president biden

SACRAMENTO — Atty. General Rob Bonta said Monday that he anticipates the Trump administration, which last week announced plans to use federal election monitors in California, will use false reports of voting irregularities to challenge the results of the Nov. 4 special election.

Bonta, California’s top law enforcement officer, said on a call with reporters that he is “100%” concerned about false accusations of wrongdoing at the polling places.

Bonta said it would be “naive” to assume Trump would accept the results of the Nov. 4 election given his history of lying about election outcomes, including his loss to President Biden in 2020.

The attorney general also warned that Trump’s tactics may be a preview of what the country might see in the 2026 election, when control of the U.S. House of Representatives — and the fate of Trump’s controversial political agenda — will be at stake.

“All indications, all arrows, show that this is a tee-up for something more dangerous in the 2026, midterms and maybe beyond,” Bonta said.

The U.S. Department of Justice last week announced it would send election monitors to five California counties where voters are casting ballots in the Proposition 50 election to decide whether to redraw state’s congressional boundaries.

Federal election monitors will visit sites across Southern California and in the Central Valley, in Fresno, Kern, Los Angeles, Orange and Riverside counties, the Justice Department said last week.

Gov. Gavin Newsom called the move an “intimidation tactic” aimed at suppressing support for Proposition 50 and inappropriate federal interference in a state election.

While federal monitoring is routine, particularly in federal elections, it recently has been viewed with heightened skepticism from both parties. When the Justice Department under President Biden announced monitoring in 86 jurisdictions across 27 states during last November’s presidential election, some Republican-led states balked and sought to block the effort.

Democrats have been highly suspect of the Trump administration’s plans for monitoring elections, in part because of Trump’s relentless denial of past election losses — including his own to Biden in 2020 — and his appointment of fellow election deniers to high-ranking positions in his administration, including in the Justice Department.

The California Republican Party requested the election monitors and cited several concerns about voting patterns and issues in several counties, according to a letter it sent to the Dept. of Justice.

Bonta, in his remarks Monday questioned the GOP claims, and denied the existence of any widespread fraud that would require federal election monitors. He compared the monitors to Trump’s decision to dispatch the National Guard to Democratic-led cities, despite an outcry from local politicians who said the troops were not necessary.

More broadly, Bonta told reporters that the Trump administration appears to be ready to fight the Nov. 4 results if Prop. 50 passes.

“People vote and you accept the will of the voters — that’s what democracy is. But that’s not what they’re teeing themselves up to do based on everything that we’ve seen, everything that’s been said,” said Bonta, describing Trump’s recent call on social media for Republicans to “wake up.”

Bonta also said that the state would dispatch observers — potentially from his office, the secretary of state and county registrars — to watch the federal monitors at polling places.

Early voting has already started in California, with voters deciding whether to temporarily reconfigure the state’s congressional district boundaries. The Democratic-led California Legislature placed the measure on the Nov. 4 ballot in an effort to increase their party’s numbers in the U.S. House of Representatives .

Gov. Gavin Newsom and other backers of the measure have said they generally support independent redistricting processes and will push for nonpartisan commissions nationwide, but argued that Democrats must fight back against Trump’s current efforts to have Republican states reconfigure their congressional districts to ensure the GOP retains control of Congress after the 2026 election.

Natalie Baldassarre, a spokesperson for the U.S. Dept. of Justice, declined to comment on Bonta’s remarks. Baldassarre also declined to say how many election monitors would work in California.

Federal election monitors observe polling places to ensure compliance with the federal voting rights laws, and are trained to observe and act as “flies on the wall,” said David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan and nonprofit Center for Election Innovation and Research, in an interview last week.

“Generally, what you do is walk inside, stay off to the side, well away from where any voters are, and take some notes,” said Becker, an attorney who formerly worked in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

There are certain first names that are also businesses that tap into the Angeleno collective unconsciousness and bring a smile of familiarity even to those who’ve never patronized the place.

Tommy’s Burgers, especially. Frederick’s of Hollywood. Phillippe the Original. Nate’n Al’s. Lupe’s and Lucy’s.

And, of course, Leonardo’s.

The nightclub chain with five spots across Southern California has entertained patrons since 1972. Its cumbia nights, Mexican regional music performances and a general air of puro pinche parri bridged the gap in the cultural life of Latino L.A. between the days of the Million Dollar Theater and today’s corrido tumbado stars.

Its namesake, Leonardo Lopez, came to Santa Monica from Mexico in the late 1960s, at age 17, to work as a dishwasher and proceeded to create a cultural empire.

On Friday, the Los Angeles City Council honored him in a celebration that reflected the joy and diversity — but especially the resilience — of Latino LA.

His family members count at least 40 businesses among them, including restaurants, banquet halls, concert venues, equestrian sports teams, political firms that work Southern California’s corridors of power, and the Pico Rivera Sports Arena, Southern California’s cathedral of Mexican horse culture. They were one of the main forces in the 2023 fight that carved out exemptions for traditional Mexican horse competitions such as charrería and escaramuza when the L.A. City Council banned rodeos.

“Our family is like a pyramid, with every person supporting each other at every level,” said Leonardo’s son, Fernando. “And my dad is at the very top.”

A resplendent celebration

He and about 40 other relatives went to Friday’s City Council meeting to see their patriarch recognized. They strode through City Hall’s august corridors in charro outfits and Stetsons, berets and hipster glasses, leopard-print blouses and sharp ties — the diversity of the Mexican American experience in an era where too many people want to demonize them.

Leonardo was the most resplendent of them all, sporting an outfit with his initials embroidered on his sleeves and his back. A silver cross on his billowing red necktie gleamed as much as his smile.

“You work and work and work to hope you do something good, and it’s a blessing when others recognize you for it,” Lopez told me in Spanish as we waited in a packed conference room for the council meeting to start. He gestured to everyone. “But this is the true blessing in my life.”

Sitting at the head of a long table, Lopez doted on his grandson but also greeted well-wishers like Esbardo Carreño. He’s a historian who works for the government of Durango, the state where Lopez was born in 1950.

“Don Leonardo came with a bigger vision than others,” Carreño said in Spanish. “But he never left his people back home,” noting how Lopez has funded restoration projects in Durango’s eponymous capital, a welcome arch at the entrance to the entrepreneur’s hometown of La Noria and more.

“My tío and dad and my other tíos made it in L.A. because there was no Plan B,” said Lopez’s nephew, Lalo Lopez. He was shepherding guests toward his uncle while also talking up a fundraiser later that evening at the Sports Arena for L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath. “That’s a lesson all us kids learned fast.”

Spanish-language reporters pulled Don Leonardo into the City Hall press room for an impromptu conference, where he talked about his career and offered child-rearing advice.

“Get them busy early,” he joked, “so they don’t have that free time to do bad things.”

Lopez motioned to Fernando and his son Fernando Jr. — both wearing charro suits — to join him at the podium.

“I got them to follow me” to be proud of their Mexican heritage. “Today, it’s the reverse — now I follow them!”

Councilmember Monica Rodriguez then grabbed Lopez. The meeting was about to start.

Always the sharpest-dressed member of the council, Rodriguez didn’t disappoint with a taupe-toned tejana that perfectly complemented her gray-streaked hair, black-framed glasses and white outfit.

Her introduction of Lopez was even better.

“His spaces have created a place where we [Latinos] can be authentically who we are,” said Rodriguez, who represents the northeast San Fernando Valley. She praised Lopez’s life’s work as an important balm and corrective “at a time especially when our community is under attack.”

“I want to thank you, Don Leonardo, for being that example of how we can really be the force of resilience and strength in the wake of adversity,” the council member concluded. “It’s a reminder to everyone who’s feeling down that we will persevere.”

Lopez offered a few words of thanks in English, tipping his sombrero to council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, who had previously honored him in 2017 when each council member recognized an immigrant entrepreneur in their district.

Harris-Dawson returned the respect.

“You are such angels in this city — L.A. is not L.A. without the Lopez family,” he said, noting how two Leonardo’s stood in his South L.A. district and “y’all never left” even as other live music venues did. Harris-Dawson told attendees how the Lopez family had long catered jazz festivals and youth sports leagues without ever asking for anything in return.

“The only time I’ve seen you closed was that weekend of the terrible ICE raids,” Harris-Dawson said. “And you all were back the next week ready to go and you had security out. … Thank you all for treating us like family.”

The Lopez clan gathered around their jefe at the podium for one final photo op. Doctors and contractors, retirees and high schoolers: an all-American family and as Angeleno as they come. See ustedes soon at — where else? — Leonardo’s.

Today’s top stories

Colorado River water flows in the Central Arizona Project aqueduct beside a neighborhood in Phoenix.

(Kelvin Kuo / Los Angeles Times)

The dwindling Colorado River

• A group of experts say Western states urgently need to cut water use to avert a deepening crisis on the Colorado River.
• The river’s major reservoirs are less than one-third full, and another dry winter would push reservoirs toward critically low levels.
• They say the Trump administration should act to ensure reductions in water use.

Trump’s $1.2-billion call to remake UCLA

• A Times review of the Trump administration’s settlement proposal to UCLA lays out sweeping demands on numerous aspects of campus life.
• The government has fined UCLA nearly $1.2 billion to settle allegations of civil rights violations.
• Hiring, admissions and the definitions of gender are among the areas the Department of Justice seeks to change.

A looming fight over vaccines

• After Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ousted vaccine experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, California is now making its own vaccine guidance.
• The CDC is no longer a trusted source for vaccine guidance, some experts now say.
• California and medical groups are urging more people to get vaccinated against COVID-19 compared with the Trump administration.

Your utility bills

The Emmys were last night

What else is going on

Commentary and opinions

• There will be cooling in all L.A. rentals by 2032. Here’s how contributors Sophia M. Charan and Hye Min Park suggest you survive the heat until then.
• Wait, what happened to saving the children? California columnist Anita Chabria points out that California congressmen dodge the issue.

This morning’s must-read

Other must-reads

For your downtime

(Amir Mrzae / For The Times)

Going out

Staying in

And finally … your photo of the day

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Today’s great photo is from Times photographer Allen J. Schaben of ctor Kathy Bates on the red carpet at the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards. See Allen’s photos from the awards show here.

Have a great day, from the Essential California team

Jim Rainey, staff writer
Diamy Wang, homepage intern
Izzy Nunes, audience intern
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Andrew Campa, Sunday writer
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to [email protected]. Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on latimes.com.

Fox 11 anchor Elex Michaelson is one of the nice guys in L.A. media. His tough-but-fair-and-especially-polite lines of questioning made him a natural to help moderate debates for the L.A. mayoral and sheriff’s races three years ago. The 38-year-old Agoura Hills native is so nice that he’s known not just for his work but also … his mom’s cookies and brownies.

Michaelson gifts every guest who treks up to Fox 11’s West L.A. studios for his weekly public affairs show “The Issue Is” a box of the desserts. We’re talking former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, billionaire Rick Caruso, L.A. County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman, Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi and dozens of other political heavyweights on both sides of the proverbial aisle. U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) once brought a bag of Porto’s to Michaelson’s team in gratitude for all the cookies and brownies he had received over the years. Former Congress member and current California gubernatorial candidate Katie Porter sent Elex’s mom, Crystal, a handwritten thank-you note.

“Every single time I see [L.A. County Sheriff] Robert Luna, he brings them up without fail,” Michaelson said with pride in a phone interview.

One not-so-famous person who has been lucky enough to enjoy them? Me.

Elex recently gave me a box when I appeared on “The Issue Is” just after U.S. Border Patrol sector chief Gregory Bovino, who took time off from bloviating about the border to accept the goodies because even la migra gets sweets, I guess.

Crystal Michaelson’s cookies and brownies are worthy of a stall at the Hollywood farmers market, and I’m not saying that just so I can appear on “The Issue Is” again soon.

The cookies last time around were blondies studded with chocolate chips and M&Ms. Slightly toasted on the outside, chewy on the inside, thick yet airy and spiked with an extra dash of vanilla, the blondies were beautiful. Just as delicious were the brownies, all about the firm, dark-chocolate-derived fudge that crackled with each bite. Both featured a generous sprinkling of sea salt, the crystals perfectly cutting through all the sugar and butter.

They didn’t last the drive back to Orange County.

Cookie diplomacy at the highest level of California politics

When Elex took his mom to a holiday party hosted by then-Vice President Kamala Harris some years back, most of the movers and shakers greeted her with the same enthusiasm they showed her son because of what she bakes.

“I’m not really a baker!” insisted Crystal, an artist by trade. She makes the goodies every Thursday afternoon, the day before “The Issue Is” tapes, with an occasional assist by Elex. “But it’s turned into a whole thing!”

The tradition dates back to elementary school, when Crystal treated Elex’s teachers and classmates to them as “a thank you.” Elex took some to the first and last day of his college internship for Fox 11 to hand out to the newsroom, then repeated the gesture when he worked at XETV in San Diego and ABC 7 in Los Angeles before returning to Fox 11.

“Their first and last impression of me,” he said, “were these cookies.”

Michaelson repeated the move every day for the first week of “The Issue Is.” The inaugural guests were Newsom, then-Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff (now California’s junior U.S. senator), and commentator Areva Martin.

“Everyone loved the cookies so much that they joked, ‘We won’t return unless we get more cookies,’” Michaelson said.

The crew insisted they get treated to them one more week, “and my mom just never really stopped since then,” even baking and shipping them to regular guests during the COVID era as a Christmas gift.

“One of the only things that seems to unite Republicans and Democrats [in California] is these cookies and brownies,” Elex said. “There’s nothing like the unifying power of food to bring people together to not just talk, but listen to each other.”

Crystal gets a shout-out in the show’s closing credits for “cookies, brownies and moral support.” She learned the recipes as a teen, from a family friend. They’re baked in a Pyrex baking dish, sliced into squares, then put in cardboard boxes that she decorates by writing, “The Issue Is … ”

People have suggested Crystal sell them, but she declines: “I’m not a baker.”

For now, she’s flattered by all the attention — Newsom once wrote a letter on his official letterhead raving about them. The only issue she sees with them …is Elex.

“He eats them too much,” Crystal said. “I’ve said before that maybe I should make them a little bit healthier. And everyone said, ‘No, don’t do that!’”

Today’s top stories

(Christian Murdock / Associated Press)

In-N-Out leaves California

• Billionaire In-N-Out owner Lynsi Snyder announced last month her move from California to Tennessee.
• The departures of several major companies from California have contributed to a narrative that the state is unfriendly to businesses.
• But despite challenges, including steep taxes, the state remains the fourth-largest economy in the world, boasts a diverse pool of talent and is a hub of technological innovation, economists said.

L.A.’s water wars

• Los Angeles gets 2% of its water supply from creeks that feed Mono Lake.
• Environmental advocates are calling for the city to take less water to help the lake reach a healthy level.
• The fully exposed tufa spires show L.A. remains far from meeting its obligation to restore the lake’s health.

Olympic drama

• A proposed ballot measure could force a citywide vote on L.A. 2028 Olympic venues.
• Organizers with the hotel workers union turned in a ballot proposal to require citywide voter approval of “event centers,” including sports facilities and concert halls.
• City officials fear the proposal, if it reaches the ballot and voters approve it, would force elections on several 2028 Olympic venues.

What else is going on

Commentary and opinions

• In America’s hardest-fought congressional district, voters seem to agree on one thing, says columnist Mark Z. Barabak: Release the Epstein files.
• Under Trump, the U.S. has returned to treating violence against women as a “private matter,” argues contributor Karen Musalo.

This morning’s must-reads

Other must-reads

For your downtime

(Eckhaus Latta CAAM at Art + Practice)

Going out

Staying in

And finally … your photo of the day

Image July 2025 Substack Spa Reading

(Tyler Matthew Oyer / For The Times)

Today’s photo of the day is from photographer Tyler Matthew Oyer of a 200-person literary reading inside of a pool at the Korean Spa.

Have a great day, from the Essential California team

Jim Rainey, staff writer
Diamy Wang, homepage intern
Izzy Nunes, audience intern
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Andrew Campa, Sunday writer
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to [email protected]. Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on latimes.com.

Hunter Biden finally made news outside the MAGA mediasphere for something that’s usually the work of Fox News and other deep state disseminators: He verbally bashed the Democratic Party, CNN’s Jake Tapper, former Obama aides and even Hollywood’s devastatingly handsome ambassador George Clooney.

President Biden’s son, whose very name inspires a Pavlovian response among right-wing conspiracy theorists, appears to have pulled a page from the opposition’s playbook when during two recent interviews he leaned into grievance politics, repeatedly hurled expletives and condemned those who “did not remain loyal” to his father.

Hunter Biden’s first round of interviews since the 2024 election started out tame enough when last week on a new podcast hosted by Jaime Harrison, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, he said that Democrats lost to Donald Trump because they abandoned his father. There was no “grand conspiracy” to hide his father’s health issues, he said. “We lost the last election because we did not remain loyal to the leader of the party. That’s my position. We had the advantage of incumbency, we had the advantage of an incredibly successful administration, and the Democratic Party literally melted down.”

Fair enough. Then it was on to Clooney, one of the first high-profile figures on the left to call for Biden to step aside from his reelection campaign after a disastrous debate performance. Hunter Biden disparagingly referred to the actor as “a brand” and told Harrison, “Do you think in Middle America, that voter in Green Bay, Wis., gives a s— what George Clooney thinks about who she should vote for?”

Then came the knockout punch. In a separate, three-hour-plus interview released Monday with YouTuber Andrew Callaghan, he said of the star: “George Clooney is not a f— actor. He is a f—, I don’t know what he is. He’s a brand. … F— him and everybody around him.”

George Clooney was among Kennedy Center honorees welcomed by President Biden at the White House on Dec. 4, 2022.

(Manuel Balce Ceneta / Associated Press)

Hunter Biden also had some words for senior Biden aide Anita Dunn. “The Anita Dunns of the world, who’s made $40 [million], $50 million off the Democratic Party, they’re all going to insert their judgment over a man who has figured out, unlike anybody else, how to get elected to the United States Senate over seven times, how to pass more legislation than any president in history, how to have a better midterm election than anyone in history and how to garner more votes than any president that has ever run.” Former Obama aide and political analyst David Axelrod was also on the list. He said Axelrod “had one success in his political life, and that was Barack Obama, and that was because of Barack Obama.”

And if the above sentiments were attributed to the current president’s sons, who’ve characterized the Democratic Party as Nazis and referred to those who were protesting immigration sweeps by the patently offensive term “mongoloids”? Meh, it’s just another Monday. But Hunter Biden, like most public-facing Democrats, is held to a different standard. When they go low, we go high. Remember that sage advice that worked for Democrats back in the late aughts and early 2010s but now sounds like advice pulled from a 1950s guide to etiquette? The younger Biden not only deviated from that lefty code but also mirrored his tormentors, then unleashed his ire onto his own party.

Hunter Biden‘s own reckless actions over the years made him grist for all manner of right-wing helmed investigations. Then there are the stupid conspiracies, whether it’s the missing laptop or that mysterious bag of cocaine found in the White House. Hard to keep track, but the younger Biden went there during his recent interview. “I have been clean and sober since June of 2019. I have not touched a drop of alcohol or a drug, and I’m incredibly proud of that,” he told Callaghan. “And why would I bring cocaine into the White House and stick it into a cubby outside of the Situation Room in the West Wing?”

But he also attributed at least one recent alleged conspiracy to those outside the right-wing cabal or, more specifically, to Jake Tapper. The CNN anchor co-wrote “Original Sin,” a provocative book that claimed President Biden’s confidants worked to conceal his declining health from the public.

Hunter Biden argued that it was nonsense and that the “ability to keep a secret in Washington is zero.”
“What sells, Jaime?” he asked Harrison. “What sells is the idea of a conspiracy.” And the public spectacle of flaming your enemy’s enemy.

TikTok is preparing to release a new app in the U.S. as it awaits a potential sale that would maintain its presence for millions of users in the country, according to media reports.

The popular video app, owned by Chinese technology company ByteDance, is under pressure to sell its U.S. operations by Sept. 17 or face a nationwide ban, due to security concerns raised by U.S. government officials over the firm’s ties to China.

TikTok is planning to make the new app available on Sept. 5, according to tech news site The Information. The existing app could stop working in March 2026 and when that happens, American users would need to download the new app in order to continue to use TikTok, the publication said.

TikTok did not respond to a request for comment.

Analysts expect that the new app will attempt to address the government’s security concerns. Officials have raised the specter of TikTok sharing user data with the Chinese government, which the company denies.

Ray Wang, principal analyst and founder of Constellation Research, said he believes TikTok will remain popular in the U.S. even after a sale. TikTok is used by more than 170 million Americans as a way to entertain and educate themselves by watching videos on the app. Small businesses, influencers and major corporations also post content on TikTok to market products.

“There will be a transition period from the old app to the new app,” Wang said. “The question is how will data be migrated, and I’m sure they will have a solution for that.”

President Trump last month gave a 90-day extension until Sept. 17 to ByteDance to divest its U.S. operations. The original deadline was Jan. 19, after a law was signed by Trump’s predecessor, President Biden, last year, but the deadline has since been extended by Trump several times. TikTok has said that the law “offers no support for the idea” that its Chinese ownership poses national security risks.

Potential buyers of ByteDance’s TikTok U.S. operations include Oracle Corp. (co-founded by billionaire Larry Ellison), Amazon and an investment group led by Frank McCourt, a former Dodgers owner whose bid includes “Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary, analysts said. San Francisco artificial intelligence company Perplexity said in March that it wants to “rebuild the TikTok algorithm.”

Any deal would need the approval of the Chinese government. Analysts said it is unlikely a sale of TikTok’s U.S. operations would include its algorithm — seen as one of the most valuable parts of TikTok — which surfaces videos of interest to its users.

Trump on Friday told reporters that he planned to discuss a TikTok deal with China this week, but declined to name the potential buyer, according to the New York Times.

“I think the deal is good for China, and it’s good for us,” Trump said. “It’s money, it’s a lot of money.”

Trump’s first administration pushed for a TikTok ban, but the president since had a change of heart. He has met with TikTok executives at Mar-a-Lago, mused about TikTok’s popularity with young people and bragged online about his significant following on the platform.

During his campaign for a second term, Trump positioned himself as a TikTok advocate, saying “those who want to save TikTok in America, vote for Trump.”

Several TikTok creators told The Times that they have diversified where they post their content and believe their fans will follow them to other platforms if TikTok were to be banned.

WASHINGTON — Just over a quarter of Republicans accept President Biden as the winner of the 2020 election, according to a new survey that underscores the instability of American democracy and the growing partisan divide over the legitimacy of elections.

“There was a hope there would see growing acceptance of Biden’s victory over time, as people moved away from the ‘Stop the Steal’ movement after Jan. 6. Instead, we saw the numbers stay in place,” said Brendan Nyhan, a Dartmouth political scientist and one of the founders of Bright Line Watch, an organization that monitors the health of U.S. democracy.

Sinking confidence in election outcomes appears to have been fueled by former President Trump’s “Big Lie” — his continued claims of voter fraud in key states, even though such allegations were repeatedly discredited in numerous lawsuits and audits. The fallout of such lies was especially evident on Jan. 6, when thousands of Trump supporters violently stormed the U.S. Capitol in a brazen attempt to halt lawmakers’ certification of Biden’s victory.

Since then, many Republican officeholders and some of the biggest voices in conservative media have clung to the notion that the election was stolen from Trump.

Bright Line Watch’s November survey, released Thursday morning, shows that only 27% of Republicans accept Biden as the rightful winner — the exact same figure as in the group’s February poll — compared with 94% of Democrats who do.

The survey also shows that the 2020 election and its aftermath have hardened partisan attitudes about future elections, leaving Republicans less confident that their votes will be counted accurately in 2022.

Even amid Trump’s constant rhetoric during the 2020 campaign about a potentially rigged outcome, Democrats and Republicans had roughly equal confidence in October 2020 that the coming election would be decided fairly, with 59% of Democrats and 58% of Republicans believing that would be the case.

But the new survey reveals that a partisan gap has opened up in response to that question. Now, 80% of Democrats believe next year’s midterm election will be fair, with just 42% of Republicans saying the same.

“That’s a really scary fact for our democracy right now, that so many Republican voters don’t have confidence in the election,” said Susan Stokes, another founder of Bright Line Watch and a political scientist at the University of Chicago.

As Trump and so many Republicans have sowed mistrust in last year’s election results, they have used their misinformation campaign to justify new laws in several GOP-controlled states to restrict ballot access and, in some cases, allow partisan lawmakers to overrule election officials in determining outcomes.

That could lead to a scenario in which Democratic voters, even those who understand their party is facing stiff political headwinds next year, lose confidence in the legitimacy of the 2022 electoral results.

“This is an asymmetric moment. Republicans are leading the assault on our democracy,” Nyhan said. “At same time, you can imagine a world where an election is decided because of genuinely dubious election administration practices, and Democrats would become quite distrustful of such an election in the aftermath, and rightfully so.

“You can see a situation where neither side trusts the election results,” he continued. “The potential for a spiral of illegitimacy is real, and that’s not sustainable for our democracy in the long term.”

At the federal level, Democrats have been unable to agree on a legislative response that would protect voting rights, largely because they have the most slender of Senate majorities. Two centrists in the caucus, Sens. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), oppose changing Senate rules to enable Democrats to pass a voting rights law with just 50 votes. And they continue to call for a bipartisan agreement even though few Republicans have been willing to compromise in what has become a zero-sum policy battleground.

The November survey, which questioned 2,750 individuals, also found that partisans tend to overestimate the antidemocratic leanings of the other side, like a reflection of the increasingly partisan nature of cable news and the proliferation of incendiary politically oriented posts and memes across social media platforms.

Compared to past Bright Line Watch surveys, fewer respondents expressed support for political violence. Only 9% condoned making threats, 8% were OK with verbal harassment, and just 4% said they accepted the kind of mob violence that occurred on Jan. 6.

But researchers worry those numbers may not reflect how many partisans might be led to take or support extreme actions that they claim to oppose, with the justification that they need to overcome alleged extremism by the opposing side.

“It’s still millions of Americans condoning violence, and that makes for a very explosive environment and is quite dangerous,” Stokes said. “What people are saying to themselves is: ‘Whatever my side is doing, it’s worth it, because the other side is so terrible.’

“It’s not at all hard to imagine a lot of people in the public going along with a real stealing of the election next time because they have come to believe the other side stole it — or even if they don’t, it’s so important to keep the other side out, it doesn’t matter how you do it.”

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments Tuesday questioning both President Trump’s decision to deploy federal troops to Los Angeles and the court’s right to review it, teeing up what is likely to be a fierce new challenge to presidential power in the U.S. Supreme Court.

A panel of three judges — two appointed by President Trump, one by President Biden — pressed hard on the administration’s central assertion that the president had nearly unlimited discretion to deploy the military on American streets.

But they also appeared to cast doubt on last week’s ruling from a federal judge in San Francisco that control of the National Guard must immediately return to California authorities. A pause on that decision remains in effect while the judges deliberate, with a decision expected as soon as this week.

“The crucial question … is whether the judges seem inclined to accept Trump’s argument that he alone gets to decide if the statutory requirements for nationalizing the California national guard are met,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law.

The questions at the heart of the case test the limits of presidential authority, which the U.S. Supreme Court has vastly expanded in recent years.

When one of the Trump appointees, Judge Mark J. Bennett of Honolulu, asked if a president could call up the National Guard in all 50 states and the District of Columbia in response to unrest in California and be confident that decision was “entirely unreviewable” by the courts, Assistant Atty. Gen. Brett Shumate replied unequivocally: “Yes.”

“That couldn’t be any more clear,” Shumate said. “The president gets to decide how many forces are necessary to quell rebellion and execute federal laws.”

“It’s not for the court to abuse its authority just because there may be hypothetical cases in the future where the president might have abused his authority,” he added.

California Deputy Solicitor General Samuel Harbourt said that interpretation was dangerously broad and risked harm to American democratic norms if upheld.

“We don’t have a problem with according the president some level of appropriate deference,” Harbourt said. “The problem … is that there’s really nothing to defer to here.”

The Trump administration said it deployed troops to L.A. to ensure immigration enforcement agents could make arrests and conduct deportations, arguing demonstrations downtown against that activity amounted to “rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.”

State and local officials said the move was unjustified and nakedly political — an assessment shared by Senior District Judge Charles R. Breyer, whose ruling last week would have handed control of most troops back to California leaders.

Breyer heard the challenge in California’s Northern District, but saw his decision appealed and put on hold within hours by the 9th Circuit.

The appellate court’s stay left the Trump administration in command of thousands of National Guard troops and hundreds of Marines in L.A. through the weekend, when demonstrators flooded streets as part of the nationwide “No Kings” protests.

The events were largely peaceful, with just more than three dozen demonstrators arrested in L.A. Saturday and none on Sunday — compared to more than 500 taken into custody during the unrest of the previous week.

Hundreds of Marines still stationed in L.A.”will provide logistical support” processing ICE detainees, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement Tuesday. Under last week’s executive order, National Guard troops will remain deployed for 60 days.

Arguing before the appellate panel Tuesday, Shumate said the military presence was necessary to defend against ongoing “mob violence” in L.A. streets.

“Federal personnel in Los Angeles continue to face sustained mob violence in Los Angeles,” the administration’s lawyer said. “Unfortunately, local authorities are either unable or unwilling to protect federal personnel and property.”

Harbourt struck back at those claims.

“[Violence] is of profound concern to the leaders of the state,” the California deputy solicitor general said. “But the state is dealing with it.”

However, the three judges seemed less interested in the facts on the ground in Los Angeles than in the legal question of who gets to decide how to respond.

“In the normal course, the level of resistance encountered by federal law enforcement officers is not zero, right?” Judge Eric D. Miller of Seattle asked. “So does that mean … you could invoke this whenever?”

While the appellate court weighed those arguments, California officials sought to bolster the state’s case in district court in filings Monday and early Tuesday.

“The actions of the President and the Secretary of Defense amount to an unprecedented and dangerous assertion of executive power,” California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta wrote in a motion for a preliminary injunction.

Marines push back anti-ICE protesters in front of the Federal Building during “No Kings Day” in Downtown on Saturday.

(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Times)

“The President asserts that [the law] authorizes him to federalize State National Guard units and deploy armed soldiers into the streets of American cities and towns whenever he perceives ‘opposition’ or ‘disobedience of a legal command,’” the motion continued. “He then asserts that no court can review that decision, assigning himself virtually unchecked power.”

The president boasted he would “liberate Los Angeles,” during a speech to troops at Fort Bragg last week.

In court, Bonta called the deployment a “military occupation of the nation’s second-largest city.”

Los Angeles officials also weighed in, saying in an amicus brief filed Monday by the City Attorney’s office that the military deployment “complicates” efforts to keep Angelenos safe.

“The domestic use of the military is corrosive,” the brief said. “Every day that this deployment continues sows fear among City residents, erodes their trust in the City, and escalates the conflicts they have with local law enforcement.”

The appellate court largely sidestepped that question, though Bennett and Judge Jennifer Sung in Portland appeared moved by Harbourt’s argument that keeping guard troops in L.A. kept them from other critical duties, including fighting wildfires.

“The judges were sensitive to that, and so if they’re ultimately going to land on a ‘no’ for the troops, they’ll do it sooner rather than later,” said professor Carl Tobias of the University of Richmond. “If they’re persuaded I think they’ll move fast.”

With the issue all but certain to face further litigation and a fast-track to the Supreme Court, observers said the 9th Circuit’s decision will influence how the next set of judges interpret the case — a process that could drag on for months.

“Both sides seem in a hurry to have a decision, but all [the Supreme Court] can do this late in the term is hear an emergency appeal,” Tobias said. “Any full-dress ruling would likely not come until the next term.”

For months, Donald Trump and his deportation dream team — border czar Tom Homan, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and Homeland Security head Kristi Noem — have warned any city, state or county that seems even somewhat sympathetic to illegal immigrants that their day of reckoning will come.

For Los Angeles, it’s now.

Since Friday, the city and its suburbs have seen federal officers from various agencies face off against protesters who have unsuccessfully tried to stop them from conducting workplace raids or transport people suspected of being in this country illegally to detention facilities.

The scenes haven’t been pretty.

Federal agents have used flash-bang grenades and tear gas to disperse crowds from Paramount to downtown to the Garment District. They even arrested SEIU California President David Huerta for allegedly blocking a federal vehicle. Protesters, meanwhile, have fought back with rocks, bottles and fireworks. A row of Waymos was set on fire near Olvera Street on Sunday afternoon, emitting an eerie swan song of honks. A fleet of Highway Patrol vehicles parked near a 101 freeway underpass was pelted by protesters from above with cement shards, e-scooters and even paper set on fire.

In the proverbial thick of it are the Los Angeles police and L.A. County Sheriff’s departments, whose leaders have continuously stressed that their agencies aren’t involved in any immigration actions even as they have assisted la migra by keeping crowds away with batons and less-than-lethal rounds.

Some of the 2,000 National Guard troops Trump called up over the strenuous objections of Gov. Gavin Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass are now in Southern California. This is the first time something like this has happened since Lyndon B. Johnson sent the Guard to Alabama in 1965 to protect civil rights activists from white citizens and corrupt law enforcement.

Trump’s incendiary move has set a city whose nerves have been frayed all year further on edge, fearing there’s worse to come from him.

And worse things are coming, Angelenos, though not from activists and professional rioters: What we saw this weekend is Trump bonking L.A. with a toy mallet while itching to swing his federal sledgehammer.

One of the many news conferences held over the past three days by outraged community leaders happened Sunday at La Placita Olvera. We best remember it as the birthplace of Los Angeles, but this serene spot also offers a lesson from the past for what’s happening today — and will probably happen soon.

On Feb. 26, 1931, about 400 people were hanging out at La Placita at 3 p.m. when dozens of federal agents from as far away as San Francisco and Arizona suddenly surrounded the plaza. A 2001 Times story noted that immigration authorities “had for days been posting newspaper ads warning of an impending raid against ‘Mexican aliens.’”

LAPD officers stood at each exit to make sure no one could escape. For the next two hours, immigration agents demanded everyone detained show proof that they were in the country legally. La Opinión reported the following day that la migra explained to angry onlookers “with smiles that they were following orders from superiors and that the [roundup] was completely in accord with the laws of the land.”

Sixteen immigrants ended up being detained, all men: 11 were Mexican, five Chinese and one Japanese.

La Placita was specifically chosen by the feds for such a huge raid “for its maximum psychological impact” against Latinos in Los Angeles and beyond, according to “Decade of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation in the 1930s.” It was the federal government’s kickoff to years of repatriation efforts against people of Mexican descent — more than a few American citizens — pushed by the Hoover and FDR administrations, leading to hundreds of thousands of them leaving the United States, some never to return.

Given Trump’s love of spectacle, what his agencies have unleashed on L.A. over the weekend seems like the opening notes for something even bigger. Expect resistance from residents even stronger that what we’ve seen so far.

Trucha, Los Angeles — be vigilant, and be careful out there.

Here’s more on the immigration raids

Today’s top stories

The Sacramento River flows past orchards along state Highway 160 near a spot where one of two proposed intakes would be located for the Delta Conveyance Project.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

Newsom’s power play on the Delta tunnel

• Newsom is asking the Legislature to “fast-track” construction of his controversial and costly water tunnel project in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
• The $20-billion, 45-mile, 39-feet-wide tunnel would enhance delivery of Northern California water to Southern California.
• Delta towns and farmers, environmental groups and the coastal salmon fishing industry are fighting the project and the governor’s latest move to expedite construction.

Being Jewish on campus amid Trump’s campaign against antisemitism: ‘Tremendous heartache’

• As the academic year draws to a close, The Times interviewed 12 Jewish students and professors at UCLA and USC who reflected on their campus experiences since Hamas’ attack on Israel.
• They wrestled with questions about their safety and President Trump’s aggressive campaign to combat antisemitism at universities.
• Some worried that Trump was using antisemitism as a weapon to carry out his political goal of remaking higher education.

The 2025 Tony Awards

• Hosted by Cynthia Erivo, the 2025 Tony Awards saw a Hollywood invasion of Broadway including winners Sarah Snook and Cole Escola, who won lead actress and lead actor Tony Awards, respectively, for their roles in “The Picture of Dorian Gray” and “Oh, Mary!”
• Here’s the full list of winners.

What else is going on

Commentary and opinions

This morning’s must reads

Other must reads

For your downtime

Participants at the Feels are encouraged to use their bodies and minds to spark intimacy.

(Jennifer McCord / For The Times)

Going out

Staying in

A question for you: What’s the best advice you’ve gotten from your father or father figure?

Steve writes, “I was raised by my stepfather, a 2nd generation Armenian farmer. He didn’t offer much advice verbally, but he left the house each day at 5:30am, worked hard in the Coachella Valley heat, was home for family dinner at 6 and was asleep by 8. His strong work ethic spoke volumes and had a huge effect on the man I chose to become.”

Michele writes, “While still in undergraduate, I was debating whether or not I should go to law school. I was most concerned about adding another three years to my education, and the length of time it would take. My father said, ‘I have one question for you. Three years are likely going to pass in your life one way or another. What do you want to be doing at the end of it?’ Throughout law school, every time I would feel overwhelmed and wanted to quit, I would remind myself that the time was going to pass anyway, and it kept me going towards the end goal.”

Email us at [email protected], and your response might appear in the newsletter this week.

And finally … your photo of the day

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

Today’s great photo is from Times photographer Gina Ferazzi in Compton, where Los Angeles residents pushed back against Immigration and Customs Enforcement sweeps.

Have a great day, from the Essential California team

Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Andrew Campa, Sunday writer
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to [email protected]. Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on latimes.com.

Even in a building as massive as the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in downtown, the organ stands out. How could it not?

Standing 85 feet tall behind the right side of the altar, weighing 42 tons, featuring over 6,000 pipes and bearing the epic name Opus 75, it looks half smokestacks, half battleship and all awesome. It’s regularly used during Mass and has hosted organists from around the world since its 2003 debut.

But what’s coolest about Opus 75 — and what not enough people know — is that the Cathedral holds free lunchtime recitals featuring its star instrument on the first Wednesday of each month.

As an organ fanatic, I have long wanted to attend one. I finally had the chance this week.

A cathedral of and for L.A.

Accompanied by my Times colleague (and fellow classical music head) Ruben Vives, I arrived at the cathedral during the daily 12:10 service, just before the Eucharist. Resident organist Sook Hyun Kim worked the King of Instruments like the seasoned pro she is, including a moving version of “Make Me a Channel of Your Peace” — an apropos hymn for the era of Pope Leo XIV.

About 40 people representing the breadth of L.A. — white, Latino, Asian, Black and all age groups — spread out across the pews after Mass ended to listen to guest organist Emma Yim. The 22-year-old graduated from UCLA (Go Bruins!) two years ago with degrees in biology and organ performance. She is pursuing a master’s from our alma mater in the latter discipline, does research for a UCLA Department of Medicine women’s health lab and also plays the cello.

Man, and I thought I covered a lot of ground!

Her choice for the cathedral recital: three of the five movements from French composer Charles-Marie Widor’s Symphony No. 5. It would be Yim’s first time playing Opus 75.

Playing the King of Instruments

The first movement was mostly variations on a cascading theme. Kim stood to Yim’s side to flip the pages of the score while the latter’s hands leaped around the rows of the organ’s keys. Yim played at first like she didn’t want to tempt the power of the behemoth before her — the notes were soft and cautious.

But during Widor’s playful second movement, the young adults in attendance who had been on their smartphones began to pay attention. Heads began to sway with every swirl of Baroque-like chords that Yim unleashed. “I could hear elements of ‘Lord of the Rings’ in there,” Ruben whispered to me as we looked on from our center pews.

Opus 75 was waking up

She skipped two movements to perform the Fifth’s fifth, better known as Widor’s Toccata. Its soaring passages have made it a popular song for weddings. More people began to poke their head in from the hallways that ring the cathedral’s worship space to see what was going on. Yim became more animated as she worked the keys and foot pedals faster and faster. High-pitched arpeggios accentuated resonant bass notes.

Kim stopped flipping the score, stepped back and looked on in awe like the rest of us as Yim roused Opus 75 to its full might.

A performance that pushes us to a better place

The majesty of L.A. suddenly crossed my mind. Even in tough times like these, it’s unsurpassed in beauty, in its people and especially in its capacity to surprise and delight in places expected and not. It’s people like Yim and performances like hers that stir us all forward to a better place.

The recital ended. “Beautiful, just beautiful,” Ruben said, and I agreed. The applause the crowd gave Yim was swallowed up by the cathedral’s size and our sparse numbers, but she was visibly moved. “Thank you all for coming,” the youngster quietly said, and we all went off to our day.

Kim told Ruben and me that the cathedral’s organ series will take a summer break before it relaunches in September. See you then!

Today’s top stories

A for-sale sign is posted at a home on Lake Avenue that was destroyed by the Eaton fire.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Developers are buying up Altadena

Elon Musk and Donald Trump have very publicly broken up

UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk vows to restore campus trust amid ‘nervousness and anxiety’

• Since he took the helm this year at UCLA, Chancellor Julio Frenk has found himself in a vortex of unprecedented obstacles not only to his campus, but also to the nation’s institutions of higher education.
• In an interview, he defended scientific university research, diversity efforts, admissions practices and international students amid attacks from Trump, and said he wanted to “eradicate antisemitism.”

Candidates for California governor faced off in first bipartisan clash

• In the first bipartisan gathering of 2026 gubernatorial candidates, four Democrats and two Republicans agreed that despite the state boasting one of the world’s largest economies, too many of its residents are suffering because of the affordability crisis in the state.
• Their strategies on how to improve the state’s economy, however, largely embraced the divergent views of their respective political parties as they discussed housing costs, high-speed rail, tariffs, climate change and homelessness.

California petitions the FDA to undo Kennedy’s new limits on abortion pill mifepristone

What else is going on

Commentary and opinions

This morning’s must-reads

Other must-reads

For your downtime

(Carla Blumenkrantz / For The Times)

Going out

Staying in

A question for you: What’s the best advice you’ve gotten from your father or father figure?

Polly says, “My dad used to love the saying, ‘if you’re not living life on the edge, you’re taking up too much space!’ He would say it as reminder for himself and to my sister and I to not overthink things and to just let loose, stop worrying, or try something new.”

Peter says, “I was around 8 or 9 years old and prattling on about something I knew nothing about, when my father sternly admonished me. He said ‘Peter, you only learn when you listen, never when you talk.’ His words resonated and got me to my core.”

Email us at [email protected], and your response might appear in the newsletter this week.

And finally … your photo of the day

Sliding Fleetwood pocket doors open the airy kitchen and living spaces to the backyard.

(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)

Today’s great photo is from Times photographer Juliana Yamada at the Manhattan Beach home of Paul and Cailin Goncalves, who turned their formerly compartmentalized home and ADU into a bright, flexible family home.

Have a great day, from the Essential California team

Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Andrew Campa, Sunday writer
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to [email protected]. Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on latimes.com.

WASHINGTON — Asylum seekers under the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” policy whose cases were closed — many for reasons beyond their control, including kidnappings and court rulings against the government — will now be able to come into the U.S. to pursue asylum claims, the Biden administration said Tuesday.

The administration on Wednesday will begin to allow the first of thousands with closed cases to pursue their asylum claims within the United States, the Department of Homeland Security announced. More than 30,000 migrants could potentially be eligible, according to government data.

“As part of our continued effort to restore safe, orderly, and humane processing at the Southwest Border, DHS will expand the pool” of asylum seekers eligible for processing, the department said in a statement, including those “who had their cases terminated or were ordered removed in absentia.”

Facing a policy riddled with administrative errors and questions of illegality, immigration judges across the United States ruled against the Trump administration, closing thousands of cases the government had brought against asylum seekers sent to Mexico to await U.S. hearings.

But when President Biden took office and began winding down the policy that he sharply criticized, his administration allowed only asylum seekers under Remain in Mexico — formally known as Migrant Protection Protocols — whose immigration cases remained open to enter the United States.

Since February, the Biden administration has permitted entry to some 12,000 asylum seekers with pending Migrant Protection Protocols cases, according to the United Nations refugee agency, the primary organization processing them. At the same time, Biden officials have urged patience from those whose cases were closed, promising a second phase.

Advocates and experts welcomed the move to begin admitting those asylum seekers, but criticized the administration’s slowness on restoring access.

“A delay of that kind would have to be driven by political considerations, not legal or purely administrative ones,” said Austin Kocher, an assistant professor at Syracuse University. “It flags a larger question: Is the Biden administration serious about following its national and international obligations to asylum law?”

For many asylum seekers, it is too late. From January 2019, when the Trump administration first implemented the policy in Southern California, to when Biden froze the program on his first day in office, roughly 70,000 migrants were sent by U.S. officials to wait in some of the world’s most dangerous cities just south of the border.

More than 1,500 of them suffered rape, kidnapping and assault, according to Human Rights First. And those numbers have continued to rise during Biden’s presidency, through a combination of policies that have left tens of thousands stuck on the southern side of the border.

An untold number missed their hearings while abducted, several were killed, and hundreds more made the wrenching decision to send their children across the border alone, believing they’d have a better chance of being allowed to stay under U.S. policies to protect unaccompanied minors. Thousands have given up, according to estimates from officials and advocates.

“Why it’s taken so long is obviously of concern, because those people who are still in Mexico are still suffering and in dangerous situations,” said Judy Rabinovitz of the American Civil Liberties Union, which sued then-President Trump over the policy.

Biden administration officials have acknowledged this grim toll, even as they continue to send asylum seekers — some with Migrant Protection Protocols cases — to Mexico again, invoking a Trump-era coronavirus policy. Citing Title 42, an obscure 1944 public health law, border officials have summarily expelled more than 850,000 migrants, including asylum seekers, this time without a court date or due process.

“Having Title 42 still in place at the same time that the administration is claiming to try and fix cases in Remain in Mexico presents the administration with a fundamental contradiction between what they claim to be doing and the way that border control is actually working on the ground,” said Kocher.

Biden froze Migrant Protection Protocols on his first day in office, though it had already largely been supplanted by Trump’s coronavirus expulsions policy. But the Biden administration did not formally end Remain in Mexico until June 1.

In the memo ending the policy, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas said it had further strained department resources and added to a record backlog in immigration court proceedings.

More than 25% of those subjected to the policy were apprehended by border officials when they attempted to enter again, Mayorkas said, and roughly 44% of cases were completed by judges’ orders to remove asylum seekers who missed their hearings.

That raised questions about whether the program provided them “adequate opportunity” to appear, he said, “and whether conditions faced by some MPP enrollees in Mexico, including the lack of stable access to housing, income, and safety, resulted in the abandonment of potentially meritorious protection claims.”

Still, the current chaos at the border — with thousands of migrants remaining stuck in northern Mexico and monthly border-crossing numbers still among their highest in years — stems in part from confusion over the administration’s continued pledges to undo Trump’s policies, while its promised asylum overhaul has yet to materialize.

Advocates argue that migrants subjected to Migrant Protection Protocols who received final decisions from immigration judges denying their asylum claims also deserve to be given another opportunity to seek asylum in accordance with U.S. law.

On Tuesday, the Homeland Security Department statement reiterated that others who may be eligible to enter in the future “should stay where they are currently located and register online” through a system administered by the United Nations.

Trump administration officials explicitly stated that the goal of the policy was to make it as difficult as possible to seek asylum and as a deterrent to others.

“This is what they wanted, and this is what they got: People couldn’t get asylum,” Rabinovitz said of Trump administration officials. Now with Biden in the White House, she continued, “we’re saying no — in order to unwind it, you need to give people a new opportunity to apply for asylum, free of that taint.”

U.S. border officials frequently committed errors while administering the Remain in Mexico policy, The Times found. That included serving asylum seekers paperwork in languages they did not speak, or writing the phrase “domicilio conocido” — “known address” — or simply “Tijuana” — a Mexican border city of some 2 million people — on their paperwork, instead of a legally required address. That made it nearly impossible for applicants to be notified of changes to their cases or court dates.

These missteps by U.S. border officials also fueled federal judges’ rulings against the policy.

In one ruling, a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals judge said Homeland Security’s procedures for implementing the policy were “so ill-suited to achieving that stated goal as to render them arbitrary and capricious.”

But the Supreme Court never ultimately ruled on the legality of Migrant Protection Protocols. In early February, the Biden administration asked the nation’s highest court to cancel arguments on the policy. Opponents in several states sued, arguing that the Biden administration cannot end it.

On Monday, the Supreme Court rejected that effort, ordering: “The motion to intervene is dismissed as moot.”

VATICAN CITY — Throughout President Biden’s life, his religion has been a refuge. He fingers a rosary during moments of stress and often attends Mass at the church in Delaware where his son Beau is buried.

But as Biden and Pope Francis prepared for a tete-a-tete Friday at the Vatican — the president’s first stop while traveling in Europe for two international summits — both the flocks they lead, the American people and the Roman Catholic Church, are beset by divisions and contradictions that at times seem irreconcilable.

“They preside over fractured communities,” said Massimo Faggioli, a theology professor at Villanova University who wrote a book about Biden and Catholicism. “They face situations with many similarities.”

The two leaders met for 90 minutes early Friday afternoon, according to the White House, which was longer than expected. Later in the day, Biden said they prayed together for peace and that Francis blessed his rosary.

The president said the conversation focused on the “moral responsibility” of dealing with climate change — the topic of an upcoming summit in Glasgow, Scotland. The president added that they did not discuss abortion. Biden supports abortion rights, a contradiction of Catholic doctrine that is common among Democrats.

“We just talked about the fact that he was happy I was a good Catholic,” Biden said, adding that Francis told him he should continue to receive Communion.

It was a significant statement from the pope on an issue that has stirred political and spiritual controversy over the relationship between politicians who support abortion rights and the church.

Conservative Catholic bishops in the United States are arguing that political leaders who support abortion rights should not receive Communion — the ritual where a priest consecrates bread and wine and then shares it with believers — and the issue is slated for debate during an upcoming episcopal meeting in Baltimore. Because the proposal gained steam after Biden’s election, it’s been viewed as a rebuke of the president.

The controversy reflects an internal debate over whether the Catholic Church should broaden its appeal or adhere more strictly to its core tenets. George Weigel, a distinguished senior fellow at the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center, said some people “claim to be Catholic and yet want to turn Catholicism into a version of liberal Protestantism.”

“What the bishops are discussing is whether Catholic political leaders who are not in full communion with the church because they act in ways that contradict settled Catholic teaching should have the integrity not to present themselves for Holy Communion,” he said.

The Vatican, however, has been wary of a debate that mixes politics and one of the church’s holiest rituals. Francis said last month that he has “never refused the Eucharist to anyone.” Since becoming pope eight years ago, he has sought to distance himself from divisive topics such as same-sex marriage while focusing on more ecumenical issues.

John K. White, professor of politics at the Catholic University of America in Washington, said the pope’s meeting with Biden “sends a message to the American bishops that denying Communion is not something that he approves of.”

The news media were not allowed into the meeting or to catch a glimpse of Biden and Francis together. The Vatican released video of part of an encounter that appeared affectionate, even chummy. At one point, Biden handed the pope a commemorative coin.

“The tradition is, and I’m only kidding about this, the next time I see you and you don’t have it, you have to buy the drinks,” said Biden, who joked that he’s probably the only Irishman that Francis has ever met who doesn’t drink.

The president bid farewell to the pope with a phrase that has become something of a trademark for him — “God love you.”

Biden and Francis have met several times before, starting with a brief encounter when Biden, then vice president, attended Francis’ papal inauguration in 2013.

Then-presidential candidate Joe Biden leaves a church in Wilmington, Del., last year after attending a confirmation Mass for his granddaughter.

(Patrick Semansky / Associated Press)

Two years later, Biden welcomed Francis to the U.S. and brought his family to a private meeting with him shortly after Beau died.

“I wish every grieving parent, brother or sister, mother or father would have had the benefit of his words, his prayers, his presence,” Biden said the following year during a visit to the Vatican, where he met Francis again.

Biden is only the second Catholic president after John F. Kennedy, who was elected in 1960. At that time, the church was still viewed with suspicion by some Americans, and Kennedy assured voters that he believed in the separation of church and state — another way of saying that he would follow the Constitution, not the pope, while in office.

Now, Catholics are represented in the highest levels of American public life. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a San Francisco Democrat, is Catholic, as is one of her predecessors, John Boehner, a Republican from Ohio. The majority of Supreme Court justices are Catholic.

Biden keeps a photo of him with Francis in the Oval Office among an assortment of family photos.

The president attends Mass once a week, even when traveling. He made a point of visiting a church during a 2001 trip to China while he was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“I’m going to be there on a Sunday — can I go to church somewhere?” Biden said, according to Frank Januzzi, one of the future president’s staff members at the time.

Although there were large Catholic churches in Beijing where Biden could have attended Mass, he ultimately visited what Januzzi described as a “tiny, hole-in-the-wall” parish in a village outside the Chinese capital. Biden took Communion from an elderly priest there.

“This was an opportunity to make a statement about the importance of freedom of religion and demonstrate his own faith as well,” said Januzzi, who now leads the Mansfield Foundation, an organization dedicated to fostering U.S.-Asia relations.

White, the university professor, recalled attending Mass at a church in Bethesda, Md., in 2015 when Biden and his wife slipped in. It was unexpected, because it was not Biden’s usual parish, but Beau was hospitalized nearby with brain cancer and was near death.

Even from a distance, White said, “You could tell they were in distress.” They received Communion and exchanged the sign of peace — when parishioners shake hands and exchange greetings — and left.

“It wasn’t like he was there to shake a lot of hands,” said White, who later worked on Catholic outreach for Biden’s 2020 campaign. “It wasn’t about that at all.”

Beau’s death was just one of the tragedies that have shaped Biden’s life. In 1972, his first wife and daughter were killed in a car accident shortly after he was first elected to the Senate.

“When people have tragedy, sometimes their faith goes away, or is forged in steel,” White said. “All the tragedies that have beset Biden have reinforced his faith and who he is.”

If Kamala Harris runs for California governor, the job is essentially hers for the taking.

So goes the common wisdom.

After all, she’s a household name, which is no small consideration in a state as vast and politically inattentive as California. She has a coast-to-coast fundraising base and a record of winning statewide contests going back to 2010, when she was first elected attorney general.

Who better, supporters say, to engage President Trump than the former prosecutor who whipped him in their one debate and only just lost the popular vote after being thrust overnight into a drastically truncated campaign?

Antonio Villaraigosa isn’t buying that for a second.

Unlike others in the crowded race for governor, who are likely to drop out if Harris jumps in, L.A.’s former mayor said he’s not budging.

In fact, Villaraigosa insists he wants Harris to run — just so he can beat her and, he says, send an anti-elitist message to those Democrats who have their noses in the air rather than eyes fixed on hard-pressed voters and their myriad frustrations.

“I think she’s been OK that we’ve been a party of just people that drive a Tesla and not a Toyota pickup, or ride a bus like my mother did,” Villaraigosa said. “I think she has no idea what it means to buy a carton of eggs and spend $12 at Ralph’s.”

Harris is “the face of that party,” he went on, warming to the heat of his smoldering rhetoric. “The party that thinks that people that don’t have a college education are stupid. The party that believes that … people voted for Trump just because he’s a great used-car salesman and not because what he was selling resonated with people that work every day. The people who shower after work. Not before.”

As Harris uses the summer to decide her future — retiring from politics or running again for president being other options — no Democrat has been as brash and bold as Villaraigosa when it comes to assailing the putative front-runner and erstwhile leader of the national party.

Earlier this week, he accused Harris and Former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra of helping cover up President Biden’s decline in office, seizing on the scandal fueled by a new book, “Original Sin,” that offered details of Biden’s eroding mental and physical state.

“She could say she didn’t know,” Villaraigosa said, elaborating on that initial volley during a lengthy conversation. “They can’t prove that she did. But last time I looked, she had lunch with him pretty regularly … She had to have seen what the world [saw] over time and particularly in that debate. The notion that she didn’t? Come on. Who’s going to buy that?”

That sort of talk is more typical of, say, Fox News than a candidate bidding for the support of fellow Democrats. Villaraigosa, a former labor leader who’s gotten crossways with teacher unions among other party mainstays, professed not to care. If anything, he said, he’s been encouraged by the response.

“For every one of those people” — upset by Villaraigosa’s remarks — “there are three of them, maybe not as high up among Democrats, who are saying the same damn thing. That’s why this got so much traction … Since Vietnam, people don’t believe in government anymore. They don’t believe in their leaders. And every time we lie or misrepresent … [or] hide the truth from them, their support and their belief in our institutions” diminishes.

Harris would have plenty of time to push back on Villaraigosa’s depiction, should she choose to run. In the meantime, what’s notable is his eagerness to take on the former vice president, positioning himself as the most vocal and assertive of her potential gubernatorial rivals.

Others have taken a few pokes.

“No one should be waiting to lead,” former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter told The Times’ Seema Mehta after entering the contest in March.

Becerra echoed that sentiment when he announced his candidacy in April. “Watching what’s unfolding before our eyes made it clear this is not a time to sit on the sidelines,” Becerra said.

But that’s comparatively weak tea.

“If she wants to come in the race, she should come in now,” Villaraigosa taunted. “Let’s debate. What are the challenges facing our state? Where are the opportunities? Where do we meld them together? How do we make this a better state for our kids?”

During the 40-minute phone conversation, starting in his car and finishing after Villaraigosa arrived home in Los Angeles, he toggled between criticisms of Harris and statements of good will toward a one-time political ally.

The two have known each other, he said, since the mid-1990s, when Villaraigosa was a freshman assemblyman in Sacramento and Harris was dating then-Speaker Willie Brown. He supported her run for attorney general — “I did three press conferences” as L.A. mayor — and was quick to back her as soon as Biden stepped aside last summer and Harris became the Democratic nominee.

“I supported her,” he said. “I got behind her. Her husband” — former Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff — “has thanked me a number of times when he’s seen me in person.”

The disagreement now, Villaraigosa said, is over the direction of a party he sees unmoored from its history as a champion of the middle and working classes and too beholden to interest groups that make up its patchwork coalition. Harris, he suggested, is the personification of that disconnect from Democratic tradition.

“At the end of the day, what I’m arguing for is, let’s get to the place where we’re focused on getting things done and focused on common sense,” Villaraigosa said, citing, among issues, his support for Proposition 36, the anti-crime measure that voters overwhelming approved last November. The vice president, he noted, refused to take a position.

But don’t, he said before hanging up, take his attacks on Harris the wrong way.

“This isn’t personal,” Villaraigosa insisted.

It’s just politics.

WASHINGTON — Landmark legislation that would rewrite the tax code and levy steep cuts to programs providing healthcare and food stamps to the poor passed the House early Thursday, a development that was celebrated by President Trump despite the bill facing an uncertain future among Senate Republicans.

The measure, titled the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” would boost funding for border security and the Defense Department, eliminate taxes on tips and overtime, provide a new tax deduction to seniors and renew the 2017 tax cuts passed during the first Trump administration. To pay for those new funding commitments, the bill proposes eliminating green energy tax benefits passed under President Biden, as well as an estimated $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Even still, the bill would add so much money to the debt that Congress may be forced to execute cuts across the board, including hundreds of billions to Medicare, in a process known as sequestration, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

The House vote fell along party lines. By opposing the bill, the Trump administration said that Democrats were supporting the largest tax increase on middle-class Americans in decades, a reference to the upcoming expiration of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts at the end of the year.

Democrats, on the other hand, have accused Republicans of voting for the deepest cuts to healthcare in modern times. By creating new barriers to Medicaid coverage through the introduction of work hour requirements, as well as increasing premiums under the Affordable Care Act, the CBO and other nonpartisan organizations estimate up to 14 million Americans could lose their insurance coverage.

Those drastic changes to the healthcare landscape have given pause to several Republican senators.

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine has said she is “very wary of cutting Medicaid.” Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri said he “can’t support” substantial cuts to Medicaid benefits. And after the vote on Thursday, Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas said that material changes should be expected to the House bill.

“We need to go back through that bill with a fine tooth comb and make it better,” Marshall said in an interview with Newsmax. “I think there’s opportunities in Medicaid to make that bill better, to make sure that we strengthen it, that we preserve it for those who need it most.”

Any Senate rollback of cuts to the Medicaid program could face resistance from the House Freedom Caucus during the reconciliation process. Members of that group, which proclaims a commitment to fiscal conservatism, have called for even deeper cuts to the Medicaid program.

Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland, chair of the House Freedom Caucus, voted “present” early Thursday morning, preserving negotiating leverage as the bill makes its way across Capitol Hill.

“I voted to move the bill along in the process for the president,” Harris wrote on social media. “There is still a lot of work to be done in deficit reduction and ending waste, fraud, and abuse in the Medicaid program.”

The vote came hours after Trump met with GOP holdouts at the White House. As late as Wednesday afternoon, before meeting with the president, several of those lawmakers were casting doubt on the prospects of the bill’s passage this week, ahead of a Memorial Day deadline set by House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina was dismissive of the Freedom Caucus on Thursday, telling CNN that the cuts they are pushing for would barely make a dent in the national debt.

“You had your chance,” Graham said to the caucus. “Some of these cuts are not real. We’re talking about over a decade — you know, if you do $1.5 trillion, that’s like a percent and a half. So let’s don’t get high on our horse here that we’ve somehow made some major advancement of reducing spending, because we didn’t.”

Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota also mocked the caucus, calling it “rich” for its members to lecture Senate Republicans on fiscal conservatism, “and end up with not that conservative a bill.” The CBO estimates the House legislation would result in a $3.8-trillion increase to the deficit.

If passed, the new work requirements to Medicaid would kick in at the end of 2026, right after the midterm elections. Green energy tax credits would phase out for any project that is not already under construction 60 days after the law comes into force.

The cap on the state and local tax deduction, known as SALT, will increase to $40,000 from $10,000, phasing out for individuals and households making more than $500,000. And while the president campaigned on a promise to eliminate taxes on Social Security, a parliamentary rule precluded Republicans from including a full cut. Instead, the bill proposes an enhanced tax deduction for senior citizens of up to $4,000.

On Truth Social, the president’s social media platform, Trump wrote that the bill is “arguably the most significant piece of Legislation that will ever be signed in the History of our Country!”

“There is no time to waste,” he added. Johnson, the speaker, has set a goal of sending the bill to the president’s desk by Independence Day.

Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said the president’s team was “suiting up” for negotiations with the Senate now that the bill has passed the House. “We will see how it goes,” she said.

“The ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ is named the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ for a reason, because it is a one big beautiful bill that encompasses just about everything this president could want for the American public. It delivers on so many of his core campaign promises. So surely we want to see those campaign promises signed into law,” Leavitt said. “He’s expecting them to get busy on this bill and send it to his desk as soon as possible.”

The two House Republicans who voted against the bill, Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Warren Davidson of Ohio, should face primary challenges for their defiance of the president’s directive, Leavitt added.

“What’s the alternative, I would ask those members of Congress. Did they want to see a tax hike? Did they want to see our country go bankrupt? That’s the alternative by them trying to vote no,” she said. “The president believes that the Republican Party needs to be unified.”

The “One Big Beautiful Bill” is one big, ugly mess.

We’ve seen false advertising in naming laws before — the Democrats’ 2022 Inflation Reduction Act jumps to mind. Yet no legislation has been as misbranded as the Republican tax and spending cuts that President Trump, the branding aficionado himself, is pushing along a tortuous path in Congress.

Trump’s appeal to many Americans has always been his purported penchant for “telling it like it is.” But he’s doing the opposite by labeling as the “One Big Beautiful Bill” a behemoth that encompasses just about everything he can’t even try to do by unilateral executive orders — deeper tax cuts, more spending on the military and on his immigration crackdown and, yes, Medicaid cuts. His so-called beauty is a beast so frightening that ratings firm Moody’s saw the details last week, calculated the resulting debt and on Friday downgraded the United States’ sterling credit rating for the first time in more than 100 years. That likely means higher interest costs for the nation’s increased borrowing ahead.

And yet, in another example of the gaslighting at which Trump and his party are so adept, the White House and House Republican leaders dismissed the rebuke of their bill. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said it would spur economic growth — the old, discredited “tax cuts will pay for themselves” argument. Speaker Mike Johnson said the Moody’s downgrade just proved the urgent need to pass the big, beautiful bill with its “historic spending cuts.” Which only proved that Johnson didn’t read Moody’s rationale, explaining that spending cuts would be far exceeded by tax cuts, thereby reducing the government’s revenues and piling up more debt.

The Republican Party, which postures as the fiscally conservative of the two parties despite decades of evidence to the contrary, would add about $4 trillion in debt over the next 10 years if its bill becomes law, according to Moody’s. Other nonpartisan analyses — including from the Congressional Budget Office, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and the Penn Wharton Budget Model of the University of Pennsylvania, similarly project additional debt in the $3-trillion-plus to $5-trillion range, more if the tax cuts are made permanent as Trump and Republicans want.

No surprise: Trump, after all, set a record for the most debt in a single presidential term: $8.4 trillion during Trump 1.0, nearly twice what accrued under his successor, President Biden. Most of Trump’s first-term red ink stemmed from his 2017 tax cuts and spending, which predated the COVID-19 pandemic and the government’s costly response.

“This bill does not add to the deficit,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt insisted to reporters on Monday, showing yet again why such a facile dissembler was chosen to speak for the habitually prevaricating president.

“That’s a joke,” Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky responded.

Worse, it’s a lie.

And no surprise here, either, but Trump’s tariffs — another economic monstrosity that he’s declared “beautiful” — aren’t paying for this bill despite his claims. Yet the president repeated that falsehood on Tuesday (along with others), when he visited the Capitol to strong-arm Republican dissidents, including Massie, into supporting the measure ahead of a House vote. (Inside a closed caucus with House Republicans, the president reportedly called for Massie to be unseated; the Kentuckian remains opposed.)

“The economy is doing great, the stock market is higher now than when I came to office. And we’ve taken in hundreds of billions of dollars in tariff money,” Trump told reporters at the Capitol. Every point a lie.

(This week provided yet more evidence that he’s utterly wrong to keep insisting that foreign countries pay his tariffs, not American consumers. After Walmart, the largest U.S. retailer, said late last week that it would have to raise prices, Trump posted that it should “ ‘EAT THE TARIFFS.’ ” He added: “I’ll be watching, and so will your customers!!!” This after a Walmart exec said that “the magnitude of these increases is more than any retailer can absorb.”)

While details of the budget bill shift as Republican leaders dicker with their dissidents, here’s the ugly general outline, according to Penn Wharton:

Extending and expanding Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which otherwise expire this year, would cost nearly $4.5 trillion over 10 years, $5.8 trillion if the cuts are permanent. (Mandating that tax cuts expire after a time, as Trump did in 2017, is an old budget gimmick to understate a bill’s cost. The politicians know they’ll just extend the tax breaks, as we’re seeing now.) The bill’s proposed spending increases for the military, immigration enforcement and deportations would cost about $600 billion more.

Spending cuts over 10 years, mostly to Medicaid as well as to Obamacare, food stamps and clean-energy programs, would save about $1.6 trillion. That offsets as little as one-quarter of the cost of Trump’s tax cuts and added spending.

Also, the bill is inequitable. The tax cuts would disproportionately favor corporations and wealthy Americans. Its spending cuts, however, would mostly cost lower- and some middle-income people who benefit from federal health and nutrition programs. Changes to Medicaid, including a work requirement (92% of recipients under 65 already work full or part-time, according to the health research organization KFF), and to Obamacare would leave up to 14 million people without health insurance.

Penn Wharton found that people with household income less than $51,000, for example, would see their after-tax income reduced if the bill becomes law, and the top 0.1% of income-earners would get hundreds of thousands of dollars more over the next 10 years. Beyond that time, Penn Wharton projected, “all future households are worse off” given the long-term impact of spiraling debt and a tattered safety net.

“Don’t f— around with Medicaid,” Trump told Republicans at the Capitol, according to numerous reports. How cynical, given that he was pressuring them to vote for a bill that would do just that.

All of which recalls an acronym that’s popular these days: FAFO.

@jackiekcalmes

In March 2024, I wrote a column about President Biden’s State of the Union speech with a confident headline that made perfect sense to me at the time: “Chill out, my fellow Americans. Your president isn’t cognitively impaired.”

Boy was I wrong. For months, critics and supporters had been raising pointed questions about the president’s physical health and intellectual acuity. Had he won the November election, after all, he would have been the oldest president in American history. (Since he lost, that honor goes to the current White House occupant.) But during his hourlong speech to Congress, Biden had sparred repeatedly with Republican hecklers. He was on his game. Democrats were relieved.

Having watched Trump raise spurious questions during the 2016 campaign about Hillary Clinton’s health —particularly after she was visibly ill at a 9/11 ceremony in Manhattan — I thought Republicans were harping on the issue of Biden’s age more as a tactic than anything else. It was a good distraction, considering that his opponent, then-former President Trump, was only a few years younger and given to rambling incoherence himself.

Republicans may have exaggerated Biden’s issues, but they were, as we soon learned, in the main, correct. By the time the president stood slack-jawed and confused on a debate stage with Trump only three months after his triumphant State of the Union address, it was clear that something was very, very wrong. The debate stage can be a cruel place, and with no prepared speech loaded onto a teleprompter, Biden was suddenly naked in the spotlight. It was not a pretty sight, and suddenly, he was no longer a tenable presidential candidate.

But why are we talking about this old news when we have a president flouting every ethical norm of his office, wantonly violating the Constitution and cozying up to murderous dictators such as Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince whom the CIA concluded had ordered the 2018 killing and dismemberment of Washington Post columnist and Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi?

Biden is back in the news thanks to “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,” by longtime CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios White House correspondent Alex Thompson. The book, whose subtitle says it all, has been excerpted in the New Yorker and reviewed by other publications. Its publication date is Tuesday.

I tried to get my hands on a copy, but the publishing house blew me off.

In any case, so much of the book’s insider information has been made available that it is possible to make a convincing case, even from a distance, that Biden’s insistence on running for a second term, despite his promise to be a one-term “bridge,” and his belated decision to drop out, is how we got to where we are today: in the grip of a chaotic, despotic self-dealing president who is turning the Constitution on its head.

Heckuva job, Joe!

I was as surprised as anyone that Biden became the nominee in 2020. I recall watching him stump in Iowa, certain that he was too old for the job. Onstage, he was shouty, his voice rising and falling for no particular reason — “mistaking volume for passion,” as I wrote back then.

And yet, for all his faults, gaffes and frailties, I would still prefer an impaired Biden to the corrupt felon who currently occupies the Oval Office.

Those who have read “Original Sin” say that it does not contain any bombshells. What it offers is a detailed account of the systematic effort by family and advisors to conceal the truth from the American people, and calls out the cowardly Democratic leaders who knew Biden was not up to a second term but were afraid to cross him.

As the Washington Post put it in its review: “The book is a damning account of an elderly, egotistical president shielded from reality by a slavish coterie of loyalists and family members united by a shared, seemingly ironclad sense of denial and a determination to smear anyone who dared to question the president’s fitness for office as a threat to the republic covertly working on behalf of Trump.”

Co-author Thompson, as it happens, was one of the few mainstream political journalists to aggressively report on Biden’s worsening condition and the struggle — you might even call it gaslighting — to keep it from the public.

For that, the White House Correspondents’ Assn. awarded him its top honor in April. In his acceptance speech, Thompson was unflinching.

“President Biden’s decline and its cover-up by the people around him is a reminder that every White House, regardless of party, is capable of deception,” he said. “But being truth tellers also means telling the truth about ourselves. We, myself included, missed a lot of this story, and some people trust us less because of it. We bear some responsibility for faith in the media being at such lows. … We should have done better.”

I take his point. We are now living with the consequences of our failures.

@rabcarian.bsky.social and @rabcarian

Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s superbly reported “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again” reads like a Shakespearean drama on steroids. During his latter years as No. 46, Biden is portrayed as a lion in winter — shockingly frail and forgetful with a ferocious pride that blinds him to the fact that it’s time to exit the stage. He was assisted in that delusion, the authors claim, by the mythology his family erected around him — that he was indestructible — and by his zealously protective inner circle, dubbed “the Politburo.”

Though Tapper and Thompson’s mostly anonymous sources (it’s jarring that so few went on the record) suggest that the first disturbing signs of Biden’s diminished capacities emerged as early as 2015, many around him chalked them up to the “Bidenness” of it all: “He was known on the Hill for being congenitally prone to long stories, gaffes, and inappropriate comments,” the authors observe. “Even in tightly choreographed Zoom calls with friendly audiences, Biden could step on a rake.”

That propensity appeared to morph into something more worrisome even before Biden was elected president. An unnamed Democrat who witnessed candidate Biden being prepped for a taping prior to the 2020 convention in Milwaukee was startled by his incoherence, commenting that it “was like watching Grandpa who shouldn’t be driving.” Once in office, the White House staff “treated him as very delicate,” and the pandemic gave aides an excuse to build “barriers” around him so few could gain access. The news media and public were kept at arm’s length, as were many members of the Cabinet and Congress, which led to a “uniquely small and loyal inner circle.” “I’ve never seen a situation like this before, with so few people having so much power,” said one unidentified top official.

That elite quintet consisted of domestic policy advisor Bruce Reed, chief strategist Mike Donilon, legislative affairs guru Steve Ricchetti and chief of staff Ron Klain, each of whom had deep ties to Biden. “Five people were running the country, and Joe Biden was at best a senior member of the board,” offered one person familiar with the dynamic. As time went on and more grew concerned about Biden’s behavior, those who inquired were routinely told that everything was okay. One staffer who didn’t have regular access to Biden during this period said that when they did see him in person, they were “shocked, but the other people around him didn’t seem to be, so I didn’t say anything.”

It wasn’t until around the time Biden broke his one-term pledge to be a “bridge” president and made clear he intended to run again that some began to feel a sense of alarm. For example, in 2023, Congressman Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) was with Biden when he visited Ireland. Biden seemed to gain strength from the crowds that greeted him, but then appeared “sapped and not quite there.” The authors write that Quigley “realized why this all felt so familiar to him … This was how his father, Bill, had been before he died.” Similarly, Minnesota Congressman Dean Phillips was so disturbed by Biden’s reduced “speaking and walking skills” that he pressed Democratic officials as to whether the president was up to the job. Even those who admitted to having concerns offered the “yes, but,” as in, “Yes, Biden is in decline but can you imagine Trump winning?” Phillips could imagine such a scenario, “especially if Biden were the Democratic nominee.” Failing to get anyone to take his worries seriously, he declared his own candidacy. But “the whale who spouts gets harpooned,” Phillips later noted after the “Democratic machine” set out to quash his chances. He reluctantly pulled out of the race and “watched his party sleepwalk toward disaster.”

Alex Thompson, left, and Jake Tapper argue that there was a conspiracy to conceal President Biden’s “cognitive diminishment” from the press, public and top Democrats.

(Elliott O’Donovan)

Though some top Democratic supporters such as Hollywood mogul Ari Emanuel refused to support Biden’s bid for reelection — even shouting at Klain during a “power-player retreat” that, “Joe Biden cannot run for reelection! He needs to drop out!” — most remained in the president’s corner until his disastrous debate performance in late June 2024. Following that, the slow drip of Biden allies calling for him to withdraw became a downpour, with even loyalists like George Clooney remarking publicly in an op-ed that while he “loved” Joe Biden, “the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time.”

Was there a conspiracy to conceal Biden’s symptoms from the press, public and top Democrats? The authors conclude there was. “The original sin of Election 2024,” they write, “was Biden’s decision to run for reelection — followed by aggressive efforts to hide his cognitive diminishment.” The course Biden’s family and inner circle chose was tantamount to “gaslighting the American people.” Many other key Democratic officials and donors simply felt that even a weakened Biden was the best bet against the “existential threat” posed by Trump, until the debate shattered that rationalization. In any case, Biden allies “who voiced fears were flicked away like lint.”

In the end, I’m not convinced there was a coordinated campaign to hide the truth about Biden’s “condition,” but maybe that doesn’t matter. In the book’s final chapter, the authors quote former Watergate special prosecutor and law professor Archibald Cox on what lessons Americans should take away from the Watergate scandal. He observes that “we should be reminded of the corrupt influence of great power. … Perhaps it is inescapable that modern government vests extraordinary power in the President and puts around him a large circle of men and women whose personal status and satisfaction depends entirely on pleasing one man.”

But Biden isn’t Nixon. He is a man who generated intense love and loyalty, whose life has been filled with tragedy as well as opportunity; who adeptly and passionately served his country for decades. “Original Sin” is not a compassionate account of Biden’s last campaign — at times it’s even a painful, if necessary, piece of journalism. A great takeaway from 2024, according to political strategist David Plouffe, is that “never again can we as a party suggest to people that what they’re seeing is not true.” We don’t know if Trump could have been defeated had Biden opted not to run. But in the future, we can’t afford to be in denial.

Haber is a writer, editor and publishing strategist. She was director of Oprah’s Book Club and books editor for O, the Oprah Magazine.

They arrive at the U.S. border from around the world: Eritrea, Guatemala, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Ghana, Uzbekistan and so many other countries.

They come for asylum, insisting they face persecution for their religion, or sexuality or for supporting the wrong politicians.

For generations, they had been given the chance to make their case to U.S. authorities.

Not anymore.

“They didn’t give us an ICE officer to talk to. They didn’t give us an interview. No one asked me what happened,” said a Russian election worker who sought asylum in the U.S. after he said he was caught with video recordings he made of vote rigging. On Feb. 26, he was deported to Costa Rica with his wife and young son.

On Jan. 20, just after being sworn in for a second term, President Trump suspended the asylum system as part of his wide-ranging crackdown on illegal immigration, issuing a series of executive orders designed to stop what he called the “invasion” of the United States.

What asylum seekers now find, according to lawyers, activists and immigrants, is a murky, ever-changing situation with few obvious rules, where people can be deported to countries they know nothing about after fleeting conversations with immigration officials while others languish in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody.

Attorneys who work frequently with asylum seekers at the border say their phones have gone quiet since Trump took office. They suspect many who cross are immediately expelled without a chance at asylum or are detained to wait for screening under the U.N.’s convention against torture, which is harder to qualify for than asylum.

“I don’t think it’s completely clear to anyone what happens when people show up and ask for asylum,” said Bella Mosselmans, director of the Global Strategic Litigation Council.

Restrictions face challenges in court

A thicket of lawsuits, appeals and countersuits have filled the courts as the Trump administration faces off against activists who argue the sweeping restrictions illegally put people fleeing persecution in harm’s way.

In a key legal battle, a federal judge is expected to rule on whether courts can review the administration’s use of invasion claims to justify suspending asylum. There is no date set for that ruling.

The government says its declaration of an invasion is not subject to judicial oversight, at one point calling it “an unreviewable political question.”

But rights groups fighting the asylum proclamation, led by the American Civil Liberties Union, called it “as unlawful as it is unprecedented” in the complaint filed in a Washington, D.C., federal court.

Illegal border crossings, which soared in the first years of President Biden’s administration, reaching nearly 10,000 arrests per day in late 2024, dropped significantly during his last year in office and plunged further after Trump returned to the White House.

Yet more than 200 people are still arrested daily for illegally crossing the southern U.S. border.

Some of those people are seeking asylum, though it’s unclear if anyone knows how many.

Paulina Reyes-Perrariz, managing attorney for the San Diego office of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, said her office sometimes received 10 to 15 calls a day about asylum after Biden implemented asylum restrictions in 2024.

That number has dropped to almost nothing, with only a handful of total calls since Jan. 20.

Plus, she added, lawyers are unsure how to handle asylum cases.

“It’s really difficult to consult and advise with individuals when we don’t know what the process is,” she said.

Doing ‘everything right’

None of this was expected by the Russian man, who asked not to be identified for fear of persecution if he returns to Russia.

“We felt betrayed,” the 36-year-old told the Associated Press. “We did everything right.”

The family had scrupulously followed the rules. They traveled to Mexico in May 2024, found a cheap place to rent near the border with California and waited nearly nine months for the chance to schedule an asylum interview.

On Jan. 14, they got word that their interview would be on Feb 2. On Jan. 20, the interview was canceled.

Moments after Trump took office, U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced it had scrubbed the system used to schedule asylum interviews and canceled tens of thousands of existing appointments.

There was no way to appeal.

The Russian family went to a San Diego border crossing to ask for asylum, where they were taken into custody, he said.

A few weeks later, they were among the immigrants who were handcuffed, shackled and flown to Costa Rica. Only the children were left unchained.

Turning to other countries to hold deportees

The Trump administration has tried to accelerate deportations by turning countries like Costa Rica and Panama into “bridges,” temporarily detaining deportees while they await return to their countries of origin or third countries.

Earlier this year, some 200 migrants were deported from the U.S. to Costa Rica and roughly 300 were sent to Panama.

To supporters of tighter immigration controls, the asylum system has always been rife with exaggerated claims by people not facing real dangers. In recent years, roughly one-third to half of asylum applications were approved by judges.

Even some politicians who see themselves as pro-immigration say the system faces too much abuse.

“People around the world have learned they can claim asylum and remain in the U.S. indefinitely to pursue their claims,” retired U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, a longtime Democratic stalwart in Congress, wrote last year in the Wall Street Journal, defending Biden’s tightening of asylum policies amid a flood of illegal immigration.

An uncertain future

Many of the immigrants they arrived with have left the Costa Rican facility where they were first detained, but the Russian family has stayed. The man cannot imagine going back to Russia and has nowhere else to go.

He and his wife spend their days teaching Russian and a little English to their son. He organizes volleyball games to keep people busy.

He is not angry at the U.S. He understands the administration wanting to crack down on illegal immigration. But, he adds, he is in real danger. He followed the rules and can’t understand why he didn’t get a chance to plead his case.

He fights despair almost constantly, knowing that what he did in Russia brought his family to this place.

“I failed them,” he said. “I think that every day: I failed them.”

Sullivan writes for the Associated Press.

I’m not much of a fair guy — I never win at carnival games, I get dizzy as a passenger in a car, and fair food is as overrated as In-N-Out. But last week, I attended the Los Angeles County Fair for the first time ever because why not?

Besides, if Miguel Santana can be a Fairhead, so can I.

He’s one of the most influential people in Southern California: longtime confidante of the late Gloria Molina, former chief administrative officer for Los Angeles and current president of the California Community Foundation. But I think he had the most fun as head of the L.A. County Fair from 2017 to 2020, a stint immortalized by his appearance on the cover of the 2022 book “100 Years of the Los Angeles County Fair” riding a gondola lift alongside the book’s author, legendary Inland Valley Daily Bulletin columnist David Allen.

“Who’s there says a lot about us as Southern California,” Santana said of the L.A. County Fair’s audience as I exited the 10 Freeway toward the Fairplex. “It’s a sense of Americana and proof we can be diverse and American at the same time.”

I asked if this fair was as big as the Orange County Fair. He laughed the way all Angelenos do when presented with a comparison to Orange County.

“It’s enormous. You’re gonna get your 10,000 steps.”

Behold, then, this newbie’s L.A. County Fair tips:

Times columnist Gustavo Arellano at the 2025 L.A. County Fair.

(Gustavo Arellano / Los Angeles Times)

Have a Pomona homie drop you off

Fair parking is an ungodly $22.50, and don’t you dare try to leave your jalopy at nearby Ganesha Park unless you want to spend a couple hundred dollars fishing it out of some random tow truck yard. My Pomona parking hookup was faithful reader Fernando Iniguez — gracias, Fern Iggy! I owe you a Jerez sweatshirt.

Buy your tickets online

$21.50 on the internet. At the gate? $32. Um, yeah. But one big complaint, Fair lords: It took me three attempts to buy my tickets online. Ever heard of Zelle?

Feel the music

“There’s going to be so much music,” Santana told me, and he was right. Between live bands, Spotify playlists, DJs and radio stations, it was like walking through a wholesome Coachella. Bachata smoothly transitioned to Go Country went to KCRW became Taylor Swift switched over to a super-chirpy cover of the O’Jays’ “Love Train” at the Disco Chicken stand. And though Pharell Williams’ “Happy” played at least five times while I visited, the atmosphere was so cheerful that I didn’t have to scream to drown out his ode to optimism.

Hang out at the petting zoo for the best people watching

There’s nothing like seeing suburbanites who probably think meat comes from Erewhon fairies stand with terror in their eyes as bleating sheep and goats swarm them asking for pellets.

Lose yourself in the fair

How much did fairgoers live in the moment? I saw next to no one use their smartphone other than for photos. And I also noticed a middle-age white guy in a MAGA cap standing a few feet away from a Muslim family with nary a negative look at each other. They were too busy staring ahead like the rest of us at an octet of magnificent Clydesdale horses ready to pull a Budweiser wagon.

Head to the coolest section of the fair

I loved all the vegetables and livestock at the Farm & Gardens, enjoyed the trippy art at the Flower & Garden Pavilion and appreciated the juxtaposition of a lowrider show next to the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum near the Millard Sheets Art Center. But the best part of the fair was the area labeled “America’s Great Outdoors” — and I say this as someone who thinks camping and hiking are for the (literal) birds! Volunteers sawed logs with kids, taught them how to pan for gold, showed off desert reptiles and even hosted an environmental magic show. Throw in a replica of a Tongva hut and a U.S. Forest Service fire lookout tower and the nearby sound of the RailGiants Train Museum, and this is what Knott’s Berry Farm used to be before it became whatever the hell it is now.

Block off at least three hours to fully enjoy

I had to rush back to Orange County for a columna the day I visited, so I only spent an hour and a half at the fair. I had to skip the tablescape competition, didn’t go through the exhibit halls and was only able to eat at Hot Dog on a Stick because they make the best lemonade on Earth. But it was wonderful to leave the problems of the world mostly at bay for a few hours to enjoy the living, breathing Wikipedia that is a county fair at its finest — and the L.A. County Fair is definitely that.

Huge Snorlax plush toy: Next year, you’re mine.

Today’s top stories

Wildlife biologist Carl Lackey, with the aid of a dog, chases off a California black bear that was captured and relocated to the Carson Range.

(John Axtell / Nevada Department of Wildlife)

A woman’s grisly death inflames debate over how California manages problem black bears

• An autopsy determined that 71-year-old Patrice Miller had probably been killed by a black bear after it broke into her home, marking the first known instance in California history of a fatal bear attack on a human.
• The story of Miller’s grisly end have come roaring into the state Capitol this spring.
• Wildlife officials estimate there are now 60,000 black bears in California, roughly triple the figure from 1998.

An epic guide to the best motels in California

UC and CSU get some relief in Newsom’s budget plan

• Proposed funding cuts for UC and CSU are not as bad as they were in January, under Gov. Gavin Newsom’s revised state budget.
• The proposed cut to UC dropped from $397 million in January to $130 million four months later, representing a 3% year-to-year budget cut.
• For CSU, Newsom’s budget cut went from $375 million in January to $144 million, also a 3% budget reduction.

Riverside wants to become ‘the new Detroit’

What else is going on

Commentary and opinions

This morning’s must reads

Other must reads

For your downtime

(Peter DaSilva / For The Times)

Going out

Staying in

A question for you: What is your go-to karaoke song?

Alan says: “Your Man by Josh Turner.”
C Price says: “The Circle Game by Joni Mitchell.”

Email us at [email protected], and your response might appear in the newsletter this week.

And finally … your photo of the day

Kaj Betts, son of Dodgers infielder Mookie Betts, runs away with the ceremonial first pitch ball as they celebrate Mookie Betts’ Bobble Head night at Dodger Stadium.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Today’s great photo is from Times photographer Robert Gauthier at Dodger Stadium where the 2-year-old son of Dodgers infielder Mookie Betts runs away with the ceremonial first pitch ball.

Have a great day, from the Essential California team

Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Andrew Campa, Sunday writer
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to [email protected]. Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on latimes.com.

When I think about the gleeful cruelty the Trump administration is showing toward illegal immigrants — including unlawfully deporting planeloads of them, seeking to suspend habeas corpus in order to kick out folks faster and wearing fancy Rolex watches while visiting a Salvadoran super prison — I think of Jose Toscano.

The Mexico City native came to Los Angeles as a 13-year-old and enrolled at St. Turibius School near the Fashion District, working at Magee’s Kitchen in the Farmers Market to pay his tuition, room and board. “I had this dream to come to the United States for education,” Toscano told The Times in May 1953. “Not for the dollars, not to work in the camps for 65 cents an hour.”

Why was The Times profiling a 16-year-old Mexican immigrant? Because he was about to get deported. Politicians, the press and private citizens had been railing against “illegal immigration” and pushing President Eisenhower for mass deportations. Officers received a tip that Toscano was in the country illegally.

This young migrant’s story struck a chord in Southern California in a way that’s unimaginable today

Newspaper accounts noted that immigration authorities — struck by Toscano’s pluck and drive — made sure that his deportation didn’t go on his record so he could legally return one day. A Van Nuys News and Valley Green Sheet columnist wrote, “We must have immigration laws — but they’re not designed for folks like Joe.”

Meanwhile, The Times’ editorial board — not exactly known back then for its kind attitude toward Mexican Americans — argued that Toscano shouldn’t be deported, making the case that laws “should perhaps be tempered a trifle in the face of principles and actions which are of such sterling worth as to be beyond the object of the law itself.”

Toscano legally returned to Los Angeles three months later, living with a white family in Whittier that sponsored him and enrolling at Cathedral High. “As I continue to study the history of your country in school,” he wrote to The Times that September, “I shall remember that what you did for me is one of the things that makes this country of yours so great.”

His story was such a feel-good tale that it appeared in Reader’s Digest and the local press checked in on Toscano for years. The Mirror, The Times’ afternoon sister paper, reported on his 1954 wedding, the same year that immigration officials deported over a million Mexican nationals under Operation Wetback, a program that President Trump and his supporters say they want to emulate today.

Two years later, The Times covered Toscano’s graduation from Fairfax High, where he told the crowd as the commencement speaker that he wanted to become an American citizen “so that I, too, can help build a greater America.”

After a three-year stint in the Marines, Toscano did just that in 1959, changing his legal name from Jose to Joseph because he felt “it’s more American that way,” he told the Mirror. He told the paper he had dreams of attending UCLA Law School, but life didn’t work out that way.

Lessons for today

The last clipping I found of Toscano in The Times is a 1980 Farmers Market ad, which noted that he was a widower with two daughters still working at Magee’s but had advanced from washing dishes to chief carver.

“He’s a happy man who likes his work,” the ad said, “and it shows.”

Rereading the clips about Toscano, I’m reminded of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran national who established a life for himself in this country before he was deported in March despite a judge’s order that he be allowed to remain in the United States.

This time around, immigration officials and the Trump White House have insisted Abrego Garcia deserved his fate, sliming him as a terrorist and MS-13 member despite no evidence to back up their assertions.

Toscano’s story shows that the story can have a different ending — if only immigration officials have a heart.

Today’s top stories

People enjoy pleasant spring weather while sailing in Newport Harbor. Orange County is one of three SoCal counties where single earners with six-figure salaries could soon be considered “low income.”

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

‘Low income’ but making $100,000 per year

Newsom walks back free healthcare for eligible undocumented immigrants

• The governor’s office said his spending plan, which will be released later this morning, calls for requiring all undocumented adults to pay $100 monthly premiums to receive Medi-Cal coverage and for blocking all new adult applications to the program as of Jan. 1.
• The cost of coverage for immigrants has exceeded state estimates by billions of dollars.

California joins another lawsuit against Trump

• California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta filed two lawsuits Tuesday challenging a Trump administration policy that would deny the state billions of dollars in transportation grants unless it follows the administration’s lead on immigration enforcement.
• California sued Trump 15 times in his first 100 days in office. Here’s where those cases stand.

California’s ethnic studies mandate is at risk

• California became a national pioneer four years ago by passing a law to make ethnic studies a high school graduation requirement.
• But only months before the policy is to take effect, Gov. Gavin Newsom is withholding state funding — delaying the mandate as the course comes under renewed fire.

What else is going on

Commentary and opinions

• Four months into insurance claim delays and disputes, a new blow to fire victims: A rate hike, writes columnist Steve Lopez.
• My neighborhood, Skid Row, is not exactly what you think it is, argues guest columnist Amelia Rayno.
• The Endangered Species Act is facing its own existential threat, contributor Marcy Houle says.

This morning’s must reads

Other must reads

For your downtime

(Marie Doazan for The Times)

Going out

Staying in

A question for you: What is your go-to karaoke song?

Stephen says: “Anything by Jim Croce.”
Alan says: “‘In My Life’ by The Beatles.”

Email us at [email protected], and your response might appear in the newsletter this week.

And finally … your photo of the day

Alice Weddle, 88, poses for a portrait before the Queens Tour at Kia Forum on Sunday in Inglewood.

(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)

Today’s great photo is from Times photographer Juliana Yamada at the Kia Forum where fans flocked to see legendary singers Chaka Khan, Patti LaBelle, Stephanie Mills and Gladys Knight perform their greatest hits.

Have a great day, from the Essential California team

Gustavo Arellano, California columnist
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to [email protected].

Good morning. I’m Gustavo Arellano, columnista, writing from Orange County and watching my tomato seedlings grow. Here’s what you need to know to start your day.

Montebello’s ex-mayor turns to Orange County

Frank Gomez was born to be an L.A. County politician.

His grandfather attended Roosevelt High with pioneering Eastside congressmember Ed Roybal and helped to fight off a proposed veteran’s hospital in Hazard Park. His mother went to Belvedere Middle School with longtime L.A. councilmember Richard Alatorre. His father taught Chicano political titans Gil Cedillo and Vickie Castro in high school. When Gomez won a seat on the Montebello Unified School District board of trustees in 1997, Richard Polanco — the Johnny Appleseed-meets-Scrooge McDuck of Latino politics in California — helped out his campaign.

That’s why people were surprised in 2013 when Gomez — by then a Montebello council member who had served a year as mayor — announced he was leaving L.A. County altogether to marry his current wife.

“I had the choice between politics and love,” said the 61-year-old during a recent breakfast in Santa Ana. “It was an easy choice.”

Gomez couldn’t stay away from politics for long

Today, Gomez leads STEM initiatives for the Cal State system and is also the chair of the Central Orange County Democratic Club, which covers Orange, Tustin, parts of unincorporated Orange County “and a few voters in Villa Park,” Gomez told me with a chuckle.

He’s headed the Central O.C. Dems since last year, and has grown them from about 60 members to over 300. Soft-spoken but forceful, Gomez likes to apply his background as a chemistry professor — “We need to be strategic and analytical” — in helping to build a Democratic bench of elected officials in a region that was a long a GOP stronghold before becoming as purple as Barney the Dinosaur.

I knew Gomez’s name but didn’t realize his L.A. political background until we met last month. That makes him a rare one: someone who has dabbled in both L.A. and Orange county politics, two worlds that rarely collide because each considers the other a wasteland.

As someone who has covered O.C. politics for a quarter century but has only paid attention to L.A. politics in earnest since I started with The Times in 2019, I have my thoughts about each scene’s differences and similarities. But what about Gomez?

From one cutthroat political scene to another

“In L.A., it’s Democrats against Democrats,” he replied. “It’s not like I didn’t know” what to expect when moving to O.C., he said. “But it’s the difference between Fashion Island and the Citadel.”

He thought his days in politics were over until 2022, when his stepson — who had interned with longtime Irvine politico Larry Agran — urged him to run for a seat on the Tustin City Council.

Commence Gomez’s true “Welcome to the O.C., bitch” moment.

Opponents sent out mailers with photos of garbage cans and graffiti and the message, “Do not bring L.A. to Tustin,” a political insult introduced to Orange County politics that year by Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer.

“Those gated communities still try to keep their unsaid redlining,” Gomez said. “It wasn’t like that in L.A. politics because there was no place for it.”

Racist L.A. City Hall audio leak notwithstanding, of course.

Trying to topple O.C.’s last remaining GOP congressmember

Gomez unsuccessfully ran last year for a seat on the Municipal Water District of Orange County. He now plans to focus his political energies on growing the Central O.C. Dems and figuring out how to topple Rep. Young Kim, O.C.’s last remaining GOP congressmember. In the meanwhile, he will continue his political salons at the Central O.C. Dems’ monthly meetings at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Tustin — I was on the hot seat in April, and upcoming guests include coastal O.C. Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris, O.C. supervisorial candidate Connor Traut and former congressmember and current California gubernatorial candidate Katie Porter.

“It’s like being in the classroom,” Gomez said as he packed up his leftovers. “All I do is ask the questions and keep it flowing.”

He smiled. “Johnny Carson on intellectual steroids.”

Today’s top stories

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem arrives for a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security oversight hearing on Thursday on Capitol Hill in Washington.

(Julia Demaree Nikhinson / Associated Press)

The Trump administration will investigate L.A. County

• The administration announced Monday that it has launched an investigation into California’s Cash Assistance Program for Immigrants.
• The state program provides monthly cash benefits to elderly, blind and disabled noncitizens who are ineligible for Social Security benefits because of their immigration status.

Newsom urges cities to ban homeless camps

• The governor’s plan asks localities to prohibit persistent camping and encampments that block sidewalks.
• This is an escalation from last year, when Newsom ordered California agencies to clear homeless camps from state lands.

How to understand the recent trade deals

Inside the investigation into faulty evacuation alerts during the wildfires in January

• Software glitches, cellphone provider mixups and poor wording on the alert itself compounded to stoke confusion.
• On Jan. 9, residents across the region received a wireless emergency alert urging them to prepare to evacuate.
• Meanwhile, western Altadena, where 17 people died, got its evacuation order many hours after the Eaton fire exploded.

What else is going on

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This morning’s must reads

Black nationalist leader Malcolm X, left, and Louis Farrakhan, chief minister of the Nation of Islam’s Boston mosque, right, attend a rally at Lennox Avenue and 115th Street in the Harlem section of New York in 1963.

(Robert Haggins / Associated Press)

Ibram X. Kendi is ready to introduce kids to Malcolm X: ‘Racism is worse in times of tragedy’ Ibram X. Kendi discusses introducing Malcolm X to today’s young readers and the timing of his new book in light of President Trump’s anti-DEI actions.

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to [email protected].

For your downtime

The Pasadena Playhouse

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Going out

Staying in

A question for you: What’s your favorite karaoke song?

Peg says: “David Bowie’s Life on Mars!”
Paul says “My Way.” (We’re assuming he means by Frank Sinatra)

Keep the suggestions coming. Email us at [email protected], and your response might appear in the newsletter this week.

And finally … your photo of the day

Wet Magazine Issue 3 from October/November 1976

(Photography and design by Leonard Koren)

Today’s great photo is from the archives: Leonard Koren began documenting L.A. bathing culture back in 1976 with Wet magazine, which featured contributions from David Lynch, Debbie Harry and Ed Ruscha.

Have a great day, from the Essential California team

Gustavo Arellano, California columnist
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters

Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on latimes.com.