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trump’s nominee for his department of military conspiracy & disinformation. Democrats dial up pressure on Hegseth as confirmation battle nears

The Washington Post

Democrats dial up pressure on Hegseth as confirmation battle nears

Missy Ryan and Abigail Hauslohner – January 7, 2025

The record of Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s choice to lead the Pentagon, should disqualify him for such a pivotal national security role, a Democratic senator told the former Fox News personality in an expansive letter that illustrates the party’s breadth of concern with one of the president-elect’s most controversial Cabinet picks ahead of his confirmation hearing next week.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, outlined 10 areas of concern in her letter, posing more than 70 questions for Hegseth in what appears to be a preview of Democrats’ approach when they interrogate his qualifications, past conduct and beliefs. The letter highlights allegations of heavy drinking and sexual misconduct, remarks suggesting female military personnel should play a more limited role, his past skepticism about the need for U.S. troops to comply with laws of war, and accusations of financial mismanagement arising from the veterans’ organizations he once led.

Hegseth has vehemently denied claims of wrongdoing.

“I am deeply concerned by the many ways in which your behavior and rhetoric indicates that you are unfit to lead the Department of Defense,” Warren said in the letter. “Your confirmation as Secretary of Defense would be detrimental to our national security and disrespect a diverse array of service members who are willing to sacrifice for our country.”

The Trump transition team declined to comment on Warren’s letter. Hegseth is due to appear before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Jan. 14.

Spanning 33 pages, the missive resurfaces statements and alleged incidents reported by the news media in the weeks following Trump’s selection of the 44-year-old – a former Army National Guard member, Princeton University graduate and longtime Fox News host – to lead the Pentagon. Several news outlets have published reports scrutinizing Hegseth’s background, including revelations that he made derisive comments about Muslims and current military leaders, and an incident in which he was investigated, but not charged, in an alleged sexual assault.

Warren’s letter also coincides with growing concern among Democrats about the incoming Trump administration’s decision to spurn steps traditionally involved in the selection, vetting and approval process for high-level government officials.

Hegseth’s confirmation hearing will provide an early test of how congressional Republicans, in particular, intend to size up their preferences against those of their president. While Hegseth’s record has stirred doubts among some in the GOP, Trump has lobbied forcefully for his confirmation.

And while some Republicans have praised Hegseth – who wasn’t widely seen as a contender for high office until Trump announced his pick days after the election – others, including Sen. Joni Ernst (Iowa) and Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), have not publicly declared how they will vote, though both said they had productive meetings with Hegseth last month. Ernst is a member of the Armed Services Committee and a sexual assault survivor. Collins is a prominent moderate within the GOP.

To proceed for a vote on the Senate floor, Hegseth must secure the support of a majority of the Republican-led Armed Services Committee. Committee Democrats are widely expected to oppose him.

If confirmed, Hegseth, who as a Fox News host successfully lobbied Trump for lenient treatment of service members convicted of war crimes, is expected to focus on cultural and personnel issues at the Pentagon, which he has said is insufficiently focused on combat and is dominated by “woke” generals.

In her letter, Warren told Hegseth to be ready to respond to questions, and she asked that he first reply in writing by Jan. 10. Separately, a group of Democratic senators, including Warren, Tim Kaine (Virginia), Tammy Duckworth (Illinois) and Kirsten Gillibrand (New York), sent a letter to Trump’s designated chief of staff last month focused on Hegseth’s record on women.

Critics have assailed Trump for tapping Hegseth before he completed key aspects of the vetting process, which for Senate-confirmed positions usually includes an FBI background check. While the FBI typically delivers the results of a nominee’s classified background check to the relevant oversight committee about a week ahead of a confirmation hearing, that hadn’t happened in Hegseth’s case as of Tuesday, said a Senate aide familiar with the process, who like some others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the vetting process.

Upon receiving the results of an FBI background check, the committee chair and ranking minority-party member – in this case, Sens. Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi) and Jack Reed (D-Rhode Island) – have the discretion to share it with other lawmakers, aides said. Senators in both parties, including some like Collins who do not sit on the committee, have expressed interest in seeing the FBI’s findings. It is unclear if Wicker and Reed will make the FBI report more widely available.

Senate aides also said Hegseth had declined to hold meetings with committee Democrats in the lead-up to next week’s hearing, a development they called a disturbing break with tradition. Reed, the committee’s top Democrat, is expected to meet with Hegseth later this week.

The aides said Hegseth, through intermediaries, offered Democrats opportunities to meet with him only after his confirmation hearing.

“It’s obviously really concerning, and very unusual to not be taking those meetings,” one Senate aide said. “It’s disrespectful to the process.”

A Trump transition official disputed that claim, saying Hegseth and his team reached out to nearly all Democratic committee members well before the end-of-year holidays but received no agreements to meet in December. The aide identified one Democrat, Sen. John Fetterman (Pennsylvania), who had met with Hegseth but is not a member of the Armed Services Committee.

“Despite a poor response rate and multiple communications attacking the nominee before these Senators have even met with him (and going outside standard hearing procedures to make these requests), Mr. Hegseth is doing his level best to meet with as many Democrat Senators as he can before and after his hearing,” the Trump transition official said via email.

Trump addresses my top issues: Renaming Gulf of Mexico and invading Greenland

USA Today – Opinion

Trump addresses my top issues: Renaming Gulf of Mexico and invading Greenland

Rex Huppke, USA TODAY – January 7, 2025

As a devout supporter of Donald Trump and the MAGA movement, I voted for him because I knew he would address the issues that most impact my life.

I’m talking, of course, about militarily overtaking the largely inhospitable Danish territory of Greenland, renaming the Gulf of Mexico and outlawing windmills.

So you can imagine my delight when my hero, President-elect Trump, gave a news conference Tuesday and strongly addressed those crucial subjects, along with other things that matter deeply to REAL AMERICANS like me, including shower water pressure and making Canada part of the United States.

I voted for Trump for 1 reason: American invasion of Greenland

President-elect Donald Trump makes remarks at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., on Jan. 7, 2025.

Refusing to rule out using the military to take control of Greenland, Trump, who I voted for because I knew he would keep us out of wars, said: “Well, we need Greenland for national security purposes. … People really don’t even know if Denmark has any legal right to it. But if they do, they should give it up.”

YES! I was predominantly a one-issue voter, and that issue was the exorbitant cost of seal meat. By threatening our ally Denmark and using military force if necessary, the Trump administration can proudly claim Greenland as a U.S. territory, dramatically lowering the cost of seal meat for American consumers like myself. That will allow me and my fellow MAGA supporters to affordably make Suaasat, a Greenlandic soup, AS IS OUR RIGHT AS AMERICANS!

Opinion: Trump’s election got certified. Why didn’t liberals do their patriotic insurrection?

Some voters were concerned about egg prices. TRUE PATRIOTS were concerned about seal-meat prices.

And Trump is on the case.

I am very worried about the name ‘Gulf of Mexico’

The soon-to-be president also announced a change that has been talked about for years in the rural diners I frequent with my fellow forgotten American men and women.

“We’re going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America,” Trump said. “Gulf of America – what a beautiful name.”

President-elect Donald Trump announces the Gulf of Mexico will get a new name: the Gulf of America.

SO BEAUTIFUL! And also, so directly impactful on the quality of my day-to-day life.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to miss work because I was feeling down about having to give Mexico credit for that 218,0000-square-mile, semienclosed oceanic basin that I know was BUILT BY AMERICANS.

America for sure owns the Gulf of AMERICA, people!

As Trump said Tuesday: “We’re going to change, because we do most of the work there, and it’s ours.”

Damn straight it’s ours! Are you going to tell me that 200 million years ago when the Pangea supercontinent was breaking up there weren’t big, strong American workers causing tectonic plates to shift and form our beautiful gulf?

Liberals probably wrote that in our history books, but thanks to voters like me, Trump will set the record straight.

Opinion: What will happen in 2025? Trump will always be right – and more guaranteed predictions.

Finally, a president who hates windmills as much as I do

The greatest president in history, speaking from his Mar-a-Lago resort, went on to bless us with this: “We’re going to try and have a policy where no windmills are being built.”

Praise the Lord! I know some in the MAGA community are more concerned about the economy, immigration and making life terrible for transgender people, but many of us picked Trump again because we abso-freakin’-lutely despise windmills.

See Don Quixote's La Mancha — See Don Quixote’s La Mancha

They are distracting and can easily be mistaken for giants, leading innocent Americans to tilt at them like the late, great Don Quixote used to do. (Hopefully, Trump will also soon announce that Don Quixote will be renamed “Don America.”)

MAGA voters wanted a president unafraid of Big Shower

Trump also addressed America’s shower-water-pressure crisis, saying: “When you buy a faucet, no water comes out because they want to preserve, even in areas that have so much water you don’t know what to do, it’s called rain, it comes down from heaven. … No water comes out of the shower. It goes drip, drip, drip.”

Finally, we will have a president with the meteorological knowledge to identify that rain correctly comes from heaven. This is clearly the man best suited to handle America’s nuclear codes.

Sure, Canadians will welcome us taking control of their country

Speaking of which, Trump also said he’d use economic force to annex Canada as America’s 51st state and “get rid” of the border, which he called an “artificially drawn line.”

Opinion alerts: Get columns from your favorite columnists + expert analysis on top issues, delivered straight to your device through the USA TODAY app. Don’t have the app? Download it for free from your app store.

Amen, sir. I voted for a man who believes borders are crucial, except for that one. Don’t worry, Mexico, you’ll be fine.

I can’t wait to watch President-elect Trump continue to make all his supporters’ dreams come true.

As long as those dreams involve whatever he happens to be talking about on any given day.

MAGA!

Former GOP Rep Adam Kinzinger mocks Republican lawmakers who changed their tune on Jan. 6 attack

Independent

Former GOP Rep Adam Kinzinger mocks Republican lawmakers who changed their tune on Jan. 6 attack

Rhian Lubin – January 6, 2025

Former GOP Representative Adam Kinzinger has mocked Republican lawmakers who changed their tune on the January 6 Capitol attack by reposting statements they made four years ago.

Kinzinger, a former Illinois congressman who campaigned for Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election, hit out at Republicans who have backpedaled on their criticism of President-elect Donald Trump and the violent events of that day in 2021.

Among the senators Kinzinger roasted was Trump ally and staunch defender Lindsey Graham. “Those who made this attack on our government need to be identified and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Graham said four years ago on X (formerly Twitter). “Their actions are repugnant to democracy.”

While Graham was critical of Trump during the presidential campaign and reportedly advised him to stop mentioning the 2020 election, he has since championed the Republican.

Kinzinger reposted Graham’s statement simply saying: “Agreed.”

Former GOP Representative Adam Kinzinger has hit out at Republican lawmakers over Jan 6 (EPA)

He also shared a 2021 X statement from Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, who was a key figure in the campaign to keep Trump in the White House after losing the 2020 election.

“I unambiguously condemn in the strongest possible terms any and all forms of violent protest,” Johnson said at the time. “Any individual who committed violence today should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

“Thanks @SpeakerJohnson,” Kinzinger said as he shared the four-year-old post.

Three police officers stand in front of the U.S. Capitol Building on Monday in Washington, D.C. ,Monday marks the fourth anniversary since rioters stormed the Capitol (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

“These actions at the US Capitol by protestors are truly despicable and unacceptable. While I am safe and sheltering in place, these protests are prohibiting us from doing our constitutional duty.” Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee wrote four years ago on X.

“I condemn them in the strongest possible terms. We are a nation of laws,” Blackburn added, to which Kinzinger reposted and said: “Thanks @MarshaBlackburn.”

He also shared a 2021 post from conservative radio host Erik Erikson that called for the protestors to be “shot” and to “deny [Trump] the ability to run for election again.”

Kinzinger lashed out at his former political allies and accused them of “cowardice.”

“Jan 6th is a reminder to me: cowardice spreads like wildfire,” he said in a follow up post on X. “This country needs leaders who are willing to tell the people the truth, not pander to lies.”

It comes as Trump’s 2024 election win over Harris was certified by a joint session of Congress on Monday in just 28 minutes.

Inside the GOP plan that destroyed American jobs

RawStory

Inside the GOP plan that destroyed American jobs

Thom Hartmann, AlterNet – January 4, 2025

Construction worker in Manhattan (Shutterstock)

Trump says he’s going to imprison and then deport millions of brown-skinned immigrants. He’s going after the wrong people.

It seems that ever time a Republican goes on one of the national political TV shows, they make sure to get in the lie that “Joe Biden opened the southern border wide open,” or toss in a reference to “Biden’s open borders.”

It is, of course, a viscious lie — but one that’s almost never called out by the hosts because it’s peripheral or tangential to the topic being discussed. And, as is so often the case, this all started with Reagan (more on that in a moment).

While it’s true that two factors have driven a lot of migration over the past few decades (climate change wiping out farmland, and political dysfunction and gangs caused by the Reagan administration devastating the governments of El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala) the latest main driver of would-be immigrants and refugees is the Republican Party itself.

Lacking any actual, substantive economic issues to run on, the GOP decided after Biden’s election in 2021 to fall back on a familiar ploy: scare white people that brown people are coming for them and/or their jobs. Back in the 1950s and 1960s, I remember well how the GOP pitch to white people was that Black people wanted “our” jobs; now it’s brown people from south of the border.

Trump did this in the most crude, vulgar and racist way possible from his first entrance into the Republican primary through the end of his presidency. It frightened enough white voters that it got him into office once, and the GOP repeated that trick last November.

In doing so, they’re playing with fire. Their daily lies about American policies for the past four years are causing people to put their lives in danger.

The truth is that Joe Biden never “opened” our southern border.

“Open borders” have never been his policy or the Democratic Party’s policy or, indeed, the policy of any elected Democrat or Democratic strategist in modern American history.

Everybody understands and agrees that for a country to function it must regulate immigration, and it’s borders must have a reasonable level of integrity.

Republicans are playing a very dangerous game here. By loudly proclaiming their lie that Biden had “opened” the southern border and was “welcoming” immigrants and refugees “with open arms,” they created the very problem they’re pointing to.

Republican lies like this don’t stay in the United States.

As they get repeated through our media, even when most Americans realize they’re simply wild exaggerations (at the most charitable), the media of other countries are happy to pick up the story and spread it across Mexico and Central America.

This, in turn, encourages the desperate, the poor, and the ambitious to head north or send their teenage children northward in hopes for a better life. Meanwhile, criminal cartels have jumped into the human trafficking business in a big way, exploiting and aggressively repeating the GOP rhetoric to recruit new “customers.”

I lived and worked in Germany for a year, and it took me months to get a work-permit from that government to do so. I worked in Australia, and the process of getting that work-permit took a couple of months.

In both cases, it was my employers who were most worried about my successfully getting the work permits and did most of the work to make it happen. There’s an important reason for that.

The way that most countries prevent undocumented immigrants from disrupting their economies and causing cheap labor competition with their citizens is by putting employers in jail when they hire people who don’t have the right to work in that country.

We used to do this in the United States.

In the 1920s, the US began regulating immigration and similarly put into place laws regulating who could legally work in this country and who couldn’t.

Because there was so much demand for low-wage immigrant labor in the food belt of California during harvest season, President Dwight Eisenhower experimented with a program in the 1950s that granted season-long passes to workers from Mexico. Millions took him up on it, but his Bracero program failed because employers controlled the permits, and far too many used that control to threaten people who objected to having their wages stolen or refused to tolerate physical or sexual abuse.

A similar dynamic is at work today. Employers and even neighbors extract free labor or other favors of all sorts from undocumented immigrants in the United States, using the threat of deportation and the violence of ICE as a cudgel. Undocumented immigrants working here end up afraid to call the police when they’re the victims of, or witnesses to crimes.

Everybody loses except the employers, who have a cheap, pliable, easily-threatened source of labor that is afraid to talk back or report abuses.

It got this way in 1986, when Ronald Reagan decided to stop enforcing the laws against wealthy white employers hiring undocumented people, and directed the government’s enforcement activities instead toward the least powerful and able to defend themselves: brown-skinned immigrants.

The result has been a labor market in the US that’s been distorted by undocumented workers creating a black-market for low-wage labor that many of America’s largest corporations enthusiastically support.

For example, prior to the Reagan administration two of the most heavily unionized industries in America were construction and meatpacking. These were tough jobs, but in both cases provided people who just had a high school education with a solid entry card into the American Dream. They were well-paid jobs that allowed construction and meatpacking workers to buy a home, take vacations, raise their kids and live a good, middle-class life with a pension for retirement.

Reagan and his Republican allies, with healthy campaign donations from both industries, wrote the 1986 Immigration Reform Act to make it harder to prosecute employers who invited undocumented workers into their workplaces.

As Brad Plumer noted in The Washington Post:

“[T]he bill’s sponsors ended up watering down the sanctions on employers to attract support from the business community, explains Wayne Cornelius of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at U.C. San Diego. ‘The end result was that they essentially gutted the employer sanctions,’ he says.”

So Reagan stopped enforcing our labor and immigration laws with respect to wealthy white employers, and the next 20 years saw a collapse of American citizens working in both the meatpacking and construction industries, among others.

Forty-dollar-an-hour American-citizen unionized workers were replaced with seven-dollar-an-hour undocumented workers desperate for a chance at a life in America for themselves and their children.

From the Republican point of view, an added bonus was that levels of unionization in both industries utterly collapsed. Reagan succeeded in transforming the American workplace, and set up decades of potential anti-Latino hysteria that Republicans could use as a political wedge.

Without acknowledging that it was Reagan himself who set up the “crisis,” Republicans today hold serious-sounding conferences and press availabilities about how “illegals” are “trying to steal Americans jobs!” They’re all over rightwing hate radio and in the conservative media on a near-daily basis.

But it’s not poor people coming here in search of safety or a better life who are impacting our labor markets (and, frankly, it’s a small impact): it’s the companies that hire them.

And those same companies then funded Republican politicians who pushed under-the-radar social media ads at African Americans in 2016 and the last election saying that Democrats wanted Hispanic “illegals” to come in to take their jobs.

America, it turns out, doesn’t have an “illegal immigrant” problem: we have an “illegal employer” problem.

Nonetheless, to paraphrase Mitch McConnell, they persist. As the AP noted in a recent article:

“Black lawmakers accused Republicans on Tuesday of trying to ‘manufacture tension’ between African-Americans and immigrants as GOP House members argued in a hearing that more minorities would be working were it not for illegal immigration.”

Tossing even more gasoline on the flame they, themselves, lit, Republicans are now amplifying the warnings and “danger” of undocumented immigrants by pulling out the Bush/Cheney “terrorist” card along with Trump’s “diseased rapist criminals” and “they want to take your job” tropes.

Because the GOP has been playing these kinds of racist, xenophobic games with immigration since the Reagan era, our immigration and refugee systems are a total mess. Trump additionally did everything he could to take an axe to anything that wasn’t a jail or a cage…and turned those jail cells into sweet little profit centers for his private-prison donor corporations.

America needs comprehensive immigration reform and a rational immigration policy that’s grounded in both compassion and enlightened economic self-interest. We need an honest debate around it, stripped of the GOP’s racial dog-whistles. And our media needs to stop taking GOP lies about immigration and the southern border at face value.

Americans — and people who want to become Americans out of hope or desperation — deserve better. And throwing some of these rich white employers in jail instead of terrified immigrants would be a good start.

Do you value a free press?

We’ve just observed a historic first: the election of a president who called the media the “enemy of the people.” We don’t agree — and we hope you don’t either.

With Trump’s return, Raw Story is doubling down on investigative journalism, exposing authoritarianism, extremism, and threats to our democracy. We’re committed to the truth. No billionaires call the shots here.

The next four years promise dramatic implications for justice, reproductive rights, immigration and the climate— and it’s time for us to step up and hold those in power to account. It’ s going to be an enormous challenge. And we need your help.

Adam Kinzinger Brutally Sums Up The ‘Entire’ Republican Party With Just 1 Acronym

HuffPost

Adam Kinzinger Brutally Sums Up The ‘Entire’ Republican Party With Just 1 Acronym

Ben Blanchet January 5, 2025

Jeffries Zings House GOP

Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) — a frequent Donald Trump critic after his 2020 election loss — revealed why it’s “interesting” that critics tag him with the “RINO” acronym, which stands for “Republican in name only.”

“The reality is the entire Republican Party today is the RINO. They’re Republicans in name only,” said Kinzinger in an interview with Salon shared Saturday.

“They hold the title to the Republican Party, a lot of them still think they’re holding a legacy, but that’s exactly right, it’s gone,” he continued.

Kinzinger, the focus of a new documentary, “The Last Republican,” from “Hot Tub Time Machine” director Steve Pink, added that “what it means now to be a Republican” is that you’re “driven by anger” and division.

“I think what they stand for is supporting culture war, rage, and one person, one personality, and that’s Donald Trump. Now, they’ll never admit it, but that’s the reality of it,” he said.

Kinzinger, one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump over his role in the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, served on the House committee that investigated the insurrection.

He endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris in last year’s election and, in a speech at the Democratic National Convention, declared that he was “putting our country first.”

In a separate interview with Forbes published Friday, Kinzinger said he’s built “new alliances” in recent years and has realized he’s “probably closer to a Democrat now because of how the Republican Party has changed.”

“The Democrats are now the party that’s defending America’s role in the world, defending Ukraine, which I’m really passionate about,” said Kinzinger, who predicted that the GOP is “toast for a while” as “Trumpism” won’t “survive past these four years.”

The former congressman, in his interview with Salon, said he thinks Trump is “already a lame duck,” before noting that his control over his base could pose a “concern” for Republicans when the president-elect’s second term ends.

“If you think about George W. Bush toward the end of his second term, Republicans were falling away. That won’t happen with Trump,” Kinzinger said.

“All those Republicans who should be falling away will still have to face reelection even though Donald Trump doesn’t,” he continued.

Kinzinger added that he doesn’t think the GOP can be “saved in the near term,” but he hopes people don’t “give up on it.”

“Because the reality is that there’s probably forever only going to be two major parties in this country, and the Republican Party will be one of them,” he said. “We can either write it off and lose elections, with such consequences as we’ve just had, or we can continue to fight inside.”

Related…

Biden to visit Coachella Valley Tuesday, expected to create Chuckwalla National Monument

Palm Springs Desert Sun

Biden to visit Coachella Valley Tuesday, expected to create Chuckwalla National Monument

Janet Wilson and Tom Coulter – January 3, 2025

(This story was updated to add new information.)

President Joe Biden will designate vast, ecologically rich swaths of southern California desert and of northern California woodlands as a pair of new national monuments in a visit to the state early next week, sources tell The Desert Sun.

One will be the Chuckwalla National Monument, encompassing more than 620,000 acres of desert woodlands and washes that provide critical habitat for millions of migrating birds, endangered desert tortoise, iconic chuckwalla lizards and other wildlife. It will stretch from south of Joshua Tree National Park and north of Interstate 10 across a confluence of two ecosystems, where the Mojave Desert meets the Colorado and the Sonoran Desert, a veteran conservationist with direct knowledge of the decision said.

A view of the sunset from the Painted Canyon/Ladder Canyon Trail in Mecca, a popular outdoor recreational area that's part of more than 620,000 acres of desert land President Joe Biden is expected to protect by designating it all as the new Chuckwalla National Monument. — A view of the sunset from the Painted Canyon/Ladder Canyon Trail in Mecca, a popular outdoor recreational area that’s part of more than 620,000 acres of desert land President Joe Biden is expected to protect by designating it all as the new Chuckwalla National Monument.

The designation, which will also protect sacred tribal sites used for thousands of years and broaden recreation opportunities for Latino farmworkers and other area residents, was achieved after a deal was struck with major solar industry groups last spring. Biden will visit the eastern Coachella Valley at the doorstep of the monument on Tuesday, a person familiar with planning for the visit who was not authorized to speak on the record confirmed to The Desert Sun.

The White House said Friday that Biden and First Lady Jill Biden will visit Los Angeles on Monday and the eastern Coachella Valley on Tuesday, but would not confirm the reason.

“We are guardedly optimistic that it will happen,” said Donald Madart, Jr., a councilmember with the Fort Yuma Quechan Indian tribe in eastern Riverside County, which would see portions of its ancestral homelands near the Colorado River protected, including active worship sites and thousands of sacred relics.

He said several new monuments either created or being considered by Biden “all provide us an opportunity to continue religious freedoms of the native people of this land … It’s a lot bigger than just the protection of a landscape for beauty purposes, it is for being able to continue … to practice that religious freedom by going out into the desert and still partaking in ceremonies that have been with us since time immemorial.”

The second new monument will be the 200,000-acre Sáttítla National Monument in northern California near the Oregon border, the person familiar with Biden’s visit confirmed. The designations were first reported by The Washington Post. A spiritual center for the Pit River and Modoc Tribes, the Sattlitla monument footprint also encompasses mountain woodlands, rare meadows and serpentine seeps that are home to rare flowers and wildlife.

Biden has been pushing to cement his environmental legacy before he leaves office, including by protecting public lands and designating hefty federal funds for conservation and maintenance of open space.

President-elect Donald Trump will be inaugurated on Jan. 20.

By preserving sites of extreme importance to California tribes, Biden will be fulfilling the original intent of the 1906 Antiquities Act. New mining, drilling, renewables and other industrial activity all would be banned.

Passed by Congress and signed into law by then President Teddy Roosevelt in June 1906, the Antiquities Act was the first U.S. law to provide broad legal protection of archeological, cultural and natural resources in an era when looting of tribal lands had become common.

Since then, it has also been used nearly 300 times by U.S. presidents to set aside public lands and protect their archeological resources. Many iconic national parks first were designated as monuments, including Grand Canyon National Park in 1908 and Joshua Tree National Park in 1936. In recent decades many presidents have created new monuments in the closing days of their presidencies, often over loud objections from state leaders and industry officials.

Trump’s first administration sharply reduced the footprint of Bears Ears National Monument, among others, and sought unsuccessfully to sharply modify or eliminate the Antiquities Act. Biden in turn restored Bears Ears and other monuments that shrunk under Trump. With Republican majorities in both houses, he could have more luck in his second term, though scores of national monuments enjoy wide popularity.

“We know for sure that the designation is just the very tip of the iceberg,” said Madart, when asked about what Trump might try to do. “We know that the real work begins after the designation happens, and we’re very, very well prepared to engage with all the other tribes, as well as the coalition involved with getting this Chuckwalla initiative over the finish line.”

Biden’s latest actions will cap a lengthy and broad-based battle to protect the lands. In April, a petition with more than 800,000 signatures supporting the proposed two monuments and others was presented to the White House and unveiled in front of the U.S. Capitol. Members of Congress, led by Rep. Raul Ruiz, D-Indio, U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla of California, also a Democrat, and former U.S. Sen. Laphonza Butler of California pushed hard but unsuccessfully to pass bipartisan legislation to create the Chuckwalla monument.

Ruiz had no comment on the designations, simply saying in an email, “I’m thrilled to welcome President Biden to (the) Coachella Valley next week. His visit is a testament to the great people of California’s 25th district.”

But in an interview last year with The Desert Sun, Ruiz spoke about his ties to the Chuckwalla area, particularly Painted Canyon in the east Coachella Valley, where he proposed to his wife. He also led Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and others on tours through areas proposed for the designation.

He, like many residents at the edges of the monument, grew up hiking in area slot canyons on the Mecca Hills northeast of the Salton Sea.

Having those lands and far more designated as uninterrupted wilderness in a monument will protect and widen recreational opportunities for working-class and-low-income farmworkers and others in the Coachella Valley and eastern Riverside County, according to environmental justice groups and others.

Some of this land south of Eagle Mountain, near Desert Center, could be incorporated into the proposed Chuckwalla National Monument.

Scores of area tribal leaders, agencies, environmental justice and conservation groups and area elected officials strongly supported the Chuckwalla and Sáttítla efforts.

Responding to the news reports of Biden’s expected action, Joseph Mirelez, brand-new tribal chairman of the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians, said in an email, “For thousands of years, the Torres Martinez Desert Indians have called the lands in the Chuckwalla National Monument home. We are happy to see the designation to protect this area that contains thousands of cultural places and objects of vital importance to (our) history and identity.”

Mirelez, who took office on New Year’s Day, said he had not received official confirmation from federal officials. The tribe is one of the nine nations of Cahuilla Indians, which include the first known inhabitants of the Coachella Valley as well as Riverside and San Diego counties and the San Jacinto and Santa Rosa Mountain areas.

Two exceptions to the broad support were the city of Blythe, whose officials said it could interfere with economic development, and the Coachella Valley Water District, which said in a Nov. 15, 2023, letter to Padilla and Butler that the boundaries as drawn could interfere with the agency’s ability to maintain the large Coachella Canal and to construct new facilities to serve future developments. After buffers were included, the agency chose to remain neutral.

Solar industry concessions

There were other concessions made to win presidential approval: To placate major solar companies, 40,000 acres were removed from the original Chuckwalla monument map last spring to steer clear of solar development and transmission zones along Interstate 10. The boundaries were adjusted to avoid and keep a buffer between solar development focus areas identified in the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan.

Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indian Bird Singers sing as women dance following a 2023 press conference in Coachella to announce the collaborative efforts of tribal community leaders and local elected officials to push for the designation of Chuckwalla National Monument.

In an email in April, Pedro Pizarro, president and CEO of Edison International, gave his blessing to the revised plan, saying “Achieving California’s decarbonization goals by 2045 requires rapidly expanding the energy grid to connect solar, wind and other renewables. The Chuckwalla National Monument will protect environmental resources and tribal lands while creating an energy corridor for the electric power lines essential for the state’s clean energy future.”

It is unclear if Biden will approve a related request to expand Joshua Tree National Park, which continues to surge in popularity.

Trip will be Biden’s first reported visit to desert as president

While Biden has visited many regions of the Golden State during his time in office, the visit on Tuesday will mark his first reported trip to the California desert since he was sworn into office in January 2021.

The president’s trip to the valley comes just a few months after Trump held an October campaign rally near Coachella, where he bashed California’s policies and its leading elected officials.

Biden’s visit to the desert also comes nearly a year after his wife, first lady Jill Biden, was the headlining speaker for a private Democratic fundraiser in Rancho Mirage. At the time, in March 2024, Biden was still several months away from announcing he wouldn’t seek re-election in the presidential election.

The March visit marked her second stop in the valley as first lady, after her plane touched down at the Palm Springs International Airport in March 2021. She made that stop just before traveling to visit with military spouses and children based in Twentynine Palms as part of a relaunch of an Obama-era program aiming to support U.S. service members, veterans and their families and caregivers.

Biden’s upcoming visit will be yet another moment in a long history of visits to the valley from commanders-in-chief. Several presidents — both Democrats and Republicans — have vacationed in the valley, dating back to the late former President Dwight Eisenhower, while former President Gerald Ford lived in Rancho Mirage for decades after his presidency until his death in 2006.

Former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama stayed at a private Thunderbird home in Rancho Mirage several times, both during and after Obama’s presidency.

It’s not Biden’s first action aimed at environmental conservation around the Coachella Valley. Among other things, his administration allocated $250 million in 2022 to help restore the Salton Sea, California’s largest but dwindling and polluted lake, near the western edge of the new Chuckwalla monument.

History series: The Coachella Valley considered ‘Playground of Presidents’

Janet Wilson is senior environment reporter for The Desert Sun, and co-authors USA Today Climate Point, a weekly newsletter on climate, energy and the environment.

Biden to create two new California national monuments protecting tribal lands

Los Angeles Times

Biden to create two new California national monuments protecting tribal lands

Clara Harter – January 3, 2025

In one of his final acts as head of state, President Biden is set to declare two new national monuments in California honoring tribal lands. The sites are in the rocky, mountainous desert near Joshua Tree and amid dense forests and pristine lakes near the Oregon border.

In the coming days, Biden will sign proclamations creating the 644,000-acre Chuckwalla National Monument in Southern California and the 200,000-acre Sáttítla National Monument in Northern California, a source who requested anonymity confirmed to The Times. The news was earlier reported by the Washington Post.

In taking this action, the president will be fulfilling the wishes of tribal members and environmentalists who have fought for generations to protect these sacred Indigenous lands and their rich natural resources from industrialization, development and degradation.

“It gives you new faith that the process is working and that people are listening to Indigenous voices,” said Brandy McDaniels, a member of the Pit River Tribe who helped lead the effort to establish the Sáttítla National Monument. “We’ve spent a lifetime fighting to protect this area, and it’s hard to put into words how important this is to us.”

The efforts have not been without criticism, however. Biden’s upcoming actions could upset groups who want to use the Chuckwalla monument area for mining and off-roading and those who want to use the Sáttítla area for geothermal energy, mining and timber. He will also be frustrating conservatives who believe that presidents have abused their authority in creating monuments.

The Blythe City Council, which represents a community of 18,000 people near Joshua Tree, stated its position over the summer that it opposed restrictions that the monument would place on the development of solar farms, which provides economic opportunity to the city and bolsters their sustainability goals.

However, the main solar energy industry groups working in the region — Solar Energy Industries Assn. and Large-scale Solar Assn. — decided to support the designation after the conservation groups worked with them to craft the monument boundaries to suit their needs.

Those in support of the monuments, can now breathe a sigh of relief after winning what may have seemed like a race against the clock to protect these lands.

Although Biden has already used his executive authority under the Antiquities Act of 1906 to create six national monuments and expanded several others — including two expansions in California — Trump has shown far less enthusiasm for the program. During his first term, Trump created no new national monuments and slashed almost 2 million acres in total from two national monuments in Utah.

Three California Democrats, Sens. Alex Padilla and Laphonza Butler and Rep. Raul Ruiz, introduced legislation to Congress in April to designate the Chuckwalla National Monument. Then in September, Padilla and Butler introduced legislation to establish the Sáttítla National Monument. Neither bill advanced in a a divided Congress, prompting Biden’s executive action.

The Chuckwalla National Monument will be located southeast of Joshua Tree National Park. The push to protect the site was led by the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians, who have lived in the desert regions of Southern California, including the Coachella Valley near Joshua Tree, for thousands of years.

Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Tribal Council Chairman Thomas Tortez — Thomas Tortez, chairman of the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Tribal Council, stands near the entrance to the Painted Canyon, a sacred cultural site for Indigenous Californians. (Tyrone Beason / Los Angeles Times)

The monument’s name comes from the stocky Chuckwalla lizards that frequent the area, which is also home to bighorn sheep, desert tortoises, kangaroo rats, burrowing owls and jackrabbits.

“For thousands of years, the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians have called the lands in the Chuckwalla National Monument home,” said Joseph DL Mirelez, chairman of the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians. “We are happy to see the designation protect this area that contains thousands of cultural places and objects of vital importance to the history and identity of the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians.”

The monument will begin at Painted Canyon near the eastern edge of the Coachella Valley, where rocky hills and canyon walls are washed in light pink, red, gray, brown and green hues. To the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians, the red color of the hills represents the bleeding heart of their creator god Mukat, who was exiled in this land and whose remains became the native vegetation that nourished his people.

Some 750 miles to the north, the newly created Sáttítla National Monument will also protect a land linked to an Indigenous creation story. The 11 bands of the Pit River Tribe consider the Medicine Lake Highlands area near Mount Shasta as their ancestral homeland.

“For the Pit River people, it’s the actual place of our creation and is a very sacred place for us in the narrative of our peoples,” said McDaniels. “In addition to that, it is a very unique and spectacular biodiverse area that supports habitats, ecosystems and fisheries.”

The monument extends over a landscape of jaw-dropping natural beauty in parts of the Shasta-Trinity, Klamath and Modoc national forests. There are rich, green forests, abundant wildflowers, intricate cave systems and drinking water that can be sipped on site.

It is often referred to as the headwaters of California because its lakes and aquifers help provide clean drinking water to the rest of the state.

The Pit River Tribe has long been involved in litigation to prevent the development of geothermal energy systems in the area. The new landmark designation will help prevent similar efforts from moving forward in the future, McDaniels said.

“We’ve spent a lifetime fighting to protect this area being a tribe and a socially, economically suppressed community that doesn’t have a lot of resources,” said McDaniels. “It’s really important to protect this area for future generations so that they can heal without constantly having to defend our natural resources from the ongoing threats.”

Some renewable-energy advocates say the monument will result in the loss of an important clean-energy source that would advance the Biden administration’s agenda to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

FBI finds 150 homemade bombs at Virginia home in one of the largest such seizures, prosecutors say

WJZY

FBI finds 150 homemade bombs at Virginia home in one of the largest such seizures, prosecutors say

Sean C. Davis – January 1, 2025

SMITHFIELD, Virginia (WAVY) — Residents worried about the large FBI presence and numerous explosions heard in Virginia’s Isle of Wight County in mid-December finally have answers.

According to federal court documents, agents had just uncovered a massive trove of pipe bombs, and deemed them too unstable to transport — so they blew them up. The FBI said it believes it’s the largest amount of homemade explosives it has encountered in its history.

Brad Spafford, 36, was taken into custody at his home on Dec. 17 and charged with a weapons violation. The FBI executed a search warrant and uncovered the ‘improvised explosive devices,’ along with bomb-making instructions and materials and a jar full of a homemade high-explosive stored in the family freezer.

“FBI bomb technicians, who X-rayed the devices on scene, assessed them as pipe bombs,” the newly-filed document reads. “The majority were found in a detached garage, organized by color. … Some were hand-labeled “lethal.”

“Some were preloaded into an apparent wearable vest,” it continued. “In the garage were also found numerous tools and materials for manufacturing explosives, a home-made mortar, and riot gear.”

The filing also describes how the the pipe bombs were made — with two layers of plastic tubes.

“[I]n between the tubes were metal spheres which ‘would enhance the fragmentation effect of the device upon its explosion.’ it quotes an FBI analysis of one bomb. “The lab concluded that the device was ‘capable of causing property damage, personal injury and/or death.’”

Spafford was released on $25,000 bond earlier this week. The new details in this case come from new filings from the defense, arguing to block his release.

Defense attorneys argued in a motion Tuesday that authorities haven’t produced evidence that he was planning violence, also noting that he has no criminal record. Further, they question whether the explosive devices were usable because “professionally trained explosive technicians had to rig the devices to explode them.”

“There is not a shred of evidence in the record that Mr. Spafford ever threatened anyone and the contention that someone might be in danger because of their political views and comments is nonsensical,” the defense lawyers wrote.

Spafford’s original, and so far only charge, is for violating the National Firearms Act — for possessing a rifle with a barrel shorter than 16 inches. His Dec. 30 preliminary hearing found enough evidence to allow the case to move forward.

Most of the evidence prosecutors relied on for the firearms charge came from a person Spafford apparently believed he was friends with. Spafford showed the man his illegal rifle and the two went shooting together.

“[The source] also noted that the defendant was using pictures of the president for target practice at shooting at a local range, stated that he believed political assassinations should be brought back, and that missing children in the news had been taken by the federal government to be trained as school shooter,” the prosecution’s filing reads.

Prosecutors reiterated why they believe Spafford is dangerous, writing that “while he is not known to have engaged in any apparent violence, he has certainly expressed interest in the same, through his manufacture of pope bombs marked ‘lethal,’ his possession of riot gear and a vest loaded with pipe bombs, his support for political assassinations and use of the pictures of the President for target practice.”

Spafford also allegedly joked about someone assassinating then-presidential candidate Kamala Harris. The document describes a casual meeting at his newly-purchased farm.

“He also discussed fortifying the property with a 360-degree turret for a 50-caliber firearm on the roof, and noted how he could block the driveway with a vehicle so no other vehicles could access,” the filing reads.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

My Mom’s Support For Trump Divided Our Family. Then I Found The Crack In Her MAGA Armor.

BuzzFeed

My Mom’s Support For Trump Divided Our Family. Then I Found The Crack In Her MAGA Armor.

Tim Durnin – December 30, 2024

Red cap with — Busà Photography via Getty Images

Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what’s in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.Generate Key Takeaways

The Trump presidency divided my family. The “Trump Effect,” as I called it, infected us shortly after he descended into the lobby of Trump Tower to announce his presidential candidacy. It ended seven years later, around my kitchen table, with three generations of my mother’s progeny mowing their way through Italian takeout. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

My mother was a Reagan Republican and had voted along party lines since 1980. While none of her four children were fully aligned with her politically, the Trump Effect created the greatest distance between my mother and me.

We fought every time we talked. Before Trump secured the nomination, I argued that his morals were in direct conflict with those she and my father had been driving into my head for decades. Furthermore, I argued, he did not even embody conservative values. He twisted them into grotesque manipulations of what had been reasonably sound policy.

I pleaded with her not to vote for him. She wouldn’t budge. In the wake of his election, her choice took on the weight of a betrayal. Her blindness to Trump’s white nationalist tendencies was an affront to my wife, who is a proud Latina, and angered my biracial, high-school-aged children.

Donald Trump in a suit and red tie, looking slightly upwards, in a public setting — Spencer Platt / Getty Images

The more egregious Trump’s violation of social norms, the harder she dug her heels in. In Northern Idaho, her political views went largely unchallenged. It was her excursions into Eastern Washington that afforded her the opportunity to proselytize and be heard. Any poker table became her pulpit as she would expound on the virtues of the new savior of the GOP. Having earned respect with her poker skills, she changed peoples’ minds.

At some point, after the Mueller investigation, she was so self-assured that she stopped fielding challenges or questions from folks on the left. We stopped talking about everything except cursory questions about my life and detailed reports about her current ailments. I longed for a return to our political discourse. It never came.

She voted for Trump again in 2020 but did not embrace the “big lie” that he’d won the election with anything close to enthusiasm. She did defend the honor of her chosen candidate afterward, but her Ultra MAGA armor started to crack when Trump’s attacks were directed at Republican icons like Mitt Romney, Liz Cheney and the Bush dynasty. Then Jan. 6, 2021, shook the foundation of her political fortress. The damage was considerable and lasting.

I wasn’t with my mother for the insurrection’s explosive violence that day. But our family has always been patriotic. My father served in Gen. MacArthur’s honor guard during the Korean War. We flew the flag, sang the anthem and respected servicemen and women. My mother and I shed patriotic tears on Jan. 6, 2021, and while admittedly from very different places, the tears ran into the same river. We both knew the America we loved was significantly diminished by the relentless attacks of a small percentage of Americans hell-bent on defining the world by their petty grievances and perceived injustices.

I didn’t reengage in political discourse with my mother, in spite of an obvious opening for a kill shot. The sadness that surrounded her settled in like a dense fog. Surprisingly, her depressed mood was less about Trump’s defeat and more about her own foolishness in the certainty that Trump was a hero and savior. As for me, I couldn’t even muster an “I told you so.”

Banner hanging on a white picket fence reads — Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images

Sixteen months later, I was having dinner with my mother and some Trump news flashed on the screen. She shook her head in mild disgust. I hadn’t planned what happened next, although I had fantasized about this “intervention” countless times.

Taking a deep breath, I gathered my courage and started talking. “Mom, I am going to ask you a huge favor, something that may be jolting at first, but please, sit with it.” She started to speak, but I raised a finger, pleading with her to hear me out.

My voice was shaky and weak as I began, but grew confident as the memory of each Trump atrocity was replayed in my mind ― his near-constant appeal to our worst instincts, his undisguised racism and Islamophobia, and his blaming of anyone and anything besides himself. I was hot when I reached the point of my diatribe, asking what I believe to be the single most important question I will ever ask my mom: “Will you please apologize to my children for voting for Trump?”

I continued: “My fear is that, when Trump is seen through a clear and objective lens, the support you gave him will define you.”

A few days later, my mother, aka G-Ma and Grams, sat at the head of a round table. At 92, she was still larger than life and a commanding presence. She did not need to call for the attention of those gathered. At her first syllable, heads turned and phones were silenced. She would hold the room until she decided not to.

Before saying our traditional grace, she stood up, and the room came to attention. She took a moment to compose herself, and with her signature confidence, said, “I want to apologize.” Looking around the table, she did not falter. “I made a horrible mistake voting for Trump. Had I known then what I know now, I never would have voted for him. I hope you will forgive me.” And it was done.

There was a collective sigh of relief as she released our attention and laughed as she said, “That wasn’t so hard.” We hugged and I whispered my thank you as we embraced. “Let’s eat,” she said. And we began, “Bless us our Lord and these Thy gifts …

In the months that have followed, I have elected to continue the moratorium on political discourse and opted instead to explore our common ground — which, I have discovered, is fertile and vast and refreshingly friendly. Trump’s recent conviction on 34 felony counts affirmed that her divorce from MAGA and Trump was the right choice.

My children’s wounds have started to heal. They have forgiven her, and through them, my grandchildren will as well. In the end, the “intervention” we staged was a gift, a blueprint of sorts for a divided time. She showed us how to admit you were wrong in a world where it seems everyone has to be right. That’s the real takeaway, the kernel of truth I hope will grow and thrive.

CORRECTION: A prior version of this article incorrectly stated that the author’s father served in Gen. Patton’s honor guard.

Congress’ youngest woman says her election is a “signal” that future of Democratic Party is changing

Salon

Congress’ youngest woman says her election is a “signal” that future of Democratic Party is changing

Griffin Eckstein – December 29, 2024

Yassamin Ansari Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

The Democratic Party is searching for its soul. Tasked with rebuilding from an electoral loss in November, one of the biggest questions on Democratic voters’ minds is how the party will engage with checked-out young voters.

Voters under 30, who strongly lean Democratic, failed to turn up for Vice President Kamala Harris, with 54% of the age group voting for her compared to the more than 60% who voted for President Joe Biden in 2020. While the loss is no doubt driven by a multitude of factors, some young voters said they simply feel left behind by the party.

Critics took Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s, D-N.Y., unsuccessful bid for House Oversight leadership as a sign that the party was unwilling to change its ways after 84-year-old ex-speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., reportedly campaigned against her in favor of 74-year-old Gerry Connolly, D-Va. Still, some choose to focus on the progress, not the setbacks.

In an interview with Salon, 32-year-old Rep.-elect Yassamin Ansari, D-Ariz., counted herself as part of a new generation of Democratic leaders ready to make change.

“There truly is a shift happening with young people getting more involved,” Ansari said, adding that part of the transition to younger leadership is getting young voters more involved.

Ansari connects with constituents through informal, online outreach. On TikTok and Instagram, the congresswoman-elect documents the procedural business for new members, provides legislative updates and organically promotes constituent services.

“One of the major lessons learned from this election and overall the climate that we’re living in is that people are really wanting authenticity,” she told Salon. “I don’t wanna prescribe for others what they should do because I think the most important thing is that no matter who you are, if you’re an elected official or have a platform, that you’re doing what feels natural to you and comfortable to you.”

Ansari’s TikTok videos aren’t so much a savvy strategy as they are the authentic output of a power user. In one post on the platform, Ansari admits she can be found scrolling through the app most nights. “Most of my feed is the Eras Tour,” she admits. That connection to the platform makes it easier for her content to break through.

“I think it’s incumbent upon elected officials to, again, go out of their way and go above and beyond to be more proactive in the community,” Ansari said. “We do live in a time where we can be less worried about… just being on script all the time… It’s important for people to see that politicians are people and have some of the same interests and hobbies as they do.”

Slated to be the youngest woman in Congress when she’s sworn in on Jan. 3, Ansari was elected the Democratic freshman class president last month. In a statement, she called her election to that post a “small signal to Democratic voters, and especially young people, that the party is ready for new, young voices in Congress to be given opportunities to lead.”

Amid criticism, Ansari points to major signs that the Democratic Party is ready to listen to young people.

“Angie Craig, who is a Democratic congresswoman from Minnesota representing a rural community, beat out someone that is several decades her senior,” Ansari said. “She will be, now, the lead Democrat on the Agriculture Committee, which I think is awesome and really encouraging for younger members.”

Likewise, 35-year-old Rep. Greg Casar, D-Texas, will take a leading role in the lower chamber, chairing the House Progressive Caucus.

“It may not be happening as quickly as some people would like,” Ansari acknowledged, adding that winning leadership posts required building a large and diverse coalition, reflective of the entire Democratic caucus.

Ansari also recognizes how important Democratic leadership will be over the next four years, as President-elect Donald Trump prepares an assault on Arizona’s most marginalized residents.

“I’m acutely aware that [Arizona’s] District 3 is going to be on the front lines of the immigration battle and particularly Trump’s devastating and harmful pledge to carry out mass deportations … I have not stopped working since election day preparing for this,” Ansari told Salon. “I am representing a blue district, a racially diverse district in a red or purple state, that’s going to be on the front lines of this battle. So I’m not gonna sit out. I intend to do everything I can to protect families in Arizona’s 3rd district.”

Amid fear and discontent, Ansari emphasized that staying involved in the political process was crucial, especially for young people who feel left behind.

“It can be very tempting to wanna completely disengage from politics,” Ansari said. “I would say that just because you’re disassociating from politics doesn’t mean it is disassociating from you. And at the end of the day, politics do matter.”

Though she holds a relatively uncompetitive seat, replacing Sen.-elect Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., Ansari is no stranger to the importance of each vote.

The rep.-elect won a heated primary in Arizona’s third congressional district by a wire-thin margin in August, besting former Arizona Democratic Party chair Raquel Terán by just 36 votes.

“Stay active when you can because it does matter — and it’s exciting!” Ansari said.