Bernie Sanders Says A New 'Breed Of Uber Capitalists' Has Emerged. They Truly Believe They Are 'Superior Human Beings'

Adrian Volenik
Sat, December 20, 2025 

 Benzinga

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) says there’s a different kind of wealthy Americans emerging, and they no longer see themselves as part of the same system as everyone else.

Billionaires, Poverty And Misplaced Priorities

“There is a new breed of uber capitalists out there who really believe, and they write about this as well, that they are superior human beings,” Sanders said on the “Flagrant” podcast earlier this year. He said many billionaires today view their wealth as proof they deserve more power, not just economically, but politically and socially.

He compared this modern mindset to outdated elitist worldviews from centuries ago. “Back in the 19th century… I am the king, God made my family king… Sorry you're starving to death but that's the way life goes,” he said. “God told me my family rules.”

Podcast host Andrew Schulz pointed to the hypocrisy of some of the ultra-wealthy pledging to give away their money only at the end of their lives. “As they get closer to death, they’re like, ‘Our goal is to give away all our money,’ which seems to tell me that they think that there is an issue with them having all that money,” he said. Sanders agreed: “I think they want it all. I really do,” saying that it’s because they’re very competitive.

“We are the richest country in the history of the world,” Sanders said. And yet, “60% of people live paycheck to paycheck.” He argued that the U.S. has more than enough money to address its biggest problems–if it chose to

Sanders also talked about the U.S. spending “twice as much per person on healthcare as most European countries,” yet still sees tens of thousands of preventable deaths each year due to unaffordable care. “We pay child care workers McDonald's wages,” he added, while claiming to love kids.

Military Spending

More recently, Sanders has turned his attention to military spending, calling out the U.S. government for prioritizing defense over basic human needs.

President Donald Trump signed the $901 billion National Defense Authorization Act on Thursday after it passed both the House and Senate with bipartisan support. Sanders was one of the 20 lawmakers to vote against it.

“We are spending $1 trillion every year on the military. That's more than the next NINE nations combined,” Sanders wrote on X on Thursday. “Meanwhile, millions lack health care & we have the highest childhood and senior poverty rate of almost any major country. Congress needs to get its priorities straight.”

He posted a video along with the statement, criticizing lawmakers for focusing on parts of the defense bill rather than its overall price tag. “We don't look at the bill in its totality,” he said. “When you add everything up, we are spending over $1 trillion a year on the military.”

© 2025 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
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Bernie Sanders Questions Elon Musk's Universal High Income, Free Housing Claims Amid AI, Robotics Push: 'How Will This Utopia Come…'

Badar Shaikh
Sun, December 21, 2025

BENZINGA



Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has slammed Tesla Inc

. (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk amid an AI and Robotics push.

How Will This Utopia Come About, Bernie Sanders Asks

In a post on the social media platform X on Thursday, Sanders shared a video directed at Musk. "Just a couple of questions for you," Sanders captioned the video. In the video, the Senator asked Musk questions about his artificial intelligence and robotics efforts, which will bring about a "utopia" in the world.

"You have told us poverty will be wiped out, work will be optional," Sanders said, adding that Musk also claimed that there will be "universal high income" for everyone. "How will this utopia come about?" Sanders asked if there were no "entry-level jobs" available in the market.

"When are they going to get the free housing?" Sanders asked, adding that if robots took over manufacturing jobs, when would the people working in factories receive free healthcare?

"I look forward to hearing about how you and your other oligarch friends are going to provide working people with the magnificent life that you promise," Sanders said. He also criticized President Donald Trump for doubling insurance premiums for millions of people and the SNAP benefit woes.

Hello, @elonmusk!

Just a couple of questions for you: https://t.co/bVvoOTzuum pic.twitter.com/R3h0GvdSQq

— Sen. Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) December 19, 2025

See Also: Deloitte's #1 Fastest-Growing Software Company Lets Users Earn Money Just by Scrolling — Accredited Investors Can Still Get In at $0.50/Share.
Elon Musk Vs Bernie Sanders

The pair recently got into a heated exchange on social media after Sanders criticized the construction of AI datacenters, asking for a moratorium on the data centers. The comments prompted Musk to call Sanders a coward who lacked "any sense of adventure."


Sanders had also voiced his opposition to the construction of new data centers in the past, warning that the tech industry’s AI push posed a threat to jobs, democracy, as well as public resources.

Sanders has received backing from Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who said that, despite representing Silicon Valley, he was backing Sanders as he shared that the AI technology should be helpful to workers and not “tech barons.”
Tesla's $1.58 Trillion Valuation, Falling Sales

Meanwhile, Tesla's total valuation recently reached $1.58 trillion, which further helped the EV giant bolster its position as the most valuable automaker in the world, putting it well ahead of other auto industry rivals, including Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE:TM).

However, Tesla's sales continue to be lackluster, with the latest figures suggesting a steep 23% decline in November U.S. sales amid President Donald Trump‘s introduction of several anti-EV policy changes in the U.S., like relaxing CAFE standards, among other reasons.

Photo courtesy: Joshua Sukoff on Shuttertsock.com

KUSHNER REAL ESTATE INC.

Trump’s Son-in-Law Pitches $112B Tech Utopia on Gaza Rubble

Adam Downer
Sat, December 20, 2025 


Alexi Rosenfeld / Getty Images, The Wall Street Journal

Ivanka Trump’s husband is trying to get Middle Eastern leaders to invest in his vision of a high-tech paradise built on the ruins of Gaza.

Jared Kusher, 44, and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, 68, have concocted a 32-slide, “sensitive but unclassified” PowerPoint presentation titled “Project Sunrise: Building a New and Unified Gaza,” which paints a vision of a sparkling metropolis built on the war-torn ruins of the Gaza Strip, The Wall Street Journal first reported on Friday.

Jared and Witkoff are pitching a futuristic utopia built on the ruins of Gaza. / Wall Street Journal

The proposal says the U.S. would commit 20% of the development costs to turn the Gaza Strip into a ritzy tourist destination, replete with high-speed railways, AI-driven power grids, and beachside luxury resorts. The plan would cost $112.1 billion over ten years, with the U.S. promising to support nearly $60 billion in grants and guarantees on debt for “all the contemplated work streams” in that time period.

Kushner’s pitch deck does not provide a specific plan for exactly where 2 million displaced Palestinians would go during the reconstruction period. It does say they would be placed in “temporary shelter, field hospitals, and mobile clinics.”

The White House did not immediately respond to the Daily Beast’s request for comment. Spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told the Journal, “The Trump administration will continue to work diligently with our partners to sustain a lasting peace and lay the groundwork for a peaceful and prosperous Gaza.”

Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and special envoy Steve Witkoff have been pressing their business connections to try and secure profitable peace deals in the Middle East. / Win McNamee/Getty ImagesMore

Trump’s son-in-law and Witkoff reportedly pressed their business connections in the Middle East while hammering out a peace deal in the Israel-Hamas conflict. Kushner and Witkoff are reportedly trying a similar tactic to secure a profitable peace in the Russia-Ukraine war.

So far, the two men have shopped the PowerPoint to Turkey, Egypt, and wealthy Gulf Kingdoms, according to the Journal.

However, Middle East experts have serious doubts that Jared and Witkoff’s vision will ever come to fruition.

“Nothing happens until Hamas disarms. Hamas will not disarm, so nothing will happen,” said Steven Cook, a senior fellow for the Middle East at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Reconstruction in Gaza would require the removal of 68 million tons of debris, undetonated land mines, and 10,000 killed Palestinians. / Abed Rahim Khatib/Anadolu via Getty Images

The tenuous peace deal in the Israel-Hamas conflict struck on Oct. 10 hinges on Hamas agreeing to disarm, which it so far has refused to do. Hamas disarmament is phase 2 of Trump’s 20-phase peace plan. Without Hamas disarmament, the rest of the peace agreement can’t move ahead. Slide 2 of the “Project Sunrise” PowerPoint concedes that it can’t move forward unless Hamas disarms.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Friday that Hamas remains the biggest roadblock to any reconstruction effort.

“You are not going to convince anyone to invest money in Gaza if they believe another war is going to happen in two, three years,” he said.

“We have a lot of confidence that we are going to have the donors for the reconstruction effort and for all the humanitarian support in the long term,” he added.

NAKBA II

Israel's Cabinet approves 19 new Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank

Settlements are considered illegal under international law. 

MELANIE LIDMAN
Sun, December 21, 2025
AP


Palestinian mother of Ahmad Ziyoud, draped in the flag of the Islamic Jihad militant group, mourns during his funeral in Silat al-Harithiya, near Jenin, in the West Bank, Sunday, Dec. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammad)

Palestinian men carry Ahmad Ziyoud, draped in the flag of the Islamic Jihad militant group, during his funeral in Silat al-Harithiya, near Jenin, in the West Bank, Sunday, Dec. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammad)

Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, left, leads a Christmas Eve Mass at the Holy Family Catholic Church in Gaza City, Sunday, Dec. 21, 2025. 

(AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, leads a Christmas Eve Mass at the Holy Family Catholic Church in Gaza City, Sunday, Dec. 21, 2025.

 (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

A nun holds a baby as she walks to attend Christmas Eve Mass at the Holy Family Catholic Church in Gaza City, Sunday, Dec. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel’s Cabinet has approved a proposal for 19 new Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, the far-right finance minister said Sunday, as the government pushes ahead with a construction binge in the territory that further threatens the possibility of a Palestinian state.

That brings the total number of new settlements over the past few years to 69, a new record, according to Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has pushed a settlement expansion agenda in the West Bank. The latest ones include two that were previously evacuated during a 2005 disengagement plan.

The approval increases the number of settlements in the West Bank by nearly 50% during the current far-right government’s tenure. In 2022, there were 141 settlements across the West Bank. After the latest approval, there are 210, according to Peace Now, an anti-settlement watchdog group.

Settlements are widely considered illegal under international law. Smotrich's office said the Cabinet approval came on Dec. 11 and that the development had been classified until now.

Settlements are the latest blow to Palestinian state

The approval comes as the U.S. pushes Israel and Hamas to move ahead with the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire, which took effect Oct. 10. The U.S.-brokered plan calls for a possible “pathway” to a Palestinian state, something the settlements are aimed at preventing.

The Cabinet decision included a retroactive legalization of some previously established settlement outposts or neighborhoods of existing settlements, and the creation of settlements on land where Palestinians were evacuated, the Finance Ministry said. Settlements can range in size from a single dwelling to a collection of high-rises.

The ministry said two of the settlements legalized in the latest approval are Kadim and Ganim, which were two of the four West Bank settlements dismantled in 2005, as part of Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. There have been multiple attempts to resettle them after Israel’s government in March 2023 repealed a 2005 act that evacuated the four outposts and barred Israelis from reentering the areas.

Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza — areas claimed by the Palestinians for a future state — in the 1967 war. It has settled over 500,000 Jews in the West Bank, in addition to over 200,000 in contested east Jerusalem.

Israel’s government is dominated by far-right proponents of the settler movement, including Smotrich and Cabinet Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who oversees the nation’s police force.

Settler expansion has been compounded by a surge of attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank in recent months.

During October’s olive harvest, settlers across the territory launched an average of eight attacks daily, the most since the United Nations humanitarian office began collecting data in 2006. The attacks continued in November, with the U.N. recording at least 136 more by Nov. 24.

Settlers burned cars, desecrated mosques, ransacked industrial plants and destroyed cropland. Israeli authorities have done little beyond issuing occasional condemnations of the violence.

2 Palestinians killed in West Bank clashes, ministry says

The Palestinian Health Ministry in Ramallah said two Palestinians, including a 16-year-old, were killed in clashes with Israel's military on Saturday night in the northern part of the West Bank.

Israel's military said a militant was shot and killed after he threw a block at troops in Qabatiya, and another militant was killed after he hurled explosives at troops operating in the town of Silat al-Harithiya.

The Palestinian Health Ministry identified the Palestinian killed in Qabatiya as 16-year-old Rayan Abu Muallah. Palestinian media aired brief security footage of the incident, where the youth appears to emerge from an alley and is shot by troops as he approaches them without throwing anything. Israel's military said the incident is under review.

The Health Ministry identified the second man as Ahmad Ziyoud, 22.

Israel’s military has scaled up military operations in the West Bank since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack that triggered the war in Gaza.


Cardinal celebrates Christmas Mass in Gaza City

The top Catholic leader in the Holy Land visited Gaza’s only Catholic church and celebrated a pre-Christmas Mass on Sunday that included the baptism of a baby. Dozens of Palestinians gathered in the Holy Family Parish.

Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa is on his fourth visit to Gaza since the war began, and said the Christian community aims to be a “stable, solid reference point in this sea of destruction” as rebuilding slowly begins.

“It is different this time,” Pizzaballa said. “I saw the new desire for a new life.”

The Holy Family compound was hit by fragments from an Israeli shell in July, killing three people in what Israel called an accident and expressed regret over. The parish has served as a refuge for Christians and Muslims, sheltering hundreds of displaced people.


There was a mix of gratitude and grief as people at the church marked Christmas away from home. “They welcomed us with great love and respect,” said Nazih Lam’e Habashi, 78, who stays there with his family. “This is the third holiday we are marking since the war."

“God willing, life will improve," added 67-year-old Najla Saba.

___

Find more of AP’s Israel-Hamas coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

DISARM, DEMILITARIZE, DEFUND

Combat training is a rite of passage for police recruits. It's left a trail of deaths and injuries

RYAN J. FOLEY
Sat, December 20, 2025

AP

LONG READ

 


Heather Sterling poses for a portrait during a hike, Aug. 11, 2025, near Daniel, Wyo. (AP Photo/Amber Baesler)

Heather Sterling stepped into the ring at the Texas Game Warden Training Center, ready to face an ambush by instructors acting as violent assailants.

The four-on-one drill is a rite of passage for those training to be game wardens, sworn officers who enforce state conservation laws. Nationwide, thousands of local and state police recruits are allowed into the profession only after passing similar drills – simulated fights for their lives.

The barrage of force against Sterling came rapidly, video obtained by The Associated Press shows. A surprise push from behind threw her to the floor. A right-handed punch to the back of the head knocked her down. Within two minutes, she was struck at least seven times in the head, the last blow knocking off her wrestling helmet.

“Protect yourself!” an instructor yelled.

Sterling completed the drill but suffered a concussion. A dozen of her classmates — a third in all — were injured that day as they were repeatedly punched, tackled on a gym floor and thrown against padded walls, records show.

While the drill was physically punishing, their experience was not unique. Since 2005, similar drills at law enforcement academies nationwide have been linked to at least a dozen deaths and hundreds of injuries, some resulting in disability, an AP investigation has found.

______

Editor’s note: This is the third installment of AP’s Dying to Serve series. Find the previous stories here and here.

______

The drills — frequently referred to as RedMan training for the brand and color of protective gear worn by participants – are intended to teach law enforcement recruits how to defend themselves against combative suspects. They’re among the most challenging tests at police academies. Law enforcement experts say that when properly designed and supervised, they teach new officers critical skills for handling high-stress situations.

But critics say they can put recruits at risk of physical and mental abuse that runs some promising officers out of the profession. Academies have wide latitude in running such exercises, given a lack of national standards governing police training.

Sterling quit the academy after her drill. She's now speaking out, hoping to spark change in training practices nationwide.

“I’m worried that someone is going to get killed,” said Sterling, who'd previously worked as a senior game warden and defensive tactics instructor in Wyoming. “This is a poorly disguised assault.”

An investigation by the agency that regulates law enforcement training found no wrongdoing in how the drill was conducted. An academy official told investigators the goal was to “overwhelm the cadet physically and mentally to force them to think while physically exhausted.”

An expert who reviewed the case told AP injuries happen during volatile training environments nationwide, but the Texas drill stood out for its design — recruits could not use force to defend themselves against the onslaught of assailants. He said the number of injuries was concerning.

“To teach cadets how and when to defend themselves, only to put them in a doomsday scenario with the instruction that they’re not allowed to fight back, does not match any training curriculum I’ve seen,” said David Jude, a retired Kentucky State Police academy commander.

A Wyoming game warden moves back to Texas

In October 2024, Sterling started the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s eight-month academy in rural central Texas, which boasts of producing “the best-trained conservation officers in the country.”

Game wardens — called conservation officers or wildlife troopers in some states — enforce hunting and fishing laws. They carry firearms, have arrest powers, are often among the first to respond to emergencies and rescue missions.

Sterling said she loved serving as a game warden for nearly five years in Wyoming, where she sometimes shooed moose and mountain lions away from towns. Patrolling without backup, she said, she had some “very tense conversations” with suspects and had to restrain some in handcuffs

She said almost everyone she encountered during hunting season was armed and potentially dangerous, but she prided herself on responding alertly and calmly. She never had to fight a suspect, and none of the 40 wardens she taught self-defense had been in a significant use-of-force incident.

Sterling applied in Texas to live closer to family, hoping for a similar law-enforcement role in her home state. She grew up as the daughter of a Dallas police officer and ran track and cross-country at Texas A&M.

The academy scheduled the four-on-one drill for Dec. 13, 2024, after five weeks of arrest and control training.

Instructors told cadets they couldn't defend themselves and were only to punch and kick a shield held by instructors, Sterling recalled. They discussed how some cadets had been seriously injured and terminated from previous academies for performing poorly.

Sterling told AP she was confused by the drill’s purpose. She'd never been ambushed by one person, let alone four. If that happened, she’d be able to use a firearm or other force to defend herself. As an instructor, she said, she would have never approved such a scenario or allowed punches to the head and neck.

A female classmate who had previously worked as a police officer resigned rather than participate. She later told investigators she saw the drill as inappropriate and part of an academy culture of unprofessional training and hazing.

But Sterling felt she had no choice if she wanted to stay in her profession. She completed a cardio exercise, and the drill began.

Combat drills take various forms nationwide

Academies have discretion to design training within state guidelines, and AP found the drills take many forms at local police, county sheriff and state departments. They’re sometimes called “combat training,” “Fight Day” or “stress reaction training.”

Recruits like Sterling must ward off several assailants at once. Others fight a series of instructors, one after another. Some academies intentionally use larger, more skilled instructors. In Kentucky, one scenario requires fighting a combative suspect in a pool.

The stated goals are generally the same: to use skills learned in the academy to fend off or subdue assailants and to never give up.

Recruits and instructors wear protective gear to cushion their heads from blows. But there are no uniform safety guidelines, including whether academies must have medical personnel on site.

Lawyers for some Black and female former trainees have alleged that instructors targeted their clients with excessive force to try to run them out of the profession. Several of the deaths have been of Black men hoping to join disproportionately white police forces.

Amid the deaths and criticism, experts are encouraging academy directors to retire or modify any problematic drills.

The drills “can quickly devolve into abusive rites of passage” without appropriate focus and oversight, said Brian Baxter, who oversaw training at the Texas Department of Public Safety and now leads a group that studies the use of force. Some instructors want to win rather than allow recruits to practice their skills, he added.

“The idea that we’re just punching each other to see who’s toughest ... that’s when it becomes inappropriate,” said Baxter, whose former agency overhauled its practices after a trooper died in 2005 from getting hit several times in the head. “There needs to be a problem that’s being solved by this training. And that problem needs to be directly related to public service.”

For this Texas academy class, injuries were widespread

For Sterling, the drill came to an end when she simulated holding her assailants at gunpoint and put them in handcuffs.

Later that day, she had a pounding headache. Her knee swelled, and she’d skinned her elbow on the floor.

At least 13 of 37 cadets reported injuries: concussion symptoms; a fractured wrist; a torn MCL; sprained wrists and knees; a bruised nose, records show.

Two recruits needed surgery. Some were told the injuries were due to their lack of preparation and poor technique, and had to redo the drill.

Sterling said she wasn't offered medical care. She recalled vomiting while driving herself for emergency treatment. A doctor found she suffered a concussion that resulted from an assault, a medical record provided by Sterling shows.

Sterling had passed the drill, but turned in her resignation.

“I have a very high sense of what is right and what is wrong," she told AP. "I did not want to be part of what was happening at the academy anymore.”

Deaths and injuries across the country

Nationwide, deaths and injuries have been blamed on a mix of trauma from punches and other force, overexertion, heat stroke, dehydration, and organ failure.

In August, 30-year-old Jon-Marques Psalms died two days after a training exercise at the San Francisco Police Academy. He suffered a head injury while fighting an instructor in a padded suit.

An autopsy found his death was an accident caused by complications of muscle and organ damage “in the setting of a high-intensity training exercise.” His family has filed a legal claim against the city and hired experts for a second autopsy.

In November 2024, a 24-year-old Kentucky game warden recruit died after fighting an instructor in a pool to the point of collapse, video obtained by AP shows. William Bailey’s death was ruled an accidental drowning due to a “sudden cardiac dysrhythmia during physical exertion.”

A year earlier, a Denver police recruit had both legs amputated after a training fight that his attorney called a “barbaric hazing ritual.” An Indiana recruit died of exertion after he was pummeled by a larger instructor, and a classmate was disabled after fighting the same man.

Investigations of Austin’s police academy in Texas found that physical and psychological abuse from such exercises resulted in “a significant number” of cadets injured, ranging from dehydration to broken bones, and led to reforms. Black and female cadets represented a disproportionate number of those who were injured and quit.

Macho Products Inc., which sells RedMan Training Gear nationwide, cautions in its warranty that such training “always presents risks of accidental injury, disability, and death that must be assumed by all participants." The document says risks can be minimized through “carefully planned scenarios conducted at appropriate levels of force.” A company spokesperson didn’t respond to AP's request for comment on recent deaths and injuries.

Former cadet compares the drill to a gang initiation ritual

Alarmed by the injuries to Sterling and others, a state lawmaker's office contacted the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement to seek an investigation.

After reviewing videos, investigating the injuries, and interviewing instructors and some recruits, the investigation found the drill was conducted in a “control and organized manner, with safety measures in place and training objectives clearly communicated.” The videos did not show instructors acting overly aggressive to Sterling, or any other “actions that were inappropriate or inconsistent with the established training guidelines,” it found.

“While multiple cadets sustained minor to moderate injuries during the drill, the majority recovered without extended medical consequences or changes to their training status," the report said.

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department declined to comment and refused to release records, citing the potential for litigation.

Sterling, who has returned to Wyoming and still works in law enforcement, was outraged by the state's defense of the drill, which she compared to a gang initiation ritual.

‘This Isn’t The Republican Party Anymore!’ Don Jr. Proclaims Trump Leads the ‘America First’ and MAGA Party

LEAVING THE GOP TO WALL ST DEMOCRATS

Sean James
Sun, December 21, 2025 
MEDIAITE

Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.Generate Key Takeaways
(Photo Credit: The Charlie Kirk Show on Rumble)

Donald Trump Jr. proclaimed the Republican Party is a thing of the past — his dad is now leading the “America First Party” and “Make America Great Again Party.”

President Donald Trump’s son made the claim during a speech at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest in Phoenix, Arizona on Sunday.

Trump Jr. said it is a new era for the conservative movement — one that is constantly under attack from the Democratic Party and Republicans In Name Only (RINOs). He said those attacks are ramping up as both parties plow towards the 2026 midterm elections.

Here is what the told the AmFest crowd:

Midterms are coming around the corner and make no mistake, the Democrat Party wants to do whatever they possibly can to shut this movement down. Not just the Democrats. The RINOs.

You see the manufactured attacks on JD [Vance], myself, my father — anyone who understands that this isn’t the Republican Party anymore. It’s the America First Party. It’s the Make America Great Again Party. And we are not going back!

His remarks drew a fairly big roar from the crowd — followed by a “USA! USA! USA!” chant.

“I love it, guys,” Trump Jr. said. “By the way, if someone wasn’t chanting USA next to you, you know they’re a Democrat plant, because they just can’t do it. It’s like pouring holy water on a vampire.”

He then urged the crowd to back Republicans — without using the term he just said was obsolete — in the ’26 midterms, because it will help his dad continue to fight for “Americans feeling left behind” like “young white men.”

“[Young white men] for a generation were left behind by DEI,” he said. “They were told ‘Well, you know, you don’t check a couple boxes, so you may be better, you may be smarter, but you’re not getting into that college. You’re not getting that job, you’re certainly not getting a promotion. But you better damn well realize you’re privileged, despite being discriminated against.’ It’s funny, but it’s actually happening.”

He spoke to the crowd right before Erika Kirk took the stage with rapper Nicki Minaj.


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Watch his comment on the Republican party being the MAGA/America First party

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 ALL WHITE KIRK KULTISTS 

Here's what you missed at Turning Point's chaotic convention

JONATHAN J. COOPER and SEJAL GOVINDARAO
Updated Sun, December 21, 2025 


TOPSHOT - Turning Point USA CEO Erika Kirk, widow of right-wing political activist Charlie Kirk, speaks during Turning Point's annual AmericaFest conference in Phoenix, Arizona on December 18, 2025. (Photo by Olivier Touron / AFP via Getty Images)(OLIVIER TOURON via Getty Images)

PHOENIX (AP) — When Turning Point USA's annual AmericaFest convention reached its halfway point, Erika Kirk tried to put a smiling face on things.

“Say what you want about AmFest, but it’s definitely not boring,” said Kirk, who has led the influential conservative organization since her husband Charlie was assassinated in September. “Feels like a Thanksgiving dinner where your family’s hashing out the family business.”

That's one way to put it.

Some of the biggest names in conservative media took turns torching each other on the main stage, spending more time targeting right-wing rivals than their left-wing opponents.

The feuds could ultimately define the boundaries of the Republican Party and determine the future of President Donald Trump's fractious coalition, which appears primed for more schisms in the months and years ahead.

Here are some of the most notable moments from the four-day conference.

Shapiro criticizes podcasters

Ben Shapiro, co-founder of the conservative media outlet Daily Wire, set the tone with the first speech after Erika Kirk opened the convention. He attacked fellow commentators in deeply personal terms, saying some of the right's most popular figures are morally bankrupt.

Candace Owens “has been vomiting all sorts of hideous and conspiratorial nonsense into the public square for years,” he said.

Megyn Kelly is “guilty of cowardice" because she's refused to condemn Owens for spreading unsubstantiated theories about Kirk's death.

And Tucker Carlson's decision to host antisemite Nick Fuentes on his podcast was “an act of moral imbecility.”

Shapiro's targets hit back

Barely an hour later, Carlson took the same stage and mocked Shapiro’s attempt to “deplatform and denounce” people who disagree with him.

“I watched it,” he said. “I laughed.”

Others had their chance the next night.

“Ben Shapiro is like a cancer, and that cancer spreads,” said Steve Bannon, a former Trump adviser.

Kelly belittled Shapiro as a marginal figure in the conservative movement and said their friendship is over.

“I resent that he thinks he’s in a position to decide who must say what, to whom, and when,” Kelly said.

Owens, who has spread unsubstantiated conspiracy theories about Charlie Kirk's death, wasn't welcome at the convention. But she responded on her podcast, calling Shapiro a “miserable imp."

A schism over Israel and antisemitism

Israel came up repeatedly during the conference.

Some on the right have questioned whether the Republican Party's historically steadfast support for Israel conflicts with Trump's “America First” platform. Carlson criticized civilian deaths in Gaza in remarks that wouldn't have been out of place in progressive circles.

Some attendees dug deep into history, highlighting Israel's attack on the USS Liberty off the Sinai Peninsula in 1967. Israel said it mistook the ship for an Egyptian vessel during the Six Day War, while critics have argued that it was a deliberate strike.

Bannon accused Shapiro, who is Jewish, and others who staunchly support Israel of being part of “the Israel first crowd.” Kelly said criticism from Shapiro and Bari Weiss, the newly installed head of CBS News, “is about Israel."

Vance says loving America is enough to be part of MAGA

In the conference's closing speech, Vice President JD Vance declined to condemn extremism or define a boundary for the MAGA coalition. The movement should be open to anyone as long as they “love America," he said.

“I didn’t bring a list of conservatives to denounce or to deplatform,” Vance said Sunday.

Erika Kirk pledged Turning Point’s support for Vance to be the next Republican presidential nominee.

“We are going to get my husband’s friend JD Vance elected for 48 in the most resounding way possible,” she said on the first night of the convention. Vance would be the 48th president if he takes office after Trump.

Turning Point is a major force on the right, with a massive volunteer network around the country that can be especially helpful in early primary states.

Newsom is political enemy No. 1

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a leading Democratic presidential contender, was a favorite punching bag.

“It looks like they’re going to nominate a California liberal who’s presided over rolling blackouts, open borders and unchecked violent gangs,” Vance said. “They’re just trying to settle on whether it’s going to be Gavin Newsom or Kamala Harris.”

Rapper Nicki Minaj, who made a surprise appearance, belittled the California governor, using Trump's favored nickname for him, Newscum.

“Please tread lightly," Minhaj said during an on-stage conversation with Erika Kirk. "That’s what I would say to Gabby-poo.”

A representative for Newsom did not respond to a request for comment.

MAHA teams up with MAGA

The Make America Healthy Again movement had a big presence at Turning Point, signaling its quick rise in the right-wing ecosystem.

MAHA is spearheaded by Robert F. Kennedy, who leads the Department of Health and Human Services. However, there has been friction with other parts of the Make America Great Again coalition, particularly when it comes to rolling back environmental regulations.

Wellness influencer Alex Clark, whose podcast is sponsored by Turning Point, asked the crowd whether the Environmental Protection Agency is “with us or against us?”

“Big chemical, big ag and big food are trying to split MAGA from MAHA so things can go back to business as usual, but we don’t want that, do we?” Clark said.

Clark and others have asked for Trump to fire EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, who responded by reaching out to MAHA activists. The EPA also said it would release a MAHA agenda for the agency.

Erika Kirk greets Vice President JD Vance during Turning Point USA's AmericaFest 2025, Sunday, Dec. 21, 2025, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)(ASSOCIATED PRESS)

CEO and Chair of the Board of Turning Point USA Erika Kirk (L) speaks with US rapper Nicki Minaj during Turning Point's annual AmericaFest conference in Phoenix, Arizona on December 21, 2025. This year's conference commemorates the late right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, who was fatally shot on a Utah college campus in September, sparking an outpouring of grief among conservatives and prompting President Donald Trump to threaten a crackdown on the "radical left." (Photo by Olivier Touron / AFP via Getty Images)(OLIVIER TOURON via Getty Images)

Conservative political commentator and podcast host Tucker Carlson speaks at Turning Point's annual AmericaFest conference, in remembrance of late right-wing political activist Charlie Kirk, in Phoenix, Arizona on December 18, 2025. Kirk was shot dead on a Utah college campus in September, sparking a wave of grief among conservatives, and threats of a clampdown on the "radical left" from President Donald Trump. (Photo by Olivier Touron / AFP via Getty Images)(OLIVIER TOURON via Getty Images)


PHOENIX, ARIZONA - DECEMBER 21: Erika Kirk interviews surprise guest Nicki Minaj on the final day of Turning Point USA's annual AmericaFest conference at the Phoenix Convention Center on December 21, 2025 in Phoenix, Arizona. Minaj spoke about her frustrations with California Governor Gavin Newsom, and about why she has embraced the conservative movement. (Photo by Caylo Seals/Getty Images)(Caylo Seals via Getty Images)

A prerecorded message from President Donald Trump is displayed on a screen after his son Donald Trump Jr. called him from the stage to address the audience by phone during Turning Point's annual AmericaFest conference in Phoenix, Arizona on December 21, 2025. This year's conference commemorates the late right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, who was fatally shot on a Utah college campus in September, sparking an outpouring of grief among conservatives and prompting President Donald Trump to threaten a crackdown on the "radical left." (Photo by Olivier Touron / AFP via Getty Images)(OLIVIER TOURON via Getty Images)

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for HORST WESSEL

I was 14 when Epstein recruited me. He demanded that girls show their school IDs

Susie Coen
Sun, December 21, 2025 
THE TELEGRAPH



Jeffrey Epstein would call high-profile friends while having a massage

Jeffrey Epstein demanded that young girls show their school IDs to prove they were underage.

Marina Lacerda, who was abused by Epstein from the age of 14, said the paedophile was “furious” when an 18-year-old was brought to him, immediately sending her away.

Ms Lacerda, now 37, was forced to recruit other victims, and told The Telegraph that Epstein instructed her to only present him with girls who had a student school ID.

Brazilian-born Ms Lacerda said Epstein stopped abusing her when she was 16 or 17 because he thought she was too old and she was not bringing him girls who were young enough.

“I did bring him somebody at the age of 18, and he booted her out... He just looked at her and knew she wasn’t the age of 14, 15, or 16. And he really, he was like, ‘Get the f--- out’... he was aggressive,” Ms Lacerda said.

“He turned to me, and he was like, ‘I’m done.’ He’s like, ‘You need to start bringing me IDs when you bring girls here... I want school IDs.’”

After the partial release of the Epstein files, Ms Lacerda accused the government of orchestrating a “cover-up” by redacting swathes of documents and failing to release everything it held to “protect” powerful men.

The US justice department released thousands of files on Friday and Saturday, but hundreds of pages were heavily redacted, and a huge tranche of documents is yet to be released.

Marina Lacerda has accused the US government of a cover-up over heavily redacted documents in the Epstein files - AP/Jose Luis Magana

Ms Lacerda’s testimony about being subjected to years of abuse was critical in securing the 2019 charges against the paedophile months before he died in jail.

She is referred to as “Minor-Victim 1” in the 2019 indictment and spoke publicly for the first time in September to call for the release of the Epstein files.

She said she had looked through some of the recently released files and saw notes about Epstein demanding to see girls’ IDs, information that appeared to be from her interview with the FBI in 2019, two months before Epstein’s arrest.

On Saturday, she also said the paedophile would “brag” to his powerful friends that he was being massaged by a “beautiful girl” while on a call, and make her say hello to them.

“We did speak to a lot of people on the phone who were, you know, politicians, some were princes... [they] were very important people,” she told The Telegraph.

He would “make it clear that he knew everybody and he owned everybody... he manipulated us,” she said.

After lying down for a massage, Epstein would ring his contacts to “talk business and would always bring up the fact like, ‘oh, you know, I have this nice, young, beautiful girl giving me a massage.’”

He would hand her the phone and tell her to “just say hello”, Ms Lacerda said. She would tell the men something like “Hey, how are you?” but would not discuss anything “deep”.

Ms Lacerda said Epstein never explicitly told the powerful men that she was underage.

She met one Hollywood star she had spoken to on the phone in person, but was not abused by them or anyone else, other than Epstein.

Ms Lacerda is one of a number of Epstein’s survivors who have been calling for the full release of the files, believing there is information about men in his orbit that has not been disclosed.

‘100 per cent total cover-up’

Only a fraction of the government’s files on the paedophile have been released, some of which have been heavily redacted, prompting bipartisan outcry about an alleged cover-up.


At least 16 files, including one photograph of Donald Trump, the US president, were also deleted from the justice department website after being published on Friday.

In Friday’s release, dozens of photographs of Bill Clinton, including one of the former US president topless in a hot tub, were published for the first time, as well as pictures showing Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor sprawled over the laps of five women with Ghislaine Maxwell grinning behind him at the Royal family’s Sandringham retreat.

“There’s a reason why everything’s redacted,” Ms Lacerda said, adding that it was “100 per cent a total cover-up”.

“It’s almost like a joke, right? Like, we have to look at it as it’s like, this has to be a comedy show. Like, why did you even put out all these files?”

She added: “Who are we really trying to protect? Are we protecting survivors, or are we protecting these powerful men?... We’re tired of it. It’s gotten to the point where, you know, we’ve protected these powerful men for a long time.”

Bill Clinton, the former US president, is in dozens of photos in the documents released on Friday - AFP

There is no suggestion Mr Clinton has done anything wrong. The former president, who admits travelling on Epstein’s private plane, wrote in his memoir that he had “stopped contact” with Epstein before he was first arrested in 2005, for soliciting a child for prostitution.

He said that he always thought Epstein was “odd” but “had no inkling of the crimes he was committing”.

Mr Mountbatten-Windsor was ordered to leave Royal Lodge, his residence in Windsor, following weeks of scrutiny over his links to Epstein and Virginia Giuffre, his accuser. He has always denied the claims and any other wrongdoing.

Ms Lacerda met Epstein in 2002 when she was recruited by a friend, who did not give her details other than that she could make money massaging someone.

Ms Lacerda, a Brazilian immigrant, was sharing a single bedroom with her mother and sister at the time and saw it as an opportunity to support her family.

“It got to the point where I think I got really desperate for money,” she said. However, she could not face working for him any more after being forced to recruit young girls.

She said: “I didn’t want to bring any more underage girls, being 17 and having some knowledge of what was really going on there.

“You had no choice but to bring him somebody because he’s so persistent and just he wanted to have, you know, a new face, a new girl.”

MISOGYNY U$A

Boys at her school shared AI-generated, nude images of her. After a fight, she was the one expelled

HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH and JACK BROOK
Sun, December 21, 2025 
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A school bus carries children at the end of a school day at Sixth Ward Middle School in Thibodaux, La., on Dec, 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Stephen Smith)

THIBODAUX, La. (AP) — The teasing was relentless. Nude images of a 13-year-old girl and her friends, generated by artificial intelligence, were circulating on social media and had become the talk of a Louisiana middle school.

The girls begged for help, first from a school guidance counselor and then from a sheriff’s deputy assigned to their school. But the images were shared on Snapchat, an app that deletes messages seconds after they’re viewed, and the adults couldn’t find them. The principal had doubts they even existed.

Among the kids, the pictures were still spreading. When the 13-year-old girl stepped onto the Lafourche Parish school bus at the end of the day, a classmate was showing one of them to a friend.

“That’s when I got angry,” the eighth grader recalled at her discipline hearing.

Fed up, she attacked a boy on the bus, inviting others to join her. She was kicked out of Sixth Ward Middle School for more than 10 weeks and sent to an alternative school. She said the boy whom she and her friends suspected of creating the images wasn’t sent to that alternative school with her. The 13-year-old girl’s attorneys allege he avoided school discipline altogether.

When the sheriff's department looked into the case, they took the opposite actions. They charged two of the boys who'd been accused of sharing explicit images — and not the girl.

The Louisiana episode highlights the nightmarish potential of AI deepfakes. They can, and do, upend children's lives — at school, and at home. And while schools are working to address artificial intelligence in classroom instruction, they often have done little to prepare for what the new tech means for cyberbullying and harassment.

Once again, as kids increasingly use new tech to hurt one another, adults are behind the curve, said Sergio Alexander, a research associate at Texas Christian University focused on emerging technology.

“When we ignore the digital harm, the only moment that becomes visible is when the victim finally breaks,” Alexander said.

In Lafourche Parish, the school district followed all its protocols for reporting misconduct, Superintendent Jarod Martin said in a statement. He said a “one-sided story” had been presented of the case that fails to illustrate its "totality and complex nature.”

A girl’s nightmare begins with rumors

After hearing rumors about the nude images, the 13-year-old said she marched with two friends — one nearly in tears — to the guidance counselor around 7 a.m. on Aug. 26. The Associated Press isn’t naming her because she is a minor and because AP doesn’t normally name victims of sexual crimes.

She was there for moral support, not initially realizing there were images of her, too, according to testimony at her school disciplinary hearing.

Ultimately, the weeks-long investigation at the school in Thibodaux, about 45 miles (72 kilometers) southwest of New Orleans, uncovered AI-generated nude images of eight female middle school students and two adults, the district and sheriff's office said in a joint statement.

“Full nudes with her face put on them” is how the girl’s father, Joseph Daniels, described them.

Until recently, it took some technical skill to make realistic deepfakes. Technology now makes it easy to pluck a photo off social media, “nudify” it and create a viral nightmare for an unsuspecting classmate.

Most schools are “just kind of burying their heads in the sand, hoping that this isn’t happening,” said Sameer Hinduja, co-director of the Cyberbullying Research Center and professor of criminology at Florida Atlantic University.

Lafourche Parish School District was just starting to develop policies on artificial intelligence. The school-level AI guidance mainly addressed academics, according to documents provided through a records request. The district also hadn’t updated its training on cyberbullying to reflect the threat of AI-generated, sexually explicit images. The curriculum its schools used was from 2018.

A school investigation hits obstacles

Although the girls at Sixth Ward Middle School hadn’t seen the images firsthand, they heard about them from boys at school. Based on those conversations, the girls accused a classmate and two students from other schools of creating and spreading the nudes on Snapchat and possibly TikTok.

The principal, Danielle Coriell, said an investigation came up cold that day as no student took responsibility. The deputy assigned to the school searched social media for the images unsuccessfully, according to a recording of the disciplinary hearing.

“I was led to believe that this was just hearsay and rumors,” the girl’s father said, recounting a conversation he had that morning with the school counselor.

But the girl was miserable, and a police incident report showed more girls were reporting that they were victims, too. The 13-year-old returned to the counselor in the afternoon, asking to call her father. She said she was refused.

Her father says she sent a text message that said, “Dad,” and nothing else. They didn't talk. With the mocking unrelenting, the girl texted her sister, “It’s not getting handled.”

As the school day wound down, the principal was skeptical. At the disciplinary hearing, the girl’s attorney asked why the sheriff's deputy didn’t check the phone of the boy the girls were accusing and why he was allowed on the same bus as the girl.

“Kids lie a lot,” responded Coriell, the principal. “They lie about all kinds of things. They blow lots of things out of proportion on a daily basis. In 17 years, they do it all the time. So to my knowledge, at 2 o’clock when I checked again, there were no pictures.”

A fight breaks out on the school bus

When the girl stepped onto the bus 15 minutes later, the boy was showing the AI-generated images to a friend. Fake nude images of her friends were visible on the boy’s phone, the girl said, a claim backed up by a photo taken on the bus. A video from the school bus showed at least a half-dozen students circulating the images, said Martin, the superintendent, at a school board meeting.

“I went the whole day with getting bullied and getting made fun of about my body,” the girl said at her hearing. When she boarded the bus, she said, anger was building up.

After seeing the boy and his phone, she slapped him, said Coriell, the principal. The boy shrugged off the slap, a video shows.

She hit him a second time. Then, the principal said, the girl asked aloud: “Why am I the only one doing this?” Two classmates hit the boy, the principal said, before the 13-year-old climbed over a seat and punched and stomped on him.

Video of the fight was posted on Facebook. “Overwhelming social media sentiment was one of outrage and a demand that the students involved in the fight be held accountable,” the district and sheriff’s office said in their joint statement released in November.

The girl had no past disciplinary problems, but she was assigned to an alternative school as the district moved to expel her for a full semester — 89 school days.

Weeks later, a boy is charged

It was on the day of the girl’s disciplinary hearing, three weeks after the fight, that the first of the boys was charged.

The student was charged with 10 counts of unlawful dissemination of images created by artificial intelligence under a new Louisiana state law, part of a wave of such legislation around the country. A second boy was charged in December with identical charges, the sheriff's department said. Neither was identified by authorities because of their ages.

The girl would face no charges because of what the sheriff’s office described as the “totality of the circumstances.”

At the disciplinary hearing, the principal refused to answer questions from the girl’s attorneys about what kind of school discipline the boy would face.

The district said in a statement that federal student privacy laws prohibit it from discussing individual students’ disciplinary records. Gregory Miller, an attorney for the girl, said he has no knowledge of any school discipline for the classmate accused of sharing the images.

Ultimately, the panel expelled the 13-year-old. She wept, her father said.

“She just felt like she was victimized multiple times — by the pictures and by the school not believing her and by them putting her on a bus and then expelling her for her actions,” he said in an interview.

The fallout sends a student off course

After she was sent to the alternative school, the girl started skipping meals, her father said. Unable to concentrate, she completed none of the school's online work for several days before her father got her into therapy for depression and anxiety.

Nobody initially noticed when she stopped doing her assignments, her father said.

“She kind of got left behind,” he said.

Her attorneys appealed to the school board, and another hearing was scheduled for seven weeks later.

By then, so much time had passed that she could have returned to her old school on probation. But because she’d missed assignments before getting treated for depression, the district wanted her to remain at the alternative site another 12 weeks.

For students who are suspended or expelled, the impact can last years. They're more likely to be suspended again. They become disconnected from their classmates, and they’re more likely to become disengaged from school. They're more likely to have lower grades and lower graduation rates.

“She’s already been out of school enough,” one of the girl's attorneys, Matt Ory, told the board on Nov. 5. “She is a victim.

“She,” he repeated, “is a victim.”

Martin, the superintendent, countered: “Sometimes in life we can be both victims and perpetrators.”

But the board was swayed. One member, Henry Lafont, said: “There are a lot of things in that video that I don’t like. But I’m also trying to put into perspective what she went through all day.” They allowed her to return to campus immediately. Her first day back at school was Nov. 7, although she will remain on probation until Jan. 29.

That means no dances, no sports and no extracurricular activities. She already missed out on basketball tryouts, meaning she won’t be able to play this season, her father said. He finds the situation “heartbreaking.”

“I was hoping she would make great friends, they would go to the high school together and, you know, it’d keep everybody out of trouble on the right tracks,” her father said. “I think they ruined that.”

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The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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Trump set to expand immigration crackdown in 2026 despite brewing backlash

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Mon, December 22, 2025 at 3:27 AM MST


FILE PHOTO: U.S. federal agents smash a car window while trying to detain a man during an immigration raid, after U.S. President Donald Trump ordered increased federal law enforcement presence to assist in crime prevention, in Chicago, Illinois, U.S., December 17, 2025. REUTERS/Jim Vondruska/File Photo

FILE PHOTO: A person gestures amid tear gas as law enforcement officers advance to disperse demonstrators near U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) headquarters in Portland, Oregon, U.S., October 4, 2025. REUTERS/John Rudoff/File Photo

FILE PHOTO: U.S. military members walk near the Washington Monument, after U.S. President Donald Trump announced the federal takeover of the Metropolitan Police Department under the Home Rule Act and the deployment of the National Guard to assist in crime prevention in the nation's capital, in Washington, D.C., August 14, 2025. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez

FILE PHOTO: Police officers check individuals at the Anacostia bus station in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 20, 2025. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez/File Photo


FILE PHOTO: Federal agents chase a man through a parking lot in the Avondale neighborhood following a confrontation during immigration raids, after U.S. President Donald Trump ordered increased federal law enforcement presence to assist in crime prevention, in Chicago, Illinois, U.S., October 25, 2025. REUTERS/Jim Vondruska/File Photo


By Ted Hesson, Kristina Cooke and Jeff Mason

WASHINGTON, Dec 21 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump is preparing for a more aggressive immigration crackdown in 2026 with billions in new funding, including by raiding more workplaces — even as backlash builds ahead of next year’s midterm elections.

Trump has already surged immigration agents into major U.S. cities, where they swept through neighborhoods and clashed with residents. While ​federal agents this year conducted some high-profile raids on businesses, they largely avoided raiding farms, factories and other businesses that are economically important but known to employ immigrants without legal status.

ICE and Border Patrol ‌will get $170 billion in additional funds through September 2029 - a huge surge of funding over their existing annual budgets of about $19 billion after the Republican-controlled Congress passed a massive spending package in July.

Administration officials say they plan to hire thousands more agents, open new detention centers, pick up ‌more immigrants in local jails and partner with outside companies to track down people without legal status.

The expanded deportation plans come despite growing signs of political backlash ahead of next year’s midterm elections.

Miami, one of the cities most affected by Trump’s crackdown because of its large immigrant population, elected its first Democratic mayor in nearly three decades last week in what the mayor-elect said was, in part, a reaction to the president. Other local elections and polling have suggested rising concern among voters wary of aggressive immigration tactics.

"People are beginning to see this not as an immigration question anymore as much as it is a violation of rights, a violation of due process and militarizing neighborhoods extraconstitutionally," said Mike Madrid, a moderate Republican ⁠political strategist. "There is no question that is a problem for the president and Republicans."

Trump’s ‌overall approval rating on immigration policy fell from 50% in March, before he launched crackdowns in several major U.S. cities, to 41% in mid-December, for what had been his strongest issue.

Rising public unease has focused on masked federal agents using aggressive tactics such as deploying tear gas in residential neighborhoods and detaining U.S. citizens.

'NUMBERS WILL EXPLODE'

In addition to expanding enforcement ‍actions, Trump has stripped hundreds of thousands of Haitian, Venezuelan and Afghan immigrants of temporary legal status, expanding the pool of people who could be deported as the president promises to remove 1 million immigrants each year – a goal he almost certainly will miss this year. So far, some 622,000 immigrants have been deported since Trump took office in January.

White House border czar Tom Homan told Reuters Trump had delivered on his promise of a historic deportation operation and removing criminals while shutting down illegal immigration across ​the U.S.-Mexico border. Homan said the number of arrests will increase sharply as ICE hires more officers and expands detention capacity with the new funding.

“I think you're going to see the numbers explode greatly next year,” Homan said.

Homan ‌said the plans “absolutely” include more enforcement actions at workplaces

Sarah Pierce, director of social policy at the center-left group Third Way, said U.S. businesses have been reluctant to push back on Trump's immigration crackdown in the past year but could be prompted to speak up if the focus turns to employers.

Pierce said it will be interesting to see "whether or not businesses finally stand up to this administration."

Trump, a Republican, recaptured the White House promising record levels of deportations, saying it was needed after years of high levels of illegal immigration under his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden. He kicked off a campaign that dispatched federal agents to U.S. cities in search of possible immigration offenders, sparking protests and lawsuits over racial profiling and violent tactics.

Some businesses shut down to avoid raids or because of a lack of customers. Parents vulnerable to arrest kept their children home from school or had neighbors walk them. Some U.S. citizens started carrying passports.

Despite ⁠the focus on criminals in its public statements, government data shows that the Trump administration has been arresting more people who have ​not been charged with any crimes beyond their alleged immigration violations than previous administrations.

Some 41% of the roughly 54,000 people arrested by ICE ​and detained by late November had no criminal record beyond a suspected immigration violation, agency figures show. In the first few weeks in January, before Trump took office, just 6% of those arrested and detained by ICE were not facing charges for other crimes or previously convicted.

The Trump administration has taken aim at legal immigrants as well. Agents have arrested spouses of ‍U.S. citizens at their green card interviews, pulled people from ⁠certain countries out of their naturalization ceremonies, moments before they were to become citizens, and revoked thousands of student visas.

PLANS TO TARGET EMPLOYERS


The administration’s planned focus on job sites in the coming year could generate many more arrests and affect the U.S. economy and Republican-leaning business owners.

Replacing immigrants arrested during workplace raids could lead to higher labor costs, undermining Trump’s fight against inflation, which analysts expect to be a major issue ⁠in the closely watched November elections, determining control of Congress.

Administration officials earlier this year exempted such businesses from enforcement on Trump’s orders, then quickly reversed, Reuters reported at the time.

Some immigration hardliners have called for more workplace enforcement.

"Eventually you’re going to have to go after these ‌employers,” said Jessica Vaughan, policy director for the Center for Immigration Studies, which backs lower levels of immigration. “When that starts happening the employers will start cleaning up their acts on their own.”