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  • Chris Christie Joins AGA to Fight Prediction Markets

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    Posted on: December 23, 2025, 12:18h. 

    Last updated on: December 22, 2025, 05:21h.

    • Chris Christie has joined the fight against sports prediction markets
    • Christie helped states win the right to legalize sports betting
    • Christie and President Trump are not friends, which could hamper Christie’s CFTC influence

    Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), who championed the fight against the US federal government for states to possess the right to legalize sports betting, has a new target in sports prediction markets.

    Chris Christie prediction markets sports
    Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie opines that prediction markets licensed by the CFTC offering sports contracts are breaking the law. Christie recently partnered with the American Gaming Association to fight against predictive market exchanges facilitating events involving sports. (Image: CNBC)

    Christie, a two-term Republican governor in the blue Garden State, helped lead New Jersey’s legal challenge to the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA). The federal law had restricted single-game sports gambling to Nevada.

    After years in court, the US Supreme Court in May 2018 ultimately sided with New Jersey in that PASPA violated anti-commandeering interpretations of the Tenth Amendment. The landmark ruling led to 40 states and Washington, DC, passing sports betting laws.

    Now, Christie is joining the American Gaming Association (AGA), a trade group representing the interests of the commercial and tribal gaming industries, to campaign against the continued rise of sports prediction markets.

    CNBC’s Contessa Brewer, who covers gaming matters for the business news outlet, broke the Christie news last Friday.

    Sports Prediction Markets 

    Prediction markets licensed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) claim to facilitate the buying and selling of binary markets and yes/no contracts. Platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket initially focused on the outcome of real-world happenings and events, from the weather to politics, but more recently ventured into sports.

    State attorneys general, gaming regulators, and certain state lawmakers have said the sports prediction markets are nothing more than sports gambling, but Kalshi and the like do not hold sports betting licenses in states where they operate. They’re even operating in states like California and Texas, where sports betting is illegal.

    Several traditional sportsbook giants, including DraftKings, FanDuel, and Fanatics, recently withdrew their AGA memberships to pursue their own prediction markets. DraftKings Predictions and FanDuel Predicts launched over the past week.

    The AGA is betting on Christie being able to change the narrative.

    They are clearly illegal in the sports gaming space,” Christie told Brewer. “The Supreme Court turned this [sports betting] over to the states. Regulation is very important,” Christie said. “This is not compliant with the law.”

    The CFTC, which administers the Commodity Exchange Act, has allowed its Designated Contract Market (DCM) licensees to offer contracts on sporting outcomes. The CFTC, under the Trump administration, seems unlikely to force prediction markets to cease trading sports contracts. Even the president’s family is prepping a prediction market entry through its media group, and Donald Trump Jr. is a special advisor to Polymarket and Kalshi.

    The Commodity Exchange Act prohibits CFTC licensees from trading contracts involving “gaming” and events “contrary to the public interest” like war, terrorism, and assassination.

    “Just because people brazenly break the law doesn’t mean they should be permitted to do so,” Christie said.

    Sports Integrity in Focus 

    Christie says, unlike legal, regulated sportsbooks, which report suspicious betting activity to state gaming regulators and sports leagues when wagering patterns suggest a game or player could be compromised, predictive markets are like the wild west, where no such monitoring is occurring.

    The things that have happened in the NBA and MLB were discovered because the licensed sportsbooks are partnered with state regulators to look for irregularities. No one is looking for irregularities in sports prediction markets,” Christie said.

    “The CFTC has made it clear they aren’t regulating it with any rigor,” Christie continued. “The CFTC is not doing the job regarding sports, nor do they claim to be doing the job.”  

    Christie will try and help the AGA stress to the CFTC that prediction markets should not be allowed to offer sports contracts. It could be a tall task, as Christie’s relationship with Trump has soured greatly since his 2016 endorsement of the billionaire, something he’s called the “biggest mistake I’ve made in my political career.”

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    Devin O’Connor

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  • Which Of These Two Industries Contribute More To The Economy

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    The Feds support shipbuilding but compared to marijuana which of these two industries contribute more to the economy.

    In recent months, the current presidential administration has made shipbuilding a visible national priority, citing economic security, defense readiness, and the need to rebuild American industrial capacity. Federal speeches, policy directives, and funding discussions have elevated shipbuilding as a symbol of manufacturing revival. At the same time, the cannabis industry continues to receive cautious, uneven federal attention. While it has moved forward on rescheduling, Mmarijuana remains illegal at the federal level. Reform legislation advances slowly despite strong public support. The contrast between robust federal backing for shipbuilding and the tepid, uncertain approach toward cannabis shapes a broader debate over which of these two industries contribute more to the economy?

    RELATED: What Does Cannabis Rescheduling Mean

    Measured purely by scale, the two industries look very different. U.S. shipbuilding today is a relatively small and highly specialized sector. The country currently produces roughly three large commercial ships per year, with shipyards concentrated in a handful of coastal states. According to commonly cited labor estimates, including those referenced by industry analysts and public employment data, the average shipbuilding salary is about $59,000 annually. While some skilled welders, engineers, and managers earn more, an average reflecting a workforce closer to the national median wage than many assume.

    Photo by smodj/Getty Images

    The cannabis industry, by contrast, operates at far greater scale. Legal marijuana supports more than 400,000 jobs nationwide across cultivation, manufacturing, retail, compliance, logistics, and technology. Industry revenues exceed $30 billion annually, with legal sales spread across more than half the states. Average wages vary widely, but many full-time cannabis workers earn salaries comparable to shipbuilding employees, particularly in regulated states with established markets.

    One of the most important economic differences is time. Even with full federal support, shipbuilding cannot expand quickly. Building new shipyards, modernizing facilities, training skilled labor, and securing supply chains takes years, often decades. Workforce pipelines require long-term investment in apprenticeships and technical education, and new production capacity cannot be switched on quickly. Economic benefits from expanded shipbuilding, while real, will be gradual and regionally concentrated.

    Cannabis growth follows a very different pattern. Because the industry is already operating in dozens of states, economic expansion can happen rapidly when regulations change. New licenses, retail stores, and cultivation sites can open in months, not years. Tax revenue flows immediately once sales begin, and employment grows alongside local demand. This speed matters at a time when states are looking for near-term economic relief and job creation.

    RELATED: Who Is Rep. Andy Harris And Why Does He Hate Cannabis

    Another key distinction is ownership. Shipbuilding is dominated by large contractors and defense-linked firms. Cannabis, on the other hand, has supported thousands of small and mid-sized businesses. Many dispensaries, farms, manufacturers, and ancillary companies are locally owned, creating opportunities for entrepreneurs and keeping profits within communities. These mom-and-pop operations contribute to neighborhood employment, commercial real estate occupancy, and local tax bases in ways large industrial projects often do not.

    From a tax perspective, cannabis already delivers significant returns to state governments through excise taxes, sales taxes, and licensing fees, funding schools, infrastructure, and public health programs. Shipbuilding generates tax revenue primarily through payroll and corporate activity, but its overall footprint is smaller due to limited production volume.

    Shipbuilding remains strategically important and worthy of investment, particularly for national security and industrial resilience. But economically, cannabis already touches more workers, more states, and more local economies, despite operating under federal restrictions. The comparison suggests while shipbuilding represents a long-term industrial project, cannabis is a functioning, revenue-generating sector whose economic contributions are already being felt across much of the country.

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    Anthony Washington

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  • Alec Baldwin Says He Had Suicidal Thoughts After Charges Were Filed in ‘Rust’ Death a Second Time

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    Alec Baldwin says he had suicidal thoughts after charges were filed a second time in the fatal shooting on the set of his film Rust.

    The actor appeared on the most recent episode of Dopey: On the Dark Comedy of Drug Addiction, a podcast hosted by Dave Manheim, where he talked about battling some dark thoughts during that time.
    Baldwin said he was in a rough place mentally after it was announced that he was going to be charged a second time in the fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of Rust in 2021. (The case was ultimately dismissed, and he cannot be retried.) Baldwin said he was concerned about the impact it was having on his family.

    “The people I was most concerned about, the people that I had the deepest pain for, were my wife and my kids,” he said. “Because my kids would see me sitting in a corner, you know, I couldn’t even move.”

    Baldwin said there was a period where he took a nap every day for a year due to his mental state.

    “And I don’t want to dwell on this, I just want to say that this was very painful for my wife and my family, my sisters and brothers and so forth, my colleagues. … And I can tell you, it broke every nerve in my body, spiritually, financially … work-wise, my career, my wife, my kids, my friends, my health. I mean what it’s done to my health. I mean, if I told you what my health conditions have been since October 21st of 2021 … it’s taken 10 years off my life. It’s taken at least 10 years off my life,” he added, noting the date of the fatal shooting.

    Baldwin said he was able to get through it thanks to his wife, Hilaria, and his family, but not before some really dark thoughts took over.

    “When you get to that point where you go, ‘I don’t want to wake up another day, I’m gonna go’ — I swear to God, I mean, to talk about it, and it’s really kind of unappealing to me because to talk about killing yourself and to actually kill yourself are two so profoundly distinctive things. I think a lot of people, I think countless people think about killing themselves and ending their life, and then very few do. And for me, I remember, I used to lay there in bed and go, ‘Oh God, I can’t wake up another day and have it be the same. It’s the same every day. And I can’t do it.’ And but somehow I found the faith in God to, you know, not kill myself tomorrow. Let’s wait one more day.”

    Baldwin also said that he believes that the production followed the regulations laid out by the Hollywood guilds but the prosecutors in New Mexico “came along and said, ‘Oh no, no, those rules don’t apply here, and we have our own rules here and that’s what applies here. So we’re going to put you on trial for those rules.’ … No one came to me in the first week we were handling firearms the first week. No one came and told me anything different. It was after the fact. All the rules were changed after the fact, and that was very scary to me. I thought they were going to make it up as they go along.”

    He added that the New Mexico prosecutors “wanted to get their names in the paper. That’s what they wanted. And I mean thank God for this judge who called in on them and said, you know, what you’re doing is reprehensible.”

    In the same interview, the subject turned to President Trump, whom Baldwin portrayed on Saturday Night Live for four years. Baldwin admitted that he didn’t “want to play Trump every weekend for four years” but did it due to his friendship with SNL mastermind Lorne Michaels.

    “Overall, it was a good experience. Those first two years were glorious, and but you look at people who are made fun of on SNL. Comedy is all about mockery now. It’s all about mockery,” he said, noting that very few comedians aren’t “mean-spirited,” citing Ray Romano as one example. But, he said, much comedy these days veers toward being “negative.”

    “But you look at Trump. And you say to yourself, Trump’s a human being,” Baldwin said. “Now, do I disagree with Trump about everything? I disagree with Trump about fucking everything. Every fucking thing you could imagine I disagree with him. But at the same time, he’s a human being, and his mistake was when he was wounded, when he was hurt, when he was dismissed, when he was mocked, when he was outed or whatever, in any way he was treated badly, what was his response? What was his response? And that’s the lesson for all of us. What’s your response? Do you just try to get up and clean yourself off and move forward? No, Trump is bitter. He’s filled with hatred. He’s filled with bile, and he only made it worse for himself. 

    “I mean, Trump is a person who thought, ‘All of you have a problem. All of you making those observations about me, you’re the ones that are wrong. I don’t deserve any of this.’ Trump doesn’t believe he deserves any of what’s been ladled out against him. Now, has he been mistreated in some way or has it been too much of a pile on. Maybe, I don’t know. I mean, I think Trump, occupies a very unique place in our history, but at the same time, I think that you gotta walk that line. Trump’s a human being.”

    Baldwin recalled being at a dinner party and sharing his believe that comedy about Trump is “over” — not because it’s scary, but because “it’s just done.”

    “What else can you possibly say? If you’re still watching a nighttime talk show and laughing at jokes about Trump, there’s something wrong with you,” Baldwin said. “Al we need to do is just get ready for the next election, get ready for the midterms. That’s all you need to focus on. Fuck Trump. He’s gonna be gone. … And Trump, had he only had one ounce of self-awareness, how different things might have been.”

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    Kimberly Nordyke

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  • Jeanette Vizguerra, detained immigrant activist, likely to be released in coming days

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    Immigrant activist Jeanette Vizguerra is on the precipice of being released from an immigration detention facility after an immigration judge ruled Sunday that she can post bail.

    Denver immigration judge Brea Burgie set Vizguerra’s bail at $5,000, but she included no other restrictions, like an ankle monitor. Her family intends to immediately post the bond, her legal team said in a statement. She likely won’t be released for at least 24 to 48 hours, said Jenn Piper, the program co-director for the American Friends Service Committee of Denver. Still, Burgie’s ruling means Vizguerra, a mother of four children, will be home by Christmas.

    The order comes two days after Vizguerra’s legal team argued that the activist, who was born in Mexico and has spent most of the last 28 years in the United States, posed no flight risk and was not a danger to the community. She has been detained in the Aurora detention center since March, when she was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at her work.

    Vizguerra’s legal team said Sunday that Burgie found that Vizguerra “does not pose a danger to the community,” nor did she pose a flight risk, given her “strong family and community ties” and her previous compliance with court proceedings.

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    Seth Klamann

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  • Caribbean tensions flare as Trinidad PM accuses leaders of ‘badmouthing’ U.S.

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    Trinidad and Tobago's Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar speaks during the General Debate of the United Nations General Assembly at UN headquarters in New York City on September 26, 2025. (Photo by Leonardo MUNOZ / AFP) (Photo by LEONARDO MUNOZ/AFP via Getty Images)

    Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar speaks during the General Debate of the United Nations General Assembly at UN headquarters in New York City on Sept. 26, 2025.


    LEONARDO MUNOZ

    AFP via Getty Images

    The Trump administration’s build-up of warships near Venezuela, its recently imposed visa restrictions on two island-nations and the decisions by some countries to grant the U.S. military access to their territories have brought tensions in the Caribbean to a new high.

    One of the U.S. military campaign’s staunchest supporters, Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, is accusing two fellow Caribbean leaders of triggering visa restrictions for their citizens by “bad-mouthing the U.S.” over American strikes on vessels in the southern Caribbean. The U.S. military build up, which began in September and has since expanded to the eastern Pacific, has led to the deaths of at least 104 people Washington says were drug traffickers.

    “Why are you badmouthing the people? You want to go to the people’s country, but you want to badmouth them. Isn’t that hypocrisy?” Persad-Bissessar said from Port-of-Spain Friday as she warned her 1.5 million residents to “behave.”

    More than 250,000 Trinidadians and Toboggans live in the United States, she said, while over 300,000 hold U.S. visas. “Careful you don’t end up like Antigua and Barbuda and Dominica, who bad-mouthed the U.S. and guess what happened? All their visas are restricted now. They’ve cut their visas.”

    Her comments drew an immediate rebuke from Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne, who said in a Facebook post that after being informed “that one of our colleague heads, instead of standing in solidarity, publicly accused us of cursing the U.S. administration,” he challenged “that leader to back her statement with facts.”

    Both countries are part of the 15-member Caribbean Community regional bloc known as CARICOM, which has been divided over the Trump administration’s buildup in the Southern Caribbean, whose legality has been questioned by U.S. lawmakers amid the president’s escalating pressure campaign against Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.

    Late Saturday, Persad-Bissessar accused CARICOM of not being “a reliable partner.” The organization “is deteriorating rapidly due to poor management, lax accountability, factional divisions, destabilizing policies, private conflicts between regional leaders and political parties and the inappropriate meddling in the domestic politics of member states,” she said.

    Partial travel ban

    Last week Antjgua and Dominica, both located in the eastern Caribbean, were placed under a restricted travel ban by the Trump administration, which cited their Citizenship by Investment programs, saying their lack of residency requirements pose challenges for screening and vetting.

    Sometimes referred to as a “golden passport,” the program is offered in five of the six independent Caribbean countries that make up the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States and allows foreigners to gain a second citizenship in exchange for making an economic investment in the countries.

    The governments of Antigua and Dominica both immediately expressed concerns over the decision. Antigua said that it had previously amended its laws to address the residency requirement.

    In separate statements on Friday, Antiguan Prime Minister Browne and Dominica Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit said their nations had been removed from the list of 15 newly announced countries. However, a State Department spokesperson responding to an inquiry from the Miami Herald on Saturday said both countries are still on the visa restriction list.

    The measure goes into effect on Jan. 1.

    CARICOM demands clarity

    Amid the confusion, CARICOM leaders are asking for clarity from U.S. officials and urged “an early engagement” with the affected Caribbean countries “to address outstanding concerns, consistent with the strong and longstanding partnership between the United States of America and CARICOM.”

    In a statement issued late Friday, the Bureau of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community, also stressed that the “decision was taken without prior consultation, especially in circumstances of its potential adverse effects on legitimate travel, people-to-people exchanges, and the social and economic well-being of these small states.”

    In response, Persad-Bissessar sais Saturday that “the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago is not a party to the statement,” and “maintains its own position on the matter and recognizes the sovereign right of the United States to make decision in furtherance of its best interests.”

    Browne told the Miami Herald that in January, the U.S. plans to hold biometrics training to assist island-nations to strength their capacity to stop criminals from accessing their Citizenship by Investment Program.

    Persad-Bissessar said that’s not why Washington singled out two of the five Caribbean countries that offer the golden passports.

    A radar, a warning from Trinidad’s prime minister

    Amid the brewing tensions, Trinidad’s Foreign Ministry announced it would allow the U.S. military access to its airports after Persad-Bissessar acknowledged that the oil-rich country had also agreed to let the U.S install a radar in Tobago. She claimed that the installation is part of the U.S. efforts to go after drug smugglers.

    Trinidad is only seven miles from Venezuela. Browne and other leaders have said the Caribbean should remain a zone of peace amid the conflict and have spoken out about unintended consequences of the U.S. military strikes.

    During her address on Friday, Persad-Bissessar told Trinidadians not to “worry” about the radar or Venezuela.

    “I say it again, I stand within the bilateral relationship with the United States of America,” she said.

    “Understand where our help comes from. Understand who can protect and defend Trinidad and Tobago. Right now, there is only one country in the world can do it. They have the money. They have the equipment. They have the assets,” she said. “Trinidad and Tobago first.”

    Jacqueline Charles

    Miami Herald

    Jacqueline Charles has reported on Haiti and the English-speaking Caribbean for the Miami Herald for over a decade. A Pulitzer Prize finalist for her coverage of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, she was awarded a 2018 Maria Moors Cabot Prize — the most prestigious award for coverage of the Americas.

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    Jacqueline Charles

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  • Lawmakers weigh impeachment articles for Bondi over Epstein file omissions

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    WASHINGTON — Lawmakers unhappy with Justice Department decisions to heavily redact or withhold documents from a legally mandated release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein threatened Saturday to launch impeachment proceedings against those responsible, including Pam Bondi, the U.S. attorney general.

    Democrats and Republicans alike criticized the omissions, while Democrats also accused the Justice Department of intentionally scrubbing the release of at least one image of President Trump, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) suggesting it could portend “one of the biggest coverups in American history.”

    Trump administration officials have said the release fully complied with the law, and that its redactions were crafted only to protect victims of Epstein, a disgraced financier and convicted sex offender accused of abusing hundreds of women and girls before his death in 2019.

    Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont), an author of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which required the release of the investigative trove, blasted Bondi in a social media video, accusing her of denying the existence of many of the records for months, only to push out “an incomplete release with too many redactions” in response to — and in violation of — the new law.

    Khanna said he and the bill’s co-sponsor, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), were “exploring all options” for responding and forcing more disclosures, including by pursuing “the impeachment of people at Justice,” asking courts to hold officials blocking the release in contempt, and “referring for prosecution those who are obstructing justice.”

    “We will work with the survivors to demand the full release of these files,” Khanna said.

    He later added in a CNN interview that he and Massie were drafting articles of impeachment against Bondi, though they had not decided whether to bring them forward.

    Massie, in his own social media post, said Khanna was correct in rejecting the Friday release as insufficient, saying that it “grossly fails to comply with both the spirit and the letter of the law.”

    The lawmakers’ view that the Justice Department’s document dump failed to comply with the law echoed similar complaints across the political spectrum Saturday, as the full scope of redactions and other withholdings came into focus.

    The frustration had already sharply escalated late Friday, after Fox News Digital reported that the names and identifiers of not just victims but of “politically exposed individuals and government officials” had been redacted from the records — which would violate the law, and which Justice Department officials denied.

    Among the critics was Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who cited the Fox reporting in an exasperated post late Friday to X.

    “The whole point was NOT to protect the ‘politically exposed individuals and government officials.’ That’s exactly what MAGA has always wanted, that’s what drain the swamp actually means. It means expose them all, the rich powerful elites who are corrupt and commit crimes, NOT redact their names and protect them,” Greene wrote.

    Senior Justice Department officials later called in to Fox News to dispute the report. But the removal of a file published in the Friday evening release, capturing a desk in Epstein’s home with a drawer filled of photos of Trump, reinforced bipartisan concerns that references to the president had been illegally withheld.

    In a release of documents from the Epstein family estate by the House Oversight Committee this fall, Trump’s name was featured over 1,000 times — more than any other public figure.

    “If they’re taking this down, just imagine how much more they’re trying to hide,” Schumer wrote on X. “This could be one of the biggest coverups in American history.”

    Several victims also said the release was insufficient. “It’s really kind of another slap in the face,” Alicia Arden, who went to the police to report that Epstein had abused her in 1997, told CNN. “I wanted all the files to come out, like they said that they were going to.”

    Trump, who signed the act into law after having worked to block it from getting a vote, was conspicuously quiet on the matter. In a long speech in North Carolina on Friday night, he did not mention it.

    However, White House officials and Justice Department leaders rejected the notion that the release was incomplete or out of compliance with the law, or that the names of politicians had been redacted.

    “The only redactions being applied to the documents are those required by law — full stop,” said Deputy Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche. “Consistent with the statute and applicable laws, we are not redacting the names of individuals or politicians unless they are a victim.”

    Other Republicans defended the administration. Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chair of the House Oversight Committee, said the administration “is delivering unprecedented transparency in the Epstein case and will continue releasing documents.”

    Epstein died in a Manhattan jail awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. He’d been convicted in 2008 of procuring a child for prostitution in Florida, but served only 13 months in custody in what many condemned as a sweetheart plea deal for a well-connected and rich defendant.

    Epstein’s acts of abuse have attracted massive attention, including among many within Trump’s political base, in part because of unanswered questions surrounding which of his many powerful friends may have also been implicated in crimes against children. Some of those questions have swirled around Trump, who was friends with Epstein for years before the two had what the president has described as a falling out.

    Evidence has emerged in recent months that suggests Trump may have had knowledge of Epstein’s crimes during their friendship.

    Epstein wrote in a 2019 email, released by the House Oversight Committee, that Trump “knew about the girls.” In a 2011 email to Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted of conspiring with Epstein to help him sexually abuse girls, Epstein wrote that “the dog that hasn’t barked is trump. [Victim] spent hours at my house with him … he has never once been mentioned.”

    Trump has denied any wrongdoing.

    The records released Friday contained few if any major new revelations, but did include a complaint against Epstein filed with the FBI back in 1996 — which the FBI did little with, substantiating long-standing fears among Epstein’s victims that his crimes could have been stopped years earlier.

    Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), one of the president’s most consistent critics, wrote on X that Bondi should appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee to explain under oath the extensive redactions and omissions, which he called a “willful violation of the law.”

    “The Trump Justice Department has had months to keep their promise to release all of the Epstein Files,” Schiff wrote. “Epstein’s survivors and the American people need answers now.”

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    Kevin Rector, Michael Wilner

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  • US forces stop a second merchant vessel off the coast of Venezuela, American officials say

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    U.S. forces on Saturday stopped a vessel off the coast of Venezuela for the second time in less than two weeks as President Donald Trump continues to ramp up pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.Related video above: US military strikes on drug boats in Latin America spark legal concernsThe move, which was confirmed by two U.S. officials familiar with the matter, comes days after Trump announced a “blockade” of all sanctioned oil tankers coming in and out of the South American country and follows the Dec. 10 seizure by American forces of an oil tanker off Venezuela’s coast.The officials were not authorized to discuss publicly the ongoing military operation and spoke on condition of anonymity. One official described the action as a “consented boarding,” with the tanker stopping voluntarily and allowing U.S. forces to board it.Pentagon and White House officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Trump, following the first tanker seizure this month, vowed that the U.S. would carry out a blockade of Venezuela. It all comes as Trump has ratcheted up his rhetoric toward Maduro and warned that the longtime Venezuelan leader’s days in power are numbered.Trump this week demanded that Venezuela return assets that it seized from U.S. oil companies years ago, justifying anew his announcement of a “blockade” against oil tankers traveling to or from the South American country that face American sanctions.Trump cited the lost U.S. investments in Venezuela when asked about his newest tactic in a pressure campaign against Maduro, suggesting the Republican administration’s moves are at least somewhat motivated by disputes over oil investments, along with accusations of drug trafficking. Some sanctioned tankers are already diverting away from Venezuela.”We’re not going to be letting anybody going through who shouldn’t be going through,” Trump told reporters earlier this week. “You remember they took all of our energy rights. They took all of our oil not that long ago. And we want it back. They took it — they illegally took it.”U.S. oil companies dominated Venezuela’s petroleum industry until the country’s leaders moved to nationalize the sector, first in the 1970s and again in the 21st century under Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chávez. Compensation offered by Venezuela was deemed insufficient, and in 2014, an international arbitration panel ordered the country’s socialist government to pay $1.6 billion to ExxonMobil.The targeting of tankers comes as Trump has ordered the Defense Department to carry out a series of attacks on vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean that his administration alleges are smuggling fentanyl and other illegal drugs into the United States and beyond.At least 104 people have been killed in 28 known strikes since early September.The strikes have faced scrutiny from U.S. lawmakers and human rights activists, who say the administration has offered scant evidence that its targets are indeed drug smugglers and that the fatal strikes amount to extrajudicial killings.The Coast Guard, sometimes with help from the Navy, had typically interdicted boats suspected of smuggling drugs in the Caribbean Sea, searched for illicit cargo, and arrested the people aboard for prosecution.The administration has justified the strikes as necessary, asserting it is in “armed conflict” with drug cartels aimed at halting the flow of narcotics into the United States. Maduro faces federal charges of narcoterrorism in the U.S.The U.S. in recent months has sent a fleet of warships to the region, the largest buildup of forces in generations, and Trump has stated repeatedly that land attacks are coming soon.Maduro has insisted the real purpose of the U.S. military operations is to force him from power.White House chief of staff Susie Wiles said in an interview with Vanity Fair published this week that Trump “wants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro cries uncle.”

    WASHINGTON (AP) —

    U.S. forces on Saturday stopped a vessel off the coast of Venezuela for the second time in less than two weeks as President Donald Trump continues to ramp up pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

    Related video above: US military strikes on drug boats in Latin America spark legal concerns

    The move, which was confirmed by two U.S. officials familiar with the matter, comes days after Trump announced a “blockade” of all sanctioned oil tankers coming in and out of the South American country and follows the Dec. 10 seizure by American forces of an oil tanker off Venezuela’s coast.

    The officials were not authorized to discuss publicly the ongoing military operation and spoke on condition of anonymity. One official described the action as a “consented boarding,” with the tanker stopping voluntarily and allowing U.S. forces to board it.

    Pentagon and White House officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    Trump, following the first tanker seizure this month, vowed that the U.S. would carry out a blockade of Venezuela. It all comes as Trump has ratcheted up his rhetoric toward Maduro and warned that the longtime Venezuelan leader’s days in power are numbered.

    Trump this week demanded that Venezuela return assets that it seized from U.S. oil companies years ago, justifying anew his announcement of a “blockade” against oil tankers traveling to or from the South American country that face American sanctions.

    Trump cited the lost U.S. investments in Venezuela when asked about his newest tactic in a pressure campaign against Maduro, suggesting the Republican administration’s moves are at least somewhat motivated by disputes over oil investments, along with accusations of drug trafficking. Some sanctioned tankers are already diverting away from Venezuela.

    “We’re not going to be letting anybody going through who shouldn’t be going through,” Trump told reporters earlier this week. “You remember they took all of our energy rights. They took all of our oil not that long ago. And we want it back. They took it — they illegally took it.”

    U.S. oil companies dominated Venezuela’s petroleum industry until the country’s leaders moved to nationalize the sector, first in the 1970s and again in the 21st century under Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chávez. Compensation offered by Venezuela was deemed insufficient, and in 2014, an international arbitration panel ordered the country’s socialist government to pay $1.6 billion to ExxonMobil.

    The targeting of tankers comes as Trump has ordered the Defense Department to carry out a series of attacks on vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean that his administration alleges are smuggling fentanyl and other illegal drugs into the United States and beyond.

    At least 104 people have been killed in 28 known strikes since early September.

    The strikes have faced scrutiny from U.S. lawmakers and human rights activists, who say the administration has offered scant evidence that its targets are indeed drug smugglers and that the fatal strikes amount to extrajudicial killings.

    The Coast Guard, sometimes with help from the Navy, had typically interdicted boats suspected of smuggling drugs in the Caribbean Sea, searched for illicit cargo, and arrested the people aboard for prosecution.

    The administration has justified the strikes as necessary, asserting it is in “armed conflict” with drug cartels aimed at halting the flow of narcotics into the United States. Maduro faces federal charges of narcoterrorism in the U.S.

    The U.S. in recent months has sent a fleet of warships to the region, the largest buildup of forces in generations, and Trump has stated repeatedly that land attacks are coming soon.

    Maduro has insisted the real purpose of the U.S. military operations is to force him from power.

    White House chief of staff Susie Wiles said in an interview with Vanity Fair published this week that Trump “wants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro cries uncle.”

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  • Hegseth Announces Operation In Syria To ‘Eliminate’ Islamic State Fighters After Deaths Of Americans – KXL

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    President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth salute as carry teams move the transfer cases with the remains of Iowa National Guard soldiers Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, of Marshalltown, Iowa, and Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar, 25, of Des Moines, Iowa, and civilian interpreter Ayad Mansoor Sakat, who were killed in an attack in Syria, during a casualty return, Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025 at Dover Air Force Base, Del. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

    WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Friday announced the start of a military operation in Syria to “eliminate ISIS fighters, infrastructure, and weapons sites” following the deaths of three U.S. citizens in an ambush attack almost a week ago.

    A U.S. official described it as “a large-scale” strike that targeted multiple locations and concentrated areas across central Syria that had Islamic State group infrastructure and weapons. Another U.S. official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive operations, said more strikes should be expected.

    The attack was conducted using F-15 Eagle jets, A-10 Thunderbolt ground attack aircraft and AH-64 Apache helicopters, the officials said. F-16 fighter jets from Jordan and HIMARS rocket artillery also were used, one official said.

    “This is not the beginning of a war — it is a declaration of vengeance. The United States of America, under President Trump’s leadership, will never hesitate and never relent to defend our people,” Hegseth said on social media.

    President Donald Trump had pledged “very serious retaliation” after the shooting in the Syrian desert last Saturday that killed two Iowa National Guard members and a U.S. civilian interpreter. He blamed IS for their deaths. The troops were among hundreds of U.S. troops deployed in eastern Syria as part of a coalition fighting IS.

    The attack was a major test for the warming ties between the United States and Syria since the ouster of autocratic leader Bashar Assad a year ago. Trump has stressed that Syria was fighting alongside U.S. troops and said Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa was “extremely angry and disturbed by this attack,” which came as the U.S. military is expanding its cooperation with Syrian security forces.

    Syrian state television reported that strikes hit targets in rural areas of Deir ez-Zor and Raqqa provinces and in the Jabal al-Amour area near Palmyra. It said they targeted “weapons storage sites and headquarters used by ISIS as launching points for its operations in the region.”

    White House officials noted that Trump had made clear that retaliation was coming.

    “President Trump told the world that the United States would retaliate for the killing of our heroes by ISIS in Syria, and he is delivering on that promise,” White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly said in a statement.

    Trump this week met privately with the families of the slain Americans at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware before he joined top military officials and other dignitaries on the tarmac for the dignified transfer, a solemn and largely silent ritual honoring U.S. service members killed in action.

    The guardsmen killed in Syria on Saturday were Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar, 25, of Des Moines, and Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, of Marshalltown, according to the U.S. Army. Ayad Mansoor Sakat, of Macomb, Michigan, a U.S. civilian working as an interpreter, was also killed.

    The shooting nearly a week ago near the historic city of Palmyra also wounded three other U.S. troops as well as members of Syria’s security forces, and the gunman was killed. The assailant had joined Syria’s internal security forces as a base security guard two months ago and recently was reassigned because of suspicions that he might be affiliated with IS, Interior Ministry spokesperson Nour al-Din al-Baba has said.

    The man stormed a meeting between U.S. and Syrian security officials who were having lunch together and opened fire after clashing with Syrian guards.

    When asked for further information, the Pentagon referred AP to Hegseth’s social media post.

    More about:

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    Jordan Vawter

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  • These images of Trump, Epstein with young women aren’t real

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    Social media users shared purported photos of President Donald Trump and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein with young women, but these images weren’t released by the House Committee on Oversight.

    The images, which resemble Polaroid photos, appear to show Trump hugging a young woman wearing only underwear and another with her wearing a bathrobe. Other photos show Epstein laying down and posing with a young woman in a white outfit. 

    “The Epstein photo dump has been released,” says the Dec. 12 X post.

    Another X post reads, “Not AI, not photoshopped, just an old photo taken from the Epstein archives. There’s a special place in Hell.”

    Other users on Instagram, Facebook and Threads also shared the photos as early as Dec. 9. 

    (Screenshot from X post.)

    But there are signs these photos were, in fact, generated using artificial intelligence tools.

    • In the image on the top left, the young woman appears to be missing an arm.

    • In that same image, Trump’s nose looks different from other old images of him, and part of his face is missing.

    • Epstein’s arm in the top right image is darker than the rest of his body.

    • In the bottom right image, Epstein is missing an eye.

    • In a fuller version of the images posted on Threads, some of Trump’s fingers are missing in the bottom left image.

    PolitiFact found no credible news reports about these images. Instead, we found other fact-checkers saying they are fake.

    We also didn’t find them in released documents from Epstein’s estate by members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Both the committee and, separately, its Democratic minority members have released thousands of photos and documents from Epstein’s estate since September. The Justice Department began releasing more documents Dec. 19 to comply with the deadline set in a law Trump signed.

    While these images aren’t real,Trump has appeared in other Epstein related photos, including some published by Oversight Committee Democrats on Dec. 12; Trump has not been connected to Epstein’s crimes.

    Since these images aren’t real, we rate this claim Pants on Fire!

    RELATED: Fact-checking falsehoods about Epstein’s client list, island and involvement with Trump

    RELATED: ‘We have nothing to hide.’ How Donald Trump shifted on releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files

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  • Democrats Hand The Administration Another Win With Cannabis

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    Democrats hand the administration a huge cannabis win due to their inability to understand voters 

    For more than a decade, cannabis reform has stood out as one of the few political issues with overwhelming bipartisan support. Recent surveys show nearly 88% of Americans are open to expanded legalization or meaningful reform, including rescheduling marijuana under federal law. Yet despite controlling the White House during critical moments, it seems the Democrats hand the administration another win with cannabis, allowing the current President to have another landmark victory. That failure now risks becoming another durable point of contrast credited to this administration, while reinforcing a broader pattern of Democratic miscalculation.

    RELATED: What Does Cannabis Rescheduling Mean

    Cannabis reform once appeared to be an inevitable Democratic victory. Under President Barack Obama, federal enforcement softened in tone, but marijuana remained classified as a Schedule I drug—grouped alongside heroin and defined as having “no accepted medical use.” While states rapidly legalized medical and adult-use cannabis, the Obama administration chose to manage the contradiction rather than resolve it. Executive authority existed, but it went unused.

    The same hesitation carried into the Biden era. President Joe Biden campaigned on acknowledging the failures of the drug war and the need for reform, yet once in office, decisive action stalled. Reviews were ordered, agencies were consulted, and timelines stretched. What could have been a clear, popular, legacy-defining achievement—rescheduling cannabis—was instead delayed into political limbo. The moment narrowed, then passed. This lead some in the industry to see it was just an election tool with no real support, despite public opinion.

    The cost of the delay is not merely policy-based; it is political. In today’s environment, contrast matters. By failing to deliver a concrete, broadly supported reform, Democrats allowed Trump to position himself again—however imperfectly—as more open to change through a states’ rights framework. Even symbolic momentum can define a win, and Democrats surrendered the narrative space.

    This failure mirrors a recurring pattern within the Democratic National Committee. Time and again, leadership has struggled to translate clear public opinion into federal action, particularly on issues where Washington caution collides with voter urgency.  Often ignoring mainstream businesses, issues and concerns, the DNC focuses on “beltway buzz” rather than voters. The collapse of support from rural areas so how far away DNC leadership is away from the electorate. Cannabis reform, supported across age groups, regions, and party lines, should have been an exception. Instead, it became another example of internal hesitation and indifference overriding external consensus and popular support.

    That disconnect is now reflected in the numbers: the DNC and congressional Democrats are registering historically low approval ratings in the most recent Quinnipiac poll, underscoring growing voter frustration with inaction on widely supported issues.

    The disconnect is further underscored by the actions of party leaders, especially Senator Chuck Schumer and Cory Booker. Both have spent years presenting themselves as champions of cannabis reform, unveiling sweeping legalization proposals and high-profile press events meant to demonstrate urgency and moral clarity. Yet with rescheduling still unresolved, those efforts now risk appearing performative rather than effective.

    RELATED: Who Is Rep. Andy Harris And Why Does He Hate Cannabis

    By attempting to lead with comprehensive, all-or-nothing legislation, Schumer and Booker arguably misread the political moment. While full legalization remains a worthy goal, rescheduling was achievable, popular, and immediately meaningful. Securing that step first would have delivered tangible relief to businesses, patients, and workers. Instead, the emphasis on symbolism over sequencing allowed momentum to dissipate.

    For everyday Americans and the thousands of mom and pop industry businesses, the consequences remain concrete. Legal cannabis businesses are still locked out of banking. Patients face conflicting laws. Workers remain vulnerable to outdated federal classifications. These are not failures of public will, but of political execution.

    In the end, cannabis rescheduling stands as a cautionary tale. Democrats had public support, executive authority, and time. By inaction, they lost a clear win—and reinforced a growing perception the party too often listens last to voters who are increasingly disenfranchised with the party.

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    Terry Hacienda

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  • News Analysis: Trump’s math problem: Rising prices, falling approval ratings

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    WASHINGTON — President Trump made dozens of promises when he campaigned to retake the White House last year, from boosting economic growth to banning transgender athletes from girls’ sports.

    But one pledge stood out as the most important in many voters’ eyes: Trump said he would not only bring inflation under control, but push grocery and energy prices back down.

    “Starting the day I take the oath of office, I will rapidly drive prices down, and we will make America affordable again,” he said in 2024. “Your prices are going to come tumbling down, your gasoline is going to come tumbling down, and your heating bills and cooling bills are going to be coming down.”

    He hasn’t delivered. Gasoline and eggs are cheaper than they were a year ago, but most other prices are still rising, including groceries and electricity. The Labor Department estimated Thursday that inflation is running at 2.7%, only a little better than the 3% Trump inherited from Joe Biden; electricity was up 6.9%.

    And that has given the president a major political problem: Many of the voters who backed him last year are losing faith.

    “I voted for Trump in 2024 because he was promising America first … and he was promising a better economy,” Ebyad, a nurse in Texas, said on a Focus Group podcast hosted by Bulwark publisher Sarah Longwell. “It feels like all those promises have been broken.”

    Since Inauguration Day, the president’s job approval has declined from 52% to 43% in the polling average calculated by statistician Nate Silver. Approval for Trump’s performance on the economy, once one of his strongest points, has sunk even lower to 39%.

    That’s dangerous territory for a president who hopes to help his party keep its narrow majority in elections for the House of Representatives next year.

    To Republican pollsters and strategists, the reasons for Trump’s slump are clear: He overpromised last year and he’s under-performing now.

    “The most important reasons he won in 2024 were his promises to bring inflation down and juice the economy,” Republican pollster Whit Ayres said. “That’s the reason he won so many voters who traditionally had supported Democrats, including Hispanics. … But he hasn’t been able to deliver. Inflation has moderated, but it hasn’t gone backward.”

    Last week, after deriding complaints about affordability as “a Democrat hoax,” Trump belatedly launched a campaign to convince voters that he’s at work fixing the problem.

    But at his first stop, a rally in Pennsylvania, he continued arguing that the economy is already in great shape.

    “Our prices are coming down tremendously,” he insisted.

    “You’re doing better than you’ve ever done,” he said, implicitly dismissing voters’ concerns.

    He urged families to cope with high tariffs by cutting back: “You know, you can give up certain products,” he said. “You don’t need 37 dolls for your daughter. Two or three is nice, but you don’t need 37 dolls.”

    Earlier, in an interview with Politico, Trump was asked what grade he would give the economy. “A-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus,” he said.

    On Wednesday, the president took another swing at the issue in a nationally televised speech, but his message was basically the same.

    “One year ago, our country was dead. We were absolutely dead,” he said. “Now we’re the hottest country anywhere in the world. … Inflation is stopped, wages are up, prices are down.”

    Republican pollster David Winston, who has advised GOP members of Congress, said the president has more work to do to win back voters who supported him in 2024 but are now disenchanted.

    “When families are paying the price for hamburger that they used to pay for steak, there’s a problem, and there’s no sugarcoating it,” he said. “The president’s statements that ‘we have no inflation’ and ‘our groceries are down’ have flown in the face of voters’ reality.”

    Another problem for Trump, pollsters said, is that many voters believe his tariffs are pushing prices higher — making the president part of the problem, not part of the solution. A YouGov poll in November found that 77% of voters believe tariffs contribute to inflationary pressures.

    Trump’s popularity hasn’t dropped through the floor; he still has the allegiance of his fiercely loyal base. “He is at his lowest point of his second term so far, but he is well within the range of his job approval in the first term,” Ayres noted.

    Still, he has lost significant chunks of his support among independent voters, young people and Latinos, three of the “swing voter” groups who put him over the top in 2024.

    Inflation isn’t the only issue that has dented his standing.

    He promised to lead the economy into “a golden age,” but growth has been uneven. Unemployment rose in November to 4.6%, the highest level in more than four years.

    He promised massive tax cuts for the middle class, but most voters say they don’t believe his tax cut bill brought them any benefit. “It’s hard to convince people that they got a tax break when nobody’s tax rates were actually cut,” Ayres noted.

    He kept his promise to launch the largest deportation campaign in U.S. history — but many voters complain that he has broken his promise to focus on violent criminals. In Silver’s average, approval of his immigration policies dropped from 52% in January to 45% now.

    A Pew Research Center survey in October found that 53% of adults, including 71% of Latinos, think the administration has ordered too many deportations. However, most voters approve of Trump’s measures on border security.

    Republican pollsters and strategists say they believe Trump can reverse his downward momentum before November’s congressional election, but it may not be easy.

    “You look at what voters care about most, and you offer policies to address those issues,” GOP strategist Alex Conant suggested. “That starts with prices. So you talk about permitting reform, energy prices, AI [artificial intelligence] … and legislation to address healthcare, housing and tax cuts. You could call it the Affordability Act.”

    “A laser focus on the economy and the cost of living is job one,” GOP pollster Winston said. “His policies on regulation, energy and taxes should have a positive impact, but the White House needs to emphasize them on a more consistent basis.”

    “People voted for change in 2024,” he warned. “If they don’t get it — if inflation doesn’t begin to recede — they may vote for change again in 2026.”

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    Doyle McManus

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  • Commentary: Beneath the rambling, Trump laid out a chilling healthcare plan

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    Folks, who was supposed to be watching grandpa last night? Because he got out, got on TV and … It. Was. Not. Good.

    For 18 long minutes Wednesday evening, we were subjected to a rant by President Trump that predictably careened from immigrants (bad) to jobs (good), rarely slowing down for reality. But jumbled between the vitriol and venom was a vision of American healthcare that would have horror villainess M3GAN shaking in her Mary Janes — a vision that we all should be afraid of because it would take us back to a dark era when insurance couldn’t be counted on.

    Trump’s remarks offered only a sketchy outline, per usual, in which the costs of health insurance premiums may be lower — but it will be because the coverage is terrible. Yes, you’ll save money. But so what? A cheap car without wheels is not a deal.

    “The money should go to the people,” Trump said of his sort-of plan.

    The money he vaguely was alluding to is the government subsidies that make insurance under the Affordable Care Act affordable. After antics and a mini-rebellion by four Republicans also on Wednesday, Congress basically failed to do anything meaningful on healthcare — pretty much ensuring those subsidies will disappear with the New Year.

    Starting in January, premiums for too many people are going to leap skyward without the subsidies, jumping by an average of $1,016 according to the health policy research group KFF.

    That’s bad enough. But Trump would like to make it worse.

    The Affordable Care Act is about much more than those subsidies. Before it took effect in 2014, insurance companies in many states could deny coverage for preexisting conditions. This didn’t have to be big-ticket stuff like cancer. A kid with asthma? A mom with colitis? Those were the kind of routine but chronic problems that prevented millions from obtaining insurance — and therefore care.

    Obamacare required that policies sold on its exchange did not discriminate. In addition, the ACA required plans to limit out-of-pocket costs and end lifetime dollar caps, and provide a baseline of coverage that included essentials such as maternity care. Those standards put pressure on all plans to include more, even those offered through large employers.

    Trump would like to undo much of that. He instead wants to fall back on the stunt he loves the most — send a check!

    What he is suggesting by sending subsidy money directly to consumers also most likely would open the market to plans without the regulation of the ACA. So yes, small businesses or even groups of individuals might be able to band together to buy insurance, but there likely would be fewer rules about what — or whom — it has to cover.

    Most people aren’t savvy or careful enough to understand the limitations of their insurance before it matters. So it has a $2-million lifetime cap? That sounds like a lot until your kid needs a treatment that eats through that in a couple of months. Then what?

    Trump suggested people pay for it themselves, out of health savings accounts funded by that subsidy check sent directly to taxpayers. Because that definitely will work, and people won’t spend the money on groceries or rent, and what they do save certainly will cover any medical expenses.

    “You’ll get much better healthcare at a much lower price,” Trump claimed Wednesday. “The only losers will be insurance companies that have gotten rich, and the Democrat Party, which is totally controlled by those same insurance companies. They will not be happy, but that’s OK with me because you, the people, are finally going to be getting great healthcare at a lower cost.”

    He then bizarrely tried to blame the expiring subsidies on Democrats.

    Democrats “are demanding those increases and it’s their fault,” he said. “It is not the Republicans’ fault. It’s the Democrats’ fault. It’s the Unaffordable Care Act, and everybody knew it.”

    It seems like Trump just wants to lower costs at the expense of quality. Here’s where I take issue with the Democrats. I am not here to defend insurance companies or our healthcare system. Both clearly need reform.

    But why are the Democrats failing to explain what “The money should go to the people” will mean?

    I get that affordability is the message, and as someone who bought both a steak and a carton of milk this week, I understand just how powerful that issue is.

    Still, everyone, Democrat or Republican, wants decent healthcare they can afford, and the peace of mind of knowing if something terrible happens, they will have access to help. There is no American who gladly would pay for insurance each month, no matter how low the premium, that is going to leave them without care when they or their loved ones need it most.

    Grandpa Trump doesn’t have this worry, since he has the best healthcare our tax dollars can buy.

    But when he promises to send a check instead of providing governance and regulation of one of the most critical purchases in our lives, the message is sickening: My victory in exchange for your well-being.

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    Anita Chabria

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  • Cannabis Businesses Just Got Their Biggest Federal Win From Trump

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    President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday relaxing cannabis’ classification in a change that is expected to catalyze investment and spark new innovation in an industry that’s waited decades for the very decision. 

    Trump’s executive order reschedules cannabis from Schedule I—a status it’s held for decades alongside heroin and LSD—to Schedule III, or substances like ketamine and certain steroids that are recognized for having medical benefits alongside a potential for abuse.. 

    To be clear, the executive order does not legalize cannabis, which remains illegal at the federal level. “I want to emphasize that the order I am about to sign doesn’t legalize marijuana in any way, shape, or form,” Trump said on Thursday. “In no way it sanctions its use as a recreational drug – it has nothing to do with it – just as prescription painkillers may have legitimate uses, but can also do irreversible damage.”

    The president also greenlit a program that will reimburse Medicare patients who use products containing CBD, a compound derived from cannabis plants without the psychoactive component responsible for intoxication.

    The move also opens up new opportunities in medical research since it’s far easier to conduct clinical trials on Schedule III substances compared to Schedule I drugs. The decision is also expected to expand cannabis businesses’ access to banking services in states where the substance is legal.

    “We’re grateful to President Trump for recognizing the overwhelming majority of Americans who support cannabis rescheduling, opening the door to federal reform, medical research, and normalization for an industry that employs hundreds of thousands of professionals and contributes billions of dollars in taxes and economic activity every year,” says George Archos, the founder and CEO of Verano, a cannabis company.

    Cannabis companies will also no longer face a part of the tax code known as Section 280E, which bars companies working with controlled substances from receiving tax credits or deductions. Section 280E specifically applies to Schedule I and Schedule II substances, so cannabis companies could save up to millions in taxes, according to past estimates from Vicente LLP, a law firm. 

    The Biden administration floated the decision to reclassify cannabis last year, but those efforts ultimately stagnated. And it’s a decision that doesn’t have support among all Republican lawmakers. Still, reclassification is a decision that has grown in popularity amongst Americans, particularly younger ones.  A Pew Research study demonstrates that a majority of consumers under 30 back legalizing cannabis for medical and recreational use.

      

    The extended deadline for the 2026 Inc. Regionals Awards is Friday, December 19, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply now.

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    Melissa Angell

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  • ‘Worst of the worst’? Data, personal accounts say otherwise

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    José Trejo López thought the immigration agent separated him from his brother Josué so the officer could ask more questions during a March check-in in New York City.

    José and Josué, 20 and 19 years old at the time, had been to dozens of Immigration and Customs Enforcement check-ins in the nearly 10 years since they fled El Salvador as children with their mother. The appointments often took all day and sometimes required missing school and final exams. José felt embarrassed to tell his teachers and classmates where he was going, but also knew he had to fulfill his immigration obligations and maintain good conduct and his arrest-free record.

    “You have to follow the law, because when you follow the law things go well, right?” José said.

    That day, José heard the rattle of handcuffs. The officer told him not to make a scene. As Josué turned and saw his older brother restrained, a different officer handcuffed him, too.

    By the time the brothers had walked into ICE’s field office for their 8 a.m. appointment, about two months into President Donald Trump’s second administration, rumors swirled that immigration agents were detaining people at routine immigration check-ins. These appointments are typically for people with pending immigration cases who aren’t considered threats to the public.

    Detaining people at check-ins became part of Trump’s effort to carry out mass deportations, one of his 2024 campaign promises. But the strategy contradicted Trump’s and his administration’s assurances that immigration agents would pursue “the worst of the worst always first.”

    “I’m talking about, in particular, starting with the criminals. These are some of the worst people anywhere in the world,” Trump said Aug. 22, 2024.

    On Oct. 31, CBS News correspondent Norah O’Donnell asked Trump about his promise “to deport the worst of the worst, violent criminals.” Trump answered, “That’s what we’re doing.”

    Neither José nor Josué have been convicted of a crime. The same is true for 73% of the more than 65,000 immigrants in ICE detention as of November, a record number of detainees. Nearly half of all immigrants in ICE detention have neither a criminal conviction nor pending criminal charges. Of the immigrants with criminal convictions, 5% have been convicted of violent crime such as murder or rape, according to the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.

    Despite what Trump said, some of the most high-profile moments during his administration’s mass deportation campaign did not lead to large-scale arrests of violent criminals.

    In March, the Department of Homeland Security sent nearly 250 Venezuelan men to a maximum security prison in El Salvador. A ProPublica investigation later found that only 32 of the men had U.S. criminal convictions, most for nonviolent offenses such as retail theft or traffic violations.

    In the first half of a months-long Chicago immigration crackdown dubbed “Operation Midway Blitz,” immigration officers arrested 1,900 people, two-thirds of whom had no criminal convictions or pending charges, according to a Chicago Tribune analysis.

    When we asked the White House whether its detention strategy was in line with what Trump and officials have said publicly, spokesperson Abigail Jackson said: “The Trump Administration’s top immigration enforcement priority is arresting and removing the dangerous violent, illegal criminal aliens that Joe Biden let flood across our Southern Border — of which there are many. Recent ICE arrests include criminal illegal aliens who are rapists, pedophiles, and murderers. But anyone who is illegally present in the country, and as a result breaking U.S. laws, is eligible for deportation if they do not take advantage of self-deportation opportunities.”

    José and Josué were applying for a legal status. They were not in hiding and had spent years appearing before ICE officers and immigration judges. 

    In May, José and Josué were deported to El Salvador, a country the rest of their family had already fled.

    “We followed the law and we were punished,” José said.

    Josué Trejo López, left, and José Trejo López, right, fled El Salvador, when they were 10 and 11 years old. They settled in Georgia where they learned English and eventually graduated high school. (Courtesy of José Trejo López)

    The brothers’ quest for legal residency

    Fleeing threats of gang violence in El Salvador, José and Josué arrived in the U.S. in summer 2016 at ages 11 and 10 with their mother, Alma López Díaz.

    U.S. officials stopped the family at the southern border and released them into the U.S. while they sought asylum. The family moved in with the boys’ aunt in Georgia.

    The brothers enrolled in school and learned English by reading books, using language-learning apps and correcting themselves after classmates teased them.

    By 2020, judges had denied the family’s asylum case and appeals because gang extortion is not generally considered a reason for asylum, said Ala Amoachi, who became the brothers’ immigration lawyer in 2024. José and Josué had received a deportation order. 

    Deportation orders are paused when people file appeals. José and Josué were appealing until 2020, when their appeals ran out, but they continued to appear at ICE check-ins. Amoachi said the government likely didn’t deport them during that time because they had no criminal records and for humanitarian considerations “such as family unity and the fact that they have a younger brother who’s a U.S. citizen and who’s disabled.”

    In 2025, when the brothers were detained, they had a viable pathway to obtaining legal status, based on a process their attorney started in 2024.

    We contacted DHS to ask why the brothers were detained and deported while they had a pending immigration case and received no reply.

    During his second term, Trump has significantly curtailed legal pathways for immigrants. In January, he ended a Biden-era program that let people schedule immigration appointments at the border and legally enter the U.S. to seek asylum. Under Trump, the Department of Homeland Security has stripped hundreds of thousands of people of temporary legal protections that let them live and work in the U.S.

    José continued to try to build what he called his American dream, but his immigration status presented obstacles to buying a car and getting a job.

    In 2024, the brothers moved to Long Island, New York, where their mother’s long-distance partner lived.

    Amoachi initiated a process for them to apply for Special Immigrant Juveniles Status, a protection for young immigrants who were abused, abandoned or neglected by a parent. The brothers’ father had abandoned them, court documents say. When approved, the status allows immigrants to eventually apply for permanent residency. The brothers’ previous lawyer in Georgia had failed to tell them this status was an option, Amoachi said.

    Under the Biden administration, immigrants granted Special Immigrant Juveniles status were protected from deportation. In June, the Trump administration ended the deportation protection program and began detaining and deporting people with Special Immigrant Juveniles status. Immigrant advocacy groups are suing the government over the changes.

    A federal agent wears an Immigration and Customs Enforcement badge while standing outside an immigration courtroom at the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building in New York, June 10, 2025. (AP)

    A sudden, unexpected outcome

    José’s dream of starting fresh in New York was short lived.

    At the March 14 appointment, an ICE officer asked whether the brothers were contesting their removal order, and when José handed over their paperwork, the officer said, “‘This doesn’t work,’” José recounted.

    Within minutes, the brothers were in handcuffs.

    There’s no data about how many people have been arrested while attending required ICE check-ins, but news stories and social media clips are rife with examples of immigrants being detained and separated from family members. Lawyers have warned clients about the tactic. In San Diego, several immigrants are suing the government following their detention at check-ins.

    Amoachi, who has worked as an immigration lawyer for 15 years, said before Trump’s second term, she had never seen a case like José’s and Josué’s — young men with deportation orders but no criminal convictions or gang affiliation and a pending application — end with detention.

    About a week after the brothers were detained, Trump’s border czar Tom Homan said the administration was prioritizing criminals.

    “We’re going to keep targeting the worst of the worst, which we’ve been doing since Day One, and deporting from the United States,” Homan said March 23.

    Homan speaks as Trump listens at a primary election night party in Nashua, New Hampshire, Jan. 23, 2024. (AP)

    Leaving everything behind

    Detention was the first leg in the two-month journey that would lead the brothers back to El Salvador.

    Hours after the brothers were detained, immigration officers shackled them and took them to a Buffalo, New York, detention center.

    In detention, José worked with a detained pastor to host weekly church services. Josué took a job in the kitchen — cleaning dishes and helping serve food — earning $1 a day. He used the money to call his mom or buy ramen, a delicacy in detention. Josué also taught English to fellow detainees and served as an unofficial translator for immigration officers.

    On March 26, a New York family court judge ruled that José and Josué had been abandoned by their father and it was not in their best interest to return to El Salvador. Even so, they remained detained.

    In early May, officers called in the brothers for processing, which would mean they’d either be deported or released, José said. Fellow detainees rooted for them.

    The outcome wasn’t as hoped. The brothers were transported to Louisiana.

    For several days, José and Josué stayed in holding cells dubbed “hieleras,” Spanish for “ice boxes,” with about 100 people in each. On May 7, their mother’s birthday, an officer called the brothers’ names to board a flight to El Salvador. Once on the plane, José said an officer entered  with a separate list of names for people who could get off the flight. That was José’s last hope. But the brothers’ names weren’t called.

    “When the plane took off, I knew I was leaving behind my mom,” José said. “Literally everything was staying behind. Our dreams. Everything.”

    Josué Trejo López, left, and José Trejo López, right, in El Salvador, a country they fled in 2016 and where they have no family. (Courtesy of José Trejo López)

    Stuck in limbo

    Nine years after fleeing their home country, José and Josué, now 21 and 20, landed in El Salvador. They had no passports; U.S. immigration authorities had taken them when they applied for asylum and never returned them.

    Authorities gave each brother a piece of paper with his name on it as a form of identification. When José and Josué arrived at an immigration processing center, they saw people waiting for U.S. deportees. No one was waiting for them.

    “I looked at my brother and said, ‘Now what? What do we do?’” José said.

    Their mother sent their grandmother’s childhood friend to pick them up. For the first few nights, the brothers couldn’t eat or sleep. They have since been diagnosed with PTSD and depression, Amoachi said. 

    A few weeks after José and Josué arrived in El Salvador, Josué’s high school in Georgia held its graduation ceremony. Rather than walking across the stage, he watched from his phone as they announced his name, and he cried in José’s arms.

    Seven months after being deported, José and Josué yearn for the possibility of reuniting with their families. Amoachi has filed several appeals on their behalf.

    José said the brothers followed the conditions: going to court, attending ICE check-ins, having good moral conduct and no criminal record.

    “So what is the legal pathway?” José asked. “There isn’t one.”

    PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

    READ MORE: What to make of an abysmal year for truth? PolitiFact names 2025 the Year of the Lies

    READ MORE: Year of the Lies: Farmer says some Trump tariff statements ‘as far from the truth as you can get’

    READ MORE: Year of the Lies: How Trump’s talk about Tylenol, autism and vaccines affected one pediatrician

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  • ‘Betrayed’: Investors grapple with Trump commuting sentence of man who defrauded them

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    WASHINGTON — Jeffrey Rosenberg is still trying to understand why President Trump would free the man who defrauded him out of a quarter of a million dollars.

    Rosenberg, a retired wholesale produce distributor living in Nevada, has supported Trump since he entered politics, but the president’s decision in November to commute the sentence of former private equity executive David Gentile has left him angry and confused.

    “I just feel I’ve been betrayed,” Rosenberg, 68, said. “I don’t know why he would do this, unless there was some sort of gain somewhere, or some favor being called in. I am very disappointed. I kind of put him above this kind of thing.”

    Trump’s decision to release Gentile from prison less than two weeks into his seven-year sentence has drawn scrutiny from securities attorneys and a U.S. senator — all of whom say the White House’s explanation for the act of clemency is not adding up. It’s also drawn the ire of his victims.

    “I think it is disgusting,” said CarolAnn Tutera, 70, who invested more than $400,000 with Gentile’s company, GPB Capital. Gentile, she added, “basically pulled a Bernie Madoff and swindled people out of their money, and then he gets to go home to his wife and kids.”

    Gentile and his business partner, Jeffry Schneider, were convicted of securities and wire fraud in August 2024 for carrying out what federal prosecutors described as a $1.6-billion Ponzi scheme to defraud more than 10,000 investors. After an eight-week trial, it took a jury five hours to return a guilty verdict.

    More than 1,000 people attested to their losses after investing with GPB, according to federal prosecutors who described the victims as “hardworking, everyday people.”

    When Gentile and Schneider were sentenced in May, Joseph Nocella Jr., the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of New York, and Christopher Raia, a senior official in the Justice Department, called their punishment “well deserved” and a warning to would-be fraudsters.

    “May today’s sentencing deter anyone who seeks to greedily profit off their clients through deceitful practices,” Raia said in a statement.

    Then, on Nov. 26 — just 12 days after Gentile reported to prison — Trump commuted his sentence with “no further fines, restitution, probation, or other conditions,” according to a grant of clemency signed by Trump. Under those terms, Gentile may not have to pay $15 million that federal prosecutors are seeking in forfeiture.

    Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, told reporters this month that prosecutors had failed to tie “supposedly fraudulent” representations to Gentile and that his conviction was a “weaponization of justice” led by the Biden administration — even though the sentences and convictions were lauded by Trump’s own appointees.

    The White House declined to say who advised Trump in the decision or whether Trump was considering granting clemency to Schneider, Gentile’s co-defendant. Attorneys for Gentile and Schneider did not respond to a request seeking comment.

    Adam Gana, a securities attorney whose firm has represented more than 250 GPB investors, called the White House’s explanation “a word salad of nonsense,” and questioned why Trump granted Gentile a commutation, which lessens a sentence, rather than a pardon, which forgives the offense itself.

    “If the government wasn’t able to prove their case, why not pardon David Gentile? And why is his partner still in prison?” Gana said. “It’s left us with more questions than answers.”

    ‘It hurts a lot’

    To Rosenberg, Tutera and two other investors interviewed by The Times, the president’s decision stripped away any sense of closure they felt after Gentile and Schneider were convicted.

    Rosenberg has tried not to dwell on the $250,000 he lost in 2016, after a broker “painted a beautiful picture” of steady returns and long-term profits. The investments were supposed to generate income for him during retirement.

    “A quarter of a million dollars, it hurts a lot,” Rosenberg said. “It changed a lot of things I do. Little trips that I wanted to take with my grandkids — well, they’re not quite as nice as they were planned on being.”

    Jeffrey Rosenberg, a longtime Trump supporter, said he felt “betrayed” after the president granted clemency to convicted fraudster David Gentile.

    (Scott Sady / For The Times)

    Tutera, who runs a hormone replacement therapy office in Arizona, invested more than $400,000 with GPB at the recommendation of a financial advisor. She hoped the returns would help support her retirement after her husband had died.

    “I was on grief brain at the time and just feel I was taken advantage of and really sold a bill of goods,” said Tutera, 70. Now, she says: “I have to keep working to make up for what I was owed.” She has been able to recover only about $40,000.

    Tutera said her sister, Julie Ullman, and their 97-year-old mother also fell victim to the scheme. Their mother lost more than $100,000 and now finds herself spending down savings she had planned to leave to her children and not trusting people, she said.

    “That’s really sad,” Tutera said. “People, unfortunately, have turned into thieves, liars and cheaters, and I don’t know what’s happened to the world, but we’ve lost our way to be kind.”

    Ullman, 58, who manages a medical practice in Arizona, said the financial loss was life-changing.

    “I’m going to have to work longer than I thought I would because that was my retirement fund,” Ullman said.

    Mei, a 71-year-old licensed acupuncturist who asked to not use her full name out of embarrassment, said a broker introduced her to the GPB investment funds at a lunch meeting targeting divorced women. She eventually invested $500,000 and lost all of it. It was only through lawsuits that she was able to recover roughly $214,000 of her money, she said.

    Mei had planned to retire in New York to be close to her children. But the loss of income has forced her to live in China, where the cost of living is much lower, six months out of the year, she said.

    Mei fears Trump’s decision to commute Gentile’s sentence will allow these schemes to continue.

    “Donald Trump is promoting more white-collar financial criminals, for sure,” Mei said. “How unfair.”

    Bob Van De Veire, a securities attorney who has represented more than 100 GPB investors, said he has mostly handled negligence cases against the brokers who touted GPB investments.

    “Based on all the red flags that were present, they should have never sold these investments at all,” Van De Veire said.

    Gana, the securities attorney, added that he will continue to fight for victims in civil court, noting the clemency only addressed the criminal conviction.

    The commutation caught the eye of Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), who sent a letter to the White House last week asking several questions: Why, for example, did Gentile receive clemency while Schneider did not? And what were the trial errors cited as a reason for the commutation? He said victims deserve answers.

    “They will not forget that when they needed their government to stand with them against the man who stole their futures, their President chose to stand with the criminal instead,” Gallego wrote.

    Rosenberg, the retiree from Nevada, said he still supports the president but can’t help but think Trump’s decision makes him “look like another of the swamp” that Trump says he wants to drain.

    “I think Trump does a lot of good things,” he said, “but this is a bad one.”

    Still, Rosenberg is hopeful Trump may do right by the victims — even if it’s just by admitting he made a mistake.

    “I would like to think that he was fed some bad information somewhere along the way,” he said. “If that is the case … at least come forward and say, ‘I regret it.’ ”

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    Ana Ceballos

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  • What to know about the upcoming Epstein files release

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    A new federal law requires the Justice Department to release by Friday a massive trove of investigative documents related to Jeffrey Epstein.The release of the Epstein files, detailing the probes into the disgraced multimillionaire and sex offender who died in 2019, has attracted significant attention. The public has been captivated by Epstein’s lavish lifestyle, claims of underage sex trafficking, and his ties to President Donald Trump, former President Bill Clinton, celebrities and foreign dignitaries.Veto-proof majorities in Congress passed a law last month requiring the Justice Department to release all of the Epstein-related files in its custody. Trump fought hard to stop the law but signed it after being outmaneuvered by a bipartisan groundswell of support from lawmakers and the public.However, it’s unclear exactly which records will be made public and how much of the material will be new. Over the 20-year saga surrounding Epstein’s sex crimes, thousands of files have already been disclosed through civil litigation and public records requests.Here’s what you need to know about the files:Why is this happening now?The law, called the Epstein Files Transparency Act, is only three pages long and spells out in simple language what the Justice Department must release and what it can withhold.The federal government is required to release “searchable and downloadable” copies of “all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials” related to Epstein and Maxwell that are in the possession of the Justice Department or FBI.The law explicitly calls for the release of travel logs, materials about Epstein’s associates, any related immunity deals, relevant corporate records, all internal Justice Department communications about the investigations, and documents about Epstein’s 2019 death.What’s in DOJ’s Epstein files?CNN has reported that there’s more than 300 gigabytes of data that lives within the FBI’s primary electronic case management system, called Sentinel. This includes videos, photographs, audio recordings and written records.The FBI conducted two probes into Epstein. The first began in 2006 after sex abuse allegations emerged in Florida. That led to a non-prosecution deal in which Epstein avoided federal charges. Much of the same conduct was also scrutinized by the Palm Beach Police Department, leading to Epstein’s 2008 guilty plea on state charges. He would serve just 13 months in a Florida jail for state prostitution charges, though he was allowed to spend nearly half of that time on “work release” at his office.The second FBI investigation led to Epstein’s federal sex trafficking indictment in 2019. The bulk of the “Epstein files” comes from that New York-based second FBI probe, though there are also materials from the first investigation in Miami, CNN previously reported.What has DOJ said it may release?The Justice Department has described in court filings the types of documents in its possession that it believes must be publicly released under the new law. However, the department warned that the list is “not entirely comprehensive” of what may be released.The list says materials obtained from search warrants, and FBI affidavits supporting search warrants, will be released. The FBI notably raided Epstein’s homes in Florida, New York, and the private island that he owned in the US Virgin Islands, known as Little Saint James.The list also mentions memos from FBI interviews with witnesses. CNN has reported that there are at least hundreds of pages of these memos, known as “302s.”The list also includes financial records, bank records, travel logs from commercial and private flights, materials subpoenaed from Internet providers like Google, what’s referred to as “school records,” information from law firms representing victims, arrest reports, depositions from related civil lawsuits, immigration records, documents from the Palm Beach Police Department and forensic reports from seized dozens of Epstein’s electronic devices.Federal judges have also paved the way for the Justice Department to release grand jury materials from the Epstein indictment, the Maxwell trial and the related probe in Florida.But the grand jury files might not be all that illuminating. One of the judges wrote that nearly all of the grand jury material from the Maxwell case “was already a matter of public record” and that its disclosure “would not reveal new information of any consequence.”What might be redacted?The law says records can’t be “withheld, delayed, or redacted” due to concerns about “embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity.” And it explicitly says this applies to “any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary.”However, under the law, Attorney General Pam Bondi can “withhold or redact” portions of records that fall under five categories, as long as she publicly explains every redaction.Those categories are: records that contain personally identifiable information about Epstein’s victims, materials depicting child sexual abuse, materials depicting physical abuse, any records that “would jeopardize an active federal investigation,” or any classified documents that must stay secret to protect “national defense or foreign policy.”CNN reported that the FBI recovered thousands of nude and seminude photographs of young women at Epstein’s property in Manhattan. Those images will not be made public.What won’t be in the release?There are limits for what we’ll see. The Justice Department’s in-house files about the Epstein case only represent a portion of what exists in the entire Epstein-related universe.For instance, the House Oversight Committee’s recent releases contained documents obtained from Epstein’s estate, including some materials that the FBI later said it had never seen before. Lawmakers are also pursuing bank records that might not be in the Justice Department’s existing cache of materials.Naturally, this means there could be more disclosures even after the Justice Department’s highly anticipated document drop.What are experts looking for?Miami Herald reporter Julie K. Brown, a top expert on the Epstein saga, said she is keeping an eye out for drafts of un-filed indictments, tips from the public that the FBI received about Epstein, and internal emails and texts from the investigators who worked on the cases.Others, including some Democratic lawmakers, have raised concerns about the possibility that the Trump administration will overzealously withhold or redact materials – particularly documents that make Trump look bad – due to the ongoing Trump-backed probe into Epstein’s associates.Last month, Trump directed the Justice Department to investigate Epstein’s ties to several well-known Democrats, including former President Clinton. That probe is ongoing, though the Justice Department said back in July that its exhaustive review of the Epstein and Maxwell case files did not uncover enough evidence to charge any of their associates.What have the victims said?Some of Epstein and Maxwell’s victims have been wary of the Justice Department releasing grand jury and other materials, for fear of being named publicly. But others have supported the unsealing, if proper redactions are made to conceal names and identifying information.One victim who testified during Maxwell’s trial supported the release provided such redactions are made. In a letter to the federal judge who presided over the case, the victim also voiced concern that the Justice Department might not release everything they have.Others have been far more critical of the releases. When Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released a large tranche of documents from Epstein’s estate in November, a group of victims quickly lamented that names and other personal information was not redacted.“Transparency cannot come at the expense of the privacy, safety, and protection of sexual abuse and sex trafficking victims,” lawyers for the victims wrote in a letter to the judge in the Maxwell case, adding that they “already suffered repeatedly, both at the hands of their abusers as well as by the actions of the media and inactions on the Government.”The judge who presided over Maxwell’s case, Paul Engelmayer, also criticized the Justice Department’s handling of victims during the months-long debate over whether to release more of the files. He said in one ruling that the Justice Department, “although paying lip service to Maxwell’s and Epstein’s victims, has not treated them with the solicitude they deserve.”The Justice Department has said in court filings that, in anticipation of the release, it has coordinated closely with known victims and was trying to reach lawyers for more victims. However, CNN reported Tuesday that some Epstein survivors haven’t received any outreach from the Justice Department ahead of the files’ release.What has already been released?A deluge of files, memos, transcripts and other documents surrounding the Epstein saga have already been released through Maxwell’s 2021 criminal trial, public records requests over the years, Justice Department reports, and numerous civil lawsuits.Such documents released by the Justice Department include their findings from an internal investigation into the 2008 non-prosecution agreement with Epstein, which the DOJ now says was wholly improper, as well as the department’s inspector general’s report on Epstein’s suicide at a federal prison in Manhattan.Earlier this year, Trump appointees at the Justice Department and FBI released a batch of declassified Epstein files investigators had gathered. The information from those files, however, was largely already public and the Trump administration has been heavily criticized by supporters and detractors for the bungled release ever since.The Justice Department released hundreds of pages from its controversial sit-down interview with Maxwell earlier this year, where she defended her actions and even criticized some of the victims.More recently, members of the House Oversight Committee released multiple tranches of files and photographs from Epstein’s estate.CNN’s Kara Scannell contributed to this report.

    A new federal law requires the Justice Department to release by Friday a massive trove of investigative documents related to Jeffrey Epstein.

    The release of the Epstein files, detailing the probes into the disgraced multimillionaire and sex offender who died in 2019, has attracted significant attention. The public has been captivated by Epstein’s lavish lifestyle, claims of underage sex trafficking, and his ties to President Donald Trump, former President Bill Clinton, celebrities and foreign dignitaries.

    Veto-proof majorities in Congress passed a law last month requiring the Justice Department to release all of the Epstein-related files in its custody. Trump fought hard to stop the law but signed it after being outmaneuvered by a bipartisan groundswell of support from lawmakers and the public.

    However, it’s unclear exactly which records will be made public and how much of the material will be new. Over the 20-year saga surrounding Epstein’s sex crimes, thousands of files have already been disclosed through civil litigation and public records requests.

    Here’s what you need to know about the files:

    Why is this happening now?

    The law, called the Epstein Files Transparency Act, is only three pages long and spells out in simple language what the Justice Department must release and what it can withhold.

    The federal government is required to release “searchable and downloadable” copies of “all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials” related to Epstein and Maxwell that are in the possession of the Justice Department or FBI.

    The law explicitly calls for the release of travel logs, materials about Epstein’s associates, any related immunity deals, relevant corporate records, all internal Justice Department communications about the investigations, and documents about Epstein’s 2019 death.

    What’s in DOJ’s Epstein files?

    CNN has reported that there’s more than 300 gigabytes of data that lives within the FBI’s primary electronic case management system, called Sentinel. This includes videos, photographs, audio recordings and written records.

    The FBI conducted two probes into Epstein. The first began in 2006 after sex abuse allegations emerged in Florida. That led to a non-prosecution deal in which Epstein avoided federal charges. Much of the same conduct was also scrutinized by the Palm Beach Police Department, leading to Epstein’s 2008 guilty plea on state charges. He would serve just 13 months in a Florida jail for state prostitution charges, though he was allowed to spend nearly half of that time on “work release” at his office.

    The second FBI investigation led to Epstein’s federal sex trafficking indictment in 2019. The bulk of the “Epstein files” comes from that New York-based second FBI probe, though there are also materials from the first investigation in Miami, CNN previously reported.

    What has DOJ said it may release?

    The Justice Department has described in court filings the types of documents in its possession that it believes must be publicly released under the new law. However, the department warned that the list is “not entirely comprehensive” of what may be released.

    The list says materials obtained from search warrants, and FBI affidavits supporting search warrants, will be released. The FBI notably raided Epstein’s homes in Florida, New York, and the private island that he owned in the US Virgin Islands, known as Little Saint James.

    The list also mentions memos from FBI interviews with witnesses. CNN has reported that there are at least hundreds of pages of these memos, known as “302s.”

    The list also includes financial records, bank records, travel logs from commercial and private flights, materials subpoenaed from Internet providers like Google, what’s referred to as “school records,” information from law firms representing victims, arrest reports, depositions from related civil lawsuits, immigration records, documents from the Palm Beach Police Department and forensic reports from seized dozens of Epstein’s electronic devices.

    Federal judges have also paved the way for the Justice Department to release grand jury materials from the Epstein indictment, the Maxwell trial and the related probe in Florida.

    But the grand jury files might not be all that illuminating. One of the judges wrote that nearly all of the grand jury material from the Maxwell case “was already a matter of public record” and that its disclosure “would not reveal new information of any consequence.”

    What might be redacted?

    The law says records can’t be “withheld, delayed, or redacted” due to concerns about “embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity.” And it explicitly says this applies to “any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary.”

    However, under the law, Attorney General Pam Bondi can “withhold or redact” portions of records that fall under five categories, as long as she publicly explains every redaction.

    Those categories are: records that contain personally identifiable information about Epstein’s victims, materials depicting child sexual abuse, materials depicting physical abuse, any records that “would jeopardize an active federal investigation,” or any classified documents that must stay secret to protect “national defense or foreign policy.”

    CNN reported that the FBI recovered thousands of nude and seminude photographs of young women at Epstein’s property in Manhattan. Those images will not be made public.

    What won’t be in the release?

    There are limits for what we’ll see. The Justice Department’s in-house files about the Epstein case only represent a portion of what exists in the entire Epstein-related universe.

    For instance, the House Oversight Committee’s recent releases contained documents obtained from Epstein’s estate, including some materials that the FBI later said it had never seen before. Lawmakers are also pursuing bank records that might not be in the Justice Department’s existing cache of materials.

    Naturally, this means there could be more disclosures even after the Justice Department’s highly anticipated document drop.

    What are experts looking for?

    Miami Herald reporter Julie K. Brown, a top expert on the Epstein saga, said she is keeping an eye out for drafts of un-filed indictments, tips from the public that the FBI received about Epstein, and internal emails and texts from the investigators who worked on the cases.

    Others, including some Democratic lawmakers, have raised concerns about the possibility that the Trump administration will overzealously withhold or redact materials – particularly documents that make Trump look bad – due to the ongoing Trump-backed probe into Epstein’s associates.

    Last month, Trump directed the Justice Department to investigate Epstein’s ties to several well-known Democrats, including former President Clinton. That probe is ongoing, though the Justice Department said back in July that its exhaustive review of the Epstein and Maxwell case files did not uncover enough evidence to charge any of their associates.

    What have the victims said?

    Some of Epstein and Maxwell’s victims have been wary of the Justice Department releasing grand jury and other materials, for fear of being named publicly. But others have supported the unsealing, if proper redactions are made to conceal names and identifying information.

    One victim who testified during Maxwell’s trial supported the release provided such redactions are made. In a letter to the federal judge who presided over the case, the victim also voiced concern that the Justice Department might not release everything they have.

    Others have been far more critical of the releases. When Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released a large tranche of documents from Epstein’s estate in November, a group of victims quickly lamented that names and other personal information was not redacted.

    “Transparency cannot come at the expense of the privacy, safety, and protection of sexual abuse and sex trafficking victims,” lawyers for the victims wrote in a letter to the judge in the Maxwell case, adding that they “already suffered repeatedly, both at the hands of their abusers as well as by the actions of the media and inactions on the Government.”

    The judge who presided over Maxwell’s case, Paul Engelmayer, also criticized the Justice Department’s handling of victims during the months-long debate over whether to release more of the files. He said in one ruling that the Justice Department, “although paying lip service to Maxwell’s and Epstein’s victims, has not treated them with the solicitude they deserve.”

    The Justice Department has said in court filings that, in anticipation of the release, it has coordinated closely with known victims and was trying to reach lawyers for more victims. However, CNN reported Tuesday that some Epstein survivors haven’t received any outreach from the Justice Department ahead of the files’ release.

    What has already been released?

    A deluge of files, memos, transcripts and other documents surrounding the Epstein saga have already been released through Maxwell’s 2021 criminal trial, public records requests over the years, Justice Department reports, and numerous civil lawsuits.

    Such documents released by the Justice Department include their findings from an internal investigation into the 2008 non-prosecution agreement with Epstein, which the DOJ now says was wholly improper, as well as the department’s inspector general’s report on Epstein’s suicide at a federal prison in Manhattan.

    Earlier this year, Trump appointees at the Justice Department and FBI released a batch of declassified Epstein files investigators had gathered. The information from those files, however, was largely already public and the Trump administration has been heavily criticized by supporters and detractors for the bungled release ever since.

    The Justice Department released hundreds of pages from its controversial sit-down interview with Maxwell earlier this year, where she defended her actions and even criticized some of the victims.

    More recently, members of the House Oversight Committee released multiple tranches of files and photographs from Epstein’s estate.

    CNN’s Kara Scannell contributed to this report.

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  • Detained immigration activist Jeanette Vizguerra must get bail hearing before Christmas, judge rules

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    Immigration authorities must provide detained activist Jeanette Vizguerra with a bail hearing in the next week, a federal judge ruled Wednesday in Denver.

    The order offers an avenue for potential temporary release for Vizguerra, an immigrant without proper legal status who has spent nine months in federal immigration detention.

    The activist was arrested in March and has been fighting efforts by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain and deport her ever since. The ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Nina Wang requires that authorities give Vizguerra the opportunity to seek a temporary release before an immigration judge in Aurora’s detention center by Christmas Eve.

    Her hearing is currently set for Friday morning, according to one of her attorneys, Laura Lichter.

    If granted bail, Vizguerra would be released from detention while her immigration case continues to wind its way through the courts. Because Vizguerra is fighting her deportation both in federal court and in immigration court, it will likely be “many months or even years” before her case is fully resolved, Wang said.

    The Mexico-born activist has lived in the United States for more than 30 years and has repeatedly fought attempts to deport her, though she accepted a voluntary departure in 2011. During the first Trump administration, she sought shelter in a Denver church and was named by TIME as one of the most influential people of 2017. She left the church’s sanctuary and was given reprieves by ICE.

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    Seth Klamann

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  • ‘We want it back’: Trump asserts U.S. claims to Venezuelan oil and land

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    MEXICO CITY — President Trump’s order of a partial blockade on oil tankers going to and from Venezuela and his claim that Caracas stole “oil, land other assets” from the United States mark a significant escalation of Washington’s unrelenting campaign against the government of President Nicolás Maduro.

    Asked about Venezuela on Wednesday, Trump said the United States will be “getting land, oil rights and whatever we had.”

    “We want it back,” he said without further elaboration. It was unclear whether Trump planned to say more about Venezuela in a televised address to the nation late Wednesday night.

    The blockade, which aims to cripple the key component of Venezuela’s faltering, oil-dependent economy, comes as the Trump administration has bolstered military forces in the Caribbean, blown up more than two dozen boats allegedly ferrying illicit drugs in both the Caribbean and the Pacific, and threatened military strikes on Venezuela and neighboring Colombia.

    “Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America,” Trump said in a rambling post Tuesday night on his social media site. “It will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before.”

    Not long after Trump announced the blockade Tuesday night, the government of Venezuela denounced the move and his other efforts as an attempt to “rob the riches that belong to our people.”

    Venezuelan National Assembly President Jorge Rodriguez is flanked by First Vice President Pedro Infante, left, and Second Vice President America Perez during an extraordinary session at the Federal Legislative Palace in Caracas on Dec. 17, 2025.

    (Juan Barreto / AFP/Getty Images)

    Leaders of other Latin American nations called for calm and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, after a phone call with Maduro, called on U.N. members to “exert restraint and de-escalate tensions to preserve regional stability.”

    Also Wednesday, Trump received rare pushback from the Republican-dominated Congress, where some lawmakers are pressuring the administration to disclose more information about its deadly attacks on alleged drug boats.

    The Senate gave final approval to a $900-billion defense policy package that, among other things, would require the administration to disclose to lawmakers specific orders behind the boat strikes along with unedited videos of the deadly attacks. If the administration does not comply, the bill would withhold a quarter of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s travel budget.

    The bill’s passage came a day after Hegseth and Secretary Marco Rubio briefed lawmakers on Capitol Hill about the U.S. military campaign. The meetings left lawmakers with a mixed reaction, largely with Republicans backing the campaign and Democrats expressing concern about it.

    The White House has said its military campaign in Venezuela is meant to curb drug trafficking, but U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration data show that Venezuela is a relatively minor player in the U.S.-bound narcotics trade.

    Trump also declared that the South American country had been designated a “foreign terrorist organization.” That would apparently make Venezuela the first nation slapped with a classification normally reserved for armed groups deemed hostile to the United States or its allies. The consequences remain unclear for Venezuela.

    A gray military plane takes off from a tarmac, with greenery in the background

    A U.S. Air Force Boeing C-17 Globemaster takes off from Jose Aponte de la Torre Airport, formerly Roosevelt Roads Naval Station, on in Ceiba, Puerto Rico.

    (Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo / AFP/Getty Images)

    Regional responses to the Trump threats highlight the new ideological fault lines in Latin America, where right-wing governments in recent years have won elections in Chile, Argentina and Ecuador.

    The leftist leaders of the region’s two most populous nations — Brazil and Mexico — have called for restraint in Venezuela.

    “Whatever one thinks about the Venezuelan government or the presidency of Maduro, the position of Mexico should always be: No to intervention, no to foreign meddling,” Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Wednesday, calling on the United Nations to look for a peaceful solution and avert any bloodshed.

    Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has also urged Trump to pull back from confrontation. “The power of the word can outweigh the power of the gun,” Lula said he told Trump recently, offering to facilitate talks with the Maduro government.

    But Chile’s right-wing president-elect, José Antonio Kast, said he supports a change of government in Venezuela, asserting that it would reduce migration from Venezuela to other nations in the region.

    Surrounded by security, Chilean President-elect Jose Antonio Kast leaves the government house

    Surrounded by security, Chilean President-elect José Antonio Kast, second from right, leaves after a meeting with Argentine President Javier Milei in Buenos Aires on Dec. 16, 2025.

    (Rodrigo Abd / Associated Press)

    “If someone is going to do it, let’s be clear that it solves a gigantic problem for us and all of Latin America, all of South America, and even for countries in Europe,” Kast said, referring to Venezuelan immigration.

    In his Tuesday post, Trump said he had ordered a “complete blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers going into, and out of, Venezuela.” Although the move is potentially devastating to Venezuela’s economy, the fact that the blockade will affect only tankers already sanctioned by U.S. authorities does give Venezuela some breathing room, at least for now.

    Experts estimated that between one-third and half of tankers transporting crude to and from Venezuela are part of the so-called dark fleet of sanctioned tankers. The ships typically ferry crude from Venezuela and Iran, two nations under heavy U.S. trade and economic bans.

    However, experts said that even a partial blockade will be a major hit for Venezuela’s feeble economy, already reeling under more than a decade of U.S. penalties. And Washington can continue adding to the list of sanctioned tankers.

    “The United States can keep sanctioning more tankers, and that would leave Venezuela with almost no income,” said David A. Smilde, a Venezuela expert at Tulane University. “That would probably cause a famine in the country.”

    The growing pressure, analysts said, will probably mean the diminishing number of firms willing to take the risk of transporting Venezuelan crude will increase their prices, putting more pressure on Caracas. Purchasers in China and elsewhere will also probably demand price cuts to buy Venezuelan oil.

    Trump has said that Maduro must go because he is a “narco-terrorist” and heads the “Cartel de los Soles,” which the While House calls a drug-trafficking syndicate. Trump has put a $50-million bounty on Maduro’s head. Experts say that Cartel de los Soles is not a functioning cartel, but a shorthand term for Venezuelan military officers who have been involved in the drug trade for decades, long before Maduro or his predecessor and mentor, the late Hugo Chávez, took office.

    The White House at night
    It is unclear whether President Trump planned to say more about Venezuela in a televised address to the nation late on Dec. 17, 2025.

    (Graeme Sloan / Bloomberg / Getty Images)

    In his comments Tuesday, Trump denounced the nationalization of the Venezuelan oil industry, a process that began in the 1970s, when Caracas was a strong ally of Washington.

    Echoing Trump’s point that Venezuela “stole” U.S. assets was Stephen Miller, Trump’s Homeland Security advisor, who declared on X: “American sweat, ingenuity and toil created the oil industry in Venezuela. Its tyrannical expropriation was the largest recorded theft of American wealth and property.”

    Among those believed to be driving Trump’s efforts to oust Maduro is Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants to Florida. Rubio has long been an outspoken opponent of the communist governments in Havana and Caracas. Venezuelan oil has helped the economies of left-wing governments in both Cuba and Nicaragua.

    Christopher Sabatini, a senior fellow for Latin America at the think tank Chatham House, said Rubio has been on a longtime campaign to remove Maduro.

    “He has his own political project,” Sabatini said. “He wants to get rid of the dictators in Venezuela and Cuba.”

    McDonnell and Linthicum reported from Mexico City and Ceballos from Washington. Special correspondent Mery Mogollón in Caracas contributed to this report.

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    Patrick J. McDonnell, Ana Ceballos, Kate Linthicum

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  • What Does Cannabis Rescheduling Mean

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    What does cannabis rescheduling mean for patients, doctors, retailers and small businesses as the President weighs federal action.

    The last few days have been a rollercoaster for the cannabis industry with a press release was released on Friday saying the President is going to use an executive order on cannabis.  The market soared and then crashed and then rebounded now he has he commented he is considering it when directly asked a question. When the President says he’s “considering” rescheduling cannabis, that’s not the same as legalizing it — but it could still be the single biggest federal shift for the industry in decades. But what does cannabis rescheduling mean? The act would change marijuana’s place on the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) from Schedule I — the category reserved for drugs the law says have no accepted medical use and high potential for abuse — to a lower schedule, most often discussed as Schedule III. The practical effects would be immediate for researchers and investors, consequential for doctors and patients, and potentially life-changing for thousands of mom-and-pop retailers drowning under today’s tax rules.

    RELATED: Mike Johnson And Marijuana

    Moving cannabis out of Schedule I would remove a major administrative barrier to clinical research. Researchers say rescheduling would simplify access to plant material for federally-funded studies and could speed trials on cannabinoids for pain, epilepsy and other conditions — because Schedule III substances are treated more like prescription medicines that can be studied with fewer legal hurdles. That said, rescheduling is not an FDA approval: doctors would still lack the uniform, FDA-style prescribing framework that exists for most pharmaceuticals, and states would continue to control patient access under their own medical cannabis rules. In short: more and better science is likely, but a medical-practice revolution would depend on follow-up regulatory and clinical work.

    Photo by Aaron Kittredge via Pexels

    Rescheduling would not erase state laws or create a nationwide retail market overnight. Consumers in states with legal sales would still use the existing retail channels, and in states where cannabis is illegal, possession and sale could remain crimes under state law. But at the federal level, rescheduling could unlock easier banking access and attract mainstream investment: Schedule III status reduces the shadow-banking risk that currently forces many operators to run primarily in cash and stay out of regular capital markets. That improved access to banking and capital could make stores safer and give established local operators better options for growth.

    For many small cannabis retailers the single most consequential change would be tax relief. Under current law, Internal Revenue Code Section 280E prevents businesses trafficking in Schedule I or II substances from deducting ordinary business expenses — meaning rent, payroll, advertising and professional fees are largely nondeductible. As a result, effective federal tax rates for some retailers have been extraordinarily high. If cannabis were reclassified to Schedule III, 280E would no longer apply — allowing businesses to deduct ordinary expenses like any other small business. That could free up cash flow, lower effective tax rates dramatically, and determine whether many family-run shops survive or shutter.

    RELATED: Marijuana Use And Guy’s Member

    An administrative rescheduling (for example by executive order or DEA action) could be challenged in court or limited by Congress. Some lawmakers argue a President cannot unilaterally rewrite statute; others note that Congress could respond, creating new limits or tax rules. And rescheduling alone will not erase criminal records automatically — separate policy steps would be required to address convictions and resentencing. So while rescheduling is a powerful and pragmatic lever — speeding research, unlocking banking, and ending the worst tax penalties — it is not a one-click path to full legalization or automatic amnesty.

    If the President moves ahead, which is still up in the air, rescheduling would be a structural shift: better science, easier finance and crucial tax relief for operators — especially small, mom and pop retailers. But legalization, standardized medical prescribing and answers about criminal records would still require follow-on legislative and regulatory work. For mom-and-pop shops, rescheduling could mean the difference between surviving another year and finally having breathing room to compete.

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    Terry Hacienda

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  • Should fentanyl be considered a weapon of mass destruction?

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    With a Dec. 15 executive order, President Donald Trump became the first U.S. president to classify a narcotic as a weapon of mass destruction.

    Trump used U.S. deaths from fentanyl to justify the drug’s new designation, estimating that up to 300,000 people die annually from the drug; that number is exaggerated. In the 12 months through April 2025, about 42,000 people died from synthetic opioids other than methadone, and most of the deaths were caused by fentanyl. 

    “Illicit fentanyl is closer to a chemical weapon than a narcotic,” his order said. “Two milligrams, an almost undetectable trace amount equivalent to 10 to 15 grains of table salt, constitutes a lethal dose.”

    The United States’ legal definition would have to be expanded to include fentanyl. Is it legally sound to classify fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction, a label historically used to describe nuclear, biological or chemical weapons of war? Experts differed in their assessments.

    Michael O’Hanlon, research director in the Brookings Institution’s foreign policy program, said he thinks Trump’s designation is plausible.

    “The sheer number of deaths it has caused is staggering, and while they happen user by user rather than indiscriminately, as with traditional weapons of mass destruction, those who suffer from it often don’t even know that they’ve taken it,” he said.

    Other experts expressed skepticism. Brendan R. Green, a University of Cincinnati political scientist who specializes in military and nuclear policy, said he’s not convinced fentanyl fits in the weapons of mass destruction category.

    Given the historical use of the term, he said, “it is not even close to reasonable to call fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction.”

    The biggest impact could be for framing the debate about possible U.S. military intervention, experts said, citing former President George W. Bush’s use of weapons of mass destruction — falsely — to justify the Iraq War.

    What is the traditional definition of weapons of mass destruction?

    Historically, weapons of mass destruction, or WMDs, have included nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, and sometimes radiological weapons, such as radioactive “dirty bombs.”

    Among the characteristics these weapons share is that they can kill indiscriminately, on a large scale, with victims potentially including civilians. 

    Fentanyl doesn’t fit those descriptions. While the drug can kill unsuspecting people — including people who think they’re consuming a different drug, or people who enter a space where illicit drugs are consumed — fentanyl does not kill large numbers of people at once, and people not involved with illicit drugs are unlikely to encounter it by chance.

    Fentanyl also isn’t a weapon of war, and other poisons such as arsenic or cyanide (or bullets) are not classified as weapons of mass destruction despite their death toll. Fentanyl also has a legitimate use in medical settings, unlike nuclear weapons, nerve gas or biological agents.

    Federal law defines a weapon of mass destruction as:

    • A destructive device, such as an explosive or incendiary bomb, rocket, or grenade.

    • A weapon that uses “toxic or poisonous chemicals or their precursors.”

    • A “biological agent (or) toxin.”

    • A weapon “designed to release radiation or radioactivity at a level dangerous to human life.”

    Mark F. Cancian, a senior defense and security adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a national security-focused think tank, said it would be “a stretch” to call an illegal drug like fentanyl a weapon.

    “That is certainly not what Congress intended when it passed the law,” Cancian said. Lawmakers “were thinking about ISIS and al-Qaida.”

    There is precedent for the use of aerosolized fentanyl as a weapon: In October 2002, Russia’s military used a gas believed to be related to fentanyl to incapacitate Chechen rebels occupying a theater in Moscow. More than 100 rebels and hostages died from the agent and from inadequate medical support. 

    The executive order notes the possibility of weaponizing fentanyl as one reason to classify it as a WMD, but the main focus of the executive order is on the effect of “trafficking,” “smuggling” and the “manufacture, distribution, and sale of illicit fentanyl and its core precursor chemicals,” rather than terrorist or military weaponization.

    John P. Caves Jr., a National Defense University research fellow, was skeptical of labeling fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction in 2019, when Trump’s first administration considered whether to make the change.

    While Caves urged action under the Chemical Weapons Convention — the international treaty that bars the use of chemical agents — as well as defensive countermeasures by the U.S. military, he wrote that he didn’t see a need for the Defense Department to officially designate fentanyl compounds as weapons of mass destruction.

    What legal or military effect could Trump’s order have?

    Trump’s executive order has more power as a call to arms with the public than as a legal document, experts said.

    Under international law, the executive order “has absolutely no meaning,” said Anthony Clark Arend, a Georgetown University professor who specializes in international law.

    To be able to use force legally under international law, the U.S. would have to cite an “actual, or imminent, armed attack against the U.S.,” Arend said. “Bringing drugs to sell in the United States, as horrible as that may be, does not constitute an ‘armed attack’ under any reasonable interpretation of those words,” he said.

    In the context of U.S. law, the order could hand the administration some new tools, Cancian said. 

    Federal law says for “emergency situations involving weapons of mass destruction,” require a serious threat to U.S. interests. 

    “This was written with a 9/11-type situation in mind, but the administration might stretch it to justify troop movements into cities,” even though the law specifically forbids arrests or participation in any search or seizure, Cancian said.

    Categorizing fentanyl as a WMD could provide the administration with an argument to the public about why the U.S. should intervene in another country. 

    The administration could frame the quest to eliminate WMDs as focusing on Venezuela, whose government is the target of Trump administration criticism and which is in close proximity to two dozen U.S. strikes of alleged drug-carrying boats this year. The administration has falsely linked Venezuela and fentanyl, however; most fentanyl in the U.S. comes from Mexico, with the precursors commonly made in China.

    Green said he thinks the executive order mostly advances the administration’s ability to rally public support for military action.

    “A string of presidents have already asserted extremely broad powers” over using the military, he said. Calling fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction could provide a “political hook for military action. But it hardly seems necessary, given long-standing precedent” about what presidents are allowed to do, he said.

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