need to protect any MAGA defectors. Not every political appointee is complicit with what is going on. Build channels for them to get the truth out — encrypted, anonymous, and protected.

5. Blame the real culprits that brought us to this dangerous point in American history.

Don’t let Trump and MAGA Republicans blame stagnant incomes and insecure jobs on immigrants or the “deep state” or transgender people any other bogeyman.

Democrats must tell Americans the real reason why they’re working harder and getting nowhere: big corporations and the super-rich are monopolizing the economy and have amassed enough political power to rig the game for their own benefit.

Remind Americans that it’s no longer a fight between the political left and the political right. Trump and his billionaire backers want to divide us so we never look upward and see where all the wealth and power have really gone. The fight should be between those at the top and the rest of us.

6. Reject Big Money.

Democrats, you can’t tell Americans how corporations and the wealthy have rigged the game WHILE ALSO taking their cash.

You must reject big money donations from big corporations, crypto firms, AI companies, and lobbyists like AIPAC — all of which are expected to be big spenders in upcoming elections.

Democrats should push reforms like the public financing of elections in New York City that’s enabled Zohran Mamdani to run for mayor without massive donations from big corporations and wealthy individuals.

Democrats: You the power to ban Super PAC donations in your own primaries. You must do that. Now.

7. Lay out a vision for the future.

Opposing Trump isn’t enough. Democrats must also be demonstrating for a better future — one that shakes up the system on behalf of all Americans rather than a privileged few.

Policies that help working families. Medicare For All. Paid family leave. Busting up monopolies to bring down prices. Strengthening worker power. And so much more.

It’s not enough to return to the status quo. Democrats must embrace young, fresh voices in the party and present a vision that is worth fighting for. If they do that, they’ll…

8. Take back control of Congress.

Crucial midterm elections are coming up next November. Democrats must win back control of Congress if we’re to contain the neofascism emanating from the White House.

Campaign on economic populism and a pro-working family agenda like I just described.

If you win control of Congress, use your power to put Trump on the defensive. Dare him to veto the bills you pass that actually help people.

When you’re the majority party, use your subpoena power to investigate the corruption and abuses of this regime. Make sure they never happen again.

Don’t stop there. Impeach Trump. And if you have control of the Senate, remove him from office.

Never before in living memory has it been as urgent for America to have a strong opposition party — strong enough to stop the worst demagogue in American history. Which is why it’s so important for you Democrats to take these bold steps.

And if there are Democrats who won’t do these things — we need to replace them with Democrats who will.

Under court order, FEMA stopped requiring security grantees to collaborate with immigration enforcement on Oct. 21. But AC Transit will not apply, after facing community pressure to protect riders.

by Jose Fermoso Nov. 3, 2025 (Oaklandside.org)

As immigrant raids by federal agents have ramped up this year, Bay Area residents have sought assurances from city governments and local law enforcement agencies that they will not cooperate with these efforts. Mayor Barbara Lee, for example, has reaffirmed that Oakland is a sanctuary city, which bars police from cooperating with ICE and prohibits contracts with companies that work with the agency.

However, Bay Area transit agencies, including BART — which has its own police force — set their own policies and define their own relationships with federal authorities. 

In August, FEMA’s Transportation Security Grant program invited transit agencies to apply for large grants to help protect the public from “acts of terrorism.” But there were strings attached.

Grant recipients would be required to engage in “information sharing and collaboration” with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers from program grantees. As The Oaklandside reported last month, AC Transit staff had recommended applying for the funds to cover overtime costs for security provided by the Alameda County Sheriff, but withdrew those plans after pressure from advocates and public officials.

But at least two major Bay Area transit agencies applied for the funds, The Oaklandside has learned. 

BART, or Bay Area Rapid Transit, was one; SFMTA, the San Francisco Municipal Transit Authority, which runs Muni, was the other.

According to communications officer Alicia Trost, BART applied, as in previous years, for a grant to fund its Critical Asset Patrol team, which she said is “dedicated to patrolling our highest ridership stations to provide presence and serve as a deterrence to criminal and potential terrorist activity and the detection of suspicious activity.” They sought $753,176 for this year, and the application was approved.

Never miss a story. Sign up for The Oaklandside’s free daily newsletter.Email

It was a significant amount of funds for the cash-strapped transit agency. But it potentially risked exposing its riders to enforcement actions by ICE

Alex Barrett-Shorter, a press secretary for the San Francisco City Attorney’s office, responded to queries from The Oaklandside about SFMTA, which is run by the city, by sending us a copy of a lawsuit that says the city received nearly $3.1 million in funds through the program in September. That lawsuit, filed on Sep. 30 by San Francisco, Oakland, and more than two dozen cities and counties in the Western United States against DHS and FEMA, argued that conditioning the funds on cooperation with ICE was unconstitutional. States, the lawsuit argued, “must now choose between acceding to these unlawful and unconstitutional conditions and losing hundreds of millions of dollars in critical federal disaster funding.”

The Oaklandside reached out to some of the country’s largest transit agencies to see whether they had applied for the funds, such as New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. We had yet to hear from them at press time. 

Other Bay Area transit agencies appear to have been ineligible for the grant based on the grant’s notice of funding opportunity, and several confirmed to The Oaklandside that they hadn’t applied: the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit District; the Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District; the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority; and SamTrans, which operates trains in San Mateo County.

The city and county suit followed a separate lawsuit filed in May against FEMA by 20 states, including California, that sought to block the same grant conditions. 

On September 24, a federal court ruled in that case that the plaintiffs could not be required to assist with federal immigration enforcement in order to receive security grants. The judge in the case, William E. Smith of the US District Court of Rhode Island, said the conditions attached to the grants were “arbitrary and capricious and, thus, violate the APA,” a reference to the Administrative Procedure Act, which governs how the federal government makes and enforces its rules. Smith also ruled that the grant requirements violated the USConstitution’s spending clause.

Three weeks later, in mid-October, Smith issued an order to DHS, saying that in the wake of his September ruling, any language in grant award letters to transit agencies that would have required them to collaborate in immigration enforcement “is stayed, vacated, or extinguished.” And he ordered them to amend all of the agency’s award documents within seven days.

“In effect,” Smith wrote, “defendants have done precisely what the Memorandum and Order forbids, which is requiring Plaintiff States to agree to assist in federal immigration enforcement or else forgo the award of DHS grants.”

On October 21, FEMA complied, sending BART and other transit agencies a bulletin saying that the grant awards would be amended “effective immediately.” The Transit Security Grant Program was among the six DHS programs affected. 

The office of Attorney General Rob Bonta said, in a statement to The Oaklandside, that “the injunction prohibits the Trump Administration from enforcing the illegal immigration enforcement conditions that were initially included in the DHS standard terms and conditions.”

“That order also makes clear that the conditions are unenforceable against any city or subdivision in the State of California, which would include Oakland,” Bonta’s office said, adding that those conditions will not be included in any DHS grant awards moving forward.

Criticism of BART’s decision

That BART sought a Transit Security Grant while the cooperation requirements were in place has raised some eyebrows.

Carter Lavin, a leader in opposing AC Transit’s plan to apply for one of the grants, through his work at the Transbay Coalition, a safe streets advocacy group, said that it’s essential that BART communicate to the public about its stance toward immigration enforcement. 

“BART must make a clear and public commitment that they will refuse to collaborate with ICE and CBP no matter how the court rules on the Transit Security Grant Program,” Lavin said, referring to Customs and Border Protection. “Without significant funding, BART will have to slash services, which will hurt everyone in the Bay, but the agency should look to voters to approve hundreds of millions in funding through the regional measure, instead of selling out its riders and community for a tiny grant from FEMA.”

Bryan Culbertson, an organizer with Traffic Violence Rapid Response, which tracks deaths on Oakland roads, said that all transit riders, including immigrants, must feel safe from federal forces.

“BART policy should ensure that their riders are safe even if it means rejecting federal grants,” he said. 

According to BART spokesperson Christopher Filippi, “BART Police Department policy prohibits our employees from engaging in immigration enforcement in compliance with the California Values Act and BART’s Safe Transit Policy.”

Trost, another BART spokesperson, separately told The Oaklandside that the agency follows “all applicable federal and state laws related to immigration enforcement.”

When asked whether BART lawyers consulted with the attorney general’s office before submitting the grant application to FEMA, Filippi said that BART does not comment on legal advice given to the agency. 

Over the last two months, The Oaklandside has asked BART multiple times if the agency was aware of any immigration enforcement activity on BART trains or stations. Each time, representatives of the agency said that they were not. 

Victor Flores, a BART board member who represents District 7, which includes the immigrant-heavy Oakland neighborhood of San Antonio, told us that since taking office in January, he has been following immigration detainments in the Bay Area, and that staff have informed him they would abide by the California Values Act and the District’s Safe Transit Policy, which, he said, “prohibits BPD collaboration with federal immigration enforcement.”

“I have strong concerns about the unjust detentions and actions we’ve seen from the federal administration,” Flores said. “I believe that we need to provide a safe transportation system for everyone, regardless of their country of origin.”

In the case of AC Transit, a day before the board was scheduled to vote on a staff recommendation to submit the FEMA application, the bus drivers union and several advocacy groups contacted board members and staff asking them to kill the idea. Elected officials in Berkeley and some AC Transit board members also spoke out in opposition. The pressure succeeded. By the end of the week, AC Transit general manager Salvador Llamas emailed the board a letter saying that the agency would implement its security plans without the FEMA funds.

The Oaklandside reached out to AC Transit to check whether the agency would now consider applying for the FEMA security grant, given the court’s directive and FEMA’s subsequent bulletin — or if staff still considered it too risky to do so. 

Robert Lyles, the AC Transit communications director, told The Oaklandside that their decision not to apply for funds to cover law enforcement overtime remains unchanged. There is no item on the agenda for the next board meeting, scheduled for Nov. 19, related to the grant. 

… We rely on your support

Hey, we know that most readers only scan a headline and a couple of paragraphs. Thank you for reading to the end of our story. Since you clearly appreciate the in-depth approach we take in reporting the stories that matter to Oaklanders, please consider chipping in to supercharge our newsroom.

Yes, I want to support The Oaklandside!Send a note to the Oaklandside newsroom.*

See an error that needs correcting? Have a tip, question or suggestion? Drop us a line.

0 of 600 max charactersEmail*NamePhoneTagged:AC TransitAlameda County District AttorneyBARTCustoms and Border ProtectionimmigrantsimmigrationImmigration and Customs EnforcementOakland policePublic safetyTraffic safetyTrump administration

Jose Fermoso

jose@oaklandside.org

Jose Fermoso covers road safety, transportation, and public health for The Oaklandside. His previous work covering tech and culture has appeared in publications including The Guardian, The New York Times, and One Zero. Jose was born and raised in Oakland and is the host and creator of the El Progreso podcast, a new show featuring in-depth narrative stories and interviews about and from the perspective of the Latinx community.More by Jose Fermoso

Who will be the next Nancy Pelosi? Scott Wiener would really like it to be Scott Wiener.

by Joe Eskenazi November 3, 2025 (MissionLocal.com)

On Sept. 8, 2023, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, then 83, kinda-sorta surprised a gathering of San Francisco politicos at a labor hall by announcing she would run for a 20th congressional term.

An observer recalls the crowd standing and cheering in unison — with the near-solitary exception of a disgruntled hyper-partisan backer of congressional aspirant Scott Wiener. That guy, instead, remained seated while pounding out a furious series of texts. 

This year, others would be left to send out messages with a surfeit of exclamation marks. State Senator Wiener jolted the political firmament last month by opting to jump into the race for Pelosi’s seat, whether or not Pelosi cares to keep occupying it. 

Want the latest on the Mission and San Francisco? Sign up for our free daily newsletter below.Sign up

Pelosi has had this job since 1987, when Wiener was 17. It is unlikely that a high school senior in quasi-rural Turnersville, N.J. dreamed of one day representing California’s 11th congressional district, but he clearly has pined for this post for quite some time. 

The man who methodically knocked on 15,000 doors between 2008 and 2010 before blowing the doors off the competition in the District 8 supervisor’s race has been laying the groundwork to succeed Pelosi. Last week, he repurposed his annual beer bash fundraiser into a congressional kickoff. 

Pelosi is monomaniacally focused on passing Proposition 50, and has steadfastly refused to comment on her political future until after Tuesday’s election.

Every indication right now is that Prop. 50 will win handily — and that Pelosi will not run for another term. Would it have killed Wiener to wait until after the election portrayed by the Democratic Party as a must-win to preserve democracy? 

“The speaker emerita has not said what she’s doing, and there is a race happening. And the filing deadline is in a few months,” Wiener tells Mission Local, offering a wan smile. 

In an ostensible sign of respect, Wiener never refers to Pelosi by name, only as “the speaker emerita.” During the course of a 45-minute sit-down, he used this term enough that your humble narrator’s notes are awash with the abbreviation “SE.” 

“Yes,” Wiener continues, “you can always say, ‘wait a little longer.’ That becomes a problem. You have to make a choice. You can always criticize or second-guess. People have told me I made a mistake not getting in three months ago. It’s never the right time, or it’s always the right time.”

Would Wiener have elbowed his way into the race if Pelosi was just facing her usual Joe Palooka challenger instead of Saikat Chakrabarti, a young, handsome, charismatic and obscenely wealthy tech bro turned progressive firebrand? 

He offers another wan smile. “I don’t want to speculate about that.” 

Funny thing about reality: We don’t have to speculate about it. Chakrabarti is running, and so is Wiener, and one needn’t be clairvoyant to know that Chakrabarti, who worked for Bernie Sanders in 2016 and was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign manager in 2018, forced Wiener’s hand.  

“I had coffee with him early in the year, right after he got in. He is a smart guy and he knows how to campaign,” Wiener says of Chakrabarti. “He has obviously been in campaigns for a long time. He has hired national talent. He has not limitless, but effectively limitless, resources. He has been doing tons of digital things all year.” 

The numbers coming through the grapevine on what Chakrabarti is paying canvassers and staff resemble the sorts of money that Daniel Lurie was able to throw around. And you know how that worked for him. 

Chakrabarti’s vast wealth — he is a centimillionaire — and an increasing appetite for change within a Democratic Party defined by its gerontocracy is a potent coupling.

Money may not buy you happiness, but it can buy you a field program: Veteran Bay Area politicos, glancing at photos from Charabarti’s well-attended Oct. 9 kickoff, repurposed a line from cutthroat San Francisco political strategist Jack Davis: “I don’t see a single precinct-walker in that crowd.” 

It will be intriguing to see what Chakrabarti’s field campaign looks like. While anyone and everyone left of center would want to liken themselves to New York City mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani, this would appear to be a facile comparison.

Mamdani amassed an army of precinct walkers over the course of years, well before he declared for mayor. The infrastructure that will likely propel Mamdani to victory was assembled in large part by the Democratic Socialists of America. 

Chakrabarti, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s former campaign manager and chief of staff, has a curious pedigree for a candidate appealing to San Francisco’s left: He espouses national left-wing positions, but not necessarily local ones.

In fact, he put significant money into unseating former supervisor Dean Preston, at the time the only democratic socialist and DSA member on the Board of Supervisors, and he also donated to fellow tech-dude-turned-politician Michael Lai. 

Saikat Chakrabarti’s first name, incidentally, rhymes with “boycott.” It remains to be seen whether that’s just what city lefties do. For them, a race between Chakrabarti and the moderate stalwart Wiener would be like picking sides in a political Stalingrad.  

Scott David Wiener is 55 years old. He has been a prominent mover and shaker in San Francisco politics for a generation, and has been overtly angling to succeed the speaker emerita for years.

Voters seem to be desirous of something new: Does Wiener, middle-aged, a seasoned political veteran and a longtime congressional aspirant, fill that bill? He thinks so: Wiener says he’s already courted volunteers who had gravitated to Chakrabarti before coming to him. They just wanted somebody new. 

Wiener and Chakrabarti can both beef with Trump and his gang on TV and on the Internet, but only Wiener can also sell himself as a substantive legislator who takes on big issues and gets things done.

Housing is Wiener’s signature topic — but here, believe it or not, Chakrabarti and Wiener, the godfather of the YIMBY movement, are sounding more and more alike.

“The federal government used to play a huge role in housing around what we used to call public housing or social housing,” Wiener says. “We need to get back to that. We need to implement a massive social housing program in this country.”

While Wiener isn’t exactly new to pushing social housing, this isn’t what city lefties likely expcted to hear. But perhaps they’ll take it: It’s bad form to look a gift giraffe in the mouth. 

Where Chakrabarti and Wiener figure to differ more, however, is on Israel and Gaza. Just what everyone wanted: Mideast politics may be a consequential factor in a local political race. 

At his beer bash kickoff, hecklers repeatedly interrupted Wiener to demand an answer on whether he’d accept money from AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby. They were drowned out by the pro-Wiener crowd. When repeatedly asked in an interview if he would, Wiener declined to directly answer the question. 

Wiener, who is Jewish, noted that, beyond AIPAC, much of the scrutiny “gets into a very McCarthyesque situation about Jewish donors.”

“I have some significant differences with AIPAC,” he continued. “I don’t support sending offensive arms to Israel as long as they have a government that’s not committed to peace or democracy, which is the case with this current government. So that’s a pretty significant issue for AIPAC. They are very opposed to conditioning aid to Israel.” 

Wiener, for the record, will not take money — hard no — from Big Oil, payday lenders, tobacco companies or the prison-industrial complex (he has long been a voice in the wilderness in the California legislature, willing to oppose the prison-guard union).

But when asked, multiple times, if he’d take AIPAC money, Weiner did not give a hard no. Instead, he replied that he didn’t think they’d give him any: “I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

After publication of this article, a Wiener campaign spokesperson sent the following statement:

“Senator Wiener and AIPAC have significant policy differences regarding the current Israeli government and its actions within Israel and toward Gaza and the West Bank. As a result, Senator Wiener is not seeking or accepting AIPAC’s support in this race.”

But that’s still more complicated than “hard no.” Chakrabati has a more straightforward position for the city’s progressives: He called Israel’s actions in Gaza a “genocide” during his campaign kick-off, and vowed to vote against sending Israel weapons if he were elected to congress — period. 

So, it’s going to be an interesting race. And, assuming Pelosi does indeed bow out, it will be only more so if Supervisor Connie Chan enters the fray — and does so as Pelosi’s preferred successor.

Chan and Wiener diverged on Prop. K, the 2024 measure that closed the Great Highway and led to the recall of District 4 Supervisor Joel Engardio, a Wiener ally.

Nobody seems to think a ballot measure in 2026 to reopen the highway would pass. But if such a measure were to be put before the electorate, and if a bloc of Chinese voters ran to the polls, and if there were a Chinese candidate running in a high-profile race — well, that would surely be interesting, too. 

All of that, and more, may come to pass. Wiener is ready. 

“I have learned in life,” he says, “that the only thing I can control is what I do.”

We’re more than halfway there!

We’ve raised 2/3 of our $300,000 goal to cover immigration for the next three years of Trump’s term! More than 500 of you have stepped up since September — an incredible feat of community support.

We are humbled. We still have a bit to go: Donate below if you want to keep Mission Local in the courts, reporting on ICE’s actions in San Francisco.about:blank

Donate

Latest News

S.F. nonprofit just began offering legal aid to trans immigrants. Requests are pouring in.

Prop. C architect facing ouster from Prop. C oversight commission

Meet some of the deceased honored in San Francisco’s Day of the Dead

Joe Eskenazi

getbackjoejoe@gmail.com

Managing Editor/Columnist. Joe was born in San Francisco, raised in the Bay Area, and attended U.C. Berkeley. He never left.

“Your humble narrator” was a writer and columnist for SF Weekly from 2007 to 2015, and a senior editor at San Francisco Magazine from 2015 to 2017. You may also have read his work in the Guardian (U.S. and U.K.); San Francisco Public Press; San Francisco Chronicle; San Francisco Examiner; Dallas Morning News; and elsewhere.

He resides in the Excelsior with his wife and three (!) kids, 4.3 miles from his birthplace and 5,474 from hers.

The Northern California branch of the Society of Professional Journalists named Eskenazi the 2019 Journalist of the Year.More by Joe Eskenazi

Oh hey, it’s Election Day! 

Polls are open Tuesday from 7am-8pm. You can drop off your ballot at any of the 34 official ballot drop boxes or 100 polling places. If you have any questions or problems with voting, check SF Elections site or call 311.

There’s only one thing on the ballot:

Prop 50: Vote Hell Yes on the the Gerrymander Cage Match (also ugh)

You can read all about it in the Pissed Off Voter Guide at theLeagueSF.org. 

We’ll be back next year with our SF-focused voter guide in all its printed glory for the June and November elections, and we’ll be praying for no more special elections.

Love and protest,

The League 

San Francisco League of Pissed Off Voters
https://www.theleaguesf.org/

Daniel Ek, co-founder and CEO of Spotify, speaks onstage during the “Now Playing” Creator Day hosted by his company at its Los Angeles, California campus on November 13, 2024.

 (Photo by Presley Ann/Getty Images for Spotify)

“A platform built to connect creators and listeners is helping an authoritarian regime build up its secret police force,” said Indivisible.

Jessica Corbett

Oct 28, 2025 (CommonDreams.org)

Outrage over Spotify running advertisements for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement ramped up on Tuesday, with the progressive advocacy group Indivisible urging users to cancel their subscriptions until the ICE ads are removed, engage in peaceful protests outside the streaming giant’s offices and events, and call on artists to boycott the platform.

Aiming to deliver on President Donald Trump’s campaign promise of mass deportations, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) this summer launched an ICE recruitment campaign, with incentives including a $50,000 signing bonus, student loan repayment and forgiveness options, enhanced retirement benefits, and more.

RECOMMENDED…

Siding With Trump, Facebook Suspends Chicago Community Group Issuing ICE Alerts

‘We Will Not Back Down,’ Says Indivisible as Trump Aims FBI, IRS at Liberal Groups

With 276 million subscribers and 696 million monthly active users last quarter, Spotify is the world’s largest streaming service. Earlier this month, a Spotify spokesperson told The Indepedent that the ads encouraging listeners to “join the mission to protect America” and “fulfill your mission” by applying to become an ICE agent do not violate the company’s advertising policies.

The spokesperson added that the ads are “part of a broad campaign the US government is running across television, streaming, and online channels.”

The British outlet noted that “they mirror similar advertising that has been seen on cable television, X, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Meta,” and subscribers to ESPN, HBO Max, Hulu, and Pandora have also complained of encountering ICE ads.

As Trump’s anti-migrant rampage continued in Chicago and other cities across the country on Tuesday, Indivisible sent out an email with the subject line: “Don’t stream fascism. Cancel Spotify.”

https://embed.bsky.app/embed/did:plc:ryjmqqquvltpslijw3zl4fln/app.bsky.feed.post/3m4bumsr7ik2l?id=947412271391506&ref_url=https%253A%252F%252Fwww.commondreams.org%252Fnews%252Fcancel-spotify&colorMode=system

“Spotify is running ads recruiting agents for ICE,” the email says. “Let that sink in. A platform built to connect creators and listeners is helping an authoritarian regime build up its secret police force. They’re choosing complicity over the artists, podcasters, and fans who make Spotify what it is—and when users and musicians called them out, Spotify’s first act was doubling down.”

“But we’re not going to idly accept that. We’re going to make them listen,” the email continues, pointing to the boycott of Disney in September, after the Trump administration’s bullying briefly got Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show yanked off of ABC.

Indivisible also published a video tutorial for canceling a Spotify premium account and a webpage with its demands for the company’s founder and chief executive, Daniel Ek, as well as incoming co-CEOs Gustav Söderström and Alex Norström:

• Immediately terminate all ICE and DHS advertising contracts with Spotify;
• Spotify must update its advertising policy to prohibit government propaganda and hate-based recruitment campaigns; and
• Spotify must commit to defending civil rights and standing up for communities under threat from authoritarian actions.

As for Spotify users who cancel their accounts and peaceful protesters, Indivisible is calling on them to promote their actions on social media with the hashtags #CancelSpotify, #DontStreamFascism, and #StopICEAds.

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

Jessica Corbett

Jessica Corbett is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.

Full Bio >

A conceptual rendering of Utah’s planned homeless services campus north of Salt Lake City, published on September 3, 2025.

 (Image from the Utah Office of Homeless Services)

An advocate for the National Homelessness Law Center warned that the 1,300-bed facility could be a “pilot” to put homeless people into similar conditions to Florida’s “Alligator Alcatraz.”

Stephen Prager

Oct 28, 2025 (CommonDreams.org)

In an effort to fulfill President Donald Trump’s executive order on homelessness, Utah is building a massive facility that housing advocates warn will function as an “internment camp” where the unhoused will be subject to forced labor.

Last month, Utah’s homeless services agencies came to an agreement for the state to acquire a nearly 16-acre parcel of rural land in the Northpoint area of northwest Salt Lake City to construct the first-of-its-kind facility, which is slated to have 1,300 beds.

RECOMMENDED…

‘Trump’s Gestapo’: Chicago Marches to Resist ICE, National Guard Deployment

‘Right Out of the Dictator’s Handbook’: Trump Sends Immigration Agents to San Francisco

The genesis of the project began in July, following Trump’s “Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets” executive order, which threatened to withhold funding from states and cities unless they criminalized homeless people camping on streets and ordered the attorney general to expand the use of involuntary civil commitment for adults experiencing homelessness.

Despite a large body of evidence showing their effectiveness at curbing crime while keeping people off the street, the order also required the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to end its support of “Housing First” policies that provide unhoused people with homes without the requirement of behavioral health treatment or sobriety.

Less than a week after Trump’s homelessness order, Utah’s Republican Gov. Spencer Cox, as well as the state Senate president and House speaker—both Republicans—sent a letter to the state’s Homeless Services Board, which was created last year following a legislative push by the Cicero Insitute—a far-right think tank that has proposed aggressive measures to criminalize homelessness and which has had major influence over Trump’s crackdown on the homeless during his second term.

In the letter, the leaders agreed with the Trump administration that they “do not support ‘Housing First’ policies that lack accountability.” They directed the Board to “accelerate progress on a transformative, services-based homeless campus that prioritizes recovery, treatment, and long-term outcomes, not just emergency shelter.”

Utah just approved a 1,300-person “mega camp” for homeless people — seven miles from town, no transportation, locked units, and even forced labor. They call it “work-conditioned housing.” We call it what it is: modern-day internment.

In this clip, Eric Tars from the National… pic.twitter.com/9Tq4wFEHhr

— Invisible People ➤ Imagine Everyone With a Home (@invisiblepeople) October 26, 2025

As far back as 2023, Trump has proposed using “large parcels of inexpensive land” to set up “tent cities” or camps for homeless people, coupled with a pledge to use “every tool, lever, and authority” to clear encampments from city streets. On the podcast Invisible People, which focuses on homelessness in America, Eric Tars of the National Homelessness Law Center said Utah’s new facility could be a “pilot program” for that effort around the country.

“Their end goal is not just jail,” Tars said. “They want to put up more of these Alligator Alcatraz sprung structure type facilities,” referring to the ramshackle immigration detention facility constructed in a remote part of Florida’s Everglades earlier this year, where detainees have been cut off from access to their lawyers and are widely reported to suffer from inhumane treatment.

He noted that, under a proposal drafted by the chair of Utah’s Homeless Services Board, Randy Shumway, more than 300 of the beds in the facility are slated for involuntary commitment. Other homeless people will be sent there for substance abuse treatment “as an alternative to jail” and will “receive care in a supervised environment where entry and exit are not voluntary.” Shumway referred to the facility as an “accountability center.”

“An individual would be sanctioned to go there. It would not be voluntary, Shumway said during a presentation, according to the Standard-Examiner. ”They would be there for a period of probably 90 days with the opportunity to detox in order to get mental and behavioral health care, to get substance use disorder support, to get physical health care, and to be surrounded by a community that’s helping them in healing.“

According to the proposal, the beds not slated for civil commitment will include “work-conditioned housing.” Tars said that this is “the thing that scares me the most,” because it “means forced labor.”

He noted that other anti-homeless bills recently proposed in Republican states have a “forced labor element” to them. In Louisiana, a bill punishing outdoor camping introduced earlier this year proposes requiring those convicted to serve up to two years of “hard labor.” Another bill introduced in West Virginia would have required those arrested for camping to take part in “facility upkeep” and other forms of vocational training.

Tars said that at the Utah facility, “even though theoretically you could come and go, they’re going to be actively enforcing anti-camping, anti-loitering, all these other laws… if you step foot off the campus,” which he noted is over seven miles away from downtown Salt Lake City and “in the middle of nowhere,” with “no public transportation.”

State officials have said they expect the facility to cost $75 million to construct, plus more than $30 million per year for ongoing operations. Bill Tibbitts, deputy executive director of Crossroads Urban Center, a low-income advocacy nonprofit based in Utah, has said that for a facility to treat such a large number of people adequately, the cost “will be much higher than $75 million.”

Tibbitts also warned that the construction of a homeless shelter in such close proximity to a facility for involuntary commitment would create an atmosphere of fear that would deter homeless people from seeking help.

“A 300-400-bed mental and behavioral health facility that people are not allowed to leave is not a shelter but an incarceration option,” Tibbitts wrote in an email to the Utah News Dispatch. “Having such a facility colocated with a shelter would probably lead to a sense that if you do not follow the rules in one facility, you could be moved into the other.”

Although the Trump administration has portrayed homelessness as primarily the result of addiction or mental illness, Tibbitts noted that “the majority of the people who visit a shelter are not chronically homeless—they just need a place to stay following a short-term period of financial hardship.”

“A senior citizen who had their rent increased beyond what they could afford,” he said, “is not going to want to go to a quasi-correctional facility to get help finding a place to live that they can afford.”

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

Stephen Prager

Stephen Prager is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

Full Bio >

Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought speaks during a news conference on September 29, 2025.

 (Photo by Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)

One consumer advocate said the effort adds “salt to the wound” as tens of millions of people face healthcare premium spikes that are likely to worsen the nation’s medical debt crisis.

Jake Johnson

Oct 28, 2025 (CommonDreams.org)

The Trump administration is moving to undercut state-level efforts to wipe medical debt from Americans’ credit reports, just as millions across the country are facing massive healthcare premium increases stemming from congressional Republicans’ refusal to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies.

On Tuesday, according to reporting by The Lever and Bloomberg Law, the Russell Vought-led Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) will publish a nonbinding interpretive rule arguing that federal statute “generally preempts state laws that touch on areas of credit reporting.”

RECOMMENDED…

Trump Admin Weighs Privatizing Student Loans, Fulfilling Another Project 2025 Objective

75% of US Voters Are Concerned About Surging Healthcare Premiums

The guidance aligns with views expressed by a Trump-appointed federal judge in Texas who, earlier this year, vacated a Biden-era CFPB rule that would have prohibited the inclusion of medical debt on consumer credit reports. The Trump administration, which has repeatedly violated court orders, is complying with the decision.

Medical debt is a growing crisis in the United States: Roughly 14 million adults owe more than $1,000 in medical debt, and an estimated 20% of Americans have medical debt on their credit reports.

Supporters of removing medical debt from credit reports argue it is not a reliable measure of creditworthiness. The Center for Consumer Law & Economic Justice at UC Berkeley notes that “medical debt often reflects the simple misfortune of getting sick unexpectedly and having to face a medical system that is rife with insurance stonewalling, delay, and mistakes.”

More than a dozen states—including California, Colorado, and New York—have moved to curb the reporting of medical debt, which accounts for a significant percentage of personal bankruptcies in the US.

The Lever reported that the Trump administration’s position that federal law overrides state laws is being echoed “by industry groups to advance their ongoing litigation to overturn the 15 state laws.”

“For example,” the outlet observed, “the Consumer Data Industry Association, which represents credit reporting companies like Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion, is likewise arguing that federal laws void state-level regulations of their conduct as part of their effort to block Maine’s medical debt law.”

Chi Chi Wu, an attorney at the National Consumer Law Center, told Bloomberg Law that the Trump CFPB’s assault on efforts to remove medical debt from credit reports adds “salt to the wound” as tens of millions of people face surging healthcare premiums.

Writing for MSNBC over the weekend, Century Foundation president Julie Margetta Morgan warned that “the spike in premiums won’t just blow an even bigger hole in families’ future budgets.”

“It will pour gasoline on the already raging fire of medical debt in this country,” she added, “and government leaders at all levels are not prepared for it.”

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

Jake Johnson

Jake Johnson is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.

Full Bio >

CNY Central Nov 3, 2025 Former President Barack Obama called New York City Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani on Saturday, praising his campaign message and offering to be a “sounding board” in the future, The New York Times first reported. In the private 30-minute phone call confirmed by a Mamdani spokesperson, Obama told the 34-year-old mayoral candidate that he was invested in Mamdani’s success as the two discussed staffing challenges and accomplishing campaign promises. “Your campaign has been impressive to watch,” Obama told Mamdani, according to the New York Times which cited two sources familiar with the conversation. Read more: https://cnycentral.com/news/nation-wo…

November 2, 2025 / 7:32 PM EST / CBS News (CBSNews.com)

Editor’s note: On October 31, 2025, correspondent Norah O’Donnell spoke with President Donald J. Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, FL, and this is a transcript of that conversation. They started by discussing the president’s recent meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, first of all, we get along great, and we always really have. We had the COVID moment, which was not– attractive as far as I was concerned. I wasn’t so happy. But outside of that, we have always had a great relationship. He’s a powerful man. He’s a strong man, a very powerful leader.

And– we’ve always– had the best of relationships, probably the best of– I could– I think I could speak for him, just about as good as it gets from his standpoint and from my standpoint. And having that is important because of the power of the two countries.

NORAH O’DONNELL: What did you get out of this deal that you wanted?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, I got sort of everything that we wanted. We got– no rare earth threat. That’s gone, completely gone. We have tremendous amounts of– dollars pouring in– ’cause we have– very big tariffs, almost 50%. We never had anything in terms of tariffs, although I put tariffs on China, but Biden let it lapsed by the– by the fact that he gave exemptions on almost everything, which was just ridiculous.

But– we have– billions and billions of dollars coming in, and we have a very good relationship. I mean, we have– a great relationship with a powerful country. And I’ve always felt if we can make deals that are good, it’s better to get along with China than not, if you can’t make the right kind of a deal than not, because, you know, China, along with many other countries (they’re not alone in this), they’ve ripped us off from day one.

They’ve ripped us so much. They’ve taken trillions of dollars out of our country. And now they’re– it’s the opposite. I mean, we’re doing very well with China, and hopefully they’re gonna do very well with us. But I do think it’s important that China and the U.S. get along, and we get along very well at the top.

NORAH O’DONNELL: This trade war, though, was hurting Americans. I mean, our soybean farmers. China had stopped buying the soybeans.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Yeah.

NORAH O’DONNELL: As you mentioned, they were– China was withholding these rare earth materials that you need for everything from smartphones to– to build submarines.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Sure.

NORAH O’DONNELL: What– what was the crucial thing? I mean, how tough of a negotiatior–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, when you say hurting–

NORAH O’DONNELL: –is President Xi–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: –it was a temporary hurt. It was a hurt because– I was takin’ in a lot of money from China. We’re doing very well against China. And all of a sudden they said, “You know, we have to fight back.” And so they used their powers. The power they have is rare earth because of the fact that they’ve been accumulating it and– and really taking care of it for a period of 25, 30 years.

Other countries haven’t. Now we are. I mean, we have tremendous rare earth, and it’s going to be– you know, it’s going to be– it’ll be a strength, but it won’t really be a strength if everybody has it. Everyone’s gonna have it pretty soon.

And they were doing it– on a singular basis. Now– they use that against us, and we used other things against them. For instance, airplane parts. That’s a big deal. They have– hundreds of Boeing airplanes. We wouldn’t give them parts. We were both acting– maybe a little bit irrationally, but the big thing we had was tariffs ultimately.

I said, “Look, if you don’t open up, then what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna impose a hundred percent tariff over and above what you’re already paying.” And as soon as I said that, they came to the table. We met in South Korea, as you saw, right? A lot of people watched.

And– we made a really good deal. And it was good for them also, I hope. I mean, I want ’em to be good for both sides, but– we’ll be takin’ in hundreds of billions of dollars– in the form of tariffs. You know, tariffs are incredible, because they really give us great national security.

As an example– when they pulled the rare earth on us and the rest of the world, if we didn’t have tariffs to fight back, I– I immediately instituted a 100% tariff over and above what they were already paying. And when I did that, they immediately came to the table. Without tariffs, we would not have had that privilege. We would have– not have had that right. Tariffs give us national security and great wealth.

NORAH O’DONNELL: You talked about those rare earth minerals. Of course–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Yeah.

NORAH O’DONNELL: –I– my understanding is about 90% of them come from China. That’s their–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Right now.

NORAH O’DONNELL: Yeah–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: But within a short period of time– we’ll have everything we need for ourselves. You know, we’ve instituted an emergency program, and we will have– within a year from now to a year and a half, we’ll have everything we need, no matter what kind of a threat is being–

NORAH O’DONNELL: How? How do we do that?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Because we’ve taken over. First of all, you saw the partnerships w– we’ve established with Japan, with Australia, with U.K., w– with just about everybody, frankly. And we’re all doing it together. You know, this wasn’t a threat against the United States. This was really a threat against the world. So the w– whole world has come together, I think, at our behest. And rare earths, in– within two years, rare earths will cea– really cease to be a problem.

NORAH O’DONNELL: The one thing that China wants but it doesn’t have is the world’s most advanced semiconductors.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: That’s right.

NORAH O’DONNELL: That’s what the United States has. Will you–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Chips in particular.

NORAH O’DONNELL: Chips. That’s right–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Yeah.

NORAH O’DONNELL: Will you allow the chip maker, Nvidia, to sell their most advanced chips to China–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: No. No, we won’t do that. But–

NORAH O’DONNELL: It’s not on the table at all?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: –we will let them– deal with Nvidia. Nvidia’s the prime– company in the world for that. And we will let them deal with Nvidia but not in terms of the most advanced. The most advanced, we will not let anybody have them other than the United States.

NORAH O’DONNELL: Because then they would win the AI race.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, they wouldn’t win it necessarily, but they would certainly have– an equal advantage. Right now we’re winning it because we’re producing electricity like never before by allowing the companies to make their own electricity, which was my idea, which nobody, frankly, had thought of.

These massive plants that are being built are building their own electric generating plants along with the plant itself. And that gives them all the electric they need without going to an old grid that’s, you know, 150 years old. And– they’re makin’ it– themselves, and then they’re selling back any excess electricity into the grid, so we benefit in all ways.

But most importantly, it allows the c– the companies to go immediately forward. We’re getting– approvals done in two and three weeks. It used to take 20 years. And we are leading the AI race right now by a lot. We are leading it by numbers that people have no idea. It’s been– it’s been really great. We’ve been very, very far-reaching for it– th– look, that’s the new internet. That’s the new everything all put together. The AI race is a big deal.

NORAH O’DONNELL: Mr. President, you just negotiated this one-year trade deal with China–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Yep.

NORAH O’DONNELL: But as you know, the Chinese, they think in a hundred years.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Sure.

NORAH O’DONNELL: They play the long game, including on our own soil.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We play the long game too.

NORAH O’DONNELL: Our own intelligence agencies say the Chinese have infiltrated parts of the American power grid and our water systems. They steal American intellectual property and Americans’ personal information. They bought American farmland. How big of a threat is China?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It’s like everybody else. We’re a threat to them too. Many of the things that you say, we do to them. Look, this is a very competitive world, especially when it comes to China and the U.S. And– we’re always watching them, and they’re always watching us. In the meantime, I think we get along very well, and I think it’s– I think we can be bigger, better, and stronger by working with them as opposed to just– knocking them out–

NORAH O’DONNELL: Hmm.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: –of the economy. They can produce things that we don’t want to produce because it’s not really worth our while– making– undergarments, makin’ this– you know, certain things. We don’t want to do that, and we can buy them inexpensively from other places in the world while we can lead the world in AI, and chips, and lots of other things.

Within– two years from now, we’ll have 40% or 50% of the chip market. What’s happening here, the biggest companies are leaving Taiwan. They’re coming into the United States because of tariffs. If we didn’t have tariffs, they wouldn’t be doing it because–

NORAH O’DONNELL: In how many years? You think we’ll be producing–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I think in two years, we’ll start opening up plants and we’ll have a very substantial portion of the chip market. Right now we have almost none. We should have had a hundred percent. If we had par– if we had presidents that knew anything about business or knew what they were doing, because, frankly, they didn’t.

We lost 50% of our automobile business. It’s all coming back. We lost a hundred percent of the chip– you know, it used to be all Intel and other companies. And what happened is other countries came in, and they stole our chip business, and we didn’t charge tariffs.

If we would have charged let’s say a 100% tariff, none of those companies would have left. But they all left. Now they’re all coming back, Norah, because the only way they avoid the tariffs is to build in our country. If they build in our country, make their plant and make their product in our country, then it’s a very simple thing. They– they don’t have any tariff to pay.

NORAH O’DONNELL: Uh-huh.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: And that’s what they want to do. And so instead of charging somebody a 100% tariff and you can make your product outside, they come in, and they make– and this is why we have $17 trillion being invested in the United States right now. By the time it– it– just to show you how big that is, it’s the biggest in history by many times. No other country’s been any– seen anything like it.

The Biden administration in four years did less than a trillion. We have 17 trillion– more than $17 trillion right now, and I’m in my ninth month. By the time we finish up, I think we’re gonna have over $20 trillion invested in the United States or to be invested in the United States–

NORAH O’DONNELL: How will that trickle down to the average worker?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Because of jobs, because they’re building plants. W– we’re bringing back the auto industry into our country. We lost 58% of the automobile manufacturing business to other countries. You know, we used to be the king of automobile and automobile manufacturing, and now we’re not really the king anymore, you know?

Within a year and a half, two years, we’re gonna be the king again. We’re gonna– the– the– as an example, I was also in Japan, as you know, and South Korea. We had– the biggest Japanese companies are investing billions of dollars in building auto plants in the United States.

If I weren’t elected– if I weren’t elected, we would be losing all of these jobs. We would be losing far more of the auto industry. We would be nowhere in chips. Our country would have been bankrupt, and we would have had a bigger welfare roll. They would have expanded welfare and forgotten about everything else.

Now we’re building a country that’s gonna be so strong, I don’t know if you saw the last numbers in terms of employment. They’re all non-government jobs. Not just government. Government jobs are easy. I could– I could immediately inc– do anything I want with government jobs.

I’d just say, “We’re gonna add up– we’re gonna add on a million government jobs,” and you’re gonna say, “Oh, what wonderful numbers.” They don’t mean anything. We are building jobs at a level that nobody’s ever seen before. But when all of these plants that are currently under construction and to be under construction, when they open, we’re gonna have an economy like our country has never seen before, the strongest economy in the world.

We’re doing very well. By the way, the stock market just hit– perfect timing for your show, just hit an all-time high. It’s hit an all-time high 48 times during the course of my– nine-month period. But just yesterday, the stock market hit an all-time high. We’re doing really well, and everybody knows it–

NORAH O’DONNELL: Can I ask–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Let’s put it this way–

NORAH O’DONNELL: Can I– can I ask you–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: The smart people know it.

NORAH O’DONNELL: Uh-huh. Can I ask you, Mr. President–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: The smart people definitely–

NORAH O’DONNELL: –on that point, though?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Yeah.

NORAH O’DONNELL: When the stock market is doing well, that doesn’t affect everybody. Not everybody’s invested in the stock market–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It does. Oh, it does, it does.

NORAH O’DONNELL: But there have been– grocery prices are up–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Look, 401(k)s. People have 401(k)s. Their 401(k)s are double what they were a year ago.

NORAH O’DONNELL: Uh-huh. But for people that don’t have 401(k)s, who are not invested in the stock market–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Sure. But– but–

NORAH O’DONNELL: –they’ve seen their grocery prices go up, inflation–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: No, you’re wrong. They went up under Biden. Right now they’re going down. Other than beef, which we’re working on, which we can solve very quickly. So the beef– the ranchers have really taken a drubbing over a 30-year period. Because of what I’ve done, the ranchers have done well.

But with that, the beef price went up a little bit. We’re gonna get the beef price down very quickly. It’ll be very nice, just like eggs. When I first took over, eggs were double, triple, quadruple what they were. This was because of Biden.

All of these problems were caused by Biden, whether it’s– the people that came into our country through jails. I mean, they were released from jails. They were lease– released from mental institutions into our country. These problems are caused by Biden. We had an open border. Now we have a border that’s, as you know, absolutely shut other than–

NORAH O’DONNELL: How–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: –people are allowed to come into our country, but they have to come in legally.

NORAH O’DONNELL: I do want to talk about immigration and some other-

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Sure.

NORAH O’DONNELL: –domestic issues. But just– if we could stay on China for just a moment–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Sure.

NORAH O’DONNELL: One potential flash point with China, probably the potential flash point with China in the coming years, is over the issue of Taiwan. The Chinese military is encroaching on Taiwan’s sea lanes, its airspace, its cyberspace. I know you have said that Xi Jinping wouldn’t dare move militarily on Taiwan while you’re in office. But what if he does? Would you order U.S. forces to defend Taiwan?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: You’ll find out if it happens. And he understands the answer to that.

NORAH O’DONNELL: Why not say it–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: This never even came up yesterday, as a subject. He never brought it up. People were a little surprised at that. He never brought it up, because he understands it, and he understands it very well. Taiwan is a very interesting case. It’s 69 miles away from China. We’re 9,500 miles away. But that doesn’t matter. He understands– what will happen. He and I have spoken about it. But it was never even brought up during a two and a ha– or two-and-a-half-hour meeting we had yesterday.

NORAH O’DONNELL: Do you mind if I ask, when you say, “He understands,” why not communicate that publicly to the rest of us? What does he understand that–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: –I don’t want to give away– I can’t give away my secrets. I don’t want to be one of these guys that tells you exactly what’s gonna happen if something happens. The other side knows, but– I’m not somebody that tells you everything because you’re askin’ me a question. But they understand what’s gonna happen. And– he has openly said, and his people have openly said at meetings, “We would never do anything while President Trump is president,” because they know the consequences.

NORAH O’DONNELL: Less than an hour before your meeting with President Xi, you posted on social media that you instructed the, quote, Department of War to start testing our nuclear weapons–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: That’s right.

NORAH O’DONNELL: –immediately.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Yeah–

NORAH O’DONNELL: What did you mean?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, we have more nuclear weapons than any other country. Russia’s second. China’s a very distant third, but they’ll be even in five years. You know, they’re makin’ ’em rapidly, and I think we should do something about denuclearization, which is gonna be some– and I did actually discuss that with both President Putin and President Xi. Denuclearization’s a very big thing. We have enough nuclear weapons to blow up the world 150 times. Russia has a lot of nuclear weapons, and China will have a lot. They have some. They have quite a bit, but–

NORAH O’DONNELL: So why do we need to test–

NORAH O’DONNELL: –our nuclear weapons?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, because you have to see how they work. You know, you do have to– and the reason I’m saying– testing is because Russia announced that they were gonna be doing a test. If you notice, North Korea’s testing constantly. Other countries are testing. We’re the only country that doesn’t test, and I wanna be– I don’t wanna be the only country that doesn’t test.

We have tremendous nuclear power that was given to us largely because when I was president (and I hated to do it, but you have to do it)– I rebuilt the military during my first term. My first term was a tremendous success. We had the greatest economy in the history of our country.

But my second term is blowing it away. It’s blowing it away when you look at the numbers, the stock market, the jobs. Look at the job numbers, how good they’ve been. And, again, I have costs down. Remember, Biden gave me the worst inflation rate in the history of our country–

NORAH O’DONNELL: I– I w– definitely want to talk about the economy, but I just want to make s– sure we– we button up this issue–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Sure.

NORAH O’DONNELL: –on nuclear weapons. And I want to clarify this–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Sure.

NORAH O’DONNELL: Are you saying that after more than 30 years, the United States is going to start detonating nuclear weapons for testing?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I’m saying that we’re going to test nuclear weapons like other countries do, yes.

NORAH O’DONNELL: But the only country that’s testing nuclear weapons is North Korea. China and Russia are not–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, Russia’s– no, no. Russia’s testing nuclear weapons–

NORAH O’DONNELL: So my understanding–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: And China’s testing ’em too. You just don’t know about it.

NORAH O’DONNELL: That would be certainly very newsworthy. My understanding is what Russia did recently was test essentially the– delivery systems for nuclear weapons, essentially missiles, which we can do that but w– not with nuclear warheads-

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Russia’s testing, and China’s testing, but they don’t talk about it. You know, we’re a open society. We’re different. We talk about it. We have to talk about it, because otherwise you people are gonna report– they don’t have reporters that gonna be writing about it. We do. No, we’re gonna test, because they test and others test. And certainly North Korea’s been testing. Pakistan’s been testing.

NORAH O’DONNELL: Not nuclear weapons, is my understanding–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Of course they have–

NORAH O’DONNELL: North Korea has, but not nuclear weapons–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: But they don’t go and tell you about it. And, you know, as powerful as they are, this is a big world. You don’t necessarily know where they’re testing. They– they test way under– underground where people don’t know exactly what’s happening with the test.

You feel a little bit of a vibration. They test and we don’t test. We have to test. And Russia did make– a little bit of a threat the other day when they said they were gonna do certain forms of a different level of testing. But Russia tests, China– and China does test, and we’re gonna test also.

NORAH O’DONNELL: So we are going to–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Doesn’t it sorta make sense? You know, you make– you make nuclear weapons, and then you don’t test. How are you gonna do that? How are you gonna know if they work? We have to do that–

NORAH O’DONNELL: Apparently, we don’t need to test our nuclear weapons, ’cause they’re the best in the world, according to experts I’ve spoken with–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: According to me. We have the best, and I was the one that renovated them and built them during a four-year period. And I hated to do it, because the destructive capability is something you don’t even wanna talk about. But if other people are gonna have ’em, we’re gonna have to have ’em.

And if we have ’em, we have to test ’em, otherwise you don’t really know how they’re gonna work. And we don’t wanna ever use them. And in the meantime, I’ve solved eight wars. I knocked out eight wars. I had eight wars– I brought a little list for you if you’d like to see it– but I took eight wars and stopped during an eight-month period, during eight months.

Before the ninth month I stopped eight wars. The only one I haven’t been successful yet in, and– and that’ll happen, is Russia Ukraine, which I thought actually would be the easiest one because I have a very good relationship with President Putin. But– we are respected again as a country, and that’s the way I’ve been able to stop the wars. I also stopped them because of trade.

NORAH O’DONNELL: Who’s tougher to deal with, Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Both tough. Both smart. Both– look, they’re both very strong leaders. These are people not to be toyed with. These are people you have to take very serious. They’re not– they’re not walking in saying, “Oh, isn’t it a beautiful day? Look how beautiful. The sun is shining, it’s so nice.” These are serious people. These are people that are tough, smart leaders.

NORAH O’DONNELL: And on that note, you talk about Ukraine, that being the one war that you are not able to solve. In August, I mean, you rolled out the red carpet for Vladimir Putin in– Alaska. But there’s been–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, I roll out the red carpet for everybody.

NORAH O’DONNELL: Okay. But is– but there’s been no ceasefire–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I think I made– yes, there isn’t–

NORAH O’DONNELL: What’s—is he ignoring you? 

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: –because he thinks– because I inherited a country where he thinks he’s winning. That was a war that would’ve never happened if I was president. He even said that. That was a war that would’ve never happened. Joe Biden was the president.

Joe Biden gave $350 billion to Ukraine, including a lot of weapons, a tremendous amount of weapons, which allowed them to fight, ’cause we make the best weapons in the world. You know, I rebuilt our military during my first term. They used a lotta those weapons in that war. We make the best weapons in the world. Now we make even better weapons. But that was–

NORAH O’DONNELL: So why won’t Putin end this war?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: –that was– but– but Norah, that was Joe Biden’s war, not my war. I inherited that stupid war. That should not have been a war. That would’ve never happened if I were president. And by the way, for four years it didn’t happen. There was never even a doubt.

Then the election was rigged and stolen, and all of a sudden you see them forming up at the line. And now I come back and I’m gonna get that one solved too. But I brought, I mean, just a little list of– of– look at this, wars. How many did I solve?

Cambodia– this is Cambodia Thailand. Kosovo Serbia. Congo– the Congo and Rwanda. Pakistan and India, that was gonna be a beauty. They shot down seven planes. Israel and Iran, you’ve heard about that one? Egypt and Ethiopia, that’s another beauty. Ethiopia built a big– dam where there’s no water going to the Nile. Armenia and Azerbaijan. And if you take a look, Israel and Hamas, which is a, you know, rough little situation, but it’s gonna be–

NORAH O’DONNELL: I do wanna talk about– I mean, you have branded yourself the peace president.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, I think I did–

NORAH O’DONNELL: What–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: –pretty good. I– I solved– those are eight of the nine wars I solved. I–

NORAH O’DONNELL: When–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: –you know how I solved ’em? I said, in many cases, in 60% I said, “If you don’t stop fighting, I’m putting tariffs on both of your countries and you’re not gonna be able to do business with the United–“

NORAH O’DONNELL: So why isn’t that– why isn’t that working with Putin?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It is working with Putin, I think. I did different with him because we don’t do very much business with Russia, for one thing, you know? He’s not, like, somebody that buys a lot from us because of– foolishness. And I think he’d like to be. I think he wants to come in and he wants to trade with us, and he wants to make a lotta money for Russia, and I think that’s great. That’s what I like–

NORAH O’DONNELL: Can you get it done in a couple months, do you think?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I think we’re gonna get it done, yeah. I think he really wants to do business with the U.S. But it did work with India, and it did work with– Pakistan, and it did work with– 60% of those countries. I can tell you, if it wasn’t for tariffs and trade I wouldn’t have been able to make the deals.

But I stopped, as an example– India does a lotta business with us. They were going to war. They were gonna have a nuclear war with Pakistan. The– Prime Minister of Pakistan stood up the other day and he said, “If Donald Trump didn’t get involved, many millions of people would be dead right now.” That was a bad war he was ready to start.

NORAH O’DONNELL: Let’s talk about–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Shot down airplanes all over the place. That really– that was gonna be a bad war. And I told both of them, I said, “If you guys don’t work out a deal fast, you’re not gonna do any business with the United States.” And they do a lotta business with the United States. And they were both great leaders, and they worked out a deal, and they stopped the war. That would’ve been a bad war. It would’ve been a nuclear war.

NORAH O’DONNELL: I wanna stay on the issue of foreign policy, and let’s turn to our hemisphere. There have been at least eight boats in the Caribbean destroyed by the U.S. military–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Fortunately.

NORAH O’DONNELL: And now the U.S.S. Gerald Ford, that is the world’s largest aircraft carrier, on the way to the Caribbean. Are we going to war against Venezuela?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I doubt it. I don’t think so. But they’ve been treating us very badly, not only on drugs– they’ve dumped hundreds of thousands of people into our country that we didn’t want, people from prisons– they emptied their prisons into our compan– country. They also– if you take a look, they emptied their mental institutions and their insane asylums– into the United States of America, ’cause Joe Biden was the worst president in the history of our country–

NORAH O’DONNELL: But why is our aircraft carrier–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Let me just finish.

NORAH O’DONNELL: –going down there?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Joe Biden was the worst president in the history of our country. We had the worst inflation, we had the worst of everything. But the worst thing he did was allow millions of people to come into our country that were many– in many cases, criminals, murderers, 11,888 murderers were let into our country. Venezuela let a lot of those people in. But they were from all over the world. This isn’t just Venezuela. They were from all over the world.

NORAH O’DONNELL: We are gonna talk about–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: And what he did to our country should never be forgotten. He had an open-border process, and people would come in, and I’m not discriminating against tattoos, but people would come in with tattoos all over their faces, and say, “Come on in, come on in, come on in.”

They let people in that should’ve never been. Venezuela emptied their prisons into the United States of America. And every one of those boats that you see shot down– and I agree, it’s a terrible thing– but every one of those boats kills 25,000 Americans. Every single boat that you see that’s shot down kills 25,000 on drugs and destroys families all over our country.

NORAH O’DONNELL: We will talk about immigration in a moment, but I just wanna talk about the scale of the military operation around Venezuela, because it has been described to 60 Minutes as using a blowtorch to cook an egg. Is this about stopping–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, I don’t think so. Look–

NORAH O’DONNELL: Is it about– let me ask you, though. Is it about stopping narcotics? Or is this about getting rid of President Maduro?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: No, this is about many things. This is a country that allowed their prisons to be emptied into our country. To me, that would be almost number one, because we have other countries–

NORAH O’DONNELL: Well we don’t need to blow up boats in order to deal–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Look, Mexico has been very bad to us in terms of drugs, okay? Very bad. We have a closed border right now. You probably noticed that for five months in a row, they have zero– think of this, zero people coming into our country through our southern border.

And it was millions of people a year just a little more than a year ago. Millions of people a year walked into our country totally unchecked, unvetted. We had no idea who they were. And we’re never gonna let that happen again. That’s what made Biden the worst president, because you know what, inflation I’ve already taken care of. We had the worst inflation in the history of our country, and now we don’t have inflation. It’s at 2%. It’s– it’s the perfect inflation.

NORAH O’DONNELL: Aren’t–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: But what made him so bad– well, the weaponization of law enforcement, all of that. Look, he was bad in every way. But the worst thing that he did is allow millions, and millions, and millions of people to pour into our country unvetted, unchecked. And they were criminals, they were murderers, they were drug dealers, they were people from jails, and people from mental institutions.

NORAH O’DONNELL: You– you have had success on immigration, I wanna talk about that in a minute. But on Venezuela–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Big success.

NORAH O’DONNELL: On Venezuela in particular, are Maduro’s days as president numbered?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I would say yeah. I think so, yeah.

NORAH O’DONNELL: And this issue of potential land strikes in Venezuela, is that true?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I don’t tell you that. I mean– I’m not saying it’s true or untrue, but I– you know, I wouldn’t–

NORAH O’DONNELL: Why would we do it?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: –I wouldn’t be inclined to say that I would do that. But– because I don’t talk to a reporter about whether or not I’m gonna strike. I’m not gonna– you know, you’re a wonderful reporter, you’re very talented, but I’m not gonna tell you what I’m gonna do with Venezuela, if I was gonna do it or if I wasn’t going to do it.

NORAH O’DONNELL: Why do we need an aircraft carrier and all of group–strike group–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It’s gotta be somewhere. It’s a big one.

NORAH O’DONNELL: I just think it– it leads to the suggestion that the United States military is planning a larger operation involving Venezuela.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, we’re not gonna allow countries from– what– you know, it’s countries from all over the world coming in. You know, they come in from the Congo where we just settled that war. But it come– they come in from the Congo, they come in from all over the world, they’re coming, not just from South America. But Venezuela in particular– has been bad. They have gangs– Tren de Aragua, do you ever hear of it?

NORAH O’DONNELL: Of course–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: The most vicious gang anywhere in the world. They cut people’s hands off if they call up the cops. You know, they call up the police and they said, “Did you call the police?” “Yes, I did. You took my apartment, you live in my building, you took my apartment.” They cut his hand off.

NORAH O’DONNELL: I–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: “Don’t ever call the police again.”

NORAH O’DONNELL: I fully underst–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: These are animals. Wait a minute. And they came in from Venezuela. Worst gang– probably the worst gang, most vicious gang in the world. And you know what I did? In Washington, D.C., we had a lot of ’em. We took care of business. They’re gone.

Washington, D.C., right now is a very safe place, as it should be. Washington, D.C., be– before I got here was almost like a crime capital of the world. It’s the capital of this country. To me, it’s the capital of the world. You see the way they treat me.

I go to Japan, I go to South Korea, I go to Chi– any place I go, and you know what I call that? Respect for our country. They didn’t treat Biden that way. When Biden went there– first of all, he hardly went anywhere. Guy couldn’t leave his bedroom. But they didn’t treat Biden that way. They had no respect for Biden falling up the stairs going to an airplane three times. I mean, this is a man who should’ve never been president. This was a rigged election. And we–

NORAH O’DONNELL: Can I ask–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: –have to get back– we have to get to the bottom of that also, because we don’t want that to ever happen again. You see what’s going on. We don’t ever want that to happen again. Look what happened to our country by having Biden as the president.

NORAH O’DONNELL: I–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Our country went to hell. And if we–

NORAH O’DONNELL: I wanted to ask you about Israel–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: –had another couple of years, if Kamala had won the election, our country right now would be finished. It was a dead country, and now we have the hottest country anywhere in the world. We have the strongest stock market, we have everybody wants to come in. A year ago we were a dead country. Right now we have the hottest country anywhere in the world. Think of that. And I did that in nine months. And it’s only gonna get better.

NORAH O’DONNELL: Let’s talk about Israel, as we’re on foreign policy and talking about some of your successes. You got– on Israel, you got the remaining Israeli hostages out of Gaza.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I did.

NORAH O’DONNELL: You arranged a ceasefire, however fragile that may be. Those are major–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It’s not fragile. It’s a very solid– you know, I mean, you hear about Hamas, but Hamas could be taken out immediately if they don’t behave. They know that. If they don’t behave they’re gonna be taken out immediately. They know that–

NORAH O’DONNELL: How do you get Hamas to disarm?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: If I want ’em to disarm, I’ll get ’em to disarm very quickly. They’ll be– they’ll be eliminated. They know that. Don’t forget, you said I got the remaining hostages. I got all the hostages out. But I always said the last 10 or 20 are gonna be tough. But we were tough also, and they let ’em all out.

NORAH O’DONNELL: You were tough–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: And now, by the way, they’re getting– a lot of the bodies are coming out too. Did you know a lot of the parents– this is very interesting– were– the people that lost their child, you know, mostly sons, but sons and daughters, they knew they were dead, in some cases.

Do you know that they were as anxious or even more anxious of getting their child out, even though they knew it was a body that we were dealing with, than the people that had a living child– a living, breathing child that they knew they were alive, if– if barely, because the way they lived was so horrible.

And– you saw yesterday four more just came out. We’re gonna get them out too. They’re buried in many cases. They’re buried under rubble. But we pretty much know where they were. But I didn’t get just the 20 out. I got all of the hostages out.

NORAH O’DONNELL: You pushed the Israeli Prime Minister to make this deal, to get a ceasefire, to apologize– to Qatar. Can you push Bibi Netanyahu to recognize a Palestinian state?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Yeah, he’s– he’s fine. He’s fine. Look, he’s a wartime prime minister. I worked very well with him. Yeah, I mean, I had to push him a little bit one way or the other. I think I– I did a great job in pushing– he’s a very talented guy. He’s a guy that– has never been pushed before, actually.

And that’s the kind– that’s the kind of person you needed in Israel at the time. It was very important. I don’t think they treat him very well. He’s under trial for some things, and I don’t think they treat him very well. I think it should– you know, we’ll– we’ll be involved in that to help him out a little bit, because I think it’s very unfair.

But he’s a wartime prime minister. I did, I pushed him. I didn’t like certain things that he did, and you saw what I did about that. I also stopped– you know, I– we knocked the hell out of Iran, and then it was time to stop, and we stopped.

Iran wants to make a deal. They don’t say that, and they probably shouldn’t say– no good deal maker would. But Iran very much wants to make a deal. The key to Middle East peace– I made Middle East peace. For 3,000 years they couldn’t do it.

I did it. And I did it with some very good partners in Israel. But the key to the Middle East peace was knocking the hell out of their potential– nuclear. When we, with those beautiful B-2 bombers– we just ordered 20 brand new ones, the newest and the greatest– but with those beautiful B-2 bombers, when they went in there and they blew the hell out of that, you know, potential nuclear weapons site– there were two of ’em, actually.

And every single missile hit every single air shaft. You know, they had to go down an air shaft. Every single one of ’em hit their target. And I remember fake news CNN said, “Well, maybe it wasn’t as powerful or as good as we thought.”

No, it was much– turned out it was actually better. You know the Atomic Energy Agency said the hit was even stronger than anyone ever thought possible. And those pilots did a great job. What they were able to do– and those machines. But it wasn’t only them.

They were surrounded by F-22s and F-16s. They were surrounded by F-35s. They were– do you know we had 52 tanker planes, loading ’em up with jet fuel, because it was a long flight. They flied– they flew for 37 hours. Of course, I flew for thirty– 42 hours over the last three days, so I know how they feel. But they flew–

NORAH O’DONNELL: Except there’s a bathroom on Air Force One–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: –but they were sitting in one seat. I was– I was able to walk around a little bit. But yeah, they said 42 hours. I’ve been in the air for 42 hours over a few days– and that was fine, because we took in trillions of dollars into our country.

And we also– you know what’s interesting, Japan took tremendous advantage of us over the years. You know, they sold cars to us, we couldn’t sell cars to them. They made a fortune, we didn’t make anything, we lost money. But it’s the exact opposite now.

But you know what? They like us more now than they used to because they respect us now. They didn’t used to respect us, and they have great respect for us, all of ’em. Every country has– including China. China now has great respect for us.

They didn’t have respect for us when they had Biden and when they had Obama. Obama was a terrible president. Nobody wants to talk about it because they wanna be politically correct. I don’t care. He was a terrible president. Our country was– it really started a very bad downward spiral. Then I stopped it, then we had a rigged election, and then– what– what Biden did to our country should never, ever be forgotten.

NORAH O’DONNELL: We’re still on– on foreign policy, so I just have another question–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: No, I’m with– I’m on all policy.

NORAH O’DONNELL: I know you are–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I’m not talking about foreign– no, no. I’m talking about everything.

NORAH O’DONNELL: Well, I just wanna–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I’m talking about economy, I’m talking about everything–

NORAH O’DONNELL: I wanted to ask you about the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia is coming to the White House–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: That’s right.

NORAH O’DONNELL: –this month. He has said they won’t join the Abraham Accords without a two-state solution. Do you believe that?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: No. I think he’s gonna join. I– I think– we will have a solution. I don’t know if it’s gonna be two-state. That’s gonna be up to Israel and other people, and me. But– look, the main thing is you could’ve never had any kind of a deal if you had a nuclear Iran. And you essentially had a nuclear Iran. And I blasted the hell out of ’em, and no president is–

NORAH O’DONNELL: Are you convinced they have no nuclear capability right now in Iran?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Do you wanna know– do you wanna know– they have no nuclear capability, no. Do you wanna know that– the pilots, I invited them to the White House–

NORAH O’DONNELL: I saw that.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: –’cause they were very brave. I mean, I wouldn’t have wanted to do it, you know, getting in a plane, and they know you’re coming, and you’re going right into Iran airspace. And, you know, they’re very experts, and you’re flying in with machines, these big, fantastic, unbelievable, beautiful wings that carry massive 100,000-pound bombs, and you don’t– I personally– I can think of other things I’d rather do.

These guys are very brave people. They’re– they were beautiful-looking people. They were– they’re real– I mean, they’re real American heroes, and I thought they deserved to be invited. And I invited ’em to the White House, the Oval Office, including the mechanics and the people behind the scenes, I invited–

NORAH O’DONNELL: I saw that.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: –a lot of ’em. And they told me something I didn’t know. They said, “Sir, for 22 years we’ve been practicing this route. Our predecessors,” obviously, before them– but “our predecessors and ourselves, for 22 years we’ve been practicing this hit, three times a year, every year, for 22 years. And you were the only president that let us do our job.”

I said, “Let me ask you. Is this a job you wanted to do?” “Yes, sir, ’cause it was the right thing.” These are really brave people. These are really amazing people, and talented people. When you can hit at midnight with no moon, with no vision, every single air shaft, where that bomb went deep into that mountain and exploded and beat the hell out of it, I’ll tell you what, they deserve to come to the White House. I gave ’em all a medal. They deserve to come to the White House. And it was a pleasure to meet ’em. These are great people. We have great people in this country.

NORAH O’DONNELL: Mr. President, we’ve talked about foreign policy, now let’s focus on issues here at home–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Okay, sure.

NORAH O’DONNELL: –some of that you have already mentioned. We are now approaching the longest shutdown in American history.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Democrats’ fault.

NORAH O’DONNELL: Under your presidency, we’re talking about more than a million federal workers who are not getting a paycheck, including our air traffic controllers. You see there’s traffic snarls out at the airports now. This weekend food aid for more than 42 million Americans is set to expire. What are you doing as president to end the shutdown?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, what we’re doing is we keep voting. I mean, the Republicans are voting almost unanimously to end it, and the Democrats keep voting against ending it. You know, they’ve never had this. This has happened like 18 times before. The Democrats always voted for an extension, always saying, “Give us an extension, we’ll work it out.”

They don’t wanna give us an extension because they used to think it was good for him, but the polls are turning around because– not turning around. I just saw a poll where they’re down 20-25%. What’s happening is the people understand they’re losing so much, they call it Trump derangement syndrome. They are losing so much that they don’t know what to do. They’ve lost their way. They’ve become crazed lunatics. And all they have to do, Norah, is say, “Let’s vote.” And you can open the– the economy could open up during our interview–

NORAH O’DONNELL: Is there something you can do, though–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Maybe it did.

NORAH O’DONNELL: Is there something you can do–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: All I can do–

NORAH O’DONNELL: –to bring this to an end?

Continue reading →

2 November 2025/Arts & Entertainment/Leanne Maxwell (SFist.com)

In an ironic twist indicative of our times, authors Joanna Ho and Caroline Kusin-Pritchard were about to go on stage to discuss their new kids’ book The Day the Books Disappeared at a San Ramon elementary school when they were told not to mention banned or queer books.

As KRON4 reports, the authors say their visit to Country Club Elementary School in the East Bay city of San Ramon on October 17 was cut short when they were told at the last minute by school officials that they couldn’t talk about certain themes in their presentation, which addressed scenarios surrounding the banning of books, including “uncomfortable historical truths, race or racism, and diverse family structures.”

As the site Book Riot explains, the authors frame the concept of book-banning in an age-appropriate manner in the book using individual preferences as an example. The main character uses his newfound ability at making books disappear to get rid of books on topics he doesn’t find interesting, and before he knows it, even the books he likes start disappearing.

Per Book Riot, the authors’ presentation consisted of 45 slides that mainly featured pages from the book along with a few informational graphics about books that have been banned nationwide.

When the authors refused to censor their presentation, they were asked to leave. ​​“Our book was literally written because of book banning; we could not leave that out of our presentation,” Ho told KRON4.

The school district released a statement saying the students who were attending the program — ages four to nine — were too young to understand the concept of book-banning. Per KRON4, the district claims that they contacted the authors’ management with the request in advance, which the authors dispute.

“We were not asked to adjust for younger audiences despite what the district statement says. They told us not to talk about book bans or mention queer books. We did not choose to leave, we were told to leave when we wouldn’t agree not to talk about book bans or mention gay books,” said Ho.

“Caroline was like this is completely out of our integrity like, we won’t be changing our presentation if we’re giving the presentation,” Ho added.

Book Riot notes that there’s an active chapter of Moms For Liberty in Contra Costa County where San Ramon is located, which puts political pressure on public schools and libraries to censor topics on race, sexuality, and gender. The outlet also writes that in 2023, a high school in San Ramon received backlash for including in its library the book Gender Queer and other LGBTQ+ themed books, along with various books by and about Black, Indigenous, and other people of color, which SFist covered at the time.

“Book banning is real, it’s happening everywhere, it’s happening in California,” Kusin-Pritchard told KRON4.

Image: ‘The Day the Books Disappeared’

Related: San Ramon Parents Want To Jump On The Public School Book-Banning Bandwagon